My Top 5 Movies of 2011

I broke the 100 barrier again this year, movie-wise, watching a total of 109 films in 2011, a few more than last year's 95. It was easy to narrow down my top three but ordering the movies proved more difficult. In any case, here are my top five:

1. We Need To Talk About Kevin. It seems like the 2012 Academy Award for best actress will fiercely contested but Tilda Swinton, playing the mother of the eponymous Kevin, definitely stands a good chance. We Need To Talk About Kevin is bleak and uncomfortable to watch. It's also a brilliant film, although definitely not good first-date (or any date) material.

2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. As with last year's list, my #2 film is the only one I saw twice, enjoying it just as much--if not more--second time around. With great performances from Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and the rest of the ensemble cast (even if there were too many blonde-ish mullets), beautiful cinematography and a plot filled with plenty of complicated espionage and betrayal. The only disappointment was that a few of the lines from the 1979 TV series that my father recorded onto one of his many audio-compilation-of-TV-shows-and-movies tapes and played ad nauseam, ad infinitum throughout my youth didn't appear in the script (you can watch them here, starting at 1:35; "Officially, you're absent without leave...").

3. The Skin I Live in. I was hooked on this one as soon as I saw the trailer and although it isn't perfect, Almodóvar's film is dark, twisted and compelling, with Antonio Banderas starring as Robert Ledgard, the charismatic but troubled plastic surgeon who, among other things, is trying to create an extremely resilient synthetic skin without pissing off "the scientific community." (I work for a scientific publisher--which is thanked in the credits for providing journals for Ledgard's office, incidentally--and was amused by the characters' main concern about Ledgard's more ethically dubious research was what "the scientific community" would think, rather than, say, the police.) Almodóvar is definitely at his bonkers best in The Skin I Live in.

4. The Descendants. Sure, part of the fun of watching Alexander Payne's latest film was spotting George Clooney on the red carpet and watching him, Payne and the young co-star Shailene Woodley (who was great) talking about the movie on stage at the London Film Festival. But The Descendants is an interesting film in its own right and it's always fun to see Clooney acting against type (this time playing the family man).

5. The Artist. It's a little unfair for me to include this film in my top five over  The King's Speech, when I only saw the former this afternoon and I watched the latter almost a year ago. But The Artist definitely lived up to the hype and engaged even me--a real stickler for good dialogue--despite having almost no dialogue and very little sounds at all, apart from the musical score. I'd recommend The Artist for cinéphiles and lovers of early cinema in particular but the sweet, if sometimes a little melodramatic (intentionally so) story of a silent movie actor who refuses to adapt to the arrival of the talkies. A longer review will follow.

Honourable mention: Senna. This is my token documentary entry and although it didn't quite make my top five, I really enjoyed it, despite knowing little and caring less about motor racing.

• The Next Three Days
• Paranormal Activity (DVD)
• The Killer Inside Me (DVD)
• The Children's Hour
• 127 Hours
• The Young Victoria (TV)
• The Boat That Rocked (TV)
• The King's Speech
• Morning Glory
• The Fighter
• Ocean's Eleven (1960; TV)
• The Mechanic
• Rabbit Hole
• Hereafter
• Primal Fear (DVD)
• Jagged Edge (DVD)
• The Adjustment Bureau
• A Few Good Men (DVD)
• Archipelago
• The Rainmaker (DVD)
• Another Year (DVD)
• Fair Game
• Route Irish
• The Lincoln Lawyer
• Source Code
• Submarine
• Scream 4
• Oranges and Sunshine
• The Color of Money (DVD)
• Rosemary's Baby (DVD)
• Let the Right One in (DVD)
• Water for Elephants
• Let's Scare Jessica to Death
• Thor
• Badlands (DVD)
• Hanna
• Along Came a Spider (TV)
• Kiss the Girls (TV)
• The Caine Mutiny
• Les Ojos de Julia
• The Contender (DVD)
• Unforgiven (DVD)
• Gli Angeli del Male
• Senna
• Killing Bono (TV)
• Potiche
• The Messenger
• Taken (TV)
• Incendies
• Bridesmaids
• Date Night (DVD)
• Gone Baby Gone (DVD)
• A Separation
• Trust
• La Princesse de Montpensier
• The Philadelphia Story (DVD)
• The Big Picture
• Beginners
• Witness for the Prosecution (DVD)
• All the President's Men (DVD)
• The Tree of Life
• Mr Nice (DVD)
• Project Nim
• Sarah's Key
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes
• TRON Legacy (DVD)
• One Day
• The Skin I Live In
• Limitless (DVD)
• Planet of the Apes (1968; DVD)
• X-Men (TV)
• Jane Eyre
• Kill List
• Last Night (plane)
• Midnight in Paris (plane)
• Super 8 (plane)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
• Drive
• Warrior
• Red State
• The Men Who Stare at Goats (DVD)
• The Help
• Like Crazy
• The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
• The Ides of March
• The Descendants
• We Need to Talk About Kevin
• Damsels in Distress
• Anonymous
• Contagion
• Miss Bala
• The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
• The Name of the Rose (TV)
• Tabloid
• The Weather Man (TV)
• The Awakening
• The Deep Blue Sea
• My Week with Marilyn
• The Other Man (TV)
• In Time (DVD)
• Ponyo (TV)
• Margaret
• Shame
• Defiance (TV)
• Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
• A Dangerous Method
• Hugo (sadly in 2D, thanks to the Cannes cinema)
• The General's Daughter (DVD)
• The Artist

