Red One (4 Stars)

If you've seen the trailer, you already know that this is a stupid film. The premise is simple: Santa Claus has been kidnapped two days before Christmas, and a computer hacker is hired to find him. Silly. But with a premise like that I had to go to the cinema to see what it's all about.

I'll start by saying that "Red One" refers to Santa's sleigh, analogous to the American president's Air Force One. He's been kidnapped by Gryla the Christmas Witch. She looks much more attractive in the film than in the legends. Gryla has good intentions, in the same way that Thanos has good intentions in "Infinity War". She wants to make the world a better place. Everyone on Earth is divided into a good list and a naughty list. Santa deals gently with those on the naughty list, hoping they'll behave better next year. Gryla wants to kill everyone on the naughty list. Thanos was content with killing half of the Earth's population. So many people are on the naughty list that Gryla will kill 99% of the population, but it's all for a good cause. The remaining 1% will live in peace and harmony.

Dwayne Johnson is Santa's head of security. He's an elf, sort of. E.L.F. is the organisation that serves Santa. Enforcements, Logistics and Fortification. Referring to himself, Dwayne calls himself Extremely Large and Formidable. A subplot is that he wants to resign after 582 years of serving Santa. He feels depressed that the naughty list has grown so large.

Is "Red One" a good film? Maybe. It took me a long time to decide on its rating. It's a silly film, but it has no aspirations to be anything else. I enjoyed it in the cinema tonight. It made me laugh out loud several times, which is a plus. I expect that the critics will tear it apart. They should have a better sense of humour. I doubt I'll watch it again, but it's a film worth seeing once.

Finding Vivian Maier (5 Stars)

This is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. It unravels like a mystery.

In 2007 a young man called John Maloof bought a box of photo negatives from an auction in Chicago. His intention was to find photos for research on recent Chicago history. He was overwhelmed by what he found. The box contained thousands of photos taken by a woman called Vivian Maier. The artistic quality was exceptional. But who was Vivian Maier? He began to search for her, using written notes in the box as clues.

There were phone numbers, but in the 1950's and 1960's, when most of the photos were taken, there were no area codes, so John began to ring the numbers with random area codes, until he found the right people. She had worked as a children's nanny in various homes over the decades. The last family was still paying the rent for a storage room with her junk that they wanted to dispose of. John was allowed to take whatever he wanted. He found many more negatives, including undeveloped film rolls. Slowly he pieced together details of her life.

Throughout his search he was amazed that a woman with such talent had never attempted to sell her pictures. She was happy taking photos in secret, just for herself. She had no intention of achieving any sort of fame. She was an obsessive photographer who carried her camera with her wherever she went. She was also an obsessive collector. She kept receipts of her purchases for decades. She also collected newspapers, especially if the headlines were melodramatic murder cases. One of her employers said that her room was so full of piles of newspapers that it was difficult to walk from the door to her bed.

Despite talking to many people who knew her, John Maloof makes no claim to have figured her out. She was an aloof person who never opened up to anyone. She spoke with a fake French accent. The mystery of her life was never fully solved. But one success is that her photos have been made public. They've been displayed at art galleries. John claims that art critics have never fully recognised her, but her images have fascinated everyone who looks at them.

The website vivianmaier.com contains many examples of her photography. I'll just post this one photo, taken in 1955, that strongly appeals to me.

John states more than once that Vivian would probably have been unhappy at her photos being published after her death. They were taken for herself, not for the world to see. That's only an assumption, but it could very well be true. She probably wanted to be forgotten after her death. Whatever she intended, she's a person who deserves to be remembered, unlike today's celebrities who cling to fame.

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To Be and To Have (3 Stars)

This is a documentary about a primary school in the small French village Saint-Etienne-sur-Usson. The village's population is less than 250, so there aren't many children. If I counted correctly, there are 14 children aged from 5 to 11. They all sit in the same classroom, divided into two groups. There's one teacher in the school, Georges Lopez, who divides his time between the two groups.

