Movies Of The Year: 3 Great Foreign Language Movies

Cell 211 (Daniel Monzón)

You’d imagine that the worst nightmare for a prison guard would be to get locked in with the prisoners.  In Cell 211, this is exactly what happens to guard Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammann).  But he has one thing in his favour; none of the prisoners know this.  Juan has visited the prison the day before he is due to start working there, and he finds himself trapped inside the prison’s walls after a piece of the building falls on his head, and a riot breaks out while he is unconscious in cell 211.  When he wakes up, he must convince the other prisoners that he is in fact an in-mate, particularly the menacing Malamadre (Luis Tosar), the leader of the rioters.

Juan discovers that the riot has been triggered by the presence of ETA bombers in the prison, who will be killed unless the authorities meet Malamadre’s demands.  Trapped inside the prison, Juan faces increasingly difficult decisions as events inside and outside the prison walls unfold.

Cell 211 is a tense and brilliantly scripted and acted Spanish movie, the builds towards a gripping climax that will blur the lines of good and evil.  An American remake is already in the pipe-line, but the original is a must-see movie.

Julia’s Eyes (Guillem Morales)

At work one day, Julia (Belén Rueda) suddenly collapses.  When she recovers, she senses that something has happened to her twin sister Sara (Rueda again).  Julia and husband Isaac (Lluís Homar) visit her sister’s home, where Isaac discovers that Sara has apparently hung herself.  Sara was blind, the result of a degenerative disease which is also affecting Julia’s eyesight.  Julia becomes convinced that Sara was murdered, and sets out to find the killer only she believes exists, despite her eyesight failing rapidly.

What follows is a game of cat and mouse, as Julia looks for clues, and someone seems out to get her.  The plot becomes increasingly complicated as Julia searches for the truth, with secrets about her husband and her sister coming to light.

Rueda gives a fantastic performance as a woman out for the truth about her sister, while fighting an unseen adversary, and losing her sight.  She previously starred in The Orphanage, and both movies are produced by Guillermo Del Toro, who never seems to stop working.  Julia’s Eyes is an excellent thriller, with an intricate plot and a tense and brilliant finale.

 

13 Assassins (Takashi Miike)

13 Assassins is set in 19^th century Japan, at a time when the Shogun’s younger brother is abusing his power, raping and killing people across the country.  A samurai, Shinzaemon is secretly assigned to murder the young lord, and he persuades 11 other samurai to join him in order to overcome the lord’s personal army, before killing him too.   After part of the team successfully diverts the lord’s route through the country, a 13^th man joins the party.  Together they confront the lord and his men in a village they have fortified to their advantage.

And it is here that the final battle takes place, an epic stand-off that lasts for almost half the movie.  Shinzaemon and his allies transform the village into a booby-trapped arena, and a bloody battle begins.  The action is relentless, and consistently inventive, with the samurai setting elaborate traps to split up the 200 men they must kill before they can get to the lord.  Miike of course directed the infamously bloody Ichi The Killer, and while 13 Assassins isn’t as graphic as that movie, there is plenty of blood.  13 Assassins is brutally brilliant, and another great movie to add to Miike’s ever growing list of successes.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Review

Tom Cruise is a man that divides opinion.  People seem to love him or hate him as an actor, and his personal life tends to generate as many headlines as his movies.  Whatever your opinion of him, it’s hard to deny that he is a proper Hollywood star.  2011 is his 30^th year of making movies, and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is his 33^rd movie.

The fourth movie in the franchise, Ghost Protocol is directed by Brad Bird, who helms a live-action movie for the first time, after directing Pixar’s The Incredibles and Ratatouille.  The action takes place in Hungary, Russia, Dubai and Mumbai, with Cruise returning as Ethan Hunt, leading a disavowed IMF team attempting to stop a Swedish born Russian terrorist from acquiring and launching nuclear weapons.  Simon Pegg also returns as Benji Dunn, having first appeared in Mission: Impossible III.  The other members of the team are Jane Carter (Paula Patton, Precious) and William Brandt (Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker).

