The 10 Greatest Episodes of THE SOPRANOS

I'm not the first person to observe this, but that doesn't make it any less true: It's extremely hard to identify the best single installments of a show like The Sopranos, not just because the quality is so consistently high, but because the narrative is so seamless that trying to break down the best segments of it is like handing someone 10 out of context chapters from a Haruki Murakami novel and saying "Read these; you'll see what I mean."

That won't stop me from doing it, though, because The Sopranos is a show you can't help but talk about. I've watched the entire series from start to finish three times now. It remains my favorite TV series of all time (and I've seen most everything that you're "supposed" to see), and each time I find something new to love about it. I'm constantly transfixed by the show's subtlety, its humor, its bottomless subtext and its visceral intensity even in the moments when the guns aren't drawn. For that reason I'm offering up my take on the series' 10 best episodes, in chronological order.

WARNING: I'm going to attempt to keep this as low on spoilers as I can, but a few may slip in, so be warned.

"The Sopranos" - Episode 1.1 (1999)

Yeah, yeah, it might seem too obvious to start off this list with the pilot, but it doesn't matter. Without this, the rest of the series never takes shape. I've grown to love a good many television shows that delivered comparatively weak debuts, but The Sopranos was never one of them. It sounds simple - what if a mobster has to go to a shrink? - but by the time you've factored in Tony's mother, the stresses of his job, his nephew Christopher vying for some degree of power in the "family" and his panic attacks, you've got the makings of great television executed to perfection.

"Funhouse" - Episode 2.13 (2000)

If season one was all about Tony the father and Tony the son, season two adds the dynamic of Tony the brother to that equation. It's easy to lose that with the powerful spectre of his mother Livia (played brilliantly by the late Nancy Marchand) hanging over everything, but it's definitely there, and it's nowhere more powerful than the haunting season two finale. On top of all the other stressors present in this episode, series creator David Chase decides to add food poisoning and feverish nightmares to Tony's troubles. The result is an episode that's not only one of the most powerful early uses of one of the show's enduring themes - the hostility of what's in Tony's own head - but also one of the most cerebral hours in series history. 

"Pine Barrens" - Episode 3.11 (2001)

New viewers are often surprised by just how funny The Sopranos can be, and those that still doubt it after two and half seasons will certainly be convinced by the end of this installment. "Pine Barrens" is my favorite episode of the series, not just for its comedy, but for its contrasting of the comedy with the emotional tightrope Tony so often walked romantically throughout the series. 

"Amour Fou" - Episode 3.12 (2001)

The final four episodes of The Sopranos' third season are among the greatest sections of seralized storytelling ever put forth in any medium, and "Amour Fou" is the crescendo. Of all Tony's many extramarital affairs, his relationship with the dark-eyed, troubled Gloria is easily the most compelling. Women are often attracted to Tony's savage nature, but no other woman was ever so attracted to the darkest part of it. The result is a clash of personalities that's among the most memorable in TV history, and among the most emotionally harrowing portions of the series. 

"For All Debts Public and Private" - Episode 4.1 (2002)

It took me three viewings to figure it out, but I've come to the conclusion that the fourth season of The Sopranos is the best. It combines the emotional intensity and psychological tautness of the third season with tight plotting, compelling conflict and some of the best character work in the whole of the show, and this is where it all begins. It's an episode that changes Christopher's character forever, and it marks a significant moment for Tony as a leader, one that will continue to echo through the rest of the series.

"Whoever Did This" - Episode 4.9 (2002)

The era of Ralph Cifaretto was easily the show's most fertile in terms of compelling conflict, and this is the peak of that phase in Sopranos history. "Whoever Did This" is a portrayal of Tony at his most decisively savage, and in many ways it marks a breaking down of the structure that had ruled the last two seasons. The rest of the season is somewhat chaotic by comparison, which isn't without its storytelling rewards.

"Whitecaps" - Episode 4.13 (2002)

Each of The Sopranos' season finales was superb (yes, even the last one), but "Whitecaps" rises above the rest. I always saw the show as a play divided into three acts. Act one was the first two seasons, the era of Tony's battles with his mother. Act two was Tony's consolidation of power, and act three was his defense of it. This is the end of that second act, and it changes the dynamic of the show forever by bringing the one thing that always seemed eternal crashing down in the most memorable James Gandolfini/Edie Falco scene in the whole of the series. The Sopranos could have ended right here and it would have been satisfying in its way. Thank God it didn't, but this is still a textbook example of how to write an outstanding finale.

