A Late Quartet.

When I was training youth leaders I might have used The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape or The Commitments to illustrate some aspects of Group Dynamics.     But I cannot think of a movie that examines a group that has been together for over 25 years – until now.   Yaron Zilberman’s 2012 A Late Quartet could well do that. 

The title is ambiguous.   It could refer to a piece of music, specifically one of  the string quartets composed late in Ludwig Beethoven’s career;  Number 14, Opus 131.    Or to the fictional world renowned Fugue String Quartet we see preparing to perform it, again.    This group may become a ‘late’ Quartet as internal differences threaten to rip it apart.

The four musicians are a married couple, Juliette (viola) and Robert (2^nd violin), played by  Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman,  Daniel, the group’s 1st violinist and Leader (Mark Ivanir) and the cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) who was once their professor, but who tells the group early in the film that he is developing Parkinson’s Disease and will soon have to retire.   The question is, will his retirement mean the end of the Fugue’s existence together?     It certainly releases powerful reactions and buried passions.

This particular piece of music is unique.  Not only is it considered to be the Beethoven’s finest quartet, indeed perhaps the finest ever composed by anyone, but it has seven movements as opposed to the usual five, and Beethoven expected them to be played ‘attacca’ – without pause.   This puts considerable strain on the musicians, not least because during the forty minutes it may take to play the piece the instruments may well go out of tune.    The musicians have to listen hard to each other and adapt their technique to compensate.  This alone could be a suitable metaphor for the life of a group, but there is so much more.   Let me be clear, this film is not programmed to illustrate a theory,  it is a human drama about people who happen to be musicians,  and how their ambitions, expectations, desires and frustrations affect the group they belong to.    But the metaphor is obviously intentional and well worked.    

The four actors work wonderfully together and give the impression – certainly to a non-musician such as  myself – that they are actually playing the music.  In fact it is played by the world famous Brentano String Quartet.     Christopher Walken gently underplays his part as the ‘father’ of the group,  quietly courageous  enough to face his increasing debility, wise and humble enough to plan his future – and that of the group – after his inevitable retirement.     Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman sink into their roles, veteran performers as they are – or sadly in Hoffman’s case, were.    I had not noticed Mark Ivanir before, but he has been a very busy actor for some time with minor parts in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Good Shepherd, Johnny English Reborn and many TV and video game roles.   Here he playing with the heavyweights and he holds his own.   The young English actress Imogen Poots here tackles her first really major role,  playing Juliette and Robert’s daughter Alexandra.   

I was moved and educated by this movie, not only by its dramatization of human nature and group dynamics, but by the insights into the music and the demands of quartet playing it provided.     I have bought the Brentano recording to add to my Beethoven collection and strongly recommend the CD and the DVD.

A - Z part 1. A Late Quartet to Ex Machina

A Late Quartet (2015) stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener and Mark Ivanir as members of a string quartet specialising in Beethoven.   The very structure of his Quartet No. 14  is reflected in the tensions that surface when one of the players announces his retirement.   This is ensemble playing, both musical and dramatic,  at its best.  

A Monster Calls (2016)  is a beautiful and tough movie adapted from Patrick Ness's novel about a 12 year old boy facing up to his mother's cancer.    Liam Neesom, Sigourney Weaver and Felicity Jones give generous support.   Strongly recommended - but see my article (2017) for a warning. 

A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014 Scot Frank) comes from one of Laurence Bloch’s dozen  novels about  an unlicensed private eye,  Matthew Stutter, played here by  Liam Neelson.    Stutter is a flawed but humane – and moral – man, struggling with his past and his alcoholism.    Unlike the Taken franchise this is a life affirming movie.   I hope they make more.  

About Time.   (2013) Richard Curtis.   This film is certainly ‘about time’, but not about time travel, even though that is a central narrative device.    This film is about how we use our days, just like Groundhog Day, its most famous precursor.   About Time is charming and often amusing,  in large part thanks to the acting.  Domhnall Gleeson plays Tim and  Rachel MacAdams  plays his love interest, and they bounce off each other convincingly.    Bill Nighy does his familiar and popular shtick as Tim’s father, and Lindsey Duncan  plays  mother as competently as ever.    One of the films great strengths is the soundtrack.   Mike Scott’s How Long Will I Love You is performed live as a nice linking sequence by Jon Boden, Ben Coleman, Nick Laird-Clowes and Sam Sweeney.  The crucial song is Into My Arms by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, which could almost have been the inspiration of the whole film. This is not a film about time travel, it is a film about love, and living in love, gratefully accepting every day as a gift,  and living it just as it comes.    That may not be very original but it is important.

   

The Addiction (1995 Abel Ferrera) The director described this black and white vampire movie as an exploration of redemption and 'a way to express the relentless search for truth and light in a world that paralyses us with its anger and darkness.' (see also The Bad Lieutenant (1992) and The Funeral (1996) from the same director and writer.

