Chris_Docker

Marilyn Monroe has the enduring persona that makes everyone want to know something about her. The film "Blonde" has enough glitz, once one has started to watch, to make one keep watching hoping for something pleasant, inspiring, entertaining or informative to come out if it. It doesn't.

The director claims (or defends himself by claiming) that it is "all fiction". Indeed, it was based on a work of fiction, a novel by Joyce Carol Oates of the same name. Yet it names Marilyn Monroe as its central character, the screen name used by Norma Jean and who, under whatever name, was not a work of fiction. It uses the most horrific events (or supposed events) from that person's existence more or less to suggest "this was the sum total of Marilyn Monroe's life".

There is no let up. Apart from a few brief moments of beauty in Arthur Miller's garden, it is a concatenation of misery. There is enough factual detail to make it 'authentic' - in the most tabloid-declamatory way, casually seasoned with large helpings of unerotic gratuitous nudity and constant close-ups - normally used in made-for-TV films - so that one doesn't miss expressions to which long shots would have given contextual clarity on a bigger screen - unsurprisingly as it is destined for the Netflix market.

There is one problem here. Marilyn Monroe was a superstar like no other. One of the most famous actresses of showbiz mythology. An icon that has never been replicated. The film shows only the sleaze. Even the famous and artistically beautiful shot of the white dress blowing up from Some Like it Hot, one of the most enduring images of the 20th century, is quickly reviled as it cuts to Joe DiMaggio beating her up for her 'lack of propriety'.

Most of the trauma in the personal life of Marilyn Monroe is on record. Any that isn't or not very well documented is gleefully extrapolated by director Andrew Dominik as if competing for the audience of the lowest, sleaziest tabloid. "Blonde" is akin to almost three hours of character assassination, as if it were all this great star stood for: the shameful atrocities inflicted upon her. Fortunately Marilyn Monroe is and was greater than that, and will endure longer than Andrew Dominik's shameful, 'fictional' biopic.

The audience doesn't know if Cary Grant's character is really a good guy or an evil schemer until the very last moment. A great tribute to Hitchcock's power as a director. Clear, concise storytelling, not s frame wasted, and superb performances as the two leads carry off their parts to perfection. The basic dynamic has had many copyists since, none as good.

Interesting also from a female perspective is, how male polite charm slid so easily into ordering a woman about and, what was almost as bad, how women in those days put up with it.

Baz Luhrmann's Elvis sets out to give a rough biography of the star and his relationship with a controlling manager. In uncovering some less generally known material it succeeds and, however many shortcuts it takes with historical accuracy, is to be lauded for its efforts. The same goes for the powerhouse performances by Tom Hanks (who plays the manager) and Austin Butler (who plays Elvis). Any shortcomings are clearly in the lap of Mr Luhrmann, and there his brilliance of technique which served him so well in Romeo + Juliet and Strictly Ballroom are here part of the downfall.

In The Great Gatsby, he gave us a 'biopic' based on a fictional character that drew us into the story, much as it does in F. Scott Fitzgerald book upon which it was based. In Elvis however, there is a vast amount of actual data he feels compelled to include, along with multiple visual effects such as split screens and blends. But the real problem is a complete excess of cuts, such that there is barely a shot that lasts more than ten seconds. Although the drama picks up a bit in the last half hour, the dizzying effect of tconstant cuts is that the audience doesn't have time to relax into any one scene and fully identify with the characters.

The second problem is that this was never going to be a happy ending. Hanks' character is overpoweringly manipulative - which is appropriate for the plot - although it does mean the film is more about the manager than the singer. There is no retribution. It becomes reads more like a densely written TV documentary than cinema.

The saving quality is the singing, both in vocal quality and the sentimental value of famous songs. As tension builds up towards the finale we do actually wonder how Elvis could have been pushed around for so long and Hanks provides a very convincing answer. But at over two and a half hours long I could have done with a briefer synopsis and more singing. It was a good plot, but could have been much more enjoyable. To be honest, I couldn't wait for it to end: but given the absence of a modern film about a great singer, many less critical viewers will still be delighted.

Amazing performances from Kidman and Bardem, tight editing, a great script ... except that... for a decidedly feelgood movie for over two hours, it denies the audience a happy ending.

Is it clever? Is it trying to make a point? Is the job of movies to 'educate' us about something? Sorkin maybe tries to hit a certain demographic by lifting the audience up and then sinking them again. But that's not the film promised. You wouldn't write Singin' in the Rain with a suicide or heart-attack or murder or an epitaph to the collapse of the economy at the end. This is not the movie Lucille Ball would have written, not even the one the Lucille Ball of the movie would have written. She knew genre. Mr Sorkin seems to have forgotten.

The futuristic special effects are top notch. Sadly the degree of characterisation necessary to power a fairly static storyline is missing. With limited action, performances need to be riveting in themselves. Imagine Anthony Hopkins as Hari Seldon. Tilda Swinton as Demerzel. Maybe a Mel Gibson as Cleon. These are people that can hold the screen with the slightest word or gesture. Foundation onscreen needs such characterisation as the plot itself is quite dry and action limited for the sake of concept.

Instead of this, producers have introduced fairly trivial backstory interludes of PG romance woke-friendly characters. A child genius out of nowhere - or rather out of a primitive unevolved society and who becomes a galactic class mathematician overnight. A Cleon who is as convincing as an Emperor as might be an overgrown schoolboy. Predictable fillers - the man falling off a ladder is over-queued for the attention-weary - and cliffhangers which are timed to suggest a modicum of plot development. All very manufactured and not very 'Asimov'.

Die-hard fans will be waiting with baited breath for The Mule: the main point of the novels and the challenge to the basic algorithm of the whole plot's 'psycho-history'. It doesn't appear. At least not in the first series. Apparently produces want that in reserve if the series does well enough for a second season. Fast forward on the snooze button, such manipulative programming is maybe unlikely to warm the hearts of many Asimov fans.

This is a well-made if formulaic continuation of a franchise - one that cannot afford a disaster. It has all the elements of fast cars, exciting chases, a contemporary plot intended to strike terror, some attractive ladies and a nice sprinkling of hi-tech.

