StevieGB

the way they brought the gay characters forward and used a new black character to challenge the foursome's blinkered and self-obsessed view of the world. And the way it never dragged for a single moment during its whole two and a half hours. And the way it decided not to let very much happen at all so that it became about the characters, after all, who wants a story these days? And the way they did the pooh joke, oh I was rolling around laughing at that one. To think that they nearly messed it up totally by making an overlong, unfunny movie where nothing happens to a bunch of totally self-obsessed characters, and where the gay characters have a total of about two lines so as not to upset the audience in the southern states by their just being there, and introducing a black character just as vapid as the four leads in order to appeal to the black demographic.

Let's face it, De Palma's made a lot of movies and most of them have been awful. That they look good is neither here nor there. Most adverts look good. You don't pay to watch them, though. Or lose two hours of your life. The film is a long, meandering mess. Those who read the book will be astounded at how bad it is, everyone else will just wonder why anyone bothered. The leads are too pretty, the dialogue wooden and explanatory, and it's 45 long minutes before Elizabeth Short turns up. The book was about obsession. I haven't a clue what the film is about.

Someone should tell De Palma that to make a good film you need to do a little bit more than breathe on the lens and get female cast members to undress.

Poor Elizabeth Short. She was real and she deserved better than this.

What is wrong with everyone? This is an awful film. It's just a collection of references to other films (does spotting their sources make you feel clever?), some technically impressive but soulless animation and a publicity department working overtime. It would have taken just as much time, effort and money for them to make a good film, so why didn't they? As always it's the script that no one can be bothered with. Next time get the story right BEFORE you book the talent and facilities. If I'd been connected with this film I'd be embarrassed, but I suppose I'd laugh it off in a 'yeah, maybe, but look how much I got paid' way. Is there any way I can get my money back?

When people talk about the infantilisation of the cinema audience this is the sort of thing they're talking about. They've spent a lot of time and money on it, and some (though not all) of the effects are good, but as a drama it's a failure. This is not art, and it never could be. Art tells us about the experience of life; this does nothing of the sort. The goodies are good and the baddies are bad (and ugly); these are not complex, conflicted characters, but comic book cut outs. It's an Athena poster come to life. Much of the acting is awful. The dialogue is embarrassing. The comic relief scenes are worse even than those in Shakespeare. The story ends half an hour before the film which, except when the battle scenes are underway, is agonisingly slow and ponderous. A supermodel of a film: flashily dressed and good looking but not much upstairs.

Imagine a situation where a film company wants your money but can't be bothered to make a movie. Laziness prevails. But they have to produce something. So you end up with a movie produced in the filmic equivalent of an essay crisis. Only technically does it pass for a film: it's shot on film stock, there are some actors, they say things.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Two Weeks Notice".

In the UK Channel 4 used to show Homicide but gave up on the whole project about four years ago and never showed series 7 or the movie. Now, thanks to the Hallmark Channel, UK viewers have had a chance to see the whole series from beginning to end and the final movie.

To me, the movie doesn't really work. The story is just an excuse to bring the characters back together and frankly misfires a little, having one of the show's best, Giardello, out cold for most of its length and unable to interact with anyone. I was also a little uncomfortable with the appearance of Adina Watson, given that the case was based on a real life tragedy. Still, it was nice to see Jon Polito and Daniel Baldwin back from the dead.

Season 7 turned out to be far better than I was expecting, having read some fairly awful things about it on the internet. The final episode wrapped things up beautifully, mirroring and reversing the events of the very first as Tim Bayliss packed his things and quietly walked out of the Unit. The movie just wasn't needed.

I'm writing this in the UK. Season 2 isn't over yet (we've just had the whole divorce lawyer thing) but I think the best of this series has been done. Season 1 was shaky but it finally got where it was going by the end with a stunning final episode, and season 2 picked up the torch and ran with it. UNTIL the flashback episode, about half way through the season, which flatly contradicted a lot of the material in season 1's first episode, and looks like an attempt to clean up the characters for mass consumption, especially Vic Mackey. Remember NYPD Blue? Great first series, then everyone started holding a good thought for each other. This is going the same way. In the first episode Mackey is corrupt, adulterous, and a murderer; it's what makes him interesting and the show different. If he gets turned into a man who's made a few errors of judgement (though is nevertheless a bit of a ladies' man) the whole thing's going to go down the toilet. Beware.

