Inside Man (2006 Spike Lee)

Ingenious heist film with Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jodie Foster (good as tough negotiator), Christopher Plummer, Willen Dafoe, Kim Director.

Matthew Libatique shoots the interrogation scenes in a murky green - where we get funny sequence interviewing old lady ("did you rob the bank?")

Good twists written by Russell Gewirtz (hardly any credits).

The Princess Diaries (2001 Garry Marshall)

Fairly tiresome Disney vehicle at least benefits from Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews and Hector Elizondo, and Robert Schwartzman (Talia Shire's son) but script isn't good and film wholly predictable.

Lots of San Francisco helps; like the house that was a fire station. Film features an oddly ugly cat.

Taxi Driver (1976 Martin Scorsese)

It's so French, the most European of any American film since the Golden Age. I'm not a fan of moving the camera unnecessarily but here Marty does it with such skill, often on an action / reaction shot too. I wish he would make another small film as good as this one. The soundtrack is also amazing, like Repulsion. Michael Chapman's photography makes this film look like no other. Bernard Herrmann's last and most sinister score.

Q., who hadn't seen it in a while, was saying "I don't remember all this. There's Albert Brooks! Where's the violence? Where's Jodie?" etc. etc.

It's AMAZING!

Pretty Woman (1990 Garry Marshall)

What would the film have been like with Jodie Foster as the prostitute? Not as much fun, I think. Film is cool thanks to a mass of details, the way Hector Elizondo looks more and more admiringly as she walks by, the look on the elevator operator's face, a waiter who catches a snail, the notes on Richard Gere's piano, "I was angry with him", that Kit (Laura San Giacomo) isn't going anywhere in a hurry.

There's a definite scent of Born Yesterday (and by that I might as well include Pygmalion) to it.

A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958 Douglas Sirk)

A Sirk double-bill continues with this brilliant, grown-up anti-war / pro-love film based on the Eric Maria Remarque novel (who also appears as the professor - how cool is that?) about a couple who fall in love in the ruins - had Sirk seen Ashes and Diamonds? - impossible, it was released the same year, though there are plenty of similarities... The ruins, the displaced people, the furniture that is outside, the tree which blossoms where it isn't burned, an elegant dinner in an air raid...

John Gavin and Liselotte Pulver (a breath of air), Jock Mahoney, Don DeFore (Nazi), Keenan Wynn inhabit this incredibly bombed-out city - there's nothing quite like it...

I love Godard's review, published in Cahiers in 1959: 'those who have not seen or loved Liselotte Pulver running along the banks of the Rhine or Danube or something, suddenly bending to pass under a barrier, then straightening up hop! with a thrust of the haunches - those who have not seen Douglas Sirk's big Mitchell camera bend at the same moment, then hop! straighten up with the same supple movement of the thighs, well, they haven't seen anything, or else they don't know beauty when they see it'.

It's a very special film, enriched by Rozsa's familiar melodies, Alexander Golitzen's art direction, and Metty's sombre Cinemascope photography.

"I'll show you how we do it in the army".

All That Heaven Allows (1955 Douglas Sirk)

My favourite Russell Metty picture, shot in fabulous Eastmancolor, begins with a view of a small town from way above - from heaven, as it were, where the behaviour of the townsfolk and especially Jane Wyman's children cause all the harm - Mr & Mrs Sirk, you notice, didn't have any* - they are also the villains of the Barbara Stanwyck/ Fred MacMurray There's Always Tomorrow (the director's next film). There are plenty of the director's trademark mirrors as well. The book referenced, 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau, is the story of simple living in a cabin - Rock Hudson sure has made the Old Mill look lovely, even glueing back together the Wedgewood jug she likes so much, but the children (Gloria Talbott and William Reynolds) gang up and buy her a television, thinking that imprisonment a better fate than an unsuitable relationship with a 'gardener'. Agnes Moorehead is at least on Wyman's side, in good prickly pear support.

