And When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007 Anand Tucker)

"My last recollection of my father was the look on his face after I placed him in a nursing home in Miami, Florida. Wracked by Parkinson's disease and heart trouble, I was saddened by how far removed he was from the authoritarian and emotionally distant man I feared when I was young, yet a lifetime of resentment could not be entirely forgotten..."

So begins an IMDB review from one Howard Schumann, a bracingly honest statement, and evidence that the film - written by David Nicholls from poet/author Blake Morrison's memoir - stirs up filial feelings and prompts discussion about our own fathers.

Great cast: Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent, Gina McKee, Juliet Stevenson, Matthew Beard, Claire Skinner, Sarah Lancashire, Elaine Cassidy, Carey Mulligan.

Music by Barrington Pheloung (like Tucker, born in Thailand), photographed by Howard Atherton, who's having fun with mirrors:

It's good. Seven years was too long to leave it. Perhaps there was a reason for that.

Halloween 2 - A Night in the Hospital (1981 Rick Rosenthal)

OK, it's not really called that. So, Laurie definitely doesn't go to the dance with Rob Trainer or whatever his name is - at the time it's supposed to be happening, she's being driven away from hospital in an ambulance, presumably to another hospital - her brother Michael Myers is definitely dead this time (isn't he?) I think though that beginning a sequel immediately after the first one (they overlap, in fact) is (was?) unique.

Quite funny mix of suspense and ghoulish murders, poorly acted. Though there is a classic Carpenter scene in one take involving two girls, one giving a lift to the other, and a guy with a radio (commenting on the news). You suspect Myers will be in the car. They drive off, then the young man with the radio walks into his path. Myers is headed for the hospital. Cut to - The nurse arrives at the hospital (having dropped off her friend) and Myers appears behind her..

Decision to reimagine music with a touch of Kraftwerk not a good idea (Alan Howarth co-credited). Dean Cundey and operator Ray Stella on camera as before.

Myers won't go away, like Brexit. He's finding more inventive (ridiculous) ways of killing people (note he's not interested in the elderly or babies, thankfully):

Nice Lewton-ish corridors and stripy blind shadows...

Great suspense scene as Jamie Lee tries to get back into the hospital...

Dr Dementia's night of horror films continues, with Night of the Living Dead. There's also a definite Psycho reference (turning the guy's chair), apart from 'Sam Loomis'.

Bookended by The Chordettes 'Mr Sandman', from 1954.

The Lost Prince (2003 Stephen Poliakoff)

A marvellous invention, detailing the hidden life of epileptic prince John, played winningly by Daniel Williams (younger) and Matthew Thomas, and his elder brother George (Rollo Weeks - Honeysuckle's brother - who's rather good too). Closest to him his faithful attendant Gina McKee (who's really their mother); parents Tom Hollander and Miranda Richardson are cold and aloof.

It makes for a moving three hours, especially when he performs his trumpet solo, then dies...

With Michael Gambon, an increasingly ghoulish looking Bill Nighy, Bibi Andersson, Ron Cook, Frank Finlay, David Westhead, John Sessions, Suzanne Burden, Graham Crowden, Ivan Marevich (silly swimming Tsar).

A banquet, seen from high up, a standout. Quirky (stamps, the farmhouse parades, military school, Russian Princess who has 'the wrong shoes') with history woven artfully around it. Filmed by Barry Ackroyd, music by Adrian Johnston, edited by Clare Douglas.

Talkback / BBC / WGBH Boston.

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter & co-scr)

Its Steadicam prowling (OK - Panaglide) and the horror figure who won't die were both pretty influential, as well as the teenagers-in-peril. Weren't they? I think so.

Some of the acting is terrible. It's a corker. Quite funny too that it's not Halloween - a few leaves scattered here and there don't disguise that all the trees are green. But it is Metrocolor Blue.

Do you think she ended up going to the prom with Rob Trainer? I guess not - though we'd have to check II.

It's not fair - I want six hours of Doctor Destiny fifties horror movies...

Arlington Road (1999 Mark Pellington)

Bleak conspiracy thriller, written by Ehren Kruger. Political lecturer, specialising in cover-ups, begins to suspect his neighbour Tim Robbins is not who he says he is. A well-executed car chase later, everyone's dead. With Hope Davies, a marvellously sinister Joan Cusack, Robert Gossett, Mason Gamble.

Percussive score is almost as noisy as Suspiria.

