FILM REVIEW

The Artist

Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo; dir Michael Hazanavicius

Quite often, when watching yet another scripted-by-committee, directed-by-numbers film with phoned-in performances by overpaid actors my mind begins to wonder at what happened to the magic of cinema. Then, as if to order, films like Hugo and now The Artist turn up to restore my faith.

This is a brave film as it is, for the most part, silent with musical accompaniments and dialogue boards, black and white and in a narrow screen format. If this worries you, and well it might, then maybe you’ll have difficulty in adjusting to this film. If you can overcome this and take the film on its own terms then you’re in for a treat.

The story is simple. It’s 1927 and a great star of the silent screen, George Valentin (Dujardin) has a chance meeting with a fan, Peppy (Bejo) outside a premier of his latest silent movie and it’s caught on camera. She then becomes an actress and, in a clever touch, is shown rising by a series of cast lists from the front of fictional films. Then 1929 comes and with it comes sound, a gimmick that Valentin dismisses out of hand. But then talkies become the rage, the Depression looms and he has marital problems, while Peppy becomes the darling of the movies. But things do have a habit of turning out for the best…

This film owes much to all sorts of movies, from the silents of Douglas Fairbanks, Valentino  and Chaplin to Singin’ in the Rain via Citizen Kane and All About Eve and, of course, A Star is Born. There are so many wonderful moments it’s hard to single out just a few – perhaps the double act in front of a curtain like the ending of Singin’ in the Rain, the multiple takes of the dance scene between Peppy and Valentin where they fall for each other, his descent into despair like Charles Foster Kane and the clever use of Bernard Herrmann’s music from Vertigo (though I believe Kim Novak was furious about this) were stand-out moments for me. But even if the references mean nothing this film will still charm and delight you.

The acting is faultless, especially considering much of the dialogue relies on expression and reaction, the story clever and witty and the cinematography has that luminous feel of early celluloid. It is just the right length and the ending is neat, poignant and clever. Period detail is nicely done, especially in the credits for the (fictitious) films. The chemistry beween Valentin and Peppy is utterly believable, and actors such as John Goodman as his grumpy long-suffering producer and James Cromwell as the devoted chauffeur are well-chosen. Cinema has a new star with Uggy, the terrier that follows Valentin everywhere and features in his films who puts me in mind of Asta, William Powell’s canine companion in the Thin Man films of the Thirties.

Early in the film, just as we’ve got used to the orchestra and the silent acting, there is a nightmare sequence where Valentin puts down a glass with a crash; we hear laughter and street noises, though he cannot make himself heard. These sounds are so alien to the film, so brash and raucous, that we at once want to be back in the cosy world of the silent movie, and heave a sigh of relief when ‘normality’ is restored. That’s the magic of cinema; that’s the magic of this film.

Glyn James

FILM REVIEW

Haywire

Gina Carano, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor; dir Steven Soderbergh

It’s a while since we’ve had a star-studded action picture, and this one is all the stranger for featuring a martial-arts practitioner as the hero. This is Gina Carano, who reputedly got the part after Soderbergh saw her skills on TV and decided she would be ideal in this film. Luckily she can act too, and holds her own against the likes of Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor and Channing Tatum.

The plot is virtually impenetrable as these things have a tendency to be. Briefly Carano plays Mallory, a special operations operative who has been double crossed and set up by her bosses (nice to see Michael Douglas), so she escapes and “goes rogue”. All this top-secret espionage is told to a stranger whose car she has just hijacked to escape – rather a ludicrous plot device.

During the car journey we are taken in flashback to Barcelona, Dublin (the Irish Film Board are co-funders), New Mexico and other exotic locations as is the norm with films like this. Everywhere she goes mayhem ensues and she is given the chance to attack some hapless males. This is of course where she shines, and I’d be surprised if some A-list actors haven’t got some bruises from the frighteningly realistic fight scenes. This film scores too in having little in the way of stunt doubles and CGI is kept to a minimum, just as it would have been in the action flicks of the seventies and eighties that Soderbergh is clearly so fond of, allowing Carano full use of her acrobatic and martial arts skills.

After a fairly dull opening twenty minutes, the action ramps up with an exciting chase sequence through Barcelona, followed by a rendezvous in Dublin with an unknown agent (Fassbender) who is to act as her husband. This is a nice part of the film – two people acting as a married couple, both working together yet distrusting each other completely, not unlike Turner and Nicholson in Prizzi’s Honor. Of course her suspicions are well-founded so it’s off to another city to wreak more havoc.