An old man who wants to marry her will only drink one martini all night - Rock Hudson with his group of wine and music loving friends are a far better bet.  It's tempting to think that this is the 'old mill' which is ransomed in State and Main, protected by its own resident cute deer, so beautifully restored by Rock and art director Alexander Golitzen (absolutely incredible credits, from Foreign Correspondent through to Breezy).

Frank Skinner provides the underscore.

There's always some philosophy at the centre of Sirk's work.

* Sirk had a son by his first wife, who she raised as a Nazi and refused to let him see him. He died on the Eastern Front in 1942.

Bullets Over Broadway (1994 Woody Allen)

Written with Doug McGrath, and no more about that can I tell you. Story in which gangster bodyguard (Chazz Palminteri) ends up (re) writing play is inspired.

Of Diane Wiest, however, "I kept saying to her, "You have to really make it like Norma Desmond, really extreme...She's one of those actresses who's like all those girls I went to school with. They'd tell you 'Oh, I did so terrible on that test'. I'd always come out 'Oh I knocked that thing off' and then they'd get 100 and I'd get 55."

Carlo di Palma's photography is so lovely the film actually bathes your eyes (Santo Loquasto production design also in on the conspiracy). With extraordinary long takes there's very little to edit.

Great cast includes John Cusack, Jennifer Tilly (the dreadful lead), Mary-Louise Parker, Jack Warden, Joe Viterelli (Analyze This), Rob Reiner, Tracey Ullman, Jim Broadbent, Edie Falco, Debbi Mazar, Tony Sirico and Annie Joe Edwards (the last in a long line of Hollywood sassy maids).

Pool hall sequence is one long amazing take

Jennifer Tilly, Joe Viterelli, John Cusack, Jack Warden

You'd have to be a nit not to love this one. There's something of Born Yesterday (one of Woody's favourites) about it too.

Regarding Henry (1991 Mike Nichols)

Wonderful film, the best thing Jeffrey ('JJ') Abrams ever wrote, with Nichols expertly getting expert performances. Harrison Ford's best and most likeable role. Supported by Annette Bening, Rebecca Miller, Bruce Altman (no relation), Elizabeth Wilson (secretary), Donald Moffat, Peter Appel (doorman), Bill Nunn (therapist), and, in her only film appearance, Mikki Allen

Rich photography by Giuseppe Rotunno, music by Hans Zimmer.

Worth a million war pictures.

Not much of a view

Check out the new 'uniform'!

The Glass Bottom Boat (1966 Frank Tashlin)

A terrible title, which has almost nothing at all to do with the film. Film is a relic of a former age - in a few years there'd be nothing like it made. Doris Day looks damned odd in a variety of clown outfits; Rod Taylor his usual breezy self. Paul Lynde (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie) is the comedy relief. With Arthur Godfrey, John McGiver and Dom DeLuise.

Metrocolor Red supplied by Leon Shamroy.

The robot vacuum is prescient. De Vol's music is certainly not lacking in energy.

All the laughs are in the last fifteen minutes.

Casablanca (1942 Michael Curtiz)

In memoriam of the last surviving cast member, Madeleine Lebeau (19 in this), who has died aged 92. Herself a refugee from France, her husband Marcel Dalio plays the croupier Emil. Joy Page, who was only 17 when she appeared in this, was 83 when she died in 2008. Pickpocket Curt Bois was probably the one who had the longest career, as he was still acting in 1987 in Wings of Desire.

Ingrid is fabulous. She only made it to 67 (cancer), Bogie too (57). Featuring the beloved S.Z. Sakall (Sándor Gärtner) and the reliable John Qualen, this is a perfect film.

Inherent Vice (2014 Paul Thomas Anderson & scr)

From a 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon (another B. Traven in his mystery), the plot is so elusive that just when you think you're getting the hang of it, it drifts away like the smoke from one of Joaquin's joints. Then I realised that the film looked like a seventies movie but was in fact one from the forties, with shades of the Big Sleep and Farewell My Lovely seeping through.

