A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988 William Richert & scr)

Richert was mainly known for his debut 1979 conspiracy thriller Winter Kills; he also wrote the source novel for this, which follows River Phoenix's desperate attempts to raise enough money to flee to Hawaii rather than face getting a proper job or going to his dad's dull college. During the course of that he makes some sexual conquests, notably of his mother's friend Ann Magnuson, who turns out also to be his father's lover, thus ironically bringing them closer together.

River is as always thoroughly believable. With Ione Skye, Meredith Salenger, Louanne, Matthew Perry.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019 Marielle Heller)

Ah - Heller wrote and directed Diary of a Teenage Girl and directed Can You Ever Forgive Me? She describes herself as being principally an actor's director - I recognise that. She pushes her camera in, when she wants, like the good old people, and will get a long take, if possible, and knows when to use close ups, particularly in the key scene in the hotel. Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys are fantastic.

The script is by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, inspired by the magazine article by Esquire  journalist Tom Junod - who met the real Fred Rogers - 'Can you say... "Hero"?'

We thought it the film of the year so far. But only 'Hanx' was deemed award nominee worthy. (I almost wrote #Hanx, but I'm not that kind of 'guy').

With Chris Cooper, Susan Kelechi Watson (This Is Us) and Maryann Plunkett, Enrico Conaltoni (the producer - Person of Interest where Q spotted him from), Wendy Makkena and Noah Harpster. And a lot of people who were connected with the show in real life, populating the restaurant scene.

Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes is male, unfortunately (Manchester By the Sea); production designer is Jade Healy, music by Nate Heller, editor Anne McCabe.

Quadrophenia (1979 Franc Roddam & co-scr)

Towards the end almost literally becomes a rock video of The Who's 1973 concept album - feels a bit draggy for it, but much of the film has an energy and sense of place that very much captures the feelings of disaffected youth, personified by Phil Daniels' angry mod.

Brighton clashes vividly brought to life (though had to laugh at Heaven Can Wait advertised in cinema in background). 1960s feel caught quite well through great soundtrack.

Was it shot (by Brian Tufano) in 4x3? That's the ITV broadcast print, at any rate.

Great cast comprises Leslie Ash, Phil Davis, Mark Wingett, Sting, Raymond Winstone, Garry Cooper, Toyah Wilcox, Michael Elphick, Kate Williams, Timothy Spall. Written by Roddam, Dave Humphries and Martin Stellman.

Had to laugh at Davis' moped which has fourteen mirrors; Sting's has about 27 headlamps. Also the former attempt to mess up a front lawn by driving his moped around it doesn't seem to harm the flower beds at all.

Anyway it was fun to go back there. Can quite understand why it's a favourite of Cameron Crowe (along with Local Hero, Control, La Regle du Jeu, The Royal Tenenbaums and (obviously) The Apartment).

Never Say Die (1939 Elliott Nugent)

Funny story by Preston Sturges, then Hoped up by Don Hartman and Frank Butler, who went on to the Road films. Bob Hope thinks he has the digestion of a dog, so marries Martha Raye (I don't think we'd met before), much to the annoyance of various people, including Alan Mowbray, Andy Devine and Gayle Sondergaard. It takes place in Switzerland-on-Hollywood and features a bear, as well as Sig Ruman, and Ernest Cossart as the faithful butler.

A Paramount film, shot by Leo Tover, or somebody.

Journeyman (2017 Paddy Considine & scr)

Combination of short cinematic scenes and a good eye for detail (that shot of the river in there early) renders this tale concise and moving. Paddy's performance is outstanding (no major awards) yet he still has time to elicit great acting from Jody Whittaker, Tony Pitt, Paul Popplewell and Anthony Welsh (as the other boxer).

Photographed by Laurie (male) Rose (Stan and Ollie, Peaky Blinders 3, Ben Wheatley films), music Harry Escott, editing Pia Di Ciaula.

Perhaps one too many montages to music at the end. I liked Jodie Whittaker's bra!

Overall, really impressed. Now need to watch Tyrannosaur again.

Farewell My Lovely (1945 Edward Dmytryk)

Typically confusing plot from Raymond Chandler, who also produces funny and hard-boiled dialogue like 'my bank account was trying to hide under a duck', screen written by John Paxton (who also adapted Kotch).

