If writer/director Peter Mullan’s latest addition to tales of teenage delinquency, Neds, were a sweet, it would be a Polo. Let me explain.

John McGill (Conor McCarron) starts off a good boy. No, he’s nothing like his ruffian older brother. He does exceptionally well at school; a real apple-giver, boasting valedictorian titles left, right and centre. On the day of his graduation from lower school, he is threatened by an older pupil from the same upper school he is due to attend after the Summer. His brother sorts this kid out though, so all is well. Or, it would be well, if his brother had got the right kid. Oops. So, anyway, there John is in September, upset that he didn’t make the top class immediately, but determined to work his way in (which he does), then all of a bloody sudden, our rosy-cheeked protagonist is some four years older, and is smoking in the bog with all the other scallywags at lunchtime. What, Mullan, pray tell, happened? As I’m trying to work out the answer to this question, the film just spins deeper and deeper into a milky enigma in which our once cherub-faced keener has joined a mobbish gang of ‘neds’, who spend the vast majority of their time at war with another mobbish gang of ‘neds’ a bit further down ‘road.

There’s something very unbelievable about all of this, and yet I’m still watching. I’m still watching because, apart from all the eerily apparent holes in this film, I sort of like it. I sort of like John McGill, and I sort of like that it seems as if he’s going to remember his saintly old ways and change for the better and- wait, what’s this? He’s killing somebody now?! Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I have narcolepsy, and simply kept falling asleep on all the important plot changes.

Holes aside, Neds is brilliant. I wholly enjoyed (and understood) the poignant ending, and I’ve been informed by a male source that its portrayal of pre-00’s schoolboy life is quite accurate. I never witnessed anything like it at my school personally, where the majority of boys were into art, music and drama. Even the minority were distinctly effeminate, skipping school to recite poetry in the changing rooms, knitting behind the bike sheds. Okay, perhaps not, but they weren’t exactly chasing each other with rocks and baseball bats.

One day, when I’m a teenage boy, I’ll understand why there are no notable periods of development in my character, or montages for when my temperament is worsening, and Neds will make perfect sense to me.

 

Howl is Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s new experimental (as in, not documentary) feature. It depicts four different dimensions of the poem, Howl. The poem itself being the main subject of the film, relays over and over the entire piece in both live performance (or as live as a film crew and Ginsberg actor, James Franco, get) and rather daunting, albeit quite graphic animation. The animation, inspired by animator Eric Drooker’s collaboration with Ginsberg on Illustrated Poems (1996), is probably what earns the film its ‘experimental’ title. I’d say the only thing experimental about it was the actual hope that if a film replayed the same lines of a poem over and over again, the audience would rise and start chanting along about Rockland and ‘Moloch’ in hypnotic robot voices. This, surprisingly, didn’t happen. I mean, the poem is enough without having all its obscure passages stuck in your head for the next week, and that’s where the ‘narrative’ of the film comes back in. These obscure passages, where the few lines you can take and understand are titillatingly obscene, were the topic of a very long, very boring and mostly pointless court trial which, of course, you’re subject to watching in what I assume was probably its factual, realistic entirety.

Ginsberg himself doesn’t actually attend this trial. No, he’s much too busy sitting on his couch, drinking tea while doing an interview. This, fortunately, is quite entertaining. James Franco engages in some pretty impressive acting here, which is almost expected from this film, seeing as most scenes are already transcripts and performances from actual events that already happened and were recorded; everybody knows copying is easy.

It’s a mix-matched style of film making, and it makes you wonder if you’d just like a nice, conventional beginning-middle-end narrative, which, conclusively, I certainly would. There is no logical reasoning for not wanting to turn Howl into a lovely biopic drama, so why did the documentarian duo choose to abstain from doing so? Well, because they’re a duo, for starters, and we’ve already learned from the Coen brothers that this is a recipe for pretentious, megalomaniacal chaos. Also because, apparently, biopics are the ‘norm’, and why be normal when you can chuck tidbits of reconstructed interviews, trials and repeated lines of a heavily monotonous and much-ado-about-nothing poem at an audience in an order far from chronological?

