The Newsroom - Season Three (2014 Aaron Sorkin)

Loved the guy that Maggie overhears on the train who won't believe she's not going to write up an article about it. There's a disguised meet cute going on here as well. Do I sound like an asshole? I don't know what an asshole sounds like. I don't sound like Trump...

Sorkin makes me feels dumb.

Plot involving Neal being sent sensitive documents - to see them he needs an 'air gapped computer ' one that has no Internet access and never has had. (I don't think this is plausible as any computer would be tested before shipping, but it's a fun idea.) Will ends up going to jail for refusing to name the source, where he encounters the ghost of his father...

Funny writer's in-joke about Euripides and the three act structure - man climbs up a tree, people throw rocks at him, then he gets down.

The main target really ends up being 'public sourced content' and a really wonderful defence of the professionalism of journalism - carried out (in part) brilliantly when Sloan tears apart an employee whose app enables psychos to stalk celebrities.

Then ends by killing a main character (shades of WW again) and going full circle, to just before Season One begins. And why was it such a short (six episode) season? Because it received a critical bashing?

The Newsroom - Season Two (2013 Aaron Sorkin)

With some other co-writers getting involved in the stories. Starts off everyone in trouble because they've broken a story involving the army's illegal use of nerve gas, then slowly fills in the background. I like that Mac's military experience is coming into play - I've always thought she didn't quite look like a war correspondent - thinking maybe there should be some concession to her past - that she wears trainers, for example, instead of nice shoes. (I put this to the Q and she shrugged and said 'She likes nice shoes'.)

This is based on a true story from Vietnam days. And other true stories that get told are: Challenger's washer that was never tested for cold; the original girl who refused her seat being pregnant, thus not the poster girl for Civil Rights, thus Martin Luther King came into the picture; the president who escaped assassination because of a wobbly chair..

There's one or two plot lines familiar from The West Wing. One is that Maggie goes off to Africa (Donna was off somewhere when she gets in trouble), another that Jim follows the Republicans to get away from the office (WW also split its story line to follow political candidates).

Grace Gummer is that familiar face, from Jenny's Wedding, Frances Ha and Larry Crowne.

With Hope Davis, who's becoming a nice gossip columnist.

Stoned Jane Fonda won't let the three resign.
"But we've lost the trust of our audience."
"Get it back!"
Cut to black.
Great. Attorney Marcia Gay Harden is on their side too,

I like it when Sorkin gets his teeth into something that clearly bothers him. We're feeling the fallout from the brilliant Tea Party / Taliban allusion from one; here there's another great bit of Jeff Daniels on air savaging the crap politicians talk and in particular the abuse given to an openly gay soldier who's fighting out in Iraq.

The Man From Laramie (1955 Anthony Mann)

Tough, taut western, written by Philip Yordan and Frank Burt, from Thomas Flynn Saturday Evening Post serial. We slowly learn that James Stewart is an ex cavalry Captain looking for whoever's responsible for selling repeating rifles to the Apache, who used them to kill his brother. He immediately runs into sadistic Alex Nicol (who shoots his mules), his father Donald Crisp and cousin Arthur Kennedy (Peyton Place, A Summer Place), along with Cathy O'Donnell (They Live By Night).

A Columbia picture, shot by Charles Lang in CinemaScope in New Mexico and scored by George Duning.

Memorably nasty scene in which Nicol shoots Stewart's hand, made all the more so by Stewart's incredible acting - he makes you really feel it.

In an interesting note of balance, there's a reference to a different tribe of peaceful, cave-dwelling Indians - "They're not all bad".

With Aline MacMahon and Jack Elam.

The Last of Robin Hood (2013 Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland & scr)

1959. The legendary sexpot Errol Flynn has died. His girlfriend becomes a gossip column target, particularly when her mum is arrested for drunkenness; then the girl is taken into care. His will codicil favouring her is invalid (though as it turns out, his estate is in some mess also).

How did we get there? Fifteen year old Dakota Fanning is spotted on set by Flynn (Kevin Kline), who immediately starts a relationship with her which her mum (Susan Sarandon) chooses to ignore (her dad gets it at once and promptly leaves the family). Nevertheless, they do love each other, and that's the film's main case.

John Huston's book mentions the Africa trip briefly. "Errol Flynn's girlfriend joined him in Bangui. .. Darryl was scared to death when he learned that the girl was something like fifteen years old. It put the studio in an awkward legal position. So far as I could see, the girl had come into this world older than most people leave it. Darryl agreed, but this did little to allay his fears.  Errol later took the girl to Paris, then on to the United States, where the girl's mother and a lawsuit awaited him."

The leads are good. With Bryan Batt, Matthew Kane, Max Casella (Kubrick) and Sean Flynn (the grandson).

It's no My Week with Marilyn, a film which comes back again and again. I think the problem is that it doesn't really do anything interesting, like bring in more Hollywood / stars, or really use the whole Lolita / Kubrick section, which is so stacked with irony that much more should have been made of it.