Robert Elswit's celluloid photography ('there's only really one lab left in LA') is fantastic, as is PTA's direction (Elswit: 'he's all about finding the film while he's making it'), Altman's California Split as much an inspiration as The Long Goodbye.

With Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Katherine Waterston, Eric Roberts, Maya Rudolph, Hong Chau, Benicio del Toro, Jena Malone and Martin Short.

Joaquin Phoenix: great comic touch

Hong Chau and Joaquin

Spotlight (2015 Tom McCarthy & co-scr)

Another Oscar winner for screenplay (co-written with Josh Singer), but did they give it because of the subject matter or because it was the best screenplay?

Many of the cast don't seem like themselves - Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber (who's great in a very knocked-back performance), Stanley Tucci - though John Slattery does. Didn't recognise Almost Famous' Billy Crudup at all.

We felt the end titles, with the places where more Catholic abuse and corruption had been unearthed, should have been held longer. We feel the Catholic Church should be disbanded. We do remember the Spanish Inquisition.

A very calm, almost anti-dramatic treatment.

The Big Short (2015 Adam McKay & co-scr)

An entertaining film (co-written by Charles Randolph, winning Oscar and BAFTA, and based on the non-fiction 'The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine' by Michael Lewis), with an unusual approach which exposes its own dramatised nature and enlists the help of various celebrities to help explain the complexities of the financial pickle the US got the world into - you are frequently driven to exclaim 'What?!' The key performers Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt (also a producer) aren't given much in the way of back story; the moral upshot of it all comes later. Where was the financial wizard who saw it coming and tried to warn somebody (rather than make a few billion bucks off the crash)?

With: Marisa Tomei, Finn Wittrock, Melissa Leo, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Hamish Linklater, Jeremy Strong, Margot Robbie and Max Greenfield (New Girl).

Shot in customary loose style by Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker, United 93) (in Panavision) and edited with panache by Hank Corwin (The Tree of Life, The New World).

Bale - chameleon-like

Jeremy Strong good, an underused Rafe Spall

Thieves' Highway (1949 Jules Dassin)

'Of course it's all going to go wrong,' I told Q, 'it's a film noir'.

I've never seen a film which has Golden Delicious apples at the centre of its story.

Terrific, lively script from the great A.I. Bezzerides (On Dangerous Ground, Kiss Me Deadly and the novel of Desert Fury), from his own novel 'Thieves' Market', shows Richard Conte out to get his dad's money back, quickly (and by his own admission) getting suckered into a get-rich-quick scheme with Millard Mitchell.

Good tense filming with trucks, accompanied by a slightly jokey double-act of Jack Oakie and Joseph Pevney (who move from vulture-like bystanders to becoming integral to the plot), then entanglement with crooked grocer Lee J Cobb and his duo of dimwits. And Conte gets set up with bad girl Valentina Cotese who turns out better than his fiancée Barbara Lawrence.

I had to laugh when the truck crashed and the apples were everywhere; I wasn't laughing a minute later...

How do you like them apples?

Seems like the ending was lightly softened (would like to have seen Cobb lose hands in retaliation, cops take him away but on what charge?) but overall top noir.

Made for Fox, shot by Norbert Brodine with little (any?) music.

Now You See Me (2013 Louis Leterrier)

Paris-born Leterrier comes from the school of 'let's keep the camera moving all the time' and 'let's use a crane shot wherever possible'. The screenplay Boaz Yakin & Edward Ricout (from their story) and Ed Solomon is quite fun with ingenious moments ("I've been following myself!") and a double -twist or two, though without really giving our characters any depth. It's a bit like a computer game really.

It's an engaging cast though of Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg (I'm really getting to like him a lot), Woody Harrelson, Mélanie Laurent, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Michael Kelly and someone called 'Common' (a rapper, actually Lonnie Rashid Lynn).

