Francis Ford Coppola's latest film, which he has both written and directed, is not badly acted – not at all. But it is laboured, massively implausible, excruciatingly self-important and really quite staggeringly boring in the way only a deeply personal film from a deeply important film-maker can be. It's an Oedipal-lite fantasy, brooding on the nature of art, fatherhood and creation. Its message could be: those who resent the stultifying influence of a celebrated father-figure can exercise the Freudian prerogative of parricide, but they may then have to shoulder the terrible, fatal burden of patriarchy themselves.

In its opening act, Tetro has the feel of something by Tennessee Williams, and in fact it looks like the live TV transmission of a stage play. Bennie is a teenager, working on a cruise ship, who one hot summer night shows up at the ramshackle Buenos Aires apartment belonging to his long-lost, deeply beloved older half-brother Tetro, who ran out on him years earlier. Tetro was a promising writer once, who suffered a breakdown and whose talent was apparently consumed by bitterness and unspoken family secrets; he is now living with Miranda, the beautiful woman who nursed him back to health.

The mercurial, charismatic Tetro is deeply nettled and suspicious at Bennie's reappearance, and his resentment and rage grow when the young sibling goes through his private papers and reads the unfinished play he has secretly written about their overbearing father, an egomaniacal musician and conductor who did something awful to Tetro long ago. Bennie takes things further, forcing a psychological and existential crisis by actually writing an ending for the play and putting on a performance as a way of getting at the truth about Tetro's disappearance, and inducing his brother to confront his responsibilities and exorcise his demons. Bennie is played by newcomer Alden Ehrenreich, looking like a young DiCaprio, Maribel Verdú plays Miranda and Vincent Gallo is a relatively restrained presence as Tetro himself. Their maestro father, Carlo, is played in flashback by Klaus Maria Brandauer.

What might itself have made an interestingly old-fashioned, well-made play is opened up by the contrivance of having Tetro's lost masterpiece entered for a deeply unlikely literary festival in Patagonia, presided over by a critic and impresario who wears dark glasses indoors and is known only by her enigmatic pen-name "Alone", played by Carmen Maura. This bizarre, contrived character really is very odd, taking the movie away from realism into some stylised alternative universe of its own. "Alone" might appear to represent an arrogant literary establishment, infatuated with prizes and prestige but indifferent to real genius. And yet when "Alone" praises Bennie's play to the skies, we are clearly supposed to take that very seriously, and Tetro even has an awkward, dead-straight line to "Alone", saying how he has always respected her. So it is a puzzle.

Bennie, Tetro and Miranda travel to the Patagonia festival along with some other attractive female company members, there to provide a sexual awakening for Bennie. The main actors and technicians have presumably gone on ahead for a last-minute rehearsal and technical run-through; if the play is indeed to be performed there, although this is not quite clear, and Coppola's idea of this "festival" is perhaps governed by his experience of film festivals.

It is certainly a strangely conceived event where, incidentally, some product placement lands with a thud. The festival's trophy happens to be designed by the jeweller Swarovski. And it is here that the final revelatory twist is unveiled, a twist that is actually less interesting than what had gone before. Entering a "competition" is a pretty hokey plot device, one more associated with urban dance movies, but this movie's bigger problem is being weighed down with what it evidently considers to be its sheer mythic potency, but is frankly overwrought, baffling and unexciting. The flashbacks to their father, are in colour, whereas the rest of the movie is in monochrome, but the switch is not particularly effective. Very disconcertingly, Carlo's fatter, bespectacled brother Alfie is also played by Brandauer, and yet it is not clear that Alfie is Carlo's twin. The effect is almost like Alec Guinness playing different D'Ascoyne family members in Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Famously, Coppola has done better with father-son and quasi-father-son relationships in the past. Compare the dullness and pedantry of the characterisation in Tetro with Vito and Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies or Willard and Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. The very redundancy of the motif points to an evasive fictional rendering of the director's own issues, a kind of public family therapy, and it is frankly uncomfortable to notice that the second-unit director here is Coppola's son, Roman, a talented film-maker whose feature film CQ made a real impression at Cannes almost 10 years ago, but has not been very prominent since then. The way ahead could be for Coppola père et fils to stay away from personal themes. Family isn't everything.

by Peter Bradshaw

It took three films, but "The Twilight Saga" finally nails just the right tone in "Eclipse," a film that neatly balances the teenage operatic passions from Stephenie Meyer's novels with the movies' supernatural trappings.

Where the first film leaned heavily on camp and the second faltered through caution and slickness, "Eclipse" moves confidently into the heart of the matter - a love triangle that causes a young woman to realize choices lead to consequences that cannot be reversed.

With the momentum of a movie series that sees installments arriving like clockwork every year, "Eclipse" looks primed to be the most successful film yet in Summit Entertainment's franchise. The action is pretty much relegated to the climax, but it's nifty enough that young men may get into the series too even if "Eclipse" isn't their first choice on a Friday night.

The film starts a little slowly with its classic reintroduction of its main characters, heroine Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), more determined than ever to go vampire for her undead boyfriend; the gloomy dreamboat Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), an ancient being who still hasn't graduated high school; and Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a perennially bare-chested Native American who shape-shifts into a wolf at a moment's notice.

Even here the film doesn't mind kidding itself. Edward takes one look at Jacob and complains to Bella, "Doesn't he own a shirt?" The script by Melissa Rosenberg offers a few more opportunities like this that wink at its own silliness.

Things pick up rapidly once intros are done, with the ramifications of the girl/vampire/werewolf triangle becoming increasingly intense for all parties while an outside threat looms over them all.

A crime wave has hit Seattle, a few leagues from the bucolic Washington town that shelters so many supernatural creatures apparently without any townspeople catching on. A series of vicious killings and disappearances tip off the Cullen clan that a vampire is creating an army of newborns - newly turned vampires whose ravenous thirst makes them stronger and more deadly than "old" vampires.

This army recruiter is red-headed Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard, the epitome of sensual, feline cunning), who, in seeking revenge against the Cullens and Edward in particular, means to destroy Bella. Which causes Edward and Jacob to contemplate the unthinkable, a temporary alliance to protect the girl they both love.

It's like the uneasy partnership between lawman Wyatt Earp and outlaw Doc Holliday against the Clanton clan at the O.K. Corral in "My Darling Clementine." Well, why not a Western? "The Twilight Saga" already mixes together high school melodrama, outsider fiction and teen romance into a mishmash of sci-fi and horror genres.

