Marple: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (2009 Nicholas Renton)

Patrick Barlow's adaptation of Agatha's 1934 Marple-less novel is fun, enhanced by an interesting cast: Georgia Moffet (Mrs. David Tennant, who on the strength of this should be better known), Sean Biggerstaff, Helen Lederer, Samantha Bond, Richard Briers, Freddie Fox, Rafe Spall, Hannah Murray (Skins), Natalie Dormer (Picnic at hanging Rock), Warren Clarke, Mark Williams and Rik Mayall.

Citizen Kane (1941 Orson Welles)

This has always featured in the critics' top tens. But I feel the same way about it as I always have. It's not a film I keep running to put on, has a chilly heart. Whilst it is on the one hand a technical marvel (particularly in Gregg Toland's astonishing deep focus photography) the main character is unsympathetic and the linking device of the investigation journalist is actually quite irritating in the way we never see him (it becomes an artifice when his back is always turned to us).

It's very clever of course e.g. the ascending camera to the riggers at the opera, one of whom pinches his nose - 'She stinks'.

Joining Orson (who modestly bills himself last) are Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingmore, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sandford, Ruth Warrick, Paul Stewart and George Coulouris.

Peek-a-boo!

Bernard Herrman's score (his first) is great as is Robert Wise's editing. Like Ambersons (for me, the better film) it uses RKO's creative design resources well. Again, I was thinking Fellini e.g. the very ending in Xanadu.

Great stuff in Peter's interview book about how Gregg Toland allowed Orson to light the sets (because, coming from theatre, he thought it was the director's responsibility) - Toland wanted to learn something from an amateur. And didn't object to any kind of camera position or request, just got on with it. Derek Malcolm points out - in the Sky Arts Film Noir series - that some of Welles' 'innovations' (e.g. the camera travelling through the window) Welles had actually seen in Fritz Lang's German pictures (M et al).

Also Sloane's story to the reporter about the girl he saw on the ferry:
PB: Who wrote it?
OW: Mankiewicz, and it's the best thing in the movie. "A month hasn't gone by that I haven't thought of that girl." That's Mankiewicz, I wish it was me.

Also those great fades were done electrically not optically - the lights go down leaving the last object lit, then fade into the next scene as the lights go up - he just thought that was the way you do it. It's a great effect, which David Lean borrowed for Brief Encounter.

Isn't It Romantic (2019 Todd Strauss-Schulson)

A very awful film. After a bump on the head (I know) Rebel Wilson enters a glossy rom-com fantasy world. Adam Devine I suspect we recognise from Modern Family and The Intern.

Colourfully photographed by Simon Duggan.

Battle of the Sexes (2017 Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton)

Written by Simon Beaufoy. Carell hilarious in madcap tennis scenes e.g. with dogs, sheep and frying pan.

Emma Stone and Andrea Riseborough terrific. Austin Stowell's hair is funny.

Natalie Morales, Bill Pullman, Sarah Silverman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue, Jessica McNamee.

Photographed by Linus Sandgren on 35mm film, over-exposing and then push processing (developing it longer to get more sensitivity) to get more contrast and grain, with 70s films such as The French Connection, Klute and Nashville as references. Some of his dusks look like the Hotel California cover. All well coordinated with production designer Judy Becker and costumier Mary Zophres.

“As the movie progresses the women gradually move from left to right, and the men go in the opposite direction. It’s a subtle, subliminal expression of the women being the more progressive in this particular slice of history.”

Linus and the directors had worked together before on TV commercials, interestingly. Pamela Martin edited.

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942 Orson Welles & scr)

An extraordinary film, I'm sure an influence on Fellini (amongst others), feels very modern. As a simple example, scene between Tim Holt and Agnes Moorehead. They argue, she sinks to the floor, he pulls her up and through various rooms - all in one long camera take, easy (easier) to do now with Steadicam, but then - that heavy camera, rails for the tracking, lighting. Full marks to Stanley Cortez, but also to Welles, who has made a much less flamboyant film than Citizen Kane (better, it turns out)  in which he will favour a long take with no cutting than something more showy. (Moorehead and Cortez were both Oscar nominated.)