The movie begins with Benji and Carter breaking Ethan out from a Russian prison.  After the breakout, Hunt and the team attempt to break into the Kremlin, in order to identify a terrorist known as Cobalt.  But Cobalt is a step ahead of the team, and triggers a bomb that destroys part of the Kremlin, framing the IMF team in the process.  Hunt meets with the IMF secretary (Tom Wilkinson), who explains that Hunt’s team has been disavowed, after the president initiates Ghost Protocol.  The secretary has resigned, but gives Hunt one last mission, find Cobalt and prevent him from starting a nuclear war.  The car Hunt and the secretary are travelling in is ambushed and the secretary is killed, leaving Hunt and analyst Brandt trying to escape after the car crashes into a river and Russian security forces fire shots into the water.  Following their escape, Hunt and Brandt join Benji and Carter, as they plan the next move.

Their mission will take them to Dubai and Mumbai, where most of the action takes place.  As you’ll know from the trailer, the Dubai part of the movie takes place inside (and outside) the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world.  In order to hack into the building’s security servers, Ethan has to scale the outside of the building and break in to the server room.  In Mission: Impossible II, Cruise climbed a mountain in Utah without safety harnesses, but in Ghost Protocol he climbs the outside of the Burj Khalifa, taking the kind of risks that give Hollywood producers nightmares.  It’s a tense scene in the movie, so one can only imagine how fast hearts were beating when the scene was actually being filmed.

The movie offers up the standard fare for modern action thrillers.  There are car chases and explosions, fist and gun fights, and spectacular settings being destroyed in various ways.  But there’s something missing from the movie.  The plot is fairly bog standard, we’ve all seen a ‘shady Russian has a nuclear device’ plot-line in any number of movies in the past.  The script also suffers.  Pegg essentially becomes sidekick Simon, his character for the most part doing nothing other than fiddle with electronic devices and make quips while the rest of the team get on with the action. It becomes grating after a while, and dilutes the dramatic elements of the movie.  The bad guys are under-written, and we learn little about their motivation for wanting to spark nuclear war.  Brad Bird’s direction is fine, with some spectacular shots, and he handles action fairly well.

Pegg aside, Cruise does exactly what you expect, leading the film with ease, with Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton also joining him in doing the physical stuff.  Michael Nyqvist has little to do as Cobalt, other than a fight scene with Cruise late in the film.  Overall, the film never quite lives up to expectations.  It feels rather tame and predictable in the post-Bourne world, with not much new or original to separate it from the pack.  It’s not a bad movie, but you’ll be left wanting more.

Life’s Too Short – Episode 7

So it’s finally over.  Life’s Too Short limped to a depressing end that finished with Warwick Davis sleeping in a drawer.  Why?  Because he’s a dwarf, so he fits!  Funny eh?  No, definitely not.

I enjoyed episode 1 of Life’s Too Short.  There were some good lines, and a very funny, if shoe-horned in, cameo by Liam Neeson.  But the show got repetitive and tedious very quickly.  The cameos became more bizarre and out of place, and there were continuations of long-running gags from the world of Ricky Gervais.  Stephen Merchant is tight with money, Ricky and Steve Carrel have a rivalry, Les Dennis, Keith Chegwin and Barry off Eastenders appeared for no real reason.  Even Keith from The Office turned up.

Life’s Too Short will go down as Ricky Gervais’ first real failure.  Warwick Davis’ character felt like a cross between Andy Millman and David Brent, only he rarely learned lessons from his mistakes, and usually came across as an arrogant bully, rather than a misguided but decent person at heart.  I feel sorry for Davis actually, as his performance throughout the series was generally pretty good, but he was never allowed to be the star of his own show.  His life as a once successful actor, going through a divorce and running a struggling talent agency always felt like background noise, as the show concentrated on getting celebrities to send themselves up, you know, like what they did in Extras.

Episode 5 for me was a highlight, because there was no Gervais or Merchant, and no celebrity cameos.  Just Warwick and his life, but the final two episodes were extraordinarily bad.  Episode 7 begins with another meeting between Warwick and his accountant/solicitor and his wife Sue and her solicitor Ian.  When Ian tells Warwick that Sue gave up her career as a nurse for him, he rants about there being enough nurses to go round, and that Brad Pitt wouldn’t marry a nurse.  The divorce settlement offered to him is not favourable, so he inexplicably visits Ricky and Stephen (who have repeatedly made it clear they want nothing to do with him) to beg for some money.  They can’t give him any, but talk turns to a charity event Sting is hosting, that Ricky has been invited to.  During this exchange, Ricky jokes about Stephen being tight with money, something that has featured heavily in their radio shows and podcasts.

