Little Children

Director: Todd Field
Cast: Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley

The problem with the suburbs is they aren't real. That's not to say they don't exist, Australia, the USA and our own home counties are covered with them, in all their WASPy glory. They are not real because they are created with this image of normality and safety, where there is a specific, yet often unspoken, code of conduct. The truth is the suburbs are homes to drones and wage slaves, to people forced to conform, to people who don't like free-thinkers or people who dare to be different. And heaven help anyone who doesn't fit into their view of the world. But, as anyone who has seen a David Lynch film will tell you, appearances are deceptive. Essentially, that is what Little Children is about.


Based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who co-wrote the screenplay with the director, the film is a witty, and sometimes shocking, look at middle-class American suburbia. Sarah (Kate Winslet) is married to a branding (not advertising) executive and has a comfortable existence. She is the mother of a young girl, and they spend their days at the park with other mums and children, except they don't really fit in with them. One day Brad (Patrick Wilson), a handsome househusband married to a beautiful filmmaker (Jennifer Connelly), comes to the park with his son. The other women call him "The Prom King", and have their own long-distance fantasies about him but, as part of a dare, Sarah goes and talks to him, then in order to shock the prissy mums, kisses him. And they develop an illicit relationship. This is one of the film's threads.


The other involves a convicted sex offender, Ronny (Jackie Earle Haley) who exposed himself to a young child. After being released from prison he goes back to stay with his elderly mother, and becomes the target of a hate campaign led by an ex-cop, Larry (Noah Emmerich).


The story is about outsiders trying to fit into a society that is both judgemental and hypocritical, and failing. It is about fulfilling desires and longing for freedom, all within the stifling confines of suburban streets, children's playgrounds and public swimming pools.

This may sound a bit boring and highbrow, like a lot of domestic dramas, such as Ordinary People or The Ice Storm, but it is elevated by a fantastic script that is witty and well-observed. It handles the issues of infidelity and ostracization sympathetically, and at times shockingly, neither condoning nor condemning the actions. What really sets the movie apart, though, is the acting from the little-known cast, Winslet and Connelly excepted. All the performances are natural and never overplayed. It could easily fall into melodrama, but the director and the actors managed to rein in the performances, even in the more traumatic scenes.

At 137 minutes the film does feel a bit long at times, but the impending doom the director develops in the build-up to the final climax more than compensates for that. It's one of those films that sticks in your mind well after the show has finished, not because it is particularly shocking but because it is so well done.

Little Children is on general release from November 3.

For Your Consideration

Director: Christopher Guest
Cast: Eugene Levy, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael McKean, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard.

When This is Spinal Tap first hit the screens back in 1984 it was a highly original concept and an hilarious film that has stood the test of time. It perfectly captured the excesses of rock music of the time and lampooned it with enough subtlety as to make it totally believable. Since then Christopher Guest has been targeting marginal groups, from dog-owners to folk singers, with his mockumentary format. Now he has turned his attention to Hollywood, a seemingly obvious choice for his brand of satire.


For Your Consideration differs slightly from his previous outings in that it does not fully utilise the documentary format. It all looks far too polished, and is rather a collection of vignettes showing the lives of the talent involved in making a very cheesy war-time drama called Home for Purim. Following a comment on a website that one of the principals, Marilyn Hack (Catherine O'Hara), a character actress who has never gained the respect she thinks she deserves, is rumoured to be a possible Oscar nominee. As the rumour mill gets turning, two of her co-stars are soon joining her, with all of them becoming darlings of the Hollywood gossip TV shows.

There are some very funny and acutely observed pieces, like the verbose interviewer talking to the scriptwriters without giving them chance to reply, but it lacks the real biting satire of Altman's The Player or John Water's Cecil B Demented. Part of the problem may lie in the fact that Hollywood and the whole awards circus is so unreal that it constantly makes a mockery of itself. Unless exceptionally well done, films about filmmaking are seen as narcissistic and even lazy filmmaking - or simply biting the hand that feeds you. Or maybe it fails to impress because all the characters and situations are completely fictitious, in a world where we know the most intimate details of Hollywood celebrities' lives.

