No
Gael Garcia Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Luis Gnecco - Dir: Pablo Larrain

No was a nominee this year for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, after previously getting the top prize in the Director's Fortnight section of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Time Out New York's movie critic called it 'the closest thing to a masterpiece that I've seen so far here in Cannes”.
That only whetted my appetite as I was already a big fan of the director's previous film Tony Manero which also combined a taut story with a character study and a searing political subtext. No does all that and more.
It is set in 1988 when brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet bowed to international pressure and agreed to a yes or no referendum on whether he should remain president for another eight years. Bernal plays Rene Saaredra, an advertising man tasked with crafting the 'no” message. The actual campaign consisted of 27 days during which each side had a fifteen minute TV slot each night. As well as finding an appealing advertising approach there were the usual problems one encounters when running a campaign against a fascist dictatorship that 'disappears” thousands of dissenters.
Filming brilliantly on unusual U-matic tape gives the film both an immediacy and a period feel while its examination of advertising in politics and ends justifying means is fiercely intelligent and gripping. Outstanding stuff.

I'm not sure the current fashion of remaking fairytales has produced anything particularly worthwhile, whether aimed at adults (Hansel and Gretel) or kids (the two recent Snow Whites). That doesn't really change with Jack The Giant Slayer which has the attraction of director Bryan Singer. He's proved he can make silly stuff sensible with the first two X-Men films but fails to bring individuality here as Jack (About a Boy's Nicholas Hoult) climbs the beanstalk to the giants' world and causes much CGI fighting. Ewan McGregor and Stanley Tucci provide charming support but it's all a bit middle of the road.

The Host is set in a post-Invasion of the Bodysnatchers society where infuriatingly benign aliens have implanted themselves inside most humans. Central is Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), whose mind fights back after being 'occupied” and who then escapes to help the mistrustful resistance. Adapting author Stephanie Meyers' follow-up to the hugely profitable Twilight franchise, Kiwi writer director Andrew Niccol uses the same minimalist approach and slick clean look as his previous In Time. It's kinda long and kinda dull, but does include the year's weirdest love 'triangle”: two life forms in one body and two guys in love with her/them.

Manborg is another exercise in ‘70s nostalgia and, instead of mining the regular grindhouse-style violence, it takes on – tongue planted firmly in cheek – something resembling sci-fi. Mankind is engulfed in the last days of the Hell Wars with evil Count Draculon and his army of alien Nazi vampires. How to fight back? The answer comes with the Robocop-like creation of Manborg, half man, half, machine, all hero! He teams up with martial arts wiz Number 1 Man, an Aussie escapee from Mad Max and his knife wielding sister. It's cheap, silly, a labour of love, and would sit quite happily at any Incredibly Strange Film Festival.

While it's always good to see Kevin Spacey's face on a DVD cover, even Spacey completists may want to think twice before indulging in Inseparable. In keeping with the recent trend towards dropping western stars into Chinese movies (to give more credibility at the Eastern box office and a possible release in the west) Spacey's turn here is totally gratuitous despite being the most fun thing in the movie. It's a rather silly and soppy story of an unhappy Chinese chap who, with the help of Spacey's eccentric 'neighbour”, becomes a low-rent superhero/crime fighter. It's been done before, and done better