Downton Abbey (2019 Michael Engler)

Really quite poor, Julian Fellowes. The King is coming to stay and the faithful servants are all upset as the royal staff come in to take over, so they lock them in their rooms - it's that kind of level of writing that isn't going to impress anyone over six. As a quick nod to LGBT and inclusivity, the butler gets arrested for the heinous crime of dancing with another man. Meanwhile our Irish member of the family foils an anarchist and falls for the maid of a visiting lady (Imelda Staunton), who turns out to be inheriting (she's Tuppence Middleton).

Photographed by Ben Smithard (of course they felt they had to go to Panavision), edited by Mark Day, accompanied with the same tiresome music from the TV show (John Lunn).

Smithard did The Man Who Invented Christmas, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Viceroy's House, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Trip, Belle, My Week with Marilyn, Freefall, The Damned United. This was shot in digital 6k on a Sony Venice.

I remember reading that Maggie Smith doesn't really enjoy working on things like the Harry Potters and this - from this effort I can quite see why.

The October Man (1947 Roy Baker)

Written and produced by Eric Ambler (from his novel), with a fine score by William Alwyn, and inky black photography from Erwin Hillier, this is no slouch, as Johnny Mills has head problems following a crash, and is investigated for murder of hotel neighbour Kay Walsh (though it's fairly obvious to all it's Edward Chapman what done it).

Catherine Lacey (the 'nun' in The Lady Vanishes) is the hotel manager, also peopled by people like Joyce Carey and Esme Beringer; Joan Greenwood is his girlfriend; with Felix Aylmer, Frederick Piper, James Hayter, Juliet Mills.

So worth watching for the combined talent on offer. Johnny's hair is rather cool.

Marley and Me (2008 David Frankel)

Lazy today - here's my review from 5 March 2017:

Written by Scott Frank (Out of Sight, Get Shorty) and Don Roos (Single White Female) from journalist John Grogan's autobiographical book (one of his Labradors is one of the Marleys).

There's a fantastic sequence with Owen Wilson voiceover about what day to day life was like as a journalist and owner of crazy dog, but my favourite moment is the revelation that Marley has sat with his sick son for nine hours without moving. It's creditably no-nonsense, and serious, perhaps just the end veers into sentimentality.

Great line from Ireland: "He died in this room, actually. But not to worry - it's been re-papered."

And "Sometimes life gives you a better idea."

Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Alan Arkin, Eric Dane, Kathleen Turner, Clarke Peters. Shot by Florian Ballhaus and edited by Mark Livolsi.

Frankel directed The Devil Wears Prada, Hope Springs, One Chance, Collateral Beauty (not well reviewed).

P.S. It's that montage that really is sensational. Loved also the way Marley sometimes knows things before they've happened.

Now Voyager (1942 Irving Rapper)

Apart from the fresh insight that the two cigarettes thing is a substitute kiss, feel like repeating these reviews:

Bette Davis sags under the weight of Perc Westmore's eyebrows, but Paul Henreid comes along with two cigarettes, thereby changing smoking fashion (at least for the moment)*. Casey Robinson has adapted a novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, and Claude Rains is perhaps the most sympathetic doctor ever. The wonderful Max Steiner tells us what to feel, but we don't care, bathed in Sol Polito's light. The horrendous mother is Gladys Cooper, and it's a true five hankie number.

Rapper, not known for much in this household, lived until 101. (Friday 1 August 2014).

Loved Rapper's direction - the camera is always moving, usually tracking in on great acting, but otherwise Sol Polito's just sweeping around in a way people (except Marty) seem to have forgotten how to do. His angles keep changing too. Great acting by Bette Davis, her best performance (?), in eyebrows from Carry On Screaming. Claude Rains an actor you'll always welcome, here both tender and tough. Gladys Cooper doesn't give an inch of sympathy.

Olive Higgins Prouty wrote 'Stella Dallas' in 1922 and this in 1941, the middle of five novels about the Vale family of Boston. She herself suffered from prolonged nervous breakdowns making the subject matter rather personal. It's superbly adapted by Casey Robinson (also Kings Row).

But it would be an altogether different film without Max Steiner's superb score running throughout.

The way Henreid lights two cigarettes is touchingly intimate. And the moment when Janis Wilson asks Henreid her father 'Do you really like me?' would make a goat cry.

Montages by Don Siegel, nippy editing by Warren Low. Featuring Franklin Pangborn. (Sunday 4 September 2016).

It looks fabulous on Criterion's Blu-Ray. I was thinking while watching the beginning that if you turned the sound down it would be a great lesson is seeing how great films were made then - a study in shot sizes, editing and camera movement.

Unusually the Q remained stone-hearted throughout.

"What are you looking at, Dr. Owl?"  In a 1971 Dick Cavett interview, Bette says in her head the actual ending after the film is over is that she ends up with the doctor. In the same interview, Bette describes Gladys Cooper as 'beautiful' and exceptionally talented.

With: Bonita Granville, John Loder, Ilka Chase, Mary Wickes, Ian Wolfe.

