Decided to clump a load of non-theatrical offerings (in this country) together here so I'll just get on with it. First up is Oliver Hirschbiegel's Five Minutes of Heaven, which was shown on the BBC a few weeks after a theatrical showing in Ireland. Set up of the plot is that a man (Liam Neeson) who killed someone during the troubles is going to meet the brother (James Nesbitt) of the man he shot for a television program about reconciliation. The opening 20 minutes has the backstory of what happened and it is rather devoid of tension. Following another 10 minutes of Neeson and Nesbitt talking to their respective drivers on the way to the venue for the meeting the film finally takes off. Neeson excels throughout giving a subtle, restrained, brooding performance which is the best he's done in well over a decade. Nesbitt on the other hand is excessively mannered and whilst being very impressive at the end, the mechanics of his acting are on show for the most part. Gets better the longer it goes, but doesn't really say anything new and they almost offensively waste Anamaria Marinca in a nothing role.

It's a sad transition from Neeson to his late wife Natasha Richardson, but again, following her death a British TV channel felt compelled to broadcast a performance of hers from their library, this time BBCFour with their early 90s adaptation of Suddenly, Last Summer. It's a case of good casting for the women (Richardson and Maggie Smith in for Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn, respectively) but Rob Lowe was never going to be any kind of replacement for Montgomery Clift. Smith is far less mannered than Hepburn was and Richardson shows more restraint than Taylor, it's also a lot shorter as it keeps the play-feel to it with the one setting. When director Richard Eyre has them all shouting at each other it gets decidedly uninteresting, but the women make sure an inherent interest is retained overall. Worth it if you're a fan of the people involved, otherwise, get the 50s version.

Over the past month I've been watching BBCFour's repeat of the french series Engrenages, called Spiral over here. It's a police-procedural following a murder case, which chronicles the French judicial system as the public prosecutors have most of the power. The beginning shows the body of a Romanian call-girl being found in a skip and then the prosecutor being blackmailed by his childhood friend, who has information about the crime but is more concerned with protecting himself and those responsible. Grégory Fitoussi and Caroline Proust are very appealing as the prosecutor and policewoman, but the problem is that after so much promise there is practically no resolution. Feels like a complete cop-out with strands left up in the air, characterisation changing out of the blue and the end being completely random. Apparantly there's another series but given the way this one finished, I'd not have a tremendous amount of patience with the second one.

Given my interest in all things Charlotte Rampling, I watched the 1999 BBC version of Great Expectations. The good aspect of this is the casting, Ioan Gruffudd does well as Pip, Rampling plays Miss Havisham as a seductive vamp and Justine Waddell (who I discovered afterwards, with horror, was in one of the worst films I've ever had the misfortune to see: Dracula 2000) does the best with the horrible character of Estella I've ever seen. The problem with it is that it's directed by Julian Jarrold, who is quite the period drama hack. Despite the acting (including a decent ensemble highlighted by Ian McDiarmid's Mr. Jaggers) it does not move freely and there are more than a few hackneyed shots. The end is a sort of combination of both Dickens endings, but results in a half-cop-out as for a while you almost think they're going the way of the David Lean version. Decent, with aspects which are good, but nothing particularly special.

Lastly I was searching for anything with Caroline Dhavernas in it and came across Cry of the Owl which is directed by Jamie Thraves (who did the legendary Radiohead video for Just) and stars Paddy Considine, who I have a lot of time for. The set up of the plot is that Considine and Dhavernas are divorcing and Paddy has relocated to the sticks to get away from it all. Lonely, he stops his car every night and stands in the bushes looking into Julia Stiles' window. Upon being rumbled Stiles sees it as fate and before too long she's stalking him, much to her ex-boyfriend's chagrin. Considine makes it watchable, Stiles was fine and Dhavernas very fun and a walking advert for the delights of jeans, but sorely underused. Turns out this was based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, which was adapted by the French in the mid-80s. Immediately I thought "Chabrol would have been the perfect choice" and it turns out he did it so I'm going to see if I can get my hands on it because what was missing here in Thraves' direction was that Chabrol-esque mood and tense atmosphere. This has gone straight-to-dvd though in a few countries, hence being up online, but it was a decent watch, if a bit weird and eliciting laughter at times when they really weren't going for it.

