Carlos

I can't speak for the shorter cinema cut but the full 5 1/2 hours version (originally made for French TV) is a terrifically engrossing piece of work, with the space to tease out the murky connections between terrorist groups and their state sponsors during the 1970s and 1980s. The starting point, inevitably, is the Middle East but as the centrepiece attack on the Vienna OPEC meeting (the bulk of part 2) indicates, even here all was not as it appeared, and as time progresses high ideals increasingly warp into mercenary acts. The German terrorist "Angie", for instance, leaves the movement in disgust at what he perceives as its anti-Semitism, having a clear distinction in his own mind between that and attacking Zionism - escpecially important considering Germany's history. The political machinations are equally tortuous. The Iranian oil minister might have been one of Carlos' targets in Vienna, but a decade later it's the influence of Iran that wins him sanctuary in Sudan. The Soviets meanwhile ensure that Carlos can establish bases in Eastern Europe after being expelled from the PFLP while funding a plot to assassinate President Sadat (ironically the lengthy period of organizing such a plot ensures it's pre-empted by other militants) Vienna is a neat summation of the complexity at the heart of what appears to be a simple political struggle.
All this is serious stuff, yet Olivier Assayas doesn't neglect the thrills. There are assassination attempts, bombings, hijackings and shoot-outs, staged in a manner that is exciting without being bombastic. In addition there's a streak of wry humour: the failed wrangling of a rocket launcher - twice! - foils an attempted attack on an El-Al aeroplane (though one missile does hit a Yugoslav jet thus giving an unexpected propaganda coup to a Croatian group); 3 Japanese Red Army members are late for an attack on the French Embassy in The Hague because they can't read a map correctly; and the escape plan from Vienna is derailed when Carlos kills a Libyan delegate thus ensuring Gaddafi won't allow the plane to land in Libya which in turn means it can't make it to Iraq ... Contemporary news footage is intercut with the drama for visceral effect.
The linking thread, of course, is Carlos himself, first encountered as an ambitious footsoldier for the PFLP who ultimately antagonizes Wadi Haddad once too often and subsequently tries to set up his own group. Amusingly he demands the complete obediance ostentatiously lacking from his own dealings with superiors. He's also a voracious and charming womaniser who regards himself very highly indeed (see the preening young man naked before the mirror at the start and contrast with the overweight lothario who has liposuction in Sudan) The charisma that makes him eminently watchable (in a tour de force, mulitilingual performance by Edgar Ramirez)nevertheless doesn't disguise his utter ruthlessness: witness for instance the sudden descent into brutal violence when informer Andre and the police gatecrash a gathering of South American exiles in Paris. Yet for all his notoriety and star quality, Carlos lacks the political wiliness of the the new PFLP boss Ali, and finds himself outmanoeuvred, living on his past achievements until justice finally catches up with him.

The Social Network

If further proof was needed that Jesse Eisenberg is an infinitely more interesting and versatile actor than Michael Cera (to whom he is often - unfairly - compared), then just try to imagine the latter playing Mark Zuckerberg. No? Didn't think so. As previously shown in The Squid and the Whale, Eisenberg can summon an unpleasantly abrasive edge to his characters (the audience practically cheers when the long-suffering mother finally slaps him in that film) Likewise, his Zuckerberg makes no play for sympathy. Anything that we do feel for him is very hard won indeed - and usually short-lived.
The opening exchange perfectly sums him up: an obviously intelligent man with non-existent social empathy, even for his (soon-to-be-ex) girlfriend. She is merely the first in a stream of people driven to exasperation by his behaviour. It's rare when one feels sorry for movie lawyers but Zuckerberg's in the deposition scenes comes close, as his client's interventions do nothing to help his case. This is a man who insults his ex online and can't understand why she refuses to talk to him; who thinks nothing of discarding his only real friend in favour of the surface flash and ambition of Sean Parker, a man he regards as a soulmate because both were driven to invent in order to impress a girl (though tellingly Parker clearly couldn't care less about this early love whereas Zuckerberg never quite gets over Erica).
Motivations are left opaque but there are interesting suggestions. Saverin and Zuckerberg are both outsiders, looking longly at the exclusive clubs and the girls the members attract, and yet Zuckerberg appears to harbour a festering jealousy when his friend is accepted into one of the clubs (you could never describe Zuckerberg as a supportive friend; his main aim seems to be to undermine Saverin's confidence). Zuckerberg also wants some form of revenge on Erica but also seems to want her back, and equally important (baring in mind her apparent admiration for the rowing crews) he has a powerful determination to best the Harvard elite who shut out the likes of him. There's actually much fun to be had with the representatives of this elite, the Winklevoss twins. Their attitude about the honour of Harvard gentlemen might be gently mocked but they are mostly portrayed as sympathetically naive.
At the film's heart though is the destruction of the friendship between Zuckerberg and Saverin. It's far easier to warm to Saverin, who's endearingly gauche, and never once suspects that Zuckerberg and Parker are plotting to remove him from the company he founded. Even during the deposition scenes he seems hurt more than angry (his one explosion in Facebook's office involves him disconnecting Zuckerberg from the digital bubble in which he exists) yet the minute changes in his facial expression suggest that Zuckerberg feels the loss too. The break though is irreparable. If this all sounds terribly serious, it's not. David Fincher makes it a thoroughly enjoyable experience (and for CSI afficionados there's a "that's Hodges!" moment), with zinging dialogue, classy performances and a surprising emotional kick. Erica tells Zuckerberg at the beginning that it's not because he's a nerd that women won't like him, but because he's an asshole, and while the film mostly substantiates this view, our final image of the young billionaire is of him isolated at a computer, constantly refreshing Erica's Facebook page in the hope she'll accept him as a "friend", more a pathetic figure than anything else.