For once it’s nice to see the cities labelled as simply ‘Barcelona’ and ‘Dublin’ – none of the silly ‘London, England’ that usually graces these films. The direction is assured as you would expect, the film is not overlong, and for once the ending is smart and crisp.

Just don’t ask me to explain the plot.

Glyn James

FILM REVIEW

J Edgar

Leonardo DiCaprio, Judi Dench; dir Clint Eastwood

In case of any doubt, the title refers to J Edgar Hoover, the instigator and head of the FBI in America for almost half a century.

This film, not unlike The Iron Lady, employs the technique of an old man dictating his memoirs to a succession of FBI typists – interestingly all male. We are then taken on a journey back through his life. The stories are not chronological but the narrative works well in this form.

Obviously Americans will be more familiar with Mr Hoover’s story, but from this side of the pond Eastwood creates a fascinating picture of a man devoted to his dominant mother, with a fixation on order, method (his idea of a first date is go to the Library of Congress and show off his cataloguing system) and an almost pathological hatred of Communism. To this end almost any wrongdoing in America is blamed on the Bolsheviks, from the Depression and the gangs of Capone to the assassination of Kennedy. He has a fanatical approach to what he sees as right, and to that end organises a central library of fingerprints, encurages the science of forensics and introduces a police force with federal powers. All quite laudable, but the way in which he does this is the subject of the film. He will not tolerate intoxication on duty, facial hair, poor dressing or any disloyalty among his agents. The girl he took out (Naomi Watts) becomes his personal secretary and remains with him till the end, being privy to much information and files that Hoover has taken on himself to copy in case he needs them. Presidents come and go, each having an interview with Hoover in which, we are led to believe, he makes them aware of any secret information he holds about them or their family, the inference being that as long as J Edgar is in charge of the FBI, they can sleep easy in the knowledge that their secrets will never see the light of day.

Hoover never married and Eastwood leaves us in no doubt as to the reason – enter the implausibly handsome Clyde Tolson (Arnie Hammer) whom Hoover soon promotes to his deputy, provided – as Tolson stipulates – they will always have lunch and dinner together. They prove almost inseparable throughout their lives, though their relationship is never commented on. The only time they quarrel is when Hoover suggests he might take a wife whereupon Tolson explodes with rage and suppressed love. Hoover may have had affairs with Dorothy Lamour and Lela Rogers (Ginger’s mother) but his one enduring relationship was with Tolson.

The problem with a film like this is the casting, whether to cast two or more actors in the main role, as was done in Atonement to great effect, or else to use one younger actor and make-up. Eastwood has chosen the latter approach. DiCaprio suits this approach, assuming the mantle of the old man well, but I missed the commanding authority that, say, Frank Langella or Anthony Hopkins would have had. In fact the ‘old’ DiCaprio bears a strong resemblance to Jack Nicholson or perhaps Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane. The others don't fare so well – Judi Dench can easily manage to become an old woman by simply acting and the depiction of Tolson as an old man put me in mind of Freddie Krueger. If there was more confidence in the ability of actors to act and less in the ingenuity of the make-up artists then films such as this would be more engaging and less distracting.

The period detail is excellent and Eastwood, though not the most subtle of directors, knows how to pace a film and it is not overlong, even at almost two-and-a-half hours. The music, by Eastwood himself, is not intrusive, and it’s a strange co-incidence that this film and The Iron Lady, about domineering, controlling characters, both end with a piece of Bach.

Glyn James

FILM REVIEW

 War Horse

Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullen; dir Steven Spielberg

 Spielberg seems to have made a career out of ignoring the advice to never work with children or animals. This time it’s the turn of the horse. The film is an adaptation by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall of the stage play based on Michael Morpurgo’s book which deals with the First World War as seen through the eyes of a horse.

In the book the horse, Joey, is the narrator and in the stage production the horses are portrayed by life-sized puppets. No such imagery is possible here – luckily a Mr Ed-style speaking horse wasn’t considered – so we have a realistic setting with real horses. The story concerns the 15-year old Albert Narracott ,who lives on a Devon farm with his poor parents (Mullen and Watson giving typically fine performances). His father is often drunk and they are in debt to their landlord, a nicely evil David Thewlis. To outsmart him, the father pays over the odds for a horse, which Albert vows to break in and train. War is then declared, and the horse is sold to the army for use in battle. The story then is led by Joey the horse as he changes hands and even sides in the war.

