Why put up with tat the likes of Daddy Day Care or Beverly Hills Chihuahua when there’s a treasure trove of genuinely brilliant kids’ films out there?

Let’s not be ungrateful here – for film-lovers with kids, these are heady times indeed. I’m not sure even the fond reception Fantastic Mr Fox received quite did justice to its handmade pleasures (the wolf salute alone makes me want to hug Wes Anderson and not let go). And then, of course, there’s Up, the movie that’s repeated WALL-E‘s trick of emerging as possibly the year’s finest film while being made (at least ostensibly) for an audience still doing its shoes up with Velcro. Whichever way you look at it, in the context of the careless tat parents usually have to dodge or suffer through, the autumn of 2009 has been a vintage season.

But the snag is that at some point in the future, these two gleaming moments will recede, and life for the young cinephile will return to normal. And normal is a bleak business for children’s movies in Britain, a wearying parade of the slapdash and tossed-off. Which is why it’s doubly frustrating when some of the most genuinely brilliant kids’ films ever made aren’t even available, much less as accessible and celebrated as they should be. It’s a sorry situation that brings me muttering darkly to the subject of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T.

Because here’s a film, now more than 50 years old, that deserves just as much praise as Pixar, one every bit as magical as Up, albeit far, far stranger. The only film ever scripted by Theodor Geisel (better known professionally as Dr Seuss), 5,000 Fingers is the delirious, surrealist tale of the 10-year-old Bart Collins, trapped as one of 500 enslaved child pianists toiling in the institute of the fiendish music teacher Dr Terwilliker. And trust me when I say this slim premise provides the basis for a movie that could be slipped without hesitation into a midnight triple bill between The Wizard of Oz and Mulholland Drive. At the same time, it’s the kind of children’s film kids themselves love, at once riotous fun and possessed of untold layers of psychological weirdness.

In the scowling character actor Hans Conreid’s turn as Terwilliker, we have one of the truly great movie villains. The set designs are, without fail, wildly inventive: grand off-kilter arrangements of staircases, dungeons and giant keyboards rendered in Technicolor that, as Jonathan Rosenbaum once wrote, seemed inspired equally by Busby Berkeley and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (and which now in turn call to mind Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle). And that’s before we even get to the music: the handful of instantly unshakable songs and a central set piece in which green-painted prisoners perform a number on drums, xylophones and each other that must rank as one of the most unnerving musical interludes ever committed to film. Throw in the twins conjoined by their beard, the story of the film’s entire juvenile cast vomiting over the ornate Seussian set in an outbreak of mass nausea and the fact the results tanked at the box office (losing a then disastrous $1m), and this really is a movie not to be trifled with.

Little wonder then that a rare appearance on the big screen would be greeted with glee by the likes of GreenCine Daily’s Vadim Rizov. Here in Britain, however, we can’t even get the thing on DVD, being forced instead to brave slapped-on customs charges with an imported Region 1 copy. That may be due to labyrinthine issues of rights or, I fear more likely, an assumed lack of commercial appeal on the part of UK distributors. But the result is the same – a kid in HMV can harass his or her parents into buying as many copies as the credit card can stand of Daddy Day Care or Beverly Hills Chihuahua, but the most unhinged epic in the history of children’s cinema will be nowhere in sight.

And it’s not alone in that. Sadly nestled in the ranks of the finest children’s movies ever made are a number of titles that either aren’t available at all, or simply aren’t procurable in Britain. For instance, nice as it was to see the marvellously odd East German fairytale The Singing Ringing Tree reissued recently, other equally choice nuggets from the same DEFA stable (including such wonders as Little Mook and The Devil’s Three Golden Hairs) remain out of reach. Likewise, The Boy With Green Hair, the 1948 atomic fable with a young Dean Stockwell as the orphan transformed by a world bent on war. And then there’s the still more plaintive case of The Phantom Tollbooth, Looney Tunes veteran Chuck Jones’s semi live-action adaptation of the kids’ novel about lonely Milo and his gift-wrapped gateway to another reality – troubled in production, sublime in execution and, for reasons unclear, never released on DVD anywhere at any point.

All told, it’s a sad tale. And whether the guilty party is contractual wrangling or the dumb judgment of the market, the losers are the audience – in this case a generation of kids deprived of the chance to grow up with some of the movies most likely to (in the very best sense) mess with their heads. And even those who stayed dry-eyed at Up could surely squeeze a tear out at the thought of that.

Why put up with tat the likes of Daddy Day Care or Beverly Hills Chihuahua when there’s a treasure trove of genuinely brilliant kids’ films out there?

