After Doug’s reference to Dan’s Mises link I thought it timely to share with you this. For those who haven’t seen it already its Lenin losing it and calling The Dark Knight a “the most obviously fascist of films”. Despite the fact that Batman refuses to kill…

WALL-E is, above all else, a testament to the fact that Pixar have no reached the stage where they can do whatever they please and get away with it. Even a consideration of the films It’s half set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, half in some space-bound remnant of humanity space ship capitalist set up and both are excellent but conceptually dark surroundings. Earth has been choked to death by human waste, while the space dwellers live a hollow consumerist facsimile of actual life. Either is a surprising choice: after the carefree romp of Cars, during the publicity of which all questions concerning global warming were laughed off, the Earth that WALL-E inhabits is very clearly wrecked by unsustainable living. WALL-E is left in the futile role of trying to clean up the mess left by billions of careless, callous humans. Meanwhile the banal lifestyle offered to those living on the ship has led to everyone being scantily boned blobs who can not exist without their machinery. A machine tells them across vast screens that they should “Buy blue. Blue is the new red.” and at a flick of a switch their colours change. They are carried everywhere by floating pods, without which they are effectively cripples.

But the film by no means wallows in dystoptopianism. Indeed the mood is usually one of amusement in the face of adversity: the eponymous protagonist faces numerous mishaps throughout the film but, like his cockroach best friend, is nigh-on-invinsible and always endures the most humorous of slapstick calamities. More importantly still Wall-E breaks from his programming in delightful ways: he is instructed to compound all of the world’s rubbish into cubes (his name standing for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Axiom class), which he then stacks systematically. However he decides that a few select items are not rubbish at all, and retains them in his metal box home. This provides him with the remnants of human culture, ranging from light-bulbs to Christmas tree lighting. It is effectively V’s Shadow Gallery compiled by a naive robot with less to work with.

The film begins with WALL-E’s routine, him going about his affairs before being disturbed by the arrival of a new robot from space, named EVE. She is seeking out plantlife, but WALL-E has beaten her to it and when she discovers this and returns to her sender along with the bloom he is forced to pursue her on the grounds that he feels holding hands with her will complete him, inspired by a slock Hollywood film he once found. This, of course, makes perfect sense within the film and it is a testament to the power of Pixar that they managed to make a pair of characters who are only mildly more eloquent that Pokemon have the strongest chemistry I’ve seen on screen this year.

WALL-E infiltrates EVE’s spacestation home and then the two of them are forced to attempt to thwart a plan hatched by robots aboard the ship who do not want the vessel to return to Earth. It is at this stage that the first humans in the film appear and it is strange how harder they are to connect with than the robots. This is despite them being the only characters in the film that can actually properly converse (the robots that do speak use single word sentences, besides the ship’s auto-pilot). As you might imagine, this leads to linguistic silence in the majority of its scenes. Pixar manage to work around this constraint marvellously, using a machinistic mime. WALL-E communicates through his swivelling eye and occasionally his settings, compacting himself into a box when scared. EVE has fine voice acting that manages to draw rich feeling into her highly limited vocabulary, as well as having lit eyes that vary depending upon mood. All of the robots have a carefully crafted soundtrack that uses the apparently incidental whirr and buzz of motion and function to convey feeling. This led to its creator dubbing it “R2-D2 the Movie” and it certainly works as well as that would. Emotional attachment is formed despite the lack of speech, indeed the robots are characters far easier to empathise with than the humans. But then, while robots have become far more sophisticated than the ones we encounter today, humans have become far more simple: before knocked from their chairs by WALL-E a pair of residents failed to realise that the ship had a pool, the ship’s captain spends hours infront of the space-age equivalent of Wikipedia requesting it define phrases such as “Ho-down” and words such as “Soil”.

But the film’s attitude towards humanity is far from blank misanthropy. It is far more interesting than that. Humans live within a system which is based around a space-ship economy apparently devoid of money and based around ultra-sophisticated technology. This allows them to communicate with each other and obtain whatever they desire. It also renders them drones watched over by machines. There are also lots of ship robots, who are largely antagonists or light relief.

WALL-E is notable for the lack of pop-cultural emphasis. Unlike cinematic carrion such as Shrek 2 the importance of external references is highly limited: anyone watching will know what a light-bulb is and find it remarkable that it lights up when EVE holds it. If the blobs of huamnity plunging down the ship is not recognised as a reference to Titanic, or the music that quickly follows to Space Odyssey 2001, then it does not matter in the slightest. The scenes are still fine ones and those are the only occasions I can recall where any outside work was mentioned.

