Shockproof (1949 Douglas Sirk)

Helen Deutsch apparently changed Sam Fuller's original screenplay ending which he thought was 'a shame'. The film oddly fits into Sirk's oeuvre, somehow, representing another broken / conflicted family - this one with murderer parolee Patricia Knight coming to stay with parole officer Cornel Wilde's family, which includes a blind mother Ester Minciotti (shades of Magnificent Obsession). But she's still smitten with bad guy John Baragrey... She and Wilde go on the run after she shoots the ex and end up in an oil drilling community (shades of Written on the Wind), married, trapped, guilty...

The Bradbury features as the parole office and there's a spectacular stunt that displays the nice lift. Sirk moves his camera elegantly and there's a great moment where the fleeing and newly married couple steal a 'Just married' car. Charles Lawton shot it. Sirk's last film for Columbia.

Good Neighbor Sam (1964 David Swift)

Despite having plot holes big enough to drive Romy Schneider's Ford Thunderbird through (James Fritzell, Everett Greenbaum & Swift adapted Jack Finney's novel), an enjoyable event, which kicks off like Reggie Perrin meets Mad Men and ends up in the kind of crazy antics you find in American pictures of this era (featuring that Bradbury Building, which appears in everything from Douglas Sirk's Shockproof  to (500) Days of Summer and Bladerunner).

Joyce Jameson, Sheldon Allman (I think), Lemmon and Schneider at the Bradbury

Jack received another BAFTA nomination.

At 2 hours 10 film is too long, but what really makes this stand out is the chemistry / relationship between Lemmon and Schneider, playing his wife's best friend - they have to pretend to be married. Jack (hardly) has an unseemly thought about this situation and nor does she - they're like really good instant friends working towards a common goal (millions of dollars). Lemmon is great as he is in everything, Romy is very fresh, energetic and lovely.

With Dorothy Provine, Mike Connors, Edward Andrews.

Catchy theme from de Vol, shot by Burnett Guffey.

As I pointed out before, they missed a trick - the graffitied posters should have been a great success.

Cast a Dark Shadow (1955 Lewis Gilbert)

John Cresswell adapted Janet Green's play 'Murder Mistaken'. Dirk Bogarde kills off elderly wife Mona Washbourne, remarries spunky Margaret Lockwood (good), then becomes entangled with Kay Walsh, while timid Kathleen Harrison toddles in service and Robert Flemyng pokes about. Good acting, engrossing story kept afloat by Bogarde's performance - because we can't like him, yet somehow, we don't hate him either.

With Philip Stainton (PC in Passport to Pimlico). Shot by Jack Asher.

Lockwood was in The Lady Vanishes and Night Train to Munich, then was in Gainsborough pictures The Wicked Lady and Jassy. She is not to be confused with Margaret Leighton, from The Constant Husband, Under Capricorn and The Winslow Boy.

Some Like It Hot (1959 Billy Wilder)

Wilder and Diamond's screenplay was suggested by a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan. Has that familiar thing of using props as plot points - thus the double bass with bullet holes, the spats, the bicycle.

I'd have liked it if when Joe E Brown jumps into his boat he also drives it backwards to the yacht.

Admission (2013 Paul Weitz)

Based on Jean Hanff Korelitz novel from 2009, adapted by Karen Croner.

Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Nat Wolff, Wallace Shawn, Gloria Reuben, Michael Sheen, Travaris Spears, Aleksander Krupa (good as professor).

Edited like ping pong.

The Conspirators (1944 Jean Negulesco)

Clear attempt by Warners to repeat Casablanca, with Paul Henreid in fine form as Dutch resistance fighter in Lisbon (somewhere near Hollywood), bumping into Hedy Lamarr, who's married to Victor Francen. Local resistance led by Sydney Greenstreet, with Peter Lorre. Joseph Calleia and Eduardo Cianelii are police, Vladimir Sokoloff  and Carol Thurston are local fishermen.

The script's by Vladimir Pozner and Leo Rosten, from the novel by Frederic Prokosch published the previous year, leading to suspenseful ending. And with familiar support from Max Steiner and Arthur Edeson.

