To Have and Have Not (1944 Howard Hawks)

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A Matter of Innocence / Pretty Polly (1967 Guy Green)

Released under the Polly title in the UK, film is strangely obscure and only available as poor transfer from cropped VHS (original in Techniscope). Colourful tale set in Singapore where Hayley Mills' overbearing and horrendous aunt Brenda de Banzie dies (too many spare ribs and ice cream followed by swimming) leaving the girl to fend for herself - which she does admirably with the help of a suite at Raffles and the affections of Shashi Kapoor.

Shot by Arthur Ibbetson, written by Keith Waterhouse from Noel Coward story, also featuring Trevor Howard and Dick Patterson (and Kalen Liu). Music by Michel Legrand. Moves along fine.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948 John Huston & scr)

Straight from one Huston to the next - actually two for the price of one as John himself appears as a tourist in the opening scenes. Famously he remains the only person to have directed both his father (here) and daughter (for Prizzi's Honor) to Oscars.

This is a beautifully ironic story (originally written by the mysterious B Traven) which foreshadows the Coen Brothers, with an on-the-edge Bogie quite unlike his cool, sardonic usual persona.

For an outdoor adventure it's quite studio-bound, Ted McCord lighting background detail precisely and catching the protagonists in useful deep focus, cut artfully by Owen Marks to Max Steiner's rambunctious score.

Walter is wonderful; Tim Holt is the nice guy of the trio (though even he agrees to murder the newcomer who a minute later - in another satisfying change of fortune - becomes invaluable); Alfonso Bedoya is the bandit 'Gold Hat'. Barton MacLane is the cheating contractor (not a young Clifton James as I thought).

A Handful of Dust (1987 Charles Sturridge)

Evelyn Waugh was supposed to be a comic novelist, and certainly a dip into the novel (published 1934) shows a wry tone. But there's not much evidence of humour or irony in this adaptation, which succeeds only in being overwhelmingly sad. (It does preserve the great ironic line voiced by the adulterous wife "I am still fond of him, despite the monstrous way he's behaved.") William Boyd argues it is not Waugh's best, overrated and disconnected, such as the ending being stitched on from a previously published short story. And one of his criticisms of the book - the wife thinking first the identity of the dead 'John' is her lover's - applies to the film too - we don't really think of the lover as 'John' but as 'Beaver'.

There's no problem with the way it is acted by Kristin Scott Thomas, James Wilby, Rupert Graves, Judi Dench, Pip Torrens, Alec Guinness, Stephen Fry, Anjelica Huston and Graham Crowden.

George Fenton's pan pipes seems at odds with the main part of the film - clearly they are there to predict or unify the last chapter with the rest of the film. Peter Hannan shot it and it's one of those big budget ITV productions you no longer find - hoping perhaps to chase the tail of Brideshead's 1981 small screen success also directed by Sturridge.

The ending is nightmarish - a kind of Hammer House of Horror ending - and is a cautionary reminder not to go wandering impulsively into the Brazilian jungle with eccentric professors. (In fact, in light of the stay-at-home dullness of the character, it seems most improbable.)

Not With My Wife You Don't (1966 Norman Krasna & co-scr)

Not bad Tony Curtis vehicle - at his best in igloo scene (he's almost winking at the audience), George C Scott showing a nice touch for comedy, Virna Lisi as dependable and gorgeous as ever. She just died last December, having survived her husband of 53 years by just over a year. She actually made quite a few English-language films but her hour of glory was 1994's La Reine Margot for which she won the César and Cannes awards - looks great.

Best scene is where she goes to see Italian film and they all end up appearing in it; and fight scene where they're trying not to make a noise. Carroll O'Connor is the General and Eddie Ryder the faithful sergeant.

Shot by Charles Lang.

There's also a great gag featuring a cow! Quite a lot of airforce jet footage, almost as though they are showing off - arguably, too much. Great sequence though where they fly over London, Paris, the alps and end up over the Colosseum.