"Long Term Parking" - Episode 5.12 (2004)

A lot of people don't like season five (I'm not one of those people.), but it's worth it for this episode alone. The Sopranos had an odd knack for building up threads over months or even years and then elegantly clipping them all off with a single stroke. "Long Term Parking" might be the best example of this kind of mass resolution. You get a major character death, a piecing back together of something broken and the beginnings of the show's endgame all in one hour.

"Members Only" - Episode 6.1 (2006)

And now we come to the beginning of the end. "Members Only" is full of wonderful little touches of endings. It begins (just as season two did) with a montage of where the characters are now, and is topped off with a shot of Tony digging a hole that may as well be a grave. It ends with one of the biggest bangs (literally) in the series' history, and in between the stage is set for a final battle. 

"The Blue Comet" - Episode 6.20 (2007)

I am not one of those fans that wishes The Sopranos series finale had ended differently. I thought it was a brilliant ending, but the episode that came before is what sticks with me most. "The Blue Comet" took all of the inter-mob intrigue that had been building for three years and brought it all to a head. It's the one episode of the series that ever genuinely shocked me, and the one that left me most aching to know what happened next. If that's not a testament to good storytelling, I don't know what is. 

BOOK GIVEAWAY: 'Deadlocked' by Charlaine Harris

Hey, look, my first giveaway!

I've been talking about doing one of these since I launched the blog, but life gets in the way, and I get lazy. Then I got an email from Charlaine Harris' publicity team offering me a copy of Deadlocked, and since I'm not entirely up on the Sookie Stackhouse reading experience, I offered to be a cog in the PR machine by passing it along to you lot.

Of course, I'm also hoping that giving this particular tome away will draw some new readers to my little corner of the web. So, if you found this post only because of your interest in this book, I do hope you'll stay a while and poke around a bit. Maybe you'll find something you like and come back again.

Now, this is all going to be quite simple. Enter your name and your email address in the form below for your chance to win. On SUNDAY, MAY 13 at 11:59 p.m. I'll close the contest, and on MONDAY, MAY 14 I'll randomly select a winner who I'll then get in touch with to sort out sending you the book. That's it! Good luck!
 

MOVIE REVIEW: Shame

Fassbender is magnetic...Get it? Anyone?

How do you measure the best films you see? What system do you use to determine whether a film is “great” or not? I’m not asking as a reviewer. I’m asking as a moviegoer. When you look back on the best movies you’ve ever seen, why do you think they were the best? More often than not, those movies will be the ones you can see yourself watching over and over again.

But there should be a special place reserved in our hearts for the movies that aren’t easy to relive. We’ve all seen those. They’re dark, they’re real, they’re emotionally harrowing, and while we can walk away deeply moved and impressed by the cinematic power we’ve just witnessed, we can’t imagine going through it again anytime soon. Shame, Steve McQueen’s second feature film, should be added to that list.

The premise is deceptively simple. Brandon (Michael Fassbender, who also starred in McQueen’s first film, Hunger) has a great job and a great New York apartment, but struggles privately with an increasingly disruptive sex addiction. His life is further complicated by the arrival of his free-spirited sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) on his doorstep, fresh off a lovers’ quarrel and looking for a place to crash. As his addiction consumes more and more of his time and energy, Brandon finds his private life suffering, and an air of desperation sets in.

I was immediately amazed by how physically beautiful the film is. The first shot is a wonderfully composed portrait of Fassbender lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. From there, McQueen uses the cityscape to his advantage, crafting magnetic and compelling images even amid the ugliest of human struggles. It’s a juxtaposition that makes the film both visually fascinating and emotionally complex.

McQueen’s skill as a writer also shines here. Shame never descends into clichéd melodrama or becomes a sensationalized tale of moral consequences. It’s the story of a man’s battle with himself, told well and told true, and even in its slowest moments (of which there are a few) that adherence to a genuine, unadorned story keeps it compelling.

