The Limits of Control (2009 Jim Jarmusch & scr)

Jim's gone so far out with this one I didn't really get it. Isaach de Bankolé plays another variation of Le Samourai - accompanied by a nude girl (Paz de la Huerta) - as he traverses Spain collecting codes in matchboxes from eccentrics like Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael Garcia Bernal and flamenco playing types. Then he assassinates Bill Murray (with a guitar string)...

Very slow film has one or two amusing moments, some interesting visuals (such as Juan Gris's cubist violin), a great flamenco sequence, a truly abrupt ending and some interesting cameos, but altogether doesn't seem to add up to anything - it's less than the sum of its parts, a sort of reverse cubist abstraction.

It's very formalist in the way it's done, and shot by the great Christopher Doyle.

I like the moment Tilda talks about great old movies, even the ones where people just sit there without talking - and then do just that.

This New York Times extract might be helpful:

'To the extent that “The Limits of Control” is a puzzle, Mr. Jarmusch said he drew inspiration from Jacques Rivette’s films, where the pleasure often lies in disorientation in the accumulation of cryptic clues and resonances rather than in solutions. Accordingly, he was more eager to hear interpretations of the film than to offer his own.

“It’s not my job to know what it means,” he said, adding that the Juan Gris painting seen at one point could be taken as a hint to the movie’s Cubist nature. “It’s interpretable in different ways, and they’re all valid.” '

By the way the 'beautiful' Finnish film referenced is Aki Kaurismäki's La Vie de Bohème (1992).

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942 William Keighley)

After three disappointments in a row I had to insist we watched something gold-plated.

It's a joy.

Ted 2 (2015 Seth MacFarlane & co-scr)

There's a moment near the beginning at the wedding, where we see a man on coke skipping madly, then punching an onlooker and diving through a (closed) window - it's straight out of Family Guy. Disappointingly it's the only such gag in a film which is really rather conventional and a bit flat.

With Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, Seth's voice, Giovanni Ribisi, Morgan Freeman, John Slattery and (in the best cameo) Liam Neeson.

Everything Must Go (2010 Dan Rush)

Rush has adapted Raymond Carver's short story "Why Don't You Dance". Though billed as a comedy, it isn't.

Drunk Colin Farrell lives on his lawn with personal possessions, befriending neighbour Rebecca Hall and kid Christopher C.J. Wallace.

Dragonwyck (1946 Joseph Mankiewicz)

JM also adapted Anya Seton's novel to tell tale of God-fearing country girl Gene Tierney who's swept up in world of rich land-owner Vincent Price; also involved are Walter Huston, Glenn Langan, Spring Byington, Jessica Tandy and Harry Morgan.

It's shot by Arthur Miller and scored by Alfred Newman for 20th Century Fox.

It's a bit dull.

Body Double (1984 Brian de Palma and co-scr)

You can tell Mr de Palma loves Hitchcock. There's fun to be had in identifying the references - film essentially mixes Rear Window with Vertigo, throws in a house from NBNW and a murder from Dial M for Murder, and in the way Griffith only (seems) to be in it at the end is also a reverse Psycho - plus that Melanie is Tippi Hedren's daughter then can't help but invoke Marnie and The Birds.

He copies the master quite well (somehow it isn't as good no matter how slavishly copied, e.g. the scenes where Craig Wasson is following Deborah Shelton in the mall). De Palma is also quite prurient really. Was that Griffiths doing the nude scenes?

Enjoyable nonsense, rather splendidly shot by Stephen Burum (several other de Palmas including Carlito's Way, plus Rumble Fish, The Outsiders and the Escape Artist). There's some great focus pulling, though not credited - the operator is Doug Ryan. Music by Pino Donaggio. Edited by Jerry Greenberg (Apocalypse Now) and Bill Pankow.

Absolutely Anything (2015 Terry Jones & co-scr)

...with Gavin Scott. Amiable comedy in which Simon Pegg gains ultimate powers from intergalactic beings called Sharon etc., voiced by Pythons. He tries to engage Kate Beckinsale, is a friend of Sanjeev Bhaskar, and has a dog voiced by Robin Williams. Only the Rob Riggle character seems way overdone. With Eddie Izzard, Joanna Lumley, Robert Bathurst, Emma Pierson (who's in everything) and Meera Syal.

Cameraman Peter Hannan also shot the Meaning of Life and Insignificance.

Peter and Wendy (2015 Diarmuid Lawrence)

We loved the cleverness of this production, written by Adrian Hodges (My Week with Marilyn), which partially sets the Peter Pan story in Great Ormond Street hospital, to which JM Barrie contributed all profits from the book (and thus why there is a real PP statue outside). Barrie's brother died - 'Peter Pan' is quite a weird story if you think about it.

Stanley Tucci is great in double role of the surgeon and Captain Hook (in best pantomime baddie tradition). Then we have Hazel Doupe, Laura Fraser, Paloma Faith, Zak Sutcliffe and various other people who's parts are doubled, plus The Killing's Bjarne Henriksen.

Q thought newcomer composer Maurizio Malagnini was one to watch (hear) and you could hear rather Italian opera overtones in some of the action scenes.

Made me think of AMOLAD's heavenly judge also being the surgeon; and the Princess Bride.

Mr Morgan's Last Love (2013 Sandra Nettelbeck & scr)

We wish Sir Michael would stop doing American accents - it was that Oscar win for Cider House Rules that did it. He could just have easily been an Englishman in Paris with an American son (Justin Kirk; the daughter character - played by Gillian Anderson - is redundant) pining for his lost wife Jane Alexander, falling in friendship with Clémence Poésy, who teaches cha-cha.

Film seems to run a long time, though isn't that long. Draws to a satisfying enough conclusion until the Caine character kills himself - we were incensed by both character (selfish bastard) and writer, so marked it down accordingly. You'll have to do better then that, Ms Nettelbeck. Françoise Dorner wrote the source novel.

It was a nice apartment in St Germain - apart from that we only recognised Parc Monceau.

Flesh and Fantasy (1943 Julien Duvivier)

Director of the well-known Pépé le Moko and Tales of Manhattan, also a multi-story film with some of the same cast.

In the most haunting story (Ellis St Joseph story) Betty Field is reunited with Robert Cummings from Kings Row and through the use of a mask becomes beautiful again.

Thomas Mitchell then is a clairvoyant who upsets Edward G by telling him he's going to murder someone... (Source:  Oscar Wilde). Then Charles Boyer's high-wire act goes through a bad patch on meeting his dream subject Barbara Stanwyck, who's escaping the law for something she did bad in another film, possibly The Lady Eve. (Charles Winninger is the circus manager.)

Robert Benchley and David Hoffman frame the stories which are shot by Stanley Cortez and (with less distinction) Paul Ivano, to Alexander Tansman's score.

Duvivier displays a nice sweep. Thought-provoking stories are acted by interesting cast.

Red Dog (2011 Kriv Stenders)

Danile Taplitz has adapted Louis de Bernière's brilliant short novel, which features Josh Lucas, Rachel Taylor, Noah Taylor, Rohan Nichol (the suicide) Luke Ford (the driver), John Batchelor (knitter) and Koko as the eponymous dog.

Well captures the gritty circumstances of life in north west Australia, has a slightly too conventionally Hollywood ending, but easily makes it onto our Top 10 dog films list.

A Canterbury Tale (1944 Powell & Pressburger)

"There was no question of going to Hollywood to cast the part, because half of Hollywood was already in uniform over here. The Ministry of information advised us that there was a superior production by the USO of Thorton Wilder's 'Our Town' going around the camps, A serving soldier, Sergeant John Sweet, was playing the part of the storekeeper who also acts as commentator throughout the play.. John Sweet was homely, honest and a natural actor, with a very good speaking voice... The Army agreed to lend us [him] for four months to make the film, after which he would return to his unit."
('A Life in Movies' by Michael Powell.)

Culture clashes. Clouds

It's a dead centre arrow, but the film was a flop.

Dazed and Confused (1993 Richard Linklater & scr)

Linklater did Boyhood.

Tougher than you might think, last day of term in summer 1976 is craziness. And has a very realistic feel to it all.

Jason London, Wiley Wiggins (the kid), Rory Cochrane (the stoner), Sasha Jenson (the footballer), Michelle Burke (the sister), Adam Goldberg (Two Days in Paris), Anthony Rapp (blonde nerd), Matthew McConaughey, Marissa Ribisi (red), Cole Hauser, Milla Jovovich, Joey Lauren Adams, someone called Ben Affleck.

Good.

Inside Out (2015 Pete Docter, with Ronnie Del Carmen)

What a fabulous idea - the story was by Pete and Ronnie, the screenplay by Pete, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley, and voices Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation, playing Joy) and Bill Hader (Fear) provided additional dialogue. Could almost be used in an educational way - not just for kids, either.

There's even a Chinatown reference!

Loved the moment where we suddenly see in to the parents' brains - leading to much fun in outtakes (particularly the one featuring cats).

The animation is now so good you hardly notice it any more. Then you're looking at hair or a street scene and you suddenly think - Christ! it's animated. The way mother (Diane Lane) moves is particularly realistic. Phyllis Smith (the US The Office) is Sadness, Kyle Maclachlan is Dad, Richard Kind (Curb, A Serious Man) is Bing Bong.

Deep.

The Birdcage (1996 Mike Nichols)

Hardly disguising its theatrical origins ("La Cage aux Folles" by Jean Poiret, itself filmed in France), Elaine May's adaptation works a treat, particularly providing a great role for Nathan Lane who is hilarious (I love his screams); Robin Williams, though subdued, is also good, as are all cast (sign of being well directed too) which features Gene Hackman, Diane Weist, Hank Azaria; and Dan Futterman and Calista Flockhart as the rather colourless couple.

We recognise Lane as 'Pepper' in Modern Family and from The Good Wife but he seems mainly to have been on TV.

South Beach setting is quite well exploited (looks like a major party destination still).There's also some sensational lighting from Emmanuel Lubezki, just the kind of cameraman you want to artfully cover long takes. From an interview with Chivo:

What was your experience like on “The Birdcage” with Mike Nichols? That opening shot was, I would imagine, great practice for something like “Birdman.”

