Heartbreak Ridge (1986 Clint Eastwood)

Pain in the arse (but highly decorated) Gunnery Sergeant Highway (I know) returns to his final post as a marine corps trainer. Luckily he's the toughest sonofabitch amongst them all, something that's established right at the outset in jail. Then he meets up with petty thief / guitarist Mario van Peebles, who of course turns out to be one of his troops. (if I had a complaint with the film it's that he is just a bit too much.) Meanwhile he chums up with ex Marsha Mason again. Clint saw it as a comedy about a super-macho man who's as thick as shit.

It's a very traditional film, really. He of course makes his unit the best one, even defeating arrogant commanding officer Everett McGill, then takes them into battle where they are gloriously successful. The screenplay by James Carabatsos was uncredited substantially rewritten by Joe Stinson (according to the director).

It's most entertaining, particularly in Clint's refusal to accept his superior's authority, and in his attempts to learn a modern approach to relationships via magazines.

Music Lennie Niehaus, photography Jack Green, editor Joel Cox, gaffer Tom Stern.

With Moses Gunn, Eileen Heckart. Boyd Gaines good value as Lieutenant with no experience but who gamely makes the best of it.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012 David O Russell & scr)

Russell brings a wonderful fluidity to this, assisted by Masanobu Takayanagi's highly mobile camera and vibrant editing from the great Jay Cassidy (and Crispin Struthers) - as evidenced for example in the really fast pull away from the couple right at the end. Thus the medical condition Bradley Cooper (and to some extent his dad Robert de Niro) faces is made more vivid. Great acting all round - Jennifer Lawrence won Oscar.

With Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Apunam Kher, John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, Julia Stiles, Paul Herman (de Niro's gambling friend).

Loved the way Hudson keeps leaping out at Cooper running. Also the scene where she totally convinces de Niro she's a lucky talisman.

Our Ladies (2019 Michael Caton-Jones & co-scr)

This wasn't quite as fresh and original as I was hoping. The point of difference I suppose is that the Catholic girls are sex-starved and by no means virgins, either. They spend what seems like a long afternoon in Edinburgh getting up to various jinks.  They are Abigail Lawrie, Rona Morison, Marli Siu, Talullah Greive and Sally Messham. Kate Dicke as fun as the not too bad nun. Written by Alan Sharp and Caton-Jones, from Alan Warner's novel.

Not sure the fake 'where are they now' ending is useful. Did American Graffiti do that first?

Witness for the Prosecution (1957 Billy Wilder & co-scr)

It's a sneaky bastard, and an atypical Wilder film.

Unusually, Marlene is guilty of some overacting. You would have thought that she and Billy being old friends from the Berlin days he would have got exactly what he wanted from her, but I think in the courtroom scenes she just goes too far (as does Tyrone Power). It was she who wanted the part and asked Billy to direct it.

But... "Marlene was coached how to speak Cockney, by Noel Coward, who was a close friend of hers". He didn't do a very good job.

Charles Laughton is well supported by Ian Wolfe, Elsa Lanchester, John Williams and Henry Daniell; Una O'Connor is the dead woman's maid, and the lady in question is Norma Varden (The Major and the Minor, Strangers on a Train).

The Old Bailey is by Alexander Trauner. Shot by Russell Harlan, edited by Daniel Mandell, music by Matty Malneck.

Kiss Me Stupid (1964 Billy Wilder & co-scr)

Billy and Izzy's film was reviled on release - you can see why - it sails on uncomfortable waters (if that doesn't mix up too many metaphors). But actually there's a fair bit to unpick. For example. it isn't Ray Walston's idea to entice visiting star 'Dino' with his 'wife' (Wilder's changing identities theme revisited) - in fact the Dean Martin character emerges as the only wholly unlikeable one. (Cliff Osmond's isn't much better.) And in a plot switch, Walston is finally unable to cope with his 'wife' being seduced, and throws Dino out - by this time he is actually seeing Kim Novak as his real wife, in a bizarre turn of plot - and she of course loves being Mrs Suburbia, for a change. Thus the aberrant sexual politics are corrected. And we are to suppose that his real wife, Felicia Farr, also enjoys her night of being 'Polly the Pistol'. It's actually divinely plotted.

