Escape Artist's Top 10 Movie Soundtracks: Part 2

Here are the final five entries of Escape Artist's favourite film soundtracks of all time. Find Part 1 here.

Marie Antoinette - Brian Reitzell (2006)



Sofia Coppola's third film was unfairly and condescendingly dismissed on its release, with critics and Cannes audiences accusing it of misrepresenting history and being little more than a lightweight music video that fetishised the opulence of France's Ancien Regime. The criticism was total bollocks, and a classic example of judging a film based on projected criteria. Marie Antoinette is an aesthetic confection, true, and it's intentionally anachronistic. But it reaches deeper by exploring the confusion and naive flutterings of a teenage girl plunged into a high-pressure royal marriage, destined to become France's eternal Queen Bitch figure. As such, Coppola plays it like a teen drama, mixing the aesthetics of late 18th century French aristocracy with the high-top sneakers and New Romanticism of John Hughes' Shermer high schoolers.

The film's soundtrack is an appropriately time-hopping affair, where the Baroque of Vivaldi, Scarlatti and Couperin meets the pop baroque of Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure and Bow Wow Wow. It's a heady cocktail that mixes cold and smooth, the period harpsichord pieces making an elegant bedfellow to the sheen of those 80s beats. The soundtrack even mixes the two on a single track with a special version of 'Hong Kong Garden' that begins with a lush arrangement of strings before kicking into Siouxsie Sioux's art-punk attack. Add in a sprinkling of lilting contemporary post-rock and you've got the recipe for a confusing but oddly perfect soundtrack to a much-misrepresented film.

A bizarrely abridged version of the Marie Antoinette OST on Spotify, here.

El Cid - Miklos Rozsa (1961)



Of all the great soundtracks on this list, Miklos Roszla's score for El Cid is the one that renders my critical faculties utterly obsolete. Within ten seconds of the score's gorgeous strings taking flight, I am at its mercy. El Cid might have been the most formative movie of my early childhood. For better or for worse, it taught me that doing the right thing always supersedes doing the sensible thing. It taught me that the baddies always win at the beginning, but the goodies always win in the end. It taught me that love can be both perfect and broken, and that good love should probably involve the girl fleeing in despair to a nunnery at some point. It taught me all these things in a language I could understand: knights in shining armour and fluttering pennants and Charlton Heston being awesome. For a young boy of a naturally nervous disposition living at boarding school, its uncompromising sense of old-fashioned honour was somehow a comfort and a manual. For me personally, Roszla's score condensed all of that into a few minutes of soaring orchestration. So a shamelessly personal choice. Check out the above video, which contains the film's opening credits and its most recurrent musical refrain. I hope you like it, but I don't really mind if you don't. It belongs to an anxious little boy who needed it once.

The full El Cid OST on Spotify, here.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (2007)



Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds/Grinderman cohort Warren Ellis are busy men. When not working on their frontline musical projects, they've developed quite a healthy cottage industry composing soundtracks for a number of excellent recent films, not to mention a couple of stage plays and the audio version of Cave's second novel The Death of Bunny Munroe. Ellis and Cave's 2007 soundtrack for Andrew Dominik's stunning western The Assassination of Jesse James... could be their finest collaboration to date. While it feels like their previous work on The Proposition laid the groundwork for Assassination's keening interplay of strings and piano, Cave and Ellis here replace that score's warped brutality with an atmosphere that's altogether more existential. The duo's orchestration has a tentative quality that perfectly mirrors the bewitching, morally complex world that the movie creates.

The full Assassination of Jesse James... OST on Spotify, here.

Days of Heaven - Ennio Morricone (1978)



The full soundtracks for Terrence Malick's first two films, Badlands and Days of Heaven, are sadly pretty tricky to track down nowadays. It's a real shame because both are superb. While Carl Orff's short composition 'Gassenhauer' perfectly encapsulates the childish, deadly fairytale of the Malick's feature debut, Ennio Morricone's compositions for Days of Heaven might be the more substantial of the two.

Morricone brilliantly works around the central theme of Camille Saint-Saens' 'Aquarium' from his suite 'Carnival of the Animals', which plays over the film's enigmatic opening credits. His compositions take enough from Saint-Saens' suite to bring across its otherworldly mystery, while adding a little extra humanity to soundtrack the leisure and labours of the film's men and women working the fields of the Texas Panhandle. Little flashes of playfulness break up all the heavy themes, the zippy acoustic 12-string guitar piece that soundtracks Bill, Abby and Linda's train journey foremost among them. In a long career full of incredible film scores, Morricone's arrangements for Days of Heaven stand as some of his very best.

Shaft - Isaac Hayes (1971)



As an absolute novice when it comes to blaxploitation movies, the most immediate appeal of the genre for me has always been the music. Isaac Hayes' soundtrack to the big daddy of blaxploitation films might be the obvious touchstone, but it's pretty irresistible. For an instant hit of funk-inflected grandeur, the film's main theme is a stone-cold killer, slow-burning through hi-hat drum fills and wah-wah guitars before flowering into that vocal that we've all known, loved and done bad impressions of for years.

Beyond the hit single, the album is filled with instrumentals that show off Hayes' composition skills and the rock-solid musicianship of Stax house band The Bar-Kays, with whom Hayes recorded the rhythm tracks in a single day. The tempo shifts from brash, muscular numbers that hint at Hayes' pioneering early disco style ('Be Yourself') to caramel-smooth jazz-soul ('Early Sunday Morning'). While Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly soundtrack might well be superior when heard in isolation for its socially conscious lyricism and more traditional pop song structure, but as a pure soundtrack, Shaft wins every time. Shut yo' mouth!

The Shaft OST (minus 19-minute epic 'Do Your Thing') on Spotify, here.

Review: The Tree of Life

Trying to write something meaningful about a Terrence Malick film is getting into serious dancing-about-architecture territory. For a director who clearly puts so little stock in words, a written review seems like a woefully inadequate medium for commentary. But as I am unable and unwilling to start performing reviews through interpretive dance, plain old words will have to do.

Throughout his meandering 40-year career in film, during which time he has only directed five full-length films, Malick has been gradually stripping his work of narrative and character development. Although his films have always exhibited a dreamy quality that prioritises visual communication above all, debut Badlands and its follow-up Days of Heaven maintain strong elements of plot, the latter even coming off as positively Shakespearean, in a floaty sort of way. But his 1998 "war" movie The Thin Red Line and 2005's The New World saw Malick's more abstract themes - a vague but insistent yearning for the spirit of the natural world foremost among them - come to the fore.

The Tree of Life feels like the culmination of this steady drift away from storytelling and towards a sort of visual poetry. At once intensely personal and unabashedly grand, the film sets the day-to-day life of a small-town Texan family against the vast, unknowable scope of the universe, its creation, and the nature of everything that exists within it. Simple.

This split between intimate scenes of family life and portrayals of our planet's fiery birth might seem incongruous. Malick moves in mysterious ways, the twining limbs of his tree providing a link between the smallest events and the very largest. His widescreen vision of the universe is certainly arresting in a visual sense. Tectonic plates sizzle and grind against one another; oceans are born and in turn incubate the multicellular organisms that spiral along the sea bed. Stars burn, forests bloom and dinosaurs roam.

