'Rush' directed by Ron Howard

This film, which explores one of the most famous rivalries in the history of F1, is an interesting character study of two very different men who were much closer in real life than this story suggests.

We are introduced first to James Hunt, played with relish by Chris Hemsworth, in what is a gift of a role for any actor. Hunt was notorious for his womanizing and we are quickly given, well, shall we say, an insight into this aspect of his character as he revels in his carefree if slightly feckless lifestyle.

By contrast, Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) is portrayed as something of a tortured soul. A man driven to win by a combination of his peerless knowledge of cars and an intense self-belief which often comes across as arrogance.

He finds himself alienated from other people as a consequence of this attitude and has a reputation as something of a loner on the F2 circuit on which he and Hunt are initially competing.

It is not long until both of them are signed up for F1, a process which does not initially reflect Lauda in the best light. Hunt quickly catches up with his rival and before long, they are competing against each other for the 1976 world championship.

In the meantime, Lauda has found a wife, who is gradually curbing his difficult personality. Hunt has also married, albeit less permanently, as he continues to sleep with about half of London.

These scenes are interspersed with the main event - the races that come to define both Hunt and Lauda's career. Particularly the 1976 German Grand Prix, in which Lauda is badly burnt in a petrol fire.

As Lauda recuperates, Hunt catches him up in the race for the title, forcing Lauda back into the car to try and beat him before the end of the season - a comeback that is against medical advice, against the wishes of his wife and... well, you get the picture. Nonetheless, there are just the right number of sports film clichés to be able to sit through this one.

The accident changes both Lauda and Hunt as their grudging respect turns into a developing friendship. Lauda seems calmer after the accident and whilst some of the scenes with Hunt become more extreme at this point - particularly his violent (if merited) treatment of a journalist, they never become so absurd as to make these versions of real people into caricatures.

There are however a few scenes here that are pure fiction and it has been acknowledged that the film is not entirely true to life. However, the high risk feel of F1 in the 70's has been well executed, the race sequences are well shot and, in my opinion, more interesting than real F1.

The acting is excellent and there are particularly enjoyable turns from Stephen Mangan and Olivia Wilde amongst a strong cast. My only major issue with Rush is that at times it seems obsessed with its leading characters. Hunt in particular seems to get away with being some kind of James Bond figure who rarely experiences the consequences of his actions.

Nevertheless, the film is interesting and exciting. Whilst Ron Howard has taken some liberties with the truth, he has directed a vibrant tale of rivalry between these two very different champions.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the picture used in this blog post and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa' directed by Declan Lowney

Alan Partridge, for those of you that are unfamiliar with his small screen outings, is an egotistical, seedy and unsympathetic fictional radio DJ. He is nonetheless portrayed in altogether more generous terms by this film adaptation, which, to my relief, also maintains the wonderfully crap veneer of the TV series.

In truth, a character such as Alan (played by Steve Coogan) could only emerge from a country as self-loathing as Britain. He is a man who channels many of the anxieties and petty concerns of the Daily Mail reading section of our population. Yet, he is so harshly drawn that he always verges on caricature, which is where the humour of the absurd hostage thriller plot of this film comes into its own.

On a normal day at North Norfolk Digital (Alan's Radio Station), Alan finds out that the station is about be taken over by a ruthless corporation. In swift order, he locates a list of possible targets for redundancy. Distressed to find that he is on it, he instead targets the other man on the list Pat Farrell (played with a kind of unhinged menace by Colm Meaney) who, unaware of this betrayal, strikes up a kind of bonhomie with Alan regarding his coming dismissal.

It is at this point, during a launch party for the re-branded radio station, with the shockingly meaningless post modern new name 'Shape: The Way You Want It To Be' that Pat Farrell takes several hostages at gunpoint. This is an attempt to blackmail the new owners into giving him his job back. He decides that he will only communicate with the police through Alan as a mediator. This, of course, is an opportunity for publicity that Alan cannot resist.

What follows is an hour of the pithy one liners and public humiliations that the TV series had previously mastered. Alan, not naturally acclimatised to the sensitivities of others, offers his usual mix of haughty derision and contempt for the general public when forced to continue his show at the point of a gun by Pat Farrell.

All of the other hostages are a mixture of the ignorant and the foolish as only Steve Coogan could come up with. They include the new owner of the radio station, Jason Tresswell, who gnaws at Alan's ego as he praises him for the way that he is handling Farrell. Appealing to the better part of Alan's nature is his agent Lynn (Felicity Montagu) who, as always, is patient to a fault with Alan's ill treatment.

Another series regular, Michael (Simon Greenall) makes his usual strange cameo appearing from a cupboard and Phil Cornwell offers an excellent turn as Dave Clifton, a drug addled DJ in permanent rehab. It is a testament to how well written the script is that Alan Partridge often comes across as one of the lesser grotesques on display.

So, this excellent British film is really very entertaining. I do not believe it will necessarily travel well, given the low tech nature of the comedy and the local jokes in the film. Nonetheless, it deserves box office success in the UK for adding an altogether more sympathetic dimension to the wonderfully understated awfulness of the world of Alan Partridge.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the picture used in this article and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Man of Steel' directed by Zack Snyder

Without wishing to put too fine a point on it, I suspect that this film has garnered at least part of its box office success from the appearance of its leading man - Henry Cavill - a man so muscular that in the words of my date for the evening 'his chest kind of looks like a butt.'

So, despite some reservations about what the content of Man of Steel would actually consist of, it turned out that there was some very interesting, and previously unexplored, back story to take a look at, which was handled well by Russell Crowe as Jor-El (Superman's father) in full Gladiator mode. Essentially, Russell's sub plot involves a lot of shouting and looking serious, which he executes with his usual aplomb.

Zack Snyder handles these scenes quite delicately, which was an unexpected bonus given that his filmography contains some efforts that lack coherent structure and emotional depth (Watchmen, anyone?). This prelude on Krypton leads eventually to some slightly less apocalyptic episodes from Superman's childhood on earth.

By this point, he is of course known as Clark Kent, under the care of loving parents. Unfortunately for Clark, his classmates and neighbours do not share such understanding. Clark, well aware of what he is capable of, has to stop himself at every turn from using his powers to hurt those who upset him. Although, it is good fun to see him using them more passively on a trucker who acts inappropriately towards a girl Clark carries a torch for.

As he enters adulthood, it becomes harder for Clark to hide his true nature. Rumours abound regarding his powers and, soon enough, he finds himself the subject of a pursuit by Lois Lane, a fearless and often feckless reporter.

Amy Adams' take on Lois is a refreshing one given that she is usually a damsel in distress figure in most screen adaptations of Superman. She is ruthless about getting her story yet she has enough moral direction to realise the damage that she could do if knowledge of Clark Kent's powers was to become more widely known.

And unfortunately, Lois Lane is not Clark's only pursuer. Enter the malevolent General Zod, played with a wonderful moustache twirling villainy by Michael Shannon. His performance is nonetheless frightening as a character whose sole intention is genocide for the human race.

It is upon Zod's arrival that Clark realises who he must become. Their fight is one that will define the future of the human race and yet, for the most part, humans are essentially bystanders to the all powerful aliens doing battle in their midst.