From Time To Time (2009 Julian Fellowes & scr)

Reviewed here. Maggie Smith and Pauline Collins are both brilliant; Spall has less to do but is cheerily mysterious, Dominic West suitably menacing (it looks like he and Hugh Bonneville's wife Carice van Houten (Black Book) might be up to something). The children are Alex Etel (Millions), Eliza Bennett and Kwayedza Kureya. With Allen Leech, Harriet Walter.

An Ealing film. Shot by Alan Almond at Athelhampton House in Dorset (also in 1972's Sleuth).

The Obscure Screen Shots Quiz 2019

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14. An easy one.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1941, released 1944 Frank Capra)

With the wind and the leaves blowing around the house, and the nights drawing in, it was the perfect October moment to watch Arsenic and Old Lace - especially as the neighbours had shut up. Of course it's Max Steiner, and Sol Polito's photography is absolutely wonderful. Noticed the name of Robert Burks (with Byron Haskin) credited for 'Special Effects' - photographic effects, presumably?

It's both very funny and creepy - I think maybe Massey is even more scary than Karloff would have been.

With Cary Grant: Priscilla Lane, Jack Carson, Edward Everett Horton, Peter Lorre, James Gleason, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair, John Alexander, Grant Mitchell (connecting it to that other great Warner's play adaptation The Man Who Came to Dinner), Edward McNamara and Garry Owen (cab driver). The Epsteins adapted Joseph Kesselring's play.

Is Anybody There? (2009 John Crowley)

The 1980s. Young Bill Milner (who turns up later in Dunkirk) hates having to live in an old people's home - and quite rightly. Indeed, his explosions of anger about it all are delightful. (That's probably the wrong word.) He's becoming obsessed with death. Then magician Michael Caine (who never blinks) moves in...

Anne-Marie Duff and David Morrissey are the parents. The inmates are Sylvia Sim, Elizabeth Spriggs (her last film - this is dedicated to her), Leslie Phillips, Rosemary Harris, Peter Vaughan. Linzey Cocker is the assistant and Miles Jupp plays a vicar. (Vaughan died in 2016, aged 93. His last role was in GOT!)

My favourite moment is after Vaughan's had his finger chopped off, his shakes stop. Enjoyable film written by Peter Harness (the new War of the Worlds).

Caine's senility is nicely caught ('Those big plants...' 'Trees.')

DoP Rob Hardy.

Startup - Season 2 (2017)

Not convinced this is the best written or plotted show.

Best thing is story of Ronnie, who loses his son, starts drinking, tells his wife to kill his son's murderer (she doesn't), saves everyone whilst being shot to pieces by Russians, explains to Izzy the Idiot the mental cost of killing, then doesn't accept the ArakNet buyout, preferring to be an entrepreneur than a 'rich thug'.

You cannot make programming or people at computers interesting by putting loud music over it. It just isn't interesting. And what's with all this Lite Beer all over the place? Are they sponsored by Lite beer?

Ron Perlman the new investor, Vera Cherny rather good as Russian. If Izzy's dad Tony Plana looks familiar to us it's probably because he was Ugly Betty's father too.

Modern Love (2019 Developed by John Carney)

An absolutely fabulous ending.

Julia Garner (Grandma) develops a father fixation for Shea Whigham. Written by Audry Wells (Under the Tuscan Sun) and Abby Sher, directed by Emmy Rossum.

Then in an outstanding and moving episode, pregnant wanderer Olivia Cooke donates her baby to gay couple Andrew Scott and Brandon Kyle Goodman (Ed Sheeran has a cameo), written and directed by Carney. Scott and Cooke are particularly wonderful. Ends on Bowie.

Finally, love later on in life, in 'The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap', written by Carney and Tom Hall and directed by Hall. Jane Alexander falls for the lovely-faced James Saito. The episode also manages to wrap up the other stories by showing us extra / later scenes.

Noticed how the Schumann was beginning to appear again and again and wondered if there's some kind of linking device throughout.

All photographed by Yaron Orbach in distinctly high-end NYC locations.

Beginning to love John Carney - this is one of Amazon's best original shows. Though the reviews were strangely negative: 'May result in queasiness' (Independent), 'All heart, no soul.. Characters have the depth of a thimble' (Vulture), 'Bland, will-this-do..sickly' (Guardian), 'Hard to care about their problems' (Telegraph), 'Charming but uneven' (New York Times), 'Clunky.. clichéd' (Variety). But funnily enough, through all that, the reviewers all focus on a different story that they thought stood out from the others, not all the same story. Which I guess shows you something... (as well as reviewers being a bunch of arseholes. Well, not Derek Malcolm, obviously. Or Sean Day-Lewis.)

The Laundromat (2019 Steven Soderbergh)

Another Big Short type film with dummy companies the theme. Meryl Streep pursues the truth after her husband is killed on a boat and the insurance disappears, as a result of the financial con games of Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman.

