Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010 Edgar Wright)

Edgar Wright's unique film, a kind of live action animation with clever use of written sound effects, my favourite being the 'Ring Ring' which you can see reflected on a kitchen unit; use of video game environment also unique and funny (the Universal logo and theme as interpreted here are inspired). Michael Cera must have done quite a bit of fighting / stunt work. Based on Bryan Lee O'Malley graphic novel, adapted by Wright and Michael Bacall.

With Cera is Alison Pill, Ellen Wong, Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzman and Brie Larson (who today won Oscar for Room).

Shot by Bill Pope, edited by Jonathon Amos (Attack the Block) and Paul Machliss (The World's End, The IT Crowd), film is noisy, exuberant fun, and seems to have a bit of the madcap 'sixties in it and - were I an expert in the subject - I'd wager there's something of martial arts films about it too (hero being set several challenges).

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011 Lynne Ramsay)

Lynne presents us with a mosaic of film, not only in visuals but in scrambled sound too (many clues are in the beginning of the film). She and her husband Rory Kinnear (not that one) have adapted Lionel Shriver's novel (presumably which is told in a linear fashion?) into this most Roegish concoction (and it's interesting to see Luc Roeg as one of the producers).

Tilda Swinton is excellent, and in virtually every scene. Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and Jasper Newell are also both outstanding as Kevin. With John C Reilly.

Seamus McGarvey shot it - capturing the director's red theme - and the incredible sound design is by Paul Davies (71, Southcliffe, The American, Boy A). The editor Joe Bini cut Bad Lieutenant and Grizzly Man for Herzog. The music is by Johnny Greenwood but it's mainly a selection of artfully chosen songs and Japanese music.

Most interesting direction, attention to detail.

The Knack... and How To Get It (1965 Richard Lester)

After two disappointments in one day we had to revert to a surefire gem - the film which Q summarised by saying 'I've never seen an editor have so much fun'. It's the great Tony Gibbs, and bits of it feel like Performance, so impactful is his work (and it's not often you can say that about an editor).

It's also absolutely, essentially French (and made by an American), with a dash of silent.

The audio montage non-sequiturs are incredibly funny if you listen out for them, e.g. "I'm from Hampton Wick - I'm used to innuendo".

David Watkins' camera work is also beautiful. And from the golden age of John Barry.

Michael Crawford, Ray Brooks, Donal Donnelly and especially Rita Tushingham are fabulous.

Spectre (2015 Sam Mendes)

Opens promisingly with great tracking shot through Mexico City Day of the Dead; then in homage to Diamonds are Forever, Bond steps out of a bedroom window and agilely proceeds towards his target (whether or not a green screen sequence, it's brilliantly done). Then there's a spectacular and funny building demolition and some incredible stunt work involving a helicopter, followed by some political shenanigans with Q (Ben Whishaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and M (Ralph Fiennes). So far so good. As the film progresses, however, it appears to be just a rehash of tons of old Bond ideas - train fight (From Russia with Love, though the unstoppable opponent here is more Richard Kiel's Jaws than Robert Shaw's Red Grant), car chase with flame throwers and 'airborne device' (Thunderball), board room execution (Thunderball), clinic atop mountain (OHMSS), villain's HQ in volcano (You Only Live Twice), torture scene (Casino Royale, Goldfinger - though comes even more directly from Kingsley Amis' 'Colonel Sun') complete with Blofeld's white cat (Diamonds are Forever), trick watch (Live and Let Die).. there's even a lift from Skyfall (fight and fall from high plate glass window), so lazily has this been written by its four writers. Even Daniel Craig seems to be coasting.

Efficiently put together by Lee Smith from Hoyte van Hoytema's ochre pallette, good music by Thomas Newman. Even the song and main titles are crap (though two days later song won Oscar) I thought.

Christoph Waltz is an efficient villain (yet he could do something like this in his sleep), Léa Seydoux and Monica Bellucci are Bond ladies, Andrew Scott the Intelligence villain.

I'm quite amazed this has come from Sam Mendes. It's nowhere near as good as Skyfall.

Night Shift (1982 Ron Howard)

In need of light refreshment, and back in our eighties phase, we revert to not quite Ron's debut, written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (both alive but retired). Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton (who kept reminding me of a young Rod Gilbert) become 'business managers' to Shelley Long (quite unbelievable as a hooker) and friends, base of operations being the city morgue.

The Lobster (2015 Yorgos Lanthimos & scr)

One of those films you struggle hard to understand how it was financed. We found some of it quite funny, and could clearly see it was about stuff, but the very dryness of it, the unreal way in which everyone behaves, was deadening. But what finally cancelled it was the dog being kicked to death, and the guy who's had his lips slashed. Then we both turned to each other and said "Enough".

The hotel was making me think of Last Year at Marienbad, the dystopian stuff Fahrenheit 451.

Colin Farrell, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, John C Reilly, Ben Whishaw, Léa Seydoux, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Barden.

We might have been more responsive to a lighter treatment of the same story?

Entourage (2015 Doug Ellin & scr)

Not sure what the fuss was all about - it's just an extension of the TV series, not quite as good as the last season, but on familiar ground. As a film it's a bit thin.

Kevin Connolly, Adrian Grenier, Jerry Ferrara, Kevin Dillon (who has the best lines, such as "I was digitally replaced in a movie once. And that was before shooting started"), Jeremy Piven, Rex Lee and Debi Mazar (both of whose characters are wasted), Emmannuelle Ciriqui, Hayley Joel Osment, Billy Bob Thornton.

