The Paperboy (15)

We have a simple rule here at Popcorn Towers - write the review of the film as soon as possible after seeing it. Why?

Because we want our reviews to be fresh, instant, as immediate an emotional reaction to the celluloid experience as it's possible to achieve. It's our thing.

That's why.

Which is where The Paperboy has caused us a few problems.

Not only could I not write the review ASAP (got taken for dinner afterwards - a prawn chili pasta dish, thanks for asking), but as I left the cinema I had no idea what I thought about Lee Daniels' latest work. Genuinely no idea. Not a sausage.

And now, sitting here, A Pale Horse Named Death assaulting my ears, tea a-cooling upon my desk, I'm still not sure. I liked it, I know that, but I have no idea why. And I have absolutely no idea what the film was about.

Well, that's not true, it's about Zac Efron is what it's about - but I'll come to that shortly...

Lets start at the beginning.

Based on the award-winning novel by Peter Dexter, The Paperboy is reportedly about two journalists (hometown boy Ward Jansen, played by Matthew McConaughey, and Yardley, played by David Oyelowo) who arrive in Lately, Florida, in the summer of 1969 to investigate and report on an apparent miscarriage of justice. Their interest in the story stems from Charlotte (a filthy-gorgeous Nicole Kidman), a sexually liberated sort who has decided that the incarcerated Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack, channeling his inner-nutjob) is innocent and should be freed so she can marry him.

Alongside all this, we have Ward's brother Jack (Efron), a tortured soul who is still coming to terms with his mother leaving without so much as a goodbye. He spends his days moping about in his pants, annoying his one friend in life - the family maid Anita (played brilliantly by Macy Gray), and delivering papers for his emotionally-distant father.

With me so far?

As the story unfolds, we learn that, other than Charlotte, people don't much care if Hilary is innocent or guilty - the police got the man wot killed the nasty sheriff, ta - and that Hilary is madder then a box of frogs. We also learn that racism is rife, that getting to the truth is harder than you'd think, and that pissing on Zac Efron cures jellyfish stings.

Still with me?

We also learn that Efron has a wonderfully sculptured physique. And that he looks good in just his pants. Or trunks. Or open shirt as he broods in the Florida heat... And that's where the problems start to unfold.

You see, the book is about journalists searching for the truth - but that doesn't come across here, because there's too much else going on.

On the positive side, the performances are great. Kidman is sassy, brassy and has brought all the sex appeal and allure she left at home when making Eyes Wide Shut. McConaughey and Oyelowo play well off each other, while Gray shines (and arguably steals the show). And Efron is good with what he's asked to do.

It just doesn't feel like he was asked to do much more than, as you may have guessed, look good in his Y-fronts.

And that's a big issue. In making Efron the focus of the film, the film loses focus. It seems to want to be a gritty, Tenessee Williams-esque period crime thriller (the grainy celluloid feel is certainly a nice touch), so why then do we have a beach scene taken from a mid-60s surfer flick? Why is one sequence clearly taken from a 70s exploitation movie? Why are we switching so erratically from static cameras to Cloverfield-style shakey-cam? Why are so many shots seemingly looking at nothing or blocked by a stray hand? Why is the use of symbolism so bloody obvious? (A sex scene inter-cut with shots of farmyard animals? Really? Oh come on...)

And who is the film about?

Over the surprisingly short running time (it feels like a REALLY long film), we manage to piece together what makes the characters tick - but it's a jigsaw. The pieces are scatterd all over the place, and as you start putting together the Jack bit, you realise you're missing the Ward bit, and as that starts to take shape you're find another piece of Charlotte...

And every character - Anita aside - is flawed. One of them could keep Jeremy Kyle in work for a year, but this lot all come with so much baggage they'd be barred from boarding by Ryan Air. And that's a real problem.

You can't get to grips with any of the characters in any real depth, because you're trying to get to grips with too much. It's like every course on the tasting menu has been super-sized. Twice.

And the whole thing being narrated by Anita is a massive issue, as you find yourself constantly asking just how the hell could she know that most of it happened?

And still I didn't hate it.

Bits of the film stay with you, mulling away in the dark recesses of your swampy mind - and not just the more 'infamous' bits (Kidman having an almost comical orgasm on a prison visit and later curing a jellyfish WILL feature in certain tabloids, mark my words).

But what's it about?

Well...

It's about Jack's abandonment issues and obsession with Charlotte. Only it's not.

