Megabuck

On the inside of Meet the Parents is a great plot idea, struggling to get out. Actually, that's not strictly true - the plot is actually realized pretty well; it's the supposed timing and unrelenting nature of the events that, for me, make this film no better than mediocre.

The premise is simple: About to propose to Pam (Teri Polo), his girlfriend, Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) realises he's expected to ask her father's permission first. Of course, Jack (Robert de Niro) turns out to be every suitor's worst nightmare: demanding, condescending, belittling. Worse, it seems Greg can do nothing right.

The bulk of the film documents everything that happens over a weekend at the parental home. Pam's sister is getting married, so it's a big get-together with family and friends. The battering starts immediately; Greg's luggage goes missing. Jack makes snide comments over the colour of his rental car and choice in pets. Greg even causes chaos when opening a bottle of wine.

He is mocked for his choice of career - he's a nurse. Guess what: half the guests are doctors. He's intimidated by Pam's previous boyfriend, the seemingly perfect Kevin (Owen Wilson). His surname makes him an easy target. He manages to lose the family's pet cat, so he buys a replacement which looks nearly identical - which promptly tears the wedding dress to shreds. His luggage turns up, and Jack searches it, finding a pile of women's clothes - because, of course, it's not his bag.

It transpires that Jack is a former CIA agent - except Greg becomes convinced he's still involved in some covert operation. So he blurts out what he knows - and, wouldn't you just know it, he's put his foot in it again.

Taken individually, each incident is at least passably funny; some are hilarious; some make you cringe on Greg's behalf. But it's the whole thing - the relentless progression from one minor disaster to the next - where I felt the movie fell down. At first, it's pretty funny, watching this guy make a complete fool of himself; but when it goes on and on, and you realize you're in for an hour where nothing, NOTHING goes right, it just gets depressingly tedious.

And it's not all perfect. The surname gag grew old fairly quickly; the way people addressed him using only his surname was downright rude rather than funny; one leaking toilet would NOT flood a yard, no matter how full the septic tank (and what kind of planning is it to hold a big wedding party with the tank ready to blow?) The happy ending was also pretty unconvincing.

I haven't really said anything about the performances. I felt everyone did a reasonable job, nobody excelled. de Niro *can* do comedy - Brazil, Midnight Run - but here, I thought he was too deadpan, and the role just a bit *too* psycho. Stiller was a good choice for the lead, and Owen Wilson is great as the all-too-perfect ex. But, as I said, it's the pacing that spoils things. If they had spread the pain out a little - shown meetings over several weekends - along with scaling it back a little, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more.

Temple of Doom is, by some distance, the weakest of the three Indiana Jones films. The plot isn't inherently bad, but the characters are almost all weakly drawn, deeply irritating or both, and the action sequences feel lame.

The bad news starts from the first frame. Raiders of the Lost Ark has one of the best opening sequences in cinema history; it establishes Jones as a swashbuckling archaeologist, and also brings in his enmity with Belloq. By contrast, the Temple sequence is embarrassing; is it a musical? Comedy? Parody? Frightening? It tries for all the above, and unsurprisingly just comes across as an awful mish-mash.

Not even Jones' character works; he is supposedly exchanging a priceless relic for a fabulous diamond in the opening exchanges. That hardly fits with him being a voraciously acquisitive archaeologist. Had it been him offering the diamond, then it might have worked.

Most others have commented on the startling annoyance levels achieved by Kate Capshaw's character, so I won't comment further beyond agreeing with them. But also, there's no on-screen chemistry with Harrison Ford. The first night in Pankot Palace, the two seem to go from barely tolerating each other to being ready to jump into bed with each other, for no discernible reason.

From there, the film descends to a non-stop underground action sequence that occupies the rest of the film. This not only tries the audience's patience, but also their credulity; the mine cars chase is, on several levels, impossible. The cars are unpowered, yet get up to high speeds. This is fine, if the track goes steeply downhill, but it looks level. Then, after getting a good headstart, Jones' car is caught by two chasing cars. How the other cars go faster, with all of them relying on gravity, isn't explained. There are two parallel tracks, built across a wide-open chasm of molten lava; why there are two tracks here but not elsewhere, and how the tracks got there, aren't explained. Finally the tracks end, a tidal wave of water punches its way out, and we see they are near the top of a cliff - so the tunnels leading downhill come out high up? And there's a pool of lava in the middle of a cliff? Stop worrying, give up and accept that when they were plotting all this, logical consistency wasn't high on the agenda.

