One of the best films this year, State of Play is a political thriller that presses all the right buttons. The writing and directing are superb, and the movie rattles along. But the biggest success is Russell Crowe. I cannot think of any other actor who could come close to his interpretation of the grizzly newspaper hack who wont let go. His slightly subdued performance only enhances the character. The rest of the cast is almost as good, Helen Mirren especially. Even Ben Affleck is almost believable. I somehow missed the original six hour BBC TV version written by Paul Abbott (who rightly attracts a big credit for this film), so I look forward to watching a repeat.
Once in a while a like to see a romcom, but they rarely hit the heights of something like 27 Dresses. Ghosts of Girlfriend Past seemed a missed opportunity. I guess that when you introduce ghosts, a real life story goes for a Burton. So this was more of a comedy/fantasy without many laughs. So it fell a bit flat. And it doesn't help when a ghost says to the main character, "lets have a look at some past events to a montage of Cindy Lauper's Time After Time". There were entertaining moments, and Jennifer Garner was good. But Mathew McConaughey was hopelessly miscast in the lead.
I went to see Coraline 3D on the back of some rave reviews. I have to say I was fairly disappointed. But I am probably not a good judge of animated films. Apart from Wallace and Gromit, they normally leave me cold. I did like WALL.E, and Shrek is just about OK, but I never got Toy Story. So an animated feature has to be funny and warm to have any chance with me. And Coraline was neither. Yes, it was visually stunning, but it was far too long. The repeated use of the same sets was frankly boring. And it was a good cautionary tale for children. But not for me.
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