Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009 David Yates)

Steve Kloves back writing, Nicholas Hooper providing the music, a dark instalment, darkly shot by Bruno Delbonnel (Amelie, A Very Long Engagement, Inside Llewyn Davis, Darkest Hour, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs).

Dark? There's no moving paintings, Hermione isn't brilliant, Hagrid's hardly in it, nor are the Dursleys... Nor is Voldemort, come to that. It's very focused. Properly lit night scenes are properly dark.

Jim Broadbent is fabulous, of course.

So I think my favourite bit still is: Harry and Ginny are about to kiss when there's an attack on the Weasley house. Harry races out, hotly followed by Ginny, who charges unheedingly through a wall of flames the guys are trying to put out. We can hear Bellatrix chanting 'I killed Sirius Black' (which is really funny), then there's an expertly lit and edited sequence of racing through reeds (Onibaba, anyone?) and wizard duel.

Actually I also like the bit in the subterranean cave, though there's a couple of niggles - one minute Harry's surrounded by what look like Gollums, then only one of them drags him below the water? And Dumbledore seems so weak, begging for water, when the next minute he's produced this glorious maelstrom of fire (which, particularly after almost black and white photography, looks amazing)?

When you compare it to the 'Whoah!' factor of 1 & 2, it seems like a different series altogether.

Young Tom Riddle is rather well played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin (!) and Paul Ritter's in it somewhere.

Production design Stuart Craig, visual effects Tim Burke, James Mather supervising sound editor, fabulous end titles by Fugitive Studios.

Funeral of Hagrid's beloved spider is almost a John Ford moment...

The third episode in a row to end on a shot of that fucking Loch...

Contact (1984 Alan Clarke)

Another from Will's list of Worthy War Films, written by A.F.N Clarke and adapted from his own book (more about him here), short BBC film accurately captures the routine, boredom and sudden violence of (a very young) army unit in Northern Ireland, in dry, musicless approach. Terrific ending in which an abandoned car is inspected, in long shot, then there's an explosion...

With Sean Chapman as the platoon leader. Photographed by Philip Bonham-Carter.

The Falcon in San Francisco (1945 Joseph H Lewis)

Sadly routine feature from King of the Bs Lewis, probably made in about five minutes but uninteresting. Good performances from the kid Sharyn Moffett (now 83; also in Mr Blandings Build His Dream House and the Body Snatcher) and Carl Kent.

With Tom Conway, Edward Brophy.

Hilarious ending as ship 'blows up' - but from the quayside it looks just like some steam's coming out of the funnel.

You're Telling Me! (1934 Erle C. Kenton)

Originally watched this on August 25 1975 as part of a Bank Holiday comedy triple bill (the others being Fraternally Yours / Sons of The Desert and .. what was the third one? That's going to bug me now*).

W.C. Fields meets a princess (Adrienne Ames) but doesn't believe her. Not as funny as some of the others (Fields isn't credited as a writer; stuff with hat is very well choreographed but old school) but has comedy gold in scene with ostrich, and golf game.

With Buster Crabbe, Joan Marsh, Louise Carter. Photographed by Alfred Gilks. Paramount.

Indestructible tyre plot made me think of Tesla's bullet proof car.

* Thanks to this website for the answer - it was only Duck Soup... which my records show I didn't see until 10 August 1979. Why didn't I watch it on that day?? My childhood's ruined...

Marriage Story (2019 Noah Baumbach & scr)

Divorce seems something of an issue with Baumbach -  his parents separated, The Squid and the Whale is on theme, and he himself divorced from Jennifer Jason Leigh...

He's reunited with Adam Driver for the third time, Robbie Ryan for the second.

Less funny than some of the others, but emotionally weighty and casting a strong light on the absurdities of divorce in general and in California specifically. My only thought is that I'm not sure we need the two music numbers which extend the film to two hours and a quarter.

Scarlett Johannson is as good as ever but Adam Driver really steals the film with a terrific and emotional performance. Great cast includes Julie Hagarty, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Merritt Wever, Wallace Shawn, Martha Kelly (the 'evaluator') and Azhy Robertson as the kid.

Terrific voiceover to montage opening is redolent of Woody Allen, not the first time I've made the comparison between these two.

This Gun For Hire (1942 Frank Tuttle)

It was quite a surprise to realise that this is where Melville's Le Samourai comes from - the raincoat,  the hat, the impassive killer.. even a key moment on a bridge.

