AUG 30 - SEP 1 BOX OFFICE REPORT: LEE DANIELS' ONE DIRECTION: INSTRUCTIONS NOT INCLUDED

The three-day weekend was ruled over by One Direction, the four-day by Lee Daniels. The Butler took first place over the full Labour Day weekend with $20.2 million, becoming the first film to hold the box office top spot for three weekends running since The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey last year. One Direction: This Is Us would have knocked it off were it not for its incredibly front-loaded take, the most Friday-heavy proportionately of all time. It scored $18.5 million four-day. The other new releases make up a very mixed bag: Getaway (10) and Closed Circuit (16) fared miserably, with $5.6 and $3.1 million respectively. But Instructions Not Included (5) was an enormous success, reaping $10.4 million in a mere 348 theatres. An exceptional performance for the Hispanic-targeted comedy, which may expand nationwide this coming weekend.

REVIEW - THE WAY WAY BACK

Not a 'dramedy,' but a drama and a comedy duking it out for superiority. The comedy wins, or at least it ought to. The Way Way Back is a tremendously funny film, sometimes. Allison Janney and Sam Rockwell wander in from a different film, sporadically, and transform an inert teen coming-of-age movie into a sweet, sparkling, vivacious, lively jaunt. They barely pause for breath as they spew some of the finest repartee in film all year, combining sharp, cheeky humour with a grounding in strong, stable character that makes their work addictive viewing. The quality of the comedy in The Way Way Back is so high that it affects your mood throughout the film, even as it becomes ever drier and more formulaic. An affinity with these people (at least the sympathetic ones among them) is developed, though that's at the expense of equity. There are heroes, victims and villains in Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's screenplay. Their narrative arcs (excuse me for a moment while I barf profusely at having used that phrase) are concerned less with whom they become than whom they have been. Only protagonist Duncan (Liam James, if you believe that, cos it's actually Liam Payne in hiding) experiences any meaningful change in his person - the others are merely there to facilitate his maturation. Faxon and Rash aren't too sober in depicting this, though, and encourage us to engage in a bit of fun-poking from time to time. If some of this is much too staged to be successful, they mostly get away with it, due to the aforementioned quality of the comedy. And it does cause you to forgive The Way Way Back's mediocrity in other arenas. Steve Carell is great as the world's most infuriatingly passive-aggressive stepdad-in-waiting, and Toni Collette is once again woefully underused.

REVIEW - YOU'RE NEXT

If there are several disadvantages inherent in movie buffs making their own movies, there is at least one notable advantage. They know what works and they know what doesn't work. They know what to retain and what to jettison. They know that we can't be hoodwinked easily, and that the same old stale techniques aren't going to achieve anything. There are horror movie tropes worth adhering to, and tropes worth discarding entirely. So Adam Wingard approaches You're Next from the perspective of an audience member who knows what they want, when they want it and how they want it. Exposition? What does it accomplish? We want an introduction to the characters and their inter-dynamics. We want an introduction to the scene, the location, the geography of the space which we will be inhabiting for the next hour and a half. But we know it's a horror film, so we know everything is not OK, so there's no point in pretending. Early, supposedly placid scenes are pervaded by ominous noises on the soundtrack, spooky lighting and framing, confirming our suspicions. And from here, Wingard strikes the perfect tone with near every turn You're Next takes. The violence is shocking but not sadistic. The comedy is clever but not cocky. And, by and large, he knows that there's little to be gained in stuffing his film with jumps and shock scares. He stages things artfully, like he was concerned with more than just creeping us out, but with satisfying us and the stylistic demands we naturally make of a movie, whether intentionally or not. And there's a deliciously wry twang to much of his material, an amusing contempt for those among the company who don't use their brains enough, or maybe use them too much. Sound design and score are excellent. Scripting is smart, but it's only Wingard's talent as director that saves the film from dying a particularly ugly death once its crass BIG TWIST collapses in on proceedings. Acting is decent, but Sharni Vinson in the lead is vivid and magnetic, and if none of the other characters give you much to root for (that may be the point), Vinson more than makes up for that. A resourceful thriller with a resourceful heroine.

