Review of 2013: Part two - Crazes and discoveries

Here's the second part of my review of the year, dealing not with new movies, but with the best old ones I came across this year. For the other half, my top 10 of 2013, click here.

In brief:


The man and woman of the year. At least for me. (Only for me.)

Crazes: Clara Bow, Clint Eastwood, Michelle Yeoh
Continuing preoccupations: Documentaries, silent film, Myrna Loy
Stuff I caught up on: Martial arts movies, things I taped on video nearly 10 years ago and never watched and then decided I had to because I was having a clear-out.
Revelations: MGM's 1936 Romeo and Juliet being one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever put on film - and Leslie Howard proving that he could be as good at drama as he was at comedy (for once).
A few performances that stuck with me: Clint in Unforgiven, Lake and McCrea in Sullivan's Travels, and, in terms of new ones, the boy (Thomas Doret) in Kid with a Bike.
Happiest surprises: Tootsie being nothing like any other drag film I'd ever seen (more below), Clara Bow offering a vivid, sexually-charged silent counterpoint to the virginal stylings of last year's breakout success, Janet Gaynor. My most(/only) extravagant purchase of the year was an iPhone cover from the BFI shop, showing Gaynor and Charlie Farrell in Street Angel.
Biggest disappointment: Cloudy 2 was so lazy and uninspired that it hurt my feelings.
Oddest films: Abel Gance's Napoleon was immense, avant garde and frequently baffling. And made in 1927. I'd forgotten how incredibly gruelling Dumbo is, especially for a kids' film.
Worst films: In just about any other year, Peggy Sue Got Married would walk it. I think Nicolas Cage's performance might be the worst I have ever seen in a movie. But this was the year I saw What's Your Number? I didn't know films that bad could actually exist.


Napoleon. Never knowingly not massive and arty.

Tell us about some great movies you saw that no-one's really heard of: Clara Bow's last film, Hoop-La, isn't available on DVD, but it should be. It's a staggering last hurrah: not her best movie, but quite possibly her best performance. Union Depot is a terrific Pre-Code cocktail that takes a dozen genres, shakes them and just goes with it. The Silent Partner isn't as well known as some of its '70s crime film cronies, but it's a cut above - if sometimes a little too nasty.
Some favourite moments: The scene between Dustin Hoffman and Charles Durning at the bar in Tootsie handled almost impossible material in the most staggeringly confident, virtuosic manner. The Intouchables made me smile no end, and Myrna got me choked up, as ever, in When Ladies Meet. And some least favourite moments: All of What's Your Number?, Ginger Rogers spoiling otherwise spot-on silent movie pastiches by mugging in Dreamboat, and any scenes featuring '30s annoyance Edna May Oliver, Joan Crawford or Nicolas Cage.
The funniest jokes: Most of Sam Rockwell's patter in The Way, Way Back was ludicrously funny. The "dirty great sea monster" gag in The Pirates! is sublime. Mr Poppy running out of the other door in Nativity! made me lose control of my face.
2013 was... The year I got married and finished the first draft of a book. Woop woop.
Best fight scene: I have a soft spot for the amazing market brawl at the start of Ip Man 2. Shame about the rest of the film.
Best film I saw at the cinema: Frances Ha or Napoleon. I've wanted to see the latter in all of its true glory for nine years, and it didn't disappoint.
I was bored by: A few too many, but Track of the Cat took things to a whole new level. I am reviewing my Mitchum completism as a result, as well as my slavish devotion to Philip French.
I wrote this pretty good review of _______________, you should read it if you have a minute: Remember My Forgotten Man, my favourite production number of all time.
Total number of films I've seen (new watches in brackets): 272 (231)

Most popular decades: 2010s (50 films seen), 1940s (45), 1930s (37), 2000s (31). ***

Top 20 "Discoveries" of 2013
These weren't new releases, just things I caught for the first time in the past 12 months.


1. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) is remarkable in every way: stunning to look at, full of jaw-droppingly lyrical dialogue and blessed with a triumphant, eminently hummable Cajun soundtrack. Lit by a multitude of brilliant sequences that seem to come out of nowhere, but don't, and dominated by Wallis's heroics (including some excellent screaming), it packs an emotional punch like nothing else I've seen in years. Full review.


2. Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982) is one of the great films, a rare movie that employs drag to interrogate gender stereotypes, not to sit lazily with them, smirking away. It's streaked with greasepaint, charmingly scored, richly romantic, hysterically funny and remarkably poignant. And the last 40 minutes is just utterly sensational. Full review.


3. Mantrap (Victor Fleming, 1926) - Clara Bow is at her absolute best as a combustible bundle of sex who heads to the country, and proceeds to drive all the men completely wild. Mantrap was her favourite of her films, and you can see why. It's lovely to look at, zips by in a flash and has at its centre one of the funniest, sensual and most startlingly charismatic performances I've ever seen. Full review.


