Refreshing pirate film with Jean Peters (Pickup on South Street, Three Coins in the Fountain, Viva Zapata) on zesty form as a pirate captain, who can out-duel Blackbeard (Thomas Gomez). Yes, an eclectic cast, with Herbert Marshall, James Robertson Justice (rubbish Scots accent), Debra Paget, Louis Jourdan.
Shot in swarthy Technicolor by Harry Jackson, music by Franz Waxman.
"Harlot's trumpery!" Fox.
A very edited film (Adam Recht). Much reviewed elsewhere.
Curtis made Man and Boy, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, A Short Stay in Switzerland, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Woman in Gold and the last two Downton films (which Recht also cut).
Andrea and her long time collaborator Robbie Ryan (finding a rare break from Noah Baumbach and Yorgos Lanthimos movies) capture grim goings-on in Gravesend. Grim? And somehow beautiful. Neglected 12 year old Nyklya Adams (another one of Andrea's prototype disaffected young women) meets a strange youth Franz Rogowski. A monocular film; she holds the screen well.
"I don't like saying goodbyes."
And yes, Robbie is holding his own camera, shooting on 16mm film (in 1.66:1), tracking Adams and her father Barry Keoghan's scooter rides on another scooter. Yet he also manages to capture seriously rich images too.
But when Rogowski actually seems to turn into a bird, we wonder whether in fact he hasn't actually been there all along.
It's something of an emotional journey, feels like we're put through a wringer, ending on that song 'Is it too real for ya?' performed by the people of Gravesend. 'Was Andrea's life like this?' Q asked, sensibly. I don't know, but she is in print saying 'the film is set in or near the area where I grew up'.
The couple are great with the kids, who are captured incredibly naturally.
With Jason Buda, Jasmine Jobson, James Nelson-Joyce (This City is Ours).
You can't help thinking that Andrea (in her own incredibly special way) might be alluding to Inarittu's Birdman - and indeed, Alan Parker's strange film from 1984, Birdy.
Edited by Joe Bibi.
Reminded me of Hitch's comment 'Some people's films are slices of life; mine are slices of cake.' This is definitely in the 'life' category.
The poor old monster takes a beating again and ends up in a pit of sulphur.
I can't help feeling this is played for laughs. e.g. Lionel Atwill and his fake arm (which amusingly the monster rips off again at the end) and dialogue like this:
"It's an old superstition. If the house is full of dread, place the bedsteads head to head"
and "Tell me, or we'll hang you again and make a better job of it."
But it's mainly of interest for Jack Otterson's sets, photographed by George Robinson.
And the kid (Donnie Dunagan) really is fearless - thus happy to accompany Monster into laboratory.
Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Josephine Hutchinson. Universal.
Um. How do we unscramble this? Is the vampire element just there to attract bigger crowds, or is it a metaphor for the White Menace? Both, I guess. The ending, where Michael B. Jordan mows down the KKK is definitely the ending we wanted. (There's then a sub-ending, which is cool. And then a sub-sub ending, which is even cooler.)
It's also a story of the Blues. The moment when Miles Caton starts playing and the past and future spirits appear is bravura cinema, brilliantly staged and scored.
The Oscar-nominated DP is a woman. Hooray! Here she is:
She's Autumn Durald Arkapaw (previously Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Last Showgirl). I found the photography a little on the dark side, though her low light dusk stuff is great.
The changes of aspect ratio (from 16:9 to some super-wide 2.78:1) are sometimes effective but you do wonder 'What's the point?' (The changes of aspect ratio in First Man or Dunkirk are there for a reason.) Also I love the way she tracks Helena Hu crossing the street and back.
A really good cast: Michael B Jordan playing both 'Smoke' and 'Stack', Miles Caton, didn't even recognise Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku (who doesn't get to show off her great voice, unfortunately, but has a fabulous accent), Delroy Lindo, Jack O'Connell, Yao, Li Jun Li, Dave Maldonado and Buddy Guy as 'Old Sammie'.
It's had the record number of Oscar nominations (16). Great music Ludwig Goransson and sound design, production design Hannah Bleachler, editing Michael P Shawver.
I kinda 'did' vampires when I was a teenager and don't have much enthusiasm left for the genre.
Fatal Error. Michael Crompton. Director Renny Rye.
Good opening as Sam and Leo have come up with different interpretations of a crime scene and are pitted against one another in court. In parallel, a series of seemingly unconnected murders start to hone in on Sam - leaving her in real danger.
With Ashley Jensen, Eva Birthistle, Cal MacCaninch.
