Get a Job (2016 Dylan Kidd)

Well, we enjoyed Kyle Pennekamp & Scott Turpel's screenplay, even though being a little clichéd and readable, and the performances of Miles Teller, Anna Kendrick and Bryan Cranston.

The stoner friends are Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Nicholas Braun and Brandon T Jackson. Alison Brie makes a good impression as a quirky office worker, and Jay Pharoah as the pimp. With Jorge Garcia, Marcia Gay Harden, John McGinley and Greg Germann (Ally McBeal).

Miles and Alison Brie

.. and Jay Pharoah

Six Feet Under Season 3 (2003 Alan Ball)

We've gone widescreen! In an audacious opening episode, Nate dies - then we see various different versions of his life.

Then I can't help feeling the season continues in a slightly more conventional manner than before, with stories involving Lili Taylor, Kathy Bates, Justina Machado, Peter Macdissi (a truly irritating college lecturer) and Rainn Wilson, providing a bizarre love interest for Ruth (not sure Wilson - sounding like the computer from 2001, is really a good fit).

Some quirky material, for sure, including a Mormon family (or something even weirder), but they seemed to have dropped the corpses coming to life stuff, and the fantasy scenes.

Six Feet Under Season 2 (2002 Alan Ball)

Ball's not writing much of it again - I wonder how far in advance the story was plotted.

Lovely bit of acting from Lauren Ambrose when her useless boyfriend freaks out and shoots someone in the adjacent car.

Much use of the dream or fantasy scenes which you're not sure whether are real, particularly the one between David and Keith reuniting which you assume to be David's, but it's Keith's.

Very interesting Thai funeral process, then Thai monk music becomes backing for series of shots which advance plot e.g. the young girl pissed off with David for telling her secret. Brenda imagines telling Ruth about her weekend at a sex party, then Ruth says how much she admires her for her free spirit and accepting Nate.

In one of several emotionally charged dramatic scenes, David and Keith fight, end up on the ground, their faces inches away - then there's a laugh out loud cut to a teenager barfing.

It's good, very well written and acted.

Man About the House (1974 John Robins)

Spin-off of TV show stars Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox, Sally Thomsett (who retired pretty much after the series finished in 1976), Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce. It's very poor, really, but there are one or two jokes, the performances aren't too bad, and there's a hilarious cameo by Spike Milligan. Also an alarming driving scene in a yellow VW through Maida Vale.

Also featured: Doug Fisher, Peter Cellier (developer), Patrick Newell (politician), Arthur Lowe, Bill Maynard, Aubrey Morris (A Clockwork Orange).

The best bit is how clean and well organised the restaurant kitchen has become under O'Sullivan's tutelage.

It's no wonder the British film industry was having a hard time if they were expecting people to shell out bucks to go and see this sort of thing in a cinema.

Kings Row (1942 Sam Wood)

I would have cut Casey Robinson's screen play from 'Stick your chin out Drake' to telling him his legs were cut off unnecessarily, never mind that poetry bullshit. Don't say 'I've got something really important to tell you', then go round the houses of flammery. That's always bothered me.

On the other hand, I can't really argue with Sheridan's line "That day I saw Drake at the station - well, he simply went to a place in my heart that had been waiting for him."

The remarkable girls are Ann Sheridan, Betty Field and Nancy Coleman.

In recognition of his worth, Korngold was awarded a rare full page credit:

Charles Coburn has never been so unlikable. Q would have liked Dr Gordon to have received his comeuppance, rather than dying conveniently.

Harry Davenport's beard is ridiculous. Special mention to the lady who has a ten second cameo in the doctor's office, I guess it's Bertha Powell:

The gay version - Parris bursts into Drake's room and kisses him:

Interestingly sympathetic German characters for 1942.

Henry Bellamann wrote a sequel, 'Paris Mitchell of King's Row' in 1948, which his wife completed after his death.

The Trip to Spain (2017 Michael Winterbottom)

Yes, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are hilarious (e.g. both doing a Roger Moore Bond/Villain scene) - but who wrote it?? I presume they did, but why no credit?

The ending is a real doozy.

Always nice to hear 'Windmills of the Mind'.

What did the Moors ever do for us?

The trip:

Six Feet Under Season 1 (2001 Alan Ball)

'Bringing the fun back into funeral!' I'd forgotten those irreverent ads (only in the pilot, unfortunately), and the fades to white, and the fantasy sequences. Ball actually hardly wrote any of them, deigning to supply the last episode. The openings - who will die? - are always brilliant, such as the golf version (stray ball kills old woman in garden).

Apart from Richard Jenkins, no one seemed to acquire star status: Peter Krause, Michael C Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Freddy Rodriguez, Rachel Griffiths, Jeremy Sisto.

They're an unlikable bunch of characters, at the outset.. though Nat seems the nicest, and to have the knack of helping their customers - and here we get interesting stories involving the deceased, who are gang members, porn stars, old people, gulf War vets... Certain powerful episodes e.g. dead baby, gay killing.