Let’s not be ungrateful here – for film-lovers with kids, these are heady times indeed. I’m not sure even the fond reception Fantastic Mr Fox received quite did justice to its handmade pleasures (the wolf salute alone makes me want to hug Wes Anderson and not let go). And then, of course, there’s Up, the movie that’s repeated WALL-E‘s trick of emerging as possibly the year’s finest film while being made (at least ostensibly) for an audience still doing its shoes up with Velcro. Whichever way you look at it, in the context of the careless tat parents usually have to dodge or suffer through, the autumn of 2009 has been a vintage season.

But the snag is that at some point in the future, these two gleaming moments will recede, and life for the young cinephile will return to normal. And normal is a bleak business for children’s movies in Britain, a wearying parade of the slapdash and tossed-off. Which is why it’s doubly frustrating when some of the most genuinely brilliant kids’ films ever made aren’t even available, much less as accessible and celebrated as they should be. It’s a sorry situation that brings me muttering darkly to the subject of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr T.

Because here’s a film, now more than 50 years old, that deserves just as much praise as Pixar, one every bit as magical as Up, albeit far, far stranger. The only film ever scripted by Theodor Geisel (better known professionally as Dr Seuss), 5,000 Fingers is the delirious, surrealist tale of the 10-year-old Bart Collins, trapped as one of 500 enslaved child pianists toiling in the institute of the fiendish music teacher Dr Terwilliker. And trust me when I say this slim premise provides the basis for a movie that could be slipped without hesitation into a midnight triple bill between The Wizard of Oz and Mulholland Drive. At the same time, it’s the kind of children’s film kids themselves love, at once riotous fun and possessed of untold layers of psychological weirdness.

In the scowling character actor Hans Conreid’s turn as Terwilliker, we have one of the truly great movie villains. The set designs are, without fail, wildly inventive: grand off-kilter arrangements of staircases, dungeons and giant keyboards rendered in Technicolor that, as Jonathan Rosenbaum once wrote, seemed inspired equally by Busby Berkeley and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (and which now in turn call to mind Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle). And that’s before we even get to the music: the handful of instantly unshakable songs and a central set piece in which green-painted prisoners perform a number on drums, xylophones and each other that must rank as one of the most unnerving musical interludes ever committed to film. Throw in the twins conjoined by their beard, the story of the film’s entire juvenile cast vomiting over the ornate Seussian set in an outbreak of mass nausea and the fact the results tanked at the box office (losing a then disastrous $1m), and this really is a movie not to be trifled with.

Little wonder then that a rare appearance on the big screen would be greeted with glee by the likes of GreenCine Daily’s Vadim Rizov. Here in Britain, however, we can’t even get the thing on DVD, being forced instead to brave slapped-on customs charges with an imported Region 1 copy. That may be due to labyrinthine issues of rights or, I fear more likely, an assumed lack of commercial appeal on the part of UK distributors. But the result is the same – a kid in HMV can harass his or her parents into buying as many copies as the credit card can stand of Daddy Day Care or Beverly Hills Chihuahua, but the most unhinged epic in the history of children’s cinema will be nowhere in sight.

And it’s not alone in that. Sadly nestled in the ranks of the finest children’s movies ever made are a number of titles that either aren’t available at all, or simply aren’t procurable in Britain. For instance, nice as it was to see the marvellously odd East German fairytale The Singing Ringing Tree reissued recently, other equally choice nuggets from the same DEFA stable (including such wonders as Little Mook and The Devil’s Three Golden Hairs) remain out of reach. Likewise, The Boy With Green Hair, the 1948 atomic fable with a young Dean Stockwell as the orphan transformed by a world bent on war. And then there’s the still more plaintive case of The Phantom Tollbooth, Looney Tunes veteran Chuck Jones’s semi live-action adaptation of the kids’ novel about lonely Milo and his gift-wrapped gateway to another reality – troubled in production, sublime in execution and, for reasons unclear, never released on DVD anywhere at any point.

All told, it’s a sad tale. And whether the guilty party is contractual wrangling or the dumb judgment of the market, the losers are the audience – in this case a generation of kids deprived of the chance to grow up with some of the movies most likely to (in the very best sense) mess with their heads. And even those who stayed dry-eyed at Up could surely squeeze a tear out at the thought of that.

The Shining was voted most frightening horror ever at the start of the week. But new hit chiller Paranormal Activity is being sold as such. Can they both be right? Stuart Heritage invites you to a scary movie smackdown

What’s the scariest film of all time? It’s an age-old debate, and one that many thought could never be solved. After all, fear is such a personal and individual emotion that categorising any one thing as being definitively scarier than anything else seemed like a worthless pursuit. Or at least it did until a couple of people told the world what the scariest films of all time were recently. And now we know.

