Cast: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills, Amanda Michalka, Noah Emmerich, Jessica Tuck, Joel McKinnon Miller, Andrew Miller, Jakob Miller, Jade Griffiths, Britt Flatmo, Glynn Turman, Richard T. Jones, David Gallagher, Brett Rice, Michael Giacchino, Beau Knapp, Bruce Greenwood

Written & Directed by: J.J. Abrams

Running Time: 112 minutes

Produced by Steven Spielberg and Directed by J.J. Abrams, Super 8 is a deliberate throwback to that 1980s style, which had youngsters heading off on adventures without the knowledge or approval of their parents. Those included Explorers, The Goonies and of course, E.T.  Spielberg was obviously involved in some of these films, which reflected his sensibilities of the time. As for JJ Abrams,  personally I’m yet to be convinced of any real discernible talent – he has some previous - films such as the overblown Mission Impossible III (2006) and misfired Star Trek (2009).

On Super 8 he appears to have studied heavily from Spielberg (is he actually a new thing, a director ‘tribute act’?)  He loads up the film with all kinds of clever cuts and playful angles and there are several moments in which Abrams drops in a surprise right in the middle of a line of dialogue so that the surprise is totally unexpected, rather than timed to a more appropriate moment. There are many predictable yawn-inducing Spielberg-like jokes, such as the guy wearing headphones who doesn't notice the commotion outside.

Super 8 is a well put-together film, up to a point. It looks good and moves well; it's exciting and funny in all the right places. However, if you start to think – it becomes apparent just how cursory the film really is. It really doesn't have much of a point or an emotional drive. In fact, nothing in it is new. Abrams borrows liberally from classic sources. The major theme is roughly the same as Frankenstein and a romantic subplot is inspired by Romeo and Juliet. Yet there's no joy or appreciation in these themes. Abrams simply uses them as if he invented them.

The story takes place in 1979, with serious overkill on the era-appropriate pop culture references. The hero of the movie is Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney). Joe's best friend is Charles (Riley Griffiths), who wants to make Super 8 zombie movies and enter them in a film festival. (For those born in the digital age, Super 8 was a format of motion picture film that was 8 mm wide. It was an improvement over regular 8mm film in that the sprocket holes were smaller, giving more room for the image and sound stripe. It was a fairly cheap format that people could use around the house.) Joe is a nice kid who does make-up and sound, and lets fat Charles push him around. The rest of the gang consists of Cary (Ryan Lee), who wears giant braces and likes to blow things up; Martin (Gabriel Basso), the star of their film and who isn't too bright; and Preston (Zach Mills). Thanks to Charles' pushier qualities, he manages to get pretty Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning) into the gang as well.

While shooting a scene in the middle of the night, the kids witness a massive train crash and strange things begin to happen. Meanwhile, Alice and Joe hit it off immediately, but they're not supposed to see each other, due to an accident at the local steel mill that involved Joe's late mum and Alice's dad (Ron Eldard). Joe's dad (Kyle Chandler) is busy being in charge of the town when the sheriff disappears.

Abrams doesn't strike me as a natural born filmmaker; he seems to be more like for example Michael Bay who presumably went into filmmaking as a business opportunity. Abrams figures out easily-defined personality quirks for his characters, and rarely budges from them. Characters that are set up to oppose one another don't get the chance, and even the bad guys don't accomplish much beyond sneering. What little behaviour there is takes place before and after - but never during - giant-sized action scenes like the train crash, which plows into a truck and somehow train carriages are being thrown sky-high in every direction, exploding like popcorn. Totally ridiculous – but that's more Abrams' speed.

This technique is the opposite of someone like Spielberg, or someone like Joe Dante, who directed Explorers (1985), and hasn't had a film distributed since 2003; Dante would have been a much better choice to handle Super 8. He fundamentally understands the concept of a film-obsessed youngster and the absurdity of a creature on the loose, and how the two are connected. For Dante, the process would be organic, for Abrams, it's just inevitable.

Written and Directed by Terrence Malick

Cast: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Fiona Shaw, Jackson Hurst, Jessica Chastain, Crystal Mantecon

Running time: 2hrs 18mins

When the word "epic" is used in reference to a film nowadays, it is usually meant to describe a film filled to the brim with insane action sequences, over-the-top special effects or star-studded casts merely appearing in order to collect a fat pay-packet.

