Collateral (2018 SJ Clarkson)

We've started off enjoying David Hare's meditation on immigration, wrapped up as a political crime thriller. But we were disappointed by the end - the Billy Piper story seemed particularly redundant.

Great to see Carey Mulligan on home shores. Nicola Walker, John Simm, Billy Piper, Jeany Spark (soldier), Nathaniel Marcello-White, Ahd, Kae Alexander, Hayley Squires, July Namir, Ben Miles.

That Uncertain Feeling (1941 Ernst Lubitsch)

The Lubitsch that seems unfairly neglected is like music, with its rhythms and sporadic outbursts of 'Keeks!', 'Phooey!' and the like. And seems only to exist in fuzzy, public domain prints, a great shame as George Barnes' lighting is clearly beautiful, in Alexander Golitzen's sets. Maybe one of the French or Spanish releases is better. Where's Criterion...?

I loved the Amazon reviewer who said "Too many one-room scenes with characters opening and closing doors" thus missing one of the delightful features of a Lubitsch comedy, which are always focusing on doorways.

"Really darling, you talk as if you've never been in a meadow."

"Was it a dull party?"
"No, I'd say she was about your size."

Victorien Sardou and Emilie deNajac's play 'Divorçons' (1883) was adapted by Walter Reisch and screenwritten by Donald Ogden Stewart who found fame mainly through adapting the work of others (won Oscar for the Philadelphia Story) - he emigrated to England in the 1950s Communist witch hunt, and died here.

The King's Speech (2010 Tom Hooper)

A huge hit - it grossed $400m worldwide from a $15m production budget - did Hooper get a share? I bet he didn't. He had made The Damned United previously so wasn't a complete newbie. (Didn't really enjoy that or his The Danish Girl.) I was pleased that in the credits, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are billed side by side - quite right, it's a two-hander in which they both deserved the top award - as it happens BAFTA awarded them both, but Rush's was for best supporting actor - which is kind of nonsense. It was also interesting that Timothy Spall had a higher billing than Derek Jacobi, who's on-screen more, and just as good an actor. I must stop spending so much time dwelling on the credits...

Firth is soon to be in The Happy Prince, the last days of Oscar Wilde, written and directed by his buddy Rupert Everett.

Fully reviewed here. After swearing - "That's a side of you you don't see too often."

Chalet Girl (2011 Phil Traill)

I got it right the first time - it's that long take of Felicity Jones recounting her mother's death that shows just how good she is - and unfortunately, Ed Westwick is not in her league, thus the acting is imbalanced, no matter how many little scene stealing asides Bill Nighy throws in.

She did put in several weeks of snowboard training prior to filming in St Anton, Austria (the town's museum appeared as the chalet), but how much of her is actually in the film?

In Tom Williams' debut feature screenplay, the best line is 'No, the irony is free. It's the sarcasm you're paying for, ironically.'

Jane Eyre (1943 Robert Stevenson)

Stevenson and ace cameraman George Barnes give Bronte the full on expressionistic treatment with wonderful shadows and clever lighting around every corner. The novel's been adapted by Aldous Huxley, John Houseman and Stevenson, who directed many Hitchcock half hours and latterly worked for Disney.

Jane's childhood is portrayed grimly through Peggy Ann Garner, her adoptive aunt Agnes Moorehead and brute Henry Daniell, kindly maid Sara Allgood and childhood friend Elizabeth Taylor. John Sutton is the doctor. Then grown up as Joan Fontaine ('so grave and quiet in the mouth of hell'), Orson Welles makes a towering and brutish Rochester, with Edith Barrett as the housekeeper and Margaret O'Brien a prospective fiancee.

Bernard Herrmann's music is unlike anyone else's, and sensational, hallmarking this as a superior literary adaptation, made for Fox.

Scene where Jane tends to wounded man while door rattles behind her is a perfect horror movie moment.

These scenes impressed me the last time (23 March 2010):

Magic in the Moonlight (2014 Woody Allen & scr)

Reviewed here, here and here. The production design is by Anne Seibel, for a change (also To Rome With Love and Midnight in Paris).

The long take between Eileen Atkins and Colin Firth is special. Film is delightful, probably closest in mood to Midummer Night's Sex Comedy.

This one did well - $10m at home and $40m in the rest of the world (particularly France and Italy).

Bastille Day / The Take (2016 James Watkins)

It was broadcast on Channel 4 under the second title. Features those ridiculously quickly edited fight and chase scenes. Idris brandishes his weapons with aplomb, Richard Madden is a pickpocket and Charlotte le Bon an innocent bomber (who looks like she could do with a decent meal). With the added value of a Thierry Godard as the baddie, and Kelly Reilly, and Paris locations (though scarcely one  recognisable).

James Watkins (Eden Lake and the leaden McMafia) and Andrew Baldwin's plot is quite clever, though a bit easily guessable. It was not a very good film, really - not character-driven...

The Browning Version (1951 Anthony Asquith)

Should really be called 'the Crocker-Harris Version' as that's the translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon that we're interested in. Terence Rattigan adapted his shorter 1948 play and the screenplay and Michael Redgrave both won awards at Cannes.

