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The Nat Pack

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Hard as it might be to believe, there was a time in the '80s when 10,000 Maniacs were neck and neck with R.E.M. as the American band most likely to outgrow their college-rock constituency and pole vault their way to mainstream glory. By the time Stipe & Co were reaching both dizzying creative and commercial peaks with 1992's Automatic For The People, the Maniacs had already lost the plot and effectively perished in the choppy waters of their own hick earnestness and cloying political correctness. They always lacked the innate cool and innovation of R.E.M., and never quite lived down their reputation as post-punk folkies in cheesecloth and Jesus sandals, a kind of new wave Fairport Convention for people with clean pants and bad jumpers. Though, as parts of this two-CD set serve to remind, they deserve to be remembered as something more than a dry run for Natalie Merchant's largely underwhelming solo career. Thirty-one tracks in all, wisely confining themselves to the 12-year period with Merchant at the helm, mercifully omitting the dreary stuff the remaining Maniacs churned out following her mid-'90s departure. Three selections from their pre-Elektra period reveal them in all their endearing, ramshackle oddness. Gang Of Four meets rustic reggae, if you will, on "Planned Obsolescence". Slap-happy suburban punk rock on "My Mother The War". There's a measly single cut ("Scorpio Rising") from The Wishing Chair, their 1985 Elektra debut, but that's more than compensated for with five tracks from 1987's In My Tribe. Listening now to "Hey Jack Kerouac" and "Don't Talk", you're taken back to a time when rock music was in its most fallow period since the early'60s, and the Maniacs' effervescent folk-pop shone like a brand new shilling up a chimney sweep's arse. By the time of '89's Blind Man's Zoo, Merchant's quavering vocal still recalled a sanguine Stevie Nicks or a neutered Chrissie Hynde, but she'd already begun a headlong descent into bleeding-heart liberalism while her band were turning into white-bread MORists. The second CD of obscure and unknown recordings offers a bewildering tour through sublime highlights and risible nadirs. The former, represented by a sparkling demo of "Can't Ignore The Train" and a simply adorable version of Iris DeMent's "Let The Mystery Be", contrasts with shockingly bad takes on Bowie's "Starman" and Jackson Browne's "These Days". There's also a plodding desecration of Morrissey's "Everyday Is Like Sunday" which might just be the most laughably unfunny cover version this young turk of a reviewer has ever had the misfortune to endure.

Hard as it might be to believe, there was a time in the ’80s when 10,000 Maniacs were neck and neck with R.E.M. as the American band most likely to outgrow their college-rock constituency and pole vault their way to mainstream glory. By the time Stipe & Co were reaching both dizzying creative and commercial peaks with 1992’s Automatic For The People, the Maniacs had already lost the plot and effectively perished in the choppy waters of their own hick earnestness and cloying political correctness.

They always lacked the innate cool and innovation of R.E.M., and never quite lived down their reputation as post-punk folkies in cheesecloth and Jesus sandals, a kind of new wave Fairport Convention for people with clean pants and bad jumpers. Though, as parts of this two-CD set serve to remind, they deserve to be remembered as something more than a dry run for Natalie Merchant’s largely underwhelming solo career.

Thirty-one tracks in all, wisely confining themselves to the 12-year period with Merchant at the helm, mercifully omitting the dreary stuff the remaining Maniacs churned out following her mid-’90s departure. Three selections from their pre-Elektra period reveal them in all their endearing, ramshackle oddness. Gang Of Four meets rustic reggae, if you will, on “Planned Obsolescence”. Slap-happy suburban punk rock on “My Mother The War”.

There’s a measly single cut (“Scorpio Rising”) from The Wishing Chair, their 1985 Elektra debut, but that’s more than compensated for with five tracks from 1987’s In My Tribe. Listening now to “Hey Jack Kerouac” and “Don’t Talk”, you’re taken back to a time when rock music was in its most fallow period since the early’60s, and the Maniacs’ effervescent folk-pop shone like a brand new shilling up a chimney sweep’s arse.

By the time of ’89’s Blind Man’s Zoo, Merchant’s quavering vocal still recalled a sanguine Stevie Nicks or a neutered Chrissie Hynde, but she’d already begun a headlong descent into bleeding-heart liberalism while her band were turning into white-bread MORists.

The second CD of obscure and unknown recordings offers a bewildering tour through sublime highlights and risible nadirs. The former, represented by a sparkling demo of “Can’t Ignore The Train” and a simply adorable version of Iris DeMent’s “Let The Mystery Be”, contrasts with shockingly bad takes on Bowie’s “Starman” and Jackson Browne’s “These Days”. There’s also a plodding desecration of Morrissey’s “Everyday Is Like Sunday” which might just be the most laughably unfunny cover version this young turk of a reviewer has ever had the misfortune to endure.

The Scottsville Squirrel Barkers – Blue Grass Favorites

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Way too trim for its own good?less than 20 minutes and no extras?this 1963 masterclass in straight-backed country picking was the Rosetta Stone for a whole slew of West Coast wannabes (Gram Parsons once said he would give his right knee to be in the Barkers). Including 17-year-old mandolinist Chris Hillman and fellow future Burrito Kenny Wertz on banjo, this stunning acoustic fling was the torch-passing of Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs to a hip new generation with no regard for traditional country/rock boundaries.

Way too trim for its own good?less than 20 minutes and no extras?this 1963 masterclass in straight-backed country picking was the Rosetta Stone for a whole slew of West Coast wannabes (Gram Parsons once said he would give his right knee to be in the Barkers). Including 17-year-old mandolinist Chris Hillman and fellow future Burrito Kenny Wertz on banjo, this stunning acoustic fling was the torch-passing of Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs to a hip new generation with no regard for traditional country/rock boundaries.

Sue Thompson – Suzie: The Hickory Anthology

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For all the prom-queen sheen and chunky-ribbed homeliness, Thompson had already weathered three marriages, domestic abuse and a Hollywood TV show by the time she scored big with "Norman" in 1961. Hitching the diminutive sass of Brenda Lee to the popstomp of Jackie Wilson (and notwithstanding friend Roy Orbison's "Suzie", written especially for her), her best moments here are sub-Supremes hip-wiggler "Sweet Hunk Of Misery" and brassy belter "Walkin' My Baby".

For all the prom-queen sheen and chunky-ribbed homeliness, Thompson had already weathered three marriages, domestic abuse and a Hollywood TV show by the time she scored big with “Norman” in 1961.