My Top 5 Books of 2011

Despite my valiant attempts to read on my short bus journey to work, I still only managed to read 121 books this year—about the same as last year. Technically, I haven't finished Steven Pinker's new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, but a) it is nearly 700 pages long and b) I should have finished it by the end of tomorrow. I found it relatively easy to narrow down my top five but less so to put them in order. In any case, here they are:

1. Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks. Yes, that's right: my favourite book of the year is found in the science-fiction section. I reviewed the book more fully here, but the reason it got the top spot was because even though I read it nearly a year ago, it has really stayed with me all year long, more so than any other on my list. Tragic, complex and witty, Surface Detail is easily my favourite Iain M. Banks novel.

2. Restless by William Boyd. I almost excluded this book because I felt sure I had included Any Human Heart, by the same author, in my top five last year or the last year. However, a quick check of my 2010 and 2009 lists indicates that somehow, AHH never made it onto one of my lists (I'm pretty sure I read it last year). I liked AHH a lot more than Restless, but the latter has the same haunting tone and generation-spanning, if not quite epic, plot. To atone for my error, I'm making Restless #2. In brief, a middle-aged woman living in the countryside in the 1970s slowly reveals to her daughter her past life as a Russian spy by sharing with her chapters from her memoir. The set-up is clever, allowing for those little earthquakes of realisation that I enjoyed so much about Never Let Me Go, and Boyd is a seriously engaging writer.

3. Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan. I read this novel because I was having trouble tracking down Sullivan's latest novel, Maine, which I still haven't read. Again, my full review of Commencement can be found here, but this story of four very different girls as they enter, pass through and graduate from a prestigious girls' college, rang very true (and is a lot less cheesy than I have just made it sound!).

4. The Submission by Amy Waldman. Widely tipped for a range of literary prizes, The Submission is another American novel for which I had to wait an unduly long time to read. A jury is convening to select the design of for 9/11 memorial and, soon after a winner has been chosen, the jury chair discovers that the winning architect is Muslim, whose minimalist memorial garden shares certain features with Islamic gardens. The decision as to whether he should be named as the winner is taken from the jury's hands as the press gets wind of the news. Focusing on the implications for the architect, several of the jury members (one of whom lost her husband on 9/11), a journalist and others whose lives were touched by the attacks, The Submission is a rich and often witty portrait of the political and social mores so common in our post-9/11 world.

5. Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur. Set in the 1940s, during the time of the Partition of India, and is a story both of this liberation and the attempts of Virmati, the eldest of 11 children in a Punjabi family, to liberate herself from the expectations of society and family, first through her university studies and then through a burgeoning relationship with one of her professors, who is already married. Similar to Restless, this story is told through the eyes of Virmati's daughter, Ida, as she tries to find out more about her mother's life and her parents' marriage.

Meanwhile, here's the full list of the books I read this year:

• Sunset Park — Paul Auster
• The Tudor Queens of England — David Loades
• This Bleeding City — Alex Preston
• The Hell of It All — Charlie Brooker
• Surface Detail — Iain M Banks
• Palo Alto— James Franco
• What You See Is What You Get — Alan Sugar
• The Mind's Eye — Oliver Sacks
• Germania— Simon Wilder
• The Snowman — Jo Nesbo
• Redbreast — Jo Nesbo
• The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories
• Nemesis — Jo Nesbo
• The Devil's Star — Jo Nesbo
• Death and the Virgin — Chris Skidmore
• The Unnamed — Joshua Ferris
• Meeting Mr Kim — Jennifer Barclay
• Restless — William Boyd
• Berlin Game — Len Deighton
• The Oxford Murders — Guillermo Martinez
• Difficult Daughters — Manju Kapur
• The Lincoln Lawyer — Michael Connelly
• Proust and the Squid — Maryanne Wolf
• The Leopard — Jo Nesbo
• The King's Speech — Mark Logue and Peter Conradi
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother — Amy Chua
• All We Wanted Was Everything — Janelle Brown
• Sweet Valley Confidential — Francine Pascal
• The Bonesetter's Daughter — Amy Tan
• Killing Bono — Neil McCormick
• The Nine — Jeffrey Toobin
• The Great Perhaps — Joe Meno
• A Favourite of the Gods — Sybille Bedford
• Winning Arguments — Jay Heinrichs
• Girls Like Us — Sheila Weller
• Charly 9 — Jean Teulé
• Room — Emma Donaghue
• If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This — Robin Black
• The Winter Queen — Boris Akunin
• Case Histories — Kate Atkinson
• 127 Hours — Aron Ralston
• The Shipping News — E Annie Proulx
• The Report — Jessica Francis Kane
• Kingpin — Kevin Poulsen
• Sing You Home — Jodi Picoult
• The Spoiler — Annalena McAfee
• Daughters—in—Law — Joanna Trollope
• A Secret Kept — Tatiana de Rosnay
• One False Move — Harlan Coben
• We Need To Talk about Kevin — Lionel Shriver
• Only Time Will Tell — Jeffrey Archer
• The Postmistress — Sarah Blake
• Lucky Break — Esther Freud
• Sister — Rosamund Lupton
• Afterwards — Rosamund Lupton
• Everything We Ever Wanted — Sara Shepard
• Started Early, Took My Dog — Kate Atkinson
• The Godfather — Mario Puzo
• Moonlight Mile — Dennis Lehane
• Gone with the Wind — Margaret Mitchell
• Water for Elephants — Sara Gruen
• Double Fault — Lionel Shriver
• Commencement — J Courtney Sullivan
• Girl from the South — Joanna Trollope
• The Blind Assassin — Margaret Atwood
• The Third Angel — Alice Hoffman
• Caleb's Crossing — Geraldine Brooks
• Brother and Sister — Joanna Trollope
• The Confession of Katherine Howard — Suzannah Dunn
• True Grit — Charles Portis
• I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 — Douglas Edwards
• Witness the Night — Kishwar Desai
• The Sea House — Esther Freud
• Moonwalking with Einstein — Joshua Foer
• Law and Disorder — Tim Kevan
• The Drowning People — Richard Mason
• The Good Daughters — Joyce Maynard
• What the Nanny Saw — Fiona Neill
• Joanna — Nancy Goldstone
• Best Friends — Joanna Trollope
• Second Honeymoon — Joanna Trollope
• A Passionate Man — Joanna Trollope
• Palladio — Jonathan Dee
• Our Kind of Traitor — John Le Carré
• Submarine — Joe Dunthorne
• Is That a Fish in Your Ear? — David Bellos
• American Weather — Charles McLeod
• Behind the Scenes at the Museum — Kate Atkinson
• Adapt — Tim Harford
• The First Wife — Emily Barr
• Wild Swans — Jung Chang
• The Lady of the Rivers — Philippa Gregory
• The Submission — Amy Waldman
• The Book of Lies — Mary Horlock
• Player One — Douglas Coupland
• By Nightfall — Michael Cunningham
• The Fear Index — Robert Harris
• The Sense of an Ending — Julian Barnes
• Live Wire — Harlan Coben
• The Marriage Plot — Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Traitor's Wife — Kathleen Kent
• The Unfixed Stars — Michael Byers
• A Fool's Alphabet — Sebastian Faulks
• blueeyedboy — Joanne Harris
• Transition — Iain Banks
• The Diary of the Lady — Rachel Johnson
• The Donor — Helen Fitzgerald
• The Deadly Touch of the Tigress — Ian Hamilton
• Mary Boleyn — Alison Weir
• The Litigators — John Grisham
• Sarah's Key — Tatiana De Rosnay
• A Long Lunch — Simon Hoggart
• Sex on the Moon — Ben Mezrich
• Gang Member for a Day — Sudhir Venkatesh
• The Fifth Witness — Michael Connelly
• All the Things We Never Said — Sara Shepard
• The Post—Birthday World — Lionel Shriver
• The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex  — Mark Kermode
• The Remake  — Clive James
• Thinks  — David Lodge
• The Better Angels of Our Nature  — Steven Pinker

Mad, Bad and Sad

A Dangerous Method isn't out in the UK until February so I took the opportunity to see it in Cannes today (fortunately in version originale rather than dubbed into French). This makes the second film this month in which I have seen Michael Fassbender play a sex addict, although as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, his obsession is often, if not always, an academic one.