It was incredible. It was one of the highlights of my life, and [Mike Nichols] was a wonderful human being. I miss him dearly. What he taught me had more to do with love for the craft and the actors. That first shot I think was his idea, and at the time it sounded completely insane. But little by little we did storyboards, and I think it was with the help of ILM that we did previz of the different shots. But you know it was very tricky because the digital technology was not the same as now. It's three or four shots stitched together, and the movements were very complicated — the speed had to be the same from one shot to the other, and the lighting had to match. It was very tricky.
And then, I was very upset because they put the credits on top of it! But that's an interesting thing — it hurt my ego, and the ego of the technicians. But if you think about it, a great director does things like that. A great director will destroy his own shot, no matter its difficulty, if it’s messing up the tempo of the movie. Otherwise it has no reason to exist.

Interview from 'The Playlist'.

The National Enquirer photographer is Clooney's co-producer Grant Heslov.

Arthur and Mike (2012 Dante Ariola)

Somewhat strange turn of events as couple start breaking into people's houses and having sex in them, that couple being Colin Firth and Emily Blunt, equipped with great accents.

Ems is great as wild child.

I liked the inconclusive ending. I liked it all in fact, it was quite different, and told in a leisurely way by Becky Johnston, Good stuff going on too between son Lucas Hedges and Anne Heche.

Carry On Camping (1969 Gerald Thomas)

ITV3 decided to run Carry On films all day long. What a good idea.. Thus we had bits of Loving, Convenience, Jack and Screaming popping up sporadically.

Thoughts on Carry On Camping:

It was cold. You can see the breath coming from the actors. Apart from one brave girl in blue, the 'hippies' are all fully clothed.

Barbara Windsor as a school girl? C'mon.

Bernard Bresslaw was smarter than he played. Dilys Laye rather sweet as his girlfriend.

When Charlie Hawtrey encounters girl with cow he looks to the camera as though saying to the audience, 'What an old joke'.

When skirts were at their shortest (though, see Loving).  Poor Joan, having to endure awful clothes.

Sid in disguise looks like Alan Whicker.

Betty Marsden is the awfully laughing Mrs Potter - amusing scenes where she isn't listening to the outrageous lies of husband Terry Scott.

Trisha Noble, Valerie Leon.

Sure I remember some story about Kenneth Williams almost appearing alongside Brando on Julius Caesar but when googling this all I get is fucking Carry On quotes.

That's it, get rid of the hippies!

The Queen (2006 Stephen Frears)

Peter Morgan somehow pulls off the trick of making both the Queen and Tony Blair likeable characters, superbly acted by Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen.

Real archive footage skilfully incorporated. The deer she shoos away is beautiful indeed.

With James Cromwell (Philip), Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Sylvia Syms, Helen McCrory (Cherie), Mark Bazeley (Alistair Campbell).

Music by Alexandre Desplat.

Bron / Broen / The Bridge III (2015)

We feel for Saga (the excellent Sofia Helin), who's put through all sorts of mills in another fairly bonkers tale. New accomplice is Thure Lindhardt.

Lethal Weapon

Director's cut looks slightly squeezed to me - or is it me? I'm certainly not squeezed - rather, broadened.

My favourite line is something like "When I was 19 I took out a guy in Laos at 1000 yards in high wind. Only eight or ten people in the world could have done that." Following that it's then a little disappointing when he doesn't perform like the self-proclaimed crack shot he is, e.g. following the assassination by helicopter.

In an interesting footnote Wikipedia informs us that 'The science of long-range sniping came to fruition in the Vietnam War. Carlos Hathcock held the record from 1967 to 2002 at 2,286 m (2,500 yards).

Fargo (2015, Season 2)

Once again written by Noah Fawley, this time setting us in 1979, featuring such diverse elements as Red Indians, Ronald Reagan and UFOs. It's another terrific success.

Great cast headed by Kirsten Dunst, Ted Danson (wonderful), Patrick Wilson, Jesse Plemons (the butcher), and Bokeem Woodbine (Mike Milligan).

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989 Jeremiah Chechik)

OK, it is quite funny (script by John Hughes), though Chevy Chase is an acquired taste; directed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer

But you have to love the recording of Bing Crosby singing 'Mele Kalikimaka'.

The Holiday (2006 Nancy Myers & scr)

Another absurdly maligned film.

Under Capricorn (1949 Alfred Hitchcock)

"There's Hitch!" I observed as a largeish lady appeared at the Governor's ball, but sadly it was not to be. Stupidly critically maligned by people who know nothing, the continuous takes, for example, yes, definitely a leftover from Rope, but not distracting at all - in fact they give the film a marvellous modernity like Scorsese's tracking events around the house.

Has a most interesting colour pallette also - one of the greenest hues I've seen on film. And a crafty plot, developed from a play by John Coltron and Margrate Linden and adapted by Hume Cronyn (amongst others). Story could be updated to contemporary setting without too much of a problem.

Joseph Cotten, Ingrid Bergman, Michael Wilding, Margaret Leighton, Cecil Parker, Jack Watling. Music by Richard Addinsell.

Eden Lake (2008 James Watkins & scr)

Only I could have suggested The Wild Bunch as the second half of a double bill with Miracle on 34th Street - but Q went a step further recommending this to follow Love Actually.

It's extremely nasty, though features great actors Kelly Reilly, Matthew Fassbender, Jack O'Connell and Thomas Turgoose. I felt for Kelly, who spends half the film covered in goo.

I personally would have buggered off to another location and thus avoided any trouble. What am I talking about? I wouldn't have been out there camping in the first place.

Christopher Ross (London to Brighton) shot it, in Panavision.

Amusingly I remember my first review concluding "What a shit ending. (What a great ending.)"

Love Actually (2003 Richard Curtis & scr)

Yes.

Weird how you misremember things - I could have sworn Rowan Atkinson says 'in the jiffiest of jiffies' - would have attested to that 100% - but in fact he says 'in the flashiest of flashes' (or something) - I think my version's better.

Mrs Richard Curtis dislikes the way Heike Makatsch suggestively opens her legs at Alan Rickman - yes she is a bit too obviously forward. Still think the story of PM and assistant is wonderful and could be a whole film; and Colin Firth / Lucia Moniz episode the sweetest ("I learned English just in cases"); but when Liam Neeson says he didn't tell his (dead) wife he loved her enough, it's enough to make the hardest heart weep.

Ninotchka (1939 Ernst Lubitsch)

Why, I wonder, don't we watch this unique collaboration of Wilder and Lubitsch more often? It was written by Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, from Melchior Lengel's play, and features a terrific trio of Russian delegates in the shape of Lubitsch regulars Felix Bressart, Sig Ruman and Alexander Granach (who effectively reappear in Wilder's own One Two Three).

Lubitsch touch evident right from the word go, the three appearing one by one in posh hotel lobby; also with scene featuring hijinks in hotel (told through Lubitsch trademark sequence of opening and closing doors).

Shot by Garbo regular Bill Daniels for MGM, with Melvyn Douglas.

Of all the ridiculous Hollywood hats of this era, this is perhaps the most ridiculous.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947 George Seaton & co-scr)

Valentine Davies story, adapted by Seaton, never lets on whether Kris Kringle is real or not, delivering most satisfying Christmas legend which is as much about belief and commerce as it is about anything else. Maureen O'Hara is typically edgy, Edmund Gwenn totally lovable as Santa, Natalie Wood delightful, John Payne adequate. Has an interesting on-location feel, not much music (20th Fox). Gene Lockhart is the judge who - for political reasons - cannot deny the existence of Santa, Porter Hall the 'psychiatrist'. Twist with post office worker fabulous, though the highlight of the show is Gwenn and Wood pretending to be monkeys.

Thanks to IMDB:

"When Dr. Pierce explains Kris' belief that he is Santa Claus, he offers for comparative purposes a Hollywood restaurant owner who believes himself to be a Russian prince despite evidence to the contrary, but rather conveniently fails to recall the man's name. This was a reference to Michael Romanoff, owner of Romanoff's in Hollywood, a popular hangout for movie stars at the time [who was a con man and not a Russian prince]."

This Christmas (2007 Preston A Whitmore II)

It isn't often that we give up on a film. Despite the presence of Idris Elba as a jazz saxophonist in trouble, family drama just seemed really badly acted and directed.

The Quiller Memorandum (1966 Michael Anderson)

So much to love in this - Segal's weary performance, a haunting theme tune (in fact maybe John Barry's best score overall), laconic dialogue, interesting compositions and locale. It is in fact the best of all the sixties spy thrillers, and boasts an incredible cast.

Robert Helpmann is in it too; Senta Berger is gorgeous.

Rebecca (1940 Alfred Hitchcock)

As reviewed here.

I love Olivier's brusqueness (tempered with tenderness), Fontaine's timidity, Anderson's disdain.

Hadn't quite realised the significance of the dog.

The house is one great big model / collection of sets, all artfully lit by George Barnes, whose trademark (in this anyway) appears to be the use of gigantic shadows of things through windows everywhere. And there's more than just that which prefigures Citizen Kane, such as the darkening background before a flashback and the ending of flames.

It was Hitch's longest film to date, and does feel a bit draggy towards the end. But it's very well directed and is indeed a psychological romantic (almost supernatural) thriller of the finest order.

It was the third Gladys Cooper film we saw in a week.

Where is Hitchcock?

Happy Christmas (2014 Joe Swanberg & scr)

Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham and an unidentified baby appear in what seems to be an entirely improvised ... film. Not very funny or interesting, unfortunately. The funniest moment is the outtake after the end of the credits - which is indicative of something...

Harriet Walter

Who the hell is Harriet Walter? I pondered, seeing her name twice in succession in my old Time Out Guide: once in a Play for Today called The Imitation Game (1980) - based on an Ian McEwan novel, and it is about code-breaking, though not the Turing story; and again in Reflections (1984) in which she is highly praised. (Both unavailable.*)

Then of course I recognise her:

She's more recently been in London Spy, Downton, The Young Victoria, Little Dorrit, Atonement, Babel, Marple, Bright Young Things, Black Cab (2000 10 x 10 minute series, unavailable) and Morse.

* The Imitation Game is now available on DVD.