Warwick somehow persuades Ricky to ask Sting if he can go to the event.  Warwick later receives a standard letter from Sting, inviting him to the event, with tickets costing £300.  After writing a cheque, Warwick visits his accountant, who tells him that he needs to cut back on his spending.  He wonders aloud if Warwick would be better off dead, which leads to a discussion about suicide, rather like the one with Chegwin, Dennis and Shaun Williamson in the previous episode.

You won’t be surprised to learn that the charity event doesn’t go well for Warwick.  One reason is that it’s a typical of Gervais and Merchant’s shows that things don’t always go according to plan, another is that almost every episode has ended with a ‘coming soon’ scene during the end credits, which has shown Warwick being thrown out of the event with Sting looking on.

The Office and Extras both ended well for their lead characters.  David Brent got the girl and beat Finchy, and Andy Millman realised who he really was, and left with his friend Maggie.  Life’s Too Short ends with Warwick in a drawer, improbably reconciling with Amy, the girl he has twice humiliated publicly.  It rather sums up the show.  Life’s Too Short has felt like a poorly written mash-up of The Office and Extras, like it was written by someone ripping off Ricky Gervais, rather than by the actual creators of both those shows.  While those shows will long be a staple of clip shows and comedy countdowns, Life’s Too Short will hopefully be quietly put away, perhaps in the bottom of a drawer?

Movies Of The Year: 3 Great Documentaries

Senna (Asif Kapadia):

Ayrton Senna is still regarded as one of the finest drivers in Formula One history.  His death following a heavy crash during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix was one of the darkest days in the sports history, and triggered radical changes to safety regulations.  Directed by Asif Kapadia, Senna focuses on the Brazilian’s 10 years in Formula One, where he won three world titles.  Rather than the conventional talking head style of documentary, Senna features the voices of people who were there, discussing the impact and style (and lifestyle) of Ayrton Senna, over archive footage.  It shows his brilliance as a driver, as well as the controversial moments of his career, including his bitter feud with Alain Prost, and tense driver meetings with F1 president Jean-Marie Balestre.

The documentary shows Senna as a complex man.  A true racer, willing to take risks and push his car to the limits on track, he was also concerned by driver safety, at a time when serious injuries and heavy crashes were far more common in F1.  It also shows how revered he is in Brazil, a national hero at a time when his country was in crisis.  The in-car footage from the San Marino GP is a haunting portrayal of the last moments of Senna’s life.  Senna’s legacy in F1 lives on, but this documentary transcends the sport.

Catching Hell (Alex Gibney):

Alex Gibney’s film focuses on a man named Steve Bartman.  Until October of 2003, Bartman was just an ordinary man, a quiet baseball fan, who loved to watch the Chicago Cubs.  But one incident changed his life forever.  In a game that would send the Cubs to the World Series for the first time since 1945 if they won, Bartman reached for a ball headed for the stands, and knocked it away from a Cubs outfielder, who looked like he could have caught the ball.  The Cubs were leading 3-0 at the time, but the Marlins scored 8 unanswered runs and won the next two games to knock the Cubs out.

Bartman quickly found his life had been changed.  He was made a scapegoat for the Cubs defeat, and received death threats.  Gibney’s documentary explores the concept of a scapegoat, looking at Bill Buckner, a first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, made a scapegoat by Boston fans after a mistake in the 1986 World Series lead to a Red Sox loss against the New York Mets, who won the series.  Although Bartman refused to be interviewed, it’s a fascinating insight into the mentality of sports fans and a baseball documentary that even people who don’t like the sport can enjoy.

Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog):

In a world of Transformers 3 and comic book adaptations, Werner Herzog stands out as a film-maker doing his own thing on his own terms.  Equally comfortable with fiction and fact, his prolific output regularly includes documentaries, and Cave Of Forgotten Dreams is one of his best.