Hitching the diminutive sass of Brenda Lee to the popstomp of Jackie Wilson (and notwithstanding friend Roy Orbison’s “Suzie”, written especially for her), her best moments here are sub-Supremes hip-wiggler “Sweet Hunk Of Misery” and brassy belter “Walkin’ My Baby”.

Various Artists – Century Of The Blues

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The blues continues to pour down in reissues, compilations and box sets. Century Of The Blues is superbly assembled to commemorate the centenary of the day in 1903 when WC Handy encountered a "lean, loose-jointed negro" playing a guitar in the style he was the first to name "the blues". There's no attempt to claim the music as a contemporary art form, for the selection ends mid-century. Even BB King, the only name here who's still working, is represented by a 1950 recording. But as a primer in the roots of the blues, it really isn't far behind the recent Scorsese five-CD set, which Uncut voted best compilation of 2003.

The blues continues to pour down in reissues, compilations and box sets. Century Of The Blues is superbly assembled to commemorate the centenary of the day in 1903 when WC Handy encountered a “lean, loose-jointed negro” playing a guitar in the style he was the first to name “the blues”. There’s no attempt to claim the music as a contemporary art form, for the selection ends mid-century. Even BB King, the only name here who’s still working, is represented by a 1950 recording. But as a primer in the roots of the blues, it really isn’t far behind the recent Scorsese five-CD set, which Uncut voted best compilation of 2003.

Strange Meeting

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DIRECTED BY Sofia Coppola STARRING Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris Opens January 9, Cert 15, 102 mins Lose yourself in this. While the buzz may focus on its signifiers of hip (East meets West very stylishly, that hottest of directors, that Kevin Shields/Brian Reitzell soundtrack), Lost In Translation is a laconic, low-key Brief Encounter for an ad-fed generation. It's wryly funny, often moving, and it's very, very beautiful in a cool, uncloying manner. Coppola seems more confidently engaged with the material than she was on the dreamy, floaty, slightly overrated The Virgin Suicides. Johansson does well in a nebulous role (the whole film is nebulous, narcotic, in a terrific way). And Bill Murray? We've always known he was God, even though if you actually look at his filmography he's made three stinkers for every great movie. Here, he's perfect?everything we knew he could express, if he brought his A-game to the table, is expressed. He's an unlikely romantic lead, which is the kind of romantic lead which gets you. And if it seems impossible to make an authentically romantic movie these days, when formulaic rom-coms have hacked down our disbelief from wherever we were suspending it, this is that movie. Two strangers, stuck in Tokyo, a neurotic neon paradise. Bob (Murray) is a jaded movie star, shooting a silly whiskey ad for big money. He can't connect, over disjointed phone calls and time zones, with his wife of 25 years. He watches TV in his hotel room, offends a call girl, drinks, improvises sketches with running machines. He wonders where what's left of his life is going. The much younger Charlotte (Johansson), meanwhile, is abandoned in the same hotel while her photographer husband (Ribisi) goes off on 'glamorous' shoots (starlets, rock boys). He's not a bad guy as such; just preoccupied and distracted. Bob and Charlotte break the ice in the hotel bar; neither can sleep. An unconventional friendship develops. They hit the town, meet characters, sing wonderfully bad karaoke?for her, "Brass In Pocket", for him, a mournful, tragicomic "More Than This". They talk lots, realising that at any age, certain questions remain valid, certain puzzles can't be solved. They become very close, for a moment, an air-lock from the everyday. Each realises it won't physically lead to anything. They're grateful for a brief bond, a refreshment of their awareness of the possible. They're, for the first time in too long, inspired. And that's it. No big explosions, no major palavers. As it hums its gentle tune, the film makes lovely observations, both comic and poignant, about loneliness and learning, commitment and yearning. Bob and Charlotte's ennui (and subsequent energy) is portrayed via exquisite miniatures. Murray's scenes prior to their meeting are acutely funny, even if they're basically portrayals of a man dancing with self-loathing. Countered by a rising starlet (Anna Faris), he's a sitting, slouching symbol of celebrity unhappiness. He's seen through the shallow, but can no longer find the deep. The way he shifts away from a bunch of fans who are telling him he's great is Murray at his most knowing and long-suffering. The film's other star is Tokyo, shot brilliantly (and also, conversely, bleakly) by Lance Acord. Cultural divides are mocked, but with affection; the hospital waiting room scene is a joy. You feel transported by mood as much as by place. It's dislocated, yet accurately so. It's a film of melancholic grace and charm, low on sentimentality and thus all the more affecting and plausible. Magical to look at (be ready for one scene where Johansson and a crowd of umbrella-carriers teem through pouring rain in front of mile-high neon dinosaurs) yet truly soulful, it seems both classically timeless and very much of its time. As the camera stays with Bob's limo as it leaves Tokyo, you leave with it, leaving the film, feeling a sense of something like loss, something like there's a new chapter ahead. Some of us perhaps thought this particular Coppola was a flash in the pan. A media-friendly story, a mere style and who-you-know thing. We were wrong. This is fascinated and fascinating, bewildered and smart, sarcastic but never smug. The first absolute must-see of the year. Let's get lost.

DIRECTED BY Sofia Coppola

STARRING Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris

Opens January 9, Cert 15, 102 mins

Lose yourself in this. While the buzz may focus on its signifiers of hip (East meets West very stylishly, that hottest of directors, that Kevin Shields/Brian Reitzell soundtrack), Lost In Translation is a laconic, low-key Brief Encounter for an ad-fed generation. It’s wryly funny, often moving, and it’s very, very beautiful in a cool, uncloying manner. Coppola seems more confidently engaged with the material than she was on the dreamy, floaty, slightly overrated The Virgin Suicides. Johansson does well in a nebulous role (the whole film is nebulous, narcotic, in a terrific way). And Bill Murray? We’ve always known he was God, even though if you actually look at his filmography he’s made three stinkers for every great movie. Here, he’s perfect?everything we knew he could express, if he brought his A-game to the table, is expressed. He’s an unlikely romantic lead, which is the kind of romantic lead which gets you. And if it seems impossible to make an authentically romantic movie these days, when formulaic rom-coms have hacked down our disbelief from wherever we were suspending it, this is that movie.