A Dangerous Method opens in 1904, as the troubled Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is brought, kicking and screaming, to a hospital in Zürich where Jung intends to treat her using a controversial new technique of one Signund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), known as psychoanalysis or, as Jung puts it, "talking to the patient." Spielrein, it turns out, was abused by her father from a young age but what is really causing her "episodes" is a build-up of the shame of having derived sexual pleasure from the abuse. Yes, thinks Jung, this is very Freudian indeed.

We follow the growing relationship between Jung and Spielrein, the latter becoming the former's lover and muse and, after she recovers, a psychologist herself. Jung loves his fertile wife Emma but she is only the foundations of his house, he says, while Spielrein is the love of his life (another lover is "the perfume in the air").

The movie also examines the relationship between Freud and Jung, Jung initially seeing Freud as a father-figure and mentor and Freud seeing Jung as the son and heir who will continue promoting psychoanalysis after his own demise. But they disagree over the way forward for their field and the dispute is heightened when Freud finds out that Jung has misled him as to the nature of his affair with Spielrein.

There were good performances from the three leads, including Keira, who managed a solid Russian accent and was just hysterical enough for Spielrein's earlier years, toning it down nicely as her character recovers, matures and suffers from a broken heart. Christopher Hampton's screenplay was tight and engaging, even if the time jumps, often of several years, felt a little too frequent, rushing the character and plot development. I can't remember if this film has been suggested as possible Oscar nomination fodder; I suspect it will lose out to bigger and better productions but A Dangerous Method remains a thoughtful and enjoyable story about the relationships between three notable historical figures.

Christmas Eve, Cannes-Style

Well, with apologies to all those who woke up to a cold, grey or rainy Christmas Eve, the weather here was gorgeous again today. Papa and I went for a sunrise run and then we all went down to the market to buy food supplies. I was in charge of the bûche (Yule log) but finding one that wasn't excessively creamy and covered with accoutrements proved a little tricky so we settled for Paul's bûchettes.

We had lunch on the beach at Bijou Plage, but not before a quick dip in the sea—very brief in my case and only achieved by sprinting in at full speed and then falling over, submerging myself shoulder-deep. After lunch, a strong breeze materialised, forcing us to move on, but not before I managed a few leaps.

I then went to the cinema (of which more to follow later) and had a wander back home via the shops. Cannes at Christmas really isn't all that bad...

I Can Do the Cannes-Cannes

After last year's Christmas trip to Cannes was snowed off, I was relieved to see the forecast of much milder climes this year. Cannes was 16 degrees and sunny today, perfect for a little afternoon stroll along the Croisette and a little light (window) shopping on the rue d'Antibes.

Sadly, even French brands are more expensive here than in the UK (the Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick I like is £24 at home but €30 here, for example). The rue d'Antibes was pretty hectic, especially FNAC, as the French rushed to do their last-minute shopping. Ive been coming to Cannes for Christmas for five years but it's still slightly strange to see the Christmas lights up amid the palm trees and when it's so warm.

We had dinner with The Bro and his girl, Canada Chick, at Vesuvio, a family favourite. For once, I didn't have a pizza, opting for an escalope of veal, which was delicious and which will need to be burned off with a run along the Croisette tomorrow morning.

Bex's 2011 London Food and Drink Awards

It's that time of the year when I usually start to compile lists of my favourite movies, books and music of the year but this year, I've also decided to do a round-up of some of my favourite new places to eat and drink in London. These places aren't necessarily new to London but I first visited them all in 2011 and being me, I've prioritised caffeine, burgers and gin.

1. Best new macchiato: Tapped & Packed (Fitzrovia)
Tapped & Packed has been around on Rathbone Place for a while but I only got around to checking it out when they opened a branch on ToCoRo. There is no sign outside--just a suspended bicycle--and the sugar comes in old Tate & Lyle tins. The decor is very minimalist and natural and it's a great place to relax and recaffeinate, away from the bustle of ToCoRo. Most importantly, though, their macchiatos are rich, smooth and delicious.
Runner up: Store Street Espresso

Tapped & Packed's macchiato

2. Best new brunch: St Ali (Clerkenwell)
If I had done a best new borough of 2011, it would probably be Clerkenwell. Although I work relatively close, Clerkenwell always felt a little too far to go at lunchtime. Nonetheless, I've been to St Ali a couple of times now. They roast their own coffee, which is gorgeous, but they also have a great brunch menu--French toast with sweet-cure bacon and syrup really hit the spot but most of the other options on the menu also sounded tempting.
I'm actually quite boring when it comes to brunch and I felt I couldn't nominate the Riding House Cafe again, so there is no runner up in this category.