These scenes are well executed as Superman realises that he must breach his own moral code in order to beat Zod. Henry Cavill, whose performance is for the most part fairly wooden, comes alive as his character's limits are tested.

Cue various ridiculous CGI special effects that are a bit disorientating. This is, however, a superhero film, so that be forgiven. It was also impressive to observe that Zack Snyder and his team were brave enough to examine how humanity as a whole would react to the presence of Superman. This was quite refreshing in that it was honest enough to acknowledge that his reception may not be universally positive.

That is the perhaps the strongest part of what is a very watchable blockbuster which, whilst a bit inconsistent in terms of quality from one scene to the next, was nonetheless worth the ticket price.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used in this review and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' by Rachel Joyce

This poignant fable is by turns heart breaking, hilarious and uplifting. On the surface, the story of Harold Fry is that of an ordinary pensioner who is stuck in a loveless marriage with Maureen, his wife of forty years. He worked for the same company in the same position for his whole career and has retired six months before this novel is set.

On a seemingly normal day in this retirement, he receives an unsolicited letter from Queenie Hennessey, a former colleague who Harold owes a debt of gratitude to. The letter reveals that Queenie has terminal cancer. She is in a hospice and her prognosis is grim.

So, Harold, being a quiet individual, trots out to post a reply. As he covers the familiar roads of his town, he begins to realise that the process of walking is bringing a number of memories back to his mind, most notably of his son David, from whom he and Maureen are estranged.

Upon hearing the inspiring story of a girl working at a garage who he stops to talk to on the way, Harold decides to walk from Kingsbridge where he lives to Berwick upon Tweed, where Queenie is convalescing, in order to try and save her.

This seemingly futile exercise holds a much deeper meaning for Harold, as he comes to confront his present loneliness and the vast difficulties of his past. As he walks, he encounters many people who are inspired by his quest and it is in these minor characters that Rachel Joyce's creation really comes to life.

She is also excellent at allowing us access to Harold's rich and troubled inner life. On the surface, Harold Fry is an everyman, seemingly dull and lacking in imagination. We find out with Joyce's help what makes him appear that way and why he seems so wracked with fear through every step of his journey.

At home, Maureen's quiet resentment of Harold continues to stir and we are given her perspective on why her marriage is failing. Maureen is not always a sympathetic character but her take on Harold's adventure is one that changes as he gets closer to succeeding in his task.

Her friendship with Rex, the Fry's next door neighbour, is touching and well realised. As Harold walks through Britain and the two of them track his progress, Maureen comes to reconcile herself to Harold not only for what he is currently doing but also for his actions towards her in the past.

It is the journey itself that changes Harold's perspective on the world and by the end of the tale, his life is irrevocably changed. The end is handled with the same delicate sensitivity that Rachel Joyce uses in the rest of the book.

A moving and rewarding novel.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used in this post and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'The Great Gatsby' directed by Baz Luhrmann

Gatsby (Leo Di Caprio) strolls into this film after half an hour with the air of a debonair, feckless gentleman who enjoys filling his house with partying bright young things. His world of West Egg is the area of new money, which is also inhabited by Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) a stockbroker who struggles through his day job in the city only to fill his evenings chronicling the adventures of Gatsby and his pals.

Across the bay, in old moneyed East Egg live Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and Tom (Joel Edgerton), a couple who are seemingly perfect in their easy lifestyles, granted to them by the vast estate that Tom has inherited. And herein lies the tale - Gatsby is deeply in love with Daisy, a woman whom he once had an affair with as a younger man. Nick, as our narrator and cousin to Daisy, gradually reveals a tale of how unrequited love and greed can destroy even the most seemingly beautiful and powerful among us.

Gatsby's obsession with Daisy is memorably wrought in this adaptation and this is the strongest aspect of the film - how well it chronicles the flaws of male attitudes towards love. It shows that Gatsby ultimately has little consideration for anything else but his feelings for Daisy, not how she would react to them or how the opinion of any of his friends would be altered by his actions. The film is extremely sympathetic to Gatsby, far more so than the book and to some extent it skates over some of the more questionable aspects of the business practices that have made him a rich man.

Nick Carraway follows Gatsby in a kind of deep hypnosis and he is unusually docile in this version of the story. After all, it is Nick that ultimately reveals that whilst these people are beautiful on the surface, they are ugly in spirit. His narration seems to verge on praise of the excess and fecklessness that characterise Gatsby's life. This seems to miss F Scott Fitzgerald's point - Nick's role in the book is to satirise these characters, yet in this film, he seems to be an almost worshipful apprentice.

This ethereal feeling is enhanced by Baz Luhrmann's strange style of camera work, with shots that seem to linger on the female leads in particular. Daisy is subject to all kinds of odd lighting effects that make Carey Mulligan appear to be a creature from another planet. Again, this is probably designed to give us an impression o
f Gatsby's mind, but I couldn't help but think that this stylisation gave the film the feel of being a bit like a very stylish, very expensive chocolate advert.

By contrast, the men are portrayed in very stark terms, in particular mega-bastard Tom Buchanan, who is a cruel and harsh dictator to weak willed Daisy. It is hard to believe that Nick would ever have been friends with a man like Tom, but the film explains that Nick is too polite to end even the most illogical of friendships. What works is that Baz Luhrmann makes this believable and in the scenes that they share, the script is at its sharpest.

So, The Great Gatsby (2013) is ultimately a bit of a mixed bag - whilst the acting is excellent, it feels too safe and too sanitised to be a true telling of what is a timeless story.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used on this blog and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Source Code' directed by Duncan Jones

This is a challenging film with plenty to offer. It opens with a bomb exploding on a train bound for Chicago. Jake Gyllenhaal then wakes with no memory of who he is, opposite Michelle Monaghan, who seems to believe he is a man she has just started dating.

Needless to say, Gyllenhaal's character, Colter Stevens, soon finds out that his actions are being directed by 'the man' who in this story is p
ersonified by an army unit that is using a machine called 'Source Code' to send him back in time to relive the eight minutes before the bomb explodes. He is made to repeat this experience until he finds the bomber.

Gyllenhaal is excellent here, reprising the fine take on confusion that he gave in Donnie Darko. Even though this role demands a lot of running and shouting like most male leads in action films, he pulls it off with more than a touch of humour. Duncan Jones is a skilled enough director to make his character learn from his mistakes each time he is forced to relive the same eight minutes.

The script also offers Michelle Monaghan plenty to get her teeth into. She plays a charming woman who has clearly lost direction in her life. It is intriguing to note how she reacts to Colter Stevens each time he arrives at the same point in her fateful train journey and Monaghan does well to portray very different emotions in relation to the way he behaves.

These changes are determined by the Source Code, as Colter Stevens becomes increasingly desperate to escape the endless cycle of those same eight minutes and only when Goowin and Rutledge, his handlers at the Source Code, are satisfied that he has found the bomber will he be allowed his freedom.

And this freedom is one that is both poignant and uplifting, as Gyllenhaal and Monaghan's characters find love together, despite the tragic circumstances that surround Colter Stevens' final use of the Source Code.

Duncan Jones handles this ending with care. He clearly has an intimate understanding of the importance of human attachment. His film is well-shot and convincing as well as intellectually stimulating.