Whatever the reasons, like the fictitious actors in the story, it falls short of the mark. It has some laughs but just can't match Guest and company's previous output.

For Your Consideration is showing at the London Film Festival, Odeon West End on Saturday October 28 and Sunday 29. It will be on general release in February 2007.

Special

Director: Hal Habermann and Jeremy Passmore
Cast: Michael Rapaport, Paul Blackthorne, Josh Peck, Jack Kehler


Anyone who has ever read a comic has dreamt about being a superhero, and most manage to keep it just that, a dream. Then there are people who take drugs and believe they have superpowers. So when you get a drug-taking comic book fan you have a potentially lethal cocktail. The hero of Special, Les Franken (Michael Rappaport), isn't your usual stoner comic fan, but a rather lonely individual who works as a parking inspector. He volunteers to be part of pharmaceutical test for a new anti-depression drug, Specioprin Hydrochloride or "Special", which is supposed to "inhibit the chemical in the brain responsible for self-doubt". Unfortunately for Les, the drug has an unexpected side-effect, which makes him believe he has super-powers and therefore a mission to use them for good.


Creating his own costume, a silver-painted jumpsuit, he goes around protecting the innocent and accosting villains, or at least what he perceives to be. Our hero is more along the lines of Mystery Men, with no real discernible powers, although he does believe he can levitate, if not exactly fly, read minds and walk through walls. To enhance the conceit, the filmmakers, Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore, show his exploits from his point of view and from that of the rest of the world.


Les's antics soon attract the attention of the media and also of two shifty characters behind the drug and the research. Fearing adverse publicity for their product they try to eliminate Les, further adding to his paranoia, but for the most part he manages to not only evade them but confront them as well.

Shot on a relatively low budget, the filmmakers make the most of their limited resources to bring the strong script to the screen. There are some great comedic moments, interspersed with pathos and some impressive action and stunts, with Rappaport literally throwing himself into the role. Apart from the heroics the film serves up an indictment of the pharmaceutical industry and its often unethical practices. It also looks at people's need to be accepted and admired by society. These underlying themes are not forced and the main thread of the story, of a man wanting to do something heroic, remain at the forefront of the narrative.

It is not as complex a film as Primer, but its look and feel put it in the same category of original, independent sci-fi features that will appeal to more intelligent audiences wanting a change from the glossy, Hollywood blockbusters that fill the cinemas over the summer months.

Watch the trailer
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Special will be on UK release from November 17, from Revolver Entertainment.

Romanzo Criminale

Dir: Michele Pacido
Cast: Kim Rossi Stuart, Pierfrancesco Favino, Claudio Santamaria, Anna Mouglalis
Italy/France/UK, 150 mins, Italian (with subtitles)

Culturally, Italy is one of Europe's richest countries, but it is also one of its most corrupt. Even though most people enjoy a reasonable quality of life and the support of the extended family unit, the social disparity brought about by a lack of welfare state means that crime has often been the career path of the disaffected youths. The fact that crime is rife in every strata of society, particularly in Rome and the south of Italy, meant that violence was often the easiest way to fulfil ambitions. Romanzo Criminale is the story of ambition, love and revenge, set in one of the most incendiary periods of contemporary Italian history.


The film opens with four boys stealing a car and running down a policeman, which leads to two of them being jailed. Flash forward to the Seventies and three of them are reunited and decide to establish themselves as leaders in Rome's underworld of drugs and prostitution. Ice/Freddo (Rossi Stuart), Lebanese (Favino) and Dandy (Santamaria) are clinical and brutal in their ambitions, achieving their goals with ferocity and the occasional aid of a mysterious bureaucrat. As major events in Italian history unfold (the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, the bombing of Bologna Station), in which out anti-heroes may or may not be involved, they are relentlessly pursued by Commissario Scialoja (Stefano Accorsi) of the Forze dell'Ordine (police). Scialoja is also pursuing Patrizia (Mouglalis), a high-class prostitute and Dandy's girlfriend, but not just for her criminal activities and associations.