The Adjustment Bureau. (2010) "Bourne meets Inception" it says on the case, as Matt Damon, a rising political star, meets and falls for Emily Blunt, but the men in suits who are determined to frustrate their love are not spooks but angels.   Exciting, amusing and gently raising philosophical/theological questions. With Terence Stamp and Anthony Mackie.

Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Prometheus(1979 onwards; Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Ridley Scott) The original was groundbreaking in its design, the second has a wonderful full-on battle between Ridley in a Waldo suit and the great alien mother, I just love to see that you don't need Arnie's muscles to take on the toughest alien.   the third lacked any mise-en-scene and I found Resurrection really rather moving. Prometheus is interesting too, but without Sigourney…. 

American Beauty (1999 Sam Mendes). Here's film to divide opinion!    I have heard it described as a classic of redemption and as a male wet dream.  Pauline Kael (may she rest in peace watching heavenly movies through all eternity) said it 'is a con. Can't educated liberals see that it sucks up to them at every plot turn?' and I can see what she means- while still enjoying being suckered buy the crisp direction, witty script (by Alan Ball who went on to write HBO's Six Feet Under) and terrific acting by the whole cast. Does Lester find the answer to life in the dying moments of his life, or is this an adolescent moral and sexual fantasy? See Further thoughts about American Beauty 2011.

Amy  (2016)  is a heartbreaker, telling Amy Winehouse's tale without rancour, but allowing those close to her to reveal to us what they cannot see themselves, the parts they played in her tragedy.   

Assassin (2015) Is Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 9th century tale of a nun-assassin's mission, Sight & Sound's Best film of the Year and breathtakingly beautiful but almost impenetrable plot-wise.     

American Hustle.  (David O Russell 2013).   This is a top ranking comedy thriller and I cannot think of any one thing about it I did not  like.    Russell had previously worked with Christian Bale and Amy Adams in The Fighter and Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook.  He brought them  together for this film, and with them having such fun together, a great supporting cast and great soundtrack.  See American Hustle Bustle 2014.

Angelmaker.  Nick Harkaway.   See my article A novel crying out to be filmed 2012.

Anna Karenina (2012 Joe Wright)  Screenplay by Tom Stoppard from the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Kierra Knightley and Jude Law star in a brilliantly staged version of the novel.  President Obama  asked his voters a profound question. Do they want a society where the winner takes, and keeps, all? Or do they want a society that recognizes and respects the needs and dignity of all it's members? This is an ethical question because it is about the ultimate value of our fellow human beings. Some believe that any society that gets its ultimate values wrong contains the seeds of its own destruction. Its values are not ‘real’, but artificial. Tolstoy lived in a society that depended on serf labour. He saw the ethical falsity of that. Maybe that is why he condemned the theatre as vanity.  His society was the real charade, a farce masking a tragedy, elegant but ugly, where highly defined hierarchies and etiquettes decorously dressed moral sewers.  (See article Anna Karenina, A tract for our times. 2012.)

Anthropoid (2016) Tells the true story of the attempt to assassinate the Nazi Reinhardt Heydrich in WW2 Prague.    Cillian Murphy and Jamie Doman play the assassins in a gritty, tense tale.  

Apocalypse Now! (1979 Francis Ford Coppola) This ultimate 'stoned war' movie raises the 'ends and means' question as it explores Conrad's Heart of Darkness and transplants it to Vietnam. The final scenes speak of a moral madness that aspires to the certainty of the gods, an absolute conviction that whatever we need to do to defeat evil is worth doing.  Listen to Col. Kurtz and find an answer to his argument.. Do go for the longer Director's Redux cut if you can. Living in Hong Kong in 1972 I heard so many stories from GI's on R & R from Vietnam that persuaded me that this is the most accurate film of that war, not in fact, but in tenor.    See Apocalypse Now! Redux 2013.

The Apostle (1998 Robert Duvall)  Written directed, paid for and starring Duvall, as a southern preacher who falls (spectacularly) from grace, but never loses his faith or stops talking to God. Billy Bob Thornton lends a hand in this powerful film.

Arrival is my film of 2016.    Amy Adams leads the cast of a highly original exploration of Alien First Contact that avoids the lazy short-cut where the aliens learnt to understand English (or rather American) by intercepting TV broadcasts.  So the team leader has to be a linguist (Adams) but the utterly different language she has to learn reshapes her mind in a way that provides a satisfying - and very moving denouement.  

The Artist  (2012 Michel Hazanavicius)   Let's make a film about the days of silent black and white films, and hey, lets make it a silent black and white film!    And so they did, and it works splendidly. See Films of 2012.