The Chauvet cave in southern France is home to the oldest cave paintings ever discovered, estimated to be between 25,000 and 32,000 years old.  In order to film inside the cave, Herzog had to secure permission from the French Minister of Culture, and could only work as part of a three man team, using specific types of equipment in order to preserve the conditions inside the cave.  Having previously called 3D “a gimmick of the commercial cinema”, Herzog decided to use it after first visiting the cave.  And it is 3D as it should be used.  It is used to show the depth and scale of the cave, as well as the shape and curves of the rocks on which the paintings are daubed.  The paintings are incredible, perfectly preserved and beautifully rendered.  Narrated by Herzog himself, he offers his thoughts on what the paintings represent and their place in the history of man.  It is a beautiful film made in a spectacular setting, and a must-see in 2D or 3D.

Black Mirror – The Entire History Of You

Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror series has been hit and miss so far.  Episode one, The National Anthem was certainly a hit, but episode two, Fifteen Million Merits was a miss, with a satirical swipe at X-Factor style shows falling flat.

The final episode of the mini-series is The Entire History of You, written by Jesse Armstrong.  Armstrong has impeccable comedy credentials, having created Peep Show with writing partner Sam Bain, worked with Armando Iannucci on The Thick Of It, In The Loop and the forthcoming HBO show Veep, and Chris Morris on Four Lions. But The Entire History Of You is very much a drama.  Starring Toby Kebbell (who shot to fame after his incredible performance as Anthony in Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes) as Liam, the episode takes place in an alternate reality, where people have a ‘grain’ implanted behind their ear, that records everything they see, and which allows them to ‘redo’ all their memories.

It begins with Liam in a meeting.  He is a solicitor, and it appears that his job is under threat.  Redoing the meeting, he becomes convinced that he will shortly be fired.  After the meeting he takes a flight home.  A security guard requests to watch Liam’s last 24 hours before he can board the flight.

He arrives at a friend’s dinner party, where he notices his wife Ffion (Jodie Whittaker, seen earlier this year in Attack The Block) chatting to a man called Jonas (Tom Cullen).  Liam takes an instant dislike to Jonas, particularly when he reveals that he used to watch memories of old girlfriends instead of spending time with his fiancée, whom he recently split with.  Another girl, Helen, arrives at the party, where she reveals that she was ‘gouged’ meaning her grain was stolen from her, leaving an ugly scar.

After the party, Liam argues with Ffion after he has invited Jonas back to their home for drinks.  When he makes it clear he didn’t mean it, they make excuses and Jonas leaves.  But Liam is concerned about Ffion’s relationship with Jonas, and the couple start to argue.

Liam becomes obsessed with working out the truth behind Ffion’s relationship with Jonas, leading to heated arguments with Ffion, and later, Jonas himself.  Kebbell gives an excellent performance as a man seeing his life fall apart around him.  Strong performances from the leading man has been a recurring theme in Black Mirror, with Rory Kinnear and Daniel Kaluuya both doing the same in the previous two episodes.  As Liam starts to lose control, he makes a series of choices that lead to him discovering the truth about his life, and what the consequences are of having your entire life recorded for you to browse like a reality version of Sky+.

The Entire History Of You is much better than Fifteen Million Merits, and may be the best episode of the series.  Jesse Armstrong has delivered a strong drama that shows he can handle more than one genre when it comes to writing.  It bodes well for The Longest Cocktail Party, the story of Apple Records, which Armstrong had adapted into a screenplay, set to go into production in 2012.  And the quality of this final episode means that Black Mirror has been a mini-series worth watching.  Britain seems to do science fiction and fantasy television very well, and most of Black Mirror has been a smart, modern take on the genre. It could become a regular series for Channel 4, and could also be a vehicle for British writers perhaps better known for comedy, to expand their horizons and try out different genres.

Overall, The National Anthem and The Entire History Of You stand up amongst the best television of the year.  Although Fifteen Million Merits was something of a disappointment, Charlie Brooker’s latest TV series has been well worth watching.

David Dougan

Life’s Too Short – Episode 6

Episode 5 of Life’s Too Short was the best of the series so far.  With no Gervais or celebrity cameos, it allowed Warwick Davis to carry the show himself, and he showed himself capable of doing it.  If that episode was a peak, episode 6 is certainly a trough.  The episode is an ugly mess, with utterly redundant cameos, and repeats of themes from Extras.  Les Dennis, Keith Chegwin and Barry off Eastenders appear for no reason at all, other to have an entirely unfunny conversation about how they’d kill themselves, or be sick in the background at a party gone wrong.  I know they have nothing better to do, but surely Ricky Gervais does?