Eadweard Muybridge

I've been familiar with Muybridge's name because of the vital importance of his experiments in motion photography to the invention of cinema, but I'd never realized he was also a famous landscape photographer. The examples on show often exude that oddly ethereal quality of 19th century photographs, a happy byproduct of the technical processes involved. Water in particular looks very different: waterfalls are bizarrely solid and bright, and it's difficult to tell whether that's surf or sea mist at the base of cliffs. Nevertheless, the photos of Yosemite in particular are beautiful, but equally impressive are the multiple-plate panoramas of San Francisco, a real glimpse into another era as the vast majority of the buildings were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. The second part of the exhibition contains the work for which he is now most well-known. In addition to the groundbreaking sequences of horses in motion, there are animals of every sort: elephants, buffalo, pigs and even eagles, as well as humans carrying out various activities (though one suspects the naked ladies have considerably less scientific value than claimed ...) Simply looking at the sheets of prints is like examining a filmstrip frame by frame, and the projected recreation of images from the zoopraxiscope is akin to primitive animation. Motion pictures really were only a few years away.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

As a resolute non-gamer, I had been wary about seeing this (much as I adore Edgar Wright). However, despite probably missing numerous references and in-jokes, I loved every single minute of it. Sometimes you just know you're going to adore a film from the very first seconds and Scott Pilgrim had me at the pixellated Universal logo (subtle and clever) It almost goes without saying that there's too much to take in on a single viewing. Really the film needs to be perused on frame-by-frame ultra slo-mo to process all the information flashing across the screen. To say it's a technical tour-de-force doesn't quite describe the sheer virtuosity and imagination on display. But all that would count for nothing if the audience didn't care about the characters, and while Scott and Ramona didn't exactly rock my world (at times both need a damn good slap), the rest of the characters more than win you over. Hands-down winner on the male front is Wallace Wells, Scott's gay room-mate and expert purveyor of cutting wit, while Knives Chau steals the female title as the adorable high-schooler dated (and cheated on) by Scott. Most of the evil-exes are a riot (a running joke is Ramona's correction of Scott's mentioning of "evil ex-boyfriends" - there is a reason) There's Chris Evans' skateboarder/movie star Lucas Lee, who tells Scott he's going for an Oscar this year (hilariously unlikely) and lets his stunt team fight on his behalf; Brandon Routh's peroxide musician Todd Ingram whose veganism confers special powers (cue an amusing appearance by the vegan police); and Jason Schwartzmann's Gideon Graves, music impresario and gleefully hissable chief villain. Throw in a hip and varied soundtrack and you've got something for everyone who loves either films or music.

The Maid

Would anyone *want* to become a maid, and more pertinently, would anyone *want* to remain one? Raquel has worked for the same family for 20 years, bringing up the children and cleaning up after everyone. The family in turn seem genuinely fond of Raquel, throwing a surprise birthday party for her in the opening moments and generally tolerating her passive-aggressive behaviour. Yet it's a profoundly dysfunctional situation. Raquel and the daughter are at loggerheads, the mother refuses to discipline her, and she doggedly defends her position from any interlopers, even ones brought in to help when it becomes clear that she's ill. Raquel's favoured tactic is to lock out any maid foolish enough to step outside, though it also extends to throwing the new kitten over the wall, which has the added bonus of upsetting the daughter. It's blackly comic but also unsettling as it highlight's Raquel's mental disarray. Her whole life revolves around this family (her meagre possessions include 3 teddy bears sadly propped up on her bed, and she can barely talk over the phone to her own mother) and she truly has no life of her own. She's also a bracingly unsympathetic presence. We can understand her predicament but emotionally we side with the victimised maids - Raquel adds an unpleasant layer of xenophobia to her campaign against the Peruvian girl. All of which makes the halting steps towards sociability, courtesy of the ebullient Lucy, rewardingly touching.