Hunky Dory (2011 Marc Evans)

It certainly sounds like the music is all played by the non-professional cast - the arrangements (e.g. Life on Mars accompanied by glass bottles and recorders) are delightful. Funny also to see many of the cast of Stella involved, as well as an emerging Kimberley Nixon (though by no means her debut). Also Robert Pugh, Anuerin Barnard, Danielle Branch, Darren Evans. Despite 'where are they now' conclusion it isn't a true story, making the ending rather suspect. Writer Laurence Coriat was the self-featured French exchange teacher who came to England in 1976.

It kind of made me want to see their whole production of 'The Tempest'.

Shot by Far From the Madding Crowd's Charlotte Bruus Christensen.

Separate Tables (1958 Delbert Mann)

Rattigan has taken elements from his Way to the Stars story - an overbearing mother and put-upon daughter who are residents of a hotel - and expanded them into a larger story about hotel guests - most of them long-term. Gladys George and Deborah Kerr are the couple in question, the latter having fallen for 'major' David Niven, whose exploits in 'nudging' women in cinemas also earned him his Oscar. Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth are doomed love-hate couple whilst Wendy Hiller is the romantic third (a noble character, also Oscar winner). More marginal characters comprise Felix Aylmer, Cathleen Nesbitt (who we last saw in Family Plot), Rod Taylor, Audrey Dalton, May Hallatt and Priscilla Morgan.

It's a bit stagebound, doesn't have the same energy as other theatrical adaptations like The Man Who Came to Dinner; nevertheless ultimately moving and satisfying drama, lit by the peerless Charles Lang and with a score by David Raksin that reunites him with Hayworth from Laura. First-rate acting, especially from Niven, who doesn't even sound like himself as the film opens.

The Bishop's Wife (1947 Henry Koster)

Niven is rather grumpy and taciturn in the film, though whether that's what the part demanded or he was suffering the sudden, accidental death of his 25-year old wife Primmie, his autobiography doesn't tell us - probably a good idea to return to work, especially against pros like Cary Grant, Monty Woolley, Gracie Fields, Elsa Lanchester and James Gleason (who seems familiar to us from a million old films) - only Loretta Young seems underpoweringly milky. Toland gets his own solo credit again and shoots everything crisply in his trademark deep focus. Fun is to be had with a bottle of sherry which never runs out, and (almost Cocteau-like) a harp which plays itself. That ice-skating sequence is beautifully shot in such a way that we cannot identify the stars as the skaters.

Weirdly has some similarities to Wings of Desire.

The way Grant has of immediately calling everyone by their first names is one of those power trademarks.

Sherlock (2010-11 Created by Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss)

Benedict Cumberbatch and the equally good Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, Rupert Graves, Mark Gatiss and Una Stubbs.

Funny how old the technology looks already. Fabulous moments: Moriarty apologising over phone call while he's holding up Sherlock; fate of man who's threatened Mrs Hudson ("How many times did he fall out of the window?"), fate of dominatrix (Lara Pulver) who's been announced killed.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008 Robert B. Weide)

There's a hell of a lot of The Apartment to this. It's not difficult to watch.

Simon Pegg's bumbling feels like it's in the wrong movie - this could have had more of a satirical bite. I don't know if that's author Toby Young's fault or that of screenwriter Peter Straughan, or come to that of the director, producer or any number of people involved. Oddly misfiring ending too, like no one could figure out a proper conclusion.

Nothing wrong with the cast: Kirsten Dunst (Miss Kubelik), Danny Huston (Sheldrake), Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson, Megan Fox, Miriam Margolyes, Bill Paterson (in telling small scenes - you old pro!) Though I guess from an awe point of view, Pegg was most stricken by cult hero Bridges.

Weide made the excellent Woody Allen documentary.

Dodsworth (1936 William Wyler)

Surprisingly mature study of a marriage in its later years, written by Sinclair Lewis (novel and stage adaptation) and Sidney Howard - Walter Huston played the role first on stage. He's awfully good, though we missed the moment we loved before where he steps over the dog!

David Niven is quite good as a cad - in his book he maintains Wyler made them exhaustively repeat takes, even pushing seasoned veteran Ruth Chatterton into slapping him and locking herself in her room. Rest of good cast: Mary Astor at her most sympathetic, Paul Lukas and Gregory Gaye as cads #2 and #3 (with Maria Ouspenskaya as latter's mum), Spring Byington and Harlan Briggs.

Good team behind camera: Lionel Newman, Rudolph Maté, Daniel Mandell.

Overboard (1987 Garry Marshall)

Charming film written by Leslie Dixon, who also wrote Outrageous Fortune (also 1987), Mrs Doubtfire, Pay It Forward and That Old Feeling. This has the feel of an old thirties classic, exploiting the relationship between couple Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell (they first appeared together in the 1968 The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, then began dating whilst filming Jonathan Demme's Swing Shift in 1984).

Edward Herrmann is the husband and Roddy McDowall the butler was also executive producer. Hector Elizondo has his usual cameo... this time as a Portuguese fisherman!

John Alonzo shot it. Really good fun.

Mildred Pierce (1945 Michael Curtiz)

Q's right: it does - like the same year's Brief Encounter - begin at the end. James M Cain wrote the novel, which was adapted by Ranald MacDougall.

Last reviewed here. You can just about make out how good Ernie Haller's deep focus compositions are in our fuzzy print, which must be replaced.

Jack Carson  and Eve Arden always seemed to be supporting players. They're both jolly good.

Bad Santa (2003 Terry Zwigoff)

Glen Ficarra and John Requa have directed as well as written Focus this year, with Will Smith and Margot Robbie, about a conman.

Thoughts on Bad Santa:

Considering the moments many of us can identify with, such as smashing up the cardboard animals in the manger, the film really is too nice for its own good.

Most of Brett Kelly is seen in reaction shots - almost like he wasn't acting to Billy Bob Thornton at all.

What would Lauren Graham see in Santa?

Paper Towns (2015 Jake Schreier)

Model Cara Delevingne, Nat Wolff, Austin Abrams, Justice Smith and Halston Sage.

Main character is pretty annoying, really.

Has an echo of American Graffiti in it. Quite enjoyable.

The Way Ahead (1944 Carol Reed)

Niven doesn't say much about his war exploits or this film in his autobiog (he was a decorated Lieutenant-Colonel), but when the action begins he displays exactly the kind of calm, immediate authority you might expect was real. (According to 'The Moon's a Balloon' the film was used for training at Sandhurst for 10 years after.)

It is distinctive in the way the ordinary folk from all walks of life are moulded into soldiers. They are Stanley Holloway, James Donald (who also displays a cool, methody presence), John Laurie, Leslie Dwyer, Hugh Burden, Raymond Huntley and Jimmy Hanley, with William Hartnell brushing them into shape and Leo Genn as the Captain. Renée Asherson is the girl who invites them to tea.

Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov's script reflects the course of events in the attitude of two Chelsea Pensioners, and it's their delight at the film's end that lifts what you might otherwise think a gloomy finish.

Reed's trademark tilt is exploited in tense scene where the ship is hit, involving an uncredited Trevor Howard. Guy Green is lighting high contrast.

Couldn't find out where the North Africa scenes were actually filmed as they look very authentic (as does the destruction of the town).

The Ides of March (2011 George Clooney)

George also co-wrote this (with co-producer Grant Heslov), and it has nicely cinematic moments. The source is play 'Farragut North', though you wouldn't think so. In it, Ryan Gosling becomes a shit, because that's what politics does to you. You couldn't ask for a better cast with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti in support, plus Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei and Jeffrey Wright.

Shot by Phedon Papamichael, edited (of course) by Stephen Mirrione and scored by Alexandre Desplat.

Political thrillers can be boring - this one isn't, and it's nicely economical (90 minutes).

Kingsman (2014 Matthew Vaughn)

Written by he and Jane Goldman (thus funny), film is marred by the same streak of nasty violence that tarnishes Kick-Ass; nonetheless the Bond parody is good fun (though ends on a distasteful joke). Based on Mark Millar / Dave Gibbons graphic novel 'The Secret Service'.

Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Samuel L Jackson, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Hanna Alström.

Shot by George Richmond (Wild Bill). Some of the CGI fights are ridiculous, though undeniably clever.

Capital (2015 Euros Lyn)

Rather too many neat lessons delivered to us here, Peter Bowker having adapted John Lanchester's novel - plot actually is a little bit silly come denouement time though we enjoyed the journey.

Pakistani family rather too neatly presented in various shades of muslim world: Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions) is the nice shop-owner, family includes Danny Ashok. Best character in the whole thing is the no-nonsense mother (particularly in scene where armed police want her to lie down) perfectly played by Shabana Azmi.

Toby Jones and Diana Rigg's daughter Rachel Stirling. Au pair Zrinka Cvitesic befriends builder Radoslaw Kaim.

Gemma Jones, Lesley Sharp, Robert Emms (Kick-Ass 2, The Selfish Giant), Alexander Arnold (Skins).

The beautiful Wunmi Mosaku is briefly romanced by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. (2017: she won BAFTA for playing Damilola's mum.)

Bryan Dick investigates.

Zac Nicholson (The Honorable Woman) shot it and the music was by Dru Masters.

That Touch of Mink (1962 Delbert Mann)

Doris Day falls for Cary Grant but doesn't want to sleep with him...So what? Get a suite with two rooms for Christ's sake. Surely attitudes were more advanced than this in 1962? Much toing and froing to Bermuda ensues, whilst Gig Young and Audrey Meadows fret about everything. It isn't very well written but scrapes by on star charisma.

Film doesn't need CinemaScope at all, unless for the sole purpose of showing the full length of a Boeing 747. Russell Metty lights some of his 'Bermuda' night scenes very colourfully.

John Feidler is in it briefly.

The Secret Life of Bees (2008 Gina Prince-Blythewood)

Evocatively shot (by Rogier Scoffers in Panavision) adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's bestselling novel, the director's only previous film being Love and Basketball.

Marked by splendid performances from Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys, Sophie Okonedo and Paul Bettany. Also with Tristan Wilds, Nate Parker.

Carry On Screaming (1966 Gerald Thomas)

I had only just been thinking how the brother in Fargo reminded me of Oddbod in this.

Almost gave up, so much were Harry H Corbett, Jim Dale and Peter Butterworth overacting. Then things improve with Fenella Fielding (a sort of pantomime Joan Greenwood) and Kenneth Williams (who I guess was in a way a latter-day Clifton Webb).