Although "The Tree of Life," the latest effort from acclaimed filmmaker Terrence Malick (his first since 2005's "The New World" and only his fifth to date in a career that has spanned nearly 40 years) contains a couple of big-name stars and one extended special effects sequence destined to be talked for years to come, it is an epic of ideas and ambition of a scale rarely seen in cinema. Instead of a straightforward narrative with easily deciphered themes aimed at the broadest audience possible, the film is a haunting and often mystifying cinematic tone poem dealing with the biggest and most basic questions about life and death on a canvas that stretches from the beginning of the universe to mid-1950's Texas and beyond in ways that are both personal and abstract in equal measure. The end result is a one-of-a-kind work that is certain to sharply divide audiences between those who will feel that it is a flat-out masterpiece from the first frame to the last and those who will find it an unbearably pretentious 138-minute-long self indulgence from a director who has managed to convince his acolytes that any film by him is inherently profound and meaningful if it is filled with groovy pictures, fuzzy-minded philosophising and a narrative that could be summed up on a postcard with plenty of leftover space on which to doodle during the boring parts. While I suspect that the majority of the contemporary cinemagoing audience will fall into the latter category - assuming that they would even bother to see it in the first place - I am definitely in the former for if there is any recent film that deserves to be called an instant masterpiece, it is this one, an audacious and powerful work that is aesthetically gorgeous, thematically fascinating and emotionally devastating in equal measure and which not only lives up to the intense expectations that it has generated during its long gestation period, it manages to exceed them.

Disregarding conventional narrative structure right from the start, "The Tree of Life" offers up an impressionistic series of images that sets up the basic underlying philosophical principle - that every facet of life is the subject of a never-ending battle between the harsh cruelty of nature and the loving and forgiving way of grace.

It offers a few brief looks at the life of central character Jack O'Brien from his days as a young boy growing up in a small Texas town in the mid-1950's (where he is played by Hunter McCracken) and in contemporary times (where he is played by Sean Penn) where he is a successful Houston architect still haunted by those long-ago days, particularly by the tragic death of one of his two younger brothers. This goes on for approximately the entire first reel and at this point, Malick goes all out with an extended sequence that takes viewers back to chronicle nothing less than the dawn of time itself in a series of extraordinary images (for which Malick enlisted the aid of special effects legend Douglas Trumbull as visual consultant) ranging from a nebula expanding in deepest space and cells multiplying to primordial ooze to the brief appearances of a couple of dinosaurs. Although one could theoretically debate its usefulness in regards to the rest of the story, it is a stunning and rapturously beautiful stretch of pure filmmaking and if the rumours that Malick is working on an extended version of the sequence to play as a stand-alone film in IMAX cinemas, I for one will be first in the queue to check it out.

From the infinite, the film settles back into the comparatively mundane, if no less confusing and potentially volatile, existence of the 10-year-old Jack, his younger brothers R.L. (Laramie Eppler) and Steve (Tye Sheridan) and his otherwise unnamed father (Brad Pitt) and mother (Jessica Chastain). It soon becomes clear that Jack's parents are meant to represent the aforementioned struggle between nature and grace for his very existence - his dad (or “Father” and "Sir" as he insists on being addressed), a would-be musician who instead settled for a life as an engineer and whose only outlet for his former artistic dreams come via playing the organ in church, is a stern taskmaster who loves his children but who is nevertheless strict and unyielding with them because of his belief that doing so will properly prepare them for life in the real world. All this while his mother strives to demonstrate that the world can also be filled with beauty and peace for those willing and able to open themselves up to it.

As time passes by, Jack and his brothers play around in the neighbourhood and begin to get their first intimations of sex (via a piece of lingerie stolen from a neighbour's house), race (a visit to a barbecue outlet that offers up to reveal a glimpse of African-Americans - and death, both small (a thoughtless bit of childish cruelty involving a frog and some spare fireworks) and large (a death at a local pool that harshly reveals that the seemingly all-knowing and all-perfect adults are, in the end, just ordinary people in the end). Eventually, a battle of wills begins to develop between Jack and his father - although he most likely doesn't quite realise it at that point, Jack is clearly afraid that he will one day grow up to be like his father at his worst moments. Ironically, there are times in which Jack's father seems to have precisely the same fear but lacks the ability to change the behaviour that has been ingrained in him since he himself was a child.

