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.

PETITE MAMAN ****

 At just 72 minutes "Petite Maman" might be described as the perfect miniature and after "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" it clearly establishes Celine Sciamma as one of the finest directors working today. The premis is very simple; after the death of her beloved grandmother a little girl, Nelly, travels with her parents to the family home where, through some strange osmosis, she meets her mother, Marion, as a child. Is it a dream; has she travelled back in time? Nelly never questions what's happened but observes and accepts the other child as a new playmate as the two lives merge.

Of course, Nelly knows who the little girl is; she just accepts this new person in her life as a means of discovery, both of the past and of what will come, and nothing Sciamma does here seems incongruous or out of place. This is a new take on the 'lonely child' movie that's also a profound meditation on life, death and the love of a child for a parent and Josephine Sanz is wonderful as Nelly, (her sister,Gabrielle, is also excellent as her 'petite maman'), while it's also incredibly moving. Here, life isn't disappointing at all but something to grasp with both hands since we never quite know when it will be taken away from us.

Mr. 880 **

 This comedy about an inept counterfeiter who manages to keep one step ahead of the law for years on end earned Edmund Gwenn an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. The stars are Burt Lancaster, (the Secret Service man on Gwenn's trail), and Dorothy McGuire, (Gwenn's friend that Lancaster falls for), and the director was Edmund Goulding who doesn't do anything special here other than keep things ticking along very nicely. If it feels 'Capraesque' at times perhaps it's because the screenplay was written by Capra collaborator Robert Riskin and maybe it's a little too gentle than it ought to be but it's well-played, (the always excellent Millard Mitchell is another Secret Service Agent), with both Lancaster and McGuire proving very adept at comedy. Not much seen now but worth seeing if you get the chance.

THE LATE GEORGE APLEY **

 In 1947 "The Late George Apley" would definitely have been what was called a prestige production. It began life as a novel by John P, Marquand before being adapted for the stage by Marquand and George S. Kaufman so it seemed inevitable that it would be filmed. Primarily it's a vehicle for the actor playing Apley, the stuffy, rich and hugely snobbish Bostonian who is finally brought out of himself and down to earth by his children and the people they choose to fall in love with and in Ronald Colman they did indeed find the perfect Apley, not that he has to do a great deal of acting, (that's left largely to the supporting cast). Colman just has to swan about, speaking in those beautifully dulcet tones and he does it beautifully. It's also a comedy; gentle, sweet-natured and genuinely funny. The director was Jospeh L. Mankiewicz and while it may not be among his best work it is very likeable if also very old-fashioned.

MASS ***

 "Mass", in the title of Fran Kranz's excellent debut film, stands for mass murder but it could also mean the Catholic Mass, which is a sacrament, since one of the subjects of this film is forgiveness. Two sets of parents meet in the basement of a church; they are the parents of boys involved in a school shooting, those of the killer and those of one of the victims. What is the real purpose of their meeting? Closure, forgiveness, to vent anger, to divest themselves of pain, to try to understand? Kranz's film covers all of these and is blessed with an extraordinary cast of four. Reed Birney and Ann Dowd are the parents of the killer and Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton are the parents of the victim.

It is a theatrical concept and yes, it does feel like a filmed play with well rehearsed arguments but the cast raise onto a different level; painfully we feel like eavesdroppers on their grief and that is Kranz's achievement. Apart from a few shots at the beginning and end we never leave the one room and the cast mostly sit around a table and they talk. This is hardly a film to pack them in on a Saturday night but it is still one fo the best films of the year and certainly it has the best ensemble cast.