Since Rosenberg's writing has never been the problem in the series, much of the credit for the success of "Eclipse" probably belongs to the series' third director, David Slade ("Hard Candy," "30 Days of Night"). He quickly establishes a rapid yet unhurried pace, a willingness to let tongue perch in cheek and an unapologetic indulgence in this basic fantasy of every teenage girl - that two high school hunks are in love with her and willing to die for her, except, of course, that one is already undead.

The three leads shine under his direction. Stewart anchors everything with a finely tuned if not slightly underplayed performance that catches her character in moments of doubt about the course and the man she has chosen. Pattinson makes you forget the white makeup and weird eye contact lenses to concentrate on a person torn over his love for a woman and the sacrifice he knows she will have to make to stay with him.

But it's Lautner who nearly steals the movie with his ripped muscle and steely acting. He definitely has the "it" factor Hollywood always looks for.

The high school scenes and those between Bella and her police chief dad (Billy Burke) are quick and light and doubly effective for not dawdling. The series' more peripheral characters are coming into better focus as well. The film delivers backstories for both Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) and Rosalie (Nikki Reed) of the Cullen family as well as the origins of Jacob's family, the wolf pack, without any of these flashbacks seeming like intrusions.

Speaking of the wolf pack, the CG wolves, huge creatures whose ferocity fails to mask their tenderness, are very cool, and the fight at the climax among wolves, vampires and one poor human is no letdown. It delivers the goods without overstaying its welcome, which is more than can be said about most CG movie fights.

Production values are aces with DP Javier Aguirresarobe and production designer Paul Denham Austerberry very much taking advantage of the dark, woodsy and utterly beguiling beauty of British Columbia.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Earlier this week Stornoway played a few shows at the A1 Pool Hall on Crown Street in Cowley. These performances were supposed to take place in May, but they were cancelled due to the singer's poor health at the time. I thought the venue was a strange choice considering they played the Sheldonian not too long ago, and are skyrocketing towards fame with the May release of their album 'Beachcomber's Windowsill'. I caught up with Bassist Ollie Steadman before the show and asked him about the venue. Ollie told me that the band wanted to play somewhere as opposite to the Sheldonian as possible, and they had played virtually every other venue in Oxford (where they live). The A1 doesn't have any particular significance to the band - it's not where they drink or play pool - but it seemed like a good choice to celebrate the launch of their debut album with their hometown crowd. Ollie didn't say this, but I'm guessing they chose this very intimate venue because they realise they are on the cusp of something huge and may not get this kind of opportunity to play this size venue for much longer.

The band put a lot of effort transfoming the pool hall into what could have been their living room. They brought in (with great difficulty, I imagine) large sofa cushions for people to sit on, victorian-style lamps, stacks of books (though I think they were fake books) and (battery operated) candles. The overall effect was cozy and comfortable, and it felt like they invited 50 or so of their closest friends to their home for some music, drinks and laughs.

Singer Brian Briggs introduced their support band, Maqam Trio featuring Tarik Beshir, who played beautiful Egyptian and Turkish music for 30 minutes or so. The music was very beautiful, and I commend Stornoway's choice in having such an interesting and unusual support band.

Stornoway then took the 'stage' and greeted the crowd and thanked them for coming before launching into an unplugged version of their debut album in its entirety, pausing for the occasional anecdote or to explain the origins of the songs.

I'm a big fan of Beachcomber's Windowsill and have listened to it quite a bit since I bought it the day it was released. I've never had the opportunity to see the band perform live because something always seemed to come up. I was really looking forward to the show last night, and for good reason. Stornoway are so good live. They sounded just like they do on the album, which is quite a feat considering they were completely unplugged - not a cord or a microphone in sight. With no loud music to hide behind or drown under, Brian's voice soared beautifully into the room, note perfect and crystal clear. Ollie Steadman and Jonathan Ouin provided excellent vocal support, and the band as a whole played each song with enthusiasm and great precision. The songs are beautiful and interesting and often turn in unexpected directions, making the listener pay close attention.

In addition to Stornoway being fantastic musicians and songwriters, I also get the impression they are genuinely nice guys. A lot is made of them being Oxford boys, and probably the smartest band on the planet, but they are also down to earth, lovely boys. They are likely headed for very big things, and I look forward to following them wherever they go.

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For more information about Stornoway, visit their website , myspace page or their facebook page

Kristen Bell proclaims “I'm in a relationship with my job" within the first five minutes of When in Rome. Oh, brother—another one of those career-girl-learns-what's-really-important-when-she-finally-falls-in-love movies? Fortunately, instead of being rapped on the head with this predictable plotting, the movie ends up being saved by one of its faults. When in Rome never delves deep into anything, but whisks us through the conventions of romantic comedies so quickly there’s barely time to groan.

Bell plays a career gal spurned by love. At her sister’s wedding in Rome, she takes five coins from a “love” fountain, a move that prompts a stalkerish devotion in each of the five men who threw one of the coins. There’s a sausage king (Danny DeVito), a model (Dax Shepard), a street artist (Will Arnett) and a magician (Jon Heder), all ready to entertain us with their occupational quirkiness. Gifts of sausage, elaborate graffiti paintings, model-commissioned bus ads and a Houdini-style break-in ensue. The stable of unhinged lovers fuels the kind of laughs not allowed for the leading man and lady. Poor Bell and Josh Duhamel (the best man at the wedding whose poker chip went from the fountain to Bell’s purse) aren’t allowed to go to comic extremes, save for endearing bouts of klutziness. It’s even worse when the romantic duo try to go to the other extreme. In a rare slow moment, Bell makes a teary confession on a date with Duhamel, with a sappy predictability that deserves the resulting grimace.

While most romantic comedies impose elaborate makeup and hair on their female leads, Bell has a conventionally stylish look that seems motivated more out of budgetary concerns than considerations of character. Besides a close-up of the red soles of Bell's Christian Louboutin heels (prompting oohs of recognition from the audience), the movie pays little attention to costuming and makeup, which would have been a welcome distraction from its faults. Duhamel, however, is occasionally lit with a halo of light reminiscent of the 1930s soft focus reserved for female stars, a fun reversal of conventions.

With its bevy of supporting males, When in Rome is able to keep up the pace and widen the opportunities for comedy, but the one-dimensional characters of Bell and Duhamel weaken the already predictable story. This silly and brisk romantic comedy won’t charm audiences, but for core rom-com fans, it may provide an hour and a half of pacification.

By Sarah Sluis

Marking Woody Allen's first NYC-shot film in five years, "Whatever Works," falls somewhere in between his lesser London efforts "Scoop" and "Cassandra's Dream" and his return to form with "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." While this comedy starring Larry David doesn't break any new ground for its creator in either style or content, it features enough genuine laughs to give it decent commercial traction, at least in the big cities. Due for a June release by Sony Pictures Classics, it served as the gala opening night attraction for the Tribeca Film Festival.