Because it's about Charlotte's chasing of the fantasy of the perfect man without having to actually get involved with reality. Only it's not.

Because it's about Ward's inner demons and struggles. Only it's not.

Because it's about the alleged innocence of Hilary and a quest for justice. Only it's not.

Because it's about a black man (Yardly) trying to make it in a white man's world (journalism/Florida in general). Only it's not.

What you can say, without fear of contradiction, is that The Paperboy is about two things - a director's clear fascination with the physique of Zac Efron, and 107 minutes long.

And I still can't believe I didn't hate it.

Oz The Great And Powerful (PG)

There are some films that are simply untouchable - celluloid royalty if you will.

Who'd dare to mess with, say, Psycho (Shut up. That Gus Van Zant film NEVER HAPPENED)? Gone With The Wind? The Seven Year Itch? Duck Soup? Star Wars?

OK, that last one was a bad example.

My point is that some films just don't get messed with. Are loved for what they were when they were released, and still are now. A remake, or reimagining, or re anything of The Sound Of Music? There's be armies of nuns marching on Hollywood before anyone could shout action.

Which makes you wonder why anyone felt the need to piss around with The Wizard Of Oz.

The original is rightly classed as a classic - it's aged badly, but who cares? It's still The Wizard Of Oz. Even The Muppets didn't take too many liberties with it. So it's good that the owners of the rights to the original Oz have guarded it so preciously.

Unfortunately, this has led to film makers finding more creative ways around the problem. Which is how we get to Oz The Great And Powerful.

Designed to tell the story of how ol' Wiz rocked up in The Emerald City, and defeated the witches, it's everything fans hoped it would be.

Assuming what they wanted was a mess of a movie that's been made in 3D for no reason other than to justify its existence.

Let's start with the name. Oz The Great And Powerful. Basically what they did was take some key words that they thought would make the film sound enticing and magical, wrote them on bits of paper, and then dropped them on the way to the first meeting. When they were laid out on the table, they were in the wrong order. And a 'The' had fallen under a chair. Not a great start.

Fortunately, every other - and better - permutations aren't littered throughout the film's dialogue as handy reminders of how much better the film could have sounded. And they don't all leap out at you as you sit, bewildered, wondering what on earth possessed you to part with your cash. So that's one bullet dodged.

Then there's the 3D.

Now, having heard a recent interview with director Sam Rami where he said he'd gone to 3D school to make sure he got the editing right, I had high hopes that maybe this time it wouldn't be used in a gimmicky way. Not high hopes, granted, but hopes.

And not even so high that I actually bothered shelling out for the glasses. I'd had a long day and really couldn't be arsed sitting down to watch a film while wearing sunglasses, OK? And it still annoyed me. Because you can tell the bits that have been thrown in just to make use of the visual effect. Ooohhh, look, spears are coming at me.

Ooohhh, look, he's falling down several waterfalls.

Ooohhh, look, stuff is flying about in a tornado.

Ooohhh, look, that bit's going to make people feel sea sick...

And to think I actually thought that if one film could make 3D work, it would be a film set in a magical world. Sigh.

Still, it's got James Franco and Mila Kunis in. They're always good value. Or not.

Franco, as the titular Oz - who is powerful and great - looks somewhat lost, unsure whether to go for an OTT performance or a more measured study of a conman on the fiddle and failing to achieve either. And he can't act with CGI. Some can. Some manage to believably stare at a tennis ball while imagining it's a recently repaired talking china doll. In fact, someone manages it in this film. Just not James.

So, then, Kunis. One of the three witches on offer. Granted she's dressed like Steven Tyler having an acid flashback, but hey - she can act, right? She was good in Black Swan. She was OK in Friends With Benefits...

Sadly that's not the case. We have to put up with her trying to do emotion. It doesn't go well. Fortunately, things improve when the other two witches pitch up. In fact they improve one hell of a lot thanks to one of them. Thank the Munchkins for Michelle Williams.

From the minute she appears, the screen glows. Her presence is as welcome as it is warming. And the camera loves her. Helped, in part, with the way the film is coloured, sure, but she just stands out here. And she can talk to an imaginary china doll.

In fact, her appearance helps the other witch - Rachel Weisz - who seems to up her game when going up against someone who's actually acting. That's not to say she's bad when opposite Kunis, but there's a marked improvement when performing opposite a true star.

