The Holdovers (2023)

The world doesn’t make sense anymore. I mean, it’s on fire. The rich don’t give a shit. Poor kids are cannon fodder. Integrity is a punch line. Trust is just a name on a bank. December 1970 in New England. Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) is a classics teacher at Barton Academy, a boarding school he once attended on scholarship. His students and fellow teachers despise him for his strict grading and stubborn personality. Dr. Hardy Woodrup (Andrew Garman) Barton’s headmaster and Hunham’s former student, scolds Hunham for costing the academy money by flunking the son of an important donor (a senator), causing Princeton University to withdraw his offer of a place. As punishment, Hunham is forced to supervise five students left on campus during the holiday break, including troublemaker Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) whose mother cancelled a family trip to St Kitts to honeymoon with her new husband. Also staying behind is cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) whose son Curtis attended Barton and joined the military to pay for college but has been killed in the Vietnam. To the students’ chagrin, Hunham forces them to study and exercise on their break. After six days, the wealthy father of one of the students arrives by helicopter and agrees to take all five students on the family’s ski trip with their parents’ permission. Angus, who is unable to reach his parents for permission, is left alone at Barton with Hunham and Mary. When Hunham catches Angus trying to book a hotel room, the two argue about Hunham’s disciplinarian policies. Angus impulsively runs through the school halls and defiantly leaps into a pile of gym equipment, dislocating his shoulder. Hunham takes Angus to the hospital; to protect Hunham from blame, Angus lies to the doctors about the circumstances of his injury. At a restaurant, Hunham and Angus encounter Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston), Woodrup’s assistant. Hunham flirts with Lydia, who invites the pair to her Christmas party. Angus, Hunham, Mary and Barton’s janitor Danny (Naheem Garcia) attend Lydia’s party. Angus successfully flirts with Lydia’s niece Elise (Darby Lily Lee-Stack). Hunham is disappointed to discover that Lydia has a boyfriend and Mary gets drunk and has an emotional breakdown over Curtis’s death. Hunham insists on leaving early. Hunham and Angus argue; when Hunham references Angus’s father, Angus says his father is dead. Mary scolds Hunham for his unsympathetic attitude. Feeling remorseful for his actions, Hunham arranges his own small Christmas celebration … There’s nothing new in human experience, Mr. Tully. Each generation thinks it invented debauchery or suffering or rebellion, but man’s every impulse and appetite from the disgusting to the sublime is on display right here all around you. So, before you dismiss something as boring or irrelevant, remember, if you truly want to understand the present or yourself, you must begin in the past. You see, history is not simply the study of the past. It is an explanation of the present. Director Alexander Payne’s campus dramedy is set in the early 1970s so the mind turns to those wintry Love Story moments and the political satires of the era and even casts itself as a gnarly riposte to Dead Poets Society: this boasts none of those tropes or inclinations. Instead it’s about the accidental forming of an alternative family with Giamatti in the best performance he’s created since the last time he worked with Payne in the estimable and beloved Sideways. Their collaborations create nuanced portraits of masculinity in a continuum observed in Payne’s other work but somehow come off best when they’re together. At least pretend to be a human being. Please. It’s Christmas! Here he’s essentially Scrooge on the path to redemption as the seasonal setting and quasi paternal function require. I have known you since you were a boy, so I think I have the requisite experience and insight to aver that you are and always have been penis cancer in human form. Newcomers Randolph and Sessa are impressive indeed in their debut film roles. The backdrop of course is Vietnam and it’s foregrounded with the loss of Randolph’s son reminding us that it’s offscreen drama which informs a lot of on the nose exchanges in an often cliched character study that paradoxically ignores the contemporary politics in the main, lending its focus instead to the politics of the school. Twisted fucker orphaned that glove on purpose. Left you with one so the loss would sting that much more. If there’s a flaw in construction it’s in the absurd overlength at 133 minutes – something that definitely could not be thrown at the films it wants to retrospectively join in the pantheon. Those chilly scenes of Winter 1970 are authentically captured by cinematographer Eigil Bryld who perhaps surprisingly was shooting digitally. Written by David Hemingson, very loosely adapting Marcel Pagnol’s Merlusse to create a quasi-autobiographical tale, this is bracingly performed. Not for ourselves alone are we born

