Remember that a film can be good without being inspirational

Great art inspires with respect of life & the business of living, it's what it's there for - to be inspirational, to lift our souls above the mundane. I'm happy with a story - film as ballad rather than film as singer-songwriter heart-on-sleeve message-board; as Harry Partch said no message; too many messages. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is epic in this respect, but, as I say, I love the best of Shane Meadows' stuff too; Beat Takeshi likewise, even at his most ultra-violent (he's in Battle Royale which screens on Film 4 this week). We watch films in a state of visionary reverie anyway; it's passive enchantment of the highest order, so it works best at its most surreal, however so close that might run to reality - at least a version of it, like Funny Bones which honours the timeless essence of Blackpool without lapsing into the sort of prescriptive mawkishness that mires things like Brassed Off and the Full Monty.