Jean Kent is the vicious wife, Nigel Patrick the sympathetic teacher, Wilfred Hyde White plays the headmaster, Brian Smith the boy and Bill Travers the sporty teacher.

Shot by Desmond Dickinson.

Rattigan wrote one of my favourite WW2 films, The Way to the Stars, then Brighton Rock, The Winslow Boy, David Lean's The Sound Barrier, The Deep Blue Sea, The Prince and the Showgirl, Separate Tables, The VIPs and The Yellow Rolls Royce.

Vivre Sa Vie (1962 Jean-Luc Godard & co-scr)

Anna Karina is 77. Here, she is 22. The moment where she looks directly into the camera is disconcerting, Michel Legrand's theme is haunting, the ending abrupt and sad. Godard's home turf of the Champs Elysées features prominently, Truffaut is on at the pictures, Raoul Coutard shot it in 4x3.

AMOLAD

Those lamps that surround Kim Hunter, the beginning, the heavenly conductor... A remarkable cinematographic debut.

I don't think you can get a better set of characters and actors than Niven, Livesey, Marius Goring, Kathleen Byron, Raymond Massey, Kim, Robert Coote and Abraham Sofaer.

"Stupidity has saved many a man from going mad."

This Happy Breed (1944 David Lean)

It's Lean doing Mike Leigh.

There's some subtlety about what sort of war Newton and Holloway have had - the latter's initial comment is 'I thought you were dead that night...' Then later, they both appear quite well decorated. And certainly Newton has a thing or two to say to Alison Leggatt on the subject... I like a bit of subtlety.

The line 'and a nice bit of leg of lamb it was too' has since stuck in my mind.

Tamara Drewe (2010 Stephen Frears)

Moira Buffini adapted Posy Simmonds' graphic novel resulting in a film that slips down untroubled and doesn't leave much of an impression - though it's great of course to see Roger Allam in anything (and Tamsin Greig). Gemma Arterton, Dominic Cooper, Luke Evans, Bill Camp, Pippa Haywood.

Has a weird colour timing - Ben Davis. Edited by Mick Audsley and scored by Alexandre Desplat.

Another Year (2010 Mike Leigh & scr)

Ruth Sheen is exceptional as always, ably partnered by Jim Broadbent. Lesley Manville is perhaps a shade too much as a woman who becomes more and more unstuck as it progresses. The scene in which she meets the girlfriend is the pivotal one, where Mike suddenly takes us up close to the faces. With Oliver Maltman, Peter Wight ("What are we going to do with you?"), David Bradley, Martin Savage and Karina Fernandez, who has the film's best comic moment as she enacts suicide when learning that Manville is there. Imelda Staunton is wonderful as a depressed patient. Alcohol figures as a big problem here. You have these scenes in which nothing extraordinary seem to be happening and then there's this ping - no, more like a gong - of reverberation - a big moment.

Shot by Dick Pope, lovely, simple music by Gary Yershon, edited by Jon Gregory.

It's perhaps not quite on a par with some of his best, but the simple dignity of the central couple, their warmth and humour and stoicism, are a joy to behold. And there's those moments that somehow really stand out.

Irrational Man (2015 Woody Allen & scr)

Or, The Boston Story, as it was known as throughout filming, is a classy screenplay, with beautifully disguised plot points early on (Joaquin's character was formerly a lift operator, and one of his classes is an 'randomness and chance'; the winning of a prize flashlight at the fair).

The use of 'The In Crowd' by Ramsey Lewis is a departure point, but this time I was thinking about those thrillery scenes (the murder, stealing the cyanide) which are cut to it and I realised that the music actually works against the scene - it makes light of drama, in other words. Which is odd. It changes the mood of the whole film, in fact, and causes one to watch with the head at an angle, like a puzzled dog.

"He could always cloud the issue with words."

Secret Beyond the Door... (1947 Fritz Lang)

Lang favourite Joan Bennett meets architect Michael Redgrave (who's at least ditched the dummy) in Mexico and falls in love - even after he starts behaving extremely oddly. Then we seem to be in Rebecca / Jane Eyre territory, with a house full of sinister children, sisters and secretaries. Then she doesn't seem to bat an eyelid at this clearly insane person's collection of death rooms...

So yes, a nutty film, written by Silvia Richards from a story by Rufus King, helped by stylish touches (such as a trial scene in which Redgrave prosecutes himself), intense performances, dark and moody photography from Stanley Cortez and atmospheric Miklos Rozsa music.

With Anne Revere (The Thin Man Goes Home, Old Acquaintance) Barbara O'Neill, Natalie Schafer, Paul Cavanagh, Anabel Shaw, Rosa Rey, James Seay and Mark Dennis.

Is Rebecca a descendant of Jane Eyre? I'd never thought about it before...

Our copy, which BBC2 kindly put out one night over Christmas (2011 or before) was execrable - perhaps they thought people would be pissed and not notice. Tut, tut....'We've all once thought of murder...'

