Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In (or it's stangely similar Swedish title Låt den rätte komma in) is disturbing. Not because it's unrelentingly cold or bleak, or because of all the vampirey killing. It's disturbing because I know it's better than I thought it was. It's clearly an excellent film, but next to others in the genre that it has been compared to - Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage - it didn't effect me at all. I missed the vibrancy of Guillermo del Toro, even though I knew it didn't need it. I'm distrurbed that I wasn't disturbed.

It was worth trying to get out of The Most Confusing Car Park in Wales though. And walking around an eerily empty shopping centre. Zombies? No, no zombies.

Growling in Gran Torino

It wasn't the film I thought it would be, and that made it better. The trailer makes it look like Clint Eastwood is just going to go on a grumpy-old-man-rampage, but it turns out that's only about a quarter of the film. Walt (Eastwood) grows to like his Asian neighbours and becomes only affectionately racist. His mentoring of Thao includes some wonderfully funny scenes that you don't expect to find in a film about gang violence. But it works - you like these characters, and when the violence happens, it matters. There's also a good amount of Eastwood growling.