Attack the Block (2011 written and directed by Joe Cornish from the TV Adam & Joe Show). This is an exciting funny and acute take on the alien invasion theme. It honours its filmic inheritance, but does not, a la Shawn of the Dead, parody it.   Wyndham Towers is the tower block in South London attacked by aliens and defended by black teenage hoodies.  It starred John  Boyega in his first film role, now of course in  Star Wars The Force Awakens!   It speaks up for inter-racial and inter-generational understanding, and is a kind of coming-of-age movie. Boys become men, or at least step towards true courage and dignity.

  

Au revoir, les enfant (1987 Louis Malle) His autobiographical account of his childhood in Nazi Occupied France in a Carmelite School.  The priests who ran the school harboured a number of Jewish children, and one adult member of staff.    At first the film progresses like any other school memoir, as the boys bond and fight and learn how to trust or betray.    But when the Gestapo come looking for Jews the relationships come into sharp focus and the film changes gear.   Shot in black and white, and avoiding melodrama and sentimentality this film may not shock as much as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,  but it rings true. 

Avatar (James Cameron 2010) see Blessing the Prey and praying for the planet …..

The Avengers (2012 Josh Whelan) Avengers Age of Ulton (2015 Josh Whelan) Thor (2011 Kenneth Branagh) Captain America; the first Avenger 2011 Joe Johnston) etc…The Marvel superheroes come together to save the Earth in epics that do not insult the fan or confuse the newcomer.   Who's you favourite?  My vote goes to Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk, bringing humour and humanity to the role, but Tom Hiddleston was the very disgruntled Norse God turned villain is a worthy adversary to them all.   The ongoing Marvel film and TV franchise has much to offer.  It might not offer as acute a political critique as the revitalized Battlestar Galactica,  but it still has teeth, Most of the Avengers manage (most of the time ) to overcome their differences and to assemble, to come together, to work together and  when necessary to fight together.    They are, of course, willing to die if that is what it takes.     But it is not only their individual heroism that matters.    It is their united heroism that matters most. That unity is in itself an heroic and often vulnerable achievement.    So maybe these comic book characters are more important than they seem.   See also Captain America: The Winter Soldier below.

The Bad Lieutenant (1992 Abel Ferrera) maybe the hardest of Ferrara's movies to stomach, with drug taking, rape, masturbation and redemption stirred together in the darkest brew. Harvey Keitel's performance as the cop who goes from bad to worse to redemption is truly remarkable. (see also The Addiction 1995) and The Funeral 1996).

Batman (1989 Tim Burton) The Joker (Jack Nicholson) finds that 'dying is great therapy. 'It kinda liberates you', but he puts his liberation to dark intent in this gothic comedy. By aiming for the lucrative 12+ market the producers lost the chance to really explore Batman's implicit pathology, but the design, lighting and photography are (almost) in the Blade Runner league, and Michael Keaton hints at the dark depths of his character. Eventually the franchise took off again with Chris Nolan's help. See A ray of light in The Dark Knight elsewhere on this blog.

Batman Begins. (2005 Christopher Nolan) Nolan made Memento, so I was not surprised that this was the best Batman since Tim Burton started the franchise with Michael Keaton, and sharing its intelligence, visual richness and moral ambiguity. See also  The Dark Knight below and  my article/study pack A Ray of Light in the Dark Knight. 2011

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead  (2007 Sidney Lumet)

The title comes  from the Irish toast: "May you have food and raiment, a soft pillow for your head; may you be 40 years in heaven, before the devil knows you're dead" and it was in fact Lumet’s last film before he died in 2011.   It is fast and furious, with sex and violence aplenty, but this is a serious film.  The movie draws remarkable performances from his lead actors.    Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke,   Marisa Tomei , and Philip Seymour Hoffman.    Hoffman dominates, because his character does,  a charismatic and seemingly successful professional who has run himself into deep financial trouble and has a ‘simple plan’ to get himself, and his brother -  who is a failure in so many dimensions - out of it.    Ethan Hawke also gives a remarkable performance, falling apart on screen.   Marisa Tomei amazes in many ways.   Here we see the dreadful consequences of what seems to be one bad decision, but it is one that grows out of too many previous moral failures.    It might invite us to consider what our own capacity for evil might be when push comes to a mighty shove.   And what we might have done to bring about that shove.   Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead  is exciting, engaging,  emotionally complex and visceral.    A good note, though hardly a grace note, to end Sydney Lumet’s remarkable career.  See my article Sidney Lumet’s light casts a long shadow  2016.

Beowulf (2007 Robert Zemeckis)  Neil Gaiman wrote the treatment  of the Anglo\Saxon epic poem, but for some reason decided to change the relationships and storyline.  At the time the 3D was impressive and the CGI rendering  interesting (everyone thought Ray Winston had been turned into Sean Bean).   There is another version, Beowulf and Grendel (2005 Sturla Gunnarsson), with Gerard Butler  and Stellan Starsgard.   See my article  'Beowulf, a two dimensional hero?'  2011.

