Lincoln on film: 1915-2012

"I... emancipate... your... milk-slave!"

To shamelessly piggy-back on – sorry, "celebrate" – the release of Spielberg's Lincoln, I've compiled a maddeningly incomplete round-up of big-screen appearances by the only president you can imitate by taking some old hair off your hairbrush and holding it up to your chin with your thumb.

As anyone who's just been searching on IMDb knows, Honest Abe has appeared as a character in more than 300 movies and TV shows. He's been given the biopic treatment from three pivotal figures in cinema: noted racist and inventor of movies as we know them, D. W. Griffith, the greatest American director of them all, John Ford, and now the creator of the popcorn movie (and possibly popcorn itself), Steven Spielberg. He's fought vampires, been saved from assassination by John Kennedy and needlessly contravened the separation of powers just to please Shirley Temple. Here are some of the most memorable Lincolns on film (i.e. the ones I've seen).

Joseph Henabery in The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915) – Griffith's hateful, bilious epic sees America overrun by scary black people after the assassination of Lincoln. It's morally repugnant but technically groundbreaking, while Henabery makes for an excellent Abe – he certainly wears more eye-shadow than any later incarnation. Griffith's first talkie was Abraham Lincoln, a biopic starring Walter Huston.



Frank McGlynn, Sr. in The Littlest Rebel (1935), The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), The Plainsman (1936) and many others – McGlynn first played Lincoln on stage in 1919, toured in the part for two years, revisited the role for a short film in 1924 and featured as the president in a slew of '30s movies. The Littlest Rebel has him as an avuncular, folksy figure who loves kids and has time for everyone. Will he grant a last-minute reprieve to adorable curly top Shirley Temple's widowed father? If he doesn't, Depression-era audiences are probably going to be a bit miffed. John Ford presented Lincoln as an almost Christ-like figure throughout his work. In The Prisoner of Shark Island, which deals with the supposedly wrongful imprisonment of Dr Samuel Mudd - the physician who treated Lincoln's killer - McGlynn reprises his most famous role, getting a band to play Dixie, before a chilling, unforgettable and low-key restaging of the assassination that feels eerily like the real thing. He was miraculously reincarnated for Cecil B. De Mille's The Plainsman later the same year, kicking off that festival of questionable history in fine style.

John Carradine in Of Human Hearts (1938) – For those who found the Lincoln in The Littlest Rebel a bit too grittily realistic, here's John Carradine as The Great Emancipator, who has a few words to say to Jimmy Stewart about how he should be nicer to his mother. It's possible this may be a misuse of Lincoln's image. Let's see if the scene crops up in Spielberg's film too.

Henry Fonda in Young Mr Lincoln (1939) – Having featured Lincoln as a supporting character in his epic "coming of the railways" Western, The Iron Horse, John Ford gave him a film of his own: a peerless slice of Americana. Wearing the iffiest false nose this side of Looper – making him look a lot like Gary Neville – Fonda makes for a touching, funny and, well, young Mr Lincoln, who expounds much of his energy standing up for the little guy, but has an extraordinary predilection for laying down zingers. The star had expressed some reservations about being cast as the former president, saying it would be like playing Jesus, only for Ford to put him in his place. “You think Lincoln's The Great Emancipator?” he said derisively. “He's just a jack-legged lawyer from Springfield.” Written by Lamar Trotti – who'd penned a similar piece of legal-minded myth-making for the director, Judge Priest – this semi-fictionalised hymn to Ford's favourite president is overflowing with symbolism, humanism and subtle foreshadowing. It also contains arguably the most beautiful and moving scene of Ford's career, a wintry graveside chat, with Fonda bidding goodbye to his lost love. Simply put, it's by far the best Lincoln movie I've ever seen.



A giant piece of marble as the Lincoln Memorial in Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – He's just a bit of marble. He doesn't even move. He's being back-projected in a Hollywood studio. But he inspires our hero. Sob. Since 1939, a succession of filmmakers have basically stolen Capra's idea, which is used when anyone is in Washington in a film and feeling a bit sad. A statue of Lincoln comes to life in Night at the Museum 2. The less said about that, the better.

Leslie Kimmell in The Tall Target (1951) – He wouldn't be so tall if he took off that sodding hat. Can Sgt John Kennedy (Dick Powell) prevent Lincoln being shot? For now, I suppose.



A massive stone carving of Lincoln's face in North by Northwest (1959) – Hitchcock's best film of the '50s (no, you are wrong) includes a terrific suspense sequence at Mount Rushmore. It's also worth mentioning that the crack squad of Team America are based inside the mountain and exit via Lincoln's mouth, which is frankly a brilliant touch.



Charles L. Brame as Lincoln in Heaven in Happy Gilmore (1996) – If you ask me, this is where Lincoln officially sold out, looking down from Heaven to congratulate Adam Sandler's annoying golfer.

Tom Willett as the resurrected Lincoln in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) – Hurray - all the characters are alive again! And so's Abraham Lincoln!

Pete Antico as The Ghost of Abraham Lincoln in Black Dynamite (2009) – One of the more laboured non-sequiturs in this spotty spoof has Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) aided by the ghost of Lincoln in a White House fight-to-the-death against President Nixon. Honest Abe karate-chops Tricky Dicky.



Benjamin Walker in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2011) – I saw a trailer for this. It looked a bit crap.



Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln (2012) – A faithful 90-minute biopic, followed by a superfluous hour in which Lincoln helps a child thwart his parents' divorce and then they send a homesick alien back to his folks. Probably.

I know I missed out Abe Lincoln in Illinois. That's because I'm watching it tomorrow. The actors who've appeared as Lincoln most often are, if you're interested, Frank McGlynn, Sr. (14), Benjamin Chapin (14), Ralph Ince (9), Francis Ford - John's brother - (8) and Raymond Massey (5). Thanks for reading. Let me know your favourite below. Ah, gwarn.

Douglas Fairbanks special - Reviews #135

I've been steadily working my way through this year's largest extravagance, Flicker Alley's monumental box-set: Douglas Fairbanks - A Modern Musketeer, a purchase I could only justify by working both Jubilee bank holidays.

After being comprehensively wowed by When the Clouds Roll By and enjoying His Picture in the Papers, the tasteless, boring Flirting with Fate came as something of a nasty surprise. So how would the rest of the set shape up?

With two still to play (I've seen The Mark of Zorro before), it's looking like my unpatriotic (and possibly treasonous) decision not to celebrate the Queen's big day was one of the best decisions I ever made, just above buying Fletch, and just below giving away Fletch to a charity shop.

It's also worth mentioning that the restoration jobs on these films, as well as the tinting and the accompanying scores are absolutely wondrous, and there are a few fun extras peppered about the discs (though nothing to rival the wealth of material, including deleted scenes (!), on the Fairbanks swashbucklers set). Hats off to Flicker Alley for that.