Daniel Craig does an admirable job with the material given him - the ageing Bond pulled out of retirement - and although it just about covers his physical appearance it falls short elsewhere. What it doesn't have is the original character of Bond as created by Ian Fleming. Bond in his retirement, it seems, has suffered a woke makeover.

I just watched a cracker of an inventive gore shocker. It starts misleadingly like some exploitation flick with a flirtatious girlie who will almost certainly get a pretty bad deal from three macho guys in isolated surroundings (title suggests she'll get her own back etc).

What makes it stand apart for me is the incentive depictions of gory injuries coupled with superb editing to make the audience jump - plus a throbbing soundtrack (no pun intended) that produces an unsettling effect throughout (think Christopher Nolan, Gaspar Noé's Irreversible or Beberian Sound Studio) at least once the intro section has finished. Works best loud or with headphones.

There's a few character holes - for instance, how does a ditzy young woman suddenly turn into fast-witted and resourceful character worthy of a marine; and injuries that would reduce most people to a blubbering mass on a hospital bed are almost brushed off with deft plot developments( yet these are standard for the genre and don't spoil the enjoyment.

Some of the gore is almost Tarantino-esque - Deathproof without the geeky, obscure cinematic references every 60 seconds, sometimes tongue-in-cheek: yet it's the suspense rather than the large amounts of blood that make it mildly spectacular.

Unlike most films that follow a similar 'revenge' theme, the characters are fairly well-developed for an action flick. The desert photography (it was filmed in the Moroccan Sahara) is quite stunning and frames any and all things not sand or rock with vivid immediacy - blood oozing onto desert ants or the sun on a swimming pool in the midst of barren wilderness.

I can't help wondering if a woman in the director's seat was responsible pulling together a taut film that ultimately manages to avoid exploiting either woke 'feminism' or chauvinistic sadism: ultimately it's just a good thriller with plenty of thought rather than excess of CGI.

An ingenious and perfectly executed drama that stays just within the bounds of credibility.

While you could be forgiven after the first episode in thinking that it is a simplistic virtue-signalling plot, Little Fires Everywhere swiftly develops into a multi-faceted and thought-provoking drama.

Characters that at first appear one-dimensional soon unveil a complexity that rivets the viewer's attention. The depth of interwoven threads transform seemingly moral dilemmas into an existential recognition that some things "simply are" rather than having a right and wrong. Each of us exists within a specific and individual social, cultural and temporal milieu striving to develop as best we can within the limits of our intelligence and genetic inheritance.

We see the children, battling with developing hormones, establishing identity and self-dominance within a loving family structure, a woman who tries to follow all the "rules" for helping others, society-created rules that believably and heart-breakingly misfire, a man focussed on playing his part, doing his duty, shouldering the frustration he feels when others "get it wrong", and bonds that seem so close yet are only a hair's breadth from underlying disruption. A little flame burns in the heart of every character. When will it become a blaze?

Little Fires Everywhere ultimately smokes out our hidden preconceptions, shows how anyone can feel isolated and alone even in the midst of love, and offers a devastating blow to the concept of the much wished-for perfect family.

A reassuring bonus is that everything is concluded within a single series. When all is said and done, you know in advance there will be a satisfying finale and with the eighth episode you breathe a heartfelt gasp of consummation as the flames return to the fire of the beginning.

There is possibly very little to add after the lengthy and enlightening review by ThreeSadTigers and the synopsis by Josh Martin, but having found the film inspiring on several different levels feel it is only fair to add a few words.

Firstly, perhaps I am luckier than when it was reviewed some years ago that I was able to see a rather good print streamed from Amazon - though it has to be said that Godard is not generally a slave to print quality preferring, as I think he once said, to make a film to have a discussion with the audience than to entertain.

Like much of Godard, it is not an 'easy' watch as the viewer is bombarded with so many ideas in such rapid succession. One might even wish to use a pause button to go over a few lines and examine the philosophical implications.

Vladimir et Rosa is usually grouped, quite understandably, with the 'political' period of Godard's work, yet it can also be viewed purely as cinematic, just as von Trier's Dogville is a work of art over and above any political interpretations. Godard (again from memory) has even disparaged such a label: the inference being that the material is simply used as a canvas with which to make a film and ask interesting questions. U.S. student protests against the U.S. Vietnam for instance, which form a backdrop to Vladimir et Rosa, are today very old news, and the "oppression of the majority by a minority" can be taken as any minority against a majority, not just within Western capitalism.

Even on a less philosophical level, Vladimir et Rosa has, I think, more accurately been described as a film about the theory of making political films politically.

This is further underlined by examining firstly oppression of black people and then, very acutely, oppression of women. In a most memorable scene, a woman is explaining to a man, presumably her loving partner, that even if he has read the feminist tract she has written, even if he 'understands' it, and even when he reads it out loud, he is not understanding it in the way that she has written or reads it. Sitting behind him, she gently but firmly takes his head in both her hands and instructs him to read it as he were her.

The film is even more relevant today (2020) in the wake of MeToo campaigns, and BlackLivesMatter campaigns -- with many men wanting to support women's rights and many white men and woman wanting to support black men and women's rights. It suggests an almost impossible leap to understand an issue from the opposite viewpoint, and the temerity, even with the best intentions, of claiming to do so in a knee-jerk fashion, especially (but not only) if one is part of the dominant colour/gender. (One could likewise compare it to the LGBT debates).

Is this enduring quality not, rather than the temporal association with the political situation and time depicted in the film, a sign of artistic greatness?

Having said that, anyone *not* familiar with the Chicago 7 (or Chicago 8 depending how they are counted) is well-advised to google it before watching. The film assumes the viewer is conversant with it, and with the political turmoil, protests and sometimes brutal suppression that occurred during that era of American history. History is it, and not a reflection of America generally, even if it is epitomized in the film in order to examine certain themes.