This is one of those odd films where the practical limitations involved in shooting the story are constantly visible on screen. The best example is the opening shot of the occupying German forces marching in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Except for them, the place is absolutely deserted. That, and the low level of background light, can't help but suggest a 5am shoot. The thing is, this is apparent throughout the film. Whether a scene is set in Marseille, Lyon, Paris or London, the streets are all deserted except for the characters actively involved in the scene. When we see Lino Ventura wondering through London we see only his head and shoulders and the tip of Nelson's column behind him. (UK viewers will also notice a shot of some double yellow lines, which weren't introduced until well after the end WWII).

The acting is good, Lino Ventura especially, but eventually you realise you're watching some French wish-fulfillment about the occupation and the resistance. When one of the resistance is caught and tortured, they decide to try and free or kill him in order to end his suffering: the idea that he would break under torture is dismissed out of hand.

The film does have a couple of good moments, the best of which is the clumsy execution of a collaborator near the beginning of the film. For once Melville thinks through in detail and the scene works brilliantly; everything works against them - they've never done it before, the walls are paper thin so he can't be shot, the only decent knife is with their driver who's miles away. The film is also quite funny in places.

But overall you're left with a sense of brave people doing empty romantic gestures which achieve nothing (e.g. Jean-Pierre Cassell getting himself arrested and tortured so that he can deliver a suicide pill to his friend).

Maybe it's this way of thinking that got them invaded in the first place.

The original Solaris makes 2001 look like Sesame Street; unfortunately the remake makes Sesame Street look like the original Solaris. This is a great shame. I love the original. I hate the remake. It's an idiot's guide, everything has been boiled down and battered and chewed up so that a younger and less patient audience can easily digest it. If you wanted to remake Solaris as an episode of the Twilight Zone this is what you would boil the story down to. The original had a love story in it but it was not a love story.

And the original was a piece of cinema. It told its story in pictures. In the remake, once Kelvin arrives at Solaris, no one shuts up. There's a constant yammering explanation of what is going on. Everything has to be explained. It's the difference between 2001 and 2010. Sometimes mystery is better.

Forgetting the original, does it work as a stand alone movie? Again, it's not visual enough, you could do the script as it stands on the radio and no one would be lost. As for the acting? Clooney is Clooney, nice looking and can move about without bumping into the furniture, but there's always something missing from the man on screen: he lacks emotional weight. Natasha McElhone? Awful. The flashback scenes where she and Clooney are falling in love are an embarrassment. It's as though she's trying to break the world grinning record. Then she stops grinning and you know things can't be good. And as for Jeremy Davis? I think the man's been watching Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now once too often. A bad second-hand reminder of someone else's performance.

Plus points? The photography's nice. And it could have been longer, which might have made it a different and better film; but, given the film it has turned out to be, thank god it's as short as it is.

Jean-Pierre Melville directed some great stuff and some awful stuff, but never did he manage to combine the two as he does in this movie. The opening twenty minute bank robbery in a near deserted seaside town in the pouring rain is amazing, probably the single best setpiece he ever directed. From then on, though, it's all pretty much downhill. Delon lacks his usual presence and appears to be on autopilot (in total contrast to Le Cercle Rouge and Le Samourai); it's a competent performance, but I've rarely seen an actor look so bored. Perhaps he was unsure about the almost total lack of dialogue in the film, which is a shame, as this is one of its few interesting plus points. Many of the scenes take place against obviously painted studio backdrops, which is especially grating given that the opening is so well done. And most laughably of all, the "highlight" of the film, a daring robbery in real time, in which a thief is dropped from a helicopter onto a moving train and then picked up again, is done with models, and looks like an amateurish version of Thunderbirds.

If someone could steal the opening sequence (or 'reference' it) and do the helicopter robbery properly, there's a good remake waiting to be done. Until then, we'll just have to settle for a great lesson in how to open a film.

I saw this at London's National Film Theatre a couple of nights ago. It's being hailed as a rediscovered classic. Me, I'd say it was an interesting failure.

The downside. It feels very long. Longer than it's two hours and twenty minutes. You become aware after a while that you're watching a film that needs a tighter script and better editing. The plot is also full of holes. It takes something greater than the normal suspension of disbelief to buy the coincidence of Gian-Maria Volonte's escaped criminal happening to hide in the boot of the car just purchased by newly released ex-con Alain Delon. And what happened to the subplot of the mafia boss chasing Delon for revenge? It looks as though it's going to go somewhere near the end and then that whole side of the story just disappears. And what makes Volonte suddenly turn up at the end to try and save Delon? It just doesn't make any sense. As for the philosophy! The "all men are born innocent, but it doesn't last long" speeches are laughably silly. But I don't think they're meant to be.