In the first five minutes, Raven (Alan Ladd's debut) has killed his target and his innocent 'secretary' (though spared the life of a disabled girl - who Q charmingly describes as wearing 'leg brackets' - and protected a cat).

In Albert Maltz and W.R. Burnett (Scarface, High Sierra, The Asphalt Jungle) screenplay from Graham Greene's 1936 novel 'A Gun For Sale', we learn why he's a killer (abused as a child) and he tries to do the right thing for singing magician (!) Veronica Lake, though doesn't let her close. (There's a singer in Le Samourai too.)

Laird Cregar delivers another of his delicious performances as a cowardly night club owner, but the real bad guy is old man Tully Marshall (who died a year later). Robert Preston is the dull cop, Marc Lawrence the bad guy sidekick.

I kept thinking the Veronica Lake character sure looks like a Will Eisner Spirit heroine, and no doubt he and Hollywood influenced one another (or did it all flow in the direction of Hollywood to Eisner - I'd like to think not).

Film is quite tough, very inventive (the way Raven gets out of the hotel, for example, and the gas mask) and beautifully photographed by John Seitz with some fabulous deep focus. Paramount.

Stunning deep focus shot

The Crown - Season 3 (Creator / writer Peter Morgan)

The Queen is now Olivia Colmans, Philip Tobias Menzies, Margaret Helena Bonham Carter.

1. 1964: A spy is revealed in the royal household. Anthony Blount intimates if Philip threatens to reveal it he has incriminating evidence linking the prince to Stephen Ward and the Profumo affair. New PM is Harold Wilson, played by Jason Watkins. Marion Bailey good value as Queen Mum.

2. Britain needs a bail-out from the US but Lyndon Johnson's being difficult. Margaret attends the White House and through drinking and dirty limericks brings round the President. HBC's hour of glory.

3. 1966. Aberfan. Queen slow to respond.

4. Philip rashly invites documentary crew into palace, making them look even more privileged, but his Greek mother Aunt Alice, with her courage and fortitude, makes great impression (as does Jane Lapotaire). First glimpse of feisty Princess Anne (Erin Doherty).

5. Supposed coup attempt on Government with Mountbatten (Charles Dance) as figurehead, whilst Queen globetrots in search of ideal horse training - she reveals to 'Porchey' (John Hollingworth) that this life is all she really wants. Beatles still nowhere in evidence.

6. Josh O'Connor appears as Charles, a fabulous performance in a most enjoyable episode where he has to deliver his inauguration speech in Welsh, and befriends teacher Mark Lewis Jones. Capel Celyn is that Welsh-speaking village that was flooded in 1965 to create a reservoir for Liverpool - most unpopular, naturally.

7. 1969. Philip obsessed by achievement of moon landing, realises his own life lacks meaning, befriends the new Dean.

8. Charles spends time with Edward (Derek Jacobi, fabulous as always) and Mrs Simspon (Geraldine Chaplin) and starts seeing Camilla (Emerald Fennell channeling Joanna Lumley) whilst Anne is dallying with her other half, Andrew Buchan. Josh is really fabulous.

9. Wilson out, piano-playing Heath in (with opening Chopin 'Raindrop' prelude providing a musical departure point), miner's strike, candles everywhere, even in Palace. Charles wants to be with Camilla - no one wants this to happen.

10. Bust up of Anne and Tony and her fling with Roddy (Harry Treadaway). Not sure where Kensington palace or wherever it is is filmed.

Adriano Goldman (photography) and Martin Phipps (score) still present and correct, both doing some lovely things.

Entertaining series despite - or rather, probably because of - historical inaccuracies and creative writing.

Some how feel it's all getting a bit recent and they should stop there, though... try and stop this train.

World on Fire (2019 Writer Peter Bowker)

A man (played by Jonah Hauer-King) who's good at languages with a horrible mother falls for a local lass who works in a factory (Julia Brown) - Mummy obviously doesn't approve. Later, in Poland, he falls for a local lass (there's a pattern emerging here - Kasia Tomaszeski), marries her as the Nazis move in (it's 1939, by the way, a date of some significance), hoping to get her back to the UK, but she sends her younger brother instead (I don't know why she didn't get on the train too, with her brother).

