--from charming, to intense, to intensely uncharming; the men in these films:
Ah! Wilderness! (1935) Mickey Rooney, Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Berry, Aline MacMahon, Spring Byington. Based on a famous Eugene O'Neil play this is a charming coming of age story of a graduation, mixups of young love, drinking and the wages of sin. All done by a great cast. The family interaction around the dining table is charming, in this day and age, when no one is expected to be at the table at 5 p.m. every evening. Although Mickey is billed seventh, he was soon to become Andy Hardy and be the highest paid actor in Hollywood. This was a good springboard of family values to begin with. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026046/
State Of Play (2009) Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren. Playing on HBO now and I have watched it a couple of times. Interesting story of a Congressman caught in a web by a powerful corporation that is like an octopus with tentacles in everything. Crowe is investigative reporter McCaffrey and McAdams is the cute rookie who writes for the papers web site. Mirren as the editor of the paper assigns them to work together on this story, which promises to be big, especially when there is a murder that involves the powerful in Washington D.C. My kind of story, full of intrigue, characters you like but are just a bit sleazy, and a tad of menace to keep all on their toes. 8/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473705/
All About Steve (2009) Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Thomas Haden Church. What was so bad? Sandra was cute/silly/hyper. Story of a smart, strange woman who creates cross-word puzzles for the paper she works for, but has no social skills. Her folks fix her up on a blind date with a cameraman for a TV station, Bradley Cooper, as the Steve of the title. He is a complete ass, but naturally he is so wonderful in his own eyes, he ditches Mary asap. After she writes her next puzzle "all about Steve' she is fired and decides to go on a road trip after Steve. Her adventures and the crazy situations the writers have her in, made me chuckle and smile. Bullock is just a person I want to spend time with. Even though Mary would drive me mad, Cooper is just awful, looks and personality. Thought so in The Hangover where he was mean and despicable to his so-called friends. For a leading man, he is just charmless. Church is always worth watching, but the writers failed him and Bullock in this script. But I still enjoyed it more than a lot of the stuff coming from lala land. 7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0881891/
to be con't----
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