Finally, for enthusiasts who enjoy Godard's constant invention of technique, Vladimir et Rosa doesn't disappoint. From the now familiar Brechtian self-analysis and self-commentary, who else could turn a black screen into a symbolic work of art and justify with the dialogue as it is thrust down the viewer's throat? (In balance, the film also has one or two laugh-out-loud moments.) The words 'theorie' and 'pratique' are emblazoned across the screen and the dialectic continued as Godard and Gorin run back and forth across a tennis court discussing film-making while the bourgeois carry on their game, oblivious.

At one point, quite early on, we are confronted by graffiti written over a Marx Bros. poster saying, "Sometimes the first meaning of a film is not apparent until the second viewing."

Well said.

Bookended by the modern world, Pasolini then transplants classical drama to North Africa. The Sphinx and the Oracle at Delphi are portrayed as slightly ridiculous primitive figures and Oedipus, instead of being an upright individual who commits horrendous acts unknowingly, is a rather unsympathetic character. Sophocles' syuzhet is replaced with a more manageable chronological fabula yet the subtlety of the ancient drama is lost. Must-see bits of gore and sex are amplified yet in one interview Pasolini even admitted that he didn't understand what some of the original text was about - text which he leaves unattributed even if he helps himself to it once Oedipus gets to Thebes. Superficially arty and impressive, this is sadly a major disappointment from the hands of a great director.

Kenneth Branagh has directed some incredibly powerful and faithful adaptations of Shakespeare. Ms Knightly has drawn rapturous praise for portraying the simpering airhead. Neither, sadly, are appropriate for a high octane poor-man's Mission Impossible. As for Mr Pine, the script hardly does him any favours as he hops miraculously from one impossible situation to the next up waves of top Russian hit squads. He's about as convincing as a C.I.A. operative as he was as a Captain Kirk. - which is not at all. Jack Reacher: Shadow Recruit is a trite copy of the standard counter-intelligence film and a rather poor one at that. Honestly fellers, stick to what you're good please, at and save the rest of our more discerning audiences the price of the admission ticket.

The trailer looked ok, at least good enough to spend a couple of hours in a comfortable cinema. Yet writing a brief review I had to look at a backlist to remember films that were quite so bad.

Poor acting, poor editing, drawn-out and paper thin storyline, the movie, if we can call it a movie, is more like a feeble, dramatised whine-song from Mumsnet. One that some sing-along songs by ABBA would at least have improved. The high point is wondering whether the two main (female) characters actually care about each other but, as neither seem particularly worth caring about, neither do we.

It fits the current American tropes of "good-stripper-goes-bad", "they are real people after all", and "even if the sugar-coated fairytale of empowerment begs for sympathy it always leads to degradation and crime". So runs the perfunctory moralising (and one that from a sociological point of view is a very one-sided, even political, interpretation more indicative of the times than any underlying reality).

If you watched Paul Verhoeven "Showgirls" - a film that might be considered among his worst, and compare it to Hustlers, well Showgirls would be an award-winning showstopper. A suitable outlet for Hustlers might be a low budget cable channel where housewives are bored with their knitting.

Jodie Whittaker seems to be handling the challenge of new role really well, in all of the episodes so far. The new coven of writers and directors have come up with good storylines, nicely handled, including a couple of outstanding ones: but why, oh why, do they have to spoil a good sci-fi romp with in-your-face political correctness? Science fiction has a great pedigree for bringing forward social-conscience issues even controversial ones, both in literature and on TV (who remembers Startrek's famous first ever TV inter-racial kiss?). But it is a little off-putting when every episode of Dr Who now finishes with an almost Jerry Springer mentality that preaches a message.

I don't need to be told that it's not machines that are bad, it's people who run them ... or that interfaith marriages are cool ... (and especially certain religions apparently get an extra plug) and so on and so forth ... it's getting almost like an episode of Casualty.

In the previous series, the joke about bisexual Romans was cool, educational, and worthy of stimulating historical interest as well as being politically-correct - but above all it was funny and a natural part of the plot-line. The more blatant virtue-signalling in the new series has I suspect probably come from BBC management and it could eventually spoil the integrity of the whole series and its worldwide high estimation. "And the moral of the story this week children is ...":please cut it out! If the Doctor wants to take up preaching let her do it on her own time, not on-air. Don't talk down to your viewers. Just do what you are really good so people look forward to one of the world's best sci-fi romps ever made, not tuning in to be told how to live their lives. Good luck!

I think we all know that Mr Spielberg knows how to make hit films and his leading actress knows how to act. But is that enough?

This is a film about the freedom of reporters to tell the truth, to hold governments to account and expose wrong-doings of people in high places (specifically in this instance, over the U.S.-VietNam War).

It's a good story, with only a few evasions of accuracy. For instance, C.I.A. whistleblower leaks have demonstrated quite clearly that the C.I.A. were actively misleading presidents and that not all the blame could be placed at the feet of now safely-disgraced feet of persons successively sitting in the White House. Historically, the big heroes were not the Washington Post but the N.Y. Times, although the film manages to sidestep this in its desire to have a female lead, and so be able to focus on the female owner of the Post and thereby cast Ms Streep.

The emotions are painted vividly - some would say far too vividly for an audience fully awake - but the real problem for many would be Ms Streep herself. Not that she doesn't play it well - there are many 'Streep' moments of 'award-worthy' pauses in the midst of self-righteous monologues. Such are those on behalf of the lead character, torn between protecting her own fortune and doing the right thing. The unmistakeable context is that while the film was being made, released and subsequently, Ms Streep had not batted an eyelid at the similar high-level misdemeanours of her friend and political hero, Mrs Clinton, that were exposed in the cables leaked to Wikileaks. Her hatred of the person who won the presidency, justified or not, seemed to take precedence over the support for freedom of information that her on-screen character espouses, and this makes suspension of disbelief so much harder when the actor frequently uses her high profile to become involved in the sort of politics the movie describes. On-screen, her character supports transparency and the people who produce it. One might think that off-screen she would at least pay tribute to the present-day 'Washington Post' whistleblower, Julian Assange, instead of such vocal support for the people that her on-screen character would have stood up against.

One doesn't expect movie stars to be their characters, but they choose their films and when then go on to portray themselves in the glory of such great characters (but making the opposite decisions) it rather trnds to reduce my enjoyment.