Meanwhile her older brother is on the run in Poland, and the sister joins the Resistance. It's here that Bowker's writing ends up becoming a bit convenient - she is rescued from hanging just at the right time, then her husband of all people is the one to get her out of Poland.

In Berlin, American journalist Helen Hunt (has she got some kind of prosthetic on?) uncovers a 'hospital' for disabled children and tries to help her neighbours Johannes Zeiler and Victoria Meyer.

In Paris, gay doctor befriends gay black saxophonist. Brian J Smith and Parker Sawyers

And back in England, our factory lass's pacifist father Sean Bean is dealing with a sailor son (who's a pain in the arse, played by Ewan Mitchell) whilst the translator's mum Lesley Manville is coping with .. well .. all sorts actually. Learning to hold hands, that sort of thing.

Not sure Hauer-King is the best leading man, but The Inbetweeners' Blake Harrison good value as his No. 2. Charlie Creed-Mills is in it too.

After seven episodes it ends on a cliffhanger, but not the annoying sort. So we would watch the next series.

Apocalyptic sort of music by Dan Jones. Photographed by Suzie Lavell, John de Borman, Soren Bay, Mika Orasmaa. Filmed - of course - in the Czech Republic.

Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935 Clyde Bruckman, W.C. Fields)

Don't expect to find one in the film, which is about a man's unsuccessful attempt to go and see a wrestling match (the closest he gets is one of the wrestlers lands on him), typical Fields madness, a perfect end to a Sunday.

It's consistently hilarious, starting from where two burglars (one of whom is a young Walter Brennan) get drunk in his cellar on Applejack, joined by a policeman, then Fields himself, who ultimately is the one jailed for illegally brewing said drink. His daughter Mary Brian bails him out. Then there's a scene with a car and a traffic cop... Well, you get the idea. It's very funny.

Written by Ray Harris and Sam Hardy, from a story by 'Charles Bogle' (Fields) and Sam Hardy. Photographed by Alfred Gilks (shared Oscar for An American In Paris).

Inspired (single take) monologue about J Farnsworth Wallaby, the Australian sheep man, which ends up being about Fields' employer's wild night out.

Must watch You're Telling Me next, 1934 vintage. Paramount.

Fields became successful after 1933's International House. His last film in a starring role was Never Give a Sucker an Even Break in 1941, over which he finally had complete artistic control.

The Holiday (2006 Nancy Meyers)

'That's a Nancy Meyers kitchen' I remember thinking to myself at one point, not realising it was one.

Some of it is a bit pukey.

Spent a lot of time concentrating on the dog. It's not a Disappearing Dog, but it is a Convenient Screen Dog (just appears every now and then on whim of script).

And the fact that it's an Eli Wallach film - not his last by any means.

Jude Law. Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz. Jack Black, Rufus Sewell, Edward Norton, Sarah Parish, John Krasinski (briefly).

Photographed by Dean Cundey and edited by Joe Hutshing.

I don't know - the neighbours put up their Christmas lights and suddenly it's The Holiday...

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007 David Yates)

Who's Michael Goldenberg?* I thought Steve Kloves wrote them all? I don't know what he was doing instead but nothing was released then with his name on.

David Yates' first in the series is a big improvement on The Goblet of Fire. It has more great sets by Stuart Craig (the green tiles of the Ministry of Magic, styled on a public toilet in a railway station) and wonderful photography by Slawomir Idziak (A Short Film About Killing, Three Colours: Blue) and editing by Mark Day. It has a focus - a simple story. (I probably would have left out the malevolent house elf). Nicholas Hooper scored it. The special effects (supervised by Tim Burke) are wonderfully shiny - love the fireworks of it all - the way all the proclamations shatter and fall to the ground, the duel in the Ministry.. Ginny's proving to be a rather adept wizard.

Helena Bonham-Carter makes an impressive debut. Plus Imelda Staunton, beautifully evil.

Next up: Harry Potter and the Deathly Brexit, Part 1.

* There's no point asking these questions if you don't answer them. He wrote Jodie Foster Contact, P.J. Hogan's Peter Pan and Green Lantern.

Ideal Home (2018 Andrew Fleming & scr)

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd inherit young Jack Gore in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The kid only wants to eat Taco Bell (until the end). That's it. It's not the best film in the world, but it moved along and was quite fun.

