A new species is being born. Help me guide it, shape it, lead it.

X-Men: First Class

(2011)

I expected to enjoy this, but I was surprised by just how much; a second viewing did nothing to lessen that, and this is easily the best X-Men film. Crucially, it really doesn't miss the previously pervading presence of Wolverine. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the vitality that McAvoy and (particularly) Fassbender bring to Professor X and Magneto. Singer's X-Men unfortunately relegated the characters to luvvie thesps trading intellectual ripostes; here there's real emotion underlying the action (and, really, McKellen always seemed like an old man playing a superhero; Stewart was always an ageless baldy).

The first 45 minutes is flawless as an introduction to the characters, and Fassbender is really the star. But mention should be made of the delectable Jennifer Lawrence, whose conflicting loyalties form the bridge between the disparate views of Xavier and Erik. Of the other actors, I'd definitely salute Nicholas Hoult as Frank McCoy, a rare example of a child actor who has seemingly effortlessly made the transition to rather superior adult thesp. Of the rest, Kevin Bacon enjoys being the big nasty, January Jones is well-cast as the remote, glacial crystal chick and Jason Flemyng (one of Vaughn's lucky charms) is quietly amplified as Azazel.

Much has been made of the Cuban Missile Crisis setting, but that's really a backdrop to the involving emotional drama (and it is involving). As to the too-much-too-soon climax, it does rather give you a don't-need-another-film link to X-Men, but I'd much rather see McAvoy and Fassbender at war for a couple of sequel/prequels. Even better, sign up Fassbender as the next Bond now, and get Vaughn to direct; the latter's come on in leaps and bounds since Layer Cake and I really wouldn't have been aware of the immensely tight production time on this if I didn't know about it. Kudos all round.

****1/2

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We live in a twilight world.

Tenet (2020)
(SPOILERS) I’ve endured a fair few confusingly-executed action sequences in movies – more than enough, actually – but I don’t think I’ve previously had the odd experience of being on the edge of my seat during one while simultaneously failing to understand its objectives and how those objectives are being attempted. Which happened a few times during Tenet. If I stroll over to the Wiki page and read the plot synopsis, it is fairly explicable (fairly) but as a first dive into this Christopher Nolan film, I frequently found it, if not impenetrable, then most definitely opaque.

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Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

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Juno and the Paycock (1930)
(SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds. Juno and the Paycock, set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

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Brian Clemens' witty take on village life gone bad is one of the highlights of the fifth season. Inspired by Bad Day at Black Rock, one wonders how much Murdersville's premise of unsettling impulses lurking beneath an idyllic surface were set to influence both Straw Dogs and The Wicker Mana few years later (one could also suggest it premeditates the brand of backwoods horrors soon to be found in American cinema from the likes of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper).

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Moonraker (1979)
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
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My dear, sweet brother Numsie!

The Golden Child (1986)
Post-Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie Murphy could have filmed himself washing the dishes and it would have been a huge hit. Which might not have been a bad idea, since he chose to make this misconceived stinker.

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Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

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