All The President's Men (USA, 1976)
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
Starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook

1976 saw the release of two great films about journalism which remain gripping and compelling even though the professions they examined have long since changed dramatically. In one corner, we have Network, a film which anticipated the move towards ratings-driven TV news with a career-best performance from Peter Finch. In the other corner, we have All The President's Men, perhaps the greatest film ever made about print journalism and one of the all-time greatest thrillers.The first miracle of All The President's Men is that it manages to be a superbly tense conspiracy thriller even though we already know what the conspiracy is. Films which attempt to capture the political or social zeitgeist (in this case the fall of Richard Nixon) either date very badly or are often found wanting dramatically; they presume that there is no need to do the legwork, since we know how it ends even before we start.

All The President's Men gets the balance absolutely pitch-perfect between the facts and the drama. Robert Redford, who also produced the film, insisted that everything that played out on screen was factually accurate, to the point of liaising between screenwriter William Goldman and the real-life journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to ensure that every detail was correct. Those of us who are knowledgeable about Nixon and Watergate can watch the film and admire how well all the pieces fit together and all the facts are checked, while those less familiar will soak up all the information, admiring the work of the journalists and the screenwriter, who conveys all the twists, turns and dead ends.Being this factually accurate pays off in dramatic terms for two reasons. Firstly, it means that the film's political stance, if it has one, is not so blatantly obvious that it weighs the action down, as with Redford's Lions for Lambs. But more importantly, it demonstrates that the filmmakers have confidence in the material, believing the truth to be so extraordinary in its own right that to dress it up in Hollywood convention or other such artifice would do the audience a great disservice.Because the film is so relentlessly focussed on the story, the audience become like junior reporters following Woodward and Bernstein around, desperately trying to keep up and learn on the job. Like real-life journalists we are receiving information from a range of sources with varying degrees of reliability, to the point at which we almost feel the need to take notes. The dialogue is rattled off at a pace which makes even The Social Network look choreographed and considered.Unlike so many contemporary thrillers, All The President's Men manages to be so completely understated, keeping a lid on things and building tension throughout its running time. All of the big revelations come out through small tics in the dialogue; there are no great swathes of exposition to remind the audience what has happened so far. It takes us two hours to get to Deep Throat finally telling Woodward what he wants to hear in the car park; like Woodward, we have had to earn this information through patience and perseverance.The sense of tension created by the revelation of events and the pressure on the characters means that the film has no real need for action set-pieces or choreographed thrills. The closest things approaching action sequences are little pops of paranoia surrounding Woodward in the last hour - the disturbance in the car park, or the two journalists typing out their conversations for fear that they are being bugged. That's not to say that set-pieces in themselves are a bad thing, or a sign of dumbing-down in Hollywood movie-making. But All The President's Men simply doesn't need them - it does things the hard way, which turns out to be the smart way and the right way.It would be very easy to praise this film on purely nostalgic grounds, coming from a time when thrillers didn't have to end with explosions, and when there was 'proper' investigative journalism instead of commercially-minded, celebrity-saturated hearsay. But the makers of All The President's Men would not accept this rose-tinted view of journalism, and the film specifically warns not to take such days for granted. Long before Rupert Murdoch's empire-building, the conflict between money and the truth was present, and crucially the truth didn't always win hands down.
There are several arguments in the film about the freedom of the press and its independence from the state and government. This conflict is present in the initial disagreements between Woodward and Bernstein which govern their different styles of reporting. Woodward is the newcomer who believes in facts above everything else; he types up his article, only for Bernstein, the seasoned hack who likes something with flair, to polish it behind his back.