Cameos are really spelled out - "Hi there Kelsey Grammar" etc.

During the scene in which E is confronted by two girls in a restaurant, my mind turned to Peter Bogdanovich, and I came up with this:

The funniest thing about it is that the film Vince has made 'Hyde' - is an unbelievable pile of crap.

Somewhere in the Night (1946 Joseph Mankiewicz)

John Hodiak is a war veteran haunted by his own lack of past, goes to LA to follow clues linking him to mysterious gentleman called Larry Cravat, mixes with hoods and gals. Halfway through you start wondering if he is Larry Cravat.

Marvin Borowsky story is adapted by Lee Strasberg (itself interesting) and apparently Somerset Maugham (also), screenplay by JM and Howard Dimsdale; quota of good lines, intriguing plot.

It's suitably, night-time nightmare noir, exemplified in scene in which Hodiak, breaking into a mental institute, spots a suited man climbing out of the window and running away, seen through Norbert Brodine's lens.

Cast also features Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte, Margo Woode (a typical noir femme fatale) and Josephine Hutchinson and the music's by David Buttolph. Fox.

Happy Valley Season 2 (2016 Sally Wainwright scr & creator)

She also directed the first episode. Really well written episodes just fly by, use dramatic irony artfully, successfully mixes thriller with laughs, emotional drama. Is also far more cinematic than many films. Sarah Lancashire is terrific e.g. scenes with psychoanalyst. We had already figured out how great James Norton was last time. Plus: Siobhan Finneran, Charlie Murphy (also in Philomena and 71), Amelia Bullmore, Downton's Kevin Doyle.

Love also the music by Ben Foster; that bending bass note gets me every time. Ivan Strasburg also shot Treme, Generation Kill and The Corner.

Driving Miss Daisy (1989 Bruce Beresford)

Alfred Uhry has opened out his own play very successfully; the story of the developing friendship over the years between independent lady and chauffeur is kind, funny, humane (no bad guys). A pleasure to see Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman (every bit as good), Dan Aykroyd (his most sympathetic performance) and let's not forget Esther Rolle as the faithful Idella ("Why I swear you were born with the sense of a lemon" kind of thing).

It's not cinematic - everything is told through words - but it sure is a mighty fine pleasure!

Not a good idea to match Peter James' period photography against Hans Zimmer's partly electronic, metronome-backed score, though.

Private Benjamin (1980 Howard Zieff)

Biggest surprise in another Myers-Shyer script (this one with Harvey Miller) is what shits all the men are, from husband of six hours Albert Brooks, father Sam Wanamaker, raping army mentor Robert Webber and dodgy French doctor Armand Assante. Actually Eileen Brennan (over playing) is pretty horrible too.

Fun to see Goldie Hawn put through her army paces, befriending colleagues such as May Kay Place, though it's exactly these comrades that should have featured strongly in weak conclusion which has Goldie walk off into the French countryside, clad in wedding gown.

Our Girl Friday (1953 Noel Langley)

Spoiled brat is stranded on desert island (Mallorca) with rough and ready ship's mate Kenneth More, sporting unlikely Irish accent - thus setting up an early version of Swept Away.  Big difference is huffy journalist George Cole and prig Robertson Hare are there also.

Amazingly Joan still had a career afterwards, in fact was shortly Hollywood bound. Maybe because of her skill in whipping up a bikini out of an old jumper. She also asks for a gin and ginger at the ship's bar, which is a new one on me.

In incredibly washed out print on TPTV it's difficult to admire Wilkie Cooper's photography. John Seabourne is editor having fun cutting action against parrot, a trick Anne Coates seems to have picked up (Man Friday).

Accident (1967 Joseph Losey)

Characteristic Pinter piece (more of dry Dons in discussion would have been fun), making me think of Repulsion (both films were recorded by Gerry Humphreys, here with Simon Kaye, this one probably mixed by the editor) in the artful soundtrack, and Pawlikowski, in the way certain shots are held a moment too long. Fantastic film tells story in flashback of Dirk Bogarde (brilliant) and his involvement with Michael York, Jacqueline Sassard, Stanley Baker, Vivian Merchant and Delphine Seyrig. With Alexander Knox (the provost) and Freddie Jones in one of his twenty second appearances.

Really interesting editing by Reginald Beck (note quick cut of horse - the cause? - after accident), and the way he uses sound detached from Bogarde's encounter with Seyrig is years ahead of a similar bit of artistry in Out of Sight. Beck cut several films for Losey including The Go-Between.

Interesting compositions, camera moves, great Gerry Fisher photography (actually catching the lighting of the sun moving in and out of clouds in several shots), interesting John Dankworth score. Lots of care has gone into it.

It's pretty fucked up, in terms of how people behave, but there you go!

Baby Boom (1987 Charles Shyer)

I would have dated this film purely from the (awful) music to 1984 - 1986. Close.

Like Irreconcilable Differences written by Shyer and wife Nancy Meyers; film's plot is not one to investigate closely (such as the kid doesn't age at all) and is pretty predictable. The dodgy house is sold to her by a filmic descendant of the estate agent in Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House.