The scariest film of all time isn’t The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby or Don’t Look Now or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It isn’t The Wicker Man, unless you’re terrified of weird hair and bad sweaters. And it definitely isn’t any of the Saw movies, for the simple reason that Jigsaw seems like the sort of person who’d quite enjoy a nice game of Sudoku. No, the scariest movie ever made is either Paranormal Activity or The Shining. It’s definitely one of those two.

The Shining has earnt its place because this week it was named as the scariest movie ever in a survey conducted by Totalscifionline.com. Meanwhile, recent American box office sensation Paranormal Activity is in the running because a couple of blogs said that it might be the scariest film of all time about a fortnight ago. But which one is the scariest? It’s impossible to say. The only thing that can decide this once and for all is science. And by “science” I mean “a middling sort of Top Trumps rip-off”. Ready?

Best urban myth about the film

They say that Stanley Kubrick refused to tell Danny Lloyd that he was starring in a horror during the filming of The Shining, which isn’t a very scary fact. They also say that Steven Spielberg convinced himself that his screener DVD of Paranormal Activity was haunted. That isn’t a very scary fact either, but it wins on grounds of outright stupidity.
WINNER: Paranormal Activity.

Influences

Stylistically and thematically, The Shining nods to both Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr and Hansel And Gretel, two stories that have frightened for generations. Meanwhile, Paranormal Activity takes its lead from The Blair Witch Project – a film about some runny-nosed idiots running around a forest and whining a bit.
WINNER: The Shining.

Best parody

Even though it’s brand new, Paranormal Activity already has its fair share of YouTube parodies, the best of which seems to be Paranerdal Activity. But The Shining has Shining, the recut trailer that’s still as sublime as the first time you saw it almost four years ago. WINNER: The Shining.

Best cast pedigree

The Shining: Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Shelly Duvall from Annie Hall. Paranormal Activity: Micah Stoat and Katie Featherstone from nothing else at all.
WINNER: The Shining.

Best reaction video

Terrified audience reaction videos are so key to Paranormal Activity’s success that they even make up much of the film’s trailer. Meanwhile, all The Shining can muster is this. The Shining makes toddlers giggle adorably. Fact.
WINNER: Paranormal Activity.

Scariest title

Paranormal Activity has two scary things in it – the word “paranormal” and the word “activity”, which we already know will be of a paranormal nature because of the word that precedes it. Then there’s The Shining. You know what shines? A nice pair of new shoes. Shoes aren’t particularly scary.
WINNER: Paranormal Activity.

Amount of racehorses named after lines from the film

The Shining has Red Rum, obviously, but until someone breeds a horse called Hey, It Looks Like Something’s Bit You, then it draws a big fat zero.
WINNER: The Shining.

So there it is. The Shining is the scariest film ever made. Now let’s hear no more about it.

The Shining was voted most frightening horror ever at the start of the week. But new hit chiller Paranormal Activity is being sold as such. Can they both be right? Stuart Heritage invites you to a scary movie smackdown

What’s the scariest film of all time? It’s an age-old debate, and one that many thought could never be solved. After all, fear is such a personal and individual emotion that categorising any one thing as being definitively scarier than anything else seemed like a worthless pursuit. Or at least it did until a couple of people told the world what the scariest films of all time were recently. And now we know.

The scariest film of all time isn’t The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby or Don’t Look Now or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It isn’t The Wicker Man, unless you’re terrified of weird hair and bad sweaters. And it definitely isn’t any of the Saw movies, for the simple reason that Jigsaw seems like the sort of person who’d quite enjoy a nice game of Sudoku. No, the scariest movie ever made is either Paranormal Activity or The Shining. It’s definitely one of those two.

The Shining has earnt its place because this week it was named as the scariest movie ever in a survey conducted by Totalscifionline.com. Meanwhile, recent American box office sensation Paranormal Activity is in the running because a couple of blogs said that it might be the scariest film of all time about a fortnight ago. But which one is the scariest? It’s impossible to say. The only thing that can decide this once and for all is science. And by “science” I mean “a middling sort of Top Trumps rip-off”. Ready?

Best urban myth about the film

They say that Stanley Kubrick refused to tell Danny Lloyd that he was starring in a horror during the filming of The Shining, which isn’t a very scary fact. They also say that Steven Spielberg convinced himself that his screener DVD of Paranormal Activity was haunted. That isn’t a very scary fact either, but it wins on grounds of outright stupidity.
WINNER: Paranormal Activity.

