Film Review: Enchanted

I love Disney films. I love them unashamedly, unabashedly and un-ironically; I spent most, if not the entirety, of my childhood making my way through the Disney back catalogue and forcing my parents to take me to see every new release. Taking that into account, it's somewhat surprising that it has taken me this long to see 'Enchanted', Disney's own post-modern take on their illustrious past. What's less surprising is that I absolutely loved it.

The story is typical Disney fare and the opening ten minutes or so are very much evocative of the style of the hand-drawn films that Disney did so very well in its Golden Age and the Renaissance of the 80's and 90's; as the camera moves in through the window of the Walt Disney castle, towards a book atop a plinth, we are shown the story of a young girl named Giselle (Amy Adams) who lives in a tree with her animal friends and spends her days singing, making dresses and waiting to meet her dream man and experience true love's kiss. At the same time, the valiant Prince Edward (James Marsden) and his squire Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) are in the forest hunting ogres when they chance upon Giselle singing. A quick rescue later, and it seems like Giselle and Edward are bound for their happily ever after. However, the course of true love never runs smooth, and Edward's stepmother, wicked, of course (Susan Sarandon) tricks Giselle into falling down an enchanted well. When she awakens, Giselle climbs out of a manhole in New York, meets a cynical divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) and the fun really begins.

One of the reasons why Enchanted works so very well is that it manages to be two things at once; on the one hand, it is a post-modern fairy tale in the vein of The Princess Bride or Shrek, offering up sly nods to the audience, particularly those who are well-versed in Disney lore and catch the many references to films of old, about the conventions of fairytales by, for example, having Giselle sing a ''Happy Working Song'' to clean up a house and, instead of being assisted by cute, woodland animals, who are rather scarce in New York, being helped by pigeons, rats and cockroaches. Incidentally, one of my favourite moments in the film has these cockroaches take part in an homage to Songs of The South, an under-rated, if terribly racist, film. However, it is also a real, genuine story about a princess done in a style beloved by so many, complete with evil witches, talking animals and catchy musical numbers. It would seem that these two aspects of the film would be at odds with each other but they really do manage to gel superbly, such as in the performance of 'That's How You Know' in Central Park where, despite the asides made by Dempsey about how weird the whole practice is, you can't help but find yourself being swept up by the sheer joy of seeing a huge crowd of people take part in a massive song and dance number.

Ultimately, what sets Enchanted apart from a lot of the films that have tried to do the same thing and failed (Happily N'Ever After, Hoodwinked) is that there is a classiness to it; director Kevin Lima, a Disney veteran who has been involved in several of their other classics, and Enchanted is a classic, brings a technical ability to the film which is quite refreshing and there's a real sense that a lot of care and attention has gone into it. It's clear that everyone involved haa a real reverence for the material and, even as they are poking fun at themselves, they never lose sight of the fact that what made the films they reference classics is that there was a real heart to them, and they've also given Enchanted a heart that is impossible to resist.

Much of this heart can be attributed to Amy Adams' central performance as Giselle. Adams has to really carry off the conceit that she is a fairytale princess brought to life, complete with overly mannered delivery, complete lack of irony or sarcasm, and an utterly charming belief in true love and happily ever afters. She also looks stunning, which helps when playing a princess (okay, so she's someone who, through marriage, will become a princess but that takes a lot longer to type). It's a really sweet, funny and charming performance that really adds to the verisimilitude of the film; it is just how you would imagine life would be if Snow White, Cinderella or Ariel stepped off the screen and into our world.

The rest of the cast, both as their animated and real selves, are very good; James Marsden as deliciously smarmy and self-centred as Prince Edward, Susan Sarandon is deliciously wicked and malevolent as the stepmother, though she's not quite as impressive once she arrives in the Big Apple, and Patrick Dempsey provides a solid romantic lead. The best of the supporting cast, though, is Timothy Spall as Nathaniel. As the character with conflicting loyalties, he's got the richest material to play with and he has a blast with it. He's also quite sympathetic and when he asks Prince Edwards whether or not he likes himself, hoping to get a look into his own life based on the Prince's answer, I couldn't help but feel really sorry for him. Then again, as with my affection for his performance in Sweeney Todd, this might just be because I think he's a wonderful actor, though I suspect it is just because he is that good.