With Jeffrey Wright, David Schwimmer, Sharon Stone, James Cromwell, Matthias Schoenaerts, Will Forte.

Has a nice twist but I'm getting a bit bored of this sort of thing, with its addresses to the audience, chapters, bits and pieces.

Photographed by Peter Andrews and edited by Mary Ann Bernard! How's your retirement going, Steven?

Sometimes Always Never (2018 Carl Hunter)

Quirky and colourful, scrabble-themed story about missing son, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Millions, A Cock and Bull Story, The Railway Man). Bill Nighy, Sam Riley (Brighton Rock, On The Road, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead), Alice Lowe, Jenny Agutter, Louis Healy, Tim McInnerny, Ella-Grace Gregoire, Alexei Sayle.

Featuring a quite garish and wacky design, with fakery (a slightly Wes Anderson vibe?) Actually quite liked the regional accents on offer.

Photographed by Richard Stoddard, camera operator and DP on lots of TV.

Jackie Brown (1997 Quentin Tarantino & scr)

Typified by elegant tracking shots from the off, a cool and funky soul soundtrack and featuring memorable turns from the overlooked duo of Pam Grier and Robert Forster (who died October 11 aged 78 - best known to us from The Descendants). The plot is fairly straightforward - airline hostess is coerced into helping the FBI catch gun dealer Samuel L Jackson as he attempts to bring in half a million dollars from Mexico; Forster is a bail bondsman who gets involved, Robert de Niro and Bridget Fonda too. And Michael Keaton.

Cinematically of most interest in the actual money switch itself, shown from three points of view. Casually violent, quite funny ('Chicks Who Love Guns', amusing titles), not top drawer Tarantino, but very cool in a way that predicts the slightly superior Out Of Sight (1998).

Recognised the Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry clip but not the 1977 Helmut Berger Beast With a Gun.

Photographed by Guillermo Navarro, edited by Sally Menke.

Still singing 'Across 110th Street' days later.

On The Edge (2000, rel. 2001 John Carney & co-scr)

Early Cillian Murphy, one of Carney's first too. A young man who has tried to kill himself spends three months in a psychiatric hospital and falls for a troubled Irish-American, Tricia Vessey (both really good; she was also in Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai). All the acting's good. With Stephen Rea as the counsellor, Paul Hickey, Jonathan Jackson, Marcella Plunkett, Tomás Ó Súilleabháin. Funny too, of course.

A bit of a family affair with Martin Carney as the vicar, Liam Carney in bowling alley. Has lots of music on the soundtrack and John's own incidental music is rather good (he was initially a musician); eclectic soundtrack ranges from Doves to Herb Alpert in party scene!

Photographed by Eric Edwards (Life of Crime, Knocked Up).

Modern Love (2019 developed by John Carney)

Inspired by a New York Times column, Modern Love reminds me of Paris Je T'Aime in its varied stories of love in NYC. Carney himself opens by writing and directing the first three: a sweet story involving a protective doorman (that luggage trolley kept reminding me of The Concierge) and a young girl, a dating app entrepreneur who's lost his one true love (and the journalist who's interviewing him revealing the same) and the moving story of a bi-polar girl. These are peopled by Cristin Milioti and Laurentiu Possa, Dev Patel and Catherine Keener (and Caitlin McGee and Andy Garcia) and Anne Hathaway (and Quincy Tyler Bernstine - and Judd Hirsch, in hilarious seventies style credits scene).

Sharon Horgan's story concerns a couple who aren't getting along well (Tina Fey and John Slattery) and Tom Hall's story relates a disastrous date that ends up in hospital (Sofia Boutella and John Gallagher Jr.) Tom co-wrote John's debut November Afternoon in 1996, and co-directed Park with him in 1999.

Yaron Orbach photographed.

Startup - Season 1 (2016 Creator / writer Ben Ketai)

When Ronny single-handedly takes out the rival gang, where's the rest of his gang? (It's that Steadicam tracking shot of him that's been used from the beginning. ) Though this kind comes up later, partly why the Haitians support him. Is the plotting subtle, or loose...? The ending is kind of a mess for me. They haven't achieved anything to have anything taken away.

Considering her code is so brilliant she seems to get hacked quite easily. And the scenes with the investor at Gemcoin are ridiculous... No one's doing anything, there's no explanation of how anyone's going to make any money, or how much... And the way the money keeps coming and going - is it nonsense, or blackly comic?

Too many rebarbative sex scenes for me. Not sure Americans can do sex scenes well. (Not sure Brits can either, come to that.)

