What is there really to say about Shrek Forever After? It’s a movie that merely follows on from what’s gone before, continuing the slide into ever safer and more merchandising friendly territory. It  never rises particularly high, but thankfully never descends into the tedium of Shrek 3 either.

The film tries to give a conclusory note to the franchise, while still keeping the door cracked open for the possibility of a return (not that they’re really ending things anyway, as a Puss In Boot movie is coming next year). The magical Rumpelstiltskin, who feels he was robbed of the throne of Far Far Away when Shrek rescued Princess Fiona in the first film, vows revenge and sets out to find a way to get rid of the big green one. He overhears Shrek bemoaning the fact that he doesn’t feel like a real ogre anymore and that he hates his newfound celebrity. Realising this may be a way to make his dream come true, Rumpelstiltskin offers Shrek a day to feel like a true ogre again, in exchange for a day from Shrek’s childhood.

Although uncertain, Shrek agrees and signs the contract, suddenly finding himself thrust into a world where he’s feared and loathed, there are wanted signs up for him and none of his friends recognise him. Searching out Rumpelstiltskin, Shrek discovers that the day he traded away was the day he was born, and because of he never existed, Fiona was never rescued and Rumpelstiltskin became king of Far Far Away. Not only that, but the contract only gives Shrek one day to be a real ogre, and after that he’ll be erased from existence. With the clock ticking, Shrek must find a way to stop this from happening and put things right again.

Although the It’s A Wonderful Life inspired, ‘what if none of what we’ve seen ever happened’, conceit is a bit of a cheesy one, it works decently well. There’s are quite a few funny moments (including a couple of corkers), it looks great and as with Hot To Train Your Dragon, the 3D works surprisingly well – not too in your face but it doesn’t feel tacked on either. It also runs at quite a pace, so there’s no chance of you getting bored, even while it’s difficult not to feel like despite everyone’s best effort, they’re trying to squeeze the last few ounces of entertainment out of a concept that was driven up a cul de sac by the first two sequels. The alternate world idea does add a few extra dimensions that stop it feeling as creatively barren as Shrek 3, with the script subtly altering all the characters and events to take into account the lack of Shrek.

Ultimately though, they’ve very carefully stuck to the Shrek sequels script, making a safe film that should keep fans passably happy, while those who gave up on the franchise by part 3 will likely still be pining for the freshness, energy and slightly devil-may-care subversiveness of the first film.

However the film is really designed for families, and they should lap it up, enjoying the jokes and the whizz-bang 3D effects. There’s nothing parents will find offensive for their and everything comes with a nice (if rather obvious) moral.

Overall Verdict: It may not be Shrek going out in triumphant fashion, but it’ll do, and to be honest, with the way the franchise has gone, this is a nice way and often funny way to end.

Reviewer: Phil Caine

Gay Sex In The 70s is currently playing at selected cinemas and will arrive on DVD on July 26th.

The documentary Gay Sex In the 70s both does what it says on the tin and completely fails to at the same. Joseph F. Lovett’s doc is a mixture of interviews, vintage photos and footage that suggests it’s a look at the idea that the gay rights movement led to increased visibility and a more stridently upfront attitude, which resulted in an explosion of gay decadence and sex, with men screwing each other all over the shop. This was then brought to an abrupt end by the emergence of AIDS in the early 80s.

It’s a potentially interesting subject, and indeed this documentary isn’t the first to paint the 70s as some sort of halcyon age of gay free love that’s gone forever. Its problem though is that it never seems to get to the heart of anything, merely hinting at things that it doesn’t develop. For example, the move from being closeted, furtive and at risk of being jailed and/or ostracised from society, through the Stonewall riots and gay rights fight, to a position of ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it’, is skimmed over at record speed. There are hints that the decadence and rampant sex of the 70s may have partially been a response to the bashing down of the closet doors, but the documentary never really goes anywhere with it.

Likewise the dangers and moral dimensions of the all-sex-all-the-time attitude are brought up and then largely shrugged off, with the interviewees talking about the possibility of getting beaten up, robbed or killed, or of drowning after falling through the floor of a dilapidated pier (which was one of New York’s favourite sex hangouts), but the men seem to treat that as par for the course, with the documentary never pushing into why these men would go to such dangerous extremes for brief anonymous sex.