The Matrimaniac (Paul Powell, 1916) – An uninspiring early Fairbanks vehicle predicated on a knowledge of anti-elopement laws of the 1910s that most of us simply don’t possess. There are a few good gags and stunts dotted about the place (a mule that runs backwards and climbs on people’s backs, Doug riding under a train), but it’s largely dull and not in the same league as His Picture in the Papers and When the Clouds Roll By – or even close. (2)

***



SHORT: The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (John Emerson, 1916) - A notorious, nightmarish Sherlock Holmes spoof, devised by Freaks director Tod Browning, about detective Coke Ennyday (a preposterously hammy Fairbanks), who wears a chequered suit and hat, drives a chequered car, and keeps injecting cocaine into his hand. By way of a climax, our hero forces the baddies to take drugs, and comes out on top because he has a higher tolerance for opiates. The film is no classic - even at 26 minutes it has several dry stretches, Doug hated it and there's little of his famous persona on show - but the gags with the compactible telescope, the room full of money and the photo of the suspect are clever, the coda is a little post-modern gem, and the film's matchlessly irreverent approach to Class A drugs unquestionably makes it a fascinating curio. Does anyone else think his hopped-up jittering is also quite Chaplinesque? (2.5)

***



Wild and Woolly (John Emerson, 1917) – A very fun Western send-up, written by Anita Loos, in which urbanite, railroad president’s son and complete moron Douglas Fairbanks gets to indulge his unrestrained passion for the wild and woolly West after being sent to Arizona to broker a deal. The inventive plot – which sees the villagers giving the visitor exactly what he wants to see – has been used countless times since (Local Hero, The MatchMaker, Seducing Dr Lewis), Doug is in exuberant form, and the action climax delivers, without quite scaling the heights (quite literally) of Fairbanks’s period classics. Charles Stevens, who appears as Pedro, was one of Doug’s best friends and appeared in many of his films, but is perhaps best known for playing Indian Joe in My Darling Clementine – and being the grandson of the famed Native American warrior, Geronimo. (3)

***



*MINOR SPOILERS*
Reaching for the Moon (John Emerson, 1917) – Hopeless dreamer – and button factory worker – Douglas Fairbanks finally gets the chance to amount to something, after it turns out that he’s the new ruler of Baltic nation Vulgaria. The only trouble: a cabal of rivals now want him dead. This slightly confusing comedy was clearly designed to try out Doug’s now famous swashbuckling persona on audiences, thrusting the star into a world of pageantry (which at this stage he treats with the amusing, dismissive air of a 1910s New Yorker), and giving him the chance to fight up and down a staircase and engage in a swordfight. And while it's never quite as slick, funny or exciting as it should be – and some of the comic set-pieces fall flat – its moral is very sweet, and there’s plenty to enjoy in the star’s unusually sarcastic performance. Doug appeared in an unrelated talkie of the same name in 1930. (2.5)

***



*MINOR SPOILERS*
A Modern Musketeer (Allan Dwan, 1917) – Fairbanks’ first collaboration with Dwan – who would direct the star in two of his finest, most lushly romantic swashbucklers, Robin Hood and The Iron Mask – is a strange, important and really rather wonderful adventure movie. Doug is a modern-day D’Artagnan, born during a cyclone and raised on Dumas’s stories, who devotes his energies to rescuing damsels in distress. When a pretty, virginal flapper (Marjorie Daw – not the same as Marjorie Dawes) is taken riding by a moneyed bigamist, then kidnapped by a Native American psychopath, it’s up to Doug to muscle in and win the hand of fair lady. Beginning with an awesome, spoofy, action-packed period prologue with Doug as D’Artagnan, designed to position its star as a potential swashbuckler should audiences go for it (which they unreservedly did), and proceeding to leap forward and back in time at will, it’s both narratively original and tonally bonkers – but completely charming with it – tossing elements of slapstick, satire and melodrama into the mix, before turning into a Western for the last half-hour. If the movie has a shortcoming, it’s that the anticipated action spectacular of the climax never quite arrives – the finale seems oddly slow and disjointed, despite a neat abseiling stunt and a chase on horseback – but it’s a relatively slight shortcoming in a delightful film that manages to cram in two superb bar brawls, a touching romance and even a visit to the Grand Canyon. The Flicker Alley release also comes with a stunningly beautiful score. (3.5)

Ronald Reagan, a docfest and Dan Harmon's kids film - Reviews #134

In the first update for a little while, we're also talking documentaries, Ronald Reagan yelling about his legs and a really useless romantic comedy.



Reagan (Eugene Jarecki, 2011) – Simply one of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever seen, an endlessly illuminating, virtuosic study of one of the most fascinating American figures of the 20th Century – a B-movie star turned General Electric salesman turned President – that seeks to tear down Reagan’s constructed image, and explain who he was, what he stood for and whether he’s worth celebrating. The wealth of footage available from Reagan’s life means he’s eminently suited to this kind of profile, and the movie takes full advantage, using archive clips to exalting, chilling and hilarious effect. The sequence illustrating Ronnie’s faltering film career is amazing, including not only a scene with Reagan as a traffic cop that features the worst back projection of all time, but also a clip of him shouting: “Attaboy, Bonzo!” at a chimp, and hugging him. Through intelligent interviewing, sure-sighted polemic and staggeringly brilliant editing (a nuclear war montage cut to 99 Luftballons is a marriage of image and music worthy of Terence Davies at his best), Jarecki creates a dynamic, compelling portrait of a complex figure who made Americans feel good about themselves and their country, but whose simplistic and destructive “Reaganomics” resulted in a massive transfer of wealth to the wealthy that put millions out of work and destroyed entire towns. If your film is described on Twitter as both a “hatchet job” and a “glowing portrait”, then you’re probably doing something right. Really, it’s an incisive, insightful and even-handed documentary that speaks – and listens – to both sides. Reagan's son, Ron, offers an extremely interesting, thoughtful and balanced assessment of his father’s legacy, while Mark Hertsgaard may be the most handsome man in the world. It’s an astonishing, haunting movie - and a must for modern history buffs. (4)

***



Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008) - An impressive doc about an astonishing story: Philippe Petit’s unsanctioned tightrope walk between the Twin Towers. Marsh famously frames the story like a heist movie, cutting between time-frames, and mixing compelling interviews (Petit himself is a wonderful subject: poetic but straightforward) with unusually effective reconstructions, and idyllic archive footage, albeit none of the central stunt itself. The images of Petit in his element – hundreds of feet up, framed against the sky – are mesmerisingly beautiful, as if he were walking on air. (3.5)

***



*SPOILERS*
My Kid Could Paint That (Amir Bar-Lev, 2007) – Four-year-old Marla Oberman is an abstract artist whose paintings sell for thousands. But what starts as a treatise on the nature of modern art turns into a mystery movie midway through, when her family is accused of guiding – or actually just doing – her celebrated works. It’s a fascinating, gripping, sometimes eerie film, laced with moments of cringe comedy (watching Marla’s dad squirm after she tells him, “Your turn to do it”, may be the most uncomfortable I’ve felt in a film this year), that throws up some interesting questions about the skill and mindset required to create great – or successful – art, though perhaps not in the way it originally intended. (3.5)