In one scene about halfway through, the two reporters are in a car arguing about the difference between fact and gut instinct. Woodward use the example of snow falling overnight, or a man stopping and asking for directions, to demonstrate that one cannot simply rely on logical presumptions to be sure that something happened. Bernstein's responses, while broadly in agreement, belie a disagreement between substance and style, graft and guesswork which would come to shape the industry.As a paean to 'proper' journalism, the film is a lot more subtle than something like Good Night and Good Luck, which used stock footage of Joseph McCarthy to hammer its point home in every scene. And unlike George Clooney's film, All The President's Men does a brilliant job of showing the fear and intimidation involved in the profession and practice of journalism. This is present throughout Woodward and Bernstein's work, from the persistent refusal of people to go on the record, to the pressure coming from their bosses who are staking the reputation of their paper on what could be an entirely spurious story. Woodward and Bernstein are forced to balance their own personal ambitions within the paper, the desire to protect people from exposure and ruin and the need to tell the truth - something which is no easy task.All The President's Men is also masterful at making the very act of writing exciting. As I mentioned in my review of Adaptation, it is very difficult to put the physical act of writing or typing on screen in a manner which is genuinely cinematic. But Alan J. Pakula achieves this in his directorial style, which is completely unfussy and marked by great attention to detail. So accomplished is his direction that you almost don't notice it, which might explain why he is so underrated as a filmmaker. The tension he builds makes one focus on all the random doodles on Woodward's notepad, and the typing scene is very well-paced.The performances in All The President's Men are all front-page material. Robert Redford is great, proving that he was more than just the pretty face from Butch Cassidy and The Sting and carrying himself with poise and conviction. Dustin Hoffman gives some of his best work as Carl Bernstein, resisting the temptation to 'over-method' as he did in Marathon Man the same year. And there is a terrific supporting role for Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat. Holbrook, best known for his appearance in The Fog, brings a murky edge to the character which not only conveys the danger of his situation, but leads you to believe that he is no good either.All The President's Men is a proper thinking-person's thriller with great direction, superb performances and an impeccable script. Though the worlds of both politics and journalism may have changed, the film's ideas and approach remain as fresh and bracing as they were 35 years ago. Whether as a paean to journalism or an argument for political accountability, a debate about the nature of truth or a thrill-a-minute drama, it succeeds on every conceivable level, resulting in a movie for the ages.

Rating:
Verdict: A conspiracy thriller worthy of the front page

The Odd Couple (USA, 1968)
Directed by Gene Saks
Starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herb Edelman

The Odd Couple is a comedy which has stood the test of time and survived all attempts made on its longevity, from its endless inferior imitators to its own god-awful sequel. Neil Simon's script, brought to the screen by Gene Saks, is still as razor-sharp as went it debuted on Broadway, and while not quite everything has translated smoothly to the big screen, it remains a yardstick against which modern comedies should be measured.When adapting a play for the big screen, one needs to create the impression of a world which is expansive. The spacial limitations that come from staging a play are not an immediate problem when making a film: you can't knock through walls in a theatre, but you can always build a bigger set.

If The Odd Couple has a flaw, it is that portions of it still feel stagey, and the ways in which it attempts to get around this are not entirely satisfactory. Rather than show every last angle of Oscar's flat, as would have been impossible on Broadway, Saks resorts to adding in a lot of extra scenes which may play well as set-pieces but feel disconnected and unnecessary. The screenplay, adapted by Simon himself, has been plumped full of travelogue scenes, ranging from Felix's botched suicide attempts to the guys driving around in Murray's car looking for him. As with Shadowlands, these scenes which are designed to broaden out the play and make the world expansive only serve to highlight how theatrical the finished product still feels.But like Shadowlands, it isn't hard to get beyond or forgive the stagey qualities of The Odd Couple once we have gotten on board with the characters and begun to laugh (or cry). And in one aspect, the limited space and use of long takes works to the advantage of the performers. Much of the original script requires characters to talk over each other or react quickly to changes in the others' postures. Although the actors have the scripts learnt in their heads, they approach every scene knowing that the word "cut!" could be at least two minutes away. This keeps the energy up and convinces us that these characters could exist beyond the occasional edit.This is particularly recognisable in the central performances, which blend together in perfect (dis)harmony from the outset. Walter Matthau, who had played the character on Broadway, is the perfect middle-aged slouch. He has charm, intellect and is loyal to his friends, but is incapable of running his own life, shambling around his spacious apartment like he has worn the same clothes all his life. Jack Lemmon, who steps into the shoes of Art Carney, really taps into the character's well-meaning up-tightness and self-hating neurosis. The scene of him clearing his ears in the diner is a perfect match of dry anxiety and belly laughs that would have made Woody Allen proud.