There are a few minor quibbles with the film; the opening sequence, whilst setting the film up perfectly, is a tad too twee for my tastes. Of course, that's the point of it, illustrating as it does the world that Giselle comes from and allowing for a contrast with the real world, but even so it does seem like a bit too much. Furthermore, the ending feels a tad rushed and it doesn't quite provide the satisfaction that a big dragon fight should do. Then again, the ending is a very obvious nod to Sleeping Beauty, the ending of which is also quite rushed and unsatisfactory, in my opinion, so it’s not anything to complain about, really.

To be honest, I struggled to come up with even those criticisms; there's almost nothing not to like in Enchanted, unless you don't like Disney films, but why would you think about going to see it if you didn't? It's sheer loveliness in a big dress and a tiara and it's just great fun from beginning to end.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go dig out all those old Disney VHSs I have and watch a few. Hmm, Beauty and The Beast, The Little Mermaid, or Aladdin...

Film Review: No Country For Old Men

Some people will not like No Country For Old Men. That's not the best way to start a review, let alone one which is going to be overwhelmingly positive, but there ya go. Some people will not like the violence, of which there is plenty; others will not like the tone, which is unrelentingly bleak; and others will not like the message that lies at the heart of the film, that the world is is going to Hell in a handbasket. Many people may not like the ending, lacking as it does a real resolution and flying in the face of pretty much any movie convention. Yet for all these things, it's clear to me that No Country For Old Men is a masterpiece.

The plot is simplicity itself; whilst out hunting one day, good ol' boy Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon the aftermath of a drugs deal gone awry. After poking around the bodies and the debris, he finds $2 million in cash and decides to take it. A crisis of conscience causes him to return to the scene later on and this starts a chain of events that attracts the attention of psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (an astounding Javier Bardem), who then sets off after Moss. As this is going on, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is on the trail of both men and struggles with the carnage he witnesses all around him.

As a thriller, No Country For Old Men is exceptional. There are moments of tension and terror so well-realised on screen, including the much lauded 'coin toss' scene, that they were almost unbearable, in a good way. The Coens', reigning in their usual tendencies for surrealism and screwball antics, deliver a sparse film that has echoes of some of their darker work, most notably Blood Simple and Fargo, but which is a different beast entirely, one which is far more brutal than even their most celebrated pieces of cinematic violence. There's a real sense of restraint about it, as if the Coens' have set aside the archness that usual runs throughout their films, the sort of knowing aloofness that allowed them to, for example, feed Steve Buscemi into a woodchipper (which they really did; John Waters has been pretending to be him ever since so no one will realise the truth) because there had been a procession of wacky, grotesque characters spouting funny dialogue beforehand and which gave the audience the sense that the Coens' were letting them in on their own private fraternal joke. Though there are aspects of that on display in No Country For Old Men, they are in the background and only fleetingly rise to the surface; gone are the niceties, and we're left to face the fullest, rawest realisation yet of their cold, Kubrickian nihilism.

Yet for all its value as a thriller, No Country For Old Men is a much more complex film than it would first appear, one which genuinely has something to say about the world we live in and, for fear of sounding pretentious, the nature of humanity. Though the main action of the film occurs with Moss and Chigurh, it's Bell who provides a moral centre to the film and it's his reactions to what he sees that raises the crucial question of the film; is the world becoming a worse place, or have things always been this bad? Bell, in his inability to comprehend the actions of Chigurh, who begins to represent for him the personification of all things evil and unknowable about the modern world, is in many ways the architect of his own downfall; he becomes so afraid of what he sees that, ultimately, he cannot confront it. As Bell, Tommy Lee Jones is absolutely fantastic, delivering what may be a career best performance as a man who, seeing that he is much nearer the end of his life than the beginning, starts to question what he has done and whether or not he has lived up to the expectations and standards of his forefathers. It's a wonderfully subtle performance, with Jones' familiar, comfortingly craggy features only barely concealing the fear and confusion that dwells beneath them.

