Freaky Friday (2003 Mark Waters)

We thoroughly enjoyed this remake, written by Leslie Dixon and Heather Hach.

Jamie Lee Curtis is absolutely fabulous playing her daughter inside her mother's body - you know I think it might be her best performance. But Elizabeth Olsen is no slouch either as the body swapped daughter.

Oh and yes, removing a teenager's bedroom door is a big deal. Der!

With Mark Harmon, Harold Gould, Chad Michael Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky, Christina Vidal, Ryan Malgarini, haley Hudson, Rosalind Chao, Lucille Soong.

Jamie and Lindsay become good friends while making this and it was Jamie's idea to go to Disney with the idea of a much later sequel - Freakier Friday - which is out now in cinemas. Making Lindsay's first appearance since 2007 (when she went off the rails somewhat).

Photographed by Oliver Wood, edited by Bruce Green.

L'Amica Geniale - Season 4 (2024)

Writers are Elena Ferrante (from her novel), Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paulucci and Severio Costanzo.

We open as Elena (Alba Rohrwacher) is making a hash of her life. She hasn't been with her children for two years yet wants to make a future with them in Napoli with Nico - only she's unaware he hasn't left his wife - it takes Lila (Irene Maiorino) to tell her.

Leslie Dixon double bill: Pay It Forward (2000 Mimi Leder) / Overboard (1987 Garry Marshall)

Leslie Dixon started out as a script reader. Her first published screenplay was Outrageous Fortune, which is a funny film, and she followed it up with Overboard. Refreshingly, she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019 “I don’t know of any executive that has ever looked at the title page of a script, seen that it was written by a woman and thrown it in the ‘I’m not going to read this’ pile. They’ll give it a few pages, and if you catch them in a narrative, they don’t care whether it’s a man or a woman. It’s much tougher for female directors because there’s so much physical stamina involved, and there’s an unspoken prejudice that ‘the little lady might not be up for being general of an army.’ But a writing job, there’s never been so many of them for women. ‘Come on down!’”

As this article tells us, she was starting to feel boxed in to comedy, changed direction, adapted an Edith Wharton novel, was then offered The Thomas Crown Affair and then read Catherine Ryan Hyde's novel 'Pay It Forward' which she 'just had to do'. But check this out: 'Things went awry during filming when Spacey and Hunt lived up to their reputations as extremely difficult people to work with and began demanding script changes and were improvising ridiculously corny lines...Screenwriter Leslie Dixon has been very candid about the awful experience on Pay It Forward, saying of the actor’s script demands, “I began making the script worse. There weren’t wrenching changes; it was more the death by a thousand little razor cuts.” She (and I can't substantiate this) quit the project and the film did badly, thus derailing Mimi Leder's career.

Well. We can of course only comment on what we can see. (And hear. I suggested it as part of a Tom Newman retrospective. But more on that later.) We overall thought it was good. The subject matter is intriguing and Spacey and Haley Joel Osment play their characters well, and the cross cutting of Jay Mohr's investigating journalist works. For me, the main problem with this film is Helen Hunt - I find she gives exactly the same mannered performance in everything she does. But no problems with supporting characters played by Jim Caviezel ("Have a coffee with me. Save my life"), David Ramsey (loved the scene where he gets the asthma girl help), Angie Dickinson (great as alky homeless women) and (briefly) Jon Bon Jovi.

Oliver Stapleton's photography (loved the huge crane shot at the very end), David Rosenbloom's editing and Mimi Leder's direction are all good. And Tom Newman's score is recognisably his and provides great atmosphere. I was thinking some of his scores like this sound like they're easy to do, but when other people try to emulate the style, they will certainly find it's harder than it looks (sounds).

We last watched it almost twenty years ago.

The unmistakable backdrop of The Bradbury Building

And then not really knowing what to watch next, I thought 'Why not stay with Leslie Dixon?' Overboard is a hugely enjoyable film, almost in the old Hollywood forties style - you think of amnesia movies like the William Powell / Myrna Loy I Love You Again (1940).

