TFR March 2012

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contents editor’s note 5 reviews 6 overrated/underrated 10 re-inventing authorship: actors turned directors by géaroid gilmore 12 drive as an allegory for postmodern expression by cailan o’connell 14 an interview with alan gilsenin by aoife mccarthy 24 top 10 films to watch when.... by claire o’reilly 28 dvd reviews 30 movie night by glenn whelan and p. j. moloney 32 5 word reviews 34

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cast and crew Editor Ciara Barrett Deputy Editor P. J. Moloney Creative Director Cailan O’Connell Contributors Aoife McCarthy Brian McDonald Claire O’Reilly David Cullinan Géaroid Gilmore Glenn Whelan Robyn Hamilton William Murphy Printers Conway Media Limited Trinity Film Review is a Trinity Publication. It is funded by a grant from the DU Publications Committee. This publication claims no special rights or priviliges. Serious complaints should be addressed to: The Editor, Trinity Film Review, 6 Trinity College, Dublin 2. aaAppeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland.

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editor’s note It is with a heavy heart that I bid goodbye (from an editorial standpoint) to TFR this month. I’ve been with it since the very beginning when Trinity Film Review launched in October 2008. Back then, I was a bright-eyed third year in my first ever sub-editorial position. Four years later, I’m a jaded postgraduate staring down the blank page of an as-yet-to-be-written editorial, telling myself, “Just get on with it. Nobody reads these things anyway.”

Except I have some things that need to be said: TFR would be nowhere, first of all, without Conor O’Kelly, our first illustrious editor and all-round great guy. Major thanks also due to Emma Keaveney, second editor and all-round great gal. During my own tenure, I would not have survived on a professional or personal level without deputies Cathal Wogan and Ines Novacic.. Also deserving of thanks: Hannah O’Brien, Simone Cameron-Coen, Sinead Moloney, Emma Walker, anyone who has ever lived in the Hux or the Lady (.1 and .2), TRINITY PUBLICATIONS of course!, DU Filmmakers and Trinity TV, and last but definitely not least, the ever-patient, every-bearded, the one and only Robert Kearns.

Actually, my thank yous continue, but these guys need a section all for themselves: P. J. Moloney and Cailan O’Connell, without whom this issue never would have happened.. TFR couldn’t be going into the hands of a more enthusiastic and capable crowd, and I am so very excited to see what you lot come out with next year. I have no doubt there will be loads more issues. And I also have no doubt TFR will be better than ever..

So I didn’t talk about movies there, but flip the page and there’s plenty more ahead.

I really hope you enjoy this issue. Just treat it as a taster for all the great things to come in 2012/2013.

Love and films!

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stella days Directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan Starring Martin Sheen and Marcella Plunkett 9th March Simple, sincere, heart-warming and quaint – Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s latest offering has all the appearance of being these and none of the substance. Appropriately enough for a film about faith: thank God. Martin Sheen plays Father Daniel, an Irish priest with artistic and intellectual aspirations, who has are-located from the lap of luxury in Rome to live in the Irish small-town of Borrisokane, Tipperary. Parochial life, Irish-style, proves too mundane for the cosmopolitan cleric, and soon he’s trying to build a picturehouse – the eponymous Stella – in the middle of town on a diocesan penny.

That narrative (based on the real-life memoirs of Michael Doorley) in the hands of another director might well have become The Quiet Man II. Under O’Sullivan’s directorship, however, Stella Days evolves from a quaint Oirish comedy into an emotionally complex portrait of Ireland under the thumb of Depres-

sion (in all its senses), the Catholic Church, nationalist ideology, and patriarchal values, all of which are shown to be intertwined and mutually dependent. The multiple interweaving sub-plots – which involve a hyperreligious granny, the introduction of electricity to Borrisokane, a young boy’s yearning for his absent father, his mother’s affair with a local schoolteacher, and the local election (phew) – in turn succeed in showing the depth and complexity of the challenges facing Ireland in the 1950s and, by reflection, of today.

pectedly – but never manipulatively – heartwrenching. Like his past work in December Bride, O’Sullivan manages to make this deceptively lovely-looking movie into an ideologically challenging and even self-reflexively critical film.