Apart from Scialoja's illicit affair, there are moments of love and tenderness amongst the violence and power struggles. Freddo falls for his brother's innocent tutor, Roberta, which gives new depth and warmth to an otherwise cold and ruthless character. But don't let the film's title fool you into thinking this film is a romantic look at criminals. Romanzo Criminale translates as Crime Novel, - these are commonly referred to as gialli in Italy, because they have yellow covers, and are the equivalent of what we know as pulp fiction.

Parallels can be drawn between this film and Tarantino's eponymous masterpiece, as both have their gang violence and episodic, intertwined stories, but Romanzo Criminale is more comparable with Goodfellas (1990) and its story of the rise of three street punks through the ranks of organised crime. Scorsese's film is undoubtedly a classic of the genre but very much a product of American cinema, whereas Romanzo Criminale's roots are in the streets of Rome. The Italian is spoken with such thick regional accents that even for those who understand Italian it can often be hard to follow what is being said, and although the subtitles are distracting and never fully capture the onscreen dialogue, they do help.


The external changes (clothing, vehicles, architecture) in Italy are not as marked as those we are used to in American films covering the same period, but the film's colour grading alters to reflect the passage of time. The integration of actual news footage into the film, done to excellent effect with the Bologna Station explosion, along with the soundtrack, also help establish a recognisable timeline, or at least for those familiar with Italian history.

Although this film may never achieve the status of Goodfellas, it is a worthy adversary that is both well-acted and well-directed.

Romanzo Criminale is showing at the London Film Festival on October 31 and November 1 at Odeon West End and on general release from November 3.

All The King's Men

Director: Steven Zaillian
Cast: Sean Penn, Jude Law, James Gandolfini, Kate Winslett, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson, Anthony Hopkins

Re-make, re-imaging, re-interpretation, cover version – whatever you want to call them, shows Hollywood's fear of trying anything new, and yet it is the quirky and original indie flicks that are consistently "surprise" hits. They come as a surprise to the studios because they didn't have the foresight to recognise their merits and above all, their originality. What is even more surprising is how profitable they are, mainly because they are made on low budgets, free from studio excesses (and execs). But this isn't supposed to be about Hollywood politics, but Hollywood's view of politics.

All The King's Men was originally a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, written by Robert Penn Warren in 1946. Inspired by the story of Louisiana governor Huey P. Long, it was a complex tale of ambition, power and corruption - in much the same way that Citizen Kane was based on publishing tycoon Hearst. In 1949 the book was made into a film, starring Broderick Crawford, directed by Robert Rossen. It was nominated for seven Oscars and won three (best picture, best actor, best supporting actress). It also won five Golden Globes and a host of other awards. Over fifty years later and the story has been revived by Oscar-winning writer and director Steven Zaillian and features a heavyweight, award-winning ensemble cast. And it could well be nominated for plenty of Awards again this time around.


It is the story of the rise of a common man, Willie Stark (Sean Penn) as he battles the corrupt, established political and industrial powers by garnering the support of the common people by promising them the world, and for the most part delivering on his promise. However he does end up resorting to the methods he abhors in his opponents. The story is narrated from the perspective of a reporter, Jack Burden (Jude Law), who becomes one of Stark's aides. Despite being one man's view, the story is still multithreaded as characters from Burden's life become involved in Stark's quest for power and position.


Like the character he plays, Penn's performance oozes charisma. So much so that he overshadows the rest of the cast, which is no mean feat. Of course the fact that they are all supports, and foils, for the protagonist doesn't help. This in no way demeans the other performances; it's just that the characters never really get a chance to fully develop in Stark/Penn's shadow. The other problem is the accents. Now I'm no expert on US regional accents but none of them, apart from Penn, sounded convincing. The production went into great detail with the design, settings and locations to make it look as real as possible, but the voices didn't always convince. None of the Brits (Law, Winslett and Hopkins) had it down, and Gandolfini seemed to be struggling to shake off Tony Soprano's physical and vocal mannerisms.


