June was a relatively sparse month for me at the cinema, so only two films to review.

The Hangover is very much a dumb comedy. There’s nothing clever happening and it doesn’t have the levels of sheer bizarre genius of something like Anchorman. It does, however, have Zach Galifianakis doing his slightly crazed humour, that pushes against the comfort threshold a little much at times. The cast are pretty solid, and the laughs are consistent throughout, but don’t see the highs of other films. All in a good comedy. (see my The Hangover Twitter review).

Sunshine Cleaning is a slightly odd film. Being the next movie after an Oscar winning indie film (but not a sequel), it sits in a middle ground: it’s not a big movie, but it doesn’t seem like an indie film either. At it’s heart, it deals with the story of two sisters coming together to build something, while dealing with the issues elsewhere in their lives. When that something is a bio clean-up service, you know you’re going to get some funny moments, some sweet scenes and some troublesome times. Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are both great as the aforementioned sister, and the supporting cast are all solid. Alan Arkin was equally good, but seemed to be shoe-horned in. It could really have benefited from tighter editing and a reduced running time, but it was good as-is. Worth seeing.   (see my Sunshine Cleaning Twitter review).

I don’t feel all that strongly about either film. They’re both good in their own right, but haven’t exactly resonated with me all these months later that I’m writing this. I’m going to opt for The Hangover though,  simply because if you asked me to watch one right now, I know I’d pick it.

Yes, yes, it’s more than a little late this time. I’m hoping to get caught up on the old film fights in the next few weeks (I think I’ll be doing around one a week). Let’s get started.

Star Trek is a brave take on an old and well-loved franchise. The central conceit of the franchise reboot is deftly handled: it’s set in an altered time-line, the details of which are laid out in a companion comic and left out of the film. Some people might see this as only getting part of the story, but the truth is for most people it’s actually really tight editing. For the most part, the film is well done. It’s a decent action film, with the blockbuster effects you expect, but is also a boldy written story; with each character falling into the new timeline perfectly. Karl Urban is particularly good as Bones, getting all of the original ticks just right. JJ Abrams and co have put together a solid film, regardless of whether or not you know the original material. Very good. (See my Star Trek Twitter review.)

Synecdoche, New York shows Charlie Kaufmann at his best, this time both writing and directing what will surely be his opus. We get another fantastic performance from Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a frustrated theatre director who embarks on a near timeless project to have his art imitate life, literally, by recreating a chunk of New York city in a stage play. As he gets more involved, life and art start reflecting each other more and more, showing more intricate and beautiful detail. Synecdoche is beautiful, confusing, painful, funny, and full of oddity. In this way it reflects the subject matter itself: life. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. It’s an obvious pick for film of the year. (See my Synecdoche, New York Twitter review).

Finally, Night at the Museum 2 carries on in exactly the same vein as its predecessor. A little bit of a magical set-up ends with some mayhem, bad guys plotting and good guys saving the day. It’s simple but relatively good humoured, with some decent cameos, particularly by Jonah Hill. It’s a funny enough kids film, though there are better choices. (See my Night at the Museum 2 Twitter review).

The winner for May is, unsurprisingly, Synecdoche, New York. Kaufmann does it again.

April, it would seem, really is the time for fools as all 4 films are comedic (though not necessarily comedies). Let’s get started…

Monsters Vs. Aliens is the best animated film I’ve seen in years that didn’t come out of Pixar. While I’m sure Dreamworks are used to coming in second place, the gap is narrowed by this, their best film. The plot is straight forward and simple enough, but it’s the characters, actors and visual jokes that really make this film. The entire voice cast (which is an impressive list by itself) do an excellent job, while the characters themselves are the right mix of lovable and a little weird. It’s also the first full 3D film I’ve seen where the 3D didn’t seem like a gimmick, it was instead quite well-integrated into the experience; bold enough to add excitement, but reserved enough to avoid being ostentatious. All in, a very good film. (See my Monsters Vs. Aliens Twitter review).

Next up is I Love You, Man. It’s a comedy about a man who needs to find a best man for his wedding, since he no longer really has any male friends. The set-up is a bit clumsy and heavy-handed, but it grows into a decent, if hit and miss, film about the lead (Paul Rudd) learning how to enjoy himself through his new friend (Jason Segel). It’s definitely a little forced in places but there are enough good parts in there to make it entertaining. Throw in the feel-good ending (even if it is cheesey), and you’ve got a reasonably worthwhile film. (See my I Love You, Man Twitter review).

I’ve been a fan of Armando Iannucci’s work for quite some time now, so it was good to see his first film In The Loop. A cinematic spin-off of his 2005 series, The Thick of It, it follows a mostly new cast fight the case for and against going to war with a Middle Eastern nation based on a flimsy amount of evidence. The result? A fantastic political satire that finds the perfect balance between the ridiculously over-the-top antics, spot-on observations and down-to-earth worries. The whole cast shines here, particularly Peter Capaldi as the vicious government policy enforcer, and James Gandolfini as the peace-loving general. Definitely worth seeing. (See my In The Loop Twitter review).

Finally, Observe and Report is a bit of an odd one. The trailer and advertising make it look like just another wacky Apatow/McKay/Ferrell styled comedy (i.e. a bit silly, a bit gross, but with a sincere lead). While it has elements of that, it’s often quite dark; preferring to go further into substance abuse and mental health, than do another fart joke. It’s wildly uneven, with some very high peaks (the final sequence, pre-denouement, being one of the best bait-and-switches I’ve seen in years) and some long dull gaps. It’s probably worth seeing, but maybe after it goes to DVD. (See my Observe and Report Twitter review).

