Films of the Year 2020

We didn't unfortunately have anything quite as brilliant as Roma or Once Upon a Time.. in Hollywood this year but nevertheless there were many interesting successes, like:

Parasite.

The Personal History of David Copperfield.

1917. A technical marvel, winning Roger Deakins his second Oscar - and his fifth BAFTA!

Jojo Rabbit.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Sorry, Hanks should have won the Oscar for this.

The Queen's Gambit. Very classy Walter Tevis / Scott Frank mini-series.

Wild Rose. Jessie Buckley.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Completely missed this great war correspondents satire.

Queen and Slim. It was that kind of a year.

The Eddy. Very interesting Jack Thorne Paris nightclub saga.

Knives Out.

Little America. Inspiring true tales of American immigrants.

This Is Us - Season 4. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

A Rainy Day in New York.

Journeyman. Paddy Considine great both in front of and behind camera.

Chaplin - the Writer's Cut. With all the 'Oh Charlie, stop mucking about' bits removed!

Oldies:

Que La Bête Meure. Chabrol's great.

The Quiet Man / How Green Was My Valley. Thanks, Peter Bogdanovich, for helping me 'get' the great John Ford.

Slaughterhouse-Five.

Wild Strawberries / The Seventh Seal / Smiles of a Summer's Night. Fifties Bergman was really fun.

The Outlaw Josey Wales. Hadn't watched Clint's Fordian western for ridiculously long.

The Last Flight. Impressive 'lost generation' early talkie.

Ceiling Zero. Lesser-known Hawks, a trial run for Only Angels Have Wings. And his hugely influential Scarface.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. The astonishing Buster Keaton. Safety Last. The astonishing Harold Lloyd.

Sam Fuller's incendiary sixties double bill Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss.

Occupation.

Special mention: Steven Merchant as super-efficient butler in Modern Family.

La La land (2016 Damien Chazelle & scr)

Is that umbrellas poster on the wall in Mia's apartment The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I wondered. No, it turns out to be an ad for Revel from the 1920s, designed by Leonetto Cappietto. Shame, as that would have fitted in perfectly with my theory about these two films.

Emma's incredible, Oscar-worthy single live take 'Audition' is three and a half minutes.

Is this Bergman again?

I had no idea how incredibly divisive this film is until a couple of our closest friends said - much to our surprise - that they hated it (admittedly one of them watched it on the day Trump was elected and said she was so angry that likely any film would have infuriated her!)

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956 Nunnally Johnson & scr)

Adapted from Sloan Wilson's novel (it feels novelish - he also wrote A Summer Place) by Johnson, ex-journalist and prolific writer for Fox (The Grapes of Wrath, Tobacco Road, How to Marry a Millionaire, The Three Faces of Eve, The Dirty Dozen, The World of Henry Orient). Veteran Gregory Peck is pushed by his wife Jennifer Jones into switching career into PR, works for millionaire benefactor Fredric March, has flashbacks to war experiences. This interesting article in the New Yorker suggests (among other things) that the protagonist is bothered more by the memory of the child that he's borne in Italy than the friend he accidentally killed in the Pacific. Certainly the sound design of that Pacific moment is incredible / incredibly noisy; in other respects, some of the sets look rather artificial, e.g. in Rome, a horse and carriage comes in to shot, and for a moment I thought we were inside. (Had never heard of cinematographer Charles Clarke).

It's enjoyably worthy and warrants 'long' treatment. Like the way the kids are endlessly watching westerns on TV - this is the studios doling out the 'TV is bad' message to the competition.

Rest of cast: Marisa Pavan, Lee J Cobb (who steals the film as a sensible Judge; 12 Angry Men), Ann Harding (March's wife), Keenan Wynn (war buddy), Gene Lockhart (friend on the train), Gigi Perreau (March's daughter), Arthur O'Connell (interviewer, best known to us for Anatomy of a Murder) and Henry Daniell as the unhelpful work colleague (tons of things: Witness for the Prosecution, The Sun Also Rises, Jane Eyre, Sherlock Holmes films), Joseph Sweeney (fraudster). Also have to credit (as he is uncredited) the actor who plays the black paratrooper who tries to help Peck with his dead buddy - I think it's Roy Glenn, who plays Poitier's dad in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

Bernard Herrmann's score is like a trial run for Vertigo.