Very interesting stuff. An uplifting and satisfying watch.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the picture used in this review and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Star Trek Into Darkness' directed by J.J. Abrams

With the audacity of an outsider brought in to revive a once great project, J.J. Abrams has swept in to stamp his brand of relentless energy on the Star Trek franchise.

Its second instalment, Into Darkness, shows just how unafraid he and his team are of defying the laws of movie physics, zipping along with a purpose more akin to great action films such as Die Hard than the pedestrian pace of other big screen Trek outings.

The film opens with Spock (the excellent Zachary Quinto) facing incineration at the centre of an exploding volcano, from which he narrowly escapes with the help of Captain Kirk (Chris Pine, far outstripping his performance in the first film) electing to disobey orders to save his friend. Whilst this sequence does feel a bit like a deleted scene from Galaxy Quest, it is characteristic of the tremendous pace that the film sets that, by the end, it seems relatively sedate by comparison.

No further time is wasted in introducing the antagonist of the piece, John Harrison, a super villain with strength and intelligence to match his sense of purpose, played with the same intensity that Benedict Cumberbatch has brought to Sherlock on the small screen. When his character is not speaking, which seems to be most of his screen time, Cumberbatch wears the expression of a man delicately poised on the verge of rage.

This anger drives him to attack the very foundations of Starfleet, as Earth once again becomes the target of a psychopath, something which is becoming a theme of Abrams' take on Trek. The scenes on Earth are well made with the help of some excellent CGI. They look far more convincing than previous efforts, which had to rely on lower tech methods to show us glimpses of life in the 23rd Century.

By contrast, the space battles seem a bit overblown and feel more like a very advanced computer game than cinema. Nonetheless, the sequences on the bridges of both of the ships involved (Enterprise and Vengeance) are a particular highlight. Fine performances from John Cho (Sulu), Simon Pegg (Scotty) and Anton Yelchin (Chekov) add colour to these sequences, a particular highlight being Sulu's repartee with Dr McCoy (Karl Urban) about his poker skills. Karl Urban is once again excellent as Bones, providing an altogether more serious presence than in the first film.

Although Uhura (the excellent Zoe Saldana) is perhaps a little underused in Into Darkness, she continues to be a challenging and intriguing presence, saving the lives of the rest of the crew on several occasions. A confrontation with a particularly nasty Klingon is an interesting scene, which alludes to the theme of cultural misunderstanding that is present in much of the best Trek.

By contrast, Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) is more prominent as Kirk's latest love interest, an English physicist whose true agenda is kept entirely secret from the rest of the crew, including Kirk. Alice Eve does an excellent job as a well intentioned but misguided scientist whose loyalties shift rapidly throughout the story.

On the whole, Into Darkness is an effective and interesting addition to the Star Trek franchise. It is fast paced, well produced and exceptionally well acted. Whisper it quietly, but it is, in the opinion of this minor Trekkie, probably the best edition of the twelve produced so far.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the image used in this review and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Fight Club' directed by David Fincher

This film is a bit different. It is contrary, self-satisfied and a bit smug. Nonetheless, Fight Club has much to be smug about, featuring stellar performances from Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter and a plot that borders on indie self-parody yet successfully avoids that pitfall.

All of this takes place in the rarefied atmosphere of an unnamed American city that is beset by urban decay. Amongst the ruins, Edward Norton's narrator attempts to figure out what he is doing with his life, stuck as he is in a dead end job that funds the purchase of various possessions that bring him no satisfaction. To add to these woes, he is a chronic insomniac whose only relief is in support groups for conditions he does not suffer from.

This all changes when he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), who is a feckless, iconoclastic soap salesman living by his own rules. With the help of Durden's take on life, the narrator slowly realises that his job cannot give him the excitement he craves and it is in this spirit that the two of them form the first Fight Club. This Fight Club gives the narrator a sense of purpose, a purpose which is revealed later in the film to be very dangerous indeed.

Added to these elements is an explosive performance by Helena Bonham Carter as Marla, a damaged lover of Durden's whose death wish almost matches her morose cynicism. Her role is never entirely clear, except as a counterpoint to Norton and Pitt's characters. The narrator is obsessed by her as she always seems to stand between him and what he wants - sleep before he meets Durden and her after he does.

Whilst this bizarre combination of circumstances plays out on screen, it should be noted how distinctive the film still appears nearly 15 years after its release. Its grimy, greasy colour scheme has often been copied since but rarely bettered. The corruption it portrays in both the conventional narrator's lifestyle and Durden's anarchistic approach are memorably captured. It is, despite its cult status, just as critical of counter-culture as it is of the mainstream that Durden, the voice of the film, claims to detest.

All of these elements, along with a very accurate and somewhat chilling take on the dynamics of male group behaviour make for an interesting film, even if it is a little too pleased with itself and perhaps slightly undeserving of the esteem in which it is held. Nonetheless, it is an entertaining watch with a script that has kept it feeling fresh several years after its initial release.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used in this article and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'The Fear Index' by Robert Harris

The financial markets are crashing around our ears and to this end, hedge funds, such as the fictionalised one run by physics genius Alexander Hoffman in The Fear Index have sprung up to make money betting against the success of the market.

Needless to say, Hoffman is a very rich man indeed and like most rich men in thrillers, he has made a number of enemies, despite his reclusive lifestyle in the company of his wife Gabrielle.

After a brutal assault at his own home by a mystery assailant, Hoffman's life rapidly collapses as Robert Harris explores the psychological deterioration of  a man brought to ruin by his own invention - the VIXAL 500 - a computer with an algorithm  designed to make money off the failure of other companies.

The story explores the question of which of these adversaries is the greater threat to Alexander Hoffman? The computer that he has created, which threatens to wreck the company it built, or the men who are making threats on his life? In his concussed, confused state, Hoffman makes a series of  dreadful decisions that would hardly be typical of an average billionaire physics genius.

His friendship with his business partner Hugo Quarry is an example of this. He trusts Hugo utterly despite the strange, amoral world that Hugo inhabits, filled with sleazy affairs and cocaine. This slightly stretches suspension of disbelief in the book and it is unlike Harris to place such a sensational character at the centre of one of his novels.

Hoffman's relationship with his wife is strained and whilst their interplay is more credible, it relies on the notion that Gabrielle is willing to put up with an increasingly distant husband. They also seem like an unlikely match. Gabrielle is hot headed and difficult, an artist who takes impulsive decisions with the kind of disdain that only the very rich are capable of.

By contrast, Alex is listless and often silent. His social skills are minimal and whilst Robert Harris always gets Hugo to cover for him with shareholders or even with his wife, it does seem a unlikely that a man who had made quite so much money would be lacking in social graces.

Whilst all of this contributes to a functional, slow burning thriller, the novel is not as well characterised as Lustrum or Fatherland by the same author. These slightly wooden characters let down a story which is otherwise timely and well written.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the image used in this review and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'The Dark Knight Trilogy' directed by Christopher Nolan

These dark, moody crime films form without question the most important cinematic trilogy of the last twenty years. In partnership with Christian Bale, Christopher Nolan has constructed a psychologically complex, often borderline sociopathic Batman - a damaged hero who is not so very far removed from the villains he fights.