In the second half, Stella Days is unex-

REVIEW BY CIARA BARRETT

fect and has his own personal flaws with his temper and trust. This somewhat interesting character study coupled with some truly proper action sequences where things don’t always go the heroes way lead to some incredibly tense and enjoyable moments.

ing years. With Baltasar Kormákur though it seems to be a mostly bright future. Though the ethics of the plot may have a few questionable insights into life, they pass under the radar thanks to the series of exhilarating action sequences and intense conversations.

So check out Contraband and keep an eye out for whatever Kormákur ends up doing, I suspect he may just become something big.

His one cop-out: explaining away Father Daniel’s accent with twenty years spent in America. Riiiight.

contraband Directed by Baltasar Kormákur Starring Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale 16th March The new Hollywood remake, Contraband of the Icelandic crime thriller Reykjavík-Rotterdam tells the story of an ex-smuggler (Mark Wahlberg) who has to do one last job after his brother in-law gets into trouble with a crime lord. But with his whole family nowv, in danger has Wahlberg simply gotten too rusty or might he just pull off the greatest ruse of his career?

While the film touches on themes of familial loyalty, it avoids the trap of dropping the action in favour of a laborious tale of a family learning to love each other again.

Instead we’re presented with a Machiavellian kind if character who does things simply because they have to be done.

This ‘Western’ hero however is not all per-

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It’s always interesting when fresh meat comes to Hollywood. Be it for the better or the worst they always give you an insight into what cinema has in stock for us in the com-

REVIEW BY P.J. MOLONEY

21 jump street Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller Starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum 16th March Given that the only previous feature to come from directorial duo Chris Miller and Phil Lord was Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, it is safe to say that I was feeling pretty dubious on entering the cinema. Fortunately my fears were totally unfounded as I emerged with my sides aching; from what was undeniably a hilarious, fun and fresh buddy-cop movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Former high school jock Jenko (Channing Tatum) and nerd Schmidt (Jonah Hill), having just graduated from police academy make a spectacular mess of their first arrest attempt and are consequently drafted into the 21 Jump Street unit; a special undercover division which specialises in sending young looking cops undercover into high schools to combat youth crime. The duo’s mission is simple- infiltrate a local high school to stop the spreading of a new synthetic drug by befriending the dealers and busting the supplier. However, high school has changed a

lot since the pair graduated in 2005 as the classical hierarchy has been turned upside down now with the PC, eco-conscious nerds on top. Jenko is completely at a loss, now on the bottom of the totem pole and can only attribute it to one thing; “I totally know the cause, it’s Glee! Fuck you Glee!”

brings his usual awkward, crass but ultimately hilarious performance to the film, but what surprised me most was Tatum’s new found talent for comedy. The usually wooden actor brings energy and life to his character and both he and Hill play off each other to great effect.

This is one worth the watch!

What really makes this film work is the obvious onscreen chemistry between Hill and Tatum, they really look like they are having fun. Hill

REVIEW BY ROBYN HAMILTON

once upon a time in anatolia Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan Starring Muhammet Uzuner and Yilmaz Erdogan 16th March Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, takes place for the most part on the dusty backroads of the vast repeating landscape of Anatolia where it subtly and understatedly explores the ironic possibilities of the film’s fairytale title.Three cars laden with policemen, a doctor, a prosecutor and two detained criminals travel by night in search of the body of a murder victim.