And as always there's a whole gallery of marvellous props (including a TV store and a parrot) which are plot points, notably the mannequin of his wife which in a great scene seems to haunt him (thus the intriguing shot where he shuts it away, not behind one door but three). And the scene with the grapefruit half - a reference to Cagney and Mae Clarke in Public Enemy.

It's got that clockwork plot mechanism thing going on in which nothing is wasted, with a great Previn score to meld it together. Filmed by La Shalle, edited by Daniel Mandell, production design Alexandre Trauner, assoc prod Doane Harrison.

Knowing she had something of a reputation, Wilder put her in her place right from the off, then treated her 'like Garbo'. She didn't give him any trouble*

The critics hated it - but to put that into perspective, most of them had hated The Apartment too...

* Maurice Zolotow, 'Billy Wilder in Hollywood'.

Lost in Yonkers (1993 Martha Coolidge)

Shifting points of view: the film seems to be about the two boys who are left at hard-as-nails Grandmothers'; though Richard Dreyfuss is top-billed, his story is really peripheral; and what emerges really is the journey of the sister, Mercedes Ruehl. 1940s Yonkers. Following the death of their mother, Brad Stoll (himself tragically to die of cancer aged only 20) and Mike Damus are dumped in the home of Irene Worth (a great performance - they're all good, actually. Coolidge is only known to us from Out At Sea and ended up mainly on TV), a German with a personality of iron. Ruehl is child-like, her brother is a petty criminal, Dreyfuss in unusually tough role.

Simon came from parents with a stormy marriage. The father would leave home for extended periods and the mother took in boarders, meaning the boys (Neil had an older brother Danny) were sometimes palmed off on relatives - thus the autobiographical element to the story (play first, then film).

It's nicely designed by David Chapman and photographed by Johnny Jensen, with a terrific Elmer Bernstein score.

In the French Style (1963 Robert Parrish)

A film for grown ups. Young American artist Jean Seberg's experiences of love in France. She dates a terribly annoying man Phillippe Fourquet, and after a really awful near seduction in a cheap and freezing hotel room, he admits he's only sixteen. Then she's having affair with Jack Hedley, but he goes off with a Greek. Stanley Baker's itinerant journalist becomes her beau, but he can leave her for a North African tour for three months and expect her to wait for him. But after a heart to heart with her visiting father, who proclaims her paintings have become actually worse than they were, she settles down with a San Francisco surgeon. (You sort of know that marriage isn't going to work out.) This all from two Irwin Shaw short stories, 'In the French Style' and 'A Year to Learn the Language' (he wrote dozens of them).

Has traces of New Wavery to it. e.g. dizzying rides on back of French boy's scooter, 'wild' party (did parties like that ever really happen?)

It has a melancholy air to it. Nicely photographed and edited by Michel Kelber and Renée Lichtig (all the crew are French) and good music from Joseph Kosma. Jane Eakin did the paintings.

Fourquet was actually 22!

Seberg was based in France from 1959 when she met her first husband while filming Bonjour Tristesse. She returned to Hollywood in the late sixties but we all know what happened then, and she died in Paris in 1979.

Nobody Runs Forever (1968 Ralph Thomas)

Jon Cleary's novel 'The High Commissioner' adapted to screen by William Greatorex, none too successfully. For some obscure reason, Australian cop Rod Taylor is sent to London to bring back statesman Christopher Plummer, who is believed to be a fugitive from murder; only he's now involved in an international conference of some significance, and he and Taylor bond. There's murder attempts (not sure why really), women, spies and other assorted types you find in films like these. They are populated by wife Lili Palmer, high class tart Daliah Lavi (in unforgiving makeup), drippy assistant Camilla Sparv, butler Clive Revill, cop Lee Montague, suspicious American Calvin Lockhart, Derren Nesbitt (Where Eagles Dare, Monte Carlo or Bust, Innocent Bystanders) and Bert Kwouk.

Some nice London locations, filmed by Ernest Steward. Music from Georges Delerue. The ending is stupid (the wife would have had a decent hearing and got away with not murder).

