Before he was fab - 'Nowhere Boy'

What an oddly uncertain and ultimately unsatisfying film 'Nowhere Boy' is. Very good in parts - particularly in the psychological tug-of-war between Julia and Mimi for the soul of the nascent Lennon - but powerfully reminiscent elsewhere of those clunky (if still enjoyable) British pop films of the 70s and 80s (the David Essex vehicle 'That'll Be the Day'which covers almost exactly the same timespan, often came to mind, with certain scenes seemingly almost directly transplanted). It veers rather wildly between somewhat heavy-handed psychodrama (particularly in the less than subtly-suggested incestuous feelings between John and Julia) and stodgily conventional 'biopic' ("John, this is Paul, he sure is square but he knows which way up a tune goes and he can play 20 Flight Rock") but - surely crucially - never really makes one believe that the teenager on the screen is actually a young Lennon as opposed to any other troubled youth in the late 1950s.

Excellent performances from all the leads keep 'Nowhere Boy' afloat (though Kristin Scott-Thomas's cheekbones seemed slightly miscast) but it seemed to need something both a bit more coherent and a bit further off the wall to justify the screen time and I'm surprised that Sam Taylor-Wood didn't deliver it. By no means terrible, and will probably work better on the small screen - just a bit, well... ordinary.

Fact or Fiction? - 'The Damned United' and 'Provided You Don't Kiss Me'

When I first read it I thought The Damned United utterly brilliant. The black heart of football, 70s England, Yorkshire and Leeds Utd in particular, presented through a dazzling first-person novelization of Brian Clough's extraordinary 44-day tenure of the Elland Road hotseat. Marvellous. Football seemed to have found its Heart of Darkness (though whether it was looking for one is another question I suppose). My one grievance was that the end didn't quite justify the bravura performance, rushing toward a climax which never quite arrived. But it seemed a fabulous journey all the same...  

Now I'm not quite so sure. Recently, and particulary in the context of the recent (and by all accounts much more soft-centred) film, David Peace has taken to describing 'The Damned United' as 'fiction', which seems like, excuse me, disingenuous bullshit. If you want to write fiction, it's not a good idea to base it around real names and circumstances which create the very strong impression of fact, and expect people (especially friends and family) not to be offended and upset (justifiably for once). Can calling your work 'a fiction' be a defence for any kind of defamation?

I suppose the irony is that no-one who knew Clough would deny that it's a fiction. I gather they would emphatically go along with that. What they object to is it being presented as a version of the facts. However... I can't get away from the fact that I really liked the book. Around the central Clough story it vividly and viscerally expressed some truths about the 1970s in general and football in that period in particular which chimed with my own recollections. But the more I hear David Peace talk about it, the uneasier I am with the way it presents Brian Clough.

On the other hand, Duncan Hamilton's 'Provided You Don't Kiss Me' is just excellent, straightforward sports biography, distinguished by Hamilton's closeness to his subject and the resulting intimacy of the portrait. No tricks, no fiction or imagined scenes, just sensitive writing and informed analysis of the Clough career and of a very different time in British football - a big enough story in its own right to require very little embroidery. 

Hamilton makes no bones about how fortunate he was to be allowed unparalleled access to the force of nature that was Brian Clough. The portrait that emerges seems to come from something for which 'love' is maybe the only appropriate word; it's to his credit that it never seems like obsession as, throughout, he is remarkably clear-eyed about Clough's weaknesses as well as his astonishing triumphs. The excellent and detailed accounts of how Clough took not one but two poor-to-middling English clubs to the heights of European glory (a feat that one struggles to imagine being repeated today) are balanced by an understanding of his very human insecurities and frailties, and by an increasingly dominant subtext - a (literally) sobering account of how low even a character as powerful as Clough could be laid by alcohol. 

Film of the year already? 'Man on Wire'.