AUG 23-25 BOX OFFICE REPORT: A MORTAL START FOR THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS

Audiences didn't want to catch any of the new releases this weekend. They wanted to trust word-of-mouth, resulting in strong holds for many films, and weak starts for the newcomers. Lee Daniels' The Butler dropped just 33% and We're the Millers just 27.4%, thus holding first and second place, respectively (We're the Millers for the third weekend on the trot). The World's End's (4) $8.8 million is in line with expectations based on his previous films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. You're Next was a bit of a miss in sixth place. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones performed in line with the other young adult adaptations this year, Beautiful Creatures and The Host, failing to justify Sony's hopes for a franchise with a $9.3 million debut since Friday, $14.1 million since Wednesday on a $60 million budget.

REVIEW - YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET

I will gladly sit back and watch one of cinema's greatest artists indulge a whim, satisfy an urge, follow a folly down whatever corridors it may lead them. The joy is in knowing that few others, if anyone, could have done it better. In concept alone, Alain Resnais' You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet is intriguing and exciting. In actuality, yes, there is significant joy to be had merely in witnessing it. And there are no failures here. Not Alain Resnais. He doesn't make mistakes. His command over the medium is too assured to accommodate mistakes. It certainly didn't all work for me, but the nature of a true risk dictates that it could fall either way. I have nothing but respect for Resnais in how he manages to rig his risk in a favourable direction so often. And whom am I to analyse his intentions or his ideas? Every trick up his sleeve is on display, every stitch showing. He's blatantly showing off (why not, when you're this good?), and so makes his technique a fundamental part of the experience. You're supposed to see the cogs turning. The mystery, and that which makes his films so fulfilling, lies in how he gets the cogs to turn in the first place. What kind of magic is this? And what profound emotional impact it can have, this bizarre, mysterious craft of his. You may find yourself sincerely stirred by the story herein (or stories) and yet be near utterly unaware of what it's even about. Resnais is manipulating us, and it's our fucking duty as the inferior homo sapiens that we are to let him. I will gladly sit back and let Alain Resnais toy with my mind as I will gladly let any theoretical artistic construct. I am not so arrogant as to think myself above that. At 90 years of age, as he was when this film was first released, he has come closer to the meaning of life than most of us could even imagine. Which is why I believe him: we ain't seen nothin' yet.

REVIEW - WE'RE THE MILLERS

Disposable comedy, the likes of which tend to make me wonder why they ever got made at all. They represent no grand artistic endeavour, seemingly existing only to satisfy an audience's thirst for humour and little else. In principle, that's enough for me. In practice, We're the Millers is not. It still makes me wonder why it ever got made at all. A drug dealer in debt to his boss, a stripper left penniless by her boyfriend, a runaway living on the streets and a pitiful but loveable 18-year-old abandoned by his mother. They form a fraudulent family in the hope that they won't get stopped by border police when smuggling 'a smidge and a half' of marijuana from Mexico to the US because they just look too darn cute. Hijinks ensue! That's basically it. If that wasn't more insightful than the actual screenplay (which took four actual writers to construct), I'll be mightily surprised. The story flails around in search of tenuous comedic hooks, managing most of the time to settle in some strange limbo between absurdity and banality. It has the tenor of desperation, like a sit-com on its last legs, after all the funny concepts have dried up. Never egregiously bad, never particularly good either, We're the Millers is likely nothing that will offend you in the instant, but also likely nothing that will linger long enough to even begin to. Jennifer Aniston takes her clothes off, AGAIN, but crucially without any sight of nudity, AGAIN, and appears to consider this yet another string to her bow, as her repertoire has now expanded to incorporate the new, fresh role of 'Rachel from Friends, only a stripper now.' Emma Roberts plays the homeless kid with the best make-up on the streets of any city. Will Poulter is the hapless comic foil, and far and away the most engaging and entertaining performer in the film.