Damsels in Distress (2011 Whit Stillman & scr)

I thought this to be a low budget indie from a newcomer - but it turns out to be the the work of Metropolitan's Stillman (1990) - who's had a sparse career.

It's a mild film, though, which I read to be about the stupidity of college students - those that are genuinely stupid (i.e. not knowing the colours) and those that use their intelligence to reinforce their own stupid ideas and hang-ups (Greta Gerwig).

Some of the acting is rather poor. Greta's the main reason to watch. With Analeigh Tipton, The O.C.'s Adam Brody.

I don't know if we're supposed to take seriously the benefits of cleanliness and dancing as treatment for depression, but I don't see why we shouldn't...

The Grass Is Greener (1960 Stanley Donen)

Starts with a great credits scene by Maurice Binder in which various babies enact the titles credited (cameraman etc.) Then goes fairly static for filming of Noel Cowardish play by (and adapted by) Hugh Williams and Margaret Vyner in which Lady of the Manor Deborah Kerr (good) falls for tourist Robert Mitchum (possibly miscast), to the quiet umbrage of Cary Grant; Jean Simmons is an annoying friend. Good montage though in which we see Kerr & Mitchum's deepening relationship through their absences from various venues.

Moray Watson is good value as the butler (yes he was the Brigadier from Darling Buds - his voice was the give-away). Overall, quite fun.

Shot by Christoper Challis in Technirama (only the US DVD will do, and even that's a bit fuzzy).

Room for One More (1951 Norman Taurog)

Extremely lovely woman, played by Betsy Drake (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) keeps fostering children; luckily husband (both on- and off-screen) Cary Grant  is reasonably easy-going. Based on an account of such real happenings in the thirties by Anna Perrot(t) Rose, screenplay by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson (The War Between Men and Women). Luckily the brats - I mean children - are not annoying and deep voiced, terse George Winslow (Monkey Business) is good comedy value. Occasionally feels it could be better directed, and Max Steiner's score is nothing special, but entertaining. Grant delivers his comic lines so well he actually transcends the material. Robert Burks shot it for Warners.

Not sure where the French comes in. (Final title is 'Bonsoir'.)

'What's that?' (to Cary's sketch in the sand.)
'A woman.'
'It's not very good.'
'It's from memory.'

Moonstruck (1987 Norman Jewison)

New Yorker of Irish descent John Patrick Shanley writes Italian and won an Oscar. His screenplay is romantic and fantastic (the giant moon), earthy and pragmatic, funny and well observed (e.g. character of grand poppa). I love the couple arguing in the liquor store, and the effect of the moon on aunt and uncle.

Rather more surprising is that Cher pipped the Best Actress Award (it wasn't a great year), less so that Olympia Dukakis won as the mother, though Vincent Gardenia as the cheating father is very good too. With Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Julie Bovasso, Louis Guss, Feodor Chaliapin and - it was after all in his honour - John Mahoney, as a man who's girlfriends are too young - this scene with he and Olympia is sweet and great.

There's also welcome and healthy doses of 'La Bohème' throughout. Oddly it was shot both in NYC and Toronto, where Jewsion was born (the opera house I think a mix of both locales).

Shot by David Watkin and edited by Lou Lombardo.

Spy (2015 Paul Feig & scr)

Melissa McCarthy becomes an operational agent following the death of her beloved Jude Law, and she's assisted in the field by Miranda Hart. Allison Janney (who later that night won the BAFTA for I, Tonya) is their boss. Somewhat dodgy acting from Jason Statham (should have been Mark Strong) and Rose Byrne.

Quite amusing - funniest scene is where she steals a motorbike and it falls over.

Set in Rome, Budapest, Paris. Shot by Robert Yeoman in Panavision.

Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014 Peter Chelsom)

French psychiatrist and author François Lelord published 'Le Voyage de Hector ou la Recherche du Bonheur' in 2002 and it's been adapted by the director (Serendipity, Funny Bones), Maria von Heland and Tinker Lindsay. It's a rather good film, very well acted by a multinational cast - Simon Pegg and Rosamund Pike, Stellan Skarsgård, Ming Zhao (Chinese prostitute), Togo Igawa (wise monk), Sthandiwe Kgorge (African lady on plane), Jean Reno, Akin Omotoso, Chantal Herman (dying lady), Toni Collette, Barry Atsma and Christopher Plummer.

Good illustrations, funny and poignant moments.

Photographed by Kolja Brandt.

Dream Wife (1953 Sidney Sheldon & co-scr)

Dull and lumpy film tries to say something about sexual attitudes amidst language and cultural confusions. At least we have Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr to distract us.

An MGM picture, shot by Milton Krasner.

Nickelodeon (1976 Peter Bogdanovich)

In the director's version - in Laszlo Kovacs' black and white as originally intended - it's noticeable that some of the slapstick seems a little staged - a sign of how difficult it is to get this right.. but some of it remains wonderful and overall the film - a testament to the beginnings of cinema - is a joy, with deft little direction and scenes of magic, hugely underrated. The salute to D.W. Griffith is heartfelt and there's even a real John Ford story worked into Peter and W.D. Richter's screenplay (ripping out pages of script as behind schedule). The film carries the essence of Ford and / or Howard Hawks.