Influences

Stylistically and thematically, The Shining nods to both Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr and Hansel And Gretel, two stories that have frightened for generations. Meanwhile, Paranormal Activity takes its lead from The Blair Witch Project – a film about some runny-nosed idiots running around a forest and whining a bit.
WINNER: The Shining.

Best parody

Even though it’s brand new, Paranormal Activity already has its fair share of YouTube parodies, the best of which seems to be Paranerdal Activity. But The Shining has Shining, the recut trailer that’s still as sublime as the first time you saw it almost four years ago. WINNER: The Shining.

Best cast pedigree

The Shining: Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Shelly Duvall from Annie Hall. Paranormal Activity: Micah Stoat and Katie Featherstone from nothing else at all.
WINNER: The Shining.

Best reaction video

Terrified audience reaction videos are so key to Paranormal Activity’s success that they even make up much of the film’s trailer. Meanwhile, all The Shining can muster is this. The Shining makes toddlers giggle adorably. Fact.
WINNER: Paranormal Activity.

Scariest title

Paranormal Activity has two scary things in it – the word “paranormal” and the word “activity”, which we already know will be of a paranormal nature because of the word that precedes it. Then there’s The Shining. You know what shines? A nice pair of new shoes. Shoes aren’t particularly scary.
WINNER: Paranormal Activity.

Amount of racehorses named after lines from the film

The Shining has Red Rum, obviously, but until someone breeds a horse called Hey, It Looks Like Something’s Bit You, then it draws a big fat zero.
WINNER: The Shining.

So there it is. The Shining is the scariest film ever made. Now let’s hear no more about it.

It looks like James Cameron is going for the tight-lipped PR approach for Avatar, and the Todd Solondz school of misanthropy might be supplying one of its finest graduates for the next Spider-Man villain

I’m a sucker for getting caught up in the hype for big blockbuster sci-fi movies that know exactly how to market themselves in order to look like the coolest thing since Ripley took out the xenomorph queen in Aliens. But so far the online publicity for Avatar, James Cameron’s forthcoming 3D megalith, hasn’t quite got under my skin. Far more exciting was the 15 minutes or so of actual footage that I saw earlier this year at the IMAX Waterloo in London. OK, so Cameron’s creation, the planet Pandora, did have a certain new-age whiff to it, with all those elfin, blue Thundercat types running around, but it was lurid, visceral and vivid enough to make you want to reach for the Peter Gabriel albums (and I’m a Peter Gabriel fan).

So far Avatar’s online hype machine has been limited to an OK teaser trailer and a pretty crappy website for supposed human recruits to travel to Pandora (which has admittedly improved somewhat since I first wrote about it last month).

The first full-length trailer is due to hit the web tomorrow, but an “international” version with unidentifiable subtitles is already available online, and reports are that it’s virtually indistinguishable from the English-language equivalent that’s about to drop. In the film, Jake (Sam Worthington), a disabled former marine given the chance to walk again via an alien body, or Avatar, which he can control with his mind, is charged with infiltrating the indigenous population of Pandora, the Na’avi, in order to help some evil military-industrial complex types plunder the priceless local mineral deposits. This new version appears to confirm a rather obvious story twist: it looks like Jake goes a little native and turns on his former employers.

There’s also a new featurette, which is mostly just Cameron waxing lyrical about what a genius Cameron is, while various other members of the cast and crew also make with the vapid hero worship, though it does contain a few shots we’ve not yet seen of Pandora.

For all the admittedly impressive motion capture involved, the technology, the ambition and the excellent cast, which includes the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Giovanni Ribisi and Zoe Saldana, Avatar’s success will ultimately be predicated on its storyline, which right now looks like a pretty generic one that we’ve seen before in countless movies. Let’s hope Cameron includes a few further twists in the tale to shake things up a little.

Elsewhere this week, more rumours are leaking out about Spider-Man 4, Sam Raimi’s forthcoming return to the world of everyone’s favourite wall-crawling superhero type. This time the Evil Dead director is up against it after the critics turned on the series’ last outing, Spider-Man 3, due to its confused plot and multiple villains. The suggestion is that only one bad guy will feature this time, with Dylan Baker, always good value in unusual roles in movies such as Todd Solondz’s Happiness, looking likely to get the nod in the form of Spidey’s old enemy, The Lizard.

Baker already appears in the series as Peter Parker’s sometime tutor and mentor Dr Curt Connors, who in the original comic books is transformed into the reptilian supervillain, so the move makes plenty of sense. And while the New York-born actor doesn’t immediately come across as having the charisma of a Willem Dafoe or an Alfred Molina, who played the villains in the series’ celebrated first two instalments, he’s a class act who more than deserves the shot at a headline role.

