COLIN FARRELL IN SAVING MR. BANKS

Colin Farrell's presence in Saving Mr. Banks is mentioned on the poster for Disney's upcoming awards contender, though barely featured in the trailer. Here are two new images of Farrell as Robert Goff Travers, the father of P.L. Travers, played here by Annie Buckley.

REVIEW - MCCANICK

Another dreary trawl through the tortured psyche of a lonely, bitter police officer, a derivative indie project with blandly respectable production values, offering a cast of eager C-listers the opportunity to binge on processed, nutrition-less leftovers from roles they've seen better actors do to much acclaim many times before. The frustrating thing, in retrospect, is how close McCanick comes to transcending that overpopulated underclass of DTV cop dramas. Its final, big revelation is telegraphed from the earliest scenes, identifiable merely by observing these characters and their situations for a second or so, as none of the above amounts to more than a few trite attributes. It's also an under-developed revelation, either not willing or not considering to delve a little deeper and uncover something really incendiary, something that might bewilder audiences, sure, but that's a small price to pay for giving your movie a purpose. What's worst, though, is what this plot development represents. In Daniel Noah's script, it's just one aspect of his protagonist's mental state, at least in how it's utilised, despite the fact that it defines just about everything he does or has done. Noah doesn't even realise the potential significance of what he's written, and that it ought to represent, in terms of the actual content displayed on screen, the propulsion for all that occurs, and how its contextual treatment influences and is influenced by that, not a hokey twist employed to tie the film's strings together at the last moment, most unsatisfactorily. Cast and crew participate in manufacturing an atmosphere of po-faced intensity that's just comical in service of such flimsy material. You'd think they were making Schindler's List by the way they carry on.

SONGS ON SATURDAY - SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

Stephen Sondheim's stage musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is as good a musical as I know. I don't know that many, but then I don't need to, because I know Sweeney Todd. Tim Burton's film of it's pretty fucking good too! And Stephen Sondheim's score is so good that here are three links for songs from the film. They're proper great.

FABULOUS FRIDAY - CRIES AND WHISPERS

Today's Fabulous Friday is fabulously late. Every time Sven Nykvist gets behind a camera, the results are fabulous. They've rarely, if ever, been more fabulous than when he photographed Marik Vos-Lundh's sets and costumes for Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers. Peruse the evidence below!

JASON BATEMAN AND NICOLE KIDMAN FOR THE FAMILY FANG

Jason Bateman's cinematic directorial debut Bad Words premiered at Toronto earlier in the year to decent reviews, and his next project behind the camera will be The Family Fang. He'll also star in the film opposite Nicole Kidman - they'll play performance artist spouses who rope their adult children in to their work. Kevin Wilson's 2011 novel is being adapted by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, whose recent foray into kids fare has primed him for the comedic elements of the premise; he also scripted 2010's Rabbit Hole from his own play, with Kidman in a lead role there also, and earning an Oscar nomination for her work.

REVIEW - PHILOMENA

Stephen Frears works at such a pace that it's often hard to tell whether or not the odds have fallen in his favour with each new project. But he always brings a vitality to his films, and a respect for both dramatic and comedic elements, and most crucially, an interest in humanity. And, of course, Philomena is a 'human interest story', as we're informed. That spark of vitality is borne in Frears' wonderful ability not only to fixate upon the universal qualities of the human character but also upon the intricacies of human relationships. These are people not just defined by what they think, how they act, how they feel, but also the thoughts, actions and feelings of those around them, or to whom they have some significant connection. And this is not creation, this is reflection, as these relationships are real this time, in that Philomena Lee's story itself is real. What originates as apparent clumsiness becomes directness - Frears dives straight in, no thought to building up pace or establishing the storylines with any portentousness or sentimentality. It's this very directness, combined with a sense of communion with the characters ably cultivated by a sharp yet sweet script, that puts us right alongside Philomena on her journey across the Atlantic and back, in a search that is somehow wholly selfish and wholly selfless. And seeing it as she does, we too are blind to the terrible truth, barely acknowledging the possibility of it, in a curious state of philanthropy... well, curious for me. That directness, too, ensures that you're never ready for the subtle but strong emotional sucker punches coming your way. I could forever sing the praises of Judi Dench, playing a 'little old Irish lady' whom, we know, Dench is not, but I've known rather a lot of such little old Irish ladies, and they're every one of them another Philomena. Dench brings her to life, a vital objective of a film that is based on true events. Even for this great actor, this performance is a revelation. Steve Coogan provides marvellous support in a chunkier role, actually, and his quiet but acerbic work here is a career highlight. The screenplay is a delight, particularly so in its comedy, which is most winning in Dame Judi's hands.

DAVID O RUSSELL TO RECEIVE AFI FEST TRIBUTE

This must be for I Heart Huckabees. Or Spanking the Monkey. Or Flirting with Disaster. It must be. It can't be for anything else. Surely not. Please no. 21:00 a week from today, the 8th of November

CLIP FOR CHAPTER 5 OF NYMPHOMANIAC

This raunchy new clip from Nymphomaniac was on YouTube, but since they took it down because they're terrified of a bit of pubic hair, you'll have to click the pic. It's my second favourite clip so far. Here's my favourite.

ANOTHER HILARIOUS TRAILER FOR THE LEGO MOVIE

I'm living for this! The Abraham Lincoln bit is a hoot. Out on the 7th of February in the US and the 14th in the UK. Love it!

REVIEW - AS I LAY DYING

The art is not in the process, it's in the product. The process is mostly hard graft. I don't want to see the process, the journey, the cogs turning and lightbulbs flashing behind the curtain, and I'm not sorry about that. Unless you've got the time and, more importantly, the skills to repackage process as product, you'd best not bother. I believe James Franco had neither when he made As I Lay Dying. Perhaps the experimentation he so profusely indulges in here is part of a much larger process, directing him toward the product that may someday be a great work of art from the oft-maligned multi-hyphenate. It feels more like a cleansing procedure, though, as Franco pitches a small few stylistic motifs and exhausts their every worth, whether or not they actually serve any. It's like he's working them out of his system. But the arduous sincerity of the film denies you the choice of accepting them and evaluating their success - the split screens, for example, are distracting and quite useless, yet Franco insists on their importance with an infuriating seriousness. His arch approach is equally detectable in his performance as actor, as he vainly skims over his character, always on a slightly different, depressed plain from his costars. The implication is that his understanding of William Faulkner's literary prose runs deeper than theirs, and indeed yours (to-camera addresses have the vibe of an educational essay), and that engaging with his role in any soulful manner would be futile, and enormously uncool. You get the impression he's about to break character and offer an impish wink down the lens at any moment. And so the efforts of the rest of the cast, not all of whom are up to the challenge anyway, are debased or ignored, and the product they're trying to achieve dies on the vine. At least it dies trying. The film, as a whole, just lies dying. And if that's the point, well, again, I'm not sorry about this, but that's just fucking boring.