Only Lovers Left Alive is a slice of life film, one of those movies that, without a well defined plot, depicts a time in the lives of its characters. Usually such films are about characters you might meet in real life. In this movie? The slice of life depicted is the lives of the undead, of vampires.

One is a world-weary music aficionado, Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and his wife of many centuries. Eve (Tilda Swinton). The roles are cast perfectly in the film. Swinton always seems otherworldly but Hiddleston is the one given the most opportunity to develop a character. He is immortal but he wants to be done with it all. He lives in Detroit, a perfect zombie hide out if there ever was one. Adam is also a music enthusiast. He listens, he collects instruments and he records his own dreary, darkwave-esgue psych rock.

This is a fantasy life for  many musicians; he has no worry about money, he has all the gear he could want and he creates music people trade like it was a drug. The only down side for him is that these same humans (or "zombies" as he names all those with a pulse) seek him out.

But it isn't enough. There is something missing and it is, in part, Swinton but his ennui is due to more than just his beloved being half way around the world.

You may read plot synopses that twist and contort to try an find an actual plot in the film. There is one but it is less important than the mood set, the slice of life (or slice of undeadness) director Jim Jarmusch creates.

Some will walk out  perplexed. The film alludes to many  possible stories and it explores and concludes virtually none of them. It is sort of like most people's lives. Maybe this is a parable about how, even if we lived eternally we would still have the same angst we have as mortals. We would still leave so much unfinished even if we had forever.

It is a thoughtful, slow paced, dark film with a wry sense of humor. There is no hilarity here at any point but a sort of low key irony. John Hurt, Mia Wasikowska and  Anton Yelchin (Mr. Chekov in the new Star Trek films) all add to the film in small roles. Yelchin's Ian is sort of Adam's Renfield in the movie but he doesn't procure virgin blood but vintage guitars. Wasikowska is a  fly in the ointment, Swinton's "sister" who shows up to mess things up.

You want to see more of these characters. You never will. But you can feel free to create the rest of the story on your own. This isn't "typical Jarmusch," if there is such a thing. It is a film that shows a director still growing and changing after decades of work.

Railway Man deals with big issues in a small way. The most obvious of these is the treatment of British prisoners of war held by the Japanese. It also deals with the aftermath, how this mistreatment, the torture, starvation and more continued to haunt the men held in their lives after the war. It is one of the few films to do this.

But it is also a film about redemption--through repentance, through hard work and through love.

The film dodges several mistakes that might have muddled it. It does not spend a ton of time on side characters--and especially not on their background stories. It focuses on the character played by Colin Firth and Jeremy Irvine, Eric. He is a radioman (and we find out, a Railway enthusiast) taken by the Japanese after the surrender of Singapore. The soldiers are then held in deplorable conditions. But this isn't where the movie spends most of his time. 

It is mostly concerned with Eric years later, after he meets a woman and seemingly finds happiness--decades later.  Nicole Kidman plays Patti in an understated role that reminds (again after her performance in Stoker) what a fine actress she is.

The war intrudes on Eric's happiness--even more so when he is told that one of his tormenters Takeshi Nagase (played by Hiroyuki Sanada and Tanroh Ishida) has been found--giving tours of the very railway where the British prisoners toiled and died.

What will Eric do?

This is the basis for the movie. Railway Man is not a film about geo-political aspects of war or about crimes against humanity in a broad sense. It is about the men involved and how they react. It is about Eric and his relationship with his wife vis a vis his experiences in the war. It is a small movie about a man who is trying to put the past behind him and live his life.

There are parts of the film that are designed to make you angry. But ultimately these merely serve to show that what is needed isn't anger but humanity, empathy and forgiveness. A small film, not one that will make much noise, get much notice or win piles of awards but it is moving, well-paced, beautifully shot and filled with excellent acting, even in small roles.

Under the Skin is a creepy film from beginning to end. Part of the reason for this is that, as a heterosexual male, it is easy to imagine yourself going pretty much anywhere with Scarlett Johansson. In this film you learn that it really is what's under the skin that counts.

In one way this film is heir to to the "they are among us" films of the 1950s. At some points I thought "Jodorowsky."  But mostly I just wondered where the film was going. Ultimately it becomes a movie about someone pretending to be something they are not--and coming to identify with that something. She is an alien who starts to "go native."

Johansson drives around, picking up men--some wary, some eager, and taking them with her in her van.  But over the span of the film she also seems to develop empathy with humans--an even more so with her own human form.

Director Jonathan Glazer was at the wheel for the excellent, Sexy Beast. He also worked extensively with English bands Massive Attack and Radiohead. Remember the video for Karma Police? He did it.

He hasn't done a ton of feature films (this is his third). It is to be hoped he will be at the helm again--and soon. This is a unique and thoughtful film and it there are so few like it that make it to theaters. The special effects are minimal and effective showing you need not break the bank in Sci-Fi.

In fact, some of the "special effects" sequences in the film are what really bring home the creepiness of the movie. We barely meet the men and yet we can feel for them because of these parts of the film (trying very hard not to give too much away here).

The Jodorowsky reference relates to a couple of these segments but as soon as these end you are snapped back to a rather mundane reality--something almost neo-realist. The non-alien segments of the film could be something about working people of Scotland.

