Howling at an Insatiable Moon

In addition to reconstructions of the atmospheric premiere and the 1957 trial, Epstein and Friedman also rely on animated sequences by former Ginsberg illustrator Eric Drooker and a vérité interview with James Franco as the 29 year-old poet that draws on actual transcripts. Moreover, they also chart his interaction with such Beat icons as Jack Kerouac (Todd Rotondi), Neal Cassady (Jon Prescott) and Peter Orlovsky (Aaron Tveit).

Yet the harder the pair try to make the verses seem dangerous and relevant to a modern audience, the more the arguments become drily academic, while the ingenious structure grows imore formally rigid. Even the courtroom exchanges between Judge Clayton Horn (Bob Balaban), Ferlinghetti (Andrew Rogers), prosecutor Ralph McIntosh (David Strathairn), defence counsel Jake Ehrlich (Joe Hamm) and expert witnesses David Kirk (Jeff Daniels), Gail Potter (Mary-Louise Parker), Mark Schorer (Treat Williams) and Luther Nichols (Alessandro Nivola) seem staged to expose (and even ridicule) the homophobia and artistic repressiveness of the Eisenhowerian Cold War times.

So, only Franco's nervously garrulous responses to his off-screen inquisitor make much impact, as he frets about his mother's mental condition, his poet father's attitude to his work, his sexuality and desire to life an unconstrained life and his determination to speak and write freely on any topic of his choosing. Yet, even here, it's clear that we are only being allowed to see aspects that show Ginsberg in a favourable light, while all who challenge him inhabit a moral and intellectual darkness.

Edward Lachman's monochrome and colour photography, Thérèse DePrez's period designs and Carter Burwell's score could scarcely be improved upon. But in seeking to break from the traditional informational style that Epstein utilised to such good effect in The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), the co-directors risk alienating those unfamiliar with Ginsberg and his poem's socio-political context. Consequently, this hypnotic, but erratic anidocudrama has to be deemed a noble failure, as both a biographical study and a condemnation of an era.

Joanna Hogg's second feature, Archipelago, is also something of a curate's egg. Superbly photographed by Ed Rutherford and played with intelligence by a decent ensemble, it suffers from being too similar to Hogg's overrated debut, Unrelated (2007), and the fact that her laudable attempts to produce chamber dramas that combine the intensity of Ingmar Bergman with the edge of Michael Haneke are so urbanely bloodless.

Once again Hogg's holidaying bourgeois prove to be neither charming nor discreet. Arriving on the Scilly isle of Tresco for a short break before he goes to Africa on voluntary service, twentysomething Tom Hiddleston settles into a cosy cottage with mother Kate Fahy and sister Lydia Leonard. He natters bashfully in the kitchen with hired cook Amy Lloyd and endures some barbed dinner-table teasing from the disapproving Leonard about his flirting with a stranger when he is about to leave his girlfriend in the lurch while he goes on an adventure to find himself.

The tension has abated, however, by the time Christopher Baker arrives to give Fahy and Leonard their first painting lesson. But Fahy becomes increasingly frustrated with her husband's telephoned excuses for his failure to join them, while Leonard allows her resentment that Hiddleston is the favoured child to spill over from waspish sniping into a brattish rant when she complains about the way her guinea fowl has been cooked in a small local restaurant and then erupt into a full-blown tantrum when she storms out into the night after yet another contretemps with her sibling.

Despite bicycle rides and picnics replacing the more exotic Tuscan excursions, the phone feuds and off-screen squabbles that made Unrelated so distinctive and disconcerting now feel decidedly derivative. Moreover, the eloquent chit-chat (much of which is improvised with an awkward naturalism) does little to overcome either the dearth of backstory explaining the lack of familial affection or the dogged distanciation of the inert shooting style that prevents any identification with the characters.

Consequently, this self-consciously elliptical saga seems alternately precious and ponderous. But, with so many British film-makers still convinced that social and dramatic legitimacy can only be found on council estates or in inner-city towerblocks, it's vital that Hogg remains dedicated to exposing the truth behind civilised middle-class façades. The landscape proves equally crucial to the action in Marc Evans's Patagonia, a reciprocal road movie that has been sublimely photographed by Robbie Ryan to capture the lush valleys of Wales and the barren expanses of Argentina's southernmost point. However, neither odyssey succeeds in firing the imagination, while the romantic subplots fizzle rather than catch light.