It's enough to green light it in this shallow age.

Prisoners (2013 Denis Villeneuve)

Only his second screenplay, Aaron Guzikowski's film is ostensibly about the shattering fallout from a violent father's (Hugh Jackman) search for his missing child and how his actions implicate neighbours Terrence Howard and Viola Davis, and how the case even gets to policeman Jake Gyllenhaal. Though I think in the imprisonment and torture of unproven suspect Paul Dano I read this just as much about Guantanamo / torture of political prisoners. (I find the fact that Dano's character can't say one thing to save himself a stretch of credibility, though my Q disagrees.)

It's a gutty, uncomfort-inducing, long film, with certain plot ellipses (very little on Jackman's dad's suicide; not quite sure how the other suspect fits in - another kidnap victim, I'm guessing), the first collaboration between Villeneuve (Incendies, Sicario) and Roger Deakins, who gives you some great night lighting and a terrific rush to hospital through blurry rain.

Rest of good cast: Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, Wayne Duvall, Dylan Minnette, Sandra Ellis Lafferty. Music by Jóhann Jóhannsson (Sicario, The Theory of Everything), editing by Joel Cox & Gary Roach (Eastwood's films).

The Sweet Smell of Success (1957 Alexander Mackendrick)

Things to relish:

1. Writing (Clifford Odets rewriting Ernest Lehman's screenplay of his novel), both in the crafty story of morally bankrupt world of almost everyone in it (Martin Milner's guitarist and secretary Jeff Donnell (also In a Lonely Place) being exceptions), and in the glorious dialogue:
"The cat's in the bag, and the bag's in the river".
"He's got a face like ice cream."

2. Night feel, James Wong Howe's great, dark on location New York camerawork - did this influence the New Wave?

3. Cast: Burt Lancaster (ruthless and leaning towards incestuous), Tony Curtis (weasely and grasping), Susan Harrison (pathetic), Barbra Nichols (naive but been round the block too), Sam Levene (ineffectual agent), Emile Meyer (sarcastic corrupt cop).

4. Music. Elmer Bernstein - swaggeringly, powerfully jazzy; melodic and classy.

5. Direction (Curtis's staggeringly unreliable autobiography reports the shoot ran way over because of his attention to detail, though I think it much more likely this was down to the extensive rewrites), all careful blocking and artful camera moves.

Comparisons of screen shots on DVDBeaver show that the new 1.85:1 Blu-Ray has both more width image and height, suggesting that this is the original shape and not 1.66:1 as routinely stated (for example on IMDB).

And that is The Apartment's David White (Eichelberger) as the sleazy PR agent who winds up with Nichols. And John  Fiedler behind a hot dog counter.

Big (1988 Penny Marshall)

Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg's script doesn't conjecture the massive whopper the kid has to tell when he gets home, but then a story about a 13 year old who suddenly becomes 30 doesn't expect to be closely examined. (Also that comic book for $19.99 didn't sound too expensive when you consider its potential, and that stupid skyscraper robot didn't look cheap either. Plus, with a fleabit hotel costing $17.50 a night, a salary of $187 doesn't sound much, even if it is for the week.)

The things to enjoy are the same as they have ever been: Jared Rushton's performance as Tom's friend, that slightly sinister Zoltar machine (and Howard Shore's accompanying theme), the wonderful piano duet between Hanks and kindly toy boss Robert Loggia, and Hanks' dress sense for work. But above all Tom Hanks is a marvel as he nibbles on baby sweetcorn, gets punched by a toy, leaps into double bed, and cries himself to sleep.

Some brilliant nutter called Roger Hess spent a year building a Zoltar replica, but doesn't reveal (or know) who designed it.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976 Nicholas Gessner)

Laird Koenig adapted his own novel - though source could easily have been a play as story inhabits a single location, where ballsy 13-year-old has to protect herself from a paedophile and his mother (Martin Sheen and Alexis Smith), and the police (Mort Shuman), who all want to know where her father is (as do we). She gets help from crippled magician Scott Jacoby but ultimately defeats the paedophilic pest herself (after a quick fling with the magician).