4. Intouchables (Oliver Nakache and Eric Toledano, 2011) aka The Intouchables - Ladies and gentleman, I think we have a new comfort movie. And what a beautiful film it is: one of the funniest I've ever seen, and among the sweetest too. Omar Sy is an uneducated Senegalese immigrant from the Projects who applies to become a full-time carer to unhappy, wealthy quadriplegic Francois Cluzet, so he can complete his benefit form. Instead, he gets the job. Cluzet doesn't care about his background, he wants a man without pity, and he gets one - Sy's contempt for modern art, hilarity at high culture, and exuberant dancing to Earth, Wind & Fire are a bonus. Full review.


5. The Descendants (Alexander Payne, 2011) - One of the finest of the decade so far, a stunning, beautiful and utterly unpredictable comedy-drama, a perfectly-pitched rumination on existence, in all its chaotic, tragi-comic complexity. It's intelligent, incisive and poignant, its nuanced plotting, distinctive dialogue and glorious central performance accompanied by one of the most exquisite scores of recent decades, a Cooder-ish guitar accompaniment rich in authentic Hawaiian flavour. Full review.


6. Sergeant York (Howard Hawks, 1941) - If Ball of Fire is Howard Hawks' best film - his most enchanting, entrancing and affecting - then Sergeant York has a claim to being his greatest: an astonishingly ambitious piece of storytelling, with sweep and style and a tremendous universality, that's also rooted in the personal. Its first half is a pastoral masterpiece (pastorpiece?) in the vein of Tol'able David, staggeringly shot in charcoal tones by Sol Polito, and chronicling hellraiser Alvin York's conversion to Christianity, within an isolated mountain community. The second follows Alvin (Gary Cooper) as he wrestles with his conscience upon being drafted during WWI, and winds up a war hero, via one of the greatest battle sequences ever filmed. Full review.


7. Le gamin au vélo (Dardenne brothers, 2011) aka The Kid with a Bike has elements of fatalism without being pessimistic, tells a simple story that never looks for an easy way out, and eschews sentimentality while radiating a bold and uncompromising sense of humanity. It moved me very deeply. Full review.


8. Wings (William Wellman, 1927) - A landmark of action cinema that perfectly blends jaw-dropping spectacle, intense bromance and compelling human drama. And features a lovely little teddy bear. Full review.


9. Yip Man aka Ip Man (Wilson Yip, 2008) - A back-to-basics kung fu classic with a realistic setting, a powerful story and a series of superbly-choreographed fight scenes that place an accent on technical skill, and possess a heartening reverence for visual clarity. It's also rooted in a stunning evocation of time and place, complete with poignant, beautiful bleached-out cinematography that calls to mind old sepia photos. Full review.


10. Of Mice and Men (Lewis Milestone, 1939) - Lewis Milestone's translation of the Steinbeck novella is an immersive, extraordinary powerful experience, exceptionally well-acted, particularly by Chaney and Meredith, and shot in painterly tones by Norbert Brodine. The two key scenes here - the first concerning the potential shooting of a dog, the second the potential shooting of a man - are dealt with perfectly, eliciting a nauseating dread and bitter anguish quite unlike anything I've felt watching a movie before. Full review.


11. Somewhere in Time (Jeannot Szwarc, 1980) - This time-travelling love story was panned on release, but has since attracted an obsessive following, and with good reason. It's wonderfully imaginative, extremely sure-footed, and has a heightened romantic sensibility reminiscent of both Brief Encounter and The Ghost and Mrs Muir, with a strong sense of conviction and an engaging unpretentiousness across both the performances and direction. Full review.


12. The Hired Hand (Peter Fonda, 1971) is a New Hollywood masterpiece from Peter Fonda, a reflective Western in which redemption comes not through revenge, but romance, in all its selfish, selfless glory. Full review.


13. Un long dimanche de fiançailles (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2004) aka A Very Long Engagement - Jeunet’s follow-up to the incomparable Amélie is a transcendent romance, a complex mystery (with no shortage of whimsy) and a chilling evocation of the horror and futility of war, as Mathilde (Audrey Tautou) searches for her fiancé, one of five soldiers sentenced to death for desertion at Bingo Crépuscule three years earlier. It’s an extraordinarily successful melding of apparently incompatible moods and genres. Full review.


14. The Marriage Circle (Ernst Lubitsch, 1924) - Lubitsch's favourite of his own films, musicalised by the director eight years later as One Hour with You, is a perfectly crafted comedy-drama on his favoured topic of adultery. It's missing the catchy tunes and lush romanticism of the later film, but it's funnier, sexier and more resonant (thanks to its greater realism): masterfully conceived and directed, and with an exceptional turn from Prevost. Full review.


15. Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927) - I was lucky enough to see the five-and-a-half-hour reconstruction of this silent epic at the Royal Festival Hall in November. The enduring impression is as if Gance had never seen a film before, and no-one had told him that this simply isn't how it's done. Full review.