3. Best new street food: eat.st (King's Cross)
Lunchtime at King's Cross used to be a rather boring affair. It was usually a choice between the not-exactly-cheap gastropubs and sandwich-type fodder. Now, we have our own food stalls on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, tucked away near the building site between the back of King's Cross and St Pancras. The stalls change from day to day, but my favourites include Homeslice (delicious wood-fired pizza), The Red Herring Smokehouse's posh bacon sarnies, and The Ribman's pork rolls.
Runner up: Exmouth Market

4. Best new cocktail: Experimental Cocktail Club (Soho)
I still haven't managed to visit the two cocktail joints at the top of my to-drink list (Callooh Callay and 69 Colebrooke Row), but I did make it to London's snooty sister of the Parisian Experimental Cocktail Club. I've complained before about the shocking service in the London ECC, but this category is best cocktail, not best bar, hence the ECC's victory, its signature St Germain drink being the best cocktail I've had this side of the Atlantic this year. London still needs to take a cue from New York on the secret speakeasy front...
Runner up: Purl (Marylebone finally gets itself a cocktail bar!)

5. Best new burger: Meat Liquor (Marylebone)
I first read about Marylebone burger-and-booze newbie, Meat Liquor, in Time Out shortly before it opened last month but because it is closed on Sundays and Mondays and because I've been so busy over the past month, I haven't been able to test out the claims of faultless burgers and fab, boozy cocktails. Meat Liquour doesn't take bookings and the queue can get pretty intense. Luckily, we got there at around six this evening and didn't have to wait long. By the time we left, at about seven-thirty, the queue was halfway up Welbeck Street. The music was loud (metal, mainly) and the decor was very cool: angry red and black graffiti scrawled over the walls, including the surprising central cupola, and very little lighting. Meat Liquour definitely gets bonus points for bringing some much-needed coolness to Marylebone. More importantly, though, my bacon cheese burger was, as promised, superb, and the fries ("not chips") and onion rings were also tasty. An interesting cocktail list fulfilled the "liquor" component; I opted for something fruity and with a hint of Absinthe.
Runner up: Riding House Cafe (see below)

Meat Liquor and its central cupola

6. Best new restaurant: The Riding House Cafe (Fitzrovia)
This was a very easy category for me to award. I've been to The Riding House Cafe five or six times since it opened in the spring and every time has been great. I love the concept of all-day dining--visiting a place first thing for coffee and some brunch, turning up for an afternoon pudding, or coming for cocktails and/or dinner--and the RHC does it very well. On most of my visits, I've ordered the following: a small selection of the sharing plates as a starter, the cheese burger (perfectly medium rare), and, if I have room, one of the chocolatey puddings. Oh, and the cocktails are great too; my favourite is the raspberry and elderflower Collins.
Runner up: Spuntino (it wouldn't be Bex London restaurant round-up without a Russell Norman component)

"Dangerous at Both Ends and Crafty in the Middle"

Sherlock Holmes doesn't like horses; not the Sherlock portrayed by Robert Downey Jr in Guy Ritchie's new film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, anyway. "They are dangerous at both ends...and crafty in the middle," he complains when French gypsy Simza (Noomi Rapace) provides him with a steed on which to escape to Germany. I suspect Ritchie wanted Holmes's description to apply to the movie as well but although I was entertained, SH:AGoS, to coin an acronym, felt a little bit like Pirates of the Caribbean 2: fun but a little too long and not especially coherent.

I'll admit that SH:AGoS had a lot to live up to--not just on the basis of its predecessor (which I predicted would cause expectation problems for any sequel) but also because of the excellent BBC TV series Sherlock, which I loved and which is returning to TV screens anon. There are plenty of action sequences, stylish freeze frames and down-the-barrel-of-the-gun/cannon shots, chases and hilarious scenes with Robert Downey Jr in disguise. The bromance between Holmes and Watson (Jude Law) continues and is even amplified, despite Watson's marriage to Mary (Kelly Reilly) towards the start of the film and his subsequent attempt to go to Brighton on his honeymoon. Jared Harris (known to me as Lane Pryce from Mad Men) was suitably cold, calculating and clever as Moriarty and Rapace did her best but was under-used as The Girl with the Tarot Cards and a Potentially Wicked Brother. Naturally, Stephen Fry managed to steal many of the few scenes he had, playing Holmes's brother Mycroft--Sherlock may have worn a number of creative costumes throughout the film but he couldn't top Mycroft's birthday suit...