Cast: Ryan O'Neal, Burt Reynolds, Brian Keth, Stella Stevens (The Poseiden Adventure), Jane Hitchcock ('As blind as a rat', one of only two films), Tatum O'Neal, John Ritter. Editor William Carruth (Saint Jack, They All Laughed). Richter contributed to Slither, Peeper and Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

"Shakespeare... French, huh?"

Apart from the Tavianis' Good Morning Babylon I can't think of any other film that both documents and celebrates the very early, lawless days of film-making. OK. Hugo. It's also very funny.

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (1936 Alfred Zeisler)

Our Echo Bridge 'digitally remastered' version is 61 minutes and only just watchable - terrible sound and vision - and called The Amazing Adventure (its 1937 reissue title when it was cut from 80 minutes), robbed of a studio credit. No doubt it's fallen into public domain - a great shame as it's a sweet little film in which millionaire Cary Grant spends a year trying to make a living like ordinary folk - a remake of a 1920 British film.

It's apparently a British film - though it all looks like stock footage of London to me - and based on prolific British writer E. Phillip Oppenheim's novel.

The adaptation is by John L Balderstone. With Mary Brian, Peter Gawthorne, Henry Kendall, Leon M. Lion. Shot by Otto Heller - you wouldn't believe how many films he had photographed before this, since 1918...

P.S. Hitch on Number Seventeen (1932) "It had that awful old man in it, Leon M. Lion"...

The Great McGinty (1940 Preston Sturges & scr)

A cynical, ironic drama with comic touches, The Great McGinty feels more like an early Wilder collaboration (in fact I was thinking 'What did Sturges cast Akim Tamiroff in next - oh yes, it was Five Graves to Cairo!') And there's nothing wrong with that.

Actually written as 'The Biography of a Bum' in 1933, but the studios found it too political and 'women wouldn't like it'. Eventually, after several successful writing assignments for Paramount  (Easy Living, Remember the Night) he was entrusted the director job. His own words describe what happened next. 'I went into strict training. This was the big opportunity of my life. I gave up drinking. I gave up smoking. I gave up late hours. I had a masseur, dinner in bed, I saved my strength... I was rewarded, on the fourteenth day of shooting, with pneumonia." Luckily the studio were impressed enough by what they'd seen to delay filming rather than switch directors and in ten days he was back at the helm. "I gave up not drinking and not smoking and have not been troubled by pneumonia since." It won the Oscar for Best Screenplay and Sturges was off on his terrific run of forties pictures.

It's also delightful to see one of his repertory of actors in later films appearing in almost every scene, Brian Donlevy (Miracle - his character's called 'McGinty'), William Demarest, Tamiroff (Miracle), Louis Jen Heydt (The Great Moment), Harry Rosenthal (Sullivan's Travels, Christmas in July), Esther Howard and Jimmy Conlin (both Sullivan's Travels), Frank Moran (Miracle); plus Muriel Angelus and Alyn Joslyn.

Sensational beginning which announces.. well, it's easier to show the title:

Great mix of corruption, redemption through love and very funny moments. The scene about Donlevy's time in child labour, where he describes how the factory was clean and light and they were looked after, was based on an account from Preston's own mum.

Shot by William C Mellor and scored by Freidrich Hollander.

Quotes from 'Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges' (1990).

Valentine's Day (2010 Gary Marshall)

The first and best of Marshall's Day films is nothing extraordinary but is a fun watch, with many intersecting stories centring around bouncy Ashton Kutcher's ultra-nice florist, where he works alongside friends George Lopez (philosophy reading*) and Jennifer Garner, who's in a relationship with Patrick Dempsey. A kid (Bryce Robinson) demands a bouquet for his girlfriend, his grand-parents are Hector Elizondo and Shirley Maclaine (who we see watching her 1958 film Hot Spell - looks like one of those heavy fifties dramas) and whose babysitter is Emma Roberts, trying to have sex for the first time with Taylor Lautner...

Yes. It's beginning to sound about like it was derived from the Love Actually template. Various other characters include Anne Hathaway, Jessica Alba, Bradley Cooper, Julia Roberts (who provides the film's closing in-joke), Taylor Swift, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Eric Dane, Queen Latifah, Kathy Bates.. perhaps there are one or two characters too many. I can't say anything really that romantic happens, but if the moral is get together with your best friend - I couldn't agree more.

Those reading the small print will see Paul Williams (Phantom of the Paradise) is the night DJ and there was some 'additional editing' by Kevin Tent.

* The book is 'The Essential Rumi' by Jalal al-Din Rumi which Blackwells describes as 'A collection of poetry by the thirteenth century Sufi saint cover topics ranging from emptiness and silence to elegance and majesty.' Though I think it's a kind of lip-service to inclusivity, really. Film written by Katherine Fugate.

It was Q's Valentine's Day suggestion. That day in 2009 she came up with the interesting trilogy of Roman Holiday, Brief Encounter and The Graduate!