Malick himself grew up in Texas in the mid-1950's and also had a younger brother who died at an early age but even if you were to see "The Tree of Life" without knowing those details, you would still achieve the sense that he was working with material this time around that he connected with on a far more personal level than in the past. While his earlier films -"Badlands," "Days of Heaven," "The Thin Red Line" and "The New World” have all used the eternal conflict of nature vs. grace as their jumping-off points, this is the first time that Malick has deployed them in the service of a story that didn't also have a solid foundation based either in history. "Badlands" was inspired by the deadly rampage of Charles Starkweather in the 1950's and "The New World" offered up an intriguing look at the story of Pocahontas). Literature was served by "Days of Heaven"- a riff on Henry James' "The Wings of the Dove" while "The Thin Red Line" was an adaptation of James Jones' best-selling novel about the battle of Guadalcanal that also served as a distancing element.

As a result, there is a sense of absolute authenticity to this story that is so palpable throughout that even those who weren't raised at the same time under the same circumstances will nevertheless find themselves taken back to similar moments from their own childhoods, a time when ordinary play could suddenly develop into moments of pure joy or terror depending on the circumstances, and when a family dinner could erupt into frightening chaos on the basis of a single word or gesture. It all culminates in a stunning silent final tableau in which all the characters reunite on a desolate beach that presumably is meant to represent the afterlife. I cannot fully explain what Malick is going for in these final images and am not even entirely sure that he himself fully knows.

However, this isn't simply another tale of a poor innocent child being raised by a cruel and heartless father and an angelic mother. Malick is far too smart for that and instead provides us with characters that are more complex and relatable as a result. You may feel that the father was little more than an abusive brute but that really is not the case. Yes, there are moments when he flies off the handle in a terrifying manner towards both his children and his wife and yes, there are times when his approach to parenting has an unnecessarily harsh edge, such as when he teaches Jack to punch him in the face or simply asks him "Do you love your father?"- the required answer, of course, being "Yes, sir!"

At the same time, it is clear that he does love his wife and children and deeply regrets some of his actions - at one key moment, he even confesses his flaws by admitting "I dishonoured it all and didn't notice the glory." For his part, Jack grows to recognise his father not as a god or as a monster but as an ordinary person with ordinary foibles and when he hears his father's aforementioned admission, his response is one that is surprisingly empathic without relying on cheap sentiment or an unlikely burst of forgiveness to move things along. As for the mother, she is largely presented as an ethereal and saint-like creature devoted to balancing out her husband's harshness with unlimited peace, love and devotion (an extended idyll between her and her children while Father is away on business is painted in sublime and blissful terms, but at the same time, there is the sense that she sticks with her husband even through his dark moments because he is able to provide the necessary sense of discipline that she is constitutionally unable to provide herself.

When the films of Terrence Malick are written about or discussed, they are usually done so from the perspective that he is the ultimate star of them and with the possible exception of "Badlands," they are rarely examined from an acting perspective. This is a shame because over the course of his five films, Malick has demonstrated an unusually keen method of working with actors and that is certainly the case here. Although they have often been overlooked because of his looks and personal life, Brad Pitt does have considerable acting chops at his disposal and deploys them here in an alternately touching and frightening performance that is one of the very best things that he has ever done - instead of giving us just another variation of the stern taskmaster cliche, he manages to humanise the character in ways that make his actions both scary and strangely understandable given his circumstances.

As the mother, newcomer Jessica Chastain faces the challenge of working with a part that has less on-screen dialogue than any lead female role in a major film this side of "The Piano" but she too manages to create an indelible impression that should help supercharge her blossoming career. However, the true star of the film is Hunter McCracken as the young Jack and in a role that is far more complex and nuanced than the type usually given to child actors and it is the highest compliment that I can think of to say that whenever he is on the screen, which is more often than not, there is never the sense that you are seeing any "acting" per se-- he instead comes across just as a normal young boy, the kind you might have had as a pal with in your own childhood.

As the older version of Jack, Sean Penn is barely in the finished film - I suspect there was a great deal more footage of him that was banished to the cutting room floor as Malick reshaped things in the editing room - and if he ultimately doesn't make the same kind of impact as his fellow cast-mates, he does offer a brief and effective sketch of a man who is paradoxically torn between his conflicting childhood memories and his realisation that he can never go back to those seemingly simple times again.

To be honest, "The Tree of Life" is probably not the ideal introduction to the cinema of Terrence Malick and those whose have failed to respond to his earlier efforts are unlikely to have some kind of epiphany regarding his genius this time around - there are points in which Malick's predilection for multiple voiceover narrations laid over seemingly related visuals (all gorgeously shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, a clear front-runner for this year's Best Cinematography Oscar) seem to be teetering on the border of self-parody and the lack of a conventional narrative structure will probably send viewers expecting a conventional Brad Pitt drama running for the aisles by the mid-way point.

