Written by Stephen Churchett, the last published Marple, though written during the Blitz. The one where Sophia Myles thinks she's seen a murder, though couldn't possibly have, set in Dillmouth (Sidmouth, not sure about the house). Aiden McArdle is her helper, Geraldine McEwan the super sleuth.
With Julian Wadham, Harry Treadaway, Dawn French, Sarah Parish, Martin Kemp, Peter Serafinowicz, Russ Abbott, Una Stubbs, Helen Coker, Harriet Walter, Paul McGann.
You have to wait until the very end of Wilder and Diamond's jewel of a screenplay for Wendell Armbruster Jr to call Carlucci 'Carlo', like his dad did. Unlike Miss Piggott, he never really warms up to the country - only to her.
"I have searched the hotel with a fine tooth comb - even the mudbaths." Revill and Mills' best performances. He is 91, she 79.
Maybe this mosaic would identify the church:
It did. It's the Chiesa del Soccorso, on the west coast of Ischia. (It was quite easy actually. I Googled 'Churches in Ischia' and it was the first one shown. Things must have been much more fun for location scouts before Google came along.)
Q called it a 'setup of mishaps'. Is that what every film is?
The screenplay's credited to Aaron Sorkin (his first after A Few Good Men) and Scott Frank (who had Dead Again and Little Man Tate to his credit), but I don't know how that worked, and it was based on a story by Jonas McCord. Sorkin now calls it a 'mess', but we enjoyed it, it sort of reminded me of a 1940s film, with its slightly bonkers plot and femme fatale.
Good cast: Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman (great), Bill Pullman, Bebe Neuwirth, Anne Bancroft, Peter Gallagher, George C Scott, Josef Sommer, Gwyneth Paltrow.
I liked the writing, which is constantly sending you off in the wrong direction. You think Baldwin is going to be the baddie. You wonder if any of them might be the student killer. Because Pullman has married one of his students, you start to wonder if he's having an affair. And so on. And the story you think it's going to be isn't.
Enhanced by Gordon Willis' typically dark photography and Jerry Goldsmith's score.
It was on. Rather cool to see the younger cast before they were made to do outrageous things, though Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey in drag is still funny. Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Eric Barker, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Leslie Phillips, Joan Sims, Shirley Eaton, Jill Adams, Joan Hickson, Irene Handl, Esma Cannon. Filmed in Ealing.
Directed by Tracey Larcombe, four part ITV drama is about a woman (Katherine Kelly) released from prison after five years having been retried and found not guilty. Ex Jamie Bamber is with another - horrible - woman Priyanga Burford (good), Sean Dooley is investigating. Andrew Tiernan (Prime Suspect, Cracker) is the ex-para.
It wasn't who you thought dunnit, innit? A week from now it will all be forgotten. I agree with Q, who thinks a lot of recent TV drama is 'flouncy'.
Filmed in Keswick in the Lake District. Here there's a live webcam on the town centre and it's strangely fascinating.
Difficult to argue with this.
Demarest to Diana Lynn: " Listen, Zipper-puss! Some day they're just gonna find your hair ribbon and an axe someplace. Nothing else! The Mystery of Morgan's Creek!"
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| Demarest with Diana Lynn |
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| Akim Tamiroff, Brain Donlevy |
We don't know what happened to Patrick Marber's foursome as after an hour of swapsies we switched off. The characters were unattractive - we should've stopped when Jude Law goes onto a sex site and pretends to Clive Owen he's a filthy version of Julia Roberts; Natalie Portman is the fourth. They should've played bridge instead of 'Did you fuck him here?' etc. A shame as a great cast and director.
Marber wrote for Steve Coogan a lot, also did Notes on a Scandal - remind me not to watch that again. It was quite a talked-about theatre success, but the film received mixed reviews. Derek Malcom said 'There is something terribly cold and uninvolving about this" which would have been good to read before buying it.
Lily James, Emily Beecham, Dominic West, Andrew Scott, Dolly Wells, John Heffernan (reuniting these two from Dracula), Freddie Fox, Assaas Bouab (Call My Agent), Shazad Latif
Q pointed out Spanish Civil War parallels it with Any Human Heart, but that's in a completely superior category - the protagonist of this story is rather annoying and feeble - James' performance doesn't help. Did like the joke though about the basis on which she selected the cabins - 'Anyone with Labrador next to their name I put in one of the best rooms'. Turns out 'labrador' is Spanish for labourer.
Dominic West's character is too one-note, really. Enjoyed many of the performances but this isn't much of a story (Nancy Mitford) and it's not particularly well told, and the use of contemporary music tracks from all over the place didn't work for me.