It was a great story, and Spielberg tells a great story. But on such a big issue that still faces us today, one can only wish the film had perhaps been handled by a director who has not only skill in his or her art, maybe using a deft palette knife instead of a trowel; but above all the moral courage and sophistication to tie the story more poignantly to current events.

Assante's Odyssey is a minor triumph in more ways than one. As a cracking good adventure it will already have been reviewed many times. What is perhaps worth adding is its possible interest to those approaching Homer's Odyssey or even the Iliad (preferably in that order) for the first time.

It is not, of course, a blow-by-blow film of the very lengthy Homeric poem, but as dramatisation go, it is a worthwhile introduction to the characters at a basic level. It doesn't 'Westernise' the Greek mythology to fit tastes dictated by the likes of Disney, or make the ancient Greek Gods silly and ridiculous. We see Odysseus inspired to intelligent courage by the Goddess Athena (wonderfully played by Isabella Rossellini), and this will contrast for the student with the great but unthinking bravery of Hector (in the Iliad). Rossellini combines the qualities of blue-eyed beauty without a hint of soppiness. Hermes edifies with technical insights in a perfectly detached way. Thus the Gods are both external realities and that which inspires and strengthens specific internal values.

The devotion of Odysseus to his beautiful wife Penelope is both subjected to his strong sense of duty (in the bigger picture, from oaths made to his fellow men) and, if that seems uncaring, shown in the strength by which he chooses to return to her even after he is offered the choice of that or immortality.

As far as a mainstream film goes, it at least attempts to tell the story within the ethos of ancient Greek values. But there is another benefit to seeing it. That is, Homer is so long, so dense, and with so many characters, that although one can gain an intellectual appreciation by reading it, a dramatisation helps the reader to identify and understand the characters emotionally, dynamically, wand this brings out the force of the relationships.

Assante has tried, and to some extent succeeded, in bringing out the taste of ancient Greece in a way not dissimilar to what Christian Jacq, in his novels, did for ancient Egypt's New Kingdom period. Well worth a watch!

Although it should be clear from the synopsis, this is not a film about Ramesses II -- at least to any great - but about the archeological story of recovering and preserving his remains. It has several very interesting stages, the archeologists, persons and processes concerned, and bringing him right up to date in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo.

Like many modern documentaries, the facts presented in the film could be condensed into a ten-minute news item but are instead expanded into colouful, nicely re-enacted scenes to make it more entertaining.

Opening credits show that it was made with the participation of Egyptologists Christian Leblanc (Research Director CNRS) and Salima Ikram (American University in Cairo); and an anthropologist, Andre Macke.

The film is a pleasant mix of needing to document the remarkable history and discoveries in a format that is at once accessible and long lasting, while also making it entertaining and informative enough for a general audience.

What should have been a great movie fell short even in the hands of the great Walter Lang. Instead of sparkling with many great song-and-dance routines it tends to slump, overloaded with far too many numbers at the expense of plot. The wonderful Donald O'Connor performs some of his comedic routines: but he worked best as a second lead, not the lead in a film. Monroe is clearly the star, but it is as if she has been reluctantly shoe-horned in instead of building the film around her. Much of the acting and script is pedestrian, and Ethel Merman's singing is bearable until we are treated to too many rather average songs and reprises. Monroe's appearances, for all the constant razzamatazz, are easily the most memorable, and possibly not so much because of outstanding on her part but as a welcome breath of fresh air amid the rather lacklustre cacophony.

By the time I saw I, Daniel Blake, it had already won 8 awards including three at Cannes. The subject matter, about two people who are on the brink and failed by social services, hardly sounds like a great night out. (We know there are people worse off: do we really want to pay £10 to have our noses rubbed in it?)

Spurred on by glowing reviews and suppressing a thought that the money might be better spent giving it to charity, I went along, not least inspired by the fact that the screening was to feature 'a discussion with a panel' afterwards. Perhaps the film would challenge us to come up with good ideas . . .

The last two films by the great (and he is great, in his way) Ken Loach that I've seen I've found thoroughly enjoyable. Carla's song was original, surprising and inspiringly insightful. My Name is Joe was gritty but edged with enough humour to hold attention effortlessly. With I, Daniel Blake, Loach uses all his not inconsiderable directorial skill to give an emotional punch to a current outrage: the failing of the U.K. benefits system to help people who are very seriously too ill to work or made homeless with young children to feed and clothe. Loach makes his point well and there is hardly a dry eye in the theatre: but what exactly is he trying to do here?

If the film had been screened on television. it might have had the social impact of a 'Cathy Come Home' than a 'Poor Cow.' The cinema, in spite of it being a special event, was more than half empty. Several MPs and voluntary workers lined up on the stage to make their heartfelt speech. Sadness gives way to suppressed anger: but neither emotions are in themselves a solution.

I sat through half an hour of deeply-felt righteousness from the panel, hoping that there would indeed be time for a 'discussion' and mentally prepared what I felt could be a constructive exchange. Whoever is running the government or social services, there is only a set amount of money in the pot. No-one has found a way of implementing a good solution to social inequality. The message between the lines however was, "It is really terrible", "People must be treated with respect" (which turned out to be inventing another politically correct phrase for desperate people), "I want the other politicians to see this film!" (to do what? -- a good point but it was a politician that put it forward and someone, somewhere, at some point, has to come up with *ideas* instead of ways to make others feel guilty/ashamed/sad/angry). The underlying message seemed to be "Look at us (i.e. volunteers), we are working so hard" (agreed and hats off, but there is still a problem isn't there?); or from politicians, subtly, it is all their (i.e. the *other* political party's) fault, or (this screening being in Scotland) "It is all Wesminster's fault."

None of this should detract from Loach's accomplishment in packing a powerful punch to make his point. That was *his* job. Endless wailing by others after watching the film doesn't really add to it.

A great movie in many ways but, Mr Loach, please remember you are a filmmaker, a talented one, and your movies are (unfortunately) not going to change the world.

