This fine documentary opens with a simple but salient point: who do we pay to talk to us? Politicians? Perhaps. Pastors? Maybe sometimes… The answer is comics. Comedians are the only people to whom we offer our money and say, “please talk to me… make me laugh at myself and the things around me.” In an age of global hostility, fear, and repression of thought and individuality, the voice of the comic is more essential than ever. We need comedians to remind us how farcical life is; and to poke fun at the institutions and zeitgeists that too easily become writ.

Bill Hicks understood the importance of this role from an early age. As a restless teenager – trapped in his Southern Baptist Texan townhouse with his all-American, college-graduate family – Hicks would sneak out and head for the only comedy club within a million miles of his home… the Houston Comix Annex. Hicks quickly became renowned for his clean, ‘high-school-kid’ brand of comedy and was taken under the wing of Steve Epstein’s fast-talking, hard-drinking comedy troupe, ‘The Texas Outlaw Comics’.

By his early twenties Hicks was already a legend on the Texan comedy scene, but he knew that his comedy could reach greater heights and deal with much wider issues than growing up in a Texan Baptist household. He began experimenting with hallucinogenic mushrooms, and would sit by a remote lake with a few trusted friends and explore the infinite possibilities of philosophy, consciousness, and existence.

This might all sound a bit heavy for comedy, and it certainly took Hicks a long time (and an almost fatal battle with alcoholism) before he really learnt how to incorporate his esotericism and staunch criticism of American society into his comedy routines. These routines – which began around 1989 with ‘Sane Man’, when Hicks was at the ripe old age of 28 – should be immortalised and filed away in the library of Congress with the works of Whitman and Hemingway. The raw simplicity, the fervent passion, the searing love for his common man that forced him to criticise society with all the spit and power he could muster, make Bill Hicks one of the most important spokespersons for Reagan’s America.

Hicks was a product of a forgotten generation of Americans, growing up in the 1970s, who couldn’t understand what had happened to the gusto of Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ or the purity of spirit and love that inspired the cultural revolutions of the 1960s. Vietnam had killed the American spirit, and everything that came after it further distorted and twisted the American Dream into a dogmatic society of thoughtless and unquestioning pawns who were free to do whatever they wanted… just so long as they wanted to do what they were told.

But no matter how much energy Hicks threw at his performances, mainstream America was not ready to hear his message. He achieved international fame and was cherished and idolised in Canada and his spiritual home, the UK; but he was criminally unappreciated in his beloved homeland, and was left to perform in the same old clubs on the same old comedy routes that he had been peddling since his teen years.

In 1993, just as he was beginning to achieve the mainstream platform he so desperately desired (not because he wanted fame, but because he wanted people to hear him) Hicks was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and passed away within a year. He spent his final months touring, creating what many consider to be the finest and most passionate stand-up performances in the history of stand-up comedy. His friends could not understand why he had become such an unstoppable force; they didn’t realise it was simply the desperation of a great man to immortalise his message before he was dragged away from this earth.

Hicks’ last performance was, in his own opinion, the finest of his career. He was invited onto the David Letterman show (the only mainstream show to have shown him any support in his career) and delivered an extraordinary rebuke to America, largely based around the recent Waco massacre. The performance was cut from the final broadcast, and the network claimed that Hicks’ views were to ‘dangerous’ for mainstream broadcast.

Throughout his life Hicks was ignored and chastised as anti-American; but in fact, as with so many great insubordinates, it was his deep love for his country that inspired him to fight back against the forces of corruption and lethargy. It was too great a struggle in the 1980s, but in the 15 years since his death, the rise of the internet and a stuttering revival of American liberalism has allowed Hicks’ stock to rise. His fanbase is growing at an unprecedented rate, and DVD and CD sales have mushroomed inline with the growth of youtube and the revelation of previously unseen clips. The culmination of all this groundwork, and arguably the culmination of Hicks’ entire career, is this documentary.

In Hicks’ final days he returned to his family home and forced his mother to sit with him while he took her through his entire collection of photos and VHS recordings. When she asked him why he was doing this, he explained that someday, somebody might want to make a documentary about him.

15 years later, British TV producers Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas have graciously and expertly taken up the mantle. They have created an honest and simple documentary relying solely on the lucid and evocative memories of Hicks’ friends and family, and Hicks mountain of personal photos and video recordings. The Hicks estate have made it clear that this is the only time they will open up their lives to such a far-reaching project, and so this really is the final word on one of the most important men in the history of the American entertainment industry.

The film employs a revolutionary animation technique that allowed the filmmakers to animate old photographs, adding dimensions and colour and movement to them so that the viewer is transported into Bill’s world not just by the absorbing commentary, but also by the visceral images.