Oh What A Lovely War! (1969 Richard Attenborough)

Increasingly bleak images accompany credits scene. Then high level talks between governments on Brighton Pier and the Great War begins. Extremely clever links between music hall and recruitment, a puppet show to the first battle, a shooting range to warfare, a merry-go-round, a train that leaves the pier and ends with a solitary mother on a deserted train station. A largely unknown cast makes a good point that it is the common man that is the war's great casualty.

Absolutely loved the travelling tracking shot that follows a horse from the French camp to the German (Ronnie Taylor's the operator); and the exchange between the troops on Christmas Day.

Sadly the ingenuity sags in the second half, and the film goes on rather, like the War itself. But the ironic songs continue* into a concluding awesome aerial shot of thousands of graves. And talking of which, there's an earlier great scene of a mass grave being dug... then it's been filled in, which says it all very simply and memorably.

Stars include John Mills, Michael Redgrave, Laurence Olivier, Juliet Mills (briefly), Ken Colley (briefly), Maggie Smith, Robert Flemyng, David Lodge, Guy Middleton, Nanette Newman, Cecil Parker, Edward Fox, Dirk Bogarde, Phyllis Calvert, Jean-Pierre Cassel, John Gielgud, Jack Hawkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Susannah York.

With Wendy Allnutt, Colin Farrell, Malcolm McFee, John Rae, Corin Redgrave, Maurice Roeves, Paul Shelley, Kim Smith, Angela Thorne, Mary Wimbush. With Joe Melia as the linking photographer.

Written by Charles Chilton, based on Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop Production, and Ted Allan and Len Deighton. Interestingly, John Mills' book tells how he and Len had been working on the script for several weeks, he hoping to direct it, when he was summoned to Hollywood. He sent the script to Dickie Attenborough, who loved it, and on its release received raves from the critics - and the rest is history.

Well photographed by Gerry Turpin in Panavision.

* Interesting IMDB footnote that the French song "La Chanson de Craonne" (aka "Adieu La Vie") commemorates a mutiny by French soldiers in 1917, as a result of which 26 of the organisers were executed. The author of the song was never revealed and it was banned in France until 1974. Presumably then this scene was excised from the France release print.

The Irishman (2019 Martin Scorsese)

We were debating afterwards that Warner Brothers in the 1930s would have only needed an hour and a half to tell the same story - and  they would have shown the infant version of Robert de Niro and had room for a good female lead (Bette Davis, for example). Marty's gone and done it again, turning Charles Brandt's novel 'I Heard You Paint Houses' (actually a better title) into a three and a half hour film. Whilst it isn't boring, and the acting and production design and incidental music choices are great, it just doesn't warrant that running time - think about how much happens in GWTW by comparison, for example, or Once Upon a Time in America.

The scene in which he decides which gun to use seems very similar to one in Taxi Driver.

Did someone call for a Taxi Driver?

Joe Pesci is particularly good, de Niro and Pacino fine. With Bobby Cannavale, Christopher Walken, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jack Huston (Bobby Kennedy), Jesse Plemons, Domenick Lombardozzi. Didn't really notice the de-ageing CGI.

Adapted by Steven Zaillian, DP Rodrigo Prieto, edited by Thelma, music by Robbie Robertson.

With no great set pieces or twists or emotional climaxes, it's something of a disappointment.

It's funny how Marty's New York contemporary Woody Allen manages to always make such short films and pack them with plot..

Martin Scorsese is 101.

Under the Eiffel Tower (2018 Archie Borders & co-scr)

In Kentucky, Matt Walsh drinks too much bourbon, loses his job, goes to Paris with his friends and rashly proposes to their daughter (kind of under the Eiffel Tower), who's about 30 years younger than he, played by Dylan Gelula. She turns him down and they part ways. Kind of off camera, Walsh bumps into an injured Scots man (accent indeterminate) Reid Scott (perhaps he only landed the part because of his name), then a French lady - Judith Godrèche - on a train who shares her new wine with the conductor. Soon they are all making friends, well, not the conductor. His was a bit part. We'll never know what happened to him. Sacked himself, I shouldn't wonder, for drinking on the job.

Neither Matt nor his new Scots / Irish / American friend have any money. None. You can hang up your plot there, if you want.