It's a great cast, led by Welles' own wonderfully melancholic narration (itself Oscar-worthy): Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Ray Collins, Erskine Sandford, Richard Bennett (the grandfather - that scene where he can't remember where the deeds are, then rambles into fade-out).

The original ending was to have been Cotten visiting Moorehead in her boarding house - they talk over each other and there are hints that she may be mad. In Welles' own words "Everything's over".

There's something also very modern / distinctive in scenes where the camera leaves one character and picks up on another, very much evident in the ball scene, but also when we learn of the mother's demise.

Extraordinary lighting, staging and production design.

I agree with Q: the end credits are the best ever.

Incredible composition

Risky, dramatic lighting

Line of Duty IV (2017 Jed Mercurio)

Is this series bonkers? It's certainly audacious in the usual Mercurio manner! But who is Balaclava man again? How does he come to be there assaulting Steve, and at the end? Why does Jamie get into this hostage situation?

Both one and three have eye-opening (literally in the case of one!) finales, two features a wonderful bit of mis-direction. In four, the great Thandie Newton pulls off a massively enjoyable volte face in AC12 interview. She does it again later, arresting her husband. Like Keeley Hawes, Jed's written a great part for an actress who really goes with it.

Leaves various plot strands (the insider at AC12; who killed the Chief Inspector) dangling, like an unmade bed.

Can't help feeling Martin Compston is the stodgiest of the three; Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar. Lee Ingelby is as reliable as ever. With Jason Watkins, Patrick Baladi, Paul Higgins, Tony Pitts.

Jed directed one and two, John Strickland three - six. Shot by Stephen Murphy and Anna Valdez-Hanks.

Q: 'Jed Mercurio's put my head in a blender!'

Great line from Steve: 'I'd have stopped sooner. I'd be able to walk, and you'd have two hands.'

Inspector Morse: Death Is Now My Neighbour (1997 Charles Beeson)

Dexter's 1996 ingenious novel provides the story, written by the reliable Julian Mitchell, who no doubt is in it somewhere (didn't spot Dexter, either). It's in this novel too that Morse first reveals his christian name.

Well acted episode involves people being shot in their suburban homes and features an academic contest for Master of College, played wonderfully by Richard Briers (Sir Clixby Bream is a great name). In a wonderful presentiment of things to come, one of the contestants is played by Roger Allum (his wife Holley Chant); the other by John Shrapnel, his wife by Maggie Steed (Florence Foster Jenkins, Stella, Sensitive Skin). With journalist Mark McGann and Julia Dalkin as the woman who takes Morse's eye... (And you think, 'Oh my God, the wrong woman again...')

Plus Clare Holman - bit of frisson here between Morse and the pathologist. He is sexist - 'a woman shouldn't be doing a job like that...'

Bath Royal Crescent Hotel featured prominently.

Inspector Morse: The Daughters of Cain (1996 Herbert Wise)

Julian Mitchell adapted Dexter's 11th 1994 novel, in which a group of women connect two murders which even Morse concedes cannot be fully resolved - to Robbie's annoyance. Sounds like it's quite close to the source novel. (Dexter is in a hospital waiting room, with crutches!) Money - specifically cost-cutting - seems to be weighing on everyone's mind (police, colleges, doctors).

Gabrielle Lloyd is the abused wife, Tony Haygarth her vile husband. Phyllis Logan was annoyingly familiar (Downton  - of course!) as was Amanda Ryan (Attachments, Metroland). Good to see Clare Holman back as pathologist.

It's a typically sinewy story. Morse is sticking up for Lewis's promotion but thwarted by both rank- and cost-cutting.

Wasn't sure what the opening (and recurrent) piece of music was.

Inspector Morse: The Way Through the Woods (1995 John Madden)

A departure for a number of reasons. Just one episode filmed this - and subsequent - years, no doubt the schedule was taking its toll and Thaw was getting busier with alternate roles like Chaplin, A Year in Provence and a new series, Kavanagh Q.C., which ran 1995 - 2001. For the first time since the early days, this is based on Dexter's (1992) novel, though with some revisions. And it's the series debut screenplay of Russell Lewis who went on to write the whole of Endeavour.