The fairytale beauty of the landscape is rendered through the eyes of respective characters, offering to the local village men its abundance and its danger, and to the prosecutor and the skeptical doctor the philosophical implications of its darkness, isolation and splendour. Through this remark-

ably shot evening-scape, the film pursues and interrogates its characters to the utmost, revealing that each man’s present is the result of the past choices that have brought them together in this comically grim endeavour.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is cinema of the highest calibre: panoramic in its unrelenting scope, poetic in the quality of its images and Chekhovian in its nuanced realism. As the lights of the cars move dragon-like through the dark hills with less and less likelihood of finding the fountain where the body is said to be buried, the relationships between the characters never become volatile

(as they might be expected to in a police movie), but grow more complex, humorous and real. Were it a less ambitious film, it might have stopped earlier than it did (it’s a long movie, with a run-time of 157 minutes) and belonged to a special type of black comedy. But the film insists on following through from the fairytale wilderness of Anatolia by night to the skeptical aftermath of a small city by day and the continuing consequences of the past actions that haunt the characters in this gorgeous film.

REVIEW BY BRIAN MCDONALD

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overrated:

THE ARTIST

BY ROBYN HAMILTON

Last Christmas I, like many others, started hearing a lot of hoo-ha about this new film coming out called The Artist which was to be silent, black and white, and up for all sorts of awards. I decided to give it a chance, even though I couldn’t imagine how it could be that amazing - and we did move onto talkies for a reason - so I dared to expect that something new was going to be brought to the silent picture.

Unfortunately, The Artist turned out to be ultimately disappointing, bringing nothing new to the table and also a member of that most dreaded genre: the tribute film. In other words, the type of film that says “we’ve run out of ideas so let’s just rehash old stuff and call it homage”. The tribute film is even worse than the remake, and just one step up from clip shows in terms of unoriginality. I can understand tribute bands, they make sense.

So you want the Beatles live for your party?

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You book a Beatles tribute band - not as good as the real thing but better than a CD. However, there is no excuse when it comes to tribute films! So you want to see a good silent film? Unbelievably, others did come before The Artist. Go see Sunrise! Want a modern day silent film that’s actually good? See Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555. A film that chronicles the struggles of actors trying to come to terms with the transition from the silent films to talkies?

Wait, haven’t you seen that one before? And a version ten times better than The Artist? Oh yeah, Singin’ in the Rain! Despite Jean Dujardin receiving an Oscar for his performance in The Artist, could you ever really compare him to the immortal Gene Kelly? No! Just look at Dujardin’s dancing in The Artist, it’s awful! I suppose that this grand delusion arose from the fact that many of us now have never old silent films before and consequently were amazed that any half-decent film could be made with-

out the use of sound.

Yet I don’t wish to condemn this film entirely. It does have some merits. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting is admirable for the most part, especially in the case of Bérénice Bejo who breaths energy and vitality into Peppy Miller. I can see why people like this film; it’s fun and light-hearted, but I truly can’t understand why people love it, or why it has received so much attention from critics and more importantly, the Oscars. Was 2011 such a bad year that The Artist deserved a whopping five Oscar wins? Maybe I’m being too harsh, but consider that the wonderful Singin’ in the Rain didn’t even get one! We can look forward to next years’ Oscar nominees being full of silent entries. The Artist has proven that that is definitely a deciding factor.

underrated:

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN

BY DAVID CULLINAN

Cheaper By The Dozen (2003) is a family film. This name has come to forgive many things within this genre and leave you expecting very little. However, Shawn Levy’s film manages to retain some integrity while still indulging the structure that dominates these films.

Starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff and Richard Jenkins, the film follows an American football coach who moves with his wife and 12 children to Chicago after he gets a new job. As they struggle to fit in, the family grows further apart and Martin is pulled further in 12 different directions. His wife (Hunt) jets off on a book tour, before the cracks in the family become all too visible and the shmaltz arrives.

Although based on a book from the 60s, little else is retained in this screen adaptation other than the initial setup of a family of 12 children. Clearly, there are flaws to this film: the

children’s characters seem to have been decided by a committee that wants to hit all the right demographic models. There’s the jock, the teenage girl, the tom-boy, the nerdy child with a pet, the twins with less-than-remarkablyhigh-IQs, the skater-boy, among others and the plot seems to have been born out of a similar meeting. This isn’t surprising with four writers credited on the script, however the fulcrum around which this whole film revolves is Steve Martin. It’s his show. Without him, the film falls apart and would be doomed to hiding at the back of an Xtra-Vision shelf. Granted, I am a fan of Martin, but it is his charm in dealing with the regular ‘at home’ scenarios, some of which are just hammed in there, that creates a likeable protagonist as the slightly larger than life father who’s taken down a dozen notches every time he steps in his front door.

meat so the dog will go for the crotch of a Mr. Ashton Kutcher is one of the larger stunt gags, and the delivery of lines like ‘that sounds wicked-boring’ coming out of a 5 year old cannot help but bring out a chuckle at the very least.

