THE WOMAN IN QUESTION no stars

 "The Woman in Question" may be the least well-known of Anthony Asquith's films and to be honest, I'm not surprised. It's a fairly routine 'Rashomon'-style murder yarn. Jean Kent is the victim and we see her through the eyes of five different people, (the movie's told in a series of flashbacks), each one describing her in very different terms giving Kent a chance to display what little acting chops she had.

It's got a decent enough cast, (a young Dirk Bogarde, Hermione Baddeley, excellent as a gossipy landlady, Stewart Granger lookalike John McCallum, Susan Shaw, Charles Victor, taking the acting honors and the always reliable Duncan Macrae as the investigating copper), but the script's poor and the film's only 'novelty value' lies in which version of the truth is true, if any.

It's a nice idea, badly handled and Bogarde's dreadful, initially putting on a terrible American accent before actually admitting he's from Liverpool which in itself takes some swallowing. Bogarde and Asquith completists may get something out of it but everyone else should give it a wide berth.

FAIR PLAY **

 No-one can say we're not getting our fair share of psychological 'thrillers' these days. Like buses, as soon as one comes along there's another one behind. The question is, are they any good as in, are they original, are they 'thrilling' and how soon will overkill set in. "Fair Play" is actually very good indeed as well as being highly original. It's set in the world of high finance where the term 'cutthroat' can be both metaphorical and literal especially if sex is also involved. Emily, (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke, (Alden Ehrenreich, in a role finally worthy of his considerable talents), work together but have been hiding their relationship from colleagues. When one of the them gets a promotion things in general start to go pear-shaped.

What distinguishes "Fair Play" from its rivals is its attention to detail. Here we have an environment that feels painfully real and a plot that initially might seem unlikely yet doesn't actually feel that contrived. It's not perfect. I found it hard to believe that its protagonists could not only live together but also be engaged without anyone at work catching on. Nevertheless, as a movie about the toxicity of office politics where men and women think they can compete on an equal footing with disastrous results "Fair Play" ultimately lands a gut-punch thanks largely to terrific performances from Dynevor and especially from Ehrenreich as well as an excellent turn from Eddie Marsan as the boss from hell. Not necessarily pleasant viewing but certainly a cut above.

REPTILE **

 This slow-burner of a murder yarn may just turn out to be the best thriller of the year. A realtor is found dead by her colleague and partner who naturally becomes a suspect but then there are a few other men in her life who are also suspects; so far, so common-place but Grant Singer's "Reptile" is as much about the police investigating the killing as it is about the investigation. These are a close-knit bunch of cops who both work and play together and who may not be as clean as they should be.

A sterling cast, (Benicio Del Torro, Alicia Silverstone, Justin Timberlake, Eric Bogosian, Michael Pitt, Frances Fisher), add a further touch of class to an already classy thriller and one that is as far from conventional multiplex fare as you are likely to get. It may not always be that easy to follow and midway through the killing seems to fade into the background but it's always highly intelligent and while it may not appeal to a mass audience I think it has cult status written all over it.

PLEASE BABY PLEASE no stars

 Beyond bad! The credit sequence is just dandy so long as you love pinks, blues, highly stylised camp and a little violence. Amanda Kramer's "Please Baby Please" is more of a homage to Kathryn Bigelow's "The Loveless" than it is to "Absolute Beginners" but with a very Queer agenda and while visually this is often easy on the eye its socio-political posturings are very hard to swallow and given the dreadful dialogue they have to speak leads Andrea Riseborough and Harry Mellings simply can't create characters who either seem real or with whom we can empathize.

You might call "Please Baby Please" a queer, feminist, art-house semi-musical shot, again in homage to films of the past, in Panavision and giving Demi Moore the 'guest starring' role. It is, in other words, pretentious in a very bad way, a one-of-a-kind movie that makes you glad it is; at least another one won't be coming along any time soon. What attracted Riseborough to rubbish like this is a mystery.