In Batman Begins, we are presented with a summary of the incidents that created Batman, from the death of Bruce Wayne's parents as a boy, to encountering his mentor and future nemesis Ra's al Ghul. This volume confronts Wayne's relationship with grief in forensic detail, as he learns to use his anger with his parents killer for positive ends, though this only comes about after Rachel Dawes, a love from his past, shows him the error of his ways. Wayne later learns to his cost that he had underestimated Ra's commitment to what he sees as 'true justice'.

Batman's main ally in his fight against Ra's is of course his butler Alfred Pennyworth and I am not sure that I have ever seen Michael Caine more perfectly cast in his long career than in this role. He is a surrogate father for Bruce Wayne with a no-nonsense east end attitude to telling him what he needs to hear. Throughout the trilogy, Alfred appears as a calming influence to Bruce, reminding him that underneath the mask he is just a man.

Another series regular is Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, who arms Bruce Wayne for his night time crusades. Fox enjoys many of the best comic moments in the series, usually in the form of pithy remarks about the armaments that he provides. Yet, perhaps his best moment is the excoriating remark he makes to Coleman Reese, a man who threatens to unmask Batman - 'Let me get this straight, you think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante, who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands, and your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.'

Batman's other ally is Jim Gordon, a world weary cop played with a kind of sad resignation by Gary Oldman, who sees Gotham City collapsing around him from corruption and indifference. With the help of Batman, he uses his power to resist the spread of organized crime. By the beginning of the second volume, The Dark Knight, Gordon has, with the help of new District Attorney Harvey Dent, managed to imprison most of the city's criminals.

The second volume of the trilogy introduces Dent as Gotham's saviour, the man elected as DA to clear the streets of the criminals left standing after Batman's rampages. His idealistic mission is to rid the city of crime once and for all, a mission that will release a horror upon the city that Gordon, Batman and Dent are entirely unprepared for. Dent also fails to realise that he is a man with much to lose as he is in love with the aforementioned Rachel Dawes.

Under the stewardship of Katie Holmes in Batman Begins, Dawes is a friend of Bruce Wayne who has never entirely reciprocated his romantic feelings for her. Due to her idealistic temperament and uncompromising principles, she proves to be a valuable ally of Batman, whose true identity is concealed from her until late in the film. Yet, Katie Holmes' performance is a little wooden and lacks something of the spark that Maggie Gyllenhaal would later bring to the role in The Dark Knight.

It is only during Gyllenhaal's portrayal of Dawes that we perceive why two men as radically different as Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent would chase her. Even though the character has something of a 'damsel in distress' element to her storyline, she is ultimately a woman in control of her own destiny, until that is robbed from her by the whims of a maniac.

This maniac is of course The Joker, played with an unhinged (and in hindsight, given the fate of the actor, perhaps tragic) psychosis by Heath Ledger. His Joker possesses an almost supernatural ability for exposing the dark side of his enemies. He brings Batman closer than ever to crossing his moral boundaries with a campaign of anarchy to bring down every organisation in Gotham City, including the ones he supposedly allies himself with.

It seems that The Joker's madness is also contagious, as it destroys the lives of Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, plunging the two into a grief from which only one escapes. Nolan pulls no punches in the closing scenes of The Dark Knight as the twin themes of physical violence and mental disintegration are given a full examination, especially in the case of Dent.

Shocked by these events, the citizens of Gotham inaugurate an era of relative calm, inspired by the false idol Harvey Dent, whom Jim Gordon is forced to revere in an annual speech on 'Harvey Dent Day' - a public holiday in his honour.

The Dark Knight Rises opens on this day, with Gordon reciting these lies that he tells every year for the sake of peace in the city. The hated Batman, supposedly responsible for the crimes of Dent, has forced Bruce Wayne into hiding on his estate. Eight years have passed since the events of The Dark Knight and it is quickly made clear that Wayne has become a recluse, having been forced to bury Batman.

Not that he is allowed to stay in hiding for long, as a masked thug appears by the name of Bane, enforcing the will of a businessman who wants to take over Wayne Enterprises. However, Bane's real agenda is always well hidden from those he manipulates. Tom Hardy does an excellent job of creating an angry human being whose single minded focus on the destruction on Gotham is driven by a hatred of society. At times it is difficult to hear his lines, but they are delivered with such venom that there is never any doubt about what he believes.

Initially, he is assisted in this task by Selina Kyle (Catwoman in all but name) played by Anne Hathaway, an opportunist thief who finds the anarchy that Bane promises to be an appealing prospect, seeing it as good for her business. That is until she finds that it does not suit her as well as she had assumed and that, to her surprise, she has a sense of morality. On the whole, Hathaway does well in this role, portraying a woman who shares Bane's contempt for authority but not his mission of destroying it.

Overall, The Dark Knight Rises offers a fitting end to a trilogy that has entirely changed the public perception of Batman. After the camp, late 90's disaster of Batman and Robin, The Caped Crusader looked to have hung up his cowl for good. Thanks to Christopher Nolan, not only has the character been resurrected but completely transformed. These complex psychological thrillers may be superhero films but they really follow the troubles of imperfect men and women, whose divisions between hero and villian are often not as easy to perceive as they first seem.

And despite the often melancholy themes of these films, all of them leave the audience with renewed hope. The rise of The Dark Knight was indeed something to behold.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photographs used in this entry and will remove them at the request of the rights holder.

'Machine Gun Preacher' dir. Marc Foster

Gerard Butler of 'SPARTANS!!' fame stars in this rather poignant tale of a man redeeming himself from a life of crime by saving orphans of the war against the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) in Uganda and Sudan.

Butler portrays Sam Childers, a mean junkie biker, who heads back onto the streets from prison and promptly lets down his patient girlfriend Lynn (played by the excellent Michelle Monaghan) and daughter Paige who had expected a changed man.

After Sam is involved in a particularly brutal assault, he decides that it is time to change his life. With the help of his new found Christianity, he sets about the task of setting up his own building business to support his family.

A visiting Pastor from Uganda talks at the Childers' local church, giving them an impression of how many children's lives are affected by the civil war. Sam, who possesses a new found appreciation for the value of his own child, is moved to action by this speech.

It is at this point that the action switches to northern Uganda, where Sam is shown building an orphanage and acting as a part time mercenary to help the kids who have been left with nowhere to run by the LRA. Some of the moral choices he has to make are pretty tough viewing and Gerard Butler does well to show how embittered Sam becomes by his personal struggle.

There are some interesting takes on the roots of fundementalism here as Sam finds himself becoming what he is fighting. His violent past is playing catch up with him and each time he returns to Uganda, he becomes more angry with what he sees.

Indeed, this film is so much about Sam's mission that the minor characters largely come across as incidental. This is an undoubted weakness of the film, especially given that his home life, which is patently such an important part of his redemption, largely becomes a sub plot even when a series of personal crises bring him home to the US.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting takes on the power of religion to heal lost souls. However, some of the scenes in Sam's home church do come across as product placement for Christianity. In marked contrast, the LRA's loose, supposedly 'Christian' ideals are utterly reprehensible. They launch brutal assaults on defenceless villages. Several of these sequences are visceral and make for a difficult watch.

They are nonetheless a necessary watch and it is reassuring to see that a film about such a serious subject can still be made in an era when light fantasies and romcoms dominate. Machine Gun Preacher is not without its flaws, the story is far too focussed on Sam and few of the minor characters make much of an impact on a script heavily dominated by its leading character.

