Although there were a number of other films I’d like to have seen, I managed to see 4 films in September:

First up, Super 8 is a movie with a feel to it we haven’t seen in at least a decade. It’s a kids adventure film, in the mould of classics like The Goonies, updated slightly for modern sensibilities. At its heart, its a monster mystery about some kids making an amateur movie who get inadvertently involved in a massive cover-up. I’ll leave the mystery at that, but say that the execution is superb. JJ Abrams brings his usual directorial style of fast, moving action shots and lots of neat set-pieces. Its a little cheesy at times, but it’s a great film. (See my Super 8 Twitter review).

The Inbetweeners Movie is exactly what you’d expect: the near-to-the-knuckle, gross-out comedy of the TV show is transplanted into a setting that gives it a little more room. This isn’t ideal, though, as the plot and jokes are spread just a little to thin over the movie’s running time. It’s funny, but not fantastic, and if you hated the show this is not going to change your mind. (See my The Inbetweeners Movie Twitter review).

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, unlike most modern spy films, is glacially slow. Not entirely to its detriment, you understand, it’s deliberately deliberate. Everything about it is supposed to ground the story, that of an investigation into a high-ranking mole in 1970s British Intelligence, in reality is much as possible. This continues through the natural lighting used throughout (many scenes are lit primarily by nearby windows) and the muted performances. That is, unfortunately, the one big downfall of the movie. In trying to be as understated as it can, nothing gets a chance to really shine through other than the plot. While that’s refreshing in many ways, it seems a shame to have such an incredible cast without giving them anything they can use to stand out. Still, it’s a good movie, if a little disappointing. (See my Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Twitter review).

Finally, Drive is a uniquely confident driving movie. Rather than being driven with abrasive dialogue and big crashes, like the Fast and the Furious franchise, it’s got a remarkably light touch of the wheel. Ryan Gosling is excellent as the lead; a mysterious stunt and get-away driver who gets involved in something he shouldn’t. His character is relentlessly quiet, building a tension around everything he does, as you’ve no idea when he’ll react. The atmosphere is otherworldly, with a musical score like no other in recent memory, and when the action does happen its a masterclass in how car chases should be done. Some have described it as a modern day fairytale, and you can see elements of that, but it’s more of a modern day western, with Gosling as the strong, silent type who doesn’t start the fight, but will have no problem ending it. An excellent film. (See my Drive Twitter review).

While there were some great movies this month, Drive is the winner, as it’s just such a unique and refreshing film; a very good contender for film of the year.

It was a very quiet August, for a few reasons, so there are only two films in this months film fight.

Firstly, Arrietty surprised me in several ways. It’s a the story of The Borrowers, previously adapted for TV and film, as seen by the legendary animation studio, Studio Ghibli. From start to finish, it has their trademark look, with neatly designed characters against rich backdrops. Visually, it’s a lovely film. It tells the story modestly, and with few surprises, but without any great insight. That’s the real surprise: despite their history, Ghibli fail to bring any real sense of wonder to this already well trodden story. It’s a perfectly serviceable adaptation, but not outstanding in any real sense. (See my Arrietty Twitter review).

Finally, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes also surprises, by doing a remarkably good job of handling such a fanciful subject. Despite it being about apes who become very intelligent, with the exception of the last act, it manages to build a reasonable path through the key relationships in the story to keep things somewhat believable, rather than ridiculous. It’s very tightly paced, which serves to keep things moving but doesn’t let some key developments linger as long as they possibly should. The final act devolves into a much more far-fetched, but reasonably action-packed film. In the end, we have an enjoyable action film, that was a little better than expected. (see my Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes Twitter review).

While neither film was a classic, I think that Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was, against the odds, the more enjoyable film, and is this months winner.

July brought me to four films, all of which were very different.

First up, Cell 211 is a brilliant, if incredibly downbeat, film about a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Due to begin as a guard, the lead asks to tour the facilities a day early. Unfortunately for him, that’s the day a riot breaks out and he finds himself on the wrong side of the fence, having to pretend he’s one of the inmates to survive. There are some excellent little set-pieces, some very tense moments, and some superbly done drama. It never flinches when showing something horrific, and is all the more satisfying for it. The acting is strong throughout, with a lot of emotional weight carried well by the main cast. Very worth seeing. (See my Cell 211 Twitter review).