16. The Imposter (Bart Layton, 2012) - Like Man on Wire, The Imposter features a charismatic Frenchman explaining - direct-to-camera - how he pulled off the impossible. But unlike Philippe Petit - the visionary (and admittedly adulterer) - who walked above cities to bring a sense of wonderment to people's everyday lives, this guy is a sociopath. An incredible story, and a brilliant, compelling and ultimately unforgettable film. Full review.


17. In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993) goes to show what can be done when you take an unimpeachable idea, build on it cleverly, cast it perfectly and then hand over the reins to someone like Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen, a filmmaker who knows when to be patient, when to inject a breathless urgency into the narrative and when to linger on a close-up of an old man nodding appreciatively at Rene Russo's bum. An Ennio Morricone score always helps too, of course. Full review.


18. Hold Back the Dawn (Mitchell Leisen, 1941) - A romantic slow-burner, set in a Mexican border town, with Romanian gigolo Charles Boyer seducing American schoolteacher Olivia De Havilland to get in to the States, then starting to struggle with his conscience. Written in Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's distinctive style, and directed by Mitchell Leisen - the master of the romantic drama, now almost forgotten - it's a simply beautiful movie: one which completely sneaks up on you, with an original set-up, an unusual atmosphere, and superb performances by the leads. Full review.


19. Laugh, Clown, Laugh (Herbert Brenon, 1928) - A gutting, wonderful film and an important one too: in telling the story of a gifted mime who wins every heart except the one he wants, it must surely have influenced the ultimately incomparable Les enfants du paradis. Full review.


20. The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1971) - A highlight of ClintFest '13. Siegel's film may not paint on the broadest canvas, but it has as good a feel for the Civil War as any film I've seen, from the sepia-toned credits to the vivid snippets of battle, and, most tellingly here, the realities of living with but not within the conflict: tying a ribbon to your gate as a code for passing soldiers, consuming rumour and counter-rumour of the latest shifts in dominance - a war shadowed in the schoolhouse - and trying to balance one's humanity, or selfish needs, with one's duty. This vividly-recreated world is a backdrop for mind games and power games heated by a bubbling cauldron of awakening sexuality, and heading who-knows-where. Full review.

I've done something about my top "discoveries" for years, but I used to call them "premieres". The new term is more evocative. I borrowed it from this chap.

***

Old favourites: my top 10 rewatches of the year:


1. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (Ernst Lubitsch, 1927) (My favourite film of 2013, all told)
2. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) aka Amélie (Twice)
3. Wo hu can long (Ang Lee, 2000) aka Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
4. Lucky Star (Frank Borzage, 1929)
5. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
6. Sullivan's Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941)
7. Ride Lonesome (Budd Boetticher, 1959)
8. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)
9. Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)
10. Winter's Bone (Debra Granik, 2010)

A Star Is Born revisited, Jennifer Lawrence and how to start an argument - Reviews #148

Hello, and welcome to a special Oscars-themed update, as the Oscars happened yesterday and it would be negligent of me not to piggy-back pointlessly on that kind of publicity. To celebrate, I've reviewed a film starring Jennifer Lawrence, who won Best Actress last night, and another starring the first winner of that award and featuring an Oscars ceremony of its own. That this was all just a coincidence shouldn't stop you reading on. JOIN ME.



A Star Is Born (William A. Wellman, 1937) - The initial incarnation of this Tinseltown tragedy is right up there with Judy's, and holds up superbly on second viewing, revealing - most rewardingly - additional layers to the stunning central characterisations. We first meet Norman Maine (Fredric March) as he's toppling off his mantle - and his chair - and it's largely downhill from there, via a sanitarium, a night court and three of the saddest and most uncomfortable scenes I've ever had the good fortune to dread coming round again. Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) is introduced as a feisty fighter of a farm girl - not unlike Gaynor's character in Lucky Star - if one with a sensitive soul, but once she gets to Hollywood, with stars in her eyes, we see her as the naive, innocent dreamer she really is. What the film does next is magnificent, but so seamlessly, subtly done, that it's only when the credits roll that you appreciate the shifting, sliding, dynamic: Esther growing in confidence, authority and compassion - growing up, if you will - and Norman sinking, faster than you keep up, his chilling forecast that he has lived too much to have anything left being proved tragically true.