All the right elements are present in SH:AGoS, then, but the plot felt seriously confused. Much of what I felt was build-up in the first hour or so ended up being the main plot. There definitely wasn't enough craftiness in the middle. Again, this is partly a product of wanting to watch Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock instead, with his constant and infuriating deductions and genius; Downey Jr's Holmes has brilliant moments but they seem too brief and we see more of him rushing around and getting into fights. The latter isn't necessarily worse; the former is just more my kind of thing.

Make Every Month Feel Like Christmas

I'm too much of a Scrooge to want to have Christmas every month but it was Glossybox's advert in last week's Stylist teasing me with the excitement of receiving a box full of beauty treats every month that pushed me into finally signing up (well, and the fact that you could get £5 off your first box with the code stylistdec1411). I've been following the growing trend for beauty box subscriptions since the end of last year when I watched a few videos from beauty fanatics in the US opening their Birchboxes. The concept is as simple: you pay a small monthly fee and receive a beautifully packaged selection of five luxury beauty samples; the samples are usually a pretty decent size and you often get at least one full-size product in each box. You get a little card telling you about the products and, in the case of Glossybox, a QR code with a link to buy them online.

December 2011 Glossybox

The boxes finally hit the UK this spring and although a number of different companies are now available, I was put off by the price--at £10 plus P&P per month, they are more expensive than the $10 Birchbox. Carmine were doing an offer where you could get £3 off a single box, without needing to subscribe, and because you could see which products you would receive, I bought one but didn't subscribe. Meanwhile, I persuaded my beauty-loving boss to sign up to Glossybox and recommended the service in my Christmas gift guide. When I saw my boss's December box, however, I gave in and subscribed. We got a slightly different combination of products but my two favourite products from her box also appeared in mine. So, here's what I got:

1. Deborah Lippmann mini nail varnish in Razzle Dazzle. I've been wanting to try a Deborah Lippmann varnish for a while but had never got round to it. I saw this colour in my boss's box and knew I had to try it. It's a glittery raspberry shade and looks great with my new Daunt Tote. £16 for the full size. Bonus product: one pack of Deborah Lippmann's Stripper To Go nail varnish remover.

Sparkly nails!

2. Rituals foaming shower gel in Yogi Flow (200 ml). Shower gels are one of the products I always buy cheaply so it's great to get a full-size Rituals product. This one, containing sweet almond oil and Indian rose, smells great and I'm looking forward to trying it. £6.

3. Blink+Go make-up compact in grey. I haven't heard of this brand but I like this palette, with six eye shadows (greys and greeny browns), two blushes (coral and pink), a mirror and two brushes. The green and orangey eye shadow colours aren't me but the other shades and the blushes are pretty but I will probably keep the compact in my desk at work to top up my make up if I'm going out after work. £14.95.

Cargo lip gloss, Blink+Go compact, Deborah Lippmann nail varnish

4. Cargo lip gloss in Morocco. Another new brand to me and Morocco is a pretty, rose pink, which gives nice shine and isn't too sticky. I don't think I got a full-size gloss (which are £10), but it was a reasonable sample and I'll definitely use it.

5. Bionova eye wrinkle treatment. This was the only product in my box that I didn't really like, mainly because I don't yet have wrinkles; I also have sensitive eyes and I find that anti-ageing products really irritate my skin. I might try to give this away, if I can do so without offending. They use lots of sciencey words on the box, like "nanocomplex" and "polypeptides," which annoys my inner science press officer, but who knows? Maybe it works. The sample is 4g, or about one third of the full size (which costs £43).

Overall rating: 4/5. This was a great box for me. I know I'll be lucky if I like four out of five products every month (I'm sure they made an extra effort with the December box, given the Christmas gift potential) but I'll give Glossybox a go for six months and if the average score drops below 3/5, I'll reconsider my subscription.

Daunt Books Tote Bag Update

Shortly after I posted my tote bag gift guide last week, I spotted a new variation of a very familiar bag, while walking along Marylebone High Street: it was the Daunt Books tote but in a deep crimson colour, rather than the standard racing green.

I stopped by Daunt today to try to track the bag down and I was a little worried when only the green bag was on display but when I asked, the sales assistant had a supply underneath the counter. They cost £8, like the green ones, but are limited edition--when they run out, they won't be making more. As the dark green isn't really my colour, I decided to snap one up (and I even bought a book!).

