My Week with Marilyn (2011 Simon Curtis)

Original review 11 March 2012.

We certainly are getting some good scripts at the moment. Adrian Hodges is a TV writer having adapted The Ruby in the Smoke / Shadow in the North. This is a BBC film. We couldn't stop smiling. Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh were Oscar/BAFTA nominated. Eddie Redmayne plays Colin Clark on whose diary this was based. Judi Dench naturally steals every scene she's in.

Also: Julia Ormond, Pip Torrens, Emma Watson, Philip Jackson, Jim Carter.

Ph. Ben Smithard, Panavision. (Lots of TV: The Trip, Cranford etc.)

Conrad Pope's score is simple and good.

What's Olivier's great line at the end?

Today:

It's "I tried to change her but despite all my efforts she remained brilliant".

Simon Curtis is a TV director including Cranford, 20 000 Streets Under the Sky, Man and Boy.

Moves along wonderfully, propelled by script, without a wasted shot. If it's essentially a TV movie, let's have more of them.

Psycho (1960)

Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Martin Balsam,

Very interesting camera angles (high and low) all over the place; also cutting (Hitchcock regular George Tomasini cut it, though you can bet the Master was well in control) and shot sizes (e.g. encounter with traffic cop is all in close up).

The way Hitchcock does a moving point of view shot is distinctive and exceptional.

Previous viewing 20 October 2012:

The soundtrack I did buy.

Janet Leigh's face in the car in the night scenes is unforgettable.

The flash cut of Martin Balsam at the shop door is really incredible and well ahead of its time.

Hand washing = L'Argent.

That ending, though!

Also watched on 30 October 2011: 

More of a film than you remember.

Cheap TV production bounced along by Herrmann.

And on 16 October 2010: 

Herrmann's black and white score.

Scorsese loves scene with Martin Balsam in phone box.

POV. Reaction. POV. Reaction. Like no one else.

Film firsts: bra? (I don't think it was actually). Loo!*

The lighting's ugly. Why didn't Burks shoot it?

And on 7 February 2010!

Leigh / Perkins: did either of their careers recover?

Is it a film of 'shattering modernity'? (The Times obituary 1980.)

* No to both. There are plenty of bras in pre-code Hollywood, and there's a toilet in that dull Kim Novak pic Middle of the Night in 1959.

Woody Allen: a Documentary (2012 Robert Weide)

Woody Allen should stop being lazy and get on and make his serious masterpiece, thoroughly planning it so it doesn't 'evolve' during shooting, give nasty surprises in the editing etc. Having directed 42 features, he really does have the experience.

Wind Chill (2007 Gregory Jacobs)

And we only watched this for Emily Blunt, who was doing an American accent whilst getting stuck amidst snow and ghosts with Ashton Holmes. The director had told them both to pant a lot, which was annoying, and it was all very silly, which these films invariably are. We wiped it at once.

Had been put through the Blue Machine.

Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes through the Blue Machine.

Unfaithful (2002 Adrian Lyne)

We watched this to see how Diane Lane (A Little Romance) was getting on - rather well, it turns out, though Q thought she was wearing the wrong bra as she betrays (for no explained reason) Richard Gere for Olivier Martinez. It turns out it's all a remake of Chabrol's Une Femme Infidele, expertly edited by Anne Coates (one of her cuts in a bookstore is so subtle that Q couldn't spot it even when I played it back) and shot by Peter Biziou. Someone though decided they knew better, and changed the ending. Behaviour of lovers well caught.

Precious (2009 Lee Daniels)

I had forgetten quite how gruelling PRECIOUS was, particularly the visit to mother with baby and ensuing assault by television, but thankfully Lee Daniels adds flair and imagination to Sapphire's one and only novel, and it's richly photographed by Andrew Dunn.

Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton (teacher), Maria Carey, Lenny Kravitz.

Mo'Nique and scriptwriter Geoffrey Fletcher won Oscars.