*Apparently George Brent has done the lighting two cigarettes thing before in 1932's The Rich Are Always With Us, co-starring Bette Davis. Thanks, Alexander Walker - 'Bette Davis: A Celebration'.

La Vita E Bella (1997 Roberto Benigni & co-scr)

Can a film be said to have been made with care and love? Can it act as a jewel of joy in a sinister moment for humanity?

Roberto Benigni's beautifully written story (with Vincenzo Cerami) dares to put humour and love into the Holocaust, and wins. (It was partly based on the experiences of Roberto's dad who was in a Nazi Labour camp, but made jokes out of this so his children weren't upset.) It being the Auschwitz liberation anniversary, it was a timely viewing, and well overdue.

Offenbach aria used effectively as Benigni and his real-life wife Nicoletta Braschi ("I wonder if we'll ever bump into each other standing up?") and their son Giorgio Cantarini negotiate the Holocaust. He won the Oscar and BAFTA and the film garnered most of the David di Donatellos that year, including one for Tonino Delli Colli's photography - but not for Nicolo Piovani's music.

The plot point of the tank is brilliant, and the twist involving riddle-obsessed nazi Horst Buchholz. With Giustino Durano, Marisa Paredes, Sergio Bini Bustric, Pietro de Silva.

Production design, art direction and costumes all by Danilo Donati (worked with Fellini and Zeffirelli, Visconti and Pasolini; I think no relation to Sergio). Filmed in Arezzo.

A wonderfully clever balancing act by a first class Clown, a comment that applies to the above image as well as to the film as a whole. Most disappointed that his Il Piccolo Diavolo, with Walter Matthau, is not available in a subtitled version. He's in Matteo Garrone's live action 2019 Pinocchio.

The Glittering Prizes (1975 scr Frederic Raphael)

Jim Clark was quoted as saying something about Fred always 'banging on about being pilloried as a Jew' in the film business. Is this autobiographical (young Jewish man, agnostic free thinker, comes to Cambridge in 1953 to study Classics, later wins Oscar)? Tom Conti is he (reminding me so much of Tim), though after moving first 1'20" episode in which his room mate dies, he disappears for almost the entire second, which features a drama troupe at said university and how they all essentially fall about - concluding with gay (rather good) Nigel Havers going down for two years.

And it continues in that vein - in episode 4, all about the couple who have retreated to the country, being enticed back - he is entirely absent, having just won the Oscar at the end of the previous episode - structurally, I'm not sure that's the best decision.

It has that rather seventies TV filmed-play feel in some of the scenes, but a lot of those conversations are actually little social and political debates. It moves on well when not bogged down.

But - Fred is great at writing articulate and intelligent people who are utter bastards and creeps. Thus 5 is a difficult watch as professor Clive Merrison and his American wife Suzanne Stone take up residence in a British University and encounter said boor (Dinsdale Landen) who takes every opportunity to wind people up, gets filthy drunk, makes inappropriate advances to all the women.. The students are a bunch of contentious bastards too. With the filmed play thing going on as well, it makes uncomfortable viewing. Still no sign of our other characters, which by now is getting annoying too,

We finally go back to author Conti in the final instalment, in which nothing very interesting happens. I'm sorry to say, despite the clear intelligence at work, it was a relief when it finished. I can't see anything remotely like this being made now.

On camera: Brian Tufano.

The Newsroom - Season 1 (2012 Aaron Sorkin)

Typical pilot approach - with name director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland, Paul), photographer Barry Ackroyd and composer Thomas Newman. Absolutely classic Sorkin stuff, starting in mid-crisis, introducing hostile but really nice anchorman Jeff Daniels (Will), his new producer and ex Emily Mortimer (Mac) - the two central characters - and then the sub-set of interweaving and growing stories peopled by her No. 2 John Gallagher Jr (Jim), newcomer Alison Pill (Hail Caesar!, To Rome With Love; Maggie) and her on-off Thomas Sadoski (Don), Dev Patel (Neal), Olivia Munn (Office Christmas Party, I Don't Know How She Does It; Sloan) and Sam Waterstone (Charlie).

Q said 'I'm going to love all these people by the end'.

Very much follows the Sorkin TV blueprint of The West Wing and Studio 60, in particular the former - Americans with intentions to behave with integrity. Thus allows lots of room for political swipes at the Tea Party (neatly skewered as being the equivalent of the Taliban), trash journalism, racism, corporate corruption, as well as keeping all the personal dramas and interplay well to the fore. And that Will is a 'good' Republican also introduces an interesting, balanced weight.

Great episode involving uprising in Egypt, ending with Will paying the ransom fee, getting a Rudy-like pay-off (nope, never heard of it) ; death of Bin-Laden with Will 'baked'; Sloan and Japanese; psychiatrist episode (David Krumholz again!); Charlie wisely hanging fire on premature announcement of congresswoman's death (she's alive); really funny blackout moment when Mac persuades everyone to take the show out into the Plaza - then the power comes back on; satisfying / unsatisfying climax where Jane Fonda's son Chris Messina is outed as a News of the World type surveillance creep, but Jim and Maggie still don't get together.