Though Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic, as is Josh Brolin in the other main role, the film lives or dies on the power and menace of one character; Anton Chigurh. With his calm, level tones, pudding bowl haircut and clinical, almost uninterested air, Chigurh could seem like a ridiculous figure, yet in the capable hands of Javier Bardem he becomes he's the stuff of nightmares. The way he snares people in meticulously constructed traps of wordplay, getting under the skin of characters through his almost carelessly probing, intimidating questioning and his general air of menace make him horrific even when he's not bursting open an artery with his handcuffs or driving bolts into peoples' heads using a cattle bolt pistol. I've been mulling over his performance for a couple of days now trying to figure out what it is about him that is so disquieting, so terrifying and just so inhuman. I think the secret lies in an exchange that occurs about three-quarters of the way through the film; after a confrontation with Chigurh, Llewellyn is able to drag himself to a hospital and wakes up to the sight of Carson Welles, played with subdued cool by Woody Harrelson, a bounty hunter who has known Chigurh in the past. When asked by Llewellyn if Chigurh is ''meant to be the ultimate badass'', Wells replies languidly, ''he doesn't have a sense of humour''. This might seem like a throwaway line, but I think it cuts right to the heart of what makes Chigurh so damn unsettling: he doesn't seem to be enjoying himself. There's none of the sadism in his performance that usually characterises a movie psychopath, just a cold, unfeeling desire to kill. Hell, it's not even a desire, it's just something he does. The ease with which Chigurh can murder innocent bystanders, with no concern over who he kills or whether or not his actions might be witnessed is chilling stuff, and I for one will be hugely surprised if Javier Bardem doesn't waltz off with Best Supporting Oscar next month . Though I wouldn't be disappointed if Casey Affleck was the one to beat him to it.

Though you couldn't say that No Country For Old Men lacks a sense of humour; even amongst the death and the violence, the film manages absolutely hilarious at times. However, the humour is dark, very dark. There are little moments where characters engage in funny exchanges, one between Moss and a camping goods store clerk is particular good, but for the most part it's real gallows humour. For example, I burst out laughing in the cinema when a completely innocent bystander was shot in the head. Just something about the timing of it and the shock value made that my gut reaction to something that, in any other film, would be utterly horrific. That's the thing with No Country For Old Men, it achieves such a delicate balancing act that you're never entirely sure if you should scream, laugh or wince. Sometimes you've no choice but to do all three at once.

Whilst watching the film, I couldn't help but think that if Cormac McCarthy hadn't already created this story, the Coen Brothers would have had to do it themselves; so rare is it to see material so suited to those adapting it, it's hard to imagine that the lines being said did not spring from the minds of Joel and Ethan. The screenplay is immensely faithful to the book, moreso than would usually be healthy or advisable for a film. As well as the more obvious things like the characters and the plot, the surprisingly Coen-esque dialogue is taken almost word for word from McCarthy's novel. That's not to say they've just stuck the book in a copier and cut it up into a screenplay, though, since the Coens' have made a few minor but hugely beneficial changes, most notably the very wise decision to prune a subplot from the book that, whilst featuring some great exchanges between Moss and a teenage hitchhiker, would have really dragged down the final third.

Whilst this approach means that much of the stuff that is great about the film originated on the page, a lot of the stuff that people won't like comes from there as well. It's clear that the Coens' weren't willing to make things more palatable, or even satisfying, for an audience and, for some people, this results in No Country For Old Men being too unconventional for its own good, which is also what's so damn brilliant about it. It's really jarring, and more than a little thrilling, to see a film which genuinely has the balls to say ''fuck you'' not only to members of its own audience but to entire, long-established conventions of Western cinema. That it does so in a style which is actually quite conventional and with a story that is incredibly accessible makes their willful subversion all the more exhilarating.

On top of all these great points, the film just looks amazing. Roger Deakins, who also shot the mesmerising The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (have I mentioned how much I love that film enough yet? No? Well, I do), captures the vast, harsh landscapes of Texas (actually Nevada most of the time but never mind) superbly, not only conveying the sheer scale of the backdrops that frame the action, but really drawing out the sense of melancholy such images can evoke. I think that much of the tone of the film, particularly the bleaker aspects of it, is established by the cinematography and it's hard to argue with the idea that the world is becoming a worse place when characters do such terrible things to each other in such an inhospitable environment.