What are your thoughts on this week’s stories? Are you getting excited about Avatar yet? And can Raimi turn round Spider-Man, which incidentally also looks set to be shot in 3D? Is Baker the right man to play the series’ next villain, or should a better-known actor be brought on board?

The feature film No One Knows About Persian Cats, showing at the festival tonight, shows an aspect of Tehran rarely seen by the west: its underground live music scene

In the first two weeks of June 2009, before the presidential election in Iran, TV audiences in the west were shown something different: young Iranians, mostly in Tehran, pushing strict rules on dress and behaviour to their limit as the authorities temporarily allowed a little more freedom. These people would be at the receiving end of the crackdown when it came after the vote.

Two months earlier, in April, Iran-American journalist Roxana Saberi had been sentenced to eight years on charges of spying for the United States. No One Knows About Persian Cats (Kasi Az Gorbehayeh Irani Khabar Nadareh), which shows at the London film festival tonight, brings the two strands together.

Co-written by Saberi (who was released in May) it is a film about the underground (ie illegal) live music scene in Tehran. These are bands with more to worry about than what haircut will work best in Camden. The story begins shortly after Ashkan, a member of an indie rock band, is released from jail and follows him and female singer Negar as they attempt to obtain, via forgers and bootleggers, the passports and visas that will allow them to leave Iran to play a gig in London.

Stylistically, it feels as stifling as their lives must surely be. The threat of the police and authorities is all around. Bands soundproof secret rehearsal spaces and venues; one heavy metal band avoids arrest by playing in a stinking cowshed on a farm far out of town; members of another band talk about having their instruments confiscated. The police are often out of shot, however – perhaps adding to the omnipresent menace and what feels like an arbitrary exercise of power. When Negar’s car is stopped and her pet dog taken from her, we never see the police officer who does the snatching.

The action, if that’s the word for it, takes place in below-stairs recording studios only reached via alleyways and through hidden doors. The feature – directed by Saberi’s fiance, Bahman Ghobadi – was shot discreetly in Tehran and has enough of a documentary feel to it (the titles announce it is based on “real events, people and locations”) that you can assume this is what Tehran’s indie rock scene does actually look like. In fact, a Canadian TV report from just before the election goes to what looks to be the same places and talks to musicians bravely recording and performing in them.

The TV report, however, shows up one of No One Knows About Persian Cats’ major flaws – that the music just isn’t very good (the Canadian TV crew find more musically interesting artists). In the latter stages of the film we hear Tehran bands playing – one purveying indie rock, another heavy metal, others blues and rap. All are derivative of western styles (which is kind of the point, it is such “decadence” that gets them banned) but don’t inject much more into it. The rap band depict Tehran as a “jungle” where someone else, usually with a car, always gets the girl: all very well – and probably true – but also true of Skee Lo’s pop rap portrait of Los Angeles in 1995′s I Wish.

While that is harsh, and I’m not making music in such difficult conditions, it begins to impact on the quality of the film. The documentary camera work of the film switches to a cut-to-the-beat music video-style montage whenever opening chords strike up, putting shots of everyday life in Tehran to song. Done once, it is fine. But by the third or fourth time, monotony sets in. What just saves it is the poignancy of the lyrics, such as “dreaming is my reality”.

Where Persian Cats works best is when it combines the dreams of being in a successful band and playing in London – the sort western audiences may be used to – with aspirations of personal and artistic freedom that those audiences would take for granted. It captures the absurdities of such a life – the prices of Iranian v Afghan forged passports ($4,000 v $500), or the bootlegger who promises the band that his access to the black market means “the whole of Tehran will hear”. It can sometimes feel as if Ghobadi is filming his friends, but while not a documentary (only “based on real people and events” after all) it does capture a moment and a feeling. And that is quite an achievement.

Negar and Ashkan, however, do not get their passports. In the closing scenes, their final Tehran gig is raided by police, and the sound rings in your ears long after the music fades away.

Liz Taylor loves it, the critics don’t mind it – looks like the boycotting fans are the only ones not convinced by Michael Jackson’s This Is It. Have you seen it yet? Was it … bad?

A group of fans decried it as an airbrushed facade which fails to tell the true story of Michael Jackson in his final days. But the critics, for the most part, have been quietly impressed by this strange confection, a hotchpotch of concert footage spliced together from rehearsals for the late singer’s abandoned dates in London.