Lord Jim (1965 Richard Brooks & scr)

Benefits from a particularly evocative and rich soundtrack full of bells, chimes, gongs and Indonesian music. Chris Greenham was the sound editor and there's a fine score by Bronislau Kaper, one of his last (many many credits since 1930).

Peter O'Toole is Joseph Conrad's wanderer, with Akim Tamiroff, Curt Jurgens, Eli Wallach, Daliah Lavi and James Mason.

Shot by Freddie Young in Super Panavision.

The budget shows, the kind of epic production you don't much find any more. Story is involving enough, though somewhat fatalistic.

Goodbye Columbus (1969 Larry Peerce)

One from that seemingly ignored period of late sixties comedies, very much of its time, based on novel by Philip Roth, with Richard Benjamin, Ali MacGraw and Jack Klugman.

Ralph Rosenblum is having fun cutting film to differing bits of audio.

Has a classic Jewish mother, and wedding scene, and brother-in-law. Very funny, but somehow disappears at the end.

Ph Gerald Hirschfeld.

Breathe In (2013 Drake Doremus & co-scr)

Marvellously subtle film, almost approaching a Malick-ish ellipsis. Brit music student Felicity Jones comes to stay with prof Guy Pearce, wife Amy Ryan and daughter Mackenzie Davis, with forseeable results.

The leads are terrific.

Much preferred this to the same writer-director's Like Crazy, though probably suggests that one needs reevaluating.

Nicely edited by Jonathan Alberts.

To Catch a Thief (1955 Alfred Hitchcock)

It's in the simplest of scenes - dialogue between two people - that you see all these great set-ups and different camera positions - sometimes he likes to shoot up at the subject, sometimes down, sometimes straight at them. It's very interesting. No one else does it like he does.

Marley and Me (2008 David Frankel)

Owen Wilson (who you cannot but love), Jennifer Aniston, Alan Arkin, Eric Dane, Kathleen Turner.

I do love that montage of Wilson's eventful life with his voiceover. And the dropped in remark that Marley sat up with his ill son for nine hours (this you never see amidst all the mayhem).

A commendably sober look at a relationship or three.

Shot by Florian Ballhaus.

Lifeboat (1944 Alfred Hitchcock)

Talullah Bankhead, John Hodiak, Walter Slezak, Hume Cronyn, Canada Lee, William Bendix, Mary Anderson, Henry Hull, Heather Angel.

Written by John Steinbeck and adapted by Jo Swerling. Music Hugo Friedhofer, ph. Glen MacWilliams, editor Dorothy Spencer.

Marvellous experiment - you forget we're in a studio. Murder shot from behind powerful (all hands). Great writing. Like the way she drapes herself over Hodiak - and the quiet romance that's taking place elsewhere.

Afterthought 28/9/15. This is the forerunner of Rear Window - a microcosm of individual people in one place, and all their individual stories, with a murderer in the centre.

Twentieth Century (1934 Howard Hawks)

John Barrymore - slightly hammy but brilliant - is theatre producer, the amazing Carole Lombard his discovery, with Walter Connolly (It Happened One Night, Nothing Sacred, died in 1940) and Roscoe Karns (It Happened One Night, Man's Favourite Sport, His Girl Friday). Also Fred 'Snowflake' Toones recognisable as waiter.

Madcap, rather than screwball, e.g. the religious nutter on board the train. Great fun.

If I took screen shots any more, and animated them, it would have to be the fantastic Ms Lombard, here in rare close up:

Barrymore was a heavy drinker, died in 1942, the same year as Lombard's fatal plane crash.

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur adapted Millholland's play 'Napoleon of Broadway'. Shot by someone called Joseph August (just 158 credits, since 1915!)

The Rocking Horse Winner (1949 Anthony Pélissier & scr)

John Mills must have strongly believed in the project - he produced it. Originally a short story from DH Lawrence.