Big Little Lies - Season 2 (2019 David E. Kelley, director Andrea Arnold)

According to Indiewire, Arnold was given free rein to shoot it in her style - 'the restless camera', the acting - Kidman and Witherspoon are said to have loved working with her - only to have the show taken away from her by Vallée at the editing stage, and even Vallée overseeing 17 days of additional photography. Thus, we can see frustrating snatches of Arnold - restless hands, Woodley dancing on the beach in headphones, even a single shot of dust hanging in the air at the psychiatrists, hand held intimacy - but it feels like the Arnold has been taken out of her scenes.

The editing is great - those little flash cuts - but we now don't know to whose editorial team they belong. And the more it goes on, the more you think it's Vallée's style. (Up to eleven editors are credited.) And whilst she shot sixty page scripts, the episode lengths vary from 39 to 49 minutes, and you feel it's those wandering camera bits that are now missing. Plus, lots of season one flashbacks were added (like, at the beginning of every episode) which with all this in hindsight now looks like padding.

Considering it was supposedly a strong female-led project, it's all very disappointing.

Anyway, with what we've got left, the shit is unravelling beautifully all over the place after the death of Skarsgaard in series one, exacerbated by the presence of his mum, brilliantly played by Meryl Streep, who comes over like a slightly psycho Miss Marple, and won't leave anything alone. Kidman is behaving erratically, Witherspoon and her husband Adam Scott are falling apart, Dern's husband James Tupper is going to bankrupt them, Zoe Kravitz is a mess, Woodley is threatened by Streep who's her son's grand-mother.

It wraps nicely, and is very stylishly edited, but sadly remains something of a compromise.

Jim Frohna's on camera.

Terry

On the Night Of the Fire (1939 Brian Desmond Hurst)

Unsatisfactory and irritating drama. Ralph Richardson steals £100, then kills a tailor (Henry Oscar) who's blackmailing him. His wife Diana Wynyard leaves him (she's too tall anyway) and 'Jimsey' Rodney Brent tries to help, for no good reason. Sara Allgood, Glynis Johns and Irene Handl all appear to one extent or another.

It was written by Hurst, Patrick Kirwan and Terence Young, from F.L. Green novel; Young also edited. Miklos Rozsa wrote the score, Gunther Krampf (The Hands of Orlac, Rome Express, Death at Broadcasting House) shot it and Erwin Hillier was the operator, so not uninteresting credentials.

Someone in the Radio Times film editorial department would have us believe this is a 'British film noir'. I would argue that there's no such thing, and even if there were, this isn't.

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel Season Two (2018 Amy Sherman-Palladino)

Great opening episode in which Midge's Mum has decamped to France, forcing husband and daughter to follow, while Susie is abducted by two thugs who it turns out have come from her old neighborhood (shades of Radio Days).

Plotting more zany than last series - Paris is swept under the carpet, Midge completely misappropriately takes the stage at a wedding reception and alienates everyone, then she interrupts her momentum by taking a TWO MONTH holiday in the Catskills, where Susie turns up carrying a plunger... Eccentric behaviour from Kevin Pollak, sub-story about his wife (Caroline Aaron) and her treasure maps where money is to be found all over the place..

Ends more effectively though, with live TV fund-raiser, and meeting Nat King Cole copy played by Leroy McClain, and reappearance of Jane Lynch character who now wants Susie to represent her. Also like the Lenny Bruce scenes (played by Luke Kirby) though fear his career didn't end happily... (Luke was in the awfully rated Halloween: Resurrection in 2002 and The Deuce, David Simon's 70s porn industry series.) Cynthia Darlow is the invaluable Mrs. Moskowitz.

Also loved the long take with Michael Zegen and Joel Johnston hitting baseballs. Long, complex tracking shots are definitely a feature of this show.

Photographed by David Mullan, production design Bill Groom (Boardwalk Empire, Vinyl, Milk).

Forbidden Paradise (1924 Ernst Lubitsch)

IMDB lists as an hour and a quarter - the extremely low quality copy I have is 52 minutes. (Halliwell records it as 60 m.) Despite vision problems (reading the intertitles for example) film is nicely perky and great fun, and moves on fast. The acting is great, subtle looks rather than theatre style grand gestures. Adolphe Menjou in particular has a wonderful ironic style, Pola Negri also great as the Czarina, Rod La Roque the object of her affections.

Loved Menjou going to the revolutionaries and buying them off (close ups of hand on sword vs. hand going for wallet), and congratulating the Spanish Ambassador for his new medal (a sign he's had it away with the Czarina).

It's written by Agnes Christine Johnston and Hanns Kraly from Lajos Biro / Melchior Lengyel play. Good design by Hans Dreier, photographed by Charles Van Enger (not that these credits are on my print).

Biro wrote for Korda - his name's on The Drum, Rembrandt, Knight Without Armour, The Divorce of Lady X and The Thief of Bagdad, and Five Graves To Cairo was adapted from his play. He also wrote the Emil Jannings / Josef von Sternberg silent The Last Command. Lengyel wrote the source stories for Ninotchka and To Be Or Not To Be.