It's all a bit bonkers, and the characters not too likable. Martin Freeman gives a great performance though - very threatening. Edi Gathegi good too (he's in Aloha). With Adam Brody and Otmar Marrero. And Aaron Yoo as the investor (and Vera Cherny).

We're watching this, G.B.H., Maltese, Spiral 7 and Modern Love concurrently...

Some of Taxi Driver

It's just so well made.

The Concierge (1993 Barry Sonnenfeld) / Doc Hollywood (1991 Michael Caton-Jones)

Two well executed star vehicles for the cherishable Michel J Fox.

The Concierge is written by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, the latter having written one episode of the disappointing Magic City, which cropped up in conversation as a real disappointment - we need a new hotel story / series, or at least a remake of Hotel. This is very enjoyable:

"Don't you have that meeting with Julian?"
"It's next week."
"Well leave now."

The Apartment seeps through it, even in some of the music score. I don't know why different parrots keep appearing on the concierge desk.

With Gabrielle Anwar, Anthony Higgins, Michael Tucker ("I don't normally deal in loans this small"), Bob Balaban. Isaac Mizrahi (has small parts in Celebrity, Hollywood Ending  and Small Time Crooks), Udo Kier, Dan Hedaya.

The 'Doug'

Photographed by Oliver Wood.

Can still hear Fyvush Finkel as the bag man, something like "John Barrymore. 1941. 39 pieces, including Mr. Barrymore."

Doc Hollywood is also a well-crafted film, a variation on Capra's small town Americana where the Squash Festival is a big deal, and where crazy car mechanics learn German as part of their Porsche repairs. Written by Neil Shulman, Laurian Leggett and Jeffrey Price.

"Morning, Doc. Nice pig." With Julie Warner, Barnard Hughes (the doctor), Woody Harrelson, Bridget Fonda, David Ogden Stiers, Roberts Blossom.

That is indeed Buster Keaton - in The General - the townsfolk are watching (though Our Hospitality might have been more fitting).

Michael Chapman shot it.

Promised Land (2012 Gus Van Sant)

Written by and starring Matt Damon and John Krazinsky, based on Dave Eggers novel. I think Capra would have liked film about town that thinks it's going to sell out to frackers, and gets played. It's quite open-ended, actually.

With Frances McDormand, Hal Holbrook, Rosemarie DeWitt, Titus Welliver (The Town, Argo, The Good Wife), Sara Lindsey.

Photographed by Linus Sandgren, who seems to be eschewing artificial light altogether, with the result that it's rather dark. Filmed in Pennsylvania. Gus likes his profile shots but otherwise isn't doing anything crazy this time.

Isle of the Dead (1945 Mark Robson)

1912. Spooky Greek General Boris Karloff and journalist Mark Cramer are isolated on Cemetery Island with fellow travellers as plague rages, starts picking them off. Superstitious old lady however is convinced that young Ellen Drew is some kind of malevolent being, a Frivoliker I want to call it, but in fact it's a vorvolaka, an evil undead in Greek myth, and Karloff starts to believe her. Meanwhile Katherine Emery is terrified of being buried alive - film thus pre-dates Corman. Her interment and subsequent wraith-like emergence are the best things in it, albeit borrowing rather from I Walked with a Zombie.

Another unusual story and treatment from the Val Lewton stable - the three headed dog is guarding Hades, is it not - with shadowy, stripy style and weirdness, and Karloff on good, sinister form. Is he trying to prevent the American from seducing the Greek girl? These films are fascinating and much under-appreciated, almost dream-like.

Rest of cast: Helene Thimig, Alan Napier, Jason Robards (Sr.), Ernst Deutsch (The Third Man) and Skelton Knaggs (uncredited).

Photographed by Jack MacKenzie, music by Leigh Harline. Written by Ardel Wray (IWWAZ, The Leopard Man).

I'm sure I remember this film was banned in the UK for some years, but can't corroborate it. I think it must have been the 1933 Island of Lost Souls.

No. 2 in Martin Scorsese's Scariest Films!

Shaun of the Dead (2014 Edgar Wright)

Jessica Hynes, Martin Freeman, Reece Shearsmith, Tamsin Greig, Julia Deakin, Matt Lucas

Midnight Run (1988 Martin Brest)

George Gallo's action-comedy screenplay has bail bondsman de Niro trying to retrieve Charles Grodin to LA whilst being pursued by the FBI (Yaphet Kotto), the mob (Dennis Farina and Philip Baker Hall) and fellow bondsman John Ashton. With a touch of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. de Niro-Grodin relationship works.

Danny Elfman's blues rock score is a bit much to take.