Evelyn Waugh said of Brideshead Revisited that he wanted to write a book about people brought low by nothing more than love and drink. Add a bit of masculine pride into the mix and you have A Star Is Born. The film is perhaps a test of empathy (as I feel something like The Kid with a Bike may be), as its success - or otherwise - is based on how much compassion you feel for a good-looking millionaire whose greatest problem, at least that he will acknowledge, is that his star is slipping. Really, though, he's a man being consumed - from the inside - by demons and disease, slipping into dissolution even as he appears to have it all, as would his contemporary John Barrymore, and their spiritual successor, Errol Flynn. March makes Maine - and his problems - seem utterly, desperately real, in a gutting characterisation that may well be the best thing he ever did. It's only in the final third that the human cost really becomes apparent, though, and up until then it's a lighter proposition, a revealing snapshot - in early Technicolor - of Hollywood in the '30s, and just as fun as that sounds (I'm aware that some people may not think that sounds very fun). I still think Adolphe Menjou's benevolent producer is too good to be true, and Edgar Kennedy's comic sequences seem incongruous, but Lionel Stander brings just the right mix of amusing irascibility and sadistic insensitivity as a kind of hybrid press agent/fixer, perhaps patterned after MGM's Howard Strickling and Eddie Mannix, and Andy Devine is just lovely as Gaynor's first friend in Hollywood. It's a superlative film, wonderfully conceived and scripted - with some of the best barbs coming unmistakably from Dorothy Parker's poisonous pen - and with an emotional clout like little else in '30s cinema. (4)

***



Laugh, Clown, Laugh (Herbert Brenon, 1928) - A gifted clown (Lon Chaney) finds a little girl in the rushes, makes her laugh with his cockerel-based shadow puppetry and takes her under his wing (pun intended), naming her Simonella. When she grows to adulthood, and reveals a bit of shoulder, he realises he loves her in a different way - but then so does the count and reformed cad with whom he shares a psychiatrist. This intensely moving melodrama sticks to the familiar Chaney formula, strikes a few questionable notes (having the count's deep unhappiness manifest itself in bursts of manic laughter seems an unnecessarily gothic touch), could do with a scene showing the children's connection to the comic that would give its final line even greater resonance, and fails to explain its characters' motivations at some key junctures. But who cares? Chaney is sensational, the 15-year-old Atilla the Nun, Loretta Young, is at her ethereal best as Simonella, and the film is stuffed to bursting with unforgettable images of love, longing and desolate desperation, many focusing on Chaney's matchlessly expressive face - painted or otherwise - and all showcasing legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe's unique eye for contrast and composition.

Some viewers may feel queasy about Chaney's sad clown trying to "do a Woody Allen" and cop off with his adopted daughter (legal disclaimer: in Woody's case, it was his long-term partner's adopted, of-age daughter), but these were different times, Young isn't playing a 15-year-old. and the film is so persuasively acted that you can't help but feel for the sad-eyed Chaney, and wish for him some modicum of happiness. It's a gutting, wonderful film and an important one too: in telling the story of a gifted mime who wins every heart except the one he wants, it must surely have influenced the ultimately incomparable Les enfants du paradis. It was Chaney's favourite of his pictures, and with good reason. The TCM release features a wonderful addition in H. Scott Salinan's beautiful new score, which recalls Howard Shore's classic work on The Lord of the Rings. (4)

See also: The other two films in TCM's Lon Chaney Collection are reviewed here.

***



Hard to Handle (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933) - An anarchic Cagney comedy, with Jimmy cast (once again) as an inveterate go-getter for whom the Depression is little more than a mild inconvenience. Having lost the takings from an epic dance marathon to an unscrupulous partner, his versatile promoter spents the rest of this fast-paced, sex-fuelled jolt of Pre-Code hilarity putting his quick wits and absent morals to good use by hoodwinking the ordinary folks of America into taking part in a phony treasure hunt, smearing meritricious gloop over their wobbly bodies or buying up acres of grapefruit groves (a nod to that notorious scene in The Public Enemy). Like Groundhog Day's Phil Connors, he subscribes to the somewhat damning notion that people are morons.

There's little of Warner Bros' famed social conscience at work here, but it's delightfully unpredictable and extremely funny with it - its laughs, unusually for the studio, coming more from the performances and the situations than the repartee - while providing a fascinating glimpse of how my favourite comedy of all-time might have panned out, reuniting sassy Mary Brian and sardonic Ruth Donnelly from the previous year's Blessed Event, originally set to star Cagney. His chemistry with Bryan is both appealing and electric, Donnelly proves a perfect(ly unscrupulous) foil and sometime ally. and Cagney is, of course, magnificent: a whirlwind of energy, playing every comic scenario to the absolute hilt. (3.5)

***



The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012) - It's Winter's Bone meets Battle Royale meets The X-Factor in this tense futuristic thriller, as Jennifer Lawrence takes the place of her terrified little sister in a televised fight-to-the-death against 23 other kids and teens. The only other contestant from her district is dishy, slightly wood-prone Josh Hutcherson, whose character has so many contrasting facets that I stopped thinking he might be realistically complex and decided he wasn't particularly well-drawn. The plotting, which inserts breathless action sequences at regimented intervals, seems a bit too clinical, the lead-in goes on too long (check out The Wages of Fear for how to properly execute an hour-long prologue to your suspenser), and the gaudy world fashioned around the game is tacky and heavy-handed. But the film has a wild card like few others, allowing you to spend two hours in the exultant company of Jennifer Lawrence. The whole thing hinges on her performance, and she's simply mesmerising. I've seen her in four movies so far (including Winter's Bone - the best of the decade so far - and Silver Linings Playbook, my favourite film released last year), and she hasn't struck a false note in any of them. Here, the story takes the toughest decisions away from her character, Catnip Evergreen, but she's wondrous nonetheless, creating an affecting, kind-hearted, ass-kicking protagonist with an innate emotional intensity who keeps the film grounded and real, even when being interviewed by a man with a blue ponytail in front of the crowd from Take Me Out.