You can only imagine the decision-making that went on at the studios. "Raiders has been a huge success - what shall we give 'em in the sequel? More! More stunts! More action! More locations! More gross-out stuff!" Unfortunately, that's all we do get - and all it adds up to, is a deeply unsatisfying pale imitation of one of the best action films of the past few decades.

Birdy is a difficult film to describe. It's about the developing friendship between Al (Nick Cage) and Birdy (Matthew Modine), but it's also about a descent into madness, and the lengths to which Al goes for his friend.

The film starts in the late 60's, in a US military mental hospital. Cage has been seriously wounded, and has had reconstructive surgery on his face, but he's been brought in because Birdy is here. He's uncommunicative and appears to recognise no one, spending all day squatting on the floor of his cell squinting up at the window.

The story is mostly told in flashbacks, either Al recounting incidents in their growing friendship as neighbourhood kids or, later, Birdy remembering other incidents. From the start the two are pretty dissimilar - Al is athletic, outgoing and popular while Birdy is quiet and introverted - a typical nerd. The two are, paradoxically, brought together by Birdy's love of birds, and the stupid things they do - making suits out of pigeon feathers to befriend more pigeons, climbing on (and falling off) factories trying to capture more birds.

Al tries to set Birdy on a 'normal' track; they buy a wrecked car and fix it up, and head off to the beach. But Birdy is just too wrapped up in himself for this to work, and it's a wonder he doesn't alienate Al with his strange behaviour.

In the 'present', the doctor is putting more pressure on Al to get Birdy to respond; if he doesn't, then Birdy will be written off and sent to a permanent mental institution. The flashbacks continue, and it becomes clear that Birdy's love of birds has turned into an obsession, and then into the darker realms beyond that.

The final few minutes of the film cover a lot of ground; Al finally realises that Birdy is pretty well off the deep end; they both go off to fight in the war; Al gets his injury, while we see the incident that left Birdy in his present state. Meanwhile the doctor finally decides that time has run out, but Al decides he's not leaving.

The ending of the film is incredibly powerful, and it should be a criminal offence to give it away. Is it 'appropriate' to the rest of the film? I dunno - but I thought it was pretty damn good.

The film stands or falls on the performances of Cage and Modine - and, for me, it stands tall. Cage is excellent in his role, capturing the bravado of his character perfectly; but Modine is simply brilliant. During the flashbacks he portrays his nerdy character completely believably, but it's the way he handles the scenes in the asylum that amazed me. As soon as you know his obsession, it is crystal clear that he's not squatting in his cell, but perching, wishing to fly.

Alan Parker has made some great films; this might just be his best.

I make my living off the evening news/ Just give me something, something I can use/ People love it when you lose/ They love dirty laundry

Well I could have been an actor, but I wound up here/ I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear/ Come and whisper in my ear/ Give me dirty laundry

The Don Henley song Dirty Laundry, from which those lyrics were taken, is a vicious indictment of the state of television news in the United States. Its cinematic equivalent is Network, one of the highlights in the distinguished career of Sidney Lumet - but in this case, the target is more the relentless pursuit of ratings by the networks.

While the focus is originally a news programme, it could have been almost anything. The original purpose of the show simply vanishes, an inconvenient detail discarded by the station, safe in the knowledge that the FCC is a toothless tiger. What brings about the change is the mental and nervous breakdown that befalls news anchorman Howard Beale - a role played to perfection by Peter Finch, for which he deservedly won a Best Actor Oscar.

The sick man is shamelessly manipulated by Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall, against the wishes of William Holden, seemingly Finch's only real friend. All these give virtuoso performances - Dunaway in particular stands out for portraying a woman apparently devoid of human feelings at the office, but capable of love outside it.

For all the excellent acting - not forgetting Ned Beatty's towering monologue, for which he also received an Academy nomination - this film isn't perfect. My principal complaint is that it feels excessively long, and at times too sprawling and unfocussed for its own good. The ending also somehow doesn't ring true; while the TV execs have been portrayed as money-grubbing scum, capable of almost any excess (including giving air time to terrorists) in search of another point on the ratings, the notion that they are capable of ordering the cold-blooded murder of someone seems too far-fetched.

Those points aside, this is an excellent film. Well worth watching.

Having spent some time in the States, I got to watch the brilliant review programme starring Siskel and Ebert (rest in peace, Gene). I've now got a rather dated copy of Ebert's book, and his review of this film matches my opinions perfectly.

Comparisons of this film and Ghost are fatuous, since the similarities are only superficial. Yes, the main protagonists are a couple where the man dies and returns as a ghost, but that's about it. Truly, madly, deeply is wonderfully involving - it has that indefinable something that makes you care about the characters, and pray that the film makers won't cop out and go for a stupid ending.