Despite these flaws, this film is worth renting at least for being by turns moving and ultimately uplifting.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used in this blog and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Five Star Billionaire' by Tash Aw

Five Star Billionaire is a novel that explores the relationship, some would say obsession, that its five central characters have with material wealth. All are Malaysian migrants, who, whether by choice or coercion, have moved to Shanghai in the pursuit of a better life. This journey proves to be a treacherous path for all.

First, there is Justin, a middle aged heir to a family business that he has been shaped to run since birth. His is a tale riven with the powerlessness of a man forced down a certain path in life by unloving parents. He is competent but uninspired, pale in comparison to his charismatic and feckless brother CS, a man who was once engaged to Yinghui, a woman for whom Justin holds a deep and unrequited love.

Yinghui herself is a converted idealist who represses her unhappy past with CS to concentrate on her present venture - a booming lingerie business that has overtaken her life. This leads her indirectly into the arms of a new man, a mysterious presence who hovers thoughout the story, a man by the name of Walter Chao.

Walter is a curious creation, the writer of a self help manual on how to get rich. He uses the painful example of his father as an example of how not to do it. These vignettes from his book intersect with the main narrative of the story of the other characters and the role that Walter plays in their present. The man himself remains an enigma to the end.

Two younger characters, Gary and Phoebe share an anonymous online relationship that helps to alleviate their growing sense of disillusion with the dreams they once pursued.

Gary is an ailing pop star, whose life off stage is by turns chaotic (on the rare occasions he is allowed out by his management) and lonely (when otherwise imprisoned in a hotel awaiting his next gig). Tash Aw shows an acute understanding of the isolating effects of celebrity - Gary cannot even leave his hotel without being mobbed.

By contrast, no one really knows Phoebe, a girl who pursues her dream of a better life ruthelessly. Unfortunately, her pursuit of this dream is backed up by a wreckless dishonesty which leads her to tell a series of lies that endanger the career she has set out to build for herself.

The lives of all of these characters touch at various points throughout the narrative, and whilst this does at times feel like a convenient plot device in a city of 23 million people, it does work. Tash Aw is very convincing when creating the lives and relationships of these well rounded human beings. An acute and well realised picture of each of them springs to mind when prompted to reflect on the book.

Even minor characters, such as Phoebe's shy and defensive flatmate Yanyan, are well realised. In particular, Justin's journey is populated by scores of vicious family members and competitors who attempt to manipulate him. All of the characters experience spells of loneliness, but his is the most heartbreaking and unnecessary journey into social isolation.

The quality of the writing is exceptionally high, especially when covering the sense of fear and doubt with which the city of Shanghai infects all of the characters. This novel is evidence of a rare talent giving full cry to his abilities and even though the themes of the book are somewhat bleak, the closing chapters offer several kernels of hope.

Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the image used in this article and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Age of Aztec' by James Lovegrove

The concept of this series may alienate certain readers, based as it is on the fantastic notion that mythical gods have become real, functioning entities. In the case of Age of Aztec (the fourth book in the series), the Aztec gods have arrived on Earth to implement their frankly bloodthirsty rule on the human race.

Ziggarauts have been built, human sacrifices are regularly performed and divine will is imposed with a cruel efficiency. Yet, in Britain, a masked man known as 'The Conquistador' is daring to challenge this omnipotence. In everday life, this man is Stuart Reston, chief executive of a major company and very much an establishment figure. He is a man whose vigalante quest is a way of dealing with his grief over the premature death of his wife and son.

On his tail is a young, determined police officer by the name of Mal Vaughn, who buries her guilt over her brother's death in alcohol and empty one night stands. The two of them enjoy a symbiotic relationship at first as Mal finds that her career, and indeed, her life are dependant on her ability to aprehend 'The Conquistador'.

This particular relationship develops predictably enough via an attempt at overthrowing the Aztec Pantheon. There are a few interesting minor characters thrown in by Lovegrove to liven up the journey - watch out in particular for a sexually repressed Colonel who takes out his frustration on the protagonists through a carefree attitude towards physical violence.

Lovegrove has constructed a fun thriller, with some interesting slants on ideas of divine rule between the fight scenes - some of which are so riddled with nasty mutilations that it is difficult to read them without wincing.

The high concept fantasy of Gods ruling Earth in the flesh is really just a thin cloak for James Lovegrove's usual themes of power, wealth and the corrupting influence thereof. Yet, it is interesting to note that the heroes of his books are often very wealthy themselves.

Indeed, Stuart Reston, a chief executive no less, is something of a Bruce Wayne figure and one sequence from the first part owes a heavy debt to The Dark Knight. His feckless, arrogant exterior hides a man stricken with anger at the gods for the loss of his young family.

Nevertheless, Lovegrove makes far more time for Mal Vaughn - a tough if imbalanced character who comes to the fore whenever fate deals her a difficult hand. She is a strong woman, yet full of insecurities which she hides from those under her command.

This novel is another volume in what is proving to be an immensely readable fantasy series. Despite a slightly jarring and abrupt change in the narrative when the action switches from Britain to Mexico, it is a thoroughly enjoyable ride. I would recommend Age of Aztec and its predecessors, especially for anyone with even a passing interest in mythology.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the picture used in this blog entry and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

The Gendarmes @ Camden Rock - Friday 01/03/2013

Okay, I'm branching out a bit here into a music review. This may be a one off and before I start on this, there is one other admission that I would like to make - one of bias in this review. The Gendarmes' lead guitarist and drummer are two old friends from University. Nonetheless, I would hope to retain some kind critical neutrality.

And, purely as a neutral, may I state that The Gendarmes rocked the joint.

Now I'm not very rock and roll (though perhaps more rock and roll than one of The Gendarmes, who spent part of the build up to the set commenting on Health & Safety arrangements at the venue) and I spent most of my teenage years in libraries. However, I found Camden Rock on Friday night to be a fairly epic experience. The cavernous, tight venue gave fine acoustics which did full justice to rhythm guitarist Jamie Woolams' earthy, raw voice.The set had a rapid quality which motored through some well known (and less well known) numbers.

A version of 'Day Tripper' had a particularly Lennon esque resonance. It gave the feel of an authentic, classic rock sound. Some friendly banter from the crowd, including a fairly irreverant shout of 'Play Gagnam Style' directed at lead guitarist Johnny Farrugia did not put them off their stride. Every song sounded well rehearsed and polished.

I would urge everyone I know to see these great blokes play their fine music. There was no pretention in the set, no sense of ego or entitlement came across in the delivery. It was four guys just playing good music amongst friends. An awesome night gentlemen. Well played.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photo used in this article and will remove it at the request of the rights holer.

'The Godfather: Part II' directed by Francis Ford Coppola

This film is overlong, dull, and full of deeply unsympathetic characters.

Yet, I can understand the appeal of The Godfather: Part II despite being far more partial to the original Godfather which is a much more tightly scripted and better characterised drama.

The tale of Michael Corleone's rise to prominence is one that burns slowly as the film shapes a man who is desperately trying to retain control of a criminal empire that is constantly slipping through his fingers. With a casual, carefree attitude to brutality, he sets about dismantling his enemies in government and his rivals on the streets. This thoroughly depressing amoral crusade is aided by the underlings that his father Vito has left behind.

