:00:00. > :00:00.attacking us. We will have a look at the front
:00:00. > :00:19.pages of the newspapers just before ten o'clock. But now it is time for
:00:20. > :00:31.The Film Review. Welcome to The Film Review. What
:00:32. > :00:38.have we got? We have got the new film by David Cronenberg.
:00:39. > :00:48.We have the equaliser, the big`screen spin off of the 1980s TV
:00:49. > :00:55.show. Maps to the stars, about the Andy
:00:56. > :01:15.Perry of Holyrood. There have been loads of movies that satirise
:01:16. > :01:23.Holyrood. `` satellite Holyrood. This is a story with the Greek
:01:24. > :01:31.tragic narrative. It also has the feel of a poisonous sitcom. The
:01:32. > :01:37.central character is neurotic and self obsessed. What she wants to do
:01:38. > :01:43.is start in a remake of a film that was made famous by her lover who
:01:44. > :01:47.then died in a fire. She is the epitome of somebody who is on the
:01:48. > :01:55.line between being funny and being a horrifying. He is a clip. I thought
:01:56. > :02:04.that Garry Marshall would be fair. Then they gave me the wrong drive.
:02:05. > :02:12.And then the casting director did not even acknowledge me. She what I
:02:13. > :02:17.like seeing a word. Then she told me she did not even know if Gary
:02:18. > :02:25.Marshall was coming in. I know Gary. Then she said she would put me on
:02:26. > :02:31.tape. Then she said I could either take or not, like it was a pointless
:02:32. > :02:37.exercise. I cannot take it any more. That is one of her more lovable
:02:38. > :02:44.moments in the film. The rest of it has got real bite, real assets. The
:02:45. > :02:50.thing I like about it is that David Cronenberg moved into psychological
:02:51. > :02:58.travellers from body horror movies. What I love about this is that it
:02:59. > :03:00.has all the psychological bite of the later films but it has the
:03:01. > :03:05.fleshy feel of the best David Clement Bergh movies. It provokes a
:03:06. > :03:11.response. You do not know whether to laugh or to scream. What he has
:03:12. > :03:20.managed to do is to take a scalpel to this kind of sick and to society
:03:21. > :03:23.and open it and show it to society and open it and short any way giving
:03:24. > :03:26.as the impression that he wants to be invited to these kind of parties.
:03:27. > :03:35.David Currie Bergh is the perennial outsider. I like his sense of
:03:36. > :03:40.standing back. It is a dark comedy. It is on the borderline between
:03:41. > :03:46.comedy and horror. There are moments when you will not know whether to
:03:47. > :03:48.laugh or scream and you will probably do both.
:03:49. > :03:56.It also has Robert Pattinson in a very small role. He was the starring
:03:57. > :04:01.role in Cosmopolis. David Cronenberg does get the best out of his
:04:02. > :04:05.Julianne Moore is fantastic. I have always been a huge fan of hers, but
:04:06. > :04:10.this is a brilliantly performance by her, and I mean sick
:04:11. > :04:16.in the bad sense, not sick. OK. You're down with the kids now,
:04:17. > :04:20.aren't you? The Equaliser, I remembered the first time around.
:04:21. > :04:25.Yes, the 1980s TV show. Whatever subtleties of character were in the
:04:26. > :04:31.original, throw them out the window. The story is, Denzel Washington is
:04:32. > :04:36.the ordinary, everyday guy, working in a home supplies store. You know
:04:37. > :04:40.that he has a past, and that he has passed, because he is weird, he
:04:41. > :04:45.reads literature, but wishes it with a stopwatch. Then somebody he cares
:04:46. > :04:50.about gets badly hurt, and the next thing, it is time to
:04:51. > :04:56.Russian gangsters. That is pretty much what happens in the
:04:57. > :04:59.hours. Being based in a home Depot store, you know that what is going
:05:00. > :05:04.vengeance comes, it is going to be DIY. It is
:05:05. > :05:07.sensibility with the 1980s video nasty attitude
:05:08. > :05:11.It is way too long. It is over two hours. It should be 95 minutes at
:05:12. > :05:13.tops. When Denzel Washington worked with Antoine Fuqua before, on the
:05:14. > :05:22.film Training Day, he won an Oscar. That is not going to happen again.
:05:23. > :05:26.It will win the award is a war `` no awards at all. All I can say is that
:05:27. > :05:31.I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed walk among the tombstones, the Liam
:05:32. > :05:40.Neeson film everybody seems to like. balderdash. It is kind of a guilty
:05:41. > :05:45.pleasure for about half its running time. You use the words Death Wish.