We're introduced to this eon-spanning maelstrom before we ever set eyes on a human character. Nevertheless, it's Mr and Mrs O'Brien of Waco, Texas and their three sons that put it all into perspective. Their life together in a quiet 1950s suburb (depicted so specifically that it is likely drawn from Malick's own memories) is at once idyllic and riven by conflict. The father (Brad Pitt) is the square-jawed embodiment of the do-it-for-yourself American ideal of Darwinian strength. A day's work for a day's pay; relying only on the sweat off your brow. He tries to pass his world view on to his sons, who he subjects to a strict regimen of traditional discipline, physical competition and rough affection.

The mother (Jessica Chastain) is the lamb to her husband's lion, a creature of seemingly unending compassion, childlike and empathetic. While Mr O'Brien mutters stern reprimands at the children across the dinner table, Mrs O'Brien is playing with them in the garden and waking them up with ice cubes down the backs of their pyjamas. If they seem symbolic rather than real, that's because they are - this 50s childhood is all channelled through the memory of their eldest son Jack in later life (Sean Penn), still torn by the incompatibility of his father's "way of nature" and his mother's "way of grace".

As such, Jack plays a major part in the film's family scenes, and Malick's direction beautifully fleshes out all those hazily remembered details of childhood through simple, striking moments, from gangs of children playing in the streets in the twilight just before dinner to Jack obsessing over every detail of his father's face and hands as he plays the local church organ. Jack's experience of growing up also provides a microscopic test bed for all the giant ideas floating around, as he flits to and fro between his parents, tries to reconcile the growing anger he's harbouring, and even deals with guilt and confusion after rifling through his neighbour's underwear drawer. These tiny domestic dramas mix Oedipal frustration with visions of unblemished love, with Jack and his brothers trying to find their way through the middle.

The film makes its own views clear through the judicious application of the Book of Job, the thrust of which rests on man challenging God on why the good suffer along with the wicked. The answer, the film seems to say, is to embrace a way of life that transcends the slings and arrows of fate; to see grief and joy as inseparably joined in the titanic, shared experience of life. While Mr O'Brien's vision of self-reliance gradually crumbles into a ruin of disappointment and failure, his wife's way of life proves resilient through surrender, culminating in the yielding of her most precious treasure to the Everything: the life of her own child.

The film's ending has proven its most divisive moment. The final scenes, which show characters walking down a celestial beachfront, have been criticised as an empty piece of aesthetic doodling, tantamount to the meaningless beauty of a perfume ad. While the comparison is understandable at the visual level, the scene really makes sense as a proper conclusion to the messages of a shared experience, of transcending the whims of grief and fear. These scenes are The Tree of Life's pearly gates, only instead of white marble they're made of all the versions of ourselves and all the things we've seen and done, together in one place.

It's a profoundly spiritual vision, but not in any sense that will pander to fundamentalists. Although many of the film's messages are conveyed through Christian allegory, they could resonate with any number of philosophical, religious or scientific viewpoints. In fact, Malick's larger depictions of the world's biological development seem rigorously scientific, at least to this layman.

The film's performances are roundly excellent; Pitt and Chastain are magnetic as the opposing forces at the centre of the universe, and the children are played with the naturalism that's so vital if the audience is to buy into their physical and emotional awakening. Even so, the performances are barely worth commenting on, so ingrained are they in the film's imagery and themes.

The Tree of Life resonated with me in a way that seems specific to Malick's films; there simply isn't space here to fully plumb its depths. But that doesn't mean I would recommend it to anyone. If you're looking for a great Sean Penn/Brad Pitt movie, don't bother. If you're looking for an immersive story, stay away. If you tend to think art films are pretentious and boring, you'd probably be better off loading into a giant slingshot and firing yourself into the heart of the sun. But if you're interested a beautifully conceived collage of life, one that shows but doesn't preach, that shares but doesn't explain, that mourns and celebrates all at once, The Tree of Life might make a lifelong fan out of you.

Interest Score: Butterflies/10

Satisfaction Score: A baby's toes/10

Escape Artist's Top 10 Movie Soundtracks: Part 1

Ever since the first Neanderthal cave-dweller was recorded whistling the tune to '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay', it's been known that we humans use music to express those emotions for which words just can't cut it. Music is emotional shorthand, able to express in a few bars what many novels fail to capture in 300 pages. I'm not sure if this is true of anyone else, but songs give me a lump in my throat on a manhood-threateningly regular basis. And whenever I think about moments on film that have done the same, it's not the images flickering on-screen that I remember. It's the orchestral swells. The violin flourishes. That lonely piano line.

In that sense, it seems crazy that movie soundtracks are given so little attention. In an attempt to redress the balance that, in centuries to come, will surely come to be described as "arrogant and almost comedically presumptuous", here are ten of Escape Artist's very favourite movie soundtracks and scores, in no specific order.

Yojimbo - Masaru Sato (1961)



A brilliant score that brings out the mischief and menace pervading Kurosawa's wandering ronin classic. Masuro Sato's orchestral arrangements are surprisingly timeless too, mixing traditional Japanese instrumentation with some attention-grabbing atonal stabs here and there. With his samurai epics, Kurosawa was in a constant cinematic dialogue with the American western genre, and the dust-flecked soundtrack is as indicative of that as Toshiro Mifune's Kuwabatake Sanjuro, the man with no name who came before The Man With No Name. The film itself also shares a lot of DNA with Hollywood film noir, and Masuro's trilling woodwinds and heavy-handed drums help it walk that noir line between playfulness and brutality.

The full Yojimbo OST on Spotify: here.

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Alexandre Desplat (2009)



Wes Anderson's risky adaptation of Roald Dahl's much-loved children's novel is, like most of his films, a triumph of impeccable taste and judgement. This has always extended to Anderson's soundtracks, and Fantastic Mr. Fox might just be the best of them. The film is perpetually illuminated in an amber haze of autumnal sunlight, and Alexandre Desplat's score is pure, rose-tinted late summer nostalgia. From the gorgeous banjo/violin arrangement on 'Mr. Fox in the Fields' to 'Great Harrowsford Square''s kiddified Mexican stand-off, Desplat's score will bring flooding back the idyllic rural childhood you never had.

Added to the mix is an assortment of superbly pitched pop and folk, all sun-streaked guitar jangle and campfire-singalong fun. Along with a couple of familiar Beach Boys melodies (what kid wouldn't love those kazoo parts on 'Heroes and Villains?) and the Bobby Fuller Four's toe tapper 'Let Her Dance', this soundtrack introduced me to the simple beauty of folk singer Burl Ives with a brace of tracks from his 1959 children's album Burl Ives Sings Little White Duck and Other Children's Favourites. Incredible. Oh, and don't get me started on 'Canis Lupus'. Sets me to sniffling every time. Paws up, wolves. Paws up.

The full Fantastic Mr. Fox OST on Spotify: here.

Blade Runner - Vangelis (1982)

Possibly the most obvious choice on the list, but it's obvious for good reason. Out of context, Vangelis' smoky, synthesised sax might sound embarassingly 80s, like a robot version of the sad bits from Lethal Weapon. But as an accompaniment to Deckard's melancholy hunt for humanoid cyborgs in a future Los Angeles where darkness and rain is the default setting, it's beyond perfect. Vangelis stretches his synths into all sorts of shapes, from sinister arpeggios ('Blush Response') to sweeping Islamic chants (Damask Rose) to soft-focus romance in full bloom ('Love Theme'). Appropriately enough considering Blade Runner's subject matter, Vangelis achieves the rare feat of wiring humanity into his musical constructs.

Blade Runner's full and extended OST on Spotify, here.

