The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Last time we saw her, Katniss Everdeen was making her triumphant return home after miraculously surviving the kid-killing arena. But it wouldn't be a teen franchise if she wasn't back for more and this time, everyone has grown up. The second film in the Hunger Games trilogy is more fast-paced and frantic than its predecessor. It also seems less preoccupied with its dubious morality and is happy to chug along on the energy of the action.

All in all, this works in its favour and generally makes for better entertainment. Jennifer Lawrence resumes her role as Katniss, managing to make a character that could easily be another Bella Swan both powerful and sympathetic. This time, she's being forced to face up to the consequences of survival. Having escaped the arena with her (supposed) lover Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), while her real boyfriend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) languishes at home, she is trapped between her loyalty to the revolutionary spirit of her people and fear of what the tyrannical President Snow might do in retaliation. 

Unluckily for her, his revenge is brutal: he decides to stage a 75th Hunger Games that reaps its participants from the existing pool of victors. So she and Peeta, after a lacklustre performance as star-crossed lovers, are back where they started. But now, their opponents are older, faster and smarter, and the arena has been transformed into a punishing tropical prison.

It's easy to be dismissive of the young adult franchise but The Hunger Games is definitely a lot better than its vampiric counterpart. The series has a real star in Lawrence, and Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson provide excellent comic support as Effie and Haymitch. There are a couple of scenes that don't really ring true: the dynamic between Katniss and her family is a bit stale, and the love triangle doesn't work, mainly because Gale seems like a leading man forced into the wings, and Peeta is just quite annoying. Nonetheless, it's riveting stuff, and I really wish they'd hurry up and make the next one.

Also, was going to leave a link to the trailer but I'm sure everyone has seen it and this is much funnier…

Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013)

Uncompromising, visceral; difficult to watch: these are all terms that could apply to this astonishing and brutal film. And it's supposed to be a romance. It was hard to know what to expect from Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue is the Warmest Colour. Its glory at Cannes, where it won the coveted Palme d'Or, was marred by the fallout of its cast and crew. Lead actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos claimed in interviews that their experiences on set had been unbearable, alleging that Kechiche had forced them to shoot the famously explicit sex scenes for hours on end. Despite being called to the stage to share the award with their director at Cannes - a tribute to their towering performances - these accusations have cast a shadow over the film's mainstream distribution.

And this is such a terrible pity. Because Blue is the Warmest Colour really does deserve every accolade that comes its way. It is, at heart, a character study: the French title (La Vie d' Adèle Chapitres 1 & 2) more accurately reflects its focus on Exarchopoulos' Adèle  whose life we track from teenage sexual awakening to the inevitable loss that comes with maturity. This awakening comes in the form of Emma (Seydoux), an art student whose bright blue crop becomes the locus of the title's symbolism. When Emma stops dyeing her hair, we know it's bad news for their relationship. 

Yet in the interval, Kechiche and his two actresses manage to create one of the most intense and convincingly rendered on-screen couples in recent cinema. The way the film is shot has a lot to do with its power: the camera lingers on details - faces, clothing, food - consuming its objects with the same greed we see in Adèle. She is voracious, constantly eating huge bowls of spaghetti; whereas Emma is more refined, preferring oysters. There is a class dynamic in play here but its consequences are perhaps unexpected. Whilst Emma becomes increasingly absorbed in herself and her art, Adele seems to grow into a new maturity, acquiring an understanding of the world she inhabits that eludes her erudite lover.

Adèle Exarchopoulos is simply extraordinary in this role. She is in almost every frame of a film that runs for three hours and gives the performance everything: never have blood, sweat and tears been so literally translated onto the screen. It would be a huge oversight if she doesn't get a golden statue out of this as she makes the efforts of other possible contenders look feeble and staged. Seydoux is equally captivating, playing Emma with the egotistical edge that is both alluring and slightly chilling. A lot of fuss has been made about the sex scenes but, although undoubtedly frank and lengthy, they don't dominate the narrative, which is at its best when dealing with emotional discord: the fight scene and the attempt at reunion.

Blue is the Warmest Colour is exhausting in the best possible way. It demands a lot of its characters and its viewers but it is this refusal to let up that makes it so rewarding. Regardless of the post-production controversy, this is a stunning and shocking account of first, perhaps last, love in all its angry, messy complexity.

Gravity (2013)

There’s a scene in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity when the chronically unlucky Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) curls up in the foetal position and floats silently in the berth of her ship: a moment of weightless calm after a catastrophe. Cinema has long presented space as the site where things begin and end. That’s certainly the case here, as a NASA mission goes horrifyingly awry and its two survivors are thrown into a relentless fight against the clock. The embryonic imagery is hardly new either - Stanley Kubrick’s genre defining 2001: A Space Odyssey famously concludes with a hyper-evolved infant making its ambiguous return to Mother Earth. But the exciting thing about Gravity is that it is new. Cuarón’s space is a revolving labyrinth of wonder; a vacuum of sheer magnificence. 

I spent the first ten minutes trying to work out just what about this film is so fresh. Many of the scenes are familiar: slices of Earth shot alongside the astronauts’ helmets; the sun peeping at the fringe of visibility. Yet Cuarón uses special effects in a way that steers clear of gratuity. He avoids the trap of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which spread itself thinly over graphically constructed galaxies. Gravity keeps things simple. It is set in what is presumably the present - so it is not strictly science fiction - and narrows the focus to two actors. This alleviates the pressure created by large casts and convoluted plots: Cuarón’s Earth sings on the screen in a gorgeous mass of blues, greens and everything in between.

In a sense, it also sings off the screen. Here we have a justification for the use of 3D in cinema and it really needs to be seen in this format. The camera spins and twists as Stone and her colleague Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) tumble through the void, eating up every inch captured by the lens. This is what is really new about Gravity: its dimensions open up space in a way Kubrick could only dream of in 1968. When Stone and Kowalski’s ship is hit by flying debris, the audience is involved in the terrifying spectacle as shards of matter shoot towards them. When Stone later sheds a tear, it dangles precipitously on her cheek then floats towards us, seeming finally to drop on our glasses.

Gravity might come under fire for its plot. Stone and Kowalski are quite flat characters, demanding little from George Clooney and handing Bullock a fairly uncomplicated portrayal of loss. Yet it would be unfair to mistake simplicity for shallowness. That the characters are somewhat eaten up by their surroundings heightens the power of Cuarón’s unforgiving cosmos. Rather than sci-fi, this is a thriller set in space, and it is an utterly compelling, brilliantly conceived piece of filmmaking.