In 1865, a party of 163 hardy souls left Wales in search of a place where they could prosper and pursue their religious beliefs without persecution. They landed in South America and established a community that still retains its links with the mother country. Indeed, eightysomething Marta Lubos has always wanted to visit the farm where her mother was born and, so, she dupes her family into thinking that neighbour Nahuel Pérez Biscayart is escorting her to the nearby town for cataract surgery and coaxes him into crossing the Atlantic to go in search of her roots.

Meanwhile, in Cardiff, actress Nia Roberts is growing increasingly frustrated with photographer Matthew Gravelle's refusal to discuss the effect that failing to conceive is having on their relationship. Consequently, she insists on accompanying him on a trip to Patagonia to make a record of historic chapels. However, she soon becomes bored and begins flirting with guide Matthew Rhys to pass the time. But, following an injudicious night of passion and a visit to Rhys's family ranch, she realises she has made a mistake and hopes to atone before Gravelle learns the truth.

Back in Wales, Biscayart has similarly taken a shine to Duffy, a student he first meets when she is somewhat the worse for wear in a downtown nightclub. But they reunite when she comes to stay on the northern farm her grandfather leases out as a campsite and she proves more than willing share a moment of intimacy, while Lubos seeks the solitude to come to terms with the fact that her ancestral village was engulfed in the 1960s by the creation of a reservoir to supply Merseyside with drinking water.

The contrasting light and colours are captivating throughout this pleasingly meandering, if ultimately nugatory picaresque. But Evans and screenwriter Laurence Coriat never seem entirely sure what they are trying to say about either the wandering Welsh spirit or the fading evidence of its impact upon its most exotic outpost. Consequently, Lubos and Biscayart follow several false leads before finally striking lucky, while Grevelle and Roberts become separated a tad too easily to enable her to make her move on Rhys. Yet it's only during the climactic burial sequence on the Welsh lake that the easy naturalism is finally subsumed by sentimental melodramatics.

A mariner finds himself on a much more perilous journey in John Huston's The African Queen (1951), which is also being reissued in a pristinely restored state. Long cherished for the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, this would almost certainly have not gone down in movie history had the leads been Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester (as Columbia had intended in 1938) or had Warners teamed Bette Davis with either John Mills, David Niven or James Mason in the late 1940s. Hepburn may have hated every second of the location shoot in the Belgian Congo and Uganda - whose discomforts and boorishness Clint Eastwood immortalised in White Hunter, Black Heart (1990) - but this enduring charmer earned her a first Best Actress nomination in a decade and brought Bogart the sole Academy Award of his career.

When the Kaiser's forces destroy the German East African village where Rose Sayer (Hepburn) has been working alongside her missionary brother, Samuel (Robert Morley), she reluctantly accepts a passage to the coast from uncouth Canadian tramp steamer captain, Charlie Allnut (Bogart). However, the trip along the Ulonga-Bora river soon turns fractious, as the prim spinster takes exception to Charlie's drinking and cussing and relations between the pair are scarcely improved by her nocturnal decision to pour his booze overboard.

But the prospect of passing a German fortification and then encountering the gunboat Louisa prompts them to forge an effective alliance, as Rose massages Charlie's ego as he pulls his creaking tub through leech-infested waters and then navigates a safe course through some treacherous rapids. All seems lost, however, when the now besotted twosome are captured. But, during an impromptu wedding ceremony aboard the imperial vessel, The African Queen manages to spring an explosive surprise.

Impeccably scripted by James Agee and an uncredited Peter Viertel from a 1935 novel by CS Forester, this is the kind of film that Hollywood doesn't make any more because of its aversion to middle-aged co-stars. That said, Alexander Korda warned producer Sam Spiegel six decades ago that he would go bankrupt if he pursued such a reckless and resolutely non-commercial project. Ultimately, the picture made a $4.3 million return on its $1.3 million budget and it has remained a firm favourite ever since.

In truth, there are longueurs and Huston's direction isn't always as precise as it might be. Nevertheless, Jack Cardiff's Technicolor imagery is sublime and Allan Gray's score tactfully chronicles the emotional shifts between the bibulous skipper and the `psalm-singing, skinny old maid'. Following Bogie's advice and modelling her character on Eleanor Roosevelt, Hepburn proved again that she could avoid being box-office poison without the assistance of Spencer Tracy, while Bogart relishes the opportunity to play against type by tempering his trademark tough guy scowls with a touch of craven charisma. For the next five years, he would coast along on the new-found admiration of his peers, even reprising his Oscar-winning role in a cameo opposite Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in Road to Bali (1952). Sadly, however, he would die in January 1957 after a long battle with throat cancer.