Amazingly, all this ranting doesn't mean Oz The Powerful And The Great And The Powerful is a terrible film. For its target age group - ones too young to read our reviews - it'll work fine.

It looks amazing, for a start. The colourisation is a thing of beauty, and it's clear Rami was doing his best to recapture some of that 1939 magic. And he damn near does.

And the flying baboons (not monkeys, you'll note) are GREAT. Scary as all hell, teeth bared at all times and flying out of the screen (or straight at it in my cinema) like rabid, evil, demented... well... baboons. But they're ace.

And the story is OK. It's a family film and it's family friendly. It's good versus evil, moral messages galore and someone calls Oz a fibber. That's a word that needs using more in family movies. Oh, and the black and white opening movement is brilliant. So good in fact, I'd have happily watched an entire movie just of that.

So, an opportunity wasted - where arguably an opportunity wasn't even wanted.

The original is rightly classed as a classic, and its other off-shoot (the West End hit Wicked) is equally popular. So why this? All it does is serve to remind you how good the original was, and how good the actors can be in other films.

Except Michelle. She's just ace.

Broken (15)

Film goers and movie fans never cease to amaze me.

A freezing cold Monday night, a screening with only five people in it, and still people insist on eating snacks that sound like they're eating gravel.

And why only five? It's cold, I get it. But rather than staying in watching crap on the telly, or a DVD that you could watch anytime, or going to a soulless multiplex, why not hit an independent cinema and see something slightly different? It might even be brilliant.

The trailer - the ones on YouTube have French subtitles. Go figure

I know it's a distribution issue as much as anything, but if people voted with their feet maybe films like Broken would reach a much wider audience. Not that I'm against watching films in empty cinemas, you understand. Quite the opposite. It makes for quite the heightened experience. Popcorn crunching aside.

And what an experience Broken is.

I think I experienced every emotion available while ensconced in my comfy chair at Sheffield's Showroom. I was gripped, transfixed, mesmerised.

I think it was Mark Kermode who said recently (and I have a feeling he was quoting someone else, probably Roger Ebert) that occasionally, as a critic, it's nice just to let a film wash over you. To experience it without picking it apart. So it was with Broken.

And the beautiful bit was that I never planned it. I sat, I watched, and from the opening frames I was transfixed. And I still am now.

Sitting here, typing away, a sleeping dog turning the air green, Richard Parker out chasing snowflakes, I'm burbling away because I don't really know where to begin. In a good way.

I could tell you what it's about - but that's a tough one, because there's a lot going on - and I want to talk about the ending. But I can't. I could tell you what it's about (three families on a small cul-de-sac and their interweaving lives) but that really doesn't do it justice. It's been described elsewhere as a 'coming of age drama', but that's bollocks - it's not that twee or saccharine.

IMDB says it's the story of a young girl in North London whose life changes after witnessing a violent attack. And it kind of is, only her life doesn't change. The victim's life does, sure, and his family's, but Skunk's life is changing as she grows up. Nothing she experiences is hinged on that one event. It's an event that happens and life goes on. As life does.

So let's start with the film's star. And it's not Tim Roth, Cillian Murphy or Rory Kinnear (although they are all brilliant). No.

It's Eloise Laurence.

She's making her debut - not just in films, but in anything - and yet she brings to the screen a performance of such depth and maturity that two-thirds of the world's actresses should seriously think about jacking it in. If she's this good now, Christ knows where she'll end up as she grows.

She's playing Skunk. A teenager with diabetes whose mum walked out on the family for an accountant. She's got an essentially optimistic outlook, is happy to speak to the young man (Rick, played by Robert Emms) across the way who is clearly a bit slower than the norm, loves her dad, deals with her illness in a mature way and annoys her brother.

All of which is delivered in an amazingly believable portrayal.

Then real life starts getting in the way.

She sees Rick getting beaten up after lies are told, she has to prepare for life as a first year at secondary school (what is that in new money? Year 7? Year 8? Wasn't like that in my day...) with all the rumours and scaremongering that comes with it. She gets bullied. She falls in love. She gets her heart broken. She rails against injustice. And you remain transfixed.

This kid can seriously deliver.

Obviously a lot of credit has to go to acclaimed stage director Rufus Norris, himself making a debut of his own, having switched to film from the theatre. That he has drawn such a powerful - yet wonderfully measured - performance from such a young actress is a wonder to behold.

But his skills don't stop there.