The Candy Tangerine Man (1975 Matt Cimber)

Allegedly one of Samuel L Jackson (and QT's) favourite films, this low, low budget bottom-of-the-barrel has to be seen to be believed - it's so bad it's enormously enjoyable. Quite the worst directed film I've seen in ever, it actually makes you understand how films are made because of all the flaws - you can see more easily how it's done, or in this case, not done: the script, the acting, the directing of the acting, where to put the camera, how to get continuity between shots, when and what music to use, dubbing. I would argue it's very educational.

Anyway, that aside, the dreadful John Daniels is a multi-coloured Rolls Royce driving pimp called The Baron (who also has a normal wife, Marilyn Joi, and family in suburbia), fighting rival criminals and being pursued by the law Richard Kennedy (who is so over the top it's hilarious) and George Flower.

There's also some intentional humour in it, e.g. young thug who struts his stuff in front of the girls, then turns into a complete chicken the moment anything kicks off. Also like the guy who's cut the prostitute's tits off having his hand forcibly removed by the garbage disposal. And the machine guns in the front of the Rolls.

Extremely rare and thus only viewable in from-video and cropped copy, quite difficult to make out what's going on in scenes, adding to the overall feeling of obscure crap.

The Fall (2006 Tarsem Singh)

How did this huge and slightly nutty film get financed? It was shot all over the world and must have had an enormous budget. It's extremely good to look at.

Dan Gilroy, Nico Soultanakis and Tarsem wrote the script, which has broken-armed immigrant Catinca Untaru (who's breathtakingly good and charming as hell) befriending embittered stuntman Lee Pace, who starts to tell an elaborate story to pass the time and to enlist her help in killing himself. As time goes on, the story begins to reflect real events, notably the burning of the girl's house and death of her father, and the betrayal of the stuntman by his girl; characters flit from story to reality.

Shot by Colin Watkinson. Ends up with a montage of great silent stunt work.

Started a lengthy chat about how great some young people are in films - Jodie Foster and Tatum O'Neal - yes, but also the girls in Wrony and Spirit of the Beehive, John Howard Davies in The Rocking Horse Winner, Jean-Pierre Leaud in 400 Blows, Mitchum looking after the kids in Night of the Hunter, Hayley Mills...

Wonder Wheel (2017 Woody Allen & scr)

Winchester 73 is on in the background, which came out in 1950.

This is a very artful film. You begin thinking that Jim Belushi is the drunken brute, but it turns out that he's a better man than his wife, who's a wreck of a character. This is not a comedy, it's Woody's most straight film since Cassandra's Dream (which is why you then need A Rainy Day in New York as a follow up).

I'm not sure Jim Belushi's timing is quite there, but Kate gives an extraordinarily good performance, aided at times - according to her - by the director himself acting out the part for her! The ending, with Storaro's light leaping about like salmon, Kate with knife, and her final look - far out.

I mean, you could watch it just for the lighting. Vittorio Storaro turns 80 this year.

Woody embraced CGI for this.

By a funny coincidence, David Krumholtz (from Life With Mikey) is in it for about 60 seconds.

A Rainy Day in New York (2019 Woody Allen & scr)

Well - I was disappointed. Very disappointed. The only DVD  release is from Kino Swiat in Poland, and you can't disable the subtitles. How stupid! Talk about limiting your market.

As to the film itself, which is finally available (thanks, Amazon) it's delightful, though somewhat reminiscent of the honeymooners story from To Rome With Love (which itself is derived from a Fellini). (And, while we're on the subject, the whole 'walking in the rain' thing comes from Midnight in Paris - but here it's extended in an evocative and interesting way. Actually, there's lots of rain scenes in Woody Allen - Manhattan, Match Point, Wonder Wheel - I should make a little film about it.)

Timothée Chalamet and Elle Fanning travel to Manhattan, she gets involved with a Hollywood director (Leiv Schreiber), writer (Jude Law) and film star (Diego Luna); meanwhile he bumps into the younger sister of his former girlfriend (Selena Gomez)...

Unexpected emotional kick comes in scene with Chalamet and his mother Cherry Jones. Elle is so funny when she starts drinking.

Beautifully photographed again by Vittorio Storaro. Loquasto, Lepselter.

Amazon finally settled with Woody out of court in November (the deal was originally worth a minimum of $60m) and returned the rights to distribute the film in North America - I have a funny feeling that won't happen, but at least it might get a DVD release.  (As a funny aside, it's reportedly on the playlist on American Airlines flights.) Why it's not out here (or Australia) is a complete mystery, and not a Manhattan Murder Mystery, either.

Because of the delay, Woody's newest, Rifkin's Festival, is complete and due for release this year.