There Will Be Blood - Jonny Greenwood (2007)

The musical equivalent of a knife attack and the bloody silence that follows, Jonny Greenwood's score to Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 tale of cruelty and capitalism during California's early 20th century oil rush is pure Hitchcock. It's deafening silences punctuated by shocking musical violence. It's small moments of humanity washed away by waves of unsettling strings. It's an entire orchestra used as a weaponised bowling pin, poised to bash your brains in. It's little spiders made of coal dust crawling down your throat and laying their sooty eggs in your soul. It's about as fun to listen to as the movie is to watch, and just as enthralling.

There Will Be Blood full OST on Spotify, here.

The Fountain - Clint Mansell (2006)

Much like the film, The Fountain's soundtrack is all about the set-up and the pay-off, years of denial and pent-up frustration culminating in a release that comes all in a rush. Darren Aronofsky's movie - broadly speaking - follows a man living his life to defy death, little realising that peace lies in embracing it. Clint Mansell, with help from the Kronos Quartet and Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, charts this narrative through expert pacing and arrangements with real emotional bite.

The majority of the tracks echo the main character's feeling of being hemmed in, frustrated strings rushing around with echoing drums hot on their heels. The final two pieces are where everything changes. Penultimate track 'Death is the Road to Awe' stacks the confusion and chaos to an almost unbearable degree, then gives us a single second of ecstatic silence before the explosive pay-off of electric guitar, pounding rhythm, howling violins and a choir so unhinged that it might well be possessed. Final track 'Together We Will Live Forever' is a sumptious piano piece, replacing the mad scrum of the rest of the score with a serenity that feels all the more blessed for what has come before. It's about as subtle as a rhinoceros, but Mansell's score is a towering piece of work, and The Fountain would only be half a movie without it.

The full Fountain OST on Spotify, here.

That's it for Part 1 of Escape Artist's best soundtracks. Stay tuned for another five scores that score, featuring cowboys, a guy who no one understands but his woman and Regency-period new wave. Also, please keep in mind that this list will likely be made completely redundant after the recent announcement that the Scissor Sisters will be providing the score for the new Fraggle Rock movie, which will probably be more amazing than this entire list combined. Seriously, I don't even know if I'm being sarcastic.

Videogames: how real is too real?

So E3, the world's biggest videogame conference, has come and gone. Although I've never been to the event, it seems that some perennial traditions never change. The "booth babes" will strut around in skimpy clothing, pretending to be charmed by the sweaty, tight-crotched advances of the gaming masses. Various games journalists, despite having some of the best jobs in the world, will whine about being exhausted as if they're sending grizzled dispatches from war-torn Libya. The three big console manufacturers will put on gigantic press conferences, during which hardcore gamers will attack anything shown that's not specifically made for them (Kinect, Move, Wii Fit etc) with the impotent ferocity of a thousand weaning infants.

One thing that particularly stood out at this year's E3 was the dominance of the big-budget first person shooter. Although differing in many ways, one thing that the likes of Modern Warfare 3, Rage, Far Cry 3 and Battlefield 3 all share is the quest for the holy grail of computer graphics: photorealism.

And for the most part, the quest seems to be going rather well. A glance at some of the footage from Battlefield 3 provides evidence enough that modern developers (and modern PCs most of all) are making serious strides towards creating truly believable environments and character models. It's certainly enough to make you believe that the next generation of consoles could get scarily close to cresting the far side of the uncanny valley.

So it's a baby Space Race to see who'll get there first. But like the Space Race, all the money and effort is being dedicated to getting there, with precious little thought as to what happens when we do. Don't get me wrong, I'm as excited as the next joystick warrior about the luscious visuals that await us in the next few years, but I remain curious about the unintended consequences.

I'm not about to start prattling on about murder simulators or emploring you to just think of the children; like most people, I believe that violent videogames can be enjoyed as part of a healthy media diet. But if games reach a level of visual fidelity that makes them hard to distinguish from reality, I do wonder if that's what we actually want.

I play violent FPS games because they often have compelling and well-developed gameplay, they can be stylish and immersive, and they give me the opportunity to measure my skills against screaming 14 year-olds from South Carolina or wherever. I don't play them because I want an unflinching representation of what it's actually like to kill a human being. I want cartoon violence, movie violence, comic book violence; I don't want something that feels like the real thing. Or do I? I don't know. Maybe videogame violence will never feel that shocking because no matter how real it looks, we know deep down it's just cleverly arranged pixels. But as computer graphics move us ever closer to scarily realistic recreations of some pretty current world conflicts, I expect we'll all be finding out where our limits lie.

Review: Bridesmaids

It's an unfortunate fact that in the world of Hollywood movies, male-driven comedies are for everyone while female-driven comedies are for the most part considered to be just for women. Whether this says more about audience perceptions or the way in which comedies focused on women are made and marketed is up for debate, but it's certainly a shame that mainstream movies about women seem to be so segregated by gender.

Co-written by and starring SNL alumna turned movie star in the ascendant Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids has a real chance to introduce audiences of either and all genders to the funny side of the distinctly female-oriented process of pre-wedding bridal rituals. With The Hangover 2 failing to recapture the sparky energy of its predecessor (despite, or perhaps because of, being a shameless clone), the film is also in position to become summer 2011's best-loved adult comedy.

Thankfully, Bridesmaids grabs its opportunity by the horns, wrestles it to the ground and shouts jokes into its ears until it busts a gut laughing. Anchored by a central performance by Wiig that's as endearing and well-pitched as you're likely to see this year, the film is a roaring success, bringing out the muck and mayhem of wedding showers, bachelorette parties and the awkwardness of enforced bonding with comedic flair and a genuine feel for character.

The movie opens with our heroine Annie (Wiig) autopiloting through an uninspired hump session with handsome, self-obsessed fuck-buddy Ted (Jon Hamm). The inevitable disappointment that follows these meaningless booty calls echoes the vague sense of defeat that follows Annie around. Her bakery business has collapsed like a wet meringue under the weight of the recession, taking her boyfriend and her life savings with it, leaving her renting a small room from a couple of weirdo limeys (one of whom has a suspiciously appalling accent).

When Annie's best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) tells her she's getting married to her long-term boyfriend, she's secretly worried that they'll drift apart. But she's duly appointed maid of honour, so it's her job to corral Lillian and her friends, including rich, beautiful friendship rival Helen (Rose Byrne), through the fraught process of setting up the bride-to-be for her big day.

The set-up certainly doesn't sound like anything new, but as with all comedy, the secret's in the delivery. And the movie certainly delivers laughs, with the kind of brassy, unaffected style that's so rare in modern rom coms. The character-based comedy rolls easily off the script as the bridesmaids' personalities and histories unfurl, from frustrated mother Rita (on her teenage sons: "Everything is covered in semen. I literally broke a blanket in half, do you see what I'm saying?") to Lillian's future sister-in-law Megan (Melissa McCarthy), a massive slab of a woman who combines hulking machismo, unbridled sexual energy and just a hint of social autism with such commitment that she becomes the movie's most consistent comedy engine.

There's plenty of room for slapstick too, with a hyper-aggressive, mostly slow motion tennis match between Annie and Helen a particular highlight. So much critical vitriol has been poured onto the infamous "dress fitting/food poisoning" scene that I expect to hate it, but it's a pretty spectacular piece of gross-out. You owe it to yourself to behold a fully grown woman in an ornate bridal gown shitting her guts out in the middle of a busy street, staring helplessly at her friends.

But it's the central relationship between Annie and Lillian that binds the movie together and gives it a heart to match its funny bone. Wiig and Rudolph's natural charisma as a duo brings an effortless credibility to their friendship, which in turn gives context to the strain that their relationship endures throughout the movie. Annie's anxiety about being left behind as Lillian embraces a new life and a new set of wealthy friends, as well as her fear of failure and her battered self-esteem, are universally relatable themes, and as the hysteria ramps up towards the end of the film, these themes keep the characters from feeling cartoonish.