Good cast led by Dick Powell: Claire Trevor, Mike Mazurki, Otto Kruger, Anne Shirley, Miles Mander (the father), Douglas Walton, Donald Douglas (cop)  and Esther Howard. Music by Roy Webb, expressionist lighting by Harry Wild. RKO.

Looking at my recent investigation into noir, this is perhaps the definitive article, with one exception - the happy ending. Otherwise it's full of hard-boiled characters and dialogue, trips to a night club in the middle of the night, lots of violence (poor Marlow keeps disappearing into that black pool as he's variously coshed, assaulted etc.), has an utterly ruthless femme fatale and a doozy of an expressionist doping scene (described by the private eye as 'like a coked-up dream').

That line 'I find men very attractive' - 'I'm sure they meet you half way' I'm sure I've heard in another noir.

That hallway from the posh house looks like it might be a leftover set from Citizen Kane.

Three on a Match (1932 Mervyn LeRoy)

In all but name an early Warner Bros. Picture (released under First National identity). Typically short and snappy melodrama begins with three girls at school - as predicted the 'bad' one ends up in reform school, but then things don't turn out as expected, with privately educated Ann Dvorak running off with another man (Lyle Talbot). Meanwhile bad girl Joan Blondell ends up with her former husband Warren William, whilst Bette Davis - in her blonde years - doesn't have much to do.

Familiar supporting cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward Arnold, Grant Mitchell, Allen Jenkins, shot with early flair by Sol Polito.

Q observes that amusingly the kid doesn't age at all. Had a great ending - shocking, surprising and effective. It seems the mother ends up on drugs - cocaine, by the implication - not something you were then allowed to suggest when the Code came into practice in 1933-4.

Endeavour (2020 Russell Lewis)

Oracle. Directed by Shaun, with some rather odd bits of editing. Thursday is still acting shirtily, which I don't understand. Morse has a fling in Venice.

What's all this about rats, and cats...?

Loved the sexist attitudes on display (well, I don't mean I love them, just it's funny how backward they are), particularly from head of department (another one of those crazy experimental departments) Angus Wright. Holli Dempsey is the clairvoyant, Naomi Battrick the murdered girl.

Matthew Slater's music is rather different to Barrington's (who died last August).

Raga is another beautifully woven script, with racial tension at its heart (it begins with a wonderful pastiche ad for The Jolly Raga Indian restaurant), whilst in the background, Morse tries to resist his friend's wife Stephanie Leonidas and Thursday is convinced the tow path murderer is still at large.

And all strands are artfully woven together in Zenana - the tow path murders, rats and cats, the clairvoyant, the affair, Thursday, Dorothea's freak accidents. It was directed by Kate Saxon and particularly beautifully photographed by James Moss.

In India, the Zenana is the part of the house reserved for the women. Ryan Gage plays Ludo.

What is film noir?

I would say it's a category of American black and white crime/drama film, made in the 1940s or 1950s, typified by terse, often sharp and wry dialogue, unhappy endings, hardboiled characters, double-crossing, murder, femmes fatale, night settings, and unusual and interesting situations, e.g. unemployed post-war soldiers, criminals, and people down on their luck and in the shadows of society.

I Wake Up Screaming, photographed by Edward Cronjager

Martin Scorsese specifically states the film noir began in 1944 with Double Indemnity and ended in 1955 with Kiss Me Deadly, though I'd argue it began earlier, in 1940, with Stranger on the Third Floor (and 1941's I Wake Up Screaming.)

The Oxford English Dictionary gives us 'a style or genre of cinematographic film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace'.

My old 1970s edition Halliwell is silent on the subject.

Mark Cousins suggests they are often the work of European emigrés who love the freedom of the USA but are cynical about the worship of money. They are suffering from a 'double estrangement' - at home neither in Europe nor in California. (Hollywood had a long history of absorbing European talent from the silents and twenties on, so I'm not sure how much I'd go along with that.) Their view of America is troubled and ambiguous, 'men whose lust for money or women take them beyond the borders of the so-called civilised world'. With Expressionist roots, film noir lighting is usually a 'lattice of expressionistic beams and dark shadows'. The influence of writers like Raymond Chandler are apparent in the dialogue and voiceover.

