Uses Of Film

Not all films need to have ambitions to be great art, any more than all novels, plays or music need do so. I've watched a handful of movies over the past few weeks which I've enjoyed and the range of which reinforced this point to me. We'll start with the 'best' of these films.

I've written about Fargo before so will say no more than that this is great art. 8.5/10. Next in critical stature would come Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel. I am a fan of Anderson's idiosyncratic methods - not all agree, Sharon being among them. Nevertheless 7.5/10. 

My final three are all good fun and expert filmic product. The Heat is foul-mouthed but not gratuitously so - the profanity feels apposite. This is that relative rarity an all girl buddie movie, a sort of crack-fuelled comedy Cagney and Lacey. Melissa McCarthy is plain and simple very funny and Sandra Bullock (who IMDb informs me made four times the fee that McCarthy commanded) a reliable foil. 6.5/10.

Similarly funny and, I suppose, similarly daft is A Knight's Tale. This is a film I recall being released but which I had always managed never to see until the other night. Didn't Heath Ledger look like Johnny Wilkinson? I particularly liked the presence of a writer with a gambling problem - Geoff Chaucer. 7/10.

Finally, an old fashioned father/son bonding story set in the modish surroundings of the food trade - Chef. Nothing stunningly original but well made and charming. 6/10.

All worth watching