A rare moment of happiness for poor old Precious.

Lee's new film The Paperboy has mixed reviews.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948 Preston Sturges)

After Precious we turned to a Preston Sturges, in which a conductor suspects his wife of having an affair, but despite some of his customary quick jokes it isn't his best, and a mixed bag (the fantasies aren't funny, except for the moment where Rex's laughter in dream sequence erupts into real life) though there are some most enjoyable sound effects, such as those involving a voice recorder (preceded by a largely unfunny slapstick sequence). There's also too much classical background music which ultimately becomes deadening.

Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallee, Lionel Stander and other familiar faces are photographed by Victor Milner.

Hollywood Ending (2002 Woody Allen)

Woody Allen, Téa Leoni, George Hamilton, Barney Cheng (all pictured below), Treat Williams, Debra Messing, Mark Rydell, Fred Melamed.

The one that Haskell Wexler was fired from (Wedigo von Shultzendorff took over).

It's a really clever idea (failing film director develops psychosomatic blindness and has to rely on Chinese translator to pretend he can still direct the film), based no doubt in part on the fact that Woody had actually worked with a Chinese cameraman on his previous three films (Zhao Fei).

That the French love the resultant mess of a film is I think a wry comment on how his own films are erratically received (and perhaps on the always unpredictable French?) This is one he thought he'd got right, but the public didn't go for it. It did $4m at home and the same in .. France! It wasn't even released here.

The Help (2011 Tate Taylor & scr)

Novel Kathryn Stockett.

Emma Stone, Viola Davis (Oscar nom.), Octavia Spencer (won both Oscar and BAFTA), Jessica Chastain (nom.), Bryce Dallas Howard (the bitch), Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson (Fried Green Tomatoes), Sissy Spacek.

Music: Thomas Newman.
Photography: Oliver Goldblatt.

Fantastic cast.
Enjoyed it more than last time.

Regarding Henry (1991 Mike Nichols)

Scr. JJ Abrams (before he started doing silly things like Lost  and Super 8, which is apparently an amalgamation of old Spielburgs).

Harrison Ford, Annette Bening, Elizabeth Wilson (the secretary, also in Nine to Five, Catch 22, The Graduate), Donald Moffat, Mikki Allen (daughter, one of those sensible children who probably decided making films was too boring and didn't do it again), Bill Nunn (therapist: Legend of 1900, Spider Man films), Bruce Altman (partner).

Well written, and shot with the lush and rich camera of Giuseppe Rotunno (not captured in screen shot).
This was as good as the first time we saw it (for the record 18 April 1992. Review: Wonderful humane story is moving without being manipulative (?), great script, superb central performance. Not a dry eye in the house.")

Not mad about Hans Zimmer's music in this (not generally).

Loved the moment when daughter knocks glass of orange juice over, so Dad does the same.

Funny People (2009 Judd Apatow & scr)

Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan, Leslie Mann (Mrs Apatow), Eric Bana, Maude & Iris Apatow (all shown below), Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill, Aubrey Plaza.

Ph. Janusz Kaminski

Gross, tender film is frequently hilarious e.g. German doctor (Torsten Voges), Mann's attempted Austalian accent.

It's very long, but keeps on delivering. as usual, I enjoyed it more than the first time on 18 September 2010.

Harold and Maude (1971 Hal Ashby)

Scr. Colin Higgins (Nine to Five). A strange young man befriends an eccentric old lady in this brilliantly original New Wave black comedy.

Stars Ruth Gordon (who should have won an Oscar, and before this also had a most interesting career as a writer of such things as the Tracy / Hepburn Pat and Mike), Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles (who made me laugh every time she appeared), Cyril Cusack (for literally about 10 seconds) and Tom Skerritt (motorcycle cop). Pickles was also in O Lucky Man  and Sunday Bloody Sunday amongst many other screen and stage appearances.