An idea coming off this I'd buy is emigrés channeling the horror of Nazism and war into dark post-war films.. Though we should always remember, many directors were not writers, they don't come up with the material, just interpret it...

And the Expressionist bit I would go along with - dramatic chiaroscuro lighting and shadows, especially from blinds, as well as weird montages - Powell being drugged in Farewell My Lovely, or dream sequence in Stranger on the Third Floor.

I love FN expert Eddie Muller's description, in his great book 'Dark City' (1998), that they are '..distress flares launched onto America's movie screens by artists working the night shift at the Dream Factory. Some of the more shell-shocked craftsmen discharged mortars, blasting their message with an urgency aimed at shaking up the status quo. Others went off like firecrackers - startling but playful diversions.' Post WW2 should have produced feel-good films, but 'some had seen too much warfare, poverty, greed and unfinished business from the Depression... mean human nature'. Films noir are 'gritty, bitter dramas which smacked romantic illusions in the face.'

More modern - and foreign films - may be said to be noiry, but a true one is specifically American, like jazz and cowboys (and Camel cigarettes).

Apart from those mentioned above, favourite representatives are those by A.I. Bezzerides - On Dangerous Ground, They Drive By Night and Thieves' Highway; and They Live By Night, The Asphalt Jungle, The Killers, Force of Evil, The Big Sleep, Detour, Farewell My Lovely, Out of the Past, Try and Get Me! / The Sound of Fury, Pickup on South Street, Raw Deal, Johnny O'Clock, Act of Violence, The Big Combo, Criss Cross...

The best ones always have something a bit different about them.

Oh - by the way - where's the term come from in the first place? Apparently Nino Frank was the first person to use the term in 1946, when all the wartime Hollywood output suddenly was allowed into France, in 'L'ecran Français'. In writing about films like Double Indemnity, Murder My Sweet  and Laura, he wrote '"these 'dark' films, these films noirs, no longer have anything in common with the ordinary run of detective movies". The term may have even pre-dated this in discussion of French films like Quai des Brumes. It wasn't picked up in America until the seventies.

Singles (1992 Cameron Crowe & scr)

Terrific film, underrated and undervalued in this house. It's insane we've neglected it when we watch Aloha and all the others every ten minutes.

Central romance in Seattle-set film is that of Kyra Sedgwick and Campbell Scott (all the cast are really good in the hands of a great director). Also, Bridget Fonda is nuts about loser wannabe rock star Matt Dillon (you hope she'll end up with breast surgeon Bill Pullman instead). Also with Sheila Kelly, Jim True, Tom Skerritt, James Le Gros, Eric Stoltz, Jeremy Piven.

It's just very funny and entirely quotable, e.g. 'I just happened to be nowhere near your neighborhood'.

'When I first moved out here from Tucson, I wanted a guy with looks, security, caring, someone with their own place, someone who said 'Bless you' or 'Gesundheit' when I sneezed, and someone who liked the same things as me, but not exactly, someone who loves me.'
'Tall order.'
'Yeah - I scaled it down a little.'
'What is it now?'
'Someone who says 'Gesundheit' when I sneeze. Although I prefer 'Bless you'.'

Talking of props as plot points - this features an automatic garage door opener!!

Photographed by Tak Fujimoto and Uell Steiger.

Cameron himself is the Citizen Dick interviewer and Paul Giamatti has a cameo. That snatch of great jazz is John Coltrane 'Blue Train'.

Great art direction joke in breast clinic

Here’s Cameron’s comments  in 2000 reflecting back on Singles: “It was meant to be Manhattan, a movie I loved, set in Seattle. It stayed in the can for a year until the studio released it on the heels of the so-called “grunge explosion,” which created some problems of perception. But there were also some casting issues and some screenwriting problems I never quite solved. Pulp Fiction solved the vignettes issue in a way that made my jaw drop. I thought, “Fuck!” [Laughs.] If I had done Singles later, I might not have made some of those mistakes. I would have been one of the many movies that ripped off Pulp Fiction instead. [Laughs.] Singles didn’t aspire to define a generation. It aspired to be my tribute to Manhattan. So there’s a little frustration there. I hope that someday, as time goes on, it can live on as a snapshot of that period, because Seattle is not the same anymore.