As a glimpse of Jackson honing his moves for what look likely to have been spectacularly extravagant, hugely polished gigs, This Is It nears perfection, they say. But there are those who wonder if the movie truly hangs together as a piece of film-making, despite the glowing platitudes of the singer’s friend, Liz Taylor, on her Twitter page.

For those who have been living off-planet for the past few months, This Is It is directed by Kenny Ortega, the High School Musical guy who was overseeing Jackson’s rehearsals for 50 dates at the O2 arena in London this past summer. As well as footage from the Forum and the Staples Center in LA of Jackson creating, developing and ultimately staging his first live performances in more than a decade, it includes interviews with awestruck dancers and others who were working with him on the project.

“So, to the burning question: is there any intimation of Jackson’s impending demise?” asks our own Andrew Pulver. “I can’t honestly say there is. In the footage we are permitted to see, Jackson appears in pretty good shape for a 50-year-old – even if his general spindliness makes him occasionally look a bit like Skeletor in a lamé tuxedo.

“As for the film itself, I can simply report that it isn’t too bad at all. It’s pretty much unadorned rehearsal footage, artfully stitched together to create complete song sequences; and since the O2 gigs were intended to present his crowdpleasing hits, they’re all here in their toe-tapping glory.”

“We now know that the London shows would have been hugely ambitious and spectacular,” writes the Telegraph’s David Gritten. “A new film of Thriller in 3-D had been shot, along with a not quite convincing sequence in which Jackson (dressed as a gangster) is spliced into classic Hollywood movies, including Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth.

“This Is it sags in the middle: one tires of his sycophantic troupe (nobody argues with ‘MJ’) and much of the material becomes repetitive. Still, Ortega has applied himself studiously to his task, and the film is some recompense for those deprived by his death of seeing Jackson live.”

“By the second half, the lag begins to set in,” writes The Times’ Kevin Maher. “In these scenes, unprotected by fast cutaways or the dizzying whirl of a dance routine, Jackson is often exposed. Painfully thin and seemingly fragile, like a skeletal marionette, he speaks in strange rambling sentences – about love (“L, o, v, e” he repeatedly spells) and environmentalism – which could be the sacred voice of his inner child or the results of heavy-duty doses of propofol. Either way, it’s a strange and ultimately underwhelming way to say goodbye to a troubled, talented performer.”

“The frustration, beyond the greater one – that a tragedy prevented this concert from happening – is not knowing what you’re looking at,” writes Billboard’s Kirk Honeycutt. “Where are Jackson and his conspirators at any given moment in the creative process? The film tries to be a concert film without having the actual footage. So when everything comes to a halt, audiences get thrown.

“No one should expect a concert film. Jackson clearly is conserving his energy, holding back on dance moves and vocal intensity. He is searching for his concert, the way a sculpture chisels away at marble to discover a statute. This Is It is not a ‘sacred document,’ as Ortega has asserted. But it is a fascinating one.”

For me, the major problem with This Is It as a movie is that it is not really a movie at all. Had the footage featured a performer who was not quite possibly the most remarkable pop artist of the 20th century, and had that artist not died fewer than two days after some of these scenes were filmed, in tragic circumstances, we would never have seen any of it on the big screen. In fact, these recordings were destined for Jackson’s own personal collection, which only makes the scenes in which wide-eyed dancers and choreographers talk about how excited they are to be working with their hero all the more creepy. This Is It really should have been released on DVD, and surely would have been if it were not for Jackson’s huge notoriety, despite Ortega’s valiant and admittedly slick attempt to meld the available footage into something cohesive.

Yet in those moments when Jackson performs his greatest songs there is no way that any amount of cynicism about the singer as a human being can stop hearts from pumping just that little bit faster at the sheer brilliance of the music. And in the absence of any possibility of seeing him perform live again, it must be admitted that there’s something fitting about these performances getting their showcase on larger screens, where fans can watch them in the company of other acolytes.

Have you had the chance to catch This Is It yet? The first screenings for members of the public took place at 4am this morning, so perhaps you’ve just rolled out of bed and are peering bleary-eyed at the first reviews. Do let us know what you thought by posting a comment below.

Know your Bill Murray from your Buster Keaton? This week, Pinkos smacks his lips and delivers a tray of bone-dry comic amuse-bouches for you to sample

I like my comedy the way I like my sherry and my bathroom floor – dry. In fact, the greater the understatement, the finer the blend, the deader the pan, the more eagerly I lap it up. A straight-faced, down the line, mockumentary mickey take as exemplified by the work of, say, Christopher Guest, is all well and good. But my palate tingles even more if that desiccated moment pops up unexpectedly – in a drama, or a tragicomedy – with a serious black infusion. When that happens, I start to gurn uncontrollably.

