Films of the Year 2014

Wild Bill. Dexter Fletcher's impressive debut, gritty but uplifting, a sort of urban Western

Babel. Mix of Iñarritu, Arriaga, Prieto, Mirrione and Santaolalla is a heady brew.

Wuthering Heights. Confirming Andrea Arnold's promise as one of Britain's leading film makers. Robbie Ryan's ultra-realistic photography a major plus.

Wild Target. Hugely overlooked remake of French drama comedy with star combination of Nighy, Blunt and Grint.

Bullets Over Broadway. One of Woody's rare collaborations results in beautiful subversion of 'putting on a show' theme, artfully shot and mounted and acted, even featuring a few Sopranos.

The Little Foxes. Took several viewings to realise just how great Wyler is with actors and with not moving Gregg Toland's peerless deep focus camera around. Essentially a stage play, nevertheless hugely cinematic.

Tracks. The film that makes you love camels.

The Wolf of Wall Street / Hugo / Bringing Out the Dead. The maestro's last two films are his best in a while, Wall Street hilarious, Hugo a charming film that pays homage to silents in general and Melies in particular; then the paramedic film, though less know, is perhaps even more wildly cinematic than the first two.

Calvary. You think John Michael McDonagh's going to give you another black comedy like The Guard - but this turns into something much more serious as well.

Leatherheads. Clooney screwball.

To Have and Have Not. How could you not love Bogie and Betty's first teaming, Hawks at the helm? I Wake Up Screaming. How could you resist Laird Cregar in early noir?

Good Will Hunting. Robin Williams' best film.

Her. Labor Day. The Way Way Back. Interesting American talent. Scarlett, Kate and Sam.

The April Fools. A New Leaf. Undiscovered Lemmon and Matthau.

Day for Night / Shoot the Pianist Domicile Conjugale / Baiser Volés / Les Quatre Cents Coups. All just happen to be Truffaut.

The Grand Budapest Hotel / Fantastic Mr Fox / Moonrise Kingdom. All just happen to be Wes Anderson.

August: Osage County. American Hustle. Twelve Years a Slave. Mature America.

Philomena. The Selfish Giant. The Kid.  Serious Brits at work.

Saving Mr Banks. Saving Mr Hanks.

Atonement. Joe Wright's best film is still seriously wonderful.

Petulia. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. The Knack. All just happen to be Tony Gibbs films. Just saying.

Wings of Desire. 'Angels Over Berlin'. Indeed.

The Perks of being a Wallflower. 

Rear Window

That flash you see in a dark apartment right at the beginning is like a hint as to the later action.

I love that the couple who sleep on the fire escape have the alarm clock tied to the rail, and when it starts raining the husband drops it and off course it starts ringing.

The moment where Grace Kelly is caught in Raymond Burr's apartment which is so tense is acted out to totally contradictory background music.

The fact that Hitch is the clock winder is marvellously apposite. (And come to think of it he's often seen as a musician.)

Much of it is silent: I bet you could watch the film without sound and still know what's going on.

You wonder if Grace Kelly's comment on the dead dog - "maybe he knew too much" is a little in-joke reference to The Man Who Knew Too Much.

When we were schoolboys I bet my friend Nic Jury that if I asked three random strangers if they'd heard of Rear Window that at least two of them would. We tried it, and I was right.

Peter's Friends (1992 Kenneth Branagh)

Written by Rita Rudner and her husband Martin Bergman, and starring her alongside Fry & Laurie, Imelda Staunton, Branagh, Emma Thompson, Alphonsia Emmanuel and Tony Slattery. We can see Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson on their way to acting greatness, though the film is quietly stolen by Emma's mum, Phyllida Law, as the stern housekeeper.

Branagh sensibly keeps things in long takes, though perhaps has a tendency to over-move the camera, and there are rather too many pop songs in it for me.

Becoming Jane (2007 Julian Jarrold)

I had just pulled our copy of Becoming Jane from the shelf and turned to Q when she said, "Becoming Jane's on TV later - we should watch it", clearly a coincidence too strong to ignore.

A somewhat speculative story based on Austen's letter extracts which refer to a brief association with an Irishman. Anne Hathaway is the budding novelist and James McEvoy the boxing, boozing lawyer. With Julie Walters and James Cromwell, Anna Maxwell Martin, Maggie Smith, Laurence Fox, Lucy Cohu (the French widow), Ian Richardson and Joe Anderson.

Shot by Eigil Bryld (In Bruges, House of Cards, Kinky Boots).

We didn't even realise Anne Coates had a daughter (with Douglas Hickox) who was an editor and today we met her - Emma Hickox. She also worked on Kinky Boots, St Trinians 2, The Boat that Rocked etc. Great cutting in fight scenes, sure she's following her mum in some of the sequences made up of dissolves. Anyway, she added something cool to the film.

Vivacious Lady (1938 George Stevens)

In somewhat irritating story, Prof James Stewart brings back dancer / wife Ginger Rogers and can't tell dad and mom (Charles Coburn and Beulah Bondi). Best bit is Ginger's scrap with Stewart's ex Frances Mercer. Hattie McDaniel is in it for about 60 seconds and Franklin Pangborn for not much longer, and there's an early appearance by Jack Conway.

Ph Robert de Grasse.

Spellbound (1945 Alfred Hitchcock)

Slightly bonkers story on theme of psychoanalysis, written by Ben Hecht from Frances Beeding's novel 'The House of Dr Edwardes' (a pseudonym for Hilary Saunders and John Palmer, published in 1927). Still has several classic moments e.g. house detective who helps Ingrid Bergman find fugitive Gregory Peck; and the two running into investigators when they reach the house of friendly psychiatrist Michael Chekhov (Oscar nominated); really interesting and weird dream sequence designed by Dali; and a very funny finale in which the two are skiing - though it seems Hitch has made no attempt whatsoever to disguise the artificiality of the back projection. What's more, ends on a wooden hand and flash to red!

Chekhov has the best line: "Good night and have sweet dreams... which we'll analyse in the morning."

Leo G Carrol also features.

Shot by George Barnes, music Miklós Rózsa.

Love, Actually

Seems to be becoming another Christmas tradition, though this year we haven't watched It's a Wonderful Life or The Man Who Came to Dinner.

I think Emma Thompson is fantastic.

12 Feb 2015: I keep hearing Rowan Atkinson in my head saying "...in the jiffiest of jiffies".

And in one of the great scenes between Firth and Lucia Moniz, where he says "My favourite time of day is when I take you home" and she says....

The Jane Austen Book Club (2007 Robin Swicord & scr)

Admittedly, those with an in depth knowledge of the six books under discussion would no doubt enjoy it the most; but even those of us who at least recognise Pride and Prejudice will get the way her plots are woven into the characters' stories. Good ensemble cast with Kathy Baker (Last Chance Harvey, Take Shelter, Cold Mountain, The Cider House Rules) the unofficial leader of the group, Maria Bello as a lady who doesn't want to get involved (she was in Towelhead, Thank You For Smoking and ER) and Emily Blunt as an uptight French teacher. Rest of group: Amy Brenneman, Maggie Grace and Hugh Dancy.

Everyone including me is impressed in the way Dancy's character has read one of the books - the Gothic 'Mysteries of Udolpho' - which features in Northanger Abbey.

Karen Joy Fowler wrote the book. John Toon shot it and Maryann Brandon edited.

In Name Only (1939 John Cromwell)

Cary Grant falls for widow Carole Lombard and her cute daughter (Peggy Ann Garner); only problem is he's in loveless marriage to Kay Francis, who does all she can to break it up.

Drama isn't though sentimental or sudsy; Richard Sherman adapted Bessie Breuer's novel 'Memory of Love' (1935), of which one reviewer wrote:

Whoa. What a stinker this novel is and it's hard to believe one of my favorite Cary Grant movies – In Name Only – is based on this smutty and deservedly forgotten novel. [...]

In the novel, Alex is just a bored rich guy who likes seducing women, Maida is agreeable and pursues her own interests amicably, and Julie is too stupid to draw breath from one minute to the next. 

Has that great combination of J Roy Hunt and Roy Webb. Charles Coburn's in it too.

Carole's scar was the result of a car accident in 1925, when glass from the windshield badly cut her face. She endured surgery without an anaesthetic and her scar can still be seen in some of her films and photographs (dearmrgable.com). Gehring suggests in his autobiography 'Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado' that it might have caused her dismissal from Fox. She was killed in a plane crash in 1942 aged 33.

Wuthering Heights (2011 Andrea Arnold)

Solomon Glave and especially the fantastic Shannon Beer impress as the younger couple, who grow into James Howson and Kaya Scodelario (one of the few cast members who'd had any previous experience!) in Andrea's ultra realistic, naturalistic version which makes you thoroughly appreciate electric light and central heating. She's quite rightly focused a lot of attention on the younger couple - she's adapted it with Olivia Hetreed, who also wrote Girl with the Pearl Earring and before that was a film editor.

With: Nichola Burley, Steve Evets (recognisable from Rev), Lee Shar, Amy Wren and Simone Jackson.

Robbie Ryan shoots in what looks like natural light sources, giving a properly dark experience - as it should be, the best night scenes I think I've ever seen. (His astonishing work on this film was naturally ignored by both academies.) Combine this with intimate shots of the couple (hands, hair) and nature, and a fantastically natural soundtrack (no music) and it all adds up to something extraordinary, a sort of British The New World in the wild Yorkshire Dales.

I love Andrea Arnold. It seems she's shooting American Honey in the US...

She manages to get that eroticism into it familiar from her other work...

Groundhog Day (1993 Harold Ramis)

It's fun to count how many iterations of the same day we see in the film. We think it was 30, but it's easy to lose count. Film always has more in it than you remember.

In tribute to Harold Ramis, who appears as a neurologist.

Beautifully written by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, providing cool lines for a very cool Bill Murray.

Begin Again (2013 John Carney & scr)

Keira Knightley (own singing), Mark Ruffalo (Date Night, Shutter Island, The Kids are All Right), Hailee Steinfeld and James Cordon lead us in essentially old-fashioned 'putting on a show' thirties plot, with twist that the numbers performed are all on location on NYC exteriors. Music and performances good, some scenes have an improvisational ring to them. e.g. between Cordon and Knightley.

Ah! Carney made Once, so live urban music and improv both familiar.

Film of the Day.