In the documentary we see how he teaches the younger children how to read and write, while the older children learn arithmetic and other subjects. The film's title, "Etre et Avoir", refers to the auxiliary verbs used to form the past tense in French. In English the past is always formed with "have", for instance "We have seen a film", whereas the past is formed with two different words, and the children have to learn which one is used in each case. If you speak French, you'll know what I'm talking about.

It's a pleasant film. Quaint. It's a different world to the one most of my readers grew up in. I just feel puzzled. What was the intention of the director in making this documentary? Was it simply to show a different world? I don't know. The film is critically acclaimed and has won various awards, so the critics must understand the film better than me.

Success Rate:  + 14.1

The Great Dictator (5 Stars)

This is the November selection for the "Best Of Cinema" series, and it really qualifies for that category. Last time I watched it, in the comfort of my own home, I only gave it four stars. It deserves more. I disagree so much with my review that I feel like deleting it. I shan't give a link to it, but I realise that my regular readers know how to find it.

My main complaint about the film in the past was that the names and places are renamed. Watching it today, it doesn't bother me. It's a satire, and it's always obvious who and what the film is about. It was made in 1940, after the Second World War began, but before America joined the war. At this time there were many Americans who sympathised with Hitler and wanted America to join the war on Germany's side. We can be grateful to Japan for preventing this.

The film shows us Adomine Hynkel, the leader of the country Tomainia, which has grown strong 20 years after losing the First World War. His main policy is that he wants to eliminate the Jews. For this reason, he's gathered them into ghettos where they can be prepared for delivery to concentration camps.

Unknown to Hynkel, there's a Jewish barber who looks identical to him. The barber remains unnamed. Does he need a name? He was just a meaningless Jew, one of six million. He could have been anyone. The only thing that made him special was his similarity to Hynkel.

Most of the film is humorous. Charlie Chaplin's slapstick is brilliant. Everyone in the cinema was laughing, even though I'm certain they'd all seen the film before. It's only in the last 20 minutes that the film becomes serious. The Jewish barber is put on stage to speak to a rally, but it's no longer the Jewish barber speaking, it's Charlie Chaplin himself. After making everyone laugh, he wants the audience to listen to his message.

Best of cinema? Yes. It's included in the top 100 list of many film critics. Not in my list, sorry, but it's in my top 200.

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First Shift (2 Stars)

A new film by Uwe Boll. Didn't he retire from film making? Yes. He gave up making movies eight years ago and went into the restaurant business. At the time he said it was because he'd done it all as a director and didn't need to prove himself any more. His critics put it differently. He was frequently called the world's worst director, and they said he was running away.

But now he's back.

I walked into the cinema today with the intention of liking the film. I like Uwe Boll. I've watched most of the videos in his YouTube channel, and he's a really nice guy. Forget your prejudices, he really is a nice guy. In Germany there's an expression, "Mit ihm kann man Pferde stehlen", engl. "You can steal horses with him". It's a strange expression, but it means someone with whom you can do anything. Whatever you do will be fun, and you can rely on him whatever happens. That's how I feel about Uwe.

For this reason I'm disappointed that I have to rate the film badly. It's about the first day on the job for Angela Dutton, a rookie police officer in New York. She also has a TikTok channel, and she films herself in the police station. She's assigned as the partner of Deo Russo, a serious no-nonsense cop. The film explores their relationship to one another.

This part of the film works well. Buddy movies with unequal partners have been common over the years, and Uwe Boll does it well. What he doesn't do is make an exciting movie. As a day in the life it can be expected that the film is disjointed, but he takes it too far. The parts don't fit. Just one example: two gang members kill a man who's betrayed their boss. A short while later Deo sees them in a convenience store, and he looks at them suspiciously. That's it. They leave the store, and they never see one another again. What's the point? I agree that it's realistic. Not every crime is solved. But why include it in the film at all?

I'm hoping his next film will be better.