From the aforementioned 'stars' he draws equally top-drawer roles. Kinnear is loathsome as the father with control and anger issues striving to protect his family after his wife has died; Roth hasn't been this good in a while (and it puts his Arbitrage performance to shame); Murphy is wonderfully subtle, delivering on many levels without overpowering the scenes.

If I'm gushing, tough. Go with it. Broken IS this good.

But Norris shows his skills in other areas too. The time line is not linear. We often see the result before we see the action. But it is handled so effortlessly, so naturally, that it makes total sense. And he's at it from the off. There's no bedding in here, it's lights on and here we go - and maybe that's why it works so well. With no time to wonder what he's doing, you can relax, go with it and just revel in what he has achieved.

You can not fail to empathise with this film. You find yourself recalling your own schooldays, the rumours that circulated, the bullying, the kids who dealt with serious illness with dignity and no fuss. But it's not just about the children.

What Broken shows you is that life doesn't get any easier. Just because you've survived growing up, shit still happens and has to be faced. And serious shit at that. Which brings me to another great touch.

If I'm making Broken sound grim and hard going, it's not. There are comic touches here that provide perfectly-timed levity, welcomes grins as the shit - literally - hits the window. In some places you know the bad is coming because you've been given the sugar cube first, sure, but when it's done this well - and the bad is never predictable - who cares? It works.

It's a measure of just how good the film is, that by the end, after all the drama and tragedy and torment, you still don't know which way Norris is going to take you. You hope, sure, you hope like hell that he turns right. But you know that if he turns left down the other road, you'll be OK with that too. That would be just as breathtaking a conclusion.

And when was the last time you could say that about a film?

Oh, and she can sing too...
  

Robot And Frank (12A)

Hollywood is as predictable as a politician - they spot a trend and chase it as hard and fast as they can in a bid to milk more cash out of the general population. The difference is that, occasionally, Hollywood gets it right.

While the bean counters in Tinseltown have spotted the population is ageing, they've also worked out that the old folks have the money.

The answer?

Old folks must want films about old folks. Obviously.

Now, granted this has seen geriatric action heroes taking to the screens (Stallone and Schwarzenegger, hang your ravaged turkey-necks in shame), and old people run hotels or take up singing, it has also given us films such as Amour - a foreign language flick so universally loved and lauded that it actually broke into the mainstream award categories.

And it's given us Robot And Frank. For which we should be supremely grateful.

Set in "the near future", on the surface it's a film about care and the family. With Frank's marbles slowly starting to not bounce (brilliantly captured by Frank Langella), the wife long gone and the children busy with their own lives, it's decided that he needs a robot to help take care of him.

What the film is really about is love and friendship. And while many a film has been happy for that to be it, in Robot And Frank, the telling of the tale and the development of the characters makes it somehow more than that.

We meet Frank - a famed burglar who has done two prison stretches - as he sets about his latest raid. He may be old, but he's calm, he's stealthy, he's adept, he's burgling his own house... And it's here that the often tricky subject of Alzheimer's is broached. Now, traditionally there are two ways you deal with this subject (or any serious illness that people can be afraid of facing) - you either laugh at it, or you tug at the heart-strings until they come away in your hand.

Robot And Frank tread the rarely used third path.

We see the condition from the victim's perspective (mostly denying it, sometimes realising what's wrong), the family's perspective (trying to deal with it, but not knowing quite what to do as the transition from child to carer arrives), and the carer's perspective.

In this case, the carer is Robot. And it's here that the film gets it just right.

Between them, first-time director Jake Schreir and writer Christopher D Ford have created a bunch of diodes and plastic to rival Wall-E, Johnny 5 or C3PO. There's a warmth in the wires, a charm in the circuits that allows Frank to slowly bond with him over time - to the point they are able to start planning more heists.

Well, it's good mental exercise. Robot knows this.

It would have been easy for the film to somehow have become overshadowed by Robot, but such is the measured subtlety and depth of Langella's performance that never happens. At times frightened by a world he no longer understands, puzzled and scared by what he doesn't remember, at times devious, cunning and deceitful, Langella never allows the audience to do anything but care for what Frank is going through.

When he's arguing with his son (ably played by James Marsden) about not wanting the robot, you're on his side. When he's arguing with his daughter (Liv Tyler channelling her inner-hippy) about wanting the robot, you're on his side. Even though you know why he's doing it.

