Movies

The current cinema, switcheroo edition

By June 3, 2011No Comments

02

In which I wind up enjoy­ing the crass super­hero fran­chise pic­ture a good deal more than the, erm, quirky struggles-of-a-white-male adolescent-in-Wales item. I won­der if I’m not devel­op­ing a weird Michael Fassbender thing (that’s him above right, with James McAvoy, enact­ing what I’m fairly cer­tain is NOT a Seventh Seal homage). We may have to dis­cuss this at more length when Haywire comes out. Or not. Anyway, my reviews of X Men: First Class and Submarine for MSN Movies are here and here. Have a delight­fully coun­ter­in­tu­it­ive week­end, all. 

You May Also Like

Movie assessmentMovies The Zombie "Halloween"s, or, taking the Nathan Lee challenge

The Zombie "Halloween"s, or, taking the Nathan Lee challenge

The now semi-retired film critic Nathan Lee, when writing at his most unfettered, is one…
Glenn Kenny
Glenn KennyFebruary 6, 2010
DVDGreat ArtMovies Think less "avant garde" and more "treasures"...

Think less "avant garde" and more "treasures"...

Above, a typically arresting image from George Kuchar's hilarious and strangely humane 1977 I, An…
Glenn Kenny
Glenn KennyMarch 9, 2009
DirectorsMovies The Cinema of Contingency: Notes on Swanberg

The Cinema of Contingency: Notes on Swanberg

Joe Swanberg as Tim in LOL, Swanberg, Bewersdorf, Wells, 2006I: Apologia Why Swanberg? Why now?…
Glenn Kenny
Glenn KennyFebruary 5, 2009

No Comments

  • Bart Versteirt says:
    June 3, 2011 at 8:40 am

    Glenn, what ever happened to your delight­ful ‘Tree of Life’ review? I can­’t seem to access it on the MSN site…
    OT: I loathed “Kick-Ass”, but this one was actu­ally very nice.

  • James Keepnews says:
    June 3, 2011 at 10:51 am

    Ach, poor Kevin Bacon – nev­er seems to get the roles he deserves and when he does, as in MYSTIC RIVER, he’s brayed into a sto­ic corner by his Oscar-winning co-stars. But it’s Kev who should’ve been nom­in­ated for that film, and should’ve won. Still, I’d rather hoped he’d take his Nazi some­place oth­er than “smirky” here.
    Additionally, and para­phras­ing John Zorn, fuck­ing Michael Fassbender rules.

  • D Cairns says:
    June 3, 2011 at 1:18 pm

    “Late great Ken Adam”? Though, as far as I can tell, no longer work­ing, the design­er of Barry Lyndon, Dr Strangelove and a score of Bond movies is still very much alive.

  • Charlie R says:
    June 3, 2011 at 6:38 pm

    Let’s dis­cuss the weird Michael Fassbender thing. I remem­ber see­ing him two sum­mers ago in Inglorious Basterds and find­ing him mag­net­ic. After catch­ing up with Fish Tank and Hunger, I was hooked. I don’t par­tic­u­larly like X‑Men, but his pres­ence assured that I would be see­ing this film.

  • Kevyn Knox says:
    June 4, 2011 at 9:51 am

    Nothing wrong with hav­ing a Michael Fassbender thing (I have it too). Hunger, Basterds, Fish Tank, even the rather lackluster Jane Eyre. Now X‑Men and soon films by Soderbergh, Cronenberg, Ridley Scott & Danny Boyle. He is just on the verge of much deserved stardom.
    Yes, fuck­ing Michael Fassbender rules – even if some­times he does­n’t know how to ges­ture for the num­ber three.

  • Dan Coyle says:
    June 4, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    Of everything Inglorious Basterds, the one thing that sticks out the most is “If I’m going out, I’d rather go out speak­ing the King’s.”

  • christian says:
    June 4, 2011 at 4:29 pm

    Absolutely Dan. It’s a great brief movie star moment.

  • bill says:
    June 4, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    Dan, that’s prob­ably my single favor­ite moment in the whole film, and it’s a film I love pretty much unreservedly.

  • Jer says:
    June 4, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    Kevyn, he’ll also be in the next Jarmusch, pre­sum­ing everything goes as planned.

  • Kevyn Knox says:
    June 5, 2011 at 12:22 am

    That is my favour­ite moment as well.

  • Mark Slutsky says:
    June 5, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    Mine too haha!

  • Brandon says:
    June 6, 2011 at 8:29 pm

    Fassbender made me wish they would have stuck to the ori­gin­al “X‑Men Origins: Magneto” plan. I would have paid full price to see that one.
    The whole reboot of the Xavier School stuff was really unneeded, espe­cially with such com­par­at­ively lackluster sup­port­ing characterizations…

  • LondonLee says:
    June 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm

    Damn, I was look­ing for­ward to Submarine too, but this put me right off:
    “I mean, there’s really no oth­er reas­on for Oliver to be listen­ing to old Serge Gainsbourg records, on vinyl yet.”
    There’s a nov­el by David “Cloud Atlas” Mitchell called “Black Swan Green” about young teen­age boy in England in the 1980s and I just could­n’t take it ser­i­ously after he had the kid wax lyr­ic­al about Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain” which came out a dec­ade before the book was set – it just read like hip name-dropping by the author instead of some­thing an actu­al 13yo boy would be listen­ing to.