A Kid Like Jake

Jake is the only child of professional parents in the suburbs of New York City. He's five and his parents are looking for a primary school for him. The kind of primary school they'd like to send him to probably costs more than they can afford, and only takes a limited number of children anyway, so it's quite a source of anxiety.

One of the significant things about Jake is that he's quite effeminate for a small boy. He likes to dress up, has moderately long hair and likes pastel colours and movies about unicorns. His kindergarten principal suggests that his parents should emphasize this in their primary school applications, since schools like to think they're accepting a diverse range of students and that he might even get a scholarship as a token gender-diverse child.

A Kid Like Jake is about his parents response to this idea and the effect that this has on their relationship with each other, their friends and with Jake.The dilemma of how much emphasis to put on an aspect of your child's personality and identity is portrayed convincingly and is easy to relate to. Life can always throw something at you that you weren't expecting and it's interesting to see a couple dealing with the unexpected.It's quite a talky movie but it is entertaining and it's nice to look at, especially since Jake's parents are played by Claire Danes (Alex) and Jim Parsons (Greg). And although Alex and Greg don't agree on everything, it's not at all harrowing to watch.

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 2.5/5

Three Identical Strangers

A good documentary should tell you stuff you didn't know and be engaging while it does it. This film has a pretty interesting premise,  triplets separated at birth who grew up not knowing they were triplets, who meet at the age of nineteen.

Once this basic scenario has been played out, the story just gets more interesting. It becomes apparent that the adoption agency hid the fact that these children were triplets from their adoptive parents. I won't go into the reasons now, because you may wish to watch the movie yourself, but it's fair to say that your jaw will be on the floor quite often.

We meet the two surviving triplets, and many of their friends and relatives. We meet people who worked for the adoption agency (which specialised in Jewish babies) and child psychologists and researchers.

Adoption is much rarer in the twenty-first century than it was in the nineteen-sixties, at least in the western world and is much more regulated and transparent. Once you've watched this movie you'll probably think this is a good thing.

Anne's rating 3.5/5

American Animals

Psychologist Nigel Latta says "teenagers are not right in the head" and this is especially true of teenage boys. American Animals gives you an idea what it would be like if, instead of driving their cars too fast, or drinking too much and doing something foolish, some teenagers you know decide to steal some very valuable books from their university library, sell them on the black market and make millions.It's a  hybrid of a morality tale, a tale of an elaborate uni student prank, and a bank-robbery film. 

A dramatic reconstruction of the events performed by actors is interspersed with the real-life perpetrators recounting what happened and the real-life parents recounting how they felt about it.They're well-presented and articulate and still relatively young (early thirties) and so the story has a kind of gruesome fascination - the archetypal American student goes bad. They did succeed in stealing the books but were later apprehended and served prison sentences as a reuslt. They are universally penitent and I guess the film is to show you that not all crime is committed by hardened criminals and people from under-privileged backgrounds - sometimes it's committed by misguided ordinary people who crave excitement, who have doubts while they're doing it and planning it and feel almost instantaneous regret.

At times American Animals has the feel of a movie that you'd be shown at high school to put you off committing crime but fortunately the entertainment value is greater than that.

Anne's rating 3/5 Victoria's rating 3/5

Dina

Dina is a love story. It features Dina and Scott, who both have Autism Spectrum disorder and are engaged to be married. They met at a support group for "neurologically diverse adults". They have a loving and supportive relationship but Scott has issues with physical affection. Dina is keen for their marriage to involve sex and the film is documents the period leading up to their wedding in which she attempts to make that likely.

Refreshingly (and perhaps slightly surprising for people with a condition that can inhibit communication) is how articulate Scott and Dina are. They describe their disabilities fluently and acknowledge the problem they're trying to solve.

Also refreshing is that the America that Dina and Scott inhabit isn't the one we see on most American TV programmes. They don't live in large house with a lawn and they don't drive an SUV. Dina lives in an upper storey apartment in a building on the corner of busy intersection. She and Scott travel on public transport .  Dina is on a disability benefit and Scott works at Walmart and lives with his parents in a home that wouldn't be out of place on a TV programme about hoarding. Their wedding takes place in a diner which is still open for other business.