It is a performance that, in lesser hands, could have been clunky and cumbersome, but in Langella's is near-perfect.

The only other cast member of note is Susan Sarandon (time it right and you could see her in three films in one day right now), who as the librarian being windswept by advancing technology, and only other human Frank really talks to, is... well... 

Look, I like her. She's in some of my favourite films of all time. She's an assured screen presence. But not here. Now, the downbeat tone of the film (it's going to get called quirky a lot, I warn you) means she's not going to come in stealing the show. It's not her job to stamp her appearance on the screen. I get that. It just feels like she hasn't really got a handle on the role. Like she doesn't know how much to show. That's not to say she's bad, she's just doesn't quite gel with the rest of the film.

But that's the only real negative.

Langella and Robot steal this from everyone, but let's give full credit to Schreir here. Helming his first full-length feature, he could have gone for a more straightforward tale, but to his credit he steers the ship smoothly. There are light comic touches, there are heartwarming scenes, there's tense drama - he tackles the lot with aplomb.

If one was being picky (and hey, that's my job), it could be pointed out that a couple of the peripheral characters are not well-rounded enough to fulfil the bigger roles they are moved in to, and there are some inconsistencies in the storyline - but, really, at the end, I didn't care.

On the face of it, an old man and his robotic butler/carer shouldn't move you, shouldn't engage you this much - in the same way that, at first glance, a gawky kid trying to make it in a beauty pageant shouldn't wrap its arms around the world the way Little Miss Sunshine did.

But Robot And Frank does.

It's tender, it's heartwarming, it's delightfully odd, but the relationship carries you along in a warm blanket without smothering you with smushyness.

Unfortunately, in the screening I was in, the air conditioning must have been mucking about because at the end I seemed to have something in my eye...

19th Bradford International Film Festival

You know it's early when even the cat is wondering what you're doing up.

And so it was this morning that, a bleary Richard Parker peering at a grey, damp world from the safety and warmth of the office window, we set off to the great city of Bradford for the grand unveiling of this year's international film festival.

Have you ever tried to get into Bradford for 9am? Don't. It takes forever. Especially when a bus breaks down and no one seems able to spot the high-level flashing hazard lights until they're right behind the damn thing thus forcing themselves to have to just pull out into the other lane.

Idiots.

On the upside, you get a great cup of tea at the National Media Museum. And a bacon sarnie. So it's worth it.

It's also worth it as we were being introduced to the delights that await those coming to this, the 19th Bradford International Film Festival, in partnership with Virgin Media and being held in the first UNESCO City Of Film (you haven't seen the signs plastered all over the city? No, me neither...).

And what a cracker it promises to be.

Grabbing the headlines are the two big films that will be bookending the extravaganza - the festival opens with The Look Of Love and closes with The Reluctant Fundamentalist, both of which look cracking.

TLOL, as it shall become known by the lazy typists among us, tells the story of Paul Raymond - England's answer to Hugh Heffner. Played by Steve Coogan and directed by Michael Winterbottom - and also starring Anna Friel - it promises to be a no-holds-barred look at the ups and downs of life as a premier pornographer, a promoter par excellence and a family torn apart by wine, women and, well, more women. And champagne.

Early word from Sundance has this up there with 24-Hour Party People. It's gonna be a belter.

All of which is a far cry from The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Based on the Booker-shortlisted best seller, TRF (laziness rules) looks at one man's changing view of the world post 9/11 as he questions his privileged Wall Street position given what is happening back in his home country of Pakistan.

Starring Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland (who seems to be struggling to escape the shadow of Jack Bauer) and the excellent Riz Ahmed (he of Four Lions fame), the clips we've seen suggest this is also going to be something special.

Light on laughs, sure, but tense and edgy as a tense and edgy thing being particularly tense and edgy.

In between these two, there is a whole raft of filmic loveliness. A preview screening of Joss Whedon's take on Much Ado About Nothing is on the cards, there's a celebration of 100 years of Bollywood (including a screening of the few scenes remaining from the first ever flick to come out of Mumbai), a whole Widescreen weekend celebrating 60 years of CinemaScope (featuring a 35mm print of How To Marry A Millionaire, and a 70mm print of The Longest Day. I'm getting giddy just typing that), Bradford After Dark III (a host of horror fun, including Rob Zombie's The Lords Of Salem) and live fun and games with comedian Aidan Goatley and the glorious Dodge Brothers playing along to silent classic The Ghost That Never Returns.