Many reviews I have read concern the implausibility of the film and the almost unreal glow of nostalgia that pervades it. I think this misses the point. The book is intended for children, and could almost be called a fairy story, albeit one with a very poignant message. For this reason it is entirely correct that Spielberg has made the Devon landscape idyllic and shown a fondly-remembered time that in all probability didn’t exist. As for the improbable storyline, we need to remember that the book is related by a talking horse, so realism is not paramount. The horse is a symbol – of wisdom, innocence, spirit – a mute narrator on the futility of war.

There are few directors as skilled as Spielberg in the recreation of war, and the horrors of the trenches are well realised here. Without resort to bloodied corpses and graphic violence we still see the horrific brutality of this war. The charge against an unprepared German camp is both thrilling and devastating, and the final shot of this scene when the camera pulls away to reveal the carnage is reminiscent of a Breughel painting,  more shocking than any close-up of mutilated bodies.

The acting is consistently excellent and the animal trainers deserve special mention. A scene towards the end of Joey running through the trenches, crashing through barbed wire fences is brilliantly executed and leads to one of the more moving moments of the film.

The music is by long-time Spielberg collaborator, John Williams who has clearly been doing his homework – the score is a pastiche of Elgar, Delius and Vaughan Williams. For me, this is where the film falls down slightly – the score is too uplifting and underlines much of the action unnecessarily. Gone is the slightly sombre, lyrical Englishness of the British composers to be replaced by grandiose Hollywood epic music. This may seem a small point, but I feel silence could have been a far more fitting accompaniment to much of the film.

Although I saw a digital presentation with all its attendant judder, ridiculous contrast and colour mis-registration, the cinematography still looked superb, and I have to believe Spielberg when he says there were no clever CGI tricks used in the final sequence, just good old-fashioned camerawork.

This isn’t a war film and is not meant to be taken realistically. It is a parable and an essay on the futility of war. Richard Curtis was responsible for one of the most unexpectedly moving pieces on the First World War in the final Blackadder episode, and here he has contributed to a moving adaptation of a children’s book. It’s a long film, but as we have come to expect from this director the pace is well-judged. He has said that this is his first truly British film, and with his use of locations and British acting talent we can certainly hope it will be the first of many.

Glyn James

Running down the fifty-odd films I reviewed in 2011 (and I saw many more that didn't merit a review) there were some surprises among the inevitable sequels and cheap TV tie-ins.

The high-concept film was much to the fore this year, and of them I particularly enjoyed Duncan Jones' Source Code - clever and just about fathomable. Equally good was The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as the lovers who are prevented from being together by sinister men in hats. Also worthy of mention is Limitless - one of those ‘what if' films, in this case a drug that would give you access to your mind's full potential. For one the ending was sharp and clever and not the seemingly inevitable cop-out and the opening sequence is stunning.

The drama front was well represented with Drive being the film of choice for many. It's certainly been Ryan Gosling's year, progressing from lightweight comedy to something as brutal and atmospheric as this. It's basically a Forties film noir, brought up to date only to find little has changed. Enigmatic performances, rainy mean streets and shocking violence all feature, although driving is not high on the agenda. Also worthy of mention were The Help, based on the novel about race in the Deep South,  Hanna, Black Swan and Unknown, and mention must go to Scorsese's amazing homage to early cinema ‘Hugo' with its stunning opening sequence and amazing 3-D effects.

Historical films usually mean classic novels brought to the screen such as the slightly dull Jane Eyre or the more controversial foul-mouthed Wuthering Heights. However this year we were treated to more recent history, the most notable being the Oscar-laden The King's Speech. Fully deserving of its accolades, this was one film that scarcely put a foot wrong. Firth again featured in the masterly adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, set in the Sixties but looking like another world. This was an object lesson in acting and direction and another film where the journey is almost more important than the destination. On a lighter note My Year With Marilyn didn't try to be more important than it was and turned out to be a charming film with two stunning central performances.

There were a few blockbusters - the eagerly awaited Harry Potter conclusion didn't disappoint, and JJ Abrams came up with the hugely enjoyable Super 8 which for once gave the young cast room to breathe among the special effects. Pirates of the Caribbean - On Strange Tides was more of the same - good swashbuckling fun, and Sherlock Holmes gave us an exciting second instalment of  Lock, Stock and two Smoking Muskets.

