Aloha (2015 Cameron Crowe)

In contrast to Sisters, Aloha (last seen in October) is absolutely beautifully constructed, written, performed and produced in every respect. It starts out in a flurry of jokes, fast talking, brilliant plot development - slightly in setting like the beginning of A Foreign Affair, then turns into a deeper love story or two. I should pay attention to the legend involving Lono better next time as I'm sure it runs through the plot.

Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone are outstanding but all the other parts are beautifully cast and acted. It's a real joy. There's a jarring moment where the camera suddenly switches sides in a lateral two-shot, then back again - it breaks the rules, but Cameron doesn't care....

Sisters (2015 Jason Moore)

No problem with acting of people like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Diane Weist, Maya Rudolph etc but Sisters is another one of those lazily written and constructed collections of filmed sketches. I started out wondering if I would snigger more than five times: it turned out to be at least double that, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, quite enjoyable really, but felt too long - thank god we didn't watch the extended version.

Joe Versus the Volcano (1990 John Patrick Shanley & scr)

It had been a long time, and probably the first we saw it in its proper Panavision ratio. It's a slightly patchy affair, with one or two moments which flag, but much to enjoy with Tom Hanks, three Meg Ryans (perhaps in a nod to Blimp), Lloyd Bridges, Dan Hedaya (who's in every American film of this period), Robert Stack, Abe Vigoda (The Godfather), Amanda Plummer, Ossie Davis (a cool tax driver) and even a glimpse of a Nathan Lane. In fact the moment where he goes shopping had me really excited as I thought I was finally on to that film that's been bugging me for years in which triple-stitched suits feature, but it was not to be.

A colourful affair, nicely designed and beautifully shot by Stephen Goldblatt, kinda old-fashioned and slightly reminiscent of Last Holiday - the subtext about wasting lives and taking the courage to jump does not go unappreciated.

Line of Duty III (Written by Jed Mercurio)

You've got to watch that Jed, he's a crafty bugger. In the gripping final episode, the tables are turned on the dogged and faithful DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) when he finds himself in the AS12 questioning room. So much of these shows take place in that questioning room, using technical language and references and quoting chapters of the law that it's amazing how suspenseful it remains - the ballet of the eyes and the acting helps (Vicky McClure, Adrian Dunbar, Craig Parkinson). I read afterwards they're shot in long takes with three cameras, and that the two interviews in the last episode are amazingly half an hour each.

Another stroke of genius though is to incapacitate our hero and leave the dangerous stuff to Vicky who comes over strong at the tremendously exciting finale (where in another writing masterstroke the 'caddy' dies without revealing his trove of secrets).

Keeley Hawes must have been hating Mercurio by the end for what happens to her character (though the scene in which she stands up to a predatory social worker is terrific). With Neil Morrissey, Polly Walker (who we first spotted in Enchanted April), Arsher Ali, George Costigan, Jonas Armstrong (children's home survivor) and Will Mellor. But, best of all, and sadly for only one episode, the great Daniel Mays, who makes the meatiest role.

It was just tremendously good, proven by the fact that we were still talking about it weeks later - it sure pissed on Happy Valley's bonfire.

Bachelor Party (1984 Neal Israel & co-scr)

Having been warned the film was raucous and incorporated a drug-taking donkey I was a bit surprised the film was as tame as it was and wondered if it had been edited (it hadn't). Of course I was expecting something as crude and offensive as one of its 21st Century descendants like The Hangover or something. This is altogether a different beast with Tom Hanks in bouncy early role, none of the rest of the cast really worthy of a mention (sorry).

Grandma (2015 Paul Weitz & scr)

I'd love to have been with Lily Tomlin when she read this script - after just a few pages she must have thought 'Yes!' especially with lines like "I like being old. Young people are stupid."

Who Weitz? He wrote Antz and adapted About a Boy. This is brilliant, we learn about her in bits as we go along. It's also commendably (almost shockingly) short.