:05:46. > :05:48.That is a guilty pleasure, and it is not the world's greatest film, but I
:05:49. > :05:50.rather enjoyed it. Charles Bronson's character in Death Wish is
:05:51. > :05:55.fantastic and veggie Washington in this. It is not a
:05:56. > :06:01.subtle film. You leave your brain on the counter and pick it up on the
:06:02. > :06:07.way out. "Less subtle than Death Wish". Yes, that will go on the
:06:08. > :06:15.poster. Now, Ida is a story set in Poland. It is about a woman about to
:06:16. > :06:20.take her vows, and she is told that she needs to go out into
:06:21. > :06:24.and meet her only surviving relative, wonder, who is a hard
:06:25. > :06:30.be a very fearsome communist state prosecutor,
:06:31. > :07:32.about her family, not least of which that she is in fact Jewish. Here
:07:33. > :07:40.The director describes the film as being about a number of things.
:07:41. > :07:45.Religion, politics, socialism, Judaism, com unison. It is a very
:07:46. > :07:47.interesting blend of the personal and the political.
:07:48. > :07:55.that clip, the visual style is very austere. It is that square frame,
:07:56. > :08:04.the faces of the protagonists are at the bottom of the screen or
:08:05. > :08:09.as if they are fighting for their place in the
:08:10. > :08:13.that tends to do is suggest this story is bigger
:08:14. > :08:17.characters. It is actually a story that has much wider implications
:08:18. > :08:20.I think he does so brilliantly is he enables a
:08:21. > :08:25.tragedy story, about the aftermath of a war,
:08:26. > :08:28.that sort of stuff. But he reduces it to
:08:29. > :08:31.personal level. Terrific performances. You can see from this
:08:32. > :08:36.beautifully off`kilter compositions, Austria,
:08:37. > :08:40.yet there is one thing there. There is real human compassion in there. I
:08:41. > :08:43.also thought there was a spirituality in
:08:44. > :08:48.other critics have perhaps not found.
:08:49. > :08:53.where you can decide for yourself to take away from it. It not didactic.
:08:54. > :08:59.Just looking at these clips you are a film set in the 1960s. It looks
:09:00. > :09:05.like a film shot in of the frame, and partly to do with
:09:06. > :09:11.the monochrome. like a restoration of a film made in
:09:12. > :09:16.the is really terrific watching a film
:09:17. > :09:22.shot in white, in an age when everything is
:09:23. > :09:25.colour or 3`D. This has such a mesmerising, beautifully
:09:26. > :09:31.really intelligent and actually very moving. Your Best Actor this week,
:09:32. > :09:35.Pride? Yes, I love Pride. You have to say, do I love it because I agree
:09:36. > :09:43.with the politics? It is the lesbians and the game in supporting
:09:44. > :09:48.the miners. I think it is actually a film that works for anybody. I know
:09:49. > :09:53.seen it and didn't know this story, but have
:09:54. > :09:57.it. Terrific performances, many reports coming in from around the
:09:58. > :10:01.end of the screening. Mike with the King 's
:10:02. > :10:07.a really important story and it puts a smile on your face. 1984, the
:10:08. > :10:10.minor's strike, and people in the gay community don't support them.
:10:11. > :10:16.Yes, supporting the would not necessarily be that
:10:17. > :10:19.natural allies. The movie finds great comedy in that situation,
:10:20. > :10:22.it also finds pathos and truth and it is ultimately uplifting.
:10:23. > :10:24.that disparage groups joining together for a common cause.
:10:25. > :10:31.Although not successfully, in the end. Well, not in one of the common
:10:32. > :10:37.causes. You should see the film. It manages a happy ending. Your DVD,
:10:38. > :10:42.the 1920s? Cavan not of Doctor Caligari. We talked about this when
:10:43. > :10:45.it was issued in the cinema. It is now out on Blu`ray. It is an
:10:46. > :10:52.extraordinary piece of work. It is so influential. It is one of those
:10:53. > :10:55.films where you have almost seen it even if you haven't seen the film.
:10:56. > :10:58.So many images from it have become iconic. It is Expressionist, it has
:10:59. > :11:01.got this very, very start angular black and white quality. Many people
:11:02. > :11:08.have influential horror movie. I think it
:11:09. > :11:13.goes way beyond that. I think it is an influential film that
:11:14. > :11:17.the face of cinema throughout the 20th century, and into the
:11:18. > :11:19.century. And to see it in a lovely, pristine fashion is really
:11:20. > :11:21.something. It is an extraordinarily powerful piece of cinema. Mark,
:11:22. > :11:28.thank you very much. A reminder before we go that you can
:11:29. > :11:30.find more film and reviews from the BBC online, including all of our
:11:31. > :11:33.previous shows. That is this week. Thank you for
:11:34. > :11:49.watching, and goodbye. It is nearly time for the BBC News
:11:50. > :11:54.at ten. A quick reminder that at 10:30pm we will tell you which
:11:55. > :11:58.stories will be making the front pages of tomorrow's newspapers.