Don't Touch That Dial

Actually, this sound board isn't hooked up to anything related to our show, so I'm guessing nothing disasterous would have happened if I'd nudged it while shooting (I didn't in any case).

We had great fun with today's show reviewing 'War Horse', 'Shame', 'Haywire', 'J. Edgar' and 'Coriolanus'. What made the selection all the better was that all five were strong films, in my opinion at least, so there was a lot to talk about and not for the first time it's a shame we only had an hour to do so; I'll attempt to summarise briefly...

'War Horse' - our general consensus was that while it isn't vintage Spielberg, it doesn't appear to be the overly schmaltzy film a lot of critics are calling it. There's a couple of compelling scenes (the cavalry charge, the walk into No Man's Land) but otherwise it's almost 'business as usual'.

'Shame' - loaded with powerhouse performances our discussion focused on if they made the film rather than the script. I had to agree with that as I thought the most powerful scene in the film was a wordless collapse by the main character.

'Haywire' - split us down the middle; Jenny and Ed did not like (it melted Jenny's brain) whereas Simon and I thought it was great. Yes, Gina Carano is not a brilliant actress, that's why there's all the others (it constantly cuts away from her to them for reaction shots), but start a fight and you won't want anyone else in shot!

'J. Edgar' - was reviewed solely by Ed as we had to split our team (and Jenny passed due to the aforementioned brain melting!). From the trailer I've not been keen, but listening to Toby (our host) and Ed discuss it I'm now intrigued - it seems a lot more historical and impact aware than I thought so I will go and see it now.

'Coriolanus' - an epic film, already condensed to 2 hours from a 4 hour play, reviewed by us in a condensed five minutes, but rather concisely I thought. Lots of powerful performances (Vanessa Redgrave is magnificent) and a great directorial debut for Fiennes (who is also fearsome in the title role).

Further reviews, podcasts and such can be found on the offiical Cambridge 105 website (today's podcast goes up in a week or so), and we've also a 'Bums on Seats' twitter feed with with really condensed reviews.