FEATURE: The Movie Bash Awards of 2015!

So. 2015, eh? What a year. Or was it? I never really like doing that thing of trying to sum up a year's trends neatly, with a bow on top, because inevitably it'll always be riddled with contradictions. For instance, you could say that 2015 was the year of flops, bad bets on people's money that didn't, ahem, Pan out. There were a few pretty good films that didn't deserve to flop, of course, like Crimson Peak and Steve Jobs, but most of them sucked - Rock the Kasbah, Fantastic Four, American Ultra, Mortdecai, to name but a few. But then Jurassic World, Spectre and Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke box-office records and made a fuckton of money, showing that, nope, Hollywood ain't dead yet. And I'll be damned if one of the best films this year wasn't just a summer blockbuster, but a part of a franchise: I'm talking about Mad Max: Fury Road, which I LOVED, even if I didn't get around to reviewing it.

There were some great documentaries, there were some great independent films, and there were some truly wonderful works of animation. But were there any real trends? I suppose one of the big ones was the advent of the digital: Netflix bucked the trend this year by releasing Beasts of No Nation on VOD and in cinemas concurrently, much to the outcry of greedy bastards everywhere - the biggest surprise being that it was actually good - and Spike Lee plans to release his latest, Chi-Raq, on Amazon Video. And Tangerine showed that you could have a budget that would barely cover a weekly shop at Morrisons and still make a good film.

Of course, Netflix has also signed a deal with Adam Sandler, just in case you were getting too optimistic about the future of cinema. But there's still a lot to be hopeful for. One of the undeniably noticeable trends of the year was to do with representation, namely that of women, both in front of and behind the camera. Yeah, most big name female auteurs were in-between projects, but the emerging evidence of wage discrepancies between genders at least led to a debate, even if not much was really solved. It was also reflected in some of the year's finest films, particularly Carol - which also, coincidentally, featured the least patronising depiction of a female-female relationship I've ever seen. Still, in general, film is lagging behind ground-breaking works of television like Transparent, Orange is the New Black, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and even the surprisingly good Jessica Jones, in terms of getting to grips with gender- and sexuality-based issues.

So, in light of this mess, I will conclude with this: 2015 was a year. A year in which films were released. And I have decided to hand out some arbitrary awards to some of those films. Enjoy.

FILM OF THE YEAR

Nominees:
Amy
Carol
Inherent Vice
The Lobster
The Look of Silence
Mad Max: Fury Road
Song of the Sea
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
Whiplash
World of Tomorrow

AND THE WINNER IS...

TIE: Carol and Mad Max: Fury Road.

A.k.a. Mad Carol: Quietly Repressed Sadness Road. Two amazing films that could not be more different - their only point of comparison being that they involve people who occasionally drive cars - but that, in their own way, sum up the best the year had to offer. They were both films whose action was equally thrilling, in spite of the fact that one was a violent car-chase extravaganza and the other a dignified period piece - perhaps because both treated their (mostly female) characters with sincerity and respect, and because their vivid cinematic landscapes were both brought to life by filmmakers and actors at the top of their game. In short, both Carol and Mad Max: Fury Road were pure cinema, and easily my favourite films of 2015.

But hey, don't take just my word for it! Here are some of the most enthusiastic reviews from each film's comment section on Metacritic.com:

Carol

Jemski: "The acting was fine but not outstanding but for me it was a long string of pauses joined together with silence with the odd disjointed sentence."

what2c: "Please, people, this is a snooze of epic proportions ... If you go, you'll be whispering to bae let's go get a drink about 50 minutes in. What Kool-Aid are these critics drinking?"

leaveit: "If the characters were hetero then this film would not have half the score."


Mad Max: Fury Road

TobyMan: "It felt weird, I don't know if the movie is supposed to make you feel weird but yeah It made me feel weird. I was sitting eating my popcorn looking around because I didn't understand a single thing, I usually love action movies but this is weird."

Criviewer: "I'm not a rock fan, so the constant heavy metal was just disgusting."

Clutcher: "If you dress up a monkey in fancy clothes. in the end it is still a monkey."



BEST DIRECTOR

Nominees:
Ana Lily Amirpour for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
David Robert Mitchell for It Follows
George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road
Steven "Done-Done-It-Again-Y'All" Spielberg for Bridge of Spies
Todd Haynes for Carol
Yorgos Lanthimos for The Lobster

AND THE WINNER IS...

Todd Haynes for Carol. Whoops, wrong photo...

There we go. Look at that magnificent face. Doesn't it just scream "Compassionate Purveyor of the Impossible to Categorise Elements of Sexuality and Gender through Entirely Wonderful Works of Cinema that Capture the Human Soul at its Most Exposed"? It does to me.


BEST ACTRESS

Nominees:
Cate Blanchett in Carol
Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road
Emily Blunt in Sicario
Greta Gerwig in Mistress America

Karidja Touré in Girlhood
Nina Hoss in Phoenix
Rooney Mara in Carol

AND THE WINNER IS...

Rooney Mara, a.k.a. "Rooney Tunes", in Carol.

Good year for leading female roles, eh? Anyway, I know it's not really fair to nominate two actress for the same film. But when Rooney Mara inevitably gets nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, I want everyone to know what complete bullshit it is. The entire point of Carol is that the two main characters are equals, who might fluctuate in the balance for power and control in the course of their relationship, but ultimately land in a place of mutual respect and love. Cate Blanchett's been on all the best posters and production stills - and I'd like to qualify that she is bloody wonderful, even if we don't need a reminder every five minutes. But in terms of growth, in terms of doing something new and original and exciting, it's Rooney Mara who's won me over as - quite frankly - the best performance of 2015.

Alright, I'll shut up about Carol now.