Locke (Steven Knight & scr)

"That would be a good idea for a film" some exec somewhere along the line said, and of course it is quite a tricky one to pull off, focusing a day's drama in a car, via phone conversations. After a while you do start to tire of the (admittedly beautiful) way the lights are shot (by Haris Zambarloukos) and the different angles.

Tom Hardy's good but I wouldn't write home about it; the eagle-eared Q spotted Olivia Colman; Ruth Wilson is the wife and Andrew Scott plays Donal.

No comparison to either of Hitch's claustrophobic self-confinement exercises in Lifeboat and Rear Window.

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer / Bachelor Knight (1947 Irving Reis)

I hadn't before realised quite how good Cary Grant is - "he's just being Cary Grant" is the usual way of putting it, but the artistry is in becoming Cary Grant quite so wonderfully. Here he's teamed up with frosty judge Myrna Loy and besotted (much) younger sister Shirley Temple, while Ray Collins and Harry Davenport try to help. Rudy Vallee and Johnny Sands are love rivals and Lillian Randolph is (of course) the maid.

Shot by Nick Musuraca and Robert de Grasse (which tells you at once which studio produced it). At one point I reckoned this amateur could differentiate between the two!

Good fun tale written by Sidney Sheldon. Collins has the best lines, e.g. "I couldn't help overhearing - I had my ear to the door" and when Grant asks how he got into his apartment, Collins replies "Well the door was closed, so I opened it and came in".

The Railway Man (2013 Jonathan Teplitzky)

Decent film of real-life story. Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Stellan Skarsgård (who I guess we recognise from Good Will Hunting) are all good, Jeremy Irvine gets the young Firth well, with Hiroyuki Sanada and Tanroh Ishida as the older and younger versions of the captor / translator.

Pretty heavy of course. I wonder if perhaps it suffers slightly from the one-ending-too-many syndrome.

I like the very under-exposed wide shot in the veterans' club, but wondered why DP Garry Phillips doesn't match the light in the close shots.

Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942 Leo McCarey)

Strange but engaging film, starts as charming comedy-romance between reporter Cary Grant (who's very smiley) and engaged Ginger Rogers, develops into political thriller about Nazi spread through Europe helmed by her husband Walter Slezak. Albert Bassermann is in it just long enough to be (bloodily) bumped off; Albert Dekker is an undercover agent.

Features some distinctly mad stuff from McCarey and co-writer Sheridan Gibney, lit by George Barnes, for RKO. Quite long, too.

Pal Joey

Happened to catch twenty minutes of this, Novak looks stunning (1957 vintage), songs don't seem too intrusive or artificial, so might actually watch the whole thing one day. With Sinatra and Rita Hayworth.

The Apartment

Characters who say 'three" whilst holding up four fingers (this happens twice).

Baxter does have a name!

Watching Jack Lemmon in this is like watching poetry.

Bad Neighbours / Neighbors (2014 Nicholas Stoller)

Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne (The Place Beyond the Pines, Bridesmaids), plus baby, have the nightmare of a frat house moving in next door, chaired by Zach Efron. It's not as bad as it could have been and slips down easily enough, like a glass of Pinot Grigiot. Stoller wrote Gulliver's Travels, The Five Year Engagement and the new Sex Tape.

Walk Don't Run (1966 Charles Walters)

Set in the Tokyo 1964 Olympics, Cary Grant's final film is an old-fashioned affair in which he effectively matchmakes Jim Hutton with the fresh-faced Samantha Eggar, who's been mainly on TV and who's main credit is perhaps William Wyler's The Collector.

It's a sort of USA-Japan PR exercise.

Harry Stradling lights the sets high key.

Inoffensive but bland, like a ham sandwich with no mustard.

Strawberry Blonde (1941 Raoul Walsh)

Enjoyed turn-of-the-century shenanigans (actually quite well caught in detail) of dentist Jimmy Cagney, 'friend' Jack Carson and the objects of their affections, Rita Hayworth and Olivia de Havilland. Alan Hale puts in quite a turn as the lothario father, George Tobias is the 'Greek' friend and Una O'Connor one of the neighbours.

Popular music medium is brass band and barbershop quartet, unfortunately.

Shot with customary simplicity by James Wong Howe, for Warner Bros

Contains the great line "Oh boy! She's just the fudge!", written by Julius and Philip Epstein. Unusually, concludes by asking the audience to sing along to "And the band played on".

The Family Man (2000 Brett Ratner)

We (re)watched this on the strength of Maltin's ***½ review and his description of it being an overlooked Christmas movie. Well I'm sorry Mr Maltin, you who are so often right, but we thought it should remain overlooked and had more in common with Overboard  than It's a Wonderful Life, which it clearly wanted to emulate.

Nicolas Cage has a supernatural 'glimpse' of being married to Tea Leoni with two kids and a job as a tyre salesman.

Bad Santa (2003 Terry Zwigoff)

Seems to be becoming something of a seasonal fixture

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946 William Wyler)

Reviewed fully here, but to add that Wyler must have been a hell of a director to get these performances (e.g. Russell was a non-professional, Cathy O'Donnell a newcomer) in such long takes. Also there's a kind of poetry in it. The way the camera moves in the bathroom scene between Wright and Mayo is sublime, picking up its various combinations of mirrors and reflections. The staging in those deep, deep focus shots (not one is shallow) in which the actors' movements are carefully staged, like in a play. Note Myrna Loy's very subtle restraining motion towards March where Wright is threatening to become a homewrecker. And the line that is drawn between Andrews and Wright in final, beautifully staged wedding scene (in which we're not as interested in the couple getting married).

A brave film, one of the Hollywood Greats, and one of our favourites.

Holiday Affair (1949 Don Hartman)

Hollywood Christmas story that isn't at all slushy, Isobel Lennart wrote it (as well as the fabulously named 1952 Skirts Ahoy!) from John Weaver's story 'Christmas Gift'. Great cast of Mitchum, a young Janet Leigh, Corey Wendall and Gordon Gebert as the boy, with Harry Morgan as a judge. Lots of nicely played long takes perhaps need more editing, as it's a bit static.

Very nicely lit by Milton Krasner; music by the always reliable Roy Webb.

The Inbetweeners 2 (2014 Damon Beesley & Iain Morris & scr)

Awfully written, really quite bad sequel, featuring far too old leads for their characters.

No, no. I'm sorry: no.

Match Point (2005 Woody Allen & scr)

Beautifully atypical WA, a chilly murder drama in the spirit of Chabrol. Great cast comprises Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johanssen (beautifully lit by Remi Adefarasin), Matthew Goode, Emily Mortimer, Brian Cox, Penelope Wilton, Jimmy Nesbitt, Paul Kaye, Alexander Armstrong and Mark Gatiss (playing ping pong with Scarlett!), John Fortune, Rupert Penry-Jones, Zoe Telford, Margaret Tyzack (the unfortunate neighbour) and Ewen Bremner (making impression as Inspector).

The snippets of ancient recordings of Caruso, particularly 'Una Furtiva Lagrima', are enormously successful, but (and I thought this last time) the long opera excerpt over the murder scene doesn't really work.

Long for a WA.

The runner is a young man called Maximillian Roeg, son of Nic and Theresa.

Hannah and her Sisters (1986 Woody Allen & scr)

First I dollied around the table to set the shot up and I remember I thought to myself, Well I can't keep going around and around. But it could be cut and go in closer and cut and go in closer the third time. Then as I looked at that to set it up, I thought, If they're talking naturally, there's no way I'm going to be on the right person all the time. And Barbara Hershey said, "So what? So you're not on the person talking, you're on the reaction shot." And I thought to myself, Well Barbara [laughs], you're not only pretty [laughs harder] but it's a very good idea...

But you know, I was completely dissatisfied with that shot at dailies. I thought it was pretentious. Finally the "that's great" prevailed. I guess I was wrong and not seeing something. 

Conversations with Woody Allen, Eric Lax.

Because (following Cold Feet Series 3) we wanted more great women acting, which we got, with the added bonus of Michael Caine in a most atypical, nervy, wonderful performance.

The Sitter (2011 David Gordon Green)

Pretty crappy comedy as babysitter Jonah Hill eventually wins over his three young charges whilst having to deal with cast-against-type baddie Sam Rockwell.

Babel (2006 Alejandro González Iñárritu)

Incredible team at work produces gripping, mesmerizing work of art.

Guillermo Arriaga's usual splintered storyline (sometimes tangentially) connects couple Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Morocco with kids Said Tarchani and Boubker Ait el Caid; meanwhile the excellent Adriana Barraza is a Mexican nanny who (with nephew Gael Garcia Bernal) takes her charges Elle Fanning (of course!) and Nathan Gamble over the border; and Rinko Kikuchi (in the shortest skirt imaginable) is a desperately lonely deaf-mute Tokyo girl.... (Kôji Yakusho is the father.)

Incredible photography by Rodrigo Prieto is in different styles per story, e.g. Japan in anamorphic. Shot of Rinko on swing sensational as is closing track out (though disappointingly it turns out to be CGI). Also:

In terms of production design, Alejandro came up with using one color that would unify the story, and that color was red, with different shades of red for each section. For Morocco, we used a burnt red, with a little bit of umber, with different elements of the set and costumes. In Mexico, it was more of a primary red. And in Japan it’s more of a magenta-red. That was mostly achieved in the production design and wardrobe, but sometimes I applied it in the lighting, particularly in Japan. There’s a nightclub scene and I tried to paint gels on the lights, mostly using a combination of pink and green gels. - See more at: http://www.studiodaily.com/2006/06/d-p-rodrigo-prieto-on-shooting-babel/#sthash.jQzuF5p0.dpuf

Nightclub scene cutting from sound to silence is astonishing. Editors are Stephen Mirrione (Monuments Men, Hunger Games, Biutiful, The Ides of March. Leatherheads, Good Night and Good Luck, 21 Grams, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Ocean's 11-13 and Traffic) and Douglas Crise (who had been an assistant on many of these). Oscar and BAFTA-winning music by Gustavo Santaolalla.

Really terrific, though perhaps doesn't really add up to anything - dedicated to Iñárritu's children, who are perhaps the heart of the story.

To Sir With Love 2 (1996 Peter Bogdanovich)

Perfect sequel, thirty years on, made for TV in 4x3, a ratio our classic film lover PB has no difficulty with. Brisk, well written (Philip Rosenberg), beautifully staged film is strangely hypnotic, and moving. Poitier doesn't point and is supported by Christian Payton, Dana Eskelson, Fernando Lopez et al. with Judy Geeson and Lulu in brief cameos.


