CINEMA: X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn, 2011) – X-Men was good and X2 was phenomenal, but after the vile prank that was The Last Stand, I didn't even bother with 19th century-set prequel Wolverine. Now we've landed further forward in history, courtesy of the writer and director of Kick-Ass and original series director Bryan Singer, for a Cold War-era creation myth dealing with the formative experiences of Professor Xavier (James MacAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender). The former is an Oxford graduate, doing a dissertation on mutation and heading for the CIA. The latter is touring the globe in search of the Nazi (now something of a Commie-Nazi to use the McBain parlance), who shot his mum and unleashed his true potential. It's a superb set-up and the film benefits from two excellent central characterisations - backed by Jennifer Lawrence as Raven offering a Rogue-type subplot - but the second half is less impressive and interesting, culminating in an overlong, slightly boring action climax and several false endings. The principal henchman, Azazel, reminds me a little too much of the prankster Devil from Big Train. (3)
***
Winter's Bone (Debra Granik, 2010) - A teenage girl wanders around Missouri's Ozark Mountains asking people with pinched faces if they've seen her drug-cookin' dad, and they threaten to beat her up. Brilliant. (I should probably add that this incredibly low-key film has a rich, fascinating atmosphere, a striking visual sensibility and a stunning central performance from Jennifer Lawrence that culminates in the best silent screaming since The Spiral Staircase.) (4)
See also: An obvious touchstone is The Road: *SOME SPOILERS* greying beards, washed out colours and end-of-the-world bleakness giving way to faint hope. And then there's the other great Ozarks movie:
The Shepherd of the Hills (Henry Hathaway, 1941) is a genuinely remarkable drama with a heightened feel created by an extraordinary script, powerful performances and stunning direction from the erratic Hathaway. Harry Carey is the title figure, returning to his community having abandoned his wife and young child years before. His son (John Wayne), now all grown up, is hell-bent on revenge, believing it will rid his family of the "curse" that manifested in the death of his mother and the disability of his cousin. With all that plottin' and hatin', he can't imagine a future with the girl he loves, bare-footed Sammy (Betty Field). The film has a decidedly Fordian sensibility in its themes of family and redemption, its stylistics (long shots, doors used for framing, and even a scene at a graveyard filmed in the Ford fashion) and its use of his first (Carey) and most famous (Wayne) muses. But there's a feel, an atmosphere, a quality here that's entirely new, with staggering dialogue - both authentic and flavourful - in a language that's all its own and knockout performances from Carey and the incredible Field. Beulah Bondi, whose principal role is to poison Wayne's mind against his father, could play warm and good-hearted or worn and harsh with equal skill. She's just horrible here; really great, while in his first colour film, playing a complex, fascinating part, the underrated Wayne does another fine job. The film is full of wonderful touches, details and vignettes. It's meandering, unusual and distinctive. One of a kind. (4)
***
"That's right, but they never talk about that."
Barcelona (Whit Stillman, 1994) - Whit Stillman's follow-up to Metropolitan (comfortably one of my ten favourite films of all time) is a coruscating comedy-drama about love, anti-Americanism and fictional masochism, stuffed with glorious dialogue. Taylor Nichols is the sales director whose lonely existence in the Catalan capital is interrupted by incredibly sarcastic cousin Chris Eigeman, who keeps telling girls that Nichols is a keen follower of the Marquis de Sade, rather than the "bible-dancing goody goody" he really is. Meanwhile, a reprehensible lothario of a journalist lights a powder keg of anti-US sentiment... Despite only making three films (a fourth is finally on the way), Stillman is one of the best writer-directors America has ever produced, though I wish the deleted scenes on the DVD had been left in, adding further intrigue and excitement to the political subplot. (4)
See also: Stillman's last film to date was The Last Days of Disco, in 1998. There's a brief review in this round-up.
***
Ah, Wilderness! (Clarence Brown, 1935) is one of the best I've seen this year, an extremely moving, amusing adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's nostalgic play. Eric Linden is superb as a precocious, pretentious teenager whose stumbling forays into the fields of oration and love-making are observed by his kindly, concerned father (Lionel Barrymore, perhaps the most reliably wonderful performer of the Golden Age). Meanwhile, his uncle Sid (Wallace Beery) battles the booze, while trying to win back the woman he lost 15 years ago (Aline MacMahon). Moving seamlessly from comedy to drama - often within a single exchange - it's a timeless work, containing numerous telling sequences that receive rich treatment in MGM's Americana style, like Linden imagining his triumphant return to school, making up with his girl, or giving his father the assurance he desperately needs. Even the set-piece that doesn't work so well - a family dinner interrupted by a sozzled Sid - gets a gutting pay-off from a remorseful MacMahon. The self-satisfied, insecure protagonist was perhaps the template for Oliver Tate, the appalling, appealing centre of Richard Ayaode's recent Submarine. If you would like me to do my impression of Lionel Barrymore, that would be fine. "Young Dyoctor Kyildaaayur..." (4)
***
"Beat it, squirt!"
