The Artist is a silent film, which, ironically, is causing a quite a stir this award season. Silent film was of course big back in a time when almost inexplicably every film was from the perspective of a deaf person. This was an advance over the previous generation of films exclusively from the perspective of a blind person, or "radio", but there's still something not quite there. That's right, I just ranked disabilities.

The Artist follows the story of George Valentin, the world's biggest silent film star, out-shined only by his dog. One day he bumps into a young female fan, and they appear in the newspaper together. This inspires young Peppy to become an actress, and she does just that. As Peppy is making a name for herself, George finds himself being cut from the studio due to the dawn of the "talkies" demanding new faces. George spirals into depression, and Peppy takes his place at the top. But Peppy is a nice girl and remembers what George did for her, and just as he's about to hit rock bottom, she helps him get back on his feet. Then there's dancing.

Since there is very little dialogue in the film, there's a shit-ton of music, and it's good music. It captures the mood on screen, and doesn't forget the era that it's referencing. The performances are great too. Both George and Peppy are brilliant, and it just goes to show how little words mean when you have a functioning face.

Obviously, back in the day, films were silent due to technological limitations, so The Artist is stylistically silent. Now before you silent film puritans (Any still alive?) get in a tizzy because there is sound in parts, remember the fact that it's silent by choice. It does a very good job of using the format though, by making the rare instances of sound more significant, and also using the dialogue captions to create humour and trick the audience at times.

The lack of dialogue can get frustrating, which causes the film to drag, particularly around the middle when there isn't really anything interesting happening. Where's the fun in watching a man sink into deep depression if you can't hear him cry?

Overall, I enjoyed it, despite it being dull at times. It's a nice story, sprinkled with humour, and a very well made film. I'm just happy that something so different is making it big in the mainstream.

Meanwhile, in Liverpool, cinema goers have been asking for refunds due to the lack of dialogue. Yup, that's the world we live in. A world where people are so stupid that it makes headlines, and Scousers have statutory rights.

I'm currently under the weather, and due to this bout of man flu, I set out today in search of a film which I could relate to in my present state.

Melancholia is a film about depression and the end of the world. Written and directed by Lars "Heil" Von Trier, it stars Kirsten Dunst as the young melancholic Justine. The film portrays her family life, starting with her wedding, which just happens to turn into the worst wedding ever, and it's all her fault for being a miserable bitch. Then there's the second half of the film which stars Charlotte Gainsbourg as her sister, Claire, who's scared that the world will end when a planet collides with it. Then a planet collides with it. I don't feel bad about ruining the ending of the film because Lars Von Trier does just that with the first 5 minutes.

The film brilliantly portrays depression during the wedding scenes. Kirsten Dunst's every nuance is spot on, and the way that all of her family don't quite understand her condition and just expect her to cheer up is very well observed. It's also a very good depiction of how drama goes down at an event like a wedding, with lots of people going off into different rooms and talking about it.

The plot is very hard to define, meandering, and grandiose. There are an awful lot of dead-ends and superfluous scenes. The film is split into two "chapters", and these feel quite disconnected. Justine seems like a different person in the second chapter, compared to her almost absent-minded demeanour in the first.

The second chapter goes on about a planet called Melancholia that's going to collide with the earth. We don't really hear about this until half way through the film, at which point everything that was set up in the first chapter is forgotten about. We never meet Justine's husband or mother again, despite them playing very big parts in the first half.

The characters have a tendency to do things almost inexplicably, the highlight of which was Justine practically raping a young man who I'm certain played a retarded boy in another film, though he could just have one of those faces.

The first half of the film is good, if a little dull. The second half is just a bit silly. In summary, Lars Von Trier has done it again. And by that I of course mean he's created yet another pretentious fuck-puddle.

The Inbetweeners Movie picks up where the ever-so-popular TV series, coincidently also named The Inbetweeners, left off. Our fateful foursome take a lads holiday to Malia, where they hope to get their hands on some boobs, sex, pussay, and clunge.

Let me start off by saying the screen I watched this at was attrocious. There was a weird buzzing sound throughout and it was full of the most disrespectful pieces of shit you could ever hope to come across, so this could have had an adverse effect on my opinion of the film. If I seem a little harsh, blame St Helens.