The upside? Early morning Marseilles and late night Paris look wonderful. The acting, especially from Yves Montand and Andre Bourvil, is first rate. The robbery sequence is exciting (though I've seen better). And Alain Delon. My god he's good in this. I've never seen the man have such presence. You just can't take your eyes off him.

Melville never really made a true classic (and I think I've now seen all of his main contenders). But I suspect that if you could cut and paste together bits of Le Doulos, Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge and the tremendous opening scene of Un Flic, you'd have one of the greatest gangster movies of all time.

I saw this at London's National Film Theatre last night and I must admit to being more than a little bit disappointed. This appears to mark the turning point where Melville lost all real interest in character (after the wonderful Le Doulos and the underrated L'Aine Des Ferchaux) and turned his attention to set piece robberies and shoot outs. The problem is, that this is still a long and wordy script, with an awful lot of very pointless talk, connecting up some visually excellent scenes. The highlight of the film, the hijack of an armoured car on a deserted mountain road, foreshadows the action techniques -shaky camerawork, fast cutting - used by Ridley Scott in Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and Hannibal; unfortunately it's over in seconds. There are other great scenes, but dramatically they lead nowhere. For example, one gangster scouts the site of an intended meeting, works out where he might be standing when there's trouble, and hides a gun nearby. When he leaves, an adversary comes into the room, goes through the same thought processes, and finds and removes the gun. But the scene never pays off, as the first gangster never ends up reaching for the missing weapon. Performance wise two people stand out - Paul Meurisse as the compassionate, intelligent and very, very funny Inspector Blot, and Pierre Zimmer as Orloff, the gangster who serves as the moral touchstone for his peers.

About three quarters of the way through the film turns from an escaped convict and heist movie into the story of a man trying to prove that he hasn't been a police informer/collaborator. As with a lot of Melville's gangster vs police movies (a big favourite with the French) you can't help feeling that he's really dealing with the issue of wartime resistance to the German occupation. To my mind, though, Melville seems more interested in shoring up the myth of resistance rather than dealing with the truth (as Louis Malle tried to in Lacombe, Lucien, resulting in his effective exile from France for the rest of his life).

The scene where Paul is interrogated by the police was apparently edited at the insistence of France's censors to remove the scenes of water being poured down his throat. What remains is a very obviously edited scene which doesn't work.

Anyway, not an awful movie, but a messy one. Can't help feeling that maybe Melville got interested in something else and couldn't be bothered to finish it properly.

Fell asleep twice.

I saw this at London's National Film Theatre a couple of nights ago. The print, the best they could lay their hands on, was scratched and the colour had faded to the extent that much of it was a pinky sepia. Also, I could find very few reviews to read beforehand (zero on the IMDB). So I wasn't expecting much.

And I was therefore very pleasantly surprised. The tale of an old crooked banker who absconds to the US with a young male golddigger really works. Charles Vanel (who was so brilliant in The Wages of Fear) and Jean-Paul Belmondo are a wonderful team, as a very spiky and spiteful Father/Son relationship grows between them.

As a travelogue of a journey from New York to the Deep South it's fascinating, and reminded me, of all things, of Easy Rider, which I very much suspect it may have influenced.

There's a few problems with it, mainly due to the fact the Jean-Pierre Melville never really got the timing right when it came to editing emotional scenes (especially at the end).

But if you're a fan of the early Melville movies, Le Doulos in particular, then check it out.

This is possibly the best documentary series ever made, the stories told by the still living participants rather than academics raking through the ashes long after everyone who might contradict them has died. The episode on the Holocaust has been with me my whole life.

Just a note to the Americans who claim it has a British bias. First of all, it's a British programme. Secondly, the war started in September 1939, not December 1941. You were over two years late (again), and would have taken even longer if the Japanese hadn't attacked you first. Still, has to be said, you're more than making up for it by trying to be early for the next one.

Come on folks, who are we kidding? This is not a very good film. Like most of the Hammer Vampire movies from this period it creaks, the scripts are awful, and all the really good actors are over 50 and playing bit parts. So why do we watch this movie? Because it has Ingrid Pitt in it. Naked. That is reason enough.