All in all, Howl is not a feature film. It’s just a really, really long poem. I think this has got to be the only case where I can say that reading the book would actually be quicker, and hey, you’d probably make a lot more sense out of it that way too.

“The thing about stop-frame (or claymation) animation”, Producer Melanie Coombs states in the Q&A after the show, “is that because you are doubly sceptical about the premise (one, you know it’s clay; two, it’s animation), you are in turn doubly empathetic with the characters. You care about them twice as much, and love and feel for them twice as much. That is the magic of this film.”

A film concept originally intended to be Hollywood propaganda; fill for the big shots who expected a feature idea sharpish from Writer/Director of Oscar-award winning short Harvie Krumpet, Adam Elliot, and five years later, it’s on the big screen. Hollywood didn’t pick this baby up. In fact, nobody did. The Producer/Director duo went home to Australia and made the blasted thing themselves. A relatively tiny budget of eight million Australian dollars and a team of well, not many, proves absolute dedication and commitment to the intricate creation of stop-frame clay spectacular, Mary and Max.

Mary Daisy Dinkle is an eight year old girl who is picked on at school because of her appearance and has a similarly lonely life at home, where her mother is an alcoholic and her father spends his time playing taxidermist in the shed. One curious day she chooses an address at random from the Phone Book, and sends a sweet letter asking how babies are made.

The letter arrives at the mailbox of one Max Horowitz, a 40 year old New Yorker who, later being diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and severe depression, is also alone in the world.

The two embark on a lifelong friendship, teaching each other new things, like how babies are made by ‘sexing’ and how to deal with other human beings. They share a feeling of alienation, the love of chocolate and the fact they were both bullied as children.

The wonderful thing about the heavily imaginative way in which Elliot writes is that there is enough for everyone to have something to relate to. From having a pen-pal to attempting suicide. This is no dolled-up, pretty tale about friendship. It is the reality of life, mental health conditions and coping mechanisms. It was this honest yet comical portrayal of two characters: one with a disposition of oddness, the other a severely obese Atheist Jew, that had me in tears from about twenty minutes in right up until the audience began to clap and then leave. Once my vision became less wet and blurred, I looked around to discover nobody else had been pouring their eyes out in a dramatic fashion for the last 90 minutes. At first I wondered if they were all heartless demons, sent to uphold my opinion that all cinema audience members are mere annoyances that wholly and absolutely are only there to ruin your film-watching experience, but then I looked harder, or listened, rather, and found the room was completely silent. An audience full of people that had been quietly moved by the film; speechless and motionless with awe.

It is a definite credit to the creators for making something so touching, so warming, yet so heart-wrenching that the audience in the cinema actually shut their mouths, if only for a while.

Adam Elliot and Melanie Coombs have come a long, bumpy, uphill way since Harvie Krumpet, and have certainly worked their way here. Though I’m not quite sure where ‘here’ is, and the pair are no longer working partners after ten years, I have no doubts Mary and Max is the frame of a much bigger picture. Discarding all my previous rejections to the art form, long live claymation.

In 1982 Jacques Tati died, leaving behind one unmade and perhaps incomplete script. Some twenty odd years later, Sylvain Chomet took it and decided to finish what Tati could not. What came of all this is the long-anticipated L’illusionniste: an immaculate hand-drawn piece (the first in a while), and silent tale of an alienated man for all ages.

The protagonist man (animated in the shadow of Tati himself by animator Laurent Kircher) is a magician; an illusionist, living in a world where magic has become obsolete and people only want to see the reality. He finds his career is wilting after a night following a pop act that, bewilderingly to Tati, sends the crowd wild. He is left performing only to a young boy and his grandmother, but even they are somewhat disillusioned by his act. He goes on to perform smaller and smaller venues across Europe, and while playing a pub in Scotland comes across a cleaner girl who is suffice to say perfectly enchanted by his tricks, which, seemingly, she does not notice are tricks at all but rather believes the illusion is real, and there follows an odd relationship between two people who do not speak the same language (Jacques Tati is a Frenchman - unsurprisingly) but are held together by want and search of meaning.