Also quite liked appearances of Bernard Bresslaw as implacable butler, Charles Hawtrey as a cheerful toilet attendant, Jon Pertwee as dotty Scottish scientist, Angela Douglas as girlfriend. Joan Sims is in terrifying fishwife mode.

Lessons in Love (2014 Tom Vaughan)

Pierce Brosnan, Selma Hayek, Jessica Alba, Malcolm MacDowell.

Fairly conventional story but entertaining enough.

The Dark Corner (1946 Henry Hathaway)

I can't profess to know much about Henry Hathaway but he has pulled this film noir off really well, aided by superb photography from Joe MacDonald. I noticed the loud traffic noise in the office of Mark Stevens and Lucille Ball, then the piano practising at the apartment, finally realising there's no music score but all natural sound. Also liked the girl with the whistle.

Usual sardonic kind of screenplay by Jay Dratler and Bernard Schoenfeld from a story by Leo Rosten.

William Bendix is the man in the white suit, with Clifton Webb and Kurt Kruger, Cathy Downs as the femme fatale.

Love, Rosie (2014 Christian Ditter)

Despite obviously being mad about one another, Sam Claflin and Lily Collins repeatedly miss the opportunities to get together, adapted by Juliette Towhidi (Death Comes to Permberley, Calendar Girls) from Cecilia Ahern's novel.

Jamie Winston has something of an underwritten part - we want to see her in the lead. And with Suki Waterhouse, Tamsin Egerton, Lorcan Cranitch, Ger Ryan.

There is - by the way - no Kerala Gardens in London nor a Kerala Gardens Indian takeaway so I guess these are some sort of in-joke.

Changeling (2008 Clint Eastwood)

Perfectly adequately reviewed here. Fascinating seeing it after Perdition, in the colour pallette and the way Tom has learned from Conrad.

A Royal Night Out (2015 Julian Jarrold)

Written by Kevin Hood and Trevor da Silva, featuring Canadian Sarah Gadon and Bel Powley as the princesses, Rupert Everett and Emily Watson as mum and dad. A sort of Carry On After Hours, with splendid and timely cameos from Roger Allam (this sequence is really the film's highlight) and Ruth Sheen. Jack Reynor is our troubled airman, with Jack Laskey and Jack Gordon as the pair's errant chaperones.

Trainwreck (2015 Judd Apatow)

Written by and starring Amy Schumer, and nice to see Bill Hader in a leading role, From the outtakes you realise that this is partly an improvised film, thus the 'extended version' we're also offered, and the three editors that are involved in finding the right bits - honestly, can you imagine Wilder and Diamond working this way? Still, the results are undeniably funny.

John Cena is the muscle-bound gay, Tilda Swinton unrecognisable as bitchy editor, Brie Larson the sister, Hitch's mate Norman Lloyd, LeBron James and Colin Quinn as Dad, with Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei in hilarious film-within-film about dog-walker.

So, yes.

Arguably the funniest line comes when she clears out her flat and gives a cardboard box to beggar Dave Attell, who responds:
"Booze! Drugs! And a place to live!"

The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964 Anthony Mann)

You have to admire Robert Krasker's fine, sombre Ultra-Panavision (whatever that is) photography. What part of Spain is this chilly-looking region? (It's the Sierra de Guadarrama in Segovia, not a million miles from Madrid). And Dimitri Tiomkin's score is also rather wonderful.

Old films on this scale are impressive - the attention to detail in the costumes, the 1500 horses that had to be looked after, made to behave etc. But despite the incredible recreation of Ancient Rome, watching an army parade into it is not dramatically interesting. (The set was at Las Matas, used again in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and apparently then torn down. What a fucking waste. The feeling of standing in it must have been fantastic (it was exactly to scale with the real city) and could have been a great tourist attraction.) The 'thinking man's epic' is actually quite dull.

Stephen Boyd is lacking. Alec Guinness is brilliant as usual (e.g. scene where he bargains with Death). Christopher Plummer (at times looking oddly like Joaquin Phoenix, who played the same character in Gladiator), James Mason, Sophia Loren, Anthony Quayle, Mel Ferrer, John Ireland (in ridiculous 'barbarian' makeup).

What was Rome doing in England? Why bother?

The battle scene in the forest which I remember so clearly as a youngster wasn't that impressive - showing actually that pulling off a complex big-scale battle scene like this is not an easy thing to do, but the resultant chariot race between Boyd and Plummer is expertly staged, no doubt thanks to the direction of former stuntman Yakima Canutt - it's the best bit in the film.

You can't help feeling there's something a bit gay about the relationship between Boyd and Plummer.

Road to Perdition (2002 Sam Mendes)

Hanks in tough (though not exactly nasty) mode amidst sea of acting talent encompassing Paul Newman, Daniel Craig, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ciaran Hinds and the young Tyler Hoechlin. Adapted from the graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner by David Self but owes everything to Mendes and Conrad Hall's visual style (the latter won his third Oscar posthumously) which references Edward Hopper:

One of the studio execs said of Conrad that you could take any frame and blow it up into art - that is particularly true of this film which is one of the best shot by anyone ever. (And Clint's Tom Stern is the chief lighting electrician, and must have been studying the master at work closely.) It also has a terrific Thomas Newman score. Sam's own favourite.

I particularly like the moment in the bank hold ups montage where we see Hanks trying to get into the car and we're forced to look at the very left corner of the screen to (try to) see what happens. The two key shots using reflections are outstanding, as is the Hanks machine-gunning finale shown with music but no sound.

Great editing too by Jill Bilcock (The Young Victoria, Moulin Rouge).

Saving Mr Banks (2013 John Lee Hancock)

Last seen. Kelly Marcel has since written the poorly rated 50 Shades adaptation.

Thompson: "You're the only American I've met who I liked."
Giamatti: "May I ask why?"
Thompson: "No, you may not."

Hanks and Thompson are both great - inspired casting, great chemistry.

She's Funny That Way (2014 Peter Bogdanovich)

Begins very much in Woody Allen vein, unmistakably becomes a PB bedroom comedy à la What's Up Doc.

The cameo of Quentin Tarantino - lover of They All Laughed - is a lovely touch.

Despite the attractiveness of both Imogen Poots and Owen Wilson, you can't help but feel Jen steals the film.

The bitchy interviewer is Melvyn's granddaughter Illeana Douglas and the escort agency is run by Entourage's Debi Mazar (they're both Goodfellas alumni).

Father Goose (1964 Ralph Nelson)

Written by Charade's Peter Stone, with Frank Tarloff, from a story by S.H. Barnett. Cary Grant and Trevor Howard are on good form, Leslie Caron's character is annoying (in reward for saving their lives, she promptly bans him from drinking). Still, that sparring and the gradual thawing of relationships all round make the film fun, and there are one or two tense moments as well.

Shot by Charles Lang, on a Jamaican island standing in for the South Pacific version.

Films of the Year 2015

Make Way for Tomorrow. Amazingly grown-up Hollywood film anticipates Tokyo Story.

What We Did on Our Holiday. Unique, fresh, laugh out loud funny.

Texasville. As good as the original.

She's Funny That Way. The master back at work, giving us films we really need, with a fantastic performance from Poots.

The Imitation Game. Superbly acted scandalous true story.

Sword of Honour. One of Will's most successful films.

St. Vincent. Sweet film with our beloved veteran Bill Murray. "It is what it is."

My Blueberry Nights. Stylish beyond description, with amazing performances that give the film real depth.

Wild. Reese fabulous in most involving (true) story.

The Theory of Everything. Manages not to be depressing, two equally good lead performances.

Life of Pi. Just jaw-droppingly creative.

Black Narcissus. It gets better each time, film is way out there!

Went the Day Well. Incredibly tough, hard-hitting, brilliant drama still after all these years.

Inherent Vice. Very seventies, very funny, Joaquin's growing hugely in our estimation.

Election. Revisiting early Payne is a joy.

Deconstructing Harry. Wonderfully different; enormously funny.

Un Flic. For its mood, and that amazing (and funny) train scene.

Lone Star. Just so interesting and totally unexpected.

La Belle et la Bête. Pure Cocteau magic, a unique experience in cinema.

That Uncertain Feeling / Trouble in Paradise. Lubitsch seems to get better with every viewing.  'Keeks!'

The 39 Steps. You forget just how good it is, one of the very best of the British years.

Broken / London Road. Rufus Norris knocks us over with impressive debut about kids, then hits us over the head with the most utterly original musical ever made. For a theatre director he's most interestingly cinematic.

Aloha / Vanilla Sky. Cameron's made another wonderful, humane, timeless classic, but the rediscovery of 'the one that got away' is fantastic too.

Mary and Max. Quite remarkable animation leaves strong impression.

Man Up. Very fresh date-movie.

This is England '90. Beautifully balanced between horror and sweetness, this semi-improvised series has lost none of its visceral power.

Magnolia / Punch-Drunk Love. Paul Thomas Anderson rediscovered in the gripping and unusual epic; but his Sandler 'comedy' is equally fascinating and original with bonkers music score,

McCabe and Mrs Miller. Sensational early Altman in his distinctive style, enriched by just amazing photography.

Bonnie and Clyde. Has lost absolutely none of its power and nimble energy, and a key film of American cinema.

Stranger on the Third Floor. Because it's just so damned different and interesting.

Four Lions. Astonishing in that it can make its terrifying subject matter so hilarious.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Totally cool in every way, funny, stylish, thought-provoking.

And of course the usual selection of Wilders, Leans and Hitchcocks, The Descendents (again), Up In the Air (again) etc.

Also, special mention to Gemma Chan in Humans.

Marvellous (2014 Julian Farino)

Written by Peter Bowker (Capital and Occupation), himself a former special needs teacher, apparently inspired by an article in The Guardian about Neil Baldwin, won the BAFTA.

Toby Jones leads (this is a real chuckler), Gemma Jones (who it seems has taken over our TVs lately) his mum, Tony Curran the manager, Nicholas Gleaves the priest and Greg McHugh (from Fresh Meat) the university friend.

Very amusing and charming. Photographed by David Odd.

Indiscreet (1958 Stanley Donen)

Norman Krasna adapted his own 1953 play for the screen, shifting the location from New York to London. It's apparently Cary Grant's favourite of all of his films (unsubstantiated) and he and Ingrid Bergman are jolly good (he was 54, in answer to my wife's question).