You can't help but compare Dina to the Big Bang Theory, which has Amy and Sheldon's relationship as one of its main plot lines. They both have PhDs and work at Caltech, and Sheldon has major issues with physical intimacy. Amy wants a full-on sexual relationship, and both she and Sheldon are very articulate.

Watching the Big Bang Theory is probably more entertaining but watching Dina is (inevitably) more realistic.  The film shows the humour in Dina and Scott's situation without being patronising, or providing a fairy-tale ending.

Anne's rating 2.5/5

Wind River

Wind River is a thriller, a western set in the snow, a detective story, a morality tale, a slice of life on an Indian reservation and an examination of life and death. It packs a huge emotional punch. It's the best film of the festival so far, but it does involve a rape which is not only unpleasant but does have terrible consequences and the contrast between how the victim's evening started and how it ended is particularly stark.

Set on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, the story revolves around Cory Lambert, a local hunter, who discovers a  young native american woman's body in the snow and Jane Banner, the FBI agent who is called in from Nevada to investigate. It's quickly  apparent that the woman was raped not long before her death. Aided only by one of the reservation police, Jane asks Cory to help investigate, and he does.

The process of solving the case showcases life on the reservation. We meet the victim's family, we see the local drug culture and we see the oil rig that her boyfriend worked on. We meet Cory's ex-wife  (also a Native American)  and we learn that they had a daughter who died in her teens. We learn about surviving  harsh weather,   a violent culture and grief.

Like a good Western, there are some impressive and shocking gun battles. And like in a good Western, the baddies get their come-uppances delivered with panache, but not with malice. The survivors are scarred emotionally and physically but they remember to be kind.  The relationship between the hunter and the FBI agent is positive and generous. And as the credits roll, we're reminded that many native american woman aren't even reported missing, let alone have the crimes committed against them investigated and punished.

Anne's rating 4.5/5 Ian's rating 3.5/5

Tragedy Girls

In any horror film, you need a good premise for all the blood and mayhem. Often American films only seem to require a country location and an old house but Tragedy Girls is a little more imaginative and gives a high school movie (with the requisite corridors lined with lockers, cheerleaders and a prom)  more than a touch of blood and guts. Teenagers are renowned for being self-centred, and more obsessed with social media than the rest of the planet and the central characters of  the movie (McKayla and Sadie) take these characteristics to sociopathic levels. A couple of grisly murders in their small town inspires them to start a blog called Tragedy Girls but soon they feel compelled to create more fodder for their blog - firstly by capturing the murderer and putting him to work, and later committing some murders themselves. Improbably, they don't get caught and neither do they appear to have any twinges of conscience.

As you'll have guessed, this isn't a movie that wants to be taken seriously, and the makers have played with (and added to) some classic movie tropes. There's a particularly imaginative murder in the school workshop, with circular saws and hoist chains that bring James Bond movies to mind. The girl who discovers the body drops her takeaway coffee and the coffee mixes artistically with the blood on the floor. Another murder takes place in the gym where Mykayla manages to kill one of the town s firefighters who's at least twice her size.

At one point, Sadie starts dating the local sheriff's son, and it seems like she might be putting him first and giving up her evil ways, but her relationship with Mykayla wins out and the boyfriend and most of their high school class comes to a grisly end. Watch the film, and find out how.

Anne's rating 3/5 Ian's rating 3/5

Argo

Although I created the draft for this post after we saw Argo, I find myself writing most of it three years later. Unusually, my recall of the film is good, and I remember how it made me feel, which seems like the hallmark of a good film or at least a memorable one

Argo tells a story based on actual events. In November 1979 the US Embassy is over-run and occupied by revolutionaries and the embassy staff is taken hostage. Six of the staff manage to escape, and are given refuge at the Canadian Ambassador's residence. The American Government and the CIA come up with an elaborate plan to rescue them, and the execution of the plan takes  up the rest of the movie.

Ben Affleck plays Tony Mendez, (the hero), the CIA exfiltration (isn't that a great word?) specialist who comes up with idea of giving the the six escapees a new identity - Canadian film makers who are scouting for locations for a science fiction film. Given the go ahead ("of the bad ideas we've had for this mission this is the best bad idea") he recruits some help in Hollywood to give the fake film some substance, including a script.John Goodman and Alan Arkin feature is this part of Argo, and it's pretty funny.

