A Bug's Life
Directed by John Lasseter
In this delightful computer-animated feature from the Toy Story team, the unlikely hero is Flik, who comes to the aid of his timid fellow ants when they have to hand over much of their hard-earned harvest to the greedy grasshopper, Hopper, who's gleefully voiced by Kevin Spacey. In the great tradition of The Seven Samurai, Flik seeks out some tougher bugs to defend the ants against Hopper's gang and he assembles a disparate troupe of sacked flea circus performers. The action is infused with an impish sense of humour and an unforced charm, the set-pieces are brilliantly staged, and the imagery is richly textured.
Henry Fool
Directed by Hal Hartley Starring Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Maria Porter
Set in a rundown area in the New York borough of Queens, Hartley's thoroughly disappointing recent film features Ryan, an imposing screen newcomer, as the eponymous character, a paroled convict who inveigles himself into the home of the Grim family, which, you may gather from their name, is dysfunctional. In complete contrast to the voluble, domineering Henry, Simon Grim (Urbaniak) is a shy, nerdy garbage collector who is encouraged by Henry to express himself in poetry. Hartley applies some typically outrageous humour to this tragicomic Faustian fable, but its many superfluous digressions and rambling structure undermine its intermittent flashes of brilliance.
Jerry And Tom
Directed by Saul Rubinek Starring Joe Mantegna, Sam Rockwell, William H. Macy, Charles Durning, Ted Danson, Sarah Polley, Peter Reigert, Maury Chaykin
Actor Rubinek turns director with a self-consciously quirky yarn set over 10 years in the lives of a Chicago hitman (Mantegna) and his initially squeamish protege (Rockwell) who turns gradually more cold-blooded. The film is formed as a repetitive series of forced, loquacious encounters, each ending in a killing. Rubinek skilfully employs overlapping devices as one sequence segues to the next, and the capable cast work heroically with thin material which piles on the political and pop culture references, but the film falls far short of the influences - Tarantino, Mamet - it so desperately hopes to emulate.