So, what are the signs of dead-good deadpanning? Well, these moments often arise when – apparently unaffected by the ludicrous situations which befall them – sourpuss characters remain impassive, coldly staring down all natural impulses. Alternatively, sometimes they come about when a director just makes the gentlest tweak to turn a situation on its head – a random song, maybe, or a bizarre interruption.

Here are some different grades of deadpan:

1) The combination of Wes Anderson, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman blends just about the right amount of melancholia with absurdity in Rushmore.

2) The heavy air of a secret meeting between two key representatives of Italy’s criminal and political fraternities (prime minister Giulio Andreotti and mafia capo dei capi Totò Riina) is brilliantly skewered by Paolo Sorrentino’s use of Beth Orton in Il Divo.

3) In Aki Kaurismäki’s world, death is often sudden and ridiculous. In Ariel, a violent and tragic death has its rug pulled from under it by one man’s obsession with pointless detail.

4) The Coen brothers are many people’s favourite artisans of the driest comedy and Peter Stormare’s poker-faced viciousness tips the comedy into deep blackness in Fargo.

5) Roy Andersson, alongside perhaps Ulrich Seidl, produces the tartest of blends, some perhaps even too vinegary for the hardiest comedy lover, in You, the Living.

Last week on Clip joint, steenbeck donned her Stetson and went beastie-hunting, tracking down the best film clips illustrating monster love. Here are her top picks from your suggestions:

1) Dr Jekyll “sacrilegiously” tries to separate his monstrous side, so that he can act on base urges yet leave his soul untouched.

2) It’s quite a fairytale: a lonely person creates a child for company, then pays for their unnatural behaviour by living out our child-rearing anxieties. Edward Scissorhands is incomplete, and he takes the anguish of being an awkward outsider to a heartbreaking pitch. Whereas Jan Svankmajer’s Otesanek reminds us that our own children aren’t as greedy and ungrateful as we’d thought.

3) If you ask a monster to ease your troubles, you might find yourself with more than you bargained for. It’s a lesson taught humorously in Beetlejuice, and with solemn beauty in The Golem.

4) I used to think “psychosexual” was an overused term, but watching this week’s clips has proven me wrong. Fear of male or female sexual rapacity has spawned a host of anxiety-surrogate monsters. In I Married a Monster from Outer Space, we find a surprisingly touching scene in which our alien friend learns the difference between mating and love-making. And, as Swanstep noted, Possession shows us what many monster movies just tease us with. The scene is shocking and thought-provoking, but what made it powerful for me was Sam Neill’s reaction: he’s repelled and attracted at the same time. He’s disgusted, but he just can’t look away. That’s the essence of monster love.

5) This week’s winner is greatpoochini for The Water Horse. Not the best production values on display this week (though certainly not the worst), but this scene, both exhilarating and terrifying, exemplifies the highs and lows of monster friendship. The boy has a genuine, nearly unconditional affection for the water horse, amplified by loneliness, heartache and anxiety. But the creature is unpredictable and, well, monstrous.

Thanks also to swanstep, Nodule, nilpferd, Dansmiley, Tanarus and AJBee for this week’s choices.

Fancy writing Clip joint? Email Catherine Shoard for more details.

Know your Bill Murray from your Buster Keaton? This week, Pinkos smacks his lips and delivers a tray of bone-dry comic amuse-bouches for you to sample

I like my comedy the way I like my sherry and my bathroom floor – dry. In fact, the greater the understatement, the finer the blend, the deader the pan, the more eagerly I lap it up. A straight-faced, down the line, mockumentary mickey take as exemplified by the work of, say, Christopher Guest, is all well and good. But my palate tingles even more if that desiccated moment pops up unexpectedly – in a drama, or a tragicomedy – with a serious black infusion. When that happens, I start to gurn uncontrollably.

So, what are the signs of dead-good deadpanning? Well, these moments often arise when – apparently unaffected by the ludicrous situations which befall them – sourpuss characters remain impassive, coldly staring down all natural impulses. Alternatively, sometimes they come about when a director just makes the gentlest tweak to turn a situation on its head – a random song, maybe, or a bizarre interruption.

Here are some different grades of deadpan:

1) The combination of Wes Anderson, Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman blends just about the right amount of melancholia with absurdity in Rushmore.

2) The heavy air of a secret meeting between two key representatives of Italy’s criminal and political fraternities (prime minister Giulio Andreotti and mafia capo dei capi Totò Riina) is brilliantly skewered by Paolo Sorrentino’s use of Beth Orton in Il Divo.