REVIEW - THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES

A maniacal fantasy film, the experience of watching which I expect is akin to having a migraine while simultaneously projectile vomiting and having your legs sawn off, only more fun. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is a steaming heap of bollocks that actually tastes a lot better than it smells. As an enthusiast of the art of film, I deplore this rabid, vacuous rape of the medium, of the fantasy genre and of the millions of dollars that were wasted on producing it; as an easygoing moviegoer, I had a blast. When it's not brilliantly awful (but it normally is), it's genuinely quite brilliant, in a beserk, Tsui Hark kind of way. All this mythological mumbo-jumbo, artlessly excreted over the lens, set to a clamorous soundscape of pure noise and fury... as exhausting as this inconceivably over-stuffed film is, it possesses a hysterical spirit that can't help but catch alight every once in a while. To pass the time in between such spurts, there's plenty of unintentional humour and fetish-gear-clad gothic hotties to sate your solicitude. There's no tangible attempt at a plot, and every manoeuver in that direction is hastily glossed over by refashioning it as a ruse to supply more baffling action or sickly romance. The amorous sections are undoubtedly the film's most dull, but they're the only ones where the filmmakers seem to know what they're aiming for. I don't know whether or not they achieved it, because I'm not a 13-year-old girl. You see, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has been made as a paradigm of pure, authentic cinematic entertainment. It has no aspirations toward art, or education, or even basic storytelling sense. It is brash, idiotic and utterly evanescent. I still don't have the slightest idea what to make of it, but I know that I had great fun watching it, that I lmao-ed several times at the monumental inadequacy of the filmmaking, and at the general nonsense of it all, and that I think it's one of the silliest films I've seen. It is thoroughly absurd, and thoroughly dreadful, and I'd recommend it to everyone.

REVIEW - ELYSIUM

Four years ago, Elysium would have been a big hit. Four years ago, District 9 was a big hit. Elysium is much the same film, only this time Neill Blomkamp is officially playing in the big leagues, and surrendering wholeheartedly to the big league rules. A tepid retread of dystopian standards prevalent in so much science-fiction of recent years, it squanders considerable talent on a run-of-the-mill storyline featuring identikit characters and bland, if meticulously-designed, visuals. A burdensome comment on conservative politics, it makes occasional moves in the direction of satire, but its narrative earnestness and creative aridity forsake it to abjection, menially according to the structure of Sci-Fi Blockbusters 101. In basic terms (for Blomkamp appears to know no others), Elysium is a big space station that's like Star-Trek-Enterprise-meets-The-O.C. Rich people live there and have access to free healthcare. They like to keep the dirty immigrants from impoverished Earth out. The Earthlings are mostly non-Caucasian, and don't wear designer outfits, so that makes them good. Matt Damon plays Max Da Costa, which means he's the macho hero. Jodie Foster plays Secretary Delacourt, which means she's a villain from Star Wars. Sharlto Copley plays Kruger, which means he's Freddy Krueger, grrr! For some objectively inconceivable reason, Matt Damon not only manages to illicitly travel to Elysium, he manages to do so while storing data in a chip attached to his brain that will allow any random computer nerd to automatically make all Earth citizens legal on Elysium, thus granting them access to this free, miraculous healthcare. I wonder how many Republicans have seen Elysium and laughed their big old heads clean off. It's that stupid. A shot near the end of African children running toward a spaceship promising them the medical help they so badly need ought to be scored to Michael Jackson's 'Heal the World.' Actually, do they rly need that help? They're sure running fast for such sick kids! Elysium opens with some lovely images of the peerless special effects employed in making this otherwise rote exercise in medium-grade action, and the film declines in quality from there. As ever, it's the silly things which piqued my interest, though, such as Matt Damon evading capture by hiding under a trailer of pigs, and all the bits with William Fichtner looking totally over it.

AUG 16-18 BOX OFFICE REPORT: BUT(LER)-KICKS-ASS

Four new films opened nationwide in the US over the weekend, but only one of them impressed. Occupying the same mid-August slot that proved successful for Julie & Julia, Eat, Pray, Love and The Help in recent years, Lee Daniels' The Butler scored $24.6 million, which is behind only The Help among those titles. Comedy sequel Kick-Ass 2 flopped pretty hard, even by the first movie's middling standards: a weak $13.3 million start was only good enough for fifth place. Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher, fared even worse, with $6.7 million, opening in seventh place. But lowest of the lot was corporate thriller Paranoia (13), whose $3.5 million was lower than Despicable Me 2 (11) in its seventh week and The Conjuring (12) in its fifth. It's now set to become the lowest-grossing film of star Harrison Ford's entire career, not even adjusting grosses for inflation.

