phillewis91

Directed by Robert Redford, the 'ordinary' people in question aren't actually that ordinary. I think that's the whole point. On the surface, they are your typical well-heeled American family. The house is big but not flashy, the dad (Donald Sutherland) is a tax attorney and the mum (Mary Tyler Moore) is the model of a suburban housewife.

Yet, as is so often the case with these suburban family dramas, it's the children who see through the middle-class smokescreen of respectability. Conrad (Hutton) is still suffering from the loss of his brother in a boating accident, and refuses to take part in his mother's increasingly desperate charade. Partly as a result of this, and partly because Conrad is, in her eyes at least, the lesser son, the relationship between the two of them is strained. As the veil of normality slips, all three of them have to truly come to terms with the tragedy that they have so far avoided.

It's a slow, brooding film that gradually reveals the extent of the trauma that Conrad is dealing with. Ground-breaking at the time for it's frank treatment of mental health issues and suicide, Ordinary People is a hugely influential work. It's clear to me now where The Perks of Being a Wallflower got most of its inspiration from, along with elements of Donnie Darko, Good Will Hunting and innumerable others. There are, of course, hints of Holden Caulfield in Conrad, yet Conrad has far more genuine cause for a breakdown that Caulfield did.

In a film full of sad stories, the saddest is Conrad's mother, Beth. Come the end, it seems that she is the only one without any foreseeable chance of redemption. Perhaps this is because she was hit the hardest by Buck's death, and has the toughest journey ahead of her. It's an incredible bit of acting from from Mary Tyler Moore when, at the end, her mask of emotional repression slips. And it's an unusual scenario - the mother fleeing her family rather than the father.

As much as I enjoyed Ordinary People, I would still have given the 1980 Best Picture Oscar to The Elephant Man.

Steve Coogan has said that Philomena is his reaction against cynicism - his attempt to make an honest and fundamentally sincere film. The biggest compliment that can be paid to him is that, in these goals, he has succeeded.

It tells the story of Philomena Lee (Judi Dench, who is as brilliant as ever), an elderly Irish woman whose child was taken away from her 50 years ago by an austere Catholic convent. Martin Sixsmith (Coogan) is the cynical, know-it-all journalist turned government spin doctor, recently sacked, who is on the look out for a story. After a chance encounter at a party, Sixsmith reluctantly takes up the 'human interest' story of Philomena's search for her son, Anthony.

The key to Philomena is the relationship between the titular character and Sixsmith. And it works. It really works, in fact. His cynicism, bordering on arrogance, is matched perfectly by her simple and completely sincere belief in common human decency. It could easily have been overly sentimental, but Judi Dench in particular does a remarkable job of keeping it grounded.

There's some very dark stuff here, and it's a testament to the script that the film does not become overwhelmed by it. The Magdalene laundries were awful places, yet this story is not about revenge. I was almost cheering when, at the end, Sixsmith gives one particularly odious nun a piece of his mind. But moments later Philomena accosts him and gives me a slap on the wrist. She does not want revenge or angry confrontation. She just wants the truth. It's a remarkable act of forgiveness, and one that, like Sixsmith, I could not agree with. But then, I'm just another cynical and bitter atheist. I have to say, this film made me angry at myself for being one. And yet it also made me pleased I wasn't a Catholic. Go figure.

Philomena is an incredible and heartfelt story. It's desperately sad, yet never overly sentimental. There's some genuinely funny moments, mainly emanating from the contrast between the wide-eyed and refreshing simplicity of Philomena's world view and the weary wryness of Sixsmith. If you get a chance, see it.

Three years before he turned the nation's stomachs with the ultra- violence of A Clockwork Orange, and sixteen years before he scared them senseless with The Shining, cinema's finest auteur Stanley Kubrick captured perfectly the absurdity of the Cold War nuclear deterrent.

When an army commander goes haywire and, without due authority, sets in motion an airborne nuclear attack on Russian bases, the US president (one of Sellers' three roles) and his trusted team of military 'experts' must save the day.

Prominent among these 'experts' is General Buck Turgidson (Scott), a gloriously American hothead who can wave off the idea of ten to twenty million civilian casualties with a flick of his wrist in a way that would make George W. Bush blush. He, along with the mysterious Dr Strangelove (also Sellers) and a circle of bumbling high brass, are the world's hope for avoiding nuclear war. It's a scary thought that must have been downright terrifying in the paranoia of the Cold War.

Despite being at heart a film with about as serious a message as it's possible to have, pitch black comedy still manages to permeate every scene. It's a guilty laugh, a laugh that becomes a grimace of fear when you realise that reality is not quite as far away from events unfolding on screen as we'd probably like it to be.

Dr Strangelove also marks Peter Sellers' finest hour, giving him and his incredible versatility free reign. He was initially expected to play four roles (cowboy pilot Major Kong to be the fourth), but perhaps understandably the workload proved too great.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape will inevitably be remembered mainly for it's cast, who now form a sizeable part of the Hollywood elite. Inevitable, but perhaps a shame, as it's an intriguing film in its own right.

There's no denying it however, the cast is incredible. It's not just a disgustingly young Leo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp, it's also Juliette Lewis, John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover of Back to the Future fame.

