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.