Running on Empty. Ed Whitmore (his first in the series). Director Jon East.
Good death by fall opening. Good start as Sam (traumatised by previous events) can't sleep, goes running, is helped by athlete Don Gilet. Turns out the dead women was his agent. Introduce family Sarah Paul, Brian Bovell, Jude Akuwudike, Dona Croll. Katherine Kelly is a suspicious co-worker.
Harry fucks up by taking flies' larvae to calculate time of death, but in a neat twist the victim - from whose nose the flies came- was a cocaine user and this has sped up their evolution.
Closed Ranks. Tony McHale. Director Paul Wroblewski,
This is another good one. Leo (William Gaminara) is taking a few days' leave as his wife and Stephen King-loving child (Clare Holman and Lucinda Dryzek) are visiting from Sheffield. But he's called in to work as there's been a body found in remarkably similar pose to one Leo worked on some years before.
Sam is teaching at a police training school, run by Jack Shepherd, whose son Nicholas Audsley is a star pupil (he's good); the corpse is one of the trainees. You sense a lot of these people are theatre actors dropping in for a bit of TV loot now and then.
And Harry gets involved with the ex of a former friend, Esther Hall, and a resultant ethical dilemma.
It's all about second chances.
Tim Healy (Auf Wiedersehen Pet) investigates.
We noticed some outstanding editorial work from Ian Sutherland.
Answering Fire. Dusty Hughes. Director Nicholas Renton.
Opens with a horrific fire in a hotel. Cross cut with a dinner guest trying to rape Sam. That's how you open a season.
Involves a dodgy politician, who's always smiling (like Farage) - an untrustworthy characteristic. An arms deal. An Indian family. A drag queen. And some dodgy staff.
Clive Russell is the wholly objectionable copper on this one. With Roshan Seth, Jo Joyner, David Mallinson, Robert Cavanah, Deborah Findlay.
Sophie Rundle and her ex Mark Stokoe are having to tolerate the situation that bad guy murderer Nicholas Gleaves is still around.
Then a body is found on the moors.
Lorraine Ashbourne is her councillor mum, Philip Glenister now bankrupt property developer, Jill Halfpenny acting mysteriously, Alan Armstrong a local business owner.
It's partly - but not entirely - about chemicals being dumped in the local waterways.
The murder at the end doesn't make sense - the PM would clearly have identified the victim was beaten before being pushed over - Q thinks the murderer had gone crazy by then.
A 6 x 45 for ITV.
Tell No Tales. Avril E. Russell. Director John Duthie.
A decomposed body is found at a factory. Turns out it's the lost love of Maggie Lloyd Williams, who's now with criminal Jake Wood.
But there's a parallel story going on, Harry being attracted to flirty Nancy Lodder, whose dad is a college fund giver (Michael Pennington). Her wannabe boyfriend is a young Benedict Cumberbatch. But she's killed...
The two stories aren't in fact connected.
John Le Carré had died and never had a Carré sequel been written without him. Farr says the idea for how it continued came to him in a dream - a little boy, waiting in a monastery.
Anyway, it's ten years later. Opens with Olivia Colman seeing Roper's body and pronouncing him dead. The Tom Hiddlestone character has had a complete identity change and is running a group of Intelligence surveillance agents. Sees something that convinces him there's a connection to the old Richard Roper dodgy arms deals. Without authorisation he sends his team in and two of them are killed. A survivor, Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake), joins him to seek out the bad man responsible, Diego Calva.
In Episode 3 (of 6) I was just thinking "This isn't as good as the last one, because Hugh Laurie isn't in it" and guess what happened?
Camilla Morone, Alistair Petrie, Douglas Hodge, Indira Varma, Michael Nardone, Paul Chahidi. And whoever played the great detective who works with Pine.
Did not see that ending coming.
Looks like it cost a lot of money even if they didn't actually go to all the locations. Photographed by Tim Sidell and edited eps 1-4 by Izabella Curry (with Napoleon Stratogiannakis on 2 and Dan Crinnion on 3). Stratogiannakis did 5 on his own and Crinnion did 6. Music Federico Jusid.
The Fall Out. Tony McHale. Director Coky Giedroyc.
A multi-vehicle pile up includes an unidentified woman and a solitary dismembered arm which doesn't belong to any of the bodies. Sam investigates with her new posse of William Gaminara and Tom Ward (good; Death Comes to Pemberley, The Infinite Worlds of HG Wells) who has to perform his first autopsy on a child.