REVIEW - 2 GUNS

Just 2? The film industry ought to be bloody thankful for guns. A lot of films plainly wouldn't exist were it not for guns. Practically, their uses are limited, but narratively? Here's an example: your screenplay has too many characters. What do you do? Shoot one of them! Another example: your film doesn't have a viable ending. What do you do? Shoot everyone! What about this: you don't actually know how to write dialogue. Easy, let the guns do all the talking! This is a film where people shoot corpses. They do this because they can, and probably because they can't do anything else. We've progressed to the stage now where that hokey old trope of the shooter who never misses has become a legitimate character trait. Nobody actually accomplishes anything of any significance in 2 Guns without the immediate aid of a firearm. A mischievous disrespect for government-backed authorities such as the military and the CIA, though, helps to neutralise the sour taste that might leave in your mouth. In between the bits where people get shot, 2 Guns is a baffling film, aiming in a multitude of directions at once, and landing a fair few of its attempts too. It has a nonchalant, wayward attitude that's pretty winning, with two fingers cheekily flicked up at coherence and clarity at all times. No doubt that Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are sleeping their way through this, but they do so with such insouciant aplomb that it'd be dishonest of me to grumble. At one point, Denzel blows an entire building up just so he can evade police capture, and possibly kills plenty of people in the process, and I still like him. If Denzel has played Osama bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty, I'd have been on his side. He even does his own stunts, such as running through a foyer, and running through another foyer. The film's indifference toward its attention-deficit plot means that it has no regard for pacing, so it feels quite long, and the climax is absurd, but if you squint, you can just about pretend to see tongue, squatting neatly there in cheek. Director Baltasar Kormakur manages to find the occasional opportunity to squeeze a woman into the frame, which might not be a positive thing any more, seeing as it's no longer the year 1812.

REVIEW - PRINCE AVALANCHE

Prince Avalanche sees David Gordon Green abandon much of his idiosyncrasy, but edge only a little closer to reality. Truth is, I don't think I'd want a David Gordon Green film that mainlined its messages and their meanings. His jaunty abstraction has returned, and is most welcome, even in this more marketable guise. Savvy of him to riff on Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson's Either Way, planting his protagonists in the Texan wilderness, ambling along an empty road, painting lines and erecting posts. Only more wilderness on each side of the road, at least as far in as they ever traverse, and only more road ahead and behind. The city is a mythical metropolis, a man's wife a mere memory. They meet another man, driving a truck, bearing alcohol - he is steadily soused, it seems, and makes only intermittent sense. There's a woman too, rummaging through the remains of her home, burnt down by wildfire, pursuing a piece of paper. It's probably not there. Is she even there? Are these woods even there? Drunk, dreaming or distracted, Alvin and Lance listen to the silence, performing a perfunctory job that has no immediate practical purpose. Alvin is more comfortable acting out his perception of normality in the mutilated carcass of a house than seizing even the slightest opportunity to experience it for real. Lance's thoughts of what must come to pass in the city influence what actually does come to pass, and his thoughts on what did come to pass influence his outlook on life. Both are living one life inside their heads, and another in reality. Are they wounding their respective realities by neglecting them so? Or are they escaping them, both literally and figuratively? Green has never before immersed his characters so absolutely in such a distant remove from real life, and it befits his style as neatly as you'd expect. Pretension is mostly kept at bay, which is a positive thing, but Paul Rudd is a capable enough actor to thrive at a greater length from his trademark comic crutches than he does here, and Green is a capable enough director to resist following him down there to nudge at that flimsy line between just far enough and too far altogether.