"When you act a scene with Sidney Poitier he listens intently to every word you say. You can feel your words hit him. He makes the scene utterly real." (Judy quoted in Aram Goudsozian's book, source unknown.)

Cold Feet (1997 - 2003)

I put cast in this order of quality:

Hermione Norris and Fay Ripley.
Jimmy Nesbitt.
John Tomson, Helen Baxendale and Robert Bathurst.

Early series display strong visual humour, e.g. Brief Encounter pastiche, Hermione talking to herself at dinner party, lots of sixties-style cross cutting between conversations. Mike Bullen wrote (most of) it.

It's terrific fun.

To Sir With Love (1967 James Clavell & scr)

Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson (19), Christian Roberts, Suzy Kendall (other teacher), Patricia Routledge (as 'Clinty Clintridge'!), Adrienne Posta, Lulu.

Judy makes me smile, Poitier a thinking actor. The JDs are a bit too nice really.

The museum montage is unfortunately overdone, but the photos used are excellent.

Ph Paul Beeson (lots of British stuff) in 4x3.

Brief Encounter (1945 David Lean)

Celia Johnson is most awfully good.

Those dissolves in which a part of the setting remain in shot - awfully clever: Citizen Kane only more so.

Horrible Bosses (2011 Seth Gordon)

An unofficial remake of Nine to Five in which Jason Bateman, the squeaky voiced Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis exhibit no chemistry whatsoever - Jennifer Aniston in fact steals the show.

Film is most awfully written.

Ida (2013 Pawel Pawlikowski)

Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Joanna Kulig (the singer).

His best film, comprised of most interesting compositions in 4x3, briskly edited by Jaroslaw Kaminski and shot by Pawel regular Ryszard Lenczweski (and, when he fell ill, Lukasz Zal). Powerful, simple.

Scene at the grave is unforgettable.

I liked that band.

Death Comes To Pemberley (2013 Daniel Percival)

Original review, December 2013.

In memoriam of P.D. James.

Well adapted by Juliette Towhidi (Calendar Girls).

Absolutely as good as the first time.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994 Mike Newell)

WH Auden made us cry.

Wow. It's 20 years old. Simon Callow steals the film.

We don't like Andie Macdowell's character.

We're not Married (1952 Edmund Goulding)

Nunnally Johnson wrote five stories based on realisation that couples aren't in fact married, with mixed results:

Ginger Rogers and Fred Allen (who we've just enjoyed in Full House) are a bickering morning radio show couple (whose show is 99% ads in Hollywood dig at the competition).

Marilyn Monroe is beauty queen (not married) to David Wayne (also Full House), who had a lot of silly ideas about who would be the boss in the relationship: events backfire on him but he doesn't care - he's married to MM...

Paul Douglas (can't recall why he's so familiar) fantasises (in a series of dissolves) about being with other women, though he's fortunate enough to be married to Eve Arden - silly man.

Louis Calhern finds himself being set up for divorce by Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Eddie Bracken needs to get married to Mitzi Gaynor - quick.

Victor Moore and Jane Darwell are the couple who haven't married anyone properly in the first place.

Shot by Leo Tover, music Cyril Mockridge.

20th Century Fox again. Reasonably good.

Wild Bill (2011 Dexter Fletcher & scr)

Charlie Creed-Miles (excellent), Will Poulter, Sammy Williams, Liz White, Marc Warren, Andy Serkis (also excellent).

Written with Danny King, shot by George (son of Anthony) Richmond, who's been a camera /steadicam operator for interesting world-class cameramen on Children of Men, Cassandra's Dream, Quantum of Solace and War Horse.

Ex con learns to clean toilet, amongst other things, in beautifully simple, effective urban tale, a most auspicious debut.

Man's Favourite Sport (1964 Howard Hawks)

Hawks proved he could still make a 30s style studio-bound screwball comedy in the 60s, with Paula Prentiss delightful as the same kind of destructive character as Hepburn's in Bringing Up Baby. With Rock Hudson, Maria Perschy ('Easy'), John McGiver, Charlene Holt ('Tex'), Roscoe Karns (His Girl Friday, Old Acquaintance), Norman Alden ('John Screaming Eagle').

Features of course the director's trademark scenes of people gathered together in a single shot.

How on earth they pulled off the bear on a motorbike I have no idea.

Great fun.

O. Henry's Full House (1952)

Narrated by John Steinbeck.

"The Cop and the Anthem" scr. Lamar Trotti
Charles Laughton, David Wayne, Marilyn Monroe
Directed by Henry Koster
Ph. Lloyd Ahern
Anti-climactic

"The Clarion Call" scr Richard L Breen
Dale Robertson, Richard Widmark
Directed by Henry Hathaway
Ph. Lucien Ballard

"The Last Leaf" scr Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts
Jean Peters, Anne Baxter, Gregory Ratoff
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Ph. Joe MacDonald
Sweet and sad.

"The Ransom of Red Chief" scr (uncredited) Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer & Nunnally Johnson
Fred Allen, Oscar Levant, Lee Aaker
Directed by Howard Hawks
Ph. Milton Krasner
Easily the most enjoyable story.

"The Gift of the Magi" scr Walter Bullock
Farley Granger, Jeanne Crain
Directed by Henry King
Ph. Joe MacDonald

Hot Fuzz

Last time.

Sensationally edited by Chris Dickens, who recently worked on The Double and has edited Suite Française for the BBC and a new version of Macbeth with Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.

What's Up Doc? (1972 Peter Bogdanovich)

And now to Bogdanovich's version of Bringing Up Baby - of course it's not as good, but Streisand and O'Neal are perfectly matched in the Hepburn-Grant model. Much clever timing of opening and closing hotel doors and bag switching, with a fabulous chase sequence through San Francisco streets, a stand-out gag that riffs on silent comedy featuring a ladder and a plate of glass, and some terrific stunt driving into the Bay.

Michael Murphy, Madeline Khan, the treasurable Austin Pendleton, Phil Roth, Kenneth Mars and the ghastly-dressed Mabel Albertson (Barefoot in the Park).

Shot by Laszlo Kovacs.

Only Angels Have Wings (1939 Howard Hawks)

Grant is surprisingly tough as boss of South American airline - gets some way towards Saint Exupery's thoroughly frightening aviation stories in Wind, Sand and Stars, published the same year. With Jean Arthur, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Bartlemess, Sig Ruman ('Dutchy'), Rita Hayworth, Allyn Joslyn, a parrot (who's clearly checking out Hayworth at one point) and a donkey.

Fabulous photography by Joseph Walker on the ground and Elmer Dyer up in the air. Written by Jules Furthman.

A thoroughly enjoyable and at times tense experience with Hawks in full male-buddy mode and shooting with the most simple and graceful of set-ups.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983 Terry Jones)

Last watched 1 July 2012. It was nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes but won the Grand Jury Prize (of the panel I only recognised Henri Alekan and Karel Reisz, the only Brit),

During the brilliantly choreographed Every Sperm is Sacred number I though Fellini would have loved it. Then in the school scene it seemed like we were in Buñuel territory. I also had suggestions of If... and AMOLAD before going back to the first two (the Death scene is clearly nodding to Bergman) and by the ending I was seeing Cocteau in the hand holding the flowers. Knowing how the Pythons loved the New Wave I wouldn't be surprised if these references were genuine. Even 'A tiger? In Africa?' appears in Polanski's Che?

John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Michael Palin (whose sergeant major is perhaps his best performance ever and always leaves me helpless with laughter), Eric Idle and Terry Jones (both fabulous women), Terry Gilliam and Carol Cleveland.

Shot by Peter Hannan.

Bringing Up Baby (1938 Howard Hawks)

You should be neither too drunk nor too sober to seriously enjoy BUB. Splendid, exuberant film in which Grant and Hepburn both give atypical but fabulous performances - he as the dithery, absent minded professor and she as the nutty absent-minded leopard gatherer. Very simply filmed, plot defies description. One of Russell Metty's first films, scored by the ubiquitous Roy Webb. Charlie Ruggles gives great performance as leopard 'specialist'. Laughs abound like nettles in a nettle garden.

With the fabulous Skippy (Asta), and a fabulous leopard.

Scene where Hepburn is singing 'I can't give you anything but love, baby' to a savage leopard which is on the roof of psychiatrist's house, who thinks she's crazy, one of many gems.

Screenplay by Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde contains classics such as "Don't you find it a bit cold without your gun?" and "I was born on the side of a hill".

Cinematographers who didn't win Oscars

Arthur Edeson
John Seitz
Emmanuel Lubezki *
Roger Deakins **
Sacha Vierny
Henri Decae
Robert Burks - oh yes he did - To Catch a Thief.
Gordon Willis

* P.S. 22/3/17 - as Chivo has now won three in a row I think he can safely come off this list!

** 3/9/19 Yes, yes - Bladerunner 2049... 1/1/21 1917..!

The Odd Couple (1968 Gene Saks)

It's the lines underneath the lines you have to listen out for.

"Didn't you think Felix looked edgy?"
"No, I thought you looked edgy."

A Little Princess (1995 Alfonso Cuaron)

We were feeling mushy. Richard LaGravenese and Elizabeth Chandler have adapted Frances Hodgson Burnett's story, given lush (though entirely artificial) staging by Cuaron and favourite cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. The fact that it's studio set gives it a welcome old-fashioned feel as well.

The young cast are well handled by the director. Liesel Matthews, Elenor Bron, Liam Cunningham.

Nicely edited by Steven Weisberg (also Akzeban and Great Expectations ).

From Time to Time (2009 Julian Fellowes & scr)

He has adapted Lucy M. Boston's novel into a fine film. I liked the way the older time period was evoked by a brighter colour pallette. Alan Almond shoots with a nice amount of old school diffusion.

Alex Etel is the ghost-seeing boy, Maggie Smith delivering great lines with panache as his gran, Pauline Collins the kindly housekeeper. With Timothy Spall, glowering Dominic West, Hugh Bonneville and - also from Downton - Allen Leech. Unfortunately Kwayedza Kureya's only film, as he's rather good.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997 George Armitage)

Story Tom Jankiewicz, scr him, D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink & John Cusack.

John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, Alan Arkin, Jeremy Piven, Joan Cusack, Hank Azaria.

Love the scenes with Cusack and Aykroyd - like the latter in this more than anything else.

Lots of gleeful shooting.

Armitage is from the Corman stable, but hasn't done much.