Shaun Dooley, Luing Andrews, Christopher Fulford are all involved, as is a gang of Albanians.
Paterson Joseph is on traffic. Lia Williams is a truly annoying DS who won't tell Sam what's really going on and thus indirectly causes the deaths of girls being sex trafficked, Barnaby Kay her No. 2.
A Good Body, Writer J.C. Wilsher. Director David Thacker.
A fire in a cinema leaves one unidentified body... who turns out to be someone presumed dead and for whose murder Jack Dee languishes in prison. (How someone could be convicted of murder when there's no body is something that bothered us.) Turns out the police were over-keen to do him, cueing arguing between Sam and her ex boss Nick Reding. And Sam having a most unsuitable fling.
The World Cruise. Writer Tony McHale. Director Coky Giedroyc.
Two old Jewish men are found murdered. But how does this connect with a professor who's championing genetic engineering (Richard Todd, Stage Fright, The Dam Busters)? He certainly upsets one of Sam's students, who is horribly cocky and forward with her. And is racist Neil Maskell involved? And ageing professor, Andrew Sachs (and wife Suzannah Bertish)?
It's a good one. Ace Bhatti is a new DCI. Takes us right in to the heart of Auschwitz.
Two Below Zero. Tom Needham. Director Rob Evans.
A naked body is found in the Norwegian snow. Then another. One of them is the daughter of Stephen Moore (The Boat That Rocked, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and Mel Martin. Odious sex pervert Anthony Head is the uncle.
I was surprised to learn that a woman can carry two babies of different fathers.
Managed to guess the villain before the end. With Angela Bruce from Angels and Richard Graham as 'Stephen Merchant'.
Faith. Stephen Brady. Director Paul Unwin.
Sam is ill. Thinks it might be affecting her judgement in case of headmaster's wife who appears to have killed herself. In taking a break, Sam is called in by the Catholic Church to investigate a 'saint', meets nun Kathryn Hunter.
With Philip Jackson, Prunella Scales, Matthew Marsh.
Thought this one was actually badly directed: too much extreme close ups, unnecessary slow mo, deliberately obscured shots. Yes, it appears I've had problems with him before.
You know that expression 'Scream if you want to go faster'? (Actually I think it's a Gerry Halliwell song title.) Well, in relation to this film, SCREAM!!
Yes, after a nicely edited montage of Paris, Armistice Day 1919, Lubitsch lets the pace drop considerably, with long, turgid, stagey sequences of dialogue; really strange considering the zip with which he made his silent films.
French Phillips Holmes (terribly wooden) travels to Germany to confess to the family of the German soldier he has killed. But when he meets Lionel Barrymore, Louise Carter and fiancee Nancy Carroll, he cannot bring himself to. Until ultimately (in the last 10 minutes) he does to the girl.
When the couple play out on a duet I wanted to hurl something at the TV.
It didn't help that Barrymore kept making me think of Mark Heap.
Lubitsch's worst film, but not all bad.
With Lucien Littlefield (good), Zasu Pitts relegated to role of maid. Written by Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda from Maurice Rostand play. Photographed by Victor Milner at Paramount.
According to Hawks this was based on real characters, the pilot in a little airfield and the chorus girl who falls for him, and the flyer who has to prove his bravery; even the eagle flying through the windshield actually happened during the shoot.
Good production design - the port in the opening, the airfield - attributed to art director Lionel Banks. Lovely lighting from Joe Walker. Edited by Viola Lawrence.
Classic Hawks framing evident, e.g. scene of Jean Arthur 'performing' at piano.
Cary Grant, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Sig Ruman, Allyn Joslyn.
I tried to get on a Hawks double bill, with The Big Sleep next, but it was not to be.
Peter Bogdanovich came up with the interesting theory that the characters of Grant in this, Bogart in The Big Sleep and John Wayne in Rio Bravo were the same person at different times in their lives, something with which Hawks did not disagree.
Gone Tomorrow. Writer Niall Leonard. Director Matthew Evans.
A helicopter goes down in the North Sea. Sam is called in (she's now based in London). we learn that a pan pan call is one registering an urgent issue, one down from a mayday.
It is (of course) more complicated than it appears; has something of a far-fetched ending. Somewhat clumsily directed.
With Paul Copley, Robert Pugh, Nigel Terry, Melanie Hill, Karen Henthorn.
A Kind of Justice. Writer Peter Lloyd. Director Richard Signy.