More classic Hollywood stuff here, I'll take them in the order I saw them, not the order of the title. First up is a film I've been intrigued about for a while because I like Jeanne Crain and this was her one oscar nominated performance in an Elia Kazan film : Pinky. The story is that the eponymous character is the granddaughter of a black woman, but can pass for white herself. On returning to where she grew up following going "north" to attend Nursing school, she encounters the usual problems of prejudice in the town. Due to the timeless subject matter, this more than stands up today. A few occasions may be taken too far (there's an attempted rape in there somewhere) and lay on the message too thickly (such as the manipulation of the court scene) but overall this is cracking stuff. Crain is superb, really given a chance with a meaty role and she runs with it, she is ably supported by Ethel Waters and Ethel Barrymore too. Definitely worth getting a hold of and shocking, not that this kind of thing happened, but that Hollywood was tackling this kind of thing in the 1940s.

The next one that caught my eye that I took the opportunity to watch was The Devil and Miss Jones, being such a fan of Jean Arthur and having enjoyed Charles Coburn in most of the things I've seen him in. I must say I was rather disappointed. It's about a businessman (Coburn) who decides to go undercover in one of his stores to root out the troublemakers who have got him adverse publicity. There he meets Miss Jones (Arthur) who is nice to him and whose boyfriend is one of the leading dissidents. The set-up is a bit overlong and the comedic payoffs don't really hit, it's one of those which isn't funny enough to be a successful comedy and too cute to be a satisfying drama. Both central performers (alongside legendary character actress Spring Byington) have enough appeal to ensure it's a decent watch but I didn't find anything revelatory here.

Moving on, I saw another Rita Hayworth musical, this time alongside Gene Kelly, called Cover Girl. I watched this in two goes because the beginning was rather underwhelming and sadly it continues in that vein. The basic set up is that Kelly and Hayworth are lovers and fellow dancers on a small stage, but following Rita's entering a contest to find a new cover girl for magazines she comes across a short cut to the top. Nothing you wouldn't expect to happen happens, and some of the dance routines are rather dull and waste the performers involved. When it's just Gene and Rita, or Gene dancing with himself it flirts with brilliance, but these moments are all too few and far between. The support ranges from inspired (Eve Arden) to maddeningly annoying (Phil Silvers), rather like the film itself. Worth it for the good bits, but only just.

Lastly I saw Build My Gallows High (or Out of the Past, as it's known in America), which is a Robert Mitchum film noir. It starts off a bit slowly but gets better the longer it goes, seeing our man being discovered as the owner of a gas station, then an extended flashback of him working for a gangster to retrieve the moll who's run off with $40,000. Mitchum does well and Jane Greer is incredibly appealing as the femme fatale so they make it very watchable throughout. A young Kirk Douglas is fine as the gangster, but there's a two-scene-turn from Rhonda Fleming which is so good it leaves you desperate for more from her - she was wasted. For the most part it goes where you expect it to, but the end is rather unsatisfactory (but possibly necessary due to the code?). The acting elevates this out of the ordinary but it wasn't something that got me too excited.

Okay I found a load of films on youtube, most of which I've wanted to see for so long it's not even funny so I'll blast through them. First I watched I Remember Mama because it was Irene Dunne's final oscar nomination. This is an extremely old fashioned film (even by 1940s standards) about a poverty-stricken family of Norwegian emigrants struggling to survive in San Francisco. All of the older people are doing accents, Dunne's is ... good for the time (puts Bette Davis and Greer Garson to shame) but it's still a bit uneven. That doesn't really matter though because she gives a very nice turn as the matriarch of the family. A young Barbara Bel Geddes impresses the longer it goes as her daughter, but there is one flat out bad performance by Oskar Homolka as the bombastic uncle. He was the only survivor of the original stage cast and it shows, he just shouts a lot and seems to forget that in film you don't have to try to reach the third tier. So, very dated indeed and not a film which moves freely, but it's interesting if you like the people involved.

After that I chose (and it really was a choice, there are still well over half a dozen ones I *really* want to see) Bell Book and Candle because I was in the mood for something light. It's about local witch Kim Novak who determines to steal her former rival's fiancee (Jimmy Stewart) through magic. So she puts a spell on him and he falls in love with her but she starts ... oh well, you know where this one's going. Stewart sleepwalks through his role, as does a young Jack Lemmon and shockingly, considering the names and levels of acting talent  involved ... Novak is the reason to watch this as she steals the show. It's a very quirky, silly film that doesn't consistently hit, but it's a diverting enough watch.