Bridesmaids has been hailed by many as a sort of ultra-modern feminist affirmation, but in reality, Wiig and co-writer Annie Mumolo are having far too much fun engaging with and subverting stereotypes of femininity to stick to any particular agenda. While the movie is effortlessly progressive in its portrayal of women as individuals with a diverse set of strengths and flaws (which should surely be a given by now), this is Grade-A entertainment first and foremost. But it's certainly refreshing to see the usually all-engrossing love interest (charmingly played here by The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd) sidelined in favour of a genuinely heartwarming female friendship.

A couple of niggling flaws hold Bridesmaids back just enough to be worth mentioning. The core triangle of Annie, Lillian and Lillian's intimidating new friend Helen, impressive as it is, dominates proceedings to the extent that a couple of the bridesmaids are left out in the cold somewhat, with the aforementioned lusty mum Rita and Ellie Kemper's twitchy newlywed Becca not given quite enough room to flesh out their intriguing character concepts. The film also wraps up a little neatly considering the preceding histrionics; Wiig, Mumola and director Paul Feig seem to take their feet off the emotional gas on the home stretch in favour of tried-and-tested rom com cliche.

A couple of minor slip-ups are nowhere near enough to hide Bridesmaids' immense strengths, however. The movie, produced by Judd Apatow, easily stands up with the cream of the crop of the Apatow Productions stable. Like Knocked Up, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Superbad, Bridesmaids makes walking the precarious tightrope between hilarity and heart look easy. The film may have a hard time marketing itself to a universal comedy audience; several of my friends admitted to dismissing it out of hand, assuming it was cut from the standard chick flick cloth. In reality, it's a hilarious, very sweet movie spearheaded by some very funny women, a must-watch for comedy fans, no matter the shape of their genitalia.
Satisfaction Score: 9/10

Interest Score: 7/10

Review: Green Lantern

Since the idea of a Green Lantern movie was first batted around a few years ago, it was always clear that it would be a project fraught with risks. An interstellar police force that draws power from green power rings and valiantly does battle against evil, injustice and the dastardly power of the colour yellow is a pretty tough sell, especially given the pseudo-credible superhero films that audiences have grown accustomed to. But there was an enticing opportunity, too: to create a colourful superhero epic of truly cosmic scale and ambition, set against the backdrop of distant galaxies and alien space unicorns rather than dreary old earth.

Now that Green Lantern has finally landed, it's become depressingly clear that the most epic thing about this movie is its lacklustre execution and the ease with which the whole story slips from memory on leaving the cinema. The film is not without its fleeting charms, but any strengths find themselves completely outmatched by a plot so bereft of drama that events seem to unfurl in a dull green blur.

Early signs provoked a wave of cautious optimism from fans. Ryan Reynolds looked good as Hal Jordan in the trailers, Martin Campbell (director of GoldenEye and Casino Royale) was at the helm, and early footage showed off fancy effects shots of the Green Lantern homeworld Oa. You can even look at my own summer movie preview for a prime example of the doomed hope that was circling around Green Lantern a couple of months ago.

But from the outset, the film starts to unravel. Instead of introducing us to Hal Jordan and establishing the characters who will accompany him on his journey, we're subjected to a barrage of exposition explaining the background of the Green Lantern Corps, which many eons ago split the known universe into three thousand-and-something sectors, with a Green Lantern assigned to protect each one. We also make the acquaintance of Parallax, a bubbling mass of evil yellow space diarrhea that feeds on fear and serves as the film's main threat. The creature was imprisoned by legendary Green Lantern Abin Sur, but has now escaped, sending a dying Abin Sur haring off to earth to find a suitably square-jawed human replacement.

When Abin Sur crash lands on earth, his power ring (a weapon that creates constructs through its user's willpower and imagination) chooses Hal Jordan, a cocky test pilot held back by memories of his pilot father's death in a plane crash. While Hal cruises to Oa to learn all about his new duties, spurned scientist Hector Hammond is tasked with studying Abin Sur's corpse, and is promptly infected by traces of Parallax, which turns him into a puppet of the monster and turns his head into a gigantic testicle. Cue Parallax heading to our planet, and a newly anointed Hal Jordan's attempt to overcome his daddy fears and save all life on earth.

Green Lantern's main offender is a clunky, often embarrassing script that introduces characters to push the plot or provide motivation for Jordan before unceremoniously jettisoning them without another mention (Angela Bassett's utterly anonymous government agent Amanda Waller is a prime example). Jordan's own character arc is hardly gripping either, amounting to little more than the standard "be handsome, overcome fear, live up to dead dad" trope that we've seen time and again in superhero movies.

The script also fails to inject any urgency or drama into proceedings. Jordan's trips to Oa, which should always have been the film's crown jewel, are insultingly brief, relegating fellow Lanterns like Sinestro (Mark Strong), Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush) and Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan) to living mouthpieces, explaining the Lanterns' powers and history. Key scenes are often bizarrely edited, leading to a steady flow of jarring, incongruous moments.

The film's effects range from excellent to shoddy, the beauty and detail of Oa contrasting with Jordan's ugly CG mask and a couple of downright inept action shots. For the most part, Hal's Green Lantern powers are effectively and imaginatively employed, however, Jordan creating all number of impromptu objects, including chainsaws, flame throwers and even a giant spiral race track, to overcome his enemies. The action scenes peppered throughout the movie are well-executed and occasionally thrilling, particularly an early dog-fight between a pre-Lantern Hal and two automated fighter jets.

Ryan Reynolds' turn as Jordan is really the only performance worth analysing, given that most other characters are completely side-tracked by the script. He's typically charming and witty, and does well despite the limitations foisted on him by the script; after all's said and done, Reynolds is the most enjoyable element of the film by some margin. Blake Lively's performance as love interest Carol Ferris is so flavourless that one can only pity the actor, who was so impressive in The Town last year, for the gaping hole where her character should have been. Peter Saarsgard's Hector Hammond goes from mild-mannered nerd to scenery-chewing bollock-head with such speed that he loses all credibility, a problem compounded by the complete lack of grounding for the character, or his pre-existing but completely unexplained relationship with Jordan and Ferris.

With Green Lantern, all the raw materials seemed to be in place for a superhero adventure that offered something different from all the scowling men in capes and tortured teenagers that have populated summer blockbusters of the last five years. Unfortunately, it's a sad disappointment from start to finish, with only Reynolds' strong performance and a couple of stand-out action scenes enlivening an experience that feels more like a cobbled-together collection of scenes than a coherent, confident film.

Satisfaction Score: 4/10
Interest Score: 3/10

Click here for an explanation of the Satisfaction/Interest review scores.

Review: X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class is a good film. Its performances range from solid to excellent, its action scenes are often spectacular and its involving plot culminates in a genuinely thrilling finale. The film is a massive improvement over both its fuckwitted predecessor The Last Stand and 2009's nonsensical mope-fest X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

So why, on leaving the cinema, was my overriding impression one of niggling disappointment? As exciting and engrossing as First Class often is, it is also flawed along its length and breadth, like a spectacular country mansion overrun by dry rot. Or indeed like a big budget blockbuster movie that swapped directors little over a year before its release and only started filming nine months before its premiere.