It's quite long - you could perhaps have usefully excised a sub-plot or two - through ultimately the message comes over that Peck's nine-to-five way of life is the way to go (family over career). Thus you have to have the bit with the daughter eloping.

Emotional distance

To Catch a Thief (1955 Alfred Hitchcock)

I love the moment where Grant - who's so suntanned he's almost turned black by this point - tosses his chicken into the picnic basket and he pulls Kelly down to kiss her and her head's in the basket, lying, presumably, on top of the chicken.

John Michael Hayes' script is actually quite risqué. It's a fabulous entertainment, looks great and Hitch is thoroughly in command. You can say what you like about Tomasini's editing, but all Hitch's films are brilliantly edited and the array of interesting shots and set ups is all part of the Master's Art.

Lyn Murray's music sounds so like Herrmann in places (same kinds of orchestration for example) you wonder whether he actually influenced him in that direction.

Lots of sound dubbing evident - people saying lines of dialogue when their mouths aren't moving.

Alma came up with the car chase shot by helicopter sequence. They both loved the riviera. She could remember the turns of the road to map it out so accurately.

Q loves this dress

Oddly, the copyright date on our print is 1954, but the film wasn't finished until 1955 and not released until August.

Mr. Jealousy (1997 Noah Baumbach & scr)

Noah's second film is a strong step forward, more enjoyable, featuring some of the same cast; very much in the Woody Allen vein. Eric Stoltz distrusts his girlfriends, the current one being Annabella Sciorra, to the extent that he stalks her ex (Chris Eigeman) to his therapy session, and joins up under an alibi. (The therapist is none other than Peter Bogdanovich.) In an interesting development, Stoltz adopts the identity of his best friend Carlos Jacott, and in doing so starts to get vicarious therapy for him! Marianne Jean Baptiste is the latter's girlfriend - this was the year after Secrets and Lies and from now she appears to be established in the USA.

Lots of narration, lots of New York, lots of irony, things which may or may not be true, people saying 'She said this great thing the other day... can't remember what it was now...' - you kind of know how it's going to turn out...

Steven Bernstein shot it. Bridget Fonda's in it briefly.

Desert Bloom (1986 Eugene Corr & co-scr)

To answer my last question first, it is true that the Nevada Test Site was used to conduct nuclear explosion tests, which became tourist attractions, but obviously there was fallout, in particular affecting the inhabitants of Utah, and compensation has since been paid. The mushroom cloud is I guess one of the desert blooms of the title, the other being the growing up of teenager Annabeth Gish and her clashes with the mentally unstable, alcoholic and abusive step father (good performances from her and Jon Voigt). Things are complicated by the mother's sister coming to stay (JoBeth Williams and Ellen Barkin). Luckily a concerned neighbour, Allen Garfield, is looking out for our girl.

Handsomely shot by Reynaldo Villalobos.

Jay Underwood with Annabeth

Nothing In Common (1986 Garry Marshall)

Creative Director Hanks finds his recently separated father - with whom he's not had much of a relationship - becoming increasingly burdensome. Or does he? In Rick Podell and Michael Preminger's script the couple's paths don't cross much, and the father (Jackie Gleason, his last role) is unlikeable to the point where you'd forgive Hanks for deserting him. The ex-wife, Eve Marie Saint, isn't interested any more. Meanwhile, Hanks starts romancing the daughter of the client whose business he's trying to win (Sela Ward and Barry Corbin), but his best friend is his ex, Bess Armstrong, who should be familiar as we've just watched her in 19 episodes of My So-Called Life.

It's fairly fast and witty with Hanks in sparky form - the moment he erupts at Corbin one of the highlights. Hector Elizondo is the ad agency boss. But the moment Hanks sees his father's diabetes condition is highly contrived and unbelievable.