Two strangers, stuck in Tokyo, a neurotic neon paradise. Bob (Murray) is a jaded movie star, shooting a silly whiskey ad for big money. He can’t connect, over disjointed phone calls and time zones, with his wife of 25 years. He watches TV in his hotel room, offends a call girl, drinks, improvises sketches with running machines. He wonders where what’s left of his life is going. The much younger Charlotte (Johansson), meanwhile, is abandoned in the same hotel while her photographer husband (Ribisi) goes off on ‘glamorous’ shoots (starlets, rock boys). He’s not a bad guy as such; just preoccupied and distracted.

Bob and Charlotte break the ice in the hotel bar; neither can sleep. An unconventional friendship develops. They hit the town, meet characters, sing wonderfully bad karaoke?for her, “Brass In Pocket”, for him, a mournful, tragicomic “More Than This”. They talk lots, realising that at any age, certain questions remain valid, certain puzzles can’t be solved. They become very close, for a moment, an air-lock from the everyday. Each realises it won’t physically lead to anything. They’re grateful for a brief bond, a refreshment of their awareness of the possible. They’re, for the first time in too long, inspired. And that’s it. No big explosions, no major palavers. As it hums its gentle tune, the film makes lovely observations, both comic and poignant, about loneliness and learning, commitment and yearning. Bob and Charlotte’s ennui (and subsequent energy) is portrayed via exquisite miniatures. Murray’s scenes prior to their meeting are acutely funny, even if they’re basically portrayals of a man dancing with self-loathing. Countered by a rising starlet (Anna Faris), he’s a sitting, slouching symbol of celebrity unhappiness. He’s seen through the shallow, but can no longer find the deep. The way he shifts away from a bunch of fans who are telling him he’s great is Murray at his most knowing and long-suffering.

The film’s other star is Tokyo, shot brilliantly (and also, conversely, bleakly) by Lance Acord. Cultural divides are mocked, but with affection; the hospital waiting room scene is a joy. You feel transported by mood as much as by place. It’s dislocated, yet accurately so. It’s a film of melancholic grace and charm, low on sentimentality and thus all the more affecting and plausible.

Magical to look at (be ready for one scene where Johansson and a crowd of umbrella-carriers teem through pouring rain in front of mile-high neon dinosaurs) yet truly soulful, it seems both classically timeless and very much of its time. As the camera stays with Bob’s limo as it leaves Tokyo, you leave with it, leaving the film, feeling a sense of something like loss, something like there’s a new chapter ahead.

Some of us perhaps thought this particular Coppola was a flash in the pan. A media-friendly story, a mere style and who-you-know thing. We were wrong. This is fascinated and fascinating, bewildered and smart, sarcastic but never smug. The first absolute must-see of the year. Let’s get lost.

Black And White

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OPENS JANUARY 9, CERT 15, 102 MINS If nothing else, Black And White would be memorable for its portrayal of a young Rupert Murdoch, ambitious proprietor of the Adelaide News. The film explores the true story of Max Stuart, an Aboriginal convicted of the rape and murder of a nine-year-old white girl in 1959. Young solicitor David O'Sullivan (Robert Carlyle) is assigned to defend Stuart, and swiftly concludes that his client has been framed by the local police. But the complacent white judiciary have no doubt that Stuart is a murdering pervert, and O'Sullivan is scuppered until Murdoch adopts the case as a populist crusade. What fascinates the film-makers is how the case aroused furious debate and exposed faultlines in the South Australian police and legal establishment. Charles Dance is supercilious as Crown Solicitor Roderic Chamberlain, and the English appeal judges are some of the ghastliest Poms on celluloid, but the plot grips tighter than the noose threatening to drop around Max Stuart's neck. Never flashy, but absorbing.

OPENS JANUARY 9, CERT 15, 102 MINS

If nothing else, Black And White would be memorable for its portrayal of a young Rupert Murdoch, ambitious proprietor of the Adelaide News. The film explores the true story of Max Stuart, an Aboriginal convicted of the rape and murder of a nine-year-old white girl in 1959. Young solicitor David O’Sullivan (Robert Carlyle) is assigned to defend Stuart, and swiftly concludes that his client has been framed by the local police. But the complacent white judiciary have no doubt that Stuart is a murdering pervert, and O’Sullivan is scuppered until Murdoch adopts the case as a populist crusade.

What fascinates the film-makers is how the case aroused furious debate and exposed faultlines in the South Australian police and legal establishment. Charles Dance is supercilious as Crown Solicitor Roderic Chamberlain, and the English appeal judges are some of the ghastliest Poms on celluloid, but the plot grips tighter than the noose threatening to drop around Max Stuart’s neck. Never flashy, but absorbing.

Cold Mountain

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OPENED DECEMBER 26, CERT 15, 153 MINS Many were surprised when Anthony Minghella followed The English Patient, a visually dazzling epic of yearning love and churning war, with the creepy The Talented Mr Ripley. However, he's now milking Miramax for another grand-scale yarn of hot-flush romance and Bosch-like violence. And he doesn't stop at emulating his own Oscar-grabber. Here he's shooting for the mommy of them all: Gone With The Wind. The Civil War, the 1860s; immediately we're thrown into the bearpit of Gettysburg. The bloody scenes here will draw comparisons to Saving Private Ryan's opening. Southerner Inman (Jude Law) can't take any more and deserts. His goal, we learn in flashbacks, is to return to his beloved Ada (Nicole Kidman) at her farm in Cold Mountain. As Inman makes his long, dangerous pilgrim's progress, we see Ada's life fall apart as dad Donald Sutherland dies and evil Ray Winstone closes in. Add comic/poignant turns from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman and one Jack White, great photography and astute humour, and this almost topples Tara. But not quite.

OPENED DECEMBER 26, CERT 15, 153 MINS

Many were surprised when Anthony Minghella followed The English Patient, a visually dazzling epic of yearning love and churning war, with the creepy The Talented Mr Ripley. However, he’s now milking Miramax for another grand-scale yarn of hot-flush romance and Bosch-like violence. And he doesn’t stop at emulating his own Oscar-grabber. Here he’s shooting for the mommy of them all: Gone With The Wind.