Starting with Dexter's brilliantly twisty plot, Lewis R. has focused on the Morse-Lewis relationship and given it serious testing over a case that another DI had worked on (Malcolm Storry) and come up with the wrong conclusion. This DI calls Lewis 'Bob' until, frustrated, he reacts with ''Actually, sir, I prefer Robbie, or Sgt. Lewis" (which puts him down wonderfully at the same time). For the first time, Lewis really loses it with Morse, who's not giving him the recognition he's due. Writer Lewis also writes a terrific and tense new finale.

You can tell from the credits scene it's going to be a good one. Morse fails to pick up a woman at a concert (though it's a plot point in itself), a man is murdered in prison, and a dog finds a head in the woods (then drops it).

There's some great misdirection then going on later.

With Vivienne Ritchie, Nicholas Le Prevost, Neil Dudgeon (Midsomer), Chris Fairbank, Michelle Fairley (good). And -

New pathologist Clare Holman: "DI Mouse, is it?"
"I take it you're the new pathologist."
"Well I'm not here for the bouncy castle."

Inspector Morse - Season 7 (1993)

Deadly Slumber d. Stuart Orme , scr. Daniel Boyle

A fairly straightforward seeming case (murder in garage) turns out to be riven with complications. Morse makes unlikely friendship with one of the suspects, a former bookie mogul (Brian Cox) - Morse feels for him because he has a brain dead daughter as a result of the dead man's operation going wrong. The acting of Janet Suzman and Jason Durr is a little suspect, though we do get Ian McNeice as the pathologist.

Dexter shows Morse and Lewis up to see a don; eagle eye Q spots the Peppard Road and the pub and Howard's End house in Peppard Common.

The Day of the Devil d. Stephen Whittaker

Daniel Boyle's episode opens promisingly enough with urgency - an unconscious guard, an escape from a prison hospital and a manhunt. Unfortunately it descends into utter farce, particularly when this happens:

(A laugh out loud moment.) I guess, with a character called Hieronymous St-John (Kevin Stoney)  and Keith Allen in a variety of disguises, we're not supposed to take it seriously:

Harriet Walter and Richard Griffiths gamely play it straight. With Michael Culver, Gavin Richards and Katrina Levon as a useful WPC.

Devil-worshippers are anti the Bomb, because 'Could it be that Hell is not so commodious after all. They couldn't cope with the sudden influx.' Lewis dazzles Strange with 'Exegesis on Ancient Grimoires'. The ending is particularly hard to take seriously.

We identify one pub as the now closed Shoulder of Mutton in Owlswick, Aylesbury. Q thinks a later one is in Binfield.

Twilight of the Gods d. Herbert Wise, scr. Julian Mitchell

Morse is in a good mood indeed with one of his opera singer legends (Sheila Gish) in town - triggering banter between he and Lewis. Then she's shot... Good plot involves extremely rude mogul, played with relish by Robert Hardy, but with a vary variable and wrong Lithuanian accent - whoever plays his long-suffering secretary is good. John Gielgud is a chancellor, Jean Anderson his wife. Didn't recognise Allan Corduner as the pianist but thought Rachel Weisz looked vaguely familiar. Dexter is sat behind Gielgud.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018 David Yates)

After two minutes of Mahler Q thought it 'too weird' and so we watched something that was not only more weird, but pretty much incomprehensible - a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Should have stuck to Ken Russell.

There are some decent performances amongst the cast, which includes Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Kevin Guthrie (Dunkirk), Johnny Depp (not sure he's given a good performance since The Rum Diaries), Carmen Ejogo (True Detective III, Selma), Zoe Kravitz (Big Little Lies), Callum Turner (War and Peace), Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Katherine Waterston (Logan Lucky, Inherent Vice)... there's part of your problem. Too many characters. We didn't really know what was going on from the word go. J.K. Yawn had forgotten to tell a good story - magical animals in search of script.

Some of the design and special effects are impressive, and some of the monsters, but it's so CGI you begin to care less...

Photographed by Philippe Rousselot, designed by Stuart Craig, music by James Newton Howard, edited by Mark Day.

All this people with their wands out pointing at a fiery sky is getting a bit much... Also thought Nicolas Flamel looked stupid (particularly like a younger actor in make-up, in other words)... We spent the next hour listening to ourselves attempting to rap, and that was much more fun.

J.K.'s a good story-teller (think also of Strike) but something has gone badly wrong here and someone (Yates? Steve Kloves is still a producer?) should have told her.