David plays Boris Yellnikov, an aging curmudgeon who several years back would undoubtedly have been played by Allen himself. This is evident not only from the character's all too familiar predilections -- he loves Fred Astaire and classical music and disdains rock 'n roll, and his view of the universe is not exactly cheerful -- but also by the romantic entanglement that fuels the story.

Yes, we are once again treated in an Allen film to the creepy sight of a balding, middle-aged man proving irresistible to a gorgeous young woman. Here it is the colorfully named Melody St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a naive young Southerner, newly arrived in the city, who shows up on Boris' doorstep begging for a place to stay. Despite his misanthropic nature and apparent lack of any sexual interest, Boris almost immediately agrees.

Despite his slovenly appearance, insulting nature and generally loutish behavior, Melody is quickly smitten with her host, and the pair eventually winds up married. Things change with the arrival of Melody's mother Marietta (Patricia Clarkson), who takes an immediate dislike to her less than gracious new son-in-law. She sets out to sabotage the relationship by introducing her to a hunky young actor (Henry Cavill). He's fallen in love with Melody at first sight and is prone to such announcements as "I live on a boat and I read and I think and I play my flute."

Much of the film's humor revolves around outrageous character transformations. For instance, Marietta quickly abandons her repressed religious ways to become a free-spirited artist, who specializes in photographing nudes and who enters into a menage a trois with Boris' college professor friend (Conleth Hill) and a gallery owner (Olek Krupa). And Melody's gun-loving father (Ed Begley, Jr.) has a life-changing encounter with a recently heartbroken gay man (Christopher Evan Welch).

While Allen's screenplay features plenty of amusing one-liners (many expertly delivered by David, seemingly fusing Allen's persona with his own from "Curb Your Enthusiasm"), its tired handling of so many overly familiar themes eventually proves enervating. As does the utter artificiality not only of the stereotypical characterizations, but also such devices as the repeated breaking of the fourth wall, with Boris addressing the "audience" while the other characters look on in bafflement.

The film does, however, serve as an excellent vehicle for both Wood, utterly charming here, and Clarkson, displaying her considerable comic talents. Both actresses, like so many others from Allen's previous films, may well wind up garnering significant attention come the next awards season.

Needless to say, "Whatever Works" also serves as a picturesque travelogue of Manhattan, although many of the locales, ranging from Chinatown to Grant's Tomb, are decidedly down less elegant than Allen's usual cinematic haunts.

By Frank Scheck

On June 18th 2010, glamour and high fashion came to Oxford for the Oxford Red Dress Couture Ball - an event designed to raise funds and awareness for both H.E.L.P. and Teach a Man To Fish. RED, the international colour of hope for those affected by HIV/AIDS was the unifying link carried throughout the evening’s festivities. The evening began (for those who splashed out on the night's most expensive tickets) with a gourmet dinner at the lovely Cherwell Boathouse. Following the dinner, there was a fashion show at the Town Hall which included beautiful red gowns worn by exquisite professional models from London. Dresses included in the show were designed by Vera Wang, Issa, Bill Blass, Herve Leger, John Galliano, Max Azria, Nicold Fahri, Armani, Christiane King, Noir, Matthew Williamson, Grancesca Miranda, Brian Reyes, Prabal Gurang, Chagoury Couture, House of Dereon, Adolfo Sanchez, Escada, Marchesa, Yotam Soloman, Paul Smith, Christian Siriano, and Temperley London. All clutches used in the show were provided by Alexander McQueen and Anya Hindmarch.

Immediately following the show was an auction for charity, which was let by Hugh Edmeades, Christie's International Director of Auctioneering. Items included the Herve Leger Dress, a two week internship at Escada in London, original signed lyrics from Disney's "Just Around the Riverbend" from Pocohontas, and much more. For a full list of auctioned items and the money raised from them, see below.

Following the fashion show and action was an after-party at the Divinity Schools at the Bodleian Library. There was a DJ, canapes, drinks, and a silent auction containing further items, including a Christian Lacroix designed 'Haute Couture Bottle' designed for Evian in celebration of his 20th year in fashion. These limited production bottles are all hand blown by Swiss artisans, and were valued at $46,000, as noted in the Guinness Book of World Records.

There was also an after-party at Kukui, but I didn't get to that one.

I was very impressed by the organisation of the event. It moved smoothly and the event quality felt like a bit of New York, Paris or London came to Oxford for the night. Oxford Fashion Week can take a few pointers from the Red Couture Ball. The Ball was elegant and professional. I especially loved the uses of the Oxford Town Hall and the Divinity Schools as these are two of the more beautiful rooms in the city. My only suggestions for improvements are that firstly, they should have provided champagne before the fashion show, which likely would have encouraged higher bidding during the auction (especially the first item, which in my opinion should have sold for much more), and secondly, the canapes served at the after party were inedible. Possibly the worst sushi I have ever tasted.

The Oxford Red Dress Couture Ball is a fantastic fundraiser, and I hope it becomes an annual event, bringing class, culture and couture to Oxford.

Live Auction Fundraising Results
Herve Leger Red Dress: £1200
Two VIP Centre Court Tickets for The Championships of Wimbeldon: £700
Two Week Internship at Escada London: £2500
Victoria Beckham Autographed Photo and Corresponding Sketch of Red Carpet Dress Worn: £200
Mini Pupilage at One Essex Court with Neil Kitchener QC, the chambers of Lord Grabiner QC: £600
Collection of 8 Backstage Passes for Who Concerts signed by Pete Townsend: £1000
Football Shirt Signed by Entire 2002 World Cup Champions Brazil: £400
Christiane King Red Dress: £1600
Original Signed Draft of Lyrics of Disney's 'Just Around the Riverbend': £200
Original Signed Draft of Lyrics to 'From Russia with Love': £450
Tina Knowles Red Dress: £1200

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(please click on a thumnail to navigate through all photos)

For more information about the Oxford Red Dress Couture Ball visit the official website.

"There were no toilets. Prisoners were knee-deep in their own filth."

I'm standing in a small chamber halfway up the Saxon St. George's Tower at the Oxford Castle. Our tour guide, dressed convincingly as Mary Blandy, a murderess who was hanged here in 1752, makes a sweeping gesture.

"This room used to hold around 70 prisoners," she says. Their crimes ranged from embezzlement to stealing bread, and everyone was kept together - men, women, children, "even University students."