However, what I found most interesting was that the film spent as much time on the small details as it did on the big picture. For example, the film goes to great lengths to show things like Moss buying different pieces of equipment so he can hide the stolen money, as well as a lengthy scene detailing how Chigurh copes with the aftermath of being shot. Incidentally, the latter scene features a wonderful deadpan shot of Javier Bardem sitting naked on a toilet sewing up a great big hole in his leg, something which everyone in the cinema I was in found hilarious. It's these little details, the sort of things you wouldn't usually see in a thriller, that allow the Coens' to keep the audience on edge and off balance without actually having to do too much; focusing on the little things keeps us guessing when the next big thing is going to happen.

However, as I said from the beginning, for all its positives, No Country For Old Men is not a film which I could recommend to everyone because, quite frankly, a lot of people will go in and hate it; it's a dark, nihilistic tale with a tone and narrative that is almost unerringly bleak and it poses questions that get to heart of the modern age but which says that there are no easy answers to them. It's around this point that I should say that it's a return to form for the Coen Brothers, but I don't think it is; it's just been a while since they released a film and it happens to be a very good one. They've never lost it, they've just not been around to flaunt it.

Game Review: Metal Slug 3 (XBLA)

So here it is, review of the game of the year. The game everybody has been waiting for, with high definition 3d and immersive RPG elements... Wait, no sorry. That's Mass Effect, and I'll get to that soon but it's so good I don't want to rush playing it to get a review as soon as possible, like I did with Halo 3. Keep your eye on the page though, it'll be here soon.

In the mean time, here's the best game to hit the X Box Live Arcade since Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Metal Slug 3. In the aftermath of Doom's release in the early 90's, the side scrolling shooter had it's death knell called, and the genre began to dissipate into infinity along with the point and click adventure and the dentist simulator. Like Rush for Prog Rock, a few examples of the genre survived and carried on releasing with a cult fan base eager to scoop up any new releases. The aforementioned Castlevania series were one, and Metal Slug was another.

Metal Slug 3, for me, was the pinnacle of the series, with branching paths, drop in two player mode, vehicles and a wealth of ridiculous weaponry. Despite this, the main appeal is the lovingly drawn 2D graphics that, while low resolution, convey a perfectly cartoon-ish atmosphere for the ensuing carnage. Rather confusingly, though one would expect the simple graphics to be a breeze for the mighty 360's triple core processors, the game does get laggy in some of the busier sections. The design work is splendid and varied too, from giant crabs to riot geared troopers, from big robots to the Lovecraft-ian second boss the game maintains a constant sense of chaos throughout.

It's this chaos and sense of humour that helps make Metal Slug 3 such a fun title. The player constantly has to dodge a hail of incoming fire, though not as intense as the frankly unplayable looking "Bullet Hell" games, while firing back enough to give the player Shell Shock from prolonged exposure. The weapons on display include everything from a pistol, to a laser weapon, with the shotgun and flame thrower proving to be the most deadly. My favourite weapon, despite not being that powerful, is the Rocket Launcher, mainly due to the Arnie-esque exclamation from the game when it's collected ("RACHKET LO-AUNCHERRR").

The vehicles are a mixed bag. Whilst all are very cool, many of them are about as useful as stilts made from crackers. The classic Metal Slug itself is still the most versatile, with a spinning turret and bizarrely brilliant manoeuvrability (for a tank) make it a stand out choice, whereas the elephant slug is ponderous even against the zombie enemies. It makes up for this a little with the ability to eat a car battery and fire lightning from its trunk, but from a game play perspective it serves little to no purpose. Still, self destructing a heavily armed ostrich will never get old.

The game revolves around special agents hunting down a sinister dictator while mutant animals and zombies start cropping up everywhere. Coincidence? You bet. The story isn't anything special, but at least it gets the player from A to B, and is better than giving no story whatsoever (Ahem, Nanostray). Interestingly though, the game has as much of a plot twist as you can have with a game with no real plot, which doubles the length of the game.