Dead of Night (1945 Cavalcanti, Hamer, Crichton, Dearden)

John Baines and Angus MacPhail wrote it (they both contributed original stories - Baines 'The Haunted Mirror' and MacPhail 'Christmas Party' and 'Ventriloquist'), with additional dialogue by T.E.B. Clarke. E.F. Benson originally authored 'Hearse Driver', H.G. Wells wrote a version of 'Golf'.

As well as being an early example of the portmanteau film it's also perhaps unique in that it gave each episode to a different director, something which became popular in European cinema in the sixties, and more recently with the Je T'Aime.. series.

Cannot tire of performances, which are uniformly excellent, stylish direction, crazy good music.

To antique dealer: "You might have told me all this when I bought the mirror."

1974 film of same name is by Bob Clark (Black Christmas) and looks good (aka Deathdream).

Seven Psychopaths (2012 Martin McDonagh & scr)

So naturally we had to watch this again, Sam Rockwell displays signs of Oscar-worthiness in this (wasn't nominated by anyone), whole cast is great.

Bye, Harry. September 15, 2017.

"You're the one that thought psychopaths were so interesting. They get kinda tiresome after a while, don't you think?"

The film actually writes itself as it goes along - sort of. It's very clever, and there's the usual potshots at things (Vietnam, English, Irish etc.)

A Very Very Very Dark Matter (2018 Martin McDonagh)

Directed by Matthew Dunster at the Bridge Theatre, this is a world premiere.

Hans Christian Andersen keeps a pygmy in a box in his attic who is the actual creator of his stories - is this about female suppression? However improbably, it's about Belgian genocide in the Congo and murderous spirits from the future as well. It's as dark and funny as you'd expect.

Jim Broadbent, Johnetta Eula'Mae Ackles, Phil Daniels, Elizabeth Berrington.

Music by James Maloney.

Maniac (2018 Cary Joji Fukunaga)

You need to be quite committed to make your vision of one of these dystopian futures, in terms of budget and design and imagination. I'm not sure whether it is essential to this bonkers story of drug trials on the brains of Emma Stone and a frighteningly thin-looking Jonah Hill, or whether it's a distraction. It's very imaginative and puzzling, and funny.

Episode involving married Emma & Jonah's rescue of kidnapped Lemur is way out there, then continues to get progressively more crazy. The attraction for the two leads must in part have been that they had the opportunity to play so many different roles, to be many different characters, as they both pursue enlightenment and a resolve to change their lives.

In episode three (the aforementioned lemur story) they are happily married. Jonah can't say anything ruder then 'fudge', but at least you can hear him - in some of the framing scenes he speaks so quietly it's annoying.

In the penultimate story, Jonah is hilarious as Icelandic Snorri, whilst Emma is a CIA assassin:

Also loved Emma's British accent in elf story.

Patrick Somerville created the show which took a vague leaf from a Norwegian show of the same name about a patient in a mental hospital who has different hallucinations each episode. There were several other writers involved, including Fukunaga, who had made an impression with season one of True Detective.

The way objects, ideas, words and people pop up in fantasy and reality is not in itself new - Eternal Sunshine - as far back as AMOLAD - but it's most pleasingly inventive and by the end we were smiling broadly, having forgotten the ending which had been telegraphed to us way way back.

Justin Theroux is the lead doctor, Sonoya Mizuno his No. 2, Rome Kanda the deceased one. Gabriel Byrne, Julia Garner, Trudie Styler, Sally Field, Billy Magnussen (brother in trouble with law), Jemima Kirke, Hank Azaria.

Anonymous Content / Paramount Television for Netflix. Darren Lew shot it widescreen (2.35:1 by my reckoning), Dan Romer wrote the music, Pete Beaudreau and Tim Streeto edited, the production design was by Alex DiGerlando.

Title is wrong though - possible alternative is 'Where Do We Get Off?'

