Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999 Michael Patrick Jann)

Cheerful nonsense involving murders of beauty pageant contestants and rivalry between good Kirsten Dunst and Bitchy Cuntington Denise Richards, their mums played by Ellen Barkin and Kirstie Alley respectively, with Allison Janney in good support.

With Sam McMurray, Brittany Murphy, Amy Adams, Matt Malloy (Six Feet Under, State and Main), Michael McShane.

We're allowed to make bad taste jokes about religion in the enlightened world, you see

Fabulous one for the obscure screen shots series

Gentleman Jack (2019 Sally Wainwright & scr)

Beautifully written and performed story based on real diaries. I thought Suranne Jones was great in title role with her powerful walk, but I must admit I tired of her.

Only slight carp is the music, which seems to fall between two time period stools.

The West Wing - Season One (1999 Aaron Sorkin)

Elaborate camera moves through White House offices herald monster series and introduces Bradley Whitford (and his assistant Janel Moloney),  Rob Lowe, Richard Schiff, Allison Janney, John Spencer, Dulé Hill and hooker Lisa Edelstein. Oh yes, and (when he makes his forceful entrance at the end of episode one) Martin Sheen. And subsequently his wife Stockard Channing.

With Timothy Busfield (journalist Danny), Jorja Fox (FBI agent), Elisabeth Moss, Suzy Nakamura, Kathryn Joosten (feisty Mrs Landringham), NiCole Robinson (Margaret), Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God).

It's about 16½ hours, plenty of time to warm up to characters in fast-talking, almost thirties style, very verbal, with interesting themes and storylines - Josh's ex coming to work with them, the President's MS, Leo's former drug use, Sam's girlfriend, working its way up to a doozy of a cliff-hanger ending. Lots of humour and warmth too amidst acerbic front- and back-stabbing.

Q thinks the President and I share a similar way of putting on a jacket (zipper in my case) - two arms at once.

Catch Me If You Can (2002 Steven Spielberg)

Good screenplay from Jeff Nathanson (e.g. the bath full of model aeroplanes, sudden appearance of step-sister at window), based on Frank Abagnale's book.

John Williams' score is absolutely enchanting, as is opening animation by Olivier Kuntzel and Florence Deygas.

Terrifically entertaining and as professionally put together as you'd expect by Spielberg, Kaminski and Khan, with production designer Jeannine Oppewall.

Leonardo di Caprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Nathalie Baye, Amy Adams (terrifically gawky), Martin Sheen, James Brolin.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993 Lasse Hallstrom)

Playwright Peter Hedges adapted his own debut novel and became a screenwriter. He writes well rounded characters (no pun intended) and the result is an affecting and moving story. Johnny Depp, Leo di Caprio (fantastic and Oscar nominated), Juliette Lewis, Darlene Cates, Mary Steenburgen, Laura Harrington (older sister), Mary Kate Schellardt (younger), Kevin Tighe, John C. Reilly and (in his most restrained and least annoying role) Crispin Glover. The priest is played by Hedges' real life priest dad.

Photographed by Sven Nykvist. Slightly blah music is only minus point.

Marple: The Body In The Library (2004 Andy Wilson)

What on earth is the body of an unknown blonde doing in Joanna Lumley's library? Agatha Christie's 1942 novel is fairly faithfully adapted, and it's another ingenious tale. Geraldine McEwan stars in the first of the ITV series, written by Kevin Elyot.

James Fox, Ian Richardson, Tara Fitzgerald, Florence Hoath, Simon Callow, Ben Miller, Emma Cooke, Jack Davenport, David Walliams.

Eastbourne and the Grand Hotel provide the Victorian seafront setting (but not Oh, What A Lovely War! - that was Brighton), and Dorney Court is the Tudor manor house.

Ben Miller decides which bottle of gin to drink first

Noticed the dancer had a Gun Crazy poster on her wall (it's set in 1951).

The Last Picture Show (1971 Peter Bogdanovich)

The director's cut, running 126 minutes on DVD, features the scene where Timothy Bottoms sheds tears when passing the fishing tank where Ben Johnson's taken them - his surrogate father, whereas his real father clearly has no relationship with him at all. Another features he, Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges in a car being chased by a little dog, and the poolhall sex scene. (Curiously the Columbia Tristar UK 'Director's cut' is only 121 minutes...??? Ah - it's a frame rate thing: 25 fps NTSC vs. 24 fps Pal.))

If nothing else, we really must watch Red River.

