More films

It's been a while since I did my amateur film reviewing. But having taken a number of long-haul flights recently, I've seen a few. [I would have seen more had not BA's 'high life' entertainment on demand system suffered a 50% failure rate, based on four journeys of c. 11 h duration each. Could do better.]

Dorian Gray is worth watching. It's a thoughtful interpretation of Oscar Wilde's book that resonates well with today's celebrity culture. A British film, it has that British feel, but it captures the attention and Ben Barnes puts in a good performance in the title role. I guess it's a sort of morality tale. My pick of the bunch.

500 days of summer is a romantic comedy. My least favourite category of film, usually, along with gory horror. But this is what is described as an 'offbeat' rom com, and, yes, it has a little more to it than most. So I quite liked it. But the first 10 minutes or so are really corny and make for uncomfortable viewing if you don't like corniness.

Coco before Chanel is worthy but dull. A nicely shot period piece, there's some good characterization, but not all that much happens. Sort of 'Coco before she did anything interesting'. [I have to confess to having fallen asleep for around 20 minutes about three-quarters through, and as the Highlife entertainment system was non operational, I couldn't rewind. So I might have missed the car chase, or the shoot out.] Still, miles better than some of the other options available on BA's limited roster of film choices.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the moderately good latest installment in the Potter series. My kids had seen it, so I felt I ought to keep up and watch it too. This is the stage in the books where they started getting really thick, and the plots really complex. The Death Eaters are doing bad things, Harry and his chums are in grave peril, and significant characters are dropping like flies. Alan Rickman as Snape is at his sneering best. But I still don't understand exactly how they fight each other with their wands (what are the rules here?), and why they can't magic people back to life again if they can do all that other stuff like heal their really sick or badly injured chums.

Land of the Lost stars Will Ferrell. Not a good start. And it is truly bad. One of the worst films I've ever seen. I got about 20 minutes into it and could go no further. Why did I even think it would be a good option?

Moon, however, is worth watching. A clever, low budget sci fi flick, it's well written, suspenseful and engaging. It also gets a little bit confusing about two thirds of the way through, when the main character sort of doubles up. It was at this stage the plane landed, and so I didn't see the ending. But I'd seen enough to realize that this is a serious film.