Was it the relief of finally being allowed to be open about their sexuality making them feeling braver and more untouchable than perhaps they ought to have? Were they just part of a wider explosion of sexual freedom (it was the era of porno chic, after all)? How big were the risks really? Did the fact they were men, there was no chance of pregnancy and there was comparatively little health info for gay people mean they thought they might as well just screw around continually? Well, if you wanna know, don’t bother with this, as while the documentary hints at all of them, it has little to say about any.

Even with AIDS, Gay Sex In The 70s never really seems to know how to handle it, so it gets summed up very briefly, with a few brief hints at the effect it had on the gay community, but that’s it. It’s blatantly obvious from the interviewees that it was much bigger than that, many of whom have been very active in the battle against the disease, but all the documentary seems to want to say it that it was a shame the party had to end. It’s particularly frustrating when you have people talking about how great life was until hell came (i.e. AIDS), but then it cuts away without actually asking any pertinent questions about what that means.

However the documentary’s major failure is to assume that the experience of 18 men who spent the 1970s shagging their way across New York, really sums up gay sex in the 70s. Was New York typical? Are these guys even typical of New York, or were they just the most visible aspect of gay life then (assuming they were)? Have the men slightly rose-tinted the era both because it was their youth and because of the devastating impact AIDS had on them and their friends in the ensuing years? The documentary doesn’t seem to care, instead creating a nostalgia trip for a group of aging men.

The result is that because it hints without ever exploring, the film largely becomes an account of where you could have had anonymous sex in New York in the 70s, moving from location to location with the interviewees describing what it was like. And quite frankly, who cares about that, especially when the doc keeps brushing on far more interesting ideas and offering faint whispers of what was going under the sex, but never properly talks about it. It was a vitally important time for gay rights, but all this documentary can really offer is a travel guide to the seedy places of yore.

There’s an undercurrent of this being made for younger gay people, so they can learn about their history. Teaching gay people who are utterly ignorant of the struggle that happened not that many years ago is a noble cause, but not only will Gay Sex In The 70s tell them very little except that some people had a lot of sex and that little of it was in their bedroom, but it may also alienate them by treating everything back then as somehow unique, whether it is or not. It’s a slightly wagging finger going ‘you don’t know you were born’, even though the documentary seems to have little idea what life is like now for the gay men who were the same age as the director and interviewees were in the 70s. Without any context, and with such a narrow focus on the particular experiences of some rampantly sexual men in New York 40 years, it all ends up feeling slightly pointless and a wasted opportunity.

Overall Verdict: Despite plenty of potential and hints at some really interesting things about gay life in the 70s, it’s focus on a subsection of New Yorkers and its failure to do much more than to subjectively say ‘wasn’t shagging a lot great?’ turns Gay Sex In The 70s into a rather pointless jaunt through the many public sex hangouts of NY four decades ago.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

The tagline on the poster reads ‘the American dream sucks’ , which pretty much tells you where you are – we’re in classic Revolution Road/American Beauty/Ice Storm/Little Children/Hal Hartley country, or the world of Cheever/Updike/Yates if you’re a reader.

The twist is that the set-up – 70s suburbia, bored housewives, greedy husbands, desperate lives seeping away through boredom and alcohol – is here seen through the eyes of one of the children instead of the adults. After all it’s the kids who suffer most, with the damage done by their parents’ boredom and aggression seeping into their young lives, possibly ruining any chance they may have of happiness. Lymelife is strongest on portraying the adult world of 1970s Long Island suburbia in all of its beige hideousness, but never quite makes the leap from that to showing fully how the kids will suffer. It’s a brave attempt though.