The film begins in the way I was dreading the entire film would play out; with a disjointed collection of references to the series for cheap laughs. There's Carly jokes, Jay getting caught wanking jokes, Mr Gilbert being a dick jokes, and basically everything that they already did in the series. My palm was firmly planted in my face during all of this.

Thankfully, once it's clumbsily tied up all the loose ends, they finally make their way abroad, and that's where things get good. Once the lads arrive, the jokes come thick and fast, much like the subject matter would in many cases. It brings back the beautiful form of the series; melding gross-out humour with cringe-worthy relatable antics. This is when the film really gets into its stride.

The boys bump into a gang of four girls, who for some reason (comedic, probably) latch onto their male Inbetweener counterpart. Will gets the pretty girl because they seem to like his weirdness, Simon gets a shoulder to cry on about Carly and someone to put up with his insecurity, Neil gets some stupid lass, and Jay gets a fat bird for irony's sake. Thus begin 4 half-arsed love stories.

As the film approaches the latter part, it starts to knock down a lot of these big set-piece comedy sequences it's set up along the way. Unfortunately most of these you can see coming a mile off, unless you've lost your glasses.

The ending is also quite soppy and a bit of a let down. It tries to go all serious and filmy and have a proper ending, and much like how the last episode of the series fell a bit flat, this did too.

Overall, it's a very funny film when it's doing what it knows best: being insanely over-the-top and yet still relatable. When it tries to have a go at the more cinematic conventions, it loses its way a touch. The plot is nothing to shout about, but it doesn't have to be because The Inbetweeners is all about the characters. If you loved the show, you'll love this, and if you didn't watch the show (you're weird) you'll still love this. Everyone should go and watch this right now. Just not in St Helens.

The Tree of Life, starring, most notably, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, won the Palm d'Or this year, and tells the story of a boy's relationship with his father.

The most succinct way of summing up this film is as follows: A brilliantly realistic, emotional story about a young boy growing up with his father, bookended with pretentious nonsense.

The first half an hour of this film is a convoluted mess that's supposed to represent the start of the world and evolution and everything else that happened before the start of the story. It does eventually settle down and get really quite good. Brad Pitt plays a father who's tough on his kids as he wants the best for them. As the boys get older, it becomes apparent that his attitudes are driving the family apart, and so he tries to correct the error of his ways.

The acting and dialogue is some of the most naturalistic I've ever seen, and really makes for a very touching (no paedo) story.

Definitely worth a watch as it's very different and very good, but not easy viewing by a long way. It's extremely 'art house', but I can't deny that I found it very entertaining. The middle part at least. The beginning and end are like the series Planet Earth edited by a Frenchman.

Before I begin, I'd just like to apologise in advance if this review isn't up to the usual standard. I'm writing this just after watching the film and the will to live hasn't returned yet.


Sucker Punch is the story of a young girl who's framed for the murder of her sister by her step-dad and sent to a mental institution, which she decides she has to escape from, along with the other girls there, by exploring video-game-like fantasies.


Critic: Absolute pile of shit. Seriously, I've seen bad films but this was fucking atrocious. Poor acting; derivative action scenes; confusing, formulaic and quite frankly abhorrent plot; this film has huge steaming piles of them all. This is by far the worst film I've seen this year, and I watched Troll 2 this year. Apparently it's supposed to appeal to gamers, but they'll be severally disappointed since the only control they get is to press play on the DVD menu, and then be treated to a cinematic even Final Fantasy fans would have difficulty sitting through. I've tried so hard to do a proper analytical review of this film but it's impossible. It's like trying to do an autopsy on someone who fell into a wood-chipper.

That review not for you? Try one of these you weirdo.

Cynic: See above.

Moron: It appealed to me on two levels. Things moved and things also made sounds.

Child: I had a dream like this once. When I woke up my bed was sticky.

Old Timer: I'm having a stroke to this film. And not the good kind.

Conservative: I didn't like the way the brown girl was shown to be equal.

Liberal: This was great. It's amazing to see a director cast off the shackles of narrative structure and squirt his undiluted creative juices straight into our eyes.

Stoner: I missed most of it because I was trying to lure the neighbours cat into the washing machine.

Religious: Much like our lord and saviour Jesus Christ, I was crucified by this piece of shit film.

Tween: I totally couldn't make my mind up about this film. Is she Team Edward or Team Jacob?