Rough Ozzie vs. posh Brits best caught in interactions with butler. ("What are these?" "Kippers" sort of thing.) Taylor seems a bit stiff, in contrast to more smooth roles like in Hotel. It's not one of his best.

Cleary wrote 'The Sundowners' and this was the first in a series starring Sydney policeman Scobie Malone.

Hell Drivers (1957 Cy Endfield & co-scr)

An unusual and tough British drama from HUAC refugee Cy Endfield, billed here as 'C. Ryker Endfield', who adapted John Kruse's short story  and they share the screenplay billing. Ex-con Stanley Baker joins a tough crew of haulage drivers who's principle financial motivation is speed. 'Red', Patrick McGoohan in intense form, is the speed king and informal leader of the pack. Interesting cast comprises Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, William Hartnell, Wilfred Lawson, Sid James, Jill Ireland, Alfie Bass, Gordon Jackson, David McCallum, Sean Connery and Marjorie Rhodes.

Geoffrey Unsworth shoots it in gritty black and white, with the odd bit of film speeding up here and there.

Baker and Endfield were united for Zulu. The quality of Baker's films nose-dived in the seventies; he died too young at 48 in 1976.

Slow Horses - Season 3 (2023 Various)

There's not only Slow Horses in this but Dogs (MI5 security) and a Tiger Trap (testing the strength of your own security). A paramilitary group selected to test the MI5 instead goes rogue. London locations used well.

MI5 boss Sophie Okonedo proves to be no match for Kristin Scott Thomas and the Slow Horses, even when faced with the assembled forces of the group. In a bullet-ridden and exciting finale, the women are satisfyingly the ones that save the day - Ninja Aimee Ffion-Edwards and Rosalind Eleazar. 

With Gary Oldman, Saskia Reeves, Jack Lowden (still a step behind the story), Christopher Chung (such a sleazy character), Freddie Fox, Chris Reilly (the top 'dog'), Samuel West, Kadiff Kirwan, Jonathan Pryce. And in the story's prelude in Istanbul, Katherine Waterstone and Sope Dirisu.

Good moments of humour from various writers.

From the trailer it looks like Season 4 has been completed already.

Innocents in Paris (1953 Gordon Parry)

Written and produced by Anatole de Grunwald, this is such a strange film that at times you feel like your drink's been spiked with acid. Various 'types' visit Paris and odd things happen. Financial diplomat Alastair Sim befriends his Russian counterpart Peter Illing in a roisterous night in a Russian restaurant. A stupidly simple girl Claire Bloom allows herself to be taken to the apartment of smooth Claude Dauphin (Two for the Road) who against the odds behaves honorably - there's a scene where she cooks him chops and cabbage, when there's a perfectly good bistro 'just around the corner'. (She's also in the most trippy scene where she ends up dancing with this American fellow who is just so weird.) The drummer of a brass band (Ronald Shiner) spends the night in Pigalle and almost avoids all temptations, but ends up with Gaby Bruyere. Margaret Rutherford is a painter who at one point is pestered by a really creepy Gregoire Aslan. And a kilt wearing Scot James Copeland falls for Monique Gerard. Jimmy Edwards spends the whole trip in an English bar.

It is at least filmed in Paris, but it's really not a very good film. It might have provided some sort of entertainment to ration-ridden Brits.

With Richard Wattis, Luis de Funes, and (uncredited) Kenneth Williams and Christopher Lee.

Evening (2007 Lajos Koltai)

Written by Michael Cunningham and Susan Minot, from her novel.

Vanessa Redgrave is dying; her daughters Toni Collette and Natasha Richardson are there as is nurse Eileen Atkins. But the old lady keeps flashing back to an eventful weekend - her friend Mamie Gummer's wedding, her drunkard brother Hugh Dancy and a dishy doctor friend, Patrick Wilson. Young Vanessa is Claire Danes. With Glenn Close and Meryl Streep (who is Gummer's mum).

It's one of those pretty, tragic heartwarmers with romantic setting (Newport, Rhode Island), no The Notebook however. It's a bit wet and has some rather twee elements, like the nurse appearing in Redgrave's dress at night, and Jan Kaczmarek's plinky music doesn't help. Redgrave is fantastic, however. Gyula Pados makes the most of the pretties.