At the same time, the length is a major problem for the price. With it being an Arcade game initially, the game is finish-able in about an hour. Despite the replay value, it seems a waste to have not added in extra content. There are seven slug games in all, but only 3 (the 4th in the series!) has ever graced a Microsoft console, so one of the other titles could have been thrown in for the price. Add to this it's priced at 800 Microsoft Points, which roughly equates to eight new English pounds. Not that I'm suggesting this is a complete rip off, but bear in mind the whole series is available on the Wii for twenty pounds, and even on XBox Live Arcade there's Psychonauts for twelve, which happens to be one of the best games of all time.

If, however, you do want a short, fun, two player game you can do much worse. In terms of fun, this is light years ahead of the XBLA's very similar Alien Hominid, but at the same time loses out in terms of content. Besides, even if you don't enjoy the game, what other titles can boast a sub-machine gun toting monkey in a diaper fighting an army of blood vomiting zombies?

Film Review: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Unlucky barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), having spent 15 years in exile after being convicted of a crime he didn't commit by a corrupt judge (Alan Rickman) who coveted his wife, returns to London under his new name of Sweeney Todd seeking revenge. Upon being informed by his former landlady, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), that his wife died in his absence and that Judge Turpin has taken his daughter as his ward, Todd opens up shop again and starts giving people the closest shaves they'll ever 'ave.

I had high hopes for this, seeing as I am a fan of both musicals and gory horror films (not gorno, or whatever meaningless title people affix to tripe like Saw, but good horror films with plots and that) and I was interested in seeing if the team of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp could forge a good cinematic version of Steven Sondheim's notoriously bloody musical. Fortunately, they managed to succeed.

As with any Tim Burton film, even the many that I flat-out don't like, the production design of the film is immaculate; the usual black-and-white colour palette and stripey decor are used to great effect to create a murky, hyper-realised Victorian London that not only allows the liberal splashes of claret, as well as Bonham Carter's Chucky Finster hairdo, to show up in a very striking way, but also helps to set the melodramatic, near-operatic tone of the film, perfectly creating a London which truly does seem like ''a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it''. Burton is able to mold the material to his vision, or vice versa, so perfectly that it almost seems like the two were made for each other.

As far as the acting/singing side of things go, the cast in general acquit themselves splendidly. In casting Depp and Bonham Carter, Burton has secured actprs who can sing a bit rather than singers who can act a bit, which I think is a real boon to the film since even if they don't have particularly strong voices, they manage to carry the story very well in their performances. That's not to say that they're bad singers, just that they don't really compare to actual singers who might perform the songs on stage and the film relies more on their physical performances to sell the roles. It's also worth noting that having to sing in character with both of them putting on accents is not an easy thing to do and even with all that stacked against them they still give good performances. Also, Depp bears favourable comparisons to David Bowie in his delivery; on the song ''Pretty Women'' he sounds uncannily like Bowie on his drum-and-bass track ''Little Wonder''.

It's also to the credit of Depp that he manages to make Todd into such a believable monster whilst retaining some sympathy for him, always retaining the basic tragedy of his character. Todd's progression from a man obsessed with vengeance against a handful of people to a general murderous misanthropy and desire to make unwitting cannibals of London's denizens is wonderfully handled and is in keeping with the heightened emotional state required of such a dark musical. Bonham Carter is also very good, even if her voice is not as striking as Depp's, and gets all the best lines, particularly her deadpan reactions to Sweeney's murders and the way in which she seems non-plussed about absolutely everything that occurs.

The supporting cast are also particularly strong but it is Timothy Spall who steals the show with a deliciously repellent turn as Beadle Bamford, Judge Turpin's odious aid. He is clearly relishing his chance to be an utterly irredeemible character and I'm surprised there hasn't been more praise for him in the reviews I've read, though that may be just because I love Timothy Spall in just about everything he does.