Pain and Glory (2019)

Aka Dolor y gloria. I don’t recognise you, Salvador. Film director Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) is ageing and in decline, suffering from illness and writer’s block. He recalls episodes in his life that led him to his present situation – lonely, sick – when the Cinematheque runs a film Sabor he made 32 years earlier with actor Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia) and they haven’t spoken since due to the performer’s drug use. But now Salva is in pain and following the reunion with Alberto prompted by his old friend Zulema (Cecilia Roth) will take anything he can including heroin to ease his pain from multiple disabling illnesses. He recalls his mother Jacinta (Penelope Cruz) working hard to put food on the table;  moving into a primitive cave house; his days as a chorister whose voice was so beautiful he skipped class to rehearse and got through school knowing nothing, learning geography on his travels as a successful filmmaker. Now he is forced to confront all the crises in his life and his mother is dying … Writing is like drawing, but with letters. Pedro Almodovar’s late-life reflectiveness permeates a story that must have roots in his own experience. His protege Banderas gives a magnificent performance as the director pausing in between heroin hits and choking from an unspecified ailment to consider his path. The stylish visuals that often overwhelm Almodovar’s dramas are used just enough to textually express the core of the film’s theme – love, and the lack of it. Life is just a series of moments and they are recounted here with clear intent, plundering the past in order to reclaim the present. A triumph. Love is not enough to save the person you love

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

Let that be a lesson to you. Never have any children. On a family holiday in Saint Moritz, Switzerland, Bob Lawrence (Leslie Banks) and his wife, Jill (Edna Best), become friendly with Louis Bernard (Pierre Fresnay) who is staying in their hotel. He is assassinated in their presence, but as he is dying manages to passes along a secret to Jill, asking her to contact the British consulate. To keep the pair silent, a band of foreign assassins kidnaps their teenage daughter Betty (Nova Pilbeam). Offered no help by the police, Bob and Jill hunt for their daughter back in London as they try to understand the information that they have before tracing the kidnappers and once again encountering the cunning Abbott (Peter Lorre) in very compromising circumstances while an assassination is due to take place during a concert at the Albert Hall… You must learn to control your fatherly feelings. Providing a template for much of director Alfred Hitchcock’s subsequent career, this is written by Charles Bennett and D. B. Wyndham Lewis with a scenario by Edwin Greenwood and A.R. Rawlinson (and additional dialogue by Emlyn Williams) and it’s a gripping and blackly comic suspenser with a simple lesson – if a gun goes off in the first act it’s bound to go off again in the third, in order to bring things to a pleasingly grim conclusion in an extended siege and shootout. Hitchcock’s experience in German cinema is telling in terms of editing and design (for which Alfred Junge is responsible) and it moves quickly and effectively, suiting his talents far better than the slow-moving melodramas he made after the coming of sound, with nary a moment to contemplate some of the zingers which particularly work for Lorre’s sly delivery. Above all it’s a fascinating portrait of subversives in the seedier parts of London, influenced by the 1911 Sidney Street siege, a Conradian subject of anarchy to which Hitchcock would soon return. You’ll be agog at the gathering at the Tabernacle of the Sun and amused by Banks and his mate Clive (Hugh Wakefield) singing out instructions to each other to the tune of a hymn. Hitchcock’s future assistant and producer Joan Harrison has a small uncredited role as a secretary but it’s Best you’ll remember as the brilliant sharpshooting mother – you don’t want to mess with the woman. Don’t breathe a word!