THE NICOLAS CAGE AWARD FOR BEST ACTOR

Nominees:
Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation
Fat Colin Farrell in The Lobster
Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice
Johannes Kuhnke in Force Majeure
Michael Fassbender in Every Bloody Film Ever Advertised on the Side of a Bus
Shia LaBeouf in #ALLMYMOVIES
Tom Hiddleston in Crimson Peak

AND THE WINNER IS...

Colin "Schlubby and Tubby" Farrell in The Lobster.

Seriously, everyone always talks about when an actor slims down for a role, or when they put on loads of muscle. But what about when an actor gets really fat? Any old Matthew McConaughey or Christian Bale can look like Skeletor one minute and Johnny Bravo the next, but it takes a really talented actor to commit to looking like a completely pathetic sack of shit for a film, just to maximize laughs and pathos. And Fat Colin Farrell is genuinely the funniest thing I've seen all year. He's funny when he's being dry-humped by the hotel maid. He's funny when he kicks a child. Hell, he's even funny when he's just sitting by a pool, his belly obscuring our view of his crotch. His performance makes me forget he was once in Alexander, and shows that real weight matters just as much as dramatic weight. Sorry, Jonah Hill.

THE NICOLAS CAGE AWARD FOR WORST ACTOR

Nominees:
Chris "Mumbly Muscle Man Who is Also a Hacker" Hemsworth in Blackhat
Kevin "Has He Ever Actually Been Funny?" James in Paul Blaaarght: Mall Cop 2
Liam "Schindler's Pissed" Neeson in Tak-three-n
Schmadam "Yes I'm Re-Using This Gag" Blandler in The Ridiculous 6

AND THE WINNER/LOSER IS...

Sandler, Sandler, a million times Sandler.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Nominees:
Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina

Daisy Ridley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria
Marion Cotillard in Macbeth
Olivia Coleman in The Lobster
Viola Davis in Blackhat

AND THE WINNER IS...

Marion Cotillard in Macbeth.

Having previously considered her as "that annoying French woman who ruins Christopher Nolan films", I really had to re-evaluate my opinion of Cotillard after Macbeth. A few issues I had with Justin Kurzel's adaptation aside (namely some slow-mo battle scenes that wouldn't have been out of place in a 30 Seconds to Mars music video), her portrayal of Lady Macbeth as a foreign bride suffering from the loss of a child was original and wholly captivating - even outshining Michael Fassbender, who spent a bit too much time talking to his beard. Now if only Juliette Binoche would play Cleopatra or something, all might be right with the world.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Nominees:
Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation
J.K. Simmons in Whiplash
Josh Brolin in Inherent Vice
Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies
Ricardo Darín in Wild Tales
Sam Elliott in Grandma

AND THE WINNER IS...

Idris Elba in Beasts of No Nation.

While I didn't really enjoy BONN, per se, I thought it was very good - and both Elba and Abraham Attah (nominated for Best Actor but went home empty-handed, sorry Abraham) were the best things about it, giving us something to hold on to while we watched women and children hacked to bits with machetes. In fact, I think it might be the second-best performance Elba's ever given, behind only Stringer Bell in The Wire. The way he says "commandant" in his South African accent is enough to win him the prize, but there's a great moment where he does a scary Haka-like dance to pump his soldiers up for a fight. Plus, he's the only bloke on my list from Laaandan, which is nice.


BEST SUPPORTING DOG

Nominees:
"Bitzer" in Shaun the Sheep [: The] Movie
Carlos the Crime-Fighting Dog with PTSD (really) in Max
Channing Tatum in Jupiter Ascending
The Entire Cast of White God

AND THE TOP DOG IS...

The Entire Cast of White God.

Apocalypse Bow-Wow, indeed.

NOTE: "Bitzer" in Shaun the Sheep Movie has recently been disqualified, due to the fact that a) the dog is made of plasticine, and b) his actor, "John Sparkes", only gives a voice performance. And is clearly not a real dog.

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Nominees:
Inside Out
Song of the Sea
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
World of Tomorrow

AND THE WINNER IS...

World of Tomorrow.

An amazing year for animation around the world, even if a lot of it didn't technically come out this year. Pixar roared back onto form with Inside Out, whose carefully arranged world of mind-based contraptions was one of the most imaginative I've seen in years; Studio Ghibli's Isao Takahata went out on a bittersweet, brilliant note with The Tale of Princess Kaguya; and proud Irishman Tomm Moore atoned for the fact that his debut, The Secret of Kells, looked great but had a crap story, with Song of the Sea, which looked great and had a wonderful story.

But my favourite of the bunch managed to squeeze more imagination and innovation into its 17 minute (17 MINUTE!) running time than 90% of the films released this year combined. World of Tomorrow was a career-high bit of work from Don Hertzfeldt, who I've been banging on about for ages but who still isn't a household name. He bloody well should be: in spite of the fact that you can only watch the film via rental on Vimeo, it's cinematic as anything, a tour de force of childlike imagination and wonder that says some really powerful stuff about the future while still retaining a wickedly absurd sense of humour. I loved it, and I'm sure you'll love it, too, if you give it a chance. And shell out £2.99. Hey, I never said love was free.


BEST ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS ON A PAGE (A.K.A. BEST SCREENPLAY)

Nominees:
The Coen Bros™ for Bridge of Spies
Noah Baumbach for Mistress America
Paul Thomas Anderson (and Thomas Pynchon) for Inherent Vice
Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley for Inside Out
Phyllis Nagy for Carol
Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou for The Lobster

AND THE WINNER IS...

The Lobster.

I haven't really explained why I think The Lobster is so fantastic - having missed the initial reviewing window back when it first came out - but I genuinely think it's the most original film of the year, both in its conceit and its jet-black-funny execution. A hotel for singletons who must find a mate within 40 days or be turned into an animal? Brilliant. Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw, and Olivia Coleman all turning in career-best comedic performances? Even better. And this is before we've even gotten to the strand of sadness and profundity running throughout the entire thing - showing us the struggle for meaningful connection in the age of Tinder, stripping back mating rituals to their deepest, most humiliating nature . Yeah, the first half in the hotel is better than the second half in the woods; but who cares when the material is this good?


