TURKEY TUESDAY - ROBIN HOOD

You've probably heard that Ridley Scott's Robin Hood isn't a terribly good film. Well, it's worse than that - it's a terribly terrible film. A miscast Cate Blanchett, a typecast Mark Strong, a histrionic Oscar Isaac, a disastrous Russell Crowe. It's cliched and dull, visually as well. It's a bloodless mixture of the original Robin Hood tale and Scott's own Gladiator, which is an infinitely superior film. Oh, and it's rly fucking long too. Please don't bother with this dirge. Dirge dirge dirge.

NOV 1-3 BOX OFFICE REPORT - ENDER'S GAME ENDS FREE BIRDS

There were three major new releases at the US box office over the weekend, and all three ended up in the Top 4. Ender's Game (1) fared strongest, with $27 million, enough to knock Bad Grandpa (2) off the top spot, though its 37.6% drop from last weekend was comfortably the smallest for the Jackass franchise. Last Vegas (3) might hold up best in the long run, and it took in $16.3 million, not far ahead of Free Birds (4). Relativity Media's first animated feature may have been the first animation to be given a wide release in over a month, but its $15.8 million three-day haul was very poor. Gravity (5) saw its steepest drop weekend-on-weekend yet, while Captain Phillips (6) saw its slightest; both will easily cross $250 and $100 million, respectively, in coming weeks.

FINAL THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG TRAILER IS LOOOONG

As The Godfather Part III is to its predecessors, and Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz, so is Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy to his The Lord of the Rings series from ten years ago. This trailer just makes it look even more overblown, quaint and hysterical. Coming our way (US and UK both) on the 13th of December.

BERENICE BEJO AND ANNETTE BENING TO STAR IN THE SEARCH

Michel Hazanavicius has adapted the Oscar-winning screenplay for Fred Zinnemann's 1948 film The Search, modernising the setting somewhat by transposing it from post-WWII Berlin to Chechnya. His wife Berenice Bejo will, ofc, star, alongside Annette Bening, and Thomas Langmann will produce, after winning an Oscar himself for producing Hanazavicius' The Artist.

REVIEW - THE LAST DAYS ON MARS

I might warn against reading reviews like this one for films such as The Last Days on Mars. I don't want to get your expectations up, that's all. See, if you've seen basically any other Mars mission movie, you've kind of already seen The Last Days on Mars, and predicting that, I went in with expectations way down. I hadn't read any reviews like this one - as in, positive reviews for it. So, to clarify, if you've seen basically any other Mars mission movie, you've kind of already seen The Last Days on Mars. Just possibly not quite this calibre. Once you feel comfortable in the plot's rudimentary trajectory, it becomes both simple and inviting to appreciate the skill with which this film has been mounted. Big-budget special effects are not missed, as director Ruairi Robinson displays an excellent grasp of the formation of tension, both gradual and immediate, via adept use of space and geography, editing (though editor Peter Lambert is too liberal in trimming down transitional moments during some scenes) and Robbie Ryan's commanding cinematography. Combine with an unpretentious cast of character actors (read: cheap gets) and you have evidence for why nuts-and-bolts sci-fi like this can work: as long as we can envisage it, we can believe in it. Maybe, in this sense, it's a blessing that The Last Days on Mars comes after all those other Mars mission movies, as the concept of man walking on the surface of the red planet now, cinematically at least, doesn't seem terribly far-fetched. In its modesty, and its adherence to the Sydney J. Bounds short story on which it is based, it's never more than proficient, but in the good sense and talent of its cast and crew, it's never less than that either. It navigates its plot's central development's silliness by avoiding dwelling too long on it, but one main character's course through that plot doesn't resonate as loudly as it should, and this renders some of his decisions quite puzzling.

MORIBUND MONDAY

Who likes Mondays? We like Mondays!

CONFESSIONAL CLIP

SPOILERS! Sort of...

LATITUDINAL LINE

Every line in this film, pretty much.

SCINTILLATING SOUNDTRACK

Gone Chopin brb

HASHED HOTTIE

It's the glasses.