Sam is called in by a man accused of murder, Tom Georgeson - she believes him, and an unlikely friendship ensues. Turns out he's connected with the very bad Georghiou brothers, only one of whom now survives, Peter Jonfield.
Police involved - Aden Gillett, David Lyon, Patrick Cremin - may be corrupt.
Sub-story about youth sucked in to world of crime doesn't really add to it or go anywhere.
With Isobel Middleton.
Performed by Beth Gibbons of Portishead and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by none other than Krzysztof Penderecki.
The DP is Dariusz Jarzyna, edited by Marek Kremer. Actually recorded in 2014.
A real treat to see it actually performed live, showing for example that though there is a brass section, it's largely dormant. It's a staggering work and probably our joint favourite symphony ever. 'The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' indeed.
It's not easy to top One Battle After Another, but this does it hands down.
Brothers in Arms. Writer John Milne. Director Ian Knox.
What looks like a farming accident involving a combine harvester is linked to the murder of a civilian by British troops in Northern Ireland in 1985.
Ben Daniels (much on TV; we probably recognise him chiefly from Cutting It), Phil McKee, Stuart McQuarrie, Elizabeth Berrington.
Like Inherent Vice, it's inspired by a novel by Thomas Pynchon, 'Vineland', which is about repression in the US in the 1980s contrasted with the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s - a feeling that is well caught here despite the updating in time. The first thing we see is a group of - what else can you call them? - revolutionaries freeing Mexicans from an internment camp - theirs is a very sixties phenomenon, with code words and a daft revolutionary name, The French 75. (This may link to The Battle of Algiers, which is on TV later, a definite pointer to the story.) 'The Revolution Will Not be Televised' is cited, a 1970 black liberation song by Gil Scott-Heron, from which the passwords 'Green Acres, Beverley Hillbillies, Hooterville Junction' originate.
What is quite weird is what is going on sexually between far Right army officer Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor - though when they meet, their performances are so stunning that it slips into the shade. Anyway it's important in plot terms, as we shall see.
And despite this sixties revolutionary flavour we're very much thinking of Trump's America - the next revolutionary thing they do is to blow up two (empty) court houses as a protest again the overthrow of abortion laws - a very timely piece of writing. And here's the thing - we actually are on the side of the revolutionaries, because it's almost like in Trump's America, what else is there to do? The military secret force which goes in to Mexico to raid a chicken factory and pull students out of a high school dance are like ICE, or the SS, if you want to put it it that way.
So this is all very timely, and doesn't need a plot dissection. It's also quite funny - the opposite of the revolutionaries is an extremely right wing organization called the 'Christmas Adventure Club' who are so appallingly racist that it's quite funny. (Was Anderson a Kubrick fan? There's something about this organization's meeting that is as bizarrely funny as similar scenes in Kubrick films. 'Colonel Lockjaw' sounds like a Dr Strangelove character.) And the 'trackers' that never work.
In fact these two opposite camps very neatly represent the polarization present today, and not just in America, either; there's no middle-of-the-road 'normal' people in it.
But while all this is going on, Anderson manages to achieve that same propulsive force that Magnolia also has - it's partly the way Johnny Greenwood's (and others) music moves it, almost wall-to-wall music. It just gives it this amazing forward motion that you find hard to interrupt.
The main story takes place sixteen years later when Leo Di Caprio has become something of a stoned recluse and worries about his sixteen year old daughter, Chase Infiniti. Vengeful Penn comes back into their lives, and then it turns into a thrilling chase movie, with Benicio del Toro a Zen martial arts teacher who has revolutionary connections.
Certain scenes, like Leo's rooftop escape during which he falls off a building and is tasered, and particularly the climactic car chase with its endless rolling hills, are just stunning cinema. Caught with some beauty by Michael Bauman, unbelievably using old VistaVision cameras, though you have to credit Colin Anderson, the camera / Steadicam operator, and the other members of that huge camera team, that are all part of giving the film its magnificent propulsion. (VistaVision also gives you 8-perf, so a frame of twice the regular size for amazing detail. Actually, they missed a trick there - should have opened with the old VistaVision logo we're so used to seeing at the beginning of Hitch's 50s films.)
The irony of the daughter going off to join in some citizen's protest at the end to Tom Petty's 'American Girl' is not lost on me.
Fabulous performances throughout. Regina Hall, Tony Goldwyn also fabulous as the Christmas assassin.
Edited by Andy Jurgensen (also Licorice PIzza), one of the film's thirteen Oscar nominations.
Also great work from our new favourite make-up lady Heba Thorisdottir. Production design: Florencia Martin.