Gervais and Merchant are back too, as Warwick attempts to get them to attend a flat-warming party he’s hosting.  What we get is a variation on the old ‘Whatever day it is, I can’t go’ gag, as Gervais claims he visits Great Ormond Street Hospital on Saturday nights.  When he tries to get Merchant to attend, we’re ‘treated’ to another tired routine, Ricky thinking Steve is a bit funny looking.  It’s something that listeners to their old XFM shows, and series of podcasts, will be well familiar with.

Anyway, after failing to attract any of the Harry Potter cast (He calls Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, who decline, but he tells Rupert Grint that there is no party), he turns to a rent-a-star agency, and hires Cat Deeley.  Deeley has little to do when she arrives at the party.  She doesn’t want to talk about Ant and Dec, or I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and finds herself in the middle of a rumour (started by Warwick) that she and Davis are dating.

This scenario gives the show it’s one real highlight, Sue’s solicitor, Ian.  Played by Matthew Holness (better known as Garth Marenghi), he’s dating Sue and goes out of his way to annoy and embarrass Warwick.  Earlier in the episode, as Sue and Warwick meet to discuss their divorce, Ian slides a first draft of a divorce agreement just out of Warwick’s reach, an little act that eventually leads to Warwick and his accountant (acting as a solicitor) falling out and eventually fighting on the floor.  At the party, Ian goes out of his way to rile Warwick, without raising his voice or being overly demonstrative.  He claims not to have a television so doesn’t recognise Deeley, and sticks Warwick right in it, when he tells Amy (Warwick’s date in episode 5) that he’s been told Warwick and Deeley are dating, then loudly asks Deeley about the same rumour.

It’s a subtle performance by Holness, but his increasingly hostile relationship with Warwick is something that doesn’t get enough air-time, due to Gervais and Merchant’s insistence on cramming pointless cameos and themselves into the show.  There’s literally no point whatsoever in the trio of Dennis, Chegwin and Williamson being at Warwick’s party.  How do they know each other?  Why would he invite them?  On Twitter this week, Gervais claimed to have ideas for a second series of Life’s Too Short.  It’s a pity he didn’t have any new ones for this series.  The Office and Extras are genuinely classic sitcoms, but Gervais should have moved on with his career.  Cemetery Junction was a well-received drama, and An Idiot Abroad was an entertaining travelogue, making Karl Pilkington a TV star.  I still believe that Warwick Davis gives a decent performance in Life’s Too Short, but the sooner it’s over with, the better.

Black Mirror – Fifteen Million Merits

Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror continues with Fifteen Million Merits, a satire written by Brooker and his wife, former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq.  Wait, what?  That’s right, Charlie Brooker is indeed married to a former Blue Peter presenter, and they’ve teamed up to write the second episode of Black Mirror, which takes place in world where normal people are required to spend the day on bike machines, which power their surroundings and rewards them with merits that they can spend on television, upgrades for their avatars, and food.

The story focuses on Bing (Daniel Kaluuya, recognisable from Skins and Psychoville, where he played Tealeaf), one of many drone-like people who use the bikes on a daily basis.  The episode feels very much like a 70s sci-fi movie, with not much dialogue and a lot of lingering shots to establish the mundane world that the workers find themselves stuck in.  It’s not until Bing meets Abi, a new girl replacing a ‘finished’ worker, that there’s much interaction between characters.

After hearing Abi singing, Bing tries to convince her that she should audition for an X-Factor style show called Hot Shot.  Entry costs 15 million merits (the unit the workers are paid in), and Bing, having inherited that amount when his brother died, offers to buy her a ticket.  Hot Shot has three judges.  There’s Judge Hope (Rupert Everett, looking like Faith-era George Michael with Simon Cowell’s persona), Judge Charity (Julia Davis) and Judge Wraith (Ashley Thomas aka grime artist Bashy).  The live audience for the show is made up of the avatars of the workers, who watch from their hi-tech rooms, the walls of which are floor-to-ceiling television screens.  The winners on the show have their lives transformed, never having to use the bikes again.  Although the judges are impressed by Abi’s performance, their decision about her future leaves her with a difficult choice to make, one that will lead Bing to be forced to make his own difficult choice.