Quality acting aside, the story felt a little to episodic and sometimes lacking any real cohesion. I was often left wondering how the scenes related, especially with the occasional jumps in the timeline.

On an interesting note, the film was shot in the New Orleans area before Katrina hit it, and the film's story of corruption and shifty deals between government officials and the consequences of those actions on the underprivileged had even more resonance.

It's a great looking film with some stellar performances, but telling us that politicians and big corporations are corrupt, and power can corrupt even the best-intentioned is hardly breaking new ground.

All The King's Men is on general release from October 27.

Candy

Director: Neil Armfield
Cast: Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish, Geoffrey Rush, Noni Hazlehurst
Australia 2006

For most people in this country their impressions of Australia are formed by afternoon soap operas and lager commercials. That constant sunshine, easy-going "she'll be right" attitude and endless suburbia is not that far from the truth, but it is the glossy surface. Underneath that easy-going exterior is a seedier world of bigotry, racism and a lack of cultural identity. A large number of youth become disillusioned with both that insular world and either leave the country to travel, or drop out of society, head for bush communes or simply turn to drugs. With a good standard of living, a welfare state and great weather those alternative lifestyles aren't such a struggle, even when in the grip of drug addiction.


Candy is a drama and a love story film, with drug addiction as its motivating force. But the title refers to the lead female character rather than euphemism for drugs. Candy (Abbie Cornish) is an artist who falls for wannabe poet Dan (Heath Ledger). They are madly in love, but with a taste for heroin. As their relationship with each other develops so does their dependence on heroin and they start on that cliched slippery slope of a life of petty crime and prostitution to feed their habit. With the films three acts clearly signposted as chapters (Heaven, Earth and Hell) it is all a bit too predictable. The performances from the two leads are emotionally convincing, although they are two of the healthiest and best looking junkies you are ever likely to see, even in the throes of withdrawals.

Geoffrey Rush is excellent as the gay chemistry professor who mentors the two young lovers, supplying them with pure H when they needed it. Tony Martin and Noni Hazlehurst, two well-known and respected Australian actors, give good turns as Candy's parents: the slightly naïve father, who can’t see his daughter and her boyfriend's deceptions and the mother who sees it very clearly. Interestingly, one of the roles that established Noni Hazlehurst's career was in the 1982 film Monkey Grip, where she played a young artist who fell in love with a junkie.

With such strong performances from the cast this would probably work better as a piece of theatre, where you may feel closer to the characters, because in the film it is hard to develop any real empathy for them or their situation. The movie goes some way to showing the depravity of drug addiction, but it is no match for Aranofsky's Requiem for a Dream or the excesses of Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Candy is showing at The Times BFI London Film Festival on October 19 at the Odeon West End and October 21 at the ICA.

Kabul Express

Director: Kabir Khan
Cast: John Abraham, Arshad Wari, Salman Shahid
Hindi, Darri, English (subtitled)

Most people's perceptions of Indian cinema are the gaudy, melodramatic musicals of Bollywood or the cinema verite of Satyajit Ray. And to be fair that is a pretty accurate view. Sure there are historical and religious films, or action-packed dramas but they invariable feature song and dance routines because that is what the punters want. Ray's works are more appreciated outside of his homeland, where the lack of colour and spectacle are of little interest to audiences. Cinema is their escape from the everyday life portrayed in Ray's films.

Over the last decade India's place in the world has grown significantly. There is also a new generation of Indian filmmakers who were born or raised outside of their cultural homeland, who are making movies of much broader appeal, M. Night Shyamalan being the most successful, but there are others like Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding), Asif Kapadia (The Warrior) and Deepa Mehta (Water) have also created films that use their cultural heritage and settings to tell powerful and dramatic stories. With a huge population of NRIs (Non Resident Indians) brought up on both Bollywood and Hollywood, the market for straight drama in Hindi is growing.


Kabul Express is one of this new wave of Indian cinema. Produced by Yash Raj Films, the largest and most successful studio in India, it is a drama based on actual events that was shot on location in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, which is central to the film's story.