Their Finest (2016 Lone Scherfig)

Lissa Evans wrote 'Their Finest Hour and a Half' from which Gaby Chiappe's smart screenplay is derived. (Shetland, Vera, Lark Rise, Casualty, Holby, Eastenders - get the picture?) I'm not sure I would have killed Sam Claflin, but there you go. It's very entertaining throughout.

Gemma Arterton, Claflin, Bill Nighy, Rachael Stirling (v. good - and excuse me, Q was right - she was in The Bletchley Circle), Henry Goodman, Jack Huston, Paul Ritter, Eddie Marsan, Helen McCrory.

'Tin Hat Tallulah'.

Shot by Sebastian Blenkov in widescreen, which was a stupid decision as it clashes badly with the 4x3 nature of what we are after all dealing with.

Slade in Flame (1975 Richard Loncraine)

Or is it called just 'Flame'? In a 1970s mood our double-bill continues with a cynical, realistic and gritty look at the music business - an unusual decision really for a teen fanbase pop group, but good for them - after all, they themselves were being exploited by the industry being in this film at the height of their fame. Andrew Birkin (Jane's brother; Perfume, The Cement Garden, The Name of the Rose) and Dave 'additional dialogue' Humphries (Quadrophenia) wrote it, and it's even darker than I remember at the impressionable age when it was released. (According to Noddy, Birkin's script didn't feel 'real' enough, so he and Loncraine went on tour with the band in the US for two weeks to experience the real thing.)

BBC4 chose to show us a cropped version of the Panavision, which is unfortunate (Peter Hannan shot it).

The band acquit themselves well - Noddy Holder, Don Powell (a Bresson actor in the making), Jim Lea - less so Dave Hill. With Alan Lake (rather good as original singer), Tom Conti, Johnny Shannon and Kenneth Colley (thus reuniting these two from Performance), Anthony Allen, Sara Kee. I like Ken Colley. His mates should have called him 'Rough'. Ha ha. Ha ha. Susan Tebbs as Conti's wife familiar from somewhere (The Kids From 47A?) as are Jimmy Gardner and Sheila Raynor. Tommy Vance is the DJ!

'How Does It Feel?' good theme song. Hillsborough in Sheffield stands in for Wolverhampton.

Melody (1970, released 1971 Waris Hussein)

How gritty London (specifically Hammersmith and Lambeth) looked then, full of rubbish and derelict buildings. Alan Parker wrote a young love thing, catches children well (good prep for Bugsy Malone). Ending is a bit mad, like he ran out of ideas (children beating up the teachers, blowing up the van, the couple escaping on one of those Western railway trolleys). But it sort of breaks your heart.

Mark Lester, Jack Wild, Tracy Hyde.

It was a bit scary somehow - the London of my childhood. Scary? Weird. Tender. Touching.

Familiar faces: Roy Kinnear, James Cossins (Headmaster), teachers, parents...

Has some awful Bee Gees numbers, one of which is so bad I burst out laughing.

Shot by Peter Suschitsky in Eastmancolor - quite right.

Lester was a close friend of Michael Jackson. Hmm. Damned by association. I mean I liked the Hitlers. Dolphie was such a shy boy...

Wildlife (2018 Paul Dano & co-scr)

He wrote it with his former co-star Zoe Kazan - it's based on a 1990 novel by Richard Ford.

Um. Naturally, as well-acted as you'd expect, by Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ed Oxenbould.

Direction, fine. Camera-work, a bit soft (Diego Garcia). Music, interesting (David Lang).

Main problem is character of the mother. She seems a bit psycho.

The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth (2016 Stefan Georgiou)

A wonderful reinvention of part of William Boyd's novella of the same name, beautifully reimagined for the screen in 15 minute short. There's no internal dialogue but we can see what she's thinking - thus her budding career as a photographer is shown by the book of hers in front of her, the number of months left literally count down, her journey to Japan becomes cold and boring.

Lucy Boynton (Sing Street, Endeavour, Murder on the Orient Express, Bohemian Rhapsody, Lewis) is great in the title role. Jack Lowden (The Long Song) is the barman.

"I'm a VARP. A Vaguely Art-Related Person."