I love the fact there was so little traffic going through London Airport that you'd actually get to know the passport official. (Or is this just a film thing? Wikipedia tells me that passenger traffic for 1953 reached one million.)

And where's Cleopatra's needle?

Classy support from Phyllis Calvert, Cecil Parker, Megs Jenkins and David Kossof, shot by Freddie Young, edited by Jack Harris and scored by Richard Rodney Bennett.

Sabrina (1954 Billy Wilder)

When you need something top quality...

"There'll be an awful scandal and the market will go down."

Wilder claims not to know Audrey Hepburn and William Holden were allegedly having an affair.

Hepburn was very fresh - just after Roman Holiday. She has such a distinctive voice.

Audrey Hepburn Estate Collection

It's a marvellous jewel of a film, photographic-wise. Every shot looks like it's from Vogue magazine.

Wilder: Charles Lang was very good. He's still very, very strong. Lang sort of walked around, always, with the same look on his face: squinting, filled with thought, as if he were looking at the world, not just the movie, and thinking "What kind of exposure is this? What exposure is the world?" He was in the upper class of photographers, along with LaShelle. He was on time, a wonderful collaborator, and I loved him.

Crowe: Any advice for shooting a picture in black-and-white?

Wilder: Get yourself an ageing master cinematographer.

'Conversations with Wilder', Cameron Crowe, 1999.

Charles Lang in 1936

Scenes with Marcel Hillaire are hilaire.

Walk the Line (2005 James Mangold)

So, the long anticipated Walk the Line - not a very cinematic or interesting film, best perhaps when it's tightly showing Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon on stage. Weirdly the film to me doesn't really seem to come alive until the last twenty minutes (the performance in jail, followed by their last duet where he proposes). I love Reese, but I'm not sure her performance was Oscar-worthy (she was up against Judi Dench in Mrs Henderson Presents, Felicity Huffman in Transamerica and Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice); in fact I'd have to particularly praise Ginnifer Goodwin as the first Mrs Cash.

Didn't find Michael McCusker's nominated editing that exciting either, nor Phedon Papamichael's widescreen cinematography, so all in all it was a bit of a disappointment. Also the sound is mixed so badly that you can't hear what Joaquin is mumbling / whispering, then the music hits you like a force ten quail.

It also seemed to go on for ever.

The sign visible at an early concert - "Ring in Case of Fire" - is I guess a little subtle reference.

El Espirítu de la Colmena / The Spirit of the Beehive (1973 Victor Erice & scr)

Fabulous, mesmerizing study of the mysterious world of children, particularly one girl (the amazingly natural Ana Torent) who becomes fixated with Frankenstein after being shown it in their village in Castile in 1940.

Seriously beautifully shot by Luis Cuadrado, giving us white skies and a burned out landscape, with gorgeous lighting from candles, fires, sun and moon. And you can in fact see the light changing, which I love.

With: Fernando Ferán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera, Isabel Telleria (the other girl). The kids are great.

Music by Luis de Pablo.

Double Indemnity (1944 Billy Wilder)

Wilder on Stanwyck: ""She was just an extraordinary woman. She took the script, loved it, right from the word go...she knew the script, everybody's lines..Never a fault, never a mistake."

And MacMurray ..he said "I can't do that." And I said "Why can't you?" He said "It requires acting!"

MacMurray in the gas chamber was the last scene filmed.. But he decided the film didn't need it. The quieter ending is better - you don't know if it's an ambulance or police siren you're hearing.

'Conversations with Wilder', Cameron Crowe, 1999.

"When Billy and I discussed the music, he had the idea of using a restless string figure (as in the opening of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony) to reflect the conspiratorial aspect of the two lovers against the husband; it was a good idea and I happily accepted it as a basis to work on... we understood each other completely. Enter now the figure of the Musical Director who, when the time of the recording came, made no secret of the fact that he disliked the music intensely. Wilder finally turned to him and snapped, 'You may be surprised to hear that I love it. O.K.?' At this point the musical director disappeared and we didn't see him at the sessions again..."
(The score was one of seven Oscar nominations.)

'Double Life', Miklós Rózsa, 1982.

The Tall T (1956, release 1957 Budd Boetticher)

Very simple story (could easily have been a silent), filmed simply, in California, from Elmore Leonard, adapted by Burt Kennedy. Randolph Scott starts off by smiling a lot, does less so when friend and son are down the bottom of the well, murdered by Richard Boone, Henry Silva and Skip Homeier. Maureen O'Sullivan is hastily widowed, but ex-husband for a day John Hubbard is a spineless fortune-hunter anyway.

Photographed by Charles Lawton. My first Boetticher, I think, at least recently. I didn't think 'wow!' but I'd watch another.

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940 Boris Ingster)

There's something about this predecessor to film noir I really like; in fact there's a good argument it is one (a tortured, violent central character for one thing, and moody night settings, moodily lit).

It comes from when John McGuire starts worrying after the court case and you hear all this great internal monologue "Why are these stairs so dark? Why don't they put in a better light" ... "I hate having to do this every night" which is very real and refreshing. And he starts looking all mad and paranoid, with angles and lighting to match - he's almost behaving like a character in a Cocteau. And then when he chases Lorre down the stairs, there's a moment when they both suddenly pause.. look at each other.. then the chase continues. I love it! And the weird dream sequence (I wonder who designed the montages? Probably not Don Seigel, who was at Warners - this is RKO.)

Talking of Peter Lorre, his performance is really creepy. He'd been in Hollywood since 1935, in quite a few Mr Moto films. Good tense ending (plus crowd-pleasing happy ending) - then you realise it's only 64 minutes later!

B movie favourite Nick Musuraca lights expressionistically (I don't know when those shadow patterns from blinds started, but this most be one of the earliest examples) ; those great sets (from which everyone seems to be peeking out of doorways) are by Van Nest Polglase, who went on to Citizen Kane.

Rest of cast: Margaret Tallichet, Elisha Wood Jr (of course), Cliff Clark, Charles Halton (the annoying neighbour).

Written by Hungarian Frank Partos.

He Said, She Said (1991 Ken Kwapis & Marisa Silver)

I rather liked this. Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins work. It's well shot (Stephen Burum) and the full width of the Panavision frame is used surprisingly well. It wears The Apartment on its sleeve, even rather cheekily (and uncredited) referencing the music (and that of Rhapsody in Blue). The he said / she said variations work well (Brian Hohlfeld wrote it). It even features up-and-comings Sharon Stone and Anthony LaPaglia.

The Belles of St Trinian's (1954 Frank Launder & co-scr)

Written with partner Sidney Gilliat, not as sharp as for example their early work for Hitchcock (though of course he and Alma enhanced it as uncredited collaborators), though picks up steam when plot turns to kidnapping of racehorse, which is neatly smuggled out through the device of a milk cart.

With Alistair Sim, George Cole, Joyce Grenfell, Renee Houston, Beryl Reid, Irene Handl, Joan Sims, Richard Wattis, Lloyd Lamble (the police chief), Sid James, Guy Middleton.

Shot by Stan Pavey with ebullient music by Malcolm Arnold.

The Girl in a Swing (1988 Gordon Hessler & scr)

No point even assessing the stupid plot in romantic-supernatural-thriller which is unspeakably badly written. You know you're in trouble when you hear lines like "You're not like the porcelain dolls I am used to dealing with at home".

Rupert Frazer is just awful delivering awful lines like this, but at least you can make out what he's saying, unlike Meg Tilly through indecipherable German accent, and who is impelled to take all her clothes off at any given opportunity. (As film was mainly shot in UK she must have been freezing.)

So bewildering and overwhelmed by Meg's needy/paranoiac character (the performance itself is difficult to assess) that it's not even in the 'so bad it's good' category.

All Good Things (2010 Andrew Jarecki)

Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst are of course good (the former latterly in good makeup supervised by Judy Chin) but inconclusive true story doesn't gave the audience anything to take away, nor anyone to empathise with (apart of course from the disappeared Dunst). Thus, why make it?

Michael Seresin's photography is nice and dark. With Frank Langella, Philip Baker Hall.

Four Lions (2010 Chris Morris)

Written by Morris with Peep Show's Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, film manages an amazing balancing act between Carry On and 7/7, and is sadly still most relevant. Really funny, yet doesn't pull its punches in the final minutes. Riz Ahmed and Kayvan Novak are splendid as the idealist and the idiot. Also complex - I loved the scene where Riz's brother won't enter the room because his wife Preeya Kalidas is in it (the brother who is then wrongly arrested) and they end up squirting waterpistols at him. Nigel Lindsay is the radicalised twit.

With Adeel Akhtar, who in an interview claimed the film was protected from criticism because it was 'so well researched' - indeed the inspiration - if I remember rightly - was genuine recorded telephone calls between really thick sounding would-be terrorists.

Plus - fleetingly - Kevin Eldon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Craig Parkinson.

Won the BAFTA for most promising newcomer. A good representative of why I love Chris Morris so much - the blackest of black humour.

Bonjour Tristesse (1958 Otto Preminger)

Saul Bass credits. Widescreen. On location Paris / Côte D'Azure. Seberg's short hair (just before A Bout de Souffle). David Niven (and Roland Culver, briefly). Georges Périnal reunited with Georges Auric 27 years after Cocteau's Sang d'un Poete. Auric writes like a mischievous elf - like Seberg. Deborah Kerr. Maids who are all interchangeable sisters. Colour coded costumes. Amazing hats. Mylène Demongeot. A trick cyclist.

Operation Crossbow (1965 Michael Anderson)

A mess, despite last-minute rewriting by 'Richard Imrie' (Pressburger). (Having earned just £500 for 'The Glass Pearls' he then accepted this job - £6000 for four weeks' work.) Bitty film isn't well constructed, has too many characters.

In London Richard Johnson leads intelligence team comprising John Mills & Trevor Howard (both wasted) and Moray Watson (Darling Bud's Brigadier). Over in Germany an initially promising story evolves featuring Paul Henreid and Barbara Rütting (good) testing experimental aircraft - this disappears. Our undercover engineers are Tom Courtenay, George Peppard (at the height of his popularity) and Jeremy Kemp (rather good). Lili Palmer and Sophia Loren feature in another side story. Anthony Quayle is a double-crosser, Sylvia Sims and Richard Wattis examine aerial photos.