When The Social Network was deservedly garlanding awards attention, one aspect which was widely praised was Aaron Sorkin's script; it moved through the creation of Facebook at a blistering pace, conveying both the natural impatience of the characters and the ruthlessness of the world in which they exist. But the origins of Sorkin's rapid-fire screenplay can be found in Simon, whose characters have an equally large amount to say and are using language as a means of achieving political dominance, using every sentence to compete for space. And like The Social Network, it takes a few minutes for us to tune in and get used to the pace of the dialogue.But while The Social Network's script is designed to embody and convey impatience and impulsiveness, The Odd Couple is all about awkwardness and neurosis. On its simplest level it is the epitomic buddy movie, the film to which we owe everything from Lethal Weapon to Mississippi Burning. Popular culture has so readily embraced the archetypes of Felix and Oscar, the two opposites who don't attract but have to get along, that there almost isn't any point repeating the reasons for their appeal. Suffice to say, the combination works, as insight and as entertainment.Dig a little deeper, and the film becomes a comedy about catharsis and the difficulties of accepting the end of a relationship. Felix and Oscar have completely different approaches to the women in their lives, whether their ex-wives or their potential future brides in the shape of the Pigeon sisters. Felix finds it hard to let go of Frances even when she wants to repaint his room just after he's left: because so much of his life is based around things being beautiful on the surface, it is completely anathema that anyone should desert him, especially when, in his mind, he has done nothing wrong.

Oscar, on the other hand, hates even talking to Blanche, letting along paying her alimony. He wisecracks about her during the opening game, remarking that "Poland could live for a year on what my kids leave over for lunch!". His attitude towards woman is strictly one of personal interest; he invites the Pigeons over with the sole intention of bedding them. But as the film rolls on both characters pick up on each other's traits, learning to atone for their past mistakes on the one hand and to seize upon the various new chances of romance on the other.Within this exploration of two men's romantic relationships with women, there is also a more nuanced examination of platonic love. The Odd Couple is as much about men's desperate desire for love as it is about their seemingly inability to be emotional or discuss their problems with other men. Felix finds it easy to open up to the sisters about how much he misses his wife, but when he tries to talk to Oscar about it, he feigns disinterest. Likewise Oscar desperately tries to convey his happiness to Felix when the girls invite them back, but Felix interprets it as selfish sarcasm. These scenes are expertly staged so that they simultaneously make you laugh and break your heart.The Odd Couple also has elements of class struggle about it. In amongst the various complaints about Felix disinfecting the playing cards and insisting upon coasters, there is an undercurrent of snobbery on the part of Felix and a bitter reaction on the past of Oscar. Felix is richer than Oscar and has an emphasis on standards which he likes to make clear whenever possible. After the meatloaf has burned, he spits out the line that "people like you don't appreciate good cooking and that's why they eat TV dinners!". Oscar meanwhile is an ordinary white-collar guy who loves his job but has little in the way of ambition. He approaches Felix's standards in the same way as he approaches his cleaning: constant irritation, boiling over into anger and ending up as outright resentment.But even if you don't want to read into all these undercurrents, The Odd Couple still works as a simple comedy. The laughs are frequent and consistent, drawing subtly on the traditions of farce and comedies of manners to produce two hours' worth of severe chuckling. The smooth jazz score which punctuates the film gives certain sections the feeling of a silent movie, while the long awkward silences in the second act are like a lighter, less absurdist variant on the work of Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter. There's something for absolutely everyone, whether you pick up all the period details or not.With the exception of its occasional theatricality, The Odd Couple is a virtually perfect comedy. It's a real hum-dinger which still hits every note right on over 40 years after its release, and though the times have moved on it hasn't lost any of its subtle edge. Its personalities and conversations remain charming and familiar, and the performances are career high-points for all involved. A real must-see comedy.