That classic photo of the Paris couple kissing is Doisneau's 1950 The Kiss:

I Was a Male War Bride (1949 Howard Hawks)

After the Pegg turkey, we needed something reliable, thus turned to the unbeatable combination of Hawks and Cary Grant, who must have had a lot of trust in the silver fox to agree to appear in drag (with horse's hair, to boot). Ann Sheridan plays the typically strong Hawks woman.

Unlike Tarkovsky, Hawks is a director who doesn't hang about. When a jeep pulls to a stop, one of the passengers will get out almost before it's even stopped moving.

Great bit where Grant describes the night's troubles to a sympathetic ear - one bed had a wife in it and the husband wasn't happy, and he wished he could have slept in Brooklyn, with the old man!

Hawks' direction is typically sparse and simple, often preferring to let the action happen within frame without cutting.

Shot by Norbert Brodine and Osmond Borrodaile - out F4 copy is very dark.

Marion Marshall plays 'Kitty'. Made for Twentieth Century Fox.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008 Robert Weide)

After yesterday's Yes Man success, this seemed like another good visit to the old vault - sadly this is a toad of a film which should have stayed where it was, croaking and out of sight. Journalist Simon Pegg meets this TV star he's nuts about at a party. Does he ask her any questions? No. He asks for her autograph. That's how bad this is. He doesn't do anything. OK - he does at the end. He finally manages to do something and sells out. Why does Jeff Bridges employ him at all? It's nuts.  Like the bit where the boss's wife falls over and he just steps over her...

Oh yeah - you know you're in trouble when bits of The Apartment get grafted on to the plot.

Kirsten Dunst, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson and someone called Megan Fox have the misfortune to appear.

Pegg's screen actress mother is in fact real actress Janette Scott, who was in Day of the Triffids. The clip shown is Now and Forever (1956). Did also like Oliver Stapleton's glossy photography.

Зеркало / Mirror (1974 Andrei Tarkovsky)

Black and white (or, let's say, monochrome.) A boy is looking at his father - a sheet of something flies past - then mother washing her hair in a bucket. The father pours water on her hair. The camera slowly pulls back on the woman slowly standing up, all hair, there's no bucket, no table, no father. The walls are running with water, the ceiling is falling in. The mother is many years older...

Giorgi Rerberg is the cameraman who gives us frequently astonishing images and tracking movement in both monochrome and colour.

The nature of the film - intended as like poetry - does have its ramblings and verbosity, but when it's in that slow, mesmerising, Tarkovsky state it's absolutely hypnotic (the ending, for example). And as the mother and son play different characters in different time periods it can be quite confusing. Talking of which, the mother is played by Margarita Terekhova, and she's absolutely brilliant.

With Oleg Yankovskiy, Ignat Daniltsev.

Of the newsreel footage, the two guys ballooning is quite remarkable, and puts one in mind of Tarkovsky's own flying sequence in Andrei Rublev, a poster of which is seen hanging on a wall.

Music from JS Bach ('Johannes-Passion') and Purcell. Story referenced is Chekhov 'Ward Number Six'.

As usual with the old bastard, it keeps on working on you after it's finished...

Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2001 Stewart Sugg & scr)

Only discovered this through Jim Clark's book (he edited it rather well). It wasn't ever released in the UK but had a successful showing at the Taormina film festival - we have the French DVD release.

The plot - middle-aged hit man Stellan Skarsgard wants to retire but the firm won't let him and mark him for assassination, whilst in a career change he nannies man-child Chris Penn.

Unsurprisingly Sugg didn't thereafter have much of a career, which is a shame as this is really good fun, and has a great cast, also including Paul Bettany, Sienna Guillory, Allan Corduner, Peter Vaughan and Martine McCutcheon.

Tony Pierce-Roberts shot it after the first cameraman was fired after two days, John Dankworth wrote the music.

Yes Man (2008 Peyton Reed)

.. who made the Zellweger / MacGregor Down with Love, and - more recently - the Ant Man  films with Paul Rudd (I see the first one was written by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish and Adam McKay, so surely is worth a watch?)

This is fun, as Jim Carrey starts saying 'yes' to everything, getting him involved with kook Zooey Deschanel. It's written by Nicholas Stoller and Jarrad Paul & (yes, one of those credits) Andrew Mogel, loosely based on BBC presenter Danny Wallace's actual memoir of a year saying 'yes'.