Two Indian TV journalists, Jai (Arshad Warsi), the cameraman, and Suhel (John Abraham – who also appeared in Water), are in Afghanistan trying to get the big, career-building story by interviewing the fleeing Taliban. With the help of their guide, Khyber (Hanif Hum Ghum), an Afghani who drives the titular Toyota 4x4, they find some Taliban, but it all goes wrong and they end up being captured by one of them, Imran (Salman Shahid), who wants to be taken over the border to Pakistan. Along the way they are joined by an American photojournalist, Jessica Beckham (Linda Arsenio).

Essentially it is a road movie, set over 48-hour period, but it manages to incorporate many themes with a strong message. Its view of the Afghani/Taliban situation is never judgemental nor particularly biased, and while there are some scenes of quite brutal violence against the Taliban it is counteracted with some well-conceived comedic scenes that never become flippant. The switching between heavy action drama and levity holds your interest, and the overall message that we are all essentially the same is handled well without falling into sentimentality or melodrama.

The cinematography is stunning and captures the rugged beauty of the land as well as the ravages of decades of war. The acting is good, for the most part, and the actors use their native tongues (Hindi, Darri, English), further adding to the authenticity of the piece. The biggest let down is the American actress who seems unable to deliver any of the lines with conviction, which isn't the fault of the script. There are a few other little things that niggle, but these are what the Italians call "deformazione professsionale", where you notice inaccuracies according to your work. For example, in the opening shot the two journalists throw their backpacks onto the ground from the helicopter. We then see Jai with his big Sony DigiBeta camera under his arm. Throwing such a delicate piece of equipment from a great height, even if it was in a flightcase, is not a good idea. Throughout the film he never changed tapes or batteries, or even attempted to recharge them. Similarly things happen with the photojournalist. Small points I know, and although they tend to spoil the realism they don't detract from an otherwise cracking adventure filled with both laughter and tears.

Kabul Express is showing on Thursday November 2 at the Odeon West End as part of The Times BFI London Film Festival.

Marie Antoinette

Director: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Asia Argento, Steve Coogan


With bookshop (and supermarket) shelves being filled with (mostly ghost-written) autobiographies of people in their twenties and thirties, whose main claims to fame are appearing on television or kicking a ball, it is good to see that biographies of people who had some real impact on the history of the world are getting made into movies. OK there is the film about Zidane, but that is as much about the filmmaking process as the subject, and it is just one match.

There have been some excellent bio-pics made over the years, and most of them seem to have had Richard Attenborough's name attached to them. They have been films about truly great people who altered the lives of everyone they came into contact with. There have also been films about equally evil people who had the same effect only not always for the better. Of course, history is very subjective and open to revision. Nelson Mandela has been called both a terrorist and freedom fighter and is now considered one of the world's greatest statesmen. Sadam Hussein was an American ally for many years until it didn't suit the political and economic ambitions of a handful of greedy men. Revisionist history will always continue, much like Orwell's Department of Truth in 1984. Now it is the turn of Marie Antoinette, best known for her misquoted crack about cake.

Based on Antonia Fraser's meticulously researched historical biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, this new film by Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Sofia Coppola, tries to redress the misconceptions about France's last queen. While it does go a long way to achieving its aims, showing her mostly as a slightly naïve teenager who was a victim of circumstances, rather than a manipulative despot, it does not fully explore her greatness. Not having read the book on which the film is based I cannot comment further, but it is not covered in the film.


Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) was sent by her mother, Maria Teresa of Austria (Marianne Faithfull), to marry Louis (Jason Schwartzman) the teenage heir to the French throne when she was a mere 14 years old. She had to leave everything behind and become part of the decadent life at the court of Versailles. The film shows she was initially bewildered by the extravagance of court life, but living in a marriage that went unconsummated for seven years she took solace in clothes shopping, as any teenager would. In fact, the whole conceit of the film is that Marie Antoinette behaves as any perfectly normal teenager would, placed in the same situation. The use of a soundtrack by 80s' New Romantic bands was meant to enhance this, but when it was mixed period music it came over as too much of a mish-mash and certainly didn't work as well as soundtrack to A Knight's Tale.