Sister Act (1992)

That is a conspicuous person designed to stick out. A naughty young Catholic school girl grows up to become Las Vegas lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) who witnesses her no-good married mobster boyfriend Vince LaRocca (Harvey Keitel) murder his limo driver, she’s next on the hit list. Police detective Eddie Souther (     ) puts her in witness protection – in a San Francisco convent headed up by Reverend Mother (Maggie Smith) and it’s dislike at first sight. Now Deloris is presented as Sister Mary Clarence and she befriends the cloistered sisters especially outgoing Sister Mary Patrick (Kathy Najimy) and shy Sister Mary Robert  (Wendy Makkena) and takes over the choir giving them a gospel and rock ‘n’ roll makeover. But their social activities in the run-down neighbourhood attract TV attention and a corrupt cop in Vegas gives Vince a lead on Deloris’ whereabouts just as the Pope announces his visit  … I can’t be torn away from My God. Written by Joseph Howard aka Paul Rudnick, who blessed us throughout the Nineties with his scabrous witterings in the pages of Premiere (RIP) as Libby Gelman-Waxner, however it was written with Bette Midler in mind and she turned it down. When Goldberg took the part it had rewrites by Carrie Fisher, Robert Harling and Nancy Meyers – hence Rudnick’s request to be credited under a pseudonym. The result is a fairly fast-moving, feel-good, funny and uplifting story with genuinely sharp lines, many delivered by veteran Mary Wickes as Sister Mary Lazarus. Goldberg as as good as she always is and her charisma shines through the wimpole in this fish out of water story, if you ask me. Music by Marc Shaiman and there are more Sixties hits than you can shake a stick at, leading to a sequel and to its adaptation success on Broadway. Directed by Emile Ardolino.  I have two words for you Vince – Bless You!

Tiger Bay (1959)

 I didn’t want to shoot anyone.  Twelve-year old tomboy and compulsive liar Gillie (Hayley Mills) witnesses the murder of a woman Anya (Yvonne Mitchell) by her Polish merchant seaman boyfriend Bronislav Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz) when he finds her cheating on him with a married man (Anthony Dawson). She bonds with him and thwarts the police led by Superintendent Graham (John Mills) as they investigate … I wouldn’t have you for a friend, Gillie. The film that earned Hayley Mills her stripes! And alongside her father, whom she effortlessly outacts by virtue of her astonishing screen presence. Adapted by John Hawkesworth & the novelist Shelley Smith from the short story Rodolphe et le Revolver by Noël Calef. With familiar faces like Megs Jenkins, Mitchell and Dawson, this is a confident and evocative thriller focusing on friendship and lies, expertly handled by director J. Lee Thompson. Its realistic approach to locations and its noir-ish inclinations make it a fascinating pointer to future British filmmaking styles. Particularly striking as a story if you’re a child:  Buchholz is so beautiful and Mills so relatable you simply don’t want any of it to be true. Where ever I am, you’re still my friend

The Bishop’s Wife (1947)

Sometimes angels rush in where fools fear to tread. Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) is struggling to raise funds to build a cathedral and beseeches heaven for guidance.  He is visited immediately by Dudley (Cary Grant), who claims to be an angel. Henry is septical, then gets annoyed when Dudley ingratiates himself into the household as his assistant – and worse, wins the attentions of Henry’s kind wife Julia (Loretta Young). When Dudley continues to intervene in Henry’s struggles, the bishop decides to challenge heaven as he now has to repair his marriage too … I was praying for a cathedral./ No, Henry. You were praying for guidance. Adapted by Leonardo Bercovici and Robert E. Sherwood (with uncredited additions by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder) from Robert Nathan’s 1928 novel, this is an irresistible seasonal fantasy. It’s about faith and love and the blend of stars is unexpectedly successful – a surfeit of charm and wit combine to lend weight and wit to the more spiritual aspects. This, after all is about how to become more human. To quote Loretta Young in the trailer, It’s quite the most unusual film Sam Goldwyn has ever made. A beautiful film for a special time of year. And if that’s not enough, it’s got Monty Woolley as Professor Wutheridge with Gladys Cooper, Elsa Lanchester and Regis Toomey bringing up the rear. Did I mention that it’s beautifully shot by Gregg Toland? This is classic Christmas charm. Enough said. Directed by Henry Koster.  Let us ask ourselves what he would wish for most… and then let each put in his share. Loving kindness, warm hearts and the stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth.

Montez à dieu 1947

Cary Grant conducts the heavenly choir in The Bishop’s Wife.

Christmas Bells

I feel chills… they’re multiplying! And Ray Conniff and The Singers are just the thing to get into the swing of all things Christmas.