Appointment with Danger (1950 Lewis Allen)

Richard Breen & Warren Duff's briskly written and executed story has tough but capable detective Alan Ladd (who we are amusingly introduced to throwing his boss over his head) investigating murder of postal inspector and uncovering a mail heist plan led by Paul Stewart. In becoming associated with nun witness Phyllis Calvert (good) he becomes more human. Good tersely funny lines. Bad guys are Jack Webb, Stacy Harris, Harry Morgan and moll Jan Sterling (Ace in the Hole).

Classily shot (much on location) by John Seitz, scored by Victor Young. Paramount.

Born to Be Bad (1933 released 1934 Lowell Sherman)

In mildly risqué pre-Code story good-time girl (i.e. prostitute) and single mother Loretta Young and delinquent son Jackie Kelk become mixed up with wealthy Cary Grant and his wife Marion Burns. Henry Travers is a kindly bookstore owner and Paul Harvey a shady (and very obviously Jewish) lawyer. Quite a lot happens in 60 minutes in Ralph Graves' story. Loretta and the kid are rather good and natural. Grant hasn't quite evolved to be the one we know and love.

I rather enjoyed it - films of this era can be good value. Nice touches, e.g. Grant as van driver who is actually president - and has an ending which isn't necessarily guessable.

I didn't even realise Fox was making pictures back then. As '20th Century Fox' didn't begin trading until 1935, the Fox ident as we know it must have been added after the film was first released. In fact the credits read Joseph M. Schenk presenting a Darryl F Zanuck production for 20th Century Pictures. I read on Wikipedia that the film had to be reshot and edited to tone it down for the Hays Office - including removal of excess footage of Young in her underwear - which probably explains the delay in release.

As evidenced by screen caps the DVD release is very grainy.

Loretta is looking glamorous in ultra-thin eyebrow, heavy under the eyes, backless gown early 30s look, shot by Barney McGill. We know her best for The Stranger (on my to watch again list already), The Bishop's Wife, Wife Doctor and Nurse (rare 1937 not on DVD, officially) and The Doctor Takes a Wife (with Ray Milland) - suggesting she may have been typecast as a wife in later roles!

Bridget Jones's Baby (2016 Sharon Maguire)

Q insisted on this even while 12 Years a Slave was still playing (after which she said 'I feel very heavily trodden on'). It's not very good, though does have some laughs, in part created by Emma Thompson, who also has the best scenes (Hugh Grant declined the first script).

Twelve Years a Slave (2013 Steve McQueen)

I've decided I don't like Steve McQueen much - this one at any rate - obviously no problem with the real Steve McQueen at all. Hunger is not a film I've managed to finish, and Shame not one I'm likely to revisit often  (though Carey Mulligan is great). And this is so relentless it's off-putting. Look, I know we're not supposed to enjoy a film about slavery in 1841 (in some ways, the film doesn't go far enough) but it is a merciless slog designed to provoke indignant wrath. It's like Schindler's List - a film you feel obliged to watch. Even the reasonably nice characters (Benedict Cumberbatch) aren't, and Michael Fassbender especially seems to relish playing a Class A cunt.

It all came about because Q said that Lupita Nyong'o was the first black woman to win an Oscar - not true actually - it was Hattie McDaniel - though it was the first time a black director won. Also didn't recognise Alfre Woodard as the lady who offers him tea and has risen out of cotton picking.

Naturally, in true life, Solomon didn't get justice for what had happened to him.

I deeply regretted suggesting it, though creatively, Hans Zimmer contributes some interesting music and there's no problem with Sean Bobbitt's photography nor Joe Walker's editing.

Paper Moon (1973 Peter Bogdanovich)

An absolute delight which was remarkably overlooked at the Oscars - although Tatum won for her debut, neither Peter as writer or director nor Laszlo Kovacs were even nominated  - the pin sharp deep focus high contrast photography is stunning and the screen play is beautifully visual.

Tomorrow Is Forever (1945 Irving Pichel)

Written by Lenore Coffee and Gwen Bristow, film has a slightly stodgy beginning but moves into emotional gear when Orson Welles enters the home of his former wife Claudette Colbert (she doesn't recognise him) and gets mixed up in the moral question as to whether her (and his) son should join the RAF.

Welles is great (he has a magnificent sad presence) and Natalie Wood as his adopted daughter has no trouble with the German lines she has to speak. Colbert doesn't seem to age at all, which is quite funny. Unmistakably scored by Max Steiner, who excels in a tense dinner scene (he loves his timpani).

With George Brent, Lucile Watson, Richard Long, Ian Wolfe. Shot by Ted Tetzlaff for RKO.

Seven Psychopaths (2012 Martin McDonagh & scr)

I underestimated this film the last time we saw it - it's constantly commenting on itself, upending criticisms which you (I) might make, and has a dark heart - My Lai, for example.

It's a very subtle work despite big gory belly laughs.

