The Perks of being a Wallflower
Logan Lerman, Emily Watson, Ezra Miller - Dir: Stephen Chbosky

American high school coming of age stories come and go and this is a pretty good one. Shy likeable Charlie (Lerman) is the titular wallflower but finds friends in the form of Watson's self-assured free spirit Sam and her flamboyantly gay brother Patrick (Miller, as likeable here as he was alarming in We Need To Talk About Kevin). It's set in the early eighties so there's The Smiths, mix tapes, 'Heroes” and midnight sessions of Rocky Horror, along with all the exhilaration and angst of new experiences and first love.
It's funny, excitable, awkward and a little long, but it has a warm heart, giving the characters space to breath and real three-dimensional lives. This is definitely an achievement to be proud of for first time director Chbosky who adapted it from his own very popular novel. The young cast equip themselves admirably: Watson easily casting aside shadows of Hermione Granger, Miller a clear star in waiting, and particularly Lerman, who has previously underwhelmed in the likes of Percy Jackson but who steps up here with a turn of real depth and subtlety.
Add to that a killer soundtrack – though one obviously geared towards its era rather than being cutting edge – and you have a film that is reminiscent of Cameron Crowe's earlier work. And, despite his dry run recently, I mean that in the best way possible.

The Collector (2009) was written to be part of the ever-expanding Saw franchise but became a stand-alone piece of disposable torture porn. Low budget, extreme violence, of course it made money, so now we have The Collection. Let's get started... Story? Who cares. These films are about one thing only. Forget flimsy characterisations and gaping plot holes, are the deaths frequent, inventive and gory? Yes, probably and yes. From the opening party massacre it's wall to wall fetishised horror and preposterous bloody 'traps” from the leather-masked 'collector” (that's his thing). Unrelentingly unpleasant, staggeringly stupid, expect many more.

In The Fourth State Paul is a Berlin gossip columnist brought to Moscow to punch up a celebrity magazine. He hits the parties but repressive politics are all around and after witnessing the murder of a fellow journalist he foolishly prints an overly political obituary. This and a budding relationship with a cute Russian activist sees him jailed for terrorism as the full force of state paranoia comes crashing into his life. It's a taut serious thriller – in English despite its location – with a complex unfurlingaplot and good performances from the unknown Eastern European cast.

Gangster Squad cannot help but remind one of The Untouchables, though the action here isn't bootlegging Chicago but ‘50s Los Angeles and the crime reign of gangster Mickey Cohen (played with monstrous relish by Sean Penn). It's a handsome film and has a great cast (Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling et al) but somewhere in the predictable story things fail to fully click and the result is a slight feeling of anticlimax as events head towards their obvious ending. Penn alone is worth the price of admission, but it could have been so much more.

Exploitation films got their name not just because of their transgressive subject matter but because the audience would be knowingly ripped off, a few extreme scenes used as a lure amongst a tedious morass of amateur schlock. Dear God No! - , depending on your tastes) follows that tradition to the letter, looking exactly like a badly-made seventies biker flick, a masterclass in sloppy shooting and editing with poorly-dubbed sound, soft core nudity and nothing that really passes for acting. A labour of love by a bunch of good-natured Southern hoons, its (very limited) target market will love it!