No-one can deny the superb acting or Boyle's talent in this film. Yet even if it is admittedly "not a documentary" it seems a shameful use of someone's name, a vicious character assassination on one of the greatest minds of recent times and whose genius changed so much in the world. Almost any of the fact-checks now available demonstrate that the key emotional and historical events are untrue, untruths that characterise the film and try to redact the world of Steve Jobs. Boyle has done some great films, he did a great job as artistic director of the London Summer Olympics as well, but this movie is no gift to humanity. Vindictive, spiteful and an attempt to destroy the name of someone who was and will still be an inspiration to millions, Boyle can only hope that it will be forgotten, or written off as a rather sad, ill-judged attempt to cream publicity off a person who was much greater than he could ever be.It should be remembered as "Ad Hominen Jobs."

While it will not please everybody, Kurzel's treatment of a familiar story is little short of spectacular, gripping the spectator emotionally and visually.

There have been many treatments of the semi-fictional yet inspiring Shakespearean saga of ambition and corruption, with famous actors and directors from the earliest days of cinema. In 1971, Polanski injected new life in the tale by depicting the grimness of the early Scottish landscape and the violent and brutality of events from the play. Although Polanski made an effort towards faithfulness of the words written by the Bard, bringing a grittiness to the screen that could hardly be achieved on stage, Kurzel in one sense goes a stage further, completely accepting that cinema is a different medium and that faithfulness to the spirit of a story can be fulfilled in many dimensions.

From the very opening scenes, before hardly a word has been spoken, Kurzel uses visual images of desperate conditions, a child's death, a youngster preparing for war, to heighten our emotional sensitivity. When spoken words begin, there is little attempt to 'make Shakespearean English understandable' in the normal way. True to the story, he uses heavy Scottish accents, forcing the viewer to follow what is happening visually, and the emotional journeys become a tsunami.

Superb acting shows Macbeth as an initially good, loyal, man, the three witches not as bat-boiling hags but as sincere, folklorish women, and the future Lady Macbeth as devoted, loving and kind (if a bit misguided). All this fits with reasonable history of the period and the story generally. The unsophisticated Macbeth is loyal to his king, but allows his wife (who wants him to succeed in life) to influence him against his better judgment. Her unravelling, as she witnesses the monster that her husband has become (at her bidding) is a transformation effected by Marion Cotillard in one of the most remarkable female performances of the year.

As long as you have a passing idea of the story, it is easy enough to follow by focussing on the emotions of the characters. There is no need of the usual cinematic markers of overblown heroism and evil deeds to delineate good and evil (although there are plenty of evil deeds as well, some of them clothed in sweetness and piety). We can see for ourselves, in the subtle expressions and choices, as a pure heart becomes corrupt, and as evil takes root until the person no longer knows themself.

The contrast between the old king and Macbeth in power also touches on broader themes: that leaders can embody things that all men and women aspire to, such as honesty, recognition of others, kindness and a better future for all. When these are lacking, most people no longer love and identify with their king but merely think of staying alive, being a bit better off materially, or going home to their family.

Kurzel finds novel ways of dealing with the big supernatural events that strike us as entirely credible without the use of special effects and even manages to add a new interpretation to the famous 'Birnham Wood'. The stunning climax might suggest modern day lessons of tolerance over the heated Scottish independence question; and the final footage is used not to amaze in typical blockbuster style but to tear at one's heart and guts as we consider the horrors visited on innocent men and children by the unleashed greed and ambition that was as unstoppable as it was unintended.

One cannot make a film like this which breaks the mold without upsetting those that seek straightforward entertainment. Yet this is, in some sense at least, Shakespeare: those that only go for battle scenes and the story on a plate may leave feeling distinctly unsatisfied.

I never did quite 'get' Dali. All those contortions. Grotesque shapes. Stunted creatures. Then one day I saw clues. His 'melting pocket-watch' (The Persistence Of Memory) was not just a silly timepiece, bent out of shape like wax melting off a table. It was the fluidity of time, how we perceive time in different ways. When we have fun (for instance) and time seems to speed up. When we're bored, and it slows.

Our inner experience of time is affected by our perception. Our focus, our mental state, it makes a big difference. We are similarly affected by how things are presented externally. Trees flashing past so quickly they are almost a blur. Have you ever been on a train as it traverses a wooded hill? But see the same trees from the hilltop and their majesty and poetry become evident. In both cases, perhaps there is no absolute 'reality' – only different ways of perceiving it. At any one second, our senses are overloaded with more data than our consciousness allows. It is less a case of 'seeing what is really there' - but of exerting control over our selection process, our filtering, and deciding what data to take time to consciously process; and what our conscious mind ignores.

Perception is, for Godard, an enduring theme. Speed it up, slow it down. The camera mimics the process of visual perception. It chooses what to observe, and how. It 'tells' us what to think. Can cinema, by its careful control of simulated perception, increase our understanding of 'how' we perceive things? Or alert us to the possibility that there is 'more' in front of our eyes than we might have assumed on that busy day? The nominal plot revolves around a three characters. A filmmaker called Godard. Denise, a writer/editor trying to make a career change. And Isabelle, a prostitute (Isabelle Huppert) trying to better herself. Godard and Denise are in the painful process of ending a relationship. He is also going through a tough time with his ex-wife and daughter. Denise sees Isabelle being abused in the street. Isabelle sleeps with Godard after going to a movie with him. She wants to get a new place to live – even phoning about a flat during a bizarre sex scene - and she wants to work for herself instead of the pimp. Not knowing Godard is the landlord, she visits their cottage up for rent as Godard throws himself across the table at Denise.

Three wildly different life trajectories. Intersecting in ways that allow the film to challenge accepted notions. Toying with the nature of perception. And even asking how we get to where we want to be in life – or not. Separate chapters - after the intro sequences - for each character. Then 'Music' brings all three together. (Look out for unusual sound tropes as well.) Slow Motion – by whatever name we call it – is almost as conventional as Godard gets. While the narrative is far from mainstream, it is a more recognisable cinema experience than much of his most challenging (or didactic, uncommercial) work. And it provides material to sustain many repeated viewings.