Last section kills tension with attenuated bombing scenes, mixed up with crass-looking real footage plus a Bondian set which looks like (though isn't) one designed by Ken Adam, and Ron Goodwin's cheesy Boy's Adventure music is the final nail in the coffin.

Handsomely shot though, with nice deep focus, by Erwin Hillier in Panavision and Metrocolor.

The Affair (2014 Hagai Levi & Sarah Treem)

Some way through long-winded update of He Said, She Said, extremely well acted by Dominic West and Ruth Wilson. Though the differences between their versions of events seem a little false and distracting. As it's all in flashback we don't really know what's going on. Seem to only manage two episodes at a time, which is telling.

Montauk is a tourist destination on the tip of Long Island, not the location of Jaws (that was Martha's Vineyard).

The whole thing seems to have been shot on Steadicam (somewhat unnecessarily) and the night scenes are ridiculously overlit.

[On reaching the 'end']: After some eight hours it is rather unfair on the audience to leave them on an inconclusive cliffhanger. Also, as you can't necessarily trust either's point of view, it leaves us in something of a quandary. I don't think the creators really thought about the audience enough.

If you excised the (unerotic) sex scenes you'd have an 8-episode series rather than 10.

Young and Innocent (1937 Alfred Hitchcock)

Superb early Hitch, one of his funniest (particularly in treatment of police, who are virtually Keystone Cops in this). But also supremely well put together, extremely cinematic. The virtuoso track across the ballroom into a close-up of the guilty man's eyes is perfectly focused (Bernard Knowles on camera, apparently operated by Stephen Dade (also Secret Agent and Sabotage, grew up to shoot Zulu - source: BFI).

But what happened to the dog in the mine?

Mad Men: Season 7 (2015 Matthew Weiner)

Sequences in the last few episodes showing Don in his 'On the Road' phase make you long for The Further Adventures of Don Draper...

Fantastic finale to part one with Robert Morse performing 'The Best Things in Life Are Free'.

Loved the way the characters all change in fashion and appearance over the years (except Don). Fantastic attention to detail. Most interesting in its view of changing attitudes throughout; also in the way that creative ideas are developed (lots of booze).

Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Staton, Rich Sommer, Kiernan Shipka, Jessica Paré.

Unique in the way people talk to each other, frequently in clipped, sardonic, elliptical conversations:
"This conversation's over. I'm really not interested."
Don talks as little as The Man with No Name, and is him.

Dedicated to Mike Nichols, and spotted at least two Graduate references.

Head of McCanns on Don: "He just walked out halfway through a meeting."
Roger: "He does that."

Just Like Heaven (2005 Mark Waters)

Workaholic doctor Reese Witherspoon is dead; how come new tenant Mark Ruffalo can still see her in her/his San Francisco apartment (with great views and its own roof space)? The stars click.

Best not to dwell on the plot but enjoy this romantic fantasy nonsense, written by Peter Tolan and Leslie Dixon from the novel "Et Ci C'etait Vrai" by Marc Levy (1999) (set in San Francisco in the original).

Music is by Rolfe Kent, ph Daryn Okada.

Flawless (1999 Joel Schumacher & scr)

You can't of course argue with the talents of transsexual Philip Seymour Hoffman nor embittered cop Robert de Niro, and the ending is suitably thrilling, but the film simply involved too much conflict and needed to be toned down into something less brutal.

Nice contrasty lighting by Declan Quinn.

The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972 Michael Powell)

The first film since the very early days their job titles are split - Pressburger wrote an original story called 'The Wife of Father Christmas' and it's pretty peculiar, though the target market loved it. I like the threatened Tower of London beheading, and the fact that when asked what 'extraterrestrial' means, the father makes the boy Mark Dightam break the word down to understand it, rather than just telling him. Robert Eddison is the walking hazard light and it's shot by Chris Challis for the Children's Film Foundation. Powell's dog Johnson features.

Pick-Up (1975 Bernard Hirschenson)

Jill Senter, Alan Long, Gini Eastwood.

Really awful film defies description but somehow manages to keep throwing an arresting image at you. Seems to have been shot by a nature documentarist. Sex on a swing is one of film's awful highlights. Acting is atrocious. Of the 'so bad it's good' category.

Whatever Works (2009 Woody Allen & scr)

Again he's doing something different, this time having (an excellent) Larry David talk straight to us. His dismissal of almost all human beings is hilarious, his gradual warming for Evan Rachel Wood also funny. Arrival of mother Patricia Clarkson then takes film to a whole new place. It's also one of those rare WA's to have a happy ending.

Beautiful photography by Harris Savides is quite understated but sensational.

What's Up Doc? (1972 Peter Bogdanovich)

After the Paris aftermath we needed something seriously escapist, and I turned to my humane directors (the other two latter-day examples being Cameron and Wes) and found this absolute proof that movies are good medicine. Do people realise how smoothly and skilfully this film is made also? It's heart is of course in Hawks - not just Bringing Up Baby (the way she calls him 'Steve' is for example straight out of To Have and Have Not) but also references sources as diverse as silent movies (firemen as Keystone Cops) and Billy Wilder (use of Larabie name for one thing is no coincidence).

Streisand and O'Neal are wonderfully watchable and there's the treat of an Austin Pendleton for those in the know.

Also, you don't realise quite how wonderfully Laszlo Kovacs has filmed it (which, I think, is one of his distinctive - or rather, indistinctive - trademarks).

Death to Smoochy (2002 Danny de Vito)

Hmm. Robin Williams, Edward Norton, Catherine Keener, Danny de Vito, Pam Ferris (the best thing in it), Vincent Schiavelli (from Cuckoo's Nest) and whoever that gravelly-voiced guy is (Harvey Fierstein, apparently).

A bit of a mess, somewhat over-directed. You have to smile at Norton's politically correct children's rhymes though.

Sherrybaby (2006 Laurie Collyer)

Hmm. Subtle. We see why she's trying to get her father's attention so needily - it's to distract him from her daughter. Maggie Gyllenhaal is good (and rather sexy). Coincidentally with Giancarlo Esposito again, Brad William Henke, Danny Trejo (a former inmate himself). Good scenes with the kid. Ending hopeful but not cheerful.

Night on Earth (1991 Jim Jarmusch)

Five cab stories take us through the night, round the world, through people.

Gena Rowlands and Winona Ryder in LA.
Perhaps most amusingly, Amin Müeller-Stahl and Giancarlo Esposito - plus Rosie Perez - in NYC.
Isaach de Bankolé (who really is from the Ivory Coast) and Beatrice Dalle in our beloved Paris.
The force of nature Roberto Benigni ("I can't eat meat now, and don't eat vegetables because of the pumpkins") and Paolo Bonacelli (The American) in Rome.
Matti Pellonpää and passengers in Helsinki.

Photographed by Frederic Elmes (Broken Flowers, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, The Ice Storm).

Working Girl (1998 - oops - 1988 Mike Nichols)

Really enjoyed this again, particularly that Melanie Griffith's character is stronger than her romantic partner Harrison Ford - it's Sigourney Weaver who's the archetypal bitch, though nice boss Philip Bosco soon sees through her. In fact it's a Judy Holliday film, updated.

Griffiths looks eerily like her mum in one street shot; same grey colour suit as The Birds. She's rather good in this.

With an alarmingly young looking Alec Baldwin and Oliver Platt, Joan Cusack, Kevin Spacey.

Edited by Sam O'Steen and shot by Michael Ballhaus.

Review from 23.2.10 included: "Worth whole price of admission for [albeit fleeting] shot of Melanie hoovering in only her knickers!"

Written by Kevin Wade, whose realistic cop TV show Blue Bloods is well reviewed

Seize the Day (1986 Fielder Cook)

Not a film for those feeling depressed, Ronald Ribman's adaptation of Saul Bellow's 1956 novel features a number of vividly captured but unsympathetic characters, starting with Robin Williams, who has the temper of snake that's been run over by a wagon. He's his own worst enemy, though his situation is hardly helped by venal ex Katherine Borowitz, heartless father Joseph Wiseman and philosophical scam artist Jerry Stiller. Well acted, claustrophobic (made moreso by its 4x3 framing), with canny and intrusive sound design. Produced by 'Learning in Focus' (presumably for American TV), featuring well-known faces such as John Feidler and Tony Roberts.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004 Alfonso Cuaron)

Iris dissolves - even at the very end of the credits.

The great sound design is by Richard Beggs, whose first film was Apocalypse Now, and since then has worked on most of Sophia's films. He imported his own sound studio to England to work on it, and reportedly tried to avoid any sound that said 'magic'. (Certainly the Dementors scenes seem to be accompanied by electronic noise.) He also worked often with Cuaron (though not - interestingly - on the Oscar-winning Gravity).

St Vincent (2014 Theodore Melfi & scr)

Bill Murray is just great.

Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai (1999 Jim Jarmusch & scr)

Distinctive, unique, and very funny, ultra-stylish from opening (literally) bird's eye view of city to ultra cool music from RZA (Wu Tang Clan), shot by cool cameraman Robby Müeller.

Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Tricia Vessey, Henry Silva, Isaach de Bankolé, Camille Winbush.

Full of moments to love - the boat builder on the rooftop, the conversations in French and English, the cartoons that litter the film, the mystique of the samurai's 'way', 'Night Nurse', the old gangster who has a heart attack (thus Forest lowers one of his guns)...

Weirdly enough, the other illegitimate offspring of Melville's Le Samourai was on TV the same night (Clooney in The American).

The book quoted, Yamamoto's 'Bushido: the Way of the samurai', features frequently interesting material, such as "Matters of great concern should be treated wisely. Matters of small concern should be treated seriously" and, anticipating the climactic confrontation "When one has made a decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult to succeed by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to think about going at it in a long roundabout way. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong."

Also, I liked "Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase, ‘Form is emptiness.’ That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, ‘Emptiness is form.’ One should not think that these are two separate things."

Jim's films are: Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) the vampire one with Tom Hiddlestone, Tilda Swinton and Mia Wasikowska, The Limits of Control (2009) also with de Bankolé, Broken Flowers (2005), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), short episodes with Murray, Waits, Benigni, Buscemi, de Bankolé, Dead Man (1995) with Johnny Depp (a sort of western), Night on Earth (1991). multiple stories about cab drivers, Mystery Train (1989) (Memphis, Elvis), Down by Law (1986), Stranger Than Paradise (1984, cousins meet) and Permanent Vacation (1980).

