From her 1770 marriage at 15 to Louis XVI (Schwartzman) the delightfully attractive Austrian Princess Marie Antoinette (Dunst) enjoyed a life of great excess in the glorious Royal Palace at Versailles. In this film Sofia Coppola shows an abridged tale of the glories of French court life laced with privilege. Unfortunately for historical purists the screenplay is rather like one of the many sweet eclairs and cakes in the film: lovely to look at but containing little substance. However the film does clearly outline one delicate constitutional situation Maria faced: her marriage took seven years to consummate, which could have led to her disgraced return to Austria if she fell out of favour with the King. At the time the lack of an heir generated widespread speculation: was Louis gay, couldnt he perform, or was she barren or frigid? Other than this the film explores little of French politics prior to the revolution which led to the dismantling of the French monarchy, and Marie Antoinette's final destiny with the guillotine in 1793 is left out of this story. This film's creative strength is visual: the cast works hard but they are being paid mainly to model the divine clothes, and Schwartzman's acting is as rigid as a clothes hanger. If you have a passion for couture, shoes, porcelain, fine foods, formal gardens and decorative arts you will find this film a delight and much kinder on your wallet than visiting the palace of the Sun King. '

Ive noticed that since I've been in the group, which has been only for four years, we seem to show a movie or three for the conspiracy theorists, of which I count myself one. After all I still haven't seen any proof that Elvis is dead or that aliens don't exist. In fact I feel sorry for those poor souls who believe that Elvis actually died nearly thirty years ago. This is actually a documentary about the electric car, a fantastic car that needed little or no servicing, was cheap and easy to produce, and of course cost hardly anything to run, and what killed it. After all if it had all these great benefits why didn't it last? Who did kill the electric car? Why? The answer to these questions is really all too obvious but the way it's presented is damn brilliant. Another title for this movie could've easily been An Inconvenient Truth as this movie makes us examine our dependency on the car as a product, on oil and the consumer lifestyle. As an avid cyclist and environmentalist I can tell you that I loved this movie, even though I already knew what killed the electric car. You will not leave this movie feeling good about the future of the environment, and if you drive to the movie you will feel even worse when you turn the key in the ignition in your oil driven car, but you will leave knowing much more about the car industry and how powerful it is, which is really the aim of this movie. You may even leave finally believing that Elvis is not dead and that aliens do exist. Then again I already knew that. '