I don't know how they got the performance out of John Howard Davies - the scene where he's trance-like, approaching the horse is unforgettable.  I hadn't cottoned on to the fact he later became a TV producer/director, working on Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and The Good life!

Valerie Hobson is the useless mother, Roland Squire her brother. John is as fabulous as usual as the slightly simple batman.

Classy cinematography by Desmond Dickinson, edited by P&P regular John Seabourne, music William Alwyn.

Packed with creative talent, including Davies falling into floor-level close up  with mother in deep focus in the frame, reminiscent of the final shot of Ace in the Hole (and thus predating it by two years). And the whispering house....

A Monster in Paris (2011 Bibo Bergeron)

Who's this film supposed to appeal to? I wouldn't have liked it at any age. The story is rubbish and there are four songs too many (i.e. all of them). Use of early camera / film idea completely missed. Ending is nonsense. Made me feel quite uncomfortable. Only positive is the (quite sweet) animations in old Paris.

One interesting thing emerges - the Great Flood of 1910 is true. So thanks for that.

In a Lonely Place (1950 Nicholas Ray)

Whether by accident or design (Ray was surely not picking his own properties then?) features another doomed couple à la They Live By Night. Bogie is a screenwriter who can't control his temper, suspected of a murder, Gloria Grahame the neighbour - they fall for each other but can't escape the vortex of violence, paranoia and fear - making the second half rather uncomfortable viewing.

Also features Frank Lovejoy (detective), Art Smith (Bogie's agent), Robert Warwick (drunken thespian - Sullivan's Travels, The Awful Truth).

Shot by Burnett Guffey, music George Antheil.

Truffaut gives us an interesting footnote that Grahame and Ray were married - they fell apart and she claimed violent behaviour on his side... And in an interview for Cahiers Ray reveals that the ending of the film was improvised.

And yes the Santana is the name of Bogie's yacht and his production company which made this.

Youth in Revolt (2009 Miguel Arteta)

Liked the animations, by Peter Sluszka. Has some very funny moments. Best dialogue goes to Indian-British student Adhir Kalyan.

Insecure teenager Michael Cera behaves outrageously - partly down to urgings of the object of his desire Portia Doubleday, but also from his own alter ego. Based on novel by C.D. Payne, adapted by Charlie Bartlett's Gustin Nash.

With Steve Buscemi, Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis, Ray Liotta, Rooney Mara.

Arteta mainly on TV (directed The Good Girl); ph. Chuy Chávez.

Arch of Triumph (1948 Lewis Milestone)

Dispassionate, atmospheric, long, cusp-of-war drama-romance-not-quite-revenge thriller, set in William Cameron Menzies' artful Paris, weighed down by annoying heroine. Based on Erich Maria Remarque novel, so gutsy. Liked the opening montage of Charles Laughton the torturing Nazi. With Charles Boyer, Bergman, Louis Calhern, Curt Bois.

Things We Lost in the Fire (2007 Susanne Bier)

Halle Berry has lost husband David Duchovny; has two surviving kids Alexis Llewellyn and Micah Berry (no, no relation). Junkie Benicio del Toro, who was DD's best friend, comes to stay. Results are not predictable - writer is Allan Loeb. John Carroll Lynch is a helpful neighbour, Omar Benson Miller is a helpful brother and Alison Lohman a useful fellow AA attendee.

Frequent close-ups of Berry's eye made me keep thinking of a horse.

Shot by Daniel Stern, edited by Bier regular Pernille Bech Christensen, with Bruce Cannon.

Lone Star (1995 John Sayles & scr, ed)

Wide, exceptional film weaves multiple character stories into one against a backdrop of cultural-historical insights into Spanish-Mexican-Black Southern Texas (del Rio, right on the Mexican border) - you could leave the story behind and it would still be fascinating... almost.

Like Angelopolous, Sayles likes to bring his flashbacks into play in the same shot as the present day scene.