So - a bit of a mixed bag. Liked the ad pitch to the airline though.

Eve Marie Saint checking out Elizondo's wig

Kicking and Screaming (1995 Noah Baumbach & scr)

A group of college friends (an unfamiliar cast) don't seem to be able to surrender college life after they have graduated. Josh Hamilton (Outsourced) in particular misses his girlfriend Olivia D'Abo, who's gone to Prague - we see their budding romance in flashback. With Chris Eigeman, Parker Posey, Jason Wiles, Cara Buono, Carlos Jacott, Elliott Gould and Eric Stoltz.

It's entirely dialogue driven, and perfectly captures the lethargy and triviality - and, frankly, childishness - of young people (men) in transition. The Stoltz character clearly never plans on leaving academia.

The story was by Stoltz and Bo Berkman. The producer, Jason Blum, was Baumbach's roommate. His family knew Steve Martin. He sent Martin the script and he agreed to write a letter of endorsement. Blum copied the letter and had it as the front page of every screenplay he send out, and that's how it got made.

There are quite a few Baumbachs in the cast list.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004 Beeban Kidron)

Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies, Richard Curtis, Adam Brooks.

I was shocked - Q remembered the twist ending!

Freeway (1996 Matthew Bright & scr)

Well, this was not what I was expecting at all. I thought we were headed into psycho serial killer thriller,  actually it's a lot more interesting than that. For one thing, the credits are comic book scenes of young women being preyed on by amorous wolves. It's set in the reality of a young woman from a dysfunctional family (mom's a prostitute, mom and step-dad are junkies) headed to her grandmother's for sanctuary (it's full of Little Red Riding Hood references), only to be picked up by the Wrong Guy. It's about to go very bad for our heroine, but she turns the tables and (appears to) kill him. The female pluck is one of the good things here, as is some very long takes in the car between Reece Witherspoon and Keifer Sutherland. Anyway, she's arrested and interrogated by Dan Hedaya and Wolfgang Bodison, who seem to warm up to her. But Sutherland has survived...

Its mix of extreme violence, social observation and black humour doesn't quite come off, but it's still a most interesting ride.

Eccentric score from Danny Elfman and Tito Larriva adds another dimension. Photographed by John Thomas, edited by Maysie Hoy (worked on The Player and Smoke).

Reese debuted in 1991 in The Man in the Moon and Wildflower. She was 19/20 here. She's great, as always.

The Best of Enemies (2019 Robin Bissell & scr)

Source was factual book by Osha Gray Davidson. Why isn't this out here on DVD? It was completed in 2017. Sam Rockwell plays a true life KKK leader whose attitude to blacks changed when confronted with activist Taraji Henson and negotiator Babou Ceesay (Eye in the Sky, 71, Guerilla, Lewis). It's slightly guessable (you know he's going to tear up his KKK membership card, and that the blacks will buy his petrol) but enjoyable.

With Anne Heche, Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Nick Searcy, Bruce McGill. An independent Astute Films production. David Lanzenberg shot it, Harry Yoon edited.

Good use of contemporary music throughout - Roy Orbison, Al Green, The Meters, Bowie, Donavan, Bill Withers

Come and Get It (1936 Howard Hawks, William Wyler)

Sam Goldwyn wanted the Edna Ferber book filmed, but according to Hawks, only the first half of the story was any good - the logging and the guy falling for the singer, the development of interesting characters. And then the second half didn't work so well. So he rewrote scenes for the second half and Goldwyn told him 'Directors don't write' which annoyed Hawks so much he quit and Wyler shot his scenes. It certainly does open like an archetypal Hawks film - tough guys doing a tough job, a strong male-male bond, the introduction of a tough woman character. That scene in which they destroy the bar with trays Hawks actually saw happen. He loved Frances Farmer and encouraged her to work in a diner for ten days to get the character right. 

The earlier scenes with Arnold at home and his relationship with his family are also terrific.