Life With Mikey (1993 James Lapine)

Written by Marc Lawrence, who went on to write some questionable Hugh Grant vehicles, and featuring some wonderfully bad child performers. Into the talent agency of Michael J Fox and Nathan Lane comes Christina Vidal, who after our last two sleight-of-age films I fully expected to turn out to be 21 - in fact she was 11ish, now works mainly on TV. Cyndi Lauper is the secretary and David Krumholtz (10 Things I Hate About You) makes an impression as the other child star (it was the debut of he and Vidal). Film is sweet, has showbiz themed score from Alan Menken, doesn't seem to have survived in reputation very well.

Christine Baranski and Aida Turturro have small speaking parts.

Dracula (2019 Mark Gatiss, Steve Moffat)

Jonny Campbell directed the first one, which seems faithful to the novel in its castle opening. Amusingly Claes Bang starts off as an older version of the Count (with the Lugosi accent) but by the time he's refreshed himself on Jonathan Harker (a rather good John Heffernan) he's all handsome and matey, calling him 'Johnny'.

All this is framed by Harker telling the story to a nun, a great character who really makes it work, played by Dolly Wells.

Then episode (film) #2 goes on board ship, where Dracula starts picking off the passengers - a fatally dumb way to go as all we get is neck chomp after neck chomp.. Various well-known people turn up here... until an eye-opening finale in which Dracula appears in modern England.. Which affords some fun in film #3, with Wells reappearing as a Van Helsing descendant, brings in Matthew Beard and Lydia West - all the acting is good, it just drags on and is kinda dull... we were glad to see it finish, frankly.

Shot by Tony Slater-Ling and Julian Court. Directed also by Paul McGuigan and Damon Thomas.

(What the hell's happened to Steve Lawes? Since his heyday shooting Sherlock and Death Comes to Pemberly, he seems to have been relegated to lesser fare such as Keeping Faith and CBBC's Almost Never...)

We weren't very impressed with BBC's Christmas offerings... Didn't make it through Knight's  Christmas Carol.. Feel like Gatiss and Moffat have gone off.

Matchstick Men (2003 Ridley Scott)

Another term for 'con men'. Nick and Ted Griffin adapted Eric Garcia's book, which ends in the same way but more downbeat - the film has a happy ending tacked on.

It's a bit like having travelling to Barcelona and finding when you arrive it's Slough.

It's a bit much really - part of the con is Cage being cured of his OCD and neuroses? The kid... Perhaps that's why we haven't watched it for about twenty years. Maybe watch again in another twenty? The Mail on Sunday called it 'One of the best films of the year', so that just about says it all. (Just for the record Kill Bill, Lost in Translation, Mystic River, L'Auberge Espanol, 28 Days Later, Seabiscuit, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, Love Actually and Something's Gotta Give were all released that year.)

Scott and editor Dody Dorn have fun messing about with images to help convey Nicolas Cage's state of mind; Sam Rockwell doesn't have a lot to do. It's still unbelievable that Alison Lohman was 23 (playing 14) when it was made (and yesterday we had 23 playing 15). Bruce Altman is the psychiatrist and Bruce McGill the con target.

John Mathieson shot it, Hans Zimmer score. It does have a wide musical reference, including several Frank Sinatra songs at the outset - the music editing is rather marvellous. The tracks that sound like the Gotan Project aren't.

This month we've managed to watch a film from every decade since the twenties.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015 Marielle Heller & co-scr)

23 year old Bel Powley does a good job of playing 15 year old girl in 1976 San Francisco (not that much is made of that location), separated from her father, entering into a relationship with her mum's boyfriend Alexander Skarsgard (mum played by Kristen Wiig). Feels long (though isn't), but enlivened by drawings and animations from Sara Gunnarsdottir.

Brandon Trost shot it in a muted pallette.

Written by Phoebe Gloekner (author of the source graphic novel) and Heller. Some laughs, quite unflinching, feels real.

There's sure a lot of coke being consumed there. The irony is that the long-haired fellow artist is probably much more suitable for her as a boyfriend than the other chaps.

It Always Rains on Sunday (1947 Robert Hamer & co-scr)

Written with Angus MacPhail and Henry Cornelius, based on a novel by Arthur La Bern. Hamer's dour Ealing drama is populated by a number of characters and stories, centring on the Sandigate family - remarried dad Edward Chapman (The Card, Gone To Earth, The History of Mr Polly) and Googie Withers and daughters Susan Shaw (having affair with married man Sydney Tafler) and Patricia Plunkett (tempted into wrong sort of life by local criminal John Slater).

Into their orbit comes Withers' former lover - freshly escaped from Dartmoor John McCallum - pursued by Jack Warden (who else?) And petty criminals Jimmy Hanley, John Carol and Alfie Bass.

Bethnal Green was throbbing on a Sunday - the shops are open and there's a bustling Sunday market. (Of course it was filmed all over the place, some of it still there, in Chalk Farm, Camden, Newham and the East End.)

Immeasurably enhanced by Dougie Slocombe's black and white camerawork and a typically eccentric score from Georges Auric. Hamer manages things confidently, such as the chase finale through a railway yard.

The Scapegoat (1958 Robert Hamer & scr)

Based on a Daphne du Maurier novel, adapted by Gore Vidal, in which jaded teacher Alec Guinness on holiday in France bumps into his exact lookalike, who drugs him and forces him to adopt the other character's life, complete with work problems, a fraught marriage and mistress, all of which the new character faces with some equanimity.

