‘I’m a guy.  It’s in my genes.’

This is the hero’s reply when asked why he likes bigger engines in cars.  It would be a good tagline for advertising the film.  The appeal is to testosterone and adrenalin.  Unlike the previous Fast and Furious films where there were female drivers, the young women here are simply (skimpily) appendages to male posturing and ego.

Should anyone walk into this film, thinking it might be a nice cooking show, even with a touch of Asian comedy, beware…  That’s how it starts: an oddball, goofily dressed middle-aged woman (Bai Ling) does the shopping and then cooks dumplings for which she has a great reputation.  Even a retired glamorous actress comes to her home to eat these dumplings.  So far, so good.

The press kit for District 13 is an education in itself.  It has several pages on the ‘extreme art’ and ‘lifestyle’ of Parcour which, apparently, has taken hold of the UK, even in the education system – which was news to the film critics.

Glad I saw this with some four and five year olds rather than eight or nine year olds.  The latter would have thought it just for littlies.  The littlies seemed to be engrossed with it more or less, though they still had to drag parents out for toilet breaks.

Anyone who sees this film will be very satisfied.  It can be described as a beautiful and humane film.

Perhaps best to refer to this as an introverted film so that those who expect some action, especially from Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek, will not be disappointed.  It is a portrait of a young would-be novelist, a portrait very much from the inside, an interior monologue that we are allowed to see.

The press corps was remarkably self-controlled during the preview of Aquamarine, a film that was definitely not made for them.  Perhaps they were thinking of their daughters (or granddaughters) and realising that this was the niche market.

A complex police thriller from a writer-director, Olivier Marchal (who appears as the excrim, Christo) who spent some time working for the police force in Paris.  The title of the film is the address for the main bureau.

It is the 6th of the 6th 06 – and, in fact, the screening of The Omen finished at 6.06 pm. Damien, the Lord of the Darkness might be right after you. But why not stop worrying and love him and his apocalyptical number, just like those in the marketing business? Religion is back and people crowd to pay for the resurrected thrill.

A contemporary Polish slice of life, grim but with some hope for redemption.

You have a middle-aged architect who drops out and builds his own house high in the trees of a forest.  Thoreau-like, he is a hermit in nature.

Ken Loach’s best film for a long time. It bears comparison with his 1995 award-winning Land of Freedom, his exploration of the Spanish Civil War. Sometimes that film was weighed down by discussion and rhetoric. This time there are strong verbal arguments but they are well worked into the drama and the action.

Marco Bellocchio is one of the veterans of Italian cinema. He has a worldwide reputation and has been directing since the 1960s. He is still an energetic director with his recent probe into the causes for canonisation in L’Ora della Religione and his re-creation of the times of Italian terrorism in the 1970s and the abduction and murder of Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, Notte).

The Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education was established by Steven Spielberg in the aftermath of his making Schindler’s List.

A first film that is both modest and ambitious.

It is modest in its small budget, use of local actors, filmed in black and white and telling a local Mexican story.  It is ambitious in its cinema style and in the scope of exploration of themes.

It looks as though every national cinema needs to do its drug culture thrillers.  This is one of Norway’s attempts.  While it is reminiscent of Hollywood variations on this theme, it is distinctively Scandinavian – with its overcast weather, to say the least.  While this is a genre picture, it does not glamorise its subject.

The topic is interesting, a forceful one: the military style, bullying by petty officials and the perpetuation of the system as senior cadet officers hand on the enforced obedience and externals of respect at all costs.  It has dire consequences, especially for those of sensitive dispositions and can lead to self-destruction.

Rolf de Heer’s name in the final credits comes at the end of a long list of aboriginal names.  The film is also described as ‘a film by Rolf de Heer and the People of Ramingining.

Tony Gatlif has a passion for music, especially ethnic music and songs which he arranges (and composes in the vein of the country where his plots take place).  This is to the fore with a musical tour of the countryside of Romania.

Despite so many good features of Summer Palace, it is, in the end, deeply unsatisfying.  This may be a male point of view as the central focus is on a female character who is not only a puzzle to the men in her lives, especially those who fall in love with her, but she remains an enigma to herself.