phillewis91

Directed by Robert Redford, the 'ordinary' people in question aren't actually that ordinary. I think that's the whole point. On the surface, they are your typical well-heeled American family. The house is big but not flashy, the dad (Donald Sutherland) is a tax attorney and the mum (Mary Tyler Moore) is the model of a suburban housewife.

Yet, as is so often the case with these suburban family dramas, it's the children who see through the middle-class smokescreen of respectability. Conrad (Hutton) is still suffering from the loss of his brother in a boating accident, and refuses to take part in his mother's increasingly desperate charade. Partly as a result of this, and partly because Conrad is, in her eyes at least, the lesser son, the relationship between the two of them is strained. As the veil of normality slips, all three of them have to truly come to terms with the tragedy that they have so far avoided.

It's a slow, brooding film that gradually reveals the extent of the trauma that Conrad is dealing with. Ground-breaking at the time for it's frank treatment of mental health issues and suicide, Ordinary People is a hugely influential work. It's clear to me now where The Perks of Being a Wallflower got most of its inspiration from, along with elements of Donnie Darko, Good Will Hunting and innumerable others. There are, of course, hints of Holden Caulfield in Conrad, yet Conrad has far more genuine cause for a breakdown that Caulfield did.

In a film full of sad stories, the saddest is Conrad's mother, Beth. Come the end, it seems that she is the only one without any foreseeable chance of redemption. Perhaps this is because she was hit the hardest by Buck's death, and has the toughest journey ahead of her. It's an incredible bit of acting from from Mary Tyler Moore when, at the end, her mask of emotional repression slips. And it's an unusual scenario - the mother fleeing her family rather than the father.

As much as I enjoyed Ordinary People, I would still have given the 1980 Best Picture Oscar to The Elephant Man.

Steve Coogan has said that Philomena is his reaction against cynicism - his attempt to make an honest and fundamentally sincere film. The biggest compliment that can be paid to him is that, in these goals, he has succeeded.

It tells the story of Philomena Lee (Judi Dench, who is as brilliant as ever), an elderly Irish woman whose child was taken away from her 50 years ago by an austere Catholic convent. Martin Sixsmith (Coogan) is the cynical, know-it-all journalist turned government spin doctor, recently sacked, who is on the look out for a story. After a chance encounter at a party, Sixsmith reluctantly takes up the 'human interest' story of Philomena's search for her son, Anthony.

The key to Philomena is the relationship between the titular character and Sixsmith. And it works. It really works, in fact. His cynicism, bordering on arrogance, is matched perfectly by her simple and completely sincere belief in common human decency. It could easily have been overly sentimental, but Judi Dench in particular does a remarkable job of keeping it grounded.

There's some very dark stuff here, and it's a testament to the script that the film does not become overwhelmed by it. The Magdalene laundries were awful places, yet this story is not about revenge. I was almost cheering when, at the end, Sixsmith gives one particularly odious nun a piece of his mind. But moments later Philomena accosts him and gives me a slap on the wrist. She does not want revenge or angry confrontation. She just wants the truth. It's a remarkable act of forgiveness, and one that, like Sixsmith, I could not agree with. But then, I'm just another cynical and bitter atheist. I have to say, this film made me angry at myself for being one. And yet it also made me pleased I wasn't a Catholic. Go figure.

Philomena is an incredible and heartfelt story. It's desperately sad, yet never overly sentimental. There's some genuinely funny moments, mainly emanating from the contrast between the wide-eyed and refreshing simplicity of Philomena's world view and the weary wryness of Sixsmith. If you get a chance, see it.

Three years before he turned the nation's stomachs with the ultra- violence of A Clockwork Orange, and sixteen years before he scared them senseless with The Shining, cinema's finest auteur Stanley Kubrick captured perfectly the absurdity of the Cold War nuclear deterrent.

When an army commander goes haywire and, without due authority, sets in motion an airborne nuclear attack on Russian bases, the US president (one of Sellers' three roles) and his trusted team of military 'experts' must save the day.

Prominent among these 'experts' is General Buck Turgidson (Scott), a gloriously American hothead who can wave off the idea of ten to twenty million civilian casualties with a flick of his wrist in a way that would make George W. Bush blush. He, along with the mysterious Dr Strangelove (also Sellers) and a circle of bumbling high brass, are the world's hope for avoiding nuclear war. It's a scary thought that must have been downright terrifying in the paranoia of the Cold War.

Despite being at heart a film with about as serious a message as it's possible to have, pitch black comedy still manages to permeate every scene. It's a guilty laugh, a laugh that becomes a grimace of fear when you realise that reality is not quite as far away from events unfolding on screen as we'd probably like it to be.

Dr Strangelove also marks Peter Sellers' finest hour, giving him and his incredible versatility free reign. He was initially expected to play four roles (cowboy pilot Major Kong to be the fourth), but perhaps understandably the workload proved too great.