Main reason to watch it is for Diane Keaton (splendid and often in long uninterrupted takes) and Kristina and Michelle Kennedy as the daughter, who are delightful. Also worth seeing for Harold Ramis and Sam Shepard and William A. Fraker on camera. Sam Wanamaker is the boss and James Spader is at his back-stabbing best as a work subordinate.

The references to a Mr Larabie and to Mandrake Falls propose a hopeful filmic attachment to Wilder and Capra that isn't really there.

No Country For Old Men (2007 Ethan and Joel Coen & scr)

Ingeniously written film is incredibly cinematic - has long stretches of 'pure cinema' without any dialogue, just the highly complicit camera of the brilliant Roger Deakins - though is also peppered with distinctively dry dialogue particularly emanating from Tommy Lee Jones.

"It's a mess, ain't it sheriff?"
"If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."

"We're looking for a man who recently drank milk" etc.

 With Josh Brolin, Kelly Macdonald, Javier Bardem, Woody Harrelson.

Very little music (Carter Burwell) adds to intensity.

Won Oscars for film, writers and directors, and Bardem, BAFTAs writers / directors / camera (film went to Atonement).

The Help (2011 Tate Taylor & scr)

An acting delight - even the wallpaper's good in it. Wonderful moments between Viola Davies and Octavia Spencer (who won the Oscar), Bryce Dallas Howard superbly bitchy, Jessica Chastain touchingly vulnerable, Emma Stone and Allison Janney.

"Minnie don't burn chicken". Film gets better each time.

Music by Thomas Newman, shot by Stephen Goldblatt (Lethal Weapon). Closely based on Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel. Taylor's debut was Pretty Ugly People in 2008 (mixed reviews).

Stand By Me (1986 Rob Reiner)

Stephen King's 'The Body', adapted by Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans (though leaving out the retribution of Ace). Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell make up the gang, Keifer Sutherland leads the opposition. Melancholy filming by Thomas Del Ruth compliments material, given added weight by Richard Dreyfuss as the narrator.

It's aged well. Filmed in Oregon.

The Chase (1946 Arthur D. Ripley)

An independent production The Chase is one of the most peculiar of 1940s movies. Man hooks up with crime boss's wife and they plan to flee to Havana - so far so noir. But then it becomes really peculiar. Why won't the driver take them further? When the woman (Michele Morgan) is stabbed in a nightclub how come no one seems to notice? And when the fugitive Robert Cummings hides in the room of a mysterious girl, why is she crying? And what's all this business with the Chinese and a jade handled knife?

Philip Yordan's adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich novel 'The Black Path of Fear' (1944) is dreamlike from the moment where Steve Cochran's door is answered through an inverted cherub. With Peter Lorre. Shot by 'Frank' Planer with a pianoy score by Michel Michelet.

Bringing Out the Dead (1999 Martin Scorsese)

Q was reading up on Thelma Schoonmaker, saying that Raging Bull (her 'baby') wasn't appreciated for 10 years, and the one that never was was Bringing Out the Dead... well, we love it (last time) and needed no further excuse for pyrotechnics, seriously well shot by Robert Richardson (no nominations of any kind) and brilliantly edited by Thelma (no nominations of any kind). Nicolas Cage also fantastic as burned out paramedic.

Now this one is only two hours, Mr. S. Take note.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013 Martin Scorsese)

I'm sorry but I thought it was too long this time (previously summer 2014). Marty, can't you make a normal length film? (Not that I've got anything against long films per se: I'd watch The Best Years of Our Lives at the drop of a hat. It's just films that feel too long.) So for example the later stuff on board the yacht in a storm seems unnecessary.

It's interestingly old-fashioned in that it's not a Steadicam film, rather all the marvellous tracks, pans, whip pans and other fluid camerawork are all done in the old-fashioned way.

Leo is simply superb, giving a performance of extraordinary physicality - he, the unmissable Jonah Hill, Marty, Terence Winter and the film itself were nominated for Oscars but was beaten by 12 Years a Slave, Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) and John Ridley (12 Years a Slave).

Still a lot of it is terrific fun. In one of the office party scenes I was definitely getting a flavour of Fellini, and the office itself could be straight out of The Apartment.

I could do worse than listen to the wolf's sales motivation speech.

Maid in Manhattan (2002 Wayne Wang)

From a John Hughes story, adapted by Kevin Wade (Working Girl), I've now no idea how this came to be on my radar but Ralph Fiennes and a pint and a half of Jay-Lo occupy the screen perfectly amiably. I like hotel films. Though I mean, y'know, she would have just told him... It's one of those films...

We love Ralph Fiennes, who's apparently rather good in the new remake of La Piscine. We also have a slightly camp Natasha Richardson, and Stanley Tucci, Bob Hoskins and (no relation) Priscilla Lopez, framed by Karl Walter Lindenlaub (of the Lindenlaubs) and cut together by Craig McKay again with some more slightly annoying music by Alan Silvestri again. Actually no idea who the Lindenlaubs are, though must get them over for lunch soon.

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948 H.C. Potter)

It's been a while since we saw this old forerunner of The Money Pit and it made us sorely glad we didn't buy that similarly unhappy property in Binfield... Cary Grant and Myrna Loy are the stupid purchasers, Melvyn Douglas their friend. It isn't actually that funny (screenplay by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, from Eric Hodgins' novel).

James Wong Howe shot it.