Scary Movie (2000 Keenan Ivory Wayans)

Disappointingly literal (and, frankly, lazy) retelling of Scream with 90% joke failure rate, despite (or perhaps because of) six writers. Quite offensive, too. Best moments involve a granny on the stairs, and a piano, and Regina Hall being such a pain in the arse in a cinema that all the audience kill her.

With Anna Faris, Dave Sheridan, Jon Abrahams, Marlon Wayans.

Scream (1996 Wes Craven)

Neve Campbell plays a gutsy heroine who continually manages to kick back and slip past the knife of the hooded killer, who alarmingly rushes around at you all over the place, but similarly falls over most pleasingly in an almost comedy pratfall style. Knowing film uses movie references throughout (Kevin Williamson, who also created Dawson's Creek) as part of the parlance of the youth, who seem totally unaffected by the slayings going on around them.

An unsubtle movie, for sure, with some good laughs, such as film buff screaming at Jaimie Lee in Halloween, as the killer stands over him - whilst later that film acts as a way of bumping off one of the (unexpected) bad guys.

Drew Barrymore. Skeet Ulrich, Lawrence Hecht, Courtney Cox, W. Earl Brown, David Arquette (the deputy), Matthew Lillard (who I think is better when he's reigned in, cf. the Descendants) Henry Winkler and Jamie Kennedy. Leiv Schreiber - who plays the innocent man in jail - I don't think we see?

The reason everything looked too close up was that BBC3 ran a 16x9 crop of Mark Irwin's  Panavision original.  (He shot eighties horrors Videodrome, The Dead Zone and The Fly. And 10 Things I Hate About You.) Thanks. We should have watched it on Amazon:

Daisy Miller (1974 Peter Bogdanovich)

Well, Peter explained - do you know Peter? oh well, he's a lovely chap - he explained that he felt he didn't quite fit into America being the son of European parents and didn't quite fit into Europe as being too American, a decidedly alienating thing - still, I suppose this sort of thing is more common than you think - and that Henry James novel, well long short story, thus appealed to him greatly and also to his loved one Cybill - who's everso good in those very long scenes, be it by the lake in Vevey, the Hotel Trois Couronnes or somesuch place - yes she really wanted to play the part of Annie Miller and when they met Barry Brown, why he just was Frederick Winterbourne, has a sort of melancholy sense about him - they say he used to read the obituaries every day - poor Barry, a strange and sad man, but he's awfully good, well they both are, such a shame then that the film wasn't really seen by anyone, wasn't liked much by the public and it slipped away like the last rays of sunshine over the Chateau de Chillon - oh, have you been? It's the most visited historic monument in Switzerland.

Yes. She might have understood more had she talked less. It's a dance, a social comedy of manners in which neither of the two can understand the other's feelings, hindered as they are by the judgements and impressions of all those around them, Mildred Natwick, Eileen Brennan, Cloris Leachman, George Morfogen, Nicholas Jones - even various concierges and bell hops. So whilst Frederic Raphael's writing stresses these social conflicts with amusing dialogue it still tenderly makes its way towards tragedy.*

Full credit to the cast who enact these long takes with complicated camera moves - something about the overlapping dialogue and the moves and the period and even the end credits made me think of The Magnificent Ambersons more than once. Beautifully shot by Alberto Spagnoli, edited by Verna Fields, no music score. The end fade to white anticipates Six Feet Under.

Larry McMurtry's son James plays the kid.

Loved the shot of Cybill being driven away in carriage outside the Colosseum. Q usefully informs me that Roman Fever was malaria ('mal aria' - bad air) emanating from swamps in this part of town.

Troubled family - sister Marilyn also committed suicide, told in brother James's book 'The Los Angeles Diaries'

*In fact Peter is latterly reported as saying he didn't use any of Raphael's script.

A Severed Head (1970 Dick Clement)

Iris Murdoch's 1961 novel, as written for the stage by her and J.B. Priestley, is adapted here by Frederic Raphael. Ian Holm finds out his wife Lee Remick is a serial adulterer, having slept with her analyst Dickie Attenborough. Meanwhile he's sleeping with Jennie Linden, but shifts his attention to Dickie's half-sister Claire Bloom. Clive Revill, a sculptor, is also involved in messy, shifting proceedings, very much of its time.