A pale imitation of a great original which most Americans won't ever bother to check out because it's foreign, there's no one famous in it and they can't be bothered to read subtitles. UK viewers with cable or satellite can occasionally catch the original on Film4, which is where I saw it. It' a dark, menacing film, with a lead character that you empathise with rather than like, and an ending where not everyone gets their comeuppance. The new version...it's as though someone has taken the original and chewed it up until it's soft and mushy to spoon feed it to a baby. If this version had been made first no one would want to remake it. The characters are either easily recognisable cop types or a "Look, it's Robin Williams" type killer. The first twenty minutes of the script is toe-curlingly awful, the dialogue is so banal. The acting is all mediocre, except for Martin Donovan's death scene and a couple of Robin Williams' phone calls. The photography is excellent, but it's used to show how beautiful the landscape is rather than tell the story. Christopher Nolan can make great movies - but this is not one of them. I suspect in five or ten years he will say so himself.

I just saw the remake at the National Film Theatre last night. It is a pale imitation of this dark and wonderful film. Stellan Skarsgaard is magnificent, and the sooner Hollywood finds a decent role for him the better. Hollywood likes nice happy endings, everything neatly wrapped up, and instantly recognisable characters. This film lacks all of the above, which is what makes it so memorable. You don't know who's right, who's wrong, what ought to happen. A great film.

A have a female friend who is currently being drawn into a relationship with an SOB who has a long term girlfriend. Of course the SOB is very good-looking, charming, etc and my friend is a very intelligent woman. Watching Jean Pierre Leaud's character at work is exactly like watching what goes on in real life when guys like that destroy the lives of our female friends. It's tragic, and you know she's going to end up very hurt, but there's nothing you can do. Leaud is brilliant. Totally empty. A blank throughout, he pulls the faces and tells the stories he thinks will get the reaction he wants.

The scene two hours in when Leaud and Lebrun have made love, and the next morning he puts on a record and, very sweetly and charmingly, sings along to amuse her is brilliant. The "What the hell am I doing here with this idiot" expression that flickers back and forth across her face will be in my memory for a long time to come.

It's a long film, but see it in one go, preferably in a cinema. Takes a while to get into, but then the time just disappears.

I saw this film last night, not having seen it for about twenty years, in the days when BBC2 used to show good foreign films and I, as a teenager, used to watch them for the nudity.

But other stuff rubbed off on me.

From the moment the film began, and I recognised the music, after all these years, it was like returning to a favorite dream.

See it in a cinema.

I go to a screenwriting class once a week. Last night we were told to watch this film with an eye to writing a report as a piece of coursework.

Two hours of my life. Gone. Forever.

It tries to be a thriller; it isn't thrilling. It tries to be a love story; it's neither romantic nor sexy. It tries to be an action film; the action sequences would be bad even in a straight to video. As for the script...we are told everything rather than shown. The scene where Bob Peck sits opposite Jula Ormond and reads out her character and background from a file is laughably bad.

The very worst scene though. Julia Ormond takes an undecipherable cassette tape to a blind Chinese man living on a boat. It includes the lines - and I kid you not - "You're the best ear in Copenhagen" and the old classic, "When you lose one sense, the others sharpen".

Get the picture?

It's like watching paint dry. No. It's worse than that. It's like watching paint that's dried already. Imagine doing that. It's that bad.

Avoid.

Not their best, but still very, very funny in places.

Worth seeing just for the gag about the bloodhounds. If you're scratching your head, watch it again.

This film used to be on all the time when I was a kid. Happy days.

This is one of those films where, half way through, you realise that you're not actually having that much fun. Lots of stuff going on, but none of it really interesting. It isn't scary, and we don't like or care about anyone.

It's also a remake of "Vamp" which, for all its faults, was funny, had a couple of likeable characters, and managed to produce a couple of scary moments.

Great acting, great script, great music, great photography and great editing. It's also incredibly moving. One of the few modern films that accepts that people can be genuinely unselfish, and that what we do to each other on a daily basis actually matters.

It's a shame that people decided to go and see "American Beauty", which in my opinion was a very hollow movie made by film-makers who had no experience of the real people they were supposed to be basing their characters on.

Treat yourself, if you haven't done so already, and see it in a cinema.

Make no mistake, this is a great film, marred only by some of its 70's design (which we will probably be a lot less squeamish about in a few years).

The performaces of John Alderton (as Friend) and Niall Buggy (as Arthur Frayn/Zardoz) are excellent.

Unlike modern science fiction movies this actually has a go at saying something.

And the floating stone head is out of this world weird.

Looks good. Badly written. Johnny Depp can't act. Typically bad Danny Elfman score (how many more times?). Lots of little mistakes which the audience aren't supposed to carp about (exhumed dead bodies don't bleed).

I saw the film at the National Film Theatre. The notes quoted Tim Burton as saying that Johnny Depp would be a wonderful silent film actor. I agree. But this isn't a silent film.