Rather silly six part BBC drama about four friends who leave their dastardly boss drunk in the woods as a revenge prank ('The Prank' is an alternative title possibility.) When he's found dead, they begin to quaver. What makes matters worse is that one of the friends' husbands is the investigating police officer.
Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad), Eddie Marsan, Jason Hughes (This Life, Midsomer Murders), Heledd Gwynn, Eiry Thomas (Keeping Faith), Julie Hesmondhalgh (Happy Valley, Broadchurch), Abbie Hern, Rakie Ayola, Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk, The Personal History of David Copperfield), Aled ap Steffan (son), Gabrielle Creevy (BBC3 dark comedy In My Skin, Operation Mincemeat).
Q smartly guessed the ending.
Well we thought Jessica's debut worked well, from the self-help tapes' ironic relationship to the action - and the way its music (by Luke Abbott) swells into the main story - to the twisty nature of the story itself, as Mum Jessica Hynes has to face that her daughter Sennia Nanua is being bullied, by the daughter of an ex school acquaintance. Loved the Blow Upish moment where the two mums confront each other through the wind in the leaves.
Jessica also learns to box, with Cathy Tyson teaching - but we were somewhat confused as to how this relates to the main story, which is about the way parental abuse filters down into the kids. Thus we have Jessica's back story with parents Anita Dobson and Christopher Fairbank (who was not in Porridge) and the bully Liv Hill (who's fabulous) and her alcoholic mum Rhona Mitra. With Sally Phillips, Shaun Parkes.
DP Ryan Eddlestone, editor Anna Dick.
Pharmacist Ashley Judd lives in a small mining community in Virginia. When her mother dies, she discovers (via solicitor Anthony Lapaglia) that she is in fact half-Italian. Meanwhile she's being sort of romanced by miner Patrick Wilson. The ending is somewhat corny, but we quite enjoyed it.
With: Whoopi Goldberg, Judith Ivey, Angelina Fiordellisi, John Benjamin Hickey (who we recognise from The Good Wife / Fight), Erika Coleman, Jenna Elfman, Jane Krakowski (30 Rock).
Chris Noonan co-directed and co-wrote the 1987 Australian TV series Vietnam, which was about that country's involvement in the war, starring Nicole Kidman, then made Babe. This is a well-written and pleasing film from Richard Maltby, not seemingly based on any published material. It's his only theatrical feature script - one other TV movie credit. Perhaps he was just a massive Beatrix Potter fan.
Renee Zellweger is typically accomplished - makes it look easy - but that moment where she is told of the death of her fiancee Ewan McGregor by his sister Emily Watson puts her in the Oscar category.
With Bill Patterson in enormous whiskers, Barbara Flynn, Matyelok Gibbs (the silent governess), Anton Lesser, David Bamber, Phyllida Law, Lucy Boynton (young Beatrix), Lloyd Owen.
Good music by Nigel Westlake, and Rachel Portman. Charming animations.
Shot in London, Isle of Man, Lake District.
It's photographed by Andrew Dunn. Have to mention that tracking shot over the dining table through the course of the meal - unless it was digital, they must have had to replicate that camera move exactly at least four times to get it - most impressive.
Sturges' wartime nod to the Marines, characterised by the last lines: Bracken: 'I knew the marines could do almost anything, but I never knew they could do anything like this." Bugsy: "You got no idea."
I didn't recognise Bugsy, Freddie Steel, from other Sturges or from anything else, for that matter. Despite not being in much else of note he was a supporting character in Black Angel. He makes a strong impression as slightly shell-shocked soldier.
As noted before, notable for its many scenes in one take, lasting several minutes - it's one of the least edited Sturges films. Raymond Walburn is one of many cast able to carry out these long scenes word perfect, with much complicated action and dialogue. And in that great bar room moment with Bracken and the marines, and the camera gradually tracks in on him, the sound disappears - and then, as noted before, when he says 'They bled and died' and you hear the cash register, that's when the sound comes back in. I think.
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| Al Bridge with Walburn |
We decided to stay in Africa and hang out with Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly. Peter B rates it for the performances (both Gardner and Kelly were Oscar nominated) and for the way Ford seems to side with the Gardner character, the underdog. The way Gable rips off Kelly's headscarf is quite a moment.
Also good is the supporting characters - particularly Philip Stainton (the P.C. in Passport to Pimlico) who's benignly trying to get to know Gardner; also Donald Sinden, Eric Pohlmann, Laurence Naismith (didn't recognise him as drunken skipper) and Denis O'Dea.
