UNCLE FRANK **

 Another family saga from the school of William Inge; don't Alaskans have family sagas? This one is courtesy of Alan Ball, he of "Six Feet Under" and "American Beauty" fame and this time he's directed as well and doing a reasonably good job of it, too. This is a coming-out as opposed to a coming-of-age story and it's Paul Bettany's "Uncle Frank", (that's the title), who is forced to come out when his niece pays him an unexpected visit and meets his lover. Later all three of them have to share a car journey from New York to Frank's hometown of Creekville when his father dies suddenly.

In typical Alan Ball fashion, this is a serio-comic family saga and the humour works better than the inevitable sentimentality. Both Bettany and Sophie Lillis, (the understanding niece), are excellent and there's good work, too, from Peter Macdissi, (the lover), Margo Martindale, (the mother), Stephen Root, (the horrible father), Steve Zahn and Judy Greer, (in-laws) and best of all, Lois Smith, (Aunt Butch). At times it feels like an extended episode of "Six Feet Under" and it certainly doesn't break new ground but even at its most saccharine it's a hard film to dislike and is one of the better LGBT films of the last year or so.

LOVER'S ROCK (SMALL AXE #2) ****

 You have to remember that before Steve McQueen became a 'film' director of features like "Hunger", "Shame" and "12 Years A Slave" he was a Turner Prize-winning video artist and "Lover's Rock", the second of his five "Small Axe" films, seems less of a traditional film as it is a fully immersive video installation in which his camera is continually moving around a series of dancing bodies while the extraordinary soundtrack turns this into an almost continuous and utterly sublime music video. Of course, if that's all "Lover's Rock" was it might perhaps merit a special mention somewhere down the line but McQueen is much more than just a great visual artist. As his earlier features have shown, he is one of the great social chroniclers of life in the UK, (see "Hunger") and of the Black experience, (see "12 Years A Slave" and these "Small Axe" films).

"Lover's Rock" takes place at a house party in West London over the course of one night and in just seventy minutes of screen time McQueen opens up the lives of these party-goers in just a few short, sharp scenes while never deviating from the music. This is one of the great musicals that isn't strictly a 'musical' and anyone who's ever been to a house-party will know the euphoria on the screen first-hand. Magnificently acted by a cast who are not really acting at all, brilliantly photographed by Shabier Kirchner and superbly directed this is among the best seventy minutes of film I have seen this year.

HILLBILLY ELEGY no stars

 The one thing you're guaranteed with a Ron Howard film is professionalism even if there may be a dearth of imagination. The lack of imagination in "Hillbilly Elegy" extends to the title which is one of the poorest of a mainstream film this year. It's another growing up and coming-of-age saga in, dare I say it, Hillbilly country and it's well enough made; beautifully photographed and designed, like so many Ron Howard films and equally lacking in imagination which isn't to say you might not enjoy it. For starters, Howard has cast two of the best actresses in America as leads; Amy Adams is the Po' White Trash Mamma, (she's old enough to take mother roles now), and Glenn Close is the Po' White Trash Grandma and they are both excellent in very conventional roles.

It's the biography of one, J.D. Vance, (Gabriel Basso as an adult and Owen Asztalos as the younger version), a Yale law graduate who manages to break free from his family but who is forced back when his mom od's on heroin and it's based on the book he wrote about his family. Even if you didn't know it, you could still guess this was a Ron Howard picture and that's not a recommendation. Howard's 'autership' means all his films look and sound alike in the way that Reader's Digest novels were all alike, aimed at people who didn't want to try the real thing. This movie is condescending in the extreme; Oscar-bait fare for Adams and Close and very typical of its director.

FATMAN no stars

 The "Fatman" of the title is Santa Claus; yes, the 'real' one but as played by Mel Gibson he's no 'Ho Ho Ho' jolly old man in a red suit but a gruff old businessman with money troubles and a concerned wife, (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), and when he needs to be he's pretty handy with a gun. This alleged black comedy is clearly aimed at people like me whose favourite Christmas movie is "Bad Santa" but whereas that gem was genuinely funny and done in the worst possible taste while still managing to be sweetly sentimental thanks to a terrific performance from young Brett Kelly. This, however, is seriously short on laughs. Worse, it's poorly scripted, directed, acted and very violent; this is a Christmas movie clearly not aimed at children.

The plot, for want of a better word, has obnoxious rich kid Chance Hurstfield hiring hitman Walton Goggins to kill Santa after he leaves him just a lump of coal at Christmas. Meanwhile Santa and his elfs find themselves making parts for the U.S. military to make ends meet. Done well, this could have been inspired instead of the under-cooked turkey it turns out to be. In fact, rather than watch this rubbish revisit "Bad Santa" or even watch "It's a Wonderful Life" for the 40th time or just go to bed early and hope that Santa brings you something more than a lump of coal.

THE DANCE OF REALITY *

 'Reality' is the one thing that is conspicuously absent from Alejandro Jodorowsky's "The Dance of Reality". He may be a revolutionary filmmaker but he is also an acquired taste. This one does have a plot of sorts involving Jodorowsky as a boy, (Jeremias Herskovits), growing up in a surreal seaside town in Chile populated by dwarfs, the armless, the legless, the naked and the dispossessed, (all typical Jodorowsky tropes), where nothing 'real' happens at all and everything plays out as if in a dream with the real Jodorowsky himself turning up every so often to guide as through this cinematic circus of his life. There is a parallel plot involving Jodorowsky's father, played by his son Brontis, (I hope you're getting this), that is less interesting than the one that opens the picture. It looks great, makes no real sense yet is quite easy to follow, will make no converts to the cult of Jodorowsky but which should please his fans no end.

TEN NORTH FREDERICK no stars

 A miscast Gary Cooper is the well-to-do lawyer and failed politician caught in an unhappy marriage who embarks on an affair with a younger woman, (Suzy Parker), in this rather average screen version of John O'Hara's novel, "Ten North Frederick". It's told in flashback on the day of Cooper's character's funeral, (Cooper himself was to be dead from cancer only two years later), as he's remembered by his daughter, (Diane Varsai). Geraldine Fitzgerald is the ambitious shrew of a wife who basically drives Cooper to drink and into Parker's arms.

The book was one of those typically scandalous O'Hara bestsellers and this was a fairly prestige production but Philip Dunne, who also wrote the screenplay, was a dull director and Cooper was already looking pretty frail while Varsai hadn't moved on from her Allison McKenzie character in "Peyton Place". Only Fitzgerald shows any real mettle though in a small, but showy, role as the trumpet player who gets Varsai pregnant, Stuart Whitman shows real promise. Watchable, then, but equally uninspired.

BECKY SHARP no stars

 Not Rouben Mamoulian's finest hour even if this first fully-fledged Technicolour movie is rather sumptuous to look at. In deference to its heroine, Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' has been rechristened "Becky Sharp" and Mamoulian gallops through Thackeray's epic novel in under ninety minutes. So much has been left out, you might think you're watching something else entirely. It's also very badly cast. Alan Mowbray, of all people, is the 'dashing' Rawdon Crawley, Alison Skipworth is his dowager aunt and if Miriam Hopkins is a coquettish Becky she's closer to being a Manhattan hostess than a Napoleonic one. Had it been shot in black and white it would have been long forgotten by now but it's saved to a degree by Mamoulian's use of colour. Unfortunately, the dialogue sounds like it came from a dime-store novel rather than from one of the great works of English literature. If there's an audience for this movie today, I'd be very surprised.

MANK ***

 I'm sure "Mank" will find an audience among cineastes, especially those who love movies about the movies but despite all the craft on display I doubt very much if this will set the box-office on fire, (though David Fincher aficionados might give it a go out of curiosity). Mank, (not a good title, by the way), is Herman J. Mankiewicz, co-writer with Orson Welles, of "Citizen Kane", and this movie, written by Fincher's father, Jack, some years ago, posits the idea that the screenplay of "...Kane" was written by Mankiewicz and Mankiewicz alone.

This is a movie strong on name-dropping, (we are told who everyone is as soon as they appear), and it's definitely smart and, thanks to Erik Messerschmidt's stunning black and white cinematography, it looks incredible but it also has a strip-cartoon like quality giving it the feel of a potted history of Hollywood at a time when MGM had more stars than there were in the heavens. It is, in other words, a niche movie for a niche market.

Mank is Gary Oldman, (excellent in an Oscar-bait performance). Welles is British actor Tom Burke, a splendid Charles Dance is William Randolph Hearst and Amanda Seyfried is an outstanding Marion Davies and there are scenes in the movie as good as anything you will see this year. It's also very good on the 'Hearst is Kane' idea and if we have to have gossipy show-biz biopics then we can't complain if they all look and sound as good as "Mank". This is the kind of film, come Oscar time, I'm sure the Academy will honour in a self-congratulatory frame of mind as if finally honouring "Citizen Kane" itself. It may not be Fincher's masterpiece but it just might be the one that will finally win him that little gold-plated man we call Oscar.

BEN IS BACK no stars

 Despite excellent performances from Julia Roberts, (frantically worried mom), and Lucas Hedges, (drug-addicted son), "Ben is Back" is unlikely to be thought of as one of the better movies about addiction, opting for the thriller route rather than going down the social conscience road, (setting it over Christmas doesn't help either; sentimentality is never far away). It it, then, a reasonably thin piece written and directed by Hedges' father, Peter, presumably as a vehicle for his extremely talented son who doesn't disappoint. Indeed were it not for Hedges Jr. and Roberts this would be no better than a half-decent made-for-tv thriller. If they don't actually redeem the picture at least they give it a much needed lift. Still, only tolerable at best.

CREEPY ***

 You might ask yourself why the Japanese are so good at movies about killers, killing and horror in general. Without wanting to cast aspersions at my Japanese friends could it be something in their psyche? But then you might say, isn't the American cinema just as expert in the killing fields as anywhere and don't we judge a certain kind of cinema on a particular Hitchcock movie from 1960? Perhaps we should simply say the Japanese have honed this particular genre to perfection and that "Creepy" has all the makings of a classic of its kind.

It's a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film and Kurosawa's already built up something of a reputation as one of the best directors working in this genre but neither would it disgrace David Fincher's canon of work. Like Fincher, Kurosawa seems to be able to blend horror with a streak of very dark humour and to make somewhat convoluted plots believable.

Hidetoshi Nishijima is the police detective who, after failing to secure a serial killer who has escaped when in his custody, leaves the force, takes a job lecturing on crime and serial killers in particular and moves with his wife to a new neighbourhood. However, they soon discover their new neighbours are not only unfriendly but, to give the film its title, creepy. Things get even creepier, as well as a whole lot nastier, when he and a former colleague reopen an old missing persons case. Add a great Bernard Hermannesque score and you know you're in for a delightfully unsettling experience. One of the best chillers of its year.