This is the first time since I've arrived that anyone has mentioned the University. The rivalry between Oxford's town and gown is notorious, and it tends to be the gown - all gleaming spires and coiffed college gardens – that wins tourists over. Oxford Castle Unlocked, however, is a monument to a history of Oxford that is refreshingly independent of the University.

This is further evidenced by the view from the top of St. George’s. Hundreds of years ago this was an important vantage point, part of the city's defences. Today it still provides a unique overview of Oxford, bustling at rush hour like any other modern city.

Just as captivating is the tower's underground counterpoint - the Crypt of St. George's Chapel, another vestige of the castle's Norman beginnings. The atmosphere is haunting, and though the space is small, it's easy to lose yourself here.

From the crypt we climb up again, making our way to the top of the grassy mound. Mary is quick to debunk the myth that this is where hangings used to take place; the moniker "Hangman's Hill" comes from its popularity as a vantage point from which to watch the hangings - which occurred, she tells us, pointing at the Malmaison Hotel, "over there".

Then Mary leads us into the vaulted 13th century well chamber, carved inside the mound. It's dark, but as our eyes adjust, we're able to peer down the 60-foot cavity. It hasn't been in active use since the Civil War, when the Parliamentarians fouled it, but it's riveting to stare so deep into the underbelly of a city whose skyline so often demands we look up, not down.

Mary shines her torch around the room, pointing out all the graffiti - just to my right, someone signed his name "Fluffy Bunny" in 1946 - and telling us that it used to be a sort of game, trying to sneak into the well chamber. Even nowadays access is restricted - guides only take members of the public down at 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday evenings during the summer.

I’ve only been here an hour but I feel I’ve taken a dozen journeys, each one ending in a different view of Oxford. What is Oxford Castle Unlocked? It's not just about the prison, the crypt, the gory stories. It's a state of mind, a way of looking at Oxford and seeing it anew, no matter where you come from or how much time you have – or haven’t – spent here.

- Miranda Ward

For more information about Oxford Castle Unlocked visit the official website

Two years ago, friends and collaborators Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller teamed up to make Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which Segel wrote and starred in and Stoller directed under the guidance of their shared mentor, Judd Apatow. A modest critical and commercial hit, the film was another entry in Apatow's patented series of guy-friendly romantic comedies, telling the story of a schlubby musician who heads off on a Hawaiian vacation after his girlfriend dumps him, only to run into said girlfriend and her new beau, a bad-boy British rocker named Aldous Snow (played by bad-boy British comic Russell Brand), at the lavish resort where he's attempting to heal his broken heart. It's a slight premise for a movie, but the cast elevates the material, particularly Brand, who inhabits the part of a Sid Vicious-by-way-of-Noel Gallagher rock star so completely, it's hard to tell where the performance ends and his real personality begins.

For obvious reasons, Stoller and Brand wanted to bring Aldous Snow back for an encore, this time allowing him to be a leading man instead of supporting comic relief. The problem is that a movie with too much Snow could easily turn out to be a case of too much of a good thing, so Stoller (taking over writing duties from Segel while staying in the director's seat) made the wise choice to plunk the character down in a genre that demands a strong second banana: the odd-couple road-trip comedy. The result is Get Him to the Greek, which pits Brand's manic energy against the deadpan humor of Jonah Hill (who had a small role in Sarah Marshall as a completely different character). It's a good marriage of performance styles, as Hill skillfully doubles as both the straight man to Brand's outré behavior and the quick-witted verbal jouster who forces his co-star to engage with him instead of running away with the scene.

Greek's nominal plot finds low-level record label employee Aaron (Hill) being tasked with the arduous assignment of escorting Aldous from his posh London pad to Los Angeles' famed Greek Theater, the site of his triumphant live concert ten years ago. In the intervening decade, Snow's career has largely gone to shite, thanks to a poorly conceived concept album entitled African Child and an epic breakup with his volatile companion and fellow rock icon Jackie Q (Rose Byrne, absolutely hilarious as a Madonna-meets-Lady Gaga-meets-Fergie lady rocker). An old-school Aldous fan, Aaron pitches the idea of a ten-year anniversary show to his boss Sergio (Sean Combs...yes, that Sean Combs) in the hopes that it'll jump-start his idol's career. Aldous being Aldous, though, he's not about to just show up at the Greek on time and ready to perform. Instead, he drags Aaron on a drug and alcohol-fueled journey that includes extended stopovers in New York and Las Vegas before finally arriving in L.A. considerably worse for the wear.

Along with Stoller and Brand, Apatow is back as a producer on Greek and his sensibilities are felt throughout the movie. Few comedy writers are as keyed into contemporary pop culture as Apatow--remember the never-ending parade of celebrities playing themselves in Funny People--so it shouldn't come as a surprise that Greek is filled with big-name cameos (Hey, look, it's Christina Aguilera! Look, there's Lars Ulrich!) and references to such venerable media outlets as Perez Hilton and TMZ. One of the film's funniest set-pieces involves a visit to the set of the “Today” show, complete with a Meredith Vieira appearance. (Matt Lauer must have been busy taping his "30 Rock" cameo that day.)

While it's considerably shorter than all three Apatow-directed vehicles, Greek unfolds at a similarly unhurried pace. Like his boss, Stoller gives his cast room to depart from the script and riff off each other, allowing scenes to run on when the actors are really clicking. Although there are times when he should have demonstrated a firmer hand in the editing room, this approach does yield some great material, particularly from Hill, who seems to be making up much of his dialogue on the fly. And who knew that Diddy had a knack for improv comedy? The hip-hop mogul fulfills the same scene-stealing function here that Brand did back in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Apatow's touch does become a hindrance as the movie enters its final act, which steers the proceedings down a more serious road than Stoller seems prepared to go. As far back as "Freaks and Geeks," Apatow has sought to anchor his comedy around a dramatic event, be it a first sexual experience, the birth of a child or the news of impending death. These attempts have largely succeeded because the characters, despite their individual eccentricities, are all fairly down-to-earth. But Aldous Snow is ultimately too big and broad a character to believably suffer from real-world concerns. The last half-hour of Greek depicts an increasingly unhappy Aldous struggling to mend fences with his ex and even heal the relationship between Aaron and his own estranged girlfriend (an underused Elisabeth Moss) before attempting a grand rock-star suicide by leaping off a hotel roof. It's a tonal miscalculation for Stoller, who, like Brand, is most comfortable when portraying Snow as the personification of rock-star excess. Some recording artists could stand to have their self-image deflated—Bono, we're looking at you—but Aldous Snow is at his best when he's larger-than-life.