The Civil War, the 1860s; immediately we’re thrown into the bearpit of Gettysburg. The bloody scenes here will draw comparisons to Saving Private Ryan’s opening. Southerner Inman (Jude Law) can’t take any more and deserts. His goal, we learn in flashbacks, is to return to his beloved Ada (Nicole Kidman) at her farm in Cold Mountain. As Inman makes his long, dangerous pilgrim’s progress, we see Ada’s life fall apart as dad Donald Sutherland dies and evil Ray Winstone closes in. Add comic/poignant turns from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman and one Jack White, great photography and astute humour, and this almost topples Tara. But not quite.

S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine

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OPENS JANUARY 23, CERT 12, 101 MINS During the Pol Pot-inspired genocide in Cambodia that killed an estimated two million people, S21 was a detention centre in Phnom Penh where 17,000 people were questioned, tortured and executed. Director Rithy Panh's documentary (showing until February 1 at the NFT) brings two of the three surviving inmates face to face with their former captors. We hear how the guards, many of them barely out of their teens, tortured and murdered prisoners. The guards claim they were brainwashed and indoctrinated. Still, it's apparent that in some dark corner of their souls they'd far rather leave untouched, they relished their duties. What's even more bizarre?at least to Western eyes?is that the killers and their victims now live side by side. There have been no Nuremberg-style trials. As the guards wander round S21 and talk about their duties as if they're reminiscing about some humdrum municipal job, Hannah Arendt's famous remark about "the banality of evil" seems more pertinent than ever.

OPENS JANUARY 23, CERT 12, 101 MINS

During the Pol Pot-inspired genocide in Cambodia that killed an estimated two million people, S21 was a detention centre in Phnom Penh where 17,000 people were questioned, tortured and executed. Director Rithy Panh’s documentary (showing until February 1 at the NFT) brings two of the three surviving inmates face to face with their former captors. We hear how the guards, many of them barely out of their teens, tortured and murdered prisoners. The guards claim they were brainwashed and indoctrinated. Still, it’s apparent that in some dark corner of their souls they’d far rather leave untouched, they relished their duties. What’s even more bizarre?at least to Western eyes?is that the killers and their victims now live side by side. There have been no Nuremberg-style trials. As the guards wander round S21 and talk about their duties as if they’re reminiscing about some humdrum municipal job, Hannah Arendt’s famous remark about “the banality of evil” seems more pertinent than ever.

A Mighty Wind

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DIRECTED BY Christopher Guest STARRING Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy Opens January 16, Cert 15, 91 minutes Since 1984's indestructible This Is Spinal Tap, Christopher Guest has turned his spoofumentary skills on regional theatre with Waiting For Guffman and the outlandish world of pedigree dog contests in Best In Show. This time, reunited with co-writer Eugene Levy, he takes aim at American '60s folk music. The movie bristles with assured comic performances from Guest's repertory company of wise-asses, not least in the director's reunion with his old Tap buddies Michael McKean and Harry Shearer as The Folksmen. Some great laughs are provided by dumb and raucous manager Mike LaFontaine (Fred Willard) and Jonathan Steinbloom (Bob Balaban), the latter organising a grand memorial concert for his late father, folk doyen Irving Steinbloom. The relationship between former folk-boom sweethearts Mitch & Mickey, with Mitch now reduced to a mumbling husk of a man by a string of nervous breakdowns and Mickey married to a catheter salesman obsessed with model trains, squirts a trace of pathos into the comic brew. The problem for many audiences is likely to be the lack of recognition of the world being parodied. You'd imagine that any pastiche of American folk from this period would involve a few sly jabs in the direction of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary, but Guest has gone for the less durable likes of The New Christy Minstrels (presumably the models for the film's idiotically colour-coordinated New Main Street Singers). Rock'n'roll fans will know that folk music was the stuff that got turned into folk-rock by Dylan and The Byrds, but there's no sense of that wider musical world here, while The Folksmen's unsingable dirge about the Spanish Civil War is the only glimpse of folk's political pretensions. It may be that Guest's real affection for folk music has clipped his satirical claws. Best, then, to sit back and enjoy Tap-like moments, like the revelation that The Folksmen were once signed to a label too cheapskate to punch holes in the middle of their LPs, or savour the boneheaded incompetence of PR consultants Amber Cole and Wally Fenton. Some great laughs, though it's less than a great movie.

DIRECTED BY Christopher Guest

STARRING Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy

Opens January 16, Cert 15, 91 minutes

Since 1984’s indestructible This Is Spinal Tap, Christopher Guest has turned his spoofumentary skills on regional theatre with Waiting For Guffman and the outlandish world of pedigree dog contests in Best In Show. This time, reunited with co-writer Eugene Levy, he takes aim at American ’60s folk music.

The movie bristles with assured comic performances from Guest’s repertory company of wise-asses, not least in the director’s reunion with his old Tap buddies Michael McKean and Harry Shearer as The Folksmen. Some great laughs are provided by dumb and raucous manager Mike LaFontaine (Fred Willard) and Jonathan Steinbloom (Bob Balaban), the latter organising a grand memorial concert for his late father, folk doyen Irving Steinbloom. The relationship between former folk-boom sweethearts Mitch & Mickey, with Mitch now reduced to a mumbling husk of a man by a string of nervous breakdowns and Mickey married to a catheter salesman obsessed with model trains, squirts a trace of pathos into the comic brew.

The problem for many audiences is likely to be the lack of recognition of the world being parodied. You’d imagine that any pastiche of American folk from this period would involve a few sly jabs in the direction of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary, but Guest has gone for the less durable likes of The New Christy Minstrels (presumably the models for the film’s idiotically colour-coordinated New Main Street Singers). Rock’n’roll fans will know that folk music was the stuff that got turned into folk-rock by Dylan and The Byrds, but there’s no sense of that wider musical world here, while The Folksmen’s unsingable dirge about the Spanish Civil War is the only glimpse of folk’s political pretensions.

It may be that Guest’s real affection for folk music has clipped his satirical claws. Best, then, to sit back and enjoy Tap-like moments, like the revelation that The Folksmen were once signed to a label too cheapskate to punch holes in the middle of their LPs, or savour the boneheaded incompetence of PR consultants Amber Cole and Wally Fenton. Some great laughs, though it’s less than a great movie.