Sicario (2015 Denis Villeneuve)

I remember now - Incendies in 2010 about twins who go to the Middle East to find out their identity - nominated for Oscar and BAFTA. He's Canadian. Now we're in Mexico. A place of donkeys, burritos and dismembered corpses hanging from bridges. Roger Deakins catches an arid washed out desertscape into which Emily Blunt and Daniel Kaluuya are recruited by the CIA to track down drug cartel boss. Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro are the professional trackers.

I think the problem here lies with a lack of concern for Emily's character who's not given any depth and thus we don't care enough about her. The plot anyway wanders into Benicio's story and the fate that has befallen his family which fuels his vendetta. The side story about the Mexican cop doesn't feel integrated. Taylor Sheridan wrote it (his debut). The music is by Jóhann Jóhansson (The Theory of Everything) and it's edited by Joe Walker (12 Years a Slave, Shame, Hunger, Sword of Honour).

Poor Emily looks thin and hungry. Film could have done with some humour. Roger's lighting in night / twilight scenes is just amazing. There are a couple of terrific tense scenes such as the attempted ambush in a traffic jam.

Something Wild (1986 Jonathan Demme)

Terrific, stylish fun, characterised by clever details, an impish plot (written by E. Max Frye of Foxcatcher fame, unbelievably), a most interesting soundtrack (clearly important to the director) and a terrific undercurrent of black American culture. It's also a kind of road movie and in thrillerish places anticipates The Silence of the Lambs. The last shot - a pan from the reunited couple to a lady who sings us out - is cool.

Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith are the runaways (love the scene when he's in the service station store and keeps charging more stuff to his company card) and Ray Liotta the violent ex, scarily believable as ever.

Shot and edited by Tak Fujimoto and Craig McKay, both regular collaborators.

The Lucky Ones (2008 Neil Burger & co-scr)

Written with Dick Wittenborn, The Illusionist is probably still Burger's best known work*, but this is a subtle and quite un-Hollywoody story of servicemen on leave - a sort of updated Best Years of Our Lives, with a far bleaker ending. It doesn't condone war or the army, just sits there like a frog on a log, and is all the better for it. It's in all the reactions of people they encounter where there is any commentary at all, and the moment where they pass a car containing middle eastern types without a word is tangy.

The trio comprises Tim Robbins, Michael Peña and a rather good Rachel McAdams (again) who plays it convincingly slightly thick.

Shot by Declan Quinn.Music by Rolfe Kent.

* Limitless (2011) is about a pill which gives you 100% of your brain power, with Bradley Cooper and Anna Friel. Divergent (2014) features Shailene Woodley, funnily enough, and Kate Winslet and is another sci-fi imagining, making The Lucky Ones the least typical of this writer's stuff.
Wittenborn made the odd-sounding Fierce People in 2005, with Donald Sutherland, and the rare and tasteless-sounding Mr Mike's Mondo Video in 1979, both of which have been ordered.

Outrageous Fortune (1987 Arthur Hiller)

I wanted more Shelley Long, who gives the film its funniest moment when she impersonates a tough New York cop, much to Better Midler's surprise (and growing admiration).

Debut screenplay of Leslie Dixon (whose next film was Overboard) also features Peter Coyote, Robert Prosky (the ballet teacher), John Shuck, George Carlin (drunk in the desert), Anthony Heald (undercover CIA agent).

When the Indians came in on bikes I thought what a great idea it would have been in the seventies to make a variation on cowboys and Indians featuring them against Hell's Angels.

Fun, though the Linn drum and slap bass (Alan Silvestri) do become quite exhausting.

My Sister's Keeper (2009 Nick Cassavetes & co-scr)

Fabulous cast comprises Abigail Breslin, Sofia Vassilieva, Cameron Diaz, Jason Patric, Evan Ellingson, Alec Baldwin, Thomas Dekker (boyfriend), David Thornton as a most sympathetic doctor, Joan Cusack as the Judge.

It has enough going on and a flashback structure which helps piece the film together to stop it getting depressing or overwhelming (plus there's more going on than you initially consider e.g. what's the brother up to, what sort of life does aunt Heather Whalquist have?) Terrific moments include significance of dog, visits to fire station and beach. I think the mother has to be such a cow to make the piece as dramatic as it is, though by the end we were hoping she would die instead of the girl. Good for Cameron though who's not afraid to take frankly unlikeable roles.

Complimented by beautiful and colourful photography from Caleb Deschanel who is doing some amazing things like background headlights, and a moment at the prom featuring a curtain of fairy lights.

The Descendants (2011 Alexander Payne)

Q needed George; it's one of his best performances. And I can't tire of repeating the great ensemble cast of Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause, Beau Bridges, Robert Forster, Matthew Liddard, Judy Greer.

Q wondered why George kisses Greer suddenly on the mouth; I conjectured that films should contain surprises like life.

Although I'd previously taken some screen shots which showed this off, I hadn't quite appreciated before how well this film uses its widescreen shape (and how most films don't) - will have to check more Phedon Papamichael and Payne to work out who's responsible.

Some of the great Hawaiian incidental music was giving me a resonance of the Third Man.

Written by Payne and Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, and edited by Kevin Tent.

It's Complicated (2009 Nancy Myers & scr)

We were in a Nancy Myers mood. Film is one of those ones that's lots of bits edited expertly together (by Joe Hutshing and David Moritz) rather than leaving actors room to breathe - but it moves along nicely. Talking of actors, are Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin both ones who need restraining? Baldwin is twinkly and mischievous, Martin looks to us like he's had work done around the eyes, and looks weird. Meryl Streep is fun doing the sort of latter day comedy role she seems to enjoy. John Krasinski also has fun as son-in-law.

