Today, I turn to my column with some dread, having just learned that William Buckley, famed wit and “crypto-Nazi,” died yesterday at his writing desk, presumably scrambling to finish his weekly piece for the National Review. If I manage to avoid such a fate this afternoon, I hope to see you at the Film Series this weekend (where you may congratulate me and the rest of the Film Board for our inadvertently brilliant decision to program the Avant Garde Festival just a few days after a typically leaden, unadventurous Oscar night). Wrapping up our third calendar of the year, we send you into spring break with some studly all-male action, followed by a gender-bending farce even your grandmother probably loved! Have fun in Cabo!
3:10 TO YUMA
USA. Dir: James Mangold. 2007.
FRIDAY, Feb. 29, 7:30 p.m. $4
I haven’t seen this movie, but I trust the masterminds in marketing at Lions Gate, so here is a reconstruction of their trailer: Echoing bass drum. Russell Crowe and his posse encounter distant, menacing snipers. A swiftly-edited shoot out. Crowe, in police custody, hears the charges against him. Christian Bale affects a baritone and attempts an American accent. Text appears intermittently: IN A LAWLESS LAND… A LAND OF HEARTLESS MEN… THE CODE A MAN LIVES BY… IS THE CODE HE COULD DIE BY. (Morse code? The Da Vinci Code?) Crowe asks, “So, boys, where we headed?” Anonymous cowboy answers, “Taking you to the 3:10 to Yuma, day after tomorrow.” Bale protests, “you shouldn’t have told him that.” Crowe responds, “Relax. Now if we get separated Ill know where to meet up.” Crowe escapes. White lady tries to stop Bale from tracking down Crowe. Bale convinces white lady that he’s a brave fool committed to “justice.” FROM THE DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER OF WALK THE LINE. Cinematographic money shots. The posse returns. Wait, Crowe and Bale are boys now? I totally didn’t see that coming! ‘Splosions! Drugs! Faster drumbeats joined by badass guitar. Epic super-titles: COMING SOON TO THE WESLEYAN FILM SERIES.
I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE
USA. Dir: Howard Hawks. 1949.
SATURDAY, March 1, 7:30 p.m. Free!
The title of this Howard Hawks gem says it all: over in Europe, Cary Grant—who, oddly, plays a French man—marries Ann Sheridan, a female U.S. army officer. It’s Shakespeare, basically. Grant and Sheridan exchange insults, then fall in love; misunderstandings and slapstick follow, culminating in some cross-dressing. Cross-dressing was really funny in 1949. So funny that a man hiding his joystick in a cockpit made of lady-clothes could serve as the climax of a comedy, more than merely its premise. The image of Cary Grant in a nurse’s uniform is still moderately humorous, but Wesleyan students might be more impressed by Sheridan’s redoubtable she-lieutenant, a strong example of the “Hawksian Woman.” In the words of self-fashioned socialite Slim Keith—who was married to Hawks, and served as the model for many of his female characters—a Hawksian Woman: “could be chic, she could be sexy, but you’d better believe she could also make a ham and hoe a row of beans.” Come see Sheridan ham and hoe, while Grant scowls and scours, in this essential, but under-seen, classic.
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