So, continuing in my picking films with stunningly attractive women rather than those with serious acclaim I watched the Rita Hayworth/Fred Astaire musical You Were Never Lovelier, as I'd seen the second half of it a couple of years ago on Film Four. Enjoyed it a lot more in its entirity, there is something rather worrying about the plot of a father sending anonymous love-notes to his own daughter (as a means to get her interested in men) but everyone involved has such appeal they all somehow make it work. Astaire is his usual "character" (i.e. professional, famous dancer on holiday), Hayworth her usual ridiculously appealing self and Adolphe Menjou (who I really enjoy in most things) really came to play as the overbearing father. Amusing throughout, always entertaining, a tad predictable and silly at times but that was the type of entertainment these films were. Liked it a lot.

In a fit of guilt following my choosing Kim and Rita over the traditional oscarbait, I tucked into some classic Italian cinema. I started off with Nights of Cabiria by Federico Fellini. It's the tale of a prostitute (played by the inimitable Giulietta Masina) named Cabiria who, following being pushed in the river by her boyfriend and having all her money stolen, vows never to be "had" in such a way again. What follows is a rather wandering, aimless film, up until the final third there isn't a very strong narrative or constructed dramatic arc. It takes a while to bed into Masina's style of acting but once it settles down she's excellent, showing the combination of outward strength and inner vulnerability. While it is quite obvious what the conclusion of the film will be, that doesn't really matter as it's such a well made, smoothly told story. Not one of my favourite Fellinis but a very good effort.

Finally, having being given a new lease of life with Michaelangelo Antonioni following La Notte, I finally found L'Avventura, which is the one film of his I've always wanted to see (as it has the best reputation). Sadly for me it's rather in the vein of all the others I've seen apart from La Notte. He does images so well, but can't string them together - the opening makes it feel like it's going to be something like Picnic at Hanging Rock (but good ), but as soon as the storyline of the missing friend makes way for an affair between her best friend and her lover it just stretches out and goes on and on and loses all sense of cinematic rhythm. The main redeeming feature of this film is Monica Vitti, she gives a very good performance and looks absolutely phenomenal, but I'm not really sure the film has much more to say other than "look how attractive she is". Watchable for a while, interesting in parts, but maddeningly frustrating. Still willing to give Red Desert a chance if I can find it though.

Unless you are a filmmaker like Mike Leigh or Wong Kar Wai, who use extensive improvisation or find the films in the editing room, the screenplay is the bedrock of almost every film. The first major problem with Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In is that its screenplay is a complete trainwreck. The characterisation is completely two-dimensional and the dramatic arcs are extremely weak.

Another element which derails this film is the acting. It's challenging enough to have one pre-teen actor to hold a movie together, but it would take hugely talented performers and a very assured director to do that with two. Sadly neither director Thomas Alfredson nor Kåre Hedebrant (the lead actor) and Lina Leandersson (lead actress) can do this, having no chemistry between the two and very little screen presence or charisma.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the film is a turgid drag from scene to scene, having these underdeveloped characters played by sub-par performers go down risible journeys with no zest, flair or vibrancy. Vampire stories work when they are either stylish or entertaining and this entry in the genre is neither, attempting to create mood, but resulting in a ponderous, plodding quagmire that has nothing to grip the audience.

The end of the film really goes above and beyond the expectations this interminably dull piece of work has set up to that point, as it is such a pathetic conclusion to a cheesy, hackneyed drama of bullying and underwhelmingly predictable vampirism that is utterly ridiculous. So, in the end, is the film - a complete waste of everyone's time and effort, and certainly not worth mine in writing about it, let alone seeing this piece of dreck. Atrocious.

The forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was that of the tree of knowledge. In Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest film, Three Monkeys, it isn't the knowledge that causes the characters the most suffering, but their inability to communicate it. As with Adam and Eve, it is someone else who provides the temptation, and here, similarly with the knowledge comes the abdication of responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

The opening shows a man driving a car at night down country lanes, in the process of falling asleep at the wheel. As the car drifts off into the distance away from the camera, so does the driver and once the headlights have faded out, the sound of screeching brakes squeals across the jet black screen. As another car comes upon a lifeless body in the middle of the road, the culprit hides behind his car, aware that the passers-by have noted the registration number before driving off and calling the police. The next thing we see is a man being woken up by the sound of his phone, and his employer, a politician days away from an election and the hit-and-run driver of the opening scene, offers him money and a promise to look after his family financially, should he take the six months to a year in jail instead of him.