TIGHT SPOT **

 Excellent, hard-boiled crime movie that wastes no time in getting down to the action and then never really lets up, despite its enclosed setting, (it was based on a play). Ginger Rogers, (very good), is the tough-talking jailbird taken from prison so she can testify against the mob though Ginger isn't too keen on talking and the mob aren't too keen in keeping her alive.

Brian Keith is the cop whose job it is to ensure she stays alive and Edward G. Robinson, (superb as ever), is the District Attorney who wants her to testify. The director of "Tight Spot" was Phil Karlson and this was right up his street and it's still one of his best films. Talkative, yes, but then the talk is good and while it may have been a B-Movie it was certainly a first-class one.

THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET ***

 Sidney Franklin's first screen version of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", (he remade it again in 1957), is a ridiculously entertaining period piece about the blossoming romance between the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, (Fredric March and Norma Shearer, both excellent in their very Hollywood way), and how finally Elizabeth and the rest of the Barrett clan, (there were nine of them), rebelled against their tyrannical father, (a superb Charles Laughton, at the time only three years older than Shearer).

It was a very typical prestige production of the period. Irving G. Thalberg was the producer and he obviously chose it as a vehicle for the missus, (he was married to Shearer at the time), but it's almost stolen by Maureen O'Sullivan, surprisingly good as one of the Barrett girls and Una O'Connor is a delight, gliding across the room as if on wheels. The source was a play by Rudolph Besier and it's the kind of thing that would have gone down a treat on the London and Broadway stage, the archetypical 'well-made-play'. Yes, it's decidedly old-fashioned and very talkative and unlikely to appeal to today's audiences but it's also very good, a little on the camp side certainly but a very fine example of just how good the studio system could be at its best.

DONKEY SKIN *

 Jacques Demy was certainly a frivolous film-maker but what's wrong with frivolity in the name of art? "Peau D'ane" was his very literal fairy-tale made in homage to Cocteau's "La Belle et Le Bete" down to the casting of Jean Marais among a litany of famous French actors and while it was never going to be in the Cocteau class it certainly looks like a highly attractive entertainment and features a luminous Catherine Deneuve in the central role of a princess who must flee her home when she is forced to marry her own father, the king, (don't ask!).

Naturally, this being a Jacques Demy film every tiny detail of its production design is close to perfect and the cast, that also includes Delphine Seyrig, Jacques Perrin and Micheline Presle throw themselves into the confection with abandon and yet it's all a little too twee to be considered among Demy's better works. It might appeal to little French girls and bigger French boys with a crush on the gorgeous Deneuve but Demy aficionados will be disappointed. Oh, and the songs are pretty bad, too.

BARBIE ***

 "Barbie" is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable films I've seen this year and yet it's also the most infuriating. Highly imaginative, (it's got the best pre-credit sequence in years), and laugh-out-loud funny it's got ideas to burn and therein lies the problem. Director and co-writer, (with partner Noah Baumbach), Greta Gerwig has set out to make the ultimate feminist tract dressed up in the brightest of pinks as a satire and while it works perfectly well as a satire full of self-conscious digs at its very creation, (we are constantly being reminded this is a movie called "Barbie" that we're watching), it's as a tract that it's in danger of sinking. That it doesn't is very much to Gerwig's credit; she's much too smart to really ruin her product and there is an awful lot here to enjoy.

The thin plot has Barbie and Ken leaving Barbieland for the real world so Barbie can repair some sort of hole in the spectrum or some such nonsense that has allowed 'real' feelings (of a negative kind) to slip in and, naturally, since this is a film about dolls coming to life, it's decidedly silly and if had stayed silly it might have been inconsequential fun but Gerwig and Baumbach wants this to be 'consequential' fun, a laugh-a-minute message movie. Unfortunately one message doesn't appear to be enough; there were times I felt I was being battered to death by a giant message-wielding Barbie and by the time Will Ferrell's CEO of Mattel has left the real world for Barbieland the laughs had begun to dry up.

Perhaps if someone had snipped about 20 minutes from the running time and dropped a few of the film's sermons this might have been the classic it was clearly aiming to be; that said, there are a lot of plusses here. It looks fantastic, the best gags are as good as anything Gerwig or Baumbach have given us in the past and best of all, it's got a couple of living dolls worthy of the name.

Margot Robbie was born to play Barbie, (there's even an in-joke about her in the movie), and, of course, she's wonderful and yet the film isn't hers. Barbie really belongs to Ryan Gosling who might become the first actor to be Oscar-nominated for playing a doll and given that the film is structured to make him a mouthpiece for its creators he brings an uncanny degree of feeling to the role and his performance is up there with his very best. As for Gerwig, maybe now that she's got her inner Barbie out of her system she might finally settle down to make comedies that are funny and meaningful and leave the sermons at home. We already know how good she can be.

OPPENHEIMER ****

 Like Martin Scorsese and Alfred Hitchcock before him Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors who can guarantee a paying audience as surely as any of the big box-office draws in the acting profession. A film-maker of great skill he has nevertheless often eschewed 'seriousness' to work, if not necessarily in the 'popcorn' market, then certainly in the commercial field and that's where he has built up his following. But what will his followers think of "Oppenheimer"? Will today's movie-going generation even know who J. Robert Oppenheimer was, (at the full-house screening I attended I saw two people leave), and can Nolan do justice to his subject?

To that last question the answer is undoubtedly yes. As I say Nolan is a film-maker of great skill and "Oppenheimer" is unquestionably his best film to date. It's an old-school epic, three hours long, superbly shot on the biggest of canvases and with an all-star cast even if some of those Oscar-winning actors are reduced to cameos, (Gary Oldman as a devious Harry Truman). At its centre there's a terrific performance from Irish actor Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, chosen perhaps for his slight resemblance to the man but also because Nolan clearly saw in Murphy talents other of his screen roles never fully explored.

Of course, in typical Nolan fashion the narrative isn't linear. The film may begin with Oppenheimer the Cambridge student and end with Oppenheimer the decorated old man but in-between Nolan skips back and forth in time, shooting both in colour and in black and white and framing his film around two sets of 'hearings', one in which Oppenheimer, late in his career, appears before a committee of three to see if his security clearance will be renewed, knowing that this is nothing more than a kangaroo court; the other, filmed in black and white, the much larger senate committee hearings set up to determine the suitability of Lewis Strauss to be U.S. Secretary of Commerce in Eisenhower's government and in this role Robert Downey Jr. not only give the best performance of his career but should be a shoo-in for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. These scenes form the backbone of the film and may prove too talkative for Nolan's customary audience. That said, this is a beautifully composed and highly intelligent picture, clearly aimed at an adult audience. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it sweeps the boards at next year's Oscars.

BEAU IS AFRAID ***

 It's little wonder "Beau Is Afraid" since his life is hell. You might even say he lives in Hell and the demons in his life are determined he won't get out. When Ari Aster's magnificent mess of a new movie opens Beau is due to travel home to visit his mom on the anniversary of his father's death but those demons and circumstances in general contrive to keep him in his hell-hole of an apartment in his unnamed city where street violence is a given 24/7. It takes a car hitting him at speed just to get him away from the apartment he seemed fearful of leaving in the first place.

Beau is played by Joaquin Phoenix, never off the screen in this three hour movie and giving us yet another tour-de-force performance and that car is driven by Amy Ryan who, rather than take him to a hospital, brings him to her home where her husband Nathan Lane is a doctor. It looks like they want to 'adopt' this sad, depressed and fearful middle-aged man but Beau is determined to make it 'home' to mother, (Patti LuPone when she finally does appear and not the kind of mom anyone would want to spend time with).

His journey there is a Kafkaesque nightmare that culminates in a Kafkaesque trial with Beau the hapless prisoner in the dock. Like "Hereditary" and "Midsommar"  before it, "Beau is Afraid" is a horror movie that exists in its own Asteresque fantasy world and yes, like any good horror film it's deeply unsettling while at the same time being very funny but at three hours it also goes way beyond its point of tolerance. There are sequences here, spread throughout that epic running time, as good as anything you will see this year and yet at other times there are scenes that either seem to miss the point or just drag on too long. The word that seems to be missing from Aster's vocabulary is 'cut'; knock forty minutes or so off the 179 minute running time and this might have been a really great film. As it stands it may be a bit of a mess but it also confirms Aster as one of the most exciting people making movies today. Personally I can't wait to see what he does next.

OUTSIDE THE WALL no stars

 A very average B-Movie from the little-known Crane Wilbur, "Outside the Wall" finds basically innocent, nice guy Richard Basehart getting out of prison after serving 15 years on a murder rap committed when he was 14 and falling into bad company in the form of gold-digging nurse Marilyn Maxwell and ex-con John Hoyt's wife Signe Hasso and her murderous associates, one of whom happens to be Harry Morgan. It's certainly nobody's finest hour, least of all Basehart's, though both Maxwell and Hasso just about redeem themselves and Morgan makes for a surprisingly good villain. Unfortunately the far-fetched plot is wafer thin and Wilbur's direction is poor. One to avoid.

HOPSCOTCH **

 If Ronald Neame was never likely to be considered an auteur he could usually be relied upon to give us some good solid entertainments of which "Hopscotch" was one. It's an amiable comedy-thriller with the emphasis more on the comedy than on the thrills with Walter Matthau as an ageing. Disgruntled CIA agent who 'retires' and then writes a 'tell all' book about the organization forcing him to go on the run.

Matthau never turned in a bad performance and more often than not turned in some pretty terrific ones. Here he's got the late, great Glenda Jackson as back up and although she gets star billing her's is more of a supporting role and something of a waste of her talents. Faring a lot better are Sam Waterston, Herbert Lom and especially Ned Beatty. If the film itself is no classic, (it's much too far-fetched for that), in it's daft way it is certainly entertaining.

ASTEROID CITY **

 You might describe Wes Anderson's "Asteroid City" as the most Wes Anderson of Wes Anderson's films or even the most marmite movie ever made and I'm sure it's a film that will divide even his most ardent admirers. Personally speaking I'm still not sure where I stand on it; there is a lot here I liked and yet for about the first twenty minutes or so it seemed like a film I was destined to hate.

To say what it's about would clearly be a waste of time since it isn't really 'about' anything. I've often described Anderson's films as being like a series of New Yorker cartoons brought to life but they were New Yorker cartoons embedded in some pretty decent storytelling. Here he seems to have dispensed with storytelling altogether and just given us the cartoons voiced by his all-star cast. For a good deal of the time it works though sometimes the 'cleverness' just falls flat.

It's really another 'movie-within-a-movie' though as we are told by narrator Bryan Cranston at the beginning what we are seeing is a play in three acts, interrupted by inserts of 'behind the scenes' stuff. You could say the inserts represent real-life; everything else is the play with Anderson choosing black-and-white Academy ratio for the reality and widescreen and colour for the play which is set in the fictional Asteroid City of the title and where a group of junior star-gazers and others find themselves. The year is 1955, atomic tests are going on in the background and there's a spaceship and an alien on the prowl.

To be honest it's probably the slightest of all Anderson's constructs but it's certainly gorgeous to look at and given that they have nothing tangible to do or say the cast are actually very good and it's often very funny. It's certainly a marked improvement on "The French Dispatch" but I still long for the days of "The Royal Tennebaums", "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" or "Moonrise Kingdom" where the actors not only had roles they could flesh out but where Anderson found a humanity in the clever wordplay and where the background stayed in the background. The way he is going now he may as well ditch the actors altogether and just film his admittedly eye-candy sets.