Reviews

Have you ever noticed how nice, quite expensive parts of London are often home to charming eccentrics with no visible means of income? That those districts are thickly populated by winsome, attractive young women with a penchant for Sarah Moon / cod-Bloomsbury set fashions and quirky interests in the arts?

And that these lovely young ladies may be orphans but strangely don't experience any apparent emotional or psychological damage? They do, however, tend to fall for strikingly handsome, yet still shy, self-deprecating young men who somehow find the confidence to speak up and ask her out at a crucial opportunity. Even if they're a socially awkward, unsuccessful inventor of wilfully obscure, pointlessly Heath Robinsonesque contraptions of no use to man nor beast. That's the confidence that comes from an expensive public school education and large inheritance from his late mummy and daddy (for whom barely a sad look crosses his face despite their relatively recent demise).

So they encounter a friendly, selfless, helpful "Buttons" sidekick (who may be secretly in love with her) and a curmudgeonly old sort whose hardened heart is softened by winsome womanchild and finds redemption before conveniently and gently dying shortly after changing his will to reward Sarah Moon (and Buttons) with most of his fulsome estate, even though she's already marrying the handsome, well-heeled, yet goofily hopeless inventor fellow (but only after a hilarious misunderstanding where she mistakes his previously unmentioned twin brother!)

Anyway, it's all lovely and charming and a little like eating a whole box of chocolates at one sitting - bad for your teeth and likely to induce a queasy sickness in your stomach.

Well, it seemed an above average psychological thriller... then it got stupid. Pity, because the principals were all good and the secret kept you guessing. When the astral projection was introduced it started to unravel - poorly executed, it did not take the audience with the idea.

It was clear this feeble, coloured lights phenomenon would be instrumental to the twist, and when it came it was so unconvincing there was no fright or creeping fear. Just a "well they pulled thatcoutcof their asses..."

The book might've been able to make it work, but silly lights and a laboured, overlong, yet skimmed ending made me feel I'd wasted time investing in the characters over the previous five episodes.

Gil is played by Owen Wilson playing a younger, more handsome version of Woody Allen. Gil / Owen / Woody tine travels from present day Paris - in the lamest way possibly - giving little wikipedia thumbnail bios on famous art & literary figures from 1920s Paris (then a little later back in 1890s) then meets almost every one of them - all played by very good actors, all criminally underused - yet fails to engage with any one of them intellectually, emotionally or even comically. He quickly falls for one of Picasso's muses, but really is only attracted by her looks. About her - her life, her feelings, her ambitions - he gives not a french fancy.

Instead, back in the 21st century, he ends it with his one-dimensional, materialistic fiancee who's had a fling with another guy while Gil / Owen / Woody was pointlessly playing around in the past. So she's the one to blame.

Finally he wanders around modern Paris and gets off with a winsome, very slightly Bohemian and much younger French girl - yeah, that - and so rejoins the carousel of selfish obsession that will end in bitterness just like the rest of his so-called "love" affairs.

Ok, I added that last little barb, but it's the cliched, happy ending midnight walk along the Seine to fade out you would expect from this shallow, solipsistic, self-indulgent piece of pseudo-intellectual pretentious drivel.

Music is wonderful, however, as are the sumptuous shots of Paris. Sadly it's all to cover the emotional vacuum at the heart of this merd.

***SPOILER ALERT*** Hitchcock's 1935 version of 'The 39 Steps' played fast and loose with John Buchan's novel by introducing a plausible and intriguing love interest in a 1930s setting, a nerve-shredding escape on the Forth Rail Bridge and the quirky denouement of 'Mr Memory' at a Music Hall. These radical changes produced a fabulous movie, a pulsating chase thriller all played with great style and with real chemistry between the two leads, Robert Donat and Madeline Carroll.

This expensive, handsome looking TV production reverted to a plot rather closer to the book but retained little of Buchan's original spirit, pace or derring-do. It did, however, steal the love interest idea from Hitchcock but rather than a haughty bystander who gets caught up in events she turns out to be a spy who deliberately hooks up with the hero, Hannay... oh, and her uncle is the traitor... who she cannot shoot at the crucial moment... but an apparently dead German who couldn't shoot straight when conscious rises from the dead to deliver one excellent shot to kill her off just as the two leads finally kiss and she falls into the freezing loch.

But don't worry, folks! Feisty suffragette heroine spy woman inexplicably re-appears in a tacked-on coda, gazing enigmatically across at Hannay just as he sets off for the Western Front. Despite the fact they've both pledged undying love she doesn't bother she sends her dopey brother over rather than give her soul mate so much as a goodbye peck on the cheek. Then again, she's let him think she's dead for four months so why make a fuss now? Stiff upper lip and all that.

Also, the guy from 'Spooks' who played Hannay was charmless and wooden. The whole thing looked sumptuous - pretty high production values and wonderful Scottish scenery make that difficult to blow - but the direction was uninspired and the pacing leaden.

Drivel of the first order.

'The Simpsons' TV show is best in the business for plot twists, outrageous reversals, whiplash satire and one-liners, making the best episodes as satisfying as many great films. Topping that - or even matching it - with the long awaited movie was always going to be a challenge.

I was entertained but, truthfully, no more than a middling episode of the series. The richness of the Springfield lore and background characters is sidelined to focus on the family itself, with too much Homer in particular - yes, I never thought I'd say that, but it's true.

We love 'The Simpsons' for its frenetic pace; it's clear here the writers struggled with the structure for a longer format. Possibly a Robert Altman / 'Nashville' approach would have worked better, or maybe something like "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", allowing us to see the great range of characters and supporting a stronger, over-arching story.

The decision to focus almost exclusively on the family itself brought out the TV show's occasional tendency towards sentimentality - Colin & Lisa? Went nowhere. Flanders & Bart? Didn't buy it for a second. Oval Office scenes? Rainer Wolfcastle would have been funnier, or GWB passing the buck that bit edgier. This isn't meant to be The Waltons!

More playfulness with the film format itself would have been welcome too - the opening 'Itchy & Scratchy' sequence and Homer's response were great but, as it turned out, too little too early for the film seldom ventured from the straight & narrow thereafter. Maybe Terry Gilliam to direct Simpsons II?

Early rumours (some time ago, I know) suggested the Simpsons Movie would be the final word on the show, but the commitment to another couple of seasons meant the film lost that seat-of-the-pants, anything-could-happen edge. I really believe the team should have one last hurrah with a final movie. Just don't try to jump the shark - blast it out of the water!

Get radical, guys - that's when you're at your best!