It isn't exactly original - it riffs on the superior Battle Royale, there are shards of Logan's Run in there, and it occupies a similar world to the hugely silly Equilibrium - but it is very entertaining, and has one particularly fine, powerful scene, rather dubiously utilising Holocaust imagery, in which Lawrence volunteers for those there Hunger Games. It's also a well-directed film, in a showy sort of way, employing warped images and aggressive jump cuts while Lawrence is tripping on wasp bites, and fantastic use of sound throughout. It's clearly aimed at a teenage audience rather than an adult one, and perhaps a film like this should do more with its subtext of anti-establishment rebellion and social degradation, but when it tries to it feels forced and shallow, and Ross doesn't really know how to handle crowd scenes (he seems to be taking pointers from tea-time dramas on ITV), so it may be for the best. For all its imperfections, I enjoyed it a great deal, and Lawrence's performance confirms her status as one of the three most exciting actresses around, along with Carey Mulligan and the mighty Michelle Williams (Emily Watson doubtless remains the finest, but can't seem to land too many strong roles nowadays). This has really whetted my appetite for a sequel. Though apparently the "book" is better, whatever "books" are. (3)

***



Undefeated (Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, 2011) is like Hoop Dreams remade by Disney. It's an Oscar-winning doc about a volunteer high school football coach (Martin Clunes) who whips his troubled African-American charges into a formidable team, as they cope with injury, anger issues and everything else that comes with growing up in black, inner city ghettos (see The Interrupters and The House I Live In for yet more chilling detail). Compared with the benchmark for all documentaries of its type, Steve James' unforgettable Hoop Dreams, it's too much a surface look at the issues it raises - and a calculating, sometimes staged one at that - to be a real contender, but it is slickly done, emotionally stirring when not opting for easy sentiment (Chavis's speech is a wonderful moment), and in entertainment value alone deserves its place in the play-offs. Also, "Why you gotta sit by me for bro? You gay" is my favourite ever way to start an argument. I've spotted a goof, though, they're not undefeated - they lost their first match. What's that you say? A metaphor? (3)

Thanks for reading.

The Imposter, Lon Chaney and the impossible job - Reviews #145

In this latest reviews update: four documentaries, two silents, Mandy Moore, Ken Loach and Mack Sennett. Join me (please)...



The Imposter (Bart Layton, 2012) - Like Man on Wire, The Imposter features a charismatic Frenchman explaining - direct-to-camera - how he pulled off the impossible. But unlike Philippe Petit - the visionary (and admittedly adulterer) - who walked above cities to bring a sense of wonderment to people's everyday lives, this guy is a sociopath. And a twat. And he is most certainly not Nicholas Barclay. Or "Nick-oh-las Bar-clay", as he would pronounce it. And does. You may know the story by now. In 1994, Nicholas Barclay, a blonde, blue-eyed 13-year-old Texan, went missing without trace. Three years later, he was found in Spain, and welcomed back into the bosom of his family. Only it wasn't him. It was a swarthy, brown-haired, brown-eyed, 23-year-old French-Algerian. What you're probably thinking is: "What?" And then presumably: "How could this happen?" This astonishing documentary cuts to the heart of the matter in invigorating fashion, allowing the imposter (the consummate unreliable narrator) to guide us through much of the early action, before letting the family, American diplomats and even the FBI have their say, as the story gets increasingly dark - and stays just about the same level of strange.

Looking at Layton's credits (which include several episodes of Banged Up Abroad), critics have sought to say that it's the story gaining him plaudits, not the way he tells it. I'd disagree. Almost every decision he makes is the right one. If you're asking how the subject established and sustained his audacious ruse, then much of the answer surely lies in his mesmerising charisma and his unshakeable self-belief. By putting him front and centre, and letting the imposter draw us into his weird logic, his plays for sympathy and his bizarre, sad life, we're put in the same position as the family. Crammed in alongside the director's incisive interviews, and some immaculately incorporated home video snippets, are superb reconstructions, which, since Layton offers no objective truth, bring to vivid life the interviewees' claims, lies and suspect memories. And finally there's the measured, intelligent withholding of information, which keeps the viewer guessing - and laughing, incredulously - as the knot in the stomach tightens.