Three Men on a Horse (Mervyn LeRoy (uncredited), 1936) - I'm a big cheerleader for this ensemble comedy. In 2009, I wrote: "Sometimes all you want to do is laugh. And there are few films as purely, blissfully funny as this almost-forgotten 1936 gem, adapted from a big Broadway hit." That was from a blurb on the Harrogate Advertiser website, where I put this oft-overlooked film at #40 in an all-time top 100. In April this year, I included Frank McHugh's performance in my list of the 202 greatest performances in cinema. I can't help it, I just really like it. McHugh, the greatest character comic ever to walk the earth, plays a greetings card poet with an uncanny ability to pick the horses. He never bets - "it wouldn't be right, we can't afford it", he explains nonsensically - but gets it right every time. When he drunkenly stumbles into a cadre of gangsters led by Sam Levene (who transferred with the Broadway show and went on to appear in After the Thin Man and noir classics The Killers and Crossfire), they spot the chance to make a killing - if they can just keep their golden goose happy. McHugh had a wonderfully absent delivery, coupled to a sometimes impish sense of fun, and both virtues are to the fore here, as he childishly taunts his brother-in-law, repeatedly forgets that he's supposed to be helping out the hoods and accidentally seduces the ringleader's moll (the wonderful Joan Blondell). There are dozens of laughs, often in the most surprising places ("Remember what the parole officer said: no more homicides," stooge and embryonic Pesci, Teddy Hart, tells Levene), and the denouement is particularly agreeable. If you like classic Hollywood comedy, you simply have to get hold of a copy. It's only available on NTSC VHS, though, I'm afraid. (4)
***
Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, 2010) – Supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) adopts three little girls as part of a dastardly scheme to shrink the moon, only to find they have a mellowing effect. A fantastic first half gives way to a slightly less furious second, but this is still a super animated effort, with smart plotting, excellent characters (hurrah for the Minions... even if they are somewhat similar to Toy Story's aliens) and a host of genuinely brilliant gags. The sight of Gru and his sidekicks sitting forlornly on their tiny, shrunken plane will be one of the enduring film memories of this year. (3.5)
See also: The DVD features three Minion shorts: Home Makeover (Kyle Balda and Samuel Tourneux, 2010, 3), in which the girls prettify Gru's home, Orientation Day (3.5), where newly-recruited Minions are introduced to their responsibilities, and Banana (3.5), in which the little yeller fellas squabble over some fruit.
***
Teacher's Pet (George Seaton, 1958) is a romantic comedy on an interesting theme: real-world experience versus higher education. Clark Gable is the appallingly chauvinistic city editor (only some of his myriad flaws evident to the writers) who enlists in a journalism course to mock pert blonde teacher Doris Day, only to fall for her - and her message. It's quite well-written and played, with a strong presentation of newsroom life (it's not much like a Harrogate weekly in 2011) and a notable supporting turn from Gig Young as Day's sure-sighted intellectual collaborator. (3)
***
Mr. Jealousy (Noah Baumbach, 1997) – Substitute teacher Eric Stoltz starts a relationship with art gallery tour guide Annabella Sciorra, but is swallowed up by the green-eyed monster, becoming increasingly jealous of her past lovers - and then himself. This singularly unpromising premise is quite well-developed, with excellent turns from Carlos Jacott as Stoltz's complex pal and Chris Eigeman playing his arch nemesis, celebrated writer Dashiell Frank. The scenes in group therapy are very funny and a long-promised unmasking is hysterical, though the film still has some dull stretches and an extended ending that seems tacked-on. It's worth a look, but not in the same league as Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming. Or The Squid and the Whale, for that matter. (2.5)
***
Lady Be Good (Norman Z. McLeod, 1941) is the only musical I've seen with a framing sequence set in a divorce court*. The story about bickering married couple Ann Sothern and Robert Young isn't great (added to which, he's an absolute idiot) and the early numbers just consist of them singing round a piano, but the musical interludes get better and better as the film progresses, with the acrobatic African-American trio the Berry Brothers making a couple of appearances (they were rivals to the extraordinary Nicholas Brothers and engaged in a famous dance-off in 1938) and tap queen Eleanor Powell performing two routines. The first is a neat dance with a dog, but the second - with her in a glittery suit, hoofing to Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm - is nothing short of astonishing. It was devised by Busby Berkeley, as you might expect, and is filmed in a palette of which silvery cinematographer Gregg Toland would have been proud. To see how it was staged and shot, check out That's Entertainment! III. Red Skelton's impression of Chinese people is a little bit racist. (2.5)
*Though Dancer in the Dark ventures into the criminal court.
***
Sylvia Scarlett (George Cukor, 1935) - Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant made four films together. This is the other one, made a full three years before the commencement of that unmissable run incorporating Holiday, Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story. Before Grant debuted the persona that would define an entire era of America movie-making, in The Awful Truth. Here, Cary's a Cockney con man, Kate's a motherless waif posing as a boy and Brian Aherne is an artist of unclear morality, trying to give her a life lesson or two. The plotting is all over the shop, beginning with a parade of over-emoting that plays like a parody and recalls the worst excesses of silent melodrama, then going from knockabout comedy to improbable tragedy and back again in the blink of an eye. Several times. But it's rarely dull, Hepburn is mostly very good and the ending is nicely realised. (2.5)
***
Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010) is a great trailer in search of a decent film. I've finally gotten around to seeing it and I still feel like I haven't. It's OK froth, beginning well with tongue firmly in cheek, but soon going awry in its gently incoherent, globe-trotting way. Tom Cruise is good fun in his ambiguous role; Cameron Diaz can't do comedy, drama, or anything else really, and looks weird and melted. (2.5)
***
Never Wave at a WAC (Norman Z. McLeod, 1953) - Pathetic addition to the "in the Army now" comedy ranks, with Rosalind Russell going from hideous socialite to hideous private. The story and script are unbearable and Russell - one of the most revered comediennes in the history of the movies, and of course His Girl Friday's Hildy Johnson - is just dreadful. The only bright spots come from Marie Wilson, doing her usual dumb blonde schtick. Bizarrely, this mess was directed by genre veteran McLeod, who was no stranger to manic masterpieces, having helmed the Marx Bros' 1932 classic Horse Feathers. (1.5)
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