Carrey's in not quite too over the top mode. With Bradley Cooper, John Michael Higgins, Rhys Derby (The Boat That Rocked), Terence Stamp.

Robert Yeoman shot it.

The Clock (1945 Vincente Minnelli)

Not sure why we had never seen this delightful film before, in which soldier Robert Walker befriends Judy Garland, and they fall in love over the weekend (shades of Before Sunset). The best sequence involves milkman James Gleason and his real wife Lucile Gleason, who in dying too young of a heart attack, aged 59 (1947), joined the tragic set of Garland (47, 1969) and Walker (32, 1951).

Shot on location in NYC and at MGM by George Folsey, scored by George Bassman. The story was written by Paul and Pauline Gallico and screenwritten by Robert Nathan and Joseph Schrank.

Keenan Wynn is the drunk. Judy then married Minnelli.

It was billed with a fabulous Tex Avery short, from the same year, The Screwy Truant, which defies description!

Rules Don't Apply (2016 Warren Beatty and co-scr, prod)

'I always compare films like this to My Week With Marilyn, which always comes off best' I told Q. But by the end, we had a strong contender - we really enjoyed this, from a story written by Bo Goldman and Beatty. Young actress Lily Collins is under contract to the extremely nutty Howard Hughes (Beatty himself); gets involved with driver / entrepreneur Alden Ehrenreich (Hail Caesar - thought he looked familiar! - Blue Jasmine). The performances are great, and the film often doesn't go where you're expecting, with an emotional payoff involving a diamond ring and a child.

Production design and photography - Jeannine Oppewall and Caleb Deschanel- good. Some rather odd use of contemporary location footage (1964 - good year). Loved the title song, and the showdown between Broderick and Beatty.

With: Matthew Broderick, Annette Bening, Oliver Platt, Martin Sheen, Candice Bergen, Haley Bennett, Paul Schneider, Ed Harris.

Seems to be rather unfairly slagged off.

P.S. 31/5/23. After reading the Mitchum book (Lee Server) this is exactly what Hughes was like, having girls stashed away all over the place to becoming 'actresses', many of whom didn't. And the ones like Jane Greer who did, but repelled his advances, were punished with non-work.

Riviera - Season 1, unfortunately (2017 Neil Jordan, creator)

Hum. Dallas or Dynasty with a bigger budget and filmed on location. I'm afraid I didn't think much of this. File under 'glossy crap'.

Dysfunctional family: Julia Stiles, Anthony Lapaglia, Lena Olin (mother), Iwan Rheon (author), Roxane Duran (brat) and Dmitris Leonidas (junkie).

Plus: Adrian Lester (forger), Poppy Delevinge (brat's GF), Phil Davis (annoying fraud squad), Igal Naor (heavy; The Honorable Woman), Amr Waked (decent cop; Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Syriana).

The Pale Horse (2020 Leonora Lonsdale)

Sarah Phelps has a reputation for twisting Agatha Christie's stories into darker experiences, which aren't necessarily pleasant to watch. This one isn't much better than any of the others.

1961. Rufus Sewell finds his name on a list in a dead woman's shoe (a 'footnote', Q quipped). Leads him to sinister village of Much Deeping (or something) and the pub of the title.

"I suggest you start drinking heavily. But first, fuck off."

What's Kaya Scodelario been up to? (Well, working.) Georgina Campbell. Rita Tushingham, Kathy Kiera Clarke, Poppy Gilbert, Sean Pertwee, Claire Skinner, James Fleet, Bertie Carvle, Sarah Woodward.

I See A Dark Stranger (1946 Frank Launder)

Written by Launder and Gilliat, and Wolfgang Wilhelm.

Deborah Kerr plays a naive and stubborn Irish girl who so hates the British she starts to work for a German spy (in slightly random casting, played by Raymond Huntley). Their mission, to break free another spy with important invasion information. On leave soldier Trevor Howard gets caught up in it, ends up on the run with her to the Isle of Man and Ireland.

It's in the Hitchcock vein (they co-wrote The 39 Steps), though not in the same league, with some quite unlikely turns of events, but featuring some good comic moments with a funeral procession of smugglers, a randy and inept Captain (Garry Marsh) and a slapstick punch-up in a bathroom. Favourite moment though was woman on train pulling the most extraordinary expressions - then we see she's reading a book on eye exercises.