Armed with the script, Tony sets of for Iran and meets the six Americans and explains his plan Understandably, they're a bit dubious but realising their options are limited they agree to participate. They go out into the city, ostensibly as film crew which is a pretty tense outing but not as tense as the day they attempt to leave the country on a commercial flight. My knowledge of the original incident was sketchy but I was pretty.sure the hostages made it out of Iran. This didn't stop the edge-of-seat-tension watching the scenes at  the airport, particularly when the immigration officials attempt to ring the film's headquarters in Los Angeles.

Argo is a great watch - absorbing, exciting and very, very tense.  It did a very good job of illustrating what it would be like to be in a building that was being besieged. It also illustrates why you should have a shredder that shredder that shreds into short bits and not long reconstruct-able strands.It seems like the kind of film that should win a best picture award, and it it did.

Anne's rating 4/5

Equity

Equity is a Wall-Street Drama with men in sharp suits and women in tight black outfits and high heels.Anna Gunn (who I know and love from Breaking Bad) plays an investment banker named Naomi, She manages Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) which involves finding institutional investors for privately held companies that are about to list on the stock exchange in order to guarantee a healthy initial share price. She's a very driven character who is under a slight cloud because the most recent of her IPOs didn't go very well. Her lover (Michael) works in a different part of the same bank, and he mingles socially with hedge-fund high flyers who are always looking for the next tit-bit of insider information.

The film is about the latest IPO, for a social media company called Cachet, Naomi and her underpaid and slightly resentful assistant Erin secure the contract and jet-set about the place looking for investors. Meanwhile, back in New York  Samantha (an old friend of Naomi's who works for the district attorney's office investigating white collar crime) is trying to dig dirt on Naomi's lover and a disaffected Cachet employee is trying to cause some trouble for the company's reputation.

So the action is all very tense and all very Wall Street. There lots of cab-catching, cocktail drinking, meetings in flash offices and watching graphs on computer screens. There's bossing people about and fishing for information. There's betrayal and undermining and each woman ( or man) is out for her or himself.

One of the things the film is trying to tell us is that no woman is an island. You can work hard, and make sure never to talk about your work to the wrong person, and keep all your passwords secure but because you don't work by yourself your co-worker failing to do all those things can cause you a big problem. And so can your customer not liking your manner or your clothes.Clothes did seem quite important. It struck me that on Wall Street men definitely get to wear the more comfortable clothes and that perhaps the next drama needs to feature someone who is both ugly and badly dressed

It was interesting seeing a drama of this kind where most of the major characters were women.   I felt we were being asked to look at the personal cost of this kind of career for women in a way we wouldn't have been asked if the major characters were men.

Equity is as much about the people as it is about the plot, so the viewer has to like the human interest angle. And since the human interest and human interaction is done really well, it's a pretty good watch,

Anne's rating 3.5/5

The Misfits

The Misfits has all (or at least a lot) of the characteristics of a traditional Hollywood movie - made by one of the big studios (MGM), filmed not that far from Hollywood with some great western scenery, and featuring some very famous and good-looking stars. It has extra cachet because it's the last movie starring either Marilyn Monroe or Clarke Gable.

Viewed in the twenty-first century we can boggle at the drunk driving, the lingering shots on Marilyn's bottom, the animal cruelty and men who'll suggest a relationship shortly after meeting a woman for the first time. And yet the process of two people who are attracted to each other trying to work out how to assimilate and adapt to each other's opinions and lifestyle is a pretty timeless one, and it's what gives the movie its heart and makes it worth watching fifty years later. That, and the fact it's lovely to look at.

The Misfits is maybe a little too prosaic to be called romantic, but it is a love story nonetheless.

Anne's rating 3/5. Ian's rating 3/5.

Cold in July

Imagine you're an American and you believe in your right to bear arms. One of the reasons you want to do that is to protect yourself and your family from other gun-bearers. Now imagine an intruder breaks into your home and you get out of bed and grab your gun and apprehend  the intruder in your living room. You shoot and he dies. No matter how firm your beliefs you're going to be a bit taken aback at this point and you have to process the fact that you have killed another human being. And of course you'll be wondering about the legal consequences of what you've done.

