Claire de lune

My sister Claire and I went to see the Éric Rohmer film Les nuits de la pleine lune ("Full Moon in Paris") in Edinburgh in 1984, when it came out. I was very impressed by the quirky glamour of Pascale Ogier, the star, and her skinny chic, left bank, all-in-black style. Pascale was 10 years older than me and was immediately elevated to the category of impossible beauties whose apparenty effortless life I'd have loved to emulate (see also Béatrice Dalle). Not long after the film was released, Pascale died at the age of 25 of a heart attack caused by a drug overdose. I heard about it at the time, but so successfully did I translate this into a more romantic cause of death (a brain hemorrhage, of course) that only when I was looking for information about her this year did I rediscover the grubby truth.

I'm not sure why she came to mind but when Claire recently visited us in Melbourne we discussed this film again. Sadly, I remember very little about the plot or anyone else in it. The main thing that springs to mind when I think of the film, and of poor Pascale, is that it has gifted me with the steadfast conviction that the French can't dance. In my defence, I present the following:

At the top of the circus

The adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a remarkable film, a million miles away from the glib cynical story package that is Hugo, and hence nowhere near the running to win sheafs of Oscars (although Gary Oldman, pictured in this link in a rather disturbingly anodyne series of portraits of the nominees on the Oscars' official website, is nominated as Actor In A Leading Role; it's also up for Music (Original Score) and Writing (Adapted Screenplay). FYI, Transformers (Dark of the Moon), is also up for three).

Recent anecdotal evidence reveals twentysomethings' verdict on Blade Runner, arguably one of the best films ever made, as having been that it's "slow" and "boring". "Tinker Tailor..." stands no chance against this sort of ruthlessness: if you like your excitement packaged and delivered to you in two-minute bursts, go and see "Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol" (itself, particularly in an iMAX cinema, an incredibly enjoyable, albeit ultimately of course completely shallow, experience).

On the other hand, if you want to see beautifully restrained performances, particularly from Gary Oldman, about whom John le Carré apparently said that his whole acting life has been leading up to this role: to being able to play it with such masterful understatement, then you must see this film. You can smell the 1970s emanating from the screen. The music is essential but unobtrusive. And not a single gesture is either wasted or hysterical.

Blistering barnacles!

I have very happy memories of reading Tintin books as a child: oblivious to any anachronistic colonial undertones – which delayed the publication in English of Tintin in the Congo until 1991, and now, on re-reading, seem pretty dated – I took it all at face value and loved the stories. My attitude to Tintin himself was not dissimilar to my feelings about the hero of the other omnipresent cartoon books of my childhood, Asterix: I thought both of them were jumped up little squits, too smug for their own good, and in Tintin's case, accompanied by an insufferable little know-it-all dog which didn't even have a proper bark (wo-ah! wo-ah!).

Never mind Tintin: my favourite character was Captain Haddock, mainly on account of his endlessly inventive vocabulary of curses (of which "Bashi-bazouks!" is one of the finest), but also because of his perpetually dishevelled, frequently bemused demeanour, his constant battle with the temptations of booze, and his underlying nobility and capacity for self-sacrifice (see Tintin in Tibet, a particularly moving Tintin book in which my hero (Haddock) offers to die in order to save Tintin). It's because of apprehension about the potential depiction of Captain Haddock (a Scottish accent? I'm still mulling that one) that I find myself with mixed feelings about seeing the new performance capture film, The Adventures of Tintin (although of course I'm excited: who wouldn't be?). Frankly I couldn't care less what they do with/to Tintin; I never liked him anyway.

Look into my eye

I went to see the film Aliens when it first came out (astonishingly, this was in 1986: this film is now 25 years old). My mum was there, and my brother and sister: probably one of the last times I ever saw a film with all of them. I've always had an abiding love for sci-fi, starting with Silent Running, which made me cry real tears for those lonely little robots when I saw it at my Granny's in the 1970s; and the wonderful, mysterious 2001: A Space Odyssey, from the year I was born, which I first saw on a  family trip to Arran in 1977 just after Elvis died, in a village hall, on an antiquated reel-to-reel projector that required a change of reel half way through, to shouts, jeers and moths fluttering across the screen.

My sister's friend Cathy was obsessed with Aliens, and had gone so far as to tape it off a rented video so she could play it in her bedroom. As a result she knew the dialogue by heart. I'd just started at Glasgow University and was very homesick for Edinburgh (this lasted about 6 months, or until I met a Glasgow boy, and after that Edinburgh was dead to me), so I used to come back on the bus every weekend and arrive on a Friday night at Cathy's flat in Gilmore Place. Sharing a bottle or two of (cheap, nasty) QC sherry, Aliens on the video, me and my sister and Cathy and her sister Jackie would get drunker and drunker until we'd start on the Thunderbird (see the Wikipedia entry for "low-end fortified wine"), maybe going out dancing later; idyllic times.

The pedestal upon which I've placed Aliens is, of course, partly due to those memories; but there are a few more reasons why I'd claim that it's the Best Film Ever Made, against which all other sci-fi films must be compared and, inevitably, found wanting:

• The heroine, Ripley, is one of the few really excellent female characters ever to appear on film. She's neither sexless nor a sex object (the appalling Sucker Punch (2011)  is the antithesis of this: a borderline prurient film, where even in the midst of a lethal kick, the heroine's skirt is flying up to show her knickers) . She's someone to be taken seriously, she can carry and use a gun, she doesn't lose her head and/or scream witlessly under pressure, but she cares about the people around her. A genuine role model for women.
• The dialogue is peerless. It manages to be serious and funny and believable all at the same time: I've never seen a better encapsulation of the cameraderie between soldiers. These are people you'd want to spend time with; and you know they'd have your back.
• It hasn't aged. It's set in the future, of course, but there's nothing quaint about it, no silver foil, or over-the-top outfits, or hamfisted teleportation, or any of the other features of sci-fi that date badly in comparison with reality. Instead, the sets are utilitarian and the clothing is practical and unflashy.
• The aliens are still genuinely scary. Sci-fi films are often a disappointment from the moment the monster appears; the build-up and anticipation is better than the reality, the creatures are often all too human. H.R. Giger created a completely believable, absolutely non-human and completely other creature. A creature with concentrated acid for blood...
• It works on many different levels. As a really scary horror film; as a believable vision of the future; as both an indictment and a celebration of human behaviour; as a paean to teamwork; as a thriller; and as an action movie.

Animal magic

Animal Kingdom is a relentless, powerful and utterly compelling film - without a doubt the best thing I've seen all year. It's Shakespearean in its ambition and in the tragic arc of the story, featuring an incredible performance by first-time actor James Frecheville in the role of a young man dropped into the heart of a Melbourne criminal family which is about to be torn apart. The characters are beautifully, yet economically drawn; the cinematography is precise, the action evolves with intensity, there's humour and there's despair. Music is used sparingly but effectively, and the key actors' performances are often low key but always true. A quite incredible film which you must see at all costs.