Rating: 4.5/5
Verdict: A near-as-damnit perfect comedy

We're very nearly at the end of 2010, and with much of the Christmas dinner still working its way through my system, it's time to sit back, take stock and put forward my Top 10 list comprising the best films of this year.

I could waste time repeating all the usual caveats about having not seen everything, and all this being just opinion, but to be honest if you've been reading my reviews you probably know that already. Instead, let's just dive straight in.

10. The Arbor
A gripping if uneven documentary about the life and legacy of playwright Andrea Dunbar which straddles the divide between fiction and reality. By having the cast lip-sync to recordings of Dunbar's friends and relatives, what could be a straightforward biopic is transformed into a Rashomon-like exploration of the fractured nature of truth and how the past lingers in the present. One of the most unusual films of the year and a must-see for anyone interested in the documentary tradition.
Full review available here

9. The Illusionist (L'illusionniste)
Seven years after he charmed the pants off us with Belleville Rendez-Vous, Sylvain Chomet returns with an equally charming and uniquely crafted effort based on an unfilmed screenplay by Jacques Tati. While not as compelling or rounded as his debut, the film is still a visual delight with beautiful design and characterisation rooted in dry wit and subtle pathos. The film marries a well-judged relationship between an ageing illusionist and a young fan with social undercurrents about the decline of variety and the age of rock'n'roll.Full review available here

8. Burke and Hare
John Landis returns to the big screen in style with a really good black comedy about enterprising 18th-century murderers. Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis enjoy strong chemistry as the gags flow thick and fast, and the film is rooted in Landis' brilliant combination of horror and humour. Its lush period setting accurately recalls the classic Ealing comedies of the 1950s, and the film's knowing economies with the truth work largely to its advantage. Worth seeing just for the cameos from Paul Whitehouse and Tim Curry.Full review available here

7. Green Zone
One of the most underrated films of the year and another solid addition to the Paul Greengrass canon. A very well-constructed, technically accomplished and ultimately substantial conspiracy thriller, with Matt Damon cementing his status as one of Hollywood's best leading men. Bourne-style action set-pieces are ably intertwined with relevant discussions of the role of media in modern warfare and the fragmented nature of both the enemy and the allies. A film which ticks all the action movie boxes and hurls The Hurt Locker into the middle of next week.Full review available here

6. The Ghost Writer
What looked at one point like Roman Polanski's last film now stands as a fine addition to a stunning back catalogue. While ultimately a minor work which draws heavily on The Tenant, the film is a great old-fashioned thriller in its own right; a film which is less about political allegory and more about the powers-that-be and the faceless, nameless figures which try in vain to keep them in check. Ewan McGregor gives his best performance in years as the title role and the final shot is textbook Polanski: chilling, bitter and cynical.Full review available here

5. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Edgar Wright's third film is a visually astounding and heartfelt love letter to all things comic-book and video game, with a beautifully-judged coming-of-age story at its centre. Career-best performances from Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead elevate the film above other quirky teen affairs to create a film as much about accepting responsibility as it is about defeating psychic vegans. A hilarious film which never misses a beat.Full review available here

4. Kick-Ass
After grabbing our attention with Stardust, Matthew Vaughn turns comic-book conventions on their heads in this flesh-ripping adaptation of Mark Millar's comics. The film combines knowing humour with rich pastiches of Batman and Spiderman, approaching the darker and tougher aspects of comics while keeping its tongue firmly in cheek. Visually outstanding and with brilliant stunt choreography, this represents a real departure from the light-to-dark cycle of comic adaptations and set the bar high for Christopher Nolan's next work.Full review available here