However, for those who are Malick fans or those who still cling to the stubborn belief that cinema can do so much more, this film will come as both a relief and a revelation. Like Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," one of the very few films in comparison, in terms of its ambition, scope and complete refusal to play by the rules of conventional cinema, this is a work destined to be analysed and argued over for as long as people are still around to do such things and after today's box-office behemoths have long since been forgotten.

Cast: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin
Screenplay: Kyle Killen
Director: Jodie Foster
Running Time:  1hr 31mins

For some people, depression isn’t just a bad mood or an off day, it is as debilitating as a disease, and it can kill. One such man is Walter Black (Mel Gibson), and the unusual way that he survives his affliction is chronicled in Jodie Foster’s fascinating, memorable and highly accomplished “The Beaver.”

Cinemagoers should not let the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s personal life affect the way they approach this film, but as US audiences have already shown by the film’s slow box office, many have taken the tabloid excesses to heart and have stayed away from the screens. Of course, watching a fictional character battle serious personal demons, knowing that the actor who plays that character also has a few issues of his own, adds an unintentional layer to the film but “The Beaver” would be a strong piece of dramatic work regardless of the tabloid coverage of its star. This is a daring drama, a true risk for everyone involved that pays off with an emotionally rewarding piece about mental illness, family ties, and turning points.

It would be easy to falsely label “The Beaver” purely based on its title. A surprising number of people have refused to look deeper to see that this is a story not solely about its title character. This is a tale of two men at turning points — the older one questioning whether or not he has the strength to go on and a younger one who has long held a desire to break away completely from his family. With incredibly strong performances throughout and complex tone management by its multi-talented director, “The Beaver” is an interesting and rewarding film, well worthy of your attention.

Gibson stars as Walter Black, a man in such a deep pit of depression that it has completely torn his life apart. He does nothing but sleep and cry. His family has tried for years to save him, but they have realised that they must leave him or kick him out of the house in order to save their own sanity - which is precisely what his wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) has done. His youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) has become quiet while his oldest son Porter (Anton Yelchin) spends his time keeping track of the similarities between himself and his father, that he hopes to eradicate before leaving for good.

Walter tries to kill himself one night but fails. He awakens to what feels almost like a dream state in which he speaks to a stuffed beaver that he has found in a skip earlier that evening. The beaver has a voice applied by Gibson, in an at-times slightly faltering-into-Aussie, ‘sarf London’ accent, technically advised by “Edge Of Darkness" chum Ray Winstone. Through the stuffed puppet, Walter expresses things he never could, almost serving as a split personality that pushes him back to the surface of normality as he becomes closer to his wife and his young son, but Porter remains distant.

Meanwhile, Porter spends his days writing papers for classmates for money. When Norah (Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence of “Winter’s Bone”) asks him to write her speech, Porter becomes closer to the prettiest girl in the class. As romance blossoms between the two people who would seem to be from different sides of the tracks, they realise they both have family issues yet to be reconciled.

Both Yelchin and Lawrence are excellent, as is Foster, but this is Gibson’s film by a mile. He is stunningly good and has arguably never been better. Additionally, the strength of the performance is in the subtle moments, not in the broader ones. The puppet stuff is good, but it’s when the beaver stops talking and we can see Walter’s wheels turning, his emotions shifting and changing, that Gibson truly shines. It’s in the way he can’t make eye contact when the beaver isn’t talking or how he stares off into the distance as if his soul has been crushed. There have been many portrayals of depression in film. This is one of the best.

Foster’s subtle direction of a very complex piece tonally should also be applauded. “The Beaver” could have been broad farce or depressing melodrama. It is neither. It balances the ridiculousness of its central concept by grounding the actions of its characters in realism. Foster turns out to have been the perfect fit, as she clearly valued telling a genuine story of human relations above anything else.

There are elements of scriptwriter Kyle Killen’s final act that bothered me however. Without spoiling anything, Walter’s stuffed crutch becomes a major part of his work life and that part of the story doesn’t feel quite right or even necessary. I was much more interested in his home life. And Killen almost writes himself into a corner with a story that can’t be wrapped up tidily, as though he needs something of an optimistic ending to warrant the viewer’s time. He falters on the highly sentimental ending.

However, this is a film that will challenge your expectations. It challenges what you think of its star and how far you’re willing to go emotionally with a film about a man talking to his hand.