There's a great moment where Holm, fed up with the course of proceedings, punches Dickie, then immediately asks 'Are you alright?' - ends up having to borrow five shillings from him. It's a witty and wry script. The most Raphaely bit is Linden - "I absolutely refuse to meet her." CUT TO - "How nice to meet you."

The music's by Stanley Myers, was shot by Austin Dempster in Eastmancolor at several posh London locations.

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter & co-scr)

Jamie Lee Curtis' character Laurie is without doubt the best baby-sitter ever...

So small was the budget that Pleasance was paid in peanut butter sandwiches. Some of his scenes are truly terrible. But who cares? It's all Jamie and the kids and the Panaglide camera, the night, The Thing From Another World, jack-a-lanterns, the mask in the background in the shadows, the piano...

For further comment, see all October reviews for the last seventy years.

Q says that in last shot of the film, the Myers house is 'breathing'.

The Birds (1963 Alfredo Hitchcocko)

It's Halloween, almost. We wanted fried solid gold. OK, I posited Torn Curtain, which is fair - it's well overdue. But The Birds was more in keeping. It just gets better and better. The diner scene is just amazing, as various characters take the front of stage.  You could study that on its own. Those cameras - I mean, Hitch bothers to keep changing his camera positions - this isn't a quick TV style presentation. And the bird attacks are really well done, and no music...

So he completely deceives you into thinking you are watching some kind of romantic melodrama - well, actually, you are, the way it turns out, only there's a load of scary stuff as well, culminating in the attack on Tippi Hedren (great performance) at the end, which is savagely well edited - the equivalent of the Psycho shower scene. Then, when she's shell-shocked, and sees the gathered birds and says, 'No'... And before that, she comes out of her trance and fights away the birds...

Evan Hunter wrote it. He was Ed McBain, and had written and screenwritten Strangers When we Meet, as well as a AH Presents called 'Appointment at Eleven'. 'He would pick holes in the story so far, and say 'Why does she do this? Why does she do that?.."

There's a great shot towards the end of four crows lined up, like the Sicilian women commenting on the action.

Great acting. Maybe Rod Taylor's best performance. Tippi Hedren is great - she may have been tortured by Hitch but she agreed to be in his next film... Suzanne Pleshette is Annie, Jessica Tandy is the mother. Fabulous stuff.

Melanie's driving a 1954 Aston Martin DB2/4.

The two shots of the broken glasses followed by blood-soaked face seem to me to be a direct quotation of Battleship Potemkin.

The Hatton Garden Job (2017 Ronnie Thompson)

Written by the director and (Ray) Bogdanovich and (Dean) Lines. The film is a saddling bore. Professional turns by Matthew Goode, Larry Lamb, Phil Daniels, Clive Russell and David Calder don't help. Joely Richardson's performance is questionable. The robbery isn't zingy, there's no suspense. Tricksy directing is distracting and unhelpful.

The problem is, we know they succeeded. It needs to be approached a different way.

Sex Drive (2008 Sean Anders & co-scr)

Again, completely inadvertently, we conclude a trilogy of films about the adolescent experience which began with GABAG and continued with Gregory's Girl. This is the depressing American version, a film of two halves, one rebarbatively crude (was this strain of 'humour' all There's Something About Mary's fault?), all cocks, balls and tits; the other really rather funny. Without doubt the scenes with Clark Duke and James Marsden work the best - my favourite moment is Marsden looking for his 1969 GTO and doesn't even bother to stop his motorbike, just gets off it, then pulverises the garage. The Seth Green / Amish moments aren't as funny as they think they are. Showdown with doughnut man also funny.

Josh Zuckerman and Amanda Crew are a colourless couple.

Gregory's Girl (1980 Bill Forsyth & scr)

Accidentally, we pick the companion piece / antidote to Will's GABAG, a view of teenage behaviour that is much more in line with our own experiences. Determinedly quirky and deadpan comedy is a delight, way overdue. John Gordon Sinclair is the dorky hero, with Dee Hepburn, Jake D'Arcy, Clare Grogan, Robert Buchanan, Billy Greenlees - a very natural cast. Dee's training moves with football coach turning into dance are one of many highlights.