The film includes about 15 'stop-action' shots, where the image is stopped completely, slowed down, replayed, and/or speeded up. We don't just analyse images outside of their diegetic function: we are able to invent a parallel diegesis. It is almost like the break-up of a relationship where a man and woman see 'reality' from totally different perspectives. Godard deconstructs his own maxim of 'truth 24 times per second' by varying the speeds. Outwardly hollow moments contain more than might otherwise meet the eye. It is not the subject matter and characters that demand Brechtian analysis, to become aware of our spectator involvement, so much as the process of perception itself. In a scene where an executive orchestrates a scenario with two prostitutes and another man, we are again confronted with complex metaphor, ("Okay," he says, "we've got the image, now we'll take care of the sound.") But here, the symbol of prostitution is not playing into the Marxist-bourgeois analogy so commonly used by Godard in films such as 2 Or 3 Things I Know About Her. In the debauchery, we can see the construction processes and their perception, the images, the sound, used to no specific purpose other than gratification – thus mimicking the production of mindless entertainment in Hollywood consumerist cinema.

Compounding such stop-motion tropes is the use of interior dialogue. Isabelle plays out another life in her head while having sex with clients. What do we choose to 'see'? To hear? Comparison of the prostitution scenes and the scenes where natural, spontaneous sexuality is apparent or implied, coupled with the 'selection' process we make when determining how we 'see' things, might reflect not only on how men and women (or any two people) can be 'in tune' – but also, with different emphases affecting the data-perception process, the very gender difference apparent when we look at how men and women might typically view things differently. There might be life apart from the diegetic one. We might choose what we perceive to be 'real' – but ultimately we make our own reality.

Dehumanization occurs when a person is not able to order their life according to their will. At that point, the individual has become a slave to the senses rather than their master. One might not be able to change the territory in which one finds oneself – but, by standing back far enough to discern the wood from the trees, one might at least find new perceptions that can be converted to reality.

Are you easily distracted? When I first watched Gaspar Noé's 2002 film, Irreversible, I sat near the screen and found the cacophony of images overpowering. On my second viewing, I sat further back, more easily contemplating the 'bigger picture,' appreciating a remarkable film. Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway,' suggests a similar psychology in her 'stream-of-consciousness' where writing emulates experience: we need to step back before we can tell, what is the pertinent information? what is the story about? In real life, we may only see things in true proportion retrospectively.

This psychological hurdle forcefully confronts us in Hélas Pour Moi. I strongly urge you to see it twice if possible. The story is more logical and flowing when you know what is happening. You can appreciate the many subtleties, and the exquisite cinematography of Caroline Champetier. Failing that, I would recommend sitting at the rear of the auditorium.

We meet a publisher, Abraham Klimt. He has turned detective to investigate a strange story sent to him of divine intervention, though part of the manuscript is missing. We catch up with Klimt as he seeks out Simon and Rachel Donnadieu, our main characters, as well as the one witness who maybe saw the key event: did God take human form to have sex with Rachel, by inhabiting the body of Simon, her husband? We are subject to the same sort of events-discordance, people coming and going, conversations overlapping, as Klimt might, as he searches for truth in an unhelpful environment. This non-sequitur approach goes on for ages, and only in the last 30 minutes or so of footage does the story congeal for a first time viewer.

It re-works a play based on the legend of Zeus, Alcmene and her husband Amphitryon. In the Ancient Greek, the divine Zeus takes the human form of Amphitryon to mate with Amphitryon's betrothed. In the original, this leads to the birth of Heracles, born of divine father and human mother. But in Godard's modern setting, the story just goes as far as sexual union. God, once known as Zeus, now seems more Christian, and by implication can even lead us to question the veracity of the standard Mary-and-Joseph story. Klimt has no preconceptions: he just wants the truth.

There is no strong statement on whether one should believe in divine intervention, or just go for the more obvious explanation: that Simon, although estranged, is feeling horny, he suffers an obsession, and assumes a divine persona which the ever-devoted Rachel believes. "All men are the shadow of God to the women who love them." (We do however, see a low-budget and highly effective scene where God, looking rather scruffy and unkempt, enters Simon's body.) Godard called Hélas pour Moi "a complete flop." Yet, while difficult and obscure, it garnered critically praise and was his first feature to be distributed in the U.S. for ten years. Depardieu (who plays Simon) abandoned the film halfway through shooting, exasperated at Godard's methods. "It could have been a good movie," said Godard, "if Depardieu was willing to try. But he was not interested in the movie, in working to make it right. Of course, he said, 'Godard is a genius.' He was just making it for my name." But without Depardieu, the film would not have been financed.

Hélas pour Moi is replete with dozens of obscure references (from French and Italian literature, from philosophy, from theology) and quotations have sometimes been 'edited' by Godard. This makes it a particularly difficult film even if it wasn't so already. In the jangling, difficult-to-watch first two-thirds, apparently discordant ideas and images are set against the beautiful backdrop of nature and Lake Geneva. Such style is intrinsic to the content. "I feel a strange revulsion at the thought of crudely expressing what the spectator has probably guessed of his own accord," says Klimt, but it could have been from Godard's own lips.

For a while, I wonder if the film will develop into a polemic against religion – no stranger to Godard's virulence – perhaps replacing it with Art as the highest of aspirations. Yet, "there is always something depressing about the portrayal of crude reality," and belief is heralded in what could be interpreted as a positive light when a character asserts, "I believe because it is absurd." When logic fails, after all, we are left with belief. And what is truth? "Truth is what keeps the walls of houses upright, what keeps the roofs from collapsing." This is just one reading. We could view the film as an essay on human feelings. An enquiry into sexual union as an aspect of communicating with God (Rachel likens the gesture of hands in prayer to hands folded in an embrace around one's lover.) Or how an artist seeks meaning in the world. Or we can follow the poetry of Champetier's photography, enjoying the way subjects are framed in nature, focused and de-focused, and the beauty of the moment as a bicycle falls over, or a woman's hat blows off. As a feminist study, or as the way history (and literature) is created and redacted: the French words 'histoire (history) and 'histoires' (stories) being symbiotic for Godard - who entitled his history of cinema 'Histoire(s) du Cinéma.' Metaphysical aspects are drawn together in the opening, and in the final coda, halfway through the credits. These skilfully harmonise Godard's ideas on the nature of perception and the evanescent nature of truth.