Features Chris Cooper investigating his sheriff father before him (a young Matthew McConaughey) and involvement with evil cop Kris Kiristofferson; and catching up with old flame Elizabeth Peña. With Clifton James, Miriam Colon, Ron Canada, Gabriel Casseus etc.

Shot by Stuart Dryburgh.

I didn't know that Texas is the 'lone star' state because it was originally independent (as the film tells us) and therefore an American needs no explanation of the title that we might (though it's symobolically the sherrif's badge which is discovered at the scene).

Notorious (1946 Alfred Hitchcock)

We needed some first-rate Hitchcock.

I once said this film has half close ups and half long shots. I know what I meant by that, even if it's not strictly accurate. But you do realise that the Master has the most incredible control over this film - his choice of shots and the compositions are absolutely amazing.

Not only is there no substitute for Cary Grant, neither is there for Ingrid Bergman - she's fantastic in one of her last US films before being temporarily ostracised by Hollywood for having a baby with Rossellini.
(Actually there's no equivalent of Claude Rains either.)

Credit must go to Ted Tetzlaff's photography but also to the (uncredited) operator and focus puller.
Music is by Roy Webb.

Louis Calhern is perhaps familiar to us from The Asphalt Jungle.

It's also quite sneaky - Grant is essentially in role of pimp.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005 Shane Black & scr)

Q wanted Julia Roberts but everything was too familiar, besides I pushed for more Robert Downey and we hadn't seen this since 10 March 2006... why not? It's very good and funny, and has a knowing way about it (Downey the narrator stops the film on several occasions to talk to the audience). Val Kilmer is a gay detective, Michelle Monaghan is the old girlfriend.

Michael Barrett shot it with class, Jim Page edited. Some of the fake pulp fiction novels have really funny titles like 'Straighten Up and Die Right' and 'You Wouldn't Like to Live There'.

Charlie Bartlett (2007 Jon Poll)

Written by Gustin Nash whose sole credit before this was a TV series called 'Da Mob', then wrote Youth in Revolt for Michael Cera. Poll is an editor of stuff like Meet the Parents and Dunstan Checks In.

Anyway this is a delight, Anton Yelchin is a bundle of energy, Hope Davis great as his messed up Mom, Kat Dennings the girlfriend, Tyler Hilton the school bully. But Robert Downey Jr steals every second he's in.

Kid becomes school psychotherapist and drugs administrator. Really, really enjoyed it.

27 Dresses (2008 Anne Fletcher)

She directed The Proposal also. Written by Aileen Brosh McKenna (Devil Wears Prada, We Bought a Zoo).

Katherine Heigl, a bouncy James Marsden, Edward Burns, Judy Greer (the friend), Malin Ackerman (the less attractive sister).

Review of 1/9/12 reads: "Enjoyed it. Yes. Won't get job as reviewer this way."

So I liked the taxi driver who's fined 20 dollars every time he looks in his rear view mirror - but he points out to her when she's forgotten to switch shoes.

But the best scene is in which Heigl and Marden get pissed in a bar, and the guy next to him is visually commenting on everything he hears - then they sing 'Benny and the Jets' and get all the words wrong.

What is the Proposal?

The Mercenaries / Dark of the Sun (1968 Jack Cardiff)

Was always turning up on ITV in the seventies in a cut print under the name 'The Mercenaries', until one night - the sixth of November 1982 - it was actually screened in its quite nasty unedited 100 minute version. Despite the debate the Warners Archive 'remastered' DVD is also a cut version - has in fact a different ending. I should have realised from near the beginning where Taylor's 'son of a bitch' has the 'bitch' edited: that's how sanitised it is. So that's a major fucker.

For all the people that swear it isn't, consider the poster / DVD cover:

OK, if it isn't edited, where's the scene where Rod and Yvette are kissing (shown here twice)? And what about the scene showing a woman being taken by soldiers?