Film is very successful, and fun.

The Railway Children (1970 Lionel Jeffries & scr)

Last watched it on 6/2/11 and the fact that (Jenny Agutter had told us) Sally Thomsett at 20 was actually older than her and had to be told not to smoke or drive her car to work as it was undermining credibility. She plays the young sister very well, it has to be said. She was mainly on TV '64-78. Baxter is a rare '73 film also made by Jeffries, finally on DVD, which she's also in. It was only a couple of years before she was playing the village minx in Straw Dogs.

In GQ's Films that Make Men Cry, two people independently named the scene where Jenny reunites with Dad at railway station with words 'Daddy, my Daddy' (for the record, A.A. Gill and Simon Mills).

Dinah Sheridan, Bernard Cribbins, William Mervyn. Put together with style and well written.

A beautiful, warm and sweet film that keeps going (loved Q's description to my mum: 'A warm hug of a film'). Lots of weeping in Edwardian (1905, to be precise, also when it was first published in serial form in The London Magazine ) classic.

Novel: E. Nesbit. A first will only set you back five hundred quid.

In the Line of Fire (1993 Wolfgang Petersen)

Anne Coates' invisible editing received Oscar and BAFTA nominations - certain scenes such as finale are truly wonderful to watch; she's also doing something interesting cutting between zoom ins. I thought the music was only OK before I knew it was Morricone, but no problem at all with John Bailey's very professional lighting.

Clint Eastwood is the elderly secret service agent trying to protect president from serial killer John Malkovich, having unlikely affair with Rene Russo (well, no more unlikely than Cooper and Hepburn I suppose). Script (Jeff Maguire) is good - he hardly wrote anything. How do you write a good screenplay then hardly write anything? By writing very slowly...

I knew that glass roof was going to be significant. Petersen was a bit obvious there maybe.

Dylan McDermott, John Mahoney.

The Darling Buds of May (1991 - 1993)

When life is shit, there's nothing like a good dose of the Larkins to cheer things up. David Jason is the irrepressible Pop but Pam Ferris steals most scenes as 'Flo Daisy Parker', to give her her full name. Catherine Zeta Jones is the fiery Mariette and Philip Franks 'Charlie' (the scene in which he deals with the advances of sister-in-law Abigail Rokison is very sweet).

You don't normally get such a lot of good bird sounds, in feature-length episodes.

Scene in which Pop and Ma recover from terrible dinner in freezing house by enjoying a full English in the bath is one of our favourite scenes (it's in 'When the Green Woods Laugh').

With Moray Watson (the 'General'), Kika Mirylees ('my old firework') and occasional people like Anna Massey.

Many writers have adapted the H.E. Bates stories, including Bob Larbey.

The American (2010 Anton Corbijn)

A cool film which seems to unofficially have its heart in Melville's Le Samourai but is in fact based on a novel by Englishman Martin Booth, "A Very Private Gentleman" (1990).

Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli (Father, tons of credits).
Ph Martin Ruhe in Panavision (washed out).

August 2011 review was 'Violante is yummy and there's a good sex scene. Don't tell me the butterfly is CGI."

Crazy Stupid Love (2011 Glenn Ficarra, John Requa)

Written by Dan Fogelman, Steve Carell is taught how to pull women by Ryan Gosling, following his wife Julianne Moore's dismissal. Rich imagery from Andrew Dunn. Jonah Bobo good as kid who falls for babysitter Analeigh Tipton, but best twist features 'Nanna' Emma Stone! The love scene between her and Gosling is really sweet, and ironically 'PG-13'.

Black Widow (1987 Bob Rafelson)

Needed Conrad Hall, cinematography is sensational. Film has amazing red / green colour coding throughout (also a purple theme) as the girls get closer. Theresa Russell an extraordinary actress, so natural in everything, Debra Winger good also. With Sami Frey, Nicol Williamson, James Hong, Dennis Hopper. Written by Ronald Bass.

No Strings Attached (2011 Ivan Reitman)

By the weirdest coincidence we then watch a film by the former director's father, and it's funnier. Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher are sex buddies who become more. Kevin Kline is outrageous father, Ophelia Lovibond is ex. Dana Glauberman again edits, Rogier Stoffers is on camera (in Panavision).

Scene where he awakes naked in Portman's apartment, and various people claim he's had sex with them, is funny.

Young Adult (2011 Jason Reitman)

Charlize Theron gives a good performance as self-centred woman obsessed by her ex (Patrick Wilson), who is happily married; Patton Oswalt befriends her.

Familiar people behind camera - Eric Steelberg, Dana Glauberman, Rolfe Kent. Written by Diablo Cody.

It isn't funny, though. Dog is extremely neglected.

Chef (2014 Jon Favreau & scr)

"Ah, it's a musical" I realised after the umpteenth song brought the story no further forward. This was evident from the beginning, when we see Favreau cooking all night, a scene that would have bored non-foodies - I would have liked some voiceover there, a monologue, but this happens too often. Plot is also silly - why does he cook that great meal, and not invite the food critic over to taste it? Waste of scene. Utterly predictable too.

Robert Downey Jr steals film in short role as investor. John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale (Blue Jasmine), Scarlett Johansson, Emjay Anthony, Dustin Hoffman, Sofia Vergara (Modern Family), Oliver Platt.

It is, in fact, half-baked.

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978 Philip Kaufman)

Perfectly set in the paranoia / conspiracy theory decade of 1970s America, W.D. Richter's rewrite of Jack Finney novel is a sinewy and sneaky affair, composed in a most interesting style by Kaufman and DP Michael Chapman, who went for an "old black and white horror movie in colour".

Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Goldblum star, with Kevin McCarthy and Don Siegel (from the original) having cameos.

What Women Want (2000 Nancy Myers & prod)

Written by Josh Goldsmith, Cathy Yuspa and Diane Drake, film about man who can hear women's thoughts is triumphantly funny and incisive, though we were playing a fun game around who else would have suited the lead: Clooney, for sure, but would also have been fun to see Downey, Cary Grant (obviously impossible) or even Hugh Laurie in the role.

Support from Helen Hunt, Marisa Tomei, Judy Greer.

Stardust (2007 Matthew Vaughn)

How can you not love a film in which Robert de Niro plays a gay pirate? Answer: you can't. Beautifully written script, by Vaughn and Mrs Ross Jane Goldman finds Charlie Cox and Claire Danes in mythical kingdom pursued by Mark Strong and other baddies, Fantastic cast also features Nat Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer (who's great), Joanna Scanlon, David Kelly, Sienna Miller, Peter O'Toole, Mark Heap, Rupert Everett, David Walliams, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Sarah Alexander, Mark Williams (great as a goat), Dexter Fletcher and Ricky Gervais.

Shot by Ben Davis, edited by Jon Harris (The Two Faces of January).

The Shining (1979 Stanley Kubrick)

I'm sure fans of Stephen King will have mixed feelings about Kubrick's version (written by the director and Diane Johnson, her only scripting credit) filmed mainly on sets at Elstree (Borehamwood). He treats the book as merely a departure point for his own blackly comic and frequently chilly version, full of dry, dull conversations and an absolutely dazzlingly unsettling score comprising Bartok, a good amount of Penderecki (thanks to Vic Reeves of all people for waking me up to this), Ligeti and Wendy (formerly Walter) Carlos.

Jack Nicholson is stunning, Shelley Duvall great (they both said it was the hardest film they'd worked on), as is Scatman Crothers and Danny Lloyd in his one and only film. Scene in red bathroom with Philip Stone is wonderfully deadpan and creepy ("You've always been here sir".) In fact deadpan is a good word to describe the film's shooting style.

That's Garrett Brown, the steadicam inventor, operating the camera in the amazing shots that track behind the buggy (great sound in these shots too). Film is full of wonderfully lit tracking shots, John Alcott lighting from tungsten or fluorescent practicals and with huge lights through windows representing daylight. Thus a high key effect, unlike other horror films, with not a shadow in sight.

The ending - maze / axe / footsteps in snow - is a fairy tale.

Looking at a scene with that wicked carpet I mumbled to myself that David Lynch must have been influenced by the film. It turns out that Kubrick was a big fan of Eraserhead first!

That final slow zoom in to the photo is incredible.

Just before we began to watch the next thing came this great exchange:
"Any last thoughts about The Shining?"
"It's finished."

Le Mépris / Contempt (1963 Jean Luc Godard)

Despite the several contemplations of Brigitte Bardot's bottom, and in-joke of film's anti-Hollywood status, it's a really sad tale of woman falling out of love with man (Ulysses).

Rotating shots of statues are incredible. Features Godard's usual relish of music that don't coincide with the action (Georges Delerue), and there's lots of interesting stuff going on. Michel Piccoli and Jack Palance are the men.

Hawks, Hitchcock (quite appropriately, for one of Bazin's 'Hitchcocko-Hawksians') and Rossellini all get visual name checks.

How to Murder Your Wife (1964 released 1965 Richard Quine)

Is this the most sexist of all our beloved favourites? Probably, but features Lemmon in prime, brusque form, Terry-Thomas as Jeeves-type butler (well, not really - he's more subservient than Jeeves) and the knockout Virna Lisi as non-English speaking Italian who emerges from a cake (Harry Stradling softly focusing the green of her eyes) into Lemmon's arms.

Neal Hefti's music is absolutely inspired (and crazy) particularly in wheezy organ theme that underscores his 'Brash Brannigan' adventures for comic strip, but also in scenes where Lemmon and Lisi suggestively melt into soft focus. Edie Mayehoff perhaps a bit OTT as his umpish friend / solicitor, Claire Trevor is the wife.

"I'm as sober as a judge - that's where the expression comes from" says a judge who is absolutely pissed.

Another great fun film from Quine with his usual quirky sound effects:

"Brrrrip" up the wall, then "Blaaap" down again.
"Glopetta glopetta machine" etc.
 ...American films could be kind of crazy before they even got into acid.

Final courtroom scene does drag it down a little but the finale with Terry-Thomas is film's finest moment.

Wild Target (2010 Jonathan Lynn)

Fabulous, underrated, unknown remake of Pierre Salvadori's Cible émouvante in which Bill Nighy has much fun as a repressed but totally professional assassin ordered to bump off cheeky kleptomaniac Emily Blunt - naturally he develops problems about this course of action, and things become more confused when they become involved with Rupert Grint (who holds his own well). Martin Freeman is also great fun as another assassin. With Eileen Atkins.