My favourite scene - and it is a key scene - remains the one where Goldie's being ticked off by the school principal for her unruly children but then realises they have poison oak and turns the tables - because she's acting like their mother. We hadn't seen it since 2018, so it was well overdue. John A Alonzo delivers some nice pretties but he also catches Goldie Hawn in a beautiful light, as I'm sure husband Kurt Russell would agree:

Goldie and Kurt have been married - no they haven't, they've been together - since 1983. Forty two years. Pretty good. I'm gonna toast to them this evening.

By the way, Roddy McDowell steals the film.

Bottle Shock (2008 Randall Miller & coscr, co-ed)

Bottle Shock is a pleasant enough film, telling the remarkable true story of a blind wine tasting competition in France where a Californian wine won. But it has its problems, beginning with this credit: 'Story by Ross Schwartz & Lanette Pabon and Jody Savin & Randy Miller, screenplay by Jody Savin & Randy Miller and Ross Schwarz', usually a sign of a troubled gestation and / or rewrites. This perhaps manifests itself most clearly in setting up a romantic triangle between Chris Pine, Rachael Taylor and Freddy Rodriguez (oh, of course - Six Feet Under!) and not resolving it. You might as well have not introduced it in the first place. And the 'bottle shock' - the effect that flying can have on a wine - isn't in the end relevant. I guess the 'shock' is that the Californian wine won.

With Dennis Farina, Bill Pullman (too annoyingly stubborn), Alan Rickman, Miguel Sandoval, Bradley Whitford.

Napa Valley nicely photographed by Mike Ozier.

Russian Doll - Season 2 (2022 Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler, Leslye Headland)

Three years later (post Covid) something different happens - Nadia gets on a train and travels back to 1982 - and she's become her mum. It turns out the family is Hungarian, not Russian, and there's something about a Nazi gold train that mysteriously disappears after the German surrender. (Natasha's parents are Ashkenazi Jewish, her maternal grandparents were Hungarian Holocaust survivors. So there's an autobiographical element to this.) And Alan travels back to 1962 East Berlin and becomes his mum.

Natasha's writing and directing.

Yeah - this one seemed a bit out there, really. If the lesson is that you have to accept yourself and your past, then it sure goes a long way around the houses to get there.

Black Tuesday (1954 Hugo Fregonese)

Edward G. is a violent and psychotic criminal facing the death sentence; in the next cell Robert Graves faces similar unless he reveals the whereabouts of $200k. Ingeniously they break out, taking hostages, and get away to a remote warehouse. But when Graves goes to pick up the loot, the police close in... And that's when dramatically we literally get boxed in, as there's no way out, and people start dropping. So Sydney Boehm didn't let it play out as well as it might, and Ed has no redeeming features either, so his performance is unredeemingly ugly.

Nice scenes though and starkly photographed in high contrast by Stanley Cortez. 

With Jean Parker, Milburn Stone (priest), Warren Stevens, Sylvia Findley. An independent United Artists release.

The World According to Garp (1982 George Roy Hill)

Steve Tesich adapted John Irving's novel. It was great to be able to tell Steve Rotter all our favourite bits.

Henry Bumstead is the production designer. Tom Fleischman is the re-recording mixer under the supervision of Dick Vorisek

The Late Show (1977 Robert Benton & scr)

Like a forties detective / noir transplanted to the 1970s  with Lily Tomlin representing that decade's slightly out there sensibility. Art Carney's former partner turns up dead - who did it? His surname is Regan - which gives us a link to The Big Sleep. It involves a hold up and murder over stamps, a dodgy dealer in stolen goods and an unfaithful wife. Bill Macy is the assistant detective, Eugene Roche the dealer, Joanna Cassidy his wife and John Considine the cashmere wearing muscle, plus Ruth Nelson and Howard Duff.

It really works, in a large part down to the Carney-Tomlin relationship. A good score from Ken Wannberg helps, as does photography 'Chuck' Rosher (A Wedding, Movie Movie; son of the legendary Charles Rosher) and editing - Lou Lombardo and Peter Appleton. Produced by Robert Altman. Benton co-wrote Bonnie and Clyde and wrote Kramer vs Kramer and Nobody's Fool.