Some stuff in a restaurant happens, and the penniless duo end up on benches. In the morning they just happen to get a lift to French lady's vineyard.. There's still a number of characters to introduce, such as wheelchair bound Gary Cole, who we recognise from The Good Fight / The Good Wife, and a gay couple of bakers and their daughter, and indeed Matt's boss back home, and there's a great bit of dialogue about how much both Matt and the French lady love KFC - as though a French lady of any class whatsoever would admit to even knowing what KFC was. (My theory is they were running out of money at this point and needed some sponsorship money quickly.)

Veep is where we recognise Matt Walsh from. I couldn't work out whether he was underplaying or acting badly.

I must say I enjoyed the scene showing the couple painting. From our point of view it looks like they are looking at the chateau but neither seem to be painting it. They are both painting something similar in shape, but Wilder knows what it is.

Gormless people outside a station

I'm obviously not going to give away the ending. Hope not to meet another Archie Borders film again, though should mention one Kentucky in-joke, the flight announcement from Paris 'direct to Louisville' when there are no international flights there. Is it an in-joke? It hardly qualifies.

G.B.H. (1991 Richard Price, writer Alan Bleasdale)

In BAFTA scandal, Prime Suspect was voted Best Drama Series... but four out of the seven voting members then signed a letter saying they had voted for G.B.H. The chairperson Irene Subik was 'an avowed enemy of [Executive Producer] Verity Lambert. It all sounds absolutely in the spirit of GBH.' (Michael Palin Diaries 1988-98).

Weird watching it again (a) how familiar it seems (b) how familiar are so many of the faces.

It's still scary stuff - the yobboes on the roof of the school still very disturbing.  But when Michael (keep wanting to say Myers) Murray starts falling apart, punched by schoolteacher Jim Nelson, assaulted by his own brother (Philip Whitchurch), trapped by Barbara (Lindsay Duncan) - that's when we really start to enjoy it. (And R. Lindsay's little dance in the hotel corridor shows how gifted he is in that respect also.)

Murray: Here's your chance to forget the past and come back and play the game on our side.

He winks. Jim Nelson punches him in the face.

Flashback. Young Michael being beaten by the headmaster.

Michael slides down the blackboard.

Murray's thug approaches Nelson. He holds up the bunsen burner to him.

Nelson: Come any closer and you'll need the fire brigade to put you out.

Murray struggles up.

Murray: You.. you...

Nelson: Me... me...

Murray: You...

Nelson: Your needle's stuck, Murray. It's a condition known as Fitzgerald's revenge (holding up Ella LP)

Murray: You... you're dead.

Nelson: Sh. Tomorrow.

Murray: This is one sudden death that ends... One fucking sudden...One death..

Nelson: This is one fucking game that ends in sudden death?

Murray: That's it, yeah. You are dead!

Exits.

Nelson: I thought that was it.

It's not like anything now - both deeply personal and political. The straight line it draws from corrupt politics to violent thugs and public disorder is not one that many writers would dare. It also twists, so that the supposedly left wing extremists are actually posh right wingers trying to discredit the Labour party. It's also quite a tough watch in places, particularly as you don't really like any of the characters apart from the Nelson family, though it has to be said that the characters are interesting, well rounded, messy, unpredictable. For example, there's a great scene in episode 5 when Murray argues back against the blacks who are threatening violence by reminding them how much he's done for them and gaining their respect.

"I use things that have happened to me, things graphic and horrific in my mind, but I try to dress them up in a manner that is not biographical and have interest to other people... In all honesty the longer I lived with the two main protagonists the more I cared for Michael Murray and the more I questioned Jim Nelson's goodness."  Bleasdale in 'Talk of Drama' Sean Day-Lewis, 1998. It's true that despite his corruption, you can't help feeling increasingly sorry for Murray as it goes on.

Episode 4 - where Michael starts ticking badly and Hitler saluting (hilarious) - reminded me of a friendship that sprung up at Westpac between me and Steve someone of Consumer Lending and he would Hitler salute me from one end of corridor and I'd salute back. Such is the power of television.

Six has some mad stuff, with Massey falling around in the rain, and Schofield and Georgeson (do they have a thing?) bursting out into song. You feel for Murray's brother - all he wants to do is stay with the fishing boat. It was at that point that I realised I had only recorded six of the seven episodes. Luckily it was on All4.