New Zealand debutant Rosemary Riddell's The Insatiable Moon also had its share of false starts, with James Nesbitt and Timothy Spall at one time being attached to this adaptation of a 1997 novel by the director's onetime Baptist minister husband, Mike. Yet, despite taking seven years to bring to the screen (at a cost of a mere $340,000), this is a charming tale of simple faith and trusting humanity that rather poignantly receives its UK release just a week after the Christchurch earthquake.

Maori Rawiri Paratene lives in a boarding house for people with mental health issues run by the no-nonsense Greg Johnson in the affluent Auckland neighbourhood of Ponsonby. He claims to be the second son of God and pals Ian Mune and Lee Tuson are more than convinced of his telepathic talents, ability to see angels and power to do good. Community worker Sara Wiseman is also impressed when she witnesses Paratene calming the distraught mother of a suicide at the funeral of Mick Innes, a paedophile who had been allowed back into the community and who had hanged himself after assaulting a young girl.

Convinced he has found his Queen of Heaven, Paratene grows close to Wiseman and urges her to rediscover her religious faith. She is flattered by the attention she no longer receives from the worthy, but dull husband who has failed to get her pregnant and spends an enchanted night with the charismatic stranger. But, shortly afterwards, an estate agent files an over-crowding complaint against Johnson's premises and Paratene puts so much effort into fighting its closure that he is hospitalised.

If good intentions made great cinema, this would be an instant classic. An aura of inspirational sweetness pervades this gentle parable and it's impossible not to be moved by Paratene's simple message and the Riddells's sincere attempts to discuss such delicate issues as mental illness, alcoholism, child abuse, suicide and loneliness.

But, while there's a real rapport between Paratene and Wiseman and cinematographer Tom Burstyn ably creates a sense of both place and wonderment, this is very much a first-timer's film. In addition to struggling with structure and pacing, Riddell also seems unsure where to place the camera and when to move it. Consequently, the direction often feels haphazard and, while this to some extent suits the nature of the story, it serves to emphasise the increasingly melodramatic timbre of the action after Paratene escapes from his hospital bed, the hostel is saved by a miraculous donation and Mune receives a consoling visit from beyond the grave.

Constantly smiling and endlessly encouraging, Paratene makes a genial hero. But there's something patronising about the Maori mysticism and similar stereotyping recurs in the depiction of the other psychiatric cases. Yet, despite its shortcomings, this remains a feature with its heart in the right place.

Another ingenious plot is rather let down by its indifferent telling in Dominique Monfery's Eleanor's Secret. However, parents will approve of this animated French feature's pro-literacy message and children familiar with the classics of juvenile fiction will relish seeing their favourite characters come to vibrant, non-Disneyfied life.

Nathaniel is seven, but he has difficulty reading. Thus, he is hugely disappointed when his Great Aunt Eleanor dies and leaves him a key to a room full of books in her will. His annoying sister, Angelica, has inherited a precious porcelain doll and teases her brother about his boring bequest. But, shortly after Nathaniel agrees to let his parents sell the tomes to pay for repairs to Eleanor's storm-blown seaside villa, he discovers that they are rare first editions of the world's greatest fairytales. Moreover, each volume is inhabited by its tiny characters, who convince Nathaniel that they will all disappear unless he is able to decipher the library's magic inscription.

However, before he can make an attempt at fathoming the spell, Nathaniel is shrunk down to book people size by the Wicked Fairy. What's more, the books are carted off by Mr Pickall, the grasping antiquarian bookseller. So, not only does Nathaniel have to escape from the shop, but he also has to get across the beach and say the magic words before the classic yarns are lost forever.

Apart from a monochrome nightmare sequence, in which Nathaniel is bombarded by giant letters and enfolded into the pages of baleful books, the visuals in this CGI odyssey are surprisingly unimaginative. Nevertheless, there is always plenty going on, as Alice in Wonderland, the White Rabbit and the Ogre help Nathaniel survive a soaking by the tide, an adventure inside a sandcastle and the meddling fingers of an inquisitive toddler. Moreover, the presence of Pinocchio, Snow White, Red Riding Hood and Captain Hook should prompt kids to check out the original fables.

The focus shifts from younger viewers to the young being viewed in Babies. Based on an idea by Alain Chabat and following four infants from across the globe, Thomas Balmes's documentary may have a high cute factor, but its observational style consigns too many pressing issues to the margins.