I note on IMDB that the first thing we see is a photo of Martha Vickers, which further reinforces the Big Sleep connection:

An ugly bus

The makeup is by Monty Westmore and the camera operator is John Bailey (he did Days of Heaven too). 

The Four Seasons (1981 Alan Alda & scr)

Well written, as the divorce and remarriage of one of a group of friends begins to unravel the other married couples, told over a year of vacations. Did Woody Allen see this before he made Husbands and Wives? Very possibly.

We were somewhat puzzled after Jack Weston is saved from the freezing water that he's completely dry.

Alan Alda, Sandy Dennis, Rita Moreno, Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Bess Armstrong.

Photographed by Victor J. Kemper (Dog Day Afternoon, Slap Shot), edited by Michael Economou

Brothers (2009 Jim Sheridan)

Another Jim Sheridan film, like In America, distinguished by his handling of children - here Bailee Madison (by no means her debut, and working hard since) and Taylor Geare (Dream House, also directed by Sheridan, and Inception), who are utterly convincing.

Their father Tobey Maguire goes on his third tour of Afghanistan and is captured, believed dead. There he has to kill his compatriot to live. This leaves a nasty taste in the film. Back home, wayward brother Jake Gyllenhaal acts like a surrogate dad. When inevitably damaged Maguire returns home, to Natalie Portman and the kids, things become difficult. 

This is all based on a Susanne Bier film, Brødre, written by her and Anders Thomas Jensen, adapted by David Benioff. In fact it's also reminiscent of her English language Things We Lost in the Fire also.

Classy support from Tom Newman, Frederic Elmes and especially Jay Cassidy who cuts two round-the-table dinner scenes incredibly (he's a great editor of performances).

And with a small but telling appearance from Carey Mulligan. It's a bit of a downer, to be sure, to be sure, but the open, unresolved ending is the right choice.

Russian Doll (2019 Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler)

A darker Groundhog Day with a twist - Natasha Lyonne finds out that there's another one dying and coming back again, Charlie Barnett. Are their fates intertwined? Is there a mental health theme?

Nadia (Lyonne) certainly has a troubled past, a mentally unstable mother (Chloe Sevigny) - oh, Nadia Vulvokov - a Russian doll. Is that anything to do with it? Elizabeth Ashley is her surrogate mother.

Friends Greta Lee and Rebecca Henderson, Jeremy Bobb, Brendan Sexton III (homeless), Yul Vazquez.

Also lusciously photographed - please take note, every other streaming series.

And - rather funny.

Natasha is a very distinctive talent. One of her earliest performances as a child was with Pee Wee Herman, who she loved. Working then solidly (including in Woody's Everyone Says I Love You) into her twenties she became addicted to heroin, which she finally kicked by 2013's revival Orange Is The New Black.

Unforgivable (2025 Jimmy McGovern)

Jimmy McGovern's written a comedy! About miners! He has? Yes! And it's really funny!

What's his back story? A stammerer when young, McGovern used to observe his family, particularly his parents. And he suggests that as a big port, Liverpool has a lot of travellers that make the Scousers an inquisitive bunch. And as to why he goes for these big dark subjects, it's because he knows he can write them - give him a Dr. Who commission and he'd be completely at sea. It's injustice that he writes about - starting from Hillsborough. He left Brookside because they refused to do a Hillsborough story line and 'I went into Cracker with such anger. I always say the thing about Cracker is it's post-Hillsborough, that was the key thing for me. The way contempt for a huge sector of humanity could lead to something like that.' (Source: Paul du Noyer.)

Bobby Schofield is fantastic as a child abuser who must face up to his behaviour with the help of nun Anna Maxwell Martin. His extended family is father David Threlfall and sister Anna Friel, her children the unspeaking Austin Haynes and Finn McParland, and the other abuser is Mark Womack. With Jonas Armstrong and John May (probation officer).

It was good, though. Kept making me think of Bay A.

The actor-turned-director is Julia Ford (Showtrial).

