BioChemical

"Freddie" is a programme that probably should never have been produced. It is poorly written, very unrealistic and worst of all - it's not funny.

Freddie Prinze Jr. as the star of the show SHOULD carry its weight but sadly he is not up to it. His performance is forever pushed and unnatural, it's as though he is trying to create a mix of Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer (who both have a natural comedic flair) but ends up failing horribly.

The grandma strand is just ridiculous. She speaks Spanish, never uttering a word of English, and yet she understands everything anyone says to her (and also now apparently everyone understands Spanish too). It seems like the writers were trying to mask the shows terrible script with a bit of class - subtitles. However, a stench can only be covered for so long.

There is one slight saving grace which makes this show watchable at the very most, Brian Astin Green. This should have been his show. Prinze Jr is not unlikeable but he can't muster the same sort of charisma as his sidekick and that's a problem when a sidekick out-shows the star.

"Freddie" relies heavily on canned laughter and it's obvious why, this is the unfunniest comedy series of the season.

From the moment front-runner Tammy Curry (Brooke Bushman) is blown to pieces on her sabotaged tractor, it's clear this beauty pageant will be fought tooth and nail. And it ain't gonna be pretty.

In the small Midwest community of Mount Rose, Minnesota, the Sarah Rose Miss Teen Princess contest is into the final furlong. But for all the sugar-coated spoutings of world peace and harmony hairspray, it's a question of victory by any means necessary - as a roving documentary film crew discovers.

In the Blue Ribbon rhubarb pie corner is Becky Leeman (Richards, rich kid daughter of former winner and rabidly proud officiating beauty pageant President Gladys (Alley). And in the red, trailer-trash corner is morgue make-up artist Amber Atkins (Dunst), championed by her boozy mother Annette (Barkin) and her mother's morally suspect best friend Loretta (Janney).

Casting wise it's spot on, as Alley launches with smiley, viper spitefulness into a beacon of single-minded hypocrisy, and is well matched by Richards, even if she looks the least convincing high school teenager since Stockard Channing's Rizzo enrolled in Rydell High. Dunst meanwhile blossoms into a very accomplished actress, and - together with Barkin and Janney - claims most of the prize lines.

If there's a weakness it's that the mockumentary approach doesn't always work, and the film drags on a little too long after a seemingly natural conclusion. Still, the dark laughs are consistent, and the parody of middle America's bizarre beauty contest fixation is spiked with some jolting shock tactics - from the nurse-assisted wheelchair dance by the reigning anorexic crown holder to Richards' hilarious (not to mention blasphemous) love song for Jesus - but such blackness never obstructs rooting for Dunst's likable teen. An outrageous, deliciously bad-taste classic.

8/10

With films we recognise as 'Altmanesque' springing from Los Angeles, Marseilles and New Delhi, it's salutary to revel in a classic model by the master of the movie mosaic himself, as he presides over a richly-nuanced screenplay and an ensemble to die for.

While wittily referring to the manor mystery genre, this is no whodunnit, but a multi-layered tragicomedy of manners, motives and relationships within a decaying social order.

A Who's Who of British Equity proves wonderfully adroit at the idiosyncratic, improvisational Altman Experience - theatrical knights wielding and polishing the silver, great dames slinging arch glances and saucepans. Upstairs, ungracious tycoon Michael Gambon is bedevilled by in-laws. Downstairs, hostility between housekeeper Helen Mirren and cook Eileen Atkins builds to a moving, revelatory confrontation without impeding butler Alan Bates' regulation of the staff.

Holding their own in this company are Americans Bob Balaban (Altman's partner in the conception and production) as a coolly-received Hollywood producer and Ryan Phillippe, affecting a purposefully dubious accent, as his highly suspicious valet. Jeremy Northam is just divine as matinée idol Ivor Novello, who's presence provokes sniffs from the aristos but excites the housemaids.

The pivotal character is Kelly Macdonald's Mary, the new lady's maid whose quiet labours position her perfectly to observe the misbehaviour and foibles above and below stairs with perception and sympathy. And although Dame Maggie Smith's imperious countess grabs the largest share of memorable lines, everyone has his moment in this inventive and fully-detailed piece. That includes the valet protesting, "I've washed him and I've dressed him, and if he can't find his own way to the drawing room it's not my fault!" This is Altman's best movie in years - an astute exploration of British culture that can stand proudly with his satires of American life. Atmospheric, absorbing, amusing and really fun.