The BGF (Spielberg 2016)  uses motion capture to turn Mark Rylance into the Big Friendly Giant in a way that is utterly convincing, essence of Rylance, in an adaptation of Dahl's book that is beautiful and beguiling - and has a great sequence of fart jokes in Buckingham Palace.  Ruby Barnhill as young Sophie is a real find.  

Big. (1988 Penny Marshall) The first and best of the genre as Tom Hanks convinces us that he really is a 13 year old in the body of an adult. The Kingdom of God is made of such as these!

The Big  Lebowski  (1968)  here the Coen Brothers and Jeff Bridges created an enduring cinema icon in The Dude.  With John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore,  Philip Hoffman, John Turturro, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman…

Birdman (or The unexpected Virtues of Ignorance).   (2015 Alejandro González Iñárritu).  The movie is mainly set in a New York theatre as a new play is rehearsed, previewed and eventually performed.    Michael Keaton plays the self-referential role of an actor who was a Tent-pole movie hero  twenty years beforehand who now wants to make a comeback in something with more artistic authenticity.  Edward Norton plays another (allegedly) self-referential role as the ‘gifted but difficult’ actor.   Naomi Watts is simply delightful and Emma Stone and Andrea Risborough offer great support.   But the real hero must be the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki,  whose work in Sleepy Hollow,  Y Tu Mama Tambien,  The New World,  Children of Men, The Tree of Life and Gravity puts him up there among the truly greats.

Blade Runner: The Director's Cut. (1982 – 2008  Ridley Scott). I fell for this film the first time I saw it and bought my first VCR player so that I could own a copy of it.  Thirty years later my affection for it has only been deepened by time and the release of the Director's Cut. It still rings deep bells.  Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel 'Never Let Me Go' explores the sentimental education of children born as clones. They have been given life in order to donate their organs.. Ruth Scurr, reviewing the novel in the TLS (25/2/05) wrote 'The clones have been created because of the human desire to postpone death indefinitely by finding protection in everlasting biological health. Far from deconstructing this desire, the lives of the clones further affirm it; they too want passionately to go on living and protect the things they love dearly'. The replicants  in Blade Runner were also created to protect humankind by doing the most dangerous jobs.  Like Ishiguro's clones, they have a limited life-span, but 'they too want passionately to go on living and protect the things they love dearly. ' In a fanzine review written when Blade Runner was first released I said that the film (implicitly) asks 'What is life?' and answers 'Life is precious'. Ford Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauger, Darryl Hannah, Sean Young, and film's direction and design and photography are magnificent.  See Have you taken the Voigt-Kampt test yourself, Mr Deckard? 2013.

Blood Simple (2009, Zhang Yimou)  Yes Zhang not Coen!  This is based on the Coen classic, but turns that noir into farce. Set in a noodle shop run by Wang and his unfaithful wife, who enlists the bent cop Zhang to kill her husband.  Dark and hilarious. 

Bram Stoker's Dracula. (1992 Francis Ford Coppola) Very much Francis Ford's Coppola's movie, this story of love and redemption is light years away from the Hammer Horrors using Coppola's maverick genius to produce an astounding visual treat while holding close to Bram Stoker's original. Gary Oldfield is mesmeric, Anthony Hopkins is miles over the top and Keanu Reeves is English?! It is easy to forget that this story is about love being stronger than death.  See The Plight of the Vampire 2014 for a consideration of the whole genre.

Brazil   Terry Gilliam directs, Jonathan Price stars, Robert de Niro surprises in a Kafkaesque  1984ish  but utterly original dystopia.

Brick.  Rian Johnson later made Looper, a big budget smash hit, but this is the same team of writer/director, photographer and star (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in an earlier film noire, complete with drugs, guns, thugs, dangerously glamorous dames  and witty asides, but set in a High School.   Believe it.

Bridge of Spies (2015 Spielberg)   The director was wonderfully back on form for this tale, adapted from a true story, with Tom Hanks playing the (usual Spielbergian) American, this time a lawyer drafted in to defend a Russian spy and doing so with determination, honesty and courage.   The spy played (with Oscar nominated skill)  by  Mark Rylance, British theatrical royalty and then a tv star in Wolf Hall, wins our admiration too.  See Who's Who on The Bridge of Spies? 2015.

       

Broken Flowers (USA/France Director Jim Jarmusch) A true independent spirit, Jarmusch is distrusted by the Studios and beloved by his actors and collaborators, in this case Bill Murray, Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton and Jeffrey Wright.  Bill Murray plays this tragedy so deadpan you could almost miss it in a film that could also have been called The Consequences of Love This is the nearest US cinema gets to European, and it took European money to get it made.

