CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS **

Not to be confused with Fritz Lang's "While the City Sleeps", "City that Never Sleeps" is a first-rate little programmer about a disillusioned cop's plans to ditch his wife and run off with showgirl Mala Powers. The cop is Gig Young, (miscast and not at his best), and the city in question is Chicago and the action takes place over the course of one night. The good supporting cast includes William Talman as a killer, Edward Arnold as a crooked lawyer, Marie Windsor as Arnold's two-timing wife and Chill Wills as Young's slightly out-of-this-world partner. Imaginatively directed by John H. Auer, (whoever he was), and with a good and somewhat unusual plot with fine, atmospheric cinematography from John L. Russell this is certainly a cut above your average B-Movie and is worth seeking out.

THE BIG BUS **

This spoof of disaster movies may not be in the same inspired league as "Airplane" but it's a hoot, nevertheless with one of those all-star casts no self-respecting disaster movie or spoof could afford to be without. Even the initial premis is ridiculous; this time what we have isn't a plane in jeopardy or a sinking ship but a bus! Yes, that's right but it's "The Big Bus", the world's first nuclear powered superbus on it's maiden, non-stop drive from New York to Denver. The drivers are Joseph Bologna and John Beck and the passengers include Stockard Channing, Rene Auberjonois, Ruth Gordon, Sally Kellerman, Richard Mulligan and Lynn Redgrave while back at base bad guy Jose Ferrer is doing his best to destroy the bus from inside his iron lung hence the disaster side of this disaster spoof. The jokes are beyond corny and yet I laughed at least a couple of times every couple of minutes which isn't a bad batting average. The director was the reliable James Frawley and David Shire did the superb spoof score.

LOVE no stars

"Love" opens with the kind of sex scene that was once only seen in hard-core porn but which now seems to be the norm in mainstream cinema. Needless to say, if hard-core porn isn't your bag or indeed the films of Gaspar Noe, perhaps it's best you give "Love" a miss. Indeed, if you enjoy the pleasures cinema usually offers then I would give "Love" a miss too. Noe is, of course, a master of controversy and his films are famous for both explicit sex and violence. They also tend to be visually imaginative but badly written and acted and "Love" is no exception, except perhaps that it's even more badly written and acted than most.

With a title like "Love", of course, you might think the violence level will be minimal and you'd be right but "Love" isn't so much concerned with love, (the word is used a tad too often for my liking), but sex and lots of it and in 3D, too. This is a two-and-a-quarter hour porn movie but if it's porn you're after, just ditch this rubbish and stick with the real McCoy. Not that I needed proof, but this sure proves Noe is probably the most overrated director alive.

THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON *

One of the great partnerships in the movies is also one of the most overlooked. Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland made eight films together of which "They Died With Their Boots On" was the last. It's the biography of General George Armstrong Custer from West Point to the Battle of Little Big Horn but with the warts ironed out while historically it's far from the most accurate of films. Flynn, of course, is Custer and while he was never much of an actor he had a charm few other actors of the period could muster. Incredibly handsome and with a personality to match he could make the most banal material interesting while De Havilland, here cast as the missus, seemed incapable of giving a bad performance.

Directed by Raoul Walsh, for the most part this is rousing entertainment with a great supporting cast but unfortunately it also comes across as deeply, if perhaps unintentionally, racist though I suppose you have to look at it from an historical perspective, (it still leaves a bad taste). Two years after winning an Oscar for "Gone With the Wind" Hattie McDaniel is playing another appalling variation of her 'Mammy' character. McDaniel was a superb actress dished by Hollywood; here she's not only a 'Mammy' character but a Mammy who can tell fortunes. And don't even get me started on the treatment of Native Americans, (here just pesky Red Skins), with that famous 'Indian' Anthony Quinn as Crazy Horse.. However, if you can overlook these faults this remains as stirring an epic on the infamous Custer as we've seen; just don't believe it.

VITALINA VARELA no stars

You need to work hard at a Pedro Costa movie. His films are not for those who like speed or action or even need to see what's going on. Though shot in colour his films are more black on black and the greens, purples, blues and reds that intrude during the opening moments of his latest film, "Vitalina Varela" come as something of a shock. Otherwise, it's business as usual. Costa aficionados will love this but if, like me, you find his work 'difficult' you won't find much here that's different. My problem with Costa isn't the dark cinematography or the slow pace but the sense that everything is staged in an unreal world that we are meant to accept as 'realistic'. Costa's films are like theatrical productions in which the actors say very little and just wander around the stage though to be fair, "Vitalina Varela" is beautifully shot; darkness has never seemed more tangible.

