Of all grades I instinctively want to avoid handing out too often, the boring old B– is top of the list. It's the sitting-on-the-fence grade: it feels lazy, as though I can't force myself down on one side or the other. And yet, right now, it's an affliction. I can't get round the problem of nearly liking about half the stuff on my current sidebar. Fabrice du Welz's Vinyan (pictured) has smashing photography, a confident arrangement of ideas and settings, an unexpectedly good Rufus Sewell performance... but Antichrist it just ain't, I'm afraid. Surrogates is about twice the film anyone was expecting, but still about half the one anyone could plausibly argue was a must-see. Army of Crime is so drab-looking and sluggishly assembled it was looking C-tier till way into the second half, but then the story gets going and I was hooked and moved. District 13: Ultimatum is neither more nor less than a propulsive, dumb, niftily edited action flick with a threadbare conspiracy plot that no one's worrying about too much. But it's still a B–. Individually they're all just fine, but collectively they feel like some tyranny or epidemic of fine. Can someone who is NOT Nia Vardalos or Ricky Gervais please break this stranglehold?
