The opening to Cliffhanger is meant to be a harrowing experience. We're meant to feel enormous sorrow and pity as an innocent woman plunges to her horrible death. But how can we experience any kind of horror when Frank, a helicopter pilot played by Ralph Waite out of The Waltons, is in the background cackling with laughter? Just watch him. His eyes sparkle when Stallone tells the distressed woman that she's not doing to die. And he collapses in near hysterics when she falls but a few seconds later, obviously finding some kind of sick humour at the thought of the girl being smashed to pieces on the rocks, thousands of feet below. Contrast this with Michael Rooker's overacting – he almost faints as if he’s in a Jane Austen novel when he sees the girl plummet – and you have a scene that is tailor-made for chortles rather than gasps.

But to be fair to Stallone and the girl, they carry themselves pretty well in the scene. The girl pleads and pleads, and Stallone gamely hangs on. And the situation itself is excellent – huge drop, cracked harness, burly, lazy-mouthed actor trying to hang on to a hysterical woman who won’t shut the fuck up. But whenever I watch it, I can only see Frank's huge grin, his glowing eyes and him hooting in the background as Michael Rooker’s world falls apart. What exactly does Frank find so funny? Is he an evil old buzzard or has senility stalked its way into his spongy old brain? In his advanced years, does he think that the woman will be caught by kittens and rocketed to Valhalla in a chariot driven by mohawked-squirrels wearing diamond-encrusted strap-ons that spurt single-malt whisky? Or does he just not give a shit? Who the fuck knows...

However, as inappropriate as it is, Frank’s laughter isn’t entirely out of place. Nope, laughter is a common reaction when watching Cliffhanger. This isn’t to say that I dislike the film. It's a very enjoyable B-grade action movie. But it can't transcend the clichés of the genre.

One of the clichés the film adheres to is that the villain must be English. Well, at least I think he is. John Lithgow plays the main baddie and puts on an accent of some sort. But it's an amusing performance. His best bit has to be when he gets Stallone to climb up a rockface to get his money. "You, stay,” he says to the dribbling Rooker. And then to Stallone: “You, fetch." The joy is in his exaggerated enunciation. ‘Fetch’ somehow seems to have acquired an additional five syllables. Another funny bit is when Stallone throws Lithgow's money into the helicopter's rotors. "Damn you, Walker!" he screams like he's split a fingernail.

But there are other English villains. The first is Caroline Goodall who comes across as a low-rent Emma Thompson. But much more amusing is Craig Fairbrass (Dan out of EastEnders). His performance is atrocious. All he does is shout and swear. And he does it in a thick Cockney accent. “Fack this! Fack that!”

Fairbrass is immortalised in the scene where the drooling Michael Rooker goads him into beating him up. The Cockney is about as bright as a puddle of oil and forgoes a quick kill in favour of a prolonged pummeling. It turns out that Fairbrass' character is an ex-footballer. I guess this shouldn't be too surprising when his dialogue consists of lines like: "Yeah? And you're a loudmouth punk slag who's about to die." The only people I know who talk like that are West Ham fans.

But Fairbrass proceeds to give Rooker a surreal football-themed kicking, complete with running commentary – he even runs up to take a penalty. Is this how Hollywood sees the English? We're either effete brigands or beer-swilling hooligans. Actually, thinking about it, it's quite an accurate observation. Well done Renny Harlin. In your world of back-swimming sharks and flying Indy cars, you managed to find a single truth.

However, my favourite villain of all is played by Leon (he's so cool he doesn't even have a surname). He’s a tough Lennox Lewis-looking-like-motherfucker who eschews Fairbrass' shouty brand of villainy and instead tries to be quietly intimidating. This would be great but his line delivery is atrocious. He has no timing and seems incapable of emphasizing the right words. Where Lithgow can stretch and bend and slather layers of wonderful ham on his dialogue, Leon can only make his words sound like leaden mouth farts.

But to give the guy his dues, it is noticeable that, unlike Fairbrass, he does excel once he gives in to his urge to shout. He has a great scene in a cave where he actually seems like a genuine threat - he stalks Stallone and his girl with menace, taunting impotent old whitey with his ultimate fear; his girl having a black dick thrust upon her (and her liking it!). But before Stallone’s girlfriend Jessie has to suffer this outrage, Stallone grabs Leon by the balls and gorilla presses him through a spike. It's a WWE sort of death…which unsurprisingly I dig a great deal. (Although the filmmakers did miss a trick by not having Stallone yell, ‘You get the point!’ before shish-kebabing the scary black man.)

Speaking of Stallone, how does he fair in this film? Well, I've never really had much of a problem with Sly as an actor. Yeah, technically he’s not too great and yes he sounds like a man who was born with his brain upside down, but he is capable of a good performance here and there - just watch Copland or Rocky Balboa. Sadly, Cliffhanger is not one of those films. He’s okay at the beginning, showing humour and charm, but after the accident it all goes downhill. His idea of being haunted is to mope about like a thirteen-year-old that's been told to stop using his father's credit card to download porn. It's so amateurish.

Thank Christ then for Stallone’s bulging biceps! It’s these puppies that are given the opportunity to shine. I mean, just take the scene where the villains order Stallone to climb the mountain to retrieve their money. They make him remove his jacket. I can't help but feel that this wasn't done to prove how evil the villains are, but to allow Sly to climb while flaunting his thick, muscular arms. We don't want those babies covered up, no sirree!

However, Stallone and his biceps look like Marlon Brando compared to the "Whoa, dude!" extreme sports enthusiasts that pop up. They're sort of like Bill and Ted but without the charm. In fact, I wasn't distraught that one of them died; I was distraught that one survived. But at least the death of the Kurt Cobain lookalike gives us a hilarious silent "No!" moment from the gurning Michael Rooker, who once again amazes me with his sincere cheese. But then later on we get to relive the hilarity, because Frank's death elicits another rib-tickling "No!" moment.

