William Clemens | 65 mins | download | 4:3 | USA / English | PG
In American colloquial language, “coed” or “co-ed” is used to refer to a mixed school… As a noun, the word “coed” is used to refer to a female student in a mixed gender school.
I Wikipedia’d that just to check, because in his fourth outing as the Falcon, Tom Conway investigates a mystery at an all-girls school.
Minor oddnesses aside, The Falcon and the Co-eds is one of the series’ better entries. I suppose these days the plot would only sustain a TV murder mystery rather than a theatrical release, but it’s a solid whodunnit — not something these Saint and Falcon films can always claim. Here, the students of a remote girls’ school are suspicious that the death of a teacher wasn’t sudden heart failure as the faculty claim, and one who previously had a dalliance with our titular hero calls on him to investigate. Mystery and intrigue ensue, with a plot that thickens and an array of potential suspects.
Alongside this is the series’ trademark humour. Here it’s served by both the college girls’ infatuation with our suave English hero, and a trio of younger lasses who are part Greek chorus and part sidekick team. The series’ regular comic relief, Inspector Donovan and Detective Bates, are on hand too, thankfully without their grating catchphrase. It’s not all light, though: the film was cut on its original UK release, presumably for the things noted in its 2012 classification: “references to suicide and a drugs overdose”.
In fact, the worst thing about the film is purely a result of its age, and that’s the occasional bout of misogyny. Let’s face it, the girls going all giggly over the Falcon is pretty defensible (look at modern-day reactions to the likes of One Direction, Justin Bieber, or even Benedict Cumberbatch), but the bit where he picks a twenty-something girl up to smack her bottom is a bit much. Still, it opens with a great bit: the Falcon parks his car, a girl immediately runs up to it: “Mr Lawrence?” “Yes?” She jumps in, instantly kisses him full on the lips, and when she pulls away all he can say, with a slightly surprised look, is, “Nice!” You could put that in something today and it’d still work.
The Falcon’s high point to date was surely the previous film, The Falcon in Danger, which was also directed by Clemens and featured two of the same leading ladies — I guess RKO didn’t think anyone would notice, even when the films were released just a few months apart. Co-eds perhaps doesn’t reach quite that level, though it makes a good fist of it. The twisty plot is engrossing and the humour entertaining, though I felt more could have been made of the potentially atmospheric remote cliff-top setting. It’s the kind of film where I began imagining how it might be remade to even greater effect. That may sound like a criticism but, when it comes to B-movies of this vintage, 
such thoughts always endear them to me.
I often find star ratings a bit useless on these long-running series. They all fall into roughly the same bracket in the grand scheme of movie-watching, but within the series there are distinct highs and lows. In Danger is the only one so far I’ve seen fit to give a whole 4 stars too, but Co-eds sits right behind it.
When 
Personally, I find it a valid thing to attempt. Rather than take the Superman mythology as read, here Nolan and co — including screenwriter David Goyer and director Zack Snyder — have tried to imagine what would really happen if an alien baby with incredible powers arrived in our world. So Clark Kent hides his abilities, goes on a trek around the world to ‘find himself’, and when he’s uncovered there’s mass media and military interest. Which is pretty accurate, I think. If some guy started stopping oil rigs collapsing single-handed, or flying around the place, the military’s hardly going to sit back and go, “oh OK then”.
The filmmakers have certainly bought into their own conceit, to a frankly laughable extent. The Blu-ray contains a featurette called All-Out Action, which the menu describes as follows: “The action in Man of Steel soars to new heights with a level of realism never before seen in a super hero film.” Hahahaha! Realism my arse. Once the action kicks in it’s positively comic book. Men are hurled around like rag dolls; Metropolis is destroyed in a huge flying punch-up, which just feels like a less effective re-hash of 
As to the destruction of the city, I think the criticism is right. The city clearly isn’t evacuated before buildings start falling — it’s being evacuated, but no one even knew to start running before the Massive Machine Of Destruction (I forget what it was actually for) turns up and starts destroying things. People run into the streets as buildings fall on them. As a viewer, how can you miss that hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocents are dying? The cinematography makes it look like 9/11 — incredibly like 9/11, in fact. That was 12 years ago by the time of the film’s release, but is it OK to trade on such iconography in a blockbuster entertainment? Should we just ignore the notion that so many ‘extras’ are dying because, hey, it’s just a superhero movie? But aren’t we meant to be taking this as Real World, chaps?
