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.

May was a decent month for cinema, with four films viewed…

Thor is not going to cause any great surprises: it’s a big budget, superhero-filled, special-effects-laden barrel of dumb fun; and fun it is. While a lot of films in this genre seem to think that just having enough explosions makes them worth seeing, Thor at least tries to build a story (and something of a mythos), and creates somes decent characters along the way. While Thor’s change of heart is as sudden as it is predictable, the supporting cast (particularly Loki and Odin) do enough to keep you distracted and the action moving forward. It’s worth seeing, even if it is as cheesy as you expect. (See my Thor Twitter review).

13 Assassins is the story of the last days of the samurai. The 12 best (and one other character) are charged with assassinating an evil feudal lord, knowing it will likely be their last act. From end to end, the film is excellent: we get some clear and utterly brutal reasons why the feudal lord must go, and an hour or so of strategic manoeuvring and character building to set-up the last act. What a last act it is: a 50 minute battle where the 13 take on 200 soldiers with every trick they’ve learned. It’s a spectacular fight scene, that manages to keep up the momentum throughout. An excellent film. (See my 13 Assassins Twitter review).

Attack the Block is an interesting debut by Joe Cornish (of Adam & Joe fame): while it’s clearly been shot on a low budget, this sci-fi comedy manages to turn this to its advantage, with monsters that are more frightening due to how difficult they are to see (they’re deepest black, except for their day-glo fangs). It manages to provide some good laughs, and reasonable horror moments, and in doing so is probably a success. It’s not fantastic, but is worth seeing. (See my Attack the Block Twitter review).

Finally, Win Win is most of what you expect from an indie film starring Paul Giamatti: the characters are likeable, but flawed; people learn important life lessons; and there is an underlying quirky wit to it. The story itself, that of a family that take in a teenage runaway who just so happens to be the wrestling champion that the father badly needs for his team, is pretty good, and you’ll feel for most of the characters along the way. This is a solid film, but not a stand-out. (see my Win Win Twitter review).

The winner for May is 13 Assassins, for it’s excellent pacing and that finale. Excellent.