PERSUASION no stars

 Almost nothing about this new version of Jane Austen's "Persuasion" works from its multi-cultural cast, (perfect in "Bridgerton", incongruous in Austen), its mismatched central pair of lovers, (Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis), or our heroine's constant asides to the audience. The comedy is forced, the romance never catches fire and any attempts at making it all feel more 'modern' totally backfires. It's a Netflix production and it does have that 'made-for-tv' look about it. In the end it's left to Richard E. Grant as Mr. Elliot to give it whatever lift it has but his part is much too small to make much of an impression. A major disappointment.

THE WEAPON **

 The most interesting thing about this Val Guest directed thriller is its use of actual London locations, something of a rarity at the time, and which gives it that touch of realism missing in the script. Overall, "The Weapon" isn't a bad little B-Movie, about a boy, (Jon Whiteley, Britain's favourite child star until Haley Mills came along), who finds a gun in some ruins and accidently shoots another boy with it. Of course that means young Whitely takes off while said gun had been used in a murder ten years before and it's up to Steve Cochran, Herbert Marshall and seemingly not very concerned mother Lizabeth Scott to find the boy before the killer does as well as catch the killer at the same time. It's a decent enough plot and Guest handles it more than competently. Unfortunately the performances let it down making this more of a guilty pleasure rather than a contender but it's still a pleasure and worth seeing.

MONEYBOYS no stars

 The clue may lie in the title. "Moneyboys" is about male sex workers in Taiwan and one sex worker in particular. Liang Fei, (Kai Ko), is gay and has moved from his village to the city where he can be himself or at least use his body in ways he couldn't back home and it's there he finds love but not happiness. C. B. Yi's feature debut is a slow, depressing film with an unsympathetic hero. It's certainly well made and Yi uses the widescreen to good effect but without what we might call a 'story' or characters we can identify with or feel anything for this is something of a long haul and a dull one at that.

MISTER BUDDWING no stars

 A good director, (Delbert Mann), and a fine cast, (James Garner, Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette, Angela Lansbury, Katharine Ross), can do nothing to save what the French might call a 'pot de merde'. "Mister Buddwing" is based on an Evan Hunter novel and has Garner waking up in Central Park not knowing who he is; he's the amnesiac to end all amnesiacs and he spends this dumb movie wandering around New York looking for himself and a woman named Grace, (well, he does remember that much), meeting mostly women who may or may not be said Grace. There are flashbacks to an earlier life that are just as bad as the scenes in the present. Is this meant to be a drama, a thriller or, God forbid, a comedy, (it's certainly unintentionally funny), and what audience did they think would pay money to see it? Garner himself hated it; 'the worst film I've ever been in', he said and he most probably was right.

IT MUST BE HEAVEN ***

 Trying to pin a plot or even a theme on Elia Suleiman's deadpan "It Must Be Heaven" may prove difficult as the director, who is also the central character, observes the world around him through seemingly jaundiced eyes without opening his mouth, (he doesn't speak until about two-thirds of the way into the movie and only then to tell a New York cabbie that he's from Nazareth).

He's a Palestinian Jacques Tati who begins his journey of (self) discovery in Nazareth before flying off to Paris, a city seemingly filled with beautiful women that Suleiman observes, or you might say ogles, to the strains of Nina Simone. It's also a city of the homeless or the dispossed and people running from the authorities who pursue them on various forms of motorised transport. Of course, none of this makes much sense; this is a comedy of the absurd that is never particularly funny.

Midway through this Parisian section it seems to hint this might be a film about the film we're watching. Geddit? Gotit! Good. It then moves to a slightly more vibrant New York where Gael Garcia Bernal makes a brief, funny appearance as himself before going full circle back to Nazareth. Throughout, Suleiman makes brilliant use of the widescreen; visually the film is a constant treat but maybe the taciturn director isn't the best guide, even to his own idiosyncratic world, and 104 minutes in his company may prove too much for some. Stick with it, though, (at least until the scene-stealing little bird appears), and you may find, as I did, that he will win you over.

ELVIS ***

 Perhaps the most surprising thing about Baz Luhrmann's film "Elvis" is just how conventional a biopic it is, at least in terms of what it tells us about the man in question. This is The Elvis Story or rather The Elvis and Col. Tom Parker Story as we might have expected it from anyone of a dozen directors with a beginning, a middle and an end very much in that order. But this is also a Baz Luhrmann picture and if you have seen "Moulin Rouge" or "The Great Gatsby" you will know what that means; Luhrmann's "Elvis" is, if nothing else, a musical spectacle and it looks and sounds terrific. It could just as easily have been called 'The Elvis Show' for that is what it is, a show and in the person of Austin Butler, Elvis Presley is its heart and soul.

Of course, for it to work at all it had to have a convincing Elvis, a star who was, at the same time, an unfamiliar face and in Butler that's exactly what it has. He is not only the best Elvis impersonator imaginable but a very fine actor who can get inside the head and under the skin of the man. Butler delivers on all counts and should find himself an Oscar front-runner next year while as the Machiavellian Colonel a certain Tom Hanks could well be on his way to a third Oscar, this time as Best Supporting Actor. Together they easily overcome the deficiencies in the over-egged screenplay.

And then there's the music and the recreations of those concerts and television specials which are pitch perfect from beginning to deeply moving end, (a cut from Butler as Elvis singing 'Unchained Melody' to the real thing is quite breathtaking), and no Elvis fan will find themselves short-changed. Naturally, the first thing you will want to do after seeing this film is watch those television specials again and marvel at just how great an entertainer he was. Failing that, Butler and this film will do very nicely.

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES **

 "The Battle of the Sexes" wasn't an Ealing comedy but it may as well have been. It's certainly in the Ealing class and is one of the best British comedies of its period. Of course, it had a great pedigree in James Thurber's short story 'The Catbird Seat' and it had an excellent cast headed by Peter Sellers, Robert Morley and Constance Cummings.

Morley is the new owner of an antiquated Scottish tweed-making business, (his father, the great Ernest Thesiger, died with a dram in his hand), Cummings the officious American efficiency expert intent on modernising it and Sellers, the old accountant who will resort to anything, including murder, to stop her. It's a black farce and a very funny one and it represents something of a high point in the career of director Charles Crichton although, surprisingly, it isn't particularly well-known outside the UK.

61* ***

 This Billy Crystal directed baseball movie isn't really a biopic although it is based on actual events. In 1961 team mates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle set out to beat Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a single season and it's one of the few 'made-for-tv' movies that could just as easily have been made for the cinema, helped in no small measure by Haskell Wexler's excellent cinematography. It's also extremely well cast. Barry Pepper is outstanding as Maris and there's fine work, too, from Thomas Jane as Mantle as well as from Richard Masur, Chris Bauer, Christopher McDonald, Donald Moffat and Seymour Cassell, (and it was nice seeing Renee Taylor again as Babe Ruth's widow).

In fact, the only problem with the picture, (and the problem with so many similiar 'inspirational' pictures), is Hank Steinberg's somewhat one-dimensional and sentimental script. Of course, if you're a baseball fan you're not going to be paying too much attention to what's being said off-field and the on-field action, and the underrated Pepper, more than compensate for the mostly banal dialogue. Indeed, here's a sports movie that could even convert non-believers like myself. It really deserves to be better known.

FANNY BY GASLIGHT **

 This Victorian melodrama has enough plot to fill several volumes and is, what you might call, 'a rum yarn'. Anthony Asquith's "Fanny By Gaslight" was based on a best-selling novel by Michael Sadleir and was a huge hit in its native Britain and it's an exemplary example of its kind. Phyllis Calvert is Fanny and let's just say what happens to her in the course of this tale would put any Dickens heroine to shame or to quote Thelma Ritter, 'all that's missing is the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end'. Stewart Granger is the young man who loves her and James Mason, the nasty brute who would like to ruin her and others in the fine cast include Wilfred Lawson, Jean Kent, Margaretta Sccott, Cathleen Nesbitt and Nora Swinburne. Given that it's basically a soap opera, Asquith handles it with considerable aplomb and the performances are first-rate. If it's a guilty pleasure, it's certainly a highly enjoyable one.

THE HUMANS ****

 Stephen Karam has not only adapted his Tony award-winning play for the screen but has also directed it and an exceptional job he's made of it, too. Set almost entirely inside a virtually empty New York apartment that Beanie Feldstein's Brigid and her partner Richard, (Steven Yeun), appear to be moving into it's definitely theatrical as her father, mother, sister and grandmother join them for a Thansgiving that will turn out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. It's the kind of apartment that Rosemary's baby might feel happy being born in, in a building that has clearly seen better days and is the kind of place that enjoys working its old black magic on anyone who visits.

In some respects it's thoroughly banal but in a deeply disconcerting way. Karam definitely has an ear for the kind of everyday, inconsequential dialogue that we call 'small talk' yet which tells us all we need to know about the people we are interacting with and his cast of six are all superb; this is a great ensemble piece with Jayne Houdyshell, repeating her Tony award-winning performance , the stand-out. Of course, it won't do any business. This is too like real life and not enough like the movies to appeal to anything like a mass audience but in its very niche way it's utterly brilliant, a horror movie in all but name and one of the best films you will see this year.

THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET no stars

 Madelon Claudet's sin is that she's had an illegitimate child by a rat who jilts her and will prostitute herself to provide a decent life for her son. Made before the Hays Code "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" is a 'daring' women's picture that makes Madelon something of a saint. Well, she is played by that doyen of respectibility Helen Hayes who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. It's a terrible film but Hayes just about redeems it though Lewis Stone is also very good as Madelon's shady 'benefactor' yet despite Hayes' Oscar win the film is virtually unknown today. Still if, like me, you're an Oscar completist you should seek it out.

KITTY FOYLE no stars

 Ginger Rogers could clearly carry a tune and she certainly could dance. She was also a terrific comedienne; what she wasn't was a particularly fine dramatic actress so when she was cast in the title role of "Kitty Foyle" as the working-class girl who falls for a rich socialite but can't measure up to his family's expectations, she really was up against it and yet, despite some very strong opposition, the Academy gave her the Best Actress Oscar. Maybe they were amazed she could act at all. It's a nice enough performance but nowhere near her best and certainly not Oscar-worthy.

The movie itself is a rather third-rate 'women's picture', adapted by Dalton Trumbo, with a little help from Donald Ogden Stewart, from Christopher Morley's best-seller which bills itself as 'the natural history of a woman' but despite the talented Sam Wood in the director's chair it's never very engaging. In fact, it's really rather dull as Kitty is torn, (it's told mostly in flashback), between rich heel Dennis Morgan and nice doctor James Craig. Personally, I didn't care who she ended up with though enough people obviously did to make this one of the year's sizeable hits. As well as Ginger's win, the film itself was nominated for Best Picture.

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN ***

 Zhenia, (Alec Utgoff), is a kind of itinerant masseur who's also something of a shamen. He was born in Chernobyl seven years to the day before the accident and as a client suggests he may be radioactive. He's now plying his trade around a fancy gated estate in Poland, the kind of place where the Stepford Wives might live. There's no backstory to Zhenia other than he can hypnotise people and momentarily take over their lives, (that's how he seems to have got his work permit), and Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert's wonderful film "Never Gonna Snow Again" could be a Polish 'Wizard of Oz' before Dorothy came on the scene as Zhenia makes himself at home in other people's houses, bending them to his will while simultaneously becoming a little like them for a time.

'Realism' in the conventional sense is conspicuously absent. I mean, how did Zhenia get in touch with these clients, all living within walking distance of each other in this strangely bland community? What's his purpose there and who exactly is he and why can he move a glass across a table without touching it? Teasingly these are questions Szumowska and Englert want us to ask without giving us any answers.

Naturally, it's a comedy and a rather black one though it's never particularly funny. Whimsical would be a better term. It might even remind you a little of Pasolini's "Theorem" and visually it's often quite extraordinary. That it slipped by, virtually unnoticed, even in the art-house circuit, is a shame since it is totally engaging from start to finish. Do try to see it.