The Blue Lamp (1950 Basil Dearden)

Seems to take a leaf from on-location US cop thrillers and noir. Zippily paced film moves, has great compositions, fast car scenes. Jack Warden inducts new copper Jimmy Hanley to Paddington beat. Dirk Bogarde and Patric Doonan are petty criminals. Getting a lot of Bogarde lately, I'm pleased to say. (His christened name was 'Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde '!)

The moment where Gladys Henson learns Dixon has died is brilliant - she just says 'I'd better put these [flowers] in water'... then she breaks down. Also loved the little girl who finds the gun who will only say 'No', and the witness couple who disagree about everything; and the criminal Bogarde approaches in the first place to help him is the one who enlists the White City bookies to organise his capture. Great script, in other words, from Pimlico's T.E.B. Clarke.

With Bernard Lee and Robert Flemyng, and a terribly overacting Peggy Evans.

Shot by Gordon Dines. No music. Ealing.

Dearden made the 'Hearse' story in Dead of Night and a segment in Train of Events, Pool of London, I Believe In You, Victim, Masquerade, The Assassination Bureau, The Man Who Haunted Himself and three episodes of The Persuaders, including the first, 'Overture'.

King of the Hill (1993 Steven Soderbergh & scr)

Based on 'The Boyhood Memoirs' by A.E. Hotchner (1972) - his own impoverished childhood in St. Louis in the thirties (the sequel, 'Looking for Miracles', takes place three years later).

1933. Jesse Bradford is essentially left to fend for himself, penniless, as his father Jeroen Krabbé leaves to be a travelling salesman, mother Lisa Eichorn is in a sanatorium and little brother Cameron Boyd is sent away.

Friend Adrian Brody helps. Plus we meet a supportive teacher (Karen Allen), an elderly neighbour (Spalding Gray) and his girlfriend Elizabeth McGovern, an epileptic girl (Amber Benson) and a school girl (Katherine Heigl). (The lift operator is none other than Lauryn Hill!) With Joe Chrest as the bellboy and John McConnell the bully cop.

It is episodic, and builds to a welcome conclusion in which the boy has become a young man - he never reveals to his father just what he's put him through. Loved the moment where he steals all the keys so no one in the hotel can be locked out again.

It's a gripping monocular story in which we feel every pang of hunger and warm to the boy's innate politeness and goodness in the face of desperation.

Shot by Out of Sight's Elliot Davis, music Cliff Martinez, editing Soderbergh, production design Gary Frutkoff.

Inspector Morse - Season 6 (1992)

Dead on Time d. John Madden (Mrs Brown was 1997, Shakespeare in Love the following year).

Another good original episode (I think they all are from now on in?), written by Daniel Boyle, features a key moment in the Morse-Lewis relationship, involving murder of husband of Morse's ex-fiancée (Joanna David - long TV career from the early 70s). Morse is too close to the case, still very much in love with her. Lewis acts on his own initiative, and to protect his feelings, keeps key information from him (and goes behind his back to Strange) - information that in the end never needs to see the light of day. Great acting from the pair of them - you really feel Morse's pain...

And good support from David Haig, James Walker, Samantha Bond, Adrian Dunbar.

Some great editing in this episode (Kevin Lester - also Armadillo), e.g. the very end bit of cross cutting. And the usual polished cinematography (Peter Greenhalgh).

Happy Families d. Adrian Shergold, scr. Daniel Boyle (couldn't find out much about him).

An extremely ironic title. The family comprises Anna Massey, George Raistrick, Jonathan Coy and Martin Clunes (Men Behaving Badly started this year), and other interesting cast members are Rupert Graves (good) and Jamie Foreman as slimy journalists, Charlotte Coleman as a disturbed girl, Alan Armstrong as Morse's stand-in boss and Gwen Taylor, Sukie Smith.

Morse doesn't seem to be drinking nearly as much in the last couple of series - where's all the 'brain food' stuff gone? When he's caught relaxing at home by the press at 10 pm (listening to a Mozart opera and reading), he's even drinking wine. I wonder if ITV have toned him down? Also, Morse incorrectly uses the word 'infer' at one point - tut tut Mr. Boyle.

When Thaw erupts, it's quite scary!