Fame (1980)

I mean, if I don’t have a personality of my own, so what? I’m an actress! I can put on as many personalities as I want! Accepted in the Drama department of New York’s High School for the Performing Arts are sensitive Montgomery MacNeil (Paul McCrane) who thinks he’s gay, Doris Finsecker (Maureen Teefy), a shy Jewish girl, and brash Ralph Garci (Barry Miller) who succeeds after failed auditions for Music and Dance. In the Music department, Bruno Martelli (Lee Curreri) is an aspiring keyboardist whose electronic equipment horrifies Mr. Shorofsky (Albert Hague), a conservative music teacher. Lisa Monroe (Laura Dean) is accepted in the Dance department, despite having no interest in the subject. Brazen Coco Hernandez (Irene Cara) is accepted in all three departments because of her all-around talent. Leroy Johnson (Gene Anthony Ray) goes to the school, performing as part of a dance routine for an auditioning friend, but the dance teachers are more impressed by his talents than hers. We follow the progress of the students through four years of high school until it’s time for graduation …  I’s young, I’s single, and I loves to mingle! Time to ‘fess up:  like all kids of the Eighties my Thursday nights were Top of the Pops followed by Fame, the TV show inspired by this Alan Parker film. And two of the highlights of my life were – therefore – seeing the back of Lee Curreri at NBC when he was recording a kids’ show; and some years later, Debbie Allen (Lydia the taskmaster dance teacher) leading the parade at New Orleans Mardi Gras, cher! That’s the fame of Fame, which had us delirious on all platforms before the term came into use. Its diverse cast pleases millennial taste although the un-PC jokes (about being gay, Jewish, black, female) would probably tee off some. It’s an equal opportunities offender! Personable, characterful, there’s one for everybody in the audience which is why everyone could relate. It’s bold and dramatic and fun and the Hot Lunch sequence makes you squeal with sheer enjoyment while the songs are just great.  Some of the plot lines strain to reach a conclusion and it’s not exactly tied up with a big red bow at the end, but you know, it’s kinda wonderful in an enervating way and no way can you not sing with delight and dance yourself dizzy watching it again! The film within a film is The Rocky Horror Picture Show and for those of us who used to go see it as a weekly performing event it’s a fabulous aide memoire. Shot at a time when Annie and Grease were on Broadway, this is a liberating, joyful viewing experience and the cast are wildly talented and charismatic in a NYC before it was cleaned up.  It’s simply teeming with infectious energy, danger, ambition and inchoate teenage rage. Written by Christopher Gore.  Music is the hardest profession of them all

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Our two children are dying in the other room, but yes, I can make you mashed potatoes tomorrow. Cardiothoracic surgeon Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) secretly befriends a teenage boy Martin Lang (Barry Keoghan) with a connection to his past. He introduces the boy to his family, his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) and son Bob (Sunny Suljic) and daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy) who begin to fall mysteriously ill… Something to put an end to all of this. That’s what I want. Can you do that? You do realize Steven, we’re in this situation because of you Those ancient Greeks knew how to plot a good play:  Euripides might be turning in his grave but Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos likes to upend expectations and in this interpretation of Iphigenia which we have seen a couple of times in the work of Taylor Sheridan in the Sicario films we are in the realm of the family romance in the Freudian sense. Those guys are great screenwriters! Adapted by the director with Efthymis Filippou, we are transported into a world like our own but slightly off, flatter and affectless with performances that have narrowed to the point of dramatic device. There are disturbing moments:  the opening, during a failed open heart surgery;  when Anna plays as though under anaesthetic to turn on Steven; Martin’s mother (Alicia Silverstone) coming on to Steven;  the revenge that Martin exerts on Steven and what Steven does to carry it through.  Keoghan’s entire presence is disturbing, only hinted at by his odd appearance.  The whole narrative is probably a joke about doctors playing God. Lanthimos’ films are an acquired taste and it is probably through the well-judged performances that the psychological horror shines in the black comedy and vice versa – despite its origins, this is drama without history, backstory or future.  A surgeon never kills a patient. An anaesthesiologist can kill a patient, but a surgeon never can