Thanks Peter Bogdanovich for getting all this info. Hawks loved working with Gregg Toland (and therefore we deduce that Rudolph Maté shot the Wyler stuff). Richard Rossen directed the logging scenes, which are fascinating.

With Edward Arnold are Walter Brennan, Farmer, Joel McCrea, Mady Christians (the other Swedish lady), Mary Nash (Arnold's wife), Andrea Leeds (his daughter, Stage Door), Edwin Maxwell, Frank Shields, Cecil Cunningham, Charles Halton.

Screenplay by Jane Morfin and Jules Furthman. Music Alfred Newman.

Some interesting low angles here and there

The Palm Beach Story (1942 Preston Sturges & scr)

Joining Colbert, McCrea, Astor and Vallee for the party are Sig Arno (Toto), Robert Warwick (In a Lonely Place), Jimmy Conlin, William Demarest, Jack Norton, Robert Greig, Chester Conklin, Robert Dudley, Franklin Pangborn, Arthur Hoyt, Al Bridge, Fred 'Snowflake' Toones, Charles Moore, Ester Howard, Lillian Randolph.

Photographed by Victor Milner with music by Victor Young, edited by Stuart Gilmore (Airport, Man's Favourite Sport, Hatari, The Great Moment, Hail the Conquering Hero, Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve).

The Criterion Blu-Ray is rather grainy.

In A World... (2013 Lake Bell & scr)

A fresh original that passed us by, about a trailer voice artist, her father and sister. It's good to see Fred Melamed in a starring role for a change. Loved her final class, trying to retrain women from sounding like 'sexy babies'. With Rob Corddry (brother-in-law), Alexandra Holden, Demetri Martin (Taking Woodstock), Michaela Watkins, Ken Marino, Talulah Riley. That was Cameron Diaz as the Amazon leader. Won Best Screenplay at Sundance.

Photographed by Seamus Tierney, edited by Tom McArdle (Spotlight, Win Win, The Visitor), music by Ryan Miller.

Not sure about the title, though. Wouldn't In a Word be more appropriate? Sorry - I'm being dumb. It's a typical film trailer opening, 

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942 William Keighley)

 Ironically contains the line 'Christmas may be postponed this year'.

Bette had requested Warners buy the play, hoping she would star opposite the increasingly washed up John Barrymore, who much to her disappointment failed the screen test. She rightly predicted that audiences would respond to her in the role of the nice secretary who falls in love with an ordinary working guy (who happens to have written a hit play). Kaufman and Hart's play was adapted by the Epsteins. 'The Oomph Girl' Ann Sheridan was filming Kings Row concurrently. It's shot by Tony Gaudio.

Little Miss Marker (1980 Walter Bernstein & scr)

Whilst not exactly catching the spirit of Damon Runyon, it's a good effort and a most entertaining film, with Matthau on brilliant form as cynical bookie and Sara Stimson just great as the little girl left in his charge (she was picked out of 5000 auditions; wisely she quit after this). Matthau exec produced but the film mysteriously was a flop. Supported by Julie Andrews, Tony Curtis (scarily good as the bad guy - yes this was in the cocaine era), Bob Newhart, Lee Grant (the judge), Brian Dennehy, Kenneth McMillan.

Scored by Henry Mancini, photographed by Philip Lathrop. Bernstein was one of the blacklisted Hollywood writers and wrote about that in The Front. "They should put headlights on the horse. By the time he comes in, it'll be dark."

The fact that Matthau was a gambling addict gives the film an interesting added dimension.

The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019 Simon Curtis)

From the director of My Week With Marilyn, but unfortunately not written by Peter Hedges but Mark Bomback (from Garth Stein novel), this film proposes that the dog is as intelligent as we are but can't express it, and loves motor racing. Somehow this didn't really work for me and there are some incredible plot holes, like the fact the dog is left alone for two days, then immediately told off after. Also, the stuff about the zebra is just weird. I didn't unenjoy it, but wouldn't exactly recommend it. It didn't get a UK DVD release. I've a feeling they were after the market that Marley and Me tapped in to.