Photographed in wonderful, painterly melancholy shades by John A. Alonzo.

From the most interesting period of American films, the last Golden Age, with echoes of the French New Wave. It pisses all over most of today's indies, although it was actually a studio picture, one of many interesting films made for Paramount in the seventies.

Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon

Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles

Fake suicides, and total lack of reaction from mother, meetings with girlfriends, and encounter with motorcycle cop are all hilarious.

That we see only for a split second a concentration camp tattoo on Gordon's hand is a wonderful detail,  though for me the only criticism of the film is that such a survivor and lover of life wouldn't kill herself.

When Gordon throws away the gift, Cort looks genuinely surpised as though it was improvised.

You can bet former editor Ashby was much involved in cutting of this film, which bears his hallmark eccentricity.

The Red Shoes (1948 Powell & Pressburger)

Last viewing late night 22 Feb 2013 (some of it), then again on 24 Feb (all of it).

With the usual lightning editing, scenes clearly written by Pressburger, melancholy Cardiff photography and standout performances: it's utterly brilliant. Note interesting credits / opening also. Some of the editing is almost in the league of Resnais (by Reginald Mills - who like Challis gets a highlighted credit - with Noreen Ackland (Peeping Tom) and someone called Anne Coates) . (Did the French notice P&P at all? As a quick check, there's nothing in Truffaut's The Films in my Life nor in Jim Hillier's collection of 1950s Cahiers du Cinéma articles.)

Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Léonide Massine, Anton Walbrook, Esmond Knight, Albert Bassermann (his last film), Robert Helpmann.

Lermentov is Powell.

Brian Easdale's music won the Oscar. Score desperately needs rerecording and reissuing on CD. He didn't compose for many films, though a few P&Ps. Love the scene where Goring gives them the new score. Also Walbrook announcing the death.

20 May 2012:

The ballet itself is so extraordinary you can't take your eyes off it; almost surrealist.

Also, an interesting film about the creative process itself, with roles corresponding to Shearer (of course), Powell, Junge, Easdale (mirroring initial composer Alan Gray being replaced), but not Cardiff!

2 January 2010:

That edit where the shoes spring onto the feet is amazing.

Massine brilliant, Shearer's Coppelia also fantastic.

30 June 2008:

After reading Magic Hour  I felt I just had to revisit this strange and fantastic classic. Cardiff's colours particularly impressed me - that he was not allowed to be Oscar nominated was criminal:

"I had a phone call from Lee Garmes who sold me a sorry, and rather shocking, story. There had been a meeting of the American Society of Cameramen. It was agreed that The Red Shoes was a certainty for the award. But, as I, an alien, had won the Oscar the previous year, it posed a problem. If a foreign cameraman won the Oscar two years running it would put American cameramen in an inferior light. Bad for American prestige, they said. So the only way to prevent me from getting the award was not to nominate me."

Even the ballet-dancing itself impressed me, Leonide Massine's bizarre Toymaker steps apparently emanating more from Powell than him.

Skyfall (2011 Sam Mendes)

Writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, John Logan.

Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Albert Finney, Ola Rapace (Wallander).

Amazing looking photography by Roger Deakins (Panavision) - Shanghai scenes incredible.

Screen shots courtesy of Bass Visuals

Good music by another Mendes regular Thomas Newman.

Edited by the 65 year old Stuart Baird (what was he doing between 1996 and 2005?)

Loved the opening episode, the cracked-up agent, Adele's theme song (winning her an Oscar), 50th anniversary references (e.g. Aston Martin). Film is perhaps too long for its plot but overall a great success.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008 Woody Allen & scr)

Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz (AA), Patricia Clarkson (all absolutely great).

Ph. Javier Aguirresarobe.

And on 24 January, 2009.

I'm not sure I'd describe this as 'very funny'. It's more of a relationship drama, really, with wonderful irony. Another great success from a masterful writer-director; as usual his casting and music choices (e.g. unshakeable main theme 'Barcelona' by Giulia y los Tellarini) are inspired.