LEAST BORING DOCUMENTARY

Nominees:
Amy
Beyond Clueless
Going Clear
The Look of Silence

AND THE WINNER IS...

The Look of Silence.

It's been a good year for documentaries - so good, in fact, I still haven't got around to seeing half of them. But it's hard to see how anything could top two particular films, ranking at #3 and #6 in my favourite films in the year. I was really tempted to give this award to Amy - not only did Asif Kapadia's confident collage of data and memory say some pertinent things about the nature of celebrity, but it was impossibly moving, making me cry like a little bitch at least three times. But I think it was Joshua Oppenheimer's superior follow-up to The Act of Killing that really feels like one for the history books. Subtle, anger-inducing, and filled with some insanely memorable moments - the most striking of which involving a deaf-blind old man writhing on the floor - it really might be one of the best documentaries ever made.


LINE OF THE YEAR

Nominees:

Stinger Apini (Sean Bean) in philosophically mature Jupiter Ascending.

Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith) in conflict-free humparama Magic Mike XXL.

Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) in pseudo buddy-comedy Whiplash.

Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) in verbose stageplay Steve Jobs.

AND THE WINNER IS...

MOST DISTRACTING THING

Nominees:
Joaquin Phoenix's sideburns in Inherent Vice
The dazzling glare of J.K. Simmons' bald head in Whiplash
Oscar Isaac's spectacular dance moves in Ex Machina
Joésèph Górdôn-Bleu Lévitt's accent in The Walk
Steve Carell's stupid face in Foxcatcher

AND THE WINNER IS...

REVIEW: The Ridiculous 6

The Ridiculous 6 is the latest Schmadam Blandler joint, and it's every bit as vacuous, misogynistic, racist, and downright unfunny as you'd expect from its premise. It's a mock-Western of sorts, and Sandler plays a white guy raised by Native Americans (whose names, cultures, and personalities are tackled with an insensitivity that would make Buffalo Bill blush). He recruits a wacky band of misfits when his father (Nick Nolte) is kidnapped by, well, Mexicans, or something. Turns out all the misfits are, in fact, Sandler's brothers, so they form a loose bond as they travel from town to town, robbing banks and...oh, what's the point. Either you can predict what happens, or you don't care.

I don't really understand Sandler. He's like the Steven Seagal of comedy, a mess of ego and smug pretentiousness that actively undermines any sense of worth from his work by outright refusing to do anything that might paint him in a bad light. What is at all funny about a guy with supernatural combat abilities, with a beautiful, cardboard cut-out of a wife, and a complete lack of any tangible flaws whatsoever? Some talented people try their best to at least raise a half-smile - Steve Buscemi, Terry Crews, John Turturro, even Harvey Keitel - but all are roped into furthering Sandler's agenda to become the biggest cunt on the planet, and none of them are given any real jokes. Aside, of course, from taking the Your Highness approach to comedy, where people in period costume talk like they're from Baltimore. Oh, can you imagine the hilarity? Watching a film like this in a crowded cinema at least conveys a sense of mutual suffering, if not laughs. But watching the film on Netflix, on your own, in silence, sees the film die a painful, protracted, twitching death. Not good.

★

REVIEW: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

There's something rather liberating about reviewing the new Star Wars. Considering how quickly the pre-sale tickets sold out, and considering the vast amount of money Disney have spent on a gargantuan marketing campaign - where everything from posters to trailers to lunchboxes with Darth Whatshisname's face on it seem geared to turning everyone into raving, hyped-up fanboy - there's an absolute guarantee that nothing I write on this blog will affect any decisions about people going to see it. I mean, it's not like it would anyway (hi Mum), but still - the only way this film could not make a record breaking amount of money is if J.J. Abrams decided to digitally replace every character on-screen with an excrement-covered Jar Jar Binks doing the Macarena, and even then the hardcore nerds would probably watch it at least five times.

I've never even been a huge Star Wars fan. True, when I was five, I wore out my VHS of The Phantom Menace, because I kept on fast-forwarding past the bollocks about trade sanctions to the cool lightsaber battle with Darth Maul, whose hair I imitated in the bath with liberal amounts of shampoo. I watched the originals quite a bit, too, but eventually - aside from keeping a LEGO Darth Vader keyring - grew out them.

Thing is, I figured this actually put me in quite a nice position to actually review the film based on its own merits, rather than post a messy splurge of nostalgia-inflected nonsense. I went into the film quite prepared to dislike it - though, of course, secretly hoping it would knock my socks off.

And the result? Well, rest easy, people. It's pretty fucking good.

In fact, I'd say it's pretty fucking great. The original Star Wars was simply designed as a Western and Kurosawa-inspired knockabout into the furthest reaches of the galaxy, a fun action film that actually gave a shit about its characters and the world they inhabited. The dialogue wasn't great, the special effects sometimes a bit cheap, but it had heart, dammit, and that was enough to transform it into the hulking franchise monster that it came to be.

And while Star Wars: The Force Awakens has to contend with this legacy - having to satiate both its passionate (read: insane) fanbase and the casual audience member - it seldom lets this get in the way of what is, essentially, a terrifically fun knockabout into the furthest reaches of the galaxy: this time, with great dialogue and great special effects, but also a talented cast, both old and new, a canny and incisive sense of humour, and, of course, a whole lotta heart.