Sam Rockwell is just great (he won the Golden Globe for Four Billboards and is also up for the Oscar/BAFTA) - though so is Colin Farrell. And so is Woody Harrelson. With Christopher Walken, Abbie Cornish, Harry Dean Stanton, Gabourey Sidibe, Zeljko Ivanek, Tom Waits, Olga Kurylenko and Bonny (the dog, definitely credit-worthy).

"Get your hands up."
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't want to."

Shot by Ben Davis in Panavision and scored by Carter Burwell.

The Man in the Moon (1991 Robert Mulligan)

Jenny Wingfield's original story has 13 year old Reese Witherspoon (terrific in her debut) falling for neighbour Jason London - unfortunately her sister Emily Warfield has the same inclination. It's 1950s Elvis fuelled Americana - the only bad weather is at dramatically appropriate times. Vehicles have convincingly distressed detail. Other actors are Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, Gail Strickland and Bentley Mitchum (son of Chris and grandson of Robert) as the arsehole date.

Mulligan - director of Mockingbird and Summer of '42 - has a good feel for such material.

The Dressmaker (2015 Jocelyn Moorhouse)

The problem I had with this is that the opening is played like a broad farce (I always feel uncomfortable in such situations) so that the ensuing emotional events feel out of sorts... I would have played it much straighter (a modern western like Hud) and it all would have hung together better. Kate Winslet and Judy Davis are of course fine. 

Written by Rosalie Ham, P.J. Hogan and Jocelyn Moorhouse. With Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Julia Blake etc. Shot by Donald McAlpine. Not sure spaghetti / western references help or not. Dresses are striking (Marion Boyce and Margot Wilson). A confused film, that says hello to itself as it's leaving.

Half Nelson (2006 Ryan Fleck)

It's been a while - reviewed here. Fleck and Anna Boden wrote the film (and she edited the picture as well - a quite unusual combination unless you're a Coen, Allen or Soderbergh). Something really different, a socially conscious, honest, unpredictable story of ... friendship ... which manages also to offer up an intriguing history lesson throughout.

Q. How did you first get together creatively? Was it romantically or through work?
Anna Boden: We were dating first, and I was doing a documentary short for a film class and I just kind of asked him to help me out and hold the microphone, basically. But then he had all these suggestions, about how to edit the film. He started directing everything…..
Ryan Fleck: And I didn’t need you at some point, it was my movie.
Anna Boden: We ended up co-directing that and we liked working together.
Ryan Fleck: I had done some theatre, and I had more of a fiction film background and Anna had been more involved in documentaries, so I worked a little bit more with the actors in Half Nelson and stole the director credit while she was sleeping.

They also made  It's Kind of a Funny Story and Mississippi Grind and Sugar (Dominican baseball player recruited to US) and some TV stuff including episodes of The Affair.

Doesn't go where you think it will go - e.g. in great scene between Gosling and Anthony Mackie - in fact arguably it doesn't go anywhere... Gosling and 17 year old Shareeka Epps are fabulous:

Anna Boden: I think that his relationship with Shareeka, his friendship with her, was a very important basis for his character’s friendship with her in the film. They’re still close, and by the time we started shooting they had really formed a friendship and she maybe had a little bit of a crush on him too.

Unlike our previous film it's often in close up.

The Talk of the Town (1942 George Stevens & prod)

Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman were Oscar nominated for their adaptation of Sidney Buchman's Oscar-nominated story (in itself a quite unusual occurrence?) which tackles the theme of justice and the law by pitching escaped suspect Cary Grant against sober law professor Ronald Colman - and throwing in a dose of Jean Arthur between them for good measure.  Meanwhile the police and corrupt officials are on their tails..

Neither Colman nor Arthur are quite my favourite actors and yet there's something most watchable about the three of them, e.g. in fireside conversation:

The two men have taken to each other instantly in talky but engaging film, thoughtful, humorous and gripping.

Nominated for Best Picture, Ted Tetzlaff's photography, Friedrich Hollander's music, Otto Meyer's editing and the interior design.

I have to say, however, that 'Dilg' is an absurd name and so is 'Brightcap' - the latter supposedly a reference to a shrewd thinker, but just made me think to myself throughout 'Get a nightcap for Brightcap'.

Quite simply filmed and reserving the close-ups for maximum impact (though in one, Colman's manservant Rex Ingram seems to shed a tear over Colman shaving, which is frankly odd).

With Edgar Buchanan (attorney on their side), Glenda Farrell, Charles Dingle (corrupt official), Leonid Kinskey (Polish butcher), Tom Tyler, Don Beddoe.

While we were watching it our Cary Grant-loving neighbour gave birth to her first child, which we though most appropriate.

Catch and Release (2006 Susannah Grant & scr)

Reviewed here. There's also a triple repeat where Olyphant escorts Garner from the bar. That bed scene is amazing - you can't keep up with how many overlaps there are, and it seems they are coming in and out...

We don't know anything about anyone at the beginning (a funeral) which is quite cool. And we don't see the deceased in flashback. John Lindley shot it.

Grant has since developed A Gifted Man for TV 2011-12, Members Only 2015 TV movie, The 5th Wave (alien attacks, 2016), Confirmation (topical sounding TV movie about sex allegation in politics) and - in pre-production - another TV series, about teenage rape claim, Unbelievable.