Documentary or not, my movie of the year so far, for sure. A modest, underplayed film about what was in the great scheme of things a small and inconsequential event - but a film with deep resonance, and not just in the context of what the Towers' would come to stand (fall?) for. Not that this is explicitly referenced in the film, but so many shots lead one to think of their later fate - the foundations of the buildings as they are going up, the frames with planes just in shot, the crowds stopping to gaze up with a mixture of amazement and fear (shock and awe?). And the film itself is really about another kind of assault on the Towers - but one that is entirely benevolent and, as one of Petit's accomplices says 'without wickedness'. Petit himself makes the film, not just with his performances on the wire but with his Gallic vivacity and lust for life, a Chaplinesque 'little fellow', a stone-faced clown, standing up to the authority figures invariably to be found ranged at either end of his tightrope as he conquers Notre Dame, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and finally the ultimate prize. Hugely entertaining, and inspiring too. A gem.

Snow blind... 'Transsiberian'

Pretty much your standard location thriller, but still, two hours decent entertainment from a strong cast in a skilfully exploited setting is not to be sniffed at. Atmospherically capturing the claustrophobia of the train (in a way that at times recalls Konchalovsky's great 'Runaway Train' and the gnawing anxiety of Americans out of their depth in a culture that's foreign in every way. For me, Woody Harrelson takes the irritating American rube shtick a bit too far - I can't have been the only one who cheered when he got left behind in Irkutsk and booed when he showed up alive further down the line - but Emily Mortimer is luminescently great and Ben Kingsley's practised badman routine is pretty failsafe these days. Shame that some unlikely twists and turns in the plot let it down a little - it's hard to avoid being distracted by 'wait a minute..' moments - but otherwise a solid if undemanding piece of work that, for all its horrors, still leaves you thinking 'I fancy a bit of that...'. 

Could do better: 'Shine A Light' (The Rolling Stones)

There's a handful of good bits in this (if you will) rockumentary, over which 'All Down The Line' from 1971's 'Exile on Main Street' stands head and shoulders; it's taut, driven and, apart from Jagger's peculiar vocal stylings, of which more anon, pretty fabulous, and reminds you why the Stones were was once considered the planet's greatest rock and roll band - and, unfortunately, when they were last considered genuinely vital, in both senses of the word. In addition, there's a great cameo from Buddy Guy, who stalks on stage and immediately looks like the real deal, shouting, singing and playing up a storm, reminding people what the blues sound like and making Sir Mick seem suddenly lightweight (though in fairness he does play some pretty decent harmonica on the track in question). There's Keith singing 'You've Got The Silver' with some feeling, backed up by Ronnie's better-than-efficient slide. Interesting that it's one of the few times in the film when the Stones look and sound like a band (rather than journeyman backup to a barely-tolerated frontman).

Unfortunately there's an awful lot of bad stuff. To name but some: Jagger's endless prancing and queening and shaking his scrawny tush about (OK, you're 65, Mick, we get it) Keith still pretending to be able to smoke a fag while playing (because it's, like, cool) and looking (I can't take the credit for this, unfortunately) like something that's been pulled out of Brian May and Anita Dobson's plughole. Ronnie still looking like the hired hand after 30 years or whatever it is, Charlie looking like he's all ready to smack Mick one (again) at any time.

Most of the playing is average-to-deplorable. 'Faraway Eyes' in particular is an almost unlistenable combination of Jagger's 'singing' (for which, on this song at least, 'mannered' is too small a word) and Ronnie's pedal steel (which he plays, or rather tortures, like a man who'd only been introduced to the instrument in the dressing room). Lots of really duff songs ('She Was Hot', I ask you....). Pointless cameos by Jack White and Christina Aguilera. Gushing encounters with Bill Clinton. And Hillary. And Hillary's Mum. Very rock and roll, I'm sure. Pointless and randomly introduced archive clips, most of which are tediously familiar. Fatuous 'what's the setlist' drama at the start to give Marty 'di Bargi' Scorsese something to emote over.