Milo Ventimiglia, Amanda Seyfried, Kathy Baker, Martin Donovan, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Gary Cole, and Enzo credited as Parker and (older) Butler. 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945 Elia Kazan)

Dorothy McGuire (Three Coins in the Fountain, The Spiral Staircase), Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Peggy Ann Garner (Jane Eyre, Daisy Kenyon), Ted Donaldson, Lloyd Nolan, James Gleason. Based on a very autobiographical novel by Betty Smith, and written by husband and wife Tess Slesinger and Frank Davis. First time director Kazan has great support from Leon Shamroy and Dorothy Spencer, as well as an awesome Brooklyn tenement set (Lyle Wheeler the art director); music by Lionel Newman. Kazan's assistant was Nicholas Ray.

Burton's 1628 'Anatomy of Melancholy' does indeed seem way over the head of the fledgling writer.

Kazan gets great performances from the cast, including the kids. Garner was worried about her Dad who was serving overseas, had tricky relationship with her mother, therefore looked genuinely stressed (died of cancer at 52), but Donaldson's great too. It's a pleasure to see Joan Blondell in a serious role. Dunn "rather to his amazement"* won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but it didn't help his career much (he was himself an alcoholic) and the kids were never in anything better.

We saw the remastered Masters of Cinema print in which Shamroy's imagery is pin sharp (it was not one of his eighteen Oscar nominations).

They do quite a heavy snow at Twentieth Century Fox. Over at RKO you'd figure they had less budget and so the snow would have been lighter (and perhaps more realistic). I'm not really carping about the snow. 

"I never did a thing wrong in my life but that ain't enough." It was fabulous.

*Philip Kemp, freelance film historian.

Love Actually (2003 Richard Curtis & scr)

I suggested we play the 'guess the next scene' game. Quickly abandoned that as no matter how well you think you remember it, that's actually a really difficult task.

Thought even more it's Curtis's dirty old man film, and also was getting the feeling that the Christmas angle is really rammed down your throat - 'because it's Christmas this will work, because it's Christmas you can do this', which frankly is a little facile.

Though I'm never not going to love Grant and McCutcheon, Firth and Guillory, Freeman and Page, Atkinson.

"I shouldn't be surprised and a half."

Reminded me how much we enjoyed the Gregor Fisher Glasgow house clearance show Empty (from 2008).

Match Point (2005 Woody Allen & scr)

I have a theory that this was a big success because it doesn't really seem like a Woody Allen film. He's not in it, it's not set in New York, it's not a comedy, it's long (two hours) and it's shot and edited more like a 'conventional' film than many of his others, i.e. it does shot / reverse shot rather than only keeping things in single takes.

The opening tennis net is beautifully echoed twice - by the table tennis net, which introduces us to Scarlett, and the ring which doesn't quite make it into the Thames. It's glorious.

As to the much discussed (well, in my head) murder to opera scene, I think it does work, though maybe another bit of opera would work better. And, do you know what, if you removed the opera altogether, it would be the most powerful sequence in any Woody Allen film - the opera slightly undercuts its violence.

Everyone's in it - see here.

Foreign Correspondent (1940 AH)

Not a lot to add to this though should point out in line with Women Film Editors project that Dorothy Spencer's your fella responsible for that great assassination / chase sequence as well as the climactic crash at sea - the latter is quite incredible when you think it was shot in a studio tank with invisible back projection - as soon as colour came in, it made that sort of thing much harder.

We love Harry Davenport

Laraine Day (it's her best known film) and Herbert Marshall

My So-Called Life (1994-5 Creator Winne Holzman)

Winnie co-wrote Roadies. This is seemingly an honest, really well observed account of teen life, and the parental reaction to it (and their own problems). She auditioned (and won) a small part in Jerry Maguire just to meet Cameron. Writing it while raising an eight year old, she needed to reconnect with school life, and was encouraged to write the diary of the lead character Angela first (played of course by Claire Danes). And she spent two days in a local (LA) high school:

The discovery I made was that, really in America, if you went to high school in our country, it doesn’t really matter where you went to high school. In a funny way, all high schools are the same. There’s a feeling, and I had forgotten what it was like to be imprisoned in a room and you couldn’t get up and leave and you had to wait for that horrible clock, and then all the trash in the hallways. There was a lot of trash, a lot of kids asleep, a lot of kids holding down another job. And I was trying to capture all of that.