Fear not, they remain true to the rest of the film. If you only know Alan Rickman from his 'baddie' roles in films like Die Hard and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, this will come as a complete surprise. He plays the recently departed Jamie, who must hang around as a ghost until Nina (Juliet Stevenson) finds happiness. The film is slow-paced, but that doesn't matter - it's a wonderful character study.

Of course, it's helped by having Nina played by the utterly wonderful Juliet Stevenson. In the early scenes, when she's grieving for Jamie, her pain is almost palpable. Forget Demi Moore-style teary-eyed, looking ever more beautiful grieving - this is the real thing, floods of tears, almost incoherent, looking like crap, snot-nosed AGONY. The transformation when she realises that Jamie is still around is a joy to watch - as is most of the film, actually.

'Ghost' for adults? In a way, but I think it's comparing apples and oranges. It's a masterful character study, with a great script and a cast on top of their form. Well worth watching.

The Mystery of Men is a strange little piece that will have done little to explain the mystery - or even which particular mystery the title refers to. The comedy is at times hilarious, at others so black as to be distinctly uncomfortable - and the ending was just plain strange.

The story concerns three drinking partners, at a pub named the Oasis of Sanity. Vernon (Warren Clarke) is a depressive English teacher, going through the motions of life with little notion as to why. Julian (Neil Pearson) is the boss of a struggling regional advertising agency, while Oscar (Robert Daws) is a successful sales executive. Colin (Nick Berry) is the landlord of the pub.

Colin suggests a bizarre scheme - they all take out life insurance, with the others as beneficiaries, so that whoever lives the longest, gets rich. They all go in for this, even Vernon - a depressive, overweight, heavy-smoking drinker.

The programme then follows the unbelievable sequence of events that follows on from this. Without revealing any of the plot, the incidents involve adultery, deceit, three broken marriages, head injuries and a broken leg, a bankruptcy, serious burns to one protagonist, the destruction of the pub and finally a particularly gruesome death.

The humour varies between comical - the reaction of Vernon to the attempts by a student to seduce him - and thoroughly black, including the closing eulogy by the vicar at the funeral of the dead man. Occasionally uncomfortable, so long as your sense of humour veers to the darker end of the spectrum, this is an engaging way to pass 90 minutes.

Describing a film as 'lightweight' shouldn't always be seen as a criticism. Two Way Stretch deserves the description, but it should be seen as praise rather than a put-down.

Back in the 50s and 60s, the British film industry seemed able to churn out these comedy films at the drop of a hat. The Ealing Comedies are the best known, but there are also any number starring Norman Wisdom, and also a few gems with Peter Sellers in them.

Sellers takes the leading role here, that of a criminal in the last weeks of his sentence. He and his three cell mates are drawn into a daring robbery - one that involves them breaking out the night before their release, then breaking back in again, thereby ensuring they have a watertight alibi. Just about every character in the film is a caricature - the kind-hearted chief warder, the bumbling prison governor intent on seeing only the best in everyone, the army chief in charge of moving the jewels. Yet it all works, so long as you don't go in expecting some significant piece of cinema.

An excellent cast, with Sellers on top form. Maurice Denham, as the governor, Lionel Jeffries, as the control-freak warder, and Wilfred Hyde-White, as the crook planning the robbery, are worth singling out.

When Hill Street Blues was being made, here in the UK it didn't get networked. Instead, my local commercial station (Central) picked it up and showed it on a Friday night at 11pm. My opinion of the show can be judged from the fact that I used to get home early from the pub to watch it.

It might be a cliche, but this really was a ground-breaking series. Compare it to its forbears, series like Kojak and Starsky & Hutch. Instead of there being three or four central characters, and a single plotline per episode, HSB had a couple of dozen characters and five or six plotlines, each interwoven and often continuing from week to week.

It brought an extra level of realism, too. In previous series, if cops got into a fist fight then they'd remain standing, although maybe with a bloody mouth. If someone got shot, odds on it was the bad guy, with the cops not receiving a scratch.

HSB changed all that. Fights looked real; policemen got shot; the bad guys often got away. And it went beyond that, including police corruption; politics interfering with the job; the way the police reached compromise deals with people like Jesus Martinez, even though he was a gang leader and notionally a 'bad guy'.

You cared about the characters, too. When Joe Coffey got shot, when Esterhaus died, any of a dozen others, they felt like they meant something. This wasn't a show that you watched, then forgot about.