The child in question is Scott (Rory Culkin), who has the usual problems – he is being bullied at school and desperately fancies the girl next door, Adrianna (Roberts), but she only has eyes for the older boys. Scott’s parents Mickey (Baldwin) and Brenda (Hennessy) seem to argue the whole time, in between bouts of worrying about their older son Jimmy (Kieran Culkin), who is about to be shipped off to war. Mickey is making money selling ‘the American Dream’ in the form of cheap Long Island houses, and builds a ‘dream house’ on the plot next door, which Brenda, of course, absolutely detests. ‘We can build a tennis court’ he pleads, ‘great, except we don’t have any tennis players in the family’ she icily replies. She also has a weird obsession with Queens, presumably where she and Mickey initially met before heading for the ‘burbs and a new, exciting-sounding but empty life.

Mickey is also, it almost goes without saying, having an affair, with Adrianna’s mum Melissa (Nixon), a fact he barely conceals from his wife, flirting with Melissa in a public bar. Melissa’s husband Charlie (Hutton) is stricken with the disease of the title, a debilitating condition which he caught from a tick bite from a deer. It leads to depression and fatigue, and boy is Charlie suffering from those – he is unemployed, and spends his days sitting in the cellar smoking dope while pretending to be commuting into New York to find work.

It is the painfully young Adrianna who has to explain to Scott what is going on in the adult world – she knows instinctively about the affairs and depressions, but Scott seems to blow his chances with her when he tells his schoolmates he has sexually conquered her. Devastated by his parents’ sudden split, he reacts violently and with possibly disastrous results.

US indie films like this stand and fall on the basis of the scripts, and while Lymelife has plenty of strong moments, it almost talks itself out with half an hour to go. Scene after scene throws together characters confronting each other’s inner feeling and thoughts, but not actually doing much – Mickey and son Jimmy have a rather half-hearted fight in a bar, and he and Brenda have an even shorter argument when they split, but it all seems a little half-hearted. The film can’t seem to decide whether to sympathise with them all or treat them like victims, a la Revolution Road, and ends up doing neither. We are on the side of Scott, but having a kid trying to make sense of the adult world is a cliché and the film at times seems to know it.

Lymelife has a lot going for it though, it has to be said, mainly some of the performances. Baldwin is on superbly creepy form as the oleaginous Mickey, sucking his money from unsuspecting couples for his shabby houses and arguing with just about everybody about everything – at one point he tells his son ‘it’s hard to be a man’. He is certainly struggling. Hutton too is on great form as the sad, ill, pale neighbour, a broken man with one last act of rebellion in him. The less said about Nixon the better (she seems to think she’s still in Sex And The City) but the kids are also great, especially Culkin as a sad teen, doing his Robert de Niro in front of a mirror but armed with a toy gun from Star Wars. Roberts is also good, and has the best line – when he tries to chat her up with a line she has already used about the railways she says: What are you, Walt Whitman now?”

If you’re in the mood for a little American angst, with a cheesy 70s soundtrack and set in what seems to be an eternal autumn, Lymelife will do just fine. It never quite hits the emotional heights, being too talky and moody, but as an addition to the catalogue of films chronicling the death of the American Dream it fits in.

Overall verdict: Moody, broody, downbeat look at life in the ‘burbs with some teenage angst thrown in as a side order. Close but no cigar.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Trust the French to breathe back some life into the dying art form that is the romantic comedy. As Priceless cheered us up all up a couple of years ago, this one does the same, except it’s warmer and much funnier, and beautifully played. I would say that Hollywood should take note, except they might misinterpret that and just do a remake, which, like most remakes of French films, would probably be a disaster.

It’s to the film’s great credit that it remains entertaining even though the plot is fully spelled out after about 10 minutes. The great Romain Duris plays Alex, a professional couple splitter. He is hired by friends and family of women who are with the wrong man – violent, narcissistic, stupid – to intervene, woo the women and make them realise they are worth more. He then departs with the gloriously cheesy line “it’s too late for me, but not for you”, and never sleeps with them – they leave their partner, job done.

In a very funny sequence we see how he does it, posing as all of the usual clichés, including a window cleaner – remember that soft drink ad? He pays attention to the women, is a perfect gent and also cheats – his backing team, a couple, find out what the lady likes, and he pretends to do the same.