Ceylan takes his time addressing the drama that ensues because he is more interested in themes and moments than the plot of what's actually happening. This is because the audience is never physically shown the key moments, but unquestionably knows what has happened in spite of that. The genius of this is that in doing that, Ceylan puts the audience in the position of some of his characters who won't actually say what they know, despite everyone being aware that others know it. Another aspect which is incredibly impressive is the cinematography, the framing is absolutely stunning and the use of natural light audaciously real. The pacing is very deliberate but just at the times when it seems nothing is happening or it has ground to a halt, all of a sudden moments of genuine tension and heart-stopping realisation take hold.

This is a film about the truth, and specifically the willingness or need to test the limits of addressing it without actually doing so. Ceylan would say his characters neither see, hear, nor speak the truth (thus being the "three monkeys" of the title), but the more accurate description is that they hear and see it but cannot speak it and in doing so cannot ever move on from their misery. Evil begets evil and when these very human beings are unable to get to the heart of the matter they will inevitably fall into the same traps that brought them to the brink of disaster in the first place. Sometimes a kind word is all that is required to save a life, other times people feel they have to become what they hate in order to rescue those they love. Then there are the other times for those wretched souls banished from paradise, when the heavens burst and rain down their disapproval, some of them may already be soaking wet.

Brian Clough was one of the most successful people and biggest characters in English football management, so it is rather fitting that a film has been made about him. Rather than charting the whole of his wildly successful career, this film chronicles Clough's doomed spell in charge of the then-league champions: Leeds United.

Michael Sheen is making a habit of playing real-life characters in Peter Morgan-penned screenplays and he does well as Clough, capturing his natural arrogant charm and charisma. Tim Spall plays his right hand man Peter Taylor and gives a fine performance, at its best when proclaiming nemesis Don Revie (Colm Meaney) to be a "tosser". The players though are complete 2D characters and Stephen Graham in particular looks ridiculous with Billy Bremner's red hair.

The story flits between Revie leaving Leeds for the England national team job and Clough's taking over, and also cuts back showing how Clough made his name at Derby County. It puts the focus of the flashbacks firmly in the context of where they were in relation to Leeds and how Clough was doing in comparison with Revie. This works dramatically but makes out Revie to be much more than he was - a very fine manager to be sure but having watched the film people without a knowledge of the history would expect Leeds, given how Revie was portrayed here, to have won more than the two leagues and two cups they actually did during the six-year time period shown.

The film is consistently entertaining, but whether that would be the case quite as much for those unfamiliar with the man is not entirely certain. The editing is a standout, especially in the football scenes and montages, but the eye for detail in creating the look of the period is impressive too. As a portrait it definitely shows the bad side of Clough's arrogance and ambition, but in the main treats him with enough warmness to portray a satisfactory balance. If you like Brian Clough, you'll like him as shown here, if you don't like Brian Clough, you will not like him as shown here. Sheen and the filmmakers get across what it was about the man that made him so likeable to some and annoying to others and that's probably the best tribute they could have given him.

This film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year but had its scheduled release date for late 2008 pushed back a year in America. It came out here a few weeks ago but on a risible amount of screens (half a dozen) and none of my arthouses appear to be getting it, so I watched it online.

We are introduced to a debut director who does everything we expect of him, it's rather unfair on Guillermo Arriaga that he's made his name writing films like 21 Grams and Babel using cross cutting and non-linear storytelling, so there is a level of familiarity and expectation on his shoulders that other filmmakers don't have in their maiden efforts. He has assembled a very nice cast for The Burning Plain, including Charlize Theron as a self-loathing slutty restaurant hostess and Kim Basinger as an adulterous wife, alongside some youngsters.

The plot structure is rather like The Sweet Hereafter in that you have a tragic moment (in that film's case a bus accident killing lots of children, here the death of Basinger and her lover) and then three strands - one going up to the event, another immediately after the event and another in some other time. The problem for Arriaga is that, just like in 21 Grams, his opening shot (the burning caravan where the two people perish) and subsequent storyline actually takes away the dramatic potential from the parts leading up to the tragedy because it becomes increasingly obvious how it happened.

The acting though is not to be faulted. Basinger is probably just the pick of the bunch potraying the most natural and believable emotions on show. Theron is a nice surprise, giving a restrained, subtle performance that caputres her character's feelings very well. J.D. Pardo is a real find as the dead man's son and Jennifer Lawrence does quite well with a role (as Basinger's daughter) which gets more demanding the longer the film goes.