If there is a shortcoming, it's that the cross-cutting in the final third - presumably meant to provide a kind of hypnotic rhythm and cumulative impact - feels forced and distracting, while the digging-in-the-backyard climax doesn't really come off. Still, Layton saves a wallop for the coda: not his imposter's much-quoted line hinting at psychopathy (which we'd kind of got anyway), but that chilling clip of him in the detention centre, where he'd been giving false hope to thousands of parents. What a dickhead. It's an incredible story, though, and a brilliant, compelling and ultimately unforgettable film. (4)

***



*SOME SPOILERS*
The Queen of Versailles (Lauren Greenfield, 2012) – A Wall Street timeshare shark and his trophy wife start building the biggest house in America – patterned after a certain French retreat – only to see the recession hit their finances. Hard. This "riches to rags" tale is a film about everything: love, greed, ambition, relationships, the financial crisis and – above all – the American Dream, providing vivid character portraits of the pair, their kids, their in-house staff and their employees, none of whom are quite what they seem at first glance. The former Miss Florida really loves her husband (goodness knows why), their adopted daughter starts by being a voice of reason before wealth consumes her – if not her self-awareness – and his bolshy businessman of a son turns out to be a lost kid desperate to side with his father even when it risks ruining the lot of them. It’s one of the best documentaries of the decade so far, full of hilarious details ("I didn't know we had a lizard," says one of the eight kids after they're admonished for not feeding it), but also blessed with a sadness, melancholia and wisdom that renders it far more than mere Schadenfreude. (4)

***



Why We Fight (Eugene Jarecki, 2005) - This typically superb polemic from liberal documentarian Jarecki takes its name from Frank Capra’s World War Two propaganda films and its cue from Eisenhower’s farewell speech of 1961, in which the departing president warned of the dangers of the “military-industrial complex”. What he spoke of, what he feared, was the possibility of the country's foreign policy being dictated by its swelling, corporate-sponsored defence sector. Speaking to DC insiders, war veterans, Iraqis and left-leaning theorists, while peppering his film with apposite archive footage (Eisenhower’s statistics about the cost of weaponry compared to schools and hospitals feel particularly resonant), Jarecki presents a bleak, often brilliant portrait of a nation that claims to fight for freedom, but is locked into a self-perpetuating cycle of war-mongering, habitually lying to its citizens and engaging in conflicts out of avarice, political expediency and self-interest – both national and personal. It’s unlikely to sway anyone not already attuned to Jarecki’s viewpoint, but it’s extremely well done, and far more focused, articulate and well-argued than Michael Moore’s similarly-themed Fahrenheit 9/11. (3.5)

See also: Jarecki's masterpiece, Reagan, is reviewed here. There's a write-up of his latest, The House I Live In, here.

***

I was going to be all clever (sorry, "clever") and write this next review in Helvetica, but my computer doesn't have it. Sorry.



Helvetica (Gary Hustwit, 2007) – Perhaps I might have had a better time if I was more interested in fonts. What promises to be an intriguing look at the most divisive typeface this side of Comic Sans – the all-conquering Helvetica – too often turns pretentious and self-indulgent when trying to evaluate the role that fonts play in articulating, obscuring or subverting the message they’re meant to convey; in theory a very interesting idea. Much of the problem lies with the interviewees, who are mostly pretty insufferable, either talking very pedantically about letter shape or spouting hideously superficial Sugar Ape-like bollocks. One very confusing American graphic designer says, hopefully joking, that Helvetica was “the font of the Iraq War”. Tsk, you can sponsor anything these days. There are some insights about the homogeneity of corporate identity, and the very likeable David Carson tells an amusing story about a Bryan Ferry interview, but the film is saturated with a self-importance that isn’t merited, loaded down as it is with industry chat, vague historical analysis and endless footage of signs written in the titular font. It’s also a bit difficult to tell what most of the people are saying (I had the subtitles on; they weren’t in Helvetica), while the guy who argues that a font on your MySpace profile (lol, MySpace) is as a great an expression of identity as your haircut has terrible hair. I got a bit bored. (2)

***



The Angels' Share (Ken Loach, 2012) – A new father (Paul Brannigan), struggling to make ends meet and keep his violent temper under wraps, develops a taste for whisky-tasting, then spies the chance for a new start, in the shape of a priceless cask of the stuff. What a lovely film this is: a humane, charming but hard-edged collision of typical Loach fare and caper comedy, with a very understated, impressive central performance. As with On a Clear Day, another Scottish-set film that makes you earn its cheerier moments, the more cartoonish comic elements seem to have wandered in from a different movie, but it’s a minor complaint about a bruising, winning and wonderful movie blessed with a touch of sentiment and great performances across the board. (3.5)

***

A Lon Chaney double-bill:



The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927) - When the police pitch up at a gypsy circus to look for the criminal who's just strangled the ringmaster, they don't suspect foot-centric knife-thrower Lon Chaney - after all, he seems quite armless. Meanwhile, the big fraud's plotting to marry swarthy Joan Crawford, the victim's daughter, who's sworn off sex after encountering too many sleazeballs, and really, really hates men's hands. Still, at least Chaney doesn't have a double-thumb. Oh wait. This classic silent horror from Freaks director Tod Browning is short, sharp and spectacularly eerie, with a superb premise (more than compensating for some overly convenient plotting), a fantastically charismatic performance from Chaney and a frantic, fitting and discordant score on the TCM release that can best be filed under "completely bonkers". The ending is a bit rushed, and features one notably un-special effect, but it is gloriously intense. Two thumbs up. And that's just on my left hand. (3.5)



