Exberliner October: EFA People's Choice Award, Runner Runner

Much lauded as a taste-maker in Toronto and Sundance, our continent’s annual red carpet Gala offers its own people’s choice award for the 17^th time. Touching down in Berlin this December the European film awards will dish out its publicly voted gong to one of eleven thoroughbred crowd pleasers. Not forgetting Amour ransacked the place last year without a mention in this category so best to forget your Ulrich Seidls for now and cast a vote for one of these gentler efforts. With 11 countries represented, nominees range from Amour’s fellow Oscar nominee Kon Tiki to everyone’s favourite South African legend Searching for Sugar man. Joe Wright’s glittery Anna Karenina and the Ewan McGregor tsunami vehicle The Impossible add a little showbiz to the pack but perhaps we should all keep a finger or two crossed for a local effort as Tom Schilling’s crisp Berlin odyssey Oh Boy steps up to the plate.

Runner Runner

Likable Justin Timberlake plays an unlikable Princeton student paying his way through school by playing the numbers on an online poker site. He loses it all in one sitting but is convinced he’s been duped so he tracks down the sites sleazy mastermind (Ben Affleck). Furman’s film is slick but charmless and seems to buckle under the weight of its two stars. Nominations and facial hair had Affleck looking like a Hollywood heavyweight eight months ago but we seem, once again, to be veering off course. The Bat-Signal beckons.  Sighs all round.