Brooklyn. (2015 John Crowley).  Adapted by Nick Hornsby from Colm Toibin’s award-winning novel and starring  Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent and Julie Walters.     The story is set in 1950’s South West Ireland, and in Brooklyn.   It is a domestic drama with very little drama.   It is also exquisite.    The slow pace and lack of adrenalin allow us to admire the colour palate, the design, costumes, music,  and most of all the acting.    Saoirse Ronan’s performance is limpid; still and utterly transparent.    Jim Broadbent is a Catholic priest who sheds no darkness.    Domhnall Gleeson’s Jim is also a good man.  Emory Cohen is the Italian-American who falls for Ellis, and treats her honourably.     When I say that this is good movie I mean that word to apply to every level, artistic, technical and moral.  See My pick of movies from 2015, posted in 2016.

Bruce Almighty. (2003 Tom Shadyac) Great fun and a great group discussion starter. What would you do, given the powers of the almighty? Jim Carey and Jennifer Anniston are fine, and any film that has Morgan Freeman as God has got to be a winner with me.  Tom Shadyac, who directed this followed an amazing personal path, from hit movie maker to seeker of enlightenment – not by transcendence but by seeking the roots of true, ethical happiness in Positive Psychology.   See I Am and Happy below.

Butch Cassidy &The Sundance Kid. (1969 GeorgeRoy Hill) A cult movie if ever there was one, and shown time after time on TV at Easter. Could that be because it deals with death and resurrection - especially in the 'cliff jump' scene and in the frozen frame ending where the Great Director in the Sky leaves our two heroes eternally victorious?

The Butcher Boy. (1997 Neil Jordan) A film about abuse, poverty, wretchedness, religion and murder, and each with an Irish twist. Eamonn Oewns is brilliant, and Patrick McCabe's original novel is a wonderful source book well adapted in Neil Jordan's script. Who wrote 'To understand is to forgive, even oneself'? (actually it was Peter Chase in Perspectives 1966), but I prefer Shelley's' line that 'to be greatly good (we) must imagine intensely and comprehensively, put ourselves in the place of another and of many others; the pains ands pleasures of our species must become our own.' Shelley was writing in defense of poetry, but only because he had never been to the movies.

Byzantium (2012Neil Jordan)   is so much better than his Interview with a Vampire.   It stars Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan as a mother and teenage daughter - caught in time.   It explores the devastating consequences of becoming a vampire, dependent on human blood, unable to love ‘normal’ human beings, in fact excluded from ‘normal’ society - and its troublesome bureaucracy -  without the prospect of death to give meaning to life, and having to keep the same company for centuries.   See my article The Plight of the Vampire 2014, for a consideration of the genre.

Calvary (2014 John Michael McDonagh ) Brendan Gleeson had worked with John Michael McDonagh to make The Guard, a cop caper set on the West coast of Ireland.   In Calvary they  joined forces again, but here Brendan Gleeson plays a good priest serving a West coast parish who is told in the first scene that he will be killed to pay for the sins of so many bad priests.  But neither he  nor we know who by.   As the film introduces us to some of the members of the parish we see that  most of them are troubled, angry and often in pain.    The priest’s own daughter is depressed, recovering from a botched suicide attempt, and angry with her father for not ‘being there for her’ when her mother died and she needed him most.    It seems that his own grief in still unresolved in many ways.    This film did not simply reinforce my self-understanding;  it stretched it.  .   This movie moved me greatly, and is one of a kind. See  my articles No No Noah, but thank you Calvary and Despised, rejected, and acquainted with grief, the road to Calvary. 2014.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014 Anthony and Joe Russo)  takes to task the political reactions to the 9/11 Two Towers disaster and the ongoing threat of terrorism, implicitly criticizing the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney axis, their Homeland Security program  and the ongoing NSA/GCHQ ambition to know everything about us in order to protect us.    The Global Security Organisation SHIELD has secretly developed a vastly powerful intelligence gathering project – and the airborne hardware to act on that intelligence and take out terrorists before they even know they are terrorists.   Pre-emptive retaliation meets The Minority Report.   Captain America, who comes from a time when it felt easier to tell good from evil, is profoundly uneasy with the moral and ethical implications of this.   His previously unquestioning obedience begins to unravel.  He thinks too much information is dangerous, especially when allied to irresistible power.   

This is therefore a political movie, and so Captain America, like Jason Bourne,  eventually falls into the murky waters of the Potomac, the river that runs through Washington DC.   The sibling directors  show they can handle the demands of tent-pole action alongside more intimate scenes.  The design and music are up to the expected Marvel standard.    The whole Marvel franchise is growing on me.   The previous – and ongoing - high production values and artistic integrity of these productions, alongside their refusal to take the easy route of camp self regard now also has a political edge.  What’s not to like?  See Avengers above and my article The Captain Saves America from Itself 2014) .

Captain Fantastic (2016) is not a super-hero movie,  but explores the very real  tension between living 'off the grid', teaching your children a radically alternative (but utterly sane) way of seeing the world, and coming to terms with what may be inevitable compromise.    Viggo Mortensen is the father.    Funnier than you might expect. 