It's a sad tale, very truthful about relationships and sex, with a wonderfully strong elegiac atmosphere, photographed by Robert Surtees (Oscar nominated). Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman were both Oscar and BAFTA winners though the Brits also gave it to Peter and Larry McMurtry's screenplay.

It was actually only the debuts of Cybill Shepherd, Sam Bottoms and Randy Quaid, although Timothy had only been in Johnny Got His Gun; Jeff had had more experience having appeared in several TV series (including Lassie),

It was in the last AFI Top 100 list, but only just. (Lists are rubbish - The Apartment  was only #80!)

Boyhood (2014 Richard Linklater & scr)

Lorelei Linklater is hilarious when telling her mother Patricia Arquette that she is not moving house - it's the first of many (what does the boy - Ellar Coltrane - say to dad Ethan Hawke - something about a 'parade of drunkards' his Mum has hooked up with?)

Sometimes gives you the feeling it's never going to end, like life...

What's that mean? Life does end, buddy boy... Anyway...

Marple: At Bertram's Hotel (2007 Dan Zeff)

One of Christie's later 1965 novels, adapted by Tom MacRae, provides an ingenious tale set in a London Hotel (possibly Browns in origin) involving murder, robberies, inheritance and Nazis, with Martine McCutcheon as a sharp and useful maid to assist Geraldine McEwan. And, like the best of the series, features a budding romance between maid and investigating detective Stephen Mangan.

With Mark Heap, Vincent Regan, Emily Beecham, Charles Kay, Ed Stoppard, Nicholas Burns (the twins), Francesca Annis, Peter Davison, Polly Walker, Mica Paris, and an outrageous turn from Danny Webb as a hat designer.

Nicely shot by the appropriately named Cinders Forshaw.

The Other Side of the Wind (1970 - 75, 2018 Orson Welles)

Yes, I guess the longest delay between wrapping and exhibition. In typical Orson style it was made all over the place and at different times, Lilli Palmer's scenes shot first, in Switzerland, some later filmed at Peter Bogdanovich's house.

Imagine Citizen Kane, no - Mr Arkadin - in a blender with The Trial, Zabriskie Point, 8½ and Khrustalov, Get the Car! and you might get some idea of this psychedelic mess. Recognisably Welles in places but like one on cocaine or speed - and the film within a film - whilst admittedly displaying some striking moments - is another mess (Oja Kodar and her leading man should have remained in obscurity).

Fine performances from John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Paul Stewart (Kane). With Norman Foster, Lilli Palmer, Edmond O'Brien, Mercedes McCambridge, Cameron Mitchell. Incredible editing (initially by Welles at breakneck speed, then by Bob Murawski), striking photography (Gary Graver) in all sorts of shapes and colours, music from Michel Legrand.

Dan Tobin

Cameron Crowe was there during filming and is in the credits.

Q says I'm on obligedtowatch.com!

Friends With Benefits (2011 Will Gluck)

Justin and Mila make a very likeable couple in Keith Merryman / David Newman script.

Film within the film is funny (and even has its own crap outtakes).

Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson, Nolan Gould, Emma Stone.

Photographed by Michael Grady.

Justin hilarious enacting Jump by Kris Kross.

Room (2015 Lenny Abrahamson)

Adapted from her own novel by Emma Donoghue.

It's a wonder.

Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers, Joan Allen, William H Macy, Tom McCamus, Amanda Brugel (police officer).

Remains gripping even after they get out.

Shot by Danny Cohen.

About A Boy (2002 Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz)

Good adaptation by the Weitz brothers and Peter Hedges (What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, Pieces of April, Dan in Real Life, Ben Is Back) of Nick Hornby's novel e.g. cross cutting monologues of Grant and Hoult.

Why doesn't Hornby adapt his own novels?

Favourite moment? Grant opening the door for Hoult before he's even rung the bell. And when he fights back against Colette's accusations in restaurant.

Mark Heap's in it for two seconds. With Toni Colette, Rachel Weisz, Natalia Tena, special mention to Augustus Prew as angry kid, Sharon Small, Victoria Smurfit.

Remi Adafarasin was his own loader - you don't see that very often. Edited by Nick Moore.

Free Solo (2018 Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)

Well, I thought that Alex Honnold and his girlfriend Sanni (what sort of name is that?) McCandless were nuts (he clearly in the Asberger's realm - "I didn't eat vegetables so at 21 I introduced them one by one into my diet").