Koltai is normally a cinematographer. This is one of three films he directed.

A bus.

Two friends in bed.

The Good Lie (2014 Philippe Falardeau)

Info here.

Very entertaining. Could not understand why one or all of them had not been employed looking after Corey Stoll's cows. Loved the stoners' amazement when the story of the lion is told. Very sweet.

I am pleased to report that since the last viewing I have read Huckleberry Finn.

Mr. Skeffington (1944 Vincent Sherman)

An unusually adult and interesting film from Warners, addressing Jewishness, racism and the concentration camps of WW2. It's also - at two hours 20 - uncommonly long. The Epsteins wrote it (and produced) from Elizabeth von Arnim's story.

Society beauty Bette Davis has so many suitors at her beck and call, but her useless brother Richard Waring gets the family into shame and debt. Claude Rains' Mr. Skeffington can bail them out, but Bette has to marry him even though she never loves him.

Bette's as good as ever and in choosing to appear later so aged decrepit was a brave move - Perc Westmore ages her beautifully (horribly). And Franz Waxman's score, and its orchestral arrangement by Leonid Raab, is fantastic.

With Walter Abel as her faithful cousin, Marjorie Riordan as the daughter, a strangely high-billed George Coulouris, considering he's only in one (good) scene, Robert Shayne, John Alexander, Halliwell Hobbes (uncredited as the butler; Gaslight, To Be Or Not To Be, Casanova Brown).

Photographed by Ernie Haller. Bette's husband Arthur Farnsworth died suddenly before shooting began; this may have contributed to problems on set with the star, leading to overruns in schedule and budget. According to Alexander Walker the film was a flop; the Warner Bros. Story reports that audiences were delighted (not the first time we've had that contradiction).

秋刀魚の味 / An Autumn Afternoon (1962 Yasujiro Ozu & co-scr)

Chisu Ryu is the beautiful centre of this film, playing a lovely man who despite having no wife wants his daughter to get married. His smile is everything. And this bounces off everything else - a friend who has married a much younger woman, a former teacher who has a bitter grown up daughter living with him, a secretary who is just married, a son with a strong-willed wife. So it's about everything - families, relationships, the past... and golf clubs.

It's immediately recognisable as an Ozu film by the low camera - though there's perhaps a reason for that - unless in the office or in a bar, everyone is on the floor. What amazes me is the men all sit cross legged, but the women more formally kneel - and then when they get up, they just propel themselves up so gracefully - I started wondering if I could do it (I couldn't. Couldn't get anywhere near it.)

And the empty spaces. Ozu shoots very formally, the camera never moves; but the characters behave formally too - there's no hugs, kisses or embraces.

The actual title translation is 'The Taste of Sanma' which is mackerel pike, 'an unrefined fish popularly enjoyed by ordinary folk... The Chinese character for Autumn is one of the three characters which make up the word 'sanma'.' (Kiyoko Hirano, BFI booklet).

By the way, Japan in colour in 1962 - gorgeous but somehow sterile urban landscapes, buildings, neon signs - the American influence. Contrasted with very traditional dwellings.

Not without humour also - the drunkenness of the old teacher, the friends who wind each other up. (There's a lot of drinking and eating going on.) The man who has served under him in the war, the bar they go to - and when he goes there again, it's so not the same experience.

It's ultimately really sad. But what we've seen in such simple scenes is real, human life.

The daughter is Shima Iwashita. All acting fabulous. Cinematography  Yuharu Atsuta, music Takanobu Saito.

A polite film of much subtlety. Ozu's last.

Dark Victory (1939 Edmund Goulding)

Wendy had died, and this seemed like an appropriate film to watch and wallow in and feel, as Bette Davis's character first is cured from an illness, but it has got her all along, she just isn't told. She is understandably annoyed with her lover / doctor George Brent when she finds out, but all is well, though when she knows she's dying (through loss of sight) she nobly sends him off to a medical conference without telling him. Well - he wouldn't have been very happy about that. Casey Robinson is the writer and Hal B Wallis is the creative producer.