The film gives the X-Men franchise a Men In Black-style memory wipe, erasing the sweaty nightmare of The Last Stand by turning the clock back to the 60s origin of the mutant team. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) has just completed his thesis at Oxford University (accompanied by a young Mystique, who has been his unofficial ward since childhood) when he's contacted by the CIA who are looking into the existence of genetic mutants with extraordinary powers.

Meanwhile, Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) is a very angry young man. Cruelly tampered with by Nazi scientists in a World War II death camp, Lensherr endured the murder of his parents and is now huffing around the globe searching for Nazi war criminals with the help of his power over metal and a head full of unresolved rage issues. His primary target is his chief childhood tormentor Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who has become the head of the Hellfire Club, a secret (if ostentatiously named) society dedicated to securing global domination for mutantkind as the world's rightful homo superior.

This set-up leads to the fateful meeting and friendship between Lensherr and Xavier as they search for others of their kind and partner up to thwart Shaw's scheme to exploit Cold War tensions and bring about a nuclear apocalypse from which mutants will emerge as mankind's new rulers (somehow).

First Class's chief accomplishment is in establishing and exploring the early relationship between the young Erik and Charles. As Xavier, McAvoy practically purrs with easygoing charm and the hint of arrogance that probably comes with the territory when you're a handsome mind-reader with a genius intellect and the backing of the CIA by your mid 20s. Fassbender is on another level though (despite the much-discussed "wandering accent"), imbuing our proto-Magneto with an inner furnace of rage that drives him to team up with the nascent X-Men while pushing him ever further down his own dark path. Early scenes depicting Erik torturing Swiss bankers and tracking down exiled Nazi war criminals like a deranged Jason Bourne are shot for maximum impact, and effectively give insight into the overt violence and deeply buried nobility behind his goals. This Erik is a master of magnetism in more ways than one.

His friendship with Charles allows us a glimpse at the man Magneto could have been, as Erik's darkness is softened by emotional vulnerability and the wolfish grin that Fassbender is so rarely called upon to show us. The dynamics between the two men provide the film's emotional momentum, and any future installments of this new X-Men timeline should lean heavily on this new chemistry that McAvoy and Fassbender have created.

The direction of Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Layer Cake) also provides some highlights. First Class is liberally sprinkled with energetic and well-captured sequences. Erik and Charles's search for new teammates (with a prototype of mutant compass Cerebro developed by a young Henry McCoy, the mutant scientist who will become Beast) nails the pair's excitement at discovering that, far from being alone, they're part of a community.

Similarly, a montage showing Xavier's new team - including McCoy, chest-beam jock Havok, sonic screamer Banshee and a radical but effective reinterpretation of Angel - preparing for their confrontation with Shaw exhibits a freewheeling sense of fun, as well as exploring the notion that Xavier teaches his young students to control their powers by giving them respect instead of the cocktail of fear and anger to which Erik was subjected. The climactic showdown, pitting Erik and Charles's team against Shaw, malevolent psychic Emma Frost, devilish teleporter (and father of Nightcrawler) Azazel and tornado-maker Riptide is a stunning finale. Set in the seas around Cuba with US and Russian armadas ready to initiate nuclear war, this final set-piece sees all the mutants unleash the fury in a variety of bracing and imaginative ways. As an action scene, it's easily the equal of anything we've seen in X-Men movies before.

So with the movie hitting the right note on so many occasions, why the disappointment? Unfortunately, much of the great work done here is undermined by some persistent flaws. The film's effects are excellent in places but elsewhere seem to suffer for its rushed post-production schedule. The biggest victim is poor old Beast. Nicholas Hoult plays Hank McCoy well, expressing his intelligence and deep-set insecurities, but the money shot after his accidental transformation into his feral form is painfully botched.

The idea behind Beast's design is conceptually solid in its attempt to bring out the wildness of his look - as opposed to The Last Stand's "fat blue Elvis" concept - but the execution is almost comedically poor. The promo images looked reasonable but in motion, sadly, Beast looks more X-Muppet than X-Man. Elsewhere, dodgy greenscreen work and other examples of poor costume and make-up design (Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique looks positively uncomfortable and unnatural in her blue skin, possibly explaining why it was shown so little) too often rip the audience out of the story.

More importantly, the frantic pace of the story and the overriding dominance of the Xavier-Lensherr relationship stymies almost any other character development. Mystique gets some attention by virtue of being pulled into the orbit of Erik's descent into villainy, but most of the other mutant players are so emotionally malnourished that they effectively become delivery mechanisms for their powers. This makes a number of character beats pretty inexplicable. A prominent betrayal in the plot makes barely a lick of sense, and Charles's "romance" with CIA agent Moira McTaggert is so underwritten that one would assume they were workmanlike colleagues until they randomly suck on each other's faces near the end (wheelchair fetish, perhaps?). These character missteps should serve as a stark warning to Joss Whedon and the Avengers team on the delicate balancing act that goes into creating a whole team of fully fleshed characters.

X-Men: First Class is a film that gets so much right. The disappointment stems not from what the film is, but what it could have been. With a few more months added to the schedule, the prodigious talent in front of and behind the camera might well have produced the finest Marvel Universe movie to date. Instead, we're left with a film that's often brilliant but fails to coalesce as a satisfying whole.

Statisfaction Score: 7/10

Interest Score: 6/10

Archive comedy review: Louis CK

Comedy reviews seem to be all the rage on this blog at the moment, so I thought I'd reprint a review I wrote for London-ers in November 2009 after seeing the mighty Louis CK at the Bloomsbury Theatre. The man's a master comedy craftsman, so check him out if you ever get the chance.

Original piece here.

Stand-up comedy might just be the ultimate popular American art form. I use the word 'popular' because that allows me to neatly sidestep jazz, which is definitely art but certainly isn't popular. Nobody actually likes jazz, do they? They just like the idea of liking jazz. Yeah, I went there. Suck it, Mingus.

It's true that British stand-ups like Billy Connolly, Eddie Izzard and Lee Evans can stand tall in the weird, deformed line-up of legendary live comedians. But no other country has quite the same heritage as the US, from Lenny Bruce in the early '60s to Richard Pryor and George Carlin in the '70s to Bill Hicks to Chris Rock to Dave Chappelle to Sarah Silverman in a long, steadily evolving line of funny. Maybe it's North America's isolation as a continent; maybe it's that stereotype of American bullishness. Whatever the case, the Americans sure know how to stand up in a packed room and shout an audience to its knees.

Louis CK absolutely deserves his place in that pantheon of American stand-ups. He's been touring the US comedy circuit for two decades, filling the gaps with writing and acting for TV and films. If you've seen him anywhere this year, you'll have seen him in Ricky Gervais' mostly underwhelming directorial debut The Invention of Lying. His acting career has been peppered with cancelled shows and movie flops, but maybe it's better that way. CK clearly shines brightest from a stage with a mic in his hand.

Tonight, the Bloomsbury's filled to bursting with fans (including Steve Merchant, who thankfully didn't sit in front of me) expecting a dose of CK's winning blend of traditional observational comedy and foul-mouthed commentary. If the man is exhausted from his schedule (or the first gig he played at the Bloomsbury just before our late set), he doesn't show it. The audience is firmly in stitches for the duration.

Content-wise, there's nothing new here, CK visiting such well-cropped comedy pastures as air travel, fatherhood and dating. But what makes him such a compelling performer is his ability to take these comedy tropes and rejuvenate them, whether with sly subversion, deft wordplay or pure throat-straining commitment. His descriptions, like that of the middle-class urbanite who doesn't speak but somehow "secretes words out of his head", are dead-on. Just as the audience is lulled into a sense of familiarity with a bit about CK volunteering to help supervise lunch at his daughter's elementary school, he sucker punches us into shocked hysterics by calmly noting that in the event of a fire he'd happily trample other children to save his own.