Watch out for interesting dissolves in mid scene between Bardem and Hall.

 

Woody admits that in Bardem and Cruz's argument in Spanish on the streets of Barcelona he had no idea what they were saying to each other!

50 / 50 (2011 Jonathan Levine)

Joseph Gordon Levitt (good), Seth Rogan, Anna Kendrick (really good), Anjelica Huston, Bryce Dallas Howard, Matt Frewer & Philip Baker Hall (the other patients).

Written by Will Reiser. Levine also made The Wackness.
Music Michael Giacchino. Ph. Terry Stacey.

Sweet, not too Hollywoody, a rather serious film about a young man who finds he's seriously ill, with the survival odds of the title. An independent production of a true story.

Frewer's intimate moments with wife, Joseph realising Seth has been reading up on illness, are cool moments. How does it end? Um. There's an operation.

The Last Song (2010 Julie Ann Robinson)

.. who hasn't made anything apart from TV before.

Scr. Nicholas Sparks (and novel)(who knows how to push buttons) & Jeff van Wie

Miley Cyrus (funny squashed in face), Greg Kinnear, Bobby Coleman (brother), Liam hemsworth.

Ph, John Lindley (Pleasantville)

A warm-hearted tale, apparently. I can't remember much about it.

In the Heat of the Night (1967 Norman Jewison)

Scr. Stirling Silliphant (AA), novel John Ball. Black Detective in 1967 Deep South finds himself unwillingly investigating a murder. One of two key Hollywood race-related films from the same year with the same star.

Rod Steiger (AA), Sidney Poitier (not even nominated; crackling with energy), Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Beah Richards (also in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?). The girl playing Dolores is called Quentin Dean (are you sure? Could be an IMDB error.)

Sidney Poitier and Warren Oates

Edited by Hal Ashby (AA). Music Quincy Jones. Photography ("I'll never work with him again!" *) Haskell Wexler using bounced, soft light: desaturated. It does look great: absence of shadows.

* Well he did, unusually: Wexler also shot Thomas Crown Affair.

I love the scene in which Larry gates slaps Poitier, so he slaps him back. Also the touch at the end where we see Steiger carrying Poitier's suitcase. Opening (Poitier being arrested) funny.

"They call me Mister Tibbs!"

Jewison / Wexler / Ashby catch the life of poor blacks subtly.

(19 July 2010.)

Children of Men (2006 Alfonso Cuaron (& co-scr)

Novel PD James. What Paul Schrader would refer to as a 'monocular' film (it entirely focuses on Owen - he's in every scene). It's slightly in the future, and population growth has dropped to zero. Or has it? Unique, dazzling, brilliant.

Clive Owen, Michael Caine (playing an old hippy), Julianne Moore, Clare-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, Danny Huston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Peter Mullan. (Fab cast.)

Sensational photography by Emmanuel Lubezki (BAFTA), e.g. dusk scene at house with no visible signs of lighting. The long continuous take inside the car is amongst the most incredible in the entire history of the cinema; though the long scene with the army is probably even more jaw-dropping! (Long takes put you into the action.)

Emmanuel's called 'Chivo' because he looks like a goat! He has also shot Cuaron's Gravity with Clooney and Bullock, releasing later this year.

Editing nominated (Cuaron and Alex Rodriguez).

The religious angle (pregnant lady found in stable) is unmistakable.


Also 12 November 2011.

Guess Who's Coming for Dinner? (1967 Stanley Kramer & prod)

Quite rightly won Oscar for screenplay William Rose (The Ladykillers) and one of Kate's four.

Spencer, shortly before his death, nominated, as was Cecil Kellaway as the priest.

There's a great look between Kate and Spencer that must have been one of their last on film.