In terms of direction this is probably Burton's strongest film to date, with the notable exceptions of some ropey CGI camerawork (a pet hate of mine) and an awful title sequence. The murders are gruesome but done in such an over the top way that the way in which blood spurts from severed arteries like ruby-red fountains becomes hilarious. Probably my favourite example of this is a sequence in which a ballad sung by Todd and Antony, a young sailor who becomes besotted with Todd's daughter, Joanna, is carried out whilst Todd nonchalantly slits throat after throat. This scene is very wittily staged and more or less sums up the macabre humour that lies at the heart of the film. Though there are moments of lighter relief, particularly a brief showing from Sasha Baren Cohen as a flamboyant possible rival to Todd, it's mostly the bloodshed, and the reactions to it, that elicit the most laughs.

It's not without its flaws; the aforementioned romance between Antony and Joanna, whilst necessary in bringing the film to its denouement, feels underdeveloped and generally slows things down, and the conclusion itself feels quite rushed as all the various monsters of the film get their just desserts, but that's mainly the result of swift pacing and a brief running time. Ultimately, it's a hugely enjoyable film that looks wonderful, has some great performances, great songs, plenty of blood and which manages to synthesise the horror and musical genres to great effect in a way which is simultaneously hugely theatrical yet manages to be a truly cinematic experience.

Film Review: Charlie Wilson's War

In the early 1980's, cocaine-snorting, skirt-chasing, hard-drinking U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), after seeing a CBS special on the war in Afghanistan between the Mujahideen and the Soviets, decides to use his position on a Defence sub-committee to double the covert-ops budget for Afghanistan from a paltry $5 million to an only mildly less paltry $10 million. This sets off a chain of events which sees Charlie team up with the slightly off-kilter millionairess Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts) and wildcard C.I.A. operative Gust (pronounced 'Gus') Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and their combined efforts help turn around the war in Afghanistan and end the Cold War.

With a creative team that includes Mike Nichols (The Graduate) and Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) behind it, as well as two of the biggest stars in the world in front of the camera, and the great supporting actor of the past decade filling out the team, Charlie Wilson's War was always going to have a lot of expectations heaped on it and, for the most part, it meets them. Hanks and Roberts are very good in their respective roles, with Hanks being particularly charming, and Sorkin's script is filled with the witty one-liners that have characterised his TV work. Though it is missing the zip and zing of his other work, partly due to the slightly sluggish editing and partly due to the performers not having the rapid-fire pace required, it's still very fun to listen to the characters talk and when it gets it right, such as a sequence in which Hoffman has to keep entering and exiting Wilson's office while he talks to his staff about a potentially damaging scandal, it works very well. It's also quite well-structured, allowing the audience to digest all the political machinations before getting into the actual Afghanistan scenes and it all zips along to the, slightly rushed, conclusion.

Though Hanks is great in the title role, I couldn't help but think that the film should have been called Gust Avrakotos' War since, unsurprisingly, the stand-out performance of the film is that of Philip Seymour Hoffman. As a gruff, anti-James Bond spy he steals every scene he's in and it’s no coincidence that the laughs don't really start until he appears, making a big impact by smashing the window of his boss' office with a hammer, and the film doesn't kick into gear until he meets up with Hanks, at which point they spark off each other brilliantly and every line from Hoffman's mouth becomes a nugget of comedy gold. It's a flawless comedic performance but one which also has a sense of pathos to it, making Gust's comments about Zen masters and his scepticism when the Afghans win (sorry for spoiling the ending for anyone) seem natural rather than jammed in to give the film contemporary resonance.