REVIEW - KICK-ASS 2

The danger, when writing a sequel, is that you rely too heavily on the work done by your predecessor. Unless a sequel is demanded by the first film's narrative, it ought to serve as a stand-alone feature, so simply picking up where Kick-Ass left off should never have been an option. If your origin story is, say, the Bible, you've probably got some leeway there, but Kick-Ass 2's origin was a mildly successful film based on a cult comic book. And throwing in a few cumbersome references to Kick-Ass' plot doesn't cut it. So installment 2 won't work if you haven't seen installment 1. And what? It won't work if you have either! As misjudged as it often was, Matthew Vaughn's film was also quite brilliant. This feels like a conscious attempt to drive every nail available into this non-franchise's coffin. It has the scope of a soap opera. It has supporting characters so vague and perfunctory the film would only be improved without them. It has routine action sequences, supposedly valid because of their fantastical violent content (to which we've now been desensitised). It has crude comedy, most of which has the stale vibe of leftovers from the first movie's deleted scenes. It has numerous scenes of dull, pithy philosophical pontification, like some lame kids' cartoon. It develops its lead characters not a single discernible modicum of a jot. It has a cacophonous soundtrack, with a battering score thundering away beneath entirely inappropriate parts. It has the most egregious scene of product placement that I've witnessed in any film. And, worst of all, it relies so heavily on the work done by its predecessor. Even when new figures are introduced, writer / director Jeff Wadlow seems to expect us to find them funny and engaging on the mere virtue of existing. It's no wonder Jim Carrey refused to promote this film - his (negligible) comic talents are squandered on an insignificant, endlessly perplexing role. Wadlow's writing misses the mark, and his directing leaves moments to wither and die before he slumps onward, to the point that you can sense the actors awaiting a call of "Cut!" as the awkward silence begins to shut down their brains.

AUG 9-11 BOX OFFICE REPORT: BUSY BUSINESS, AND A WIN FOR THE R-RATING

Two R-rated films opened atop the domestic box office over the weekend August 9-11, although the film in second place arguably performed better than the film in first. Comedy We're the Millers, starring Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis, took in $26.4 million Friday-to-Sunday, and $37.9 since Wednesday. That's already its budget back in just five days, and it's also tracking ahead of fellow R-rated August comedy Tropic Thunder, which was a big hit with audiences in 2008. Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to the Oscar-winning District 9 failed to capitalise on the popularity of that film, though, opening significantly below it with $29.8 million. Sure, that was enough to win the weekend, but off from even some modest expectations. Disney Cars spin-off Planes took third place with $22.2 million, a fair figure considering the glut of animated films currently on release, and sequel Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters bombed in fourth, with $14.4 million for the weekend, and $23.3 since Wednesday.

REVIEW - LOVELACE

A title needn't mean much. A title probably oughtn't to be relevant to one's experience when watching a film. A title can, however, provide an insight into the intentions of the filmmakers, or at least those who devised and/or approved the title. Lovelace is the true story of a matter of months in a young woman's life. Its title, simply 'Lovelace', implies a biopic / expose, a glimpse behind the (meat) curtains at, as an early line of dialogue explicitly states, 'who the real Linda Lovelace is'. The screenplay is a connect-the-dots of important moments in Linda Lovelace's life before and after the filming of Deep Throat, condensed, smoothed out, glitzed up, muggle moments. A cast of familiar actors, who perhaps thought they were starring in a porn version of The Aviator, queue up for their 15 seconds of screentime (or fewer, in Chloe Sevigny's case), playing important figures in her life during this period. And, in only 90 minutes, there's no time for anyone to invest much character or realism in the script, nor time for anyone to flesh these characters out beyond much more than one-note caricatures. That's particularly unforgivable as this is, of course, a true story, so you can be sure that every one of these people was once (and many probably still are) as complex as you or I, or even more so. By the sheer fact that they're most often in front of the camera lens, Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard are the film's most vivid presences, and Sharon Stone is memorable as Linda's miserable mother. Stephen Trask's seductive score is the best thing about the film. The worst thing about the film is its laughable prudishness, with its cartoonish, finger-wagging attitude toward the porn industry and its conservative depiction of sex and nudity. It says rather a lot that, 41 years on, and we've 'progressed' from on-screen cumshots to a film that recoils from the slightest hint of pubic hair. The moral is this: do blowjobs and you'll get beaten up. Live a nice, law-abiding life as an honest, upstanding American and start a nice, white nuclear family, and you'll receive lifelong happiness.