Unfortunately, like most teenagers, the film is a bit superficial. It focuses too much on the glamour and opulence of court life without giving the characters any real depth or personality, which I am sure Marie Antoinette had, even if none of the others did. Although the film showed that she was not as bad as history had described, it didn't fully show the good that she did and it lacked any real drama, even when mobs were at the palace gates.


The film looks sumptuous, from the costumes to the Versailles locations. The actors did their best with the material, but in the end it comes across as rather soulless, like a video of a Saga guided tour rather than an in-depth documentary.

Marie Antoinette is on general release from October 27 from Columbia Pictures.

Pan's Labyrinth

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones
Spanish with English subtitles

From the time Lewis Carroll first sent Alice down the rabbit hole there has been a fascination for young girls visiting fantasy worlds, and those stories inevitably draw comparisons with the aforementioned Alice's adventures. This year alone we have seen MIRROR MASK from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean and, more recently, Terry Gilliam's TIDELAND. Now Guillermo del Toro (CRONOS, HELLBOY) presents his take on subject.


PAN'S LABYRINTH (El Laberinto del Fauno) is set in 1944, at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Young Ofélia and her pregnant mother, Carmen, are sent to a remote country outpost. Carmen's new husband, and father of the expectant baby, is a captain in Franco's army battling against insurgents. Near the mill where they are living Ofélia is lead into a maze where she finds a faun, who tells her she is a lost princess and has to complete three tasks to be returned to her kingdom.

Like both MIRROR MASK and TIDELAND, this story is essentially about a girl who withdraws into a fantasy world in order to escape the harsh realities of the world around her, with all three films involving sick and/or dying parents. The idea that these children are using their fantasy worlds to escape 'reality' is a particularly adult view and one that comes with the loss of innocence.

In MIRROR MASK, which is aimed at a teenage audience of the protagonist's age, childhood innocence is already fading, and the escaping aspect is more clearly visible. In that story, Helena does not seem to fully believe in what she is seeing and the dangers of the alternative world are not a real threat, much like in a dream. In the other two films, which are made for adult audiences, especially PAN'S LABYRINTH, the children are fully aware of the perils of the world around them, but it is their innocence that protects them, and their alternate worlds are integrated into the 'real' world. For them there is no separation between the two, and this is more apparent in PAN'S LABYRINTH, especially during a scene involving the discovery of a mandrake root.

The historical drama of PAN'S LABYRINTH is filled with harsh brutality that is often graphic, causing the more sensitive souls in the audience to look away. It is a dark film, visually and not just metaphorically, which resembles the paintings of Goya, whereas TIDELAND is more akin to the works of Edward Hopper, full of light but with a sinister foreboding.


The fantasy creatures in this new film are certainly scarier than those of MIRROR MASK. Both the faun, or Pan, and the bizarre Pale Man are both played by a heavily costumed and made-up Doug Jones (Abe Sapien in HELLBOY). Even the fairies have attitude. The faun, although there to help the Ofélia, is not always friendly, and according to Greek legend Pan was not of a genial disposition. He hated being woken from his sleep and would let out a terrible cry causing fear, or panic, in those around him. Pan was also quite the hedonist when it came wine and women, which made him popular with the pagans, who also worshipped him as their god of nature, but the early Christians demonised him (literally) and used his part-goat features as their representation of Satan.


The worldly level of the story does not have a happy ending but the fantasy thread does, which does make it a satisfying film, because both outcomes are true to their realities.

The cast is unknown to those unfamiliar with Spanish cinema, but the performances are excellent and, like her TIDELAND counterpart, the young Ivana Baquero carries the film on her delicate shoulders.

Although HELLBOY is a great comic book movie, this is probably the director's best film to date. Not only is it made in his mother tongue but it is a more personal project and a revisiting of the themes of his previous film, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE.