Having said all that, the film does have a number of glaring flaws to it; principal amongst them is the fact that it overestimates its audience. In a way, this is quite admirable (when was the last time you saw a film that not only didn't treat you like an idiot but actually expects you to know a bit about politics and shit?) but with Charlie Wilson's War it is damaging. The film presupposes that the people watching it share its liberal viewpoint and have at least some knowledge about the connection between U.S. funding of Afghan freedom fighters in the 80's and the events of September 11th and the wider instability in the region and, as such, the film doesn't really take pains to explicitly link the two. Instead, Nichols and Sorkin use moments of heavy irony to make this connection, such as a head of a sub-committee played by Ned Beatty talking to a large group of Afghanistanis about how ''America will always be on the side of good'' followed by a crowd chatting 'Allahu Akbar' ('God is Great'), and footage of Soviet vehicles being destroyed by Afghan fighters and the way in which they could very easily be U.S. vehicles nowadays (some of the vehicles shown being destroyed are actually U.S. vehicles, which is either a mistake or an incredibly subtle commentary on the similarities). Because these very valid points of the film, that no event can happen in isolation, that a victory can have negative connotations further down the line and that the United States' unwillingness to put money into Afghanistan after the Cold War contributed to later tragedies, are not explicitly made, some critics have misconstrued the film as an exercise in flag-waving rhetoric and it feels like the film, in an attempt not to be seen as preachy, has gone the other way and has hidden its intentions too well. Though a quote from Wilson at the end does try to hammer the point home, its not quite the denouement that the material requires.

Aside from problems of ideology, the film also suffers from severe jumps in tone, jumping from light-hearted scenes with pithy dialogue to others in which Wilson witnesses the horror of war. Likewise, the aforementioned archive footage of actual attacks on Soviet troops, along with pretty shoddily directed action sequences set in Afghanistan, seem out of place when compared to the light and breezy tone of the rest of the film. These shifts are mercifully few and far between but they are incredibly jarring and bring the pace, and the laugh count, down significantly. The jokes always return, but the uneasy tone of the film is very distracting.

However, aside from its wishy-washy approach to its own point and the uneven tone, Charlie Wilson's War is a fun, well-written comedy with three sparky performers at its centre. Not a classic but certainly entertaining.

Film Review: Velvet Goldmine

In preparation for watching Todd Haynes second crack at the music biopic that's not really a biopic, the Dylan-tastic I'm Not There, I decided to check out this earlier attempt, as Haynes tries to tell the story of glam rock using characters that are most definitely NOT David Bowie and most definitely NOT Iggy Pop.

Okay, maybe they are a bit like those characters, but more on them later. The story follows the attempts of a British journalist (Christian Bale) to track down 70's pop legend Brian Slade who went missing years before following his apparently fake shooting at a concert. By interviewing those who knew Slade during those years, he tries to piece together the story of what happened and where Slade has since disappeared to, all the while offering up insights into Bale's childhood as a fan of Slade's work and the impact that the music of the era has in helping him come to terms with his own homosexuality. The narrative structure is essentially the same as that used for Citizen Kane and it works to great effect, offering up a mystery which quickly becomes unimportant as we are sucked into the heady world of 70's glam.

The Bowie stand-in (with a bit of Bolan thrown in for good measure) is played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers who, whilst a bit wooden at times, gives a pretty good performance as Slade who is initially a folk-singer and, after experimenting with drugs, takes to writing songs about the fictional rock star Maxwell Demon and becomes friends, and lovers, with Curt Wild (Ewan MacGregor), lead singer of influential Detroit garage band The Rats. MacGregor doesn't quite convince as Wild, except when he's on stage; when he performs with The Rats or is thrashing around in the studio, he embodies the Iggy-like character totally, getting the energy and mannerisms down perfectly, but off-stage he's a bit bull and its to the film's benefit that most of his involvement is confined to singing, shouting and orgy montages.

Bale is the real star of the film and grounds the narrative of the film, preventing it from becoming too far out. There are moments where it does go astray but the whole thing is such a fun, decadent ride that it's hard to care when such lapses do occur. Also, if you've ever wanted to see Batman fuck Obi-Wan outside of slash-fic then you'll be set.

The film takes several liberties with the truth because the filmmakers couldn't get the rights to use Bowie's songs, but they're more concerned with capturing the mood of the time and, for want of a less pretentious phrase, the essence of glam rock, and the film is largely successful at that. There's a great sense of place and time being recreated and the use of both songs from the time and covers from various members of Placebo, Pulp, Sonic Youth and others adds to this, creating a really great soundtrack. The film is also littered with references to bands of the era and offers little extra rewards for people who are fans.

A sprawling, wandering work that is very enjoyable and well worth a watch.