***



*SPOILERS*
One Day in September (Kevin MacDonald, 1999) – MacDonald’s Oscar-winning – and career-making – documentary tells the story of the group of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics taken hostage by Palestinian revolutionaries. It’s extraordinarily well-researched, securing an interview with the only surviving terrorist, forensically dismantling the Germans’ atrocious handling of the hostage situation and unearthing some remarkable new information, which should really be given greater prominence. But it isn’t particularly well put-together: it spends more time dealing with Nazism than the complexities of Israeli-Palestinian relations, places too much emphasis on certain hostages ahead of others – dictated largely by who agreed to be interviewed – and has montages that range from the daft (confusing race clips, and split-screen images with squashed heads) to the appallingly tasteless, climaxing with a horrific, unjustifiable sequence in which photos of bloodied corpses (partly smudged out) are cut to Child in Time by Deep Purple. It’s really handy if you can’t imagine what a dead body covered in blood looks like. (2.5)

***



Sideways (Alexander Payne, 2004) – Wine is probably the most boring subject on Earth, so how come Payne’s film about a lonely, bitter best man (Paul Giamatti) taking the soon-to-be-groom (Thomas Haden Church) on a week-long tour of vineyards is so bloody good? Perhaps because of Giamatti’s astonishing characterisation, which imbues an arrogant, self-destructive, self-hating pseud with a completely disarming humanity. Or perhaps because it’s not really about wine at all, but love and friendship and the choices that people make that end up deciding and defining their lives. It’s the antithesis of formula filmmaking: incredibly entertaining, but also about something, and featuring – quite unexpectedly – a handful of brilliant sight gags. (4)

***



*BIG SPOILERS*
Kings Row (Sam Wood, 1942) is like Our Town’s weird, moody little brother, an overwrought, attention-seeking movie that – much like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet – offers us a small-town idyll, only to immediately destroy it. While censorship restrictions put paid to the source novel’s interest in incest and necrophilia, there’s still melodrama and strangeness aplenty in this visit to the titular turn-of-the-century town, including a mysterious, over-protective father (Claude Rains), a surgeon who seems more than a bit crap (Charles Coburn) and a frustrated good girl who wants to have sex with Ronald Reagan. The film is best known today for featuring the 40th President of the United States’ finest performance (at least before he entered politics, LOL) and while “finest” is a relative term, both Reagan and fellow woodenite Robert Cummings – the nominal star of the piece – are uncharacteristically decent, carried along by a story so packed with incident, so full of vivid light and pitch-black shade, that you can’t help but be swept up by it too. Cummings is the superbly-named Parris Mitchell, a French-American pianist, trainee doctor and orphan who's beset by tragedy. His grandma dies, his mentor poisons his own daughter (and Parris’s girlfriend) before shooting himself, and his best friend (Reagan) has his legs sawn off by a psychopath – prompting his never-to-be-forgotten cry of “Where’s the rest of me?!”, unquestionably the best moment of the movie, and a rare example of Right Wing Ronnie doing something good on screen. Despite its cosy, distinctly Sam Wood-ish trappings, the film – and its emphasis on dark secrets – has far more in common with Douglas Sirk’s “women’s pictures” of the 1950s than with wartime Americana like One Foot in Heaven or The Human Comedy, gleefully embracing soapiness and Gothic melodrama, as well as stopping to rest, periodically, on mile-high corn. It’s not subtle, but it’s very entertaining, powered by a remarkable cast – including doomed child star Scotty Beckett, Betty Field as the last word in nervy young recluses, and Ann Sheridan playing a girl from the wrong-side-of-the-tracks – and an unshakeable commitment to its bowdlerised, batshit story. (3.5)

***



*SPOILERS*
American Madness (Frank Capra, 1932) – A minor classic from Capra and regular collaborator Robert Riskin, in which liberal bank president Walter Huston stands up for the little guy against corporate greed, only for a robbery to force a run on the bank (foreshadowing It’s a Wonderful Life), and his marriage to head for the rocks. It’s expertly directed – particularly in the expressionistic robbery set piece and the overhead shots of an increasingly frantic crowd demanding their deposits – features an atypically cool characterisation from Pat O’Brien, and has a progressive view of both capitalism and convicts, but suffers slightly from a familiar problem with Riskin’s work: he sees himself as a liberal, but he sees ordinary people as stupid and easily manipulated. It remains a fascinating film, great to look at (the art deco sets are sumptuous), but with a brain and a heart: lecturing, in a still-timely manner, that when financial institutions put profit before people, everything goes tits up. (3.5)

***



Away We Go (Sam Mendes, 2009) – After Maya Rudolph gets pregs, she and her boyfriend (Big Tuna from The Office) visit various friends and family – trying to decide where to set up home. The leads are both very good, but their memorable, attractive scenes together are really the film’s sole selling point, and their appealing relationship is the only thing about the whole enterprise that feels real. Aside from their old college pals (including Melanie Lynskey, who performs a stylised but nonetheless gutting "pole dance of grief"), the supporting characters range from the sitcom-ish (his parents) to the completely unrealistic (her former boss), with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ludicrous caricature-of-an-almost-cousin, which belongs in the latter category, spectacularly tiresome: unbelievable, annoying and unfunny, as far away from entertaining as it’s possible to be, and such a cartoon that she’s ultimately meaningless. In all this, the film rather recalls Jim Jarmusch’s unsatisfying Broken Flowers – another downbeat road movie on the subject of family, populated by the sort of people who only exist in indie films. Away We Go is also saddled with a horribly overbearing song score that signposts emotion at every turn. A pity, as Rudolph and Tuna are really good together, and their conversations – treading an affecting line between grown-up decision-making and child-like concerns – frequently feel so genuine and unforced. (2.5)

***



Monster House (Gil Kenan, 2006) – An incredibly inconsistent comedy-horror-for-kids, co-written by Community creator Dan Harmon. The characters are rather poorly conceived and most of it is surely far too intense for under-10s, but it’s fairly well-animated in that underwhelming motion-capture way, the story is quite original and it has its share of good jokes, as well as some completely incomprehensive ones, like a 12-year-old boy saying he feels like he’s having a stroke. (2.5)

***



The Accidental Husband (Griffin Dunne, 2008) - Absolutely pathetic. (I was going to watch Bring It On, but the disc was broken.) (1.5)

Next up: a Douglas Fairbanks special!

Zac Efron, lesbians and how to stop a riot - Reviews #133

Plus: Tina Fey not being very funny, house painting and Spencer Tracy's early Google.