Highly recommended for fans of quality fantasy/horror.

PAN'S LABYRINTH is out on November 24 through Optimum Releasing.

Starter for Ten

Director: Tom Vaughan
Writer: David Nicholls
Cast: James McAvoy, Alice Eve, Rebecca Hall, Charles Dance, Lindsay Duncan, Dominic Cooper, Catherine Tate


It seems that we are going to get a rash of Eighties nostalgia movies now that the people who were young then have reached an age and position where they can get feature films made. Right now we have The History Boys, although to be fair Alan Bennett is a bit older than thirties, and Starter for Ten.

Where The History Boys focussed on the last year of secondary school, Starter for Ten is set n the first year of university. The connections go even further because Dominic Cooper and James Corden appear in both films, although in Starter for Ten they play a pair of Essex seafront losers.

Starter for Ten is also a much lighter film, with its main conceit being Brian Jackson's (James McAvoy - Shameless) ambition to appear on University Challenge. While this is the driving force behind the story it is also a romantic comedy and a nostalgia trip for all those who went to university during the turbulent Thatcher years.


Coming from the Essex coast, Jackson wants to prove to himself, and his mum (Catherine Tate), that he is clever, by not only getting into university, even if it is Bristol and not Oxbridge, but also getting onto University Challenge. He wants to display that all the useless bits of information he has memorised over the years of watching TV quiz shows can be put to good use. Trouble starts when he becomes enamoured with his blonde, buxom teammate Alice (Alice Eve).

After years of being subjected to American college teen comedies it is great to see a uniquely British take on the genre and one that we can actually relate to. The squalor of student life, the angst that accompanies infatuation and love, binge drinking and the first experiments with illicit substances, protests (against everything) and the need to impress your peers. It is all done without the over-the-top antics of our US counterparts and with a good dose of old-fashioned British class-system snobbery. And of course there is plenty of music from the era from the likes of The Cure and The Buzzcocks.

McAvoy's performance is the right mixture of wide-eyed innocence and down-to-earth honesty, all done with a totally believable Essex accent. Catherine Tate is great as his mum, but sometimes hard to disassociate from her comedy show characters. Charles Dance and Lindsay Duncan put in a great cameo as Alice's parents in one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

Starter for Ten is a lot lighter and funnier than The History Boys, but still has its moments of drama and emotion. Both are definitely worth seeing and are released far enough apart so as not to over-inundate you with nostalgia.

Also keep an eye out for Art School Confidential from the writer and director of Ghost World, for an American view of the art school experience.

Starter for Ten is on general release from November 10

Official website

The History Boys

Director: Nicholas Hynter
Cast: Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Stephen Campbell Moore


School days are supposed to be the best days of our lives, the vital formative years that set up us for our future as members of society, functional or otherwise. Are we being manipulated into believing everything we are told without ever really questioning, by being taught what to think and not how to think for ourselves? Very likely. If you have your own ideas, the chances are you will fail your exams, if you your fail your exams you won't be able to go to university where you become so in debt you have to become a wage slave for the rest of your life. Alan Bennett obviously had some concerns about the education system when he wrote his play, The History Boys, and a lot of people must have been interested in what he had to say about it because it was a huge theatrical hit on both sides of the Atlantic. His ideas can now reach an even wider audience with the release of the film version, which is the second collaboration between Bennett and director Nicholas Hynter, the first was The Madness of King George.


The History Boys is set in Cutler's Grammar School, in the north of England, during the mid 1980s. It focuses on eight boys who are pursuing undergraduate places in Oxford and Cambridge, as they are pushed to succeed by the school's over-zealous headmaster (Clive Merrison). In order for his school to rise up the ranks he enlists Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), a young, new teacher, to get them into to the right mindset for passing the university entrance exams. Although they find the new teacher interesting they still have loyalties to their old teachers, the eccentric and often unorthodox English teacher Hector (Richard Griffiths) and the by-the-book history teacher, Mrs Lintott (Frances de la Tour).