3) In Aki Kaurismäki’s world, death is often sudden and ridiculous. In Ariel, a violent and tragic death has its rug pulled from under it by one man’s obsession with pointless detail.

4) The Coen brothers are many people’s favourite artisans of the driest comedy and Peter Stormare’s poker-faced viciousness tips the comedy into deep blackness in Fargo.

5) Roy Andersson, alongside perhaps Ulrich Seidl, produces the tartest of blends, some perhaps even too vinegary for the hardiest comedy lover, in You, the Living.

Last week on Clip joint, steenbeck donned her Stetson and went beastie-hunting, tracking down the best film clips illustrating monster love. Here are her top picks from your suggestions:

1) Dr Jekyll “sacrilegiously” tries to separate his monstrous side, so that he can act on base urges yet leave his soul untouched.

2) It’s quite a fairytale: a lonely person creates a child for company, then pays for their unnatural behaviour by living out our child-rearing anxieties. Edward Scissorhands is incomplete, and he takes the anguish of being an awkward outsider to a heartbreaking pitch. Whereas Jan Svankmajer’s Otesanek reminds us that our own children aren’t as greedy and ungrateful as we’d thought.

3) If you ask a monster to ease your troubles, you might find yourself with more than you bargained for. It’s a lesson taught humorously in Beetlejuice, and with solemn beauty in The Golem.

4) I used to think “psychosexual” was an overused term, but watching this week’s clips has proven me wrong. Fear of male or female sexual rapacity has spawned a host of anxiety-surrogate monsters. In I Married a Monster from Outer Space, we find a surprisingly touching scene in which our alien friend learns the difference between mating and love-making. And, as Swanstep noted, Possession shows us what many monster movies just tease us with. The scene is shocking and thought-provoking, but what made it powerful for me was Sam Neill’s reaction: he’s repelled and attracted at the same time. He’s disgusted, but he just can’t look away. That’s the essence of monster love.

5) This week’s winner is greatpoochini for The Water Horse. Not the best production values on display this week (though certainly not the worst), but this scene, both exhilarating and terrifying, exemplifies the highs and lows of monster friendship. The boy has a genuine, nearly unconditional affection for the water horse, amplified by loneliness, heartache and anxiety. But the creature is unpredictable and, well, monstrous.

Thanks also to swanstep, Nodule, nilpferd, Dansmiley, Tanarus and AJBee for this week’s choices.

Fancy writing Clip joint? Email Catherine Shoard for more details.

Sir Roger is a terrifically good sport about sending up his image in the promo, but for me, it’s heartwrenchingly sad

Recently I have come out of the closet, revealing myself to be one of the millions of males who are openly crying at the devastatingly sad bit at the beginning of Up, the new Pixar-Disney animation. I am a terrible cryer at films, TV, books – anything. But the latest thing I have started to cry at is, incredibly, the new TV advertisement for the Post Office, starring Sir Roger Moore.

It’s very funny and Sir Roger is a terrifically good sport about sending up his image. He always has been. Yet it is also desperately, heartwrenchingly sad. For decades, pretty much ever since I have been aware of him, Moore has been compared unflatteringly with Sean Connery. Whatever he might have felt about that in private, he has always been cheerful, unpretentious and uncomplaining, grateful for his good luck in the business. Why has he done the Post Office ad, though? Surely it can’t be that he needs the money. Maybe he just thinks, quite rightly, that the Post Office is a good thing and needs supporting.

Can it really be true that Sir Roger Moore is 82 years old? Of course, like many actors of a certain vintage, the sleek Moore for years played younger than he actually was, so it was a shock when he finally got out of the business and his actual age suddenly caught up with us. Yet there he is, 82.

I have grown up with Roger Moore. It’s not just 007 and The Persuaders, I am old enough to remember him as The Saint on TV, looking heavenwards in black-and-white to see the halo above his head before the title sequence, with its catchy theme tune and his Volvo convertible. I realise that I saw him in Live and Let Die at the Hendon Odeon on the corner of Brent Street and Church Road in London NW4, which no longer exists, and I further realise I have become one of those people who talk about cinemas that no longer exist. I remember seeing him on television in Basil Dearden’s 1970 thriller The Man Who Haunted Himself – a very decent film.

At the risk of repeating my blogs, can I once again ask you to watch his sublime moment, introducing the best actor award at the 1973 Oscars, surreally paired with Liv Ullmann, when it went to Marlon Brando.

For the next few weeks, going to the Post Office and waiting in the queue while they play this ad is going to be a bit of a melancholy experience.