17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009) - This might be the most entertaining film I've seen so far this year, an irresistible reverse-Big (or reverse, gender-swap 13 Going on 30; they chickened out of doing 17 Going on 70), in which unhappy father-of-two Matthew Perry – about to be divorced by Leslie Mann – gets the chance to be 17 again, the age that he got his girlfriend pregs, and so gave up his dreams of college. He also turns into Zac Efron, the lucky bastard. It's utterly charming, disarmingly affecting and unexpectedly funny, powered by a turbo-charged performance from Efron. For what it is, it could scarcely be better. Efron's hair was cooler at the start, though. (4)

***



The Interrupters: How to Stop a Riot (Steve James, 2011) – A film that’s at once horrifying and humane, upsetting and uplifting, as Hoop Dreams director Steve James traces a year in the lives of “The Interrupters” – a group of former gang members whose sole mission is to stop violence on the streets of Chicago. James focuses on three of the mediators: the daughter of a notorious gang lord, who renounced her former life after turning to Islam, a convicted drug trafficker transformed by the love of his step-sons, and a murderer forever haunted by his past. Even their boss has a criminal background: he was once a good-looking, low-level hustler who got by on the kindness of women. James’s film argues that absent fathers, a rancid, ingrained culture of masculinity – in which violence is always the first recourse – and a lack of understanding from wider society is to blame for Chicago’s woes, and smartly incorporates inflammatory news reports to contrast the complex reality with the popular media’s treatment of the same issues: a simplistic, right-wing demonisation of society’s victims. But while the deaths of young people, and the way many law-makers want to shoot the problem under the carpet, makes for chilling, heart-rending viewing, the Interrupters themselves are inspirational: brave, selfless souls who put a lie to the idea that human nature is unchangeable and bad things are only done by bad people, using their second chance to ensure that others – if only a few – don’t need a second chance at all. It’s an extraordinary, eye-opening, wrenchingly powerful film, brilliantly assembled by one of the best filmmakers working today. (4)

***



Kissing Jessica Stein (Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, 2002) - An uptight, 28-year-old Jewish woman (Jennifer Westfeldt), whose impossible standards have made her unlucky in love, begins a relationship with a clever, funny and erudite soulmate, who just happens to be a woman (Heather Juergensen). This intelligent, witty and affecting romcom, written by the stars and based on their play Lipschtick, is a breath of fresh air, with well-drawn characters, an incisive look at adult relationships and sexual attraction, and a strong NYC flavour, with Woody Allen-ish use of apposite old standards. My only two complaints: using the verb "to marinate" outside its food-y context isn't that impressive (it sounds like business speak) and the ending is rather contrived and unsatisfying. Kissing Jessica Stein is still a cut above. (3.5)

***



The Karate Kid (John G. Avildsen, 1984) – A wily old maintenance expert trains an unskilled teenager to become an accomplished car-waxer, floor-sander and house-painter, whilst supposedly preparing him for a karate competition. The archetypal ‘80s crowd-pleaser still holds up superbly today, with a terrific performance from “Pat” Morita – as the mystical Mr Miyagi – a lengthy running time that allows for plenty of character development, and a more realistic set-up than you might expect: Daniel-san (Ralph Macchio) brings some of the pain on himself by provoking a local hothead, to impress a girl (Elisabeth Shue), the second time in incomparably idiotic fashion. There’s also a clever, very well-directed scene in a diner where we can see what’s coming – but Daniel-san can’t. It’s very ‘80s (one of the fist-in-the-air moments involves someone getting a nice car) and a bit daft in places, but completely winning – a far superior underdog story to Avildsen’s most celebrated film, Rocky, which I think you’ll find is actually a bit rubbish. (3.5)

***



Desk Set (Walter Lang, 1957) - A broadcasting company brings in efficiency expert Spencer Tracy to see whether his new-fangled computer can do the same job as the reference department, headed by the lovelorn, fiercely intelligent Katharine Hepburn. The eighth of nine Tracy-Hepburn vehicles begins at a leaden pace, rambles rather and has too many concessions to silliness, but picks up for a spirited, sweet-natured second half that features three extended set pieces: the first funny, the second touching, and the third rather broad and overdone. The leads are excellent throughout, displaying an effortless, very real chemistry that extends to their overlapping dialogue and affectionate chiding. There's also a welcome appearance from Joan Blondell, who gave perhaps her best performance in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? the same year. No classic, but worth watching, and sticking with, particularly for fans of the stars. (2.5)

***



Baby Mama (Michael McCullers, 2008) - A mawkish, one-joke comedy - and the joke's not very good. Tina Fey is a career woman who recruits thick, white trash Amy Poehler as a surrogate. I find Fey incredibly overrated, the film's universe is tiresome and unappealing, and Sigourney Weaver is so bad at comedy it's painful. The film is also saddled with a horrible, overbearing score pointlessly hammering home the mood of almost every scene. Poehler and Dax Shepard provide a few laughs in support. (1.5)

***



Elektra (Rob Bowman, 2005) - There's quite a fun scene where Cleavage (Jennifer Garner) stops Goran Ivanisovic and his daughter from being murdered. The rest of it is either incredibly boring, completely incomprehensible or hilariously stupid (there's a henchman with tattoes that turn into animals and attack people, Boobs has flashbacks to quite a difficult swimming lesson, and Terence Stamp is in it looking like a sunburnt lion) and it has some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard. The baddie genuinely stops in the climactic fight to say: "There is nothing you can do - and so the balance tips to me." Ooh, zinger. (1)

***



The Office (US): Season 6 (2009-10) - Another extraordinarily good season. This is where everyone says it started going off the boil, but I don't see it. There are weaknesses: the once transcendent Jim-Pam relationship now contains too much bickering (as highlighted in the first clip show, always an underwhelming endeavour), Kathy Bates is a pain in the arse and there are three weak episodes (Mafia, in particular), but the show has one of the best ensembles out there, offers consistently top-grade entertainment and continues to evolve and develop - even while sacrificing realism in the name of laughs. I still love it. (3.5)

Tabu, Simone Signoret and a letter to Elia - Reviews #132

*SPOILERS*
CINEMA: Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012) – This intense, ambitious, sometimes whimsical fantasy – inspired by Murnau’s 1931 film of the same name – has incredible high points, but doesn’t manage to sustain that level throughout. After a short prologue, set in the early-20th century, which deals with a bereaved hunter leading an expedition, the film is split into halves. The first, Paradise Lost, takes place in present-day Lisbon and deals with a Catholic woman (Teresa Madruga) trying to save her neighbour, Aurora (Laura Soveral), from the ravages of madness – and possibly witchcraft. The second, Paradise, is set in Africa in the 1960s and concerns the young Aurora’s (Ann Moreira) illicit affair with a virile, moustachioed Italian (Carlotta Cotta). It’s an impossible film to categorise, with the same freewheeling air and fondness for an eccentric character trait that informed Julio Medem’s brilliant Lovers of the Arctic Circle: Madruga is being avoided by a Polish student who’s pretending to be her own friend, Soveral lost her money at a casino after a vivid dream about a half-husband half-monkey, Moreira has a pet crocodile – possibly a relation of the “melancholic” one in the prologue – and Cotta is the drummer in a swankily-dressed covers band, providing just some of the film’s jolts of Ronettes-themed joy. But you do sometimes get the impression – despite the film apparently bursting with ideas – that Gomes isn’t quite sure what it’s about, or doesn’t have a firm enough grasp of his convictions to carry them through.

