No one to talk to when I'm feelin' low, no one to stand me when I go too far.

The Rocket
Kim Mordaunt 2013 Laos/Thailand/Australia
Starring: Sitthiphon Disamoe, Loungnam Kaosainam, Suthep Po-ngam, Bunsri Yindi, Alice Keohavong, Sumrit Warin


Kim Mordaunt's story of childhood, poverty and hope in modern Laos, The Rocket, has been compared in many reviews to 2012's Beasts Of The Southern Wild but, while both feature children navigating flood-hit nature, that's about as far as the comparisons go and such attempts at association are pretty uncomplimentary to this film. The key here is magical realism and a focus on tradition with 10 year old Ahlo labelled as a cursed being by his foul-mouthed, doomsayer grandmother because of his status as a surviving twin (his sibling was stillborn) and forcibly relocated from his village to a government-sponsored shanty town by officials who want to flood the region and build a new dam. While there he meets orphaned child Kia and her hilarious, permanently soused, deathly Uncle Purple, so called because of his obsession with James Brown and his propensity to dress up (and dance) like him. But, much like many of the other characters, there's a darkness to this apparent clown as it turns out his beloved suit was given to him by the American Embassy, possibly as a gift for collaborating with them. Later Ahlo sees a photo showing Purple as a child soldier and seeks his expert tuition to help make a rocket for the central competition and we understand that his patent mixture of senility and whiskey may actually be the coping mechanism of a traumatised old man. Thankfully this isn't dwelled on too heavily and the meat of the film concentrates on the sweet friendship between the two children and their attempts to better their lot. Both are really outstanding in the roles punctuating the film with energy, heart, a complete lack of fear and, in Kia's case, a sense of eternal optimism that only threatens to disappear when Ahlo does. The direction falters on occasion and threatens to dip into sentimentality but things are kept strong by the charm of the leads, the dramatic and funny fable-like story and a picturesque setting that should delight arthouse and mainstream audiences alike.

I'm not at home in a culture in which a young couple can say that "our song" is Why Don't We Do It In The Road?

10
Blake Edwards 1979 USA
Starring: Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews, Bo Derek, Robert Webber, Dee Wallace, Brian Dennehy, Sam J Jones, Max Showalter


Watching Dudley Moore play dinner-party jazz on the piano before breaking into boogie-woogie is one of life's small joys. Although, seeing that paragon of cinematic goodness Julie Andrews calling someone a "shitheel" and threatening to punch them in the mouth is probably up there as well. Moore's movie career (Arthur aside) not so much. Still, this is one of his better, more complex roles with his George misanthropic, borderline alcoholic and perpetually in-crisis yet ultimately lovable, despite an unpleasant vein of chauvinism and homophobia that thankfully dissipates early on. He'd be unsympathetic if he wasn't so unlucky. At one point, while spying on his sexually histrionic neighbour, he curses the man's good fortune, swipes his telescope, is clocked on the temple by it as it spins, stumbles backwards, falling over a wall in the process, and rolls down a hill. That he gets a much-awaited phone call at the same moment and has to try and scramble up the hill in vain to answer it seems slightly cruel. But it works. We can even sort of see why, despite having a successful career, he's constantly so irritated. When, practically on a whim, he decides to run off to Mexico in pursuit of a woman he's glimpsed at a set of traffic lights and inexplicably fallen in love with (even he can't understand why she's so special) we're somehow with him. Moore's brilliant while there too, exchanging barbs with a fast-talking barman (a wonderfully glib Brian Dennehy) and finding an almost childlike humanity in his character even while slugging industrial amounts of brandy. But of course when he finds his Ravel-loving dream woman (a pretty poor but paradoxically at her best Bo Derek) and manages to bumble his way into her bed she's not at all as he imagined. It sounds like a fairly lightweight premise and, to be honest, it is but it's also charming, frequently hilarious and surprisingly vicious with much of the credit having to go to Moore. I don't think I need to say that if it were to be remade it just wouldn't work. When Arthur was remade in 2011 I was moved to write Russell Brand a strongly-worded letter involving the phrase "even God would want to shit on your face after watching your performance you meat-headed dicksplash" so I dread to think what my response would be if it was. It probably wouldn't be as extreme but I certainly wouldn't be happy.