Granted, it’s not an original film. You can see many of the themes better explored in other films, but it’s the good intentions of the childish humour that seem to win me over. I just hope the title’s not a clue about a forthcoming franchise.

The script does have some rather amusig lines and moments. The soaking underwear in 11

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AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAN GILSENEN

BY AOIFE McCARTHY

Aoife McCarthy recently sat down with acclaimed Irish documentarist and Trinity graduate (class of ‘85) Alan Gilsenen to talk about the state of Irish Cinema, the art of documentary filmmaking, and much more.

To begin with, maybe you could tell us a bit about your experience at Trinity?

I had always been interested in directing as a kid but probably more theatre. I always liked the idea of film but I wasn’t a film buff like one of those kids sneaking off to watch Godard movies. When I went to Trinity I studied English and Sociology and I directed a lot of plays in Players and really enjoyed it. The film society at the time decided that they would make a film. I wasn’t a member or anything but I had friends who were. I wrote a script over night and sent it in and it was selected. It was called Sheila.

After I wrote it, I was thinking about who I would cast. There was a girl in my English seminars who acted in Players. I knew her to say hello to, but she wasn’t a friend and we would always fight over every novel. But I liked her and respected her and she was a very smart woman but also quite intimidating. I thought she would never want to do the film but I gave her the script after the seminar and she said that she would. The interesting thing about it is, that was Anne Enright, who went on to win the Man Booker prize.

So we got a group of people together and made this short film.

Just as I was leaving college we decided to make another film. I got an idea to make a Samuel Beckett screenplay called “Eh Joe”, made for television, and again with the innocence of youth, we wrote to Samuel Beckett in Paris. He very nicely wrote back to us. I still have a little card saying that we could go ahead and make the film. It was a lot of

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the same crew. Emer Reynolds started to get interested in editing and became Martin’s assistant. We asked Siobhan McKenna and Tom Hickey to be in it. It was a big thing to ask but they all did it and they were incredibly gracious.

The film was quite successful. Michael Dwyer, a film critic who died recently, made it Irish short film of the year and we were delighted.

The documentary ended up being very controversial and got a lot of acclaim. We travelled around the country, and we travelled to London and New York because that was were the Irish young people were. It was an amazing experience. What documentary does is that it gives you the license to talk to people. Here I was, a reasonably privileged kid who grew up in Ballsbridge, going to study English at Trinity, getting to go on the road, talking to kids So how did this all bring you into the real world of cin- up in the falls road in Belfast in the height of the Troubles, ema?

Basically I left college and having made those two shorts, Channel 4, which was starting up in Britain at the time, asked me to make a documentary. It was far more radical then than it is now. They were going to make a series of documentaries on the Irish community. Irish people were the largest ethnic minority in Britain. I had no interest in documentaries, having never made one in my life. They wanted to make a documentary about young people because during the 80s there was a lot of emigration and unemployment. It is hard to imagine that at the time homosexuality was illegal, divorce was illegal and contraception was even a big deal. So Channel 4 wanted someone young to do a documentary about the young people [and] somehow my name came up.

Looking back, I realize I was extraordinarily lucky to land a Channel 4 commission based on nothing. Nowadays everything is so structured. They gave me extraordinary freedom. The only thing the commission editor in Channel 4 said to me was, “More saxophone and less Clannad” - this was the time Clannad would have been big. We landed this budget of £150,000, which was huge money in the 80s. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, but looking back, I realize that there must be people who would spend five years trying to get a documentary off the ground with that kind of budget.