This is the scenario in the opening scenes of Cold in July. Michael C Hall plays Richard Dane as the anxious leading man. To Richard's initial relief, there seems to be very little in the way of consequences for the murder  - the police tell him the dead man is Freddy Russell who is a  known criminal  and no loss to the community. Then Richard sees a picture of Freddy Russell, and he's pretty sure the person he killed isn't

Freddy. Now the film proper kicks off - Richard goes on a kind of personal pilgrimage to work out what happened. He comes across Freddie's father who is (at first) out to revenge his son's murder, but once the body in the cemetery is unearthed and isn't Freddy he joins Richard in the pilgrimage. They recruit a private detective to help them and they go on a kind of boys road trip to solve the mystery and take retribution.

There's lots of gore and shooting in Cold in July but this film is a great watch. It kept me gripped and if I didn't exactly empathise with Richard I could understand how he felt.The 1980's setting, particularly the big cars and the aviator glasses is done superbly It's very good- humoured for such a violent film  and there seemed to be cheerful camaraderie between the the three men who are the main characters. The acting is superb - Michael Hall can definitely compete with Jesse Eisenberg when it comes to being anxious convincingly and. Don Johnson plays the private detective with just the right amount of swagger. Cold in July isn't quite as classy or quite as much fun as In Order of Disappearance with which it shares some plot similarities but it's good entertainment nonetheless.

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 3.5/5

Gravity

A few weeks ago we discovered that The Roxy Cinema in Miramar has what they call Tuppence Tuesday which means that on Tuesdays it costs a mere $10 to go to a regular movie and $14.50 to go to a 3-D one. Given that parking is free and handy and the decor is fabulous, this is really too good a deal to pass up. So we put in our multifocal one day contact lenses (so we didn't have to put 3D specs over our regular specs), drove to Miramar and bought two of the last three seats, which tells us other people feel the same way.

Gravity is a simple story - three astronauts are working on the outside of the international space station when a bunch of debris comes hurtling through space and kills one of them, damages the space station and separates the remaining two from it. The remaining two are Jack Kowalski (George Clooney) and Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and it's a pleasure to see them being like we expect George Clooney and Sandra Bullock to be (unruffled, charming and slightly self-deprecating in his case and neurotic and a bit clumsy in hers) and yet completely convincing as astronauts marooned in space. I don't mean I forgot I was watching George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, but I was completely absorbed in their plight. This simple story is both gripping and nail biting and most things that can go wrong do go wrong.

Even without the nail-biting action, Gravity is an experience that you shouldn't miss. In the same way that few of us will get to go to Antarctica, even fewer of us will get to go to space. But for 90 minutes, you'll get some idea of what that could be like. The view is sensational, and (literally) out of this world. You'll appreciate the concept of weightlessness and more particularly how there's nothing to slow you (or other things) down once you or they start moving. You'll get the sense of claustrophobia engendered by being in a space suit and breathing a limited supply of oxygen and a sense of how lonely and quiet it is hundreds of kilometres above earth. You'll flinch as space debris seemingly whizzes past your head.

Visually, Gravity is big, beautiful, surreal and spacious. And happily it's emotionally as well as visually satisfying. Movie going as it should be, I think.

Anne's rating: 4.5/5 Ian's rating: 4/5

What Maisie Knew

They say you can't choose your relatives, and if you were Maisie, the charming six-year-old at the centre of this movie, you wouldn't have chosen the parents she had. A possible alternative title for the film could have been How Not To Be a Parent. At the beginning of the film, Maisie's parents  (Suzanna the rock singer and Beale the art dealer) separate. They each fight for sole custody, but the judge comes down in favour of a shared solution. It's not clear whether each parent fought for custody to get one over on their ex or because that's what they thought a parent should do, but one suspects it was more the former than the latter. While they each appear to have affection for their child they have no desire to let looking after her interfere with their respective careers or lifestyle.

