Hot Fuzz

Should have won awards for editing.

Grand Budapest Hotel

Hadn't realised how funny the terrible poetry is. Wonderfully written.
Last seen

Caprice (1966, released 1967)

Doris Day - Richard Harris spoof of Bond, set in world of cosmetics, is bright and reasonably good fun. Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen and Edward Mulhare support. It's one of Leon Shamroy's later films (Film 4 unfortunately showing a cropped version of CinemaScope De Luxe Color print) in which he rather gorgeously lights - no, not Los Angeles or the Swiss alps - a hotel suite. Groovy titles (uncredited), fun de Vol score.

That Bradbury Building is in it again (last seen in Good Neighbor Sam).

Engrenages / Spiral: Season 5 (2014)

Our family is back: Laure (Caroline Proust), Gilou (Thierry Godard, who steals the acting honours), Tintin (Fred Bianconi) and sympathetic Juge Roban (the quite wonderful Philippe Duclos), aided and abetted by lawyers Pierre Clément and Audrey Fleurot and shifty boss Nicolas Briançon.

It takes us only three evenings to polish off 10-hour series. The usual political machinations, a nasty gang of girls, and plenty of opportunities to see Laure's shifting perception of motherhood. It's also all about bending the law at almost every opportunity.

I have a feeling the car that was due to be scrapped, which proved evidence of the police's complicity in a hit and run, is the one Gilou finds in the police garage - if so it's a lovely touch.

This is the season that won the International Emmy in November 2015. In collecting the award, exec producer Anne Landois and Caroline Proust acknowledged the great work of the police and the Charlie Hebdo victims, and were proud to be representing the detectives of Paris.

Psycho (1960 AH)

I gave Q the choice of this or The 39 Steps....

I guess the 'shattering modernity' comes  from leading us down a completely wrong path and then bumping off the lead actress (imagine nowadays if it was Julia Roberts or someone). In a way it's a bit anticlimactic after that.

Love the scene between Anthony Perkins and Martin Balsam. (Amongst many other things, naturally.)

Loved Q's brilliant joke - "Of all the motels in all the world, you had to walk into mine..."

Son of Rambow (2007 Garth Jennings & scr)

Bill Milner and the frankly fantastic Will Poulter are the kids, with Jessica Hynes, Paul Ritter, Eric Sykes.

Most enjoyable. Jennings seems to have retired.

OSS117: Rio Ne Repond Plus (2009 Michel Hazavicinius & co-scr)

It's 1967, so MH has more fun parodying early Bonds (short robe, the gardener's DJ!), plus the generation (mod clothes, hippies, LSD), all beautifully caught in widescreen by Guillaume Schiffman. The use of split / multiple screens is absolutely inspired (Laurent Brett did these).  Louise Monot is Jean Dujardin's foil (he actually becomes Flynn in Robin Hood). I also love the way he casually offends everyone.

Also clips from Trapeze, the bad guys who are the world's worst shots, and lovely Hitchcock referenced climax.

Has a slightly lumpy middle, I felt, but still laugh out loud funny. Music Ludovic Bource.

The book series was commenced by Jean Bruce in 1949, the original films ran from 1956 - 1970, featuring Kerwin Mathews, Frederick Stafford, Curt Jurgens, Luciana Paluzzi etc. They look great but the French of course don't care to make them available to the world with subtitles.

Mrs Miniver (1942 William Wyler)

One of his minor successes, winning Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (James Hilton, Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel & Claudine West), Photography (Joseph Ruttenberg) and for Greer Garson and Theresa Wright. Dame Mae Whitty, Henry Travers and Walter Pidgeon were nominated as was Harold Kress for editing and with less long takes than other Wyler films he has more to do (Daniel Mandell won for Pride of the Yankees). Not a bad choice for the night before the Oscars.

Here, the story was a little different - my Dad reporting that the British public did not take kindly to it, figuring it was patronising and artificial. Fair enough.

Still love the sequence where Wyler holds on the back of Garson and Wright's heads, as they wait for the son (Richard Ney, the only weak actor in it) to reappear at the top of the stairs (the same trick is pulled later on); and the very claustrophobic air raid shelter scene; and the scene where Whitty comes over to complain about the engagement; and of course the rose competition.

There's a couple of 'musical numbers' at a flower show and church I would have cut.