Stephen Bochco went on to series like LA Law, NYPD Blue, Murder One and ER, all of which owe a lot to the style of HSB. It really did break the mould of TV drama; its influence is still clear, even today.

The Motion Picture Academy got it thoroughly wrong. Cinema Paradiso should NOT have won the Oscar(tm) for best foreign picture; in fact, it should not even have been nominated for it.

That's because this beautiful, warm, funny and heartbreaking film should really have been up there in the Best Picture category. Whether it could have beaten Driving Miss Daisy, or My Left Foot, or any of the others, is a moot point - but to relegate a film as wonderful as this one to a 'lesser' category, simply because the dialogue isn't in English, ought to be unacceptable.

The story centres around one boy, but is really all about a love affair with the cinema. As such, the two main characters are Alfredo, the outwardly gruff man who runs the local picture house, and Toto, the little boy who works his way into Alfredo's affections. Both of them love the cinema, and there are many wonderful scenes inside the palace, which is clearly one of the main focal points of town life.

There's not much plot - the by grows older, falls in love (which goes unrequited), goes away to do his stint in the military, and eventually moves away and becomes a successful businessman. He returns for Alfredo's funeral, and the whole film is one long reminiscence.

But reducing this film to a precis of the plot is to do it a disservice. This was clearly a labour of love, and it has resulted in a remarkable film. The casting and acting is as near perfect as you could ask for; the ending is so funny and so meaningful it moves me to tears each time I watch. This is a film where you care deeply for the central characters, and even the picture house itself.

I couldn't imagine watching a dubbed version of this; I don't speak Italian, but I think it would ruin much of the film's atmosphere. Please, if you get the chance, see this film - but only with subtitles!

The Right Stuff has been lauded as possibly the best space movie ever. I'm not sure that's right, since there's precious few seconds of this film that actually take place in space.

Instead, it's really a character study of the people involved in the incredibly risky business of taking America's first steps in manned space flight. There are a few action sequences, mostly involving Chuck Yeager, who could have been on the Mercury programme but for his lack of a college education. But this film is really about the people.

Yeager, in the shape of Sam Shepard, provides the early focus of the film, and also illustrates the way that Edwards AFB, and its collection of experimental aircraft, proved an irresistible magnet for the hot-shots of the time - many of whom paid the ultimate price for their bravado. Then, NASA starts hunting for potential astronauts - 'spam in a can', as the job is ironically described.

From this point on, the film concentrates on Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), Gordie Cooper (Dennis Quaid) and John Glenn (Ed Harris), with Gus Grissom (Fred Ward) getting a look-in. The astronauts are built up as heroes by the film, albeit flawed heroes; there's some reference to extra-marital affairs, but without going into detail, probably because most of the people involved were still alive. But there's also quite a lot of humour, too, with the 'enema' scene notable in bringing them down a notch or two.

The whole episode has been romanticised, but not in a heavy-handed fashion. Some of the other reviews have criticised it for being too gung-ho, for being too rabidly patriotic, and for not portraying the Russian efforts. Such criticisms aren't valid. Firstly, the film is set when the Cold War was at its height, and success in space was seen as a vital battle in that war. It's portrayed as gung-ho because, quite simply, it was. As for not portraying the Russian programme, that would be a strange thing to do in a film which is so clearly focussed on the people involved in the American effort.

To be taken with a fair-sized pinch of salt, but definitely recommended - over three hours long, but the time simply passed, without the film ever seeming to be stretched too thin.

Brave was Marillion's seventh studio album, their third with Steve Hogarth. It was that most unfashionable of products, a concept album from a prog-rock outfit in the early 90's.

The story was complete invention, starting from a real event; the police found a young woman wandering on a motorway bridge. She couldn't or wouldn't tell them anything. From this starting point, the group wove a story which covered abuse by her father as a child, moving on into drug abuse and a few other events leading to her being on the bridge, contemplating suicide.

The film is an interpretation of the story, with the co-operation of the band - although they feature only in passing on screen. This film is about as far from MTV video as it's possible to get!

The story is mostly told via the images and Marillion's music - there is little dialogue. As such, I feel the film is something of a curate's egg; some of it works really well, while others need more explanation. The scenes with the Hollow Man (the man in the mask) could do with something extra, since it's not really clear if this is simply a barrier the girl erects to protect her from people who hurt her, a cipher that means these people are interchangeable, or something else entirely.

Not a bad effort, but not brilliant, either. If you're unfamiliar with the original album, be prepared to be baffled the first couple of times through.