Being adapted from a theatre play it is dialogue heavy and light on action. Plays are contained within a restricted space, although clever set design does expand the possibilities. Movies, on the other hand, have very few limitations and are presented in a far more familiar, if not necessarily tangible, reality that allows for greater scope in the storytelling.

There are lots of verbose scenes in classrooms that give the characters plenty of opportunity to spout Bennett's ideas and his literary knowledge. There are the inevitable matters of teenage male sexuality raised, in both persuasions, which plays a significant part in the story. There are moments of humour but I wouldn't call it a comedy, at least not in the sense that the TV series Teachers was. Inevitably, comparisons have to be drawn with The Dead Poets' Society, although The History Boys is not quite as dramatic, the similarities are clearly visible.

This is definitely a British film, with its seemingly unavoidable grey pallor, but one that should appeal to a wide audience: those that have been through the system and those about to enter it. Of course it has the seemingly obligatory soundtrack of contemporary music plus a selection of show standards performed by Jamie Parker, one of the boys.

With the benefit of the well-rehearsed original cast the performances are very assured and totally believable. If you never got a chance to see the theatre production then definitely see the film version. The only let down is the slightly contrived ending.

The History Boys opens nationwide from October 13.

Idlewild

It would be very easy to class this as a vanity project, and given the way OutKast's two leading men dress, vanity would not be understating the case. Of course, musicians crossing over into the world of movies has been going on for years with varying degrees of success. In the pre-MTV days legends such as Elvis and The Beatles made movies to promote new songs, and movies like KID CREOLE and A HARD DAY'S NIGHT have even stood the test of time. Other musicians, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting, Roger Daltry, opted for purely dramatic roles, again with varying degrees of success. More recently it is rap and hip-hop singers that have been expanding their careers onto the screen, and with their blustering being mostly an act it seems like a natural progression.


OutKast's videos were certainly different to most of the other hip-hop promos, avoiding the urban bump and grind of scantily-clad booty. Theirs were major production numbers reminiscent of the golden age of Hollywood musicals so it seemed logical for Bryan Barber, the director of those pop-videos, to want to move onto something more substantial, so he wrote IDLEWILD as a vehicle for OutKast's multi-discipline talents.


Set in a world of a 1930s prohibition era Southern speakeasy, the film follows the lives of the club’s shy piano player, Percival (André Benjamin), and his childhood friend, the club’s showy lead performer and ladies’ man, Rooster (Antwan Patton). Following the death of the club's owner at the hands of ambitious mobster Trumpy (Terrence Howard) Rooster is made manager and it is up to him to keep the club running without giving control of it to Trumpy. At the same time singing sensation Angel (Paula Patton) arrives at the club, with a four-week contract, and Percival, who works in his father's funeral parlour during the day, falls for her.

Like most musicals, the story is fairly inconsequential, which does not mean it is overpoweringly weak but it doesn't break new ground looking like BUGSY MALONE meets HARLEM NIGHTS. It does have its good share of characters that attracted some of the cream of America's black performing community, with the likes of Ving Rhames, Faizon Love, Bill Nunn, Ben Vereen, Cicely Tyson and divas Macy Gray and Patti LaBelle. Even amongst this distinguished cast Benjamin and Patton give very convincing performances, with first-time actor Patton being surprisingly good.


Of course their main strength is their music, which is what the film is really all about. There are new songs and some from previous albums as well as fresh interpretations of songs by Bessie Smith and Cab Calloway. There is also some amazing dancing, a hybrid of swing and hip-hop, called swop, choreographed Hinton Battle. This is high-energy movement that works perfectly with the music to give the film and added sense of theatricality and fantasy.

The film should have a fairly wide appeal, from OutKast's legions of fans to lovers of musicals and romantic comedies. It has a bit of everything (except horror and sci-fi) and while it may not be the best movie of the year it looks like being the most vibrant musical. If you overlook the fairly standard story it is fantastic entertainment, which is a good reason to go to the cinema. And it looks great too.

IDLEWILD from UIP/Universal Pictures opens in the UK and Ireland on October 13 2006.