The BBFC lists its original run time of 100 minutes 25 seconds (uncut). I'll have to go and have a look in the BFI archive to see if they have the original British print.

I made a trip to the Congo, and met reporters who lived through all the troubles there [following independence in 1960], and they showed me photographs of the real thing - I wish they hadn't...The savagery was unbelievable. . When the film came out the critics all thought the violence was so terrible that they couldn't bear to watch it. They were really appalled by its excessive violence. I could only say to those that I met that my film was nothing like the real thing - it was a quarter, a fifth, a sixteenth of the violence that really happened.

'Conversations with Jack Cardiff' by Justin Bowyer.

Good cast: Rod Taylor, Kenneth More, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Brown, Peter Carsten, André Morell

Shot by Ted Scaife, music by Jacques Loussier, cut by Ernest Walter, from a Wilbur Smith novel. Actually filmed in Jamaica.

Radio Days (1987 Woody Allen & scr)

Packaged like a series of vignettes loosely based around 30s and 40s US radio, film in fact is one of Woody's more personal stories (the father who has an unknown job, the parents who are always arguing, the family atmosphere).

Is it also the only WA with both Mia Farrow (in Judy Holliday voice mode) and Diane Keaton? Great cast includes Wallace Shawn, Diane Weist, Julie Kavner, Michael Tucker, Jeff Daniels, Seth Green (playing the young WA), Tony Roberts (and the irreligious next door neighbour is Larry David!). It's shot by Carlo di Palma and is one of Woody's bigger budget films.

Watched it initially on 2 March 1988 and then on 3 September 1993, when I offered this comment: "Richly characterised story within anecdotal framework. A subtle and deceptive work' - most impressive. Indeed the moment where the boy's father goes from smacking him to holding his head is one of the tenderest things in any Woody Allen film and it's the story of the trapped girl that gives it its emotional depth.

Oh yes, it's very funny too, from opening story of burglars who answer the phone and it's 'Name that tune'.

Baby Love (1968 Alistair Reid)

Dreadful title - 'Mummy love' might have been slightly more accurate as it's the core of silly tale of nubile girl who attempts to win the desire of everyone in her new household - against tradition, father Keith Barron is the only one who can resist her.

Decently made film (Desmond Dickinson on camera, Bond editor-turned director John Glen cutting) can't be qualified as 'so bad it's good' through interesting camera work etc. though does rather fall into the camp classic category.

And not bad acting from Linda Hayden, Ann Lynn as the mother, Derek Lamden and Dick Emery. Hilariously wrong music doesn't help.

To The Wonder (2012 Terrence Malick)

After 15 minutes I did laugh and say 'this is the longest perfume ad I've ever seen'.

Extraordinary stuff - Malick is a poet. His films don't behave like other people's. Emmanuel Lubezki's camera is constantly moving, observing nature as much as people, the film is always cutting, the 'story' emerges gracefully.

,,,when we talk about using natural light, it’s not because we don’t want to have a truck with lights, but because what we want to capture can only be captured accidentally as it happens in front of us.[...] we’re always looking for the moments that editors normally throw out...

Interview with Chivo in ASC magazine. You have to rave Steadicam operator Joerg Widmer also, who also shot Paris scenes. The film had five editors.

Shot in Panavision 'spherical' - not the squeezed anamorphic way.

Incredible moments - love the way they keep popping in and out of view in the house. Pools of light, reflections. If any evidence was needed that Chivo is the Master of Light, this is it. Incredibly, he received neither Oscar nor BAFTA nomination.

By the way, there are some people in it: Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem and Rachel McAdams.

Great Expectations (2012 Mike Newell)

What's the point, I thought, trying not to compare it to Lean or Cuaron's great versions?  Well, the answer is maybe none. Though David Nicholls' adaptation does pull us in a slightly different direction (the nasty Rotter's Club is no place for our sensitive Pip and Pocket, or 'Handel' as the latter nicknames the former). And talking of sensitive, we get more sympathetic versions of Miss Havisham (Helena Bonham Carter), Estella (Holliday Grainger) and Jaggers (a slightly subdued Robbie Coltrane).

