Paperjam

While I am a big fan of the whole DVD's in the post thing I am starting to worry that Lovefilm are attempting to make me suicidal by only sending the really miserable films on my rental queue. I've got a list of 80-something films, all different sorts of stuff, but for some reason they are trying to keep me on a compete downer. Check out the films they have sent me in the last couple of weeks, to be honest if I wasn't such a naturally happy-go-lucky person (stop laughing at the back) I'd have probably thrown myself off a bridge by now...

The Assasination of Richard Nixon Very good but almost entirely depressing and miserable all the way through, ending is horrible.

21 Grams Dead kids, terminal illness and morbid guilt - admittedly Naomi Watts getting her kit off does enliven proceedings a bit, I am aware of how shallow that sounds.

American Buffalo David Mamet play, adapted for the screen. Gruff, sweary and fairly tragic in the end.

Bus 174 Brazilian documentary about a homeless man hijacking a bus, total nightmare and extremely sobering stuff about the plight of the street people in Rio.

Serpico The old Al Pacino biopic which basically says: The entire Police force in New York is corrupt, don't rock the boat or you might end up shot in the face.

The Conversation Seventies paranoid thriller, the ending is so bleak it hurts.

Dancer In The Dark Compelling and involving but really quite upsetting indeed. The musical interludes just make it worse. Fairly devastating by the end. In short: Hard work.

The Virgin Suicides Stop it, it just isn't funny anymore.

Just watched the trailer for this cool looking monochrome animation, mixing french noir with epic Japanese anime. Could be a load of old sci-fi bollocks, but looks good albeit in a hopelessly derivative Blade Runner, 1984, Matrix, Akira, Ghost in the Shell. Sin City kind of way.

Apparently it is out now and contains "Strong language and moderate sex". Sounds like a day in the office, well the language part at least. You can see the stylish trailer here

As is the way with big commercial cinema releases of recent years, Superman Returns is a very, very, very long film. In order to recoup some of the time that you are going to spend watching it I have tried to keep this as succinct as possible.

Is it any good? Not bad, entertaining at the start, drags on a bit.

Best bit? Shuttle/plane accident

Worst bit? Superman goes to ER

Spacey? Properly evil, but clearly here for the paycheque.

Routh? Functional in the main, good in the Clark Kent bits.

Bosworth? Can't really remember.

Little kid? Androgynous.

Plot? Basically the first Superman film replayed

Less-than-subtle Christian imagery? Oh yes, almost up to Matrix levels, sacrifice, scourging, crucifixion and resurrection (twice!).

Awful patriotic flag-waving bollocks? Thankfully not.

Possible sequel titles?

The Passion of the Superman

Superdad and Superboy go Shopping for Capes

Superman vs. the Child Support Agency

Superman and the Visiting Rights on Every Other Sunday

Superman Gets Over It & Goes Speed Dating

In all the excitement of my non-stop, hedonistic, smoking crack with supermodels while skydiving lifestyle, I forgot to review this a few weeks back. Brick is a "Just how much more black could it be?" film noir mystery played out by a bunch of American high school students and starring the kid out of Third Rock From The Sun. Sounds absolutely terrible doesn't it?

Well, actually it is great; really mean spirited, slow burning and rather dream-like. The film revolves around a young man's search for his ex-girlfriend after he receives a suitably cryptic distress message. The cryptic stuff doesn't end there, with the whole cast talking in some kind of 50's throwback slang, which should jar horribly, but doesn't. The plot describes a web of drugs, crime, jealousy and revenge and reminded me of many things (A Fistfull Of Dollars, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet) without specifically resembling any of them.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Brendan is excellent, delivering hard-boiled, couldn't give a fuck, sarcasm (in a way that I have attempted to perfect for years), while getting his head badly kicked in every five minutes (which I managed to perfect at an early age). He seems to have made the transition from child star to actor fairly successfully and if it doesn't work out he could certainly have crack at a career as a runner.

Brick now seems to be playing at a few more places, I definitely recommend you try to catch it at the cinema, just don't ask too many questions like: Where are all the other parents? What is the obsession with footwear? and How on earth did they get that chandelier in the back of the van?

Having heard Mark Kermode slay the film (and Tom Hanks' hair) a week or two ago, my parents telling me that weren't going to watch it because of the terrible reviews, and also not being able to get past the first thirty pages of the book because the prose style annoyed me so much, I was fully expecting a big steaming, 149 minute long turd of a film.

So, incredibly, it was actually better than I thought. But... there are so many things wrong with it.

It's not giving anything away to say that a murder happens in the first reel, inside the Louvre. The film cuts between the murder and Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) giving a lecture on signs to a packed theatre, which suggests that the two events are happening at the same time.

Captain Fache (played by a reasonably bored looking Jean Reno) and the rest of the Paris police then assume that Langdon dunnit by some scribblings left by the dead man, despite the fact that 500 people could verify his whereabouts at the time of the murder. We find out later on that Fache is not exactly 100% honest copper material, but even so, this wound me up.

Also, the script... the script...

> Langdon / Hanks : ...all the letters are mixed up > > Neveu / Tautou : (looks thoughtful) Ah. An anagram

... right, thanks for that explanation.