Another interesting thing about the movie is that the men lured into the van were allegedly not actors but were shot on hidden cameras and only told they were in a film afterward.  It seems a risky way to make a movie--and reinforces the creepiness. Can you imagine if a director did this with the genders reversed?

These sort of creative takes on filmmaking are welcome even in films that do not succeed. Experimentation in how to make movies and what are movies are essential to move the art of filmmaking along. This film does it and succeeds in making a good and provocative film. Again, let's see more from Glazer, and soon.

Philomena is the true story (more or less) of a woman searching for the child taken away from her when she was an unwed teen in Ireland. The subject alone shows the Catholic Church in a rather unflattering light and there have been many other Irish movies dealing with the forced breaking up of families by the church and state--and all of these have been dire, harsh, cheerless films.

Not so Philomena. It isn't played for straight up laughs and it isn't really a comedy but the writing and the acting are far more lighthearted than the subject matter suggests. In fact, no one who has seen the previews will expect anything dire or harsh.

It is a tribute to Judy Dench that this seems like an easy role for her. She is so effortless, seems so real as the simple, pleasant, non-judgemental Irishwoman that you almost don't see it as a performance. She also gets the bulk of the laughs.

Philomena is a mostly cheerful woman who has harbored this one great secret, this one great regret. she finally tells her daughter and shows her the single photo she has of her son. The daughter then has a chance run in that sets things in motion.

That run-in is with Martin Sixsmith, the cashiered director of communications for a government department under Tony Blair. Philomena's daughter is working at a party he attends.

Sixsmith, a former journalist, is shown as a little prickly. He is rude and occasionally snaps at people. If you focus on him as the lead there seem to be some reasons to scratch your head; why does he take on the story he initially dismisses? Is one inconclusive conversation with his wife what really did it?

Sixsmith, played ably by Steve Coogan, who also wrote the screenplay, isn't a bad sort though and, to the movie's credit he doesn't "change his ways" after meeting and spending time with the cheery, forgiving Philomena.

This is a movie that seems to stick mostly to the real story. There are flashbacks to a young Philomena (played by Sophie Kennedy Clark) that are hints at what went on before--they are never overdone and they are cut together with the "present" part of the film perfectly.

Stephen Frears certainly can make a movie. You hear about actors who would be entertaining reading the phone book; Frears would make an interesting movie with a script based on the phone book. This may not be The Grifters or Prick Up Your Ears but it is a memorable film nonetheless. Its sense of humanity, its humor and how shows "issues" movies often pretend to grapple with as ultimately meaningless. The movie does not try to move outside the bounds of the real story. It does not try to be big--and that is why it works.

Great acting and a good screenplay don't hurt of course.

The World's End is a funny movie. No doubt about it. Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost all involved in a movie seems to be a pretty solid recipe for actual laughter. Is it as funny and original as Shaun of the Dead? Probably not but it is probably a hair better than the also amusing Hot Fuzz.

There is one problem with the movie and it isn't actually WITH the movie but a broader problem that Hollywood needs to deal with right NOW; they need to stop telling us so much in previews.

I would have been much happier if I hadn't KNOWN this film was about robots? As an avid movie goer I should, at least, have the opportunity to not know. If I want to have a movie spoiled there are tons of reviewers willing to do that for me. I didn't need to go see the Harrison Ford/Gary Oldman movie, Paranoia, because the previews pretty much told me what was going to happen in the film. Even more egregious are the previews for the remake of Carrie, the new Vin Diesel film, Captain Phillips...hell pretty much every single preview I've seen for months.

Hollywood thinks we are stupid and won't understand if they don't spell it out for us. Please, stop! It actually stops me from going to certain movies and I am sure I am not alone in this.

But let's get back to The World's End.

How many of you recall high school as the pinnacle of your life? It is to be hoped very few. Even so it is a certainty that you know someone who feels this way. They have never gotten past their "glory years" which were usually far less glorious than they recall. That is the starting point for this film.

Pegg plays Gary King, the vaguely goth high school superstar who decides (at a little too much length) to get his old friends together to relive their youth via a particular quest. He wants them to return to their hometown to go on a pub crawl--having a pint at each of a dozen pubs, culminating at The World's End.

Frost is decidely NOT Ed from Shaun of the Dead in this movie, instead being cast in the sober, responsible role. He and Gary's other friends are all gainfully employed, fairly successful and only moderately nostalgic for days gone by. But with clever lies and manipulation Gary gets them all on board for the trek.

All along the way gags ensue. Much like Hot Fuzz before it this movie will improve upon second viewing. Some of the early jokes are put into context by what happens later. That is one of the beauty of the "Cornetto Trilogy" all the films stand up well to repeated viewings.

There are some lessons in this one but these are never used as a bludgeon. And also the ending sort of leaves it open for interpretation what, precisely, these lessons are. Maybe it is ok, under some circumstances, to live in the past? Perhaps when the present is miserable?

But life lessons are not really the point here in any case--humor is and The World's End gets that part right. It does it in a way that induces more chuckles than uncontrollable laughter but that is by design. It is to be hoped that this isn't the final curtain for this group working together.