Comedies were a little thin on the ground - or at least good ones were. Comedy-dramas such as Tower Heist and Bad Teacher missed the mark and promising rom-coms like Crazy Stupid Love, One Day and What's My Number were all flawed, usually by excessive interference by the studio or the dreaded ‘script by committee'. However, the Swansea-set low-budget ‘Submarine' was a delightful coming of age comedy, Johnny English Reborn was far more entertaining than I'd expected, and Chalet Girl was good undemanding fun.

Science fiction was there too. Pegg and Frost's disappointing ‘Paul' seemed to rely too much on inoffensive jokes and stock situations, and ‘Battle: Los Angeles' with its big explosions and cardboard characters suggested we haven't come as far as we thought we had, though ‘Contagion' was a good old disaster movie that had a welcome downbeat ending. My favourite sci-fi of the year, however, was the low-budget ‘Attack The Block', about aliens targeting a London tower block. Full of young street-speaking actors and sharp dialogue, plus a comic turn from Nick Frost, this managed to eclipse many of the more  expensive films of this genre.

Animations included the entertaining ‘Despicable Me', the charming ‘Gnomeo and Juliet' and ‘Happy Feet 2' and, my favourite, the Aardman-based ‘Arthur Christmas'.

Veteran directors were well represented - Clint Eastwood's poorly received ‘Hereafter' was in face a clever and though-provoking film, the Coen's reworking of True Grit looked gorgeous even if it offered nothing new, Woody Allen's ‘Midnight in Paris' was a triumphant return to form, and Danny Boyle's ‘127 Hours' was a stomach-churning interpretation of a true story.

Of course there were some that were not exactly classics - Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in the chemistry-free ‘Larry Crowne', a remake too far in ‘Hangover 2', ditto Sex and the City 2, chauvinists aplenty in Hall Pass, the tedious ‘I Don't Know How She Does It' and a baffled miscast Harrison Ford in Cowboys and Aliens.

Awards for munching the scenery must go to Anthony Hopkins in The Rite and Jack Nicholson in the otherwise unremarkable ‘How Do You Know'.

Films that just missed the mark though were quite entertaining included ‘In Time', ‘The Way Back', ‘Burke and Hare' and ‘Fair Game'.

So a good year for British cinema, though a year in which we lost such great talent as Ken Russell, Pete Postlethwaite, Anna Massey, John Barry, Michael Gough, Peter Yates, Edward Hardwicke George Baker and Elizabeth Taylor.

3-D reared its ugly head agiain to variable effect - a survey showed that most cinemagoers didn't think it was worth the extra money and others (myself included) didn't like the poorer definition and darker blurred images. Still, everyone now wants a 3-D television so maybe we enjoy wearing silly glasses after all.

Another annoying  trend is the introduction of the coda - a short ‘winding down' piece that adds nothing to the film but gets you adjusted to the real world you're about to re-enter. Films such as Harry Potter and the new Mission Impossible are good examples of this trend, as are virtually all rom-coms. Hopefully it will soon be overtaken by films that end when they end.

So now it's off to the cinema for 2012!

Glyn James

Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows

Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law; dir Guy Richie

A year after the first of Richie's Holmes films comes the nest instalment - bigger and darker but maintaining the inspired pairing of Downey anal Law. Not for purists, perhaps, but in some ways I feel that the chemistry between the two leads is more what Doyle had in mind and hopefully, along with the recent television adaptations, puts finally to rest the popular depiction of Watson as a buffoon.

The plot is pure Victorian Bond - a megalomaniac has to be stopped and Holmes and Watson must use their collective wits to stop him. Holmes' brother Mycroft makes an appearance  - a droll performance by Stephen Fry - and their verbal battling is great fun.

There are ladies present too: in fact Watson is getting married, though predictably Holmes joyfully throws a large spanner into the works and soon the real happy couple are off on their adventures.

As in the previous outing, Guy Richie gives us a fascinating vision of Victorian London - the dingy, foggy streets with low-life at every turn contrasting with the opulence of wealth. Less welcome is his infatuation with slow-mo fights - so Nineties - but his analysis of the workings of Holmes' brain are clever and innovative.

Professor Moriarty, played by Jared Harris, is of course Holmes' nemesis, and their scenes together are nicely played. The scene where the two of them quietly play a game of chess while Watson is left to fight the battle almost single-handedly would, I feel, have won Conan Doyle's approval.

As before, Downey and Law have made the parts their own and although this film might offend purists, Richie has succeeded in putting fun back into the franchise.