The film kicks off, in its opening crawl, by telling us what's gone down since all that ugly business with Death Stars and incest and Ewoks and the like. Luke Skywalker's gone missing, and a bunch of bad guys named The New Order have sprung up from the ashes of the old Empire, who are on his trail. Fighting against them are the Rebels, led by Princess General Leia (no-one seems to have bothered to learn her first name), who are also looking for Luke...I think. Well, they have a map. Or part of a map. I'm not sure how they got it - I just remember Max von Sydow's Lor San Tekka (ugh) being very serious as he handed it to Oscar Isaac's supremely attractive Poe Dameron at the start. Soon, some serious shit goes down as the baddies invade, with a masked bloke named Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) giving us the dodgiest vibes. He gets rid of Tekka and takes Dameron hostage - but fortunately, a ball-shaped robot (named BB8M84LYFE or something) gets away with the cargo.

It's not long afterwards that we meet our new heroes. John Boyega plays Finn, a stormtrooper with a conscience, who helps Dameron escape from the Order's clutches, only to crash-land back on the desert planet they came from. The same planet, coincidentally, that houses Daisy Ridley's Rey - the real heroine of the piece. She's a scavenger, exchanging parts she finds in the ruins of old spaceships for food, and who seems to be waiting for something - or someone. Rey is surprised, however, when she finds herself accidentally adopting the ball-droid-thing, and when she runs into Finn all hell starts breaking loose. Both of them escape danger by hijacking a decrepit Millennium Falcon, and things really start to get moving when they run into everyone's favourite crusty scallywag, Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and his pet walking carpet, Chewbacca (probably a very sweaty Peter Mayhew).

I'll stop my dreadful recollection of the plot there. (See what happens when a review doesn't matter?) What I will say is that both John Boyega and Daisy Ridley are two of the best things can could possibly happen to this franchise. I've thought Boyega was destined for great things ever since his electrifying turn in Attack the Block, and he's superbly charismatic as the reluctant but kind-hearted hero, revealing a real knack for comedic timing. But Ridley's the real revelation: emerging from tiny roles in Silent Witness and Casualty, she gives a star-making performance of both confidence and vulnerability, that cuts through the special effects and requisite nostalgia indulgence to land a real emotional wallop. It's incredible that in something this huge in size, an unknown British actress would be allowed to play the starring role - with a British accent, no less. Though perhaps that's the point: Abrams wants to give us an underdog that immediately resonates. Whatever. I loved her.

I also loved the wrinkled resurgence of Han Solo and Princess General Leia, though perhaps my love for them was tested at times. I know that some fans treat the original films as seriously as the Bible, but when every other line is a reference or in-joke to some bollocks that happened thirty years ago, it becomes a little frustrating, and, complete with the reappearance of characters like fucking C-3PO, threatens to tip the film over into fan-fiction territory. However, there comes a point where that, um, ceases to be the case - where the film takes off and becomes its own, independent entity that restored my faith - so perhaps it's just me being a grumpy bugger.

Having said that - and it's really hard to talk about this without getting into spoilers - I'm not sure how much new stuff we're really seeing here. For every wonderful and original scene, there are a bunch of things just nabbed from other Star Wars films, given a visual update and a minor twist, then sent on their way. They even kept the Window Movie Maker-esque transitions. (Has a horizontal wipe ever actually looked good?) I realise that they're sort of references, or, as George Lucas might like to say, a bit of "rhyming poetry", but, I mean, there's an undeniable sense of déjà vu ingrained into the film's structure, that seems to work against its purpose as the spark of a brand-new franchise.

Again, whatever. It's still balls-to-the-wall fun, which successfully replicates the conditions that had us fall in love with the old films in the first place. I think what impressed me most wasn't the exciting action, but the real weirdness of the content. Seriously, Star Wars was such a weird film, with some of the gummiest aliens in existence and some really unusual bits of humour and plot development. Like this, Star Wars: The Force Awakens doesn't feel like a billion-dollar success story, it feels personal - unlike Star Trek, you get the sense that J.J. Abrams really gives a shit, and sets out to tell the best story he can. And it's a good 'un.

★★★★

REVIEW: Grandma

Grandma shouldn't really work. The plot is standard Sundance fare: a young girl (Julia Garner) needs an abortion, so instead of talking to her strict mother (Marcia Gay Harden) she seeks out her hippy lesbian grandma (Lily Tomlin), someone who's fierce and feminist and talented, but whose instincts, shaped by a lifetime of hurt, are to lash out at those close to her. They go on the road in search of money for an abortion, and in the process young learns about old, old learns about young, yada yada, you know the score. During its running time it goes through a veritable checklist of exhausted indie tropes: shots of light filtering through trees, a strummy guitar soundtrack, an overdone plot thread about a dead loved one and, to top it all off, some of the most pretentious chapter title cards I've ever encountered. Seriously, they're just nonsensical words like "dragonfly", "the ogre", "coffee", "toilet", "irritable bowel syndrome", that serve no narrative purpose whatsoever.

It could have all been terminally annoying. But it's not - the film just about works - and I think the chief reason why is, well, its star, Lily Tomlin. She's been working in the industry for over 40 years but that hasn't dimmed her senses at all: she's as sharp as a button, steely, unsentimental, and with a knack for turning the most banal dialogue into something entirely natural, imbued with wit, warmth, and genius comedic timing. It's a pleasure to watch her work, and it's great that a film has been constructed to have her in the starring role - something she hasn't been able to enjoy in a long time.

In fact, Grandma's chief pleasures come from watching its actors work to elevate the material they've been giving. It's a cornucopia of character actors given free-reign: Sam Elliott, typically cast in roles that exploit his sexy, sexy voice, impresses the most as an injured old flame, but Marcia Gay Harden convinces as a frustrating work-addict mother, and it's nice to see Judy Greer break out of the rut of empty maternal roles she's been stuck with for the past year. There's also something to be said for the healthy way it depicts sexuality and femininity - it's all treated as perfectly natural, and not in a preachy, Roland Emmerich kind of way, which seems to indicate that film might finally be catching up to its television counterparts. (Laverne Cox, primarily known for her role as Sophia on Orange is the New Black, also pops up here as a tattoo artist.)