Jodie is fantastic - she doesn't even look like herself, particularly in nude scene (bottom doubled by her sister Connie).

(500) Days of Summer (2009 Marc Webb)

It was almost three years ago. Not as funny as the previous film, more serious but most interestingly directed and written, by Scott Neustader and Michael Weber (Paper Towns and The Spectacular Now).

She just sort of goes off him... Gets engaged in fact to someone else. That's gotta sting.

Maybe Zooey Deschanel's best thing, Chloe Grace Moretz sharp and wise, Joseph Gordon Levitt.

He's Just Not That Into You (2009 Ken Kwapis)

Written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (both wrote Valentine's Day) deriving material from a relationship advice book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, and interspersed with amusing anecdotes from people with relationship hurdles, e.g. African tribe ('Maybe he forgot your hut number. Or was eaten by a lion.')

Slowly and cleverly introduces the cast and their interrelationships: Ginnifer Goodwin (great), Kevin Connolly, Scarlett Johansson, Bradley Cooper, Justin Long, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Ben Affleck and Drew Barrymore. We both agreed on the voluptuousness of Scarlett.

Very enjoyable.

if you will get up to this sort of thing in your office...

Room (2015 Lenny Abrahamson)

Adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own 2010 novel, this is an extraordinary tale. The scene in which Jack is finally out, lying in the back of the truck to Stephen Rennicks' music is terrific, then moments later his escape is like one of those bad dreams where you can't move quickly... Film often had me at the point of bursting into tears, a feeling considerably heightened by the performances of Brie Larson (Oscar and BAFTA winning) and Jacob Tremblay (who should have won the same).

With Joan Allen (Pleasantville, Bourne films, Searching for Bobby Fischer), Sean Bridgers, Tom McCamus, William H Macy. Shot by Danny Cohen. Abrahamson made What Richard Did.

Sullivan's Travels (1941 Preston Sturges & scr)

That opening sequence runs from 2:51 to 6:41. It's a marvellous single take, absolutely perfectly performed by (left to right) Joel McCrae, Robert Warwick and Porter Hall, very funny of course, and because of characters moving in and out of shot, very like an early Woody Allen scene:

The changing portrait is absolutely inspired, so subtle and clever:

Is interesting in that the last third is quite serious, thus perhaps why some critics (such as Derek Malcolm) rate this as his best.

Rest of cast Veronica Lake, Eric Blore, Robert Greig, William Demarest, Byron Foulger, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Hayes, Charles Moore and Jimmy Conlin, superbly shot by John Seitz.

The Danish Girl (2015 Tom Hooper)

... or The Danish Patient, as it might have been called, is no King's Speech - it's rather serious (between too many pretty shots of old Copenhagen), written by Lucinda Coxon from David Ebershoff's novel. Not the most appealing subject matter to me, the film is a bit off - I found Eddie Redmayne's performance slightly mannered, the repeatedly symmetrical dead centre compositions overdone, the music (Alexandre Desplatt) good but slightly obvious.

Alicia Vikander though was fabulous and I can't argue with Danny Cohen's photography. Cut by Melanie Oliver (Anna Karenina).

With Amber Heard, Emerald Fennell (who we recognise from the Midwives, though has also been in Anna Karenina, Albert Nobbs  and  Any Human Heart), Ben Whishaw, Pip Torrens, Matthias Schoenaerts, Nicholas Woodeson and Sebastian Koch (Homeland, Bridge of Spies, The Lives of Others).

Joy (2015 David O Russell & scr)

Great to see film based on struggles and success of a determined woman - only unlike a Sirk, she does it without falling in love, even though you think Bradley Cooper might be her beau - film often doesn't go where you think it will. Also most pleasing to see Robert de Niro in something that he can get his teeth into.