It tells the story of Gilbert Grape (Depp on fine monosyllabic form), his disabled brother Arnie (DiCaprio, who steals the show) and 'worldly' girl Becky (Lewis), Gilbert's love interest who travels around the country with her grandmother. It's a meandering film, full of odd little touches - the mother who is so fat that the floor of her house can barely hold her weight; Arnie, who likes to climb as high as he can at every opportunity, and the little faux-philosophical gems that Gilbert grants us.

If you're looking for a rip-roaring narrative and non-stop action, this is not the film for you. As Gilbert tells us early on, nothing really happens in the small town he lives in. What little plot there is circles around Gilbert's dilemma - his duty to care for his brother Arnie and to help his gargantuan, housebound mother; and the promised excitement and escape of a romance with the exotic Becky.

It's also about acceptance - both Arnie and his mother are outcasts, yet it's the mother and her titanic size that provokes the most open ridicule. People openly take pictures, stare and laugh at her in a way they would never do with Arnie, who is accepted and liked for all his eccentricities.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is an odd experience, but an enjoyable, and slightly mesmeric one. It evokes a rather beautiful sense of small town simplicity that makes me despair of the urbane cynicism of modern London.

Prior to watching this, my only vague knowledge of it was the Simpsons spoof version that plays at the drive-in cinema when the kids are out after curfew. So I knew that it was about children killing adults, sort of a full length version of the end of Lindsay Anderson's If..., only without the machine guns. And with fewer public school kids. Set in Nebraska.

Anyway, my expectations were duly met. Apart from the If... comparison. It really is not very much like If... at all. In fact there are definitely far more differences than similarities and I'm regretting this comparison a lot.

Children of the Corn sees a good looking and paralysingly dull couple (one of whom happens to be Sarah Connor) caught up in the corn fields of Nebraska among youth with some unusual views. These views centre upon a real enthusiasm for human sacrifice to appease the gods of the corn. The lead boy, Isaac, possesses an alarming similarity to Paul Dano's preacher Eli from There Will Be Blood. Perhaps he's a direct descendant (presuming Eli had some kids before Daniel Day-Lewis bludgeoned him to death with a bowling pin).

There are a couple of unanswered questions that I'd like Mr King to address. Firstly, why do the couple, after running over and killing a small child, put him in the boot of their car? This strikes me as an odd thing to do - surely an ambulance would have been more appropriate, or at least the back seat. But the boot? Dumping bodies in the boot (or trunk if you're American and have no idea what I'm talking about) seems like an activity reserved for serial killers and Mafiosos. Maybe it's a Nebraskan thing.

The couple also seem remarkably sanguine about having a small dead boy in tow. If it were me, I think I'd be slightly more panicky. It doesn't help that the acting is about as dry as the dead corn blowing round the deserted town of Gatlin.

It's not all bad. There are a few jumpy moments, and the soundtrack is genuinely creepy. But it falls short in almost every other area. It's not quite scary enough to succeed as a horror; not quite bad enough to be a cult classic (although it comes close, particularly some shocking special effects near the end). It is, at best, a mildly diverting hour and a half.

The Last King of Scotland is a biopic with a twist. It is ostensibly a film about young Scottish medical graduate Nicholas Garrigan (McAvoy) and his somewhat aimless decision to travel to Uganda. Except of course it's not about him at all. Nicholas is merely a looking glass through which the infamous dictator Idi Amin (Whitaker) can be viewed. Amin's legend is such that a pure biopic may have been overwhelming. Viewing him and his larger than life persona though a naive young Scotsman's eyes makes him more palatable.

Naive is the optimum word for the young doctor. He is bowled over by Amin's rabble-rousing speeches, caught up in the excitement and the bluster. "Come on, give the man a chance," he splutters to a more cerebral colleague.

This admiration turns to borderline infatuation when, during a chance encounter, Nicholas bonds with the Ugandan leader over a love of Scotland. Things escalate and before long Nicholas is appointed as Amin's personal physician. Not a bad post for someone just weeks out of medical school.

And who can really blame him for accepting the role? The danger signs in Amin and his regime are there - his exuberance, his certainty that he knows his date of death through a vision, signs of totalitarian violence on the street. But these (bar the last one) can be passed off as eccentricities, and must have been small fry when compared to the intoxicating aroma of power.

As Amin's paranoia grows, Nicholas gets more and more out of his depth. Officials disappear without trace, Nicholas is forbidden to leave and, slowly but surely, things begin to fall apart.

When the true horror of Amin's regime finally becomes clear to the doctor, the extent of his naivety and wilful blindness, along with his inability to keep his trousers on, catch up with him. In fact, they don't just catch up; they overtake, and then lap him. Twice.

The Last King of Scotland is a thriller at heart, and, in places, an incredibly grim one. The tension through the latter half is palpable, rising to an almost unbearable crescendo at its frantic climax.

McAvoy is excellent as the foolish yet ultimately good-hearted doctor, allowing the fear to seep through as he realises what he's got himself into. But it is Whitaker who steals the show, perfectly capturing the essence of Idi Amin in all his magnetic insanity and chronic instability. It's a towering performance that transforms the film from a good, solid thriller into an excellent and important character study.