Interesting story, but clumsily told. There are too many moments of plain stupidity on the part of characters who are supposed to know better. These moments may drive the plot forward, but they do so at the expense of credibility. And when the historical facts of Bletchley Park are so fascinating in their own right, it waters down the film’s verisimilitude. I kept wanting to see more of the background, and less of the protagonists. Dougray Scott gives an uneven performance as the troubled genius; Jeremy Northam has his sly, superior charm turned all the way up to 11, which is too high for the tone of the film; but Kate Winslet has her dowdy clerk-heroine tuned just right. Overall: it made me want to go and re-read Cryptonomicon.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this film. The first half is absolutely hilarious. It takes the chaos of a household with 12 kids, and channels all of that chaos into laughs. I roared out loud in places, and giggled madly in others. (“You soaked his underwear in meat. That is so wrong. Funny, but wrong.”) The second half of the film felt weaker and less focussed. It concentrates more on the stresses of the situation the family finds themselves in with an eye to resolving it neatly in the happy ending. It pops up a number of story lines I would like to have seen more of, but the film was just too short to look at the all. (Note to self: must watch more teen angst comedies. Also, must try to catch some Smallville.) Basically, it’s an excellent family comedy, in the same vein as Parenthood. Anyone who has survived having a toddler around the house will appreciate it.

If you can ignore the crap science (and nnnggghhhh, believe me, it takes some intense ignoring, but fortunately they get most of it out of the way at the start) this is a pretty good disaster movie. The story is nothing special (in the midst of a global superstorm, a father journeys to find his son, who is stuck in New York), but the special effects and cinematography more than make up for it. The imagery is breathtaking, and the city-scale effects are the best I’ve ever seen. The political backdrop is touchingly naive, but real-world political machinations don’t really make for a good summer blockbuster, do they?

Intense and thoughtful drama about a policeman who, on the day of his retirement, promises the mother of a murdered young girl that he will find her killer. Not a happy film by any means, but the story is powerful, and the performances from the truly stellar cast are excellent. The emotions on display are strong and raw. Almost every moment of the film is filled with some kind of pain, but it’s not a tear-jerker. It left me feeling drawn out and harrowed, yet emotionally satisfied at a fundamental level. Highly recommended, if you’re prepared for it.

Juvenile, in places very shakily acted, but really quite funny. Jason Lee’s uptight Brodie gets tiresome after a while, but he ends up sympathetic enough (especially in his support of TS’s romance) to be worth rooting for at the end. I didn’t know much about this film going into it, apart from the fact that it’s Kevin Smith’s poorly received follow-up to Clerks, which I also haven’t seen yet. I hadn’t expected it to be a romance, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are two love stories at the heart of all the comedy. Note that it’s not a “romantic comedy” in the chick-flick sense; it’s a geek comedy filled with with Star Wars and comic book references, that also happens to feature some very touching romance. Nice.