Hey, what can I say, the old buzzard had it coming. You ain't laughing now, are you?

This is no word of a lie - after watching 127 Hours, my arm ached for hours. And not just a minor ache. The bone inside hummed. I was having difficulty lifting my arm. I ended up going to sleep in some minor discomfort.

All of this is small fry shit compared to what Aron Ralston (James Franco) has to go through. On a hiking trip in Moab, Utah, he gets his arm trapped under a boulder. Alone in a small canyon passage, and with only a small amount of water, some food and his hiking equipment, his chances of survival are grim.

I shouldn’t really have any reason to doubt Danny Boyle. By now in his career, he’s made so many great films. You’re almost always guaranteed something special. But although I was interested in the story, I still couldn’t quite get it out of my head that the star of the film was James Franco. You know, he of the smarmy leer - the omnipresent limelight drain; the aloof pie-eating leech that sucked the life out of the Oscars. But colour me pleasantly surprised. He’s excellent here.

Maybe Franco excels in 127 Hours because he gets so little time to interact with other human beings. In other films, he seems so detached that you can’t help but wonder whether he breathes the same air that we do. But 127 Hours has proved that that’s a little mean of me. Even though this is the James Franco show, he’s not the least bit cold. He’s finally proved that he’s a human being after all; that he’s not some dastardly smarm-bot created by the smarm-god Roger Moore in a laboratory with the aim of destroying pop culture.

The beginning of the movie shows what Ralston does with his freedom. He ignores his mother and sister, he treks off into the wilderness on his own and he’s a relentless show off - he even lies to a couple of hikers he meets in the canyon and tells them that he’s an engineer when in reality he works in a store. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s far too sure of his self. He thinks he’s in total control. The canyon is something for him to conquer, rather than to enjoy for its own reasons.

The hard, cold dose of reality is the boulder that pins him to a canyon passage. This is was not in his plan.

However, for all of his self-confidence, Ralston is one of the few people that is equipped to survive an ordeal like this. He may tell the odd fib here and there to impress the girls, but he knows his stuff. He knows that he has to keep calm and that he has to ration his food and his water.

At first Ralston tries to free his arm by cutting into the rock. Then, when he realises that this is achieving nothing, he tries to use his climbing gear to lift the rock from his arm. He manages to rig an elaborate winch. But Ralston isn’t strong enough - he reckons that it would take eight guys to be able to lift the boulder. Eventually Ralston realises that he’s going to have to cut his arm off.

Now this could be a simple blood and guts tale. Man gets stuck in a canyon, man cuts his arm off with a dull pen knife. But although the amputation is horrifyingly gruesome, Boyle’s skill lies in expanding the space of this tiny hole. You really get into Ralston’s head. Here’s a guy who thought he had it sussed - he thought he had everything worked out. But then came this boulder. Pinned to the wall, he gets to see ants and insects continue their existence, possessing a freedom he no longer shares.

For me, the film began to turn into something special when Ralston began to hallucinate. He begins to see his family sitting on a sofa in front of him in the canyon. No words are exchanged; no maudlin platitudes are shared. Instead they’re bathed in a golden light. Here are the people that care about him. Here are the people that are going to suffer if he can’t get out of this hole. And these are also the people that he has shut out. He finally begins to realize their importance; they’re finally coming out of the darkness.

Later Ralston even sees a child sitting on the sofa. This is a vision of the future he could have. He could be a father. He could have a family of his own. And there are also some wonderful flashbacks to Ralston’s past. We see him mucking about with his mum and dad and his sister. We get the impression that he’s forgotten about this - about how much these moments mean to him.

It’s only when Ralston has made this inner journey that he has the resolve to extricate himself from the hole. Using the dull pen knife, he begins to hack into his arm. Here you get to see another side of Danny Boyle’s character. He’s also a blood and guts man. The scene is truly horrific. Ralston breaks his arm a couple of times and then desperately amputates his dead limb. It’s a savage sequence and one that is aided greatly by Boyle’s command of the language of cinema. He knows that blood and guts on their own don’t really convey much. The true horror is in the sound effects. First its the breaking of his arm and then it’s the wailing guitars that come shredding from the speakers whenever Ralston touches a nerve. It immediately brings to mind the agony of going to the dentist when a nerve is hit. Except this is a horror on a much larger scale.

After Ralston frees himself from the boulder and the canyon passage, he has the good fortune to stumble upon the path of a hiking family. He looks like a shell of the man he used to be and for the first time since we meet him he has to accept help from other people. Finally he knows that he can’t do everything on his own - that other people are there to help shoulder the burden.

Ralston’s character has an interesting view on his ordeal. He thinks that the boulder has been waiting for him his whole life - the two were always destined to meet. This sounds terrifying but you can also take comfort from it. It doesn’t mean that there’s a god up there pulling strings. It means that what’s going to happen is going to happen. It’s up to us to make the most of it and to learn from it. Hopefully most of us won’t require a boulder to tells us that we need to treat our families and loved ones with compassion and respect.

Has there been a more idiotic decision in recent cinema than Harvey Weinstein’s choice to re-release The King’s Speech as a PG-13 movie? I mean, surely The King’s Speech has been successful enough, winning Oscars galore and raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. Apparently not - now it must appeal to the kids.

And how is Harvey Scissorhands going to achieve this new rating? He’s going to achieve it by cutting out some of the swearing. Now I guess quite a few people could formulate an argument about foul language not being essential to any movie. Never mind that it provides authenticity and mirrors the way that people actually speak (have you ever tried to watch the cleaned-up version of Goodfellas on AMC - it’s fucking weird; especially when the swearing is censored but the bone-shattering violence is left intact). But here the language is also essential to the plot.