LOOPY LINK

Prada suits me.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARD TECH WINNERS AND DOC NOMINATIONS

Plenty of action from the European Film Academy ahead of their awards ceremony on the 7th of December. Six winners in technical and artistic categories have been announced, alongside the three nominees for Best European Documentary. Winners in the tech categories were decided upon by a jury. I'm pleased by all of them, particularly the awards for Sarah Greenwood and Paco Delgado. This follows the announcement of the nominees for Best European Animated Feature. Check it all out below!

Prix Carlo di Palma for Best Cinematographer

Asaf Sudry (Fill the Void)

Best Editor

Cristiano Travaglioli (The Great Beauty)

Best Production Designer

Sarah Greenwood (Anna Karenina)

Best Costume Designer

Paco Delgado (Blancanieves)

Best Sound Designer

Erik Mischijew and Matz Muller (Paradise: Faith)

Best Composer

Ennio Morricone (The Best Offer)

Best European Documentary

• The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer)
• The Missing Picture (Rithy Panh)
• Stop-Over (Kaveh Bakhtiari)

JIM JARMUSCH'S ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE - TRAILER

This is the first trailer for Jim Jarmusch's vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive, which was a late addition to this year's Cannes lineup and drew praise from critics there after its screening. You can also check out a couple of clips from the film here. A UK release is planned for the 21st of February 2014; no word yet on a US release, though.

REVIEW - +1

There are two ways you can go with a high concept. Back or forward. To go back is to treat this concept as the destination of a journey, and the (as yet unexplored) journey as the design and structure of the concept, the working out of the equation, with the concept as the answer. To go forward is to treat this concept as a question, rather than an answer, and to see what kind of fun shit you can do with it. Invariably, this is very little, and the small minds that decided that the best thing to do would be to go forward with their high concept and make a movie out of it must now fall back on whatever they understand of filmmaking to fill in the gaps, like water being pumped into processed meat. When your movie is set at a teen house party, and you are one such small-minded filmmaker, you thus pump in all the cliches of teen house party movies, because you're not the sort to stop and ask why. After all, you took that high concept as the question, and didn't think to ask any of your own. At this point, if the script read any more than 'These annoying teens had an annoying house party the likes of which only occur in annoying teen house party movies', I'll be damned (N.B. if god even exists, I'm already damned, so what have I got to lose?!). Most infuriatingly, Dennis Iliadis doesn't even take the time to think his concept through, leading to all manner of logistical inaccuracies and inconsistencies which one might expect a film so reliant on such a concept to have a sure grasp on. What Iliadis was too busy doing to sort all that out, I'll never know, since the stupefying lack of originality in +1 would suggest that his hands were hardly full. And like a fart-flavoured palette cleanser after a main course of vomit, washing all this away is a flood of misogyny, colouring almost every turn in Iliadis and Bill Gullo's script. There's not a female character in this film who isn't principally defined by her desire for sex and/or her capabilities as a sex object, and few who aren't completely defined as such. There are two ways you can go with +1. Back out of it or forward into it. The filmmakers made the wrong decision. Don't you do the same.

HIDDEN TREASURES - THE CIRCLE, DAISIES, PARIS IS BURNING

Rise up! Rise up and revolt! Don't dare allow yourself to be oppressed! Don't accept the status quo on the basis that it is the status quo! Don't deny yourself to placate those around you! Don't neglect these classic films! Rise up and watch them! And revolt!

THE CIRCLE (2000) - JAFAR PANAHI

This is the way we live. These people are not just women. Not just Iranian women. They're as much a part of the human race as you or I. They're us. And this is the way we live. No home, no justice, no respect, no love, no happiness, no notice. Jafar Panahi notices, and in doing so implicitly respects and loves these people. One of the 21st Century's first masterpieces. It's banned in Iran.

DAISIES (1966) - VERA CHYTILOVA

Hooray for Vera Chytilova! A female director, still alive today, and barely recognised by film-watching communities around the world for the maverick she is. Daisies is one of the most infectiously vivacious films I've seen, quirky, funny and genuinely cute, in a good way! It was banned after release in Czechoslovakia, not long before Chytilova herself was banned from filmmaking altogether for six years.

PARIS IS BURNING (1990) - JENNIE LIVINGSTON

As drag began its rise into mainstream entertainment in the US, through the 1980s, Jennie Livingston made this portrait of the New York scene, and the queens who defined it and were defined by it. Check it out to see some of the most sickening queens in history at their peak. What they've contributed to contemporary pop culture is invaluable. The library is open!