The center of the film, though, both logistically and emotionally, is Fassbenber. It’s a masterful performance. Brandon doesn’t talk much, doesn’t ever have one of those great confessional moments that allows him a measure of redemption. The movie’s called Shame, after all, and Fassbender lets it seep into every pore of the character. He’s only now becoming a true movie star, but this film also proves that Fassbender is one of the finest actors of his generation. Mulligan also shines, balancing out Brandon’s often cold demeanor with fire and vulnerability.

Shame is not an easy film to watch, but it is nonetheless an extraordinary one. Sometimes the best films are the most harrowing, and even if you only see this one once, it’s a trip worth taking.

Shame is available everywhere on Blu-Ray and DVD.

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Beginners'

Beginners could have been a very tiresome movie, another tale of two people trying to start over again after leaving their old lives behind, another story of fathers and sons coming to an understanding. Make no mistake, it is about those things, but writer/director Mike Mills finds a way around making any part of his film predictable. It seems like you’re entering familiar territory, but then something magical happens as you sink deeper in to the charming, non-linear embrace of Beginners.

After his mother dies, Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is thrown for a loop by his father Hal’s (Christopher Plummer) decision to come out of the closet after more than 40 years of happy marriage to a woman. Though terminal cancer slows him down, he wastes no time embracing his new lifestyle with what little life he has left, visiting clubs and joining causes and starting a relationship with a much younger man (Goran Visnjic).

We pick up Oliver’s life after his father’s death, as he’s trying to get back in the dating game after he meets the beautiful Anna (Melanie Laurent), a French actress. Chronically unlucky in love, he reflects on his father’s fearless final days as he tries to figure out how to make this relationship last.

In our eyes Oliver’s life becomes a stream of consciousness blending of images, colors, memories and new experiences as Anna’s gentleness and own troubled past draw them closer together. He tries to learn from his father, and also from his long-dead mother, even as he struggles against the same old pitfalls that killed his previous relationships. Through Oliver we see a version of Hal that’s gentle, optimistic and loving, but still very hard for his own son to understand.

Beginners is that marvelous blend of not quite comedy and not quite drama. I say marvelous because, if they’re done right, films like that ring the truest. Life is messy, after all, neither a barrage of jokes nor a barrage of tragedies. Mills finds a way to blend the two in a kind of seamless screen poetry, merging the past and present and the conscious and subconscious masterfully.

If there’s a flaw in the film, though, it’s that Mills sometimes takes his nonlinear framework a little too far. There are moments when the film’s structure seems ready to collapse in on itself with collaged images and feelings. It feels flimsy, and as a consequence some of the emotional weight of what’s happening fades a bit. By the end, though, Mills knows where he’s headed, and even with its sometimes murky storytelling Beginners ends right where it should.

The cast is universally fantastic, but none more so than Plummer, who won his first ever Oscar for his portrayal of Hal. There’s nothing flashy about what he does, nothing terribly flamboyant. It’s all in the eyes, and that you’re able to follow him through even the most subtle moments is proof of his mastery of the craft. McGregor and Laurent also shine, both displaying an often staggering emotional range.

Beginners is not perfect. Sometimes its own ambition gets in the way of its emotional core, leaving some scenes murky and a little too loose. But even with those flaws, it shines as an example of a bold new way of telling a very old story. It’s a moving, enchanting little film, and very easily endearing.

Beginners is available everywhere on DVD and Blu-Ray.

MOVIE REVIEW: My Week with Marilyn

When you’re dealing with a biographical film, casting is paramount. You have to get the right actor to recreate the life of your subject, and the more titanic and indelible your subject is, the harder it is to find the right actor.

My Week with Marilyn is a film about two people who were more than titans. Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier were, and are, icons, gods, irreplaceable screen idols. So, even with all the film’s other merits considered, the biggest question will always be whether stars Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh can pull off the very tall order of bringing these two legends back to life.

They do more than that. The whole film is a truly charming piece of cinema, but the greatest achievement of My Week with Marilyn is the ability of its stars to infuse their characters – so often overblown in the public imagination – with an often startling sense of humanity.

In the late 1950s a young man named Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) manages to snag a job as third assistant director on The Prince and the Showgirl, the new film by Sir Laurence Olivier (Branagh) that will star worldwide sex symbol Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).