One key scene has Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), the King’s speech therapist, proving that the King doesn’t stammer when he swears. The King then goes on to prove the point by swearing beautifully and fluently. It’s the first time in the film that Logue manages to make a dent in the King’s armour - it’s the first time that he begins to get to the core of him. So what justification can there be for altering this? Are they going to have the King say ‘Frick’ and ‘Poop’? That would be fucking ridiculous. And really, is making the film a PG-13 really going to make it any more money? It’s already made a bucketload of dosh on a very meagre budget; I don’t think that castrating it is going to attract floods of kids and teenagers. I think it’s done as well as it’s going to do.

So how do I feel about The King’s Speech winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards? Well, I feel far better now than when I hadn’t seen it. I was highly aggrieved that The Social Network didn’t win and was disappointed to see yet another film about someone overcoming adversity clearing up at the awards. But now that I’ve seen the film, I no longer have any animosity towards it. Yeah I still think that The Social Network got shafted, but The King’s Speech is a fine film.

One of my main fears at school and university was getting up in front of my class and speaking. I would literally worry about it for weeks beforehand and build the event up to colossal proportions in my mind. But I only had to speak to a few kids and a teacher. I didn’t have to get up in front of thousands. Plus I didn’t have a speech impediment. Sure my voice might have wavered as I spoke, but I didn’t have a stammer to contend with.

Another memory from school is having to listen to children with stammers perform presentations. It was always a painful experience. I’d try and be supportive but I have to admit that frustration would always creep into my mind - I’d often be thinking ‘just spit it out’ or ‘how much longer is this going to go on for?’. These aren’t particularly empathetic emotions, but they’re natural ones. So to have a King with a stammer, you’re taking this and blowing it up to a grand scale.

There’s a scene near the beginning where Prince Albert (Colin Firth), the future King, has to give a speech at the British Empire Exhibition. As you see him preparing, you can’t help but feel anxious on his behalf. You know that this is going to be a tortuous experience. And then there are all the people who offer their stupid advice - ‘make the microphone do the work’. Yeah, that’ll cure my stammer, numbnuts. But it’s the little details that help sell the terror. We’re told that the speech is going to be transmitted across the world and that when a little red light next to the microphone stops flashing, the Prince will be speaking live to the world. My sphincter tightened a little bit on his behalf when the blinking light finally turned into a solid red.

The disaster of this experience has the future King seeking help from the best doctors in England. None of them are worth a damn and they make the Prince do humiliating things like stuff marbles in his mouth. Plus they say that smoking is good for a stammer - apparently it relaxes the throat.

When the Prince and his wife end up at the door of Lionel Logue, it’s a completely different experience. His offices are almost falling apart and he doesn’t have any staff. He seems to run a ramshackle operation. But unlike the other therapists, Logue doesn’t offer crazy solutions. He tries to go deeper into the problem - he doesn’t want to just solve the mechanics.

A lot of the enjoyment of the film is watching the battle between Logue and the Prince. Angry and obstinate, the future King doesn’t want to get to the root of his problem; he just wants his affliction gone. But Logue knows that the best way to help the Prince’s problem is to treat more than the surface issue. Of course, this doesn’t always go down well. The Prince doubtlessly sees Logue as an inferior. He shouldn’t have to open himself up to him - it’s silly and undignified.

The efforts to ease the stammer sometimes resemble a battle. However, it’s a battle that’s difficult to win as the Prince’s insecurity often gets in the way. For a long time he refuses to put himself entirely in Logue’s hands. The difference in their social standing is perhaps an easy get-out clause for the King. When things get too painful or too personal he can bring the walls smashing down without lifting a finger.

The Prince illustrates this in a scene where Logue and Albert go for a walk. Logue insists that one day Albert could be King. Logue then makes the mistake of touching the Prince’s arm. Angered by this treasonous talk and this over-familiarity, not to mention the horrifying prospect of him being King, the Prince lashes out by mocking Logue’s acting aspirations and taking the piss out of his poor, working class, colonial origins. The way that the scene is filmed is quite marvelous. As the future King storms off you see Logue in the background, rooted to the spot. As the Prince walks, Logue gets smaller and smaller. His spirits are crushed and with just a few words he’s been reduced to a speck. Just when he thought he was getting close to the Prince, he’s put back in his place.

There are some things about the film that don’t work as well as they could have. King Edward (Guy Pearce) and Wallis Simpson are pretty one-dimensional. They’re shallow party fiends that don’t really seem to have a brain cell between them. It also feels that Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall) has been shoe-horned into the story because he’s a figure that everyone will recognise. Indeed, watching the film, it would be easy to miss the fact that he wasn’t the Prime Minister during the outbreak of World War Two. There has definitely been some simplification.

But simplification is often necessary in a biopic - there’s often too much detail to cram into a two hour film. The important thing is how good the core of the film is. And the core of The King’s Speech is definitely the friendship between the Prince and Logue.

There’s another great scene that occurs during the preparations for the coronation. The soon to be King confronts Logue with the fact that Logue is not a qualified doctor. Logue then points out that he never pretended to be - that the sign on his office lists him as Mister. He then points out all the soldiers that he treated for shell shock after the First World War. He speaks calmly and knowledgeably and with a complete lack of bullshit. He’s a man of experience and integrity - he’s the complete opposite of the Harvey Street quacks the King had dealt with previously. Logue will never lie or humiliate the King. He wants to meet the King on equal terms and help him solve his problem. It’s only near the end that that plea for equality is returned; that the men truly operate at the same level.

Watching this movie, you’d think the King’s first wartime speech was one of the most important events in World War Two. I say bullshit to that. If the King had stammered, little old England would have been fine. But such is the strength of the film, that the speech does indeed feel like a make or break situation. It feels like the fate of a nation is hanging on the King’s ability not to stammer. Again, like the beginning of the film, the tension is enormous.

