You will believe a script can die

I don't usually write single movie reviews on WYA, but…herewith, a collection of pithy, unstructured thoughts about the new Superman movie, Man of Steel.  If you don't want too many spoiler words, just simply skip to the next blog post, on something more important than a DC re-boot.    

In many ways, its like Christopher Nolan's Batman franchise, but without the humour.  But the guy who plays Superman (Henry Cavill) is so hot, you can't believe it takes two hours for anyone other than Lois to even notice.  Lois (Amy Adams) wears various cardigans and is so unlike Margo Kidder's Lois, that I kept expecting a calypso band to appear and start playing "How Can I Tell Her I Love Her", while furry animals clean the Daily Plant offices.  And then, and then, and then…it's got this bit in the middle, told non-linear, shot through long grass, which takes the Christ analogy from Bryan Singer's version and rolls it into a big fat smoke and ponders, literally, what it is all about?  Who am I?  Why am I here?  Why the cape?  The middle hour is a beautifully shot and paced episodic 'pause for breath' exploring the odd non-father-son relationship (with Costner, above, who is perfect).  Thankfully, this transcends the silly costume stuff (think Kenneth Branagh's Thor) and then ultimately the noisy Michael Bay style Transformer noise and visual debacle ending.  A fab 'reboot' franchise movie about becoming and then being a Superhero is unfortunately bookended by a terrible cacophony of visual effects rubbish at the end.  For Warners it will make at least a billion dollars and Henry Cavill will become as hot a star property as Hugh Jackman.

Film of the year, 1776.

There are innumerable blogs on the topic, "Best Film of 2012". Some of them are terrific - like this one, or this one, or even, this one. But few of them agree. Wonderful really that opinions can vary. That taste can be, exactly that.

My film of the year was unquestionably A Royal Affair. Period dramas as MOVIES are doomed in an age when TV owns the territory. Downton predominates our thinking, but the ambition is so pedestrian. Sure bodices are ripped, looks of longing are beautifully framed and costumers raid dusty cupboards, but script writers for TV seem to spend televisual millions explaining, explaining, explaining. Now here, complete with glorious SUBTITLES, is a fine movie of intrigue, mixed motives and true madness. Nikolaj Arcel's movie is written so well (by Rasmus Heisterberg based on a source novel of a tale apparently every Danish child would know) you may want to want to walk out and give up ever having misguidedly thought you could tell a tale even nearly so well as this. Mad King Christian VII (Mikkel Folsgaard) marries 16 year old English princess Caroline (Alicia Vikander) who falls for Johann Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen) who becomes the king's personal physician, despite being German, or something. Its cold and lots of people die of Small Pox. The film is imbued with Shakespeare, which mad King Christian loves to quote, and mixes the romantic drama of the Court with the frisson of ideas and ideals of the enlightenment, but ultimately the book burners and forces of conservatism confront such liberal claptrap with a good dose of torture and the swing of a mighty axe. A Royal Affair is filmed wonderfully, cut crisply, feels 60 minutes shorter than its 140 minutes running time and is the best advert for Danish cinema since, since, well take me on trust - its much better than Dragon Tattoo. See it. It's the best film about late eighteenth century Denmark you are likely to see, well ever.