Lily is terrific and the moment where she attacks her granddaughter's truly foul 'boyfriend' is an absolute delight. The girl is Julia Garner (The Perks of being a Wallflower, Mary Marcy May Marlene) and she'll go far. With Judy Greer, Laverne Cox, Elizabeth Peña, Sam Elliott, Marcia Gay Harden and (didn't recognise her again) Colleen Camp ('Bonobo' customer).

I hadn't heard of Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' either.

Volunteers (1985 Nicholas Meyer)

Cheerful nonsense in which Tom Hanks (in one of his first films, effortlessly smooth) finds himself in the Peace Corps in  Thailand (Mexico, with imported animals), accompanied by John Candy and Rita Wilson. They got together during the shooting (Tom was in fact still married) and that's the kind of background info I really like:

“Rita and I just looked at each other and — kaboing — that was that. I asked Rita if it was the real thing for her, and it just couldn't be denied.”

With shades of Bridge on the River Kwai and Casablanca it bundles along briskly like an efficient mother in Sainsburys.

Scott & Bailey (2016 Alex Kalymnios)

Scott and Bailey - or 'Cagney and Lacey', as it's known in this house - is one of the best directed things on television, like it's a really good film. I was struck in episode one how a police briefing scene reminded me of Citizen Kane (all confusion and lights), and there's some terrific off-the-wall compositions where the characters inhabit the very edge of the frame, like Pawlikowski or someone. Then in episode two there seemed to be lots more good compositions and different camera set ups in the same scene, like Hitch would do, plus cross-cutting between scenes, two very good uses of sound (no one seems to do this any more), and to top it all off, the finale takes place in the rain (no one does this any more). It was so good I had to write to the director to compliment her.

No problems with the cast of course, Suranne Jones and Leslie Sharp (though we miss Amelia Bullmore), Jung Lusi (also in Stan Lee's Lucky Man) nor the cameraman Ollie Downey.

Created by Sally Wainwright and Diane Taylor

The Big Picture (1989 Christopher Guest)

Gleefully sarcastic look at film industry, right from opening (crap) film awards. Kevin Bacon is the far too easily swayed budding director, Emily Longstreth his girlfriend and Teri Hatcher the archetypal other woman (with her stick thin body and big hair she's somewhat reminiscent of a mop). With JT Walsh, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Cleese.

Great car casting, particularly the first one, which surely wasn't a US model (too small)?

Films about films are often interesting - this is quite light (electric fireplace addict producer starts changing the plot before he's even heard it). Andres Vargiak isn't anyone.

Amusing cinematic asides include a faithful recreation of The Lost Weekend's bar room scene.

The Spectacular Now (2013 James Ponsoldt)

Classy, honest film features Shailene Woodley two years after The Descendants (here actually 22, playing 17 perfectly), matched against the equally good Miles Teller, who has something of the young John Cusack about him (but more soulful).

Has the distinction of featuring one very long track of the couple talking - Preston Sturges would have been happy. Plus a scene at a bus stop that is distinctly Hopper (Jess Hall of Hot Fuzz and Son of Rambow on camera).

Cast also features Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh. The Wire's Andre Royo and Breaking Bad's Bob Odenkirk.

Tim Tharp wrote the source 2008 novel which was adapted by Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber, who also wrote (500) Days of Summer and the 2014 Shailene featured The Fault in Our Stars together. It was rather good and whilst you could argue there was nothing especially new or different about it - though with the drinking angle actually you could - it marvellously atones for yesterday's slop.

The A Word (2016 Pater Cattaneo)

Quite the best written thing on television currently, Peter Bowker's story of an autistic child is in fact about how everyone is affected by it. The characters are brilliantly rounded and it's a nuanced work, also at times very funny indeed.

Great cast comprises the hideously behaving Morvern Christie, Lee Ingleby, Greg McHugh, Vinette Robinson (the daughter), Julia Krynke (the babysitter who is actually one of the best people at looking after the child), Chris Ecclestone, Max Vento (Joe), Molly Wright (daughter), Pooky Quesnel (music teacher).