Grandma ultimately emerges as a rather sweet (if slight) picture, one that, at moments, threatens to plunge into sentimentality, but never does, and that lambastes the lazy process by which Hollywood has frequently marginalised its actors into tired, clichéd roles. Instead, it tries to find their humanity - and this alone, I think, is enough to redeem its flaws.

★★★

REVIEW: Carol

A furtive glance. A distinctive perfume. The touch of a hand upon gloved fabric. A song playing on a car's radio that fades away the more you focus on the other person sitting in the driver's seat, the colour of their lips, the curve of their neck... These are the details that Todd Haynes focuses on in Carol, an utterly spellbinding adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's groundbreaking novel that actually evokes the experience of falling in love, with intoxicating, disorientating precision.

We begin by rising out of the gutter into 1950s Manhattan, a world of smoky streets, smart suits and muted green colour. It feels weird to begin a review by praising costumes and set design, but good grief, this has to be one of the most perfect evocations of the period ever committed to celluloid. Carol initially weaves its spell with detail, by giving us people that could have stumbled straight out of an Edward Hopper painting, and who talk and act like you'd imagine people in the 50s actually would. It's all the more effective when we meet our protagonists: we follow a man who goes over to a table in a restaurant, where two women, Therese (Rooney Mara) and Carol (Cate Blanchett), are having tea. He clearly interrupts something important: Carol rises to leave, but not before delicately placing her hand on Therese's shoulder.

The rest of the film then travels back in time to explore the enormous significance of that gesture. We see Therese, working at a toy department, spot Carol from across the room. She speaks with a masculine authority that shocks (and excites) the timid Therese, so when she leaves her glove behind and insists on them having lunch, it's hard to see it as anything else but the initiation of a relationship. Therese wastes no time in falling directly into a heady affair - visiting her house at Christmas, then embarking on a lengthy road trip across the country - but around the edges are constant threats to their happiness, namely Carol's jealous husband Harge (Kyle Chandler), who is trying to acquire sole custody of their daughter.

What's so remarkable about Therese and Carol's journey is that it quietly defies expectation at every turn. The two women don't kiss or have sex until (spoilers) at least an hour into the film, but we see their relationship change and adapt, intensify, through little more than subtle body language. This is largely thanks to the inarguably superb central performances that require little explanation: Blanchett and Mara match each other perfectly, using elements of their star image - Blanchett's regality, Mara's doe-eyed innocence - and building on it, subverting it, realising the heart-wrenching vulnerabilities of their characters with godlike grace all the way to their natural, mutually-respectful conclusion. But there's also a great script here: Phyllis Nagy (who was, coincidentally, a friend of Highsmith) paces out the story with great stretches of silence, where nothing - but, of course, everything - happens.

It shouldn't come as a surprise how much I love this film. Thus far, Todd Haynes has realised two masterpieces: 1995's Safe and 2002's exquisite Far From Heaven, both of which feature Julianne Moore doing career-best work. Of the two, I think it's Far From Heaven that can be seen as Carol's companion piece - while Haynes has done away with the imitation-Sirk aesthetic, they're both films about the incredible bravery of its central, feminist characters; and, of course, they're about the appalling hypocrisy of the period, lambasting those who find themselves perturbed by what they consider "different".

But the key difference in Carol is that there's more hope, not just for its characters but for its audience. Almost every frame of the film features at least one female character who happens to be a lesbian, but it never feels compelled to patronize, to explain their relationship through the norms of heterosexual film language. Their relationship just...is. Haynes and Nagy lay the foundations for a state of new normal, and if it takes (i.e. makes money) then, well, it should spell out great things for the future of film romance.

When it comes to investigating what makes Carol so special, you could quite easily break it down into its base elements: Edward Lachman's beautiful photography, the sad melodramatic touches of Ozu and Kazan, the fragile score by Carter Burwell. But, at the end of the day, I think my love for it is more irrational, as untidy and stomach-churning as the affair itself. Really, I can only say: what a film.

★★★★★

THE BOAR: The Joys of Watching Shia LaBeouf Watch Shia LaBeouf

In case you missed it, I recently wrote an article for The Boar about naff-actor-turned-artistic-weirdo Shia LaBeouf, and his recent stunt where he decided to watch all of his movies, back-to-back, in some cinema in New York. Quite funny stuff, especially when the internet decided to respond as only the internet knows how:

Until next time, folks.

REVIEW: Spectre

Where to start with Spectre? The James Bond films are on what seems to be their seventeenth resurgence into the world of cool - Casino Royale made us forget about Die Another Day, of course, whereas Skyfall did more than simply best Quantum of Solace - it was, for many without rose-tinted glasses, declared to be the best Bond ever. Not only was Sam Mendes' first effort beautifully shot, well-acted, and fantastically exciting, it also had a proper story, that gave Bond the most personality and depth he's had in years.

This presents a bit of a problem with the follow-up. It's the old sitcom problem - you're always having to reset to square one by the end of the day, ready for the next adventure, so how do you incorporate genuine character development while still finding time for explody-runny-gunny-action that will rake in the big bucks?

Bringing back Mendes is a good start. He's laid the foundations for a new era of Bond, so why not let him build on it? Daniel Craig, too, is at the very height of his powers in this role. Still retaining his originality intensity, whilst having recently picked up a dry sense of humour, his Bond has become one of the best: he commands the screen with a confidence that never spills over into cockiness, and the audience is quite prepared to follow him to the ends of the earth.

There's also the central theme of the film, made explicit in the opening title card: "The dead... are alive." Not literally, of course. That would be ridiculous. But, mostly through grainy photographs and videotapes, Spectre tells us that the presence of those we have lost, be they friend or foe, will echo in how we think and act for eternity, or at least until we lose the very capacity to retain memories.