By Ethan Alter

Jonathan Lynn is the director of such high-concept/low-quality comedies as ‘Nuns on the Run’ and ‘Clue’ (aka the Cluedo movie), and anyone who has seen those will know what to expect from ‘Wild Target’, an extremely ropey remake of Pierre Salvadori’s jocular, 1993 French hit ‘Cible Emouvante’. Bill Nighy plays hermetic, near silent and sexually confused assassin Victor Maynard who – via a series of unlikely events – must turn protector to brassy kleptomaniac Emily Blunt and pot-bonging naif Rupert Grint. The actors do the best with what they’re given – it’s just a shame they’ve been given so little. The script is free of either zingers or insight, the inertia of the story is constantly stalled by deviation (including a superfluous homoerotic vignette which appears to be a cheap excuse to show Grint in the nud) and entire characters – including the ‘baddie’ of the piece, Rupert Everett – are left to fade into the background. Nothing feels like it’s been properly thought through, highlighted by the fact that Nighy’s ‘super assassin’ goes about his business by merely opening fire on a crowded market place (using a silencer, of course!).

Author: David Jenkins

Killers sports several story points that could have fueled a very funny comedy. Take, for example, the film's primary plot thread, which involves a happily married woman (Katherine Heigl) discovering that her husband (Ashton Kutcher) is actually a highly skilled hitman who retired from the game shortly before their engagement. That's a solid comic premise right there and, later on, screenwriters Bob DeRosa and T.M. Griffin introduce another amusing idea: The couple's postcard-perfect neighborhood is actually home to a number of professional assassins, some of whom are masquerading as their close friends. (It's like The Truman Show meets The Professional!) There's also promising material to be mined from Heigl's too-close relationship with her overbearing parents (Catherine O'Hara and Tom Selleck) and Kutcher's attempts to settle into an ordinary life after years of traveling the world killing people.

In short, the ingredients are all in place for an enjoyable romp. So why does no one in the movie—apart from the always-reliable O'Hara and a pair of ex-"Saturday Night Live" players, Casey Wilson and Rob Riggle, who turn up in small roles—seem to realize they're acting in a comedy? It's not just that the film barely generates a single laugh, it's that it doesn't even seem all that interested in trying. Instead, the primary tone here is one of aggrieved contempt, as if the filmmakers and the stars are irritated at the very idea of having to entertain an audience. The best action comedies are breezy and fun—this one feels like a chore.

Killers is at its loosest—and therefore funniest—in the extended prologue that eats up the movie's first 20 minutes. Having broken up with her longtime boyfriend, self-professed geek magnet Jen (Heigl) follows her folks on vacation to a lavish resort in Nice, France, where she crosses paths with the studly Spencer (Kutcher), who is posing as a tourist while on assignment for his top-secret organization. Both are immediately taken with each other's respective physiques, but they soon learn that they have more in common than great bodies. They're also really into...uh, sightseeing! And swimming! And stuff like that! Anyhow, they're obviously perfect for each other and, three years later, they're happily ensconced in wedded bliss in a gorgeous house in an upscale suburb.

But Spencer's former life catches up with him when his old boss (Martin Mull) arrives in town and makes contact with the hitman-turned-husband. Not long after that, he discovers he's been targeted for termination and has to fall back on his old habits if he and Jen are going to escape with their lives. Then again, even if he does successfully defeat every assassin on his tail, it's unclear whether he'll survive his wife's wrath over his secret past.

The conceit of the bickering married couple is almost as old as comedy itself and the funniest unions are those in which the lovebirds (or, in some cases, ex-lovebirds) seem to hate and adore each other in equal measure. The main problem with Killers is that Heigl and Kutcher are more convincing at the portraying the former than the latter. Once her husband's secret is revealed, Jen suddenly transforms from a well-meaning if uptight person into a bitter shrew, while the affable Spencer becomes a smug jerk (a personality type that some would consider to be Kutcher's default setting). Watching these two squabble isn't funny, it's just unpleasant and kind of sad.

The action sequences don't provide any refuge from the halfhearted attempts at humor; a romantic-comedy specialist by trade, director Robert Luketic has little previous experience shooting action and it shows in the choppy editing and generally poor fight choreography.

Unscreened for critics, Killers also met with a cool reception from moviegoers, opening to an underwhelming $16 million weekend. Sounds like many real-life couples realized that the best way to improve their own relationships was to avoid taking pointers from Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher.

By Ethan Alter

In "Please Give," Sundance regular Nicole Holofcener has made perhaps the ultimate New York movie. It makes perfect sense to New Yorkers -- if a completely unscientific canvassing of attendees at the Sundance Film Festival means anything -- but is a little puzzling for non-Manhattanites. The movie certainly deals in universal situations - conflicts in values, a marital betrayal, teenage uncertainty and the guilt of the privileged class. Yet the film centers on a completely New York phenomenon regarding real estate in crowded Manhattan.

A well-to-do family purchases an adjoining apartment from an elderly woman with the proviso she can live out her life in the apartment, which they will only enlarge and remodel when she passes. It's rather ghoulish yet common for New Yorkers. From this situation, Holofcener extracts all sorts of moral tales and wry commentary on middle-class sensibilities.

How the rest of America reacts to this intriguing but dramatically muted story is hard to tell. Art houses may welcome this Sony Pictures Classics release, going out April 23.

The title itself is curiously void of meaning. The end credit crawl perhaps reveals an original title, "Feelin' Guilty," which makes more sense. It is Catherine Keener's character that mostly carries this banner as she seemingly feels guilt for every dollar the family makes - and they make a lot.

She and her husband, Oliver Platt, run an upscale vintage furniture/home accessories store. They mostly acquire their merchandise from estates, which is to say the children of dead people, but this is now causing considerable angst to Keener. She compensates by handing money to every homeless person she passes on the street and would love to volunteer to do good deeds only she can't handle the reality of the disabled or elderly.

The rest of the family is not so obsessed. Well, they have their obsessions, just different ones: her daughter (Sarah Steele) battles with acne while her husband has entered a kind of middle-age malaise.

Meanwhile, the two granddaughters of the elderly woman (Ann Marie Guilbert) over whom the family is conducting a polite death-watch hold ambivalent feelings about the family next door. The nice one (Rebecca Hall) visits her grandmother daily and is pleasant to the couple while the bitchy one (Amanda Peet) is, well, bitchy - to them and even more to her grandmother.

Everyone here is stressed about something but none of their travails seems terribly significant or revelatory about the human condition. Peet and Steele take physical appearances much too seriously. Peet, a spa worker specializing in facials, is a devotee of the tanning salon while Steele obsesses over every zit.