Background stuff often very funny too. Is it in 4x3? It seems unlikely, though the image doesn't appear cropped. It seems it was probably shot open matte and cropped to 16:9 for international distribution.

Very sweet (unlike an American doughnut, which leads us to the next film...)

Two Way Stretch (1960 Robert Day)

Convivial crime caper from within the prison is possibly the seed for Porridge. Vivian Cox & Len Heath (with additions by Alan Hackney) write Peter Sellars, David Lodge and Bernard Cribbins needing to escape to pull off a fairly neatly staged diamond heist (it's a great alibi!), with the aid of Wilfred Hyde-White, Irene Handl (having a bit more of a role than usual) and Liz Fraser.  Meanwhile their nemesis is the seal-barking Lionel Jeffries; Maurice Denham is the marrow-obsessed Governor. Lodge also has a decent role - the cast alone is enough reason for watching. Good fun, but when did censorship finally change to allow a crime to go unpunished (The Italian Job's ending is equivocal)?

Ebullient music from Ken Jones, shot by Geoffrey Faithfull (massive list of largely unknown films since 1913). And it's clearly in something wider than 4x3.

The Family (2013 Luc Besson & co-scr)

This was billed as a 'comedy-drama'. It's not a comedy, and it's a long way away from Leon (though that film had its share of absurdities, it at least had heart). In this, we clearly don't care a fuck for Robert de Niro, as he's a self-deluded sadistic bastard and killer, who ends up causing all his family (Michelle Pfeiffer, Dianna Agron and John D'Leo) to become killers themselves. It seems to relish in the violence in an unpalatable way - difficult to put into words - unlike a Tarantino, somehow... (Hospitalising the plumber, for example, doesn't add anything to the story.)

Although it's entirely implausible, we liked the way the French newspaper gets to the crime boss in prison; and also Agron's way of dealing with unwanted sexual attention with a tennis racket. And has a certain imaginative flow between scenes.

With Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Lombardozzi, Vincent Pastore and other Sopranos alumni. Based on a novel by French crime writer Tonino Benacquista. Shot by Thierry Arbogast in Panavision.

Everyone speaks English, and shopping is charged in francs...? In-joke?

Good and Bad at Games (1983 Jack Gold)

Will Boyd gets stuck into the thorough unpleasantness of public school elites - who act like much younger children - and cross cuts most successfully - using the 'games' - to some years later where patterns and behaviours continue, and a stranger comes to take revenge. These 'boys' (they're all too old) are led by Dominic Jephcott, who's a total shit, as are most of them, though 'Wog' Martyn Stanbridge (his debut - an unsure performance) exhibits a little bit of compassion.  (The moment when an African worker comes in and out of the room while he's trying to tell his old 'friend' it's 'Wog' is cuttingly funny.) Their conversations about sex and 'slags' are eye-wincing and so bigoted it may be why it's no longer commercially available.

Anton Lesser is the bullied boy who comes back, Laura Davenport the girl in the picture. Other oiks are Frederick Alexander (Another Country), Graham Seed (Wild Target), Ewan Stewart and Rupert Graves. It was shot by Wolf Suschitsky, difficult to judge how well from hazy off-TV VHS copy (it was not even released on commercial VHS, let alone DVD...) And edited by Laurence Méry-Clark.

Liked the idea of the reggae coming up from downstairs.

Ultimately, we feel that Niles has had his eyes opened a little and might possibly have grown up a bit too...

Tirez Sur le Pianiste / Shoot the Pianist (1960 François Truffaout & co-scr)

Tragi-comic noir races along at a hundred miles an hour (with the odd tuneful digression), leaving you Breathless - geddit?

Aznavour just died - he was 94. His performance is beautifully melancholic.

Marie Dubois is his new girlfriend, Nicole Berger his wife, Michele Mèrcier's topless scene caused the film to have an 18 certificate... in France.