Sidney Poitier (with the finger: great), Katharine Houghton, Isabel Sanford (the maid), Beah Richards.

Music: de Vol, ph. Sam Leavitt.

Classic moment where Kate sacks her assistant one of many scene-steals.

Hilarious jiving scene between delivery boy and maid!

Midnight in Paris (2011 Woody Allen & scr)

Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, Alison Pill & Tom Hiddlestone (Fitzgeralds), Corey Stoll (Hemingway), Adrien Brody (Dali), Kathy Bates, Marion Cottillard, Carla Bruni, Lea Seydoux.

Brilliant flight of fantasy: he always was interested in magic.  Opens with a beautiful montage of Paris (like Manhattan), then we get the credits with Owen Wilson's voiceover (for a change).

To Rome With Love (2012 Woody Allen & scr)

Woody Allen, Judy Davis, Alison Pill (Scott Pilgrim. Midnight in Paris), Flavio Parenti & Fabio Armiliato (a real tenor), Roberto Benigni (with incredible expressions), Alessandro Tiberi & Alessandra Mastronardi (newlyweds), Alec Baldwin (restrained; good), Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Penelope Cruz.

Ph. Dariusz Khondji

Unfairly underrated film proves Woody to be as creative as ever at 76, with four stories connected to the idea of celebrity, filled with irony. Shower-singing tenor both hilarious and surreal. Plot turns are unpredictable and brilliant. Some great lines appear in the subtitles, e.g. "something to tell my grandchildren about!"

The Secret of My Success (1987 Herbert Ross & Prod)

Michael J Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan, Margaret Whitton, John Pankow (Episodes).

Ph. Carlo di Palma
Ed. Paul Hirsch

Well. No doubt the producers insisted on shovelling eighties pop shit (now barely listenable) all over it; judicious editing should have ensued, moving the story (which basically is good) along, and giving more time to develop the supporting characters.

It perhaps adds to the enjoyment that Slater, with her two expressions (stern and simpering) and Jordan are both absolutely awful. Ultimately the fun is in Fox making it good.

Also, would have ended overweight film on lift alarm.

That Yello track was in everything.

The Firm (1993 Sydney Pollack & prod)

scr. David Rabe, Robert Towne & David Rayfield
Novel John Grisham

Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Wilford Brimley, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter (nom.), David Strathairn, Gary Busey

Ph. John Seale
Music Dave Grusin (all piano, surprisingly nominated)

Somewhat implausible premise. Long.

Filmed in Memphis and the Cayman Islands

Biloxi Blues (1988 Mike Nichols)

Scr. and play Neil Simon

Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Corey Parker, (good as Epstein), Matt Mulhern

Ed. Sam O'Steen
Ph. Bill Butler
Mus. Georges Delerue

Not hilarious but engossing semi-autobiographical film of cadets in army training base.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968 Norman Jewison)

Steve McQueen (was he the coolest man in films?), Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke, Jack Weston (the driver), Astrid Heeren (one of only three films), Yaphet Kotto.

Astrid Heeren

Interesting credits: Editor and assistant producer Hal Ashby.
Photography "I'll never work with him again" Haskell Wexler
Second assistant director Walter Hill
Music Michel Legrand (lyrics Alan and Marilyn Bergman)
Titles Pablo Ferro
Singer Noel (son of Rex) Harrison.

One suspects the entire crew of smoking pot. The split screen is used most creatively.

Loved the first act's robbery - as it starts we have no idea what's going on.

Crazy Stupid Love (2011 Glenn Ficara & John Requa)

Requa wrote Bad Santa.
Scr. Dan Fogelman (Disney stuff)

Steve Big Nose Carrell, Ryan Ripped Gosling, Julianna Moore, Emma Stone, Jonah Bobo (good as the kid), Analeigh Tipton (babysitter), Marisa Tomei (date / teacher), kevin Bacon

Ph. Andrew Dunn, Panavision

Vertigo (1958 Alfred Hitchcock)

It looks great on Blu-Ray of course.
Hitch appears to be carrying a trumpet!

