10 Rillington Place (1971 Richard Fleischer)

Film in which oddly no one looks like themselves, viz. Richard Attenborough, John Hurt and Judy Geeson:

Coincidentally, it was the second time today we'd seen Eastenders'  Rudolph Walker (earlier an African king in King Ralph!), who here finds the corpses. It was actually filmed in Rillington Place, which must have added to the creepiness.

Fleischer is good at this sort of material (cf. The Boston Strangler). Attenborough is convincing as serial killer, Hurt as bewildered innocent.

Music by John Dankworth and shot by Denys Coop. Poor old Timothy John Evans, who was pardoned, exhumed and reburied 10 years after he was hanged in error, for all the good that did him.

We Bought a Zoo (2011 Cameron Crowe)

Written by Crowe and Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada), it was a major relief to us that Cameron made another film after the disastrously received Elizabethtown (which, by the way, is fantastic), and that the public liked it (it's actually a bit more sentimental than the previous picture).

Matt Damon is trying his best to raise Colin Ford and the damned cute Maggie Elizabeth Jones after his wife has died, and despite the objections of brother Thomas Haden Church buys a zoo, complete with staff comprising Scarlett Johansson, Patrick Fugit (in an oddly almost silent part), Angus Macfadyen and Elle Fanning.

Maggie Elizabeth Jones. Q thinks a Julia Roberts in the making.

Also featuring John Michael Higgins (inspector), JB Smoove (pictured below), Michael Panes (principal), Kym Whitley (cashier) and Peter Riegert.

 

Wicked illustrations:

Rodrigo Prieto shot it, Mark Livolsi cut it (after working up from assistant on Almost Famous) and the music is by Jonsi.

And I don't know why this cropped up in my head, as it's got nothing to do with this film at all, but I'd guess that Bell Book and Candle was made before Vertigo, both released 1958 (July and December respectively) and both starring Stewart and Novak.

Side Effects (2013 Steven Soderbergh)

I kept hoping Rooney Mara would cheer up. I got quite a surprise when she did, as I'm sure did the audience!

Channing Tatum is the unfortunate husband, Jude Law the psychoanalyst, and an unrecognisable Catherine Zeta-Jones a kinky doctor. We didn't think Jude's wife was very nice at all in twisty pharma thriller.

(We hear Rooney is very good in newly released Ain't Them Bodies Saints.)

Written by Scott Z. Burns and both shot and edited by Soderbergh under his usual pen names of Peter Andrews and May Ann Bernard! The massively talented Thomas Newman wrote the music.

Almost Famous (2000 Cameron Crowe & scr)

Also reviewed here

There aren't enough good adjectives to describe this warm, humane, friendly, humorous, sharply scripted, wise, infectious, lively, bouncy film, which is impossible to dislike. Much of the story is inferred just from William's reaction shots - for example, you can tell he falls completely for 'Penny Lane' immediately without a word said.

Patrick Fugit and Kate Hudson

Amongst many many moments to love is William on the phone asking "how do I know if he's coming up?" cutting to the guitarist on the roof of the house! (I assume it was written in the script just like this.) Tellingly, the 161 minute director's cut doesn't feel any longer than a regular film.

Oscar-nominated editing by Joe Hutshing (won Oscars for JFK & Born on the Fourth of July; also cut The Doors, Jerry Maguire) and Saar Klein (The Thin Red Line, The New World). Cameron won the award for writing, and Hudson and Frances McDormand were nominated.

"Look at him. He's taking notes with his eyes."

"Be bold, and and mighty forces will come to your aid" (Goethe).

Penny Lane is partly based on 70s Playboy model and rock chick Bebe Buell, who Cameron met in the seventies.

Benvenuti al Nord (2012 Luca Miniero)

Scr Fabio Bonifacci & Miniero
Mus Umberto Scipione
Ph. Paolo Carnera
Dany Boon is Exec Prod.

As before: Claudio Bisio, Alessandro Siani, Angela Finocchiaro, Valentina Lodovini.

The first film in reverse, with Siani coming to Milan, and finding it as predicted foggy, fast and unfriendly. Worse, friend Bisio has taken to eating sushi and other indigestibles. Usual dialect / regional jokes e.g. remote places in Italy no one has heard of; some may or may not make it through the translation (for example, I wasn't sure if 'I'm slightly developing a Tuscan accent' was a joke or not. Is there a Tuscan accent?)

"In typical Milanese style, my welcome dinner is also my farewell. It saves time."

Fluffy film was one of the biggest box office openers in Italy.

Double Indemnity (1944 Billy Wilder)

Previously reviewed here

"You may not be sufficiently covered."

"The guy you were looking for was too close to you. Right across the desk."

"Closer than that Walter."

"I love you too."

Into the Wild (2007 Sean Penn)

Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Catherine Keener, Brian H. Dierker, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, Hal Holbrook (Oscar nominated)

Very well edited by Jay Cassidy (who cut Penn's other films; also nom.) and shot by Eric Gautier (in France until 2004: The Motorcycle Diaries, Taking Woodstock and On the Road) in Panavision. In exciting news, Gautier seems lined up to be shooting Cameron Crowe's next project, which already has Alec Baldwin, Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams booked.

Gautier had the camera in and out of the water in this scene, though magically there's no water on the lens.

Um. Ultimate freedom leads to death?

The silly boy. He was so nice that everyone wanted him to stay with them. Also, he really should have at least told his sister he was OK. Another true story.

The Americans (2013 Created by Joseph Weisberg)

Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Noah Emmerich (very watchable indeed), Richard Thomas, Annet Mahendru (who is Indian-Russian), Margo Martindale ('Granny'), Holly Taylor, Keidrich Sellati.

Maximiliano Hernandez and Noah Emmerich

I love this series because you feel some sympathy for almost all of the characters who all have likeable traits, from the older Russian who starts having an affair with Mahendru to Emmerich's CIA buddy above (who is always trying to get him laid). The main exception is the mother, but that won't stop us watching series 2!

Nice to see Adam Arkin as producer and occasional director. (He's still acting, mainly on TV.)

Hachi-Ko (1987 Seijiro Koyama)

A true story, written for the screen by Kineto Shindo, about a dog who visited the railway station every day at the same time to greet his master, and continued to do so for many years after the latter had died. The story became a huge symbol of family loyalty to the Japanese and this was a big box office success there.

Tatsua Nakadai, Kaoru Yachigusa

I rather like the approach of this one: the father doesn't want the dog at all, his wife definitely doesn't want another one, the daughter says she'll look after it then promptly gets pregnant and married... It's a little less sentimental than the (better) Richard Gere version and is unhappily saddled with dreadful, totally un-Japanese 80s music that I can only assume was there to try and give it some appeal to Westerners.

Begins with a wonderful shot of dancing snow flurries but that's the best shot of the picture, apart from in this charming scene:

 

We also like the food vendor.

Hachi was in fact alive to see the first bronze statue erected in his honour outside Shibuya Station in 1935.

Arbitrage (2012 Nicholas Jarecki & scr)

Richard Gere (63 playing 60!), Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Nate Parker (good).

Gere looks like a multi-millionaire, but he's got himself into a lot of financial trouble (he can't even afford the two mill his wife wants for the charity function), and things get even worse when he kills his mistress. Muddy film doesn't really drive its spear into anything tangible, but slips down nicely like a good Burgundy.

'Arbitrage' is not a good title.  Even I, an ex-banker, do not know what arbitrage is. What is a good title?

The Paperboy (2012 Lee Daniels)

Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman (who seems to have stopped ageing), John Cusack (unrecognisably monstrous), David Oleyowo, Macy Gray, Scott Glenn.

Stylishly made of course (note dissolves in editing e.g. of Kidman to Efron in car:

 

Joe Klotz edited; also Precious.) 

Ask yourself though, had you been a reporter, would you have done anything at the suggestion of clearly nuts Kidman? And after meeting Cusack once, wouldn't you have said "I'm not getting you out of prison!" And if you'd been Zac, how could you have thought anything after Nicole's performance in prison but "YEEACH".

It is most unpleasant. The best thing about it is the relationship between Zac and Macy. It is a film to admire but not to like.

Daniels has once again brought a great performance out of a singer. Macy's voice is like smoke. All the performances are great.

Roberto Shaefer shot it (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner.) Peter Dexter wrote the novel and he and Daniels adapted it.

Daniels himself had problems with his father, a policeman who reacted badly to his son being gay (but, always reading, also positively influenced the boy). He died when Lee was 12. After an interesting career first in healthcare, then as a music industry agent, he produced Monster's Ball and The Woodsman and then started directing with Shadowboxer with Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding Jr and Mo'Nique, then Tennessee (Mariah Carey). The Butler with Forrest Whittaker, has just been released.

Gulliver's Travels (2010 Rob Letterman)

Jack Black, Amanda Peet, Chris O'Dowd (good & showing real range), Emily Blunt (looks like she's often about to laugh, beautifully camp, great as always), Jason Segel (subdued), Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, James Cordon.

When the 'Beast' sings "War. What is it good for?" to the squabbling peoples of Lilliput and Blefuscu, and everyone dances, Q turned to me and only then did she say "This is going a bit far isn't it?" If only that song worked like that in real life.

Joe Stillman and Nicholas Stoller are responsible for 'adapting' Jonathan Swift's novel (well, a bit of it).

We enjoyed it. You have to have a bit of nonsense now and then, and want it served with verve.