The Haunting (1963 Robert Wise)

Fully understand the notion that it's a homage to Val Lewton's films - has a very similar atmosphere, and cleverly doesn't show us anything. Though Nelson Gidding's adaptation of Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House' is a stranger affair...

Owes a certain something to The Innocents, with its brilliant, deep focus Panavision photography and sound effects, great use of widescreen.

Good stuff with mirrors, too

Julie Harris is the psychologically warped investigator, accompanied by Richard Johnson, clearly gay Claire Bloom and Russ Tamblyn

Not heard of DoP Davis Boulton, composer Humphrey Searle and editor Ernest Walter. Though it's unlikely they would have seen it, those dark skies were also produced with infra red stock, same as Soy Cuba. Great production design too (Elliot Scott).

Certainly eerie and very stylish, if not a bit bonkers (though I suppose you could say that about any other film in this genre).

No. 1 in Martin Scorsese's scariest films!

Sleepless in Seattle (1993 Nora Ephron & co-scr)

Love the long scene in the car with Meg Ryan listening (and reacting) to the radio interview with Tom Hanks and his son Ross Malinger (the interviewer is Caroline Aaron). It's a good screenplay by Ephron, David Ward (Steelyard Blues and The Sting) and Jeff Arch from the latter's story.

Film has properly fleshed out characters e.g. work buddy Rob Reiner, kid's girlfriend, boyfriend Bill Pullman, Baltimore Sun editor Rosie O'Donnell. It all helps.

Exchange between kids:
"How much does it cost to fly to New York?"
"Nobody knows. The price changes every day."

The Butler (2013 Lee Daniels)

Will Haygood wrote an article for The Washington Post in 2008, 'A Butler Well Served By This Election', about the life of Eugene Allen as White House butler. Danny Strong then wrote a life story that begins in the cotton fields in 1926, introduces suspect neighbour Terrence Howerd and sons David Oleyowo and Elijah Kelley, using his struggle with the eldest as a representation of the conflicts felt within the black community over time.

Maria Carey is Eugene's mum, Oprah Winfrey his wife. Fellow White House staff: Cuba Gooding Jr and Lenny Kravitz. Presidents: Robin Williams, John Cusack, Alan Rickman, James Marsden and Liev Schreiber. Yaya Dacosta (The Nice Guys) is the Black Panther.

If anything Danny might have trimmed some of the non-essential plots like the randy neighbour and Oprah's drinking - but the film's two hours 11, not too long... The film could usefully have ended at the family barbecue with Obama's presidency in sight...

Daniels and Strong collaborated on long format drama Empire, with Terrence Howerd as a hip-hop mogul.

Shot by Andrew Dunn. Good make-up / hair by Debra Denson, Beverly Jo Pryor and Candace Neal (BAFTA nominated along with Oprah).

La La Land (2016 Damian Chazelle & scr)

Q's right - there must have been a hell of a lot of rehearsal time to get those one take scenes to work - not only the traffic jam opening but also the duet between Emma and Ryan at dawn.

Their green lit falling out (the record finishes) is entirely convincing.

It's no coincidence that the story features a man who wants to rescue the old time jazz club and the film is shot using classic film equipment and processes.

It's not just the main theme that keeps being rearranged but all the songs and melodies.

Ryan really needs to be in a Woody Allen.

The fifth viewing of this film rendered me speechless.

From a $30m production budget it grossed $150m at home and almost $300m abroad (UK, China and Italy being the biggest markets).

She's All That (1999 Robert Iscove)

Lame film was reviewed as being an update of 'Pygmalion' but really isn't, features nothing intelligent or funny. About halfway through there's a rap some students execute which is the best thing in the film. Freddie Prinze Jr displays zero charisma, Rachel Leigh Cook isn't much better. With Matthew Lillard, Kevin Pollak.