The live footage is also expertly blended into the narrative, so that Bill seems to jump out of the film and onto the stage to perform some of the material that has just been explored. This allows viewers to take a completely new perspective on material that may or may not be familiar to them. Hicks’ fans will surely relish becoming entangled in the trials and tribulations of his life while watching him rage against the dying of the American Dream, and they will feel so much closer to this complex and inspiring idol by the end of the film.

It is difficult to tell how this film will perform theatrically, but this critic certainly hopes that it will achieve the success that these filmmakers, and Bill Hicks, deserve. This wonderful film has recorded a life and immortalised a great man, and that is all one can ask of the cinema.

Dir: Jacques Audiard Cast: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif

Jacques Audiard is perhaps the only filmmaker working today whose cannon of films can be uttered in the same breath as those of Melville and Chabrol. Like those giants of the Nouvelle Vague, Audiard is a master of the thriller/ crime genre and has spent the best part of his career unpicking its tightly knit conventions and tropes to create some of the most affecting and unforgettable films of the past few decades.

‘A Prophet’ tells the story of Malik (Rahim), a French Arab of North African descent embarking on a six-year sentence in a French jail. The prison is ruled by Cesar Luciani (Arestrup) and his Corsican gang; so when they approach Malik with an offer to accept him into the gang if he murders an unruly Arab inmate, it is clear that this is not an offer he can refuse. Malik is made a lieutenant in the gang after committing the gruesome act – and we are not spared a single detail, from Malik’s agonising attempts to conceal a bare razor blade in his mouth to the pathetic gurgling screams of the unfortunate Reyeb.

Things do not improve for this unfortunate outsider, however, as he is slanted by the Corsicans (who call him ‘Arab’ and suggest he is only fit for belly-dancing and house-work), berated by the Arabic community in the prison for siding with the enemy, and haunted by Reyeb’s ghost as he lies alone in his murky cell. Malik teaches himself to read and, by carefully studying Cesar and the gang, learns to speak Corsican and slowly picks up the ins-and-outs of the gang’s operations. He also makes an ally in Ryad, a softly spoken man with the cold, dark eyes of a killer.

Malik works his way up the chain of command to become Cesar’s right-hand man and most trusted ally in the prison; and when Cesar organises for him to be released for one day (to check on Cesar’s interests on the outside) he uses the opportunity to start up a side-business moving vast packages of hasish with Ryad (who has since been released) between France and Spain. As Cesar becomes a more desperate and alienated figure in his cell, and powerful adversaries work up the courage to confront him, Malik benefits from all the new connections he is making.

One of the founding tenets of the Nouvelle Vague was an admiration for American film noir, and a mystical ability to inject that rigid genre with a flowing, intuitive, philosophical dimension. Melville, Chabrol, Godard, et al were open about their worship of Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, and the other legends of Hollywood noir; but they were all cineastes and academics who knew that the ‘camera-stylo’ could be used for so much more than Dashiell Hammett adaptations.

In ‘A Prophet’, Audiard has created an accessible and stomach-churning prison drama that the most cautious American viewer could enjoy. All the genre tropes are there – gang initiation, deceit, loyalty, criminal codes, corrupt authorities, car chases, gun battles – but these comforting and visceral moments only exist as sharp jabs to the stomach in what is actually a flowing, complex study of loneliness and masculinity. There is no attempt to validate Malik as a hero, he, along with every other character in the film, is a victim of the brutality they were born into. There is no hope, just a daily fight to survive and make tomorrow’s fight a bit easier. When Ryad develops a terminal disease, there is no despair or sadness shared between these two close friends, just an understanding that Ryad will be released from his bondage slightly sooner than Malik.

Having worked with some of the biggest stars in French cinema (namely Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Vincent Cassel) Audiard has chosen a relative unknown to lead this brutal character study. Tahar Rahim’s performance is without a doubt one of the most infecting and memorable performances of the year. He creates a perfectly conflicted and tragic figure in Malik: he is cold and toughened by a lifetime in the penal system, but he has a child-like vulnerability and a need for human connection. His friendship with Ryad is perfectly portrayed… a deep affection that can never be admitted by either party.

This is undoubtedly one of the finest films of the year. It is an inspiring proof that the genre conventions of American story-telling can be fused with the mystifying explorations of the human condition more present in European independent cinema, to create films that perhaps rise above both camps purely because they are capable of fulfilling the highest aims of culture and communication… to inform, educate, and entertain.

Hansen-Løve was inspired to create The Father of My Children following the tragic suicide of Humbert Balsan in 2005. Balsan was a prolific producer and one of the most respected figures in French cinema, and his suicide sent shock waves through the industry, but the fact that one of those waves resulted in this beautiful and touching film will surely stand as a testament to his spirited life.