We last saw Jen(nifer Lawrence) in American Hustle in all her finery so it was kind of funny to see her in jeans and a shirt as she battles and battles. Her sister Elisabeth Röhm and dad are bastards, her mum useless (Virginia Madsen) her grandmother supportive but elusive (Diane Ladd), dad's girlfriend tough (another meaty characterisation by Isabella Rossellini). Edgar Ramirez is the supportive ex and Dascha Polanco her friend; Jimmy Jean-Louis as Toussaint, the daughter by twins Aundrea and Gia Gadsby.

Great soundtrack, superb editing led by Jay Cassidy, Linus Sandgren again behind the camera.

The dreadful soap opera is splendid, as is the way she begins to dream in its setting.

“I love making worlds,” says Russell. “Our cinema is not a cinema of special effects. It’s grounded in the details of ordinary people, and then finds extraordinary magic in there.”

That Uncertain Feeling (1941 Ernst Lubitsch)

A joyous event, classically and beautifully set up and staged and delivered by Melvyn Douglas, Merle Oberon and Burgess Meredith, with Alan Mowbray, Sig Ruman, Harry Davenport and a young Eve Arden, who basically sets her character for the next 40 years (she was in Grease - not that that's enough of a reason to watch it).

The Roan Group's presentation - 'Restored from the original 35mm nitrate' - is rather soft. George Barnes' photography is occasionally shadowy but very creative and beautiful.

See here for history of the story and previous review. 'Univeral Mattress and United Furniture'. Brilliantly accomplished with much humour going in and out of doors, as usual.

Mickey Blue Eyes (1999 Kelly Makin)

So funny to see about 17 members of The Sopranos cast (which actually debuted in January - this was first released in August).

Funny, knowing screenplay by Adam Scheinman and Robert Kuhn (both with very few credits) plays on Godfather theme especially by casting James Caan (whose performance could have been better - he's perhaps not the best comedy actor). Film isn't that well rated but improves with age. Use of toy monkey funny, as is scene in which Hugh Grant (very smooth) tries to prevent Jeanne Tripplehorn from seeing the (terrible) painting in his office. And 'Little Big Mickey Blue Eyes'.

The Bride Wore Red

Burt Young - the baddie - has recently been in Italian TV drama Baciamo le mani: Palermo-New York 1958  (naturally not subtitled into English - why broaden your market?) which also features Virna Lisi! He was also in Once Upon a Time in America, The Sopranos (just one episode), Rocky films.

James Fox is delightfully cheerful.

Frankie and Johnny (1991 Garry Marshall)

Why hadn't we revisited this Garry Marshall New York picture earlier? Terrance McNally has adapted his own play very successfully so we get to know all the staff (and some of the customers) in Hector Elizondo's microcosmic diner - though what happens to the Greek girl who's in it at the beginning?

Lots of overheard New York. The best line comes from Nathan Lane - "Well I've got to go now. I'm expecting another call from you any minute". Though Hector's "That potato is romantic" is also good.

Shot richly (people don't seem to shoot richly much these days) by Dante Spinotti, music by Marvin Hamlisch and - importantly - Debussey which (if I was paying attention) we get in both the piano and orchestrated versions (thus it isn't a repeat).

Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kate Nelligan. Warm and enjoyable: what other film ends with a couple cleaning their teeth?

One of the Rear Window moments

The Wrong Arm of the Law (1962, rel. 1963 Cliff Owen)

Had a somewhat complicated gestation, coming from a story by Crossroads Ivor Jay and William Whistance Smith, then a screenplay by John Warren and Len Heath (who'd both worked on Two Way Stretch), then re-written by Galton & Simpson and John Antrobus. It seems cohesive though, and is most entertaining, with stars on good form: Peter Sellers (on the cusp of international success with The Pink Panther) as the great-named 'Pearly' Gates, Lionel Jeffries as 'Nosey' Parker, Bernard Cribbins ('Nervous'), and lots of other familiar faces, including (apparently) a young Michael Caine as Police Station PC. Nanette Newman fairly annoying as usual.