A highlight is that there is some very nice cinematography throughout and the editing does move the film along, it's also interesting how drained of colour the Charlize segment is in comparison to the wide open spaces and landscapes of the other two: that fits in with the themes of the film. Seeing this online, the occasional Spanish exchanges aren't subtitled so I was less aware of what was going on and having checked with someone who saw this at a festival, they contain information that spells out what's going on a bit earlier - the film still works in spite of that, but I would be very interested in seeing this as it was intended, if only the distributors would allow that to happen. As it stands a flawed but intriguing film with very nice elements to it, but his storytelling style while distinctive, should only be used if it serves a dramatic purpose and this is one of the occasions where it doesn't and if anything hurts the film. Style over substance, but in the context of the writing, and despite that, well worth seeing.

Two unreleased festival films from last year, the first being the new Takeshi Kitano, which premiered at Venice, and the second being Lucrecia Martel's third film, which premiered at Cannes (yes, I looked for it online because I saw her debut on Film Four earlier in the week). Both have been out on dvd in their home countries for over a month but neither look any nearer to getting distribution here as neither are remotely commercial films.

Akiresu to kame is a lovely little film about an artist struggling to sell his work. We see his upbringing where he was allowed to paint at will, then following a tragedy he is dumped into the hands of his Aunt and Uncle who want him to work rather than paint before packing him off elsewhere. The film follows the person in three timeframes and shows that in order to sell works he is told to study other people and move away from his own natural talent, which of course only results in sub-par work that he can't actually sell.

This is a very quirky effort and it is quite funny throughout, especially when Takeshi turns up as the "middle aged" version of our man. It lampoons the art world nicely and creates a situation which is almost the opposite of Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy, whereas he wants to force his way to the absolute top, here the artist is breaking his back (and his family) just to get on the bottom rung. It's sweet and it does shift along, but when the end is reached it isn't entirely satisfactory.

Shifting from Venice to Cannes, Lucrecia Martel's latest effort is a bit of a mixed bag. The plot begins by seeing Vero (Maria Onetto) run something down and not get out to investigate. She dismisses it initially as a dog but becomes increasingly convinced that she's killed someone. Whereas other films would use this as the starting point for a character study resulting in a breakdown, Martel isn't interested in such things and as a result Onetto is asked to deliver a very understated, restrained turn as someone getting herself into a state while her friends and family try to dismiss it and cover it up.

Gone is the atmosphere of her previous two films, this is probably her least successful effort as a filmmaker, despite having probably fostered the best central performance of all three. As in her debut La Ciénaga, it's not made clear who everyone is and the relationships they have with each other and Onetto aside, the cast (including Ines Efron, which in combination with Martel was the reason I was interested) don't have much to do. It's not very fleshed out and as a consequence when the end comes it feels abrupt. So whereas the previous two were mood pieces with interesting performances, this is a performance piece first and foremost. Worth seeing for Onetto, but there's not a tremendous amount of other things about the film to recommend it.

... as I realised that I'd completely forgotten about a couple of films I saw a couple of weekends ago so I'll hold off on the new (ish) stuff until I've got these out of the way (although I've seen another new one online so I'm still undecided whether to lump them all together or what - we'll see).

Right, first up is Mephisto, which is a film that I've wanted to see for years as it has quite the reputation (it won Best Foreign Language Film at the oscars and was a prize-winner at Cannes). It's always been high on online-rental queues of mine but for whatever reason it's never been sent out, I've looked for it online too but to no avail. The story is an updating of Faust, set in Nazi Germany with the idea of selling your soul to the devil taking the form of collaberating with the government in order to advance your career.

What to say ... it's a good film but given the weight of expectation very underwhelming. Klaus Maria Brandauer plays the main character and again, given how good he was in Colonel Redl (also by director István Szabó), disappointing. At times he's quite wonderful and in particular his performances as Mephisto onstage are exceptional but ironically when the character stops acting, that is the part of the film where I occasionally saw the actor "acting" rather than the character (rather like Annette Bening in Being Julia, which is a Szabó film too). So well acted up to a point, interesting as far as it goes but it's a distance from being a classic because it never fully hooks the audience in.

Earlier that night, whilst waiting for Mepshito to start, I caught the opening third of Possession because I'll watch anything with Jennifer Ehle in it. It's a story of modern scholars Aaron Eckhart and Gwyneth Paltrow unearthing the secret affair between their 19th century literary subjects of study, played by Ehle and Jeremy Northam. I caught the latter part of it online. This is one of those films which is fine up until the last 10-15 minutes where the writers (and this probably comes from the source material) take such a lazy, cheap way out of things. Most of the cast are fine, even if Northam is rather limp and the chemistry between both couples is non-existant: it's watchable though. That is until the end where the pay off isn't anywhere near as interesting or inspired enough to justify sitting through it all.