Killing Them Softly (2012 Andrew Dominik & co-scr)

Lasted (endured, as it turned out) 34 minutes, then jointly decided it wasn't for us - we hadn't even made it to James Gandolfini, but a terribly dull hold-up had taken place by a couple of totally unattractive characters, then there was a particularly violent and gratuitous beating up of Ray Liotta and we thought 'life's too short'. Also we don't like Brad Pitt or his films much.

Dominik did the equally divisive The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Chopper.

I was suckered in by a trailer which made it look like a black comedy.

Father of the Bride (1950 Vincente Minnelli)

The far superior original in which Spencer Tracy is superb. Extremely simple filming in long takes, though featuring a brilliant designed dream sequence.  Joan Bennett is the wife and Don Taylor is to marry Elizabeth Taylor, who I'm still not sure is any good. With Leo G Carroll and Billie Burke. Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (The Thin Man) wrote it, John Alton filmed it at MGM.

Theadora Goes Wild (1936 Richard Boleslawski)

Not really a screwball comedy, as it's pegged, does have one or two zany moments involving a piano. Irene Dunne is just great, playing the initially mild-mannered authoress in hiding, luminously lit by Joseph Walker. Melvyn Douglas, Spring Byington, Thomas Mitchell, Robert Greig.

Columbia.

Duck Soup (1933 Leo McCarey)

Timing of its release and subject matter are interesting. Actually managed to watch the whole film for a change.

"I've got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it."

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008 Kevin Smith)

Crude and rebarbative. Didn't even finish it. Long dialogue scene has music all over it - never a good sign.

Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks.

Illegally Yours (1988 Peter Bogdanovich & prod)

Peter has made another old-fashioned screwball comedy, which is a hard thing to do. Rob Lowe is cast in the Grant-O'Neal part, wearing (what looks like) the director's own glasses. Lowe is not in the calibre of the other two, naturally, but makes a decent stab at it, marred slightly by too much falling over and bumping into things (I think screwball is screwball and slapstick is slapstick and the two don't mix). There's also somewhat too much plot and too much voiceover, some of which doesn't need to be there at all. I reckon the voiceover was added later and the film would work perfectly well without it.* Still these are small carps against a perfectly executed, lively, very funny and at times subtle comedy replete with repeated gags (tow truck, 'turn right', the girls who keep picking him up) and great stunt driving.

Great cast as usual: Colleen Camp (They All Laughed) brings her offbeat style to the character of the innocent accused, Kenneth Mars is at the centre of things, abetted by daughter Kim Myers (who hilariously falls for Lowe immediately) and Canadian friend Louise Stratten (who Peter sneaks into the proceedings under 'introducing L.B. Straten' (sic)); Jessica James and Ira Heiden are both great fun as Lowe's mum and brother. With George Morfogen as the judge and Linda MacEwen (both TAL alumni) and Harry Carey Jr as the pickup man who comes to stay.

Thoroughly enjoyable; a class act. Written by Max Dickens and Michael Kaplan (in classic way, you have to listen out carefully for some of the lines), shot by Dante Spinotti.

Also loved the courtroom scene which is pure cinema - all we're doing is watching Rob Lowe observe what's happening around him... And the careful staging of actors so they appear in the same frame (Hawks).

* There's mention of it in 'Who the Hell's in it?' in which he refers to it completely unfairly as 'my worst film' and adds that it was  'mangled on top of everything by the producers' - I take it he's not talking about himself... maybe the DVD is a different cut to the one that screened?

In conclusion then, totally underrated film by everyone including the director! He exhibits a 'bounce' in films like this, like Hitchcock had in the thirties, They All Laughed being the prime example. It's a bounce, I tell you.

Three Strangers (1946 Jean Negulesco)

Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre encounter strange Geraldine Fitzgerald and end up collaborating on a sweepstake bet in John Huston (he claims it was his idea) - Howard Koch screenplay, which gets increasingly twisty. We then follow the individual stories and come to realise that Lorre - who's involved with crooks Robert Shayne, thuggish but likeable Peter Whitney and accessory Joan Lorring - is the most decent one of them. Greenstreet is swindling his client Rosalind Ivan (with amusing twist involving dead husband) and Fitzgerald torments estranged husband Alan Napier. Has a nice ironic payoff.

Adolph Deutsch scored, Arthur Edeson on camera, for Warners.

Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy (1962 Harold Lloyd)

Compilation of some of Lloyd's best bits, though the silent sequences are by far superior to his talkies stuff. It seems there's comedy in silent humour that doesn't work in sound, weirdly enough.