Colin has a glorious time on set, schmoozing with Marilyn’s publicist (Toby Jones) and legendary English actress Sybil Thorndike (Dame Judi Dench) and even managing to score a date with the cute wardrobe girl (Emma Watson). Then Marilyn herself arrives, and the whole production is transfixed by her beauty and often troubling mystery. Except Olivier, whose driven mad by her tardiness, her nervous stumbling through scenes and her constant reliance on a method acting coach from New York (Zoe Wanamaker).

Distant from her husband Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) and frustrated by her own performance, Marilyn begins to spiral into personal crisis. Colin, completely under her spell, begins to see that even her own handlers are exacerbating the problem, and attempts to be a soothing influence on the most famous woman in the world. Over the week that follows, the pair forms an unlikely bond that’s at least partly romantic, and Colin lives a dream that he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

Colin Clark is a real person, and the film is based on his own memoirs about his time on the Prince and the Showgirl set. The first thing you notice about the film’s tone is how luminous with admiration it is for the people who inhabit this world. We’re seeing this all through Colin’s eyes, a young man enthralled by the magic of the movies and the unfathomable beauty of the unattainable woman he’s just met. Director Simon Curtis and writer Adrian Hodges seem to understand this right from the beginning, and they succeed in smearing the whole film over with a kind of warmth, even in the darker moments. It’s well-shot, well-scripted and well-paced throughout, but the best thing both of them did was simply give quality material to their cast and get out of the way.

Though Marilyn’s name is in the title, Branagh owns the first half of this film just as Laurence Olivier must have owned nearly every room he walked into for most of his life. Not only does he nail the voice (which, as Olivier fans know, is quite distinctive), but he nails the aura. He booms with the kind of ego Olivier was famous for, and steals scenes right out from under everyone else in the film, including Williams. Speaking of Williams, she shines as Monroe. She deserves every accolade she got for the role. The sexiness, the vulnerability, the surprising wisdom and reckless desperation to feel something genuine amid all the Hollywood fakery, it’s all there. She too has an aura about her. It’s more than the sex symbol aura that haunted Monroe all her life, though. It’s the aura of a vivid, shimmering presence. As Monroe was, so too is Williams. The rest of the cast, headed by Redmayne, never struggles to keep up, and in many ways the film often becomes an ensemble piece in which every actor is pulling his or her weight with poise and ease.

My Week with Marilyn doesn’t really shed light on anything we didn’t already know about the characters who inhabit it. It’s not a profound masterpiece pulsing with profound new insight into these iconic people. But it is a remarkably genuine, easy to love film, well-made by a group of very talented people.

My Week with Marilyn is available everywhere on Blu-Ray and DVD.

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'

Not as fancy as Dracula, but still rather fancy. Rather fancy indeed.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a film you’ll like better if you let go of the cinematic version of the spy we’ve come to know and love here in America. When we think spy, we think Sean Connery strapping a jet pack on his back or Tom Cruise leaping off buildings and crashing through windows. We don’t see much of real spies because, well, they wouldn’t be very good at their jobs if we did.

The novels of John le Carre often take a much more restrained view of what spies are and do. Mr. Bond and Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne would be out of place here. These are stories filled with men in suits, sitting in offices reading files, speaking several languages by phone, and occasionally taking a shadowy meetup with a representative from a foreign government. Spy novels rose to prominence in the Cold War era, but le Carre was one of the few authors who really depicted the work of spies for what it most often is: cold.

With that in mind, it would have been easy for director Tomas Alfredson to make a polished but unfeeling procedural film out of this story. There are no car chases in Tinker, Tailor, only one incident of real violence, and very few gorgeous women waiting for the film’s heroes in casinos and five-star hotels. It’s a story without glamour or any real passion, but Alfredson rises above all of that by permeating his film with a constant intensity that rises and falls with the beats of the plot. He lets a stellar cast do the rest, and the result is a truly excellent spy film.

In early ‘70s Britain, tensions are mounting in the intelligence service, known to its operatives as “The Circus.” The organization’s aging leader, Control (John Hurt) believes that one of his agents is a Russian mole, and sends a trusted operative (Mark Strong) to Hungary to ferret out some information. The mission goes wrong, and Control and his right hand man, George Smiley (Gary Oldman) are forced out of the service. The leadership void is quickly filled by Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), who heads the Russian spying project that Control was convinced housed the mole.