James Stewart (the performance of his career), Kim Novak (the performance of her career).
And: Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Ellen Corby.

Written for Hitchcock especially by people who realised then how great he was: namely, the French. Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's novel "D'Entre les Morts" was then adapted by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor (who wrote both play and screen play of Sabrina and Avanti and therefore is a thoroughly good chap).

The A Team of Bernard Herrmann (composer), Robert Burks (camera) and George Tomasini (editor).

Reviews are as follows:

8 August 2010.

Some of the shots are so interesting. Noticed as Stewart first sees her, in profile, the shot warms up (in fact what's happening is the fill light behind her gets brighter - a subtle and amazing trick). Also there's a strange scene with a historian that gets increasingly darker.

Familiar expert handling of POV / reaction.

People try and make films like Hitch, but fail.

Novak is great. The story is a load of nonsense and the ending is still funny.

One of the most staggeringly beautiful film scores ever.

30 January 2011.

I underestimated Kim's performance in the past.

After the incredible darker-and-darker scene, it brightens up again outside on the pavement.

Where she appears remodelled as the woman it's as though she's through a fog.

A very cleverly made film by a director at the height of his powers. Ending with nun still funny. Can finally see why critics rated it so highly.

Amazingly, neither Burks nor Herrmann were even nominated, and nor was Hitch.

George Dutton won for Best Sound (it's extremely naturalistic with traffic noise etc. Clearly a lot of thought goes into Hitch's sound design as much as any other department) and four gentlemen whose names I can't be bothered to type for Art Direction.

Some lovely over-exposed exteriors too.

Is theme really based on Tristan and Isolde?

25 March 2012.

Hitch is really playing us here as we start out fully sympathetic to Scottie, only for him to become a controlling obsessive.

28 October 2012.

The constantly changing camera positions are extremely interesting. And the profile shots (even Jimmy ends up thus). The gradual darkening happens later too.

It's a film you can get lost in.

The red and green theme (notice not in Scottie's flat).

The POV / reaction thing is at its most sublime, if any instruction was ever needed.

Again, often like a silent film. Which is why directors who started in silent were the best?

Anna Karenina (2012 Joe Wright)

A new Joe Wright is a major event in this house. Written by Tom Stoppard from Tolstoy.

Not sure of the reasoning behind admittedly brilliant 'staging' devices, film suffers from not enough action and is, incredibly, a little dull.

Screen shot courtesy Rope of Silicon

Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Olivia Williams, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Mcdonald, Pip Torrens

Ph. Seamus McGarvey
Mus. Dario Marianelli
Ed. Melanie Oliver

Kept making me think of Last Year at Marienbad.

The Lady Vanishes (1938 Alfred Hitchcock)

Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Dame May Whitty, Radford / Wayne, Cecil Parker, Googie Withers, Paul Lukas, Philip Leaver (the magician), Catherine Lacey (nun)

Ph. Jack Cox

The writing's on the window

"It's not cricket". Basil Radford (right) and Naunton Wayne

Also noted on 5 February 2011. A messy and funny fight scene involving the magician is one of the scenes that demonstrates what I call Hitch's early "bounce".

No doubt the bounce is also partly attributable to the Gilliat / Launder script, from the story 'The Wheel Spins' by Ethel Lina White.

Never noticed, but right after this cheeky frame there looks like a tiny cut: maybe the censor objected to seeing too much of Margaret Lockwood's drawers.

I love the moment in the train seige when Mrs Froy says blithely "Well, I must be going".
And Cecil Parker in the same scene: "It's easier to protest from down here".

A recent TV remake lacked all the humour and vitality that makes this so damn enjoyable.

When in Rome (2010 Mark Steven Johnson)

Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel (an uninspiring couple), Anjelica Huston, Danny de Vito

There are about two scenes actually in Rome. Should be retitled "When Not in Rome".