David Tomlinson, Katie Johnson and Joan Hickson appear.

We had - of course - seen Deborah younger in both Blimp and Major Barbara.

Photographed by Wilkie Cooper, music by William Alwyn.

Cold Feet - Season 9 (2020 Mike Bullen)

Cold Feet's getting a bit predictable and like the last series, some of its conflicts don't seem credible. In episode three, a mountain hike ends up as predictably as you think it will, with Robert Bathurst and Jimmy Nesbitt making up whilst stranded in the dark. But - still visually nimble (he's a great one for the flashback is Mike - and the fantasy scene), and entertaining.

Stand-out moment occurs in episode two, where Fay Ripley is revealing to a counselling group that since she's been cleared from cancer she actually doesn't feel any better - the sympathetic group cuts to Fay's family, listening, and the scene ends up with her at home having just revealed all this to them. She's stealing the acting honours for me this time.

Fun stuff with ex-robber Tim Dantay who Bathurst brings in to work with in the bank.

With Hermione Norris, John Thomson, Ceallach Spellman (Matt), Gerald Kyd (bank), Lucy Robinson (lawyer), Sunetra Sarker, Sylvie Briggs and Daisy Edgar-Jones, Madeleine Edmondson and Jack Harper, Claire Keelan (The Trip), Gemma Jones, Marji Campi (Brookside), Sally Rogers.

Mike did not write them all. The most entertaining season finale is all his, though.

AMOLAD on Blu-Ray

Of course it looks extraordinary, though the 4k restoration does reveal that Kim Hunter is slightly out of focus in her close up in the opening control room scene. Jack Cardiff shot all the film, including the monochrome heaven scenes, in Technicolor, thus making possible the black-and-white to colour transition as he runs down the staircase (which was named 'Ethel')

My theory is that Peter Carter fell into the sea but was pushed to the surface by a friendly passing dolphin.

Not sure what the 1944 Senate Report on the UK is.

Love that the stairway theme is actually being played on a piano in the 'Shakespear' rehearsal scene.

Is he hallucinating? The bit with the Great Chess Games suggests it's open... *

Jack Cardiff's camera operators are Geoffrey Unsworth and Christopher Challis, editors are Reginald Mills, John Seabourne and David Powell.

*Or it doesn't. Could just be a way of explaining where the book had disappeared to.

Get Carter (1972 Mike Hodges)

Seems to crawl out from under the same rock Performance came from.

Evidence of cutting in bath scene? According to the BBFC the film was submitted on 1 November 1970 and cut, the 1993 video release of 106 minutes 52 seconds was marked 'previous cuts waived'. (This 2014 edition is 107 minutes.) There's definitely a continuity thing here.

Grim and gritty crime thriller based on Ted Lewis novel 'Jack's Return Home' (also the source for 1972 Hit Man with Pam Grier), adapted by Hodges.

Ending doesn't make sense - he deliberately overdoses a woman so that it will appear she dies on the grounds of the bad guy, who otherwise is arrested for having some dope.. he won't be in prison long. Meanwhile, Carter is dead...( a fashionable change to the novel).

Michael Caine is great. Lots of familiar faces: Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland, John Osborne (rather good as the villain), Tony Beckley, George Sewell (UFO), Geraldine Moffat, Dorothy White, Rosemarie Dunham, Petra Markham (Carter's niece; Ace of Wands, The Hireling), Alun Armstrong, Bryan Mosley, Bernard Hepton, Terence Rigby, Godfery Quigley, Glynn Edwards (Reggie Perrin).

Music by Roy Budd, photographed by Wolf Suschitsky. Made by MGM British.

Hodges has an annoying way of framing sometimes

John Osborne

Joker (2019 Todd Phillips & co-scr)

I must admit to feeling somewhat nonplussed by Joker, which is much more complex than a DC origin story. It appears to be about mental health and holds a mirror up to contemporary society, maybe about movements such as Extinction Rebellion. Has a whiff of The King of Comedy to it too, reinforced by de Niro's presence. It's good, but I didn't love it.

Joaquin Phoenix gives a great and physical performance. I was underwhelmed by Huldur Guonodottir's Oscar winning music, Phillips was nominated as director and writer (with Scott Silver), as was Laurence Sher's photography.