And that's still not everything.

There's stuff going on all over the city, with screenings in the cathedral and City Park (go, enjoy the fountains, soak in the family atmosphere, try not to think what else £25m could have been spent on in these austere times...), workshops, and a special honour for acting legend Sir Tom Courtenay.

For the full list of what's on when and how to get tickets, pop over here: www.bradfordfilmfestival.org.uk

Bradford sometimes struggles to come out from the shadow of Leeds, but with this festival the city really puts itself on the map.

Popcorn at the ready, we're starting the queue...

Arbitrage (15)

This film had become something of a holy grail - every time I tried to see it, something got in the way, and with every obstacle the film took on greater importance.

Phone calls, traffic jams, Richard Parker's giant furball - it seemed the universe was testing me, teasing me, dangling Richard Gere in front of me like a carrot only for it to be snatched away by some berk suddenly deciding to look underneath a motorway bridge.

And with every challenge, I doubted if the film would live up to my ever-increasing expectations.

With every failed bid, Arbitrage became an even better film that I HAD to see.

A few more foul-ups, it'd have been up there with Citizen Kane before I'd even sat down. So, was it worth the wait? Did it live up to expectations?

Well, yes.

And no.

On the one hand, it's a brilliant thriller in which Richard Gere glides through effortlessly, making every scene about him and forcing you to like him while hating what his character is actually up to.

On the other, it's a cop flick where Tim Roth gets to pretend to be either Pacino or De Niro fighting against a system designed to save the rich guy - and stopping at nothing to get the guy who stops at nothing to get what he wants.

But I still loved it.

We've had a lot of films about the financial crisis since Wall Street spent all our money and then asked for a loan (Margin Call perhaps the best of the bunch), but this isn't a financial film even though it is set in that world.

What we have is a film about a man called Robert Miller. A man unaccustomed to failure, a man who doesn't understand it when things go wrong. And gone wrong they just have.

A business deal is unravelling fast, threatening to take down his company and with it his lifestyle, and he's just had a car crash in which he's killed his mistress.

And I thought I was having a bad day.

It's in the aftermath of the accident that the true nature of Miller is revealed - and in which Gere's brilliance is allowed to dance across the screen. You should hate Miller. You should be jealous of his life. You should be quietly glad that it's all going tits up - but you're not. You hate what he does to his wife (Susan Sarandon with another understated performance), you hate what he puts daughter Brooke (the wonderful Brit Marling) through, yet you can't help but root for him.

Even when he drags innocent people through his dirt, you hope he makes it through.

And this is what Gere does so well. You can tell when he's lying, you can tell when he's scared, but it's not flagged up with a full fanfare. His performance is so studiously measured you almost forget he's acting.

(A quick aside: I listened to Mark Kermode's review before seeing Arbitrage. Normally I try and watch the film first, but as we know things got in the way. As a result I became a bit fixated on Gere's blinking. Mark's not wrong...).

Gere is helped through his moral maze by people who understand his world and help it run smoothly. No one judges him. Details are met head on and problems are fixed as if they were nothing more than a dripping tap. And still you don't hate the guy.

By contrast, we have Roth. Now, I've been a fan of his since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I think he is a great screen presence.  Just not here.

That's not to say he's bad - he isn't. He just seems to be playing a caricature. Perhaps too many years cruising through Lie To Me are starting to take its toll. Which is a shame.

Because there's a comparison to be had between Miller and Roth's cop, Detective Michael Bryer. Both play by their own rules, and both are happy to do what ever it takes to get the result they need. Neither judges themselves by anyone's standards but their own.

Sadly, not enough is made of this, as Roth's character is operating in a different film - the gritty(ish) New York Cop flick, rather than the slick thriller Gere is orchestrating. It's to Gere's credit that Roth's performance is so willingly tolerated here (that's not to say it's bad, it's not. It just seems at odds with the rest of the movie).

Overall, Arbitrage was worth the wait. It's tense, fast-paced and gripping. Gere is on top form and the whole film just orbits around him wonderfully.

First time director Nicholas Jarecki may, at times, lose a bit of focus on what he's trying to achieve, but hell - if this is his starting point he's got one hell of a career ahead of him.

Now I'd better clear up that furball... 

Stoker (18)

"Yay!" yelled Erica the work experience girl on hearing I was off to see Stoker.

"A film about the bloke who wrote Dracula - that should be cool!"