Firstborns Hattie from San Francisco and Mari from Tokyo will obviously have a more comfortable existence than Bayarjargal (the second child of nomadic parents from the Mongolian steppe) and Ponijao, who is the youngest of nine living in a hut in rural Namibia. But the failure to place the families in a tangible socio-economic context leaves the film heavily reliant on alternatively adorable and amusing moments, which often feel more like clips from the home movies of proud parents than a serious study of the physical and psychological changes that babies experience in their first two years of life.

Hattie and Mari want for nothing. Their rooms are full of toys, their parents are attentive and their regular medical check-ups are tempered by days out and baby yoga classes. If Balmes is questioning the pampering of babies in the developed world or satirising the anxieties of bourgeois couples isn't entirely clear. However, the contrasts couldn't be more marked, with Bayarjargal having to settle for a homemade dummy and the envious taunting of his older brother, while Ponijao often finds herself crawling around in the dirt, as her mother and siblings go about their chores. Yet all four seem remarkably content and even-tempered, even though Bayarjargal is prone to bawl in order to snitch on his rambunctious brother and Mari is not averse to the odd tantrum when playthings refuse to co-operate.

At times educational, but mostly entertaining and occasionally enchanting, the footage has been subtly scored by Bruno Coulais. But the absence of a David Attenborough-style commentary deprives the viewer of any real insight into the biology of babyhood or the nature of the cultures in which they will grow up.

Alex Gibney similarly does without a voiceover in Client-9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. However, there's no doubting the intention of this pacy profile of the former New York State Attorney General, whose glittering gubernatorial career was spectacularly derailed by a sex scandal that had the so-called `Sheriff of Wall Street' redubbed the `Luv Guv'.

The son of a Bronx real estate tycoon, Eliot Spitzer studied at Princeton and Harvard Law before rising rapidly through the Manhattan District Attorney's office, where he helped end the Gambino family's control over the local clothing and trucking industries. This crusading zeal helped him win the Attorney Generalship in 1998 and he furthered his reputation for fearless corruption busting by not only exposing a wide range of misdemeanours on Wall Street, but also by suing Richard Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, for failing to inform the board of directors of a deferred compensation package thought to exceed $140 million.

Yet, while such intrepidity secured Spitzer the New York governorship in 2007, it also earned him the undying enmity of such powerful financial figures as Maurice `Hank' Greenberg (the AIG boss who was made to resign following Spitzer's investigation into trading practices), John Whitehead (the former chairman of Goldman Sachs, whom Spitzer had threatened to destroy) and Ken Langone, the founder of Home Depot and former head of the NYSE compensation board, who felt that Spitzer had humiliated his friends.

State Senate majority leader Joseph L. Bruno was added to this list after Spitzer ordered the cops to follow his every movement. But it was Spitzer's own private life that was to come under the spotlight after he was discovered to be a member of the Emperors Club VIP, a high-class escort agency run by Mark Brener and his wife Cecil Suwal. Using the name George Fox, Spitzer had an assignation with a 22 year-old named Kristen (aka Ashley Dupré) in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. But it was only after his finances were investigated that his double life as Client-9 was exposed and he was forced to resign in March 2008.

Neither Spitzer nor Gibney attempts to deny that his actions were reckless and born out of a sense of hubris fostered by his legal and political success. But both are convinced that the revelations were made public by Spitzer's foes, who used Republican Party operative Roger Stone to dig for dirt and smear it as widely and thickly as possible. They indicate, for example, that while it was customary for vice cases to concentrate on the misdeeds of the madams, Attorney for the Southern District Michael J. Garcia focused his inquiry on Spitzer.

Angelina (peppily played by actress Wrenn Schmidt, as the real Emperors alumna insisted upon anonymity) agrees that Spitzer was set up and it's a view shared by several of the other talking-heads, although the consistently amusing Cecil Suwal suggests that his folly was as much to blame as the vengeful envy of others. Such equanimity gives the film credence. But the mission is clearly to rehabilitate Spitzer and Gibney spends more time lionising his visionary pursuit of America's flawed financial institutions than he does chastising him for his lapses.

Thus, while this makes for compelling viewing, it's never quite the Greek tragedy that Spitzer seeks to present. Indeed, it may well have been just another conspiracy theory documentary had Gibney not marshalled his material so brilliantly to expose the crooks, cheats and charlatans prospering at seemingly every level of the US Establishment.