Like Murnau’s film, Tabu has chapters called Paradise and Paradise Lost, is filmed in black-and-white and Academy Ratio, and deals – if only tangentially – with tribal customs. And, like Murnau’s movie, its central theme appears to be forbidden love: just like the virgin wed to the gods in the 1931 picture, so the flighty, married, preggers Aurora is “tabu”. But both halves of the film have strangely slow stretches, where the movie seems to be struggling to flesh out its slender narrative or get a handle on its subject matter. Then suddenly everything will click into place again, and Gomes will do something truly dazzling: a blast of Be My Baby, a lingering close-up, an erotically-charged sex scene, a bizarre diversion or some inspired bit of storytelling. Like the first time we see Moreira and Cotta together: an exhilarating, invigorating piece of virtuoso filmmaking – seen as if from afar, soundtracked only by wildlife – in which their mutual attraction is expressed through fleeting, then lingering glances. In a homage to Murnau’s film, Gomes opts boldly for a silent second half with sound effects, while adding a well-written voiceover. And he plays fast-and-loose throughout with the rules of filmmaking, allowing rain to cascade down the lens, showing ugly buildings reflected in ugly buildings or just having fun out on the road, as Cotta and his mate race across the fields in a riotous PoV shot. The story isn’t always as interesting as the way it’s being told.

Admittedly, the story isn’t always as interesting as the way it’s being told. It doesn’t all work, the clamour to hail it as the movie of the year seems a little misplaced, and it has several false endings – if the credits had rolled when Cotta sang harmonies on Be My Baby, tears rolling down his face, it would have been a much more satisfying movie – but it’s too original, exciting and unusual to miss. (3)

***



Cedar Rapids (Miguel Arteta, 2011) - A sheltered, polite insurance salesman (Ed Helms) leaves his small town to attend an important convention, after the firm's star performer dies during an act of autoerotic asphyxiation. There, he falls in with a boorish party hound (John C. Reilly), a free-spirited adulterer (Anne Heche) and a man who very much enjoys HBO's sprawling crime drama series, The Wire (Isiah Whitlock, Jr), and begins to doubt everything he's ever been told about life, love and the coveted "two diamonds" award - given each year to the most morally upstanding, god-fearing insurance company. This modern spin on little-guy-against-the-system Capracorn - complete with hundreds of sex jokes - is more intelligent and sweet-natured than you might expect (there's a gently subversive speech idealising insurance agents that's a little gem), but it's also rather underdeveloped and could have done with a script revision or 12. Arteta's handling is surprisingly conventional, given that he was behind the lively Michael Cera vehicle Youth in Revolt, though he does at least effectively evoke the apparent claustrophobia and inevitable heightening of convention life. The film's real selling point is the performances: Helms - who was fantastic in The Office but weak in The Hangover, a film I detested - is ideal in the lead, Reilly typically energetic with the shackles well and truly off, and Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development's Maeby) very appealing as a matter-of-fact prostitute, each of them giving the variable material a real shot in the arm. (2.5)

***



*SOME SPOILERS*
Thérèse Raquin (Marcel Carné, 1953) – This noir from the director of Les enfants du paradis and Le jour se lève is extremely well-acted, and blessed with both Carné’s remarkable sense of visual composition and his eye for an arresting effect, but it’s also very ponderous, and has a story that’s hackneyed and predictable to the point of being insulting. Simone Signoret is Thérèse, who’s tempted to abandon her unhappy marriage to the weak, sallow, callow Camille (Jacques Duby) after she meets hefty Italian lorry driver Laurent (Raf Vallone). If you can’t guess what’s going to happen next, you really should be watching more movies. The opening 40 minutes does an OK job of establishing the characters, and Signoret’s stifling world, but it’s only when the film gets on a train at night – a pair of noir staples – that it begins to move a little. The final hour isn’t top notch Carné, but it does have its moments, particularly after nightfall. There’s a great, gripping moment where Signoret fears for her future, and Carné throws in an “electric chair” effect: Thérèse repeatedly illuminated by a passing, rattling train – reminiscent of the “halo” near the end of Michael Powell’s A Canterbury Tale. But while the director has a lovely way of shooting – focusing on telling details, like the tinkling bells above a door prior to one of the film’s key moments – he always needed a good script (preferably from his great co-conspirator Jacques Prevert) and here he and Charles Spaak just aren’t up to it – even when drawing from an Emile Zola story. Still, the performances come to close to saving it. The uninspiring Vallone recalls brutish Maxwell Reed’s turn in Daybreak, to which the film bears some similarity, but the other three main performances are very interesting. Duby is good as a manipulative, malicious cuckold, Daniel Craig – sorry, Roland Lesaffre – offers excellent support as a confident, supercilious amateur blackmailer whose youth was trampled by war, and the mighty Signoret is spectacular in the title role – suffering in style, while displaying tenderness, fragility, and a core of steel. (2.5)

***



To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944) – I saw this as a teenager, found the second half a bit boring and haven’t been back since. I might not have bothered with it again, but MovieMail asked me to review it. It’s undoubtedly Casablanca-lite, is rather lacking in story and has some notably un-special effects in the fishing sequence, but the Bogie-Bacall chemistry and William Faulkner’s dialogue are sublime, and there’s another in an endless list of fine supporting characterisations from Walter Brennan. Great fun; one wonders what else the teenage me got disastrously wrong. I’m not submitting this review, this is just a précis. (3.5)

***

TV



A Letter to Elia (Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones, 2010) – Excellent, personal documentary about Scorsese’s connection with Kazan, the remarkably gifted director who revolutionised the nature of screen acting, brought a new realism to American cinema, but sold out his mates to the HUAC. It’s full of brilliant (though spoiler-heavy) clips from throughout Kazan’s career, placing particular emphasis on East of Eden, On the Waterfront and America, America, and for once Scorsese’s need to put himself front-and-centre in these documentaries on cinema works in the film’s favour, as he articulates a touching, intense affinity with these films about flawed people, and with the flawed person who made them. (3.5)

Looper, Brick and space paninis - Reviews #131

Plus: fire, funnies and Alice Faye, in our latest reviews round-up.