Film is goofy. Enjoyably bad but not enjoyably bad enough.

Boy / Shonen (1969 Nagisa Oshima)

I was all set to watch another Tarkovsky but as Oshima died on Jan 15 (aged 80) I thought it was time to experience Boy, entirely different in style to the same year's Shinjuku Thief.

Taken from newspaper reports, the film is like a harder-edged 400 Blows, presented matter-of-factly. The scene where the boy demolishes the snowman is unforgettable. I lose count of the number of times the poor stepmum is slapped.

The boy is Tetsuo Abe (his only film) with Fumio Watanabe, Akiko Koyama and Tsuyoshi Kinoshita.

Strange mixes into monochrome.

Good use of extreme widescreen.

Still courtesey of Filmnation

Michael Clayton (2007 Tony Gilroy & scr)

Gilroy is the Bourne writer.

An interesting though not a great film, in the fashion of dark, 70s paranoia thrillers, with Clooney, an edgy Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Sydney Pollack and Merritt Weaver (Nurse Jackie).

I love the scene with the horses.

Ph. Robert Elswit

The Trouble with Harry (1955 Alfred Hitchcock)

John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine (21, charming), Mildred Natwick, Edmund Gwenn

Looks absolutely sensational on Blu-Ray (Robert Burks on camera). Was Hitch missing the English autumn?

Wonderful script: John Michael Hayes - also Rear Window - from a novel by Jack Trevor Story (not a bad name for a novelist). The line "What seems to be the trouble, captain?" drily delivered from Natwick to Gwenn as he hauls the corpse, is unbeatable. Q thinks it's Hitch's sweetest film, and she is as usual right.

The group of gravediggers at dusk makes me think of Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.. and it could also easily be a Coen Bros. film.  Influential, and as usual, experimental (no bad guy and no suspense!)

Edmund Gwenn's line "The next thing you know they'll be televising the whole thing" is quite ironic.

Also with Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers (the boy), Royal Dano (sherrif), Dwight Marfield (book reading doctor). The latter character's behaviour may well be a reference to James Williamson's 1905 short An Interesting Story.

Groundhog Day (1993 Harold Ramis)

As it was Groundhog Day.

Story Danny Rubin (the thief: the inspiration is from 12:01).

Very good screen play (by Rubin and Ramis).

Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky

Ph. John Bailey

"Isn't there any hot water?" "Oh no, there wouldn't be today!"

Tremendously inventive film is as good as it ever was. Because of its construction, you always think you remember it too well, but don't, e.g. sub-story of attempt to save homeless man.

Still from The Guardian -  David O. Russell and Terry Jones are also big fans.

Welcome to the Rileys (2010 Jake Scott)

Scr Ken Hixon (City by the Sea)

James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart, Melissa Leo

Impresssively dark photography looks like it's naturally lit - Christopher Soos.

Thank God for American Indie cinema, but on the other hand, it's all looking somewhat samey. No pat conclusion to this one.

Magic Town (1947 William Wellman)

James Stewart, Jane Wyman (an aquired taste), Ned Sparks (with cigar), Donald Meek, Ann Shoemaker

Scr. Robert Riskin
Ph. Joseph Biroc

"Heavens, I'm so excited I almost ate one of my own muffins!"

The Maltese Falcon (1941 John Huston)

Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook Jr.,

Scr Huston

Directed up into the ceiling, before Citizen Kane, fast-paced and memorably performed and scripted. Great music by Adolph Deutsch, photography by Arthur Edeson.

The first time I saw this, on 6 July 1978, was at the Gaumont cinema, Oxford Road, Reading. Each reel was a different tint of black and white!

Lars and the Real Girl (2007 Craig Gillespie)

Scr. Nancy Oliver (AA nom., now writing True Blood)

A very good Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner

You know, the one with the blow up doll!