Captain Phillips  (2013 Paul Greengrass)  Admirable for the two lead performances by the seasoned pro Tom Hanks and the non-professional Barkhad Abdi,  Greengrass’s Direction and Barry Ackroyd’s cinematography.  How true it is to the actual events is another question. See  my article Have you hijacked us, Captain Phillips? 2013.

Carla's Song. (1996 Ken Loach) Robert Carlyle stars in two love stories - one between a Glaswegian bus driver and Nicaraguan refugee, the other between Ken Loach and the Sandinistas of the 1980's . The Sandinistas have gone, but the issues still remain.

Changeling. (Clint Eastwood 2009) See Films of the year 2009.

Chaos Walking is the title of a Patrick Ness  trilogy.   So far it has won the Carnegie Medal, The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, The Booktrust Teenage Prize and the Costa Children’s Book Award.  It may yet win an Oscar or two, because there are firm plans to film it.    I am very impressed  by their great literary and moral qualities.   They do what all good literature does;  allowing the reader to stand in someone else’s shoes for a while, and to become more human by doing so.     Such books are empathy creators.     Now Lionsgate are planning to film Chaos Walking.  Robert Zemekis is expected to direct and Charlie Kaufmann is reportedly writing the script, a good combination.   Here’s hoping.    See my article Is Chaos Still Walking Towards Us? 2013.

Chappie (2015 Neill Blomkamp) a hugely disappointing film after  the striking District 9,  with robocops that robots, rather than hybrids, but a wasted cast, weak script, hollow humour. I don’t often list movies I advise you not to see, but don’t be fooled by the BlomKamp name!.

The China Syndrome. (1979 George Jenkins) Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas show us dangerous nuclear power can be in the hands of human beings who dare not admit that they have made a mistake. An exciting and prophetic film.

Chocolat (2000 Lasse Hallstrom) From Joanne Harris's novel. With Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp as eye candy, this fairy tale/morality tale has enough filling to run a Lent course on.  Do we really want it covered with so much milk (rather than dark) chocolate? Probably.

Cinderella. (2015 Kenneth Branagh).  Lily James, Cate Blanchett, Richard Madden,  Helena Bonham-Carter, Stellan Skarsgard, Derek Jacobi,  Nonso Anozie and Ben Chaplin  A perfectly straight forward,  beautifully made, well acted  account of a charming fairy story that has not been seen (straight) on our screens for 65 years.    

See my article Fresh Cinders 2015.

Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys (2000  Michael Haneke)  His first French film.    Post Modernists often want to let the story do it’s own work, and leave us free to make our own interpretations and connections.     In Code Unknown the scenes start and end abruptly, with little to help us locate them.  The only music is part of the reality.   Haneke tells us about lives that briefly touch each other, sometimes in misunderstood or unrecognised ways.    The only common thread is that they all, in one way or another, have lost or do not know the Codes.   These codes may be actual, social, personal or ethical, but each gives, or denies access.     A Romanian economic refugee, a war photographer, an actress, a farmer and his son, each is lost in different ways, locked out or locked in.    The exception is  Amadou, a young Malian sign-language teacher. 

This style of film making can seem alienating, but that is part of the purpose, especially when alienation is also the subject matter.  

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (1977 Steven Spielberg) Bernard Levin, who usually reviewed Wagner and Mozart, came out of seeing this film in a state of exultation believing that not only Mr Spielberg, but the universe had got things right. The idea that advanced aliens might be profoundly peaceful was rare in mainstream sf movies. Although the majesty of the images really needs a cinemascope screen it can still work on DVD.

Cloud Atlas (2013 The Wachowskis) – what courage it took to tackle filming David Mitchell’s novel – and what wit it took to make it so well.  The Wachowski siblings worked with Tom Tykwer plus a stellar cast and  John Toll and Frank Grieber behind the cameras.  But do read the book.

The Commitments. (1991 Alan Parker ) As well as the great ensemble playing, soundtrack and direction this can be used to see how groups, not just bands, form and storm and sometimes don't manage to norm; a great tutorial in group dynamics for leaders.

The Consequences of Love. (2004 Paolo Sorrentini) This remarkable European film is about courage; not the kind found on the battle field or in the face of disaster, but the long, slow burning enduring courage demanded by love and loyalty. Toni Servillo plays one of the most unlikely and worthy heroes of the cinematic year, and Luca Bigazzi photographs it with grace and the audacity to hold the shot.

The Constant Gardener. (2005 USA/UK/Canada/Germany. Fernando Meirelles) The best film adaptation of le Carré since The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. A furious exploration of the corporate evil that lurks just beyond our ken; but only because we cannot be bothered to raise our eyes or our moral vision. Terrific cast, great photography and soundtrack.  (See my articles The Constant Gardener still bears fruit article, and Blind and Bigoted view of The Constant Gardener, both 2016).