I’d be lying if I said that the final speech wasn’t incredibly rousing. With anxious close-ups of the King and cutaways to civilians and troops, it feels like you’re walking a tightrope. If the King doesn’t stammer, we’ll have the strength to fight these Nazi bastards. If he does we’re probably going to capitulate. It’s a nonsense feeling but it’s still grimly effective. And when the King gets through the speech unscathed, it doesn’t matter that this event has been blown up into crazy proportions or that in reality the King had been speaking well since 1927 (with the help of Logue of course). You get swept up in the emotion of the piece. And of course, being an Englishman living abroad, I’m even more susceptible to the brand of patriotism contained in the film. I don’t believe in the monarchy but during this film I believed in the King.

Brian Clough was one of the most amazing managers that the footballing world has ever seen. Brash, loud and outspoken, he took not one but two provincial, second division teams and turned them into English champions (with Nottingham Forest, he even turned them into European champions!). It’s a feat that is unlikely to be repeated.

But then there’s Clough’s tenure as manager of Leeds United. Lasting just 44 days in the job, it was an unmitigated disaster. He alienated the fans, the players and turned a championship winning team into relegation candidates. It’s this blip in Clough’s illustrious career that is the focus for The Damned United.

Some context: in the late 60s, Leeds United were one of the top teams in England. Under Don Revie, they won English championships and European titles. They played a particularly brutal kind of football, but they were effective. Derby County on the other hand weren’t even in the top division; they were bringing up the rear of the second division. But in Brian Clough they had one of the best young managers in the game. Given time, he’d win them promotion and turn them into English champions.

Given that Brian Clough achieved such great things in his career, it’s interesting that the film chooses to focus on his lowest ebb. How many times have we seen films where a coach takes a bunch of nobodies and turns them into winners? It’s the story of every other sports film. But here we have a film where a manager takes a group of superstars and turns them into losers - it’s the sports movie turned inside out.

The film begins with Clough’s tenure at Derby. Don Revie’s Leeds United are visiting for a cup game and Clough is starstruck. He holds Leeds and Revie in high esteem and orders his staff to fix up the football ground so that it’s in a more appropriate condition to be visited by such illustrious guests. He orders that a sign be repainted, that the walls be cleaned and that the pitch look like a carpet (an impossible feat when it looks like a mud bath). In short, he’s like a child who is being visited by his idol.

When Leeds arrive, Don doesn’t even acknowledge Clough. And to make matters worse, Leeds are less than sporting in the game. They kick lumps out of the Derby players and then one of them dives in order to gain a penalty. And then when the game’s over, again Revie doesn’t acknowledge Clough – he shakes everyone else’s hand. A bigger fuck you, you couldn’t ask for.

Clough’s subsequent success at Derby, which includes edging out Leeds for the championship, is painted almost entirely as revenge against Revie. Aggrieved that his idol didn’t even know or care who he was, he makes sure that everyone now knows who he is.

One of the great things about The Damned United is that it realises that there’s more drama off the pitch than on. And it’s even more appealing because the off pitch drama features none of the usual football cliches - sex and booze. This is just a tale of revenge, of obsession, of friendship and of ego. It’s the story of men in dirty, smelly dressing rooms, plotting revenge against one another. It’s the story of muddy boots and rain-soaked pitches. It’s class warfare, the north/south divide and the tedious encroachment of commerce exploding in the melting pot of a football match. It’s all the little things that make England so great and so frustrating (civic pride, provincialism, passion, anger) brought to you in concentrated form. Where else but in England would the greatest English manager never be given the job of managing the national side? But where else but in England would such a big-headed loud mouth be so loved and adored (he has statues in Derby, Nottingham and Middlesbrough)?

To give you a taste of Clough’s arrogance, there’s his first training session at Leeds United. Don Revie has left to become England manager and Clough has been hired to fill in the gap. Now how does Clough try and win the players over? Does he pamper their egos? Does he say how pleased he is to be their coach? No. He tells the players that they never won a championship fairly and that they can throw all their medals in the bin because they’re meaningless. Suffice it to say, the players aren’t impressed. However, it’s for this reason and for many others that Clough is so beloved in England. He refuses to pander. He’ll only speak his mind. There’s no compromise. But even though he’s abrasive, Clough is genuine. He’s sincere. He’s the complete opposite of Revie, who always came across like a second-hand car dealer.

Revie is openly mocked by Clough’s assistant Peter Taylor, who laughs at the Leeds manager’s various superstitions. But a lot of the drama in the film actually comes from the relationship between Clough and his number two. They’re great friends, but as Clough becomes increasingly successful, so he becomes harder to deal with. He begins to attribute Derby’s success wholly to himself, lessening Taylor’s vital contribution. Clough might be an excellent motivator and tactician, but it’s Taylor who can spot potential and help bring players to the club. Both men essentially fill-in each others’ weaknesses.

Of course it doesn’t help that Clough has to deal with a tedious chairman. As his gloomy employer, Clough’s chairman is constantly worrying about money. It’s a grim reminder that in modern football money is always the bottom line. Those who have it can buy success. Those who don’t have it are forced to struggle. But back in this era, buying power had yet to determine the best teams. Yes, money was creeping in, but you could still have a team that’s in the second division one year and is then challenging for the championship the next. That’s unthinkable nowadays, but in the 70s the manager was still the boss. The club was run by him, not by foreign billionaires.

So with all of this power and all of this success, Clough does that very English thing of fucking it all up. He pisses off the Derby chairman and then writes a resignation letter on behalf of him and his assistant in a bid to strengthen his position in the club. After all, the board would never accept his resignation, would they? Not after winning them the championship.