Celebrity (1998 Woody Allen & scr)

We only watched it in June?? It's awfully good. There's a scene where Leo kicks off in a hotel room that is fabulous for watching the acting of both he and Kenneth Branagh. Long takes in this - and the following scene with the cops - give it authenticity and involvement.

Sven Nykvist has shot the film in a seriously contrasty inky-black way.

Judy Davis is perhaps the stand-out as a woman who just can't believe her own luck. Charlize Theron looks eerily like Scarlett Johanssen.

Brief Encounter (1945 David Lean)

Now, my absolutely favourite moment is when he says 'Thursday?' and she doesn't reply, just turns into the carriage. It's the look on her face - helpless, hopeless, unhappy infatuation.

Also like the scene where she flees from the flat and we have two shots of her running, filmed from a vehicle, then as she runs out of steam the camera returns to a fixed position.

There are lots of clocks and references to time.

Also like the 'Flames of Passion' trailer is followed immediately by ad for pram!

The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947 Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

Philip Dunne screenwrote R.A. Dick (a.k.a Josephine Aimee Campbell Leslie) 1945 novel and it's a very pleasing story, fully enacted by Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney accompanied by an artful Bernard Herrmann score, shot by Charles Lang 'Jr.' (Senior was a camera technician at Realart, a small Hollywood studio where Jr went to work.)

I like that maid Edna Best also starts going on about 'landlubbers' and has a secret attachment to the sea captain - as, it turns out, does daughter Natalie Wood (who becomes Vanessa Brown). With George Sanders, Robert Coote (AMOLAD's  dead airman) and Whitford Kane (the publisher).

Edited by Dorothy Spencer, blast it!

Obsession (1976 Brian de Palma & co-scr)

Paul Schrader is the other writer, twisting Vertigo beautifully into something sicker... Overall, film couldn't be more like Hitch's - though also has echoes of Marnie, Dial M for Murder and Rebecca - exaggerated by one of Bernard Herrmann's last great scores, featuring a choir and church organ.

More wonderful deep focus and interesting compositions from Vilmos Zsigmond, at his most diffused (like, it must be said, many of the exterior shots in Vertigo) - film is almost entirely shot at angles, also like its predecessor... Some seriously good scenes such as the first drop-off of the money on the pier, with wonderful moving perspective...

Cliff Robertson, Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow.. Doesn't really have any other characters of note.

Q thinks the mausoleum in the park looks ridiculous. I am of course inclined to agree.

Film is nuts, but most interesting. Finale in corridor looks eerie - they're so far apart from each other...

Broken Flowers (2004 Jim Jarmusch & scr)

The deadpan Bill Murray confronts various women from his past - Sharon Stone (and 'Lolita' Alexis Dziena), Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under), Jessica Lange (with Chloe Sevigny) and Tilda Swinton, whilst finding some emotion finally at graveside of the one that died... Jeffrey Wright and Heather Simms are the lovely neighbours.

Very dry, and funny. Simply told with most interesting (actually unforgettable) music by Ethiopian jazz artist Mulatu Astatke.

Whole film is deadpan, actually.

The film clip I didn't recognise is The Private Life of Don Juan (1934, Douglas Fairbanks, Merle Oberon).

Spanglish (2004 James L Brooks)

Comedy sort-of-romance on the subject of the language barrier (Sandler's character says 'no, no, no' when he means 'yes') with typical Brooks moments (as voiceover says 'she stepped over the threshold into America' her cousin walks into a plate glass window). Also about families.

Well acted by all- Adam Sandler, Tea Leoni, Paz Vega, Cloris Leachman, Shelbie Bruce, Sarah Steele (who Q correctly identifies as now in The Good Wife) and Thomas Haden Church (briefly).

Professionally put together by Richard Marks from John Seale's images to Hans Zimmer's music.

The Narrow Margin (1952 Richard Fleischer)

No one seemed familiar to us in taut train thriller (not really a noir), cunningly written by Martin Goldsmith and Jack Leonard and adapted by Earl Fenton. Charles McGraw and Don Beddow are the detectives entrusted with looking after gangster's wife Marie Windsor - David Clarke, Peter Virgo and Peter Brocco (who made an impression) are out to get them, and Jacqueline White and her son Gordon Gebert (Holiday Affair) are the innocent bystanders.

No music. Lit well by George Diskant. Features some eye-catching stuff, like a tough fight in a train compartment long before From Russia with Love and a thrilling finale.

The Other Love (1947 André de Toth)

Typical Eric Maria Remarque stuff - couple trying to find love amidst tragic circumstances (the film's best scene is where Barbara Stanwyck realises her room mate has just died) - given slightly sluggish treatment. Neither Niven nor Richard Conte feel quite believable as doctor and racing driver respectively.

Shot by Victor Milner with a stirring score by Miklos Rosza for RKO.

Blow Out (1981 Brian de Palma & scr)

With its seed in Blow Up, de Palma then shamelessly steals from everyone else including his mate Coppola (The Conversation) and of course Hitchcock (Vertigo in both plot and colouring).

Travolta and Lithgow are fine, not so sure about acting talents of de Palma regulars Nancy Allen and Dennis Franz. Quite diffused lighting from Vilmos Zsigmond (with some fantastic moments of deep focus), music by Pino Donaggio that sometimes works: a bit of a mixed bag though pretty enjoyable. Actually lots and lots to recommend it, including seriously skilful editing by Paul Hirsch.

Astonishing night deep focus from Vilmos Zsigmond

At one point anyway, Quentin Tarantino's named this as one of his three favourite films (the other two being Rio Bravo and Taxi Driver).

Thanks to Angelfire for quoting the ASC article which confirms that furious finish is an optical effect (bluescreen filming with the fireworks added later). Still looks amazing though, and seasonally timely, though in fact Vilmos' mate Laszlo had to reshoot the last two reels which went missing (you'd never know):

Amy (2015 Asif Kapadia)

Very well put together documentary, calling our attention to Amy the lyricist. We're left in no doubt where the problems in her life lay and reckoned the bodyguard should have been her manager all along.

Some surprising omissions: Barbara Windsor friendship (would have lifted end section); very little about the impact Mark Ronson had on her career; outdoor gig where she seems to be assaulted, then falls apart.

Brandy for the Parson (1952 John Eldridge)

James Donald and Jean Lodge are inveigled into helping crap smuggler Kenneth More deal with fourteen barrels of brandy. Also involved are Charles Hawtrey, Michael Trubshawe (who in support of his friend David refers to his housekeeper as 'Mrs Niven'), Alfie Bass, Reginald Beckwith, Frank Tickle (vicar), pursued by Frederick Piper.

Written by John Dighton and Walter Meade, novel Geoffrey Household - title is Kipling. Shot by Martin Curtis, music John Addison. Film is produced by John Grierson.

Traffic accident scene where passengers talk in farmyard sounds is funny, though seems to be belong to another film altogether.

Dead of Night (1945 Various)

I hadn't noticed before that in 'The Haunted Mirror', there's a very subtle track into close up of Ralph Michael. Also that the hostess Mrs Foley (Mary Merrall) is the only one in the group not involved in a ghost story of her own.

Actually, only made it as far as the delightful 'Golf' episode so it doesn't really count.

Which episodes did Douglas Slocombe film and which did Stan Pavey (apparently the stories were filmed concurrently so I guess they did two each)? The golf scenes by the lake really stand out.

Shaun of the Dead (2004 Edgar Wright & co-scr)

The opening synthesizer track which sounds so familiar is 'Figment' by Simon Park, used in Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978).

It's great fun.

Last seen two Halloweens ago.

One thing I didn't get is that when the two resistance groups meet they're actually pairings of comedy duos - thus Pegg and Jessica Stevenson (Hynes) from Spaced, Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis (The Office), Dylan Moran and Tamsin Greig (Black Books).. leaving Matt Lucas. Also Q points out that each character (as they pass each other) is mirroring their counterpart in attire.

David Dunlap is the cameraman behind those efficient tracking shots, though to be pernickety you can see the exposure change on one of the entrances into the supermarket.

Mandy / The Crash of Silence (1952 Alexander Mackendrick)

Written by Nigel Balchin and Jack Whittingham, based on 'This Day is Ours' by Hilda Lewis (1946) which drew from her husband's experience as a deaf educator - thus he becomes Jack Hawkins.

Mandy Miller is beautifully expressive - and indeed well-directed - in tale of deaf girl. Behaviour of father is difficult to understand, even 60 years ago.

Phyllis Calvert, Terence Morgan, Nancy Price (the ageing and deaf governess, who was also in I Know Where I'm Going!)

Shot with customary care by Douglas Slocombe. Music by William Alwyn.

Can also be viewed as about the way parents pull their children about between them.

Mandy retired ten years later and was last seen in Aberdeenshire being rescued by a neighbour in his Capri! (Source)

Mr Holmes (2015 Bill Condon)

From the director of Gods and Monsters and the pilot of The Big C, Condon is thus reunited with Ian McKellan and Laura Linney, adding a confident Milo Parker as the boy (in interview, the 11-year old sounds twice his age). Jeffrey Hatcher's screenplay is stately (source novel Mitch Cullin) delivering a slow, subtle, satisfying whole.

Well acted. With Hattie Morahan (I guess known to us from The Bletchley Cirle and one-offs like Lewis and Marple), Hiroyuki Sanada, Roger Allum, Phil Davis, Frances de la Tour.

Music: Carter Burwell. Cinematography: Tobias Schliessler (who also shot Condon's Dreamgirls about a black soul group in the 60s). Editor: Virginia Katz (Dreamgirls, Gods and Monsters). Production design: Martin Childs (Parade's End, Quills).

There were one or two on location shots in Japan, but it's mainly Chatham Docks. Baker Street is Bedford Row, and those great cliffs (also in Atonement) are near Seaford.

A Swingin' Summer (1965 Robert Sparr)

Film is awful - like Carry On Summer Holiday - and for that reason, rather enjoyable. The sixties hasn't really caught up with these kids yet - there's no sex, drugs or booze, just some pretty tame rock from Gary Lewis or someone. Has the most prurient of cameraman, who is absolutely fixated by endless shots of bikini clad bosoms and bottoms in tight pants. There's an astoundingly bad fight scene, very dodgy acting, and a risible script (as evidence, the best line in it is "OK, let's go!")