Audrey Tautou looks fabulous throughout, but I'd better shut up about her if I want to reach my second wedding anniversary. Both her and Hanks are incredibly wooden throughout, possibly due to the script - although Ian McKellen manages to make a decent fist of his conspiracy theory-obsessed scholar.

Super-scary Paul Bettany mopes about a lot in his monk's robes, slapping himself about a bit with a cat o'nine tails and talking in something ancient on a mobile phone. When he disposes of a nun, he pulls the same menacing "oh you've really upset me" face as in Gangster No.1, which made me grin as I remembered. I amused myself for the next couple of scenes by having a go myself (widen eyes, turn head to one side, and breathe in deeply - there, you got it).

The ropey scripting and the wooden acting could be halfway forgivable if there was some tension built up, but my knuckles remained their usual yellowy-pink throughout, even during the Smart car backwards chase scene.

And when it ended there was an enormous sense of - oh, was that it? Is that all that everyone is so excited about?

Imagine that one day Rupert Murdoch wakes up and decides to buy Leyton Orient, then he perusades Zinedine Zidane to go and play for them. Does't seem very likely does it? Well in the 1970s, business, media mogul and sports nut Steve Ross decided to buy into the North American Soccer League by investing in the New York franchise. At the time soccer (as they insist on calling it) had a public profile somewhere between bear baiting and dwarf tossing in the grand scheme of American sports.

The New York Cosmos (as in short for cosmopolitans) were a rag tag bunch including a giant striker with comedy hair and a keeper with a penchant for getting his cock out in ladies magazines, they played on a shitty pitch covered in broken glass in front of a crowd of about 200. Then they broke the bank to sign Pele.

This film explains how this kickstarted a total revolution, within a couple of years the team also included Beckenbuaer, Carlos Alberto and Georgio Chinaglia and were playing in Giants Stadium in front of 70,000.

We are treated to the sights and sounds of some truly great footballers taking the complete piss out of a bunch of half arsed amateurs, Pele nutmegging a series of clueless defenders is especially good. Matt Dillon narrates, while a series of candid and conflicting interviews paints the picture of the irresistable rise and eventual fall of the Cosmos and indeed the whole structure of soccer in America.

Chief architect of this is the rather unpleasant Chinaglia, who looks like Tony Soprano, sounds welsh and has the ego to match his phenominal goal scoring record. Brutally unapologetic, he is the sort of person that you would never want to meet, but he is terrific value as an interviewee.

Aside from the cracking soundtrack, priceless archive material and superb editing, the cost of admission is almost entirely justified for the moment where Pele completely clatters the preening cock that is Rodney Marsh, could have done with a few slo-mo replays there.

1. The moment of horrible inevitability between banging one of your toes and the pain reaching your brain.
2. Running out of petrol in the middle of a contra-flow on the M1 at rush hour - whilst also desperate for a piss.
3. One moment realising that actually you don't really love them any more and the next noticing that the condom has split.
4. Any ambiguity mid-stride as to whether that was a fart, or there was perhaps more to it.
5. Guy Ritchie's Revolver
6. The man on the plane next to you suddenly leaping to his feet and screaming "Jihad!".
7. The shops are shut, the only food in your house is a pot noodle. After forcing it down you realise that it is 3 years past its sell-by date.
8. The doctor informing you that "this might pinch a bit"
9. Overhearing any friend of yours telling someone "You know he really likes you, yeah honest, he's always going on about it"
10. The day that your club announce the signing of Robbie Savage.

Oooh its a nasty rainy night as Steve ferries myself and James W down the A45 towards a date with the groovy sounding but as yet mysterious 7 Inch Cinema.

Arriving at the nicely appointed Rainbow pub (owned by one of PWEI apparently) in Digbeth we dash in, paying a 2 quid cover charge to be confronted by a tasty looking pub dominated by a large projector screen showing what looks like a slightly scary eastern european animation from the 70's. Actually it turned out to be from the late 50s and was created by the same man who went on to direct Emmanuelle 5. Life is not always an upward curve.

Pints acquired from the friendly bar staff and a position at the end of the bar settled upon we are treated to a few more bits and pieces, although due to the pressures of time not I'm Bobby, which sounded cool, a Bollywood re-make using paper cut-outs and local children for actors.

After some musical interludes and more films, including some crazy automata and a short film about shady experiments which starts well but ends with some disturbing things happening to eyes - I study the programme intently for the duration and engage the (very nice) barmaid in conversation about why the peanuts on display are "The Drinker's Choice".

The highlight of the evening for us is the appearance of musical duo Black Galaxy playing music over the top of a short film by Derek Jarman, The Art Of Mirrors (pictured), unsettling, but none-the-less ace. The sound and vision mix really well. Following this there is an extended trawl through The Fall Of The House Of Usher and another Jarman short.

By this stage, time is marching on and unfortunately we all have work tomorrow, so it's off for a quick slash before I am dragged away from another conversation with the barmaid about Stoke-On-Trent, in order to drive home.

All in all a worthwhile trip, if a bit much for novices like us to absorb all in one go, if we go over again I imagine we will try to get there early doors so that we can get a seat and make sure that Badly Drawn Boy doesn't stick his tea-cosied head right in front of me.

More details about 7 inch cinema on their web site and if you are in the area give the Rainbow a go, very cool pub and the food looked cracking too.