Film Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a film that, on a purely technical level, is hard to fault. It's beautifully shot by Tomas Alfredson, who previously directed the superb Let The Right One In, well acted by a rogue's gallery of great British acting talent and it has a wonderful sense of time and place to it. Alfredson and his crew capture a decaying Britain that is slowly suffocating under the weight of the Cold War and its own sense of increasing obsolescence. Much like the John le Carré novel upon which it is based, the film really conveys a sense that the spies and intelligence agents that populate it have seen better days and are now going through the motions, no longer certain that the war they are fighting is really worth a damn anymore. It's a Cold War thriller that is appropriately chilly.

Top Ten Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Segments

"What the Hell are you smiling at?"

My lords and masters over at Box Office Prophets asked each of the writers to come up with a list of their favourite segments from The Simpsons' annual Treehouse of Horror episodes. Since there are few things in this life more than The Simpsons, I gladly acquiesced, and the full version of that article will appear on BOP on Monday. However, I thought I'd post my individual picks here, along with quotes and explanations for my picks as well, if only because it gives me an excuse to link to a bunch of hilarious Simpsons clips.

Film Review: The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)

This can only end well.

When it was announced that Steven Spielberg was going to finally fulfil his long held dream of bringing Hergé's iconic boy journalist/adventurer to the big screen, it seemed like such a natural fit that it was amazing that it hadn't happened sooner. The Tintin comics have delighted countless children and adults for decades with their mix of adventure, mystery and derring do, and when he is at his best, no film-maker can rival Spielberg when it comes to imbuing works with a sense of awestruck wonder and excitement. Then, it turned out that the film would be motion-capture, rather than live action, and you could almost sense the shudder across the Internet as people contemplated a Tintin movie full of uncanny valley faces and awkward animation. Could Spielberg succeed where countless others had failed and make a film that overcame the limitations of motion-capture technology?

Film Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

I suppose it's prudent to begin this review by admitting that I haven't read Lionel Shriver's incredibly popular 2003 novel We Need To Talk About Kevin, so if you are hoping for an account of how the film adaptation works as a transition to the big screen, then I can't help you. I came to the material completely fresh and with no pre-conceptions, so I can only write about how I felt about the film itself. (Even what I had heard of the book was evenly balanced, since two people whose opinions I respect had told me that it was either brilliant or irredeemably shit. Balance!)

Film Review: Midnight In Paris (2011)

The most important thing that needs to be said about Midnight In Paris, the latest film from Woody Allen, is that not only is it a very good film, but that it is a very good film outside of the context of its creator's work. For much of the last decade critics have described some of Allen's films as good or as returns to form, but what they really mean is, "Well, it's better than the last thing he did." Considering that the last thing Allen directed was the lazy and half-baked You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, the bar was admittedly set pretty low, but Midnight In Paris is not just better than the last film he made, it's easily the best film he has made since Sweet and Lowdown in 1999.

Things I Learned From Movie X: Scream 4

I'm not sure how I feel about this gritty reboot of Reno 911!

After a few weeks away, caused by a mixture of holiday and a really busy period at work, Things I Learned With Movie X returns with a column about Scream 4, the long-delayed fourth film in a franchise that started out as a sly commentary about the nature of standard horror films but which mutated along the way to being a slightly smarter version of the films that it is meant to mock.

I'm pretty pleased with this edition of the column since I think I managed a nice balance between making fun of the problems of the film and actually critiquing its flaws. I also really liked the Sesevenen joke because it's pretty silly, even though I'm sure someone else has probably made it some time in the last 16 years. Also, following on from the Dawn of the Dead column, it is the second time I've worked a Se7en reference into one of these, so maybe the key to maintaining maximum comedic velocity is to keep talking about that absolutely hilarious film.

DVD Review: Quatermass and The Pit (1967)

One of the main problems with watching old, “classic” films is that most of them have, for one reason or another, dated. Most of the time these things can be overlooked by placing the work in its original context and accepting that ideas, attitudes and styles change over time, but there are some genres which date worse than others. The chief amongst these are science fiction and horror, since effects and ideas that were once fantastical and scary can look farcical and silly viewed years or decades later.

Doctor Who - The Wedding of River Song (S6E13)

As much as I have enjoyed this series of Doctor Who, there always seemed to be something slightly off about it. Not necessarily something bad, although there were elements of it that didn't work, but just...off. Not quite right. Splitting the series in two, airing the first seven in the Spring and the last six now didn't help, since it threw the rhythm of the show off completely, requiring it to have two finales in the space of thirteen episodes instead of just the one. When I say finales, I don't just mean cliffhangers, because the show has done two-parters before (with mixed results), many of which take place in the middle of the series anyway.

Film Review: Tyrannosaur (2011)

Going by the opening scene of Tyrannosaur, the debut directorial feature of actor Paddy Considine (Dead Man's Shoes, Hot Fuzz, The Bourne Ultimatum), in which its main character beats his beloved dog to death, it would be all too easy to dismiss it as yet another example of miserablist kitchen sink drama that British cinema so often produces. After Joseph (Peter Mullan) gets drunk and angry, he kicks his dog and breaks his ribs. It's devastating for Joseph, and after an outburst in a pub (one of many manifestations of his barely suppressed rage that, it is implied, has landed him in trouble before) he runs into a charity shop run by Hannah (Olivia Colman) and begins to cry when she offers to pray for him.