Also, Nat starts finding out who his father really was... As we start to find out more about them all, behaviours become more understandable.

Thomas Newman wrote the theme.

Shot compositions like this recur throughout all seasons, like it's a house style.

Ball was a writer and story editor on Cybill and Grace Under Fire. Unsurprisingly, he is gay. Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins are in his new HBO show Here and Now.

"Nothing makes me happier than watching a show come together in a way that surprises me. Or getting a script where I don't have to do anything to it. I want this to be fun [Ball] said, then added Maybe I'm just lazier than most people. For much of its five season run, the writer's room could lay plausible claim  to being the happiest in TV.. For the final three seasons the membership of the room remained exactly the same, an almost unheard-of distinction.
In the course of its run, the Six Feet Under's writer's room would include New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan, the playwrights Rick Cleveland, Nancy Oliver and Craig Wright and the writer Jill Soloway, whom Ball hired on the strength of a short story called 'Courtney Cox's Asshole'."

Excerpts from 'Difficult Men' Brett Martin.

Hail, Caesar! (2016 Joel & Ethan Coen)

Their funniest film is also a wonderfully staged period piece with clocks, watches, telephones, lamps, cars etc littered all over the place. Jess Ginchor is the production designer

Love that 'Would that it were so simple' becomes 'It's complicated'! And the two Tilda Swintons.

It's incredibly classily made in the way that the Coens make their films e.g. the noise of the bead curtain opening in the Japanese restaurant.

Scarlett's accent is outrageous.

"We're not even talking about money. We're talking about economics."

The Descendants (2011 Alexander Payne & co-scr)

Our sixth viewing of this melancholy film remains one of our favourites - the eclectic Hawaiian music certainly helps, and the acting is splendid by everyone (the moment when Amara Miller is told her mother is to die - done entirely visually by the way - is heartbreaking). Nat Faxon and Jim Rash wrote the first couple of drafts and focused more on Scottie, as the book had done (Kaui Hart Hemmings). Camerawork (Phedon Papamichael properly using the widescreen), editing (Kevin Tent) also outstanding.

The ending on the sofa is one of my favourite scenes in any film.

Clooney's running in this film is funny. Does he actually run like that, or is it a Coen Brothers run?

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 Robert Wise)

Herrmann invented sci-fi music. Kept thinking of one of the themes from North by Northwest throughout.

Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Lock Martin (Gort).

Pacy film is well put together by former editor Wise, pacily edited by William Reynolds, nicely shot by Leo Tover. The spaceship opening is cool, the robot rather less so, except in close up:

Earth is populated by morons - that's clear from the beginning. Film stands up well. Edmund H North is the writer, based on a story by Harry Bates.

My Man Godfrey (1936 Gregory la Cava)

Gosh. Powell, Lombard, Mischa Auer and Alice Brady were Oscar nominated, as were La Cava and Eric Hatch and Morrie Ryskind. Powell and Lombard were over by then - they were married 1931-1933. They apparently remained close friends. They are both terrific, as is Eugene Pallette.

It's divine. Photographed by Ted Tetzlaff.

Publicity still from Criterion booklet

The Passionate Friends (1948, released 1949 David Lean)

Considerably reworking a 1913 book by H.G. Wells, Eric Ambler's script was originally intended for Ronnie Neame to direct for Cineguild. Lean hated his script and set to work adapting it with Stanley Haynes. Neame started directing an unfinished and not right script and with poor rushes resulting, Lean took over, and that was the end of their relationship.

Successfully cinematic in many places, e.g. those short flashbacks in the car, abruptly interrupted, the moments with the theatre ticket, and when Ann Todd returns from her mountain excursion with Trevor Howard whilst Claude Rains plays with his binoculars. (Lean, who fell in love with Todd in Switzerland, thus in fact becoming the titular couple, is the one piloting the motor boat.) Betty Ann Davies is the secretary.

V. professionally put together - direction, photography (Guy Green, operator Ozzie Morris) and editing (Lean allowing Geoffrey Foot to do it). Richard Addinsell provides music.

Rabbit Hole (2010 John Cameron Mitchell)

Very well acted and written drama, based on David Lindsay-Abaire's own play. Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhardt, Miles Teller and Diane Weist are just brilliant. Let me repeat that. Kidman. Brilliant, so natural, keeps looking like we've interrupted a real bit of living. Eckhardt. Never seen him like this, so good. Teller. This is the movie that inspired Jason Reitman and Damien Chazelle to cast him for Whiplash. Weist - well, we already knew. And loved the ending - Eckhardt suggests what will happen the next day, while we actually watch it.

Not depressing, keeps you wondering what's going on. With Tammy Blanchard, Sandra Oh, Giancarlo Esposito.