Instead the film is highly original and filled with ideas, a rich seam of enjoyable characters, events and goals appearing from nowhere. The closest Pixar film to it is Finding Nemo, which predictably shared a director, Andrew Stanton. He aimed to show that Pixar was capable of setting a film in space after the success of setting one in water but only a limited time is actually spent in Zero Gravity conditions here. That which is, though, is one of the most enjoyable scenes of the film: WALL-E and EVE travelling around and then into the ship, her using motors and he the propulsion of a fire extinguisher. Stanton is clearly a highly intelligent man and the quantity of thought given to his characters is considerable: WALL-E has such sentience solely because of the prolonged amount of time he has been engaged in a role. EVE is initially cold and dismissive of his affection (their early encounters involve a plasma rifle) because she has not had this history, and required interaction with him both to expand herself and come closer to him. Stanton even went to the measure of adding “Imperfections” into the film’s camerawork to make it seem closer to live action, something which I was unaware of when viewing but in hindsight was a complete success.

WALL-E has been labelled “Pixar’s Ninth consecutive wonder” and without having seen every one of their last films I can not comment. But it is certainly a superb piece which uses the restrictions it set itself to create a fresh and fascinating work. It defies description and I would urge anyone who has not yet seen it to do so and doubt that anyone who already has will require encouragement for a repeat viewing.

Or rather, The Dark Knight: A Review. In which there may be spoilers, so avoid if you’re interested in watching it uncorrupted.

Heath Ledger may well win an Oscar for his role as the Joker in the latest Batman film. And he may well be posthumously accused of winning that Oscar purely because of its posthumous nature. That’d be a shame - as he probably deserves it.

James made me promise not to include spoilers, so I won’t*. Suffice to say that Ledger’s performance dominates, from the enjoyably confused opening to the character’s eventual demise. From behind the smudged chalk mask which adds so much to the impression of mania comes sheer, random danger, almost throughout. It’s there in the movements, and in the voice. Ledger’s tongue lolls and flaps, barely able to stay inside the Joker’s mutilated lips. The body twitches in line with the character’s own mind, while limbs appear to have a mind of their own on occasion - look for an excited Joker, and they’ll be somewhere else. The voice, meanwhile, sums up the character itself; a low, unsteady croon skittering into gibberish in moments of excitement. Very dark, and very effective.

That’s not to say that the other performances are bad. They’re not; most involved either manage to pull of strong performances, or have roles so peripheral that it doesn’t hugely matter. Christian Bale follows his previous take on Batman well. Aaron Eckhart makes Harvey Dent so irritatingly perfect at first as to make Two-Face seem yet more vile. The rest of the cast - and the film in general - take Ledger’s dark lead, and work it into something worth sitting through. But Ledger’s Joker does set that tone, and so tends to dominate.

And, inevitably, there are problems. Some are mere irritances. Bale’s gravelly monotone when in Bat-mode pushes the stereotype a little too far, while at one point a defendent pulls a gun on the prosecuting attorney while in the dock. I’m happy to suspend disbelief for Batman, or the Joker, or anything that forwards the plot entertainingly - but sometime, it’s just not possible.

Other flaws are more serious. The film’s chaotic motif of fallen heroes and human fallibility should fascinate me; and yet it all felt a little tedious at times. Dent’s fall is done well, and the Joker’s psychotic tricks blur Batman’s lines of right and wrong enjoyably - but it happens to much. The film comes in at a very long 2 hours and 32 minutes and features dilemna after dilemna after dilemna for the forces of law and order. The moral mazes begin to feel forced, included for the sake of pushing character’s boundraries but failing to do so. And with that, the film drags at times. The contrast between the Joker’s capricious anarchism and Batman’s struggle with his conscience is compelling - but if it weren’t for the cracking action scenes that accompany each eruption of that contrast, they’d just get tiring.

Nonetheless, it’s a film worth seeing. Heath Ledger’s swansong as the Joker is superb, and the rest of the cast do enough to not look complete amateurs beside him. It might not be what the pre-release propaganda campaign hyped it to be, but it’s a fun little flick with lots of big explosions and dark plot hooks - enough to fill a long afternoon. And, probably enough for a sadly posthumous Oscar.

*(much)

There are so many reasons why this film should not have been made.  The Rule of Three suggests that a fourth will not work.  The fact that the Last Crusade was released in the year I was born suggests that the world has moved on.  And no film of any description with such comprehensivly poor dialogue should not make it beyond crumpled yellow paper.

Given the circumstances, nobody was expecting the film to work.  But it did.  It couldn’t be bad, because it wasn’t trying to be good.  This is not an action film - it is an Indiana Jones film.  Just as one watches the latest James Bond because it is a James Bond film, this film must be approached in context.  It tries so hard to be an Indiana Jones film that it is almost self-parodying.  And it’s no bad thing.