We had this extraordinary crew! Thaddeus O’Sullivan who made December Bride [and recently Stella Days] shot it.

Our production manager said that we were silly to even think of getting him, but I said sure ring him and we did, and he was sitting in his house in London trying to write December Bride and was going a bit mad, and he said “Yeah sure I’ll do a documentary! Something to get me out of the house!”

talking to some guy who is living in an elephant castle in a squat in London. It was called The Road to God Knows Where. I just talked to people and asked them how they felt about being Irish or young or gay. There were a couple of bands in it, Aslan and another band called Light A Big Fire. It was a bit rock and roll, and there wasn’t any big plan, but in a way that was its power.

When it came out there was an awful lot of criticism. A lot of people saw it as being very dark and negative. It won a couple of awards, and that kind of changed the tenor of things. It got a Jacobs award and Albert Reynolds presented me with it. They had just abolished the Film Board,

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which had funded Eh Joe. So when I got the award live on television, I said that it was kind of ironic that I was getting an award from a government minister who effectively had forced all these kids into emigration and who had closed the Film Board. Much to my surprise, it made front page news. I was foolish, but that kind of added to the controversy.

So what has been going on with your career since then?

I have tended to do, since then, what I enjoy. I would have done a lot of documentary, and that was not by design it was almost by accident. Subsequent to The Road to God Knows Where, I made another number of documentaries for Channel 4 and then made other documentaries in Britain and for ITV. Before all of this, I was kind of a drama snob. I knew nothing about documentary filmmaking. It wouldn’t have even crossed my mind . It was only partly by being forced into making them that I realized that it was an interesting thing to do. I suppose since then what I kind of like doing is whatever the idea is. So it could be a very experimental short film or it could be a mainstream documentary.

Can you tell us about what you are working on at the moment?

I am currently finishing a documentary on assisted dying for RTE that we have been working on on and off for the last year, which is a very fraught and dark area. I have also written a screenplay, an adaptation of a Canadian novel called Unless by Carol Shields. I think the plan would be - whether it happens is an other matter - to shoot that in autumn in Canada. I am also doing an experimental dance piece in the dance festival. It is more a piece of visual.

Could you tell us a little bit about the piece you are doing on assisted dying?

I suppose in recent years people say, “Jesus you must be totally obsessed with death!” In recent years we have done a couple of documentaries that are part of a series. We started with one called The Asylum, which is set in

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Portrane Mental Hospital, and one set in an a hospice about death, and then we did a documentary on suicide, which was called I See a Darkness, and then we also did a documentary in an old peoples’ home called The Home, about old age. All of those in different ways are touching on death. It seemed that people were interested in the idea of assisted suicide. So a year ago we started trying to make a documentary on assisted death, which is quite difficult because it is illegal in Ireland. We filmed in Switzerland, Belgium and other places, but it is about Irish people. The situation here is that it is legal to die by suicide but it is illegal to help someone. There have been a number of people who have travelled to Switzerland to die. People with terminal illnesses who just didn’t want to go through the pain and horror. It has been a bit tricky, because a lot of the people we have been talking to are in danger of actually going to prison.

Has doing the documentary changed your own personal opinions on the subject of assisted death?

I think it has. When I started it, I was instinctively and probably still am against it. I remember very early on in the research we got a call from someone we knew in London who said that there was a woman in London who is going next week to Switzerland to die, and we went over and filmed her.

She was this elderly woman who was very clear in her mind that she wanted to die. She was a very feisty, aristocratic English woman. There was no ambiguity, nothing tragic about her. We were there in her lovely little house in Chelsea and it was a beautiful spring day, and there was something about it that just seemed wrong. It was difficult to understand why she wanted to go through with it. She seemed to enjoy our company, we had a lovely lunch and she was interested in things. She had been to see The King’s Speech the night before.

She didn’t have a terminal illness. She wanted to die because she didn’t want to face the indignity of old age.