AUG 2-4 BOX OFFICE REPORT: NOT SO SMURFTASTIC

It was the quietest weekend yet this summer at the domestic box office, with both major new releases disappointing. 2 Guns did manage to topple The Wolverine from atop the B.O. perch, but its $27.1 million was underwhelming considering expectations. The Wolverine thus fell 59.9% to second, with $21.3 million. And The Smurfs 2 could only muster up $17.4 million over the weekend ($27.1 million since Wednesday - only slightly above 2 Guns' three-day start). Whether you look at its three or five-day opening, it earned less than half of its predecessor's starting tally.

REVIEW - RED 2

Part of the charm of Red, in 2010, was that it had no apparent reason to exist. Part of the misfortune of Red 2, in 2013, is that is has no apparent reason to exist. What little is has to offer that its predecessor did not fails to account for the time and money that was invested in it by the production companies, nor for the hope that you or I may have invested in it. This frenetic action comedy mumbles stertorously along with infantile disregard. Its intention seems to be to maintain motion at all costs, zipping through swathes of its convoluted plot in order to get to the next scene, only to hit the ground running. It's like a two hour trailer, with the feeling that each shot has had several frames shaved off, and each scene several shots, and the entire film a great many scenes. Case in point (and spoiler alert): no sooner has a captive Anthony Hopkins murdered all but one other on board his flight to Washington than he appears inside the Iranian embassy in London, mooching around with terrorists! This wouldn't matter were it not for the fact that director Dean Parisot has the same irreverence toward the elements of his film which are supposed to matter: the action and the comedy. He leaves not a breath of air in which to rest and absorb what's just occurred, or what's just been said, perhaps as there's so much arbitrary globe-trotting to attend to. The cast makes a fair stab at it, doggedly toiling away at the humour in the off-chance that Parisot might wait long enough for us to notice any of it. Barmy Hopkins, wacky John Malkovich and exasperated Willis are a lot of fun (Lee Byung Hun, however, is treated rather differently, as is evident in his first scene: a Korean, in China, making a visit to a man who lives in Japanese surroundings, and where everybody speaks English... meh, it's all foreign, right?), but Red 2 is a woman's world. Catherine Zeta-Jones' task is to werk it like only CZJ can. Mary-Louise Parker is marvellously daffy, and has a delightfully apologetic way of kicking ass (making official state stationery a major part of the finale is a particularly quirky touch). But Dame Helen Mirren shuts the whole thing down. Her arrival at the Iranian embassy will go down as one of the best moments in a movie this year; her astrakhan-clad antics out the window of a cerulean sports car (as visible above) will go down in history herstory.

REVIEW - THE CANYONS

The culture of the canyons. It is hollow, ephemeral, aesthetic, disposable, artificial. It is shine and sheen, the baking sunlight reflecting off surfaces, penetrating no deeper because there is no deeper there. This is a culture bought rather than earned, invented rather than developed. This is what happens when a country is colonised, and populated by greedy white people with no profound connection to the land they build upon. It's a gleaming new, flashy, arrogant culture, marinated in the toxic stench of empty plastic fakery vacuum-wrapped in more plastic. A trip to the shrink won't do this trust-fund baby any good - the shrink is just another piece in the package of this phony lifestyle, another part of the problem. You can conduct your own cod-philosophy on these soulless shells of vapidity if you want. I took a peek beneath the Botox and saw nothing of much note, save Lindsay Lohan. What she brings to her character is indicative of what brought her fame in the first place: talent. What her personal circumstances bring, though, is invaluable. We'll never know the person whom LiLo could naturally have evolved into, but this is whom she's evolved into instead, and this person is every bit as fascinating anyway. Those puffy cheeks and that trout pout... her illusion is no illusion, and the scars are as visible as the work they betray is there, and they make Lohan the only tangible thing in this film. There's supposedly an erotic thriller in here. It's certainly a sex-obsessed film, and if that doesn't generate the intended frisson, it's welcome all the same. The thriller has no right to intrude on what comes, at intervals, close to being a piquant mood piece, a discerning impression of this zeitgeist. There's no story here, that's the problem, and so no tension, and no surprises. You end up wishing it dead and gone, and that some true trashiness could replace it. Maybe, though, in teasing us with trash, rather than regaling us, The Canyons is a sly commentary not only on this quasi-culture, but also on itself. It's so cheap and vacant that it can't even deliver the tawdry goods it taunts us with. The Canyons doesn't just reflect off surfaces, it actually becomes one of those cold, hard, glinting surfaces.