I could hate them for showing only the fleetingest moment of the thrillingest climb up the side of a building, from Safety Last (will have to buy that one), but there are enough other absolutely stunning scenes of the sort you just wouldn't be allowed to do now, laced with great humour, viz. Lloyd precariously hanging on to the roof of a speeding tram (various stunts / gags) then falling through the roof into a passing car, and trying to force the elderly driver to go faster (Girl Shy 1924, with Jobyna Ralston). Dizzying changes of film speeds and really quick editing make these incredibly fresh and energetic today. Those cars, with their spindly wheels, look so primitive...

Also terrific stuff on Latin American revolution in Why Worry? (1923)

He has a great deadpan style too - I loved the moment where he abandons his car by stepping out of it while it's moving, shrugs, and as he walks towards the camera you see the car has crashed into a bank behind him.

The Master (2012 Paul Thomas Anderson & scr)

An outstanding trio of performances from Joaquin Phoenix (apparently pronounced 'wa-keen'), Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, who all were Oscar and BAFTA nominated, this long film has a wry sense of humour running throughout, particularly concerning the authenticity of Hoffman's hypnotism activities. It's an extraordinary bit of acting from the Phoenix but Hoffman achieving a lot by doing very little. (The 'processing' scenes between them are great, as is scene where Phoenix wrestles him to the ground in what looks like an improvised moment.) With Jesse Plemons, who we've just seen in Olive Kitteridge, and who we should really have recognised from both Breaking Bad and the Fargo series.

It's shot by Mihai Malaimare, a Romanian with a limited CV, and scored by the weird and wonderful Jonny Greenwood.

We're going to have to rewatch There Will Be Blood  to check whether the same perverse humour infects that one.

It was shot in 65mm

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937 Leo McCarey)

According to Arthur Nolletti - whoever he is - comparing this with Tokyo Story, 'Ozu never saw the McCarey film. But he did not really need to, as his scriptwriter, Noda Kogo, had retained fond memories of it'. ('Ozu's Tokyo Story', Cambridge Film Handbooks, 1997.)

So, the film that famously Orson Welles claimed 'would make a stone cry!' is fabulous, most unusual for a Hollywood film of that period (it flopped), and not utterly relentless either. There are light touches throughout and nice people appear towards the end of the film (car salesman and hotel staff). And, as Peter Bogdanovich helpfully points out in his mini McCarey film, which was filmed for Criterion in 2009 but appears on the Eureka! Blu-Ray, there's a fresh and improvisational feel about the acting which keeps it nimble. The cast is great overall but I have to single out Beulah Bondi's old lady, which she does ever so well. With Victor Moore, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter, Barbara Read, Porter Hall, Maurice Moskovitch (who we've just seen in In Name Only, but who died in 1940 - he resembles Bela Lugosi a little, but can act), Elisabeth Risdon, Minna Gombell, Ray Mayer, Ralph Remley and Louise Beavers.

One of the earlier films of William C Mellor, twice Oscar-winner in the 1950s. Music by Victor Young and George Antheil, written by Viña Delmar (from a novel by Josephine Lawrence and a play by Helen and Nolan Leary), and Leo McCarey (uncredited). The makeup isn't credited either.

Noises Off (1992 Peter Bogdanovich)

Based (we guess pretty closely) on Michael Frayn's play, (the second act in the original is from the backstage perspective, for example), adapted by Marty Kaplan, this is a very clever piece and yet somehow it doesn't quite work on film, perhaps - as Q conjectured with her normal good sense - that there's simply too much of the play itself, a farce which (deliberately) isn't very good or funny.

Michael Caine is wonderful as the director (a director who leaves the show mid-way through, though) who we see reacting to the whole of the first act (here you can't help think about Bogdanovich the actor-writer-director directing the actor playing a director; at times you forget you're watching a film of the play). Then in the second it's a mini-silent film featuring some incredibly well-staged scenes, the best involving the journey of a whisky bottle.

The version we saw on DVD was in 4x3 (which seems odd) and features some beautiful staging of the characters, e.g. the scene where they're searching for Elliott, yet he's standing behind them.

Cast features: Carol Burnett, Denholm Elliott (great), Julie Hagerty, Marilu Henner (good), Mark Linn-Baker, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter (who seems like he's doing an impression of someone), Nicollette Sheridan and (as a stagehand) Zoe Cassavetes.

