Ace in the Hole - MatthewHunt

My Childhood
(Bill Douglas, 1972)
This harsh evocation of childhood in the 1940s Scottish mining village of Newcraighall was
the first part of a memorable trilogy by Douglas, the others being My Ain Folk and My Way
Home. It's only 45 minutes long, but with an utterly convincing cast of characters and a
defiant air of compassion to soothe the bleak, monochrome photography, it packs a
considerable punch.
My Darling Clementine
(John Ford, 1946)
Not the most accurate, but certainly the most poetic screen account of the gunfight at the OK
Corral. Ford turns the historic showdown into an allegory of the civilising of the west, of how
the wilderness is turned into a garden. Fine, measured, performances from Henry Fonda as
Earp and Victor Mature as Doc Holliday.
My Dinner With Andre
(Louis Malle, 1981)
Over a lavish dinner, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory - but mostly Gregory - talk about life,
spirituality, avant-garde theatre in Poland, and other capacious topics. Full of epiphanies, the
movie itself almost seems like a dare: can you make a movie out of nothing but two people
talking?
My Fair Lady
(George Cukor, 1964)
Deeply romantic musical, with Audrey Hepburn as the cockney flower girl striving to be a
proper-speakin' lady, and Rex Harrison as the arrogant linguist who makes a project of her.
Hepburn is wonderful as ever, despite famously lacking vocal talent - her songs were dubbed
by Marni Nixon.
My Left Foot
(Jim Sheridan, 1989)
Daniel Day-Lewis raised the bar for method actors by learning to paint with his foot in this
inspiration story of Christy Brown, a writer born with cerebral palsy in the slums of old Dublin.
Refusing to canonize the irascible Christy, Day-Lewis inhabits both his crippled body and
irrepressible mindset, fashioning a truly inspirational performance.
My Life as a Dog
(Lasse Hallstrom, 1985)
Hallstrom made his name with earnest homages to Ingmar Bergman in disguised as Abba
videos. By 1985 he was ready to move to this sweet coming-of-age movie, set in the rural
Sweden of the 1950s. Hallstrom brings the best out of a young cast and perfectly captures the
confusions and disappointments of early adolescence.
My Night With Maud
(Eric Rohmer, 1969)
A devout Catholic (Jean Louis Trintignant) falls for a pretty blonde stranger during mass, but
somehow ends up spending the night in an interminable philosophical discussion with her.
Rohmer's pithy all-talk-no-action moral tale is a formalist but seductive meditation on Pascal
and mysteries of the heart.
My Summer of Love
(Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004)
Working-class teenager Mona (Natalie Press) forms an intense relationship with boarding
school sophisticate Tamsin (Emily Blunt) in an engrossing psychological drama. As the
summer progresses, swooning obsession gives way to a building sense of unease.
Pawlikowski gets terrific performances from the young cast.