It's interesting to think what Joe might think of Mozart's Requiem, or Stravinsky.

Bowker's credits are:

Capital (2015)
Asylum (2015)
Marvellous (2014)
From There to Here (2014)
Monroe (2012)
Eric & Ernie (2011)
Desperate Romantics (2009)
Occupation (2009)
Wuthering Heights (2009)
Viva Blackpool (2006)
Blackpool (2004)
Single (2003)
Flesh and Blood (2002)
The King and Us (2002)
Buried Treasure (2001)
Many previous TV cerdits.

Going the Distance (2010 Nanette Burstein)

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long (who we probably recognise from Youth in Revolt and Serious Moonlight) have long distance relationship (2500 miles to be precise) between, San Francisco and New York; or six hours non-stop. There's nothing particularly new or interesting going on here, however.

What really upends it is the quite horrible behaviour of his friends (I'm sure we've had an unpleasant encounter with squeaky voiced Charlie Day somewhere) and her sister (Christina Applegate), who is so uptight it's like she never could laugh. I'm sure people are like that, but why writes people like that unless it's for a very good reason? It's sort of frat humour and it just isn't funny. In fact the moment the couple meet, he deliberately steps in front of her video game because he wants her off it, and she should really have said 'Fuck you' right from the word go.

The band - The Boxer Rebellion - is of course a real one.

Ball of Fire (1941 Howard Hawks)

Written by Wilder in Germany and revived for Hawks, who as usual directs with the simplest of setups, it introduced Billy to future collaborators Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper. He wasn't crazy about it but only a foreigner can write a screenplay which has so much fun with colloquial language and slang, some of which may well be made up for all I know. (Should add that Charles Brackett co-wrote it.)

Stanwyck is terrifically likeable and Gregg Toland sure does make her sparkle like Tinkerbell.

Great cast includes Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea, S.Z. Sakall, Richard Haydn, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, Tully Marshall, Leonid Kinskey, Aubrey Mather, Allen Jenkins.

Friends with Benefits (2011 Will Gluck)

The film keeps getting better and better and despite its subversive stance is in fact exactly the film that it's trying to upend, namely a romcom. However it's smarter than most, from the beginning in which it looks like JT is late for a date - he is, but it's another date. The story is by Harley Peyton (a Twin Peaks writer), David A. Newman and Keith Merryman with Gluck getting a credit for the screenplay with them.

Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake are very natural and likeable. With Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson and Nolan Gould as the kid who keeps stuffing up his magic tricks. Yes that is Masi Oka on the plane, and Emma Stone and Jason Segel.

Harrelson has the best little speeches, like how he loves women. "They're beautiful, majestic, mysterious, mesmerizing creatures, smart, empathetic, superior to men in every way." Plus Clarkson - "I'm hungry. Got any gin?"

Rain Man (1988 Barry Levinson)

It's now pretty widely acknowledged that Tom Cruise is every bit as good as Dustin Hoffman, though only one of them won the Oscar (Cruise wasn't nominated at all). Wilder on this:

..the guys, the leading men, who get awards have to walk with a limp or act retarded. They don't notice the guy who does all the hard work. who is making it look easy. You can't just open a drawer beautifully and take out a tie and put on a jacket [..] Anybody who plays a hunchback has got better chances than a handsome leading man. That is the revenge of the voters, you know, that they don't get the girls.

('Conversations with Wilder' by Cameron Crowe, on Cary Grant, and Tom Cruise in Rain Man.)

 Film also won for director, screenplay (Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass) and film, whilst John Seale's photography, Stu Linder's editing and Hans Zimmer's score were all nominated.

I always forget the significance of 'Rain Man'.

The Sweet Smell of Success was easy but even I was impressed with myself for getting Touch of Evil with only half the TV screen being visible.