To say it's a curate's egg would be a kindness. Why is nearly all Rolling Stones output like this - not to be rude, but so tawdry and half-arsed, so redolent of the faint odour of 'can't really be bothered'? Too many egos involved (and that of the knight of the realm in particular) perhaps? I guess at their advanced ages, a really great music film like 'Stop Making Sense' or 'Sign o' the Times' would be too much to hope for, but given their longevity, and the affection with which both they and their really rather amazing back catalogue are still regarded, not to mention the resources available to them here, why couldn't this have been the Stones 'The Last Waltz'? It surely ain't.

Avoid (again), and try instead to track down a copy of '25x5' which will remind you that there was once a really great band here, and one which could still, even at this late stage, do so much better.

Lost in the supermarket: 'The Mist'

Terrific adaptation of Stephen King's novella by Frank Darabont, director of other King works The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. Synopsis: after a violent storm, a mysterious mist rolls over a small New England town, trapping a representative sample of the local populace in the supermarket. Very bad stuff ensues.

I've always maintained that King is the anti-Spielberg (showing the horror, rather than the wonder, that lies beneath beneath the surface of small-town America) and 'The Mist' is somewhat like the anti-ET - the small but significant difference being that the beastie from god-knows-where in this one would rip your liver out or flay you alive long before you had any cute ideas about sticking him on the front of your bike and riding off to Little League.

It's highly derivative in parts (look out for steals from/ tributes to Jaws, Alien, The Birds and many others) but executed with such chutzpah that these merely add to the entertainment. Plenty of gruesome effects, but used with taste and discretion, and an uncompromisingly brutal ending (in the emotional rather than visceral sense). All very much hide-behind-the-sofa suspense rather than the stuff of nightmares though. Recommended for strong stomachs of thirteen years or so upwards, particularly recommended for those who think Dr Who is the ne plus ultra of this kind of material. Excellent family viewing, in fact...

Draw your children closer: Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'

I finished 'The Road' feeling like someone had stuck a rusty corkscrew between my ribs and slowly twisted. Recalling Einstein's prediction that 'World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones', this astonishing novel reveals a world where all colour, warmth, light and shade have been turned down to their lowest settings, where life is reduced to a grim cave painting. But don't be put off - it's also compulsively readable - cliche or not, I couldn't put it down, but that was in part because I didn't want to put the light out and face the dark. 

Can you describe a book so brutally, gut-wrenchingly bleak as 'great'? I guess there is hope in the love between father and child protagonists (though even this is as agonised and desperate a portrayal of that inter-dependency as you will ever read) and there is just the possibility of light at the end of this terrible journey, but it's fair to say that more optimistic takes on the human condition are widely available. 

But are they more realistic? 'The Road' makes you fear that this, but for the grace of whoever, is just the way it is - that in the end it all comes down to a rat-like survivalist instinct, and that if we've cared to notice, we've seen plenty of similar journeys down similar roads, in many theatres of bitter conflict in the post-Cold War world - and furthermore that, if we don't get our act together, this is a road that could be waiting for any of us. 

A book to make you think, and shiver, and draw your children closer. Masterful. A film of this will be out soon. Read the book first. 

for fans only: 'Joe Strummer, The Future is Unwritten'

Really for fans only, and undiscriminating fans at that. Some fascinating archive footage which really takes you back to the grey, grim days of England in the 70s, some good concert footage (though not a lot that you can't get elsewhere), but for me the relentless mythologising, by the various (largely un-named and uncredited) interviewees, and by Joe himself gets a bit wearying. The Clash made some tremendous music, but Joe himself, while his constant seeking after some kind of truth and justice is laudable, wasn't the clearest or most consistent of political thinkers and shouldn't be celebrated as such. I also lost patience with the Julian Temple style; the free-association of loosely-related images with the Strummer story quickly came to seem less playfully amusing and more like tiresome padding (to put it politely)... to be honest, I'd have preferred a shorter film that told it straight. 