"When my father's father's father had a difficult task to accomplish, he went to a certain place in the forest, lit a fire, and immersed himself in silent prayer. And what had to be done was done." The ritual was diluted over time. "But we do know how to tell the story." Never shy at innovation, Godard tells his story in a new, deep and meaningful way.

The autumn chill hits, and it's a good time for horror movies...

Sinister comes from the people who gave us Paranormal Activity and also The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. Only it's a little more... sinister. Found footage of snuff movies heralds its adult credentials before you've had time to choke on the nachos or splutter salsa over the person in front. Copy picture A family is murdered. Months later, comeback writer Ellison Osborne moves into the house with his family. In the attic, he discovers a box of tapes that includes footage of many murders. Unbeknown to his family, he has chosen the house in order to research a true-crime novel. Having only had one bestseller, he sees this as his lucky break, his chance to write his In Cold Blood. The children start to act strangely and his good wife freaks out on him when she discovers the real reason they are living there.

Ethan Hawke, as Ellison, and lovely Shakespearean actress Juliet Rylance playing his wife, Tracy, immediately strike us as realistic characters worthy of belief and empathy. Their convincing personas have more depth than the average shock- flick, and we are sorely tempted to consider whether this at heart might be a psychological thriller of Hitchcockian nastiness. Yet if the trailer hasn't given everything away, we are transported into a dark world of malignant forces the minute Ellison discovers a strange symbol repeated on the death tapes. Strong supporting acts appear in the form of a local police deputy – who changes from doting fanboy to calm, collected criminologist; and a little later Professor Jonas – the expert on bizarre cults. The professor makes this Babylonian demon 'Bagul' sound so realistic that you could be forgiven for wondering if Sinister is based on a true story, with Mansonesque worshippers helping Bagul to find souls of children to feast on.

More lost footage. More creaks and bumps in the Osborne family's almost endless night. Ellison is losing the plot, but we are barely a knife-edge ahead of him. Cue cute kids, cue creepy kids, cue dead kids. Sinister will shortly become shriek-out-loud horror. As well as creeping inside your head on the way home, insidious horror. Polished production values handle clichéd camera jerks with admirable restraint. What we can see and know on-screen is nasty; what we don't know is even more unsettling. Perhaps pausing only to admire the exquisite backing tracks and diligently applied sound effects, we soon realise we are hooked on trying to solve the mystery: who was the killer? Sinister's dark humour is equally discreet. Rather than being played for quick laughs, it emphasises the fear experienced by our protagonists. When Ellison is threatened by a Cujo-sized dog, he speaks soothingly, gently, while muttering a desire for the baseball bat to smash its skull in. And during a row with his wife, he says he hasn't 'really' brought them to house where murder was committed, since our crime occurred 'in the garden' ("As if that makes any difference!" Tracy explodes.) Horror films sometimes work by challenging us to confront the things we abhor, and all from the safety of a cinema seat. Whether physical (mass murderers), mental (psychological threats) or psychical (supernatural happenings), horrors on a movie-screen do not have to be real – just real enough to remind us of something that could be. Our inner demons. The things we fear most. It could be said the 'ghost' haunting Ellison Osborne, his creeping, sweating, drink-sozzled paranoia, is evoked by his frankly unsavoury and obsessive career, his life's dream, that is in reality destroying the family that he loves and frightening his children. As with Frankenstein before him, Ellison's monstrosities might be partly of his own making. It might be tempting to see the monster as a reflection of him. Yet the very visible on-screen ghosts are nevertheless small works of art that capture our senses. That, and the gut- churningly self-assured, unexpected and irresistibly compelling ending swiftly sweep aside mundane interpretations.

Given the effort put into getting it right, a part of me would still have loved to see a police psychiatrist in the coda explaining how everything really happened. An ultimate reliance on the supernatural is fine for horror fans, but inevitably weakens mainstream impact. (Imagine Norman Bates had summoned his mother back from the dead instead of just putting a wig on.) Sinister is far too derivative to be accorded a big place in cinema history; but this souped-up, low-budget compendium of dread is still more satisfying than most horror films that graced our screens this summer.

What is This Film Called Love? takes the viewer on a flamboyant, colourful, iconoclastic journey of three days through Mexico City – or three days inside the head of its creator, quirkily comical film connoisseur, Mark Cousins.

There's much sleight of hand, including changing gender and raising Eisenstein from the dead. But it's all done (quite remarkably, beautifully, and in near HD) on a small Flip camera costing a hundred quid. It's inventive and mesmerising, cunningly shot, heavily edited, wittily scripted and charms us into finding simple acts such as a man getting on and off a bus rather mesmerising.

To achieve this, Cousins uses his well-trodden alter-ego of an adolescent on a Kerouac-style ramble. He constantly makes the ordinary sound interesting and, for at least half of the movie I held my breath to see what was going to come next. Each shot is exquisitely composed, often with rather boyish self-congratulation, such as when he compares his 'typical' camera angles with those of the great Eisenstein. But, if you have glanced through Cousins' wonderfully erudite yet readable book, The Story of Film, and hoped to gain some insights into the work of the great Sergei Eisenstein (a pioneering Russian filmmaker from about 100 years ago) you'll be disappointed. The closest we perhaps get is to view the delightful montage techniques in Cousins' film as a tribute to Eisenstein's work. But the 'influence' could be called superficial: Eisenstein used montage to make a point, whereas Cousins just wants to have fun. But when the amusingly egotistical Cousins carries a photo of Eisenstein around Mexico City talking to it, or goes running naked through the American desert, we are inclined to forgive the ladishness of such name-dropping.

Eisenstein is the main other 'character,' but Cousins doesn't stop there. When he hints that his style is based on Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness technique, the humour reminds me more of Sascha Baron Cohen. A bit like saying a Madras-flavour pot-noodle is based on the fine Indian cuisine. Unfortunately, we sense that beneath it all Cousins is taking himself seriously. Residents of Stuttgart might be equally unimpressed with his throwaway, factual inaccuracies about the philosopher, Hegel. It is someone who is genuinely an expert in one area (cinema) posing as an intellectual in another, and trying to brush it off with false modesty.

