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THE national media covering the BAFTAs seemed more concerned with actress Carey Mulligan's dress and her perfect figure than her astonishing performance in AN EDUCATION (12: EI).
She deservedly won the best actress prize for her turn as an Oxford-bound schoolgirl seduced by an older man.
But most of the headlines were for the newly blonde Mulligan's flower-print dress, which won fashion plaudits, and the 24-year-old's revelation that she fights the flab by wearing Bridget Jones-style control pants.
That's probably very interesting for many, but I would rather concentrate on her turn in writer Nick Hornby's exceptional adaptation of journalist Lynn Barber's coming-of-age memoir.
His celebration of teenage intellectual and sexual curiosity is set in pre-Swinging Sixties suburban London and follows the bitter-sweet emotional journey of a sheltered, all-things-French-loving Jenny.
She jeopardises a place in the 'city of dreaming spires' for the opportunities of the 'University of Life' offered by the witty and charming David (Peter Sarsgaard), who is twice her age.
Observant and funny (Alfred Molina's stuffy father, Rosamund Pike's bimbo socialite), director Lone Scherfig's film superbly captures the era's changing attitudes when British postwar austerity gave way to the excitement of Beatlemania.
*Director Paul Weitz's attempt to emulate the Harry Potter franchise with coming-of-age fantasy CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT (12: Universal) seems more about setting up the sequels than making a decent original.
He fails to capture any plausible magic or teen angst in his superficial treatment of the first trilogy in Darren Shan's popular book series for young adults and delivers only a clumsy mixture of botched humour and larky thrills.
Another problem is the casting of bland Chris Massoglia as small-town youth Darren, who is 16 going on immortal. The youngster unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between warring vampire factions when he becomes involved in the vaudevillian lives of a group of sideshow freaks.
On the plus side, John C. Reilly is terrific in his role as Darren's mentor, Larten Crepsley, a bloodsucker who has lost his zest for death.
Other colourful characters are played by the likes of Salma Hayek and Willem Dafoe, but the movie's new vampiric rules (powerful super spit, narcoleptic breath exhalation) prove as hokey as the special effects.
*Powerful Australian revenge thriller THE HORSEMAN (18: Kaleidoscope) is inspired by the mood and plot of movies like Get Carter and The Limey.
And like those films, which provided Michael Caine and Terence Stamp with juicy roles, it boasts a magnetic central performance.
Peter Marshall plays a bereaved father on the trail of the lowlifes who enticed his deceased daughter into a world of pornography, degradation and drugs.
Rage is etched across his face as he transforms from an ordinary Aussie bloke burdened by grief to an unforgiving avenger.
The fight action is realistic, but it's the interrogation scenes that really stay in the memory, although the methods of gaining information are definitely not for the squeamish.
*The trouble with JENNIFER'S BODY (15:Twentieth Century Fox), which combines the horror of Carrie and the humour of Heathers, is that it merely replicates the film genre it aims to satirise.
Megan Fox is cast as as a high-school super bitch whose appetite for nastiness goes over the scary scale when she starts feasting on the blood of teenage boys.
Only her geeky best friend suspects who's behind the grisly murders and races against time to stop the escalating slaughter.
Fox fails to convince as the flesh-eating femme fatale and the teen-speak dialogue is overplayed and less smart than in writer Diablo Cody's Oscar-winning screenplay for Juno.
*TOP TEN: 1 The Taking Of Pelham 123; 2 Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant; 3 Up; 4 The Time Traveler's Wife; 5 Couples Retreat; 6 The Ugly Truth; 7 Pandorum; 8 Surrogates; 9 The Invention Of Lying; 10 The Hangover. Chart supplied By Blockbuster.
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Weather for Leighton Buzzard
Wednesday 08 February 2012
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