The Death of the Self d. Colin Gregg, scr. Alma Cullen

Another ironic title as dodgy Michael Kitchen is hosting a class for rich 'Selves' and helping them with their psychological problems - when one of the clan dies, Morse and Lewis are dispatched to Vicenza to investigate. There, Lewis is unimpressed by breakfast, Morse bowled over by opera singer Frances Barber, and they both clash with local copper Georges Corrface.

Arguments about whether we're in Vicenza or neighbouring Verona ensure, though we definitely end up in the amphitheatre with Barber (who's not bad, voiced by Janis Kelly) and Puccini. With Julia Goodman, Kate Harper, Jane Snowden (who gives Morse a kiss!)

Subsequently, learned that their hotel is The Due Torri in Verona, where we've actually stayed!

This breakfast area may have been added for the film - it's now for parking.

This, though, definitely is Vicenza, the Basilica Palladiana:

Absolute Conviction d. Antonia Bird (A Passionate Woman), scr. John Brown

Suspicious death in low security prison. Everyone turns up:
Sean Bean, Jim Broadbent, Richard Wilson, Robert Pugh, Steven Mackintosh, Sue Johnstone, Phil Davis. Plus Diana Quick.

Lewis gets one over on the young fast-track cadet...

Cherubim & Seraphim d. Danny Boyle

Julian Mitchell writes a great episode for season finale, featuring the house / rave movement and the manufacture of untested drugs. We have some very interesting backstory too - that Morse lived with his father and step-mother - and here we meet his step-sister and her family, one of whom (the one Morse gets on with best) dies, triggering a link with other apparent teenage suicides - so it's all very topical. Exciting climax in Mentmore Towers (also featured in Brazil, Eyes Wide Shut, Quills and Batman Begins).

Strange says to Morse at one point "I can't imagine you young!" which somewhat goes against the Endeavour storyline, and Morse reveals he was so unhappy as a child he considered suicide himself - and he calls Lewis 'Robby' for the second time.

With Liza Walker as the surviving friend. Jason Isaacs, Anna Chancellor, Sorcha Cusack.

Missed Dexter again (he's at the presentation) and Julian Mitchell is a publican!

Peter Greenhalgh shot all these.

Accident (1967 Joseph Losey)

Q didn't like it this time unfortunately - finding it slow and all the characters unpleasant. Well, they are, pretty, but the slowness (e.g. lengthy harp-driven punting scene) doesn't mean nothing's happening. And I guess I am a fan of Pinter's strangely dry and mundane conversations ("What are you doing?" "I'm making tea" sort of thing.)

So it was the second Dirk Bogarde film I didn't finish on the same day.

I stand by everything in my last review.

The lovely house, according to 'The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations' is Norwood Farm Hall, Elveden Road, Cobham:

This is the last shot of the film, mirroring the first. We hear the audio of the accident again. No coincidence the kid's car is there.

Syon Hall is where the violent indoor rugby game is played and the universities featured are in Oxford.

Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Jacqueline Sassard (Chabrol's Les Biches - she retired shortly after), Vivien Merchant, Michael York, Delphine Seyrig, Alexander Knox, Harold Pinter,

Something about that music - the harps - really reminds me of something, but I can't remember what. Something.

It's kind of like a Nic Roeg film before he started making them. When you think Losey's previous film was Modesty Blaise, also with Bogarde, it's quite funny!

(Some days later came up with bizarre idea of Harold Pinter adapting Harold Robbins books!)

Brief Encounter (1945 David Lean)

Providence (1977 Alain Resnais)

Like Marienbad, a study in part of memory - John Gielgud's writer's recollections deliberately wander into different countries. His characters don't obey him either and have a habit of turning up in different situations, saying each other's lines. It's very ludic and delicious, particularly in Dirk Bogarde's performance. Though Ellen Burstyn, David Warner, Elaine Stritch also most watchable. (A young Denis Lawson is the footballer!)

David Mercer wrote Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment, also with Warner.

There's sinister stuff going on too in war / prison camps imagery.

It was the first film by Alain Resnais I saw, on 7.3.79. and I thought it was brilliant. It certainly doesn't disappoint.