Lucinda Coxon adapted it - apparently the original is somewhat darker.

Emily makes me smile.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957 Billy Wilder)

Fortunately we can never remember the double twist in Agatha Christie's London-set stage play, screenwritten here by Wilder, Larry Marcus and Harry Kurnitz.

That fact that I'm not entirely convinced by Tyrone Power's performances perhaps works to the film's advantage here. With Marlene Dietrich (I'm beginning to love her more and more with every film - this was her second for Wilder - I wonder if they sometimes joked to each other in German?), Charles Laughton (wonderful), Elsa Lanchester, John Williams, Ian Wolfe (the faithful servant). Has classic last line as well.

Wilder touches: trading coffee for kisses (in Berlin scenes which could have been straight out of A Foreign Affair); using calcium injection to point end of cigar. And I wondered why we kept seeing the same spectator in the gallery (Ruta Lee)...

Shot by Russell Harlan.

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter)

Spent the whole film watching the edges of the frame and the backgrounds, as usual. Really nicely done, Carpenter's career went backwards. Arguably whole Donald Pleasance storyline could be virtually removed without it making a jot of difference. Scene where 'dead' murderer disappears is now something of a mighty cliché.

Dead of Night (1945)

Shame the same attention to the soundtrack wasn't paid as the picture restoration.

Comprehensively covered here.

Michael Redgrave's performance unforgettable - ending to his story is really creepy!

A Foreign Affair (1948 Billy Wilder)

Story / adaptation David Shaw, Robert Haran, screenplay Wilder, Brackett, Richard L Breen (nom.)

Jean Arthur (around 47), Marlene (who steals the film easily and was the total opposite to her screen persona!), John Lund, Millard Mitchell (colonel)

Photographed unusually off lot (in the ruins of Berlin) by Charles Lang. (P.S. This is not right. It does have some impressive footage of Berlin but the film was shot at Paramount Studios.)
Music Frederick Hollander.

Cynical, political, romantic, comedy-drama thriller!

Great, subtle, Wilder touches: target drawn on window which fades into Lund; filing cabinet scene; routine with key. No shots wasted as usual (I wondered why the guy with the spotlight was shown). Keeps getting better.

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (1957 Frank Tashlin & scr)

Play George Axelrod. Many laughs at TV (terrible commercials, ad break in middle of film; showing off the CinemaScope). Really funny, just what was needed.

Jayne Mansfield's laugh-screech becomes extrememly infectious, especially when Betsy Drake adopts it. With Tony Randall, Joan Blondell, John Williams.

Ph Joe MacDonald (Deluxe)
Music Cyril Mockridge.

JM sadly died aged only 35 in  car crash.

Bullets over Broadway (1994 Woody Allen)

Review from 2 September 2012:

In the terribly overlooked Bullets Over Broadway Jim Broadbent is an actor who eats and eats to overcome his nerves. The only collaboration of Woody and Douglas McGrath is a hugely entertaining mix of nicely staged 20s gangster film and a 'putting on a show' plot (the original play is amusingly awful), in which Dianne Wiest steals the film as an over-the-top actress. John Cusack, Jennifer Tilly, Chazz Palminteri, Marie-Louise Parker (didn't recognise her), Jack Warden as the agent (didn't recognise him either), Rob Reiner, Tracey Ullman, and in an odd foreshadowing of The Sopranos, Eddie Falco and Tony Sirico.

Nice to see the occasional bigger budget Woody, Carlo di Palma's luscious photography of Santo Loquasto's amazing sets, such as pivotal scene where Chazz tells John what's wrong with his play and the background darkens perceptibly.

Today:

Lighting is frequently astonishing; takes are long like Sturges - e.g. staging of scene in which Cusack confronts Chazz over Tilly's murder. Many funny lines, great finale where Cusack challenges wife over affair with Rob Reiner. Wiest wasn't at all sure she could play the role, went on to win second Oscar for Woody ("Say nothing"). Broadbent always fabulous.

The song that opens "Hot ginger and dynamite" and had us in stitches is indeed a real one, 'Nagasaki' by Harry Warren and Mort Dixon:

Hot ginger and dynamite
There's nothing but that at night
Back in Nagasaki where the fellas chew tobaccy
And the women wicky-wacky-woo.

I keep thinking I know all the best Woodys and then one like this comes along to remind me I don't.

It's even got a sassy Hattie McDaniel type (Annie Joe Edwards) - "I didn't get no horses derves because I don't know what they are and neither do you".

Casse Tête Chinois / Chinese Puzzle (2013 Cédric Klapisch & scr)

No disappointment at all from Klapisch, usual multi-character story is perhaps more focused than usual, with a smaller spread of characters. Romain Duris moves to NYC to be near kids as ex Kelly Reilly has found an American. Naturally he marries a Chinese girl (Shuya Chang) to get citizenship. His lesbian friend Cécile De France is having his baby, with lover Sandrine Holt. And his other ex Audrey Tautou wants to come out and visit. Smaller spread of characters? Maybe not...

Fantastic scene when all characters, sundry lovers and children converge simultaneously on apartment that Immigration cops are inspecting...

The French title is so much better...  Written in a way that doesn't tie everything up neatly, and featuring some cameos from famous dead philosophers! Most enjoyable.

Photographed by - gasp! - a woman, Natasha Braier, who also shot Somers Town for Shane Meadows.

Brief Encounter

Well, most of it, before having our own not-so-brief encounter.

Ding, ding!

Puppet on a Chain (1970, released 1971, Geoffrey Reeve)

Sven-Bertil Taube is terrible as colourless agent tracking down heroin in Amsterdam, aided by useless Barbara Parkins, unhelpful Alexander Knox and sidekick Patrick Allen. It's always great to see Vladek Sheybal, and a speedboat chase through the canals (directed by Don Sharp) without any back projection is the film's highlight. The brief bit of nudity I remember from seeing it on TV was removed to get a PG rating in the US, though leaving in a nasty moment when a man has his glasses smashed into his eye - stupid Americans. The topless barmaids sequence has been preserved on the Scorpion DVD extras, for completionists among us.

Smuggling ideas (bibles, dolls, fobs) are natty as is plot's twists. Lots of Amsterdam footage is almost a picture postcard tour. Jack Hildyard on camera does something very impressive right at the front, where an assassin walks into a country house.

Angel (1937 Ernst Lubitsch)

Typically subtle and sophisticated Lubitsch film finds Melvyn Douglas in what is clearly some sort of high class brothel meeting and falling for Marlene Dietrich (who, the implication is, used to work there) - who is married to diplomat Herbert Marshall. In fact there's a double romantic triangle here as both men also shared the same girl, Paulette, in WW1. Not one of his funniest, with most of the humour coming from Edward Everett Horton and the other members of the household staff.

Based on  a play by Melchior Lengyel (the source for Ninotchka and To Be or Not To Be), screenwritten by Samson Raphaelson (Heaven Can Wait, The Shop Around the Corner, Trouble in Paradise). Shot by Charles Lang; for Paramount.

The Thing Called Love (1993 Peter Bogdanovich)

River Phoenix (at his most Deppish) fell in love with Samantha Mathis during the filming. PB's direction is so cool, with lots of action in the frames and old time tracking, like Hawks or Ford is at his side in the director's chair. Dermot Mulroney and Sandra Bullock complete main cast. Warm and humane film is a love triangle and leads from Design for Living to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which is not only directly referenced but has a song written about it, shown being improvised by the couple in one of many uninterrupted single shots.

Written by Carol Heikkinen. Like They All Laughed the C&W is absolutely infectious with River singing some of his own compositions,

Exec producer George Folsey Jr is indeed the son of the distinguished cameraman. Hadn't heard of this film's cameraman Peter James nor editor Terry Stokes.

Another film

A B&W, can't remember what it was just at the moment.

Red Headed Woman (1932 Jack Conway)

Jean Harlow is horrible (and we think unattractive) as slut who throws herself at men to get money and status in pre-Code shennanigans written by Anita Loos. Her sarcastic friend provides comedy relief.

Down with Love (2003 Peyton Reed)

It was the tacky split screen in Airport which put us in mind of this, because it has some neat gags reusing the old device. Ewan McGregor, Renee Zellweger, David Hyde Pearce, Sarah Paulson, Tony Randall.

Ph Jeff Cronenweth.

A lot of thought went into riff on Hudson-Day movies.

Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake wrote it.

Key Largo (1948 John Huston)

When skirts were worn long and trousers high, ex soldier Bogart visits wife and pop (Bacall and Lionel Barrymore) of fallen comrade, only to bump into mobster Edward G and lush girlfriend Claire Trevor (winning Oscar). Tense, claustrophobic drama (Q describes it as painful) has cracking ending.

Well shot in the studio by Karl Freund, music Steiner, Warner Bros. written by Huston and Richard Brooks - play Maxwell Anderson

The very old looking woman Felipa Gomez was only 78 and lived till 96.

Airport (1970 George Seaton)

Good, entertaining film undermined by cheesy optical effects (which are hilarious).

Burt Lancaster (an actor who doesn't seem to have a modern equivalent), Dean Martin, Jean Seberg (not a great role - she doesn't have enough to do), Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes (winning Oscar), Van Heflin, George Kennedy, Maureen Stapleton, Lloyd Nolan, Jessie Royce Landis.

Ross Hunter produced it for Universal. Ernest Laszlo shot it. Arthur Hailey wrote the book. Alfred Newman scored it.

It's funny to see how close Airplane! is to it.

Niagara (1953 Henry Hathaway)

"Miss Va-va-voom" Marilyn Monroe and dissatisfied and neurotic husband Joseph Cotten tangle with honeymooners Jean Peters and Max Showalter in somewhat contrived set of circumstances from Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Richard Breen.

Frankly if I had to listen to those bells all day long, I'd murder someone.

It's 20th Century Fox again, so Ben Nye has been super-reddening Marilyn's lips for Joe MacDonald's fine colour noir photography. (I'm not sure if it was his first in colour, but researching that has led me to buy O Henry's Full House - thus demonstrating the dangers of the Internet.)

Pickup on South Street (1953 Sam Fuller & scr)

Poor old Jean Peters, who gets socked in the jaw by Richard Widmark (then he steals from her handbag again in a neat touch), then gets nastily assaulted and shot in the back by Richard Kiley. Quite violent for its day. Starts with intriguing wordless pickpocketing set-up. In fact, three-time loser Widmark goes through her bag no less than four times in all.

