A perfectly admirable aspiration, unless you plan to achieve it by simply stealing everything you can, and The Yards can hardly stagger under the weight of its sack of loot.It has a terrific subject, an unimprovable cast and a trio of trustworthy, even hip, producers And no life. Mark Wahlberg (so deadened here, his features flattened to a mask, his eyes like two lonely raisins) returns home to Queens, New York after a taking-the-rap stretch in prison He finds that his Aunt (Faye Dunaway) has a new husband. Namely James Caan (presented to us as if he were one of The Greats, which he’s not), who runs a subway company So, a great chance for Wahlberg to go straight. Trouble is, Caan and Wahlberg’s best friend (Joaquin Phoenix) are bent So, an old story then. But the film’s desire to add an epic patina by solemnly plagiarising Gordon Willis (director of photography on all The Godfathers) is just the usual larcenous bid for significance.

With its self-pity, its anthems for doomed youth, its faux-salient lamentations and studied sentimentality, The Yards actually resembles Rebel Without a Cause. It’s very 1950s, promoting the great 1950s lie that man is born innocent and it’s the world that corrupts him. Now, how could any student of Michael Corleone buy that?Harry, He’s Here to Help (cert 15, 117 mins) is an excellent French thriller (of sorts, it’s also richly comic, and peculiar) that follows the supposedly convivial Harry (Sergi Lopez) as he makes himself indispensable over the course of the summer holiday of a friend and his young family. Writer-director Dominik Moll doles out careful dialogue, but the whole film has a slightly demented edge. Our laughter is deep and lasting, as are our shivers.Siam Sunset (cert 15, 91 mins), a crackpot Australian comedy, stars Linus Roache, grieving the death of his wife and mixing paints as therapy. Disney’s the Kid (cert U, 100 mins) has Bruce Willis finding his inner child (literally) in the form of a fat boy called Rusty Grim.. The management of Britain’s leading arts institutions is in “a dreadful mess”, according to a senior museum director.

The management of Britain’s leading arts institutions is in “a dreadful mess”, according to a senior museum director.
In a withering attack on his colleagues in the arts world, the new director of the National Maritime Museum, Roy Clare, has told the Independent on Sunday that the arts must now call in more businessmen and women to show them how to run their venues.He said that “the museum world is in a dreadful mess” and that many leading arts institutions fail to train their staff and are suffering a crisis in leadership.The attack by Mr Clare shows the traditional solidarity in the arts being broken. It used to be unknown for subsidised institutions to condemn each other. But the devastating comments by Mr Clare follow similar complaints earlier this month by Graham Sheffield, artistic director of the Barbican, who said he was embarrassed by the lack of accountability and ill-conceived decisions of leading arts institutions.Their two-pronged attack radically alters the focus of debate in the arts world, which for years has centred on lack of funding. Now, after a few years of relative generosity by the Labour government, that is no longer the central issue. The focus of attention is the style of management and the quality being provided for the public, be it from museums, theatres or opera houses.With the attacks now coming from within, the pressure will be on the notoriously non-interventionist Culture Secretary Chris Smith to take a closer interest in the performance of national institutions.Speaking to the IoS last week, Roy Clare, who left a senior job with Nato to head the National Maritime Museum two months ago, said: “The museum sector put itself in that mess by failing to manage over a long period It doesn’t train its people.

It has got to get its world in gear, otherwise it will be ’suffering’ – if that is the word – from implants who are parachuted in to run their business.”With a number of key organisations facing real or alleged crises in management, including the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre and Glyndebourne, Mr Clare said recent arts appointments were already supporting his contention. Suzanna Taverne was director of strategy at the Pearson media group before she was appointed managing director at the British Museum last year. And Dr Lindsay Sharp won his current job as director of the Science Museum after running the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.Mr Clare defeated 38 other applicants for his post. “I didn’t arrive here with some silver spoon, but I was able to offer a blend of background experience,” he said. With a naval career spanning 30 years including strategic planning at the Ministry of Defence and Nato headquarters and captaining the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, Mr Clare has a strong maritime background for his new job. He feels his previous career prepared him to take control of one of Britain’s most important museums – yet he is no curator.”I alternated between driving ships most of my life, which is about people, and strategic planning, which was finance, at the MoD. The translation [to the museum] has been easy – it’s also about dealing with people and dealing with money.