The Artist

On the face of it, this is basically an oddity. Someone has decided to, in this day and age, make a black and white, 4:3 ratio, silent movie. Which immediately sets of the pretentiousness alarm. Looking at it a little deeper, that is, actually watching it, what we get is essentially a pretty accurate homage to the silent movie genre, very much in the style, about a silent movie actor who is rapidly eclipsed when talking pictures come along. And also a cute little love story about a famous actor and struggling bit-part actress, whose roles are reversed when she becomes the next big thing, and he becomes yesterday's man.

Looking deeper still, though, this film, at least for me, is an examination of how cinema, of all art forms, is obsessed with progress. Once there is sound, there are no more silent movies. Once there is colour, there are no more black and white movies. Once there is wide screen, there are no more narrow movies. And this goes for direction, acting, cinematography, and so forth. With only the odd deliberately atavistic exception, cinema once it moves on, can never go back. Contrasting that with painting and drawing, where charcoal is still an intrinsically accepted medium, even in the days of Photoshop. This film examines cinema's relationship with its own past, and in doing so with the tools of the 1930s, shows us that the newest CGI, the most realistic sets and the most naturalistic acting styles aren't necessarily the correct way of doing things.

Arthur Christmas

Came to this one late, almost in protest. Started showing sometime mid-November, so I resolved not to see it until after Christmas. Glad I did though, because it's quite fun.

The basic setup is that we're getting to see behind the scenes of how Santa does his annual delivery. Due to the massive up-scaling that's gone on because Christmas is now a global phenomenon, and Santa promises to deliver one appropriate toy to every child in the world, the delivery is now a massive industrial scale operation, where Santa (Jim Broadbent) arrives in a camouflaged, city-sized UFO of a sleigh, and a legion of hyperactive elves deliver the presents with the speed and precision of highly trained special forces operatives, while Santa bumbles around putting in a symbolic appearance.

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, the whole operation is masterminded by Santa's older son Steve Christmas (Hugh Laurie), who has designed this high tech operation. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, works Arthur Christmas (James McAvoy), Santa's bumbling but well meaning younger son, who answers Christmas letters.

In all the confusion of the night, one present gets missed, and a child is going to go without their special present. Santa and Steve don't seem to think this is too much of a problem; they'll deliver it later, within the week, and meanwhile Christmas has been a 99.9999991% success. Only Arthur thinks this is a terrible state of affairs, and so seeks the aid of his grandfather, Grandsanta, who reveals that he still has the old reindeer driven sleigh, and agrees to help Arthur deliver the last present before sunup.

It's a pretty great film. It's Aardman Animations, and it should go down as one of those "Well, it's not Wallace and Gromitt, but it's pretty good" outings. It's full of pretty good sight gags, and all the performances are spot on. And of course, core to it all is the very familiar to all of us concept, that when you start doing something for a living, you quickly lose enthusiasm for that thing, and focus on the job in hand. The Christmas family clearly don't have much time for their own family Christmas, like Christmas is for the general public. They all have their particular ideas how the job ought to be done, and the whole thing is one colossal Christmas Family Argument, with only Arthur actually having any enthusiasm for the idea of Christmas, because he's a colossal naive idiot. And so, while his elders in-fight amongst themselves, the task of upholding the family honour and reputation falls on his pretty inadequate shoulders.

I think it scores pretty highly, because it's clearly entertaining to kids (I saw it in a cinema full of them, and they all seemed wowed), but has enough actual plot underlying it to be of interest to adults, and the jokes are funny for everyone. Rather than the usual rubbish of throwing jokes that kids won't understand in as a sop to the poor adults. I believe this to be a film that kids and adults can enjoy together, and on pretty much the same level, which is a rare trick indeed.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

This is a reboot that nearly works.

The long and the short of it is this: There's a dude who's a nuclear scientist, nuclear strategist, and ex Swedish special forces. He's played by Michael Nyqvist, who's clearly responding to Daniel Craig nicking the role he played in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by turning it about and appearing in a preposterous spy thriller. This guy believes that what the human race needs is a good nuclear war, in order to sort itself out, and thus goes about nicking the various bits and bobs necessary for starting one.

Meanwhile, Tom Cruise is in a Russian prison, and IM Force agents Simon Pegg (hacker tech guy) and Paula Patton (pretty) bust him out in order that he replace agent Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) who's carelessly got himself killed during the pre-credits sequence. And they all go chasing all over Russia, Dubai and India, picking up IM Force analyst Jeremy Renner, and managing to get the entire IM Force shut down, along the way. So, they are all working on their own and without support of their government, and are the only people who can save the world. (Not sure why this was necessary, since the IM Force always works on its own, and gets disavowed if caught anyway.)

Right, so there's one major problem with this film, and yes, it's Tom Fucking Cruise again. Seriously, this film could have been made a *million* times better by the simple move of not killing Josh Holloway in the opening sequence, and letting him be the sexy hunky main agent. And when I say a million times better, I mean it, even though Cruise is the only real flaw in the film. Just like one small flaw in a tyre can make the whole thing a useless saggy mess rather than something you can drive on, Tom Cruise has that effect on the film.

Looking at the things that are not Tom Cruise, there's a lot to like. I could watch an action film starring Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner All Fucking Day, and on the occasions where they're able to get a scene together without Tom Cruise stuffing the whole thing up, they've got a good screen chemistry. I can't say that Paula Patton really achieves much more than being eye candy, but, well, sorry to be a sexist pig, but she does that well. And the whole thing is directed by Pixar supremo Brad Bird, who pulls of the same comic book hijinx as he did in The Incredibles. If they'd put Josh Holloway at the wheel of this thing, I think it'd have been absolutely great. As it is, this is rebooting a franchise without removing the thing that was wrong with the franchise in the first place. I mean, seriously, go look at the cast list of MI3 - does anyone really think that it was Ving Rhames or Philip Seymour Hoffman that was the steaming turd in the middle of that movie?