Child’s Play

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DIRECTED BY Gus Van Sant STARRING Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, Alicia Miles, Timothy Bottoms Opens January 30, Cert 15, 88 mins The late, great director Alan Clarke made a little-seen but highly regarded experimental film in 1989 about political violence in Northern Ireland. It was called Elephant, referring to a screamingly obvious problem that society blindly refuses to address. Gus Van Sant, no stranger to cinematic homage, lifted the title of this powerful teen drama directly from Clarke. The idea of an unspoken but urgent crisis is crucial here, too, although this time the topic is lethal shootings in US high schools. Inevitably, the shadow of Columbine looms large. Very large, in fact. Elephant is almost a documentary recreation of the notorious 1999 massacre in Littleton, Colorado. As the action unfolds in a series of parallel plot lines, two heavily armed suburban fuck-ups (Frost and Deulen) mount a methodically planned assault on their school, randomly gunning down their classroom peers. The echoes of Columbine are precise and shameless. And although Van Sant relocates the story to his native Portland, Oregon, this could clearly be Anytown, USA. Nobody could accuse Van Sant of sensationalising real-life tragedy, although he does aestheticise it. Shot in long takes, Elephant was financed by US cable channel HBO and made on a tight budget with an unknown cast of real schoolkids. In a style that initially feels mannered but soon becomes utterly hypnotic, we follow half a dozen main characters around the school in endless tracking shots, allowing tension to build with eerie detachment. Van Sant first tested this technique on last year's lo-fi road movie Gerry, and there is even a sly reference to his previous film in one of the computer games that the killers play. Most strikingly, this poetic Cannes Palme d'Or winner offers no explanation for the massacre. These teenage assassins may be sexually confused, poorly parented and alienated, but no more than their victims. With its serene, voyeuristic, eavesdropping style, Elephant demolishes the brittle certainties behind orthodox Hollywood heroism and shallow media moralising. It's a bold, haunting and subversive work. It also puts Van Sant firmly back in indie auteur mode, even excusing the wretched Finding Forrester. Welcome home.

DIRECTED BY Gus Van Sant

STARRING Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, Alicia Miles, Timothy Bottoms

Opens January 30, Cert 15, 88 mins

The late, great director Alan Clarke made a little-seen but highly regarded experimental film in 1989 about political violence in Northern Ireland. It was called Elephant, referring to a screamingly obvious problem that society blindly refuses to address. Gus Van Sant, no stranger to cinematic homage, lifted the title of this powerful teen drama directly from Clarke. The idea of an unspoken but urgent crisis is crucial here, too, although this time the topic is lethal shootings in US high schools. Inevitably, the shadow of Columbine looms large.

Very large, in fact. Elephant is almost a documentary recreation of the notorious 1999 massacre in Littleton, Colorado. As the action unfolds in a series of parallel plot lines, two heavily armed suburban fuck-ups (Frost and Deulen) mount a methodically planned assault on their school, randomly gunning down their classroom peers. The echoes of Columbine are precise and shameless. And although Van Sant relocates the story to his native Portland, Oregon, this could clearly be Anytown, USA.

Nobody could accuse Van Sant of sensationalising real-life tragedy, although he does aestheticise it. Shot in long takes, Elephant was financed by US cable channel HBO and made on a tight budget with an unknown cast of real schoolkids. In a style that initially feels mannered but soon becomes utterly hypnotic, we follow half a dozen main characters around the school in endless tracking shots, allowing tension to build with eerie detachment. Van Sant first tested this technique on last year’s lo-fi road movie Gerry, and there is even a sly reference to his previous film in one of the computer games that the killers play.

Most strikingly, this poetic Cannes Palme d’Or winner offers no explanation for the massacre. These teenage assassins may be sexually confused, poorly parented and alienated, but no more than their victims. With its serene, voyeuristic, eavesdropping style, Elephant demolishes the brittle certainties behind orthodox Hollywood heroism and shallow media moralising. It’s a bold, haunting and subversive work. It also puts Van Sant firmly back in indie auteur mode, even excusing the wretched Finding Forrester. Welcome home.

Runaway Jury

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OPENS JANUARY 16, CERT 15, 127 MINS Runaway Jury focuses less on the courtroom than on the black art of jury profiling. Gene Hackman, in thunderous form as the scruple-free Rankin Fitch, is hired to assist gun manufacturer Vicksburg Arms, which is accused of allowing its weapons to fall into murder...

OPENS JANUARY 16, CERT 15, 127 MINS

Runaway Jury focuses less on the courtroom than on the black art of jury profiling. Gene Hackman, in thunderous form as the scruple-free Rankin Fitch, is hired to assist gun manufacturer Vicksburg Arms, which is accused of allowing its weapons to fall into murderous hands. Fitch subjects jurors to an arsenal of covert high-tech surveillance to winkle out their prejudices and identify blackmailable weaknesses. Acquittal would seem assured if John Cusack and girlfriend Rachel Weisz weren’t playing an even subtler game. Despite a squirmingly happy-clappy ending, the flick has enough twists to keep you gripped, and poses serious questions about legal ethics and the jury system. A tendency to deliver sermons about gun control is curtailed by excellent performances. Cusack’s gift for boyish naivet

Kiss Of Life

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OPENED JANUARY 2, CERT 12A, 86 MINS Somewhere between A Matter Of Life And Death, The Sixth Sense and Truly Madly Deeply, without any of the romance, spookiness or wit of any of the above, lies Brit ghost story Kiss Of Life. Death doesn't become Helen (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), a young mother in Peckham who dies and then mopes about the house, struggling to let go while her kids cope badly with the loss, barely helped by her addled old grandpa (David Warner). Meanwhile, Helen's charity-worker husband John (Peter Mullan) makes his way home from a war-torn country, unaware his wife is dead. One could ascribe the film's faults to the fact that Katrin Cartlidge, who would have played Helen, died weeks before shooting began. But still, Dapkunaite's Helen is too snivelly to be very sympathetic, and the script doesn't offer much by way of emotional punch. Instead, we mostly get wintry moments of melancholy and the odd poignant scene, but not enough to make anyone really care about the characters or their troubles.

OPENED JANUARY 2, CERT 12A, 86 MINS

Somewhere between A Matter Of Life And Death, The Sixth Sense and Truly Madly Deeply, without any of the romance, spookiness or wit of any of the above, lies Brit ghost story Kiss Of Life. Death doesn’t become Helen (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), a young mother in Peckham who dies and then mopes about the house, struggling to let go while her kids cope badly with the loss, barely helped by her addled old grandpa (David Warner). Meanwhile, Helen’s charity-worker husband John (Peter Mullan) makes his way home from a war-torn country, unaware his wife is dead.