And although part of the point of these bags is to allow them to be as sun-faded or otherwise old-looking as possible, reflecting how long you've been a Daunt devotee, I think the new crimson totes would make a great present, especially for a bibliophile--or a Marylebone maven.

Che Peccato

In Italian, as in French, there are two words for shame: vergogna, which means "embarrassment" or "disgrace," and peccato, which usually means "sin" but is also used in expressions like che peccato ("what a shame"). There is plenty of shame in both of its senses in Steve McQueen's new film of the same name.

There is also plenty of Michael Fassbender, starring as Shame's anti-hero Brandon, who is a sort of Patrick Bateman for the 2010s. He is successful in his job, has a swanky apartment with hundreds of neatly arranged LPs and one of those old-fangled record players, takes great care of himself and likes to fantasise. Brandon is also a covert sex addict and we spend most of the film watching him as he seeks gratification. He preys on women on the subway; he easily steals the ladies his boss David (James Badge Dale) tries to chat up; he downloads vast amounts of porn; he visits hookers and underground, anything-goes sex raves; he tells girls he has just met what he is going to do to them, in graphic detail; and he pleasures himself. When he isn't doing that, his gestures are still very sexual--his vigorous shaking of a sugar packet sparks the interest of his co-worker. His work computer is confiscated after it has been infected with a virus but even then, David thinks--hopes, perhaps--the huge porn cache was acquired by an intern. He isn't happy with the way he lives his life (hence the eponymous shame) but he doesn't think he can change.

Enter Sissy (Carey Mulligan), Brandon's younger sister, a struggling singer with a troubled past, whom he hasn't seen for a long time. She wants to crash on his sofa indefinitely because she has nowhere else to go, but their relationship is difficult and fraught. He thinks she needs to stop being dependent on other people; she thinks he never gets close enough to anyone else to be able to depend on anyone. He disapproves of her relationships; she disapproves, when she finds out, of his own vices.

There dialogue in Shame is scarce (and most of the dialogue we do get involves arguments) and a lot of long shots of Fassbender staring broodingly across the subway car or from his bed or into space, accentuated by Harry Escott's dark, haunting score (the main theme is reminiscent of Moby's Mistake). There isn't really much in the way of plot and some of Brandon's escapades are shown in achronological order with long interludes of silent anguish. Fassbender is very good as the tormented Brandon but the character remains something of a cipher; by the end, we don't really know him any better than we did at the start of the film, although perhaps this is part of the point. Mulligan also performed well in a role that could easily have become too hysterical. The ending offered little resolution, not that there was exactly much plot to resolve, other than a sense of circularity and Brandon's sense of resignation to his own particular variety of hell. As Garcin put it in Sartre's Huis Clos, "Eh bien, continuons..."

Time Bandits

I've written before about George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's seminal work, Metaphors We Live By, which was a key text on my semantics and pragmatics course at university. One of the key ways in which language changes, the authors argue, is through metaphors: comparisons of two concepts or objects which share some similarity of meaning and an imaginative or creative--but not real-world--link. The authors then attempt to categorise many of the most common groups of metaphors, which shape our language and the way we think: happy = up, sad = down ("you're in high spirits," "I'm feeling down"); argument = war ("I demolished his claims"); love = war ("I won his affections").

One of the biggest categories is the time = money group, of which there are plenty of examples. "He's on living on borrowed time," "stop wasting my time," "I'm investing my time in...", and so on (TheFreeDictionary has many more). The abundance of this type of metaphor does suggest that the time = money concept is well ingrained in our minds and well codified in our language. But what if it was literally true that time was money? This is the subject of Andrew Niccol's film In Time and Niccol seems to have studied the time = money chapter of Lakoff and Johnson's book at great length given how often the characters in his screenplay speak in these metaphors. Yes, we know that time is the currency in this fictional universe but we're not brain damaged; you don't need to keep beating us over the head with the metaphors (figuratively, of course)!

Linguistics aside, having time literally represent money is an interesting idea. In this alt universe, the good news is that people stop "ageing genetically" at the age of 25 but the bad news is that they only live for one more year unless they can buy themselves more time. But when a bus ride might cost you one hour on one day and, thanks to inflation, two hours the next, many people are quite literally living on borrowed time. On a practical level, introductions can be confusing when everyone looks 25. Justin Timberlake, who plays our hero Will Salas, is actually older than his on-screen mother Rachel (Olivia Wilde). And it's not obvious whether Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) is Pete from Mad Men's mother, wife or daughter.