Al Pacino does a wonderful job as Michael and it is easy to see why this film made his name. His performance consists of a range of facial expressions that move from bleak to terrifying. The delivery of his lines is wrought with the anger and fear that characterises the man. In particular, his scenes with John Cazale (Michael's brother Fredo Corleone) have a level of mutual contempt that is rare in any film.

Nonetheless, I did not find myself being hooked by this story. This is a man who lacks any sense of decency or respect for anyone but himself, covering it loosely with some vague and empty notion of 'family' which he regularly ignores when it suits him. Frankly, it left me cold.

More interesting was Robert De Niro's subplot as the younger Vito Corleone. At least in Vito's case, we get some impression of why he ended up as head of a criminal enterprise. Motivated partly by the death of his Mother, his actions at least have some kind of foundation in his experiences.

De Niro's Vito wears a permanent half smile, reminiscent of Marlon Brando's performance in The Godfather. His section of the story has greater depth to it and offers a backstory that is far more believable of a typical crime lord. At times, it is possible to see a trace of humanity in De Niro's portrayal, something which cannot be said of almost any of the other characters in the film.

And that is the main concern that I had whilst watching it. I could hardly relate on any level to any of the characters. None of them possess any form of backbone, courage or fortitude. None of them have to struggle - they simply kill their way out of their problems.

For that reason alone, not to mention the unbearably long running time (3 hours and 20 minutes) this film did not do anything for me. There are some fine performances in it and Coppola's direction is interesting. Nonetheless, it does not have the lightness of touch that makes The Godfather a better film.

If you have not seen it, then it is an interesting watch for the performances of Pacino and De Niro alone but it is far, far too pleased with itself and it is a film that is profoundly overrated.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used for this article and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Bleak Expecations' by Mark Evans

In keeping with the chaotic nature of the Radio Four show on which this book is based, Mark Evans has written a novel which is more a series of sketches than a typical parody and I suspect that the style used owes much to his work on That Mitchell and Webb Look.

The story follows the unfortunate childhood of Pip Bin, a young man ripped from his home by an insane mother and a malevolent guardian, Mr Gently Benevolent, a name which, as Evans frequently notes, is touched with more than a hint of irony.

Given that Pip is assisted by a gentle and generous man called Skinflint Parsimonious, you soon gain an impression of Mark Evans' thinking.

Pip is sent to a brutal school under the gaze of a headmaster known as Mr Hardthrasher - the first of many of the Hardthrasher clan to appear in the book. Under pain of imminent death and via a meeting with his sister, he soon escapes with a new found best friend Harry Biscuit.

Harry is, in common parlance, a few spoons short of a cutlery set and he is used as a device whenever Mark Evans is short of something to distract the characters. In fact, his lack of common sense is somewhat overused to get the characters back into their latest scrape with Gently Benevolent or one of the Hardthrasher family.

Not that the direction or plot of the book are overly important. It is more of a loose set of vaguely related Victorian scenes with a few deliberate anachronisms thrown in occasionally.

There is plenty of hilarity and I found myself laughing on quite a few occasions but the book lacks a consistent plot and sometimes has a slightly clever-clever feel.

Worth a look but a bit inconsistent in quality.

'Nexus' by Ramez Naam

I feel obliged to give this book a good write up given that Ramez Naam has been instrumental in the development of Internet Explorer. Indeed, I wonder whether this review will disappear from the web if proves to be too critical.

Censorship, in all its ignoble forms, is one of the central concerns of Nexus, a book which explores our increasing freedom of communication and the consequences thereof. The Nexus referred to in the title is a drug, which in the near future (this book is set in 2040) will allow users to gain complete mutual telepathy within a small group.

As with most new drugs, it is initially dismissed as a fringe interest. In time, Nexus comes to worry the authorities as the implications of allowing such open access to other people's minds catches up with them.

A free thinking academic named Kaden Lane (excellent strange near future sci fi name) is one of the main promoters of this drug in the name of free exchange of information. As a consequence, there is a government organisation which is on the hunt for him and his group.

The agent assigned with tracking Lane is a young woman by the name of Samantha Catarnares, who follows him with the ruthless efficiency of a technologically enhanced mind and body.

The book then spends a good two thirds of its length playing on the difference in philosophies of Kade (the hopeful idealist) and Sam (the cynical realist) as they wrestle with each other over how Nexus could be used. Their journey takes them to Thailand, via a complex series of political intrigues involving the Chinese government, where they spend much of their time either shooting people or talking to Buddhist monks.

Indeed, many of the chapters in Thailand mention Buddhism or Buddhist ideas so often that it starts to feel at times like reading a religious pamphlet. Nevertheless, this is interspersed with some violent and well written fight scenes and some interesting technological wars going on beneath the very human street fights.

The overarching narrative is the threat of a coming war between those who embrace the change that Nexus offers and those who believe it would fundamentally change the nature of humanity. Kade and Sam's friends essentially line up behind them and fight it out until nearly all of them die. Naam sends in the odd defection here and the occasional morally grey character there to keep the reader guessing.

In fact, whilst many of the minor characters are well thought out, almost none of them actually drive the drive the plot forward particularly. Usually, Naam relies on a big explosion or a long, deep conversation to hold the reader's interest.

It is a science fiction thriller which dares to pause and ask bigger questions about the ethics of technological progress. Yet, for all that, Nexus does read like an odd combination of an advert for Google and a Buddhist Monastery.

A diverting science fiction that provides plenty of entertainment if not much depth.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the image of the front cover used in this blog and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Dead Snow' directed by Tommy Wirkola

Zombies! Nazis! Zombie-Nazis! Did that get your attention?

Well, if it did then Dead Snow is the film for you. It is a claustrophobic Norwegian horror film which does not take itself too seriously, following more in the footsteps of Shaun as opposed to Dawn of The Dead.

At the start, a group of young, beautiful Norwegian students are on their way to an isolated cabin on a hillside which is several miles walk from the nearest road. What could go wrong I hear you cry?!

If you've seen just about any horror film in the last twenty years, you will already know the answer to that and there are absolutely no surprises in this one.

The exposition is mostly covered in five minutes with the inexplicable sudden appearance of a local middle aged man who tells the students about missing Nazi gold. He then somewhat contradicts the wise warnings he delivers about 'the hills being cursed' by electing to camp out on them. Quite what drove him to this bizarre decision is left as a mystery (or crater sized plot hole, take your pick).

This is the only point in the film that vague attention is required to the subtitles so if this is something that usually bothers you then you can rest assured that the rest of the dialogue is fairly redundant.

Nevertheless, there is some terrific slapstick to look out for, including an unfortunate attempt at throwing an improvised petrol bomb and the misuse of an outdoor toilet. There are clear visual nods to The Evil Dead and the aforementioned Shaun of The Dead  that work well.

The students get picked off one by one in increasingly brutal ways. They make the mistake of splitting up to cover more ground despite the dire warnings of movie geek Erlend (Jeppe Laursen) who seems to be the only one in this group who ever engages his critical faculties.

All of the rest of the students seem to merely be wallpaper for the zombies, who steal the show with a contemptuous ease that only Nazis on film are capable of.