Beale solves the problem of child minding by promptly marrying Margo, the family's Scottish au pair who Maisie is already fond of. Suzanna follows suit by marrying Lincoln, an easy-going bartender. I'm sure she chose him for his good looks and temperament but it turns out he's great with kids. So then we see these train-wrecks of parents stuffing up their new relationships and completely failing to ensure Maisie's well-being. One of the most heart-wrenching scenes is Maisie being put out of a taxi by her Mother outside the bar where Lincoln works and when she gets inside we discover Lincoln isn't working that night.

So I'm sure you're wondering why you'd put yourself through watching something quite so traumatic and it's hard to encapsulate why it's such a rewarding watch. It's partly because its very much from Maisie's perspective and  very non-judgemental - we see the characters' behaviour and can form our own conclusions. It's also because the young actor who plays Maisie does such a good job. Iit's because even though she has such useless parents there are still people who care for her and look after her well and with whom she forms relationships - and it's a refreshing change for the step-parents to come out looking like the good guys.

Alexander Skarsgard (who plays Lincoln) is a ravishing as ever, and a totally appealing character to boot. You can't blame Margo for finding him more rewarding to spend time with than her monumentally selfish husband  (Steve Coogan, who's very practiced at playing bastards). As the film draws to a close, there's hope for a happier future for Maisie and the good guys.

Anne's rating 4/5.

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Bernie

Bernie is an incredible tale, which actually took place in small-town Texas in the 1990's, Bernie Tiede was the assistant funeral director in Carthage, Texas and, by all accounts was a particularly nice guy- considerate, generous and friendly. He was good at his job and good with people, especially with older women. He was a good singer and very involved with the commuunity.  In his thirties he became the live-in companion of a rich widow in her late seventies named, Marjorie Nugent,  who was almost universally described by Carthage residents as "mean".

Marjorie and Bernie travelled the world in considerable style and Majorie gave Bernie power ofattorney over her affairs. Power of attorney was the upside, the downside was that Majorie was difficult, demanding and kept Bernie on a very short leash. One day in 1996 Bernie shot Majorie, presumably out of frustration, and put her body in the deep freeze, and he wasn't found out for nine whole months. Once he was found out, very few of the residents of Carthage thought he'd actually done it, and if they did think he'd done it they didn't think he should go to jail.

Bernie the movie is cleverly structured.The re-enactment of the story is interspersed with talking heads interviews with real-life Carthage residents and with Matthew McConaughey playing the District Attorney Danny Buck. These interviews give a kind of gossipy flavour to an already incredible and gossip-worthy story which helps build the atmosphere of the film. Jack Black's great acting as Bernie helps build it further.

On one level, this is an amazing story which was well worth telling in its own right. On another level there is a whole raft of philosophical and moral questions to occupy your mind further. Is murder ok if you're provoked? Should really nice guys go to jail? If God can forgive murderers, should we do that too? Was Bernie a scheming gold-digger or did he just have a really bad day?

Once you've watched Bernie you'll feel like you need to pick your jaw up off the floor but you'll also feel like you got to know a bunch of Texans and that you've thought about some things you don't usually think about. Well worth the effort.

Anne's rating:: 4/5. Ian's Rating: 5/5

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Writing a review of a famous 1950s  movie with an even more famous star makes me a bit nervous - what is there to say that hasn't been said before? And is watching such a movie the cinematic equivalent of eating lamingtons - not something I should be promoting because it's brightly coloured,  not intellectually nourishing and it perpetuates stereotypes?

In case you haven't seen this movie (and I hadn't) or read any reviews,  I shall feel the fear and review it anyway.

Marilyn Monroe ( Lorelei) and Jane Russell ( Dorothy) play show girls who go on a boat trip to Paris to go shopping. Marilyn is engaged to a rich heir whose father is suspicious that she is only in the relationship it for the money. He sends a private detective on the voyage to look for evidence of impropriety.The US Olympic team is also on board, as is an elderly diamond mine owner. The girls make the most of the social opportunities, the detective gets some incriminating material and there are assorted mix-ups and high jinks but eventually Lorelei gets her rich man and Dorothy gets the detective.

Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe

 This is a film based on a musical so the music and dance numbers are a big feature The dancing is not as good as a Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger's move but there's plenty of shoulder wiggling good fun..It's not all Jane and Marilyn in sexy frocks -  the (male) US Olympic team doing acrobatics in flesh-coloured shorts is just as memorable. The costumes are fantastic and the stars are beautiful. The film is visually stunning - technicolor in every sense and enough bright pink and bright red to dazzle you completely. The dialogue is funny and it's clear from the outset that this is not a film to be taken seriously. I'm taking a stand and saying that watching "Gentlemen prefer Blondes" could actually be good for you - genuinely escapist entertainment with non-anorexic women looking completely fabulous  and stupidity evenly distributed between the sexes.

My rating: 4/5

Moonrise Kingdom

You could classify Moonrise Kingdom as a romantic comedy but perhaps love story is a more accurate description. It certainly has story-book elements like an over-the-top narrator who is separate to the action and fancifully dressed, and a heroine who lives in a house whose rooms don't seem to have doors, like a doll-house.

Suzy and Sam

This is a love-story between twelve-year-olds. He (Sam) is a bespectacled state ward who's attending a scout summer camp on an island in New England. She (Suzy) is the slightly difficult oldest daughter of unusual parents who reside on the island in the multi-storey dollhouse. Having hatched a plan by mail (this story is set in 1965), they run away , which could alternatively be described as going camping together without permission. He brings a backpack containing sensible stuff like cookware and a tent and she brings her pet cat,   a portable record player and a suitcase containing half a dozen books.

They are pursued by the scout troop and the first time they're discovered there's a battle involving bows and arrows and scissors and they escape. The second time they're camping on the beach and the search party includes Suzy's parents, the island's only cop  and the scout master, all of whom are larger than life characters. In one of my favourite scenes, one of the adult lifts the tent and 2 young people in their underwear are revealed to the adults and an entire scout troop.

As a result of Sam's misdemeanours, his foster parents refuse to have him back which means the naughty boys home is probably the next destination for him and Suzy is taken home in disgrace. Luckily, this is not the end. The Scout troop comes to the rescue and reunites the couple and a mad-cap day ensues with a wedding, a lightning strike, a big storm, and a lady from Social Services arriving on the island. Like any good story it all turns out well in the end, but you'll have to go and watch to see how that pans out.

There's lots to like in this film. All the actors (adults and children) are great, and endearing for the most part. Suzy's parents often communicate by megaphone since they're often on different floors. Sam and Suzy don't fight. The scout master wakes up one morning to find ALL  his scouts missing. Sam and Suzy dance on the beach in their undies. It looks pretty and since all the action takes place over a couple of days it's fast-paced. And it's novel - when was the last time you saw a love story between twelve-year-olds?

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 4/5

Terri

Terri the movie is named after its hero - Terri the teenage oddball, who is overweight and often wears pajamas to school. He's the object of low-level ridicule. He lives with his Uncle, who is an only marginally functional care-giver, who appears to be addicted to prescription drugs. Often its Terri who is doing the caregiving which means he's often late to school.

The other major character in the movie is the Assistant Principal at Terri's school. He's called Mr Fitzgerald and he keeps a kindly eye on the oddball and behaviourally-challenged pupils, partly because its his job, but partly because he was (is?) an oddball himself. These pupils get a weekly interview with Mr F, and so we get to know them and him quite well. Mr F is played by John C Reilly, who also starred in Cyrus

Terri befriends two other "problem" students - Chad, who pulls his own hair out and Heather, who almost got suspended for (arguably unwilling) participation in sexual activity in Home Economics class. Their interaction with each other and Mr F is funny and heartwarming but ultimately not that much happens.

Terri felt like the opening episode of a TV series - it did some exposition and we got to know and like everyone and now we're looking forward to the next episode and finding out what happens. Sadly, there is no more - its a film and not a TV series - and so despite great acting and great characters it was somewhat unsatisfying.

Anne's rating 2.5/5

Sons of Perdition

If you're in need of a movie to make you grateful for your upbringing, Sons of Perdition is a good one. It features three teenage boys who are escapees from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) community in Colorado City. The FLDS are a sect that still practice polygamy so there's not really room for too many adult males. It treats women as chattels, undisciplined men as expendable and children as a free source of labour. Growing up in Colorado City means no TV, no pop music, no toys, not much education, an ingrained belief that you'll be going to hell if you leave the community but also lots and lots of brothers and sisters and a deep sense of family. And a much closer relationship with your mother than your father, because you don't have to share her with quite so many others.

