THE BLING RING

Between 2008 and 2009, a group of privileged teenagers successfully robbed the homes of several high-profile celebrities in and around Calabasas, Caliafornia, including Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Lindsey Lohan. The Bling Ring, based on these events, tells the story of Marc, awkward and unsure of himself, starting at a new school, and becoming friends with Rebecca, a charismatic and beautiful teenage girl. His initial attraction to the glamour of her lifestyle and friends spirals into a dangerous obsession under her influence and encouragement. Eventually, simply worshipping from afar is not enough for their fanatical idolisation of celebrity culture, leading to some of the most daring and extraordinary thefts ever carried out.

Sofia Coppola, the director, has avoided the story's potential for commercial success by writing a slow-moving understated script and casting mostly unknown actors in the title roles. The audience is distanced from the characters emotionally: although it is implied that there are personal issues troubling many of them, they are not enlarged upon, and their actions are reported coldly, without context, so you're not allowed to become sentimental. But Coppola seems so determined to chronicle these events in a detached and muted way that it sometimes undermines the inherent excitement and drama of the story. But the film is full of a self-mocking irony that is very appealing: Emma Watson finally proves her worth delivering Coppola's most absurd lines in her cringingly earnest, monotone voice, wide-eyed and serious ('Your butt looks AWESOME'). Israel Broussard is wonderful as Marc, palpably vulnerable and self-conscious, with all the tension and desperation of an uneasy adolescence.

 

Sofia Coppola's films are not for everybody. Someone looking for drama, pacy dialogue and a gripping plotline would be disappointed by the slow-moving awkwardness of her movies. The Virgin Suicides and Lost In Translation are communicated with a chilling detachment, and yet are humming with an intense sense of tragedy and bittersweet humour. The Bling Ring does not quite achieve this, but then it is a very different film. What it does leave you with is the open-ended question: how far has celebrity culture crept into our lives? Do the images of famous people hurled at us each day give us a sense of entitlement and ownership over them? Coppola doesn't answer these questions directly, but leaves you to consider the extent to which you yourself are influenced by the world of celebrities.

LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS

Written and directed by Guy Ritchie, each sepia-tinted frame of this film is alive with blunt humour. After being cheated out of a large sum of money at a rigged card game, four friends are forced to find a way to repay the loan of a volatile gang leader. Their plan leads them to clash against debt collectors, thieves, rival gangs and weed growers, in an evermore confusing muddle of conflicting objectives, but drawing neatly to a surprisingly simple close.

The script is lively and truthful, each character compelling and well-developed, such as the briliantly well-drawn public school boys growing weed, naively ironing the fortune they have amassed note by note. There is real chemistry between the four friends, played by Dexter Fletcher, Jason Flemyng, Nick Moran and Jason Statham. Fletcher in particular captures the rough and cheeky charm that makes the movie so appealing, and Vinnie Jones puts in a forceful performance as the murderous debt collector with a soft side.

Ritchie unapologetically juxtaposes the cheeky banter of the London underworld with its shocking violence, and the outcome is humorous, well-crafted, and very clever.

THE SHINING

Enough has been written about The Shining: it has been both lauded as one of the greatest horror films of all time, as well as condemned as a silly, overstated mess.

The story is well-known. Jack Torrence takes a job as a caretaker in a hotel during winter, where his psychic son, Danny, able to see terrible visions of both the past and future, can sense the horror that is about to descend on them. Isolated, Jack succumbs to cabin fever, and is led by dark supernatural forces to violence against his family.

But The Shining, seemingly following a simple formula designed for commercial success, is in fact more complicated. Stanley Kubrick's imaginative directing lingers in the camerawork, one shot following Danny pedalling furiously on his tricycle, the noise of the wheel on wood deafening, the silence as it sails over the carpet eerily sinister. The claustrophobia is tangible. As is the feeling of utter helplessness he evokes in his shots of the enormous hotel lobby flooded in a wave of blood. How can it be cliched when it's so good?

Shelley Duvall, as Danny's mother, could not be more perfect for the role: she is so completely vulnerable and lovely that our fear on her behalf is unbearable. Jack Nicholson inhabits his character so naturally and whole-heartedly that his conviction makes the viewer almost uneasy.

There is no question that this film is a masterpiece - even Kubrick's handling of the supernatural elements avoid being heavy-handed, as he leaves it open-ended, giving the viewer the chance to decide what the hell's actually going on. He and his cast have created a film so iconic that generations have come and gone unable to produce anything even comparable.