A year later Control is dead after a long illness, and Smiley is living quietly in retirement until he’s approached by the government secretary presiding over the intelligence committee (Oliver Lacon) and asked to determine once and for all if Control’s mole was real, and if so, who it is.

The rest of the film is a labyrinth of secrets and whispers as Smiley – with the help of a loyal spy within The Circus (Benedict Cumberbatch) and a frightened operative on the run (Tom Hardy) – tries to narrow down the possibilities of Control’s theory and determine which of the men inside The Circus is a traitor. We are led to believe it could be one of four highly placed men: Alleline himself, codename “Tinker”, Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), codename “Tailor,” Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), codename “Soldier” and Toby Esterhase (David Denick), codename “Poorman.”

The first thing I noticed about this film is that it’s not in a hurry. Spy thrillers are generally designed to move forward at breakneck pace, punctuated by chases across rooftops and barely plausible sex scenes. Tinker, Tailor is not a long film, but it is a patient one, using its two hour run time to explore every corner of Smiley’s world, from his marital troubles to his morning swim. It grants us a familiarity we don’t normally have with our movie spies. We feel we know George Smiley, as well as anyone really can, and the web that he’s willingly diving into suddenly becomes our web too.

The second thing I noticed was Alfredson’s continued mastery of light. His Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In, was a gorgeous playground of fluorescent and halogen contrasts, and with Tinker, Tailor he shines yet again, creating a sumptuous neo-noir palette of shadows, shady rooms and dark alleyways.

But the center of the film, the heart, the thing that will keep spy lovers coming back over and over again, is Oldman. He is one of the finest actors in the world, noted for his ability to disappear completely into a character, and this time he affirms it perhaps more than ever with what’s probably the most subtle performance of his career. George Smiley is an extremely intelligent, worldly man, but he’s not a flashy man. He’s not an angry man or a sensual man or a cool man. There’s no gimmick for Oldman to latch on to. And yet he makes every scene completely fascinating. He owns the movie, and in a film alongside wonderful performances by Firth, Jones, Hurt, Cumberbatch, Strong and Hardy, that’s really saying something.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy might not be what we’ve come to expect from spy films, but it is what we deserve. It’s a film that relies not on action or gadgets or explosions to get its point across, but on solid storytelling, gorgeous photography and some of the best actors alive. If you give this film the patience and concentration is deserves, you will be rewarded, and you’ll only want to take another trip into le Carre’s dark little world.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is available everywhere on DVD and Blu-Ray.

MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Hunger Games'

She's either heading for a fight to the death or a mall appearance...or maybe both.

If you’re conscious of the outside world in really any way, by now you’re surely familiar with the phenomenon known as The Hunger Games, a trilogy of young adult novels that’s now being adapted into a series of films with so much advance buzz that it could top the Twilight franchise.

But don’t sell the experience short by chalking this one up to overzealous teenage fanaticism brought on by hunky boys and wish fulfillment. While this is another pop culture storm that started with teen readers, it is decidedly not another Twilight. It’s not all built on romance (supernatural or otherwise), it’s far less glamorous and, perhaps most importantly, while Twilight treats the love story at its center as though it’s a life or death matter, the teens that populate The Hunger Games are literally fighting for their lives.

Now the first film in the franchise is here, after months of fan anticipation, trailers, marketing and screaming teenage fans. It’s judgment day. Did director Gary Ross deliver on his adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ beloved novel? First, for the few of you who don’t know, the premise:

Sometime in the future, the nation of Panem (located where America is now) is ravaged by war. The subservient Districts rebelled against their Capitol – the center of power, wealth and privilege – and were punished with destruction, poverty, and the creation of an eternal reminder of the price of revolt. The treaty that ended the conflict included a condition that, each year, one male and one female between the ages of 12 and 18 would be gathered from each of the 12 districts through a lottery known as the “Reaping.” These 24 children, known as “tributes,” would then be taken to the Capitol and made to fight to the death in a pageant known as “The Hunger Games.” The winner would be given enormous wealth and fame as a symbol of hope to the people of the Districts, while the losers would go home in body bags as a symbol of the power of the Capitol.