Peet is still reeling from her last romantic disaster, to the point of all but stalking the girlfriend of her ex, while Steele won't be satisfied unless her parents buy her a pair of $200-plus jeans.

Then the father and husband out of nowhere launches an affair with the spa bitch. Say what? This has got to be one of the least convincing adulteries in movie history. There's little in it for either party.

Think of "Please Give" as a finely tuned short story with every glance and gesture full of suggestive meaning. Drama is not high on the agenda here. There is a bit of comedy and, briefly, sexual mischief even though it doesn't look like much fun.

Keener, who frequently stars in Holofcener's film, is clearly writer-director's alter ego, so despite the multi-character format the focus tends to fall on her. But one wishes Holofcener had invested more in the other characters and their stories. They are a bit sketchy, seen more in how they relate to and play off of the Keener character than having a full life of their own.

The self-enclosed world of these New Yorkers is very well observed as designer Mark White has made the apartments, streets and businesses all seem to belong to the same small village.

By Kirk Honeycutt

A few years ago, while shopping in the city centre, I stumbled across a large group of spectators crowded around an a cappella group who were busking on Cornmarket. After patiently waiting for an opportunity to sneak a peek through the 5-deep crowd, I elbowed my way through to the front where I found a surprisingly large group of boys singing fantastically and acting a bit silly. They introduced themselves as Out of the Blue, Oxford’s only all male a cappella group, and went on to entertain the crowd with a few more songs before disappearing in different directions.

Last night I finally had the opportunity to see them in a more ‘professional’ setting – at the New Theatre – where they performed in front of a nearly sold out crowd. The audience was a surprising mix of starry-eyed University girls, young children, and a large number of over 50s. They started the show with The Who’s ‘Who Are You’, which got the crowd going, and then moved onto a very funny version of ‘Stacey’s Mom’. The show mainly contained modern pop music which included songs from Blink 182, Justin Timberlake, Michael Buble, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and more. There was a hymn or two, and a hint of a Gregorian chant (which I would have loved to have heard more of). But the one constant throughout the entire show was humour. Out of the Blue are hilarious. I don’t think the smile left my face during the entire show. The boys are charming and silly and young and frankly, courageous. In a group of 13 singers, there weren’t any particularly stand-out performers, but they worked very well as a group, and have an obviously good rapport. They looked like they were having fun, which made the audience enjoy the show even more. I think they sound their strongest when they’re not dancing around wildly during their "outrageously unprofessional" dance routines, but are standing close together, focusing on the music. But it’s obvious they don’t want to be just another barbershop group – they want to entertain as best they can.

The group has been together for 10 years, with new members replacing old as they graduate and move on. They seem like genuinely nice guys – giving time and financial support to Helen & Douglas House, a hospice providing respite care for children and young adults. Next time they perform in Oxford, don’t miss them. If you like modern pop music sung by adorable, slightly awkward and goofy smart boys, and if you’re looking to be entertained, you can’t go wrong with an Out of the Blue performance.

For more information about Out of the Blue, visit their official website

Sometimes a film takes time to sink in. I didn’t dislike Greenberg while I was watching it—although its central character did get on my nerves a bit. But in the days that followed, I found myself thinking about the people in the story, and how fully developed they were. They seemed genuine, as tangible as the carefully-chosen Los Angeles locations in which the story unfolds. One can’t help but admire that quality.

Thus, the dilemma for me in writing about Greenberg is that it’s a very well-written, well-made film about .... an annoying character.

Writer-director Noah Baumbach and his wife Jennifer Jason Leigh conceived the story, which is anything but glib. Its treatment of Los Angeles is striking in that it resists cheap jokes, beauty shots, or recognizable landmarks, yet with Harris Savides’ ability to capture its distinctive natural light) is accurate and readily identifiable.

The verisimilitude of the setting suits the characters quite well. I recognized these people. Stiller gives a finely-tuned performance as a man most people would call a loser. Visiting L.A. after a nervous breakdown back East, he tries to hook up with an old girlfriend (Leigh) who’s long since moved on, and rekindles his interrupted friendship with a one-time bandmate (Rhys Ifans), who seems to be the only person who can tolerate him. The only hope for Greenberg is Florence, a capable but unworldly young woman who has no real direction in her life; she’s played with amazing freshness by Greta Gerwig, and her performance, like Stiller’s, helps validate the film.

How can I reconcile these contradictory feelings?

I could take a hint from the film itself and say it’s worth **1/2, or I could say that it’s all a matter of taste. If you’re expecting a Ben Stiller comedy, you’re watching the wrong movie. If you like multilayered character portraits, and don’t mind a laid-back film that’s short on narrative drive, you may enjoy Greenberg.

But if you wonder where the story is headed, or find the protagonist not worth bothering about, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

by Leonard Maltin

Oxford ... give yourself a pat on the back. We've been running TwiTrips – unplanned adventures fuelled solely by live Twitter tips – for almost a year and a half now, and this one was the most followed by some distance. And here's how it panned out....

As per TwiTrip tradition, my first request to the Twitterspehere was for some juicy trivia to keep me entertained on the train from London's Paddington station to Oxford. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Oxfordians weren't short of some marvellous facts. @Quitexander started things off with the revelation that backstreet Magpie Lane, before it was renamed, was called "Gropec*nt Lane". And there was me thinking Oxford was a thoroughly genteel place. And that wasn't all. According to @chinmj, during his university years David Cameron was a regular at Hi-Lo, a Jamaican cafe on Cowley Street, where the owner "likes a smoke". Don't worry Dave, your secret's safe with us.

At just past 1pm I arrived, and for the first time in TwiTrip history, I had a welcoming party. Drew from @oxoncarts (a rickshaw company) and a fully-costumed prison officer from @oxfordcastle were waiting for me with hand-painted signs. It was easily the most important I have ever felt. And with great importance comes great decisions. I went with Drew, mostly because the prison officer was attempting to handcuff me, and Drew had a loveable smile.

David John's Pies

I was running from the law, and I was hungry. Just before I had pulled into Oxford, I'd requested lunch tips. By the time I left the station upon Drew's humble steed, I had dozens. @Popisthis (more on him later) suggested I headed for the covered market, where @chinmj recommended a slice of game pie from David John Butchers and a cookie from Ben's Cookies. @Clumsy1974 said I should take my haul to the grounds of Christ Church for a picnic. Top tips.

The handiest part of real-time Twitter tips is being able to ask for recommendations exactly where you are. While eating, I asked for the best things to do near to where I was sitting. First, @ajmy and @oxfordcityguide directed me to Christ Church hall, the glorious inspiration for Hogwart's hall in the Harry Potter films. Inside, @matthewteller told me to look out for the fifth window from the door, where tiny portraits of figures from Alice in Wonderland are sculpted into the stained glass. Nice.