Loved the scene where Dustin brings his forehead in to meet Cruise's, who plays his most unlikeable character. Valeria Golino (Leaving Las Vegas, The Indian Runner) is Tom's girlfriend.

Private Peaceful (2012 Pat O'Connor)

Despite efforts of George MacKay (The Boys are Back), Jack O'Connell, Alexandra Roach (No Offence) et al the film fails to come alive. War scenes aren't nearly tough enough; rest of film is lukewarm.

With: Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, John Lynch (sergeant, The Fall), Maxine Peake, Eline Powell.

Leatherheads (2008 George Clooney)

OK, it isn't a screwball comedy, but it does have elements of screwball in it, particularly scenes involving Renee Zellweger. John Krasinski and George also appear. Its editing by Stephen Mirrione is quite wonderful and so is Newton Thomas Sigel's lighting.

Bridge of Spies (2015 Steven Spielberg)

We loved this, as good as one of his old films - better perhaps. Twenty minutes in I was thinking 'this is a textbook example of how to make a film brilliantly'. Everything is good - the screenplay is exemplary (the Coens and Matt Charman, author of Lee Ingleby TV series Our Zoo), the photography divine (Janusz Kaminski, using 'classic film noir' lighting), the editing inspired (Michael Khan), the acting brilliant (Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance (The Government Inspector), Alan Alda, Amy Ryan, Sebastian Koch (Homeland, The Lives of Others) down to the young Max Mauff), the sound and production design and Thomas Newman's music (his 13th nomination!) top class.

Oh yeah, it's quite well directed too. Begins in a particularly classy, cinematic way. Hanks is the archetypal good guy again, 'one is one' becomes 'one is two'.

Loved it. Q thinks film of the year so far. Also loved the ellipses - the unexplored story of the daughter (Eve Hewson, Enough Said, The Knick) going out with his administrator; the only thing we know about the imprisoned student (Billy Magnussen) is he was looking out for his girlfriend and her father...

With its low angles and photography and feeling of paranoia, and especially in the scene with the false family, it was giving me echoes of Orson Welles' The Trial.

Never Say Goodbye (1955 Jerry Hopper)

'Sirk on Sirk' (Jon Halliday):
 "I'm not responsible for this picture.
What happened on it?
I brought over Cornell Borchers from Germany, and I did some work on preparing it. But then I had to leave it to do Written on the Wind, and later I was brought back to finish it as best I could. I think there was some good stuff by Jerry Hopper in it."

It certainly looks like a fifties Universal Sirk, handsomely shot by Maury Gertsman (a B movie cameraman) and scored by Frank Skinner, with a frankly incredible story, featuring a suddenly famous Rock Hudson as a jealous idiot and the somewhat strange Borchers as his wife. George Sanders is the rather irritating friend.

Clint Eastwood is in it for several seconds.

Line of Duty - Season 2 (2013, broadcast 2014 Jed Mercurio)

Thrilling writing in the 'long firm' style - such as we don't know what 'Dot' Cotten is really up to. Has a sensational opening to episode one. Keely Hawes is a revelation - she doesn't even look like herself. When reading the script she must have questioned how much she is horribly abused throughout.

The drunken camerawork doesn't add anything and is at times risible.

Martin Compston, Vicky McClure, Adrian Dunbar, Craig Parkinson ('Dot'), Neil Morrissey, Mark Bonnar (Chief Constable).

Starman (1984 John Carpenter)

Jeff Bridges gives a funny, good and quirky performance as alien, balanced by a sympathetic, doe-eyed Karen Allen, who we last saw in Animal House. (Blow Out's Nancy Allen is no relation.) It's pretty swishy. Has not much depth. Charles Martin Smith is pursuing them, but you know he's going to let them get away. You can fly as many helicopters as you've got into the crater but it won't change anything. Special effects in eighties films are nuts.

The alien civilisation has one language, no war, and the strong don't exploit the vulnerable. But they don't have singing, or apple pie. They're a hundred thousand years more advanced than we are, but America is still better.