Clough does all of this without telling Taylor. Taylor is miffed. He’s happy at Derby. It’s a home to him. And when the board accepts their resignation, they’re cast into the wilderness.

One of the strongest scenes in the film comes during a trip to Spain. Clough and Taylor have been hired by Brighton (a team in the third division!) and are relaxing on the beach. Out of nowhere comes a man in a suit. He’s Leeds United’s club secretary and he’s offering Clough the job as manager. Clough accepts and wants Taylor to join him. But Taylor is outraged. They’ve only just accepted the job at Brighton. Plus they hate Leeds. Clough says he wants to win the championship with Leeds but he wants to do it better than they did with Revie. An argument ensues and Clough calls Taylor a parasite. It’s a horrible, heartbreaking moment and you know that Clough doesn’t mean a word of what he says, but pride, passion and ambition have clouded his mind.

Without Taylor, Clough performs dismally at Leeds. The players kick him around on the training ground, they under-perform on the pitch and they even slam the dressing room door in his face. Quite what Clough expected from them, I don’t know. He openly criticised Leeds before becoming their manager and then criticised them as their manager. The whole enterprise was doomed to failure from the beginning. But it ends up being a worthy exercise as after he’s fired, Clough comes crawling back to Taylor. He literally gets on his hands and knees and begs for forgiveness, finally learning some humility. And it’s here as Clough and Taylor are reunited that the film suddenly becomes a bro-mance. It’s perhaps the only false step in an otherwise masterful film. I have nothing wrong with the way that the scene is written or acted but the musical choice is poor - some schmaltzy song plays in the background.

But this one misstep doesn’t affect the power of the film. Michael Sheen is magnificent as Brian Clough and Timothy Spall is excellent as Peter Taylor. Indeed, this makes the third British icon that Sheen has successfully played. First he played Tony Blair, then he played David Frost and here he plays Brian Clough. But his performance never feels like an imitation. He inhabits the role of ol’ big head perfectly.

Another thing that especially pleased me about the film was the use of archive footage. For some reason, it’s very difficult to accurately film a football game. It always ends up looking phoney. The Damned United gets around that by showing actual football very sparingly. And then when it does show it, most of it’s archive footage. I don’t know why, but seeing this old footage is incredibly soothing to me - a warm reminder of the country I love and the country I left behind. Sure I wasn’t even born when these games were played, but I consumed them as a teenager and as such they’re a part of who I am.

I also loved seeing the real footage of Brian Clough at the end. And to think that after the Leeds debacle Clough and Taylor took Nottingham Forest from the second division to the first division, and then not only won the championship in their first season in the top flight but then subsequently won two European Championships! These men were giants.

However, while the film ends on a high with the footage of Clough bringing the European Cup to Forest, he and Taylor later had another final falling out, one that they didn’t recover from. After this falling out they never spoke to each other again. Apparently, when Taylor died, Clough was inconsolable and turned to drink. He even dedicated his autobiography to him with the following dedication: “To Peter. Still miss you badly. You once said, ‘When you get shot of me there won’t be as much laughter in your life’. You were right.” There are victories and defeats in every life. The best we can do is to learn from them. Sadly Brian Clough didn’t learn as much as he should have. He was a glorious, tragic figure.

Side note: I didn’t realise that this was made by Tom Hooper, the same director as The King’s Speech. So that means that I’ve watched Hooper films back to back. However, as much as I enjoyed The King’s Speech, I think The Damned United was even better.

One film immediately sprang to mind while I was watching Black Swan: The Piano Teacher. Both films are about performers trapped in claustrophobic relationships with their mother. Both films are about self-destruction. And both films are about the sacrifices people make for their art, often to the detriment of their well-being.

Another film that sprang to mind was Darren Aronofsky’s previous movie The Wrestler. One of the themes of that film was the way the way the main character destroyed his body for the enjoyment of others. The more he performed, the more he gave to the audience, the less he had for himself. And so it is with Black Swan. Here’s a woman who, like Mickey Rourke’s wrestler, is slowly destroying her body and her soul for other people’s entertainment and amusement.

One of the main bones of contention when I discussed Black Swan with my wife was our differing responses to the mother/daughter relationship portrayed in the film. I sensed a very subtle sexual element. My wife didn’t see it at all.

It’s by no means overt, but there are a couple of hints that there’s some sexual abuse going on in this claustrophobic, co-dependant relationship. There’s one scene where the mother, happy that her daughter Nina (Portman) got the main part in ‘Swan Lake’, gives her a cake. She then puts some of the cream on her finger and insists that her daughter lick it. The aggression is such that you know that she’s not going to take no for an answer. And then there’s another moment when the mother just invites herself into her daughter’s bedroom, and like there’s nothing wrong with this at all, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, says that she’s going to spend the night with her. It’s under the pretext of getting her daughter up early the next morning but this just seems like an excuse – the mother just wants any excuse to invade her daughter’s personal space.

Yes these aren’t overt signs of sexual abuse, but even if nothing physical has ever taken place, there’s at least psycho-sexual abuse going on here. The mother is needy, clingy and demanding, and as such she has ensured that her daughter lives in a state of arrested development. The daughter’s room looks like it belongs to a twelve-year-old. There’s pink everywhere and there are lots of childish knick-knacks. The mother has wrapped her baby up in cotton wool and as such the daughter is ill-prepared to deal with the harsh realities of real life.

But going back to the sexual undertones in the mother/daughter relationship, there’s a scene where Nina masturbates in her room. Before this, the sleazy ballet director that cast the daughter in the lead role in ‘Swan Lake’ encourages her to masturbate so that she can loosen up. He also asks her if she’s a virgin. She says that she isn’t but the true nature of her previous sexual encounters is never explained. They certainly didn’t seem like happy liaisons. Could they possibly have been with her mother? Is this why she’s so uptight? And then when the daughter finally gives in to desire, her wanking session is interrupted when she sees that her mother is sleeping in the corner of her room. The daughter’s sexual identity seems to be strongly tied to her mother – she can’t free herself from her mum’s suffocating grasp.