The girl is not poetic in her blissful ignorance. She is purely simple. Not full of worldly knowledge she is without realisation of reality altogether (perhaps that is why the two like one another), and expects Tati to conjure up dresses and shoes and coats so that she can feel pride when they move to a new town together. Tati ends up having to get a secret second job in a garage to keep up the illusion, or because that is the only thing that is expected of him in a confusing world.

Other characters in the story include a suicidal clown, a tiresomely predictable (though delightful) aggressive white rabbit and an array of stylistically designed toffs and poshos, who drive fancy cars and dine in expensive restaurants called ‘Mac Donnaulds’, which the satire I enjoyed most throughout.

L’illusionniste is a wonderfully poignant animation and silent film, beautifully drawn and attentively written. It is worth watching if only to capture the original soundtrack, composed by Phillip Glass, which is an awe in itself. Real filmmaking in the twenty first century? The disillusioned would never have thunk it.

Un Prophète. An elegant film. You know, for all the blood and violence in it. As far as gangster movies go, this one seemed rather tame. Not to say it didn’t have gripping scenes of terror and manipulative destruction, because it did, they were just shot in a far more sophisticated manner. Writer/director Jacques Audiard has a unique vision in terms of mob cinema. One that draws even me, as a pacifist and not usually a fan of Godfather-esque fight sequences and money-making grand schemery, in to the point where I forget when and where I am and lean closer and closer toward toward the screen, hoping perchance lead ‘prophet’ Malik El Djebana (Tahar Rahim) might pull me in and I’ll be watching the madness unfold firsthand, jotting this review down like a buzzed-up Louis Theroux, only less keen to get involved and more whimpering behind a cupboard splattered with somebody else’s blood.

Not all scenes in this film are horrifyingly gritty, though. In fact, most of Un Prophète is made up of stunningly beautiful and at times quite peaceful shots. There is an especially engaging dream sequence that only a Frenchman could have thought up. That being said, the imagination of the French never does cease to astonish me, and the vast majority of independent French cinema is something to behold. Jacques Audiard is absolutely no exception, and this being the first of his films I’ve been luckily enough to capture, will definitely not be the last. A true, innate talent such as Audiard’s deserves to be pretentiously gloated and blah blah blah’ed about every once in a while. This time, I’m doing the honours.

To say this film is a political thriller, or a metaphor for society would not be strictly incorrect, nonetheless I felt it had a deeper, human meaning. Or hoped it did. No, my personal take on the meaning behind Un Prophète was simply loneliness. In Malik we see how he has managed through life alone in his independence and aspirations. In his forced ruler/father-figure, Corsican César Luciani (Niels Arestrup), we understand the painful solitude of being a mob leader and everyone’s worst enemy. I’m not sure if this message was intended, but that’s exactly what I took from it, particularly during a scene in which César tries to call his previous lapdog, our hero, Malik over to him, but the prison is no longer his empire and Malik’s new-found Muslim recruitments push him to the ground, signifying his final drop in the ranks, and the Arab’s final rise.

Aside from my sympathy for César, the ending was truly satisfying. The characters are well-personalised and charming, and the artistic direction was one of awe.

Now, enough brown-nosery from me. If I’m to be picky, there was a problem with this movie. There wasn’t a sufficient amount for me to criticise, and that’s no fun. It means I have to say ‘nice’ things and use poncy adjectives and metaphorical imagery. No fun at all.

“Why aye, man” is a phrase that comes to mind when thinking about Sam Taylor-Wood’s new biopic feature, Nowhere Boy. Even if this is Liverpool. Imagine all the people, Lennon sang, then take them all away, one by one, until you’re left with the fifteen-year-old John Lennon himself (well, an actor). It is a time when teddy-boy haircuts are up, and the forties are down. Way down. Down with stolen Jazz records and having to wear glasses in front of your friends that don’t exactly encourage your ‘Buddy Holly look’.

Just down the road lives our ma, Julia (played by Anne-Marie Duff), and she is one hot mama! She teaches Johnny boy how to play the banjo, the truth of rock’n’roll and then takes him to an Elvis flick where John is impressed by the screaming girls. You can almost hear him think “I want this”. That’s the point where you suddenly think to yourself, “gosh, me too”, and from that moment on you’re sucked into this exciting world in the fifties where music is good again and life is all about passion and fulfilment, but most of all, wonder.

Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) and John (Aaron Johnson) have a delightful relationship. That familiar bond of tough love. We watch as they haggle a salesperson down to seven pounds for a guitar, and an intendedly short montage unravels, showing Lennon is a fast learner and a natural, avid musician. Seemingly he didn’t even know it. More tales about his childhood, a rather titillating scene, a couple of deaths, the creation of The Quarrymen, a short introduction to Paul McCartney, a shorter one to George Harrison and numerous conflicts later and John Lennon is on his way to Germany to kick-start the career of his rock’n’roll group, namely The Beatles.

What this film is really is an indulgent delving into the world of a legend, in a sort of nosey neighbour crack-in-the-curtains fashion. Which is exciting if, like me, you watch films just to stare at other people for a good couple of hours without them noticing. The sort of privilege one scarcely gets to endure in real life. You see, the magic Taylor-Wood proposes here isn’t in her directorially wondrous collection of ‘Ooh That Looked A Bit Arty’ shots, but inside the film itself. Inside the story. Inside the world of the late John Lennon. Inside of John Lennon’s insides. Beyond the oesophagus and left at the lower intestine. It is something I like to call Modern Escapism. Forget drugs. And sex. And rock’n’roll. Living somebody else’s life for a couple of hours is the best buzz there is. Who needs ecstasy or coke to escape to a land of flying hippos when Sam Taylor-Wood slices up a cheaper, generally more ethical option and presents it to you on a silver platter?

To conclude, Nowhere Boy is no less than a highly inspirational, feel-good, honest depiction of the teenage years of a born-to-be star. A definite must-watch, even for non-Beatles fans, or non-music fans for that matter. Maybe even for non-movie fans. In fact, I have no doubt you could screen Nowhere Boy to an audience of music-hating, film-loathing, biopic-detesting idiots and they would genuinely love it and buy their grandchildren it on DVD for Christmas, perhaps to teach them a thing or two about decent music and sincere passion and dedication. I couldn’t recommend this film any more if I were being asphyxiated by TW’s rectal muscles. That’s right, we’re on an initial-basis now. Tonight I’ll be exploring voyeurism outside TW’s window while she performs unmentionable acts on Aaron Johnson. Because they’ve hooked up now. Or so I hear.

I’ve always thought the Coen brothers were overrated, and this recent instalment from the Jewish duo is no exception. Aside from how heavily and at times pro-religious I found this movie to be, what with all the obscure propaganda, slight references and quiet stereotyping, what I couldn’t stand most about this picture was not the picture itself, but rather the reviews it received from the clearly sycophantic critics, probably looking for a name on the next brother-made flick, or just an incestuous, fetish-driven blow job. Described as “existential”, a “gloriously well-crafted apocalyptic vision” and a “nervy philosophical farce”, A Serious Man lives up to its portraiture in the same way Coke lives up to its tagline. Because, Joel and Ethan, this is not the real thing at all. In fact, I’ve seen more existentialism in an episode of Charlie and Lola. And more philosophical farce in a bowl of Cornflakes.

The issue otherwise with this is that there seem to be an abundance of filmmakers who aren’t getting nearly as much credit as they deserve for their outstanding yet modest portrayals of the human condition. Take Paul King’s Bunny and The Bull, for example. Slated repeatedly by critics for its ‘lack of substance’ and “narrative that would have been more watchable as a short film”. Well, Jonathan Ross, or whoever writes for you, it’s not about narrative. Or how much you’re getting paid to say it is. It’s about meaning and thought-provocation, which King simulates covertly and not all la-dee-da as some directors like to for chance of grasp on a selling point. As for the credit, it’s all been sent by first-class mail order to a pair of self-assured, overpraised magnifications of men.

All in all, this sequence of bland, overrated frames the Coen bros. are calling a film was more or less fair. An enjoyable watch, if you’re happy to be given the message that “there are no answers”, and to accept the mystery of ‘it all’. Yes, holy God fellow sir, I’ll close my eyes to the world if you promise to lead the way. God? God…?