Moving on, a couple of years ago, before I started using online rental, I once joked that I wished Ingmar Bergman (who was in his mid-80s) would hurry up and die because that was the only way I could envision being able to see some of his films. Of course when he eventually did die BBCFour did a weekend and on the anniversary of his death Film Four a week of films in "celebration" of his work. Sadly, exactly the same thing has happened now that Natasha Richardson died - I'd wanted to see Asylum for a couple of years (and had tried, unsuccessfully, to find it) and in that grand tradition of British television, now that she's dead Film Four put it on last night .

The basic story is that the wife of a psychiatrist becomes involved in an affair with one of the patients at the asylum where her husband works. The film, sadly, is nowhere near as good as Richardson's performance. Ian McKellen sleepwalks through his role, Hugh Bonneville just shouts intermittantly and Marton Csokas is fairly uninspired as the wife-murdering psycho our woman falls for. Cue lots of sex scenes (and on occasion some, frankly, unneccessarily exploitative nudity from Richardson) and it's all rather uninteresting. Richardson elevates the material to make it a decent enough watch but it's such a cold film. I can see why she was interested because it's a very good role, but it is the kind of thing that if Angelina Jolie or Nicole Kidman did then people would call it oscar-begging. So not entirely convincing, a rather dull, at times trashy film with a very good central performance which is the only thing to recommend it.

I'm not really sure how to do the films I've seen recently because some are downloaded ones that aren't getting/haven't been released. Hmm. I'll take all the older ones here and decide whether to do the other two together or separately. Anyway, out of sheer boredom I watched Mission: Impossible III on tv the other night. I'd skipped this at the cinema when it came out even though it had Viscount Hoffman in it because, well, it didn't look very good. My former self was right on the money.

This is a really by-the-numbers, unispired entry into the series and has made me convinced J.J. Abrams is a complete hack (this plus his contribution to the risible Cloverfield has killed any interest I might possibly have had in the upcoming Star Trek film). Cruise is in full snooze mode, Michelle Monaghan has absolutely nothing to do and their relationship is so paper thin and unconvincing it scuppers any interest dramatically. Big Phil is hardly in it, has a completely 2D character and merely has to shout a lot. It's almost impressive that the screenplay so consistently strips away most of what is interesting about the performers involved. The action is solidly done but devoid of tension, it's a watchable film but it's trite to the point of annoyance.

Later that night I taped Lucrecia Martel's debut, La Ciénaga, which I missed when FilmFour did their Argentina season a few months ago. This interested me because I saw her second film, The Holy Girl, on sky a few years ago and while not a great film it had fine performances and lots of atmosphere. This film doesn't have quite the same blend of sexual tension and unease, but it is fairly atmospheric. The problem though is that you have all these characters and it's not entirely certain what the relationships are with everyone and who's who.

There are some good performances, Mercedes Morán isn't as good as she was in her later film with Martel, but she has a very nice presence and it's a similar story with Sofia Bertolotto as the main young girl, she doesn't reach the heights Maria Alche did in The Holy Girl but she's extremely natural. If I were to give an example of what's ... wrong with this film then it's that I watched it two days ago and I'm struggling to remember how it finished. It's very low key and there isn't a strong dramatic arc to the movie, it's more of a mood piece. This is not to say it's a bad film, it's just not very engaging and rather forgettable, although a decent watch at the time.

Lastly, I downloaded a film which came out 4 years ago and has been out on dvd in America for over 3 years, but has never had any distribution of any kind here: The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. I've wanted to see it for years because I'm such a fan of Julianne Moore and I just got completely bored and frustrated with it not being available and got it off the internet because they clearly have no intention of trying to get me to see it through legal means.

This is a real-life story of how a housewife in the late-50s/early-60s kept her family afloat by entering contests companies ran for writing the words for their jingles. The style of the film is hyper-cute but inconsistent and the drama is rather repetetive with Moore continually bailing out the family at the last minute following the feckless father (played by Woody Harrelson) wasting all the money. It's a thankless role for him, but it's the Julie show. She's her usual subtle, natural self but there is the odd moment where I saw Julianne Moore crying or acting so while very good, it's not quite up to the quality of her finest work. It's not particularly involving but it is so stylish it's always watchable, even if it does leave a lot of questions unanswered.