Film Shapes

Kompromat (shorthand for Compromising Material) is a serviceable near-thriller, based on book about the true story of Yoann Barbereau, a French national who spent more than a year on the run, trying to escape the Russian authorities. It opens with a cliched forest chase, then a '5 months earlier' title card, leading into the 'how did we get here' backstory. The film has its ups and downs until the climax, where it reaches its nadir, thanks to some overwrought symbolism and mawkish emotion, not helped much by the swelling score. Gilles Lellouche plays Mathieu Roussel, the Irkutsk director of the Alliance Francaise organisation. He lives in this Siberian outpost with his not-best-pleased wife and young daughter until one day when he's arrested for a trumped up charge of publishing child pornography. The reason for this fit-up isn't quite explained - is it suspicions of spying or petty revenge? Maybe something else entirely? Perhaps we're meant to be as cluele...

The Menu is a great satire on the haves and the have-nots, set in an exclusive island restaurant called Hawthorne. Ralph Fiennes is the chef, Slowik, who at first, seems like a snobby, arrogant kitchen-maestro, but has deeper...issues. He's, as always, excellent, giving us more to chew on than pure sociopathy. Nicholas Hoult plays Tyler, a foodie twat, seemingly oblivious to the creeping danse macabre taking place. But it's ultimately Anya Taylor-Joy's film. She's Margot, Tyler's date for this once in a lifetime culinary event, though she appears to have her reservations (I promise that's the first and last food or restaurant pun in this write-up. My apologies.) Margot is the audience conduit and Taylor-Joy brings the gusto and a feisty 'no-shit-taken' attitude. John Leguizamo is spot-on casting as the actor to whom Fiennes says something like, "Your face has irritated me for a long time" regarding a terrible film he was in. It's the perfe...

A new Marvel film isn't quite the drawcard it once was. Aside from the Doctor Strange multiverse film, Phase 4 of the MCU hasn't really delivered anything of much quality. There were moments in Black Widow and Shang-Chi , even Eternals at a stretch, but the crackers from Phase 3 seem a long way back. Now, SPOILERS AHOY, but presumably Kev Feige and his acolytes hadn't expected Chadwick Boseman to pass away at the age of 43, causing the need for massive rewrites (or a reimagining at any rate). Incidentally, they probably chose the best way to deal with an actor's unexpected death. It was nicely handled, a fitting tribute to Boseman. The beginning was a deviation from the usual action splash, in order to make way for the sombre, but zesty funeral scene. It was an authentic tear-jerker too, if the young German & French international students in the cinema were anything to go by. So, here's a film choc-full of grief and loss, which is only amplified by the mirror...

Brian and Charles is the 'Brian-child' of David Earl and Chris Hayward, who also play the leads - the former, a shabby loner, the latter, his bodgy android creation. The film is set in the glorious North Wales countryside, and have a run at some of these place names - Llyn Gwynant, Ysbyty Ifan, Trefriw, Cwm Penmachno, Betws y Coed, Llangernyw. Rough on the tongue, gorgeous on the eye. Earl plays his Brian Gittens character as a sweeter, less disgusting version of the lonely loser from Ricky Gervais's After Life and Derek . He's a single, middle aged depressive, who loves tinkering and inventing (objectively useless) things. The scene of the aftermath of a flying cuckoo clock test run is an early highlight, underlining the 'mockumentary' style of the piece. The 'useless inventions' theory is scotched when Brian surprises himself by actually making a robot, albeit a very shonky looking one. As Charles says, "My tummy is a washing machine." Th...