And it’s this search for liberation that is the main thrust of the film. Portman’s character is told time and time again that her dancing is technically perfect. However, in order to play the lead in ‘Swan Lake’, she must play both the White Swan and the Black Swan. And in order to play the Black Swan she must embrace her dark side: she must lose some of her inhibitions and give in to her emotions.

Needless to say, this is more difficult for Nina than you might imagine. All her life she’s been building a wall. She’s been resisting her emotions – keeping them at bay. And her desire to become a ballerina is a desire to achieve the perfection she can’t obtain in her real life. Therefore it’s always going to be difficult for her to perform with reckless abandon.

However, Portman’s character definitely has demons. The opening sequence superbly illustrates this as we see her dancing with the demon from Swan Lake. Nina is a troubled soul, desperately tying to keep a grip.

As Nina gets closer to the opening night, so she becomes more and more unhinged. There are some excellent visual touches that display her paranoia. One of my favourites was the shot where her reflection turns to look at her as she looks away. The direction is very casual and doesn’t draw attention to itself, but it’s rather beautiful and unsettling.

There are also some nice visual flourishes when Nina goes to a nightclub. As she dances under some strobe lights we briefly get flashes of the Black Swan. She’s finally embracing the darkness inside her.

Nina even goes so far as to take Lily, a rival dancer, home and have sex with her. But as we later find out, this is pure fantasy. Nina is beginning to unravel – her perceptions are becoming skewed.

The shit hits the fan when Nina finds Lily in her dressing room, dressed as the Black Swan and apparently ready to take her part. A struggle ensues and Lily turns into Nina. Nina then ends up stabbing and killing her duplicate. The passion, the energy and the emotion that she previously lacked comes out like a volcano – she’s ready to be the Black Swan.

The final performance is quite breathtaking and the sequence where she actually performs as the Black Swan is a fantastic piece of cinema. It’s wild and it’s loose, and there’s a magnificent visual flourish as Portman grows black feathers and wings burst out of her back. All of the time she’s been seeking perfection in her dancing and now she finally has it. She has everyone at her feet – the audience, her fellow performers and even the ballet director; they’re all in her thrall.

However, when Nina gets back to the dressing room she discovers that she didn’t stab her competitor at all – she stabbed herself and is bleeding to death. Somehow Nina manages to continue and gives it her all in the final act. As the White Swan lays there dying (and as she herself lays there dying), she says that she was perfect. Some performers say that they have to kill themselves for their audience. Well, Nina literally does that. And she also ends up being an echo of the character she portrays. She starts off innocent, looking for the freedom that a perfect performance will bring. But then she’s tricked by her demons and ends up destroying herself. But through this destruction she finally finds liberation – finally achieving perfection and finally receiving recognition from her peers and her audience, she can give up the ghost, knowing that nothing will ever supplant this moment.

I first saw The Talented Mr Ripley during its original theatrical run. It got decent reviews and looked like an intriguing film. However, I didn’t quite expect it to be as good as it was. For my money, it was one of the best films of the year.

Since then, The Talented Mr Ripley has kind of fallen off the radar a little. It’s still a respected film, but I think it’s perceived as only a modest success - a film that is perhaps too controlled, too mannered and generally lacking in the thrills and spills associated with the thriller genre. And this is a huge shame, as the film works on many levels and deserves to be recognised as one of the best films of the 90s.

What’s so remarkable about the film, looking at it from 2011, is Matt Damon. I associate him so acutely with the Bourne films that it’s surprising to remember that he played Tom Ripley, and that he played him so well. Completely dispensing with the macho meathead persona he cultivated in the risible Good Will Hunting, he plays a gay sociopath who gets irrevocably tangled in his own web of lies.

It’s this laxity with the truth that is fundamental to Ripley. Tom is a young man who is ashamed of himself. He’s ashamed that he lives in a basement and that he works as a toilet attendant. He knows that he’s capable of much more. And it’s this shame that leads him to tell his first lie of the movie - while chatting to some people at a party, he tells them that he went to Princeton (he never went; he’s only borrowing a jacket from a friend). It’s a small untruth, but the consequences of this one lie are severe.

Lies often have a way of taking a life of their own. They grow, they develop and soon they have you trapped, which, perversely enough, is the complete opposite intention of the lie. Usually small lies are told to protect - to protect people from pain, humiliation or ridicule. In effect, they’re supposed to liberate you from your humdrum existence - to keep brutal reality at bay.

And at the beginning of the film, this is what happens to Tom. He lies about being from Princeton and all of a sudden he’s being sent to Italy by the rich shipping merchant Herbet Greenleaf to bring his wayward son Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) back to America. The wonder of this mission is beautifully visualised by the way that Ripley ascends from his wretched basement apartment to a waiting limousine on the street. This is what Ripley has been waiting for - the good life.

Now this one little lie need not damn Ripley forever more. But the trouble with lies is that they grow like weeds. Everything that is good gets obliterated by this hostile force.

Ripley’s second lie is the one that comes back to haunt him. Upon arrival in Italy, he bumps into Meredith Logue (Cate Blanchett), a wealthy textiles heiress. She tells him how impressed she is at how light he’s travelling - he has a couple of bags while she seems to have an entire boatload. Immediately Ripley’s inferiority complex rises to the surface and he tells her that he’s Dickie Greenleaf (even though his bags are in the ‘R’ section), keeping the humiliation of his poverty and poor social standing at bay. But what makes Tom a truly talented individual is the way that he can roll with his lies. Meredith saw him retrieving his luggage from the ‘R’ stand and she also knows who the Greenleafs are. So Tom spins her a charming story about travelling under a false name in a bid to try and remain anonymous - he’s a sensitive rich type, not a braggart. This wins over Meredith, who’s also travelling under a false name - he’s already made his first friend in Italy.