The benign glint in CK's eye ensures that this isn't a Frankie Boyle-esque aggressive comedy barrage. He's toying with the audience's expectations, tempering pessimism with playfulness while still giving the material enough edge to draw gasps now and then. The word that springs to mind watching CK's set is 'craft'. CK has had 20 years to hone his, and he's seen enough audiences to be able to read us like a book. After all, as any comedy craftsman knows, it's not about the material. It's about the delivery.

Recommended Recent Records Round-Up II (Morrrr)

Rrrr is back with another brace of recommended records, freshly skinned and gutted for your pleasure and convenience. This week's catch of the day includes firebrands, safe hands, comedy raps and guitar attacks. Hit up the comments below to give your take on any of these albums (or any other new albums). I'm also curious to find out whether the Satisfaction/Interest review scale is working for people or if it comes off as unnecessary and overcomplicated. Let me know!

Tyler, the Creator, Goblin

The controversy swirling around Tyler the Creator and the greater OFWGKTA rap collective has been suitably covered by the internet (Google it if you need a catch-up. Short version: it's all a bit rapey), so I'm going to restrain myself from commenting on Odd Future beyond the bounds of this album, Tyler's second solo LP and his first to be released through a label. Goblin is strangely reminiscent of Kanye West's Dark Twisted Fantasy on a conceptual level: a sprawling exploration of a troubled psyche, long stretches of total brilliance pierced by dozens of tiny, repulsive moments.

Like Tyler's first album Bastard, Goblin opens with a hypothetical conversation between Tyler and his therapist, an intense dialogue of petty tirades and self-recrimination that's revisited through the rest of the record. Musically, Goblin seems like a conscious step away from the smooth electro sheen of its predecessor; it's a bleaker take on hip hop that better suits its creator's nihilistic, self-flagellating fuck-you stance.

It's harder work for the listener, but the likes of 'Nightmare' and 'Her' effectively strip back the layers of surrealism and bravado to reveal a 20 year-old kid still fretting over female rejection and struggling to reconcile his own contradictions. The bangers are still there, albeit better hidden and always subverted: tracks like 'Radicals' ("Kill people, burn shit, fuck school") and 'Sandwitches' see Tyler and his OF cohorts flipping out with fire in their eyes and hate in their hearts. An album of two halves, Goblin is an unforgiving record that's as much at war with itself as with its listeners, aptly demonstrated by the brilliant opening line on standout track 'Yonkers': "I'm a fucking walking paradox/ No I'm not."

Satisfaction Score: 7/10

Interest Score: 9/10

Unintentionally Long Review Score: Whoopsies/10

Three Trapped Tigers, Route One or Die

What's this? A brilliant, genre-bending guitar band? And where are they from? London, you say? Well I never. Yes, Three Trapped Tigers are one of the few bands from the capital proving that UK guitar music hasn't hacked up its last gasp quite yet. At first glance, the trio's instrumental music could be folded into the math rock fold, all precision drumming and intricate riffage. But like most sub-genres, the description proves reductive. If we're talking genre, Tigers bear as much resemblance to the dream-punk of Fang Island or the expansive post-rock of Mogwai as they do Battles and their ilk. Route One or Die's seamless love-in between guitar, piano and fuzzed electro also evokes Scottish digi-punks Errors, but for all the comparisons, the band is staking its own claim here. Opening tracks 'Cramm' and 'Noise Trade' are unashamedly epic, the sweeping grandeur uninhibited by anything so staid as vocals. Later tracks see Tigers unwind a little, the intensity giving way to spacious stretches of lush electronics. With their three excellent preceding EPs, the band proved their potential but occasionally came off like mad geniuses struggling to contain the nuclear-powered behemoth they were creating. With Route One or Die they've established complete control, and now stand poised to inject some tiger blood into London's anaemic rock scene.

Satisfaction Score: 9/10

Interest Score: 7/10

The Lonely Island, Turtleneck & Chain

A glance at my recent piece praising The Lonely Island, among others, for their amazing collaborative spirit will hopefully convince you that, at the very least, The Lonely Island are substantially better than Welsh knuckleheads Goldie Lookin' Chain. Not a massive feat, sure, but the difficulty of eliciting chuckles on an ongoing basis through humorous raps shouldn't be underestimated. Second album Turtleneck & Chain sees the trio run the risk of outstaying their welcome, but for absurd giggles the album is easily the equal of Incredibad. Comedy highlights include a Pirates of the Caribbean-obsessed Michael Bolton ruining the boys' attempt at a smooth club anthem on 'Jack Sparrow' ("He's the pauper of the surf, the jester of Tortuga") and Andy Samberg's cheerful, Fresh Prince-esque description of being pulverised in a bout with cinema's most famous boxing icon on 'Rocky' ("People barfed in the crowd, they were going insane/ Then Rocky punched my nose bone into my brain").

But as ever, what makes The Lonely Island stand out is the genuine reverence for the genre they're working with, along with some genuinely good production, most notably on the Santigold-starring 'After Party', which could be a genuine club hit if the lyrics weren't so ludicrous. A couple of tracks ('Shy Ronnie 2') suffer for their reliance on the visual gags seen in the group's videos, but all in all it's a package that, against all odds, sees Samberg, Taccone and Schaffer match their previous work comedically and exceed it musically.

Satisfaction Score: 9/10

Interest Score: 4/10

Thurston Moore, Demolished Thoughts

With J Mascis' solo debut Several Shades of Why and now Demolished Thoughts from Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore, 2011 is shaping up to be a vintage year for elegant acoustic releases by veteran distortioneers. Unlike Mascis, Moore has previous in this area, in the form of 2007 solo collection Trees Outside the Academy. Demolished Thoughts picks up where Trees left off, centred around the delicate interplay between Moore's crystalline strumming and Samara Lubelski's violin. For this album, Moore has virtually abandoned the insistent drums that peppered his last solo record, uniting the tracks under a curious banner that mixes idyllic contentment with a vaguely sketched longing. Tracks like album centrepieces 'Orchard Street' and 'In Silver Rain with a Paper Key' bleed into each other perfectly, carrying over the album's appealing atmosphere from one track to the next. In that sense, Demolished Thoughts makes a superb mood album, ideal for wistful solo listening (staring dolefully through a rain-streaked window isn't obligatory, but would probably help). It's not all meditation music, however, with tracks like assertive foot stomper 'Circulation' testifying to Moore's gift as an expert craftsman of six-string textures.

Satisfaction Score: 7/10

Interest Score: 7/10

Recommended Recent Records Round-Up (Rrrr)

It appears I've been so consumed with writing articles about reviews of late that I've somewhat neglected to actually write any reviews. Of albums, at least. To redress the balance, here is a collection of choice sentences on some recently released albums that have been floating my boat in the last couple of months. This will also be the illustrious debut of Escape Artist's patented Satisfaction/Interest review scale (see here for long-winded explanation), which I'll be making use of from now on. 2011 has been a mighty fine year for new music so far, so look out for more of these round-ups in the near future.