John Toll is one of those cinematographers who Emmanuel Lubezki name-checked but I didn't notice anything extraordinary about it.

Another film about family relationships. Would it have worked better if Baldwin and Streep had actually got back together and made it work?

Irreconcilable Differences (1984 Charles Shyer)

It's insane how many echoes bounce off this film, which in 2010 - clearly in some detoxing mood - I dismissed with "I found their arguing annoying and not the stuff of an entertaining and engaging 90 minutes". On the contrary, it's pretty funny and one of the first interesting things is that Sheyer and his then wife (1980 - 1999) Nancy Myers wrote it just like the film's central couple Ryan O'Neal and Shelley Long (both good). The way she suggests the first scene be re-written is a brilliant little exploration of what screenwriting is. Whilst by no means a rare occurrence, the plot also has a resonance of Peter Bogdanovich, Cybill Shepherd, The Last Picture Show and Polly Platt, the other woman here being Sharon Stone.

The second is how the huge failure of 'Atlanta' mirrors that of Heaven's Gate which collapsed so spectacularly that it changed the way films were produced, taking budgets away from directors and giving them instead to box-office stars.

Then apart from the auteurs you start to see it as a film about any parents who don't look after their children properly. The unfortunate bounce of that can be seen in the lives of both Ryan O'Neal and Drew Barrymore, the former having had difficult relationships with his children and several marriages. Drew's parents divorced around this time and she soon took to drugs. Drew is great in this and it's heart-breaking that she chooses to live with her 'mother' Maria (Hortensia Colorado) rather than tolerate the selfish behaviour of her parents any longer (they end up as bad as each other though it's all Ryan's fault in the first place - in fact from the very moment he declares himself not interested in 'romance and fun').

For film purists one would argue that 1934 does not represent 'early Lubitsch' at all; but also to recognise that the elaborate shot in 'Atlanta' is a homage to the famous equivalent in GWTW.

Under the banner of 'The Lost Collection' we have a very dark print in 4x3, which can't be right. William Fraker's lighting is meant to be very natural, but not unseeable. From this is taken a deliberately provocative screen shot in an attempt to childishly wind up Q:

Sam Wanamaker is the film producer.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008 Nicholas Stoller)

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but to my mind Kristen Bell (the title character) has nothing on Mila Kunis at all, who wins hands down from the get-go. And who'd go out with the Russell Brand character? Dumb Jason Segel (not so dumb - he wrote it too) eventually works it out with the participation of some cool local Hawaiians and a peppering of producer Judd Apatow's improvisational stock company - Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd and Jack McBayer.

Crap TV shows depicted are pretty funny. It strikes me that Segel could play quite a menacing character if the right one came along.

Shot by Russ T. Alsobrook.

Love Affair (1994 Glenn Gordon Caron)

Oh, that one! Has had enough changes for it not to be recognisable. Kicks off very like an old romantic comedy, fuelled by old songs from Ray Charles performed by Durante, Martin, Holliday etc. Then visit to aunt Katharine Hepburn (still capable of giving a great performance) tuns mood more serious and Ennio Morricone takes over in the music department.

Conrad Hall makes it look peculiarly like a classic old movie, then catches you out with one of his painstakingly lit interiors (Conrad W. is the operator*). Annette Bening steals the honours from Warren Beatty.

Easily as good if not better than the Cary Grant version.

* Not much, is the answer. Olympus Has Fallen (2013) - White House under attack, Morgan Freeman. The Moon and the Sun (2016), Pierce Brosnan, Louis XIV and a mermaid? Oka! (2011), musician amongst pygmies. The Longshots (2008) female football player.... etc.

The Notebook (2004 Nick Cassavetes)

Nicholas Sparks' novel adapted by Jan Serdi and Jeremy Leven.

Having spent so many years being directed by his father, do you think Gena Rowlands directed herself? It's a well directed picture. Rachel McAdams is very fresh and youthful, Ryan is more of a smoulderer. But it's in that devastating scene in the home when Gena regresses and flips out and we see James Garner looking really emotionally troubled - that's the shot that kicks you in the heart.

I would have given Gena the Oscar. With Sam Shepherd, Kevin Connolly. Shot by Robert Fraisse in Panavision.

Roger Deakins

...last week I was watching some of Tarkovsky's movies and I had the thought: There's not the audience for films like those today, but to me they're pure masterpieces. So I watch them and I know I can never do that. Some things you take from those films because they're so cinematic, like “Andrei Rublev.” Not that I can understand all of that film, but just the way it’s constructed. Most of the films we do nowadays, they're a little bit like documented plays, frankly. I'm not talking about “No Country For Old Men” or “Sicario,” but a lot of films are not cinema in the way that Tarkovsky viewed cinema.

And on digital:

I did an interview a week or so ago where I'd said, "Film is over." But I also said that I wish it wasn't, and that film stayed around for us to have the option. In many ways, I wish that there was no digital and we were all shooting film, but it's just not reality. However, they quoted me and only took the first line: "Film, it's over." [laughs] I really hope that film continues to be an option. But on “Hail, Caesar!,” I had problems with film — not only with the stock, but also with the development of stock and frankly the printing. And I've heard that many other productions have had similar problems.