Glyn James

The Iron Lady

Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent; dir Phyllida Lloyd

A film that treats a subject such as Margaret Thatcher must tread a very careful line between overt praise and dislike of such a controversial person. This film employs the ingenious premise of an elderly reclusive Thatcher looking back over her achievements prompted by small events as she is clearing out items that belonged to her beloved Denis. In this way we see things through her eyes and it neatly sidesteps potentially dangerous political ground. This film is less a biographic of the first lady Prime Minister, more a study of dementia and old age.

The film opens with an elderly, frail Thatcher buying milk in a corner shop, expressing surprise at the price, and then being pushed out of the way by an urgent businessman on his phone - ironically just the sort of person her premiership encouraged..

Although her husband died eight years ago, Denis keeps popping up, a jolly, mischievous character (Broadbent), advising her and generally getting in the way. We are then treated, more or less chronologically, to the events of her life, starting from a young Margaret Roberts (a fine performance from Alexandra Roach), her meeting and marrying Denis (Harry Lloyd) and her joining and ascending the ranks of the Conservative Party.

The film chronicles the progression of  her career from the back benches to the front and then to Prime Minister, always driven by her ambition and almost evangelical belief in what she saw as right. We also see her change to the presidential style of leadership that found her few friends though I was surprised to see that the relationship with Reagan was glossed over as was her stance on Europe.  Genuine footage is interspersed to good effect, and we see the Winter of Discontent (a slightly disappointing Heath by John Sessions), The Miners' Strike, The Falklands, the Poll Tax riots and her decline and fall.

Of course the performance by Meryl Streep is getting all the attention and rightly so. Her interpretation of the elderly Thatcher is stunning - clearly the same person but battling with dementia, and her interpretation of the Eighties Thatcher is chillingly accurate. My only trouble is that Meryl Streep has a twinkle in her eye and an easy smile - like a favourite aunt who would slip you a treat - and never quite manages the chilling steely gaze that we came to know so well.

I am not sure how accurate the depiction of her home life was - the hard working stuck-up girl from the grocer's shop with the ambitious father - but it has the ring of truth about it, as does her treatment by the local Conservative party. Later on we see that, of her twins, Mark is clearly her favourite (he never makes an appearance) and Carol (nicely played by Olivia Coleman) has a hard and uncaring edge that I suspect may be all too true. The supporting cast is very good - Heseltine (Richard E Grant) and Anthony Head's Geoffrey Howe are notable as is Michael Pennington's convincing Michael Foot. But it is the pairing of Streep and Broadbent that is a particular joy - as usual, Jim Broadbent cannot fail to bring humour into the proceedings but his depiction is never cruel, and our sympathies are always with him.

Oddly, the film that this most brought to mind is Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply, and it could almost be seen as a love story rather than a biography.

Whatever you think of Thatcher's rule, the change she wrought on the political landscape cannot be underestimated. One day we shall have a definitive biography of the Iron Lady but for now we have this excellent study of an old, frail lady looking back over her life - one in which she just happened to be the first lady Prime Minister.

Glyn James

Mission Impossible 4 - The Ghost Protocol

Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Michel Nyqvist, Tom Wilkinson

Dir: Brad Bird

Tom Cruise realised the potential of the Mission Impossible TV series and has made the franchise his own, giving the audience exactly what they expect from it - amazing gadgets, exotic locations, ludicrous plotlines and incredible stunts. This latest in the series delivers a tense, textbook action thriller, with the inevitable mad villain (Nyqvist) wanting to destroy the world so he can start a new one, or something like that. After being accused of blowing up the Kremlin (as you are) the team are disenfranchised from the headquarters leaving them to unofficially clear their names and save the world. So business as usual then.

The team are Cruise, Paula Patton, Ving Raimes and Simon Pegg. Yes, Simon Pegg as the fourth member, the technology buff. Whoever decided to include Pegg deserves an award - he manages to add a degree of humour to most scenes and also manages to walk away with a fair proportion of them.

Some of the stunts are jaw-dropping - anyone with vertigo need not trouble themselves with this film. In one scene Cruise has to scale the side of the world's tallest building in Dubai using suction gloves (Pegg can't do it as ‘I'm on the computer') and manages to make you jump almost out of your seat even though you know it's not real. At least I don't think it was.

Sadly, as so often in recent Hollywood films, there is a coda, where our heroes sit around a metaphorical camp fire and laugh and joke, showing what good friends they are and explain parts of the plot that we might have been struggling with. Totally pointless, but maybe it's there to make your heart rate return to normal and prevent you going out to the car park and imagining your Saxo is in fact a BMW sports car. Or vice versa, come to think of it.