The title character, Vitalina Varela, is a Cape Verdean woman who travels to Lisbon after the death of her husband, perhaps to set his affairs in order, perhaps just to find out more about the man who abandoned her. Vitalina Varela also happens to be the name of the actress playing her and, although she has only appeared in this and one other Costa picture, must surely be considered an actress, (she did win Best Actress at Locarno), and not just the character she is 'playing'. But then Costa likes to cast people in his films playing people who may or may not be variations of themselves. He likes to blur the lines between fact and fiction and he does so very, very slowly though certainly with a degree of skill.

There are people who swear by his films, (others may swear at them); people who see in Costa a new kind of film-maker, a saviour of the cinema in an age of paltry, mindless 'entertainments' where even the new 'art-house' directors like Claire Denis and Bruno Dumont are selling out but to quote a certain Miss Jean Brodie, 'for those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like'. I have no doubt cineastes amongst my readers will already be picking up their brickbats to hurl at me for not loving this but hopefully not too many will have seen it and I will live to review another day.

THE 12TH MAN **

Another war film based on actual events. Twelve Norwegian saboteurs fail in their mission. Eleven are executed by the Nazis but one, "The 12th Man"of the title, escapes and Harald Zwart's film is his story. It's a good, intelligent movie; a little slow perhaps and certainly overlong at 135 minutes but never less than fascinating and with excellent performances from Thomas Gullestad as the 12th man and from the Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the SS officer who pursues him. Unfortunately the misery is piled on thick and fast which means it's not a particularly entertaining picture and the barren, snow-covered Norwegian wastes are hardly photogenic though they are superbly photographed by Geir Hartly Andreassen. It's certainly exciting with a terrific climax but Gullestad endures so much pain and suffering you may feel the need to switch off or at least have a stiff drink when it's over; I certainly did.

WADJDA ****

"Wadjda" is an important film in world cinema, being the first film from Saudi Arabia to be directed by a woman and one of the first to gain international recognition but while you're watching it, it doesn't feel 'important' at all but just hugely charming and you think that maybe its importance simply lies in it being one of the great films about childhood. The title character is a young girl living in Riyadh who dreams of owning her own bicycle even if girls are not really permitted to ride bicycles. When she sees a beautiful bike in a shop she decides to do what she can to get the money to buy it.

Haifaa Al-Monsour's film is certainly radical coming, as it does, from a culture where women and girls are treated very differently from other parts of the world but it is so open and funny and with such a wonderful performance from Waad Mohammad as Wadjda, (it's one of the great child performances), that you never think of it being radical. Indeed, if it tells us anything it's that people are the same the world over, especially children. Yes, in the overall scheme of things "Wadjda" is important but it is, above all, hugely enjoyable.

JURASSIC WORLD; FALLEN KINGDOM ***

While it may not quite be in the same league os Spielberg's original, "Jurassic World; Fallen Kingdom" is certainly the best of the sequels. It's got a better than average plot, a funny script, excellent special effects and a good cast. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are back. Jeff Goldblum makes an appearance and Rafe Spall, Toby Jones and Ted Levine are excellent villains. The director is J.A. Bayona who has already proved his mettle with the likes of "The Impossible" and "A Monster Calls" and he certainly knows how to make a monster movie. In fact, as monster movies go this one has classic written all over it, (there's even a nod in the direction of "King Kong"), and, of course, yet another sequel seems almost certain. It may play to the gallery and perhaps it's a little too in awe of the first film in the franchise but you don't go to a movie called "Jurassic World; Fallen Kingdom" expecting high art or even too much originality. I loved it.

THE ORPHANAGE ***

"The Orphanage" may technically be a 'Danish' film but it's set in Kabul during the Russian invasion and it is as much a homage to Bollywood as anything and is a much better one than Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire". It's hero is Qodrat, (Quodratollah Qadiri, wonderful and basically playing himself), a teenage boy living on the streets who is arrested for selling cinema tickets illegally and put in the orphanage of the title; it is the making of him.

Shahrbanoo Sadat's second feature could easily have been full of neo-realist angst but Sadat imbues it with so much affection that the angst completely disappears even if the Bollywood tendency to kitsch is never far away while it's young cast, (non-professionals all), are excellent. This is a political film where the politics take a back seat and a coming-of-age movie devoid of sentimentality. Its sweetness is intoxicating and even when tragedy strikes Sadat never over-emphasizes but simply accepts that this is the way things are. A really lovely film.

CLOSED CIRCUIT **

John Crowley's thriller "Closed Circuit" begins with a terrorist bombing in London's Borough Market and was made only four years before an actual terrorist attack took place in the same location, not that I'm suggesting one lead to the other. Indeed, Crowley's film isn't about the attack itself but about the court case that followed and was written by Steven Knight, usually a good sign, and has a fine cast, (Eric Bana, Rebecca Hall, Jim Broadbent, Ciaran Hinds, Kenneth Cranham, Julia Stiles, Anne-Marie Duff and Riz Ahmed, sexy, charming and menacing all at once and stealing the movie). It's also superbly shot in well-known London locations by Adriano Goldman so why isn't it more engaging?

There's certainly the material here for a very good thriller and it is quite exciting but it's also highly improbable. I just couldn't take it's plot seriously and as conspiracy theory thrillers go it's all been done before. Remember, this was a post 9/11 movie and we ought to have expected something a little closer to reality; we were in the middle of 'the war on terror' afte all. Certainly not a bad movie, then just a very familiar one.

GEORDIE **

It's hardly "Local Hero" but this Scottish-set comedy from the Launder and Gilliat team is still a charmer. Bill Travers is the game-keeper's son who is entered for the Melbourne Olympics as a hammer-thrower but insists on wearing his kilt. It's a very simple little picture with characters that are easy to like. Travers may not have been much of an actor but he was certainly personable and Alastair Sim is wonderful as the local laird while the Scottish locations are lovely and like "Local Hero" it's funny but in a very gentle kind of way. This is British humour at its most restrained and its supporting cast of of character actors is first-rate. Popular at the time, it has disappeared over the years but is worth reviving.

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK **

Subtle, it ain't but George Miller's film version of John Updike's "The Witches of Eastwick" is extremely entertaining. Jack Nicholson, in a role you feel he was born to play, is Darryl Van Horne, 'just your average, horny little devil' who, it would appear, is conjured up by three New England women, (Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer), one stormy night and whose presence in their lives turns them into 'the witches' of the title. He's magnificent and very funny but the movie goes to pieces before the end. What starts out as a satire on New England prudery and what, I suppose, could be called 'the battle of the sexes' just becomes another Faustian horror-comedy about selling your soul to the Devil but, at least on that level, it's great fun, (and you do get the impression that these witches are having a ball). Throw in Veronica Cartwright as one of those New England prudes who sees Nicholson for what he is and not just a great lay with supernatural powers and you have a female-centered movie of the first order. It may be no classic but it's a great guilty pleasure.

USKI ROTI ***

Mani Kaul's"Uski Roti" ('Our Daily Bread'), which came out in 1970, is now considered a classic of Indian New Wave cinema and was, like the films of Satyajit Ray, heavily influenced by the Italian Neo-Realist Movement. In terms of its raw, unadorned style it could have been made twenty or thirty years earlier at least. Kaul uses black and white images rather than excessive dialogue to tell his story which is unusual in that it deals with the role of women in Indian society.

A young wife waits by the roadside for her husband, a bus driver, to drive past so she can give him 'roti' but he pays her little attention and has a mistress. I have no doubt a similarily themed movie made in the West would have been excessively melodramatic but Kaul opts for a documentary-like realism with heightened sound recording and a highly stylized form of acting. This is an Indian art-movie, quite clearly not designed for mass consumption and so simply constructed it feels positively primitive like the ethnographic studies of Murnau or Flaherty. It's virtually impossible to see it here now but if you get the chance I can warmly recommend it.

THE SOUND OF FURY ***

Not quite a film-noir, not quite a B-Movie but this Cy Endfield directed crime flic could fit quite easily into either of those categories and was well enough thought of to earn a BAFTA nomination for Best Film From Any Source. Indeed, if anything it's a social conscience movie reminiscent of Lang's "Fury" and what's surprising is that it was made at all in the America of 1950. Frank Lovejoy is the down-on-his-luck veteran who falls in with hoodlum Lloyd Bridges, (terrific). When one of Bridges' schemes goes wrong Lovejoy finds himself in deeper than he could ever have imagined.

This is a violent and deeply disturbing picture that deals with a much uglier aspect of the American character than most movies of its kind. Likeable, sympathetic characters are thin on the ground and the eruption of violence that closes the picture is still shocking. Endfield, an American who worked most of his life in Britain, never really had the career he deserved, (he was a victim of McCarthyism) but he, like this terrific little picture is now ripe for rediscovery. This has cult movie written all over it

LET THE SUNSHINE IN ***

Claire Denis in a more playful mood than perhaps we're used to in a tale of sex and unrequited love. Juliette Binoche, (superb, as ever), is the middle-aged artist whose life is far from satisfactory, particularly her love life. The film opens with Binoche having sex with a man it clearly becomes obvious is far from worthy of her and is, in fact, something of a misogynist pig and a married one as well. You could say that after this it's all downhill for her as she drifts from one unsatisfactory relationship to another.

If the movie is less than hilarious it shows that Denis can still tackle comedy and that she has a much lighter side to her than we might have imagined. It's mostly a series of conversations, all of them smart with Binoche clearly relishing a terrific part, a potentially tragic character that she has great fun subverting. In fact, the only thing wrong with the picture is Binoche; she's such an extraordinarily beautiful woman and so obviously more intelligent than anyone else on screen, it's hard to believe her life can be such a mess. But if you accept that it is, then Denis' movie is a real treat and with a lovely end-of-movie cameo from Gerard Depardieu, what's not to love?