Olive Kitteridge (2014 Lisa Cholodenko)

Written by Jane Anderson and Elizabeth Strout (and based on the latter's Pulitzer prize-winning novel) for HBO, enormously engaging four hour, four part film charts story of teacher Frances McDormand (who's as good as ever), husband Richard Jenkins and son John Gallagher (and Devin Druid) through various layers of makeup. Also with Peter Mullan, Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks), Jesse Plemons.

Has a wonderful way with it, and doesn't always go where expected, e.g. whole episode involving suicidal hallucinating man (who you think is going to end up with the waitress he's saved, but in fact just disappears from the storyline) and the way Bill Murray is casually introduced and then doesn't turn up until a significant role much later on. That we see McDormand's character gradually soften (a bit) is I think partly the effect of her saintly husband who just really is so nice.

Scored in the recognisable tones of Carter Burwell. Shot by Frederick Elmes (Blue Velvet).

Our favourite moment though is when a peeled apple core turns into a snake..

Moonrise Kingdom (2013 Wes Anderson & co-scr)

Then we had to revisit this wonderful film in Wes's magical kingdom of unreality. Both Bruce Willis and Bill Murray keep looking like they're trying to suppress laughter. A joy.

Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014 Peter Chelsom & co-scr)

Well, we enjoyed Simon Pegg's quest for happiness in China, Africa and LA in the company of various characters such as Stellan Skarsgård, Ming Zhao, Jean Reno, Togo Igawa, Toni Collette, Christopher Plummer and particularly the fabulous Chantal Herman, as a dying woman. The always fabulous Rosamund Pike is the girl at home.

Vertigo

http://nicksfilmjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/vertigo-1958-alfred-hitchcock.html

Only that Barbara Bel Geddes is extremely good as a character and actress.

Magic in the Moonlight (2014 Woody Allen & scr)

Seemingly a return to familiar subject matter - Colin Firth is a magician called upon to prove that Emma Stone the clairvoyant is a fake - but he's soon under her spell. With Eileen Atkins, Simon McBurney. Shot in Panavision (the director's new choice) by Darius Khondji.

What We Did on Our Holiday (2014 Andy Hamilton, Guy Jenkin & scr)

Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Ben Miller, Billy Connolly, Celia Imrie, Amelia Bullmore, Annette Crosby. And the kids: Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge and Harriet Turnbull (who has some of the best lines - when being told she's in an 'intelligent' house she asks "Can it draw a leopard"?)

Really terrific. Extremely funny. Q's film of the year.

(Tennant on World War Two: "Yes, just like Monopoly, only more screaming.")

Gone Girl (2014 David Fincher)

Gillian Flynn has adapted her own novel - interesting, as it appears she has had no screenwriting experience, though as a journalist for Entertainment Weekly for 10 years she reviewed many films and TV shows. In a piece in EW she reports it came about 'through a series of drafts and five-hour phone calls with director David Fincher'.

I see now that the oppressive pallette is Fincher's (not just Darius Khondji) - Jeff Crononweth is shooting in greens and browns (like in The Social Network) and in the director's favoured widescreen.

Briskly edited by Kirk Baxter (Oscar winner for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network), wouldn't have thought any single shot holds longer than a few seconds.

Of the cast, Rosamund Pike is a stand-out, also liked Tyler Perry as attorney (introduces some much-needed lightness). Still not sure about Ben Affleck - he seems the same in everything; not sure he does anything. Also nice to see Patrick Fugit in a decent part (his reactions help to set us up against the husband); with Carrie Coon (sister), Kim Dickens (cop), Neil Patrick Harris and Casey Wilson (TV's Happy Endings).

The theme of media judgement of the individual is nicely put forward. Take this out though, and condense the film, and you are left with a perfect film noir plot, which is what this film really is. Though in those days the film would have had a proper ending... (Zodiac doesn't either).

Liked the music too by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

There seemed to me a few nods to Hitchcock, and the last half hour finally introduces some welcome black humour.

The Rewrite (2014 Marc Lawrence & scr)

Shallow drizzle.

Lawrence has not, I fear, improved upon the equally painting-by-numbers effort of Music and Lyrics, though film is enjoyable enough in terms of jaded screenwriter finding himself through teaching college class: it's just all so shallow.

Features Hugh Grant, looking a little battered, Marisa Tomei, J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney (neither's talents exploited particularly well), Chris Elliott, various classmates etc. (sorry - I'm sure you'll all do really well).