Contains the biggest product placements in any film ever.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012 Derek Cianfrance)

Well, this was a lot better than Blue Valentine.

We were somewhat surpised when 50 minutes in a second story began, then a third, which wrapped the first two together into a little epic.

Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper were succeeded by Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen respectively (both good), with Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn (also good), Mahershala Ali, Rose Byrn, Ray Liotta and Gabe Fazio. Ryan and Eva's baby is the cutest I think I've ever seen.

Cianfrance and Ben Coccio wrote the story and Darius Marder joined them in scriptwriting. Sean Bobbitt (Hunger, Shame, Byzantium) shot it, often from behind and following the actors. The chase sequences with cameras located in the cars are exceptional and reminded me of C'Etais un Rendezvous.

Sean Bobbitt lighting Ryan Gosling

 It was until I'd been watching it for an hour and a quarter that I realised it was a period piece.

Hitchcock (2012 Sacha Gervasi)

Anthony Hopkins (a great Hitchcock), Helen Mirren (good as always), Scarlett Johansson (good as Janet Leigh), Toni Collette (Patricia Hitchcock, good as always), Danny Huston, Jessica Biel, James D'Arcy (playing Anthony Perkins; British).

Written by John J McLaughlin (Black Swan), book Stephen Rebello.

How did virtual newbie Gervasi get the gig?

They should have used the true story that on hearing Herrmann's score, Hitch doubled his salary (particularly as Hitch had to pay it personally).

Shot by Jeff Cronenweth in Panavision and scored by Danny Elfman. Edited by Pamela Martin (Little Miss Sunshine).

Yes. I rather enjoyed that.

"I told Mrs Bates she could use your dressing room." Shitty screen cap courtesey Flixster, the shittest way to watch a movie.

Across the Pacific (1942 John Huston)

Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, Victor Sen Yung (all pictured below).

Also Charles Halton (as 'Smith') is familiar from somewhere, Lee Tung Foo (Sam), Monte Blue (alky father), Keye Luke (steamship office clerk).

Ah so! Confusingly, film was made after Pearl Harbour but is set before it.

Huston's first film about people who aren't in their natural habitat, a recurrent theme from African Queen to The Man Who Would be King.

Good script from Richard Macaulay (based on the newspaper serial by Robert Carson), in which Bogie seems to be a disgraced soldier turned mercenary who enjoys flirting with Mary Astor. They're in the safe hands of Arthur Edeson (camera) and Adolph Deutsch (music, who bravely didn't Americanise his name!) The Astor-Bogart relationship is more enjoyable than in the previous Maltese Falcon.

Famously, Huston went off to make war films, leaving Vincent Sherman to finish this. (In his autobiography An Open Book, Huston describes leaving Sherman with the problem that Bogie is tied up in a room surrounded by Japanese guards, an impossible situation to escape from. That's all very well, but there's no such scene in the film, just going to show that you can't necessarily trust famous directors' autobiographies. Powell is another one with a rather fanciful memory.)

'You certainly are a girl of many colours. First your legs get blue, then your face turns green, and now you're red all over."

End sequence is a Bond blueprint: cinema escape, monstrous villain's lair, weapon of mass destruction, and suited hero in exotic setting. Cue Goldfinger / Thunderball.

Private's Progress (1956 John Boulting)

Ian Carmichael, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, Terry-Thomas, William Hartnell (predating Carry on Sergeant by two years), John Le Mesurier, Miles Malleson, George Coulouris, Michael Trubshawe, Jill Adams, Christopher Lee (uncredited)

Written by Boulting and Frank Harvey from a novel by Alan Hackney.
Ed. Anthony Harvey.

Price with Jill Adams

Typically ineffectual Carmichael gets involved in WW2 behind the lines art robbery, then rather unfairly gets nicked for it! Lots of very familiar faces. Film is cheekily dedicated to those who got away with it!

As a complete tangent, John Le Mesurier = Boris Karloff (it's in the eyebrows)!

Lethal Weapon (1987 Richard Donner)

Donner is not related to British director Clive Donner.

Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitch Ryan, Tom Atkins, Darlene Love (Mrs Murtaugh) Traci Wolfe (Rianne).

After Glorious 39 I argued the only way I could top it was with Colonel Blimp on Blu-Ray, but it was not to be. This came up instead as a real tangent, but I'd happily argue for it in my top 100 (this, not the lamentable sequels). From the brief period when Mel was cool. It's his best film as a man on the edge who is humanised by his friendship with a fellow cop. (Which other thrillers deal with attempted suicide quite so forcefully?) It's very well written by Shane Black, but he didn't write anything better, making me wonder if Donner didn't contribute uncredited (and some of the wisecracks sound ad-libbed).

The whole story's in this one shot.

The Director's Cut has seven good additional minutes, including a sniper shooting kids at school (the first time we saw this version on 16 December 2012 was just after the Connecticutt school shooting), though I can see why this originally may have been left out as it perhaps makes Riggs too much like Dirty Harry too quickly. There's also a sweet moment where he picks up a hooker just to have some company watching The Three Stooges (who are also referenced in the drug deal Christmas tree sequence).

I think Donner was good at directing kids. There are great scenes with the Murtaugh family at dinner (requiring I wonder how many takes), and with these witnesses to an exploding house ("Do it again!"):

"Is it true cops shoot black men?" Murtaugh has no answer for that one.

 

Stephen Goldblatt is responsible for the Christmas lights gloss of the film. And Stuart Baird is behind the brilliant editing, notable right from that spectacular death dive at the outset, which was filmed for real. Jackie Swanson did the dive into an airbag painted to look like a car. It was arranged by Dar Robinson who was killed after filming ended, and to who the film is dedicated (his debut was doubling for Steve McQueen in Papillon). The final fight between Riggs and Joshua is almost impressionistic in its lights and cutting:

Memorable music by Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen.

Glorious 39 (2009 Steven Poliakoff & scr)

Romola Garai (she's in every scene isn't she?), Bill Nighy, Eddie Redmayne, Juno Temple, Julie Christie, Hugh Bonneville, Christopher Lee, Corin Redgrave, Jeremy Northam, David Tennant, Jenny Agutter.

Once you know Poliakoff had Rosemary's Baby in mind for mood it's easy to see its influence in many scenes, and has the same feeling of increasing paranoia.

It's beautifully baleful, magnificently menacing and strikingly sinister e.g. in use of children. Shot sizes and angles interesting.

That powerful Brits were seeking to buy off Hitler is surprising; as is detail that pets were being put down in droves, which is artfully woven into the plot.

Danny Cohen's pink filter in opening scenes is not welcome.
Music Adrian Johnston (lots of Poliakoffs including the recent Dancing on the Edge,  plus The Politician's Husband, Accused, The Street, Becoming Jane). Editing Jason Krasuki.

A very, very nicely made and acted film with Nighy stealing the show as usual.

Chalet Girl (2011 Phill Trail)

Felicity Jones, Bill Bailey, Tamsin Egerton, Bill Nighy, Ed Westwick, Brooke Shields

Felicity rises above clunky material (banter sounds artificial). She's most impressive in moment of telling of mum's death.

She's in the next Spider Man movie.

Nice scenery and snowboarding.

IQ (1994 Fred Schepisi)

Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan, Walter Matthau, Lou Jacobi, Gene Saks, Joseph Maher, Charles Durning, Stephen Fry, Tony Shaloub

an attractive couple.

L to R: Gene Saks, Joseph Maher, Lou Jacobi, Matthau and Ryan.

A friendly and warm film that is a little thin in the plot department (Einstein encorages mechanic to woo his daughter, who is with the wrong man), though the script does have funny bits (Matthau to Fry: "We're working on attraction at a distance".) It's almost a spin-off of Ball of Fire. Matthau makes a great Einstein.

Andy Breckman came up with the story which was screenwritten by him and Michael Leeson.

Music Jerry Goldsmith
Ph. Ian Baker (Panavision)

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967 Clive Donner)

 

ITV's Doctor series; suspicious death at 53

Barry Evans,  Judy Geeson, Angela Scoular (OHMSS), Sheila White, Adrienne Posta, Vanessa Howard, Moyra Fraser & Michael Bates (parents), Christopher Timothy, Denholm Elliott, Nicky Henson.

Hunter Davies adapted his own novel.

Alex Thomson (Excalibur) shot it.

You never know if the music in films of this era will be naff; it isn't. Spencer Davis Group / Steve Winwood & Traffic.

Swinging sixties films can be knackering. Constant monologuing, gags, pastiche scenes, jump cutting. This manages to stay engaging. Actually it's a lot of fun and pretty classy, not to say a little poignant (scene where Evans attempts to unzip dress and her bored look must be familiar to just about anyone). I wondered how they did the sound recording of the long tracking shots on a bicycle and guess they must have been post-dubbed (if so, rather well).

Stevenage is distinctly 'modern' (the only old building in the whole film is vinophile Denholm Elliott's house).

I like Spike's reported chat up line "C'mon girl, we haven't got all day." Scenes with book loving mother amusing. Some cuts were originally made. Ending (what's happened to the girls) funny.

Vanessa Howard in trippy Bond pastiche sequence

Evans with Moyra Fraser

Erika Raffael and Denholm Elliott

Angela Scoular, Barry Davies

I think I've fallen in love with Judy Geeson. Her Three into Two Won't Go, with Rod Steiger, unfortunately is not on DVD (except in dodgy iOffer quality). Nor is her 1969 Two Gentlemen Sharing.