Due to some very bad timing, Will inherits over 100 years from an old man who is bored of living but despite running to meet his mother, she "times out" seconds before he can transfer some time onto her clock. He's pretty sad for a few minutes but then realises he can finally visit some of the more exclusive "time zones," which would have cost far too much for him to even enter before, and he cheers up a little. He buys some swish wheels (cost: about 70 years) and gambles, winning a time-fortune from Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser). But before he has time to enjoy his new-found wealth, he is tracked down by Raymond (Cillian Murphy), a timekeeper, whose job is to make sure time isn't misappropriated and that arrivistes like Will learn their place in the world. If everyone could live forever, you see, why would anyone bother going to work in the factories and how could society function? Will's inheritance/winnings are confiscated by Raymond, leaving him only two hours on his clock. Nonetheless, he kidnaps Sylvia and they speed off in his new sports car, on a quest to buy themselves some time to think. Later, she inevitably comes around to Will's way of thinking and the two of them become a sort of Robin Hood meets Bonnie and Clyde, "redistributing" time in a way that leads to hella crazy hyperinflation not seen since Weimar Germany.

This is all rather silly but sometimes clunky script and the odd plot hole aside, In Time is quite fun. Timberlake and Seyfried are fine, if not outstanding, as the two leads, and most of the best scenes have Cillian Murphy in them. In any case, it definitely wasn't a waste of my time watching the film [That's enough time metaphors. Ed.]

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

I didn't really feel like going to the cinema today, much less to see a 2h30 epic in the poky little Panton Street Odeon, but having missed the reviews of Margaret when it was first released, when I finally caught up, it sounded like the sort of film I might like. And as it's only being shown in a handful of central London cinemas, Panton Street it was.

I don't know much of the back story regarding Margaret's release, other than that various problems, including in the editing, have delayed its release for several years. And I'm still not quite sure whether I liked it. Despite all the editing, the film still clocked in at 150 minutes and while it didn't drag at all--there were far too many barely linked sub-plots and minor characters for that--it felt like there should have been a much more efficient way of telling the same story.

Anna Paquin stars as Lisa Cohen, a 17-year-old who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her stage actress mother and her younger brother. She attends a posh prep school on a half scholarship and makes good grades, although her strong and sometimes ruthless opinions often get her into trouble. She's not very good at geometry but persuades geeky Darren (John Gallagher Jr) to help her cheat and flirts with her friendly geometry teacher (Matt Damon). Her father (played by Kenneth Lonergan, who also directed the movie) lives in California with his girlfriend. She and her father get on well, in their semi-detached way, but she doesn't care much for his girlfriend. She tries to shake off Darren's advances, although sometimes leads him on, and instead seems to like Paul (Kieran Culkin), who has a girlfriend but who is easily talked into taking Lisa's virginity, in what is an awkward but wonderfully realistic teenage sex scene.

This might be enough drama for one teenager but Lisa seems to crave more. Towards the start of the film, a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) ploughs through a red light, crushing a woman, Monica (Allison Janney), crossing the street. She dies in Lisa's arms before the ambulance can make it. But it was Lisa who was distracting the bus driver, running alongside the bus because she wanted to ask him something. Perhaps because of this, she tells the police that the light was green and the accident wasn't the driver's fault. Overwhelmed by her own guilt, Lisa tracks down the executor of the dead woman's estate (she had very little family; only a cousin from out of state), Monica's friend Emily (Jeannie Berlin), eventually admitting her own role in the accident and encouraging Emily to seek justice against the driver. She becomes so obsessed with this notion of justice that her relationship with her mother deteriorates rapidly, as do her grades.

And so it continues for another two hours, at the end of which, there isn't much resolution. In itself, this isn't a problem but it felt like some of the characters and some of the scenes could have been culled entirely. We see long sections of some of Lisa's classes, with Lisa and her classmates getting into heated political debates. In English, meanwhile, despite the attempts of her teacher (Matthew Broderick) to interest her in Shakespeare, she often has no comment. She prefers her own drama. There were also too many quirky, overly opinionated characters, I felt, which meant that a number of scenes consisted of people talking over one another, not listening to one another and getting way too angry and emotional way too quickly.

I did think it was an interesting film and raised a number of interesting issues but equally, I felt it was overly ambitious, trying to do too many things at once and, as a consequence, not always doing an adequate job. Paquin was sometimes a little more hysterical than necessary and I'm not sure she could quite pull off 17, even back in 2005, when Margaret was filmed. As for the other characters, I'm not sure we saw enough of them to pick any stand-outs. The script also felt as though it might have been partly improvised; at least, at times it felt a bit clunky and repetitive, with characters having the same old fights again and again, with little progression.