Senna

In recent years I've stopped watching documentaries. On the whole, the task has become futile. In the past the purpose of a documentary was to investigate a subject and present the findings to the audience in an interesting, and preferably balanced fashion. Unfortunately, all that has changed in recent years and I predominantly blame one man for that.

Now don't misunderstand me, this is not about my political persuasion or anybody else's for that matter, but Michael Moore is responsible for making documentaries unwatchable for me. I may agree with a lot of the points he made in Bowling for Columbine, Sicko etc and I may disagree with others. However, at no point did he ever try to present all of the facts on a topic. His style is to ram his personal agenda down the throat of the audience and ignore or even ridicule any attempt to disagree. This does not encourage debate, it destroys it. It's also quite a good example of how American politics is becoming increasingly combative and antagonistic.

If it were just Michael Moore doing this then it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that, probably because Moore's films became commercially successful, everyone else has began to follow his lead. There was Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth that, while making some fascinating points, refused to engage with differing opinions and even included some 'key scientific errors' according to a high court judge. Then there was the guy that ate nothing but McDonalds for a few weeks and expected us to be shocked when he got ill. Hey buddy, try eating nothing but bananas for a month and see what happens to you.

It's not just films either. Regular documentary series in the UK like Panorama and Dispatches are copying the 'Moore Method' as I like to call it and are therefore pointless viewing in my opinion.

I realise I have spent a lot of time getting round to the subject matter of this post, but I want to make it absolutely clear how much I hate documentaries before I talk about out how much I loved Senna. It was the best thing I've seen in the cinema this year and probably the best documentary I've ever seen.

I'm sure that it helps that I am a motor racing fan and I remember watching Senna and Prost go to war with each other when I was young. I also vividly recall watching the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994 and seeing the crash that killed him. At the time Seena seemed like an old man to me. I was only 13 myself and he'd been at the top of Formula 1 almost my whole life. Watching the film this weekend reminded me of just how young he was, which made his success even more incredible.

Almost surprisingly the film doesn't show as much racing footage of Senna as you might expect. It certainly shows enough to remind you of the phenomenal skill he had and how reckless he could be, but there is much more behind the scenes footage and excellent storytelling that help to bring everything together without relying on replaying races.

His battles with Prost and the management of F1 at the time are obviously a big focus and I will confess that Senna is very much painted as the good guy, despite a few indiscretions. However, it is important to remember that despite the animosity between them, Prost was pall bearer at Senna's funeral, is a patron of the remarkable Senna foundation and was involved in the making of the documentary.

Do you need to be an F1 fan to love Senna? It helps, but I don't think it's essential. Racing may be the fulcrum around which the documentary is made, but this is a remarkably moving story about a very interesting human being. It's compelling viewing from start to finish and made me feel like there is hope yet for the genre.

Kermode on the Death of 3D

Can it really be true? Are studios finally going to listen to people and stop this ridiculous 3D nonsense? Mr. Kermode thinks so.

X Men: First Class

Oh Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, how I love you! Every film that these two work on together has been spot on. Kick Ass was one of my favourite films of last year and X Men: First Class is definitely the best comic book movie of 2011 so far in my opinion.

After a very strong start to the franchise with the first X Men film 11 years ago (I know, where does the time go?), Bryan Singer followed up with the superb X2 in 2003, which raised the bar for comic films that few have come close to since.

Everything was looking good for the X Men series and I was a happy fan. That was until the curse of the 'difficult third movie' struck (see Spiderman 3). X Men 3 could have been epic. It was the Phoenix Saga for goodness sake, one of the greatest story arcs of all time. However, Bryan Singer wasn't at the helm this time as he chose to do Superman Returns instead, which I thought was great despite poor box office returns. This led to the worst choice in directors since Joel Schumacher took over the Batman franchise... Brett Ratner.

X-Men: The Last Stand was a disaster of a movie and one that I refuse to watch a second time after almost weeping with disappointment in the cinema. My favourite series of comic films had been ruined. Ratner made a bigger mess of the Phoenix than Raimi did of Venom.

You'd think that would be the end of things, but no. They then decided to make the Wolverine origins film. While I didn't hate it, I went in with very low expectations... I'd been hurt too many times before. However, my girlfriend is a huge X Men / Wolverine fan and is a far bigger comic book geek than I am and she can barely bring herself to talk about it. I can see her point.

After all of this you'd think I wouldn't be able to face another X Men film and I'm not sure I would have bothered with First Class if I hadn't seen those two names attached to the project. Not only did I decide to go and see it, I actually let myself get a little bit excited. The writer / director partnership aside, James McAvoy is usually worth seeing.

I certainly wasn't disappointed this time. X Men: First Class is a great comic movie and utilises major historical events of the 20th Century (the holocaust, the Cuban missile crisis) to provide not only the backdrop for the story but also the allegory for persecution and fear of what is different. It does a great job of building the friendship between Xavier and Magneto and demonstrating how their different backgrounds gave them opposing perspectives on the world. It also introduces old favourites like Dr. Hank McCoy / Beast, played by the excellent Nicholas Hoult who I hope goes on to bigger and better things in Hollywood now.

However, First Class isn't perfect and there are a few niggles that I can't let go. Firstly, to remind the audience that they are watching events that are supposed to have happened in the 60s, at times the film looks a little 'shagadelic'. Watch out for the decor of Shaw's submarine to see what I mean.

Also, there were some parts of the story that I just didn't buy. Unless I missed something, since when was Mistique Charles Xavier's oldest and closest friend? I know they're thinking of doing a Mistique film, but that wasn't the way to give her a bigger role in this film.

Still, that doesn't take too much away from what is a very enjoyable cinema experience, made even better by the fact that they didn't release it in 3D. Happy days!

The 100 Greatest Movie Threats of All Time

Exactly what it says on the tin...

Don't you just hate it when...

... people use their phone in the cinema? Well, if I ever find myself in Texas I'm going to the Alamo Drafthouse, where they know exactly how to appeal to film lovers:

I'd love to claim I found this all by myself, but I need to thank Ben Child at The Guardian.