And that's about it. A good, fun watch with a wafer thin plot. The rest is as braindead as the zombies themselves.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used on this blog and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Lockout' directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Ledger

About three quarters of the way through this film, a veritable Starfleet of space ships take off from a police station hovering above the Earth to attack an orbital prison that has been taken over by convicts.

Now, whilst this was a terrific visual trick with all the usual special effects that are associated with science fiction, it did beg the question as to whether such a facility would just be a massive white elephant for the US Government.

Despite these high production values and its glossy sheen, Lockout has been given something of a critical mauling, which seems a little harsh given that it  delivers a solid, if somewhat brainless, 95 minutes of entertainment.

Perhaps the central objection lies with Guy Pearce reprising his usual feckless rebel role. He does a fine job as Snow but it hardly stretches him and it feels like a slightly modified transplant of his Edward VIII from The King's Speech. Nonetheless, he delivers a series of witty ripostes in response to the unsurprising 'you're a loose cannon' sentiments that Snow receives from his handlers at the White House.

Maggie Grace offers a nice turn as President's daughter Emilie Warnock and between them, she and Snow develop an argumentative relationship between hostage and would be rescuer. Emilie is no ordinary first daughter, she matches Snow barb for barb and their constant interplay is a fun addition to an otherwise lacklustre script.

Brothers Alex (played by Vincent Regan) and Hydell (Joseph Gilgun) are the primary threat to the success of Snow's rescue attempt. These two could easily have walked away from an audition for Taggart and onto the set of Lockout, such is the malevolence in their Scottish accents.

Little knowing that they hold such a prominent hostage, the convicts pursue their devilish goals, which remain fairly unclear, and the whole thing develops the feel of a camped up version of Con Air in space. Hardly a moment goes by without a new psychopath with an odd tattoo stumbling into shot.

Indeed, this film is so full of such cliches that you find yourself wondering at times if it is attempting satire. The presence of Luc Besson among the scriptwriters suggests that it may be and much of the subplot which follows Snow's tumultous relationship with Shaw and Langral (his handlers) seems to be a slant on the morally grey world of spying.

Nevertheless, the film never really pushes its viewers as far as thinking. It is true Saturday night filler that seems a bit too pleased with itself.

A b movie with a a few laughs but one that will not live long in the memory.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the photograph used for this blog entry and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'The Perfect Distance: Ovett and Coe: The Record Breaking Rivalry' by Pat Butcher

In the build up to the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, the narrative driven by the British media claimed that you were either a fan of Steve Ovett or Sebastian Coe. You could not be both. This distinction supposedly said a lot about who you were and what beliefs you held at the dawn of Thatcher's Britain.

The two men at the eye of this particular storm continued their training regimes, untroubled by such concerns. Ovett ran endless laps of Preston Park in Brighton with his close friends. Coe trawled over hills and dales in Yorkshire, closely observed by his father.

Their divergent personalities were by now well established on the track. Ovett was the 'bad boy' of Athletics, waving to the crowd from fifty metres out when the race was already won. Coe was the tireless, frail worker who ran from the front to avoid the crush of the brutes behind him in the chasing pack.

Ovett was unbeaten for two years over 1500 metres. Coe was the record holder at 800 metres. Surely the medals at Moscow would follow suit?

Well, as Pat Butcher tells us in his informal, readable style, nothing was ever so simple in races between Ovett and Coe, who met on a total of just seven occasions during their senior careers.

And yet, their rivalry is one that has endured in the public imagination. Coe and Ovett are as well known today as they were thirty years ago. The triumph of The Perfect Distance is to explain that enduring appeal.

Much of it lies in the contrasting backgrounds of the two men. Ovett was from working class stock, a young boy who discovered his talent for running and pushed it to its limit. He was a natural who destroyed the local competition. Whilst he was flawed academically (as with the author of this review, Ovett is a dyslexic) it was nonetheless clear that from an early age that he was destined to compete at the very highest level.

Coe's talent was less obvious. Privately educated and privileged, he was nevertheless pushed, some would say bullied, by his father Peter into becoming a middle distance runner. At 5'9" with a thin, wiry frame, Coe rarely measured up to the boys he was competing against. Yet, that unlikely frame hid a rare and fierce competitive spirit.

This is where Butcher's story is at its best, as he takes us into the minds of the protagonists of this unique sporting drama. Ovett largely comes across as relaxed, affable and a total oddball.

Coe by contrast is straight, measured and in every respect an establishment figure. His every sentence seems testament to the many letters that now follow his name.

Yet, it is Ovett who seems the more likable. He grants rare extensive interview time to Butcher, who rewards him with the portrayal of a man who was largely misunderstood at the height of his powers. However, it should be noted that Butcher is perhaps too quick to excuse lapses in his memory as a consequence of his dyslexia. It seems to me at least that Ovett has a selective memory and an almost inexplicable habit of forgetting defeats.

Coe seems polite, disciplined and somewhat distant by contrast. However, The Perfect Distance makes it exceptionally clear that the complex relationship with Peter, his father and coach, is a direct cause of that restrained public facade. The private Coe is portrayed in the book as racked with insecurity at the large shadow that Ovett cast over him.

After those battles in 1980 which came to define their careers, both Coe and Ovett casually swapped world records in the following years as they, with the help of Steve Cram, made Britain the dominant force in men's middle distance.

At this point in the story, Pat Butcher takes us on an entertaining, if unexpected diversion into the wider history and context of middle distance running. Whilst this is a mildly enlightening interlude, it also shows that he is stretching his material somewhat. Even with the addition of a chapter on Cram, the quality of Butcher's analysis fades somewhat as the section on the 1984 Olympic Games begins.

From that games comes the photograph used at the top of this review - Ovett, Cram and Coe at the front of the 1500 metres final. It was to be Ovett's final curtain at the Olympics. Coe had the last laugh as he stormed to victory. Yet, days earlier, in the 800 metres final, Coe had put a consoling arm around Ovett at the finish line having been beaten to gold himself and said to his great rival:

'We're too old to be playing with fire.'

The picture that accompanies this quote, of the two arm in arm, dismisses the widely held misconception that Coe and Ovett dislike each other. As Butcher repeatedly observes in this book, they may not have been close friends, but they held a constant bond of respect for each others ability.

Having interviewed widely and thoroughly for this book amongst many of the world's top athletes of this period, Butcher has certainly captured the wider context of these halcyon days for the sport.

Despite the wonderful summer that British athletics has just had, it is difficult to imagine a another Coe or Ovett emerging any time soon at middle distance. As Pat Butcher makes quite clear in his conclusion to The Perfect Distance, we would be very fortunate to see their like again.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the picture used in this article and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'The End of The Party' by Andrew Rawnsley

This book, which charts the descent of New Labour from the height of its powers after a thumping election victory in 2001 to its final, chaotic months in 2010 is as much a psychodrama as a political history.

And at the head of that drama are the protagonists (or should that be antagonists?) of the era - Messrs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Andrew Rawnsley's story, whilst taking entertaining diversions into the vibrant personalities of John Prescott and Peter Mandelson amongst others, constantly returns to the flawed relationship between the two erstwhile friends.

Brown in particular is portrayed as a braying, authoritarian bully and there is a Jekyll and Hyde theme to Rawnsley's version of him which seems to chime with many of his public appearances. Often ill at ease with himself and uncomfortable with scrutiny, many of Brown's qualities such as his ability to negotiate deals in private with foreign counterparts never improved his popularity.