My Man Godfrey (1936 Gregory la Cava)

I love Carole Lombard, and why shouldn't I love this gorgeous, mad, eccentric, unique, short-lived figure? I've also come to love Eric Hatch, the novelist, after reading 'Five Days' (1933) which would also make a great screwball film. There's something about screwball which is easy to love and hard to replicate. It needs a screwy female lead, certainly, and a laid-back leading man - here, William Powell - but also you could think of a diffident Cary Grant. Having the likes of Eugene Pallette and Mischa Auer, Jean Dixon (the maid), Alan Mowbray and Alice Brady (the mother) certainly helps.

"Oh mother, Godfrey loves me. He put me in the shower."

"He left suddenly by the side window."

"Stand still, Godfrey. It'll all be over in a minute."

Ted Tetzlaff shot it.

Sleepless in Seattle (1993 Nora Ephron)

It's good. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan almost don't meet, Rob Reiner, Ross Malinger, Rita Wilson, David Hyde Pierce, Bill Pullman. Jeff Arch wrote the story which he, Nora and David Ward screenwrote. Trades somewhat on An Affair to Remember but so what? Sven Nykvist shot it, surprisingly.

Loved the kid's line "I'd rather die than eat airplane food".

Magnificent Obsession (1954 Douglas Sirk)

It isn't as classy as some of his other films, but Magnificent Obsession - with all its fifties charm, magnificently caught by Russell Metty - is like a beautiful warm blanket, and Sunday afternoon is the apogee of watching it. Spoiled brat Rock Hudson becomes utterly charming thanks to strange philosophical journey, a sort of 'pay it forward'. It's one of Sirk's more nutty films, though you can't argue with Frank Skinner's music.

Why are a couple of the backdrops (Switzerland, New Mexico) so obviously paintings? Because Sirk was a theatre director and he's saying 'this is a play'? It's odd, because for example the earlier back projected moments are really well done.

With Jane Wyman, Otto Kruger, Agnes Moorehead (a subtle performance), Barbara Rush, Gregg Palmer, and a trio of European doctors.

The Criterion release, remastered at its original and frankly nutty ratio of 2.00:1, is the only way to go.

Save your close up until you really need it

Jaws (1975 Steven Spielberg)

Full of the director's characteristic 'oners', film is exceptionally well made, sort of in the classic style (with fringe benefits). Actually becomes less interesting when it moves out to sea. John Milius wrote the Indianapolis scene, then Shaw rewrote it to suit him (and before that it had been written by Howard Sackler, uncredited, An before that, Steve had had a go himself at rewriting Benchley's interpretation). The three Rs are all wonderful but Dreyfuss is indispensable.

If you want a quick masterclass on film editing, look no further (Verna Fields, won Oscar, promptly retired on a high).

Philadelphia (1993 Jonathan Demme)

A perfect film? Distinguished by Demme's smallest touches (kids on bikes, wheelchair guy in lift - as usual, lots of black Americana in evidence - film is almost as much about black-white divide as AIDS?)

Really smart, the way people or things appear and you think 'why?' only for that to be resolved later. Most interesting direction, at times Hitchcocky, but with its unique way of shooting almost straight at you.

Written by Ron Nyswaner (also The Painted Veil).

And - Mary Steenburgen at her most horrible!

The statue is that of city founder William Penn atop Philadelphia City Hall.

Turner and Hooch (1989 Roger Spottiswoode)

Easy to dismiss Tom Hanks I suspect - but you'd be a fool to. Even in this lightweight fare he's wonderful, though the dog (Beasley, owned and trained by Clint Rowe) is pretty much his equal. It's an epic struggle between man and dog - forget everything else, it doesn't matter.

Nice, small town feel captured well in this line:
"Police! I need your car! Hello, Ernie."

Shot in an odd way that everything seems too close to the camera. Either that or Film 4 is a bastard.