*MAJOR SPOILERS*
CINEMA: Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012) – 2012 has been the year of hype, with unprecedented amounts of hoopla around movies like Avengers Assemble and The Dark Knight Rises – which are apparently two of the BEST FILMS EVER – and Prometheus, which was supposed to be one of the best films ever, but unfortunately turned out to be THE WORST FILM EVER. About the only blockbuster that hasn’t been hyped to death is The Amazing Spider-Man, which was actually really strong. Looper is another disappointment. It’s not a bad movie – it has a lot to recommend it – but it’s also not a particularly good one. That it’s not in the same league as Brick is fine; that it’s probably not as good as The Brothers Bloom is not.

As you may be aware, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a looper (not in real life, in the film) – paid by a criminal gang to kill and dispose of people sent back from the future, who arrive bound and with a sack on their head. When his future self (Bruce Willis) is sent back for the looper treatment (without a sack on his head), Gordon-Levitt is forced to track down the bald idiot, while being pursued himself by his former employers. The first 50 is very impressive, with Johnson traversing the noir territory he mined so successfully in Brick, and conjuring a grungy, ugly future world that’s an interesting companion piece to the future-noir universe of Blade Runner. A terrific first-person voiceover plants you right in the middle of things, and the dialogue sings. Johnson serves up a pair of brilliant two-handers featuring Gordon-Levitt. The first sees him enduring an interrogation by beardy boss Jeff Daniels (recalling the pair’s work in the spectacular Scott Frank film, The Lookout); the second has him facing down Willis in a diner – something like how the famous De Niro-Pacino scene in Heat should have played out, if it wasn’t rubbish. But then the film starts to lose its way: the pacing seems off, the concept of muddy, organic time-travel – while great in theory – doesn’t really work, as it’s too confusing, and the movie decides to decamp to the countryside to meet Emily Blunt.

Noirs have wandered off to the country before – Nicholas Ray’s On Dangerous Ground spent most of its time there – and sometimes it works. But here it’s just not a very interesting diversion, accompanied as it is by an unimaginative, wearisome subplot about telekinesis. The film seems to get lost out there on the farm, with nothing happening at the intensity it should do: the acting, the action, the human drama. It seems to have an almost fatal absence of heart and, when persuading us who to root for, bizarrely sends Willis off to shoot some kids; apparently a suggestion by some of Johnson's screenwriter buddies. Gordon-Levitt is quite good but, essentially asked to do an imitation of Willis, he’s hamstrung by a weird mix of make-up and CGI that makes him look melty and computer-generated, hampering his strong suit of subtle expressiveness. Mickey Rourke was able to blast through the prosthetics in Sin City, but he’s a hulking great lunk whose strengths lie in throwing his whole body into a role. Gordon-Levitt isn’t like that. He’s also having to play a young version of a poor actor. Obviously he’s better here than Willis (whose career consists of a good performance in Twelve Monkeys and being well-cast in Die Hard), but it’s still hard to be impressive when you’re having to ape someone’s annoying, shallow mannerisms. Whenever Daniels appears, following his amazing introduction, it's just to shout very loudly for five seconds, before disappearing again.

Somehow, at the end, Johnson drags it back, with an ending so slick, affecting and effective that it’s like peak-form Christopher Nolan just popped his head into the editing suite. Or the Johnson of 2005 turned up. The voiceover kicks back in, Gordon-Levitt ups the dramatic ante, and the film’s threads and themes congeal into something very satisfying. But, ultimately, it’s not nearly enough, though you wouldn't know it switch on your computer. So yes – the year of hype. Or maybe I’ve just been on Twitter more. (2.5)

You can listen to Johnson's Looper commentary here. It's very interesting, regardless of how fully you bought into the movie.
***



“I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night – that puts me six up on the lot of you.”
*SOME SPOILERS*
Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005) is one of the best films of the last decade – and one of the great debuts. An eerie, unsettling and upsetting high school noir, complete with five minutes of wall-to-wall hilarity in its mid-section, it’s a one-of-a-kind movie, with one of the great scripts, and one of the great performances. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Brendan, a tousle-haired teenager and archetypal loner who stumbles into his school’s teeming, rancid underbelly while investigating the murder of his ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin). Having duffed up a toga-wearing jock in a car-park, Brendan comes to the attention of “old, like 26” heroin dealer The Pin (Lukas Haas) and his hair-trigger accomplice, Tugger (Noah Fleiss), all the while sparring with possible femme fatale Laura (Nora Zehetner).

Snappily shot and sumptuously-scripted, with a lingo-heavy language that’s all its own, and an effortless grasp of when to wink and when to play it straight, Brick builds to a gutting, unforgettable pay-off that bears some resemblance to The Maltese Falcon’s clincher – albeit relocated to a high school football field – but in its offbeat, horrifying destination is perhaps more similar to another spiritual predecessor: Robert Parrish’s Cry Danger. Gordon-Levitt, who is simply the best actor working today, is astonishing as the unhappy, sardonic, deceptively tough protagonist playing all ends against the middle, impressively supported by the enigmatic, creepy Haas, Looper’s Noah Segan and a largely unknown ensemble. Johnson’s next two haven’t delivered on Brick’s promise, but let's just let him keep going: this cast-iron masterpiece is too damn perfect to have been a fluke. Just like its hero, it'll take some beating. (4)

***



Raising Victor Vargas (Peter Sollett, 2002) – An authentic, immersive and charming inner-city indie about a self-proclaimed teen lothario (Victor Rasuk) who falls for a girl clearly out of his league. The basic story may recall John Sayles’s classic teen drama, Baby It’s You, but this is a less stylised, more earthy affair: a rich portrait of immigrant communities, shot through with affection, humour and a genuine humanity that makes you appreciate the wildly differing viewpoints of its many characters, from the alleged stud to his insecure girlfriend, conflicted younger brother and outraged, religious grandmother, who’s reaching the end of her tether – and sounds quite a lot like a cartoon character. The film has a unique atmosphere, Sollett immersing you in a fully-realised, insular world, aided by Tim Orr’s stunning close-up photography, and uniformly fine performances from the no-name cast. It's one of the best I’ve seen this year. Sollett went on to make Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Quite why is anyone’s guess. (4)

***



*MAJOR SPOILERS*
In Old Chicago (Henry King, 1938) – Fox’s answer to San Francisco – the MGM film about the 1906 earthquake that was one of the ‘30s biggest successes – is a superficial but entertaining disaster movie that climaxes with the 1871 Chicago Fire. Tyrone Power is a roguish gambler and saloon-keeper who embodies the city’s shady side. Alice Faye is his long-legged business partner – showgirl Belle Fawcett – Don Ameche plays his brother, a straight-arrow lawyer, and Alice Brady is their mum, apparently winning her Oscar for a single poignant expression during a victory parade, because that’s the only bit of acting she does in the picture.