One could ascribe the film’s faults to the fact that Katrin Cartlidge, who would have played Helen, died weeks before shooting began. But still, Dapkunaite’s Helen is too snivelly to be very sympathetic, and the script doesn’t offer much by way of emotional punch. Instead, we mostly get wintry moments of melancholy and the odd poignant scene, but not enough to make anyone really care about the characters or their troubles.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

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Directed by Peter Jackson Starring Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen Opened December 17, Cert 12A, 201 mins Now war is declared and battle come down. Armies are mustered, siege weapons unveiled and war elephants saddled. The forces of good line up for a mighty ruck, the outcome of which will dictate the fate of mankind. Hold the line chaps, and watch out for those elephants. The final part of Peter Jackson's Tolkien trilogy is already assured a record-breaking box office haul. The trilogy stands as a considerable achievement; a lovingly crafted, exhilarating series which has made that most reviled of genres?fantasy?palatable to millions. But, but, but... There are problems here. The first hour seems overly familiar, echoing many of the set-ups from The Two Towers. We get plucky hobbits Frodo and Sam, plus the shifty Gollum, schlepping across wastelands towards Mordor to destroy the One Ring; we get the men of Rohan saddling up and Riding Out (there is much Riding Out done here); we get another city under siege from Orcs. Even Jackson's reverse tracking shots of the massed hoards of darkness?so impressive in The Two Towers?become tiresome. Come the second hour and the pace quickens?you steel the gaze as battle is joined. Orlando Bloom's elf warrior Legolas taking down a war elephant in a two-minute set-piece is jaw-dropping, and, frankly, the sight of Viggo Mortensen's king-to-be Aragorn charging headfirst into the Orc front line is as stirring as it gets. The siege of Gondor, the last outpost of mankind, is as brutal and bloody as the assault on Helm's Deep in The Two Towers: pure eye-popping action cinema. Even outside the battles, Jackson keeps the plot moving briskly along, only slowing for rather irritating soft-focus shots of Liv Tyler looking mimsy and a series of schmaltzy endings. There's a nifty prequel explaining Gollum's origins, and a nasty incident with a giant spider halfway through which provides this movie's water cooler moment. It may not beat The Two Towers for sheer spectacle and thrill, but this is still some feat. Pass the axe, someone.

Directed by Peter Jackson

Starring Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen

Opened December 17, Cert 12A, 201 mins

Now war is declared and battle come down. Armies are mustered, siege weapons unveiled and war elephants saddled. The forces of good line up for a mighty ruck, the outcome of which will dictate the fate of mankind. Hold the line chaps, and watch out for those elephants.

The final part of Peter Jackson’s Tolkien trilogy is already assured a record-breaking box office haul. The trilogy stands as a considerable achievement; a lovingly crafted, exhilarating series which has made that most reviled of genres?fantasy?palatable to millions.

But, but, but…

There are problems here. The first hour seems overly familiar, echoing many of the set-ups from The Two Towers. We get plucky hobbits Frodo and Sam, plus the shifty Gollum, schlepping across wastelands towards Mordor to destroy the One Ring; we get the men of Rohan saddling up and Riding Out (there is much Riding Out done here); we get another city under siege from Orcs. Even Jackson’s reverse tracking shots of the massed hoards of darkness?so impressive in The Two Towers?become tiresome.

Come the second hour and the pace quickens?you steel the gaze as battle is joined. Orlando Bloom’s elf warrior Legolas taking down a war elephant in a two-minute set-piece is jaw-dropping, and, frankly, the sight of Viggo Mortensen’s king-to-be Aragorn charging headfirst into the Orc front line is as stirring as it gets. The siege of Gondor, the last outpost of mankind, is as brutal and bloody as the assault on Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers: pure eye-popping action cinema.

Even outside the battles, Jackson keeps the plot moving briskly along, only slowing for rather irritating soft-focus shots of Liv Tyler looking mimsy and a series of schmaltzy endings. There’s a nifty prequel explaining Gollum’s origins, and a nasty incident with a giant spider halfway through which provides this movie’s water cooler moment.

It may not beat The Two Towers for sheer spectacle and thrill, but this is still some feat. Pass the axe, someone.

Sylvia

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OPENS JANUARY 23, CERT 15, 108 MINS Telling the love story of two of the last century's most revered poets, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Christine Jeffs' film avoids the pitfalls of most 'literary' cinema. It also refuses to kow-tow to the accepted line that Plath was an underrated genius, Hughes a bloated bully. While portraying her anguish and demonstrating the inherent sexism of the times, it keeps a cool, clear head. It uses picture-book scenery only sparingly. It's a dark, unsettling, thoroughly convincing work. Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Hughes (Daniel Craig) fall into a wordy but passionate love at Cambridge in the late '50s. Over seven restless years, as Hughes' star rises and Plath's stutters, they enjoy/endure a fiery on-off marriage. Ted succumbs to temptation, but isn't demonised here. Plath wrestles with jealousy, self-doubt and ultimately madness, before her tragic demise. Paltrow is credible, mercurial and brittle as Plath, while Craig exudes elemental man as the "black marauder". Paltrow's mother, Blythe Danner, is exquisite as Plath's mother. Very, very moving.

OPENS JANUARY 23, CERT 15, 108 MINS

Telling the love story of two of the last century’s most revered poets, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Christine Jeffs’ film avoids the pitfalls of most ‘literary’ cinema. It also refuses to kow-tow to the accepted line that Plath was an underrated genius, Hughes a bloated bully. While portraying her anguish and demonstrating the inherent sexism of the times, it keeps a cool, clear head. It uses picture-book scenery only sparingly. It’s a dark, unsettling, thoroughly convincing work.

Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Hughes (Daniel Craig) fall into a wordy but passionate love at Cambridge in the late ’50s. Over seven restless years, as Hughes’ star rises and Plath’s stutters, they enjoy/endure a fiery on-off marriage. Ted succumbs to temptation, but isn’t demonised here. Plath wrestles with jealousy, self-doubt and ultimately madness, before her tragic demise.

Paltrow is credible, mercurial and brittle as Plath, while Craig exudes elemental man as the “black marauder”. Paltrow’s mother, Blythe Danner, is exquisite as Plath’s mother. Very, very moving.