Alex needs a big case fast for the money, and it comes along in the form of Juliette (Vanessa Paradis), a rich daughter who is determined, sharp and knows what she wants. She is engaged to an Englishman, Jonathan (Lincoln), but her father does not approve, so hires Alex to do his stuff. He follows her to Monte Carlo, where she is having a last weekend of fun before her wedding, and poses as her bodyguard. With the help of his team he saves her from a mugger, entertains her with her favourite music (George Michael) and Alex even learns the moves from her favourite film, Dirty Dancing. It’s all to no avail, as Juliette is a single-minded woman determined to marry Jonathan – not only that, but he seems to be Mr Perfect, having made his cash saving 10m kids from starvation. Jonathan is attentive, cultured and kind, so can Alex make Juliette fall for him instead, and will he fall for her? Well, duh.

It’s not the most original plot in the world, and not only does it share ideas with Priceless, which starred Audrey Tatou as a goldigger, it also shares the same set – Monte Carlo, in all of its bling glory. Yet somehow it all works because it never takes itself too seriously and always goes for the good gag. Alex learning the words to Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and the moves from Dirty Dancing is hilarious, and when he clears the dance floor in a deserted restaurant it’s pretty obvious what is coming. When he discovers that she loves Chopin he attends a concert, playing ‘air piano’, knowing that she is watching – another great gag.

Heartbreaker Trailer

Of course it’s predictable, and does go for the cliché a few times too often. Jonathan is a blank, whose dullness everyone can see apart from Juliette, and his parents are equally boring, especially his witch of a mother. The wedding scene at the end seems very under-written – she just leaves, and some of the characters don’t work either, the gag of the muscle chasing Alex becomes a bit weary, and the female half of his team, Julie Ferrier who was also in MicMacs, has an irritating screen presence. There is also a stock character in Juliette’s best friend, a nympho who jumps on Alex but never raises much of a laugh.

By romantic comedy standards though it is a million times better than most of the dross we’ve had this year, Leap Year and Happy Ever Afters being two particularly awful examples. The reason for that is a lively pace, a few good jokes and two great performances from the leads. We know all about what a fine actor Duris is, and he is clearly enjoying himself here as a gloriously cheesy Romeo with a way with the ladies. The relief at the end when he announces “I think Dirty Dancing is shit” is palpable. But what about Paradis – who would have thought that she could bring so many qualities to such a fluffy role? Touch, bright, vulnerable, cultured, sexy and funny, she is on great form as Juliette.

Overall verdict: Sunny romantic comedy that appeals as much to men as women, with some great moments and lots of smiles. Great fun.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

First, the good news. After the disaster of Woody Allen’s London trilogy, and the partial return to form of Vicky Christina Barcelona, this is back in Allen’s comfort zone. Set in New York and featuring a cast of Jewish neurotics and misfits, it’s funny, sweet, warm and sharp, looks lovely and is well acted.

The bad news would be that there is still the nagging feeling that we’ve seen and heard this before, and that Allen is rehashing material he has done better in earlier movies. Since Melinda And Melinda it seems to be a downward curve in terms of quality, and although this has flashes that he is back on form, they are no more than that – with lots of flaws in between. Compared to Annie Hall this is flimsy, compared to any of the London films it’s a masterpiece. Those three films – Match Point, Scoop and Cassandra’s Dream – are beginning to look like a huge blip in his CV, an experiment that went disastrously wrong and proved Allen has no ear for dialogue outside of his native New York. Characters sounded weird and clunky, virtually everyone was ridiculously posh and the films looked terrible – any shot in Whatever Works is infinitely better than the best shot in those three movies.

His big gamble here is to cast Larry David in the lead as Boris, a grumpy, ratchet old ‘genius’ who was once considered for a Nobel Prize in physics, although ‘I didn’t get it’. He is embittered, believes the human race is doomed and refers to everyone else as a moron. David has created a great screen presence in his own Curb Your Enthusiasm, but here, with Allen’s script, he takes a while to get into his role. For the first half hour he seems to be doing an impression of Allen, and it doesn’t work – only later does he seem really comfortable.

