Doubt - Cineworld, Edinburgh, 6/02/09

Meryl Streep?

Check.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman?

Check.

Oscar buzz?

Check.

Plot dealing with the ghastly goings on in a Catholic school?

Check.

Put them all together and what do you get?

a) A self-righteous, self-indulgent, pompous, dull, vanity project with the sole purpose of garnering Oscar nods for all involved?

b) An entertaining, moving and emotionally engaging movie that deals sensitively with a controversial subject?

Hands up who had "a"?

Well done you.

This should have been terrific. Streep and Hoffman are quality and, even here, they are good but they are let down by a screenplay and direction that are just ridiculous at times. Thunder storms and crows herald bad news! The question of "doubt" is sledge-hammered into the skulls of everyone in the audience. It just doesn't ever work.

Originally "Doubt" was a stage play and, like a lot of stage-to-screen journeys, it never shakes off the "theatre". The subtlety that film affords is never given in to and instead there are loud voices, big gestures and theatrical glances all over this.

There is plenty to enjoy in watching Streep and Hoffman...they could read the telephone directory and it would be entertaining...but "Doubt" has too many flaws for it ever to reach the "classic" status it so clearly wants.

Frost/Nixon - Cineworld, Edinburgh, 4/02/09

Gasp in wonder as Michael Sheen plays yet another icon of British popular culture!

He is the thinking mans Alastair McGowan.

Isn't anyone else getting a bit fed up of Sheen?

Isn't his role as rent-a-Britbloke schtick wearing a bit thin?

Doesn't anyone else want to see him actually "act" as opposed to impersonate?

Nope?

It's just me then is it?

Fine.

Here the true story of David Frosts meeting with Richard Nixon is played out over a couple of hours.

Really, this film lasts for two hours...two hours to get to the bit where Nixon shames himself by declaring that anything he did as President couldn't be illegal because he was the President.

That's not really much of a hook for a two hour film is it?

Anyone interested in politics (heaven knows I am, I teach politics in my "real" life) would already know about this and, in all probability, have seen the real interview. Why on earth anyone needs a dramatised version of something that you can see the real version of is beyond me.

It's a bit like going to see a film of your own wedding video...a film version where better looking people play you. What's the bloody point of that? You could watch you...you being you.

I digress.

Go and buy the real interviews on DVD then do a bit of reading on Watergate.

You'll learn more and be more entertained.

Revolutionary Road - Cineworld, Edinburgh, 31/1/09

Ah.

Revolutionary Road.

It's a good film you know.

I really don't want to say too much more than that.

I have to though.

The problem with "Revolutionary Road" is that it presents, all too accurately, all too honestly, all too gloriously and all too terrifyingly the realities of my own experience of the Holy state of matrimony...and a right state it became too.

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"

That's true isn't it? I don't know if it's true of women...I don't even know if it's true of all men but I know that it has been true of my own life for large parts of it.

That's the heart of "Revolutionary Road"...the quiet desperation that passes for the "life" of Frank and April (played with a genuinely awe inspiring realism by Di Caprio and Winslet). As the reality of their desperate life dawns on them...hell breaks loose and runs amok.

Lots of marriages become performances. There is a public "front" that the protagonists play to perfection and then there is the reality of their life together...the two are never more than a hairs breadth apart.

Infidelity.

Love.

Betrayal.

Lies.

Honesty.

Brutality.

Joy.

Laughter.

Love.

Passion.

Lust.

Dishonor.

Violence.

Emotion.

Hurt.

All of these are right there at the heart of "Revolutionary Road" and, oh how sad, they were there at the heart of my own relationship. I could see and hear myself in almost every line from both characters. At times I could see myself as Frank...boorish and brash. At times I could see myself as April...filled with a real, awfully real, desire to break free from the husk of a life I had created.

It's a film I can't "review" without reviewing my own performance as a husband, as a partner, as a "married". That won't help you decide if you want to watch it. It might help me though.