Of note as Raquel Welch's debut. Film really only comes vaguely to life in Righteous Brothers' finale.

Also filled with characters who seem really gay.

The fact we watched a 4x3 crop of a Techniscope print, replete with rolling frames and flashes of green, made it even funnier.

The Fire Raisers (1934 Michael Powell)

This one for Gaumont-British, based on a contemporary newspaper story, written by Powell and Jerome Jackson - when else (apart from Armadillo) do you get a story about loss adjusters and the murky world of insurance? Leslie Banks plays the opportunistic claims pursuer, Anne Grey the love interest, Frank Cellier her father, Lawrence Anderson a claims investigator and Francis L Sullivan as a rotten baddie. However of most interest in the cast is Carol Goodner, who has a genuine naturalness ahead of her time.

Edited by D.N. Twist who also cut The Phantom Light and Edge of the World for Powell, and 39 Steps for Hitch. Effective use of cutting and audio in interrogation scene. Also features early credit for Alfred Junge. There's no music in these cheap, short, energetic, imaginative films.

I thought one of the (non-speaking) baddies looked familiar - it's Danny Green, to be seen in The Ladykillers.

Something Always Happens (1934 Michael Powell)

One of our double bill of Michael Powell quota quickies, written by Brock Williams, both distinguished by interesting, original material.

This one immediately elicits our sympathies for orphan John Singer (who later appeared in In Which We Serve) whose experiences are cross-cut against down-on-luck chancer Ian Hunter (the screenplay continues to do this successfully throughout), who then picks up Nancy O'Neil under false pretences. That it then turns into a battle between two rival petrol station companies is not what we were expecting at all.

Muriel George (Last Holiday, Went the Day Well?) is the sympathetic landlady. It's quite charming, lively, winning and - of course - short. In fact it's amazing how much you can seem to pack into 60-odd minutes - a lesson in film story-telling.

Basil Emmott shot it. American Ralph Dawson (it's a Warner Bros Teddington film), who cut it, won three Oscars including one for The Adventures of Robin Hood, and also edited Kings Row.

Della (1964 Robert Gist)

Recluse Joan Crawford (heavily gauzed) won't sell her land to aggressive lawyer Paul Burke (who isn't going to win any awards). Daughter Diane Baker doesn't seem to like going out much, becomes infatuated with the hot-head.

Was originally a pilot for a series to be called 'Royal Bay', thus the 4x3 ratio, and the billing of Crawford as 'Special Guest Star'.

Short but inoffensive.

The Man in the White Suit (1951 Alexander Mackendrick & co-scr)

Written with John Dighton and Roger Macdougall, from his play.

Guinness is terrific, displaying a weird mix of diffidence and confidence; Joan Greenwood is also wonderful.

Perry's unenlightening 'Forever Ealing' skips through it in a couple of paragraphs and doesn't even mention two of the most distinctive things about it - and of any British film come to that - the luminous suit and the extraordinary soundtrack to Guinness's chemical experiments. The latter was apparently created by sound editor Mary Habberfield using a tuba and a bassoon (unsubstantiated), mixed with bubbles. It was turned into 'White Suit Samba' performed by Jack Parnell and His Rhythm (and Mary's "Gurgle Glub Gurgle" is credited on the record).

But how Douglas Slocombe achieved that luminosity in night scenes without lighting everything else around him I've no idea. He's 102!

With Cecil Parker, Michael Gough, Ernest Thesiger, Howard Marion-Crawford (rather good as one of the industrialists), Vida Hope, Olaf Olsen, Judith Furse (nurse), Miles Malleson (tailor) and little Mandy Miller as a useful decoy.

It's not one of the Auric Ealings, but the score by Benjamin Frankel is good enough.

The Ghost Camera (1933 Bernard Vorhaus)

A somewhat schoolboy adventure script is enlivened by the quirky character played by Henry Kendall (one of ten features he appeared in that year; Rich and Strange was his Hitchcock in 1931), who talks like a thesaurus, sparking off cute Ida Lupino, with John Mills in early support. Vorhaus - in his first feature - sets up some interesting stuff such as subjective camera, and shots which allow David Lean to edit briskly (one character walking into camera becomes another walking out).

IMDB credits the American Ernest Palmer (Blood and Sand) as the cinematographer, but double-checking with the Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers confirms that it was the English one (who made the Ghosts of Berkeley Square).

Victor Stanley provides broad comic relief, Felix Aylmer is the judge, George Merritt the 'detective' (also in Young and Innocent and A Canterbury Tale).

Back to the Future Part III (1990 Robert Zemeckis & co-scr)

Cast adds Mary Steenburgen. Marty borrows Fistful of Dollars trick a bit too obviously.

Even Marty says "Great Scott!" at one point.

Monument Valley? Sure looks like it.

Back to the Future Part II (1989 Robert Zemeckis & co-scr)

So, four years after the original, neither Glover (who wanted too much money) nor girlfriend no. 1 Claudia Wells appear, making the recreations of Part I all the more crafty.

Liked the in-joke about Jaws 19 - "the shark still looks fake" (apparently provided by Spielberg himself).

And did a germ of this sink into JK Rowling's mind, becoming integral to the plot of the equally ingenious Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban?

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter & co-scr)

I was trying to delay the pleasure until next weekend, but Q said 'why don't we just watch it now?'

The second Dean Cundey film we saw in a row.

Rather like Psycho, nothing really happens for the first 50 minutes.

I could swear that music shifts up a fraction of a tone at one point.

Back to the Future (1985 Robert Zemeckis & co-scr)

...with Bob Gale. It's the anniversary. Christopher Lloyd, and his Heath Robinson collection of toys, steals the film. Liked the touch that the 1955 car disappears into a cinema playing 'Atomic Boy'.

Michael J Fox, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover (not a fan), Thomas F. Wilson.

Shot in that very saturated colourful 80s style (by Dean Cundey) which I think the French might have introduced with the 'cinéma du look'. Music by Alan Silvestri.

It's an ingenious story, with a certain debt to It's a Wonderful Life.

The excessive product placements are funny - I can't tell you the number of times the JC Penney department store logo is in shot.

Quantum of Solace (2008 Marc Forster)

Bond filtered through Bourne, film is over-edited to the point where you have to fight for a plot to materialise. (Not to mention that you just don't know where you are half the time.) Disappointing from the title sequence and theme song on, film is spectacularly well set up and edited, by Matt Chessé (Kite Runner, Finding Neverland) and Richard Pearson (Bourne Supremacy - see, told you so) and shot by Roberto Schaeffer. Olga Kurylenko is one good thing about it and although Mathieu Amalric is quietly sinister he doesn't have the presence for a Bond villain. With Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Rory Kinnear, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright. Paul Ritter's in it, but we didn't notice.

Good opening in Siena, then falls apart somewhat.

The quantum is the leap Skyfall made after it.

Paul Haggis (Crash) has been brought in to write, along with series regulars Rob Wade and Neal Purvis - but you wouldn't notice.

Singles (1992 Cameron Crowe & scr)

Bridget Fonda, Campbell Scott, Kyra Sedgwick, Sheila Kelly, Jim True, Bill Pullman, Matt Dillon, Eric Stoltz (mime), Jeremy Piven, Tom Skerritt, Paul Giamatti.

Loved the mime pretending to smoke - so how does he exhale a real puff of smoke?

Cameron's tribute to Manhattan, edited by Richard Chew, shot by Tak Fujimoto and Ueli Steiger.

Stuff about the supertrain reminds me of the failed sneakers in Elizabethtown. There's a poster advertising a band called 'Stillwater' (Almost Famous). The band is called 'Citizen Dick' - in Vanilla Sky his nickname is 'Citizen Dildo'.

Again you are reminded that Cameron has heart (Billy was a cynic).

Scene where Fonda goes to have her breasts enlarged is funny, as is car with new sound system.

Vanilla Sky (2001 Cameron Crowe & scr)

We've avoided it for a long time, this most un-Cameron like project, based on Abre Los Ojos (written by Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil; and you can hear Penelope Cruz speak these words right at the start, which is cool) - 'the Cameron that got away'. It was a most welcome re-acquaintanceship, though through much of the film we were admittedly puzzled (yet intrigued). Is the bar scene a mirror of the party? Is there a corporate conspiracy?

It sounds like a Cameron Crowe film, in places, and you notice the fake skies. And yes, you notice Noah Taylor ('tech support') was from the operation scene, though by now it's all gone a bit Last Year at Marienbad mixed up with The Manchurian Candidate - though the ultimate explanation for characters' origins is wholly unexpected and brilliant. Some of it's very funny, especially the Lucid Dream stuff, and the frozen dog business.

We liked Tom Cruise in those days, before he was an alien, though Penelope Cruz probably steals the acting honours - Cameron Diaz is good too though. With Jason Lee, Timothy Spall, Kurt Russell, Jonathan Galecki, Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon.

What's the lesson? "You need the sour to appreciate the sweet." Loved that elevator to heaven, which seems quite Powell & Pressburgerish. And the weirdness of Cruise with his mask on the back of his face.

Shot by John Toll. That final montage - edited by Joe Hutshing and Mark Livolsi - is so amazing we had to watch it first in slow mo (which was still too fast) then in the slowest mo - to really appreciate what went into it (some of Cameron's home movies, we guess).

If it doesn't have cult status it should have. Great soundtrack, of course, including one of Q's favourite Stones songs 'Heaven'.

Amenábar, quoted on 'The Uncool' website:

“When I learned, quite some time ago now, that Cameron Crowe was going to write and direct the film based on Open Your Eyes with Tom Cruise in the leading role, I felt honored. Now that I have seen Vanilla Sky, I couldn’t be more proud. Cameron has all my respect and admiration. Respect, for having plumbed the deepest meaning of the work. Admiration, for having sought new viewpoints and a fresh approach to the mise-en-scene, giving the film his own unmistakable touch. Vanilla Sky is as true the original spirit as it is irreverent towards its form, and that makes it a courageous, innovative work. I think I can say that, for me, the projects are like two very special brothers. They have the same concerns, but their personalities are quite different. In other words, they sing the same song but with quite different voices: one likes opera, and the other likes rock and roll.”

For a while, it's like watching a film on a slope, but it's absolutely stupendous.