The Ace of Hearts (Wallace Worsley, 1921) - Love and jealousy among the anarchists, as gloomy, lank-haired Lon Chaney and romantic John Bowers compete for the hand of single-minded revolutionary Leatrice Joy, while their terrorist cell plots to blow up a restaurant. It's an interesting but imperfect mix of drama, love story and thriller that's a bit too ponderous, and foolishly telegraphs some of the cards up its sleeve through spoiler-heavy on-screen chapter titles, though Chaney and Joy are good, the story is timely and original, and there are a couple of very tense set-pieces. (3)

***



Private Detective 62 (Michael Curtiz, 1933) – William Powell goes from spy to PI in this fast-paced Pre-Code crime comedy, before riding to the rescue of society girl Margaret Lindsay, who’s suspected of murdering his crooked boss. The story is nothing out of the ordinary and the love interest in introduced hurling a string of snobbish invective at what she thinks is a doorman, but the dialogue and direction both have a bit of class about them (aside from the above), with the latter incorporating a powerful montage depicting job-hunting in the Depression. It’s also interesting to see a ‘30s film with a “snowbird” (cocaine addict) for a hitman; such grimy, realistic touches would be shorn from the genre by the following year’s censorship clampdown. The real reason to watch, though, is Powell – among the best leading men of his or any other era – whose inimitable delivery could inject untold humour, pathos or even menace into whatever material he was given. He’s simply excellent here, fashioning a tough, sardonic but good-hearted private detective more world-weary than his Philo Vance and more likely to brutishly threaten a drug addict with a gun than Nick Charles. (3)

***



Baby Face Harrington (Raoul Walsh, 1935) is a rare starring vehicle for Charles Butterworth, one of the most popular character comedians of the ‘30s. He’s perfectly cast as a meek, downtrodden insurance agent who’s reinvented – through misunderstanding and via a rabid tabloid press – as the eponymous gangster, a transformation he rather enjoys. The film turns too dark near the close, before lurching into slapstick, but for the most part it’s a delightfully funny, offbeat and engaging comedy, similar in tone to Three Men on a Horse, which gave Frank McHugh a rare leading part, and lit by Butterworth’s hilarious performance, Una Merkel’s touching characterisation as his loving wife, and a funny supporting bit by Stanley Fields (who appeared in Little Caesar), playing Harrington’s cell mate. The script, co-written by Nunnally Johnson and with extra dialogue by Charles Lederer, is as sharp as you'd expect, and equipped with an agreeable fondness for sly genre subversion. The scene in which Butterworth is interrogated by the police is just brilliant. “Take him back to the cell,” says chief Eugene Pallette, as their questioning proves fruitless. “That’s a good idea, Uncle Henry,” replies Butterworth. “Where I’m sitting there’s been a light shining right in my eyes.” (3)

***



Saved! (Brian Dannelly, 2004) - A lively satire about religious intolerance, in which Jena Malone's cloistered teen tries to save her boyfriend from gayness through the power of sex, setting in motion a chain of events that rock her evangelically-minded school. At times it feels a little too conventional - the prom night surprise wouldn't be out of place in She's All That - but at its best it recalls Heathers, Election and Mean Girls, with the same predilection for stinging one-liners and taboo-busting, and a prize one bitch (Mandy Moore, compensating marginally for A Walk to Remember) with more than a touch of the Heather Chandler/Tracy Flick/Regina George about her. It's also nice to find a film so focused in its viewpoint and, on a personal level, to find that its message is: if there is a God, he wouldn't want you to hate everybody who's different to you. Malone is good in a role that never tends towards cliche, though the real acting honours go to Macaulay Culkin, superb as her comrade-in-arms, a poster boy for unfailingly acerbic wheelchair users everywhere. (3)

***



*SOME SPOILERS*
2 Days in New York (Julie Delpy, 2012) - 2 Days in Paris was a perceptive, intelligent and richly entertaining film about a Franco-American couple bickering, splitting up and getting back together across 48 hours in the City of Light. This sequel joins up with Julie Delpy's artist five years on, to find her separated from the father of her daughter, living with talkshow host Mingus (Chris Rock), the only brother who doesn't smoke weed, and welcoming a trio of familiar to the Big Apple: her eccentric father (Delpy's dad Albert), vindictive sister (Alexia Landeau) and ex-boyfriend (Alex Nahon). When they arrive, all hell naturally breaks loose, while Delpy turns into a "psycho bitch". (She also sells her soul, but I'm not telling you who to.) It’s difficult to know how to rate this one. In a way it’s a disappointment: it's conspicuously lacking the effortlessness, energy and curiously profound meanderings with which the original fairly overflowed, the subplot about Delpy pretending to have a brain tumour is completely misguided and approximately half the running time consists of her sister just repeatedly saying "Mingoooose", but Rock, Nahon and Delpy, Sr are great value, there are sporadically insightful observations about relationships both familial and romantic, and I was certainly never bored. (2.5)

***

I've started working my way, happily, through Treasures V: The West, the incredible NFPT box-set that Mrs Rick bought for me at Christmas. So many exciting-looking movies still to come. First up were these...