Stuck On You

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OPENED JANUARY 2, CERT 12A, 118 MINS All Farrelly brothers films are funny, but there's a big difference between the ones starring hateful egomaniacs (beat it, Black and Carrey) and the ones starring proper actors. Bill Murray made Kingpin a classic with just a bad wig and attitude, and Greg Kinnear does the same for Stuck On You just by being charismatic and believable. Well, as believable as you can be as a conjoined twin with an eye for the ladies and showbiz aspirations. Kinnear and Matt Damon are the twins who head for Hollywood to pursue Kinnear's dreams while Damon simultaneously tries to woo a girl without her twigging Kinnear's attached to him at the hip. This last plotline requires the same visual gag over and over again, forcing the Farrellys into feats of surreal inventiveness. As the twins rise to fame thanks (unintentionally) to the evil machinations of Cher, there are enough literate wisecracks and Hollywood in-jokes to put this in the same league as Airplane. A clever movie posing as a really, really dumb one.

OPENED JANUARY 2, CERT 12A, 118 MINS

All Farrelly brothers films are funny, but there’s a big difference between the ones starring hateful egomaniacs (beat it, Black and Carrey) and the ones starring proper actors. Bill Murray made Kingpin a classic with just a bad wig and attitude, and Greg Kinnear does the same for Stuck On You just by being charismatic and believable. Well, as believable as you can be as a conjoined twin with an eye for the ladies and showbiz aspirations.

Kinnear and Matt Damon are the twins who head for Hollywood to pursue Kinnear’s dreams while Damon simultaneously tries to woo a girl without her twigging Kinnear’s attached to him at the hip. This last plotline requires the same visual gag over and over again, forcing the Farrellys into feats of surreal inventiveness. As the twins rise to fame thanks (unintentionally) to the evil machinations of Cher, there are enough literate wisecracks and Hollywood in-jokes to put this in the same league as Airplane. A clever movie posing as a really, really dumb one.

The Three Marias

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OPENS JANUARY 30, CERT 15, 74 MINS The title characters are three sisters who've vowed to their grieving mother to avenge the murders of their father and brothers by a local gangster. So each Maria separately sets out into the desert to contract assassins. Family revenge was the theme of another recent Brazilian movie, Behind The Sun, but whereas that film was slightly po-faced, The Three Marias mixes moments of riotous black comedy with overwrought melodrama. Featuring a trio of kickass, deadpan heroines who could be cousins to Kill Bill's The Bride, this is a torrid blend of Leone, Peckinpah and Federico Garcia Lorca. The results are uneven and lacking in emotion. But taken as a stylish, live-action cartoon, the movie is perfectly entertaining, with some memorably macho characters (one hitman survives only on snake meat and tequila, convinced this diet banishes all sense of fear) and ripe dialogue. The mother tells her daughters they mustn't weep until the men who killed her husband are dead?"Never feed pain without giving sustenance to hatred." Quite.

OPENS JANUARY 30, CERT 15, 74 MINS

The title characters are three sisters who’ve vowed to their grieving mother to avenge the murders of their father and brothers by a local gangster. So each Maria separately sets out into the desert to contract assassins.

Family revenge was the theme of another recent Brazilian movie, Behind The Sun, but whereas that film was slightly po-faced, The Three Marias mixes moments of riotous black comedy with overwrought melodrama. Featuring a trio of kickass, deadpan heroines who could be cousins to Kill Bill’s The Bride, this is a torrid blend of Leone, Peckinpah and Federico Garcia Lorca. The results are uneven and lacking in emotion. But taken as a stylish, live-action cartoon, the movie is perfectly entertaining, with some memorably macho characters (one hitman survives only on snake meat and tequila, convinced this diet banishes all sense of fear) and ripe dialogue. The mother tells her daughters they mustn’t weep until the men who killed her husband are dead?”Never feed pain without giving sustenance to hatred.” Quite.

They Live By Night

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OPENS JANUARY 1, CERT PG, 92 MINS Adapted from Edward Anderson's novel, this contained many of the themes to which Ray would return throughout his career. The isolated hero and his anguished relationship with society is embodied here by Depression-era convict-on-the-run Bowie, played by Farley Granger. There's a famous, much-imitated aerial shot of Bowie escaping by car along with fellow cons T-Dub and Chicamaw, played by terrific character actors Jay C Flippen and Howard Da Silva. They are bad guys through and through, but Bowie broke out to prove his innocence?fat chance in a Ray movie, particularly as T-Dub and Chicamaw drag him along on a bank job. Injured, Bowie goes into hiding, and is nursed back to health by Keechie. They fall in love, and marry. But Bowie's new family plunge him into extremes of danger, and finally betray him. Robert Altman filmed the same novel in Thieves Like Us, and doomed fugitive lovers turn up again in Gun Crazy, Bonnie And Clyde, Badlands and True Romance. Landmark noir.

OPENS JANUARY 1, CERT PG, 92 MINS

Adapted from Edward Anderson’s novel, this contained many of the themes to which Ray would return throughout his career. The isolated hero and his anguished relationship with society is embodied here by Depression-era convict-on-the-run Bowie, played by Farley Granger. There’s a famous, much-imitated aerial shot of Bowie escaping by car along with fellow cons T-Dub and Chicamaw, played by terrific character actors Jay C Flippen and Howard Da Silva. They are bad guys through and through, but Bowie broke out to prove his innocence?fat chance in a Ray movie, particularly as T-Dub and Chicamaw drag him along on a bank job. Injured, Bowie goes into hiding, and is nursed back to health by Keechie. They fall in love, and marry. But Bowie’s new family plunge him into extremes of danger, and finally betray him. Robert Altman filmed the same novel in Thieves Like Us, and doomed fugitive lovers turn up again in Gun Crazy, Bonnie And Clyde, Badlands and True Romance. Landmark noir.

Game Over: Kasparov And The Machine

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OPENS JANUARY 23, CERT TBC, 85 MINS In 1997, then world chess champion Garry Kasparov played the IBM-designed computer Deep Blue in a six-game match in New York. As he reveals in Vikram Jayanti's documentary, he didn't expect to lose. He'd defeated computers before. What he hadn't realised was how much stock (quite literally) IBM had put on the match. When Deep Blue won the match, the company share price rocketed. Kasparov cried foul. Jayanti's fascinating film suffers from a lack of clear identity. The voice-overs belong in a conspiracy thriller, the interviews with computer programmers, grandmasters and journalists hint that this is investigative journalism, while all material about Kasparov's rise through Soviet chess suggest we're being offered a profile. Jayanti was a producer of When We Were Kings, and clearly sees Kasparov as the Ali of chess. His subject is charismatic and articulate, but Jayanti fails to answer the key questions his film asks: was the match a fix and, if not, has man now been outstripped by the machine?