Black Mirror’s first episode, The National Anthem, was a clever, albeit very dark, swipe at modern culture and the way social networking has changed everyday life.  Fifteen Million Merits has similar intentions, but deconstructing the false hopes that talent shows in the modern age bring to the millions of people who watch and enter them already seems clichéd.

Kaluuya gives a credible performance as Bing, but most of the plot points in Fifteen Million Merits have been seen before, in science fiction or even just dramatic movies or television.  If you look closely enough, you’ll see moments that remind of you films like 2001 and THX 1138, and part of Clint Mansell’s score from Moon is also used to soundtrack some of the big moments in the episode.

The National Anthem was a very strong first episode for Black Mirror.  Fifteen Million Merits is a much less successful episode, and leaves you wondering if The National Anthem may have been better off being shown as a one-off drama.  Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show and The Thick Of It) is the writer of the final episode of the series, The History Of You, the strength of that will ultimately decide how good Black Mirror is as a whole, but so far it’s a 50/50 split.

Life’s Too Short – Episode 5

So, it finally happened.  If you’ve been reading my reviews of Life’s Too Short, you’ll know my biggest gripe with the show is the overbearing presence of Ricky Gervais.  Appearing in each of the first four episodes with Stephen Merchant, his scenes seemed shoehorned in, an unnecessary part of the show that should be focussing entirely on its star, Warwick Davis.  Thankfully, in episode 5, the show is all about Warwick.  There’s no Gervais or Merchant, and no celebrity cameos.  And the show is so much better for it.

Davis is more than capable of driving the show on his own, and in this week’s episode, he gets to do just that.  As he looks to move on as his divorce comes through, he visits a series of spiritual and religious people looking for answers and a new direction in his life.  He first visits a man he calls his ‘psychic housekeeper’, an especially inept psychic called Brian.  Although fraudulent psychics are an easy target for comedy, Brian getting angry with Warwick because he doesn’t know anyone called John, Jonathan or even David still brings laughs.  Warwick encounters more problems when he visits a catholic priest, and then a scientologist.  His opening question to the priest, ‘Are you a paedophile?’ sets an awkward conversation in motion, and his insistence on calling scientology a cult and referring to brainwashing, angers the scientologist he is discussing it with.  Ricky Gervais of course made a joke about scientology during his infamous hosting of this year’s Golden Globes, and has made no secret of his atheism.

With his spiritual quest not working out, Warwick instead turns his attention to finding a new woman.  After a visit to a club with his accountant goes spectacularly wrong (in a scene similar to one from Extras, when Darren and Barry fail to impress some girls in the David Bowie episode), he turns to the man who set him up with his almost ex-wife, a man named Toby who is running a struggling dating service.  He finds someone he likes, and sets up a date, only to be initially horrified when she turns out to also be a dwarf.  Again, there are similarities to previous Gervais/Merchant work, this time with David Brent’s blind date disasters in The Office.  But the scene is a still a strong one, with the question of whether or not Warwick’s date has a hidden pair of testicles a highlight.

Episode 5 may be the strongest yet of Life’s Too Short’s first series.  Warwick has excellent comic timing, and again gets to do some physical comedy, on a second date that doesn’t go quite according to plan.  The final two episodes of the show will have more celebrity cameos, including some throwbacks to Extras, and that is something that could again hurt the series overall.  But when left to do his own thing, Warwick Davis gives an excellent performance and allows Life’s Too Short to flourish.

Take Shelter Review

Michael Shannon is establishing himself as one of the best, and most in-demand, actors in Hollywood.  In recent years he’s worked with directors like William Friedkin, Sidney Lumet, Oliver Stone, Sam Mendes, Werner Herzog and Martin Scorsese, and received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in Revolutionary Road.  He seems to enjoy playing complicated, difficult characters, and as Curtis LaForche in Jeff Nicols’ Take Shelter he is certainly both of those things.

Curtis is a married man, with a young daughter.  His job allows him to keep up with repayments on the house and for the family to have two cars, with the only complication in his life seeming to be the deafness of his daughter.  But it is something that can be cured with an expensive operation, something the family is working on thanks to the generous medical insurance package his job offers.