It's a fine late score from Miklos Rozsa. Working with Resnais was one of his happiest experiences. He knew all the composer's music, not just the film scores, was very clear about what he wanted (essential, as Rozsa had no idea what was going on!) and - when he needed to remove some music from a dialogue scene - asked Rozsa if he minded first! He won the César for it. (The French loved it - it also won for film, director, screenplay, production design, editing (Albert Jurgenson) and sound.)

There's also lots of lovely looking Burgundies being drunk all over the place.

The World According to Garp (1982 George Roy Hill)

A very good screenplay by Steve Tesich, adapted from John Irving's novel. I liked Hill's touch that Garp doesn't pick up the phone bearing bad news - we just hear his wife (Mary Beth Hurt) answer, off-camera. (It was set up like this by Hill, editor Steve Rotter recalls - there was no shot of Hurt on the phone.)

Is full of little bouncy reflections - Poo through the trees, the two occurrences of the helicopter (and that link to flying), the car cruise with the engine off... A kid growing up in hospital, his son essentially the same.

Garp's relationship with Roberta (John Lithgow) is beautifully written (and played) - he and Glenn Close were Oscar nominated.

George Roy Hill's a most underrated director. The World of Henry Orient (1964, Peter Sellars), is most overdue. Hawaii, Thoroughly Modern Mille (Julie Andrews, James Fox) - thought I'd seen this but not sure. Then Butch Cassidy and the again overdue Slaughterhouse-Five. The Sting, The Great Waldo Pepper, Slap Shot, A Little Romance... then in 1984 The Little Drummer Girl, with Diane Keaton, and finally Funny Farm, with Chevy Chase.

Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018 Crispian Mills & co-scr)

A misfire after the truly original Fantastic Fear of Everything, partly because it involves a silly plot featuring fracking and underground monsters - otherwise there's the potential of a good If-like take on public school... is there? I'm not actually sure, now... Did make me want to watch that (there's a photo of Macdowell for reference) and Unman, Wittering and Zigo.

Finn Cole is fine, still have my doubts about Asa Butterfield. Simon Pegg, Michael Sheen (not at his usual standard), Hermione Corfield, Jo Hartley (This Is England, Ill Manors), Jamie Blackley, Alex McQueen, Margot Robbie, Nick Frost, Isabella Laughland (geek whose character could have been made more of).

Anything with carnivorous aliens is a bit crap (cf. A Quiet Place).

Turn Up Charlie (2019 Idris Elba / Gary Reich)

A Netflix eight-parter is in that tradition of smart and sassy girls and their relationship with adults - Paper Moon and The Goodbye Girl spring to mind. Here, DJ Idris Elba becomes Frankie Hervey's baby-sitter, with parents Pipa Perabo and JJ Feild, Angela Griffin (rather good), Jade Anouka, Guz Khan, Jocelyn Lee Esien (the aunt).

Georgia Lester wrote them. As Q observed, it's good to see a vulnerable Idris. Different, satisfying.

Didn't think much of the house music on offer, though.

Inspector Morse - Season 5 (1991)

Second Time Around d. Adrian Shergold (Funny Cow, Mad Dogs, He Kills Coppers, Clapham Junction, Pierrepoint, Dirty Filthy Love), scr. Daniel Boyle.

Kenneth Colley, Jenny Laird (Black Narcissus), Pat Heywood, Chris Ecclestone, Sam Kelly, Ann Bell, and the very recognisable Oliver Ford Davies as the wrongly accused man. Dexter is behind Morse at pub.

There are two lines in this which I think crop up in Endeavour. 1. Pathologist: 'I always use simple language where the police are involved' and 2. Morse is 'a great detective but a poor policeman'.

Death of retired detective links to old case of murder of little girl, who Morse discovered. Good original story. Features great aria - Puccini's 'Senza Mamma' from 'Suor Angelica'.

Fat Chance d. Roy Battersby, scr. Alma Cullen (one of her four. She also wrote a Morse-Lewis theatre play 'House of Ghosts' (also broadcast on Radio 4) in 2010, set in 1987.

Good pot shots at slimming industry (Lewis's wife Val is threatening to join) combined with death of activist female cleric. Intriguing storyline. Maurice Denham (elderly priest), David Gant (loopy cleric), Maggie O'Neill (Shameless, Eastenders), Caroline Ryder, Tilly Vosburgh.

Good aria this time from Mozart ('Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore').