SHORT: The Tourists (Mack Sennett, 1912) – Pretty funny Sennett half-reeler about Mabel Normand and her family visiting a Native American tourist town. Their plan is to buy as many bowls as possible and get the hell out of there, but fate, lust and misunderstanding intervene, and they end up being pursued by a lot of indigenous folks with hatchets. The primitive production techniques count against the film, and it doesn't live up to the promise of the first minute, but it’s an interesting snapshot of the time and quite subversive in its own silly way. (2.5)



SHORT: The Sergeant (Francis Bogg, 1910) – A strictly standard plot about a sergeant restoring his reputation – after a pesky Indian steals his horse and makes it look like he’s shagged the colonel’s daughter – coupled with an unfortunate propensity to shoot everything in medium to long shot might have done for this one, were it not for the stunning locations. It was shot entirely in the Yosemite Valley, which looks frankly astonishing. (2.5)



SHORT: Sunshine Gatherers (George E. Stone, 1921) – It’s from the ‘20s! It’s in colour! It was made by Del Monte to publicise the way they picked and packed fruit, but includes a prologue about the discovery of California! I enjoyed the outdoor photography and historical recreations more than the bits about which fruit salads are the nicest and how to preserve a tinned peach, but the steaming machine was pretty nifty. (2.5)

***

TV:



An Impossible Job (1994) - Rick: "This legendary documentary about Graham Taylor's disastrous reign as England manager paints him as an avuncular, unlucky and only occasionally misguided figure - rather than the clueless idiot portrayed by the tabloid press - and remains remarkable for the level of access to training sessions, press conferences and, most extraordinarily, the matches themselves. One thing that really struck me, and which may count against Taylor, is that he's often seen on the bench during a game just having a bit of a chat, rather than planning his next masterstroke. That might be why his planned masterstroke is usually just "Bring Wrighty on" or "Bring Nigel on". There are countless great moments, though Lawrie McMenemy's classic repetition of "I don't believe it... I don't believe it" is a personal favourite, along with that famous bit of the three men on the bench all giving John Barnes the same instructions. (3.5)"

Phil Neal: "This legendary documentary about Graham Taylor's disastrous reign as England manager paints him as an avuncular, unlucky and only occasionally misguided figure - rather than the clueless idiot portrayed by the tabloid press - and remains remarkable for the level of access to training sessions, press conferences and, most extraordinarily, the matches themselves. One thing that really struck me, and which may count against Taylor, is that he's often seen on the bench during a game just having a bit of a chat, rather than planning his next masterstroke. That might be why his planned masterstroke is usually just "Bring Wrighty on" or "Bring Nigel on". There are countless great moments, though Lawrie McMenemy's classic repetition of "I don't believe it... I don't believe it" is a personal favourite, along with that famous bit of the three men on the bench all giving John Barnes the same instructions. (3.5)"

Thank you to Phil Neal - the human echo, history's most virtuosic yes man - for contributing to that review. Some great insights, if I do say so myself.

***



*SOME SPOILERS*
Bored to Death (Season 3, 2011-12) - The first season of Jonathan Ames' deadpan, post-modern noir series – something like Wes-Anderson-does-Raymond-Chandler – was very good, especially the pilot. The second was even better. So when I heard the show had been cancelled after its third season, I was gutted. Watching the final run, though, I can see why, and really it doesn't feel like a great loss. The cast tries hard, the Brooklyn locations are great and some of the dialogue still zings ("The rat's on fire!" and "We still have the briefcase" both made me guffaw), but Ames seems completely out of ideas when it comes to story. Jason Schwartzman's central PI has hardly any crimes to solve, aside from an exciting one near the start that's over too soon, and an over-arching mystery to do with his biological dad that's badly-paced and has a horrible, indefensible pay-off. His sidekick, Zach Galifianakis, “breastfeeds" a baby whisky, accidentally steals another child and shags a pensioner (a shame, as when he’s given anything halfway decent to do, like skipping down a street or arguing with arms dealer Patton Oswalt, he’s hilarious). Ted Danson, meanwhile, spends most of the season sparring with his irritating, needy daughter and her over-aged boyfriend. The rest of the season is just spent going on and on and on about weed. Bored to Death used to be about writing, crime-solving and witty one-liners. Now it's about incest, granny sex and making a baby drink alcohol that a grown man has smeared on his nipple. And weed. Lots and lots of weed. Bored is right. (2)