Which means that the opening scene of the film involves an explosive chase through a Día de los Muertos festival. Hey, I never said it was Shakespeare. But the incredible 4-minute-long Touch of Evil-style opening shot kicks things off on an impressive note, and for a while it doesn't let up. While MI6 faces the threat of being swallowed up by a drone-happy multinational corporation, faced by a sneering Andrew Scott (whose name is "C", entendre intended), we once again see Bond go rogue, as he chases up on information regarding a mysterious organisation named "Spectre".

He enlists the help of his old pals; brainy Q (Ben Whishaw), flirty Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), the newly-christened M (Ralph Fiennes); he also encounters new faces, some well-utilised, some not so much. The former consists of Léa Seydoux, a spiky French accomplice who dives head-first into the action sequences, even if she is treated as a damsel-in-distress; and Christoph Waltz, who may be an obvious choice for a villain, but he's one that lights up the screen with his charisma and signature German drawl that simply says, "I'm an absolute bastard." The latter includes Dave Bautista, basically a rehash of Jaws, and Monica Bellucci - who Bond has sex with then discards like a used napkin, in the film's most erroneous instance of dinosaur logic.

It's certainly true that, compared to the grand departure of Skyfall, this is a return to more traditional action-adventure storytelling, one that seems partially geared to ticking off boxes of repetition in fanboys' notebooks. See: a punch-up on a train, a chase between a biplane and a car, a showdown at the villain's lair. But many of the individual ingredients are so well-realised that they're almost destined to become classic Bond. Mid-way through there's a brilliant, excruciating torture scene for the ages, one that, at the screening I went to, made the audience literally jump out of their seats. And that opening I mentioned earlier, replete with an upside-down helicopter sequence, is as pulse-quickening an action scene as they come.

It's deeply silly, it's overlong, it's perhaps a little rote. And it's sorely lacking the heart that Judi Dench brought to the table. But it's still one of the most fun things you can see at the cinema this year. Bond's back, baby.

★★★½

REVIEW: Crimson Peak

This one really caught me off-guard. Having lost faith in Guillermo Del Toro in his slightly questionable Hollywood period - his last feature being the dismally written Pacific Rim - I fully expected Crimson Peak to be a campy phantasmagoria of empty special effects. But it is nothing of the sort: Del Toro is back on form, and he has crafted a rich and disturbing Gothic chiller to be ranked with the best of his work.

The film follows pure-hearted heroine Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska, pale but steely), a woman who has always been haunted by ghosts: she was visited by her mother after her funeral, who simply delivered the warning, "Beware of Crimson Peak." She pores these interests into fiction, yet most loutish eighteenth-century men only see fit to compliment her on her handwriting. Only the handsome English stranger, Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), seems to understand that a ghost story is about more than its spectral shapes - it is what they represent that matters, a sad or painful past that chains them indefinitely to the world of mortals.

Thomas eventually marries Edith - her father, an obstacle, brutally beaten to death in his washroom by a mysterious assailant - and whisks her away to England, and to his dilapidated mansion. As anyone who has ever spent a night in Shropshire will testify, it's a bleak fate being resigned to such a remote corner of the world, with little for Edith do but wander the halls and play fetch with an irritating, yappy dog. The mansion is a real fixer-upper, too - Del Toro brings to life a world where snow filters down from patchwork roofs, moths flutter across its walls, and even blood oozes from the very floorboards. (Apparently it's some abnormally red clay.) Worse still is the prospect of sharing a house with Thomas' sister, Lady Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain), who is so icy that her breath practically frosts glass. Nevertheless, Edith sets about discovering the dark mysteries of her environment - one she later learns has been given the unfortunate nickname "Crimson Peak"...

Never a stranger to genre fiction, Del Toro fully embraces the tropes of eighteenth century horror with the infectious enthusiasm of a dedicated fan. Yet never does this get in the way of the masterfully constructed narrative, whose mysteries and tricks are steadily leaked through an enveloping wall of haunted house atmosphere. I described it as a "chiller" earlier in that, in spite of a few moments, for an audience raised on Paranormal Activity and The Conjuring, it's not particularly scary, per say. But Del Toro realises that there's more to a horror film than making the audience jump out of their seats: and instead of relying on basic jump scares, he opts to disturb with bloody set-pieces and monster design, and with some delightfully nasty psychosexual connections between his characters. (Freud would have a field day.)

Some have suggested that the film is old-fashioned, even lacking any kind of surprise in its storytelling. But I found that it went through the motions with such earnestness and beauty that I couldn't help but be swept along by it. Also, I think it furthers the notion that Del Toro is one of the only storytellers around who truly understands ghosts and the stories we tell about them. One could pair this with The Devil's Backbone, a film that contained a wonderful description of a ghost: "A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again ... Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber." Hollywood might not be Del Toro's immediate comfort zone, but films like Crimson Peak show that he hasn't lost his soul amidst the madness - and that he can still tell a ripping good yarn.

★★★★½

REVIEW: Steve Jobs

Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle have created one of the best possible films you could make about the late Apple founder - though therein lies the problem. Emerging from a troubled, Sony hack-shaded production history that, at one point, had such talents as David Fincher and Leonardo DiCaprio attached, the result still feels somewhat together, with a typically thorough and compelling performance from Michael Fassbender and an unconventional story structure that places a worthy emphasis on the character development.

One can't help that the project has survived this long based on the strength of its screenplay. Aaron Sorkin is the only screenwriter I've seen whose name on the poster is as large as that of the director and star, and for the fanboys it's suitably Sorkin-esque. Words are his weapons, his scenes of action and emotion rolled into one multilayered entity, and his verbal showdowns here are as good as we've come to expect. Jobs' final conversation with Steve Wozniak, for instance, is a spine-tingling culmination of their frictional relationship, even if it never actually happened. Some might be disappointed by the fact that there's a relative lack of humour compared to his other works: though, of course, Jobs was made infamous by his ill-temper and ruthlessness in the workplace, one that won Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) an in-joke award from Apple employees surrounding her ability to stand up to him.