It's nothing amazing - but a perfectly well told, well acted, interesting, amusing piece, perhaps lacking in a bit of depth.. I dunno, but it's a once every four years film, and that tells you something...

This Is Where I Leave You (2014 Shawn Levy)

Where had this little gem been hiding? (I found it in Oxfam.) Jonathan Tropper is a novelist in the family / relationships genre (the source novel was published in 2009) and his TV work e.g. Banshee seems more action-oriented, but this is a realistic feeling, funny family comedy. To celebrate the death of their father, mum Jane Fonda holds a seven day shiva in which kids Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Cory Stoll and Adam Driver are forced to attend, along with sundry other parties (Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton). With Timothy Olyphant, Ben Schwarz and Rose Byrne. Driver has the energy of a puppy.

Good writing."I missed him when he was alive."
"You love each other, that's so much harder than having a baby."

It's heavily edited rather than letting scenes flow, but overall it's a big tick.

Holiday (1938 George Cukor)

Cary Grant is marrying into 'one of the sixty families' through Doris Nolan. Father Henry Kolker disapproves, brother Lew Ayres (good) is a drunk, other sister Katharine Hepburn (fab) is a kook. Grant's surrogate mum and dad are the sweet Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon. And Henry Daniell.

Source play (Philip Barry) evident, adaptation by Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman, and though long scenes can be static and talky, acting is great and many funny scenes - acrobatics of Grant and Hepburn amazing, as is the way he walks into the cabin right at the end - Grant can do things like this amazingly well.

Made at Columbia. Photographed by Franz Planer. The UCLA 'restored' version is very grainy.

A Good Year (2006 Ridley Scott)

Marc Kelin's decent script is an adaptation of Peter Mayle's 2004 novel - Mayle being a former advertising colleague and neighbour of Scott. (He also wrote 'A Year in Provence' and died in January.)

Russell Crowe's accent has something of the pantomime to it, but he is surrounded by a stellar cast of Brits - Archie Punjabi, Tom Hollander, Rafe Spall, Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland and Close To The Enemy), Albert Finney, Kenneth Cranham and (fleetingly) Daniel Mays. In France there's Dider Bourdon, Isabelle Candelier, Marion Cotillard and Abbie Cornish.

Not sure scorpions would come into a first floor window (though if this is in Mayle's book, I guess he would know), nor about the over-emphatically blue colour palette of London, but enjoyable in the way the past keeps resurfacing and in the secret of the wine... Didn't recognise any of the clips shown in the montage against Trenet's 'Boum' - mainly French I guess, perhaps put together for the film?

Photographed by Philippe le Sourd in Panavision.

Interesting song choices in soundtrack too.

Home Again (2017 Hallie Myers-Shyer & scr)

Daughter of Nancy Myers (who produced) and Charles Shyer (House Calls, Goin' South, Private Benjamin, the Alfie remake), this is her debut and we thoroughly enjoyed this comedy which operates within its own cosy Hollywood fantasy existence of beautifully designed houses. (In fact the 1929 Spanish-style hacienda in Brentwood "is like a character in the film,” says production designer Ellen J. Brill. “That’s what happens in Nancy Meyers movies.” See here.) It also trades on the popular theme of films and film-makers (it's a bit disappointing that not more of the family connection to the genius director is made).

Pico Alexander, John Rudnitsky and Nat Wolff are the film-makers who encounter Reese Witherspoon and her mother Candice Bergen.  (It's a great moment when the boys relish the feel of the sheets. And when they realise whose house they are in.) Lola Flanery and Eden Grace Redfield are the girls and Michael Sheen the estranged father. With Lake Bell as an arsehole client, P.J. Byrne (agent).

Much to its credit, it doesn't end quite where you expect it to, either. Moves along briskly and is funny. Shot by Dean Cundey (now 70) and featuring an interesting soundtrack of oldies including vintage Yes.

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Den Skaldede Frisør (The Bald Hairdresser) / Love Is All You Need (2012 Susanne Bier)

Crap UK release name. Trine Dyrholm is delightful as a truly beautiful and good person who attracts lonely widower Pierce Brosnan, who is himself plagued by the unwanted attentions of his dead wife's sister (Paprika Steen). Whilst this is going on, Trine's daughter (Molly Blixt Egelind) and Pierce's son (Sebastian Jessen) try to get married. Meanwhile Trine's husband Kim Bodnia (from the Bridge) is a shit. Susane and Anders Thomas Jensen (Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, In China They Eat Dogs, In a Better World and the new The Dark Tower) wrote it.

Trine's the star of Nico, 1988, The Legacy (three seasons), many things, as well as in Bier's 2010 In a Better World (aka Hævnen = Revenge).

Filmed in and around Sant'Angelo Salerno and Sorrento.

Engrenages / Spiral - Season 6 (2017 Created by Alexandra Clert)

Writers: Anne Landois, Anne Rambach.

Great writing - Gilou steals the gold ingot. Tells Laure. She comes out with a worse plan. "I fucked up and now you're making it worse."