The story is a bit corny and predictable – cribbed largely from San Francisco, right down to a dirty-faced Power, tie-undone, wandering through the rubble in a daze – but there are compensations. The opening shot is a beaut, there are a smattering of memorable lines courtesy of co-writer Lamar Trotti (who did Judge Priest and Young Mr Lincoln for Ford), the three leads are good (especially Faye, who also sings a bit), and the action climax – directed by Charlie Chan regular H. Bruce Humberstone – is extremely well-executed. It's wrapped-up with a very moving reunion, and then an unintentionally hilarious final line from Brady. “We O’Learys are a strange tribe… and what we set out to do, we finish,” she says, as the camera cuts to the smouldering remains of the city of Chicago.

The film has lost 20 minutes from its original roadshow print, so some plot strands don’t go anywhere, and the whole thing feels too slight; there’s a scene in the trailer that’s not in the available print that’s integral to the brothers’ relationship. “When we were kids, we were always fighting,” Power says. “But I bet if any others Irishers tried to horn in, it was the O’Learys against the world,” Faye replies, foreshadowing the climax. It's a shame that was lost. In Old Chicago isn’t as good as San Francisco, or Fox’s The Rains Came – featuring Myrna Loy’s best dramatic performance – but it’s an effective, if unexceptional entertainment. (2.5)

***

TV



Community (Season 3, 2011-12) – It may not be as amazing as the first two seasons, but this third outing for the students of Greendale Community College is still great fun. The highlights are the third episode, with its dizzying treatment of alternate timelines, and the Christmas special: an unbelievable 21 minutes of musical entertainment – imaginative, tuneful and slyly subversive. Alison Brie ending a sexy Santa dance with the words “Boo boo be doo, sex” may be the funniest thing I’ve seen on TV this decade. Elsewhere, the air conditioning subplot has one line of absolute beauty (“I want to eat space paninis with black Hitler!”) but comes off as forced and Coens-lite, Pierce's dad is more unpleasant than funny, and both the first episode and the asylum one are just a bit... rubbish, but this remains one of the sharpest, most original shows on TV, with a killer ensemble. Who knows what the post Dan Harmon-era will bring? (3.5)

***



New Girl (Season 1, 2011-12) – I enjoyed this from the start, but then the strangest thing happened... it actually went good, with involving storylines, some fun improvised gags and a collection of strong characters – particularly Nick, who becomes unstoppably hilarious at the exact moment the writers decide to stop treating him as a love interest in waiting. Every so often there’s a mystifyingly weak, laughless episode (the one where Schmidt undergoes a personality change, for example) – and it’s clearly not as clever or groundbreaking as Community – but I just really, really like it. Hopefully Lizzy Caplan and Justin Long will return. They’re funny. (3.5)

Rita Hayworth, This Means War and tuna - Reviews #130

An indie triumph, Loki in a low-key drama, and three absolutely rubbish movies. Plus: The Office (US), Michael Cera and Carmen Miranda.



Who Loves the Sun (Matt Bissonette, 2006) is an exceptional debut from Matt Bissonette, who went on to make the tremendous two-hander Passenger Side. Lukas Haas is a taciturn, unhappy and mysterious 30-something who returns home after five years away, and reconnects - in less than reconciliatory fashion - with ex-wife Molly Parker and cocky former friend Adam Scott. Growing in confidence and resonance as it progresses, it's an eloquent, moving and funny film, traversing apparently well-worn ground, only to find new avenues of exploration, and new insights. Haas and Parker are both very good, though once again it's Scott who takes top honours. His comic abilities have been front and centre of late, in TV sitcoms like Party Down and Parks and Recreation, but he's a tremendously gifted dramatic actor, and displays a heartbreaking vulnerability beneath his white-suited character's smarmy exterior. It's a fantastic film: effective as a character study; even better as a treatment of universal themes, arguing that most people face disasters of some magnitude, and we can only move forward by making peace with the past. (4)

***



Archipelago (Joanna Hogg, 2010) - An unhappy middle-class family decamps to the Isles of Scilly, where its frailties and internal tensions simmer and leak out across one gloomy week. The mother (Kate Fahy) is falling apart, her daughter is a stuck-up, self-hating bitch (Lydia Leonard) and sensitive younger brother Edward (Tom Hiddleston) is beset by bourgeois guilt that sees him trying to make friends with the hired help, prior to setting off for an 11-month aid mission in Africa. There's a touch of Festen in there, a bit of Bergman, perhaps even some of Woody Allen's Alice, but its concerns - particularly its preoccupation with class - are overridingly British. Hogg's second feature is acutely well-observed, and filmed in a way that suggests a series of overheard conversations, but it's also wilfully undramatic: there are barely any close-ups, narrative peaks are invariably followed by long silences and the stylistic gimmick does sometimes give the impression that someone has accidentally left the camera in the other room. While the slow stretches are integral to the film's purposefully faltering rhythm, they're not that interesting to watch: the film is at its best when bursting into restrained conflict, as in its awful, brilliant centrepiece, in which Leonard decides to send back her guinea fowl. (3)

***



Youth in Revolt (Miguel Arteta, 2009) - Ineffectual teenager Nick Twist (Michael Cera) needs to get kicked out of his mum's house, so he can hook up with the girl of his dreams, idealistic Francophile, Portia Doubleday. Enter his Belmondo-esque alter-ego, Francois Dillinger (also Cera), a moustachoied, smart-shirted sociopath with a ciggie permanently on the go. This adaptation of an early-'90s novel plays like a less successful version of Richard Ayoade's Submarine. It has the same interesting pictoral sense, dry sense of humour and amusing, introverted, sometimes obnoxious hero, but lacks focus and wastes the talents of an exciting supporting cast, giving Steve Buscemi and Justin Long very little to do. Taken as a whole, then, it's frustrating, but it has wonderful moments: its hero gawping, lovestruck in the shower as French music swells, two fine animated sequences and a handful of belly laughs. Those familiar with Cera's work should take to it more than most, and fully appreciate the rather heavy-handed subversion of his persona. (3)

See also: Cera also appeared in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which got a bit tiresome after a while.