@Jonescarl and @mcaptref pointed me towards Alice's Shop across the road, but I was quickly distracted by @cowleycarnival, @dasilvajums and @christinuviel, who insisted that I visit the nearby G&D Cafe for Oxford's best ice-cream. A scoop of Baileys and Sweet Cream went down very nicely indeed.

Classic day's punting

Then I received a mightily intriguing tweet from @ewants, informing me that somewhere in the city, the "leaders of tomorrow are trying to bash each other's boats". This was a must, whatever it was. A bit of help from the Twitterers of Oxford filled me in, kind of. The event I was looking for was the Summer Eights, down on the river. I raced through the Christ Church meadows, passing some textbook punting as I went.

When I arrived, I was faced with possibly the most English scene I have ever witnessed. There were large thighs, rowing boats, blazers and Pimms as far as the eye could see. On the water, some kind of competition was taking place, involving a practice known as "bumping". A helpful Ozzie rower from New College filled me in:

Okaaay then. I still didn't really understand it, but applauded the excuse to drink Pimms and mess around in the water. After 20 lost minutes staring at the confusing goings on around me, I headed back into the city, to the Modern Art Oxford, as tipped by @OxfordWestEnd and @Candy_Pop, where I gazed at giant celery in the gallery and knocked back some coffee in the street-front cafe.

After an hour of frenzied bumping and existential celery, I needed a little time to reflect and be still. I headed for the Botanic Gardens thanks to @bopeepsheep, @jcmartinho and @karenmaydavid, where I found Will and Lyra's bench, as featured in Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass, and sat contentedly listening to the birds.

Atomic Burger

From the serene(ish) to the bizarre. I made my way to Hi-Lo, the aforementioned Jamaican restaurant on Cowley Road, where I was charged £2 for a can of fizzy pop and was sworn at repeatedly by the owner, in a nice way, somehow. I've since been told that it's not worth going in there before 8pm, and if then, only for the excellent selection of rums. Hey ho. Across the road, Kazbar provided a more hospitable experience, as recommended by @cowleycarnival, @undiminished and @floppsyp. @Aylesh even picked my drink for me – a very posh concoction of rum, figs and vanilla. This set me up nicely for one of the most tweeted tips of the day, Atomic Burgers, where I feasted on patty surrounded by children's toys hanging from the ceiling.

My penultimate stop was the Pitt Rivers Museum for a late-night opening, as suggested by @Jazza_uk and dozens of Twitterers. The staff had turned all of the lights out on the ground floor and were giving visitors torches to guide themselves around in the dark. This was truly awesome, especially when I found the famous shrunken heads. On the second floor, I filmed the scene below, with scores of visitors navigating themselves by torchlight.

Finally it was time for a pint. Another of the TwiTrip's most tweeted tips was the Turf Tavern, an ancient pub hidden in a backstreet near the Bridge of Sighs. It was buzzing with students drinking pints of Old Rosie cider and crowding around benches on the various courtyards tucked between buildings. And then came the best Twitter find of the day... an actual person! Having answered my call a few hours earlier, @popisthis came to join me for a pint, not before I bothered an innocent bystander into taking a cheesy photo of us.

Turf Tavern

And then, after a few pints, it was time to go home. The best TwiTrip so far. Bravo Oxford.

• All photographs by Benji Lanyado

Original Article Source

Like Mamma Mia! for Shakespeare fans—and by "fans," we mean those who only know Romeo and Juliet and a few sonnets, and who think of that play's suicide pact as a model relationship—Letters to Juliet figures all you need to woo a certain kind of moviegoer is miles of gorgeous scenery, an unquestioning belief in destiny, and the large-eyed presence of Amanda Seyfried.
The box office will likely reward the movie's limited ambitions, but expect eye-rolling alongside the swoons at this bland, predictable picture, whose sole assets are a cute premise, the Italian countryside, and the dignity Vanessa Redgrave brings to a part that, on the page, is quite beneath her.

Redgrave plays Claire, an Englishwoman who, vacationing in Italy 50 years ago, was among the many girls who write letters to Shakespeare's doomed heroine and place them on a wall in Verona. Her letter goes missing until aspiring writer Sophie (Seyfried) decides to answer it in Juliet's voice, urging the now-aged woman to seek out the boy she loved and lost during her Italian summer.

Seyfried has stumbled across this Miss Lonelyhearts-ish "letters to Juliet" business while on a romantic vacation with her fiancé (Gael Garcia Bernal) that has somehow become a working trip for him. ("It's a win-win!" he says each time the two find things they can do independently of each other.) She's only too relieved when Claire follows her advice, shows up in Verona and lets her join the quest while Sophie's hubby-to-be is off hunting rare wines and truffles for his restaurant.

Naturally, Claire is escorted by a grandson so incredibly rude, so opposed to the silliness of True Love, that Sophie must somehow manage to fall for him by the penultimate reel. (Christopher Egan, who plays the unlikely love interest, should be sending thank-you cards to Bernal, whose performance is so devoid of the qualities that typically make him lovable onscreen that even this snotty, narrow-eyed Brit looks like a step up.)

While we wait for the inevitable, viewers get a stiff dose of sappy Italian pop music in between bouts of Andrea Guerra's busy score, long drives through the countryside, and a few genuinely amusing moments as the seekers find one elderly Italian man after another who would be only too happy to pretend to be Redgrave's once-and-future lover. Wouldn't we all, boys.

The pleasure of seeing a pair of lovestruck senior citizens reunite pushes the movie's last chapter in a happy direction, and those who ask little more from love than a clumsy balcony climb and a last-minute transatlantic flight or two will leave the theatre more than satisfied. For everyone else, may we suggest those Shakespeare romances that actually had happy endings?

By John DeFore

Two men sit in a car on a deserted Brooklyn street. As the camera circles, one boasts about outfoxing the legal system. He will soon be dead, shot for a lunchbag stuffed with money. The killer is a cop drowning in debt and haunted by his pregnant wife's illnesses. His story has been told too many times, but before Brooklyn's Finest is over, director Antoine Fuqua will tack on two equally threadbare plots that leave no cliché unplumbed, no coincidence ignored, no cheap irony neglected.

Like Eddie (a grimly committed Richard Gere), a disillusioned veteran a week away from retirement. He drinks too much, plays Russian roulette, and seeks solace in the arms of a warm-hearted prostitute (Shannon Kane). Or Tango (Don Cheadle), a narcotics cop so far undercover he's lost his moral bearings, egged on by drug agents to betray his only friend. Along with Ethan Hawke's debt-ridden Sal, they will be put to the test in a Brooklyn project teeming with crooks and victims.