Dels, GOB

Dels joins Ghostpoet in the vanguard of thoughtful British rappers directly inspired by the surely-knighthood-worthy-by-now Stockwell MC Roots Manuva. Sir Manuva even guests on Dels' first album GOB, bringing his husky drawl to blustering call-to-arms 'Capsize'. But for the most part Dels takes on tracks alone, showcasing both lyrical rigour ('Droogs' affectingly delves into the misery of domestic abuse) and the blend of drowsiness and animation that's rapidly becoming a hallmark of this fertile sub-genre of UK hip hop. With production split between Kwes, Micachu and Hot Chip's Joe Goddard, GOB's beats are an energising mix of monster synth, squalls of videogame electronics and intricate, intimate moments.

Satisfaction Score: 8/10

Interest Score: 8/10

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Belong

I wasn't overly impressed with PoBPAH's first album. It was hyped to all hell (they're from New York, did you hear?), and the odour of its Cure-ish, shoegaze influences far outstank the band's own musk. Frontman Kip Berman's nasal vocals didn't do much for me, either. So imagine my surprise when the band's follow up album turned out to be a hook-laden pop rock monster that's likely to dominate many a summer stereo. Belong is a huge improvement over its predecessor in almost every regard: the riffs are clear and punchy, the melodies are more powerful. Even those vocals are somehow less soul-destroying. The lyrics limit themselves to girls, summer and summer girls for the most part, but that's almost a plus for an album that demands mindless pogoing above all else. It was a close run thing between this and Yuck's excellent debut for this year's undemanding summer record par excellence, but Belong steals it by a cheerleader's ponytail.

Satisfaction Score: 9/10

Interest Score: 5/10

Panda Bear, Tomboy

Panda Bear's (aka Noah Lennox) Animal Collective cohort Avey Tare's first solo album Down There was Officially One of My Favourite Albums of Last Year, stuffed to the gills as it was with night-time mystery and just a hint of unseen threat. Tomboy, Panda Bear's fourth solo album, is the lustrous sun to Down There's spectral moon. Lennox's compositions here tread the same ground as previous album Person Pitch, all whimsical electronic hiccups and tribal rhythm. Tracks like 'Surfer's Hymn' and 'Last Night at the Jetty' send out beautiful waves of summery contentment, the latter summoning the spirit of the Beach Boys for a nigh-on perfect end-of-party nostalgia trip. No real change of pace for Panda Bear, then, but it's hard to demand change when the vibrations are so good.

Satisfaction Score: 8/10

Interest Score: 8/10

The Weeknd, House of Balloons

Teenagers are prone to brash statements; one of my best was the cripplingly short-sighted declaration that modern R&B was one of the only genres I'd never get into. Amidst the nauseating rash of late 90s/early 00s "urban" pop, I just couldn't think of any redeeming features for an overprocessed sound that seemed to rely on vocals that stretched a single note into a thousand belaboured syllables. Even back then, I was misjudging a lot of the music I was dismissing. But I certainly never saw a record like House of Balloons on the horizon. The album, released online by singer Abel Tesfaye and producers Doc McKinney and Illangelo, is deeply rooted in R&B, with Tesfaye's falsetto as lush and rich as Michael Jackson's, or Usher's. But this is R&B at a glacier's pace and with an Arctic, crystalline atmosphere. Tracks like 'High for This' and 'The Knowing' share DNA with the more melodic post-dubstep producers like Burial and How to Dress Well, dragging the beats out into new shapes while giving Tesfaye's stunning vocals ample runway space to take off. The best thing about it? You can download it for free at The Weeknd's website, here.

Satisfaction Score: 7/10

Interest Score: 8/10

Kurt Vile, Smoke Ring For My Halo

Hardcore lo-fi enthusiasts tend to sneer at the improved production values on Kurt Vile's last couple of releases of stripped back rock 'n' roll, recorded for Matador in proper studios rather than under an unmade bed in Philadelphia (a topic covered by Vile on 'Puppet to the Man'). For all right-thinking people who realise that being able to hear the motorway in the backround on an LP isn't the cure to all the world's ills, however, studio recording has given a new clarity to Vile's songwriting skills. Smoke Ring For My Halo is his best and most consistent album to date, 10 unmissable tracks rather than an hour of fuzz punctuated by flashes of brilliance. His lyrics, which we can now actually hear, are pleasingly layered, from the co-dependent desperation of opener 'Baby's Arms' to the brittle 'Runner Ups', which flicks a casual middle finger to the world ("When it's looking dark, punch the future in the face"). Vile is also becoming one of my favourite acoustic guitarists, his fingers deftly switching from heavy, buzzy strumming to intricate plucking. 'On Tour' makes for a brilliant centrepiece, a meandering spirit journey through the power and paranoia of a life on four wheels.

Satisfaction Score: 8/10

Interest Score: 8/10

Graphics vs. art in modern videogames

This is not a post that intends to argue that videogames do or don't constitute art. I believe it was Heraclitus of Ephesus who called this "a fucking boring debate". Art isn't a locked door that needs a password to gain entry. It doesn't respond well to rules or entry criteria. When we bark back and forth about art, what we're really discussing is indescribable differences in perspective, differences in the way we perceive the world. No one's right and no one's wrong. Having said that, green is irrefutably the best colour. I don't think you can deny this.

It's certainly hard to deny that the medium of videogames is at best considered cinema's irritating little brother, the hyperactive pre-adolescent clutching at the coat-tails of its betters for attention. There's a host of reasons for this, with roots within the games industry itself as well as the preconceptions of dismissive outsiders. I believe one of the reasons for many games being considered little more than toys is the industry's preoccupation with graphics.

I appreciate great graphics. There's a huge amount of craft and skill (as well as thousands of miserable, marriage-destroying labour hours, presumably) that goes into making a landscape both beautiful and interactive. Achieving graphics that encourage immersion, enhance gameplay or inspire player creativity is an artful pursuit. But graphics must sit within the larger visual realm; there must always be a point to pushing technology to new levels. Otherwise we're just fiddling with pixels.

Games that prioritise graphics without considering wider visual goals are usually pretty easy to spot. Recently, Killzone 3 proved a visual disappointment despite the big bucks spent on its development. All the bells and whistles are in place, it's just that they have nowhere to go. The game's visual design is so uninspiring that all the superstar rendering isn't driving towards any meaningful artistic goal. It's the equivalent of tearing open an immaculately wrapped, expertly ribboned Christmas present to find a collection of your dad's dandruff scattered inside. Pointless ostentation hiding an ill-considered core.

You might argue that depressing, drab industrialisation is the very point Killzone 3 is trying to make with its visuals. Very true, but does the game's visual identity actually succeed? Where are the incidental insights into the misery of life on Helghan? Does the look of Killzone's world affect how we want to interact with it? The game doesn't hold a candle to Limbo's pervasive sense of monochrome dread, or Machinarium's rusty, apocalyptic charm. Even the Gears of War series used its vision of "destroyed beauty" to enliven its backstory and evoke a sense of a historical grandeur now turned to rubble. With Killzone, all we get is an unending, featureless sea of rivets, railings and warehouses, populated by a faceless army of cockney Nazis.

The ever-expanding library of downloadable titles on all platforms, less burdened by the expectations of cutting-edge graphics, is proving that videogame art can be impressive without graphics. It's a shame that so many developers, and so many gamers, refuse to acknowledge that graphics are utterly useless without art. We can only hope that as this industry emerges from its rebellious teenage years with a full complement of pubes and an art degree, our perceptions of visual beauty in games evolves and, to some degree, inverts. Who knows, maybe in this new utopia, The Secret of Monkey Island will be considered one of Xbox Live Arcade's most beautiful games, and Shadow Complex one of its most ugly.