Escapees tend to move to St George, a nearby city, where there is a remarkable degree of support from other past escapees. It seems if you've grown up with 13 siblings, you don't find putting three teenage boys in your spare bedroom too perturbing. Life doesn't run especially smoothly for our three featured boys - Sam, Bruce and Joe. They move house often, struggle with trying to enrol in high school without birth certificates, dabble in drink and drugs and succeed in liberating some of their siblings only to have them returned to Colorado City.

It's a really interesting story. Lack of education is a downside for the boys, but on the upside they have amazing practical skills and work ethic and they're really unattached to things. For people who have been told what to do all their lives, they're amazingly unresentful.I'm hopeful they'll go far. I am a bit disappointed in retrospect that the fact that expulsion is really common for boys didn't feature more and very little time was spent on why these particular boys left, whether there was any compulsion and whether they grew up expecting to leave. It was obvious that the families made much more effort to try and retrieve escaped daughters than they did sons.

Sons of Perdition wasn't quite as gripping as Hot Coffee but does expose you to an area of the US you may not have seen before and slice of society you're unlikely to have had anything to do with. It's worth a look.

Anne's rating 3/5

Hot Coffee

This talking heads doco looks at the influence of big business on the civil justice system in the US, and the lengths that big business will go to to erode individual rights, and to influence both the nation's politicians and the judiciary.

This is New Zealand, not America, but even here we buy into the concept that Americans sue big companies at the drop of a hat and for the flimsiest of excuses. Once you've watched this documentary, you won't be so sure. Hot Coffee will ensure you never use the phrase "frivolous lawsuit" unthinkingly again. And you'll reflect that if you received a dollar for every time a republican politician used that phrase, you'd be quite rich by now.

Hot Coffee is named after a world-famous-in-America case where an elderly lady in New Mexico named Stella Liebeck sued Macdonalds after being burned by their coffee. Stella has become a poster girl for the ultimate in frivolous lawsuits, but only because spin doctors have made her so. Hot Coffee the movie examines this case and three others and shows how the concept of the frivolous lawsuit has been used to sanitize some outrageous miscarriages of justice. You'll learn about tort reform, big business "buying" the outcomes of judicial state elections, mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts (and what's wrong with that) and about how republican politicians have been lobbied so effectively that they'll parrot the Chamber of Commerce's line on tort reform over and over again. And the best part is, you'll be engrossed, educated and probably outraged so your time in the theatre will fly by.

My new fact for the week is that the American Medical Association is a member the Chamber of Commerce. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - Medicine is big business after all.

Anne's rating 4/5

Cyrus

Boy meets Girl and Girl's parents don't approve is a familiar romantic theme, all the way back to Romeo and Juliet. With Cyrus we have the theme reworked for the older, second-time-around crowd; divorced man meets solo mother and her son doesn't approve. Not only does he not approve, he regards his mother's new suitor as direct competition for her affections.

Cyrus is a fraught, funny and slightly painful story. John is our divorced man, a freelance editor who is overly dependent on his ex-wife for a sympathetic ear. He meets Molly, (the very attractive solo mother) at a party and they hit it off and end up in bed at his house. A relationship ensues, but John, who is not the best adjusted chap in the world, decides to follow her home one morning since he feels she may be hiding something from him. And so she is - her 21 year-old son, Cyrus. Cyrus and Molly have an unusually close relationship which seems to cross boundaries in the realms of personal space and propriety and watching John discovering this relationship is fun if slightly uncomfortable. Watching Cyrus attempt to sabotage the new romance is a similar combination of fun and discomfort.

Cyrus is played very straight (the acting is excellent) and you are left to make your own interpretation of the characters and their motivations - there are no Sex-and-the-City lunches with best mates where the characters explain what's going on in their heads. Despite the subject matter it's relatively light-hearted and ends on an up-beat note and was one of the festival's surprise pleasures

Anne's rating 3/5
Ian's rating 3/5