Jeremy Irvine is Pip (the young version played by his brother Toby), Jason Flemyng and Sally Hawkins Joe & Mrs Joe, Jessie Cave is Biddy (recognisable through Harry Potter not Lark Rise as I thought), Ewen Bremner good as Woolworth's Wemmick (who we've literally only just seen in Fool's Gold), Magwich played by the indestructible Ralph Fiennes and Olly Alexander as Herbert Pocket.

Shot by John Mathieson and edited by Tariq Anwar.

The stretched effect that signifies flashbacks is just silly.

A Thousand Clowns (1965 Fred Coe)

Reviewed last here.

The bicycle riding sequence, with its beautiful multiple overlaps, is - as John Torode would say - a lovely thing.

What happened was that the writer Herb Gardner was very disappointed with the rough cut - "It was still too much like a play" and the director agreed to hand over the whole thing to him and Rosenblum. Then Herb brought in various favourites bits of music (marching, circus, Dixieland, Handel's Messiah) and made Robards re-record the ukelele. This is where the second cameraman Joe Coffey comes in. Herb took him out one morning and shot the crowds going to work, then added marching music. "..and they started walking to the music". Then came the additional filming of the bike scene - '"it make you remember for the whole next hour of the movie that these people care for each other." Then the whole Chuckles scene was reshot with Gene Saks... Eleven months later...

I love the long list of names that Nick has adopted over the years (my favourite being Raphael Sabatini). Barry Gordon has ended up exclusively on TV, working steadily since,

Fool's Gold (2008 Andy Tennant)

I remember the first time we watched this thinking it was going to be a Matthew MacFadyen film - it was I think the first time we'd met McConaughey and we rather enjoyed this treasure hunting nonsense - especially from where he fires a gun underwater to unchain himself (yes, it is possible). He apparently then had to turn down offers like this and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past until the meatier roles (Mud etc.) presented themselves and we arrive to the Matthew M of today.

Benefits enormously from Donald Sutherland throwing in the perfectly timed one liners here and there. Goldie Hawn - I mean Kate Hudson - also hilarious in scene where she serves dinner.

The treasure legend is much more interesting than sub-plots involving local gangster Kevin Hart and rival treasurist Ray Winstone, who should stick to English accents.

Shot in Queensland Australia.

Running on Empty (1988 Sidney Lumet)

Rather good screenplay - by Naomi Foner - about radical parents who are constantly on the run with their sons following a terrorist (Peace) act that went wrong - film might as well be about families (and their conflicts) generally.

Good cast comprises the uniquely talented River Phoenix, Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti and Jonas Abry, with Martha Plimpton.

Shot in that slightly mournful pallette of Gerry Fisher. Andrew Mondshein's editing is distinguished by long dissolves.

River is playing Beethoven's Pathétique piano sonata and Mozart's Fantasy No. 4 in C-Minor.

The Sun Also Rises (1957 Henry King)

Because we wanted to breathe in Hemingway's Montparnasse - and indeed there is 'Le Select' (perhaps the interior is a set). Then the second half is in Mexico - I mean Pamplona - where there is much bull taunting (interesting to see but makes the film flabby).

I've never been convinced by Tyrone Power. Apart from his character, everyone else is falling to pieces - Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Eddie Albert and real-life alky Errol Flynn (who's rather good). Film benefits from Leo Tover's CinemaScope De Luxe location photography. Hemingway himself did not approve.

IKWIG (1945 Powell & Pressburger)

The bloody beautiful Criterion copy.

Blend of location and studio is expertly done.

Much fun with C.W.R. Knight and his trained eagle 'Torquil'.