Predictable and shallow it may be, but this is an object lesson in film-making of this type - no unnecessary characters, no emotional baggage, just an almost-believable plot, relentless tension and the tongue-in-cheek attitude early Bond films had.

And Simon Pegg.

Glyn James

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (US version)

Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Steven Berkoff; dir David Fincher

Hollywood has a long history of remaking foreign films that might have been deemed too challenging for American audiences. They need not all be non-English speaking - remember Gaslight? We nearly lost Thorold Dickinson's arguably superior version in favour of the Boyer-Bergman remake as they tried to deastroy the earlier prints.

So now barely two years after the excellent original Swedish-language version of Dragon Tattoo we have a shiny new one. I'll admit I was a bit apprehensive about this, fully expecting it to have been relocated to some chilly American state and to make the girl herself a little more socially acceptable. Luckily Fincher decided to stay in Sweden with (more or less) the original storyline. Steig Larsson's trilogy is deep and complex and some judicious editing needs to be done so that the film remains manageable, and I must admit the rapid dialogue in the original had me lost in the subtitles at times, so the plot in this version is somewhat easier for us non-Swedes to fathom.

The story consernes a disgraced journal editor, Michael Blomquist (Craig) who is invited to write a biography of an old, once-powerful tycoon in Northern Sweden. Reluctantly he agrees to visit, only to discover he is really being asked to find out what happened to his great-neice some forty years previously who vanished and was deemed murdered. This assignment interests Blomquist, but he soon finds it harder than he imagined. Enter the dragon, so to speak, in the form of Lisbeth Salander (Mara), whose dysfuncional behaviour we have been following concurrently with Craig's story. She is a brilliant computer hacker with few social skills but they find some common ground and set out to find the truth.

Played by Noomi Rapace in the original, the part of Salander is key to the working of the film, and the performance of Rooney Mara is astonishing. She is sympathetic, though never likeable, and seems herself to be part of the cold Swedish landscape. Generously, Craig plays his part down, allowing Mara to flourish in her role. Wintry Sweden is a gift to any cinematographer and Fincher makes the most of this.

Inevitably an English-language film set in a foreign country will need a degree of linguistic compromise, but this is rarely a problem in this film. There are some graphic scenes of rape, torture and violence (as in the original) and the 18 certificate is justified, but these scenes are chilling rather than salacious. Special mention must go to the opening credits that are excellent and unsettling, like a nightmare Bond credit sequence with music by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor, the Oscar-winning duo from Fincher's The Social Network.

Unfortunately once the film has virtually finished we are treated to a ludicrous revenge sub-plot where the socially inept, confrontational  dysfunctional Lisbeth assumes the role of globe-trotting master of disguise in a sequence that is not only risible but tends to undo much of the good work done previously. However, there is much to admire in the previous two hours, and for once I cannot be sure which version I prefer. Perhaps I shall be more confident after the inevitable second instalment - The Girl Who Played With Fire - in my opinion the weakest of the Swedish trilogy. But please - no silly endings this time!

Glyn James

Hi there

Well, it is the Shortest Day - so Happy Winter Solstice!

All the songs tonight were festive, so here's the rundown - Jethro Tull, Darlene Love (twice), The Divine Comedy, Johnny Preston, Manic Street Preachers, Spike Jones and the City Slickers, Marc Bolan, Rory Block, Tom Petty, Marvin Gaye, Chris Squire, The Goons, BoSelecta, The Crystals, Bob B Sox and the Blue Jeans, Perry Como, Kim Weston, Simon and Garfunkel, Everything But the Girl, The Darkness, The Beach Boys, The Ronettes, Judy Garland and Eartha Kitt.

Three in a Row was a bit tenuous - ancient church music - In Dulci Jubilo, Gaudete and (because I couldn't find any more Latin songs) 'For Unto Us a Child is Born' from The Messiah by Handel. 

Kitsch'n'Sink was my desert island Xmas record - Darlene Love and 'Merry Christmas - Baby Please Come Home' written by Spector - Greenwich - Barry, arranged by Jack Nitzche, engineered by Larry Levine and featuring Leon Russell on piano and Hal Blaine on drums - can it get any better?

A bit hard to find a Long Song - still, The Waitresses obliged with Christmas Wrapping. All right, under six minutes, but close enough. 

Well, nearly there, so I'd like to wish you a very happy Solstice, Christmas, New Year - whatever floats your boat!

See you in 2012!

Glyn