What's Up Doc? (1972 Peter Bogdanovich)

Barbra Streisand pre-nose job is extremely engaging as knowledgable kook who sets her sights on engaged mild musicologist Ryan O'Neal - fiancee Madeline Kahn (in her debut) is understandably put out. Barbra sings a couple of great tunes including a fabulous version of 'As Time Goes By'.

It was written by Buck Henry and David Newman & Robert Benton from Peter's story about four identical cases in San Francisco. It owes more than a little something to Bringing Up Baby, and Peter's combination of screwball and slapstick doesn't quite come off, but you have to give it to him for making something so entertaining.

With the delightful Austin Pendleton. 

'Lady on the plane' Patricia O'Neal is Ryan's mum.

Regarding Verna Fields' contribution - apparently, Peter simply marked the film 'S' for start and 'C' for cut, so she didn't actually really have anything to do, thought she did 'save my ass' somehow, but we never got that far.

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter)

 It's rather silly, really. Still, whaddaya gonna do?

Fascinating footage of the original Panaglide test footage here:

Halloween Panaglide Test, Pre-Production before Principal Photography began. from Billy Kirkus on Vimeo.

Bringing Out the Dead (1999 Martin Scorsese)

17 August 2014:

Requiring more of Thelma Schoonmaker we return to Marty's mean streets of New York, in the hands of Paul Schrader, from a novel by Joe Connelly based on his own ten years' experience as a paramedic. In febrile, frankly astonishing film we repeatedly had to stop and rewind scenes edited at all manner of arbitrary film speeds, dazzlingly shot by Robert Richardson in Panavision. 'Dream' (drug) sequence is amazing and makes me think of Michael Powell (Hoffman and The Red Shoes ).

Nicolas Cage is magnetic as the burned out driver, supported by John Goodman, Ving Rhames and Tom Sizemore and finding some salvation with Patricia Arquette. Could have been overwhelmingly bleak without flashes of black humour e.g. accusing coma patient.

                     

20 February 2016:

Q was reading up on Thelma Schoonmaker, saying that Raging Bull (her 'baby') wasn't appreciated for 10 years, and the one that never was was Bringing Out the Dead... well, we love it and needed no further excuse for pyrotechnics, seriously well shot by Robert Richardson (no nominations of any kind) and brilliantly edited by Thelma (no nominations of any kind). Nicolas Cage also fantastic as burned out paramedic.

Now this one is only two hours, Mr. S. Take note. 

30 October 2020:

An extraordinary film, from the credits onwards. As well as Thelma's amazing showcase, Marty's keen on 180° pans in this, in themselves providing a kind of edit in camera. Robert Richardson's cinematography is also extraordinary.

The script makes a very clear case that part of the reason the health services are overwhelmed is the number of unfortunates who aren't getting the care they need and so keep on ending up back in hospital. Also the attempts at keeping the old man alive are ridiculous and monstrous, leaving Cage with no option but to act.

As well as Elmer Bernstein's original score there's a typically eclectic soundtrack including the strongly featured Van Morrison (TB Sheets), The Who, The Clash, UB40, REM, Jane's Addiction, Stravinsky, Sinatra...

Surreal, dark, tough, occasionally tender, blackly funny, dazzling and gripping, it's one of Marty's least appreciated films. It was nominated for nothing. In the Editors' Guild Top 75, it doesn't even rate an entry, despite Raging Bull being No. 1.

The Queen's Gambit (2020 Scott Frank)

Walter Tevis was removed from his family aged 10 and spent a year recovering from an indeterminate illness in a convalescent home, leaving him weak and something of a social outcast. His 1963 novel 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' taps into this autobiography, as well as the writer's alcoholism, and you can also see echoes of it in this, adapted from his 1983 novel by Scott Frank (Get Shorty, Out of Sight), who also directed. 

(Tevis also wrote 'The Hustler' (1959) and 'The Color of Money' (1984)).