But Curtis starts to have vivid, violent dreams that seem to portent a huge storm coming his way.  One such dream involves Curtis being attacked by his dog, and he wakes up with a pain in his arm that lingers for hours.  As the dreams haunt him, he starts to become obsessed with an old abandoned tornado shelter in his back garden.  The dreams feel so real to him that he wants to protect his family, so much so that he takes out a loan to pay for it, without telling his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain).  As his obsession grows, his family and friends will feel the strain of his changing mental state, and with the dreams becoming more violent and disturbing, Curtis starts to question his own sanity.

If the plot sounds heavy, it certainly is.  Take Shelter is certainly not a popcorn movie, and it has a slow, methodical feel to it.  But it is driven by an astonishing performance from Shannon.  It would be easy for him to play the role in an outlandish way, with lots of gesticulation and quirks, but Shannon’s performance is very subtle, with small differences in Curtis’ demeanour as he worries he is losing control.  At the beginning of the movie he seems a quiet, reserved man, but as his life changes, so does his body language, with nervous tics and twitches growing and developing as the film goes on.

As Curtis’ behaviour becomes increasingly strange, his work colleagues and friends find it ever more difficult to deal with him.  His work suffers and his wife doesn’t understand what is happening to him.  Chastain has been everywhere in 2011, starring in five movies, including the Palme d’Or winner, Terrence Malick’s Tree Of Life, and the hugely successful The Help.  Here she gives a strong performance as a woman struggling to understand what is happening to her husband, but standing by her man.

But this is Shannon’s film, and if his performance doesn’t earn him an Oscar nomination, then the whole show is meaningless.  There are other candidates for the Best Actor award, with Brad Pitt excellent in The Tree Of Life, and George Clooney gathering strong reviews for his performance in The Descendants, but Michael Shannon carries the movie on his back and delivers an incredible performance.

As for the film itself, there’s a sense of dread constantly building as it progresses.  Curtis’ behaviour and mood seems to spread around the town, with a memorable scene coming at a dinner where most of the town will discover how fragile his state of mind is.  Without spoiling anything, the finale is astonishing, a perfect conclusion to an extraordinary film.

Take Shelter is a must-see movie, and not just because of Shannon’s performance.  It deserves to be seen by many, many people, but in the current climate of superheroes, comic book adaptations and 3D nonsense, it may be ignored.  Don’t make the mistake of missing it, catch it while you can and you will be rewarded.

Black Mirror – The National Anthem

There’s a good chance that if you’ve heard of Charlie Brooker, you’ll either like him, or want to smash his annoying face in.  I fall into the former camp and in general find his work to be entertaining and often very funny.  He regularly writes for the Guardian, and has ventured into television before, working with Chris Morris on the Brass Eye paedophile special, and again on Nathan Barley.  In 2008, Dead Set, a five part series set in the Big Brother house following a zombie outbreak, was shown on Channel 4, and was written by Brooker on his own.  It was well received and nominated for a BAFTA.

His new series is called Black Mirror and is described as a ‘hybrid of The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected which taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world’.  The first episode is called The National Anthem, and stars Rory Kinnear and Lindsay Duncan.

Princess Susannah has been kidnapped, and Prime Minister Michael Callow receives a video tape of Susannah, featuring one particular demand of him.  To call it unusual would be an understatement, as the demand is that Callow must have sex with a pig live on television, or the Princess will be executed.  The video has already been viewed by 50,000 people after it was uploaded to youtube, and is trending on twitter, but blocked from television.

Despite the absurd premise, The National Anthem plays out like a political thriller.  The Prime Minister faces a dilemma that seems strangely plausible, in the sense that demands made via the social networking sites that have changed the way news stories spread around the globe, could force a person in such a position of power to make a decision in public that would normally be done behind closed doors.  Brooker’s script doesn’t look for cheap laughs, and the plot develops like a twisted episode of 24, rather than an episode of The Thick Of It.  Rory Kinnear gives an excellent performance as the under pressure Prime Minister, forced to make a terrible decision as the kidnapper’s deadline approaches.

The plot of Black Mirror’s first episode might put you off, but The National Anthem is a cleverly-scripted and well-executed satire that may make you view Brooker’s work in a different light.  The remaining two episodes of Black Mirror have a lot to live up to, as The National Anthem is one of the better 60 minutes of television of the year.