Phillips known for Hangover movies and Due Date.

My favourite moment was Leigh Gill being unable to reach the door chain. Felt more of that would have helped lift it out of its dystopian mire. Production design by Mark Friedberg.

With Zazie Beets, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen.

I was glad for the (presumably affectionate) Blow Out reference as it helped to clarify the time period, and that we are in a recognisably real world.

Jarhead (2005 Sam Mendes)

Thought it would be interesting to see Sam's earlier war pic - but of course it isn't, really. Anthony Swafford's autobiographical account of his experiences as a marine in the Gulf War forms the basis of the film, which was written by William Broyles Jr. In it, snipers Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard (Garden State, Jackie, Blue Jasmine, An Education) endure the monotony and tensions of desert warfare, ironically without actually experiencing any combat.

Roger Deakins strips away the colour and produces some amazing images, Dennis Gassner is responsible for the incredible production design. The music is (of course) by Thomas Newman and Walter Murch is the editor. None of them were nominated for any major awards, which is quite remarkable.

To 'Break on Through' playing from passing helicopter:
"That's Vietnam. Can't we get our own music?"

Amazing moments, like the blazing oil wells and the horse in the night. And the pumped up marines getting off on the helicopter raid from Apocalypse Now.

Good cast includes Jamie Foxx, Scott MacDonald, Lucas Black, Brian Geraghty, Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysbert.

Manhattan (1979 Woody Allen & co-scr)

Maybe one of the reasons Woody doesn't rate it is that he only co-wrote it?

The fact it didn't earn an Oscar nomination for Gordon Willis's outstanding chiaroscuro photography is a big mystery. BAFTA at least had the sense to nominate it (The Deer Hunter won).

Animals (2019 Sophie Hyde)

Written by Emma Jane Unsworth, from her own novel.

On the brink of thirty, Holliday Grainger is a failing writer (ten pages in ten years), Alia Shawkat her friend, failing at everything. Fra Fee (pianist) and Dermot Murphy (poet) come into orbit.

The leads are good, but the film is - quite simply - boring. Holliday does make some odd choices - The Scouting Book For Boys comes to mind.

Filmed in Dublin.

This Is Us - Season Three (2018 Dan Fogelman)

We are behind - IMDB lists up to Season Six... Could only get this by buying a DVD from Germany.

In the wake of his Ron Howard war movie, Kevin starts looking into his dad in Vietnam - that episode (4) is Flashback City.

Meanwhile, Kate is trying to get pregnant, Toby goes off his meds, Randall runs for councillor.

Not a show for people who don't like flashbacks, as we're then cutting between not-dead-after-all Uncle Nicky being visited by his brother Jack in the seventies, and by the three kids now. Then episode involving Beth and her mum and dad and her childhood as a ballet dancer.

Short episode lengths and ad breaks provide some scenes that are shorter that you might like, but when we're not in full flashback mode there's lots of good cross cutting expertly weaving in the old events. Not sure there's anything like it. We were trudging through The Trial of Christine Keeler but gave up, and one of the reasons was there was no one to like in it - the exact opposite of this show.

Lyric Ross is impressive again as the troubled adopted daughter. With Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore, Sterling K Brown (Randall), Chrissy Metz (Kate), Justin Hartley (Kevin), Susan Kelechi Watson (Beth), Melanie Liburd (her cousin), Chris Sullivan (Toby), Jon Huertas (Miguel). Nice to still see William in flashbacks, with the lovely smile of Ron Cephas Jones.

And all the various incarnations of the kids must be worth a mention:
Aged 17: Niles Fitch (rather good as Randall), Hannah Ziele, Logan Shroyer.
Aged 10: Mackenzie Hancsicak (Kate), Parker Bates (Kevin), Lonnie Chavis.

At times Enoish music from Siddhartha Khosia, shot by Yasu Tanida. Many different writers, usually credited as one per show.

Punch Line (1988 David Seltzer & scr)

Tom Hanks, Sally Field, John Goodman, Mark Rydell, Paul Mazursky. Fairly gritty look at the reality of becoming a stand-up comedian. I guess it's autobiographical, but have no info to support this.

It's kinda where The MMM came from.

Ph. Reynaldo Villalobos, music Charles Gross.