Quicksand (1950 Irving Pichel)

Terrific low budget noir which weaves a fantastic story of increasing desperation, only slightly marred by an upbeat ending - when a downbeat one would have been brilliant - unarmed, he's shot by the police who don't realise he's dropped his weapon, learning as he dies that the man he 'murdered' isn't dead.

It starts out so innocently. Mickey Rooney picks up a girl in a cafe Jeanne Cagney and agrees to take her out on a date. Only problem - he doesn't have any money. Starting from there things get so much worse. You can tell this girl isn't good, particularly when they run into amusement arcade manager, a vile Peter Lorre, and you know something's gone on between them.

Robert Smith's original screenplay is as snaky as the best of them. Apart from the gal who's always loved him (Barbara Bates), everyone turns out to be worse than you thought they could be, from the mechanic's boss to a hugely horrible landlady. It's terrific.

Smith's 99 River Street (1953 Phil Karlson) looks like it might be worth watching. He also co-wrote the Joan Crawford vehicle Sudden Fear. Pichel also made They Won't Believe Me (1947), Tomorrow Is Forever (1945), The Pied Piper (1942, with Monty Woolley).

Photographed by Lionel Linden with a moody score from Louis Gruenberg. A United Artists release.

Long Bright River (2025)

Liz Moore wrote the novel and co-wrote it. A Philadelphia cop  is looking for her long lost addict sister. She annoyingly doesn't tell anyone anything, even after being nearly killed. Meanwhile street girls are being murdered.

Amanda Seyfried, Nicholas Pinnock, Ashleigh Cummings, Callum Vinson (the boy), John Doman ('G-Pop'), Joe Daru (sympathetic cop).

I'm not too sure about the ending. Seyfried immediately mistrusts her partner. Then has to come over all apologetic to her sister, when she's had to sacrifice much in her life for her sake.

It's another of those darkly photographed ones. The river - as probably everyone in America knows - is the Delaware, though the title is referring to a long shining river of dead souls.

The Guardian thought it a retread of Mare of Easttown (itself an unofficial remake of Happy Valley) and a slog (8 x 45), and pointed out that the boy was totally unlike a real boy - in fact it's like one of the pods from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers had got him. But we, er, enjoyed it overall.

Presumed Innocent (1990 Alan J Pakula & co-scr)

Co-written with Frank Pierson, from a novel by lawyer-turned-author Scott Turow.

Is Harrison Ford guilty of the murder of his colleague and former lover Greta Scacchi? His boss Brian Dennehy thinks so (but only for political reasons); luckily cop John Spencer, attorney Raul Julia and wife Bonnie Bedelia believe him. There's a sub-plot, of course, that complicates matters, as does the disappearance of key evidence. 

Despite the involvement of Prince of Darkness Gordon Willis and composer John Williams, no one seems particularly on good form - certainly seen and heard better from those two, and Pakula doesn't give it his normal creepy paranoia thriller feeling.

Still it involved us enough until the end.

Evan Lottman had worked with Pakula before, was originally a documentary editor, first feature was working on montages for Dede Allen on The Hustler. Later went on to The Exorcist.

With Bradley Whitford, Paul Winfield (judge), Joe Grifasi, Tom Mardirosian.

The Eagle and the Hawk (1933 Stuart Walker)

Though Walker's contract allowed him credit, in fact Mitchell Leisen directed it. WW1 at Paramount. Frederic March is an ace pilot who manages to survive whilst his 'observers' (aerial photographers) keep dying. Enter blunt nemesis Cary Grant, who proves himself a bad guy by machine gunning a helpless parachutist. On leave, March meets 'Beautiful Lady' Carole Lombard (out on loan as usual) and they have a five minute fling. (This is not a long film.) Back in the action, March's barely legal (and barely male) new observer falls out of the plane (I laughed, but it wasn't funny really), which burns March to the point where he kills himself.  To protect his reputation, and the morale of the pilots, Grant takes him up in the air and pretends they've been hit to give March a hero's ending.

John Monk Saunders has therefore written some sober stuff.

Jack Oakie provides the comedy relief and Sir Guy Standing (Now and Forever) is the serious commander of the squad. The acting is still in that slightly theatrical mode which - ironically - someone like Lombard knew exactly not to do.