Review: 13 Assassins

With something in the region of 30 films plopped out since 2000, Takashi Miike has to be one of the most productive directors in the world. He's also indisputably one of the most extreme, with releases like Ichi the Killer, Audition and Visitor Q clawing at the boundaries of taste and sanity. Of course, with such an extensive back catalogue, he has also been responsible for comedies and family-friendly fare, but it's his more horrifying output that has predominantly established his reputation in the West.

13 Assassins, one of Miike's most accessible and straightforward films to get an international release, might go some way towards persuading Western audiences of his diversity as well as his fertility. The film is a straight-ahead samurai epic (chanbara) based on the relatively obscure 1963 film of the same name by Eiichi Kudo. In the period just before the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the sadistic and murderous young lord Naritsugu, brother to the Shogun, threatens Japan's stability when he is invited to assume a more powerful position in Edo. A secret plan is hatched by the Shogun's advisors to kill Naritsugu before he arrives. The task is entrusted to veteran samurai Shinzaemon, who gathers 12 like-minded warriors to ambush the sick puppy at a quiet village along the way.

Given Miike's reputation, 13 Assassins is a surprisingly stately affair for the first two thirds of its run-time. Classic samurai movie archetypes abound as Shinzaemon gathers his crew of murder machines, including the gruff and skillful Hirayama (a clear riff on the strong, silent template elsewhere exemplified by stone-faced lone wolf Kyuzo from Seven Samurai) and Ogura, the enthusiastic youth with little experience but a warrior's spirit.

The grimy fingerprints of Miike's horror past are still present, primarily in the early scenes depicting the cruelty of Naritsugu. Goro Inagaki plays Naritsugu like a spoilt child idly burning ants with a magnifying glass as he rapes newlywed brides and uses children as target practice for his bow. Most disturbing of all, and most distinctly Miike, is a village girl who Naritsugu punishes by slicing off all her limbs and cutting out her tongue. This is Miike's odd comfort zone, and the director effectively conducts the misery of these scenes to firmly mark out Naritsugu as an irredeemable nightmare, and a valid target for our heroes.

Once the scene is set and the assassins' trap is laid for their target and his 200-odd retinue, a sleepy Japanese boarding village is the scene for one of the most drawn out battle sequences in recent memory. It rivals some of Kurosawa's set pieces for sheer length and depth, but without any of the let-up that the legendary director built into his battles to allow the audience (and the characters) a breather.

Arrows split the sky. Houses are blown up. A herd of weaponised cattle is unleashed. And above all, there are sword fights. Hapless bodyguards are slashed and skewered in almost every conceivable way, each of the assassins slaying their foes in a variety of styles. It's a smorgasbord of carnage, and it's consistently thrilling in its sheer commitment. The action is shot brilliantly, the camera capturing the grit of combat, the bloody haze in the air and the stunning beauty of the battle's forested surroundings with equal vigour.

The audacity of the final battle does hide some lingering flaws. Tonally, the film veers from relative accuracy to moments of surrealism in a way that proves jarring. Both styles are executed well, but being asked to simultaneously believe that 13 samurai could chew through several hundred armed men and that the film's events also took place in a realistic historical setting is a little too much. Given the preposterousness of the film's concept, a more general sense of style and surrealism could have served the film well, as well as making its more baffling moments part of the fun.

The acting, especially by Koji Yakusho, who invests chief assassin Shinzaemon with wry humour and fatherly empathy along with all the honour and determination, is convincing, but few characters are given more than one layer. The group's number is unwieldy as well, too many of the 13 remaining essentially anonymous and undefined as characters.

The fact that 13 Assassins doesn't transcend the limits of its genre isn't necessarily a criticism. By the looks of things, that was never Miike's intention. 13 Assassins happily sits within the chanbara genre, content to take the themes set by its predecessors and execute them with startling conviction. In this sense, the film's main strength is echoed by one of its best (and possibly slightly mistranslated) lines, spoken by Shinzaemon upon being told of Naritsugu's depravities and the mission at hand: "I will achieve this task...with magnificence."

Review: Attack the Block

Contrary to the opinions of those who live north of the river, plenty of stuff happens in South London. There's a tennis thing every year. We made dubstep in our bedrooms out of clicks and clacks and rat-a-tats we scavenged up in Croydon. We're fairly proficient at murder. All these things and more can be found below the city's belt in London's sweaty crotch.

One thing South London doesn't have is a decent alien invasion. These tend to be reserved for giant American conurbations like New York and Los Angeles; when they do stray over the Atlantic we usually have to make do with a couple of shots of the London Eye falling over or Big Ben blowing up. Even North London got its own zombie apocalypse with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead.

With Attack the Block, the debut film by Joe Cornish (of Adam & Joe fame), South London is finally getting its own slice of the supernatural, and we've not been let down. The film follows a group of young muggers and assorted other residents of a Stockwell tower block as they struggle to defend their turf from a batch of snarling, toothy extraterrestrials (or "dem tings", as they are referred to at one point) that have crash landed on the estate. It's a simple set-up that's minimal on exposition, making room for a breakneck pace, punchy dialogue and innovatively orchestrated action scenes.

The aforementioned Shaun of the Dead is one of the first touchstones for Attack the Block, and not only because Edgar Wright is one of the movie's executive producers. The two films share an incredible knack for finding an elegant, unobtrusive balance between humour, characterisation and surprisingly raw horror elements. As our five anti-social heroes, along with the lady they mugged a couple of hours earlier and a foppish suburbanite stoner trapped on the estate, tool up to scrap and scrape through the night, the script makes room for their personalities to bloom in the background without endless reams of clunky exposition.

Attack the Block's performances range from solid to excellent, with the gang's leader Moses a particular standout. Young actor John Boyega brings a bullish physicality to the role, investing Moses with a brooding toughness and fiery charisma reminiscent of a young Denzel Washington. He's the nucleus around which the young punks revolve; his gravitas gives the rest of the gang license to differentiate their characters, from smartmouth whippet Pest to the gentler, altogether more bespectacled Jerome. Special mention should also go to Nick Frost as good-natured drug dealer Ron; though only a peripheral character he makes a disproportionate impact on the film's gag rate.

The Shaun of the Dead comparisons only stretch so far. Audiences are unlikely to find their sides splitting quite so often as with Wright's rom-zom-com; Attack the Block is an action-horror movie first and foremost, and its primary appeal lies in brilliantly kinetic skirmishes. Our boys' encounters with the alien invaders feature pacy chase sequences, claustrophobic brawls through council flats, improvised explosives and more than a couple of grisly demises. In fact, the movie's backdrop of perpetual night and its synthy score often recalls vintage John Carpenter sci-fi like Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York. The film's superb sound design also does a great job of modulating the myriad audio cues, cleanly separating bestial screeches, the roar of misused fireworks and clipped one-liners so they never interfere with one another.

The design of the movie's mysterious space critters might be divisive in its simplicity, but Cornish's creature effects team has turned a limited budget into a virtue here. Somewhere in between giant wolves and gorillas in shape, the creatures are wreathed in slimy shadow, the blackness of their forms pierced only by luminous rows of razor sharp teeth. They're bestial and bruising, and their design economically highlights the only thing that matters: those teeth and how fast they can get at your throat.

Attack the Block might not match up to this summer's blockbuster leviathans in scope or budget, but it's almost certainly destined for cult glory. As such, this plucky South London underdog might end up being fondly remembered far longer than even the glossiest superhero epic. Joe Cornish has made a movie that's lean and mean, without much green; a masterclass of economical filmmaking. He may also, at 42 years of age, have emerged as British cinema's exciting new talent, with a movie that feels more youthful and vibrant than any Harry Potter. Fancy that.