Into Boris’ life comes Melody (Evan Rachel Wood), a slightly clichéd dumb girl from the South who has run away from home. He takes her in and feeds her, she announces after a month she has a crush on him. Quite why a young girl would fall for a man who constantly refers to her lack of intellectual capacity remains a mystery, and this is Allen’s real Achilles heel (and has been for a long time) – he is also at least twice, probably three times her age. He evens corrects her grammar at one point – incorrectly.

If you can go with this plot the movie picks up from this point on. They get married and suddenly Melody’s barking mad parents turn up looking for her, assuming she has been abducted. Mum Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) is a bible-quoting mess, horrified when she meets a son in law who is older than she is. She decides to stay on, trying to set Melody up with a younger man, and discovers she has a talent for photography. Pretty soon she has turned into a bohemian hippie with two lovers, when hubby (Begley Jr) turns up.

These two characters lift the film in terms of pace and comedy – they are pantomime, sure, but at least they have lots of life and spark. Marietta’s journey from the Bible belt to Boho chic is very funny, and Begley has his own plot twist which produces plenty of laughs. By this time David has settled down into his role too, making the second half of the film way more appealing than the first.

Whatever Works has a high gag count, New York looks lovely and the underlying message – do whatever works to bring happiness in your life, as all is chaos – is a positive one. Allen is back in his old territory, and at least gets the way people speak right, yet there is still a feeling that his best work is some way behind him. Fans might have to accept that the days of Annie Hall and Manhattan, or even Crimes And Misdemeanours and Mighty Aphrodite, are long gone.

Just don’t make another film set in London Mr Allen – what’s that, you already have? Oh gawd…

Overall verdict: A partial return to form for Allen, with a great cast and lovely visuals making up for the feeling you’ve been here before. High gag count though.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Isabelle Huppert has developed quite a close working relationship with director Benoit Jacquot, with Villa Amalia marking their fifth collaboration. In their latest movie together, Huppert plays musician Ann, whose world is turned upside-down when she sees her husband kissing another woman. With barely any hesitation she decides to leave him, and her whole life, behind, determined to find herself by becoming someone new.

With the help of a man from her distant past, Georges (Anglade), she sets off on journey that eventually takes her to Italy and a secluded villa on an island, where she tests her boundaries, such as finding a female lover, and attempts to build a new life.

Villa Amalia is a very, well, French film, in that it tends to work better on an intellectual level than it does as cinematic storytelling. It is a film of moments, often unexplained and which are sometimes even a mystery to those involved, exploring how in life we often do things that aren’t fully rational and baggaged with a completely sensible explanation. It also spends a lot of time looking at solitude, which is a tough thing to deal with in cinema, and which while intriguing does mean Villa Amalia has a tendency towards lacking impetus, especially as its lack of desire to explain anything means it’s sometimes difficult to find access as a viewer beyond the intellectual and into the characters. You have to supply the meaning yourself, which works in context but does make it a slightly frustrating experience, as the film flirts between asking the viewer to engage and disappearing into a solipsism that shuts the audience out.

And I know this may make me sound like a philistine, but it doesn’t help either that Villa Amalia is full of French film-speak. You know what I mean, where people don’t talk like real human beings and instead spout dialogue that’s too literary, and uses too many words that don’t actually say all that much.

Thankfully the film does have one real saving grace, which is Huppert. She’s called on to carry the film completely, particularly as much of it is about her character’s solitude. She is magnetic, constantly intriguing the audience with what’s going on behind her eyes. She’s so good that it’s difficult not to wish the movie itself offered more, especially as no matter how much she invites the viewer in, the movie itself seems equally intent on being oblique and shutting people out.

While not a bad movie it is a bit frustrating. The way it layers together moments, uses music that often seems dissonant to what’s going on (but may better express the character’s mental state than outward appearances apply), and tries explore how life doesn’t come with simple explanations and logic, is all very interesting intellectually, but it does make it a rather isolating and uninvolving experience as a viewer.

Overall Verdict: Huppert is wonderful, but the film itself, while intriguing, is often so interested in the formal and the intellectual that it forgets to fully involve the viewer.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac