Alexander Larman

Next week marks the release of the third J.K. Rowling-scripted Fantastic Beasts film, a series that has overstayed its welcome. This latest iteration is subtitled The Secrets of Dumbledore. As if to wrong-foot those who would smirkingly speculate that one of Dumbledore’s secrets is his sexuality, the film opens with the old wizard and his former lover-turned-nemesis Grindelwald (now played by Mads Mikkelsen, replacing a disgraced Johnny Depp) mourning the end of their love affair, which at least makes the homosexual subtext hinted at in previous films explicit. But that, alas, is about it for any kind of coherence, or interest, or originality.

It may come as a surprise to anyone who has read Mick Herron’s peerless Slough House novels, but Slow Horses, Apple TV’s high-profile adaptation of the first book in the series, is not funny. Instead, it takes Herron’s uproariously comic premise — that a group of misfit British spies, cast out of MI5 for misdemeanors exaggerated and accurate alike, have been reduced to grubbing about in a grim office on the periphery of the City of London — and plays it almost entirely straight. Gone are the laugh-out-loud one-liners and endearingly witty pieces of throwaway badinage. Instead, we have a big-budget spy thriller, polished and scripted to within an inch of its life. It’s a bit like seeing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reinvented as a gritty urban drama.

The news that Bruce Willis is to “step away” — rather than explicitly retire — from acting following a diagnosis of the brain disorder aphasia, is sad for both personal and artistic reasons. Even as a flood of stories emerge about Willis’s erratic and unpredictable behavior on film sets over the past few years, it is a bitter irony that, after a lengthy career as the tough guy hero — in Armageddon, he defeated no less an antagonist than a planet-threatening asteroid — the actor has finally been undone by his own brain. The news also makes the recent receipt of Willis’s Golden Razzie “award” for his performance in Cosmic Sin particularly cruel, not least because he was “honored” with a special category, “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie.

There are few world leaders braver than Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine's president spends his time holed up in his capital, defending his homeland from an onslaught of invading Russian troops. He's addressed every major parliament in the West to plead for weapons and aid. Joe Biden calls him weekly; Emmanuel Macron has started to dress like him. Given his present international standing, it's incredible to think that just six and a half years ago, Zelensky was settling down to watch himself play the president of Ukraine in the premiere of Servant of the People, the sitcom which set the stage for his political career.

It is a depressing statement on the banality of the film industry that the death of actor William Hurt, at the age of seventy-one, was marked by at least one obituary stating, “Avengers star dies.” Hurt, who appeared in several Marvel films as the military character Thaddeus Ross in his latter-day career, did indeed appear in the mega-grossing Avengers films Infinity War and Endgame, and I very much hope that he received some tiny portion of the films’ enormous box office receipts in recognition of his appearance. But to describe Hurt’s life and work as defined by his Marvel roles reminded me of the great Alan Bennett line about his sexuality: “It’s like asking a man who has just crossed the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Evian water.

The life story of Madonna Louise Ciccone is one of the most interesting real-life narratives of any twentieth-century star. From her Michigan origins to her world-conquering career as "Queen of Pop" and her continual, Bowie-esque reinventions, she has lasted decades in a notoriously fickle industry through a combination of chutzpah, publicity savvy and talent, to say nothing of allying herself with some extremely talented collaborators along the way. "It’d make a great film," people have said repeatedly. But what they should have quickly added is, "But Madonna herself must not write and direct it." It is a problem that only people at the highest, Olympian levels of fame face, but nobody will say no to them, no matter how stupid their ideas.

The similarities between acting and politics are obvious. Someone stands on a stage, wearing makeup and an appropriate costume. With suitable gravitas, they read out a speech that someone else has written. If it goes well, there is applause. (If not, there can be booing, or a riot.) If they are good at their job, they can continue at a high-profile level for a considerable time, and arouse great public affection. If they are not, they are either swiftly forgotten or, at worst, become a figure of public loathing, a status that they might never live down for their rest of their lives.

As Alan Bennett’s Prince Regent almost said in The Madness of King George, "Being Batman is not a position. It’s a predicament." Actors including Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Val Kilmer and (vocally) Will Arnett have all had their turn at being the Bat-person over the past few decades, vying with one another to adopt their gruffest and manliest voice as they fly around dressed as a giant nocturnal mammal. It’s not quite Stanislavsky, but the various award-winning thespians have given it their all. Their mothers, and agents, must be proud. And now the youngest of their number, 35-year-old Robert Pattinson, has joined their Bat-ranks.

This week, Christopher Nolan’s new picture Oppenheimer began production. Its star-studded cast features everyone from Cillian Murphy as the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to Emily Blunt (as his wife Katherine) to Matt Damon (Manhattan Project director Leslie Groves) to Robert Downey Jr. (as Oppenheimer’s nemesis Lewis Strauss), with Florence Pugh, Rami Malek and Kenneth Branagh in support. Nolan has been granted a $100 million budget by his new studio, Universal, after angrily leaving Warner Bros. in a row over their decision to deny their 2021 pictures an exclusive theatrical release. The implication is clear: Oppenheimer will be a very big deal indeed. Nolan himself possesses a unique level of influence in contemporary Hollywood.

In 2019, the aspiring filmmaker Morgan Cooper had a clever idea. He took the cheery early Nineties Will Smith comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and reimagined it as a gritty social realist drama, even making a low-budget trailer for his idea. It went viral, and the streaming service Peacock turned it into a series, now titled Bel-Air. The protagonist (still named Will Smith) is again removed to his aunt and uncle’s care after getting involved in gang tensions in West Philadelphia, but the show is largely devoid of jokes. Instead, it tries to offer a serious look at the young African-American experience in the contemporary United States, complete with Instagram influencers as supporting characters. It is not much fun. Television dramas reinvented as comedies are nothing new.

The death of filmmaker Ivan Reitman was announced early on Valentine’s Day, which seems grimly appropriate. Although Reitman was not exclusively a director of romantic comedies, his films all had a cheerfully good-natured quality that generally made them significant box office successes. From his debut proper, the Bill Murray comedy Meatballs, to his final film, the Kevin Costner sports drama Draft Day, his films tended to celebrate the warmer and happier aspects of life. You might even call them Capra-esque, although Frank Capra never made a picture in which a giant, phantasmal marshmallow terrifies New York City. One-nil, Reitman.

Lady Gaga fans, unite in grief. Their idol — who was widely expected to win the Best Actress Oscar this year for her performance as the murderous Patrizia Reggiani in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci — has not even been nominated for the award. In her place are Kristen Stewart, Jessica Chastain and Nicole Kidman — who are recognized for playing real people, respectively Princess Diana, Tammy Faye Messner and Lucille Ball — as well as Oscar stalwarts Olivia Colman and Penélope Cruz. Any of them stands a decent chance of winning now that the Gaga threat has been removed. But this still represents the greatest volte-face in what is otherwise a largely predictable set of Academy Award nominations.