Fuqua frames their stories in a harsh, unforgiving landscape of tenement rooftops and after-hours clubs, of cramped row houses and battered precinct buildings. Patrick Murguia's cinematography alternates between bold colors at night and a drained, lifeless palette during the day, helping ground some of the script's more fanciful plot turns. (He also gives Wesley Snipes, calm and convincing as a drug dealer just released from prison, some of the best close-ups of his career.)

Relying on a pounding soundtrack and supercharged editing, Fuqua mashes up screenwriter Michael C. Martin's plots, steamrolling over repetitions and inconsistencies. Against the odds, he finds sparks of life in Tango's dilemmas, and moments of pride in Eddie's downward slide. What Fuqua can't do is build a credible narrative out of the competing storylines. Instead, he throws together moments and confrontations that either build to violence or fritter away to nothing.

Star power distinguishes Brooklyn's Finest from similar cop films. Hawke overdoes his character's twitchy self-loathing, but keeps his energy level high. Cheadle, who is starting to make a career out of conflicted snitches, tends to perform up to his surroundings. Snipes is a good foil, but Cheadle really raises his game for a brilliant Ellen Barkin, nailing her part as the toughest fed in the world.

No matter how good, stars can't rescue Brooklyn's Finest from an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. A director like Sidney Lumet might have found a key to Gere's suicidal cop, or added unexpected coloring to Cheadle's informant. Then again, Lumet probably wouldn't have insisted on dragging the main characters into the ludicrous bloodbath that ends Brooklyn's Finest on a laughable note.

By Daniel Eagan

Aggressively zany and precocious (but only half smart), The Brothers Bloom may be the first movie you’ll feel like spanking, or at least strongly disciplining. It’s the kind of desperately eccentric comedy that costumes its heroes in matching black hats and button-downs—even as kids, ho ho!—for that is what true con men wear. Sending Wes Anderson’s whimsy into manic overdrive, the movie introduces us to sad-eyed “Bloom” (Brody, “cleverly” left without a first name) and crafty Stephen (Ruffalo), a pair of ambitious grifters who banter in screenwriterese, consort with a silent explosives expert called Bang Bang (Babel’s Kikuchi, single-handedly reviving the inscrutable Asian) and shuttle mechanically to wherever the whims of a showy camera angle or rhyming Ricky Jay narration take them.

We’ve only just finished defending writer-director Rian Johnson from charges of stuntiness in his 2005 high-school noir, Brick, but maybe he’s the wrong pony to bet on. The Brothers Bloom reveals a limited formal artist who relies on cutesy montages and a Cat Stevens song to glom onto borrowed emotion. Most dispiritingly, Johnson takes the exquisitely fragile Rachel Weisz and harshes her into one of those kooky dreamgirls with strange hobbies (here, it’s harp playing and chain-saw juggling) found only in tiresome indie cinema. Penelope was this script’s working title, and that gives you an indication of Johnson’s sophomoric take on the character: an ultrarich lovely with a yellow Lamborghini who becomes the target of an inevitable “one last job.” There is no romantic payoff between the capable Weisz and Brody, and no wisdom, either; indeed, what the hell was this movie all about? You feel conned.

by Joshua Rothkopf

The savage wit of Jim Thompson is just another casualty, albeit the only unintentional one, in "The Killer Inside Me," an adaptation that looks good but can't find the right tone in depicting its Andy Griffith-meets-"American Psycho" anti-hero. Shockingly violent murders left many in the Sundance crowd disgusted, suggesting that potential distributors might argue for trims before any theatrical release.

Casey Affleck is strange casting for the central role, a West Texas deputy who's neither as friendly nor as dim-witted as townfolk think. His gentle voice is too thoughtful for the hokey cliches with which Lou Ford "needles" his neighbors, and though Affleck can muster a psychopathic grin when necessary, he doesn't project the good-ol'-boy harmlessness that for some time keeps Ford from becoming a suspect in the murders he commits.

Set in a 1950s small town, the story plays with the notion that one of a town's most respectable young men actually is a two-timer who loves rough sex and kills even when it hardly benefits him. Ford's first victim is a prostitute he's sleeping with -- played by Jessica Alba, who's unrecognizable after the startlingly long series of punches she receives in the end -- who quickly is followed by the rich boy who wanted to run away with her.

What should be a perfect premeditated crime actually leaves loose threads dangling, and Thompson's book is a page-turning series of episodes in which Ford almost is caught and must invent a lie or kill someone to escape. But director Michael Winterbottom doesn't generate the pulp author's rising pitch, in which the next shoe dropping never is the final one, and his attempts to convey the narrator's pitch-black humor often rely on an off-target use of Western Swing tunes that make the action more jaunty and ironic than menacing.

When the noose finally begins to close around Ford's neck, the movie is nearly suspense-free, as if it, like its protagonist, is psychotically detached from reality. Calmly preparing its final, lethal scene, it never convinces us to care.

By John DeFore

Noel Clarke writes and co-directs this ambitious but completely chaotic urban comedy-thriller, set in London and New York, about four young women with attitude. They are friends whose lives are upended when they come into contact with dangerous individuals who have stolen a bagful of "conflict diamonds". Clarke himself appears in a smallish role as a supermarket employee, and is described by one of the attractive young women in the cast as kind of sexy and probably very well endowed. Well, if you can't big yourself up in your own movie, when can you? Emma Roberts plays Joanne, a lonely American in the UK, Tamsin Egerton is Cassandra, a talented classical pianist about to get a big break in the Big Apple, Ophelia Lovibond is Shannon, a troubled yet talented artist and Shanika Warren-Markland is Kerrys, a street-smart tough girl. This film whooshes wildly all over the place, and it's got plenty of energy, but nothing about it is convincing for a single moment, and the acting is on the torpid side. Clarke puts in a fair few steamy sex scenes, and some sapphic moments very obviously targeted at the male DVD-buyers out there. There's a quirky cameo from Kevin Smith, playing a very full-proportioned guy on a plane — perhaps sending up his reputation for getting cross with airlines who are unsympathetic to the larger traveller's needs.

by Peter Bradshaw

Increases in on-street car parking charges in Oxford city centre are set to be ratified tomorrow.

Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet is being recommended to agree to increase the cost of parking in streets like St Giles from £3 to £4 for two hours, with charges for an hour’s stay rising by 25 per cent, from £2 to £2.50.

The plans also include a new charge of £1 for 30 minutes, that the council believes will save some shoppers from paying a full one-hour charge.

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