You can see that Cameron would have liked all this being a great auteur of the teen experience himself from the book 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' (try getting a copy of that book now for less than £250) and you can kind of see the connection to Roadies in the intermingling of the multiple characters. It's fun, for example, to find Angela's new 'wild child' friend Rayanne (A.J. Langer) gradually befriending the old one Sharon (Devon Odessa) in the ladies', though they 'hate' each other, and how the gay one of the group (Wilson Cruz, actually higher billed than Danes) becomes the confidant of both Jordan (Jared Leto) and Brian (Devon Gummersall).

Some dramatic stuff here, including a gun in school, and Rayanne overdoses (her mom played by Patti D'Arbanville); in a later episode, after 33 days of sobriety, she manages to sing in front of a queue, but then (in slow motion) takes a sip of beer. In moving (and timely) Christmas episode, marked by a lack of opening credits and straight into the story, Ricky is beaten up and homeless - we never find out what's happened at home - gets help from an unlikely source (an angel), whilst It's A Wonderful Life plays in the background (the show is a Bedford Falls production). Ricky homeless is heart-breaking.

Occasionally has the most incredible screenplay. 'Her hair smelled like the orange grove I'd pass on my way to my grandmother's when I was eight', and 'I just had the most unreal fight... It was like the fight was having me' being two good examples.

The parents are Bess Armstrong and Tom Irwin, sister is Lisa Wilhoit. Jeff Perry's the nice teacher, Lisa Waltz the restaurateur, Senta Moses Mikan with the crush on Ricky. Really good acting all round, but apart from Danes and Leto the other youngsters didn't seem to hit the big time.

Cancelled after one season (same as Roadies) of nineteen episodes, which is a shame, as we're left hanging.

Photographed by Winnie's brother Ernest Holzman. Many different directors.

The English Teacher (2013 Craig Zisk)

A slightly repressed 40 year old English teacher turns to lying and deception to get her former pupil's play produced, not to mention shagging him on her desk, which ultimately gets her the sack. It turns out he's not being entirely honest with her too, which is all good stuff, and the plot isn't predictable. The writers are husband and wife Dan and Stacy Chariton.

A watchable cast: Julianne Moore, Nathan Lane, Michael Angarano (This is Us, Will and Grace, The Knick), Greg Kinnear, Lily Collins, Norbert Leo Butz, Jessica Hecht, Sophie Lane Curtis. As I believe I have mentioned before, I like the way the characters disobey the narrator (Fiona Shaw) at the end.

The music is a bit grating.

A Christmas Story (1983 Bob Clark & co-scr)

"You'll shoot your eye out, kid."

Melinda Dillon (Slap Shot, Close Encounters, Magnolia), Darren McGavin, Peter Billingsley.

Written by Jean Shepherd (from his novel), Clark and Leigh Brown.

Rare studio ident. MGM owned United Artists 1981-1985

Persuasion (2007 Adrian Shergold)

A really interesting, successful interpretation - I loved it. We did a Christmas JA retrospective a couple of years ago, and somehow completely missed it. I guess it comes into the story from the novel later on, but still never having read a word of Austen, no idea... (This isn't acceptable, by the way, Jottings Nick). This is the Steadicam version. Works so well, because of the big focus on Sally Hawkins (who's always so real, so good), the intimate and beautiful shooting (David Odd again) and Martin Phipps' distinctive score, mainly on the piano. Didn't know Kristina Hetherington, the editor, but I could see several times she chose to stay on Sally rather than cut to other characters with dialogue - quite right. Of the ending, loved David Odds' tracking shot of Alice running through Bath, and that exceptionally hesitant and beautiful final kiss (one shot). And then, the circling camera at the very end, and how when they themselves begin to waltz within in it, it's just magic.