Counsellor (2013  Ridley Scott)  This script by Cormac McCarthy confused many critics by not being what they expected – a Hollywood thriller – but it is an inexorable morality tale very well told, with a great cast and handsomely shot by  Dariusz Wolski.   With Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz,  Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt.    See Darkness Implacable 2013.

Crazy Heart (2010) See Movies of 2010

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (2000 Ang Lee) 'Ang Lee's beautiful, intimate epic is - one would have thought self evidently - a luminous work of art' said Salman Rushdie. I love the whole thing, especially its take on women and the challenge that its protagonists should live as courageously as they fight, taking responsibility for their actions. The final shot, of Jen's leap of faith(?), is well worth thinking and talking about.

Cry Freedom. (1987 Richard Attenborough) This is not about Steven Biko, but about the effect he had on Donald Woods, the white newspaper editor who thought he was a liberal until introduced to the reality of Black South African life, and decided what price that knowledge demanded of him. Kevin Kline and Denzel Washington are superb, and this story should not be forgotten just because Apartheid was dismantled.

Cyrano De Bergarac (1990 Jean-Paul Rappaneau). Gerard Depardieu does the fighting, Anthony Burgess does the rhyming couplets for the subtitles and we are swept along by the emotions so lavishly portrayed. There are plenty of diamonds in the ashes, and panache aplenty. See my article Gerard Depardieu is Cyrano de Bergerac 2013.

The Da Vinci Code (2006 Ron Howard)   See my article Breaking the Da Vinci Code. 

Dark City (1998 Alex Proyas) . An original take on the 'sealed world' sf theme, with deep psycho-analytical influences and questions about identity.

The Dark Knight.  (2008 Christopher Nolan)  Turning and turning in the widening gyre; The falcon cannot hear the falconer.  (W. B. Yeats. The Second Coming)   Batman is the falcon, wheeling and swooping from the high towers through our concrete canyons, seeking his prey. But the falcon cannot hear the falconer; he does not know where to find his moral footing. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold because mere anarchy is loosed upon the world by The Joker, the man who recognises no laws of logic or conventional reward. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed by The Joker’s disordered violence and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned despite the best intentions of its guardians. The best lack all conviction, confused and lost in the world of The Joker, or of the terrorists who think they are moral heroes, or of the abused who need no justification to inflict upon the world vengeance for their own suffering. The worst are full of passionate intensity, and they fascinate us.  See my articles  A ray of light in the Dark Knight August 2011  and A study pack for The Dark Knight. 2014.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Chrisopher Nolan)  The trilogy comes to a satisfying end.   See Films of 2012.

Dark Star (1974. John Carpenter) Somewhat like 2001: a Space Odyssey made for $20 and with much more wit and much less obscure symbolism - while still including a philosophical discussion with an atomic bomb.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014 Matt Reeves)   seemed to me to be better than its many predecessors, apart from the original first movie,   being more thoughtful  and convincing.    I have often said that Andy Serkis should  an Oscar category reserved for him,  Best Motion Capture performance.     The technology now allows truly convincing and moving characters to be created, and Serkis still leads the field.   

Days of Heaven   (1978 Terrence  Malick)  American philosopher turned movie  maker,  Mallickfilmed this moving and beautiful tragedy in the corn fields of the mid-west, with Richard Gere, Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard.    See my Tree of Life in various articles.

Dead Poets Society (1989 Peter Weir) This film really annoys me!        I think it carefully manipulates us to approve of a naive and irresponsible character (Robin Williams's teacher) but one senior manager in the Church suggested that it is a fine parable about Anglicanism. What do you think? It is certainly watchable.

The Debt. (2010 John Madden) Madden directed Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love, but this is different, a thriller about an Israeli Mossad squad’s attempt to kidnap a Nazi war criminal and take him from East Berlin back to Israel to be put on trial. But the snatch goes badly wrong. Thirty years on we see the fall-out from that failure. Helen Mirren plays the older version of the agent played as a younger woman by Jessica Chastain, and Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds play her colleagues. This remake of an Israeli film has a script worked on by Peter Straughn, who also contributed to the adaptation of Tinker, Tailor Soldier Spy  and is a taut political thriller with a moral edge. What is the debt, and to whom is it owed?

Dirty Dancing. (1987 Emile Ardolino) First dance, first love, the time of your life...This tasty and erotic teen movie still works and challenges assumptions while reinforcing some good ol' family values.

District 9 (2010) See Movies of 2010

Doctor Who; Face the Raven, written by Sarah Dollard and broadcast on the 20^th November, 2015.    This is Clara’s farewell to The Doctor, and to us.   They both  know that she is going to die in a moment of two - and they both know who is to blame.  Clara says to the Doctor…“You; listen to me.  You’re going to be alone now.   And you’re very bad at that.  You’re going to be furious.   And you’re going to be sad.  But listen to me.  Don’t let this change you. ….  I know what you are capable of.   You;  don’t be a warrior, promise me.  Be a Doctor.” 