I'm not sure that anyone in their right minds could truly claim to have enjoyed The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. It contains scenes which turn the stomach over - the trip in the meat van would be high on my list.

The plot is pretty straightforward: the thief runs a restaurant where he holds court, bullying everyone around him. His wife embarks on an affair with one of the customers, aided by the cook. The thief finds out, and takes his revenge on the lover; in turn, the wife wreaks revenge on him.

Greenaway turns this simple story into a remarkable film. The Thief, as portrayed by Michael Gambon, is one of the most hateful characters ever to appear on celluloid; even the opening scene spares little. He dominates the entire film, and makes the wife's actions seem reasonable.

Colour is one of the film's main features; each room is given a dominant colour, and the colour of the cast's clothes change as they move from room to room. Gimmicky, yes, but effective as well.

The final pay-off actually left me disappointed; while understandable, it seemed to me there were other, more effective possibilities. But that's a minor quibble. This is a remarkable piece of work: unpleasant, repulsive and tasteless, but also gripping and admirable.

I've seen Se7en twice, the second time because it was on when I was flipping channels. This film is absolutely brilliant, and it's difficult to think of a single misstep.

But it's not a film to enjoy; I think there's only one even vaguely upbeat scene in the film, there mostly to provide the necessary contrast with the awesome finale. The rest of the time it portrays the police inhabiting a city where it continually rains, where anyone could be indescribably evil, and where it takes the exceptionally twisted acts of the serial killer to shock the police.

Plaudits should go to everyone involved, with praise being heaped on Freeman, Pitt and Spacey. But the loudest applause should be reserved for the writer and director, Andrew Kevin Walker and David Fincher, for turning out such a masterpiece. Even the producers deserve some credit, for having the faith not to slap on a smiley happy ending, as is de rigeur in too many of the current confections being churned out of Hollywood.

See this film. You may well not enjoy it, you might not sleep too soundly afterwards, but it's worth it, to see one of the greatest films of recent years.

I enjoyed Die Hard; it's one of those films where the action is pretty much constant. Switch channels and find Die Hard on, and you're likely to linger, even though you've seen it several times before.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder is, by comparison, utter garbage. While the scenario in Die Hard was pretty unlikely, that didn't matter too much - here, the entire premise of the film (hijacking an entire airport, rather than a building) is fundamentally flawed. As if the pilots would continue to circle as their tanks ran dry, with three or four other airports within minutes; as if the folks on the ground couldn't use different radio frequencies to transmit to the planes; as if... well, you get the picture.

There were fewer characters to care about, either - the whole thing had a formulaic, going-through-the-motions feel about it. One to be avoided when flipping channels, unless you enjoy ranting at the TV.

I didn't see this film at the cinema, which was probably a mistake. I think its impact would have been all the greater on the big screen. As it was, I settled for the Green edition.

Is this film pro-drugs? Given that it shows the deaths of both a baby and the friend of the central characters as a result, hardly. Is it anti-drugs? Not so you'd notice - it doesn't preach. It shows you the lives the heroin addicts live, and leaves you to draw your own conclusions.

Marvellous acting, centreing (of course) on Renton, although Begbie was a fascinating role, which made you think: why DO these people associate with such a nutter? Favourite character has to be Spud, wonderfully blissed-out.

There isn't a strong plot running through the film, it's more a succession of scenes illustrating the lives of the central characters. The sub-plot connected with the big drug deal felt a bit tacked-on and unconvincing, but that's a fairly minor quibble.

Not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached, although the Worst Toilet scene goes into surreal overdrive, while Spud's 'accident' is just plain funny.

The additional scenes in the Green edition - rough cuts that didn't make the final edit, following the end of the film - were a welcome bonus; I felt that one or two of them would actually have made the film a bit more coherent.

I've seen a few stinkers, but this was the only film I ever walked out on. Something about it meant my disbelief stubbornly refused to be suspended, and I found the whole thing ridiculously unbelievable.

I felt it got off to a bad start - that by finding carnauba wax in the mud left on a bank counter, the police could make the intellectual leap to decide that the Dead Presidents were serious surfers. Or maybe it's the 'Johnny Utah' name - Ebert's rule, that any film that resorts to using silly names is in serious trouble at the screenplay level - comes into play.

But the final straw was when Utah went to try to teach himself to surf, nearly drowns, but luckily gets rescued - by the girlfriend of Bodhi, who introduces him to the gang. Sorry, but that was just too far-fetched.

I can't really explain it, since similarly improbable events in other films are accepted quite happily. Or maybe it's that I'm not exactly a Keanu Reeves fan. But I just couldn't get into the film.