If I sound lukewarm in this assessment, it's simply that I just don't find the story of Steve Jobs that interesting. Yes, he brought forward a future that Arthur C. Clarke predicted (as we see in a clip placed at the beginning of the film), and yes, he helped make some damn good phones and computers. But I find the arguments about his abilities as an "artist" rather unconvincing. Did he "lead the orchestra", or was he simply a CEO who helped cultivate his own cult of personality? His political manoeuvrings were clever, yes, and the relationship we see with his daughter and mother is somewhat interesting: but at the end of the day, do we care about him enough to overlook his flaws, to get involved in his story? I don't think so. Maybe that's the point - the ending, where Steve's face is lit up by the epileptic glare of several stage lights, certainly indicates that there were many facets and angles from which to view this undeniably important man. But still. Compared to the grand political drama of The West Wing or the demandingly relevant character conflicts in The Social Network, the stakes here just feel too low.

★★★

FEATURE: My Favourite Film Soundtracks

There's a phrase out there that I can't quite remember. It basically says that about 90% of a film's tone and emotional impact is accomplished not through its screenplay or direction, but through its music. This sounds about right. When you think about all those wonderful, iconic moments in film history - ET flying across the moon, Janet Leigh being stabbed in the shower, Optimus Prime acquiring "the touch" - often it will be the music that dictates our reaction, and hearing that music in isolation can conjure up the emotions we felt in that moment almost immediately.

A bad film can have a very good soundtrack, but a good film ceases being a good film when it has a bad soundtrack. Of course, a great film will have its soundtrack and content merge in perfect harmony, where each one feeds into each other to craft something beautiful. It's this quality that characterises most of the choices on this list - not only should the best film soundtracks be listenable in isolation, but they should make you want to go back and watch the film again, just to have that shudder of perfect recognition.

Also, while my choices are as informal and messy as they come, I've only gone for incidental scores in my list, sheerly to bring down the numbers. This means that there's no Raging Bull, no Goodfellas, no Pulp Fiction and no Trainspotting, to name but a few. I suppose I'll save those for another moment of boredom.

Blade Runner (1982)

Starting off with an easy one, Vangelis' score to Ridley Scott's sci-fi masterpiece - practically unavailable to own until the early 90s - is music that is both of its period and timeless in its spine-tingling beauty. The ominous Main Titles introduces us those iconic synth cords that made rain-drenched 2029 Los Angeles seem so awe-inspiring, legitimising and transporting us to an imaginary world of flying taxis and 50-foot-high Coca Cola billboards. Later tracks like Memories of Green and the saxophone-driven Love Theme inject tender humanity into the mix, while Tears in Rain beautifully underscores the greatest death scene in all of cinema. Heavenly stuff.

Days of Heaven (1978)

Ennio Morricone is, like Vangelis, another one of the all-time greats, whose lengthy discography could be the subject of an entirely different list. But it was on Terence Malick's 1978 masterwork that I thought his work reached an all-time poetic high. His opening track, lifted from Camile Saint-Saëns' "Carnival Of The Animals" and played over sepia-toned photographs of the Great Depression, is like a musical time machine, driving out thoughts of the modern world for something simpler, more innocent and more basically American. He reinforced it with the toe-tapping Enderlin which, accompanied by Linda Manz's wonderfully underplayed narration, takes on an Old West mythology, like a musical adaptation of the first act of a John Steinbeck novel. And the flute-inspired tracks Harvest and Happiness distil Malick's complicated view of nature into its essence, whereas The Fire - used to describe an invasion of locusts - is perfectly hellish. One to be listened to on an old gramophone player on a summer's evening, possibly while smoking a pipe.

Magnolia (1999)

Some film soundtracks are comfortable to stand outside the action and play in their own little world, whereas others take off their wellies and get stuck into the trenches, becoming inseparable from the action happening on screen. This is the case in most of Paul Thomas Anderson's films, but none more so than with Jon Brion's score for Magnolia, that not only compels but catapults the action into fifth gear - perfect for a film that somehow maintains an absolute fever pitch of emotion through its three hour-plus running time. Showtime is the best of the bunch, one that recurs a lot - notably during that long shot at the TV studio - and that gives a punchy, purposeful, even epic drive to the action. Of course, much like the film, the emotions are all over the place, giving us the moving Jimmy's Breakdown, the epic Stanley-Frank-Linda's Breakdown, the downbeat Magnolia, and the surprisingly Gaelic So Now Then. Though again, like the film, these tonal changes never feel less than organic. And neither to the memorable contributions from Aimee Mann: while only two were written explicitly for the film (I've already broken my own rules, so what) it's Wise Up that we remember best, that wonderful moment where the traditions of diegesis becomes blurred and the main characters begin singing together like a chorus of lost souls. It's something that music and cinema were invented for.

Spirited Away (2001)

There are composers that make music, and there are composers that open a direct line to your soul. Joe Hisaishi  is definitely the latter. No matter where I am and what I'm doing, if I hear One Summer's Day I'm probably going to cry. It perfectly sets the tone for the film: a young girl, moving to a new home, is adrift, depressed, and maybe a little scared that her childhood is speeding along so fast and that she'll be expected to grow up soon. Like most of Hayao Miyazaki's films, it's all about trying to recapture something lost while learning to move on with the future, and Hisaishi's wistful piano chords manage to connect with the lonely child in all of us. His score is also magnificently exciting at times: Dragon Boy plays twice during the film, once during the brilliant opening sequence where the spirit realm descends on the abandoned fairground, and again during the scene where Haku is attack by animate paper airplanes (it's more affecting that it sounds). But the undoubted highlight is The Sixth Station. It plays over the most adult sequence in the film, and it's emotionally devastating - though I still don't quite know why. Whenever I watch it, I always wonder about that distant house with the washing line, or that ghostly girl on the platform who we only glimpse briefly, but who seems to be looking directly at us. And what's Chihiro thinking when she stares out the window? Frankly, when the music's this beautiful, I don't really care.