There is a stupid plot (this one far worse than the ludicrous Nazi seizure of the Ark of the Covenant), and pointlessly long and directionless action sequences.  The score rises and falls in such textbook movie fashion that you know exactly when to expect the next thing that is meant to take you by surprise.  The Russian accents are about as believable as Lowestoft-born Tim Westwood’s ghetto lingo.  If you want a good action movie, stay at home.  This is an Indiana Jones film: watch it with that in mind, and you will love it.

I wouldn’t want to spoil the vacuous plot line (and admittedly it is far too flimsy to be put into words).  I will, however, touch on two (of many) moments which made me laugh out loud.  The first is during Jones’ first dramatic escape from the clutches of death.  A sequence already saturated with cliches climaxes as the archaeologist swings limply from a chain, mildly landing on a Star Trek-looking desk.  Suddenly, from nowhere, a big red clock suddenly lights up, counting down from 30 seconds.  The unashamed cheapness of it was amazingly funny.  Minutes later, Jones finds himself in an atomic bomb testing site, and - who could imagine - a siren sounds.  He leaps into a lead-lined refrigerator just as the blast whips through a model town, and the fridge is tossed through the air like Dr. Who’s Tardis.  Jones spills out of the makeshift nuclear bunker and looks over his shoulder to see a mushroom cloud.

Every plot and sub-plot leaves the viewer in bewilderment.  But the film is extremely well made, and has an air of fun about it.  It is a good couple of hours, meant to be enjoyed not analysed.  So I shall not begin to try.  Instead, I suggest that you go to watch the film with an eye open for tongue-in-cheek moments, and then enjoy them.

I don’t watch films very often.  When I do, they are rarely old.  Or foreign.  Or silent.  The Guardian has today offered me the opportunity to delve into uncharted waters with the offer of a free DVD of The Battleship Potemkin.  This film was commissioned by Lenin in the 1920s to tell the story of the failed revolution in 1905, the most notable event of which was the mutiny on the flagship warship Potemkin.  The film is held in very high regard by critics and film lovers: the cinematic techniques used have been used lovingly by film makers ever since its initial distribution.  I am neither a critic nor a film lover, so I want to see whether the Eisenstein’s classic is as captivating as has been suggested.

The first thing I notice is that it is very difficult to watch a silent movie and type at the same time.  Films such as this are really made to be watched, and the effects of the cinematography are lost in a partial viewing.  The film moves swiftly so your full attention is required; it is a saving grace, therefore, that attention is not begrudgingly given..

On the battleship, the sailors are unhappy with conditions.  The meat is maggot-infested and the soup is rancid.  They refuse to eat it.  One man, while washing the dishes, reads an inscription on a plate: “give us this day our daily bread”.  The scene is set.

It takes little time to tell whose side you should be on.  The malicious captain, twiddling his moustache menacingly, makes an example of a group of the sailors and condemns them to death by mass-firing squad.  An Orthodox priest appears, a dark cloud set behind him, and brings his large crucifix down into his hand like a hammer to a nail.  The authority of the naval hierarchy and the church, it seems, has led to barbarism.  Down with religion!  The imagery is subtle, but hard to miss.  The firing officers refuse to shoot, of course, and the ship is under collective control just as soon as the oppressive authorities are disposed of.

Some nuances of the Soviet worldview are more difficult to pinpoint.  The man who kick-started the rebellion is made a martyr of, and a stream of men risk their lives to pluck him from the rigging.  The revolutionary suffered, was martyred, but has been immortalised in the narrative.  It would, perhaps, be unreasonable to allude to Jesus, but the Soviet love-affair with leading revolutionaries has stretched to almost religious proportions.  Soviet history does not have a bad word to say about Lenin.  News reaches the mainland, and mourning follows for the dead sailor - not, note, for the dead officers.  As the caption declares, “Eternal glory to those who died for the revolution”.

Soon the city of Odessa is united in its desire for the end of tsarism.  “The land is ours.  The future is ours.”  Fleets of sailing boats are shown taking supplies to the revolutionary Battleship, hurling bundles of food from man to man across a raft of boats.  The comradeship and co-operation could hardly be emphasised more.  These men enjoy helping the needy sailors, and they enjoy helping them together.  One man is shown to miss a package thrown towards him, but another steps in to catch it instead.  The subtlety of the political indoctrination is remarkable.

The film’s most famous sequence takes place on the steps of Odessa.  The crowd gathered to cheer the mutinying sailors are fired upon indiscriminately by tsarist regime.  This is no mere crowd dispersal; the regimented soldiers callously and systematically fire, reload, and fire again.  Then comes the pram sequence, copied by numerous film makers since, neatly shows the brutality of the massacre at Odessa.  Although some shots were fired at Odessa, no people died on the Odessa steps.  The dramatic backdrop of the stairs marks Eiesenstein’s exaggeration of events, and exemplifies the film’s ability to stir emotion with the most subtle of techniques.