Mitchell is an actor, which is maybe why he directs such great performances. He's been in The Good Fight, Vinyl (as Warhol) and Girls and both starred in and directed Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Wonder (2017 Stephen Chbosky & co-scr)

He wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, book and screenplay. This is not badly written, so that we get to know what's going on with all the characters, not just Jacon Tremblay (from Room). Jacon? Good name. But it is all rather sugary. It's no Mask.

With Robert Julias. Wilson Owen, Izabela Vidovic (as Via), Mandy Patinkin (nice headmaster), Noah Jupe (friend), Daveed Diggs (nice teacher), Nadji Jeter (heroically nice boyfriend), etc. etc.

The Crown (2016 scr Peter Morgan)

Claire Foy finally growing some balls and telling off a great Churchill, John Lithgow. 'Act of God' - Matt Smith up in the clear air (why's he learning to fly in a biplane?) and the London fog that killed 12,000. Cross cutting, back to Jared Harris. It's not Victoria, but it's good.

Vanessa Kirby (Margaret), Alex Jennings (Lady in the Van - Duke of Windsor), Ben Miles (Margaret's beau - this is not Rufus Sewell), Victoria Hamilton (Q. mother), Eileen Atkins, Jeremy Northam, Lia Williams, Greg Wise, Pip Torrens, Harriet Walter, Harry Hadden-Paton.

Morgan wrote The Queen, thus is on familiar ground, as well as Frost/Nixon, The Last King of Scotland, The Jury, Rush, Clint Eastwood flop Hereafter. He's nothing to do with Abi Morgan. The writing is good, solid craftsmanship, nothing particularly amazing though. Some of it's less interesting than others bits, in Queen being thwarted at every turn a little predictable and repetitive, though like scenes between Churchill and painter Graham Sutherland, well played by Stephen Dillane.

Adriano Goldman's photography good (Burnt and Osage August County).

Too Many Crooks (1959 Mario Zampi)

Predictable, crude, sexist, unbelievable, silly, with one of those 'boing!' illustrated scores - quite a lot of fun, in other words. For example, after the hearse crash they leave it there, and in the next scene end up in their destination in another one which they've acquired somewhere... That's the writer not bothering to think the scene through, and at the same time saying 'Who cares?'

Terry Thomas manages to outwit dumb gang of crooks headed by George Cole, and comprising Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw, Joe Melia and Vera Day, until he meets his comeuppance from spurned wife Brenda de Banzie. In this respect the plot - derived from a story by French feminist writer Christiane Rochefort, and Jean Nery, seems seminal - the husband refusing to pay the ransom for the wife turns up in Elmore Leonard's book 'The Switch' (1978), which became Life of Crime (2013) and is also the basis for Ruthless People (1986). (Though the review of the latter reminds me that film is based on a 1910 O. Henry story, and thus I don't know what I'm talking about - doubtless not for the first time.)

With Delphi Lawrence, John le Mesurier, Nicholas Parsons, Sydney Tafler, Terry Scott. Shot by Stan Pavey.

American Hustle (2013 David O Russell)

Has a wonderful twist end written by Russell and Eric Warren Singer. Adams and Lawrence are both outstanding. The script is good, as we keep hearing about the people involved as the story progresses.

All the protagonists are fakers. Great make up, costumes and design.

Linus Sandgren's roving but old-fashioned photography is what drew Chazelle to him for La La Land.

North by Northwest (1959 Alfred Hitchcock)

Last seen here and here.

Love the music.

William Goldman writes in 'Adventures in the Screen Trade' about how much he admires Ernest Lehman's ending, in which the entire plot - from the moment Landau starts stepping on Grant's fingers - is resolved in 43 seconds. "That's not very sporting, using real bullets."

No one walks across a room like Grant, but his act trying to drive the car drunkenly is fabulous.

Film could be called Planes, Trains, Buses and Automobiles.

Makes me think of The Good the Bad and the Ugly...

Whiplash (2014 Damien Chazelle & scr)

Damien's debut was Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (not well rated; sounds though like a trial run for his musical), then the Whiplash short, wrote The Last Exorcism Part II and Grand Piano (Elijah Wood is pianist who will be shot if he plays a wrong note), wrote and directed this, co-wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane and then La-La Land. It turns out he was a jazz drummer who experienced a teacher situation just like this - when asked why he went from jazz drummer to film maker he replied 'Everything in this film'. But the screenplay is clever enough to see both sides of the situation.

Miles Teller had some drumming experience but then had to quickly learn the jazz moves. He and J.K. Simmons ('I had to gesture with my arms a lot') are both amazing (J.K. is as terrifying as the child catcher) and the film is knife-edge tense throughout, considerably aided by Tom Cross's amazing editing, which understands the music it's cutting to. Sharone Meir shoots in that same dark rich palette as Luca Bigazzi, in Panavision, and Justin Hurwitz provides original big band numbers.

With sharp insight, Q suggests of Damian Chazelle 'Whiplash was his pain, La La Land his joy'.

J.K.'s air grab has become something of a visual joke in this house.

You have to be as fast as J.K. just to catch the screen grab!