A  striking piece of acting from both Michael Palin and Robert Lindsay - can't believe Palin was originally cast in the Murray role - bet it still would have worked, just unimaginable. Everyone else also note perfect: Dearbhla Malloy, Alan Igbon (Murray's sidekick), Andrew Schofield (the evil little shit who becomes a posh southerner!), Julie Walters (who's fabulous as Murray's mother older and younger.) With Tom Georgeson, Paul Daneman (Howe-like politician), Peter Hugo-Daly (journalist), Michael Angelis (Jim's poet friend), Anna Friel, David Ross (headmaster), Daniel Massey, Jean Anderson (psychiatrist).

Fine music too by Richard Harvey and Elvis Costello, filmed by Peter Jessop, with Bleasdale acting as producer and - at the request of Price - on the set every day.

Blow Out (1981 Brian de Palma & scr)

Yes, it's The Conversation. Yes, it's Blow Up. But it's also a neat political conspiracy thriller, possibly with its origins in the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, in which Teddy Kennedy drove his car off a bridge at night and though he escaped, his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned (the opposite of what happens in this film).

I felt myself watching it fondly through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino - it's one of his favourite three films, with Rio Bravo and Taxi Driver - and so when some of the dialogue seems clunky, or the acting's questionable, or the script wanders (why does Lithgow kill the woman on the building site?) or the music is way over the top, it seems funny. (Donaggio's music mainly lets the film down, in all but its love theme.)

Someone goes to the trouble of wiping every tape in Travolta's apartment. You don't think it would have been much, much less trouble to just steal them all?

Definitely at its best in the recording scenes and the reconstructions of the 'accident', with a quite sneaky plot that allows the murderer to escape unpunished - written by de Palma.

With Nancy Allen, Dennis Franz. Paul Hirsch edited, Vilmos and Laszlo photographed.

Tarantino: "Travolta's performance in Blow Out has to be one of my favourite performances of all time, I think he's absolutely shattering in that movie. And to me, you have one of the most heart-breaking closing shots in the history of cinema... "

Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (2005 Mike Newell)

JK went up in scale hugely with her fourth book, to 636 pages and the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Perhaps it is because this huge instalment is condensed into the same length as the preceding films that it feels truncated, unwieldy - and I'm not convinced the Quidditch World Cup opening, Ron and Harry falling out, and their embarrassment at attending the dance, add much to the proceedings. Rather feel it's from the 'more is more' school.

And so Mad Eye Moody (a welcome Brendan Gleeson - lovely performance) is Barty Crouch Jr. (David Tennant, with the tongue) all along? Hmm. And this whole game thing seems a very elaborate way to trap Mr. Potter.

Within the first twenty minutes we run into 70s TV gold, with Sykes, Only Fools and Horses (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Rising Damp (Frances de la Tour), and are then positively assailed with actors including Robert Pattinson, Jeremy Isaacs, Katie Leung (who was in Run, and that John Simm Hong Kong thing), Clémence Poésy, Stanislav Yanevski, Miranda Richardson and Ralph Fiennes, for the first time, appearing in what looks like the Universal backlot set for Frankenstein.

Roger Pratt is back behind the camera and Patrick Doyle takes over the music.

The newspaper photos e.g. Harry and Hermione in embrace, look oddly like animated GIF memes.

It quite amuses us that JK didn't want any American actors in it.

Former Hallmark artist Charles Bud Braman designed the typeface 'Hogwart's Wizard' for Warners used for the credits.

(On video, the end credits run over twelve minutes of the film's total 151!)

The Delinquent Season (2018 Mark O'Rowe & scr)

I don't know if we were in the wrong frame of mind to watch this but we didn't really enjoy what is essentially a filmed play about a man (Cillian Murphy) who embarks on an affair with the friend (Catherine Walker) of his wife (Eva Birthistle) after discovering that her husband (Andrew Scott) is terminally ill. What a shit.

No surprise then that O'Rowe started as a playwright - however he also wrote the screenplays for Boy A and Broken.

Cillian ends up screwing up his marriage and the affair and ends up with a totally inappropriate relationship with a surly waitress. If it's a comedy of manners, it isn't funny.

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

Not much to add to this. Apart from a scene-stealing turn from Emma Thompson, David Thewlis makes a great impression as Lupin.

Two fabulous touches. A wind swept umbrella blowing through the sky before the Dementor attack. A huge giraffe that walks through several of the paintings.

Long takes. Michael Seresin's photography gives it a wonderful look. Also, Cuaron's playing around with all sorts of distorting lenses and tricks which in a funny way take it right back to the silent days..