Rest of cast: Alice Krige (sympathetic godmother), Anthony Head and Julia Davis (unworthy, repellent  relatives.. you feel the absence of Alice's late mother), Rupert Penry-Jones, Joseph Mawle, Peter Wight, Marion Bailey, Tobias Menzies, Amanda Hale (a slightly annoying performance).

I'm sure I remember David Odd once telling me that he was hired because he could shoot films that made it look like it was expensive cinematography, which with hindsight may have been a rather modest way of saying he was (is) really good! Which he is. He first came to my eye on Dirty Filthy Love (2004, same director as this), with a sort of cinema verité look, and is still working, most recently on the great Giri/Haji.

And of course we have to acknowledge the writer - the other writer - Simon Burke. Ms Austen's stories often seem to be about misunderstandings, I was thinking, and dramatic irony (we know stuff the heroine doesn't know), although not having read... And Shergold's intelligent eye (there was more than one beautiful oner)... or, should 'sensibility' be the more appropriate choice of word?

This is the opening shot. If you're not in by now, you're an idiot

Galaxina (1980 William Sachs & scr)

Very awful sci-fi spoof, plundering jokes from everywhere imaginable (Dark Star/Wars). Feels like it was written by eight year olds, though the truth is probably that Sachs was on a lot of drugs, and thought it was hilarious. Of note therefore for only one reason: it's the debut of Dorothy Stratten, who plays a robot who is humanised.

The opening is unbelievably dull, and the music's awful.

Believe it or not, photographed by Dean Cundey.

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 Oliver Parker & scr)

Yes, the country house, West Wycombe Park, is indeed where the Endeavour episode 'Canticle' (featuring the rock band Wildwood), was filmed (as well as Belle).

Thoroughly enjoyed opening up of play, and the decision to make the women more up front.

Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Frances O'Connor (A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Mansfield Park, Mr Selfridge, The End), Reece Witherspoon, Judi Dench, Anna Massey, Tom Wilkinson, Edward Fox, Patrick Godfrey and - as 'girl in gambling club' - Kiera Sunshine Chaplin, granddaughter of.

Photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts.

The Mercenaries (1967, released 1968 Jack Cardiff)

Actually the film I watched was called Le Dernier Train Du Katanga (a title which was adopted by other European countries when released), but unfortunately it's the same cut version as the Warner Bros US release Dark of the Sun. (I quite like the European title. The Mercenaries is a bit blunt, and Dark of the Sun doesn't really mean anything, although it is the title of the novel.) I'm obsessed about finding an uncut version. Maybe there isn't one? Maybe it's lost, like The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. 

Anyway, what remains is fortunately still a strong, exciting thriller, well directed by Cardiff, with lots of good action and stunts, shot in Jamaica. It's written by Ranald MacDougall and Adrian Spies, based on Wilbur Smith's novel. Rod Taylor and Jim Brown are terrific (Cardiff thought it was one of Taylor's best films, and I'm inclined to agree), Peter Carsten is evil, Kenneth More is the honourable alcoholic, Yvette Mimieux doesn't do much (sure there's a love scene between her and Taylor in the original? - as noted before), Bloke Modisane is the loyal corporal, André Morell has the diamonds. Someone has seen a version of the film where soldier Olivier Despax is being raped by the rebels, very strong stuff for its time, but makes more sense of why he grimly smiles in revenge before being blown up.

Photographed by Ted Scaife (in what now looks like that great, slightly grainy, Panavision and Metrocolor celluloid look of the sixties), music by Jacques Loussier, edited by Ernest Walter.

It was financed by MGM.

The fact that the Brown character is himself Congolese, keen to help the country out of the Dark Ages, adds an interesting dimension. It's referencing the Simba Rebellion of 1963-5.

Here's some versions of the same print: