SWEET DREAMS ****

Perhaps only a director who has lived as long as Marco Bellocchio could tackle the subjects of death and grief with the degree of empathy that's shown here. A young boy, Massimo, is devastated by the sudden death of his mother; years later, as a man, he must try to come to terms with his grief. "Sweet Dreams" is, indeed, an old man's film; there is a lifetime of observation and affection on view. This isn't the kind of film the enfant terrible that Bellocchio once was might have made but a slow, measured, grown-up and deeply moving view of childhood and what lies beyond and as the very young Massimo, Nicolo Cabras is quite extraordinary, (as the adult Massimo, Valerio Mastandrea is also outstanding in what really is a superb ensemble). It's also a decidedly old-fashioned film; there is nothing ostentatious about it. It is a film full of memories but they aren't handled in the tricksy fashion of so many younger directors. Indeed, this is the equal of anything in the director's canon and if we are speaking of late masterpieces this is certainly one. It really shouldn't be missed.

THE MAGIC GLOVES **

A total delight. Martin Rejtman's "The Magic Gloves" is like an early Almodovar film on Prozac. Actually there's an awful lot of pill-popping in this off-the-wall comedy, most of them taken by Cecila, ex-girlfriend of our hero Alejandro, (a wonderfully deadpan Vicentico). She's been diagnosed with depression by her travel agent who's married to a musician known as Piranha who invites Alejandro home believing him to be an old school-friend of his porn star brother. Yes, it's a comedy of identity, mistaken or otherwise, that wouldn't disgrace Jarmusch or Kaurismaki or maybe even Albert Brooks whom Alejandro actually resembles. As for 'props', all you need are some dogs and a car or two and you've hit the jackpot. I loved it.

JUDY **

This year the Academy may as well just forget about nominating five actresses to compete for the Best Actress Oscar, (though when you think about it, there isn't much 'competition' involved), and just hand it over now to Renee Zellweger whose performance as Judy Garland in the film "Judy" is, what we tend to call, a shoo-in. Zellweger is simply magnificent in the part; a barn-storming, tour-de-force in an otherwise largely mediocre film. She may not look much like Garland nor does she particularly sound like her, (Zellweger does her own singing), but what she does do is 'act' Garland in a way that is totally transformative. You simply forget you are watching Renee Zellweger; you are really looking at Judy Garland.

Of course, this is not strictly a 'biopic'. It only covers the last few months of her life and the now infamous Talk of the Town concerts with the occasional flashbacks to "The Wizard of Oz" and how Louis B. Mayer and the studios mucked up her life. It's a film that proudly parades before us every cliche in the biopic book, ending with perhaps the cheesiest 'there's a lady on stage' scene in the history of movies but, of course, none of that matters much since Zellweger is seldom off the screen. I just kept wishing she had been given better material to work with, (it's based on the play 'End of the Rainbow' by Peter Quilter), but if anyone out there thinks Renee's hogging the screen and even, God forbid, going overboard, there's always Jesse Buckley who, as Judy's London 'minder', not only manages to hold her own but shows just what a damn fine actress she is in a totally thankless part.

Of course, no Judy Garland picture would be complete without some 'Friends of Dorothy', here reduced to a couple of London fans who go to see the show every night and hang around the stage door, a la "All About Eve". In one of those scenes that absolutely shouldn't work but does, they even manage to take her home for some badly scrambled eggs. Unfortunately they are also at the centre of that truly cheesy ending. Did it really happen like this? I pray to God not or Judy's life really was more like a movie than we could ever imagine.

FORT MASSACRE *

Surprisingly good and visually very attractive B-Movie Western from the mostly reliable Joseph Newman and shot in Cinemascope. A slightly over-the-hill Joel McCrea is the sergeant leading his Cavalry troop through hostile Indian territory and one savage attack after another. It's hardly John Ford but this is a much tougher picture than anything Ford might have given us; closer in tone to the cinema of Peckinpah with a decent script and good performances from its mostly male cast. It may not be a B-Movie classic but it's still a welcome addition to the Western genre.

NIGHT FLIGHT no stars

One of Clarence Brown's least known films. It may have one of the starriest of all-star casts yet practically no-one has heard of it and it is hardly ever revived. The plot is paper thin while the banal script reads like a pamphlet on aviation and the likes of Robert Montgomery, Clark Gabel, Myrna Loy, Helen Hayes and Barrymores Lionel and John are simply required to go through the motions, (and not very well at that), but it's well photographed and Brown handles the flying scenes with brio, (on the ground, however, it's a very different matter). Of course, Howard Hawks was to cover similiar material to much greater effect several years later in "Only Angels Have Wings" so while this curio can't be totally written off it is certainly no-one's finest hour.

SPOOR ***

One of Agneiszka Holland's best films, "Spoor" is a kind of ecological thriller-cum-message picture, magnificently shot by Jolanta Dylewska abd Rafal Paradowski in the Kotlina Klodzka region of Poland. Agnieszka Mandat is superb as the middle-aged teacher with a passion for animals and at loggerheads with her neighbours, hunters all; then her neighbours start turning up dead... It's certainly an unusual story, one might even say far-fetched and its ecological message is laid on a bit thick at times but Holland still manages to get considerable mileage out of it making spectacular use of her locations and giving the animals their dues. Perhaps the best thing about the film is that, while its message is clear from the start, it's never pedantic or over-stated and finally it's as a good old-fashioned whodunnit that it really works, helped no end by a superb score from Antoni Lazarkiewicz. Seek this one out.

THE GOLDFINCH ***

Firstly, I haven't read Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize winning novel so I can't say just how good or how bad John Crowley's screen version is in comparison but purely as an epic piece of cinema with a multi-layered plot and a host of characters, (the book has been described as 'Dickensian'), this film is very good indeed. For anyone still unfamiliar with the story, it's about a boy who survives a bombing at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in which his mother is killed. The Goldfinch of the title is the painting they were looking at when the bomb went off.

The film covers a number of years. Two actors play the film's central character, Theo Decker; as a child he is played by the remarkably gifted Oakes Fegley and as an adult by Ansel Elgort. They are both superb, particularly young Fegley who gives an Oscar-worthy performance. After his mother's death he is initially taken in by the Barbour family in which the dominant figure is the mother, (a superb Nicole Kidman). This is at least until his up-to-now absent father, (Luke Wilson), and his mistress, (Sarah Paulson), drag him off to the very fringes of Las Vegas where his only friend is a young drug-taking, vodka-drinking Russian who might also be gay or at least bisexual. Then there is the 'alternate' story where he is also taken in by a not wholly legitimate antique dealer and furniture restorer, (Jeffrey Wright). I did say there was a lot of plot.

Much of the criticism levelled at the film is that Tartt's book was basically 'unfilmable' to begin with but if that was the case then let me say that screenwriter Peter Straughan has done a remarkable job of drawing all the plot strands together and in juggling the leaps back and forth in time. All the performances are excellent and Crowley shows great skill in handling the younger performers. Yes, it takes its time and yes, it does require a good deal of commitment from its audience but this is an adventure well worth taking particularly if, like me, you are unfamiliar with the book and can simply enjoy this marvellous film for what it is.

MORGAN; A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT *

The Kitchen Sink was drawing to a close when founding father Karl Reisz made "Morgan; A Suitable Case for Treatment" from David Mercer's screenplay. The time is 1966 and, to be honest, it's more Swinging London than Kitchen Sink as David Warner's Morgan goes off the rails as he tries to win back ex-wife Vanessa Redgrave. She's terrific, (and was Oscar-nominated, competing against her sister Lynn), and Warner is also very good as the increasingly unstable Morgan. They, and London, are the stars of the film. It's billed as a comedy but just because it's frequently surreal and off-the-wall doesn't mean it's funny and like a lot of films from this period it now feels very dated as do the blue-collar caricatures played by Irene Handl and Arthur Mullard. Best view it as a period piece and something of a curio.

TENSION **

A noirish thriller with a good cast, (Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Cyd Charisse), and an excellent plot, (Basehart is the mild-mannered chemist planning on killing his faithless wife's lover). It was directed by John Berry, a minor jobbing director who made at least one outstanding film, ("He Ran All the Way"), in his relatively short career. This isn't quite in the same class, (it gets rather convoluted before it's over), but it does what it says on the tin and both Basehart and Totter are excellent.

YARA ****

Filmed in the almost unbearably beautiful mountains of Lebanon, "Yara" is one of the most beguiling films you will see in a month of Sundays, setting out a way of life that might seem as remote as the place where director Abbas Fahdel chose to film it. Yara herself is a young girl who lives in the mountains with her aged grandmother. One day a handsome young man chances by and she is smitten but this is no conventional love story; indeed it's hardly a love story at all but an almost documentary-like account of a region and its people, (all the actors are non-professionals, essentially playing themselves), making do with what many of us might think of as very little yet living in what many of us might think of as a kind of paradise. This is one of the greatest of all films to deal with our place in the natural world, reminding us that great cinema need not necessarily announce itself with fanfares but with the quietude and simplicity of the gentlest of breezes.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD ***

Not as great as its reputation might suggest but damn good nevertheless. This was the film that basically introduced John Le Carre to an international audience. Richard Burton was perfectly cast as Alec Leamas, "The Spy who came in from the Cold" and his mission was to act as a double-agent and worm his way in with the East Germans and incriminate a spy from the other side so they will shoot him themselves.

The plot is complex, the characters beautifully realised and the performances all brilliant. As well as Burton at his near best, Oskar Werner was, as always, remarkably good as another Communist spy, Claire Bloom very nicely cast as the left-wing librarian Burton gets involved with and Cyril Cusack was a perfectly cool and ever so cynical Control. George Smiley even pops up in the form of Rupert Davies. The director was Martin Ritt and this remains one of his best films while Oswald Morris did the brilliant black and white cinematography.

THE MOVEMENT ***

Visually Benjamin Naishtat's "The Movement" is one of the starkest and most beautiful films ever made. Shot in black and white and dealing with a time of war and plague in 19th century Argentina it should immediately remind you of the work of Miklos Jancso, both in subject matter and in style or perhaps the films of Bela Tarr.

What little plot there is, is shorn away until there is nothing left but the barest of bones. Short scenes that don't automatically appear to be leading anywhere fade into blackness in a film shot mostly at night. The acting, and what dialogue there is, appears improvised and yet utterly brilliant. This is 'pure' cinema at its most basic and on the strength of it I predict one hell of a future for Naishtat.

LETO ****

Who would have guessed that the feel-good movie of the year so far would be a Russian rock musical, set in the 1980's and filmed in widescreen black and white? Kirill Serebrennikov's "Leto" works on a number of levels; as a picture of a still totalitarian Russia coming to terms with influences from the West, as a good old-fashioned musical and as a picture of relationships under pressure and the fact that it looks so damned beautiful, (should all movies be in black and white?), is just the icing on the cake. Throw in some awesome tunes from the period and what's not to love. I can even imagine a shirtless Putin head-banging to this just to keep his street-cred intact. The young cast, too, are excellent; this is a first-rate ensemble piece in which even the smallest part is perfectly played. Some of the musical numbers might remind you of the Elton John biopic "Rocketman" but this knocks that out of the ballpark. Don't miss it.