The winner is… In The Loop. I can’t recommend enough this brilliant comedy; one of the sharpest British films in years.

A few weeks into April? It must be time for the March film fight…

Watchmen is a film that I was generally quite excited about, given that it’s based on a stunningly brilliant graphic novel whose every panel oozes detail and links together so well that it warrants many, many reads. By all accounts, this was to be a (mostly) faithful adaptation; and that’s the problem. It starts off well, going over the death of the Comedian and his funeral, re-enacting what he meant to the other characters, but it takes its time about it. Having covered maybe two issues of the comic, there was no way that the remaining ten could fit intact. That, by itself, is fine. I’m all for properly adapting material, but this was not a proper adaptation. It would seem the writers picked out all the “must-have” scenes from the novel, the stuff fans would want to see, and cut lots between them. When the path through to those scenes has been so heavily cut-back, it starts to not make much sense and feel rather rushed. I’d have rather have seen far more cut out and for the film to be coherent and solid, rather than a quick bout of fan-pleasing moments flung together. I could go on at some length about how some of the characters were badly neutered (Laurie), some of the visuals were cheap and plasticky, and the story was left a pretty flimsy mess (and let’s not go into the crappy ending), but it’s not worth it. Wait to see how the extended version comes out (fingers crossed it has the extra material the film so badly needs) or, better yet, just read the graphic novel. (See my Watchmen Twitter review).

Next is the lovable but largely forgettable Marley & Me. It’s ostensibly about a journalist (played by Owen Wilson) who buys a badly trained dog for his girlfriend, but is really more about the relationship and hardships they endure, with the dog as a lens into that. It doesn’t have a huge amount to say, and is basically light Hollywood fun. That’s not a criticism, but don’t go in expecting anything more meaty. Enjoyable, yet flimsy. (See my Marley & Me Twitter review).

You’d expect Bronson, the story of Britain’s most violent inmate, to be a straight forward if unusually brutal biopic. It’s not. Instead we get a nightmarish, carnival atmosphere, with the title character himself as our ring leader, taking us on a bizarre and twisted journey through his life in an attempt to get fame for the only thing he knows he’s good at: brutality. Tom Hardy puts in the performance of a lifetime, as the film evokes an atmosphere of slightly-off darkness that hasn’t been seen since A Clockwork Orange. It’s brutal, ugly, a little funny, and very entertaining. A fantastic movie. (See my Bronson Twitter Review).

Finally, Gran Torino is a lazy and largely dull story about an old man coming to terms with changes in his neighbourhood, and finally befriending the immigrants who he has despised for so long. Clint Eastwood is the only person who puts in a half-way decent performance, and even that is stifled by the over the top racism he shows. Subtly, you see, is something this film lacks. Rather than tell you a story and let you judge the characters, everyone seems intent on telling you exactly what they’re feeling so that they don’t have to act it or buy too much into their ridiculously one-dimensional characterisations. About as subtle as a pink brick to the face in every aspect. Even if you can somehow swallow being spoon fed, there’s very little here to make it worth while. Avoid.

That makes Bronson the deserved winner for March.

A few months ago, I came across the term Technical Debt to describe a situation that I’ve long been familiar with: you have some code to write and you can either do it the messy but fast way, or the neat but laboured way. One usually means just hacking in a quick solution, and the other usually means careful refactoring to set-up the abstractions you’re writing to their fullest. If you decide to do it the fast way then it’s likely, even if it’s not obvious today, that you will have to maintain it a later date (no code is an island, the real cost is in maintenance etc). Thus you have a technical debt that you will have to repay at some point; whether in the form of rewriting the code to the proper way, or hacking further around it. You pay back technical debt by paying time on the principal (fixing the original issue) and paying time on the interest (having to work around something that isn’t as neat as it could be).

You can take this metaphor quite far (continued hacking eventually causes bankruptcy, for example) but I’ll leave it at that for the moment.

In the past, I’ve worked on projects where technical debt was carefully managed. On those projects, code was easy to write and maintain, and performance tended to be very high; largely because everyone understood the entirety of the code base and always knew how their decisions affected the system as a whole. This was pleasant, but required stringent regulation.

I’ve also worked on a project where massive technical debt was accrued and project management insisted on every fix being the fastest one possible, regardless of the long term consequences (I hasten to add I was largely opposed to this, but at some point you just have to get on with things). By the end, doing anything took far longer than it should have and performance began to tank. Working around the debt and managing time began to be the only thing possible, and paying off the principal never happened because there wasn’t any time left. That’s a bad situation to be in.

All of that said, if you know what you are building is a one-off or infrequently used piece of code that is needed sooner rather than later, taking on some technical debt can be the most frugal thing you can do. Rather than work on figuring out the neatest abstraction, or the nicest algorithms, just get the code working quickly and move on.

Now, I’m not saying that this is how you justify doing things the wrong way. There are rules you must adhere to in order to manage your debt.

1. Only take on technical debt on one-off or seldomly accessed code.
2. As soon as indebted code becomes used or maintained more frequently, and it inevitably will, you must endeavour to pay off the debt as soon as possible; before moving onto new code.
3. If you’re not sure whether or not you can take on debt in a given situation, you can’t. Write it properly and forget about it.
4. Never, ever, sacrifice documentation. If anyone is to have any hope of understanding your code (even the really good stuff), they’re going to need documentation. You cannot put your documentation into debt and hope someone else can pick it up easily.

Remember: all debt needs to get paid, or the whole thing can come crashing down.