Erin Brockovich (2000 Steven Soderbergh)

There are so many things to appreciate about this film it's difficult to know where to look / on what to focus:

Susannah Grant's screenplay. She has a great way of coming out of a scene fast, writes memorable monologues (for Roberts, but Finney too). Lots of things: Erin's having a bad day. 1. She doesn't get a job at a doctor's. 2. She gets a parking ticket. 3. She breaks a nail getting into the car. 4. She is hit by a car. (Almost Famous won the Oscar - can't really complain about that.)

Ed Lachman's cinematography. Is it colour coded? There's a definite blue / orange thing - day to night.

Thomas Newman's music. It's not the sort of music you remember especially, or buy the soundtrack, but it just beautifully moves things along, like a BMW engine.

Annie Coates' editing. Does she decide to leave the phone call in the car just on Julia or maybe Aaron Eckhardt's side of the conversation wasn't filmed? (P.S. No I'm sure it was filmed because we see the beginning of it.)  Note how she does those little montages - Erin looking for a job, ending on the pen being wagged... And the way she ends poignant scenes on a dissolve... Like this...

The acting's quite good too.

As to the real Erin Brockovich, she is a legal consultant, has her own business and has presented TV shows and written an autobiography. She has been involved in several other pollution cases, some of which were also successful.

It's quite long - maybe there's one scene too many of Erin collecting signatures, but it has a massive pay-off, focusing on one particular claimant (played by Marg Helgenberger), and one last exchange between employer and employee that for once leaves Erin speechless.

Her (first) car is a Buick Regal 1990.

Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai (1999 Jim Jarmusch & scr)

Incredible montage where Ghost Dog is sleeping on the roof - editor Jay Rabinowitz (Requiem for a Dream, 8 Mile, other Jarmusches).

The Hagakure is the book.

Loved Q's observation that Henry Silva looked like a man who had swallowed a cactus.

Wonder Boys (2000 Curtis Hanson)

Ghost Stories (2017 Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman & scr)

Q tells me she wants to watch something funny and uplifting - so we watched this. Well, it is quite funny, and that caravan with number 79 on it sets me off on an 'Inside No. 79' tangent. Initially a trio of unscary stories featuring Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther (Howard's End, The Imitation Game, Goodbye Christopher Robin) and Martin Freeman, psychic investigator Andy Nyman then finds himself back in the past whilst dealing with a man clearly wearing prosthetics - then all is explained at the end. It was quite a strange mix, really, and if the 'locked in' patient is trapped in the dream, then I felt sorry for him.

My gorgeous co-watcher tells me the widescreen is used well (it's shot by Ole Bratt Birkeland). She then completely broke her promise that we should follow it with Ghost Dog - the Way of the Samurai. Just saying.

The Admirable Crichton (1957 Lewis Gilbert)

JM Barrie's class comedy was filmed before in 1918, in 1919 as Male and Female by Cecil B. de Mille with Gloria Swanson, and later in 1968 with Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, Pamela Brown and Laurence Naismith. But this is the definitive Kenneth More version, one of many of his hits in the fifties, released in the US - perhaps fearing problems with the pronunciation - as Paradise Lagoon. Actually, not having seen the others, I cannot claim that it is the definitive version - but it is. It's a pleasure even after many, many viewings.

It was apparently filmed in Bermuda. Shot by Wilkie Cooper, probably not in the 4x3 ratio our 'Classic British' DVD release is in.

More's perfect as the resourceful butler - he was in his fifties heyday. With Cecil Parker, Diane Cilento, Sally Anne Howes, Martita Hunt, Jack Watling, Peter Graves (not that one), Gerald Harper, Mercy Haystead, Miranda Connell and Miles Malleson.

RKO 281 (1999 Benjamin Ross)

Written (somewhat prosaically) by John Logan, based in part on the documentary 'The Battle Over Citizen Kane', for HBO films.

I liked Liev Schreiber as Welles, but it's a tough act as the man had such a great voice and vocal delivery which is not easy to match. Roy Scheider is slightly and sadly just past his prime but John Malkovich (Mankiewicz), James Cromwell and Melanie Griffith (Hearst and Marion Davies) are good. With Brenda Blethyn, Fiona Shaw, Liam Cunningham, David Suchet, Anastasia Hille and Roger Allam (Walt Disney!)