What’s Christmas but a time for finding yourself a year older and not a day richer? There’s nothing merry in that.

Scrooge

(1970)

(SPOILERS) The most charitable thing one can say about Scrooge the musical is that it was bound to happen at some point. It isn’t even necessarily a bad idea. It could work. Indeed, it did work two decades later when the Muppets tried it. Which rather highlights the big problem with this picture; it’s no fun.

As taglines go, “What the dickens have they done to Scrooge?” is laying yourself open for invective, but the film was an easy sell to awards ceremonies, inclined as a matter of course towards sumptuous musicals. It was nominated for a BAFTA, gathered a handful of Golden Globes (I know, as meaningless as it gets, thus Albert Finney took a Best Actor award) and four Oscar noms (tellingly, none were in major categories). It’s always fun to disagree with Pauline Kael’s critiques, but she had Scrooge thoroughly banged to rights when she hauled it over the coals. She accused it of the crime of playing it tediously safe; “If you make it tastefully dull, you stand a very good chance of coming out with a picture that will be acclaimed a screen classic”.

I’m not sure that has happened, but its perennial small screen presence reserves it just that kind of festive status. The fact that IMDB (a mystifying 7.5 average) seems to rate it, and that somehow – presumably because the big-screen-musical-to-stage reversal is now so commonplace – it’s oft revived for touring (Anthony Newley and Tommy Steele both took the title role), shouldn’t blur its limited appeal. “Will children enjoy it? I doubt whether they will, much” Kael answered her own question. Scrooge is the sort of Christmas movie no one sits down to watch with their undivided. They have it on in the background, so it assumes the status of slightly less static festive decor. Only slightly, though.

Albert Finney had done relatively little cinema following his (rightly) acclaimed international breakout in Tom Jones, and he initially turned the Ebenezer role down (others offered the part included Richard Harris and Rex Harrison, both of whom would have been much better suited). As with Murder on the Orient Express, but much less fun – Finney doesn’t quite go ham-side up, but rather, as Kael commented “plays it glumly and realistically, a terrible mistake” – this finds the actor donning layers of makeup to accomplish an “astonishing” physical transformation. A young 33-year-old becomes an old man! But Finney’s choices weren’t in the aid of dramatic or mesmerising results, as per Brando’s Vito Corleone a couple of years later. Instead, they smacked of classic theatrical vanity, literally disguising oneself with one’s art; his performance suggests Alfred Steptoe sucking a lemon while encountering the first stages of a stroke. Even Bill Oddie did a more convincing old man – old Bill – in The Goodies episode The End. And he wasn’t trying.

The less-than-compelling casting extends to his strangely under-amped support. Alec Guinness (who really didn’t enjoy the experience, understandably, as the flying harness gave him a double hernia) is okay, but that’s about the worst thing you can say about one of his performances. Kenneth More barely registers as the Ghost of Christmas Present, but his fake beard partly makes up for it. Nephew Fred is chipper, but that’s about it (Michael Medwin, 13 years older than Finney and in desperate need of rejuvenating cream to convince as a passably flourishing younger man). Only David Collings manages to breathe life into the material, making a fine, moving fist of Bob Cratchit. But it isn’t enough. As for when Tiny Tim starts singing… Gawd help us, every one.

Scrooge is possessed of that unerring competence Hollywood could still apply to the musical at that time, even though they were entering a terminal decline, rubbing the wrong way against the new generation of wunderkinds and evolving tastes. As such, alarm bells should triggered at Fox when they secured the services of Leslie Bricusse to pen the screenplay and lyrics – Kael again, on the writer: “the name of a form of instantly disposable music; your mind flushes it away while you’re hearing it” – ouch, but true) – since he’d written Fox’s last song and dance bomb, Dr Doolittle (later, much later, he’d pen Michael Winner masterpiece Bullseye!)

Ronald Neame directs as statically and uninterestedly as only a certain strain of transatlantically-inclined British directors of the time were capable, rarely showing even a glimmer of style but somehow continually getting re-employed (Michael Anderson was another). He’d go on to make The Poseidon Adventure and Meteor, before it dawned on studios that giving him lots of cash might not yield the most compelling results (to be fair, The Poseidon Adventure made a lot of money, and as ‘70s disaster movies go, it’s one of the least offensive). When Ebenezer descends into hell, you aren’t struck by the dreadful, oppressive atmosphere so much as the polystyrene rocks.

Later, for a wrap up, Scrooge even dons a Santa outfit (slightly anachronistic for a story set in 1860, but then it’s only a musical, right). It shouldn’t need saying, but if you’re angling for a great Scrooge, where there’s palpable uplift when Ebenezer turns over that new leaf, look no further than Alistair Sim’s performance in the 1951 film. You’ll be as merry as a schoolboy. As giddy as a drunken man. And the dancing will actually raise a smile.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron ’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison. Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War , Infinity Wars I & II , Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok . It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions ( Iron Man II ), but there are points in Age of Ultron whe

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993) (SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

Monte Carlo or Bust aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969) (SPOILERS) Ken Annakin’s semi-sequel to Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines tends to be rather maligned, usually compared negatively to its more famous predecessor. Which makes me rather wonder if those expressing said opinion have ever taken the time to scrutinise them side by side. Or watch them back to back (which would be more sensible). Because Monte Carlo or Bust is by far the superior movie. Indeed, for all its imperfections and foibles (not least a performance from Tony Curtis requiring a taste for comic ham), I adore it. It’s probably the best wacky race movie there is, simply because each set of competitors, shamelessly exemplifying a different national stereotype (albeit there are two pairs of Brits, and a damsel in distress), are vibrant and cartoonish in the best sense. Albeit, it has to be admitted that, as far as said stereotypes go, Annakin’s home side win

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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