We pick up the story on the day of the “Reaping” for the 74^th annual Hunger Games. In District 12 – a deeply impoverished place where a squirrel is considered a good meal – Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is trying to put the games out of her mind and take care of her family. Her father is long-dead, her mother is still shell-shocked by the tragedy, and her younger sister Prim (Willow Shields) is too little and meek to help much. So Katniss spends her days hunting in the woods with her friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth), selling and trading what she can at the local black market and bringing the rest home to feed her mother and sister.

Then the Reaping comes. Though it’s only her first year in the drawing, Prim is selected, and in a fit of emotion Katniss volunteers to go in her place. Just minutes later, she is whisked away to the Capitol by her official escort, the glamorous Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), alongside the male tribute from District 12, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson).

In the Capitol, Katniss meets her trainer, the drunken former Hunger Games winner Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), and her stylist, the gentle Cinna (Lenny Kravitz). Being a contestant in the games makes her the center of a media firestorm led by the charismatic talk show host Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), and all the while she is watched by the imposing President Snow (Donald Sutherland).

The first half of the film is the buildup to the games as Katniss trains, learns that Peeta’s been harboring a crush on her (unless he’s just pretending to get valuable sponsors to help him in the games) and tries to cope with the enormous odds against her. The second half of the film catapults the 24 tributes, ranging from the tiny but plucky Rue (Amandla Stenberg) to the massive and arrogant Cato (Alexander Ludwig), into an arena filled with both natural and artificial threats. As days go by, Katniss and Peeta must fight to stay alive as their fellow tributes and the games’ brilliant mastermind (Wes Bentley) plot their demise.

The first thing Ross gets right – and keeps getting right throughout the film – is refusing to treat it like a blockbuster. Make no mistake, it is a blockbuster, but it would be easy for the sensational elements of the story to overtake the emotional punch of Collins’ novel. It could be the “kids killing kids for sport” movie, the movie all about the culture that loves watching all this carnage on national television. It could be all sensation and no feeling. Though the games are at the heart of the novel’s plot, they’re not the heart of the novel. Ross makes sure the film stays true to that, and thus the movie becomes about much more than the carnage in the arena.

He achieves this by never making the spectacle bigger than the people who inhabit it. Panoramic shots are few and far between. Instead he focuses on the faces: Katniss’ fire, Peeta’s angst, President Snow’s icy glare. His cinematography is character-based even amid the temptation of showing off the futuristic world around him. The world is there, and it’s vivid, but the people dominate the landscape.

The trouble with this, the only real flaw the film has, is that Ross’ handheld camera style often produces unnecessary awkwardness, particularly when it comes to action sequences. Sure, you can argue that some of that shaky-cam is being used to obscure the violence and keep the film with a PG-13 rating, but it also serves to make those moments a little hard to decipher. What’s worse, the shaky-cam tricks actually extend beyond the action sequences and into the quiet moments, where it sometimes proves even more distracting. The handheld feel can work, but this movie overdosed on it.

But even when the distracting camera has you praying for some stability, the cast grounds the film, presenting an emotional core that never stops crackling. Lawrence’s Katniss is an intense, enthralling performance. She steals scenes from almost everyone, she conquers emotional moments with ease, and she makes every look, every gesture count. It’s a character that could have so easily lapsed into melodrama, but Lawrence triumphs over that urge with a performance of tremendous depth. The entire cast is solid, but the true standouts alongside Lawrence are Harrelson, Banks and Tucci. The latter two revel in the absurdity of the characters, giving performances an audience can savor, while Harrelson gives weight to a role that could have been little more than gruff cockiness.

By the time it ends, The Hunger Games has managed to do something few films of its kind ever will: create an engaging, character-driven film with the trappings of a blockbuster that viewers of (almost) all ages can happily get lost in. It plays to its fans, but it makes it easy for newcomers to grasp. It embraces the emotional oomph that so many of Collins’ readers keep going back for, but never completely lets go of the over-the-top concepts that keep drawing new fans in. There’s a reason this film is so hot before anyone’s even seen it, but there’s also a reason why everyone will keep going back. This isn’t a fad. This is a taut, gripping and well-imagined story.