Best bits: generous contributions from Mick Jones and Topper Headon, some great footage from the States, where they really do look like the last great rock and roll band. More from Paul Simenon would have been welcome, but you sense that Paul had had enough of Clash nostalgia. 

Conclusions: If you're a big and unquestioning fan of Joe and the Clash you're going to love this film. If you're anything less, you may find your hand starting to wander towards the remote...

Violent, profane... excellent: In Bruges

Took me a while to warm to In Bruges, but in the end I liked it a lot. As a story it's more or less completely nuts, and at times they appear to be making it up as they go along, but the script is sharp, it looks great - like a Belgian brown bar made into a film - and Gleeson and Farrell's performances carry the day, making the sketchiest and unlikeliest of plots - which this certainly is - into something quite resonant and even touching. It is, of course, completely unfair on poor little Bruges, but that's consistent with a film which is not exactly a monument to justice and fair play - Farrell in particular spreads his prejudices around pretty even-handedly. Warning: if you're sensitive to profanity, this movie is not for you - if they cut the F and C words (delivered with typically Irish brio), the film would probably only run to about twenty minutes. If you like this, try 'The Matador [2005]', which has a similar feel... 

don't call it bittersweet..... 'Once'

In case you hadn't heard, `Once' is a musical, but don't let that put you off - go buy it or rent it right now. I recommend buying, not least because DVDs are so cheap now - Amazon will let you have this for under a fiver, which is just silly - that unless a film is brand new, renting is starting to look like pretty poor value.  

Anyway, 'Once' is a musical like you've never seen or heard, whose songs - and in passing, they're great songs - whether busked on the street or being polished up in the recording studio, are perfectly pitched and completely, naturally integrated and in tune with the narrative. It's also a deeply affecting love story of the kind that life is full of but which are so rarely brought to the screen, full of stumbling and uncertainty but utterly believable - about an affair never consummated, whose complications are left tantalisingly unresolved. Despite concerning itself with rough-edged Dublin street musicians, it's a proper romance, in an almost courtly sense. 

I guess what makes it so great is its humanity. Looks like it was shot using whatever the modern equivalent of Super 8 is, so it has a filmic quality but in a very rough way - somewhat reminiscent of the look and feel of those Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset movies, but with none of their preciousness. Full of rough edges and what look like first takes - probably from necessity, but creating a warm, organic quality and a genuine sense of reality. The central performances are beautifully played, restrained but at the same time full of passion and real feeling, and the supporting players are right on the money too. Dublin does its thing pretty well, of course, reprising its performance from The Commitments (where we first saw Glen Hansard, looking a lot more ginger as the guitarist, Outspan)... 

Look, there's no point going on about this unpolished gem. Buy, rent or even better, if you get the chance, go see it. Then get the CD - the music is that good. 

A fine romance... 'Broken English'

This was a surprise. Low key, small scale and all the better for it, 'Broken English' explores New York thirty-something Nora's nervy, anxious search for the love which she senses is passing her by. Parker Posey, who I don't really recognise from anything else, is great in the role, her confidence, mood, even her appearance visibly changing from scene to scene as the movie progresses. Melvin Poupaud, as Julien, the Frenchman she runs into, is a perfect foil, sensitive to her mood swings and anxieties while, in demanding the big decision on which the film pivots, creating some fresh ones of his own. 

The action swings between New York and Paris and for once Paris is played by itself, not by the usual stock footage of the Eiffel Tower seen through a hotel window. A small, resonant, genuinely romantic and very human film - I liked it a lot.

Unfortunately, I have to add that it won't be out in the UK till I don't know when - I caught it on a transatlantic Air France flight where the choice of English language movies was limited (or I might not have bothered). I should also add that I nearly always enjoy movies hugely on planes, and am often moved to tears by the sappiest things, which I put down to either the pressurized cabin or the large quantities of booze I've usually managed to put away by the time the film starts, so maybe I'm not the best judge.  But if you need something similar to keep you going, I'd recommend 'Once' very strongly.