Despite his penchant for lies, Ripley is also capable of making some incredibly honest insights. When Ripley sets up an ‘accidental’ meeting on a beach, Dickie is aghast at how white he is - he actually calls him grey. Ripley replies by saying it’s only an undercoat - he wants to paint over his real self; he wants to be reborn.

Ripley manages to ingratiate himself with Dickie and proceeds to add layers to his dull undercoat. Lacking any real identity of his own, or ashamed of the one he actually has, he pretends to be a lover of jazz (Dickie is a big fan) and becomes a confidant for Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow), Dickie’s long suffering girlfriend. In short, he eventually becomes one of the family. They go to bars (Ripley is beside himself with joy when Dickie asks him to help perform a jazz song at a Naples club), they go sailing and they plan holidays together. Ripley even helps to hide Dickie’s affairs from Marge. They’re like brothers.

The only thing complicating matters is Ripley’s sexual attraction to Dickie. Ripley grows obsessed with him and their relationship begins to corrode. One excellent scene has the two playing chess together in the bathroom. Dickie’s bathing and Ripley is sitting by his side. Ripley then decides to make a risky move and says that he’s cold and asks if he can get in the bath. Dickie says no and Tom sheepishly replies that he didn’t mean that he wanted to get in the bath with Dickie still in there, even though this is totally what he wanted. And then Ripley ogles Dickie’s naked form in the mirror. From here their relationship sours - Dickie isn’t going to give Ripley the warmth he needs.

To make matters worse, Dickie’s friend Freddie (Philip Seymour Hoffman) turns up. He’s one of those annoying friends of a friend that can immediately see right through you - they can see your foibles, your weakness and your bullshit. All of the magic that you used on your mutual friend doesn’t work and you’re naked.

Ripley’s most humiliating exposure comes during a trip to a record store. Ripley acts like Dickie’s nagging wife and keeps telling him not to miss their train. Freddie and Dickie can only laugh at him and Ripley’s security is gone - he no longer feels like part of a family; he feels like a fool. And there’s one hilarious moment when Freddie literally dances at Ripley - with the look he gives Tom, you know that there’s only going to be one winner in this duel.

Things come to a head between Dickie and Ripley during a ride on a small boat. Ripley is mortified that Dickie is finally going to marry Marge, saying that Dickie loves him. The writing in this scene is excellent. Ripley lays himself bare but reveals himself to be jealous and clingy. He also reads far too much into certain things. Dickie is a sax player but later in the film expresses a desire to learn the drums. Of course this takes on a sexual connotation and Ripley asks Dickie to make his mind up - does he want to play sax or drums. A scuffle then ensues and Ripley ends up killing Dickie with an oar. The first strike is an attack but everything else is out of protection - Dickie is literally going to throttle him. So the murder has a strange disorientating feeling. And there’s an excellent touch at the end when, from above, you see Ripley lying with Dickie’s arm draped over him. For a brief few moments he can pretend that he has what he wants.

Jude Law is such a force in the film that it’s hard not to miss him once his character is killed off. Immediately following Dickie’s death, the film begins to drag ever so slightly. It’s still highly entertaining, but as Ripley’s web becomes more and more tangled, so the plot begins to stretch plausibility. You see, after Greenleaf’s death, Ripley pretends to be Dickie and lots of the scenes revolve around him either imitating Greenleaf or trying to convince people that he’s still alive. In a weird way Ripley becomes almost like a Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent type. Tom is the real him while Dickie is his superhero alter-ego.

As Dickie, Ripley gets to indulge in all of his deepest fantasies. These mainly revolve around him playing the piano and furnishing his overly fussy apartment. Freddie Miles actually gets things right when he turns up out of nowhere on Tom’s doorstep. He says the flat is horrible. Sure Tom might like the finer things in life but his taste borders on the Liberace. Which is kind of amusing when you consider how stylish Dickie is - it’s like Tom learned nothing from him. But then again, Dickie and Ripley are like chalk and cheese. Dickie’s style and taste is very forward thinking, while Tom harks back to the past - he’s old before his time.

Going back to Ripley’s split personality, though, there’s an excellent piece of imagery that perfectly illustrates what Minghella is trying to get across. In the reflection of a piano lid we see Ripley split in two. The further he indulges in his fantasies of being Dickie, the more he loses himself.

And strangely enough, the film actually picks up once Tom decides to permanently return to being Ripley. In the form of a man called Peter-Smith Kingsley, Ripley sees the chance of happiness. With Peter, Tom can almost be himself. The only thing that gets in the way is Tom’s secret. Ripley even says himself that he wants to give Tom the key to the basement and let him know everything, but because he knows the truth would kill the relationship, he’s damned - he’ll never be truly free.

The end to the film is darkly ironic. On a boat trip with his lover, Ripley bumps into Meredith again. Suddenly the impulsive lie he told at the beginning of the film - the one about being Dickie Greenleaf - comes back to bite him. He has two options: he can either kill Meredith or he can kill his lover - he can’t leave them both on board; the truth would eventually come out. Killing Meredith is the most obvious solution but she’s travelling with her family. Therefore, he has to kill Peter. You can see the light being snuffed out of Tom. At one point Meredith even asks him if he’s alone. He wasn’t before but he is now.

The final scene has Tom returning to his cabin, knowing he has to kill his lover. Even though Ripley is a rather wretched individual, he does always have my sympathies. He does monstrous things but he doesn’t kill because he enjoys it. He’s a slave to emotion and impulse. He’s always trying to protect himself - he’s always fighting for survival. Yes he’s to blame for digging a hole but he’s always trying to reach for the light. And then just when he sees it, it’s gone.