There was a scene in one of the endings too many where Grant is holding up bookstore line and there's a bored girl behind him - I so wanted that bored girl to be the one you watch, to really make something out of that. It didn't happen.

The trouble with supposedly smart films like this - which comment on the Hollywood film-making process - is that they invariably remind you that the film you're watching is in that same sloughy (that is a word: I looked it up) rut.

Beaches (1988 Garry Marshall)

Mayim Bialik is a very convincing Bette Midler; Marcie Leeds becomes Barbara Hershey (an underrated actress). Midler is great too. With John Heard, Spalding Gray, Lainie Kazan (the mother, no relation to Elia).

Unexpected belly laughs e.g. "When I saw you weren't in your dressing room, I thought you were dead!" Well written by Mary Agnes Donoghue from a novel by Iris Rainer. Shot by Dante Spinotti.

Naturally, Hector Elizondo is in it.

Isn't there an old Hollywood film with a similar plot???

Breaking Away (1979 Peter Yates)

Peter Yates was nominated for best film and director, Steve Tesich won for original screenplay.

Dennis Christopher (BFA Most Promising Newcomer), Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earl Haley, Barbara Barrie (AA nom. as Mom), Paul Dooley (Dad), Robyn Douglass, Hart Bochner.

Ph. Matthew F Leonetti, makeup Marvin (son of Monte) Westmore, editing Cynthia Scheider (married for a long time to actor Roy).

Has a most exciting bike race, much of it in long shot.

Nimble, sweet and tangy.

My Name is Julia Ross (1945 Joseph H Lewis)

Not nearly as stylish as Gun Crazy, nevertheless intriguing, exciting low budget thriller, shot with a minimum of lighting by Burnett Guffey. Stars Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, George Macready.

Gun Crazy (1950 Joseph H Lewis)

Lewis in his interview with Peter Bogdanovich claims that every frame he directed bears his own stamp of identity - having seen this fantastic B movie for the first time, I sort of get that. It's really very distinctive, favouring close-ups, and directed in a very stylish way, particularly the now-legendary bank robbery scene shot from the inside of the car, in one take. (As to the story though that Billy Wilder asked him how he had done it - 'was it back projection?' - I don't believe it, because there's clearly a shot where Peggy Cummins steps out of the car to distract a policeman, so he could clearly see it was all on location.) And there's a few more back of the car shots following, like they'd become cocky with it. (Truffaut clearly loved it - cf. Mississippi Mermaid for one. And the film seems very 'modern', like it was made years later, maybe by one of the Nouvelle Vague. Though interestingly there's no mention of the film in my Cahiers du Cinéma collection.)

Recognisable hard contrast photography from Russell Harlan adds to flavour. Ending in reed-filled ?location is both evocative of Japanese cinema (Onibaba) and an instance of beautiful effect overcoming low budget.

Lead John Dall was in Rope.

Nothing But the Best (1964 Clive Donner)

Frederick Raphael has written a most witty and sophisticated script sending up the upper class in business (estate agency) (he won the Writer's Guild Award). There's a great scene where Alan Bates is called to sort out a tenancy contract, which he does by simply saying 'There.. and if we put that there..' - a good lesson for screenwriters. Lots of quotable dialogue which - if I knew it - I'd be quoting.

Pauline Delaney is wonderful as the lustful landlady; with young Denholm Elliott, Millicent Martin, Harry Andrews, James Villiers, Godfery Quigley, Alison Leggatt.

Nic Roeg shot it (and received a BAFTA nomination), Fergus McDonell cut it, so it's a class act all round. London looks weirdly devoid of traffic.

Network's lovely DVD does state though that it's shown in the original 1.66:1 ratio, but it isn't.

My Man Godfrey (1936 Gregory La Cava)

... who, I told Q, liked champagne on the set. "For him, or for everyone?" she most sensibly asked.

Fabulous screwball comedy, much underknown in this house, with pairing of the great William Powell (so effortless and smooth) and Carole Lombard (here quite nuts, as is rest of eccentric household). Delicious writing from Morrie Ryskind and Eric Hatch (based on his novel). Eugene Pallette great as head of household, Mischa Auer makes impression as hungry useless composer. With Allan Mowbray, Franklin Pangborn, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Jean Dixon (the smart-talking maid).

I love the reassuring way Pallette starts talking to Auer off-camera - then we hear a big crash. (Then Brady remarks 'he's thrown him out of the window')! Also those opening credits, in neon lights...