They miss the suspect's movements because they are fighting in the back of the van.

The forensics expert who is doing Juge Roban a favour, and she ends up making his dreaded biopsy appointment for him.

Laure (Caroline Proust) tries to connect with her baby, but chickens out. At least she seems happy, finally, with Gilou (Thierry Godard), but Tintin (Fred Bianconi) finds out something dodgy, and quits (he also loses his family - in  a very tense episode, his son goes missing). Meanwhile the Juge (Phillipe Duclos) is having health problems.. Oh yeah, a cop is dismembered.

It doesn't go where you think - Gilou being caught on film by the baddy, or the fact that the Juge helps cover up a fellow's gay activities, who then doesn't help him at all in return. Plus - poor Joséphine (Audrey Fleurot) - in prison? Cue season 7 (filming had already begun).

They're not bits of Paris you recognise, nor want to visit.

L'Atalante (1934 Jean Vigo)

Newly-weds Dita Parlo and Jean Dasté honeymoon on a barge with colourful Michel Simon and the boy Louis Lefebre. They make love, split up, and are reunited. Actors are infectious. Striking photography from Boris Kaufman (and Louis Berger and Jean-Paul Alphen).

Vigo died of tuberculosis after filming, aged 29. 'Only a few days after the first disappointing run ended, Vigo died. His much-loved wife Lydou, lying beside him, got up from the bed and ran down a long corridor to a room at the end of it. Friends caught her as she was about to jump out of the window'* - and that could be a scene from the film, which leaves us with striking scenes underwater and of a marionette, and a persistent and annoying junk pedlar and a gramophone and cats and the city... and ends on a terrific aerial shot of the barge, the 'L'Atalante' of the title.

When you see it it doesn't seem so much, somehow, but its effect is deeper than it seems. Written by Vigo, Albert Riéra and Jean Guinée.

*(Excerpt from Derek Malcolm's 'A Century of Films' (2000)).

Cahiers du Cinema published a Top 100 in 2008. This was number five.

The King of Comedy (1982 Martin Scorsese)

Paul D Zimmerman's screenplay could be about the quest to try to make it in the creative business, but is also about celebrity and obsession, and he cleverly cuts between the fantasies of its protagonist Robert de Niro and the actuality of him trying to get discovered by his hero Jerry Lewis. They are both great, as is Sandra Bernhard, though we don't know why she's so nuts. Cleverly, the ending may be irony or just another fantasy, and we don't discover till the end whether Pupkin has any talent or not.

Edited by Thelma Schoonmaker; shot by Fred Shuler, who photographed Arthur and was operator on Manhattan, Annie Hall, Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver.

A Walk in the Woods (2015 Ken Kwapis)

Based on Bill Bryson's memoir, written by Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) and Bill Holderman.

Nothing particularly surprises or happens when Robert Redford and Nick Nolte embark on the Appalachian trail hike, to the concern of the former's wife Emma Thompson. And we don't really learn a lot about the pair, but there are plenty of amusing and heart-warming episodes, and the most annoying fellow hiker Kristen Schaal. With Mary Steenburgen.

Shot by John Bailey in Panavision and from a few helicopters, and edited by his wife Carol Littleton.

Endeavour (2017 Created and written by Russell Lewis)

Fabulous four-part film series where characters are nicely nuanced and beautifully played - particularly by leads Shaun Evans and Roger Allam, but also  by Anton Lesser, Sean Rigby, Dakota Blue Richards, James Bradshaw (pathologist) and Abigail Thaw, Caroline O'Neill, Sara Vickers.

'Game' - computers and chess.
'Canticle' - a Mary Whitehouse type affair.
'Lazaretto' - featuring the band Wildwood, their hit 'Jennifer Sometimes' and the underground paper 'The Exciting Times'!
'Harvest' - nuclear power plant and Wicker Man-type goings-on. 'The Other Place' - the TV show that has hooked Win - is fictional.

"Off now!"

Lewis is a man of mystery.

Kiri (2017 Euros Lyn)

Have usual bugbears with some of Lyn's direction ("Why did you do that?" I found myself asking here and there) but I do like Jack Thorne's writing. Credits:

Skins (5 episodes)
The Scouting Book For Boys. Ouch! (Can't like them all, I suppose.)
This Is England '86 / '88 / '90.
How I Live Now (additional material)
A Long Way Down
Glue / The Last Panthers (missed those...)
National Treasure
Wonder (co-wrote)

Little girl goes missing, then found dead. Social worker who expedited it is suspended. Who did it? Behaviour of teenager is outrageous. Moment where Lancashire confronts her former wards is striking.. but doesn't really go anywhere with it.

Although we know, the series ends abruptly with absolutely nothing resolved. If that's the intention, I like it, but if it's another fucking 'here comes season 2', then fuck off.

Cast: Sarah Lancashire (great), Lucian Msamati & Andi Osho, Lia Williams & Steven Mackintosh, Wunmi Mosaku, Paapu Esiedu, Finn Bennett, Claire Rushbrook.

4 x 45 mins.