In some ways it is still forgivable. Think of poetry, and this film resembles poetry. Think of song lyrics – that most unaccountable sort of poetry. And think of Bob Dylan who (by his own account) selected names and phrases from a prestigious shelf of books he had never read. Who cares? Highway 61 Revisited was still an inspiring set of songs, and What is This Film Called Love could be equally inspiring to the right young mindset. Jack Kerouac for the iPhone age. Except the film hasn't the depth or weight of Kerouc. The wittering about ecstasy has one of the most insightful moments of the film - pondering the etymology – ex stasis, hence a 'going away from' the state of standing still. Yet it feels like a Christian rock band singing of the joys of sex and drugs. There's a point where the author surely has to live the dream before inviting us in, and a bottle of Mexican beer plus a few veiled references to drugs is hardly a William Rice Burroughs friendly battle with the devil.

PJ Harvey's almost funereal 'To Bring You My Love' explodes two-thirds of the way through the movie and does suggest we might get some depth or seriousness, but the promise quickly fades as it goes back to laconic meandering and sleight of hand in the dialogue (his gender change merely being one of viewpoint). What some will enjoy (and others find infuriating) is the stylishness of technique. Almost every shot is like a picture essay on how to frame or use the camera inventively. The dialogue is self-referentially Brechtian in new and exciting ways. Delivery and timing is impeccable – rather like his illustrated lecture (on Cinema and Creativity) in Edinburgh, where it turns out that the film made in Edinburgh wasn't made in Edinburgh at all. Like the pop-science writer Jonah Lehrer (who Cousins speaks of almost as if he were a guru), Cousins can be inspiring, his enthusiasm contagious; even if some of his details don't seem to stand up well to scrutiny. But if you are enjoying the ride enough, this shouldn't bother you.

There were two main flaws in this movie for me. One was of my own making, that of expectation. To think that Mark Cousins, whose book I loved, would have something worth-while to say about (for instance) Eisenstein. The second is its near absence of plot. Even a semi-documentary needs some sort of point to hang it on, and this has very little – beyond being quite enjoyable while it lasts.

What defines us? Or, what defines anything, for that matter? Is it a dictionary definition or our composite understanding that defines? A Married Woman (Une Femme Mariée) is perhaps better understood with reference to its original title, The Married Woman. Our opening scene is merely two lovers. A Man. A Woman. Photographed with immaculate perfection, shorn of erotic or personal overtones, each shot encapsulates the beauty and symmetry of an exquisite fashion ad – say, maybe, Chanel. Only after a few moments do we find out who these two individuals – impeccably framed by Raoul Coutard – are in real life. Assuming they are lovers, yes, but we find that Charlotte is a married woman. Her lover is Robert, an actor.

Just as 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her viewed the world through the eyes of commodification, so does Une Femme Mariée view it through the superficiality of advertising. The usual love triangle of a man and two women is turned on its head by giving Charlotte (Macha Méril) two men between whom she cannot choose. Her aspiration to be perfect is measured in terms of messages sent by 60's women's magazines and other media defining the 'ideal woman' – whose main aim, it seems, should be to please her husband. Charlotte measures the position of her breasts, listens to a record on how a woman can improve her marriage (it consists of vacuous female laughter), and is expert at seeming light while keeping both men on the back foot. She sees herself as an object of desire by both Robert and husband Pierre and practices superficiality to perfection. She also, however, seems far from dim-witted when giving either of them a grilling.

It is easy to become divided over this film. One can view it as trite, a Godard cast-off, or one can admire the cinematic poetry, the precision with which it delivers its point and its critique of the institution of marriage. It almost goes as far as to suggest that such emptiness is the lot of 'The Married Woman.' (The title was changed at the censor's insistence, who found the definite article disparaging to French women generally. A topless scene was also chopped.) "I love you too, Pierre. Often not the way you believe, but it's sincere." While men's underwear adverts are just plain photos, adverts for women's lingerie are accompanied by unrealistic promises of what they will deliver in a woman's love life (mostly, of course, in terms of a man's pleasure). At one point, Charlotte is standing next to a gigantic brassiere advert, and it is touchingly clear that society made the image more important than the individual.

Each of our main characters has a monologue, but we additionally hear Charlotte's internal monologue. When she has had sad thoughts, she repeats to herself, "I'm happy . . . I'm happy . . . I'm happy," as if the mantra will translate into reality. When she learns from the doctor that she is three months' pregnant (to whom?), her internal voice tells her, "Find a solution . . .. Save appearances." She continues to rely quite effectively on the character she has become, now telling each man how much she loves him, all the while skilfully testing him. It is almost as if primitive instinct to secure a hunter-provider takes over. Although Charlotte admits to the doctor she is scared, she doesn't lose her inner composure even once in the whole movie. She might even be shouting, but we can believe it is part of her dexterous womanish wiles – quite ironic, given that she presses Robert to define acting and say exactly how it is different to real life. Only once does she falter, tripping and falling in the road as she leaves the doctor's surgery. When I look back on a film that is almost devoid of real emotion, it is a heart-rending moment.

Apart from intertitles, and jump-cuts to juxtapose intertextual media with narrative, other cinematic tricks include switching between positive and negative photographic images and superimposing summaries. Charlotte eavesdrops on two teenagers as they discuss what a man does during the loss of one's virginity. Salient point appear in small grey letters over the image (for instance, "Je dors avec un garçon"), perhaps showing how Charlotte reduces everything to its minimalist formula. For those that find the film itself as empty as the subject matter, one need only to look at the extended references to Racine (in Berenice, where Racine similarly makes something out of nothing for a similarly helpless protagonist), or Moliere, who answered critics by saying that, to prevent sin, theatre purifies love.

Perhaps Cahiers critic Jean-Louis Cornolli summed it up best when he described Une Femme Mariée as "a film about a woman's beauty and the ugliness of her world." Macha Méril credits it with striking a blow for women's rights at a time when the pill was still illegal in France.