Nicely photographed by Harry Fischbeck, edited by James Smith.

Boomerang! (1947 Elia Kazan)

Don't forget the exclamation mark. Another true story. Under huge political pressure, Dana Andrews has to bring a priest murderer to justice, but he suspects they have the wrong man (Arthur Kennedy - you know, from A Summer Place and Peyton Place). As the credits announce the places and real people involved were used as much as possible.

With Jane Wyatt, Lee J Cobb (Twelve Angry Men, On the Waterfront), Cara Williams (The Defiant Ones), Robert Keith, Ed Begley, Sam Levene.

Alfred Newman wrote the (little) music, Norbert Brodine photographed. 

Sergeant York (1941 Howard Hawks)

It was nominated for everything - Gary Cooper and editor William Holmes won. Despite the four writers credited, Hawks told Peter Bogdanovich that John Huston 'did it all'.

In two and a quarter hours we start out with a rowdy farmer who reaches a Road to Damascus turning point and gets religion - with much delight from preacher / store owner Walter Brennan. And despite somewhat unwillingly joining World War 1, he ends up a hero, capturing a load of Germans - it was all true, though as Hawks adds, it was the tail end of the war and he thought the Germans probably wanted to surrender.

Good cast as well - didn't recognise Joan Leslie, though she was in High Sierra - a typically feisty Hawks heroine. Margaret Wycherly is the mother (also Cagney's mother in White Heat). With George Tobias, Stanley Ridges, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., June Lockhart and Dickie Moore (the siblings), Howard da Silva.

Photographed by Sol Polito and Arthur Edeson (battle scenes). Familiar sounding score from Max Steiner, orchestrated as usual by Hugo Friedhofer. Long but doesn't flag - most entertaining and extraordinarily true.

Casablanca (1943 Michael Curtiz)

Montages by Don Siegel and James Leicester. When you know it was still being written as they were filming, with an undecided ending, you can sort of see it. According to Ingrid, producer Hal Wallis was arguing with everyone and making script changes daily. "No one knew where the picture was going and no one knew how it was going to end, which didn't help any of us with our characterizations... It was ridiculous, just awful. Michael Curtiz didn't know what he was doing because he didn't know the story either. Humphrey Bogart was mad because because he didn't know what was going on, so he retired to his trailer. They were going to shoot two endings..."

And I can't believe that in the end, Capt. Renault calls the fucking Nazi in an attempt to thwart his 'friend' and the couple's escape. 

And it's not even "Play it, Sam." It's just "Play it!"

Owen Marks was no idiot though, if you look at the long shots of Ingrid he leaves in, just thinking...

King's Row (1942 Sam Wood)

All is not well behind the porches and windows of the houses in King's Row. One doctor imprisons his daughter, then kills her and himself. Another doctor performs unnecessary operations, then threatens to have his daughter committed. And, worst of all, Harry Davenport has to endure a ridiculous stuck-on beard from Perc Westmore.

Once again, Hugo Friedhofer has marvellously orchestrated Erich Wolfgang Korngold's brilliant score.

When I told Q that Kaaren Verne was married to Peter Lorre, she said 'He's punching above his weight'. And my sister informs me that it has a score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. How can any film be scored 100%?

Clive Hirschhorn's 'Warner Brothers Story' reports that the studio were concerned it was too dark for a wartime audience and sat on it for a year before releasing it, when it was only moderately successful. I'm not sure sitting on a film for a year is a good idea, also. Though did get Best Picture, Director and Cinematographer award nominations.

The kids are excellent - Scotty Beckett (who actually has more charisma than his grown-up counterpart Robert Cummings), Douglas Croft (just right as young Drake) and Ann Todd. Beckett was already something of a veteran by then - his later life was marred by drink, drugs, failed marriages and suicide attempts. Also special mention to Ann Sheridan's pop and brother, Ernest Cossart and Pat Moriarity.

When they're not hysterically crazy, it's the women who have the best ideas in the film. Love the scene where Sheridan 'lets' Reagan decide on a business venture.

'Dementia Praecox' was an old term which has now been updated to 'schizophrenia'.