The film follows ‘Gregoire’ (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) as he struggles to keep Moon Films afloat. This is no colourful and romanticised vision of the film industry (as Gene Kelly and Pedro Almodovar would have us see it); it is a realistic and almost mundane insight into the artistic alienation and financial suffocation that great producers suffer from. Gregoire is a champion of artists, and is happy to take huge personal gambles to produce the work of filmmakers he respects, but it is a thankless job infested with conceited directors, dispassionate financiers, and unforgiving bank managers. Eventually the stress becomes too much to bear, and Gregoire shoots himself.

It is at this point that the ode to independent cinema ends and the Lorca-inspired tale of grief begins. Gregoire’s wife Sylvia (Caselli) enlists the help of Gregoire’s closest friends to save Moon Films and finish the films currently in production. It is a brutally pragmatic approach to grief and Caselli’s performance ensures that it is moving and subtle. The other focus of this exploration of grief is Gregoire’s sulking but passionate teenage daughter Clémence (Alice de Lencquesaing). Clémence is at that age where she is trying to distance herself from her parents, and having her father stolen from her at such a disorientating time makes her a fascinating study in repressed anguish. She escapes into the city of Paris, immersing herself in the cafes and cinemas that she loves; but it is clear that these adventures are far scarier than she would have wished without a father to return home to at the weekends.

This is not as tightly honed a film as some of the masterful European films released this year. Gregoire’s descent towards suicide feels slightly too assured, and the honesty of the film loses its way slightly as it rushes towards this major plot point. And after his suicide the film begins to lose its way slightly in the exploration of grief that perhaps proved a bit of a stretch for the young and relatively inexperienced Hansen-Løve.

But it is possible to forgive any of these structural flaws because of the wonderfully evocative and warm-hearted nature of the film. It is rambling, but it is sweet throughout; and it shares that effortless cinema-verite aesthetic and indescribable ‘watchability’ that comes so naturally to French cinema (I am thinking of Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge and Code Inconnu here.) It is a moving tribute to a great producer, but it is also a superb and sincere testament to the beauty that can still exist in the cinema.

Abu Dhabi is not currently the most inspiring of destinations, and when I wasn’t eating or reading I was searching for some crumbling remnants of pre-oil Arabian romance. This search was in vain, for the past has been obliterated in the gulf and replaced with skyscrapers and giant shopping malls. But a small exhibition on ‘Saadiyat Island’ in the corner of the Emirates Palace made me realise that it is the future, and not the past, that will come to define this indefinable part of the world.

Visit the official website here.

‘Saadiyat Island’ is the proposed cultural province of the Emirates; it is their attempt to coax the Western world’s cultural elite out of their comfortable nests in New York and Paris, and brave the dusty, desert heat. I was sceptical when this plan was first explained to me: Sydney has always struck me as damning proof that no amount of money or architectural prowess can buy culture, and this seemed to me a similar attempt, albeit on a larger scale.

But after wandering around the exhibition I found myself overcome by the passion and determination with which the Emirates have pursued this objective. In the last forty years they have transformed a gathering of bivouacs and pearl divers into a bustling, torrential marketplace of international corporations. They have shifted the planet on it’s axis, and reminded us that if the West is to survive into the new millennium we must appreciate that we are only the ‘West’, and there is now an ‘East’ to be dealt with.

Abu Dhabi is at the centre of this new global commercial and cultural world. They have a vast proportion of the world’s oil, and an ideal location between the US and China for stopover flights and the transfer of commodities. Throughout history, it has been commercial centres and transport hubs that have created great societies, cultures and artistic movements. Egypt, Crete, Ionia, Athens, the British Empire - all of these world-changing societies were founded on commerce and geographical advantage. Maybe now it is time for the Gulf states to lead the world forward, and Saadiyat Island is a magnificent and shimmering statement of intent.

The Island will house a Guggenheim Museum (designed by Frank Gehry, who also designed the Bilbao museum), the first outpost of the Louvre (a project that has been officially and gratefully sanctioned by the French government), an indescribable Performing Arts centre, and outposts of the Sorbonne and New York University to attract young artists and thinkers.

Just watch the short film clip in the ‘Louvre’ section of the website to get an idea of the magnanimity of this project. This is no mere Opera House; Abu Dhabi is shattering expectations, and building a cultural epicentre so epic that the Western world can only ignore it at their own peril. This might be Sydney on a larger scale, but the scale is so large that they might just succeed… and I for one hope that they do.