REVIEW - THE CONJURING

You wonder why Warner Bros only set aside $20 million to make The Conjuring. That's actually a lot of money for a horror film like this, but the thing is: this shit works. Everything about The Conjuring has been tried and tested. It's almost a homage to the films it steals from, to the tricks and tropes it lovingly and generously employs. And you can get people to sit through anything, but you can't necessarily get people to like anything. This shit works because it's good. Writers Carey and Chad Hayes and director James Wan are fiddling with the familiar, but their selective eye is so precise and astute that they know exactly what to borrow and whom to borrow from. So you've seen those jump scares a dozen times already, and the chase through the house and into the woods, the face appearing in the mirror... Forget those. The Conjuring takes the horror conventions which not only scared you first time around, but impressed you, and lasted with you. Its dedication to forming a good horror movie is what actually makes it, technically, a good movie in general. And James Wan is certainly not wanting for dedication. He wrings every drop of drama out of this sodding wet sheet. Thus, if a scene suddenly demands a tonal switch to sentimentality, he obliges, and the wistful smiles spring up and the corny soundtrack swells, and there's not a hint that tongue is anywhere near cheek. If that's aggravating, at least you can't say he didn't try. And anyway, it makes The Conjuring's key moments all the better: note how there's no sex, no swearing, and yet this is R-rated. Wan was tasked with making it PG-13, but even the MPAA declared the final version so scary that they couldn't recommend cuts as none would be viable. And when Wan lets loose in the batshit finale, you'll be darn pleased this ain't no PG-13. Points off for being an even bigger advertisement for the catholic church than The Exorcist, and for... sorry... not actually scaring me. I'm a weird case with horror. I can appreciate the skill that went into making The Conjuring, but I was barely even slightly unsettled.

REVIEW - EUROPA REPORT

Though Europa Report does just about nothing new, it at least does almost everything different enough from similar films to make it a worthwhile sit. Herein is evidence to disprove the prolific humbug theories - found footage that doesn't render the action unintelligible, a space exploration thriller that doesn't rely on aliens or explosions. Director Sebastian Cordero is chiefly occupied with establishing tension through tone, and evoking a strong sense of space (appropriately). This is standard sci-fi stuff to anyone who's seen Alien, but when one considers how often such films are made with total disregard for these issues, and how acutely Cordero nails it, it's only reasonable to be impressed. And despite the film's lack of distinguishable / conventional space-set thrills, it never resorts to the kind of generic suspense or horror tropes that could have stranded it anywhere in the universe - on solid footing here on Earth or floating above Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Cordero makes the setting the seventh character on board (and off) this vessel, and no matter how aware the crew members think they are of it, it will find ways to punish them for their complacency, and for their curiosity. A smart international cast seems rather more concerned with keeping their careers afloat than the usual ragtag bunch of teens who populate found footage films; their characterisation is stronger, but they fail to generate a sense of ease or spontaneity that's essential with this format. They face unknown threats and promises deeper in space than any human has gone before, the nature of which is wisely kept concealed... until a cack-handed ending that drowns every ounce of faith you had invested in the story. Up to this point, it's a darn good piece of work, Europa Report, so I won't denounce its many attributes. But none of those have lasted with me like that fucking ending.

JUL 26-28 BOX OFFICE REPORT: THE WOLVERINE SLASHED DOWN

The Wolverine may have earned over twice as much as any other film at the US box office this weekend, but its $53.1 million opening was below expectations, and not up to scratch. Indeed, no matter its decent long-term prospects, this is a clear disappointment, as the lowest start yet for a film from the X-Men franchise (not even considering box office inflation nor 3D ticket pricing). It was the only major nationwide release, although there were some other, more successful films opening over the weekend, as you'll find out after the jump.