Unless Kodak, which is sadly the only manufacturer left, and the labs step up and actually regain their technical perfection that they used to have, it's over. The responsibility is too great. I can't be waiting for a lab report in the morning not only worried about my contributions to that negative, but worried about the film stock and the lab's doing. That's insane. I'm not going to take that responsibility again, frankly. I think the look of “Hail, Caesar!” is pretty good. But it's the other issues.

The Playlist 

Texasville (1990 Peter Bogdanovich)

It was just over a year ago.

http://nicksfilmjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/texasville-1990-peter-bogdanovich-scr.html

One interesting thing is the production designer Phedon Papamichael is not the same as the cinematographer of the same name.

Intriguing to find out that there is a director's cut of 2:29 which was released on the Laserdisc version.

Housesitter (1992 Frank Oz)

Diverting fluffery. In response to sneaking off in the middle of the night after sleeping with her, Goldie Hawn takes over Steve Martin's house which he's left as a shrine to ex Dana Delany. Goldie it turns out is a professional fantasist and soon has his parents, boss and girlfriend eating out of her palm.

It was his plea for her not to wear tight sweaters ('especially not that one!') that I remembered. Never the subtlest of actors, Martin can still make us laugh when he's performing his silly song; Goldie also engaging.

With Donald Moffat. Mark Stein and Brian Grazer wrote it.

John Alonzo shot it and John Jympson edited. Dedicated to Frank's mum Frances Oznowicz who also was a puppeteer.

84 Charing Cross Road (1987 David Jones)

Affectionate and well written adaptation of Helene Hanff's true story (published in 1970), by Hugh Whitemore, expertly performed by Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins, making the supporting cast virtually redundant (though it's wonderful how the staff and wife all start to become involved in the correspondence). In fact it's a film to make you want to write a letter again. Very enjoyable.

It made me think of my own quests (and enjoyment in) tracking down hard to find movies, or the good / right version of something.

The Brigand of Kandahar (1965 John Gilling & scr)

Wanted to see it just for the great title; film turns out to be of the 'so bad it's unwatchable' category with the Chilterns (somewhere in England, anyway) masquerading as the North-West frontier, Oliver Reed laughing at everything he says, generally terrible acting and direction, plastic sets and a diabolical script. Feels like it goes on for ever - well the first 30 minutes is as far as I could get.

Elizabethtown (2005 Cameron Crowe & scr)

Um, look. This film didn't win any awards whatsoever. But I'd contend that Kirsten Dunst is so good in it she should have been Oscar and BAFTA-nominated, not to mention the Greek Shipping Awards 2006 finalist. Crowe and editor David Moritz keep her on screen a lot (not that Bloom isn't fine), despite the fact that our headmaster told us we shouldn't use the words got, bit and lot.

If any more evidence were needed that Dunst's character is Miss Kubelik, she even does that same rotation of the wrist on board the plane as MacLaine does in the elevator.

OK you could argue the film is overlong but what are you going to cut? Susan Sarandon tap dancing? Freebird? Journey through the South? It's all essential, so fuck off everyone.

I was amused to see that the kids' education film about blowing up a house is real.

Has the usual care taken in its soundtrack selection. It's wonderful.

Blame it on Rio (1984 Stanley Donen & prod)

Bizarrely we find ourselves back in the musical and exuberant Rio de Janeiro where irresponsible father Michael Caine doesn't even have the excuse of being sozzled before he shags best friend's daughter Michelle Johnson in Larry Gelbart and Charlie Peters' wish fulfilment fantasy. Demi Moore, you'll notice, keeps her boobs covered up and thus she doesn't get into any of this sort of trouble, even with Joseph Bologna, and it's very nice to see Valerie Harper again as her mom.

Caine is better than the material, which is frequently clichéd but quite fun (though entirely suspect).

The trouble begins...

We Bought a Zoo (2011 Cameron Crowe)

Aline Brosh McKenna was engaged to adapt Benjamin Mee's memoir, then Cameron liked the story and 'ran it through his own filter' (it sure sounds like a CC film). He also gets great performances out of kids.

One of the last delightful things you see is the beaming grin of Elle Fanning. As to that last collage of animal shots, it's no coincidence that the last is the lion - through the cage.

Johann Scarlettson is of course terribly good, and note the construction of the Angus Macfadyen sub-plot, the great casting of small parts, the almost silent Patrick Fugit, the seamless collaboration of Crowe, Prieto and Livolsi, the tiger....
It's magnificently zibbulous.

Rio I Love You (2014)

Absolutely another Paris Je T'Aime with its individual stories of varying tone, even down to another silly vampire episode!

Basil Hoffman and Emily Mortimer are married, Fernando Montenegro is Mrs Nobody, Harvey Keitel and Nadine Labaki (she directed) are in the sweetest episode 'O Milagre / The Miracle', involving a kid who's waiting to talk to Jesus. Ryan Kwanten is a mountain-climbing actor, John Turturro (wrote and directed) and Vanessa Paradis split up to a lovely French song, Tonico Pereira is the light-footed vampire. With a sensationally photographed hang-gliding episode over the statue of Christ the Redeemer.

Guillermo Arriaga wrote and directed the episode with a one-armed boxer, Fernando Mereilles the one with Vincent Cassel; plethora of international directors are from all over the shop.

It's good.