Despite knowing the outcome, terrifying film shows first solo ropeless climb (also by madmen cameramen, of which Chin is one) up El Capitan, where there's no stopping for a quick espresso on the way up (it took four hours), causes sweaty palms with frequency.

What's next for him, though? you think ruefully, and expect to hear in the news about the tragic etc. etc.

You have to give it to Chin (and off camera Vasarhelyi) who devoted so much time into something that (a) may not have happened at all (b) may have ended up tragically - what sort of film would that have made? There's a jaw-dropping moment where we see a climber fall off, almost certainly to his death - then at the last minute a parachute opens - but after that he still fell to his death.

Cues Q's joke though about getting to the top and finding a staircase on the other side, or an impromptu lift that Dick Strawbridge has constructed... How did they get down?

The Big Short (2015 Adam McKay)

What Oscar-winning screenwriters McKay and Charles Randolph do well is interpret the extremely complicated financial mechanisms (no doubt detailed in the source non-fiction book by Michael Lewis) with easier to understand models, like synthetic CDOs interpreted as Vegas gamblers being bet on by people in the audience, then other audience members betting on that bet. This is coloured by strong performances from the people in the key play positions - Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling. With the always great Marisa Tomei, Jeremy Strong (good), Rafe Spall, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro, going to have to do an etc. there.

Also characters speaking to camera to annotate what actually happened in key moments is good.

The only thing is it's somewhat lacking in a strong human perspective.

This all enormously well coloured (tricked out) by Hank Corwin's montages, some of which at extreme speed.

Greed, complexity, fraud, irony and ... nothing's changed.

The Graduate (1967 Mike Nichols)

Time has not been kind to The Graduate - you could be forgiven for walking away from it thinking 'That was crap. I hate Simon and Garfunkel'. Maybe the reason 'April Come She Will' sounds so fresh is that it's the only one of the songs that's not repeated (also it backs a great sequence where he dives into the pool and comes up in Bancroft's bed, with father standing over them) (also it's the only solo vocal). 'Scarborough Fair' is in it four times and two of its montages are easily capable of excise, particularly Benjamin moping round Berkeley - were all the studio execs stoned not to have noticed? There's a good argument in fact that only the first half of the film is any good.

But I'm being too harsh. There's some great writing throughout (though the characters continually asking 'What?' and people having to repeat themselves becomes increasingly annoying), some of it very funny, the performances are great and Robert Surtees (despite some ugly shadows evident in some scenes) does provide some dazzling images. (There's some lens flaring going on a little - I thought Conrad Hall started that in Cool Hand Luke - which was released almost two months earlier...) Indeed, it's a bit French New Wave - they're just getting it, but they're not yet brave enough.

Nichols directs for the actors, sometimes staging things brilliantly like a play (Hoffman with Murray Hamilton as Anne Bancroft re-enters the room), and there's some nice 'modern' stuff - Hoffman in diving suit, that nimble track on the bus at the end. And what an ending. Katharine Ross would never forgive him - they're doomed.

Also did love the moment Ross realises her mother is the other woman - and the camera on her stays out of focus. And all the staff at the hotel greeting 'Mr. Gladstone'.

Lovely light from other cars bouncing around in this scene

'What?' I said, 'Cut out two of the montages and you might be alright.'

Hoffman was 30, Bancroft 36. With William Daniels, Elizabeth Wilson, co-writer Buck Henry (hotel clerk), Norman Fell and Marion Lorne.

Won Oscar for Nichols; Calder Willingham and Buck Henry were amongst those nominated for screenplay, along with picture, Bancroft, Ross and Surtees. BAFTA liked it more - screenplay, Sam O'Steen's editing, Nichols, film and Hoffman (Most Promising Newcomer) all won.

Christine (2016 Antonio Campos)

For some reason Craig Shilowich decided to write a screenplay about Christine Chubbuck, portraying her as an uptight, unfriendly and mentally unstable yet ambitious TV journalist. Apart from doing some education work at a kids' hospital (even that becomes increasingly bizarre), there's nothing nice about her. Finding out she needs an operation which may render her infertile, and having failed to secure a job promotion (why does she think she deserves one? - she's crap, really) she decides to shoot herself in the head on live TV, a vile thing to do to her colleagues and viewers (what if kids were watching, for example?)

Actually when she does this, I found it quite funny - because we don't care for the character at all.

The whole thing was pointless from any view you look at it. Seventies design and costumes good.