The Tree of Life, meanwhile, is beautiful, difficult and flawed. It challenges the viewer at every turn; from it’s non-linear, and extremely fragmented narrative, to it’s more self-indulgent and outright pretentious moments. There’s a great story in here about growing up under an authoritarian father, tinged with dread because of some foreknowledge we’re given. However, the storytelling itself makes it a little trickier to enjoy this then we might like. In particular, the 10 minute montage of the history of time, whilst stunningly beautiful, is so conceited as to draw attention away from the worthwhile. It’s definitely not an easy film to watch, and won’t suit many, but there is a lot to like here. Worth seeing if you have the patience. (See my The Tree of Life Twitter review).

I wanted to like Beginners more than I actually did. When it delivers, it does so well. There are some incredibly bittersweet moments as Ewan McGregor stumbles through a new relationship, still haunted by the demise of his father. These two stories appear intercut, juxtaposing loss and gain on each side. At times, though, it tries too hard to be a quirky indie film, and consequently never manages to hit the highs that it should have been able to reach, given the subject matter. Certainly, the performances make up for a lack in pacing, but not for other flaws. It’s good, but not great. (See my Beginners Twitter review).

Finally, Horrible Bosses isn’t a classic comedy, but it’ll certainly do while we wait for one. The set-up is ridiculous (three friends want to kill their bosses), the leads are pretty well type-cast, and at times it misses the mark; but none of that matters. The film revels in its silliness, unapologetically letting the laughs cover up the flaws. Yes, Jason Bateman plays the character he’s played a dozen times before and Charlie Day basically plays a slightly toned down version of his It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia character, but the three bosses are fantastically against type and that really helps sell it. A very worthwhile comedy, possibly the best daft comedy of the year so far. (See my Horrible Bosses Twitter review).

The winner is Cell 211, for having the courage to see some of the more horrible moments through, while getting most other things so right. A very good film.

June was quite a quiet month, with only two films viewed.

First off, Stake Land manages to fumble a reasonable premise and some early good will, by trying to do far too much. Set in a world that has been destroyed by a vampiric plague, we see early on that the film is capable of stylish and brutal action sequences, as set in motion by the no-nonsense protagonist, Mister. Throughout, these are the film’s saving grace. However, the film-makers spend so much time world-building and setting up lots of tiny little sub-plots, they forgot to really develop any of them, or to build up most of the characters to the point that we care what happens to them. It feels like they were sticking out plot points for a TV series with the intention of fleshing them out over dozens of hours, but were instead forced to take what they had and film it for around two hours. A real shame. (See my Stake Land Twitter review).

Finally, Senna was an interesting documentary on Ayrton Senna, one of Formula One’s all-time greats. In contrast with most modern documentaries, there’s no talking-head footage, and no narrated “story”. Instead we get lots of archive footage (of which they obviously had more of than for most other subjects) and minimal use of interview audio from his family and friends, with the emphasis heavily on trying to tell the story with period materials. This works tremendously well, building up his rivalries, triumphs and downfalls in a natural fashion. It’s a little slow-paced in the middle, but keeps you interested every time Senna gets a bad break. Very good. (See my Senna Twitter review).

With those two films, there really could only be one winner: Senna. A fine documentary, and an interesting subject.

Code for machines. Code for machines. CODE FOR MACHINES.

I’ve mentioned Project Lombok before, as part of my Modern Java series. It’s a way of hiding some of the meaningless boilerplate code that machines need to interpret the programmer’s will; lines of code sacrificed to the compiler gods in the hope that they’ll do meaningful equality (and hashCode), or print objects nicely for The Log.

I spent a coding eternity (a year and a half) having my life made easy by Lombok: no more boilerplate getters and setters, no screen-filling equals methods that have the semantics that anyone half-way competent would have guessed, and no more toString(), that semi-mandatory serpent of concatenation. It was a paradise of clean, expressive code, built in the image of the domain. You could forget Lombok was even there, as it quietly did all the bad code for you.

That was then.

Now, having had Lombok ripped from my toolset, I realise just how much I miss it, and more importantly that it shouldn’t have to exist at all.

Classes shouldn’t have to be 90% boilerplate to make three fields behave in what is a defacto standard manner. Chances are the getters/setters are going to be plain vanilla, the toString is going to concatenate the lot together, and the equals/hashCode are going to follow the recommendation that was laid down as law ON PENALTY OF DEATH in Effective Java. Everyone who programs at a decent level in Java knows this; absolutely everyone except for Java itself.

I’m extremely grateful that Lombok exists to workaround the broken parts of the language, but it shouldn’t have to. Everything that Lombok does should be in the core. It’s time we had genuine properties. It’s time we had less noise, and more signal. Java is our stumbling, drunk of a language; and Lombok is the poor spouse that has to drag its sorry shell to its bed every night.

These missing parts, these default behaviours in all but implementation, are pieces of code meant purely for machines. We don’t need code for machines. We never need code for machines.