UK GMVS release looks like it's from video, thus unnecessarily blurring Ted Tetzlaff's fine (and auspiciously dark) photography - the Criterion Collection is probably the way to go.

Take a Girl Like You (1969 Jonathan Miller)

Poor young Hayley Mills, who comes down from 'up North' only to be immediately harassed by lecherous landlord (John Bird), annoyingly persistent lecturer Oliver Reed, ineffectual bore (Ronald Lacey) and nonchalant rich-boy Noel Harrison.

We can sort of see how it's going to turn out, though admittedly I had seen this before, on 10 January 1979! Pretty cynical really, from Kingsley Amis novel.

Shot by Dick Bush and edited by Jack Harris, so decently done.

Were any really good films made in 1969?*

If I had time to take screen shots any more, it would be this one, with the caption "Bring one for the tiger!"

* P.S. 9/5/20. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch and  The Italian Job spring to mind...

'Lord Peter Wimsey' series (1972 - 5)

Enjoying Ian Carmichael as Dorothy L Sayers' urbane, piano-playing amateur sleuth. Seventies' series is very stagy and studio-bound, and each given time to breathe over three hours' running time, though the first - 'Clouds if Witness' (publ. 1926; screened 1972) - unwisely extends to three hours 45, and feels draggy. Acting variable.

Picks up with the gorgeously titled 'The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club' (1928 / 1973), involving possible murder in stuffy gentlemen's club, set in 1922, and alluding to horrific after-effects of WW1 (now PTSD) in both Wimsey and a murder suspect. Includes Phyllida Law, Donald Pickering, Terence Alexander, John Quentin (who upsets us by shouting all the time, though his mad Pythonesque behaviour in the woods is oddly memorable).

Wimsey's dropping of g's in some words seems to have been something Sayers experimented with in at least one story and was I think symptomatic of a fad in upper class society.

IKWIG

And finally I needed something absolutely terrific to round off the day, and was after a P&P fix.

This film is utterly extraordinary, unlike anyone else's.

Erwin Hillier's photography is stunning, as is John Seaborne's way-ahead-of its-time editing. Reviewed in more detail here.

Contains customarily witty and essentially British (by way of Hungary) exchanges as:
"How did the war treat you?"
"Saw a bit of the world."

The Guard (2011 John Michael McDonagh & scr)

Texasville was a difficult act to follow. I was reaching for one of those hard-to-remember Douglas Sirk titles (Imitation of Life, to be precise) when my eye fell on this little gem.

From brother of writer-director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges), film about culture clash between American agent Don Cheadle and wayward Irish cop Brendan Gleeson (who's absolutely terrific) is mordantly funny. McDonagh even writes the bad guys as intelligent, philosophical and witty murderers (played by Mark Strong, who if not for Gleeson would have stolen the film, Liam Cunningham and David Wilmot). With Fionnula Flanagan and Mícheál Óg Lane.

Very smartly directed too. Shot by Larry Smith.

Texasville (1990 Peter Bogdanovich & scr)

Had avoided this film for years, being put off by negative reviews and the thought of a possibly inferior sequel to a great classic - - moral: never listen to fucking critics, and half the time the public don't know a good thing when they see it either.

As though to take us forward in time, Texasville's opening 360 degree arid landscape pan starts on a satellite dish, ends on a dog and the twenty years older Jeff Bridges (brilliant), who is surrounded by domestic chaos and affairs of sex and money. Film is often hilarious (mood caught very early on in dialogue between Bridges and wife Annie Potts, and the way his daughter drops her baby into the pool), thrilling, tense at times, tender and melancholic, as we catch up with Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman, Eileen Brennan, Randy Quaid and - ultimately - Cybill Shepherd.

Great cast as usual includes Pearl Jones, Katherine Bongfeldt, Su Hyatt, Angie Bolling and the great dog Jake (playing 'Shorty'). Amongst many things to love are the way Bridges gives Shepherd his dog; she later steals his entire family!

Impossible to describe, film freewheels along like They All Laughed but has scenes of such humanity (e.g. fight between Bridges and son William McNamara, fight between the twins, Shepherd frequently with baby in arms, kids chasing dog).

Based an another novel by Larry McMurtry, film is arguably better than its predecessor. I wanted to watch it again while it was still on, and that's not something that happens often (Petulia springs to mind). Really, really well written and filled with amazing lingering looks and moments.