Am I the only one who noticed the WPC at the station is referred to as 'Bright' - the daughter...?

Who Killed Harry Field? d. Colin Gregg, scr. Geoffrey Case.

Murdered artist is somehow connected to art forgery and a millionaire. Geraldine James, Ronald Pickup (Morse's art friend), John Castle, Vania Vilers, Freddie Jones.

Thaw's reactions are great, e.g. his very subtle facial expressions when talking to Nicola Cowper. But Whately's reactions also great: that 'here we go' look when Morse is in a mood.

When Lewis announces he won't be pursuing promotion (thus leaving Morse) for another year, at the end, you want a line from Morse, something, even 'I'm not unhappy to hear that, Lewis'. Does he ever call him by his first name?

Greeks Bearing Gifts d. Adrian Shergold, scr. Peter Nichols (Catch Us If You Can, Georgy Girl, A Day in the Life of Joe Egg, The National Health, Privates on Parade). With that distinguished lot you'd think it would be a cracking episode, but I found the ending particularly overwrought and stretched in the credibility department.

Still, fun along the way with Greek restaurants and shipping magnets, a dodgy property dealer and a trireme. With James Hazeldine, Jan Harvey, James Faulkner, Martin Jarvis. Dexter's a college porter.

I'm sure that swimming pool's featured in another episode...

Promised Land (or 'Morse Down Under') d. John Madden, scr. Julian Mitchell.

Indeed - it's almost a western, with Barrington's slide guitar, C&W sounding folk and a showdown at the old railway siding. Mitchell's sixth of ten, he definitely seems to be writing some of the best episodes. Morse and Lewis travel to New South Wales as the banged up 'Abingdon Gang' (see, western) might get out, and there's a missing link to a bad gangster.

Rhondda Findleton, John Jarratt, a young Noah Taylor, Max Phipps (detective) and Con O'Neill (whose distinctive husky Liverpudlian tones I recognised before seeing him, recently funny in Uncle).

Morse is especially grumpy as there's no decent beer, but in a moment of sublime tenderness calls Lewis 'Robbie' (for I think the first time).

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994 Mike Newell)

Cast in order of brilliance:

Kristin Scott Thomas
Charlotte Coleman
Simon Callow.

Then, everyone else.

Still don't like MacDowell's character.

Groundhog Day (1993 Harold Ramis)

Why does Bill Murray and his date go to see 'Heidi II' dressed as The Man With No Name and a French maid? I was in a Bill Murray mood.

A terrific script by Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis takes us on quite a journey.

"Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today."

Still fabulous.

Atonement (2007 Joe Wright)

His best film, written by Christopher Hampton, who wrote three drafts for Richard Eyre, who then went on to make Notes On A Scandal instead (fortunately). Then Joe Wright became involved:

'Let’s try and do it without a frame, so the audience at the end of the film is as surprised as the readers are at the end of the book'. He said ‘Let’s take away the voiceover, try and convey everything without that particular help. And let’s try not to worry about the linearity of the story.’ […] Eventually after another year, Joe and I went away to Italy for two weeks and just went through every single page. He’s very obsessive, Joe. Most of the really good directors I’ve worked with are completely obsessive. Right up until shooting he was ringing me up.

The book was more about Briony - they made the focus more on the couple. Thus you forget the ending.. where the Atonement of the title (tries) to take place, bookended with Vanessa Redgrave.

It's an annoyingly good film. I could go on about it quite a bit. The score is divine. Dario Marienelli won the Oscar - nothing else did. What was so good instead? No Country For Old Men. Well, I'm also a big fan of the Coens' film but I don't think really it's superior. It did at least get the BAFTA Best Film, but best adapted screenplay went to the Diving Bell and the Butterfly... Biggest irony is that the David Lean Award for Directing should so clearly have gone to Wright, who actually references Brief Encounter in this... It's every bit as good as Lean's earlier films, and better (I'd say) than his later 'epics'.

Seamus McGarvey's cinematography is so good, not just for the celebrated Dunkirk single take (for which camera operator Peter Robertson should have won his own Oscar - full info here) but for virtually any scene. (By the way, eagle-eyed Q spotted a chap hanging from the ferris wheel in that scene... such amazing coordination going on, the third and final take of the day as magic hour approaches...)