Before he kills him, Ripley asks Peter to tell some good things about Tom Ripley. Peter rattles off a long list and then the dialogue merges into the sounds of murder. Ripley is killing his happiness just so that he can survive; a miserable future awaits.

The final shots are a couple of masterstrokes. After the murder the camera turns around Ripley’s face. At first it’s light, but then it gradually darkens and is cast in shadow. And then from a long shot somewhere in the cabin we see a door closing on Ripley and Tom disappears. He’s going to be locked in the basement forever. His last way out has been slammed shut.

Good old reliable Robin Hood. You can always count on him for a rollicking adventure. Whether it’s Errol Flynn or that Yank from Prince of Thieves or that fat bastard from the recent BBC series, he always tries his best to entertain. Sure he may not always succeed but at least he has a go.

Oh wait, who’s this coming round the corner? Why it’s Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott, riding a pair of steeds like constipated badgers. Ah look at them; so serious, so earnest, so dull. They’re like a married couple that’s sucked the life out of one another. Sure it was fun at the start but now they’re far too comfortable in each other’s company. Gladiator seems like another life ago.

This is the fifth collaboration between Scott and Crowe, and with the exception of Gladiator, none of their films have set the world on fire. Yet they still insist on making movies together. Maybe it’s the irresistible urge of two curmudgeons getting to eat bagels, smoke cigars and admire one another’s beards for a few months, or maybe it’s the allure of churning out another mediocre flick. This pair really doesn’t bring the best out of each other.

The concept for this iteration of Robin Hood originally focused on the Sheriff of Nottingham. Apparently it painted him in a more sympathetic light and Robin Hood was something of a wanker. Had the filmmakers had the balls to stick with that concept, they might have produced an interesting film. Instead they decided to produce this mish-mash of crap. It’s not faithful to the story we know, but it’s not different enough to shake things up. As a result it straddles an uncomfortable middle ground, making certain choices seem more than a little puzzling.

For instance, Maid Marian. In this film she’s Lady Marian. She was married for a few days and then her husband went off to the Crusades where he promptly died (well, on the way back). Is the idea of a forty-year old maid too horrible to consider (although I think the character is actually supposed to be younger)? Would it make everyone queasy to see Robin Hood de-flowering a spinster? Are people really that delicate?

In reality, the decision to have Maid Marian become Lady Marian is to support the ill-thought out plot. Robin witnesses the murder of Marian’s husband Robert Loxley at the hands of the evil traitor Sir Godfrey and then assumes the identity of Marian’s husband so that he can sneak back into England. He then enters into an arrangement with Loxley’s father Sir Walter to continue impersonating Loxley so that Sir Walter doesn’t lose his land. Okay, I can understand the thinking behind this plan, but this ends up being queasier than having Marian be a virgin. Sure the old man isn’t literally pimping his daughter-in-law out, but he is making her pretend to be in love with a complete stranger - this guy could be capable of anything. Dirty old man.

There’s also a really stupid decision to have Marian take part in the final battle. Really, is this the only way to show that the character has strength - to have her literally battle the French with sword in hand? Of course, Scott also tries to show Marian’s strength in other ways. There’s a scene where some French soldiers are going to burn some English villagers (fucking Frogs!). Marian leads the effort to free them. But these big moments do nothing to hide the fact that the character is painted in broad, spazzy strokes.

Speaking of the final battle, there’s another moment that makes it even more risible. Not only do we have Marian taking part in the fight, but we also see Friar Tuck kicking arse. Nothing else in the film suggests that he would excel in battle. After all, he’s a fat inebriate who cares more about honey than people. But no, there he is, running through Frenchies with his sword. Love a duck.

Even more criminal than all of this, though, is how colourless the villains are. Mark Strong as Sir Godfrey is a shocking non-entity. He doesn’t exude any menace or danger. And King John is just a petulant retch. He’s like a child who’s never heard the word ‘no’ and therefore feels free to double cross his loyal subjects and lounge all day in bed with his French slut.

Then you have the Sheriff of Nottingham, surely one of the most memorable characters in the Robin Hood legend. Here, though, he’s only in a few scenes and comes across as nothing more than a buffoon. It was also a shockingly poor decision to have him played by Matthew Macfadyen, who must possibly be one of the blandest actors working today. He doesn’t have an objectionable screen presence but that’s only because you rarely notice that he’s there. He’s kind of like the lettuce in a burger. He looks okay but he adds absolutely nothing to the experience - he’s screen garnish.

Doubtless Ridley Scott envisaged an amazing character arc from the Sheriff but it’s unlikely that a sequel will get made for this festering piece of poo. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with telling a story that will span more than one film, but at least make each film entertaining. Robin Hood fails miserably on that score and ends up feeling rather cynical - yeah, let’s stretch this story out and milk the public for all their worth; oh fuck, we forgot to make the film watchable.

Something else that depressed me was the visuals. Usually you can count on Ridley for some nice photography. But no, everything was dark and dingy - it was like a layer of sludge had been smeared across the lens. Despite this, I’ve heard people praise the photography, which leads me to wonder if I received a bum copy. Or maybe studios now are being complete wankers and are purposely making ordinary DVDs look like shit so that they can hawk more Blu-Rays. Anyone have any ideas? But certainly the unrelenting dinginess of the print has made me wonder.

But really, don’t waste your time on this film. Watch the one with the mullets instead. Somehow I find the soppy American more endearing than the Aussie who tries to talk and act like Michael Parkinson. I mean, Robin Hood isn’t supposed to be a gruff dullard. If you wanted that you should have just got Ridley Scott to play the part.