There are two things that upset me about the ‘09’ year of each decade. Firstly, I am confused by the global conviction that this constitutes the end of a decade. As far as I am concerned, a decade begins in year ‘1’, not year ‘0’. Of course, either option is equally viable; but surely this impenetrable ambiguity should completely remove the need to celebrate the death of one decade and the birth of another?

My second annoyance is a direct result of the first… the abhorrent and feverish proliferation of ‘top ten films of the decade’ lists. Top ten lists are nothing more than arbitrary attempts to recall and compress our favourite memories in order to free up more space for the next decade. Quantifying the mystical and romantic beauty of the cinema is a disastrous exercise; and it saddens me to see so many otherwise respectable film critics doing just this.

Even The Times, who had the decency to extend the list into a ‘Top 100’, have as their top five:

1) Cache

2) The Bourne Supremacy / The Bourne Ultimatum

3) No Country for Old Men

4) Grizzly Man

5) Team America: World Police

One European art film, one big budget action series, one US indie, one documentary, and one animated comedy. Very… very convenient indeed; but I defy you to find a human being on the planet who honestly agrees with the list. Also, and with the exception of Team America, none of these films was made in the first half of the decade. Think on it.

I therefore refuse to turn my back on the hundreds of less memorable – but equally important, moving, and revelatory – films that I have watched this decade by creating such a list. I will, however, compile a list of other ‘Top Ten’ lists from more trivial and whacky branches of life, thus removing myself by one degree from this heinous activity. And so I present to you my ‘Top Ten ‘Top Ten of the Decade Lists’ of the Decade… List’.

1) Top Ten Most Influential Internet Moments of the Decade

There can be no doubting that the internet is the biggest hit of the decade, so a reminder of the leaps and bounds we have taken over recent years seems like a harmless and worthwhile idea to me.

2) Top Ten Most Unwinnable Arguments of the Decade

The same questions that have plagued us for centuries still didn’t get answered during the first tenth of the third millennium… maybe next year!

3) Top Ten Conspiracy Theories of the Decade

9/11, avian fly, tsunamis: these were all unspeakably horrific events for the global community, but imagine how much more scarring they were for the pot-smoking youths who still check under their bed to see if Reagan or Elvis is waiting to get them!

4) Top Ten One Hit Wonders of the Decade

The end of a decade is always a good time to look back at the people that we should never have heard of…

5) Top Ten Hockey Fights of the Decade

I dont approve of violence, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching it in a sporting arena between consenting adults. Watch these gargantuan skaters reeking damage on each other in the name of sport.

6) Top Ten ‘David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists’ of the Decade

Mostly an excuse to use the phrase ‘Top Ten’ again, there are some genuinely funny lists in here. Watch out for Napoleon Dynamite reading the ‘You know you’re not the coolest kid at school when…’ list.

7) Top Ten Goals of the Decade (Soccer)

Some film fans cloak their love of the beautiful game for fear it will bleach their intellectual visage. I was just such a film fan, until I heard Werner Herzog proclaiming his love for Joe Cole. Now I brandish my blue colours wherever I go. This is a pretty good selection of goals from across Europe, at both club and international level.

Top Ten Most Infamous Businessmen of the Decade

When 9/11 happened, nobody could imagine any other event defining this decade… but we were wrong. We didn’t need Bin Laden to destroy our financial institutions, these trusted members of our own clans did it for us.

9) Top Ten Political Scandals of the Decade

Everybody loves a political scandal, they are always less costly and more debauched than financial scandals. Unfortunately this is only an American list, and however filthy those Washington-types think they are, they will never live up to the Conservatives blue background (who forgot about Profumo?!)

10) Top Ten Worst Dining Trends of the Decade

A ‘top nine ‘top ten of the decade lists’ of the decade list’ would have looked pretty stupid, so this fairly boring list made it in just to bump up the numbers… at least I’m honest!

Dir: Spike Jonze Cast: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker

Maurice Sendak’s 1965 children’s classic ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ is one of those primal, infallible texts that have been around for long enough to inform the world-view of parents and children alike. Like Lewis Carroll’s poems and Aesop’s fables, it is a brutally simple tale reminding us of the Dionysian chaos and fury that lurks beneath the surface of our manicured lives. So who better to bring this warped and wonderful story to the big screen than the ‘realiseur’ of Charlie Kaufman’s most famous scripts, the possessor of a juvenile, ‘Jackass’ sense of fun, and the inventor of a raw and powerful aesthetic that defined a generation of skateboarding, Sonic Youth fans… Spike Jonze.

Jonze has already stamped his mark on the film before the first frame; the ‘title cards’ for the various studios and production companies have been defaced with childish scribbles. The opening section of the film, before Max escapes to his fantasy realm, is incredibly intimate but volatile, and perfectly sets up the resulting ‘dream’ story. For all the design and aesthetic purpose of the rest of the film, the opening section is all natural light and awkward camera frames; but we are helplessly drawn into the world of this confused and helpless child long before he escapes into the world of the Wild Things.

Max Records seems to represent everything Jonze wants to say in this film: he is not the two-dimensional rascal of Sendak’s book, he is a changeable, quiet, passionate young boy. He is capable of showing boundless love for his mother and sister, but if they fail to pay him enough attention he will rage against them with a terrifying ferocity. Jonze explores these subtle, childhood quirks in a simple, unflattering way.

Jonze substitutes the dark, menacing visual imagery of Sendak’s book for more vibrant palettes and dusky settings. Allowing nature to take its course during filming, Jonze spared little thought for temporal consistency, choosing instead to just shoot whenever he felt like it. The result is a story world that seems to exist in some endless sunset, where the wild things sleep in daylight and stay up all night by firelight.

The specific forest locations of Melbourne, Australia were chosen because they were burnt out and presented the art department with a clean slate. But for all the bewitching beauty of the flowers and the snow, there is still a barrenness to the settings that mimics the emptiness at the heart of the Wild Things. All they want is for Max to keep the sadness away.

The Wild Things of the book – all spiny fur, sharp teeth, and primordial ‘group think’ – are now cuddly, soft-furred creatures from the Jim Henson workshop. They are wonderfully well-rounded individuals with pride and fear and dependency issues, just desperately searching for a way to block out the existential sadness that hangs over them like a thick carbon monoxide haze.

While CGI has been used on their faces, the Wild Things themselves are actors in costumes. Jonze was adamant that this should be the case; he wanted to see the sand trapped in their soft fur, and sense their ‘weight’, and these things would not have been possible with the illusions of CGI.

James Gandolfini and Lauren Ambrose are the star attractions in this band of creatures. Gandolfini’s animalistic pride made Tony Soprano one of the best-loved characters in television history. He was a cuddly killer, a cheerful, doting, cold-blooded gangster – and Carol isn’t so very different. He is the wild thing that welcomes Max into the group, but his pride and relationship issues with KW make him a volatile, easily hurt, dangerous creature. Similarly, Lauren Ambrose’s sulking, passionate teenage daughter was an achingly engaging and beautiful character in Six Feet Under; and she brings the same bittersweet melancholy to KW.

Their relationship is the most wonderful thing about this film. Jonze has perfectly realised the perspective of a child trying to understand an adult relationship. Assuming that this whole Wild world is a figment of Max’s imagination, it is obviously impossible for him to comprehend the more ‘adult’ factors that complicate relationships, and so Max substitutes petty arguments about “treading on the ‘head’ part of my head” and “this is why I don’t like playing with you any more”. The beauty of this simplicity is that, however seemingly complicated an adult relationship becomes; it rarely involves anything more complex than these childish impulses towards guilt and jealousy. Carol and KW are two adults engaged in a relationship that exposes how childish they really are, and that is something I am sure most adults could relate to.

This is most certainly a film about children, and not necessarily for them. As a result, Jonze has foregone a lot of the traditional conflict and drama expected of a feature film in favour of examining the earth-shattering importance of seemingly trivial events in the eyes of a young child. Unfortunately, this means that any viewer who is not a passionate fan of Spike Jonze or Maurice Sendak might feel that the film falls slightly flat. There are no simple answers, and not that many obvious questions, in the story; but there is a beautiful and languid testament to the importance of remembering how powerful our childhoods really were.

A while back I promised you another special selection from the mystical and capricious world of short films. I’m quite sure you have all been logging in every evening, with twitching fingers, in the hope that I have finally provided another volume of filmic vignettes and music videos; and crashing backwards with a heavy sigh when you realise that no such post has been created. Well sigh no more my enthusiastic readers… for volume II has arrived:

Music Videos:

Florence + The Machine: The Ganzfeld Procedure

Dir: Keith McCarthy / UK / 2009
BBC Electric Proms, in partnership with 6Music, commissioned this New Music Short. Filmmakers were asked to submit creative ideas for short films inspired by Florence + The Machine’s ‘Dog Days Are Over’. Selected from over 225 entries, Keith worked with producers at Colonel Blimp to create this sporadic, dreamlike, and beautiful film.

Oh No Ono: Swim
Dir: Adam Hashemi / Denmark / 2009
Death and erections don’t mix… until you hit 13, and then they do. Burgeoning sex drives and confrontations with mortality combine in this perfectly conflicted music video.

Simian Mobile Disco: Cruel Intentions
Dir: Saam Farahmand / UK / 2009
This video is an extract from a short film by the director, inspired by the track ‘Cruel Intentions’ by Simian Mobile Disco (ft. Beth Ditto) from their album Temporary Pleasure.

Bloc Party: Signs (Arman Van Helden remix)
Dir: Hero Murai / UK / 2009
This dark and twisted music video, with it’s abstract, bodily distortions is reminiscent of Chris Cunningham’s early work.

Animation:

Please Say Something
Dir: David OReilly / Ireland / 2008 / 10′00

Set in the distant future, this is the story of a troubled relationship between an abusive Mouse and his wife, an intensely emotional cat. Winner of the Golden Bear for best short film at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival.

Le Cafe
Dir. Stephanie Marguerite & Emilie Tarascou / France / 2007
Too much coffee can be dangerous! Music by Oldelaf & Mr D

Documentary

Dog Years
Dir: Richard Penfold & Samuel Hearn
Ben 39, Leo, castrated mongrel needs love, G.S.O.H essential. This heart-warming and simple short film has won international acclaim.

The Apology Line
Dir: James Lees / UK / 2008
The most talked about short documentary of the year: the ‘Apology Line’ is where members of the public can anonymously confess to absolutely anything, over the phone. Based on the original ‘Apology Line’ project in New York, the apologies are uncomfortably honest, sometimes funny, occasionally shocking, but always fascinating.

Drama / Comedy:

Dunny
Dir. Phillip Van / USA / 2007
An eleven-year-old boy tries to give a love letter to a girl that doesn’t like him and winds up at dinner with her suburban family.

Support
Dir. Borkur Sigthorsson / Iceland / 2008
A dying man in an intensive care unit decides to take his fate into his own hands… with tragic but hysterical consequences.

So there you have it. Another selection of short films to titilate and amaze you over the festive weekends to come.

If you enjoyed these films, take a look at my first volume of shorts here.

You should also definitely spend more time on the Future Shorts youtube channel.

And, finally, I would recommend adding me on twitter, as this will provide you with constant reviews of features and updates on short films.

Ryan Bingham (Clooney) is a suave and sophisticated nomad. He lives 10,000 feet ‘up in the air’ and he is as uncomfortable on the ground, staying in one place, as most other people are during take-off. Ryan’s job (he fires people for a living) means that he is travels for around 362 days every year. He has a lavish selection of travelling accessories, but his apartment looks more like a hospital room that a home.

But Ryan likes it this way. He is constantly surrounded by people who don’t bother him with their emotional baggage (they are too busy with their physical baggage); he can enjoy fleeting romances with the beautiful Alex (Farmiga) and devour complimentary buffet meals ad infinitum; and he even has a dream… if he reaches 10 million airmiles he will get a plane named after him.

This contented existence is obliterated by the arrival of a feisty, headstrong college graduate, Natalie (Kendrick) who wants to increase the company’s efficiency by firing people over the Internet (via webcam) rather than sending Ryan and his peers to do it in person. Ryan protests on the basis that this is a cold and heartless way to perform a delicate act… but his real problem is the terrifying prospect of having to work in an office and lose his home in the sky.

Ryan is tasked with showing Natalie the ropes. Arriving at the airport with a cumbersome suitcase, we soon realise that Natalie is the ‘Donkey’ to Ryan’s ‘Shrek’; she is a needy and annoying hormonal adolescent with the backbone of a fifty-year-old spinster. But Ryan graciously shows her how to survive in his bewildering world of departure lounges and connecting flights, and eventually they begin to see eye to eye.

While this relationship provides some light-hearted, but genuinely funny, comedy, this really is a thoughtful film about the nomadic existence that so many people seem to lead in this fast-paced modern world. The prospect of having to settle down forces Ryan to consider his options, and he begins a more serious relationship with Alex. He also agrees to go to his sister’s wedding, and it is here that he realises a life filled with attachments and emotional baggage might not be such a hard life after all.

Jason Reitman has proved once again, after Thank You for Smoking and Juno, that he has a masterful eye for thought-provoking, fast-paced comedies. This film is infinitely superior to its US comedy cousin at this festival, The Men Who Stare At Goats. That film is insincere, cheap, and meaningless; Up In The Air works hard to achieve its funny moments, and they are all the more raucous and enjoyable for it.

Nobody other than George Clooney could have played this role. He is a modern-day Cary Grant, not just because of his looks and his demeanour, but because of the public’s constant fascination at his inability to settle down. Clooney, more than any other Hollywood A-lister, is famous for his nomadic and free-spirited lifestyle, and the emotional honesty he brings to Ryan Bingham makes this film feel like a brief glimpse inside Clooney’s own soul.

Los Angeles, 1962. George (Firth)– a gay English university professor living in Santa Monica – has just been informed that his lover of 16 years, Jim (Goode), has been killed in a car accident. George is not allowed to attend the funeral because Jim’s family disapproves of their “abominable” relationship. What follows is a fascinating and melancholy character study of a man who has lost the only thing he loved, but is not allowed to grieve openly.

The man is a gay professor and the thing he loved, his partner; but stripping away the macrocosm of the film, this is a universal story about the modern tendency to avoid grief wherever possible. We are told that grief, sadness, and despair are unattractive qualities that should be repressed; but this film is a testament to the importance of acknowledging grief, both within ourselves and in those close to us.

The film follows George on the day he has decided to kill himself. He meticulously arranges everything from his bed sheets to his tax returns before exploring the intricacies of shooting himself inside a sleeping bag to avoid unnecessary mess. There is something darkly comedic about this early sequence, aided by Firth’s plodding despondency, but it points towards a much grittier reality: he has spent so long grieving silently, not wanting to get in anybody’s way, that even in death he is trying to remain considerate.

George’s efforts are interrupted by a phone call from his best friend – the ageing but gorgeous spinster hipster, Charley (Moore) – begging him to have dinner with her that evening. George agrees, and so the timeframe is set; we will have our intriguing protagonist for one day. This day sees George interacting with a number of beautiful young men – from a flirtatious student to a smouldering rent boy at a convenience store. He sees Jim in all these men, and his attraction to them seems to be based less on sexuality and more on a desperate need to confront his hidden grief and tear at the suture of his broken heart.

George’s dinner with Charley is a beautifully conceived scene, largely because the characters are so perfectly moulded. Charley has been in love with George for many years, and her own troubled life and sense of exclusion from society have left her just as broken as him. The fact that they are English people living in a foreign land is a simple conceit, but it helps to reiterate the fact that this unusual couple are stranded in a strange world that doesn’t want to acknowledge them.

This ‘dinner’ sequence is certainly beautifully plotted and performed, with all the emotions simmering just below the surface; but one can’t help but feel that this was the film’s one chance at an explosive and cathartic argument of Albee-esque proportions. That this is never achieved certainly doesn’t hurt the film, but it could have elevated the visceral and emotional impact on the viewer to a new height of drama.

George heads to the beach bar where he first met Jim, and runs into his university student (who has actually been tailing him all evening). This naïve and confident young man provides the burst of uncontrollable energy that has been so desperately lacking in George’s life since Jim’s death. They swim naked in the ocean and kiss passionately. There is no romance here – it is just a broken professor kissing his simple and awe-filled student – but there is a sense that George has found a way to go on living. He hasn’t found love, he hasn’t overcome his grief, it is not as insincere as all that; but he has discovered away to confront his grief alone.

‘A Single Man’ is the debut feature from fashion designer Tom Ford (the former creative head of Gucci). The visual style of the film is therefore predictably stunning and precise. Anybody with a passion for 1960s aesthetics (from fashion and interior design to cars and kitchen appliances) will be mesmerised by the meticulous attention to detail, and the beauty that Ford instils in every frame. What could never have been predicted, however, was the effortless talent that Ford has for storytelling. As well as directing, Ford also adapted the original novel himself (with the help of David Scearce). The pace of the film, and the way the emotions and themes are so densely inter-woven and undulate so rhythmically, is virtually perfect; and it is almost unfathomable that this was achieved by a first-time director.

Colin Firth is extraordinary in the leading role. His natural melancholy and slow-plodding rhythm bring an intense and tangible sadness to the character; but there is always something warm and comforting in Firth’s demeanour, and this helps to bring empathy to this withdrawn and lonely man. Julianne Moore is naturally perfect as Charley: she is a whirlwind of curse words, ashtrays, and empty gin bottles, crashing around her lavish apartment with a frenetic and misdirected purpose.

It must be said that British cinema did not promote itself especially well at this year’s London Film Festival. ‘Don’t Worry About Me’ and ‘Kicks’ failed to make any positive mark on the critics and audiences that turned out to see them; and while ’44 Inch Chest’ and ‘The Disappearance of Alice Creed’ boasted fantastic casts and gritty aesthetics, they were poorly written and suffered a similar fate.