She had certain arthritic problems, but she didn’t have a terminal illness, and she just felt her time had come and she didn’t want to face into falling down the stairs and

suddenly being incapacitated, and she was very clear on that.

Yet both Zoe, the researcher, and I felt that there was something mad about it. Here is this lovely woman that you can chat to who is interested in life and listens to music that is heading off in two days to die. She would laugh and say “Alan, dear boy you just don’t understand. It is all you Irish. You come here with your Catholic background and you just don’t get it.” So she wasn’t at all self-piteous.

Both myself and Zoe would feel instinctively against it, and it doesn’t feel like something that I would feel interested in. But I suppose what has changed in the experience of making it is that I can totally understand the people that are against it, but it does seem to come down to a question of human rights. Who am I to decide that your life is sacred. I am not sure that I can say to somebody who wants to go to Dignitas that I think they are wrong.

If you think of someone like Almodovar in Spain, his films have been very successful internationally, reasonably successful commercially, but they couldn’t be anything else but Spanish. I am not sure that we have succeed doing that. I am not saying that there are no good films, but in a general sense.

Maybe I am too close to it, but Irish cinema wouldn’t excite me. I am not sure we have found our mojo. But there does seem to be a lot of young film makers coming out. Animators in particular who do seem to have a different vision. Film is an international business, but the films that seem to succeed internationally are always very distinctive. Whether it s a Chinese, Spanish or Mexican film. Partly they succeed because they are themselves distinctive, and we want to see them not because they are trying to think, “I hope they like this in Hollywood!”

Do you have a favourite film?

I think that is what has changed for me. I think that is often the way with documentary. Most of us form opinions on things in a position of ignorance, but what documentary is about is getting out there on behalf of the audience and talking to people who actually are in that situation, and that is part of the process.

I love the Sound of Music! I watch it a lot lately with my seven year-old, and I think it’s a great film. You can put that down as a seminal influence. Certainly someone like Andrei Tarkovsky or Michael Mann. I also think Theo Angelopoulos fantastic. He died recently, run over by a motor bike while making his film. It is like something that would happen in Where do you see Irish cinema in ten years? one of his films. There is a sort of poetic justice to it. He was over here for the Dublin Film Festival a few years ago, and I I don’t really know. I would be kind of optimistic about the interviewed him. During the festival Oliver Stone was there future, maybe because it seems to me that among the too, and you couldn’t get near him. He was just talking short films that are coming out now, and particularly anima- gibberish, coked off his face, and there you have Angelotion, maybe because your generation have grown up in poulos talking more brilliantly about film than many people a far more cine-literate world than we did, that the future could. He told me that when he was a student it turned may be bright because there does seem to be a lot of out that he shared a flat in Paris with Tarkovsky, which is like exciting things coming out. For a long time Irish film suffered something out of a surreal movie. Jesus, it must have been from the problem of - because we spoke English, because very dark in the morning: “Pass the cornflakes…” we made films mainly in English - it was very hard to carve out an individual identity. In one way you should say that I saw The Tree of Life recently, a Terence Malick film. I was language liberates you, because we speak English which quite taken by that. I think that he is brilliant, stating the obis kind of the international language of film. Presumably it’s vious. I think all his films are brilliant. Badlands is just amazing. easier for an Irish film to be successful than a Peruvian film or I love that last line when Kit has been captured and is bea Slovak film. But the other side of that is, because you’re ing flown off by the police marshal. He is handcuffed to him, caught into this Anglo-American mush, maybe it is hard for and he makes some comment about the police guy’s hat, Irish cinema to carve out its identity, a distinct vision. So a and the police man turns to him and says, “You know, kid, lot of the time it starts becoming second-rate American or you’re some individual,” and he says, “Do you think they’ll British cinema. take that into consideration?” It’s a great line.

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TOP 10 FILMS TO WATCH WHEN...

BY CLAIRE O’REILLY

The Film for a GIrlie Night In BRIDESMAIDS (2011) Annie is going to be the Maid of Honour for her friend Lillian’s wedding, however as she attempts to organise bridesmaid-type activities such as choosing dresses, a bonding meal and a hen weekend, things go from bad to worse as the overbearing Helen tries to take control.