The effects are good, Guinness as reliable as ever in dual role. With Bette Davis, Nicole Maurey (mistress), Irene Worth (wife), Pamela Brown (wasted in a non-role), Annabel Bartlett (her only film), Geoffrey Keen, Noel Howlett, Peter Bull. Hamer in his penultimate film does a competent though unshowy job.

The 2012 version is good too, apparently. Not mad about the title. The film was re-edited by MGM (probably at Margaret Booth's insistence):

I have to admit that the MGM editing is brilliant in some respects as a technical exercise, but they have eliminated an important sub-plot and they have also succeeded in removing certain essential overtones which were implicit in the original story and in our version of the film. (Letter, 13 August 1959, in Robert Hamer Special Collection) (published at screenonline.)

 Music by Bronislau Kaper (an original British composed score was rejected), shot by Paul Beeson, edited by Jack Harris. MGM.

Café Society (2016 Woody Allen & scr)

We had started to watch the Spy Who Dumped Me and after 25 minutes thought 'Is there a better use of our time?' Thus ensued this marvellous film, reviewed elsewhere.

"A life unexamined is not worth living... and a life examined is no bargain."

Our fifth visit. It's The Apartment, I only just realised.. that's a film that throws a long shadow. (No I didn't - I realised that last time.) Kristen Stewart is wonderful.

I got Libelled Lady but didn't recognise Stanwyck's Woman in Red from 1935. Cafe Society itself is a 1939 Paramount picture with Madeleine Carroll and Fred MacMurray.

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel - Season One (2017 Amy Sherman-Palladino)

The pilot won her the Emmy for both writing and directing. She started out as a Roseanne writer, created and wrote Gilmore Girls. Husband Daniel is a producer. Dad Don was an actor.

Is it the same apartment building as in Modern Love? (Riverside Drive and West 111th Street with a view of the Hudson River.)

Rachel Brosnahan (Crisis in Six Scenes), Alex Borstein (Suzi), Michael Zegen (Jonah), Tony Shaloub, Marin Hinkle, Kevin Pollak, Caroline Aaron, Brian Tarantina (nightclub manager), Luke Kirby (Lenny Bruce), Jane Lynch, Bailey de Young.

An Amazon original. We enjoyed it so much we thought we'd better ration the next two series over our period of sobriety. Loved the Lenny Bruce connection (they bail each other out of prison), smoking dope with the band...

Lovely to see The Village in the fifties. Great production design and cinematography (Bill Groom and M. David Mullan); good use of old songs.

A Propos de Nice (1930 Vigo, Kaufman) / Taris (1931 Vigo)

Silent twenty minute documentary on Nice turned into something much more playful, with fast and slow speed, tilted and travelling cameras, aerial shots, puppets, and fast cutting. Should be required watching for experimental documentarists.

Taris is a seven minute film on the celebrated French swimmer, which again uses multiple film speeds, underwater camera, double exposure and so forth to transcend the study into something more poetic.

Both shot by Kaufman and edited by Vigo.

As Vigo died tragically young at 29 I've now seen his entire body of work.

Zéro de Conduite (1933 Jean Vigo & scr, ed)

This is a gas. Begins with two youths on a train playing jokes on each other whilst a man (who turns out to be the new teacher) sleeps opposite them - this must be referenced in Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, surely?

The new teacher's all right, but the others are terrible. One's a sneak thief and none of them can control the pupils, not even the Principal, who's a dwarf. (When a boy is excused for telling a teacher to bugger off - a teacher who seems to have unhealthy feelings for him, I should add - he refuses to apologise and tells the Principal to bugger off as well!)

There's a memorable pillow fight, and then the students revolt from the rooftops - the definite influence for If... This all takes place very zippily over 41 minutes. It's a funny and anarchic tale of 'little devils'.

Photographed by Boris Kaufman, music by Maurice Jaubert. Vigo has a beautiful touch.

With Jean Dasté (L'Atalante), Robert le Flon, Du Verron.

I know... I take it this was intentional?

Le Sang d'un Poète (1930 Jean Cocteau & scr)

The mouth in an artist's sketch comes to life so he wipes it off - and the mouth ends up in the palm of his hand. Thus begins a remarkably strange film in which blood and suicide both appear amidst the spinning heads and two-way mirrors. "Mirrors should reflect a bit more before sending back images." Well, that's hard to disagree with. And "By breaking statues one risks turning into one oneself". Cocteau's stars appear all over the place too (even as a bullet hole).

The scenes in the hotel where the poet (the half clad Enrique Rivero) moves from door to door is really trippy, as are the 'flying lessons' he observes in one though the keyhole.

With a typically quirky score by Georges Auric and shot by Georges Périnal.

Is it surrealist? Not according to Cocteau. "In the film, I sleep on my feet. It is the story of a sleep-walker, but not of a dreamer. In that state of dozing in front of a fire, when the mind wanders, I express myself through signs. To describe it as a 'surrealist film' is laughable, and only proves the ignorance of historians of the mind." So there.

This, Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or were all made possible through the 'aristocratic whim' of the patron Vicomte Charles A. de Noaille. Cocteau had never stepped foot in a film studio before and had no experience whatsoever, which gave him the freedom to do 'whatever he liked'. He argues this is the way new film makers should begin. I think that's a very valid approach.

".....or how I was caught in a trap by my own film."

Long Shot (2019 Jonathan Levine)

Presidential candidate Charlize Theron and louche journalist Seth Rogan knew each other as teenagers; she enlists him to help with her campaign and they fall in love.

Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah's screenplay isn't exactly original - in fact it's a classic romantic comedy of old - but it has fresh treatment and good humour, and the stars work.

With June Diane Raphael (who we thought was good already in Grace and Frankie; and was also in The Disaster Artist), O'Shea Jackson Jr, Ravi Patel, Bob Odenkirk and Andy Serkis (!) as the media mogul.

Photographed by Yves Bélanger. Levine made The Wackness and 50/50.

True Detective - Season 3 (2019 Nic Pizzolatto)

Low key approach with everyone mumbling along in TD style. Nevertheless intriguingly plotted story over three time zones of detectives involved in murder of boy and disappearance of his sister. The ending is quite unexpected, and good.

As before Nic Pizzolatto is the main writer and he has directed some episodes.

Mahershala Ali is particularly hard to understand in 2015 scenes, Stephen Dorff, Carmen Ojogo, Scoot McNairy (the father), Mamie Gummer (mother, Ricki and the Flash, Side Effects), Ray Fisher (Ali's son), Sarah Gadon (interviewer), Brett Cullen, Steven Williams (Junius).

The Ali character has quite a chip on his shoulder, thus some of the two cops' relationship is about race. His relationship with his wife is not too straightforward either. The very last shot (he in Vietnam) suggests a post-war theme too, with the most violent (and most exciting) episode involving the shoot-out with Vet (Michael Greyeyes), and there's a whole organised child abuse ring conspiracy thing lurking there too which manages to reference the stories in seasons one and two - turns out it's a complete red herring. The other tragedy being that of the missing girl's father.

Jeremy Saulnier and Daniel Sackheim were the other directors. Germain McMicking photographed it and T Bone Burnett and Keefus Ciancia provided the moody score. HBO. Fukunaga, Harrelson and McConaughey are all still exec producers.

Committed performance

The President's Analyst (1967 Theodore J Flicker & scr)

It was photographed by that William A Fraker fellow again. (Heaven Can Wait, Chances Are, Irreconcilable Differences, Rosemary's Baby, Bullitt, Rancho DeLuxe, Day of the Dolphin.) Great (funny) music by Lalo Schifrin (e.g. to fit with paranoid moments).

Great fun - the ultimate villain is the phone company. In this and other respects the film seems very much ahead of its time. James Coburn is good and bouncy, great to see Williams Daniels shooting at people. The relationship between American and Russian agents Godfrey Cambridge and Severn Darden is funny.

With Joan Delaney, Pat Harrington Jr., Eduard Franz, Walter Burke, Will Geer. Edited by Stuart Pappé.

Very distinctly a film from 1967. Paramount.

The Keeper (2018 Marcus Rosenmüller & co-scr)

Yes, a largely German production of a true story - another one. It's like buses. Essentially the same story as Fighting With My Family with WW2 added. The abuse he suffered is reminiscent of racial abuse footballers still receive now.

There was a lot to enjoy.

David Kross (The Reader), Freya Mavor (Skins, The Sense of an Ending), John Henshaw, Harry Melling, Michael Socha (This Is England films), Dave Johns, Barbara Young, Chloe Harris, Gary Lewis, Dervla Kirwan.

It's Love I'm After (1937 Archie Mayo)

Fun romantic comedy in which vain actor Leslie Howard is tempted away from love-hate relationship with Bette Davis to help friend's son Patric Knowles in his relationship with Olivia de Havilland, who's fallen for the actor. All helped along enormously by faithful manservant Eric Blore and his bird impressions.

A Warner Bros. film, written by Casey Robinson and Maurice Hanline, shot by James Van Trees, also featuring George Barbier (The Man Who Came to Dinner), Bonita Granville (Now Voyager - ended up a Lassie TV producer!), Spring Byington, EE Clive.

Casey Robinson was already credited on dozens of films before this. He went on to write Now Voyager, Kings Row, Dark Victory, The Old Maid, All This And Heaven Too and Passage to Marseille.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011 Drew Goddard & co-scr)

What the fuck??

'It's a lot more than a cabin in the woods,' Q observed sagely. Indeed. There may have been an idea (horror scenario as Big Brother), but it went barmy. Liked the stoned guy twigging it (and being immune to their drugs), but no.

Kristen Connelly, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford.

It was on some Empire list of horror films - never trust lists. Or Empire. I don't even think this qualifies as a horror film, it's too crazy.

A well deserved spliff