***



The Thief Lord (Richard Claus, 2006) - When protective, tousle-haired Prosper (Aaron Johnson) rescues his little brother, Boniface, from unfeeling relatives, the pair head for Venice, a place special to their late mother. Looking to elude their pursuers, including PI Victor Getz (Jim Carter), they fall in with the The Thief Lord, a masked teenager who gets by on his wits and acts as mentor to a group of orphans camping out in a derelict cinema. This by-the-numbers family film lacks the complexities and nuances of Cornelia Funke's source novel, leaning instead on cartoonish villainy and broad humour, but Johnson is a class act - particularly when asked to emote with face, not voice - and it's always nice to spend time in Venice, even if the locales could have been used more atmospherically. It's certainly nothing like the horrendous failure that was the adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's Stormbreaker, though it would certainly have benefited from more subtle and adventurous handling. The supporting cast includes Vanessa Redgrave and Alexei Sayle. (2.5)

***



That Night in Rio (Irving Cummings, 1941) - Fox's mainstream musicals were never in the same league as MGM's: the budgets weren't as large, the songs weren't as good and, crucially, the talent involved just couldn't compare. The Gang's All Here may have a cult following of Californian acid casualties due to its trippily garish visuals, but it's really no better than the rest: films like Down Argentine Way and Sun Valley Serenade, which only truly come to life when the incredible Nicholas Brothers make their typically brief appearances. (Ironically, Stormy Weather, an African-American musical which the studio didn't even deem worthy of Technicolor stock, is by far its most enduring and exciting outing.) This colourful but pedestrian remake of Folies Bergère de Paris - a near-classic Maurice Chevalier vehicle - has a typically charismatic Don Ameche taking on a dual role, as his American cabaret entertainer comes to the aid of his Brazilian baron, while almost nabbing the baroness (Alice Faye). Yes, you're right, quite a lot like The Prisoner of Zenda. It's actually a better farce than a musical (I swear Carmen Miranda does the same two songs in every film), though Faye's rendering of They Met in Rio is lovely - with some awesome blue notes. (2.5)

***



*SPOILERS*
Down to Earth (Alexander Hall, 1947) – Silly semi-sequel to Columbia’s dazzling 1941 fantasy Here Comes Mr Jordan, which sees the goddess of song and dance, Terpsichore (Rita Hayworth), coming down from above to destroy a Broadway show that paints her as a horny everywoman. Larry Parks, fresh from his success in The Jolson Story, is the show’s producer, who falls head over heels for the scheming, hoofing psycho. Hayworth is good, and the film looks amazing, with vast, vivid sets and sumptuous, sensitive early Technicolor. But after a fun beginning featuring Jordan alumni James Gleason and Edward Everett Horton, the story slows to a crawl, and just sort of sits there as Parks flounders and a game cast tries to enliven a set of tunes ranging from the forgettable to the downright poor, and keep afloat a plot with a ridiculous third-act twist. It’s worth a look for old movie nerds, but it isn’t a fitting follow-up to one of the most unusual and memorable Hollywood movies of the decade. (2)

Trivia notes: Here Comes Mr Jordan was based on a play called Heaven Can Wait, and was remade under that name in the 1970s. There is an unrelated ‘40s film called Heaven Can Wait, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Don Ameche. A third version of Here Comes Mr Jordan arrived in 2001, featuring Chris Rock in the Robert Montgomery role. That film was called... Down to Earth.

***



This Means War (McG, 2011) - This dire attempt at a date movie is a creepy, bombastic romantic-action-comedy, full of teeth-achingly awful dialogue, about CIA agents Chris Pine and Tom Hardy using their security clearance to stalk mutual girlfriend Reese Witherspoon. Speaking of agents, hers must be about the worst in the world. The script includes a joke about bipolar disorder, Hardy calling someone a "spaz" and an incredibly irritating supporting part for Chelsea Handler. Occasionally the film becomes halfway entertaining in a kind of pathetic, witless way, but most of the time it's just grating, offensive nonsense. The best bit is in the final scene, when Hardy has to shout above the noise of a plane, and briefly turns into Bane. Watch the unjustly maligned I-Spy instead. (1)

***



Mustang Country (John C. Champion, 1976) - Extraordinarily bad Western about milky-haired ex-rodeo champ Joel McCrea (in his last film) trying to catch a wild horse, avoid a bear, and bond with one of the worst child actors I have ever seen: Nika Rita, whose Native American foil redefines the concept of the wooden Indian. The film is shot in some pleasant locales, and McCrea does his best with what he's given, offering one nice moment of quiet grief, but the script, story and editing are atrocious. Hardly a fitting swansong for an icon of the genre, and of the American screen. (1)

***



*SPOILERS, BUT YOU'LL THANK ME. I ALSO SEEM TO HAVE STARTED SWEARING, BUT IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES THIS SEEMS ENTIRELY REASONABLE*
Weird Science (John Hughes, 1985) - This might be the most '80s thing that has ever happened. And one of the worst. If you found the scene in Sixteen Candles where Dong gets stuck up a tree hilarious but a little highbrow, then you'll love this steaming pile of hairsprayed, incomprehensible shit, in which Bill Paxton does literally and incomprehensibly turn into a steaming pile of shit. The premise - which sees two horny teenage geeks conjure up a hot 23-year-old with their computer - is great, but what John Hughes does with it is the exact opposite of great. It's sexist, racist, homophobic, and has a completely different message to the one it claims to espouse. I'm a big fan of Hughes, but this one's impossible to defend. And Anthony Michael Hall's drunk scenes are the most annoying on film. (1)

***



SHORT: The Campus Vamp (Harry Edwards, 1928) – Embarrassingly awful Mack Sennett two-reeler about a college boy ignoring his frigid girlfriend to consort with an annoying flapper (a young, brunette Carole Lombard wearing a cloche hat, who gets groped by a lobster). The plot makes no sense, the jokes are rubbish (with the sole exception of a man looking for his wife in a chest of drawers) and the characters are really annoying, though film nerds might enjoy a couple of the sequences being in two-strip Technicolor: love those reds and greens. If you want to see it, my copy is now at a charity shop and also contains three Our Gang shorts and the racist Harold Lloyd film, Haunted Spooks. (1)

***

TV:

This is what I have been mostly doing lately:



The Office (US): Season 2 (2006-7) – The series at its zenith, with Michael becoming more human (and slightly less annoying), the Jim-Pam relationship developing in beautiful and poignant ways, and just one great episode after another. My favourite bit has to be either Jim flicking on his messages after a lousy day at work, or the scene in the road at the end of the final episode. (4)

The Office (US): Season 3 (2007-8) – The third season is less realistic and more sitcomish, causing the dramatic scenes to lose a little of their resonance, while Jim and Pam seem to be kept apart more through dramatic necessity than credible plot development, and there’s an inability to fully capitalise on some of the more promising premises, like the convention visit. For all that, it’s still top entertainment, with as many fine comic moments as Season 2 (my personal favourite is Dwight’s impression of Jim) and an absolutely irresistible pay-off. (3.5)

The Office (US): Season 4 (2008-9) – Only one of the opening four, double-length episodes really works (Launch Party), but after that it really kicks into gear. Kevin saying “toona toona toona” may be the funniest moment in the show’s history. Bizarrely, Carell’s inconsistent, irritating central character remains the weak link in what is a riotously enjoyable series. (3.5)

The Office (US): Season 5 (2009-10) – A step up from Season 4. At its centre is the most successful episode ever, and one of the best, Stress Relief, which compensates for a deeply unfunny film-within-a-show with two very involving narratives and one of the most amazing cold opens I have ever seen. The season as a whole serves up the usual mixture of escapism, invention and affecting sentiment, and just when you think the basic format may be getting tired, Schur and co shake it up again. John Krasinki's spectacular comic timing remains something to behold. (3.5)