Music by Richard Rodney Bennett, shot by Ernest Steward. Lots of nice location filming, including Battersea Funfair. Film trades on British disrespect for coppers and odd respect for criminals, particularly those who get away with it (though in effect they don't). It's also very London-centric - the North was just around the corner, in the shape of the New Wave. Great driving of Aston Martin, which, according to http://www.imcdb.org/ is both a 1960 DB4 Mk II and a 1961 DB4 GT!

The crooks hang out at Haven Green Court, Ealing. And the impressive-looking block of flats later on is the Grade II listed Dorset House, Marylebone, just off Baker Street, dating to 1935.

A Lady Without Passport (1950 Joseph H Lewis)

So B movie maker Lewis was invited to work at MGM following Gun Crazy - he thought it a mistake and described the film - originally intended to be a documentary about immigration - as a 'stinker'. I have to disagree and find it full of most interesting material, as agent John Hodiak travels to Cuba (scenes were actually filmed there, which adds to the interest) to trap people-trafficker George Macready, falling for displaced Hedy Lamarr.

Constantly interesting camera angles and moves plus exotic setting had me thinking both of Touch of Evil and Soy Cuba - the fine camerawork is by Paul Vogel (a year after his Oscar for Battleground; he went on to The Time Machine). Then it moves into the air, culminating in an exciting crash / escape filmed entirely from a plane. Then we move into Night of the Hunter territory (notice though how all these films referenced are still in the future) in a studio fog-filled swamp and a fantastic conclusion as a speeding boat pulls into the mist as shots are fired...

Soy Cuba I tell you

You can tell right from the off you're in good hands - dazzling opening shot from inside a car, then film changes locations about seven times in the first three minutes. Music by Laura's David Raksin.

Very good, very interesting.

Candleshoe (1977 Norman Tokar)

The old pro Jodie Foster at her most winning playing fostered LA hard kid who agrees to scam an old lady thinking she's her grand daughter to find family treasure. Instead kid grows to like GM Helen Hayes, butler / chauffeur / gardener David Niven and his 'family' of adopted children. As baddies: Leo McKern and Vivian Pickles.

Adapted by a book from Michael Innes it's predictable but fun.

Hannah and her Sisters (1986 Woody Allen & scr)

One of the great movie soundtrack compilations. A used version of the CD is £47 today.

The one that keeps cropping up to introduce scenes, which I remembered before the film was even on, is I've Heard That Song Before by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne - actually a vocal (Harry & Helen) comes in after 1:15.
You Made Me Love You - Harry James on trumpet, with Helen Forrest singing (1941).
Lloyd Nolan plays some songs on the piano, one of which 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered' becomes part of the soundtrack.
Count Basie performs Back to the Apple and The Trot.
You Are Too Beautiful - Rogers and Hart played on the piano by Derek Smith.
Some great jazz - Roy Eldridge - If I Had You and Dave Brubeck I Remember You
And of course that great Bach F Minor, played by Yehudi Menuhin.

Also, Madam Butterfly is on the soundtrack and Manon Lescaut is shown from a live production in Turin.

Max von Sydow on TV 'But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.'

And Woody's dad: 'How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don't know how the can opener works!'

Richard Jenkins and Fred Melamed appear fleetingly

It's superb, especially in the way that the body (the heart) keeps ignoring the rational brain, and it's proof to me that as an observer of the human condition, Woody is every bit as good as his idol Bergman, and a hell of a lot funnier.

Parenthood (1989 Ron Howard)

It's still good.

I ♥ Huckabees (2004 David O Russell & co-scr)

An unusual film, involving existential detectives, has funny moments if you can hang on. Jason Schwartzman is having the crisis, Jude Law seeks to overturn his conservational plans, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman and Isabelle Huppert are detectives. Interesting cast also includes Mark Wahlberg (a bicycle-riding fireman!), Naomi Watts, Tippi Hedren, Jonah Hill, Isla Fisher, Talia Shire, Bob Gunton.

Music by Jon Brion is quite endearing (Punch Drunk Love).

Alice in Wonderland (2010 Tim Burton)

Rather too dark version had me wondering if there's ever been a truly successful adaptation - I think not. Could have done with more humour, e.g. if the Jabberwock had turned up and she's immediately cut its head off and said 'That was easy'.

Linda Woolverton's opening up of story is quite interesting, though as it's Disney they had to introduce a dog character (Timothy Spall). Costumes, production design, effects good - it looks like one of his animations.

Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, Anne Hathaway, Stephen Fry (unctuously voicing the Cheshire Cat), Alan Rickman, Barbara Windsor, Christopher Lee.

Ph. Darius Wolski, music Danny Elfman

The Godfather (1972 Francis Ford Coppola)

Shot terrifically dark by Gordon Willis using an amber / golden colour which apparently then became synonymous with period movies.

The scene in the hospital is about my favourite, though you have to love that when Michael goes in to assassinate Sterling Hayden and Al Lettieri (heart attack 1975) the noise of the passing trains amplify the tension. Scene in which Michael decides to kill them has the camera very slowly track in on him, like the Walbrook speech in Blimp.

A great shot in the Siciliy scene shows Michael and Apollonia walking, she slightly wobbles and he steadies her, then we see about a hundred Sicilian women following then as chaperones, then finally Michael's two bodyguards come into shot - beautiful simple story-telling.

Brando having fun with cat

I'm sure I read somewhere that Pacino was pretending there was a spotlight on him all the time and he was trying to keep in the shadow.

It's a great performance from Marlon Brando (which with Coppola and Puzo's screenplay won Oscar) though similar praise also to James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton (film made stars out of all of these), John Cazale, Richard Conte, Richard Castellano (Clemenza), Simonetta Stefanelli, Abe Vigoda, Lenny Montana, Talia Shire.

Editors William Reynolds (everything from Algiers, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sand Pebbles) and Peter Zinner (Part II, Star Is Born, Deer Hunter) bring a classy, old fashioned feel to the material. Walter Murch in conversation with Anne Coates:

WM: Well, I did the sound on "Godfather I and II." "Godfather I" was edited by Peter Zinner and Bill Reynolds. And they cut the film right in half. It was Bill Reynolds up to the trip to Sicily, I think, and then Peter Zinner from there to the end. Each of them had an hour-and-a-half feature film to cut.

 AC: Did they then go back onto each other's work?

WM: No, it was completely separate. 

American Hustle (2013 David O Russell)

As previously noted, Amy Adams is absolutely terrific (though she reports not to have had the best treatment from Russell) and almost steals the film, but Jennifer Lawrence catches up and pretty much lifts it from under her nose, leaving Christian Bale somewhat stranded.

Russell had linked Bradley Cooper and Lawrence the year before in Silver Linings Playbook.

Couldn't help but think Amy's boobs must have kept revealing themselves:

"The '70s were such a liberating time for women," says Hustle costume designer Michael Wilkinson (Man of Steel, Babel), "we wanted to project her confidence but also [her character] Sydney's naked vulnerability." Adams' opening-scene apricot deep V-blouse was an actual Halston that Wilkinson excavated from the Halston building's basement archives. "The staying-on is partly due to a generous and carefully placed sprinkle of double-stick tape." So how did she avoid nip slips? Says Wilkinson: "She carried herself in a very specific way to keep us within an R rating. Amy has amazing poise. Let's just say she studied how to move and never forgot about it."

I love the old-fashioned way it's shot with the camera constantly tracking in and out of scenes shot by Swede Linus Sandgren.

Fantastic opening track Duke Ellington 'Jeep's Blues' (from what looks like the Ellington at Newport album, 1956).