There’s a lot else that Man of Steel plays with in the Superman legend besides the violence and cinematography. Some people will surely miss the bumbling Clark Kent, the burgeoning relationship with Lois Lane, and so on. These elements are eventually brought in, sometimes in a modified way, which makes it feel like they’ve been put in place — Superman Begins style — to be used in a sequel. Except we know 
However, Waking Sleeping Beauty is told from the inside: director Don Hahn started out as an assistant director at Disney animation in the ’80s, graduating to producer by the time of Beauty and the Beast. With him he brings behind-the-scenes home movies and access to a stunning array of interviewees. Almost everyone who was anyone at Disney during that time is interviewed, either through archive footage or new audio commentary. It was a tough time, and while Hahn’s portrait is probably not quite warts-and-all, it comes damn close; for example, we get to see some of the caricatures the animators drew in disgust at their new boss, Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Honourable mentions too for 
12 Years a Slave
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
The Great Gatsby
Oblivion
Riddick
What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?
December’s films in full
Disney’s 51st and/or 52nd animated classic (depends who you listen to) is, essentially, 
Unfortunately, despite the rarely-filmed milieu of video games, it’s all a bit predictable — like I said, it basically does with video game characters what Toy Story did with toys, both in terms of the story and its themes of acceptance. At least one wearing subplot had me involuntarily exclaim “oh get on with it!” out loud (and I was watching by myself). The pace rarely lets up, and at 101 minutes that becomes tiring. When it does give you a break, you kinda wish it would get a wriggle on, because it’s obvious where things are going and it’s wasting time getting there. Of course, most mainstream films (especially kids’ movies) are going to follow broadly the same arcs — however bad it gets we know the hero will win, etc — but the trick is to make you enjoy the journey, not long to arrive at the destination. I spent most of the third act almost drumming my fingers as I waited for it to get to the latter.
Wreck-It Ralph isn’t actually a bad film. There’s a fair bit of inventiveness with the concept, and the makers have worked hard to establish a world with rules (though your mileage may vary on how successfully they’ve done that), but it descends into a breathless, sugar-fuelled, reheated runabout. I imagine young kids will adore its colourfulness and its energy, and won’t be bothered by the over-familiar plotting and life lessons; but, beyond nostalgia for arcade gamers, I don’t believe it has huge amounts to offer a grown-up viewer.
Aardman’s second CG feature attracts a starry cast (not just the leads — check out who’s credited as “Lead Elf”!) to the story of how Santa really delivers all those presents in one night: a giant spaceship-like craft and thousands of SAS-esque elves. But when one child is missed, Santa’s clumsy son Arthur resolves to fix it.
Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson are back as… um… whatever their characters were called, in this follow-up to 
Knights as a whole feels like it moves better than its predecessor — it gets going quicker, without the need to establish these characters and force them together; there’s a greater reliance on those quality action sequences. The guest cast feels a bit bargain basement, though the villains — Aiden Gillen and the aforementioned Yen — are of a higher calibre. This means we’re treated to a pair of great climaxes, with Chan first having that punch-up with Yen, followed by a three-sword duel with Gillen (or possibly a stuntman).
In the end, I’m not sure if I like it more or less than the first film. The Western setting was a smoother fit in many ways, but here there’s a less stodgy plot, a general reduction in the overlong comedy sequences, and even better action sequences. All things considered, I think Knights may actually have the edge.
100Films.co.uk 