As far as Soviet propaganda goes, The Battleship Potemkin makes its point remarkably well.  A narrative is skewed to meet the needs of a dictator two decades on, but is done so with real beauty.  The film never gained a mass audience in Russia, but its impact was quickly felt abroad.  One Joseph Goebbels wrote of it as ”a marvellous film without equal in the cinema … anyone who had no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film”.  Its place in cinematic elite was secured in 1958 when it was voted the best film ever made at the World’s Fair in Belgium: quite an achievement for a Soviet propaganda film considering the stigma of the USSR during that era.

This film is remarkably well made.  It tells a narrative that is embellished at best, but so casually weaves references to Soviet thinking throughout that one is soon rooting for their comrades on the Potemkin.  This film is a masterpiece because it perfectly, effortlessly achieves what it set out to do: inject Leninism into the story of the mutiny on the Potemkin twenty years previously.  Try to contrast that with Hollywood’s finest - films made to make profit at the box office - and it is easy to see why this is such an enduring classic.  It has been suggested that Eisenstein single-handedly justifies the existence of Film Studies with this picture, and I couldn’t agree more.  The Battleship Potemkin is captivating not just for the sake of entertainment, but as a genuine work of art.

I had seen adverts for St Trinian’s on the Underground before Christmas, and was slightly confused about who the target audience was.  By all accounts, St Trinian’sis a “tweenage” girl’s dream: it features a large cast of girls that any impressionable young lady might aspire to.  Yet the publicity was clearly aimed at pervy men (girls in school uniform with too much make-up and suspenders…).  Perhaps the hope was that dodgy men would take their daughters to see the film.

It wasn’t far into the film before I began to see that my suspicions were not unfounded.  There was a decidedly adult feel about the movie, which called into question the 12A rating.  Part of the group I watched the film with was an 11-year-old girl: I am sure that many of the jokes went over her head.

The storyline was far-fetched, but you can’t expect much else from a rather camp film about tearaway teenagers.  St Trinian’s school is a dumping ground for “ungovernable” girls, under the very liberal (almost anarchic) Camilla Fritton, ably played by Rupert Everett in drag.  As with any school, the girls are immediately typecast into social groups (The Posh Totty group, The Geeks, The Emos, etc).  This is not a film for realistic social commentary, but comedy was often extracted from the social groupings in fairly intelligent ways.

The chief figure of authority in the school is the Head Girl Kelly, played by Gemma Arterton.  She appears to mastermind a complex system of moneymaking, with the girls mass-producing a brand of potent vodka and then trying to flog it to dense wheeler-dealer Flash Harry (the perfectly-cast Russel Brand).  The girls are trying to diversify their industry, introducing Flash to their latest product (tampons) with comic effect.

The main plot-line follows the school’s financial uncertainty.  The school is served a notice of bankruptcy, and the girls take it upon themselves to make £500,000 to sake the school by stealing a painting from the National Gallery.  In a plot-line clearly devised just to get Stephen Fry starring, the girls have to get to the finals of “Schools Challenge”, a quiz-show somewhere between University Challenge and QI.

The sub-plot was far more interesting for someone of a few years older and of the opposite gender to the target audience.  Newly-appointed Minister for Education wishes to reform the education system, starting with the very worst school: St Trinian’s.  Colin Firth brings his typical je ne sais quoi to the film, along with as many Pride and Prejudice gags as you can get your hands on.  Ms Fritton’s dog (naturally called Mr Darcy) likes to hump the minister’s leg, leading to an entertaining gift for the attending press pack.  In another scene, he is caught with his trousers down in front of the “Posh Totty” clique; cue a slapstick sequence of being thrown from a window into a swimming pool, then a trademark “Wet Shirt” scene.  It is a testament to the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (and, indeed, to Firth’s performance in it) that the chief male protagonist has been unable to see the back of it.

So, there was something in St Trinian’s for everyone.  There was a silly plot-line involving save-the-day schoolkids for the girls to enjoy, enough adult jokes to entertain the middle-aged, and more female flesh than should be allowed (including a daring scene including a shower, stolen clothes and a number of “hidden” cameras).

If you want an Oscar-winning piece of art, don’t see St Trinian’s.  But if you want a bit of camp fun with a plot more holey than Mother Theresa, a Gatling gun joke rate, and a wide spectrum of entertainment, then it’s well worth a fiver.  It’s a very well-made film, and very entertaining.  It’s no masterpiece, but it doesn’t pretend to be.