Photographed by Robert Surtees and Freddie Young, edited by Frank Clarke, written by John Lee Mahin from Wilson Collison's play.
We both loved Ava's silent impromptu confession to priest.
Only heard of this because Vic Boydell edited it - she told us it was a 'sweet' film. Which it genuinely is. But it's not sugar-coated either, depicting extreme poverty, child soldiers, young prostitutes and HIV. It's also a useful geography lesson, as our young footballers journey south from Rwanda to South Africa.
Eriya Ndayambaje is the charismatic manager, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva the football prodigy and Sanyu Joanita Kintu the girl who we thought was Eriya's sister, but turns out she isn't - she wants nothing more than to be a doctor (these two never acted again). Then they run into former soldier Yves Dusenge, who has great presence - also never acted again - and sex worker Sherrie Silver, who later on worked as a choreographer on Childish Gambino's extraordinary 'This Is America' video.
It's also populated by animations telling the story of the football. Colorfully shot by Sean Bobbitt, it's a little treasure.
Rhidian Brook is the credited screenplay writer, but if you delve further into the credits you'll see it was 'based on a story premise' by Eric Kabera (also a producer and President of the Rwanda Cinema Center), co-developed by Ayuub Kasasa Mago and Moukhtar Omar Sibomana; and 'story developed' by Brook and Gardner-Paterson.
Screenplay Laurence Stallings, Frank S Nugent, from a story by Peter Kyne.
In a great opening, three would-be bank robbers start inadvertently chatting to the town's Marshal, who then pursues them across the Mojave Desert, Arizona (remind me not to go to Arizona). Then, they find his daughter, who gives birth. There's a lengthy and gruelling (and tragic) desert crossing section. The neighbouring towns, if you can believe it, are Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem, the latter giving it a weird Christmas slant.
The bandits are John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry Carey, Jr. whose father died the year before and who the film's dedicated to (Ford directed many of his westerns in the twenties). The Marshal's Ward Bond and his wife Mae Marsh, who puts eggshells in her coffee to keep the grounds down, like Carey's mom.
There's a scene early on when the Marshal is giving instructions to his deputies and one of them smiles ironically and its very much reminiscent of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon where something similar happens (Ben Johnson is in both films). There's lots of humour, as you'd expect, some of it concerning stubborn mules, and the difficulties faced by three men and a baby in the desert. It's stunningly shot by Winnie Hoch.
Also in the cast: Charles Halton, Mildred Natwick, Jane Darwell, Guy Kibbee (judge), Dorothy Ford (6' 2" and no relation).
I was actually speechless by the end.
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| The dedication to Harry Carey |
The baby - uncredited - is apparently Amelia Yelda, who never appeared in anything else.
In a way a variation of Aline Brosh Mckenna's The Devil Wears Prada, with new girl a TV exec on a daytime TV show rather than in a fashion magazine. Good fun. A sort of Broadcast News lite.
Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, John Pankow (Episodes), Ty Burrell, Patti D'Arbanville, 50 Cent.
Based on a book by Christopher Bohjalian, this should have been called The Idiot, as flight attendant Kaley Cuoco finds a dead man in her bed in Thailand and then proceeds to do everything as wrong as can be done. In such a way, in fact, that you start to wonder if there's a mischievous sense of humour at work, amplified by the fact that she keeps whizzing back to the murder scene, where the corpse drily comments on the action. Meanwhile her friend Rosie Perez seems to be involved in stealing military secrets, whilst her other friend Zosia Mamet luckily is a top lawyer.
Eight 45 minute episodes developed for Showtime. Noticed Line of Duty's John Strickland as one of the directors. Its animated credits sequence and music suggest a coked up version of Catch Me If You Can (an alcoholic version would be more accurate), but the vibe of the show is something weirder. Or sillier - sub-plot involving Perez selling weapons data to Koreans stretches credibility to max, as does fellow flight attendant suddenly announcing he's in the CIA. Overall, I'd say in style it owes a lot to Killing Eve.
That opening credits scene was designed by Taka Ikari and scored by Blake Neely:
Yockey was a playwright, got into TV via Supernatural and Scream: The TV Series. This was 'a departure from the book in a lot of insane ways' - that I can buy.
Liked the in-joke, Emilio Estevez testing Richard Dreyfuss on movie quotes: "This was no boating accident!" Jim Kouf has written a thriller-comedy with some absurdity (Dreyfuss in pink hat) and well-managed car crashes. Madeleine Stowe is the subject of surveillance, Aidan Quinn the psycho they're after.
Shot in that colourful blue-red eighties look by John Seale, edited with visible cheating.
A bubble-gum movie.