The Thin Red Line (1999)

We're back to Malick, though this time we couldn't be further away from Days of Heaven. Returning from a twenty-year absence, the reclusive director had cultivated such a legendary reputation that everybody in Hollywood couldn't wait to get their hands on him. While that didn't work out so well for people like Adrian Brody, we were blessed with an career-high performance from Hans Zimmer, one of the all-time great composers. His score to The Thin Red Line remains his most well-judged and restrained, even if most of it didn't make it into the film itself. The opening tracks of The Corall Atol and The Lagoon are like Malick's films in minature: epic and sweeping in scope, but infused with spirituality and an unfailing admiration of the natural world, represented here by Asian instruments and haunting Melanesian choirs. The most famous track from the album is Journey to the Line, that has been used repeatedly in film trailers (including X-Men: Days of Future Past and 12 Years a Slave), but this still hasn't dulled its impact - the first five minutes are still unmatched in their capabilities to inspire cinematic awe, especially when paired with the great scene where Allied troops invade a Japanese village. Equally beautiful is Zimmer's next track, Light, that plays over Elias Koteas' moving dismissal from the army, whereas the choral piece that closes the film - God U Tekem Laef Blong Mi - is effortlessly appropriate.

The Third Man (1949)

While most scores are written to match the film, many are there to throw you, to feel so out of sync from what's happening on-screen that it completely changes the effect of the narrative. Anton Karas' slide guitar is relentlessly jovial, yet when paired with Carol Reed's one-of-a-kind noir it changes: it becomes dark, sinister, dreamlike. When Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives in Vienna, he doesn't understand the people he meets, not only because of the language barrier but because of the criminal conspiracy that he accidentally stumbles upon that prompts several people to try and kill him. Karas takes the action into the realm of the absurd, as if there's a great puppet master controlling the figures on the screen, bashing their heads together and laughing as he watches the commotion unfold.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

Is this a great soundtrack from a bad film? Or is it just one ingredient of an overlooked masterpiece? I think my views lie somewhere in between, but even the detractors of David Lynch's follow up to his legendary TV series argue that this is one of the best things composer Angelo Badalamenti has ever done. Beginning with a masterful subversion of the Laura Palmer theme, his Main Theme, played over the image of TV static, established the film as just that - a proper, cinematic offering, part-noir, part-horror, part...well, something implacable. These incredible jazz elements run throughout the remarkably consistent album, notably joining with the haunting vocals of Jimmy Scott in Sycamore Trees - though Badalamenti goes to alternative places, including a grinding, dangerous nightclub theme in The Pink Room, and, of course, incorporating Julee Cruise with Questions in a World of Blue: a heartbreaking lament of a damaged soul trapped in a neverending nightmare. While I still think there's a lot to love in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in spite of some of its excesses - Sheryl Lee's brilliant performance, the disturbing power of the Bang Bang bar and Red Room sequences, the fact that Lynch dared to unearth the dark soul of his supposedly mainstream hit - it's the soundtrack that almost everyone can agree on, as an accomplished yet intimate journey through a very personal vision of Hell.

And if that wasn't enough, then here's some more:

Angels in America (2003)

I know it's not technically a film - though with Mike Nichols directing and Thomas Newman composing stuff as wonderfully as the Main Title, it might as well be.

Don't Look Know (1974)

Pino Donaggio contributed a vast amount to Nicolas Roeg's masterpiece, but his Love Theme remains the most significant for turning a supposedly profane sex scene into one of the most beautiful scenes of marital love in the history of cinema.

Far From Heaven (2002)

Hollywood legend Elmer Bernstein's final score before his death is both an evocation of those over-the-top 1950s melodrama scores and reflects a more modern, subtle quality. It's really lovely.

The Godfather (1972)

Who cares that Nino Rota re-used music from his score to 1958's Fortunella? If I wrote something as good as Love Theme I'd re-use it a million times.

In the Mood for Love (2000)

If Yumeji's Theme doesn't make your lips purse and your lip stiffen with the longing restraint of an unfulfilled romance, you might as well be from an alien planet.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Fuck everyone who says folk music is rubbish.

Jaws (1975)

Du-duh-du-duh-du-duh...

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Deeeee, duuuuuuh.....deeduuhdeeduuhDEEEEE...DUUUUUUH...

Miller's Crossing (1990)

It's only really one track, but my God... The image of that hat blowing in the wind was forever seared into my brain by Cartel Burwell's transcendent Opening Titles. Look into your heart!

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Angelo Badalamenti's chords are so basic but so good. Hey, while you're at it, why not throw in Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and The Straight Story? Dude's a genius.

Paris, Texas (1984)

Legendary musician, songwriter, film score composer and all-round badass Ry Cooder plucks his guitar in an oh-so-lovely way in Wim Wenders' vivid slice of Americana.

The Piano (1993)

How Michael Nyman can play a wooden box with a few sticks of ivory attached so well is beyond me. Frankly, I don't want to know the creative processes behind The Heart Asks Pleasure First - it is, and shall remain, an act of musical witchcraft.

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Will have you shedding your rigid undergarments and jumping into a lake faster than you can say "henceforth."

Psycho (1960)

VWING VWING VWING VWING

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

Any musical with a song named "Uncle Fucker" gets my vote.

The Village (2004)

James Newton-Howard elevated M. Night Shyamalan's cack with his elegant, violin-based score.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The best Hollywood musical ever (yes, really) with some of the best 'choons on offer. Somewheeeere...