Stardust ***

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Writer: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn

Stars: Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert deNiro

Customs? I have a few things to declare ...

1. I love Neil Gaiman (on whose novella this film was based)

2. I hate Johnathan Ross (whose wife adapted the screenplay)

3. I find Claire Danes insipid and irritating. She possibly has the most annoying voice in cinema. She is very beautiful, but unfortunately that is as far as the interest goes for me...

4. When I heard Matthew Vaughn would be directing, I wept.

Now with that out of the way, on to the movie ...

The story revolves around Tristan, a village boy who wants to win the heart of Sienna Miller's Victoria, who is outrageously flirtatious and reasonably pretty, albeit a little too California beach blonde for England in the 1800s. One night while he is trying to tempt her into bed - sorry, holy matrimony - with a midnight picnic, they spot a star falling to the magical land beyond their village. He promises that he will venture forth to bring the star back for her, if she will marry him. When he finds the star, he finds that she is more than a lump of rock: she is in fact, Claire Danes, almost but not quite entirely not generating enough charisma for us to believe this proposition. But he is not the only one after the star, with Michelle Pfeiffer's seductive witch and various men-who-would-be-king also wanting to claim her powers for their own.

It's actually very good. It is hugely entertaining, funny, quirky and has a great plot (thanks Mr Gaiman). Cox is excellent as the starstruck (ha ha) Tristan, Danes has little to do beyond whinging prettily (can anyone believe she was once wistful Juliet, so full of potential and promise?) and there are enough jokes and twists to keep adults and little ones entertained. All instances of violence and sex (the novella contained rather a lot of both) are cleverly skirted over and, aside from one truly awful sequence where Danes tells the hamster-bound Tristan that she loves him (memo to Vaughn: LESS head movement = more sincerity) the direction is pretty inoffensive. It's a fairly faithful adaptation although in going from paper to celluloid some of the imaginative charm of the book has been lost. And while Robert deNiro's camp pirate draws on every homosexual stereotype you can imagine (cross-dressing, wrist-flicking, tea-drinking, mouse-fearing ... God help us) he does provide some of the best laughs in the film.

Please allow me to have a bit of a Ricky Gervais rant here. I know people love him. I know people think all he needs to do is walk onstage, utter a line (usually, "Are you havin a laff?") and the audience will be in hysterics. But this DOES NOT give you a licence to go straight from a successful BBC comedy into cameos in Hollywood films. He writes good comedy and he is amusing because he is a wheedly little man with a sweaty forehead and a nasty goatee, a high-pitched voice and an inflated sense of his own importance. Unfortunately these are not qualities for which he has to act, and I would go so far as to say that he cannot. He plays the same character in every film and show that he is in, and in this one, it just doesn't fit.

There now. Overall, a decent way to spend your Sunday afternoon and your $14. Just don't expect Sandman.

The Lives of Others *****
Die Leben Der Anderen

Yay! It's 2006's First Five-Star Movie!

Director: Florian Henkel von Donnersmark

Writer: Florian Henkel von Donnersmark

Stars: Ulrich Muhe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedenk

This is the best film of the year so far. Everything about it is exquisite. The tone and place is set with style and assurance, all grey square Soviet buildings, clunky plastic technology, and brown tweed clothes. Its pace builds slowly, drawing us in with intrigue, then building to a nail-biting thriller in the final twenty minutes. A tale of fear and rebellion under an oppressive regime, it's got it all: tragedy, excitement, fear (as the Germans would say, angst), and then finally, beautiful, clear blue hope.

The story centres around two protaganists: the idealistic (and really rather dishy) playwright Georg Dreyman (Koch) and the calculating Stasi loner Gerd Wiesler (Muehe), who is charged with spying on him. As he watches the somewhat bohemian existence of the writer, he first becomes jealous of his popularity and charisma, then angry at his impudence, and eventually comes to identify with him. This change is brought to life by Henkel von Donnersmark's fine, sure-handed direction (made even more amazing by the fact that this is his debut feature) and Muehe's muted pathos. The ending reduced my five companions and I all to tears: it is one example of a "several years later" sequence being used to great effect and fully rounding out a story, rather than being tacked on the end as an afterthought.

Above all, this is a very human story: it is about humanity triumphing over inhumanity. All this made it deserving of winning the Best Foreign Film Oscar. And it must be good. Its competition was Pan's Labyrinth.

This is another in a long line of great films to come out of Germany in recent years: as their economy becomes stronger, the Germans are beginning to draw on their rich history to make amazing films helmed by sure-handed, innovative directors: Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) and now Henkel von Donnersmark are certainly directors to watch. It will be interesting to see what Bryan Singer (Superman Returns - eek) et al can do with this rich, multi-layered history in Valkyrie, out next year. Will they blockbuster it up? Or will they rise above Hollywood conventions to show the delicate and intricate aspects of the story of Hitler's attempted assassination. Either way, it is unlikely that they will come up with something as rich and moving as this film.

CONCLUSION: It's hard to pick apart a film so perfect. This is filmmaking at its best. Seek it out.

The Simpsons ***

Spider-pig, spider-pig ....



Director: David Silverman

Writers: Matt Groening

Voices: Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria



Anyone who has been in my immediate vicinity in the last couple of months has been driven batty by me singing "Spider-pig, spider-pig, does whatever a spider-pig does ..." so it will come as a relief to some of you that I've finally seen the movie. You'd think that the time for a Simpsons movie had been and gone with the 1990s, but there are obviously enough cynical geeks out there to warrant this film (the cinema was packed with shave-headed trenchcoat-wearing minions when I went).



The story centres around the aforementioned spider-pig, who Homer saves from the knife, for about the first half-hour, when it suddenly goes off on an entirely different tangent. We then follow the world's most dysfunctional family (apart from The Brady Bunch) to Alaska and back, and hilarity ensues. You know the drill.



Obviously it is typical of the Simpsons to include a plot device which is dispensed with as soon as it's fulfilled its purpose but in a movie, plots need to be a little more cohesive. The usual cast is all present and accounted for, although by now they could probably sleepwalk through their lines. It really is just an extra-long episode, but that's OK, because that's all the punters are there for, and the writers take a stab at them before the opening credits (Bart: "Why would we pay to see something at the movies we already get free at home?". But honestly, who will see this movie? People who love the series, and they want to see Homer say "doh!" and drink lots of Duff; they want Lisa to mournfully play her sax; they want Bart to skateboard to Krusty's in the nude, and the film delivers. It IS hilarious: cynical, political in parts, but not scared to make willy jokes* or take a cheap stab at Disney.



The running time is slender but it doesn't feel too short (probably because we're used to taking these characters in bite-size pieces) and it gives you plenty of time to head down to Grape for a couple of drinks afterwards.



Conclusion: You'll get your money's worth in belly laughs. Just don't expect anything new.



* NOTE: Bring back the word willy! It is underutilised in our society.