Conversely, Blair, as master actor and storyteller, was an expert at manipulating how others perceived him. Both in private and in public, Rawnsley takes us into the world of quick summaries, snap decisions and a theatrical, autocratic leadership style that characterised the Blair years.

Indeed, such leadership lent itself to the big, idealistic themes of Tony Blair's pet projects. This style served him well in Northern Ireland, negotiating tirelessly until a deal was reached. Unfortunately, such free thinking did not lend itself to a more ill advised venture into foreign affairs that later defined his premiership.

The relentless march by the British Government towards the Iraq War, as The End of The Party would have it, was characterised by a series of cock ups and notable by the panic that the prospect induced in a reluctant cabinet.

Whilst several forests worth of text have been written on the divisive subject of Iraq, The End of The Party is worth reading for this section alone, which provides a damning summary of a Prime Minister lured into a war by a hawkish President on the other side of the Atlantic.

The detail of the relationship between Blair and George W. Bush is astonishing. Quite what level of access Andrew Rawnsley actually had to private conversations they are supposed to have had is unclear. Whilst it is certain that he has multiple sources within the Blair camp, it seems far fetched that the recollections of any aide of the Prime Minister would include even off the cuff remarks by their boss.

Nonetheless, Rawnsley's mastery of detail is a tremendous asset that is combined with his naturally readable style to produce a work of history that reads more like a well written thriller. The only drawback with his style is that each page often requires re reading as three topics or a minor crisis are squeezed in. He clearly had much to cover when writing the book but at times the effect can be a little disorienting.

As are the brief forays into satire, for example, on eduction reform John Prescott is referred to as 'A big obstacle'. Whilst this is something of a cheap shot, there is a notable reduction in the number of humerous lines as Rawnsley takes us into the Brown years.

Gordon Brown's odd portrayal as a combination of Macbeth and Henry IV continues as he enters Number 10. His regime is characterised as well intentioned but disorganized. This perception is little helped by the man himself, whose moodswings seemed to become more extreme under the pressure of being Prime Minister.

Only at the moment of his greatest crisis during the early days of the Credit Crunch does Brown emerge with much credit from this book. He is otherwise seen as a hesitant and unpredictable leader whose thirst for the top job was not matched by his competence in it.

Whilst Rawnsley is wholesome in his praise of Brown for his handling of the Credit Crunch (which is no doubt irksome to more Tory inclined readers) he is brutal in his excoriation of him for the non existent election in 2007, the mishandling of Northern Rock and his general public demeanor.

Indeed, the book ends with Labour's future uncertain as Brown heads for defeat, the man himself seen by his own ranks as preoccupied by the media's disquiet.

Whilst the edition I read does not cover the indecisive result of the 2010 election, it provides a tremendous summary of Labour's successes and failures during the later part of its time in power. It is worth reading for the soapy melodrama of Blair and Brown's colossal rows but there is much else to admire and enjoy in this one.

Not just for the politics geek either - a worthwhile read for anyone who watches the news.

Disclaimer 1: I do not own the rights to the (frankly brilliant) photograph that accompanies this blog post and will remove it at the request of the owner.

Disclaimer 2: Whilst many of you will be aware of my political leanings (slightly left of centre), I have tried to make the preceding review as apolitical as possible. Please tell me if you think I have succeeded or otherwise.

'The Impossible' dir. Juan Antonio Bayona

Not for those of a squeamish or sensitive disposition, The Impossible spends most of its running time alternating between brutal depictions of emergency medicine and heart wrenching family splits or reunions.

Based on the true story of a Spanish family in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian Tsunami, this film, set in Thailand, instead depicts a British family suffering the same fate and it is unsparing in its take on the damage of a colossal natural disaster.

Naomi Watts plays the Mother, Maria, who finds herself split from the rest of her family with the exception of her eldest son, Lucas. After the Tsunami hits, she is badly injured. The film then largely follows her quest for medical assistance in the chaotic days following the wave.

Meanwhile, Ewan McGregor's Henry (the father) managed to keep hold of the two younger boys and get them to safety. He spends his time thereafter looking for a place to give them shelter. Once this is achieved, he sets off in search of his missing wife and eldest son.

Lucas (played with panache by Tom Holland) is a boy filled with decent intentions. Once his mother is taken to hospital, he attempts to reunite as many families as he is capable of when the overstretched hospital staff do not have time to do so. It is the first of many attempts by the film to establish a sentimental subtext.

In the background to all this is a strange, European dominated take on the Tsunami. Whilst many of the people who assist the family are of Thai origin, what becomes of the local victims of the disaster is somewhat skated over. I can therefore understand why some other reviews have pointed out that this may be evidence of a slight Colonial bias.

However, even though it is told from the perspective of a Westerner, the film persistently covers the point that the family recognise the advantages they have and how they were briefly stripped from them by a freak event. It did not seem overly patronising to those who lived with the aftermath.

The Impossible's greatest weakness is that it makes too much of its moments of hope as tone of the film veers towards saccharine sweetness, not that it is not a moving and interesting tale but it weighs in too heavily with the emotional hits for comfort.

Nonetheless, the action scenes are well balanced and the acting is for the most part impressive and despite some fairly redundant arty moments, Bayona largely does the script justice.

A non-fiction tale that is well told but that has been given too much of a Hollywood veneer to be as watchable as it might have been.

'Zoolander' dir. Ben Stiller

The fashionistas are out in full cry for this film, which takes a sideswipe at their world. Ben Stiller eagerly pokes fun at the industry, with his usual crew of Owen Wilson, Christine Taylor and Will Ferrell in tow.

Mawkish, self-obsessed male model Derek Zoolander (Stiller) is a man on a mission, not that he realises it yet. He is too busy perfecting his latest 'look'. The premise of the slightly redundant plot is that male models, who are easily manipulated and in peak physical condition, make ideal political assassins.

A particularly ruthless designer known as Jacobim Mugatu (Ferrell) aims to use Zoolander to assassinate the Malaysian Prime Minister, who has recently made some new laws which have upset the profit margins of Mugatu's company.

Whilst it seems that Stiller is taking a stab at a political point, namely the immorality of sweatshop labour for high fashion, most of the film is a ludicrous, slightly camp comedy about the odd, odd world of Derek Zoolander. His rivalry with Hansel (Owen Wilson) takes centre stage in a face off between characters who do not seem to share a single brain cell between them.

This rivalry leads them to a 'walk-off' in which the models pose with the intention of getting David Bowie to decide in their favour. This is the first of many cameos which become increasingly nonsensical as the scenes rattle along, a habit which Ben Stiller has never really grown out of. It becomes increasingly jarring in the latter stages when it seems some of the plot holes are covered by a game of 'who's this?'

Nevertheless, Christine Taylor offers welcome relief from some of the high jinks with a turn as journalist Matilda Jeffries but she seems a bit underused and her story comes to a particularly predictable end.

There is a lot of fun in this one and it is an easy watch. It set the mould for Dodgeball and many other Stiller comedies. Yet, despite its initial derision for physical beauty at the expense of character, it ultimately celebrates the world of Derek Zoolander in all its pretentious glory.

Despite a slightly tepid ending, Zoolander offers a solid evening of entertainment with a few belly laughs along the way.