Pamela Brown absolutely crackles with energy.

No one - no one - made or makes films like these two.

Scoop (1987 Gavin Millar)

Adapted from Evelyn Waugh's 1938 satire on journalism - based on his own Italy-Abyssinia coverage - for ITV, film had the sort of decent budget you now rarely find (Morocco - as ever - standing in for the fictional Ishmaelia) by William Boyd, only his third screenplay.

Really rather well done all around, with Matthew Maloney the innocent - but not as stupid as he looks - correspondent Boot, and a solid supporting cast comprising Jack Shepherd, Donald Pleasance, William Hordern, Nicola Pagett, the irresistible Denholm Elliott, Herbert Lom and Renée Soutendijk. (Q also manages to place young Jake Wood from Eastenders as a paper boy.)

Plenty of laughs involving Boot's country relatives, behaviour of journalists and their journey to Laku ('I don't know'), Soutendijk's cheerful fleecing of Boot...

Shot by Roger Pratt, music by Stanley Myers

Still Alice (2014 Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland, both scr)

Lisa Genova, herself a neuroscientists, self-published 'Still Alice' in 2007.

Glatzer died earlier this year: he and Westmoreland were married.

Julianne Moore won the Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe. Supporting is Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Shane McRae, Hunter Parrish and Stephen Kunken as the neurologist.

Doctor at Large (1957 Ralph Thomas)

Written by Nicholas Phipps, based on novel by Richard Gordon.

Dirk Bogarde, Muriel Pavlov, James Robertson Justice, Donald Sinden, Shirley Eaton.

Seems to go on forever. Tries and fails in various private practices. Still, scene in which he has finally become a good doctor is great.

Laughed quite a bit.

4x3 TV print does seem cropped (VistaVision original). Eastmancolor.

Quick Change (1990 Howard Franklin & Bill Murray)

Bill's only film in the director's chair was made with screenwriter Franklin (who based it on Jay Cronley's book). (Bill's only Oscar nomination, by the way, was for Lost in Translation. He has big fans in this household, partly perhaps because of his rich long association with Wes Anderson, though Groundhog Day has yet to be bettered.)

He, Geena Davis and the overacting Randy Quaid are on the run from a bank heist, pitted against an unforgiving New York (replete with a wonderful Spanish joust) while Jason Robards, the only intelligent cop in the city, pursues them.

Someone has commanded Taxi Driver's Mick Chapman to shoot all the night scenes high key, which makes everything look overlit and artificial.

True Detective Season 1 (2014 Creator / writer Nic Pizzolato)

Dark, creepy goings-on in swampy bible belt don't exactly make a Louisiana tourist board promo. Matthew McConaughey (fantastic and barely recognisable in either incarnation) slightly steals the mumbling honours away from Woody Harrelson (making the most of his unpleasant character) in ultimately redemptive tale. Sometimes wanders off on its own philosophical journey via McMumbles' character. Solidly builds story and characters over its seven and a half hour runtime.

Good design / locations (finale filmed at 19th Century Fort Macomb).

Michelle Monaghan is Woody's long-suffering wife. Has one stand out scene of tension in ep 4 as McM escapes from bikers in a long continuous take.

Nice little touches that are there for a reason (the little girls' dolls - an eerie touch that remains unaccountable, the kid who identifies spaghetti head, the smell of aluminium).

Also has that rarest of things in a US series - a sex scene that is actually sexy.

Last Chance Harvey (2008 Joel Hopkins & scr)

Written by Brit Hopkins for the acting giants Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman (who contributed his own version of the wedding speech). With Eileen Atkins, Lian Balaban, James Brolin, Richard Schiff.

A very pleasant experience.

Featured location is Somerset House, not the V&A as I thought.

Tootsie (1982 Sydney Pollack)

Screenplay credited to Larry Gelbart (who created and wrote MASH, and The Notorious Landlady) and Murray Schisgal from a story by Gelbart and Don McGuire. Dustin Hoffman is wonderful (winning BAFTA) and Jessica Lange won Ocar. Support from Teri Garr, Pollack, Bill Murray, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Geena Davies.