Fortunately, festival organiser Sandra Hebron had one more card up her sleeve for the closing gala… ‘Nowhere Boy’. The film explores the teen years of one of the nation’s most beloved yet mysterious musical figures… John Lennon. The project has been developed by Ecosse (perhaps the most British production company around after a host of period dramas and adaptations of English romantic novels) and written by Matt Greenhalgh, an experienced television writer who recently wrote the critically acclaimed ‘Control’ (about another one of the nation’s most beloved musical figures, Ian Curtis). Finally, the film is directed by Sam Taylor Wood, a member of the Young British Artists, who was inspired to take the position by her late friend (and perhaps the most universally beloved British filmmaker of the modern era) Anthony Minghella. The result is an unusually British film that proves our national cinema can still match any bastion of filmmaking (from Hollywood to Paris) for quality, integrity, and passion.

‘Nowhere Boy’ deals with Lennon’s childhood, from the reunion with his prodigal mother to the advent of The Beatles. Lennon (Johnson) was constantly in trouble at school for bullying, playing truant, and reading ‘illicit’ magazines. He subsequently had a very strained relationship with his strict, positively Victorian Aunt and legal guardian, Mimi (Scott Thomas). His only friend through these years was his loving and free-spirited Uncle George (Threlfall); so when George dies of a heart attack, John decides it is time to seek out his mother.

Julia (Marie Duff) turns out to be a wild, fun-loving young woman, so when John gets suspended from school he hides the fact from Mimi and spends his days listening to ‘rock and roll’ and learning the guitar with his mother. Julia’s husband, Bobby, and Mimi eventually stamp out this brief glimpse of hope and happiness; and what follows is a destructive and passionate story of confused love, and the difficulties of forgiving people for things you have already forgotten.

John blames Julia for leaving him again, and escapes into the exciting new world of ‘rock and roll’ by founding The Quarrymen with his school friends. He meets Paul McCartney, who joins the band, and they begin to find success. But John’s heart is poisoned by the unanswered questions about why his own mother couldn’t raise him, and it is clear he cannot be happy until he understands his past.

After a cathartic and explosive argument, Mimi, Julia, and John seem ready to repair their broken family. But then a tragic accident wipes out yet another chance for John to find respite from his emotional torment. This is not dealt with in a morbid light, however, as John’s reaction to the situation proves how much he has grown as a man over the course of this short but important episode of his life. He doesn’t hide away or become needlessly destructive; he is mature and hopeful, and he directs his anguish into his songs. By the end of the film, John has moved out of Mimi’s home and is leaving for Hamburg with his “new band”. He promises to call Mimi when he arrives there, which he does… and he calls her every week for the rest of his extraordinary life.

The performances are predictably excellent. Anne Marie Duff was spectacular in Shameless, and she brings the same rough, dazzling beauty to Julia. David Threlfall is one of the most wonderful acting talents in Britain, and it is just a shame that his character has so little screen time. The finest performance by some margin, however, is that of Kristin Scott Thomas. She is powerful and alluring and yet delicate and easily hurt; it is a really extraordinary performance. Aaron Johnson also holds his own amongst some of the finest actors in Britain. At first he struggles to find Lennon’s unique accent, but eventually he picks it up. However talented an actor he is, however, there is no getting away from the fact that Johnson’s physiology is far too boisterous to capture the character of one of music’s most geeky-looking icons. There is no doubt that John Lennon could be a tremendous bully and a self-centred, stubborn man (this was evident throughout his life), and he was, of course, ruthlessly anti-establishment; but he did this in a quiet, clever, and subversive way, and it is difficult to align this with the brash, Brando-esque strut that Johnson brings to the character.

Perhaps the most surprising thing is how traditional the structure and aesthetic of the film are. When Steve McQueen made ‘Hunger’, it was obvious we were dealing with a piece of art, or political portraiture, rendered through the medium of commercial cinema. Taylor Wood could have brought a similar branding to this project, but ‘Nowhere Boy’ is a traditional film that just happens to be made by a first-time director who makes video-installation art in her day job. There are flashbacks to early-childhood which employ some interesting editing devices and unusual lighting, reminiscent of the legendary dream sequence in Bunuel’s ‘Los Olvidados’, but aside from that the film looks more like ‘Diner’ than ‘Performance’.

The script is beautifully written. The relationships between Mimi, Julia, and John are so beautifully crafted and natural. Aside from one sudden jump (when Mimi and Julia suddenly become friends so that the domestic situation can be resolved and Julia’s death feels even more tragic) the script is unwaveringly realistic and perfectly paced. There is really no need to have any strong feelings for John Lennon or The Beatles whatsoever to enjoy this film. Indeed, you are never especially conscious of the fact that this is supposed to be John Lennon. It is only when we meet Paul and George that we are reminded, and even then it is short-lived. This is not a biopic in the mould of ‘Walk The Line’ or ‘Ray’; it is the story of a troubled childhood and a determined and strong-minded young man who uses his love of music to overcome a bitter and uncomfortable domestic past.

Nicholas Deigman