Some nice camera moves and lighting from Joe MacDonald, though at least two of his focus puller's close ups of Ms Peters are noticeably out.
Music - Leigh Harline.

Thelma Ritter ("I need to keep making a living so I can die") was Oscar nominated and delivers a moving final scene, but Peters is very good also and Q thinks Ben Nye's makeup should get a mention. (It's Fox, so there are no Westmores involved.)

Peters was also in Niagara the same year. After marrying Howard Hughes she disappeared from view and thus life imitated art (Citizen Kane). She was also one of the Three Coins in the Fountain.

And we loved the sandwich board "Handsome Mens Suits".

Lots of New York location in punchy, direct Fuller drama, which really ends too happily for a noir (Peters seems to recover from her injuries incredibly easily, for example).

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944 Preston Sturges & scr)

Another Sturges which, when analysed, reveals a number of astonishingly word perfect and well-filmed long takes (by John Seitz, with his beautiful blacks). Film is not quite as funny as the golden group at the top of the Sturges oeuvre. Great cast full of familiars - led by William Demarest, Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines, Raymond Walburn (seeing him together in one scene with Franklin Pangborn at the train station is a joy to behold). Stuart Gilmore then not given much to cut.

And you have to pay attention. At bar scene, when Bracken says "they bled and died" while a cash register rings in the background - that little touch surely was planned?

Design for Living (1933 Ernst Lubitsch)

Play Noel Coward, scr. Ben Hecht

Plenty of subtle Lubitsch stuff - the flowers that get kicked over, her bed being dismantled and moved, dust off mattress, bedroom screen, silent moments. Seems to have no music. Very risqué and funny material.

Billy Wilder had a sign hanging in his office: "How would Lubitsch do it?" (which tells you a lot).

Frederic March and Gary Cooper make a fine pairing, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn, Jane Darwell.

Ph. Victor Milner

Dangerous (1935 Alfred E Green)

Don't mess with jinxed has-been actress Bette Davis, or you'll lose your shirt, fiancée, self-respect etc and develop a 20 whisky a day habit (made up last bit). Here, eyebrows are pencil thin.

With Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay (other woman), Alison Skipworth (the maid).

Ernie Haller, one feels, was especially attached to Bette.

The Big Bounce (1969 Alex March)

Also by Elmore Leonard and so a natural pairing with the previous film, quite catchy story is underscored by really terrible music. It needs a Dirty Harry type score.

Ryan O'Neal falls for psycho Leigh Taylor-Young who is being pimped out by her husband. Robert Webber also fancies her, and Van Heflin is on hand to try and straighten out the young drifter.

The scene which I noticed had been cut when I first saw it on TV on April 9 1980 was of a discreetly naked Taylor-Young standing in profile on a gravestone. These cut scenes are hardly ever worth getting excited about!

Out of Sight

Yes, again.

Love in the Afternoon

Yes, again.

"You know, with the short leather pants. Then one thing led to another."

You'll miss half of this stuff if you don't pay attention.

Chevalier: "She's such a little fish - throw her back into the water."

The Descendants

Yes, again. It's that good.

"In Hawaii, some of the most powerful people look like bums and stuntmen."

Lilith (1964 Robert Rossen)

Kim Hunter slowly realises trainee occupational therapist Warren Beatty is as bonkers as the patients; in the meantime he's ravished inmate Jean Seberg (another seriously good performance) in a film I can only describe as trippy.

Editor Aram Avakian was one of the new breed, from Jazz on a Summer's Day. His very long dissolves are fabulous and the scene where the couple make love for the first time, with a sparkly river superimpoosed on lots of different fades of Seberg is worth the entire price of admission. Eugen Schufftan's marvellous high contrast deep focus photography is also a major asset. Compositions and angles all very interesting.

Peter Fonda makes a strong impression, as does Gene Hackman, who I guess Beatty then picked up for Bonnie and Clyde.

Our 1.85:1 transfer looks slightly cropped at top and bottom to me leading to suspicion it was probably 1.66:1.

Somewhere in Time (1980 Jeannot Szwarc)

Christopher Reeve falls in love with old photo of 1920s theatre star Jane Seymour at Grand Hotel, Macinac Island, Michigan.

I don't quite know what I thought of this film, though moment he discovers the coin is really haunting.

Ladies in Lavender (2004 Charles Dance & scr)

Judi Dench and Maggie Smith find violinist Daniel Brühl shipwrecked on the beach. Consequences are unpredictable. With David Warner, Natasha McElhone, Miriam Margolyes, Toby Jones.

William J Locke wrote the original short story, the filming of whose novels was popular in the silent age, it seems.

Um.

You've Got Mail (1998 Nora Ephron)

Don't remember even watching this.

Must have been quite impactful.

Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear.

Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958 Raoul Walsh)

"I wouldn't recognise her for love nor dust."

Kenneth More, Jayne Mansfield.

Beautifully shot by Otto Heller in CinemaScope.

Hugely enjoyable. Written by Howard Dimsdale, from short story by Jacob Hay.

21.02.

Tales of Manhattan (1942 Julien Duvivier)

Really unexpectedly good multi-story treat revolving around coat. Duvivier (Pépé le Moko ) was in the US.

Charles Boyer, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell.
Charles Laughton.
Ginger Rogers, Henry Fonda.
Edward G.
Paul Robeson, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson.
Eugene Pallette.

Shot by Joseph Walker.

Tales from the Crypt (1972 Freddie Francis)

Anthology of horror stories from EC Comics, directed with great visual flair by Oscar-winning cameraman Francis - opening Christmas story with Joan Collins is actually dialogue free. Handsomely shot by Norman Warwick (who did such a good job on The Abominable Dr Phibes ) in what looks like an open matte format.

How on earth I managed to sneak this on, I have no idea.

Peter Cushing gives great late performance as kindly toy shop owner who comes back from the dead.

Also with Richard Greene, Ian Hendry, Barbara Murray, Nigel Patrick, Patrick Magee and Ralph Richardson as the Crypt Keeper.

The assertion - on IMDB - that this was the second top US box office release of 1972 (behind The Godfather ) is complete bollocks.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

This is probably my favourite Ealing comedy.

And thus why it came on again.

"I'd say that your nose was just a little too short, your mouth just a little too wide..."

The Two Faces of January (2014 Hossein Amini & scr)

A canny film, actually I think more successful than Ripley, from same novelist Patricia Highsmith.

Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis ).

Great Zippo sounds.

Music Alberto Iglesias, ph. Marcel Zyskind in Panavision, edited by Nicolas Chaudeurge (Andrea Arnold's films) & Jon Harris (Kick Ass, Eden Lake ).

Bus. 1.11.12. In hat.

Singapore (1947 John Brahm)

An exotic city, a gal, a bag of pearls, and a bad guy who wants them. Solid film is unexceptional but Fred MacMurray, Ava Gardner, Roland Culver, Richard Haydn, Spring Byington and Porter Hall (recognisable to us from Preston Sturges) are always watchable. With Thomas Gomez and George Lloyd as baddies.

From prolific writer Seton Miller for Universal. Shot by Maury Gertsman (showing off well in the French import DVD), rather fine music from Lassie's Daniele Amfithetrof, and edited by William Hornbeck.

Heaven Can Wait (1943 Ernst Lubitsch)

Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn, Spring Byington, Laird Cregar (great as urbane Devil), Eugene Pallette, Marjorie Main.

Very stylish colour photography by Edward Cronjager.

Thanks DVD Beaver

An entire life written with dry wit by Samson Raphaelson (also Shop Around the Corner and Trouble in Paradise ) from a play by Lazlo Bus-Fekete.

On the latter absence of Gene from our screens:

The Left Hand of God (1955)... was to be her last performance for seven years. The pressures of a failed marriage to Oleg Cassini, the birth of a daughter who was mentally retarded in 1943, and several unhappy love affairs resulted in Gene being hospitalized for depression. When she returned to the the screen in Advise & Consent (1962), her acting was as good as ever but there was no longer a big demand for her services.

 From IMDB biography by Denny Jackson.

The Letter (1940 William Wyler)

Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson (good as lawyer), Gale Sondergaard, Victor Sen Yung (good as slightly sinister office clerk, recognisable to us from Across the Pacific and the Charlie Chan films; he alone is a good reason for watching).

Scene where they collect the letter, with its lighting, tinkly music, opium pipe and shadows is just wonderful. It's another Steiner-Gaudio collaboration for Warners, an atmospheric Howard Koch adaptation of Somerset Maugham.

Joke featuring Yung and small car is very timely.

Double Indemnity

Here.

But - "She started crying softly like the rain on the window" while Rózsa kicks in.... Brilliant.

Christmas in July (1940 Preston Sturges & scr)

63 minutes zips by, though not top drawer Sturges has much to entertain. Dick Powell. Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn good as a frustrated and sarcastic businessman, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn. Includes great line "Well dog my cats!" Sturges writes great rhythms, like "Get me Minsk, Minsk, Pinsk and Pinsk!" that are recognisably only his. And laughs with logic - "Isn't it bad luck if a black cat crosses your path?" "It depends what happens afterwards."

Beginners (2010 Mike Mills & scr)

Ewan McGregor and great dog (which at one point is subtitled "I understand 150 words but I don't speak") which belonged to dead gay father Christopher Plummer (won Oscar). Visually inventive film jumps around in time to good effect and charts progress of relationship with Mélanie Laurent (though what actually happens here is a bit murky and the film is a little anticlimactic). Still, a most interesting and successful film from a virtual Beginner himself (the not so good Thumbsucker in 2005 his only other feature). The mood reminds me of A Single Man with a bit of Wilbur wants to kill himself mixed in.

The Great Lie (1941 Edmund Goulding)

Pilot George Brent has married flighty concert pianist Mary Astor in a hurry, so much of a hurry they're not in fact married. He soon begins regretting leaving long term Maryland gal Bette Davis and her surrogate mum Hattie McDaniel.

Astor (who won Oscar) and Davis perfectly suited to material like this, written by Lenore Coffee from Polan Banks novel.

Max Steiner music includes some brilliant variations on the Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. Suspect the dark TCM print we see was darker than Tony Gaudio shot it.

Cold Souls (2009 Sophie Barthes)

With its link to Russia and theme of soul collecting, made me wonder if the inspiration was Gogol's 'Dead Souls'. Could also have been the sort of mad idea Woody Allen would have written, though made it funnier. (Experience of being without a soul isn't really plumbed.) Film certainly inhabits its own little galaxy.