Plaza Suite (1970 Arthur Hiller)

Mike Nichols directed the play on Broadway in 1968, when Neil Simon was 41. I wondered about his age because this feels cynical, especially the grating but well-observed relationship between Matthau and Maureen Stapleton in episode one; then, in two, star Matthau in curious wig (making me think of Martin Freeman) eventually seduces the wonderful Barbara Harris after a thousand stingers. By the time the third act comes along, involving Lee Grant, we are becoming frustrated about how attenuated this material is (the Hitchcock half hour rule again applies) - we both wanted the daughter to be stabbed for childishly and silently occupying the bathroom rather than wanting to get married. Worth watching for Matthau and his co-stars and the odd laugh, but the reason we don't watch the film often is self-evident.

Il Giovani Montalbano - Season 2 (2015)

Highlights: Salvo gets into a gun battle while taking Livia out to dinner.

Funny episode: Il Ladro Onesto in which Salvo enlists the help of honest thief to help crack a kidnapping, then gets Fazio to partake in breaking and entering!

Un Albicocca (an apricot) - will Salvo leave Sicily for Genoa with Livia? We think so, but series finale dramatically ends with the Falcone murder (1992).

Zoolander (2001 Ben Stiller)

Drake Sather, Stiller and John Hamburg wrote this silly film which is scuppered by Stiller's annoying performance (and thus, his own direction) - had he kept the character straighter, but still hopelessly thick - and without silly accent - I feel it would have been better. Owen Wilson by contrast is fine.

With Will Farrell, Christine Taylor, Milla Jovovich, Jerry Stiller, David Duchovny, Jon Voight. And it was a very nice surprise indeed to see David Bowie in fine form as dance-off judge.

Juno (2007 Jason Reitman)

Ellen Page (notice how wonderful she is in scene in mall with mum-to-be Jennifer Garner), Michael Cera ('serra'), J.K. Simmons, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, Olivia Thirlby, Rainn Wilson.

Film is well written by Diablo Cody (won Oscar and BAFTA), illustrative songs are funny. Photographed by Eric Steelberg and edited by Dana Glauberman i.e. the Up in the Air team.

"She smells of soup."

Notting Hill (1999 Roger Michell)

I think Hugh Grant is a good actor, though Rhys Ifans steals all his scenes, naturally.

Great support cast comprises Tim McInnerny, Hugh Bonneville, Gina McKee, Emma Chambers, James Dreyfus, Clarke Peters, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Dylan Moran, Mischa Barton, Samuel West (from Howard's End), Sanjeev Bhaskar, Emily Mortimer and someone called Julia Robert.

Super (2010 James Gunn & scr)

Rainn Wilson is the wrench wielding super-hero, Ellen Page his sidekick (she's terrific). Another of those films that mixes comic book heroes with ultra-violence - and they don't sit well together.

It's quite fun though in a sick sort of way. Kevin Bacon is a good bad guy, Liv Tyler is the junkie wife.

There Will Be Blood (2007 Paul Thomas Anderson & scr)

"Do you remember seeing a snake?" I asked at the end of the film, "only there was a credit for a snake wrangler."
"That was to keep the snakes away" Q answered, most sensibly.
The film was dedicated to Robert Altman 1925 - 2006.

Here's the review from 7 December 2009:
'I think comparisons to Chinatown and Citizen Kane are perhaps a little overstretched.. lots of reviewers saying DDL based on John Huston (Q observed physical resemblance). We don't give a toss about Daniel Plainview whose sole mission is to get enough money to to get away from people.. Howard Hughes? But he was interesting.
I don't think I should be a film critic if my view is so different to the top critics, though I really liked the music (Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead) and as Q again observed, the first hour seemed more engrossing.'

Who wants to be a critic, anyway? I want to like something because I like it, not because I'm told to. Anyway, having enjoyed a tremendous run of PTA in the last couple of years, we find this much more rewarding, and particularly well made. And funny. The scenes between Daniel Day Lewis (who's absolutely terrific, and who definitely sounds like Huston) and Paul Dano (pronounced 'day-no' - who's also absolutely terrific) are particularly funny, especially the baptism and the film's finale, which ends with the brilliant and funny line "I'm finished".

Robert Elswit won the Oscar and you get all sorts of great technical stuff - magic hour, lighting by firelight alone, the stuff down the shaft, in the sea -- and then for some reason the night scene where Plainview kills and buries his 'brother' seems artificially lit -- why? Also, as Q remarked, "they haven't aged Paul Dano very well" (i.e. at all) - though I wonder if this is somehow deliberate, like the fact that the two viewings we see of Plainview's signature are very different.

The kids are good - Dillon Freasier (he sensibly stuck to just the one film) and Sydney McCallister (who did the same). With Ciaran Hinds, Kevin J O'Connor (Plainview's 'brother').

Score also features Brahams string concerto and work by Arvo Part, a contemporary of Gorecki and Tavener ("holy minimalism") - 'Fratres for Cello and Piano' is that piece that sounds really hard to play on a cello. Greenwood's own stuff was making me think of The Shining (there's a similarity to Penderecki in those brilliant strings).

All in all, though, I found it less astonishing than Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love and less funny than The Master and Inherent Vice but I loved its silent sequences and leaps through time. Edited by Dylan Tichenor.

My Voyage to Italy - Part 2

Marty takes a very close look at the style of Visconti - the ultra-realist Terra Trema, the noir of Ossessione, the beauty of Senso, dwelling long on Fellini and remarking on the flop of Rossellini's Viaggio in Italia - which both he and the New Wave loved.