3. The Social Network
David Fincher returns to form spectularly with an intelligent, intriguing and labyrinthine examination of the founding of Facebook. Combining the visual intimidation of Zodiac with a razor-sharp script from Aaron Sorkin, Fincher manages to do what Noah Baumbach never managed: to take a bunch of hideous, chauvinistic intellectuals and make them engaging and entertaining. But the film is also a gripping analysis of the way in which technology comes between friends, the ruthlessness of capitalism and the changing nature of nerds.Full review available here

2. A Single Man
Colin Firth gives a career-best performance in Tom Ford's ravishing and heartbreaking debut based on a story by Christopher Isherwood. Ford's outstanding visual palette, which draws on the work of Michelangelo Antonioni, is the fitting sheen to a tender examination of grief and the powers of deception which we employ to protect ourselves in everyday life. The film is less a thesis on sexuality than a poignant and meticulous portrait of one man struggling to appear in control when everything about him hints towards chaos and meltdown. An emotional triumph.Full review available here

1. Inception
Having come perilously close with The Prestige, Christopher Nolan finally delivers his masterpiece with a daring blockbuster notable not only for its intelligence but its nuance and emotional resonance. What begins as a heist movie set inside the minds of its protagonists blossoms into a full-blown examination of dreams, addiction, grief and redemption, contained in a brilliantly designed cinematic world and underscored by spectacular action. Inception is the pinnacle of Nolan's career, marrying thematic complexity with visual astonishment to create a memorably mesmerising masterpiece.Full review available here

Honourable Mentions
Shutter Island (USA, dir. Martin Scorsese)
The Kids Are All Right (USA, dir. Lisa Cholodenko)
The Killer Inside Me (UK, dir. Michael Winterbottom)
Winter's Bone (USA, dir. Debra Granik)

Roll on 2011 :)

Daniel x

The Social Network (USA, 2010)
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer

When a director you admire drops the ball, it's bad news. It becomes worse news if other parties choose to reward said director with good reviews and awards nominations - the more encouragement he or she gets, the more likely it is that it will happen again. So as the months roll by and the director's next project looms, you sit there on tenterhooks, hoping that it was just a blip and that this time it will be different.After The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Fincher's future seemed to hang in the balance. When it emerged he was making a film about Facebook, it was hanging by a thread. Even when the first trailers emerged, trepidation remained as to whether it would be even faintly compelling for those of us who can't write HTML. How wrong we all were. The Social Network is one of the best films of 2010 and about as big a return to form as you can get.

Within ten minutes of The Social Network starting, you can put to bed all fears that Oscar buzz had somehow gone to Fincher's head. His new film is better than Benjamin Button in every conceivable way: it's tauter, has more substance, is more engaging and doesn't keep collapsing into a bottomless pit of sentimentality. The Social Network is classic Fincher in both its subject and execution: intelligent, multi-layered, complicated and icy cool.Purely from a visual point of view, The Social Network is a sight to behold. Following on from his work on Zodiac, Fincher uses the cutting edge in digital photography and visual effects to create a uniquely enveloping cinematic world. Like his contemporary Christopher Nolan, Fincher has a real gift for finding reality in the fantastical, grounding all his bright and lofty ideas into something which we would easily recognise. Jeff Cronenweth, who also shot Fight Club, shoots the opening scenes with a perfect balance of gloss and brooding, bringing out the best in Harvard's intimidating architecture.Fincher has managed to do what Noah Baumbach never managed - to take a bunch of horrible people and make them engaging and interesting. This becomes an even bigger coup when you consider that most of the so-called action scenes in The Social Network consist of writing code and hacking into servers. Like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World earlier this year, The Social Network manages to take something which on the surface is impenetrable to anyone with a life, and find the interesting stories within that.