Desert Fury (1947 Lewis Allen)

John Hodiak, Lizabeth Scott, Mary Astor, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey.

Music by Miklos Rozsa, beautiful Technicolor camerawork from Charles Lang and Edward Cronjager.

Good.

The Trouble with Harry (1954 Alfred Hitchcock)

Surely the Coen Brothers love it? It's so beautifully black. And still so beautiful (restored print on Blu-Ray looks amazing).

I scribbled down (just about legibly) Shirley MacLaine = Theresa Russell.

"You never know when you might need a dead rabbit."

"I'll get my shovel."

Up In The Air (2009 Jason Reitman)

From Walter Kirn novel (2001), beautifully screenwritten by Reitman and Sheldon Turner.

About Time (2013 Richard Curtis & scr)

Domhnall Gleeson sounds like Hugh Grant. Bill Nighy is superb (especially in table tennis scenes). Tom Hollander is wonderful. The girls are Rachel McAdams, Margot Robbie, Vanessa Kirby, Lydia Wilson (sister). Lyndsey Duncan and Richard Cordery are mum and uncle. Will Merrick was in Skins. Rowan Atkinson is not in it.

A life-affirming Groundhog Day, I enjoyed it more than the last two times.

John Gulesarian on camera, David Yates' editor Mark Day cut it.

Freud (1962 John Huston)

Finally on DVD, Huston's film is interesting, long and solemn - unlike his best. In his own words he somehow manages to fall out with all the screenwriters - Jean-Paul Sartre (who wouldn't even allow his name to be used), Charles Kaufman and Wolfgang Reinhardt - as well as stars Montgomery Clift (sozzled) and Susannah York (spoiled) though still manages to get great performances out of them (some of the expressions on this fine actress are fantastic). It manages not to be dull through some great dream / flashback scenes, particularly one involving a strange hospital, which Douglas Slocombe shoots through the weirdest lens (which must have been quite risky). Ralph Kemplen is cutting, Jerry Goldsmith's score is somewhat spooky and there's even a sequence using electronic instruments.

The Night Before (2015 Jonathan Levine)

We rather enjoyed non-improved proper film with Seth Rogan, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Anthony Mackie and surprisingly 'normal' looking actresses Jillian Bell, Lizzie Kaplan and Mindy Kaling, with Michael Shannon unrecognisable as the Mr Green the drug dealer, who's actually the ghost from 'A Christmas Carol', variously predicting the characters' presents, future and past. Also has a whiff of After Hours about it.

Someone called Brandon Trost makes nice backgrounds out of coloured lights. Edited in the too quick style (not a sign of a oner or Sturges take) by Zene Baker.

A High Wind in Jamaica (1965 Alexander Mackendrick)

No, we hadn't seen it before and yes, that is the same Sandy Mackendrick who made The Ladykillers, The Maggie, Whisky Galore and The Man in the White Suit (thus had worked with Douglas Slocombe before), then went to the US for The Sweet Smell of Success - apart from the forgettable Tony Curtis Don't Make Waves this was his last film, and it's a real charmer, particularly because of the great chemistry between Deborah Baxter and pirate chief Anthony Quinn (who, with James Coburn, is much too nice to be a real pirate). And yes again, that is novelist Martin Amis as the elder boy who rather clumsily gets himself killed.

It doesn't end the way we like it, but the gallows humour is welcome, as is the cinematic treatment.

It is a real treat for the eyes and Dougie is lighting the night scenes without a trace of artificial light - and the matching between on set and on location is superb. It's in CinemaScope and De Luxe colour.

With Nigel Davenport, Lila Kedrova (Torn Curtain), Gert Frobe, Dennis Price. Written by Stanley Mann, Ronald Harwood (The Dresser, The Pianist, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and Denis Cannan from a novel by Richard Hughes, published in 1929.

The Spanish girl, Vivienne Ventura, appears here in the hilariously titled 'Girl Illustrated':