9/10

After the underwhelming trio of A Perfect World, The Bridges of Madison County and Absolute Power, Clint Eastwood was badly in need of a storming return to directorial form. Unfortunately for us, this wasn't it: based on John Berendt's best selling true life tome, Midnight is a mildly engaging hotchpotch of disparate ideas - courtroom drama, small town expos and witchcraft-infected magicking - but a far cry from Eastwood's best.

The action centres on Savannah, Georgia, an archetypal Southern community redolent with customs and mores belonging to a bygone age. Into this time-warped setting comes John Kelso (Cusack), a young New York hack sent by Town and Country magazine to cover the prestigious Christmas Party of Jim Williams (Spacey), antiques collector and distinguished citizen.

Yet the post-party status quo is disrupted as Williams is arrested for the murder of his clandestine live-in lover Billy Hanson (Law, who once again is called upon to embody "volatile youth").

With a murder trial in his lap, Kelso is drawn into both the anachronistic milieu - "It's Gone With The Wind on mescalin" - and the veracity of Williams' self defence plea, deciding to stay on in Savannah to help investigate the case.

Rejecting the powerhouse drive of a Grisham-style trial movie, Eastwood and screenscribe John Hancock overlay the "will Williams walk free?" dynamic with a mosaic depiction of the townsfolk. This approach results in sprawling, languid storytelling that spends far too long wallowing in the minutiae of Savannah's social strata. To compound the wayward structure, Eastwood's direction lacks the fizz to enliven the proceedings.

Between the excesses there are pleasures to be had. Eastwood elicits a plethora of good performances - Spacey neatly adds to his pantheon of cultivated, slimy slicksters, Cusack lends his customary insouciant cool yet both are upstaged by The Lady Chablis as sassy transvestite Chablis Deveau who guides Kelso through the Savannah underworld. Moreover, the ambiguous nature of justice is intelligently handled and the outcome of the court verdict does keep you on tenderhooks. However, the lasting impression is that more momentum and less indulgence may have worked wonders.

5/10

Halle Berry might have starred in worse films than this complete maudlin of a movie, but I very much doubt it. The storyline was so promising: a glamorous criminal psychologist (the star) wakes from unconsciousness to find herself imprisoned in the asylum she's employed by, accused of butchering her husband (Charles Dutton). However, that's where the interest ends, as Gothika descends into a cockeyed whodunit where the biggest crime has been committed against cinema.

As with her Oscar-winning turn in Monster's Ball, Berry does sordid, puffing her hair and sporting a wild-eyed stare while wondering if she's really crazy. Presumably perfecting a look of bewilderment wasn't a problem, as the script is incomprehensible - a rash of muddled motivations, cardboard characters, and secondhand ideas.

There is the odd cheap jump of the someone-shouting-boo variety but nothing to truely make this a frightening experience other than the fact that Berry, hot off her oscar win, should choose such a disastre. Even within its own ridiculous world the film still makes no sense, with the star's attacks by a supernatural spectre eventually revealed as entirely illogical. Every other character, meanwhile, is set up as suspect, although the real psycho might as well have Guilty written on their forehead.

One line from Penélope Cruz when think of this film would be: "Sometimes I wake up screaming".

A diabolical film. 3/10

In 1996 when Anthony Minghella's infamous 'The English Patient' won all of those Oscars the film world knew that a lot was expected from Minghella in future. This time around he daringly choose to adapt Patricia Highsmith's flamboyant pot-boiler of murder set on the sun-kissed beauty of the Italian coastline. This would be an adaptation breezier than 'The English Patient' certainly sexier.

With a glorious cast of Oscar Winners and Oscar Nominee's along with the sweeping grand scale the film was produced upon, the film looked promising and yet we were slightly cheated. When I sat down to watch this film I was watching for Damon's performance as his role was a complex one that if pulled off to a T would have been something rather glorious to witness. Unfortunately Damon doesn't get the audience on his side and we're left wondering who we should be 'going for'.

The supporting cast were notably brilliant. Jude Law turned in a stellar perfect performance as Dickie Greenfield (the obnoxious rich boy who doesn't want to return to New York), he impacts so much upon the film that his absence in the later part leaves a great void. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchette turning in scene-stealing, almost cameo-like performances. The real disappointment however was Gwyneth Paltrow's Marge which was sorely underwritten, Paltrow works well with what she has but her character is the real sham of the film. The luscious sweeping scenery of Italy is quite stunning and really makes the film have that little more mmph, along with the cracking soundtrack.

'Ripley' looked promising but with Matt Damon's quite frankly annoying performance we were slightly let down. The real star of the film however was Jude Law who rightly deserved his oscar nomination. The scenery is eye-candy but sadly it cannot make up for the less than great film in general. Still worth a look purely for the supporting cast's amazing performances.

B+