The star of this film is by far Melissa McCarthy, Annie’s future sister-inlaw whose butch appearance and frankness will have you LOL-ing throughout. Crack out the maltesers and face masks and have a lovely night in with the girls.

The Film for a Boys’ Night In WARRIOR (2011) This sports drama film follows the story of two estranged brothers as they enter a mixed martial arts tournament, and explores their relationship with each other and their father. As well as satisfying testosteronefilled viewers with lots of fighting and enviably large muscles, it is an emotionally sensitive film dealing with themes of brotherhood and forgiveness. Watch it with the boys but beware, this film is guaranteed to bring a tear to every eye!

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The Film to Watch With Your Mum The King’s Speech (2010) When his brother abdicates, ‘Bertie’ reluctantly assumes the throne of England, to become George VI (Father to Elizabeth II, the current Queen.) He suffers from a stammer which causes him great anxiety about the speeches which he will have to make as king. Based on true events, this film follows Bertie’s relationship with his speech therapist as he tries to overcome his speech impediment and comes to terms with his role as king. The King’s Speech quite rightly won four Oscars. Your Mum (and you!) can swoon over Colin Firth to your heart’s content while learning about a very interesting period in the English Monarchy.

The Film for a First Date BLACK SWAN (2010) Nina wins the lead role in her ballet company’s production of Swan Lake but is increasingly tormented by trying to become the Black Swan. The lead role should embody both the innocence of the White Swan and the sensuality of the Black Swan, and Nina drives herself crazy by trying to lose her innocence and be able to embody both.

The line which sums up this film is said by Nina’s Mother, a suffocating and obsessive ex-ballerina: “This role is destroying you.” The reason I suggest this as a good film for a first date is that not only does it provide eye candy for the boys (Natalie Portman+Mila Kuni=Perfection) but it is also filled with scary moments which provide the perfect excuse to cuddle up together!

The Film to Make You Feel Like a Kid Again MARY POPPINS (1964) This film must be the best film ever made. Fact. Mary Poppins is a magic nanny who comes to take care of two children Jane and Michael.

Their father is an emotionally distant banker and their mother is a suffragette. When Mary Poppins arrives, their lives are transformed by the adventures she takes them on, and by having a present adult figure which they previously lacked. With a storyline to spark any imagination, a stellar cast and songs which you can’t help but sing along to (“Chimchimmeny” and “Supercalefragelisticexpealidocious”, etc) this is a film which will certainly make you feel like a kid again. Not to mention that whenever you have to tidy the house you will wish Mary Poppins would rock up and sing her magic tidying song.

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5 WORD REVIEWS 1. 127 Hours – Let’s all cry at helicopters 2. A Dangerous Method – Smart people talk at you 3. Anonymous – 2012’s Emmerich does Shakespeare? Really?

4. Attack the Block - Disadvantaged teens fight aliens... Spectacular!

5. Bad Lieutenant –Nick Cage drugs. Good Times.

6. Drive - Face-smashing cinematic genius, guaranteed.

7. Drive Angry - Nick Cage versus Satan. Yes. 8. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Herdy Gerdy Herdy Gerdy Doo 9. In Time – Time for a quick snooze 10. Limitless: - Stay cool kids, take drugs!

11 The Three Musketeers: - Alexander Dumas writes Final Fantasy.

12. The Yellow Sea – Axes? Running? Misanthropy? Yep, Korean.

13. Tomorrow, When The War Began - Australians wage war, hilarity ensues.

14. Tree Of Life – Classical Music Over Apple Screensavers 15. Twilight – The one with no sex 16. Twilight: New Moon – The one with no sex 17. Twilight: Eclipse – The one with no sex 18. Twilight Breaking Dawn: Part 1 – The one with weird sex 19. We Need To Talk About Kevin – Perfect dread. Misleadingly little conversation 20. The Help – White people to the rescue

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