Still fun.

The Big Blue / Le Grand Bleu (1988 Luc Besson)

A film as old as our relationship.

Begins beautifully in black and white Greece - the kid playing the young Enzo is fantastic. (In fact there's an argument for the opening section being better than the rest of the film.) Then picks up well in adulthood (Sicily, Peru, Taormina - The San Domenico hotel). Fantastic underwater scenes, Jean-Marc Barr clearly at home with terrific supporting cast of dolphins (love the moment where he frees the captive dolphin in to the sea - then later spends the night with it!)

Enzo a great character, perfectly realised by Jean Reno - Q thinks only he could have played it so well. Rosanna Arquette is the largely irrelevant female.

Eric Sera was certainly appreciated for his music as only his credit is outlined. (Insanely, the US release replaced the score with a new one by Bill Conti - which judging from this link was terrible - what were they thinking??) Carlo Varini shot it in Panavision with occasionally uncomfortably wide lenses.

Juggernaut (1974 Dick Lester)

Seriously cool, almost documentary-like thriller in which no one but Omar Sharif seems to be acting.

Tony Gibbs is cutting lots of action scenes to voiceovers.

The kids seem a wonderful counterbalance to the tension.

Great cast comprises Richard Harris and David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, Clifton James, Roy Kinnear, Freddie Jones and Roshan Seth.

Written by producer Richard de Koker with additional dialogue by Alan Plater - whoever did what it's full of very well-written, natural and often very funny dialogue. In fact thinking about it I'm sure we can assume that the funny dialogue is from Plater. Gerry Fisher is on camera.

Cold Comfort Farm (1995 John Schlesinger)

Broad adaptation of Stella Gibbons' presumably broad novel, by Malcolm Bradbury. Kate Beckinsale is the calm centre of village idiocy in which Eileen Atkins and Ian McKellen are somewhat overplaying. Satisfying story. With Sheila Burrell, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Rufus Sewell, an unrecognisable Freddie Jones, Miriam Margolyes, Maria Miles and Rupert Penry-Jones.

Shot by Chris Seager ( Five Daughters, The Girl in the Cafe) in 4x3 and edited by Mark Day (the two collaborated on Yates' State of Play and Sex Traffic and he cut the last four Harry Potters) for ITV.

American Sniper (2014 Clint Eastwood & prod)

Based on Chris Kyle's autobiography 'American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History' (written with Scott McEwan and Jim De Felice, published 2012), well screenwritten by Jason Hall, who finished the first draft the day Kyle was killed. For example there's a lovely jump from Kyle with the boy in his sights to himself as a boy (though this of course may have been Clint's idea, or the editor's - how can you tell?). On that subject it is very well cut by Malpaso regulars Joel Cox and Gary Roach. They are able to make a fast action scene move really well but remain completely understandable, something many action films lose.

Also I like the very quick moment where we see the enemy sniper (Sammy Sheik) himself has a young wife and baby and thus is Kyle's complete counterpart.

Bradley Cooper is great - he looks like a wolf at times. Sienna Miller is his wife. With Max Charles, Luke Grimes, Kyle Gallner, Sam Jaeger, Jake McDorman.

Tom Stern shot it of course, digitally, in Panavision, and Morocco once again stands in for Afghanistan.

Prompted a discussion between us about how it didn't look like an old man's film (84), but you can't really make judgements like that as directors are different anyway.

The moments of humour are invaluable and it moves along with that some terrific momentum that marked Changeling.

Entourage 7 & 8 (2010 - 2011)

I was wondering if E would end up with his dishy secretary Janet Montgomery.

The boys are all looking out for one another in big style.

Has a most satisfying conclusion (and post credits finale with the 'vacationing' Ari).