Paul Giamatti is as good we we've come to expect. He's supported by Emily Watson, Dina Korzun (The Last Resort) and David Strathairn as the somewhat diffident clinic director. Katheryn Winnick is the striking looking Russian actress.

A peculiar film which put me in mind of the rather better Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Old Acquaintance (1943 Vincent Sherman)

Screenplay and play John Van Druten (Bell Book and Candle, I am Camera, The Voice of the Turtle, Gaslight, Raffles ), with the prolific Lenore Coffee (since 1919, including Davies vehicle The Great Lie ). Lots of good writing.

Bette Davis (we seem to be having a bit of a celebration at the moment), Miriam Hopkins (who spoils proceedings somewhat by being too over the top), Gig Young, John Loder, Dolores Moran (who I didn't recognise as the brunette in To Have and Have Not), Francine Rufo (young Deirdra, one of only two films).

Ph. Sol Polito. Music Franz Waxman.

"That's alright - I like a girl who doesn't shave."

Shadow of a Doubt (1942 Alfred Hitchcock)

Written by Thornton Wilder, a writer who Hitch most admired, subtly twisty tale has Uncle Charlie Joseph Cotten coming home to visit sister (Patricia Collinge) and favourite niece, Charlie - Theresa Wright. Their mirrored relationship is nicely captured by the shots of each on their own beds, one being the reverse of the other.

Good sub-plot has Henry Travers and neighbour Hume Cronyn trying to posion each other, also lots of good overlapping dialogue scenes with the kids. Note also the way Wright's friend is trying to cop off with the elder policeman.

Listen to the Directors discussing one scene:

Truffaut: I'm puzzled by one detail of the picture. In the first scene at the station, when the train carrying Uncle Charlie is coming in, there's a heavy cloud of black smoke coming out of the engine's chimney, and as the train comes closer, it darkens the whole station. I have the feeling that this was done deliberately because when the train is leaving the station, there's simply a small puff of light smoke.

Hitch: That's right; I asked for lots of black smoke for the first scene. It's one of those ideas for which you go to a lot of trouble, although it's seldom noticed. But here, we were lucky. The position of the sun created a beautiful shadow over the whole station.

Truffaut: The black smoke implies that the devil was coming to town.

Hitch: Exactly. 

Music: Dmitri Tiomkin. Ph. Joseph Valentine. Hitch is playing cards on the train.

The Little Foxes (1941 William Wyler)

Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright (her debut), Charles Dingle (odious uncle), Dan Duryea (apparently pronounced Dur-ee-ay; his debut also), Patricia Collinge (alky aunt), Jessica Grayson (wise maid).

The black characters have a Voice.

Gregg Toland's photography has such dark blacks it's almost had ENR. Great use of staircase; perspective camerawork is at times almost weird. Clever touches e.g. we can just see Carl Benton Reid's legs behind the curtain. Deep focus wonderful - about the only time we have shallow perspective is when Marshall is dying up the stairs in the background.

Play / screenplay Lillian Hellman.

The three leading ladies, Hellman, Wyler, Daniel Mandell (editing - William Hollmes won for Sergeant York), Meredith Wilson (music) and Film were all Oscar nominated - but not Toland or Marshall, who both deserved to be.

Incredible long takes allow acting to flourish. There are frequently times when you expect a reverse shot for a character's reaction - but one isn't given. This happens for example in long scene with Marshall and Davis, where we see the back of her head for a while until she turns into profile. But the stand-out scene involves Wright, Collinge, Marshall and Grayson, with only a couple of different shots, both of which frame all or most of the actors, and its emotional power is increased by this very simple and effective blocking / treatment.

Quite open ending too - we presume Wright's going to leave home (her last look to mother is deep) but aren't sure; and sense Davis' plot may backfire on her.

Incredible.

Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938 Ernst Lubitsch & prod)

Brackett and Wilder teamed with Lubitsch - how could this be anything other than a bumptious, bouncy comedic classic, full of quick gags, subtle Lubitsch touches and madcap situations e.g. involving Louis IV's bath, pyjamas!

I'd forgotten that David Niven was in it - he's a million miles away from Squadron Leader Peter Carter. Love the moment when he swims up to the diving platform only to ask "Should that be 'Yours truly' or Truly yours?'" then swims off again. Also scenes with mental hospital / man who thinks he's a dog.

Gary Cooper is in energetic and funny form. With Claudette Colbert, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn.

Paramount. Shot by Leo Tover.

Screen cap from DVD Beaver

In This Our Life (1942 John Huston)

There's not much about this in Huston's book - he didn't like the script but was happy to be directing top Warners stars, was pleased that for the first time, a black actor had a decent social standing (i.e. not just a servant), and he let the 'demon' in Bette Davis go. She's certainly in 110% scary, spoiled, psycho mode, with the widest eyes on film, though Olivia de Havilland is just as good. Also sympathetic parts for Hattie McDaniel, Ernest Anderson and Frank Craven (father); with Charles Coburn, George Brent, Dennis Morgan and Billie Burke.

Shot in admirable deep focus by Ernie Haller, score by Max Steiner.

Mildred Pierce (1945 Michael Curtiz)

Novel James M. Cain. adapted by Ranald MacDougall, with a host of contract writers including - allegedly - William Faulkner.

Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth (one of Hollywood's nastiest bitches) and (uncredited) Butterfly McQueen, who Ernest Haller would have worked with on GWTW. Seriously well shot drama-noir: it's so well lit because they had to light everything, and the great artists like Haller lit artistically and emotionally. And is every Max Steiner film great?

Still, would rather watch Classic Warner Bros film when not seeing double, in future

Topsy Turvy (1999 Mike Leigh & scr)

Much funnier than I remembered, with Allan Corduner and Jim Broadbent in outstanding form as Sullivan and Gilbert, film is also overlong and simply features too much silly opera, though it's a fascinating journey (reference to telephones, fountain pens etc. funny, as is Gilbert's ridiculous attempt to capture 'Japaneseness'). Japanese traditional theatre still appears weird to the Western eye - imagine how it must have seemed to the English of 1885! The fashion for dropping in French phrases also most amusing.

With Leslie Manville, Timothy Spall, Kevin McKidd (Scottish actor), Martin Savage (good as the somewhat effete Grossmith), Shirley Henderson, Andy Serkis, Mark Benton, Ron Cook (as D'Oyly Carte) and Alison Steadman. Shot by Dick Pope, edited by Robin Sales.

Q points out quite rightly that a biopic of Puccini would be great. We are very much looking forward to Turner.

Lassie Come Home (1943 Fred M Wilcox)

The film's dedicated to author Eric Knight, a Yorkshireman who relocated to the US, who was killed in the war in 1940. Great cast: Roddy McDowell, Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester, Nigel Bruce, Elizabeth Taylor (looking oddly grown up already), Dame May Whitty and her husband Ben Webster.

Oscar nominated photography from (The Yearling) Leonard Smith, music Danile Amfitheatrof with its 'four o'clock' cue. Adapted by Hugo Butler for MGM, with California and Washington standing in for Scotland and England. MGM dog trainer Rudd Weatherwax's dog Pal was Lassie.

Not sure I was that impressed by it on 9 April 1975: in fact, we watch it more like children now. Worst moment: Lassie jumping from first floor window. Best moment: Bruce and Taylor pretending they don't know the dog.

 Review from 4/6/94 is funny though:

'Shameless weepabilia from Bosey and Pepper owners despite obvious off-screen handling of wrongly sexed dog. Taylor, debuting at 10/11, looks weirdly like a child with an adult's face stuck on'.

AMOLAD

To guarantee a rounded evening's viewing pleasure.

See here.

The music playing in the Skakespeare rehearsal scene is Felix Mendelssohn's "Incidental Music for a Midsummernight's Dream".

The Way, Way Back (2013 Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)

Having watched two great films in a row it was important to maintain the standard - thus this film again, already, and it's just as good as the last time.

It all rests on the kid and Liam James is utterly convincing - relationship between him and Sam Rockwell is wonderful.

Jim Rash (right), Nat Faxon.

Tracks (2013 John Curran)

Marion Nelson has adapted Robyn Davidson's account of her epic Australian desert-camel pilgrimage, and it's shot by another woman, Mandy Walker (in Panavision). Mia Wasikowska is the strange heroine, Adam Driver the photographer and Roly Mintuma the rifle-loving Elder who accompanies her part way.

The music (Garth Stevenson) isn't what you might expect.

Utterly absorbing. But, I keep telling people: don't kill the dog!

High Sierra (1941 Raoul Walsh)

"Of all the fourteen carat saps, starting out on a caper with a woman and a dog."

Really good, fast moving crime drama from John Huston (a familiar Huston scenario), with W.R. Burnett (from his book). Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Arthur Kennedy, Alan Curtis, Joan Leslie (the despicable Velma), Henry Travers. Does box itself into a corner plotwise near the end but features an impressive high speed car chase. Shot by Tony Gaudio and scored by Adolph Deutsch, for Warner Bros.

Welcome to Collinwood (2002 Anthony & Joe Russo)

Quite pleasing caper in which Clooney has a cameo as a favour to the Russos (I guess), who also wrote. Disparate and pathetic bunch Sam Rockwell, William H Macy, Isaiah Washington (Out of Sight ) and wino Michael Jeter attempt to steal Luis Guzman's 'perfect' jewellery store heist.

Funniest moment by far is when they have finally finished knocking a hole through the wall only to discover their old colleague on the other side, making tea!

Man of the Year (2006 Barry Levinson & scr)

Somewhat better than the last offering is this political-comedy-thriller in which straight talking comic Robin Williams runs for President; he wins, but only because of a computer glitch discovered by Laura Linney, who complicates things by falling for him. He is ably supported by Christopher Walken and Lewis Black; Goldblum appears again as a baddie. It's not a satire.

Le Week-End (2013 Roger Michel)

Another barrel of laughs from the somewhat rebarbative Hanif Kureishi in which clashing couple Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent celebrate their 30th anniversary in Paris: she immediately alienates us by nearly deserting him in Hotel #1, then pushing him over and threatening to leave him again on the streets of Montmartre; he is somewhat pathetic (and doesn't think twice about vandalising five star hotel suite). Self-absorbed 'old friend' Jeff Goldblum doesn't help matters any.

Recreation of Godard's Bande à Part's dance routine leaves us wondering what we've been watching.

New York, I Love You (2008)

Where have all the New York cab drivers gone? They all seemed peopled by Asians now. New York denizens seem unrecognisable until final swan song piece, featuring Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman in Joshua Marsden's sweet section.

The only other out-and-out hit is Brett Ratner's piece, about a student who takes a girl in a wheelchair to the prom, written by Jeff Nathanson, with James Caan, Anton Yelchin, and Olivia Thirlby (shot by Pawel Edelman).

A really mixed bag without any standout successes, the above perhaps the exceptions; so a disappointment after Paris Je T'Aime, which had many more famous names attached behind the scenes - this could have done with episodes from Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Simon etc.

Chinese Wen Jiang directs watchable episode of thief vs. thief, with Andy Garcia, Hayden Chistensen and Rachel Bilsom, shot in a beautifully saturated colour by Ping Bin Lee.

One segment features the great Drea di Matteo and Bradley Cooper - but nothing much happens.

Strange story with Julie Christie and John Hurt, written by Anthony Minghella, is puzzling.

Cuban Fury (2014 James Griffiths)

I'm afraid I could not accept Nick Frost as a salsa dancer, in dance scenes that are a model of editor's conjuring tricks (note presence of Chris Dickens, though Jonathan Amos - Attack the Block, Scott Pilgrim - is the lead). However there's nothing basically wrong with Jon Brown's script, though it is peopled with incredibly horrible, sexist men, nor Dick Pope's rich widescreen photography.

Ian McShane, Olivia Colmans, Chris O'Dowd, Rory Kinnear, Rashida Jones, Alexandra Roach and (particularly watchable) Kayvan Novak are fine in support.

Stage Struck (1958 Sidney Lumet)

Susan Strasberg gives a slightly annoying performance as a wannabe stage star who is romanced by producer Henry Fonda, whilst young writer Richard Chamberlain (in his debut) pines for her. Good support in guise of ageing Herbert Marshall (though he carried on acting up to his death in his seventies) and Joan Greenwood (with John Feidler in a bit part).

Franz Planer's New York is colourful and subdued - BBC's print crops what looks like a 1.66:1 ratio, leading me to doubt IMDB's factoid that this was one of the last films to be made in the Academy Ratio. Good music by Alex North. RKO.

Saint Jack (1979 Peter Bogdanovich)

The indescribable Ben Gazzara plays a sort of Casablanca's Rick in Singapore, though in this version - as friend Denholm Elliott comments - he's a 'ponce'. He's lovely to him and everyone else e.g. to old lady 'don't stay up with your Mah Jong too late', but gets mixed up with gangsters who don't like him opening his own 'house'.

Peter and Ben did a lot of 'research' with the local girls, who end up in the film (giving some of them enough money to go home), and rewrote the script - the ending, in which Ben is supposed to deliver to Peter a speech about why he doesn't go through with the blackmail scheme, was reduced to 'fuck it', and is all the more successful - an interesting writers' note. Based on Paul Theroux novel.

Shot with grainy realism by Robby Müller.

Daisy Miller (1974 Peter Bogdanovich)

The film that turned the tide against PB is a comedy of manners which becomes a tragedy, not just in itself but because star Barry Brown was only a few years away from suicide.

Cybill Shepherd is excellent - long takes are noteworthy - as chattering flirt who meets Brown in Vevey, and lures him to Rome. Mildred Natwick is his no-nonsense mother, Cloris Leachman is her's, with Eileen Brennan as a spiteful friend.

In the introduction to the film PB describes how he had set up the funeral scene, then couldn't film it.

Verna Fields cut it, Alberto Spagnoli shot it, and Frederic Raphael has adapted the Henry James novel.

The Ipcress File (1965 Sidney J Furie)

Because I wanted to see the young Michael Caine (who's excellent) combined with his mate John Barry (a terrific, haunting theme, but a slightly disappointing score).

It's as though Furie has made the film with the strategy of trying to obscure the action with as many things as possible - in one hilariously OTT scene, he shoots over the shoulders which are the main part of the frame. Also a plethora of very low angles. It's all very amusing now, though Otto Heller's photography is outstanding, particularly in shots that really use the full width of the Panavision ratio, as evidenced here:

"Peekaboo!"

With Gordon Jackson, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013 Martin Scorsese)

Very well written, satirical screen play by Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire ), based on Jordan Belfort's book, contributes to one of Scorsese's funniest films (especially in protracted quaalude scene - 'luckily I managed to get the car home without a scratch' had us laughing all weekend). Leo is absolutely sensational in title role (should have won the Oscar over McConaughey), Jonah Hill ain't half bad either (he was also Oscar nominated).  Margot Robie does a creditable New Yorker, Rob Reiner in good support as the Wolf's father (it's a shame the scene in which he becomes extremely annoyed because someone has phoned up, then unaccountably speaks in a British accent, isn't repeated throughout the film). With Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler (FBI), Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley (excellent; our secret weapon), P.J. Byrne, Kenneth Choi, Brian Sacca, Henry Zebrowski.

My fear was that the three hour running time signified Scorsese's usual excessive indulgence, and that the inevitable story would be rise to success / fall to nothing like Boogie Nights - but no, it fair zips along and keeps the inexorable (dealt with briskly) towards the last 25 minutes.

Thelma is cutting quite loosely - she's not bothered about invisible editing, only catching the right bits of performances and making it move.

I don't think Robert Richardson's retired (he's only 59) but Rodrigo Prieto shot it in Panavision. Usual good music choices and constantly moving camera.

The Cat's Meow (2001 Peter Bogdanovich)

PB was not involved in the script or production - for me it somehow fails to ignite. Good lead performances - Eddie Izzard as Chaplin, Joanna Lumley a writer, Edward Herrmann as WR Hearst and Kirsten Dunst his mistress - and intriguing story set aboard WR's yacht in 1924.

Features the rich photography you'd expect from Bruno Delbonnel. And an incredibly good and long dissolve - from a coffin to the yacht.

Sabrina (1954 Billy Wilder)

Charles Lang lights from the inside out.

I think of Marcel Hillaire every time I crack an egg. And, do you know what? He's right. It is all in the wrist.

Absolutely peerless screenplay full of endlessly quotable lines.

A true classic. A gem of a film. Or, as I observed in January 2009, 'This Fabergé egg of a film'.

Some Came Running (1958 Vincente Minnelli)

Filled with "one-ers" (long takes without cuts), giving actors the chance to breathe - Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine in particular stand out, Martin has less to do. One of a series of fifties mainstream Hollywood pictures which subvert the Golden Age's view of perfect small town Americana. Here everything's rotten: Sinatra's desperate alcoholic failed writer, Martin's health, Arthur Kennedy's marriage, Martha Hyer's ability to relate .. actually MacLaine as the most pathetic character is the one who most wants to improve herself, and dies happy... And Sinatra's relationship with niece Betty Lou Keim is his salvation.

A perniciously sad, long (137 min) film, adapted by John Patrick and Arthur Sheekman from novel by James Jones resulting in a shaded, opaque story. Shot by MGM regular Bill Daniels (in CinemaScope and Metrocolor), giving us a beautifully dark kiss, with moody Elmer Bernstein score. Thoughtful direction with exciting, feverish finale. Staging of characters in final funeral is telling.

Martin sure does pack a lot of booze in his suitcase!

They All Laughed (1981 Peter Bogdanovich)

One of those totally underrated and unknown comedy masterpieces, like Avanti, written by Bogdanovich and co-star Blaine Novak, last reviewed here. It remains very fresh and lovable, like a puppy.

PB claims it was made 'in the camera' in fascinating interview by Wes Anderson, clearly a big fan. In this Bogdanovich says it is his favourite of all his films.

Unforgettable cast: Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, John Ritter, Patti Hansen (who just lights up her scenes and everyone around her), Dorothy Stratten, Blaine Novak, Linda MacEwen, George Morfogen and Colleen Camp ("I can't cook a thing, but I know where everything is").

The director has made She's Funny That Way, co-written with ex-wife Louise Stratten, which has a great cast: Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson, Cybill Shepherd, Joanna Lumley, Lucy Punch, Rhys Ifans... And one of the executive producers and backers is ... Wes Anderson! Can't wait.

A Little Romance (1979 George Roy Hill)

Can't argue with own review.

The stealing of the cinema front of house photo is I think a Truffaut reference - and therefore it's no surprise that Georges Delerue scored many of his films and Pierre-William Glenn shot a couple of them.

A warm, simple, charming film.

William Reynolds was the editor: The Godfather, The Sting, The Sand Pebbles, The Day the Earth Stood Still etc.

Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007 Zach Helm & scr)

Slight film has Dustin Hoffman as a magical toy store owner, Natalie Portman his assistant (who's struggling to write her first concerto, and actually never gets there), Jason Bateman an accountant and Zach Mills a boy who can't make friends. If you removed all the VFX, it wouldn't be a very long film, and therein lies part of the problem. As I was watching this I was thinking how sublime a children's film is The Railway Children, featuring no special effects. It also ends rather abruptly.

Nicely shot though, by Roman Osin.

Old Dogs (2009 Walt Becker)

Floppy Disney soap in which Robin Williams finds out he has kids, and must look after them; John Travolta is his friend and partner, and one of the kids is really his - Ella Bleu Travolta.

The Double (2013 Richard Ayoade & co-scr)

Inhabits the same dystopian nightmare world as Brazil - and for that reason is initially rather hard to swallow. Kafkaesque story (Dostoyevsky, in fact) has two great performances from Jesse Eisenberg; features Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn, Yasmin Paige, Noah Taylor and Craig Roberts (all three in Submarine ), James Fox, Cathy Moriarty, Phyllis Somerville (Little Children ); with fleeting appearances by Chris O'Dowd, Paddy Considine, Sally Hawkins and (most amusingly) Chris Morris.

Very dark; quite funny in places; somewhat puzzling. Extremely stylishly made. Great music by Andrew Hewitt, photography by Erik Wilson  and editing in the noticeable style of Chris Dickens and Nick Fenton (all also from Submarine ). Has a truly bizarre soundtrack featuring ?Chinese pop songs, and a nasty seventies synthesizer in faux TV show moments.

Apparently filmed in a disused bit of Wokingham Business Park. Like Bladerunner, a film that makes you yearn for sunshine. Interesting detail that Adoyade couldn't see if the double Jesse scenes had worked until they'd come back from compositing.

Script originator Avi Korine based it on his own feelings of invisibility in New York. "I am a ghost."