8 1/2  is exhausting; L'Eclisse looks great - at a time when international cinema was becoming more and more experimental with every film. Loved his remark on the final shot of L'Avventura - that it haunted him and continues to do so. Also his love for the early Fellini I Vitelloni (Nino Rota actually gets a name check), the characters in which were like looking at his own life, and which specifically influenced Mean Streets.

All the Right Noises (1969 Rel. 1971, Gerry O'Hara & scr)

The title's something Tom Bell says to (very) young girlfriend Olivia Hussey about how he manages to get away with affair - by making all the right noises to his wife Judy Carne, so she doesn't suspect... Or does she? Film is quite thrillery, in a way (especially where the wife comes home early from an ad shoot in Mallorca).

Not quite sure why film took so long to be released - the same fate befell another Tony Gibbs edited at this time - Performance - he may have been getting somewhat pissed off. He gives us some of his trademark beautiful dissolves on a beach (it's becoming a lost art, I tell you). Shot nice and realistically by Gerry Fisher.

What happened to Olivia Hussey? She's remarkably fresh and natural, having been Juliet for Zeffirelli the year before. She seems to have ended up in Z grade films and TV. It's a good question. Bell and Carne also very believable, as is story.

War and Peace (2016 Tom Harper)

Paul Dano makes an unlikely but highly successful lead, James Norton as fine as we expect him to be, Downton's Lily James given the chance to flex her acting abilities, Jim Broadbent in great form as bad-tempered head of household.

Great cast also includes Gillian Anderson, Stephen Rea, Brian Cox, Matthieu Kassovitz (Napoleon), Jessie Buckley (JN's sister), Jack Lowden, Aisling Loftus, Adrian Edmondson, Greta Scacchi, Tuppence Middleton (whoreish wife), Callum Turner & Tom Burke (the bad boys).

Harper made the questionable Scouting Book for Boys, episodes of This is England 86.  Andrew Davies has adapted Tolstoy (was Napoleon pulling the Russian's ear in the novel?) It's shot by George Steel (The Honourable Woman, Peaky Blinders, Harper's Woman in Black 2), and the fantastic music is by Martin Phipps, whose credits include Woman in Gold, The Honourable Woman, The Shadow Line, Brighton Rock, Clapham Junction, The Ruby in the Smoke, Low Winter Sun, The Line of Beauty, and Dirty Filthy Love - not a bad CV!

Filmed all over the place in  Russia, Lithuania and Latvia.

Broadway Danny Rose (1984 Woody Allen & scr)

"Where did the suggestion come from?" Q asked me. I replied it was like having sex - once you'd had it, you wanted more. I was in a mood for a black and white one and Gordon Willis makes every shot beautiful.

It's in his 'interesting faces Fellini' period, Woody in good expressive gesture New York mode.

Then She Found Me (2007 Helen Hunt & co-scr)

Based on 1990 Elinor Lipman novel (not a great title), adapted by the director and Alice Arlen and Victor Levin about recently separated woman who is approached by chat show success birth mother Bette Midler. Hunt looks really thin and unattractive - I find her mannerisms and manner the same in everything - but here she's tempered by an on-good-form Colin Firth, whose dialogue sounds like it's been tailored for him specifically (he's English, thankfully).

Matthew Broderick is her feckless ex, Ben Shenkman her brother and John Benjamin Hickey (who we must recognise from The Big C and The Good Wife) is Bette's slightly oddly behaving manager (looks like his part was bigger but cut down?) Salman Rushdie, quite oddly, is a paediatrician.

We couldn't understand it at all when she has sex in a car with the ex.

Miss You Already (2015 Catherine Hardwicke)

Q then sucker-punched me with film about woman dying of cancer (even though said woman was Toni Collette, befriended by the unrecognisable Drew Barrymore. I thought Toni was much older but it turned out she was 45 to Drew's 42). With Dominic Cooper, Paddy Considine and Jacqueline Bisset as the mother.

Shifts in mood somewhat - thus birth scene feels a little Richard Curtisy - though doesn't drown in itself. Morwenna Banks wrote it, handling the responses of the kids pretty authentically. (We happened to hear her on the radio the day after and she was talking about how cancer had hit some of the people she knew in their thirties and how this 'bomb' affected their lives.)

Elliot Davis shot it. Hardwicke directed Thirteen in 2003, Twilight in '08 and a dark Red Riding Hood in 2011 with Amanda Egg.

Irrational Man (2015 Woody Allen & scr)

Fabulous new entry in series by a man who keeps making the same kind of meditational films but strives to approach the material differently. Here, after silent credits, an unusual blues score takes over, often acting against the material when it later presents thriller-like scenes - which aren't cut like thrillers. In fact the cool observation of murders makes me think of a director with whom I'm hardly acquainted (but must become moreso) Claude Chabrol.

Beautifully set up in the script and story ('murder', you notice, is mentioned very early on).

Has wonderfully ironic scenes such as when the talented Emma Stone works out how the murder might have taken place while murderer Joaquin Phoenix is sat next to her, opposite Betsy Aidem and Ethan Phillips. With Jamie Blackley, Parker Posey. The ending is a doozy.

Shot in widescreen again by Darius Khondji with design by Loquasto (a mere 72 - Radio Days was their first collaboration) and Lepselter editing.