Rebecca Hall puts everything into it but I've no idea at all why she should want to be in it. She looks like a witch, a horror movie character or a serial killer.

With Michael C Hall, Tracy Letts (her boss), Maria Dizzia, J. Smith-Cameron (mother).

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001 Jean-Pierre Jeunet)

Audrey Tautou's winsome pixieness isn't quite as endearing as it once was, but there's no denying either the terrific production design and photography nor the cleverness of the plotting. BAFTA gave it Best Screenplay (Jeunet and Guillaume Larant) but the Césars it scooped were for film, director, music (Yann Tierson) and production design (Aline Bonetto).

I think my favourite moments are when the concierge reads the letter Amélie has pasted together and you get the attendant background sound to each clip, and the photo booth repair man. Also loved the video footage of the horse running in the cycle competition.

Everyone nominated Bruno Delbonnel. He gets his look by shooting very diffused and applying some kind of layer - according to the invaluable 'Making Pictures: A Century of European Cinematography' it's done through 'a combination of film-stock choices, antique-suede and coral colour filters and digital colorisation' which provide this distinctive green-yellow hue.

Video shop coloured in rare blue tones

Sorry - I forgot to mention any of the quite recognisable cast, which includes Rufus (her father), Mathieu Kassovitz, Serge Merlin (artist), Dominique Pinon (jealous customer), Jame Debbouze (grocer's assistant), Isabelle Nanty.

Q's final thought: "Thanks for nagging."

My Week with Marilyn (2011 Simon Curtis)

This is such a good film, a truly effective and affecting portrait of Marilyn whilst simultaneously telling the true story of Colin Clark's brilliant first job. Adrian Hodges' screenplay moves along superbly and the casting is to die for - Eddie Redmayne, Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh (doing a fantastic Laurence Olivier), Judi Dench (whose character unfortunately drops out of the proceedings somewhat), Philip Jackson, Emma Watson, Michael Kitchen, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones, Derek Jacobi. With Dougray Scott, Julia Ormond, Pip Torrens, Geraldine Somerville, Jim Carter, Dominic Cooper.

Hodges wrote Metroland back in 1997, adapted The History of Mr Polly, A Shadow in the North and Survivors, the great Peter and Wendy was in 2015 and his most recent work is The Musketeers. The screenplay wasn't nominated by anyone - should have been. Branagh should have won awards too. Manchester by the Sea was the last Williams film we've seen - she seems set to appear as Janis Joplin... (they were both Oscar nominated).

The attention to detail's great too - the rushes actually look like Jack Cardiff shot them.

The film (a BBC / Weinstein co-production) cost $10m and took $35m worldwide.

Ben Smithard shot it and Donal Woods is the production designer.

The King of Marvin Gardens (1972 Bob Rafelson)

Written by Jacob Brackman and Rafelson. A somewhat ethereal film in which both plot and character are there behind the mist, making it slightly difficult to connect with, despite great performances from Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern and Ellen Burstyn. With Julia Anne Robinson, Benjamin 'Scatman' Crothers, Charles LaVine, Josh Mostel. (Actually, as an afterthought, everything's there, all the story, all the characterisation - it's just deployed so subtly it's only afterwards you realise the integrity of the screenplay.)

Filmed in an out-of-season and unwelcoming Atlantic City, superbly shot by Laszlo Kovacs.

Loved the auction on the pier scene, long opening monologue in one take, made up story about grandfather, Miss America and Scatman scenes.

Rafelson directed The Monkees and Head, made Five Easy Pieces, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Black Widow and Blood and Wine.

P.S. Did find my review of 13 August 1993 funny: "Despite the popular view that this is some sort of underrated classic, film is as limpid and interesting as a stagnant, muddy pond. Very 1970s."

The Hard Way (1991 John Badham)

Thoroughly enjoyable comedy-action star vehicle with Michael J Fox and James Woods, with a hilarious North by Northwest inspired climax.

Lem Dobbs (The Limey) and Michael Kozoll (Hill Street Blues) came up with the story, which was written by Dobbs and Daniel Pyne (Doc Hollywood).

With Annabella Sciorra, Stephen Lang relishing his role as the psycho, Luis Guzman, LL Cool J, Delroy Lindo, Penny Marshall and Christina Ricci.

Shot by Don McAlpine and Robert Primes, edited by Tony Lombardo and Frank Morriss, music by Arthur Rubinstein.

And the moment Fox is handcuffed to a bed, roaring with frustration, made me laugh and laugh.