The Social Network is not primarily about Facebook, any more than Scott Pilgrim is primarily about video games. It is instead about an extraordinary paradox: the world's biggest friendship tool was invented by someone incapable of friendship, who may also be a tool. The Mark Zuckerberg presented on screen is someone of immense intelligence and programming skill, but who is completely inept when is comes to physical interaction (of whatever sort) with other human beings. It takes him a minute to realise that he is being dumped, and a whole hour of the film to talk to the girl in question (ranting online about her bra size didn't help matters).The casting of Jesse Eisenberg is significant, considering he played a similar character in The Squid and the Whale. But there is a crucial difference between Walt and Mark, and this is the difference which makes the film compelling. Walt is so utterly assured of his own intelligence that he feels the need to constantly belittle others; both he and his close circle of friends are so completely up themselves that we just don't care what happens to them. Mark may appear to be the same - obnoxious, privileged, highly intelligent - but he is completely unaware of how socially inept he is. He expects so much of other people but doesn't know how to deal with it when they fall short. As the lawyer remarks at the end of the film, "you're not an asshole Mark, you're just trying really hard to be one."

Despite the presentation of this character, The Social Network is not a thinly-veiled attack on the real-life Zuckerberg. Neither does it attempt to compensate for this portrayal with bald hagiography on the part of his classmates. Our sympathies shift between the characters, and the only constant is that all of them have incredible intellects and are living extraordinary lives beyond our wildest dreams.The film is on one hand a character study of Zuckerberg and the highly intellectual undergraduates which Harvard unleashes on the world. Where Revenge of the Nerds' characters were well-meaning and loveable, the nerds in this film are ambitious, aggressive and uncompromising. They're not a million miles from the modern-day jocks, embodied by the Winkevoss twins. The party scenes in The Social Network refine the template founded in Animal House, keeping the sense of chaos but disposing of anything distractingly adolescent. The fact that Fincher keeps his cool even when two characters are being fellated in a toilet is a clear demonstration of the film's self-discipline.

The film is also a detailed examination of just how ruthless and cut-throat modern capitalism is. Harvard students are presented as born-and-bred winners, who invent jobs rather than taking them and don't know how to take coming second. The film examines how painfully easy it is to get left behind, both in the fall-out between Eduardo Savarin and Shaun Parker, and in the fate of the Winklevoss twins. The last time we see them on screen, they have just come second in a very close race. The film ends on a spiky note, commenting that they "finished sixth" at the Beijing Olympics.Most of all, The Social Network is about the nature of modern-day friendships and the rapid speed at which life seems to move. Aaron Sorkin's Rashomon-like screenplay balances three timeframes and shows us different versions of what occurred in those fateful days in 2003-4. The characters talk with a natural impatience, demanding that you keep up with them or get left behind; it takes a good few minutes to get in the zone and be a part of their conversations. The film brilliantly demonstrates how Facebook and its counterparts have become a proxy or substitute for genuine friendship. The computer screens act as an artificial barrier between individuals; regardless of how much information we share, we are drifting apart even as technology brings us together.

The film is not quite flawless due to a couple of problematic scenes. Having spent so much of its running time in claustrophobic rooms with the intensity building, the boat race is like someone taking the lid of a pressure cooker; we feel like we need it, but the film is never quite the same again. This sequence feels like a very deliberate way to end the twins' part of the story, as if the film couldn't deal with four stories running side by side. The ending also drags a little for the simple fact that so much of this is recent history; how do you put a definite ending on something which is still ongoing?In spite of these little niggles, The Social Network is one of the best films of the year and a high point in Fincher's illustrious career. It is every bit is intense and atmospheric as The Ghost Writer, and every bit as entertaining as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It raises all the right questions about its subject and contains a number of very fine performances, particularly from Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. If nothing else, it's the most exciting film you could make about a bunch of unlikeable men sitting in dark rooms arguing about copyright. Inception remains the best film of the year, but this is a very close second.

Rating: 4.5/5
Verdict: One of the year's best films