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There's not much that's surprising in Clint Eastwood's latest directorial feat Invictus. The great exception being that you are surprised why you are constantly surprised. One's not surprised that Morgan Freeman creates a great Nelson Mandela on screen. But you constantly marvel at the blend of star actor and fictional character in front of your eyes. So much so that one part of you truly believes you are watching Mandela the man while the other part of you subsumes in the knowledge that this is great screen acting. His joyous little hip jive watching the the Spingboks-All Blacks 1995 World Cup Final at Ellis Park Stadium. The way his eyes fix into those of Boks captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) at their first meeting - not in an interrogative way, but in knowledge and camaraderie. Perhaps the greatest stroke of luck for Freeman was the long in development adaption of Mandela's autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom not getting off the ground and instead receiving the 4-page proposal for John Carlin's book on the '95 Cup Final (screenwriter Anthony Peckham who recently co-wrote Sherlock Holmes).

Like all successful films about life's struggles Invictus will speak to a world-wide audience because of its specificity - not just one event that changed a country but all the small cogs that made it turn. And yes, it's about sport but it goes beyond sport, race and politics becoming more about why sport is so important in the lives of many people - the need for a winning hero, the need to fight battles. Many will have different interpretations of Mandela's dictum: "forgiveness liberates the soul that's why it is such a powerful weapon". Mandela relates how in prison he and the other inmates would really piss off the white guards by cheering and supporting the basically all-white Springboks. After Mandela's election as President many South Africans wanted to eradicate the team's name and emblem echoing of apartheid. The film tells the story of why Mandela chose not to. It's really a companion piece to Clint Eastwood's previous Gran Torino (directing while acting in almost every scene): how your hated neighbour turns out to be if not exactly your friend then at least someone you understand far more. "We must all exceed our own expectations," said Mandela. You may hate sport but you will love this film. You mightn't give a toss about politics but you will understand the need for diplomacy. And even when you look into the mirror next morning you will want to say 'be yourself but not at the expense of someone else'.
BBC's Our World: Mandela - 20 Years of Freedom
Clint Eastwood - The Collection, a brilliant bargain box set containing 8 of his best movies was released by Universal (June 2007)
Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros DVD (Reg 1)
Dirty Harry Collection USA Warner DVD/Blu-ray
The Firm (2009) (UK Warner DVD) (my review-8 paras into post)

"To be violent is the ultimate ­laziness," says theatre director Peter Brook - 11 and 12 at the Barbican Theatre
interview on BBC's The Culture Show (Feb 4)
The prayers of Peter Brook (The Guardian)
last 2 shows of Helen Chadwick's music theatre piece Dalston Songs about what home means to the people (79 languages) of her local community in East London. A welcome revival of Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan tutte Mozart staging (with fab Armani costumes) and a new production by iconoclastic theatre/opera director Richard Jones is always an exciting event: Prokofiev's The Gambler (1929)
While in fashionista mode, Dame Vivienne Westwood gave us provocative 'homeless chic' on the European Spring catwalk.
And Julien Temple's world meets that of the 70s Brit band Dr. Feelgood as he documents their habitat of Canvey Island in Essex: Oil City Confidential - a doco whose cinematic sweep makes the trip to the cinema well worthwhile.

Designer Tom Ford's fantastic foray into film A Single Man opens next Friday (reviewed here [12 paras in] at last year's Times BFI London Film Festival). Up to now woman have had the monopoly in film when it comes to the 'presentation of self' but Ford shows us the relationship between the cut of the suit and that of the soul.
Distributor Park Circus asks us to look again at Pretty Woman (Gere and Julia Roberts, 1990) revived in time for Valentine's Day.

The heart of Astro Boy was well worth reviving, "a timeless story in the tradition of Pinocchio or Oliver Twist" says director David Bowers: "It's very Dickensian, but at the same time, it's very modern. He is a child [robot] created to replace the son that a father lost...[but] comes to realise that the boy can't truly replace his lost son." Osamu Tezuka's 1951 manga (Japanese comic book) character paved the way for anime and became a world icon. The film's designers at Imagi Studios were inspired by Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (his museum in New York recently opened) - whose abstraction inspires the line to take flight rather than the pixel in Astro Boy just as Disney animation inspired its creator Tezuka. "I am not going to fight you," stamps Astro Boy (Freddie Highmore) as Zog (Samuel L. Jackson) the big old robot he repaired with some of his own 'heart' lumbers toward him, forced into combat by the evil Hamegg (Nathan Lane). Often, as the saying goes 'sticking to your guns" pays off.
Ponyo from Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away) opens Feb 12.
Some kids, though, (and those with Avatar overload) may prefer the very exciting 3D re-mastering of Battle for Terra. Made outside the studio system in 2007 (Tribeca 2008, Lionsgate distributed in the US May, 2009), there are touches of René Laloux’s beauty, battle, and innocence in Fantastic Planet (1973) and Gandahar (1988).

Longtime assistant director for the Wachowski brothers James McTeigue (The Matrix trilogy, Speed Racer) wows with good and evil (secret clan vs. European security services) battling it out in Ninja Assassin. "Ninjas have been used so often for comic effect that it felt as if no one was taking them seriously any longer," said co-writer J. Michael Straczynski. Though quite wry, lines like "ninja may be on their way here - I think I can handle a few whack-jobs wearing pajamas" do break the film's serious tone and intended authenticity. The fight scenes are exhilarating, faultless, as is Korean pop-star Rain (great in Chan-wook Park's film I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK). Will McTeigue in the future get to use his talents for something a little less whizz-whack?

Korean talent abounds in director/writer/producer/actor Yang Ik-June's debut Breathless (Ddongpari) - but again perhaps the amount of 130 min violence ultimately bludgeons one's sensibilities. The Pusan Film Fest programmer likened the film to American indie legend John Cassavetes, and without having read that first, it's a comparison that did cautiously spring to mind. Violence is as second-nature as bad language for these characters who've dragged themselves through domestic waste-land sludge - the director's camera lands you neck deep in it.

The feature debut from Gerard Johnson's London serial killer Tony by contrast is a taut 78 minutes. Tony (Peter Ferdinando) is the most boring Council estate unemployable sod imaginable. When a visitor to his flat pisses him off he does a Sweeney Todd without a Mrs. Lovett nor the meat pies. Well-worn territory though it may be but Johnson has an eerie eye for the unexpected using framing and location to great effect and a sense of tone that subtly keeps shifting from black comedic, horror, to docu drama. This quality marks him for an exciting future film project rather than quality TV drama.

Armored is a clever American heist script (James V. Simpson's debut, Nimrod Antal director) with cinematographer Andrzej Sekula (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) giving it the gritty realism of Tarantino touched with Antonioni urban alienation. Don't expect Peckinpah but look forward to interesting times from these collaborators.

George Clooney's corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham in Up in the Air is one of the best things he's ever done. We don't expect (nor want) the Clooney face on screen to cry. But when Bingham is downsized emotionally we are the ones to weep. And that's what film acting is all about. Jason Reitman's film resembles a fall out fragment of demolition skimming innocently across the water until hitting one between the eyes. Clooney's also blessed with a brilliant cast that could never be called simply supporting.
Episode 3 of Charlie Brooker's Newswipe comedy round up of the week on Brit TV looking at celebrities endorsing things (worthwhile charity causes) (4 days left to watch)