OPENS JANUARY 23, CERT TBC, 85 MINS

In 1997, then world chess champion Garry Kasparov played the IBM-designed computer Deep Blue in a six-game match in New York. As he reveals in Vikram Jayanti’s documentary, he didn’t expect to lose. He’d defeated computers before. What he hadn’t realised was how much stock (quite literally) IBM had put on the match. When Deep Blue won the match, the company share price rocketed. Kasparov cried foul.

Jayanti’s fascinating film suffers from a lack of clear identity. The voice-overs belong in a conspiracy thriller, the interviews with computer programmers, grandmasters and journalists hint that this is investigative journalism, while all material about Kasparov’s rise through Soviet chess suggest we’re being offered a profile. Jayanti was a producer of When We Were Kings, and clearly sees Kasparov as the Ali of chess. His subject is charismatic and articulate, but Jayanti fails to answer the key questions his film asks: was the match a fix and, if not, has man now been outstripped by the machine?

Top Of The Chops

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DIRECTED BY Edward Zwick STARRING Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki Sanada, Timothy Spall Opens January 9, Cert 15, 154 mins Very loosely based on the development of trade links between the US and Japan in the 1870s, signalling the end of Shogunate rule and the beginning of Japan's Meiji Restora...

DIRECTED BY Edward Zwick

STARRING Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Hiroyuki Sanada, Timothy Spall

Opens January 9, Cert 15, 154 mins

Very loosely based on the development of trade links between the US and Japan in the 1870s, signalling the end of Shogunate rule and the beginning of Japan’s Meiji Restoration era, The Last Samurai details the exploits of fictional cavalry hero Captain Nathan Algren (Cruise). Dispirited by the violence he’s inflicted on the Indian nation, Algren accepts a lucrative assignment to train Japanese riflemen. Goaded into leading an attack against rebel lord Katsumoto before his inexperienced troops are ready, Algren’s command is wiped out. Captured and studied by the fearless samurai leader, Algren finds his Western beliefs challenged and his life changed beyond recognition as he’s drawn into the bloody conflict between Katsumoto and the Japanese Emperor’s US-influenced advisors.

Ken Watanabe and Hiroyuki Sanada, as the noble Katsumoto and his unyielding super-warrior Ujio, are both fiercely charismatic, recalling Toshir

Piscine In The Wind

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DIRECTED BY Tim Burton STARRING Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange Opens January 23, Cert PG, 125 mins Two years after his pointless remake of Planet Of The Apes, Tim Burton is back on form with Big Fish, the most narratively accomplished, emotionally resonant movie of his career to date. Based on Daniel Wallace's novel, Big Fish is the tall tale of Edward Bloom (Finney), a big man in a small Midwestern town. Bloom is a consummate storyteller, renowned for the oft-told yarns of his apparently incredible exploits. These elaborate adventures have endeared the ailing raconteur to everyone he knows apart from his son, William (Crudup), who feels his father's outlandish tales have prevented him from getting to know the real man behind them. As the elder Bloom nears the end of his life, father and son attempt to rebuild their relationship and come to terms with each other against a background of mythic flashbacks (played out by McGregor as the younger Bloom). The two leads are inspired choices?Finney is at his twinkly-eyed, curmudgeonly best as the elder Bloom, while McGregor rediscovers the movie star in himself after seven post-Trainspotting years of lazy, self-satisfied performances. His spirited, endlessly optimistic young Edward is a triumph of grinning charisma, equally at home battling giants, parachuting behind enemy lines or discovering ghostly villages. The movie represents a major step forward for Burton. Bloom's freewheeling adventures through the looking glass are as quirkily entertaining as you'd expect from a man who thrives on celebrating the freakish kinks in the heart of US suburbia. But this movie's real triumph lies in its unexpected emotional maturity. Father/son relationships are a recurring motif in Burton's work, but here Finney and Crudup transcend their wondrous quasi-mythological surroundings and deliver a climax that forgoes light-hearted whimsy for profound emotional truth. This understated, affecting portrait of a son's love for his father (and vice versa) will stay with you long after the end credits roll. Big Fish is a unique, atmospheric fantasia with real heart. See it and shed an unembarrassed tear.

DIRECTED BY Tim Burton

STARRING Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange

Opens January 23, Cert PG, 125 mins

Two years after his pointless remake of Planet Of The Apes, Tim Burton is back on form with Big Fish, the most narratively accomplished, emotionally resonant movie of his career to date.

Based on Daniel Wallace’s novel, Big Fish is the tall tale of Edward Bloom (Finney), a big man in a small Midwestern town. Bloom is a consummate storyteller, renowned for the oft-told yarns of his apparently incredible exploits. These elaborate adventures have endeared the ailing raconteur to everyone he knows apart from his son, William (Crudup), who feels his father’s outlandish tales have prevented him from getting to know the real man behind them. As the elder Bloom nears the end of his life, father and son attempt to rebuild their relationship and come to terms with each other against a background of mythic flashbacks (played out by McGregor as the younger Bloom).

The two leads are inspired choices?Finney is at his twinkly-eyed, curmudgeonly best as the elder Bloom, while McGregor rediscovers the movie star in himself after seven post-Trainspotting years of lazy, self-satisfied performances. His spirited, endlessly optimistic young Edward is a triumph of grinning charisma, equally at home battling giants, parachuting behind enemy lines or discovering ghostly villages. The movie represents a major step forward for Burton. Bloom’s freewheeling adventures through the looking glass are as quirkily entertaining as you’d expect from a man who thrives on celebrating the freakish kinks in the heart of US suburbia. But this movie’s real triumph lies in its unexpected emotional maturity. Father/son relationships are a recurring motif in Burton’s work, but here Finney and Crudup transcend their wondrous quasi-mythological surroundings and deliver a climax that forgoes light-hearted whimsy for profound emotional truth. This understated, affecting portrait of a son’s love for his father (and vice versa) will stay with you long after the end credits roll. Big Fish is a unique, atmospheric fantasia with real heart. See it and shed an unembarrassed tear.

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