Bette acts in super-fast mode, her speed signifying energy. Her best friend is played by Geraldine Fitzgerald and Bogie is for some reason cast as an Irish jockey. Ernie Haller shot it and Max Steiner wrote the suitably rousing music (arranged by Hugo Friedhofer).

With Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers.

Coma (2024 Michael Samuels, writer Ben Edwards)

Jason Watkins accidentally puts son of violent criminal into a coma, but as he's saved the boy's life too, he gets pulled into a relationship with the father (Jonas Armstrong). Claire Skinner is trying to be a good wife, Kayla Meikle is the investigating detective. Joe Barber is the unpleasant son, David Bradley a neighbour.

Yeah. Whatever.

4 parts on Channel 5, home of Quality Productions.

The Black Keys (2024 John Kelly)

A charming and cinematic short (15m) film, screen written (from Kelly's story) and co-produced by our dear friend Derek Masterson, involving a concert pianist who has gone blind, and the salvation he reaches when tutoring young pupils. With Barry Roe.

Modern Love - Season 1 (2019 Creator John Carney)

The lady with the doorman is right near the Franklin Avenue subway station, which places her in the Tribeca area of lower east Manhattan. This is my favourite story. I guess that may be the Central Park Zoo the website guy visits with his girlfriend. 

The ending, when all the characters reappear, is lovely. And I liked the 'recalibrate the Universe' philosophy: If someone cuts you up in traffic, be extra helpful to the next person trying to get out. If someone steals your wallet, go and make a donation to a charity. And is your date doesn't turn up...

More detailed assessments here and here.

Begin Again (2013 John Carney & scr)

Another warm hug of love from Carney, this one set in NYC, and featuring the great Mark Ruffalo, who is always totally credible in everything. I loved the way he always hits the curb in his Jag.

The band playing under Washington Arch. Do you think they had permission?

Terminus (1961 John Schlesinger & scr)

Short 33 minute documentary about Waterloo station - more a succession of moments (there's no commentary) and impressions - a lost boy, sailors, drunks, a group of prisoners en route somewhere, farewells, reunions. And unexpected touches, like that on the roof, someone's keeping a beehive. Image and sound well manipulated from no doubt tons of footage.

Music by Ron Grainer. Schlesinger graduated to features the next year - A Kind of Loving followed by Billy Liar.

The Dirty Dozen (1967 Robert Aldrich)

A war film with elephantiasis. It's all in the last hour, where our group of misfits compete in a military exercise - well, cheat - and why not? Then invade German top brass chalet and wreak mayhem - actually only one of the convicts (Charles Bronson) survives. That night finale is amusingly brightly lit, by Ted Scaife. Worth seeing for performances from Lee Marvin, Bronson, John Cassavetes; interesting early appearance from Donald Sutherland.

With Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy, Jim Brown, Richard Jaeckel, Trini Lopez, Ralph Meeker, Telly Savalas, Robert Ryan, Clint Walker, Robert Webber.

Had they shot this square on the 'Last Supper' reference would have been all too clear!

It was the top grossing film of 1967. Written by Nunally Johnson and Lukas Heller. MGM.

Sully (2016 Clint Eastwood & prod)

The only teaming of Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood. Hanks obviously relished being directed in this way ('One take? Great.') Great film, reviewed elsewhere. Great editing (Blu Murray), and sound. Which leads me to another thing I didn't know about the Malpaso family. Since Escape from Alcatraz, Clint's supervising sound editor has been Alan Murray, and he's Blu's dad!

Good all round competent cast. 'It's not the stars you have the trouble with,' Clint remarked, 'It's making sure all the smaller parts are played just as well.' Something Hitch wouldn't disagree with.

Sing Street (2016 John Carney & co-scr)

Another charming film from Carney, just what we need at the moment, which so accurately charts the life of a young band in a well caught 1980s, and the difficult waters of family, school and love life. Great songs as usual, especially in the way they emulate whoever's hot, you know - Duran Duran one week, Joy Division the next.

With Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Jack Reynor, Lucy Boynton, Mark McKenna (The Tourist), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Kin). The head teacher's a right bastard.