“Heal yourself .  You have to. You can’t let this turn you into a monster.  So, I am not asking you for a promise.  I am giving you an order.  You will not insult my memory.   There will be no revenge.   I will die, and no one else, here or anywhere, will suffer.”

It cannot be by accident that Clara then faces her death with her arms held wide open.     She  lived her death in the best possible way she could.     Thank you Clara.  Thank you  Sarah Dollard and Stephen Moffatt.   And thank you The BBC. See Doctor Who 2015.

Doubt (2009 John Patrick Shanley)  Shanley’s drama opens with the Roman Catholic priest Father Flynn asking his congregation “What do you do when you’re not sure?”  We are in America in the year after the assassination of J F Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic President of the United States, and some of his parishioners may be asking themselves ‘if such a thing as this can happen to such a man as this is there a God in heaven?’ But to live with doubt is not to live alone, Father Flynn assures them.  This is an unashamedly didactic drama. It explores the tension between the comforting assurance of a man’s innocence and the driving conviction of his guilt. Sister Aloysius, Principal of the parish school, has encountered a child-abusing priest before and her suspicions that Father Flynn is grooming, if not abusing, one of her boy pupils soon hardens into certainty.  Young Sister James on the other hand is eager to accept his explanations as proof of innocence.  At every point in the film the evidence is questionable, the responses ambiguous. We should all be left in doubt. There is no answer. This is expertly constructed drama, adapted and directed by Shanley from his original play. It is well acted with Oscar nominated performances by Meryl Streep as the School Principal, Philip Seymour Hoffman as the priest and Amy Adams as the young nun, and – for just one scene – by Viola Davis as the boy’s mother. As a Child Protection trainer I would use it as a case study. (See my article Caught between Doubt and Conviction’.)

The East.   (2013. Brit Marling/ Zal Batmanglij)  It has taken me some time to track down Marling’s 2013 film, The East.    In The Sound of My Voice Brit played the leader of a cult.   In this film Peter Scarsgard is the leader of another kind of cult - or at least a group of American eco-terrorists, determined to make those guilty of polluting the earth or exploiting the big pharma market pay for their crimes.   Brit and Zal Batmanglij said “we went travelling in search of direct action groups and anarchists and freeking culture, feeling  anger and frustration  and a desire to find groups that were organised and intelligent and thinking of ways to use all the tools of now to be effective, and we are still looking for that group. So we made a film about it.”    The East is not an anarchist promo - it more nuanced than that.   However, I think that its maker’s commitment to the cause has rather blunted their creativity. 

See my article The East 2015.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014 Doug Liman) I congratulate Liman, who used  the skills he honed during the Bourne franchise; Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote the labyrinthine The Usual Suspects, and Jez Butterworth, who wrote this, Dion Beeb who filmed it and James Herbert, who edited it with daring and precision - just the characteristics displayed here by Emily Blunt, who plays Rita, the warrior.   Cruise gives one his best performances, and it has a plot that does not insult the audience’s intelligence.  I am dismayed by the poor viewing figures.   It deserved much better.   Reissued as Live Die Repeat.    See my article On the Edge of My Seat For the Edge of Tomorrow 2014.

Edward Scissorhands. (1990 Tim Burton) A surreal parable/ fairy story/ fable that is unique, weird, gothic, satirical, funny and touching. Johnny Depp is wonderful, and well supported by a great cast. You decide what it means to you!

The English Patient.  (1996 Anthony Mingela) Mingela adapted Michael Ondaatje’s WW II magnificent and romantic epic novel and brought it to lustrous life,  with Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin  Scott Thomas.   See my article The English Patient revisited 2013.

ET. (1982 Steven Spielberg) I think this still works on the small screen, thanks to Spielberg's knack of making us wait for what we want - and then giving it to us in an unexpected way, not to mention the discovery of what 'loving the alien' really means, and that love is stronger than death. Indulge yourselves.

Event Horizon (1997 Paul Andersen)  'Behind the civilised surface of life there's an extra dimension of hell, damnation and chaos just waiting to rip us apart' A very bloody film, but one that does offer a modern view of hell that has deep resonance. With Laurence Fishburn and Sam Neill.

Ex Machina.  (2015 Writer/Director Alex Garland).  Domhnall Gleason, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaak team up in a slick techno-thriller mainly set in the isolated laboratory/home of Nathan (Oscar Isaac) the billionaire inventor of the world’s largest search engine,  now experimenting  with AI.    The set is brilliant; Nathan’s mountain hide-out constructed of concrete, stone and opaque glass walls.      The glass hides rather than reveals.    I thought it lacked the depth of Spike Jonze’s Her,  a moving exploration of how knowing,  growing, learning and loving  affects humans and may affect an artificial intelligent program.    Taken on it’s own terms, however Ex Machina is an engaging and enjoyable film.  See my pick of movies from 2015, posted 2016.