It may be, love, but that's not this. It's not even close. Carry on with the filing...

What Stoker is, in fact, is a chilling, suspense-filled, lush, beautiful, wonderful film that would have Hitchcock nodding in approval. If not applauding.

The story is deceptively simple - Richard Stoker has died on daughter India's 18th birthday. At the funeral, his brother Charlie appears, rocking the already upside-down world of India and her mother Evelyn. From here on in, all bets are off.

We know nothing of Charlie, little of Evelyn and nothing of Richard - leaving just the story to reveal the dark desires and twisted secrets of the adults in India's world. Of India, all we know is she has super-sensitive hearing.

And that's it.

What unfolds is dark, sinister, creepy, erotic, funny, creepy and brilliantly disturbed. And creepy.
As India, Mia Wasikowska steals the show - and rightly so. The story is told from her perspective, it's through her we see events unfold and the bodies pile up, and it's with her we come to realise what drives her burgeoning sexual desires.

It's a complex part to play, but Mia envelopes the many facets beautifully - capturing the sexual awakenings of a shy girl who is learning who and what she is to become. It's a measure of Mia's performance that you are on board from the off, never judging, always sympathising.

Opposite her is Matthew Goode, whose portrayal of Uncle Charlie should have him in the Thriller Hall Of Fame by the end of the week. Assuming there is one.

If there isn't, build one. He deserves it.

Having seen him just last week as the smooth-talking Stanley in Stephen Poliakoff's excellent Dancing On The Edge, his appearance here may perhaps have some added punch - but even if you didn't catch the BBC drama, you can't help but be spellbound by his sinister, calm, cold charm.

But this isn't just one couple going at it, oh no - it's a menage a trois, and Nicole Kidman isn't just sitting on the edge of the bed wondering where her night went wrong. As Evelyn, she perfectly captures the brittle fragility of a woman who's just lost everything only for the family secret to waltz through the door. Add this to her role in The Paperboy and Nicole has certainly started the year in style.

Essentially, the film feels like an erotic ballet - perfectly choreographed acts that build to a climax before subsiding ready for the next wave. The fact this is a glowing positive (when it could so easily have come across as stilted and crass) is down entirely to director Chan-wook Park, he of Oldboy fame.

A lot has been made of the fact this is his first English-language film, but frankly while it may be true it's irrelevant.

While Park (or Director Park as he is being referred to in interviews) may not speak English, he is fluent in the language of cinema, and he knows how to seduce an audience. From the outset, Stoker looks stylish - and the darker the film gets, the more lush and vibrant the film becomes.

Fans of Film 2013 will have already heard about the glorious hair-brushing scene, and rightly so, but there are other moments that equally grab you - India going through the cellar, India and Whip (the again excellent Alden Ehrenreich) running off through the moonlit woods, the art class, anything to do with the spiders, anything to do with the shoes....

The list is pretty lengthy.

However, it's not people that are the true stars of this film.

Yes, it's brilliantly directed. Yes, it's flawlessly acted. But it's the sound that's amazing. And in Stoker, that's vital.

As mentioned at the start, we're told from the off that India has exquisite hearing - and while this is a handy plot device, allowing her to hear things she shouldn't, and a great dramatic tool that adds to the suspense, what it also does is allow the sound of the film to almost become a character itself.

Throughout, everything is turned up just that little bit, so you notice them that little bit more. Cars going past, doors closing, spiders walking across floors, necks breaking (I have never squirmed, marvelled and delighted so much in a single cinematic moment ever), all have an added edge that just completes the picture, fuels the drama.

And when India is crushing egg shells, oh man...

It's funny how you rarely really notice sounds in films. They're there, they work, but unless someone fucks up you don't tend to think 'oh well done'. But you do in Stoker.

A lot.

Now, I'll admit, this film isn't for everyone.

If things going bang while people run about is your thing - and why not? - then GI Joe will be along shortly.

If however, you love wallowing in perfectly-paced, beautifully shot moving pictures that make you think as well as creeping you out, if erotic fear is your bag, you're going to just fall in love with this.

The highest praise I can give this film is that there were two people sitting near me who were eating the noisiest popcorn ever made, from a bubble-wrap paper bag I think, while chatting and kicking seats in the row in front of them (and, by default, my seat), and I was so swept up and lost in the film that I stopped noticing.

It was that good.

And just to be clear again - it has nothing to do with vampires.