Everything comes together perfectly - Frank's a great writer, the script is beautifully visual, the acting convincing. There's a marvellous team at work here who all collaborated on Frank's 2017 western series Godless - Steven Meizler photography, Michelle Tesuro editing and Carlos Rafael Rivera music. Only production designer Uli Hanisch is new to the group.

Anya Taylor-Joy (Peaky Blinders, The Miniaturist, Thoroughbreds, Endeavour) is eerily right for the lead, but she's surrounded by a great cast. Her character reminds me slightly of Sofia Helin's in The Bridge - almost slightly autistic, finds human behaviour puzzling. We worry that she will burn out or end up unhappy. It's such a convincing story and production that at one point I found myself thinking it was a true story.

With Isla Johnston (young Beth), Thomas Brodie-Sangster (from Love Actually), Harry Melling (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Moses Ingram (young and older Jolene), Chloe Pirrie (mother), Bill Camp (caretaker), Marielle Heller (stepmother; writer-director of Diary of a Teenage Girl, directed A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), Marcin Dorocinski (Borgov).

Haven't see such a good chess thing since Searching For Bobby Fischer.

Ratched (2020 Creator Ryan Murphy)

The prodigious Murphy is at it again in a brightly coloured world of the past. It's the 1940s (I think) and a very suspicious nurse, Sarah Paulson, is up to something dodgy, involving Catholic Priest killer Finn Wittrock, to the (uncredited) music from Psycho, Vertigo and - I think - even North By Northwest.

With Cynthia Nixon, Judy Davis, Jon Jon Briones, Corey Stoll.

It's got a dark sense of humour to it but is also quite grisly, thus we haven't managed to progress very far with it as of yet.

Alice's Restaurant (1969 Arthur Penn)

Inspired by one of Arlo Guthrie's songs, written by Venable Herndon and Penn, it shows the hippies aren't really making it work. Fun scenes involving dumping of rubbish and medical draft inspection, other episodes more melancholy, especially concerning junkie Michael McClanathan. Apart from M Emmet Walsh didn't recognise one member of the cast - Patricia Quinn good as Alice, with James Broderick, Pete Seeger, Tina Chen - Ok, did know Chen also, from Three Days of the Condor (this was her feature debut).

That's not the real Woody, who died in 1967. Arlo's hair's still long, only white; coincidentally he announced his retirement two days ago.

Nippily edited by Dede Allen, with Gerry Greenberg as associate editor as usual, and Richard Marks assisting; photographed by someone called Michael Nebbia.

Spaced - Season 2 (2001 Edgar Wright)

Again, Tyres provides massive laughs - he rings at the doorbell but somehow is already in the flat; he's standing up, haranguing the flat-mates, but then is sat quietly; the telephone ring and kettle will set him off on a rave trance. This is the episode in which Tim has to retrieve insulting artwork which Daisy has thoughtfully included in his portfolio.

Guest stars: Kevin Eldon, Mark Gatiss, Lee Ingleby, Ricky Gervais.

Stuffed with film and Tv references - even a sound effect from Performance!

Chaplin - the William Boyd edit (1992, 2020 Richard Attenborough)

Will was rightly rather scathing about the new scenes William Goldman was commissioned to write after the project was refinanced by Carolco, saying they were almost in the league of 'how not to write' - telling, not showing. So we thought it would be fun to edit out all the 'new' scenes (those involving aging Chaplin clarifying the story with biographer Anthony Hopkins), and the remining bits of voiceover really are unnecessary (you know, 'the depression was hard on lots of people' sort of thing). Will's version is much cleaner and actually stronger, as he examines Chaplin the man - his genius in film making, but his 'feet of clay' involving younger women, his bad marriages and his politics, which had him in hot water with the FBI and J Edgar Hoover (who, we are reminded - though not in this film - was himself a closet 'daffodil').

It's one of John Barry's best later scores, Sven Nykvist's camera work is suitably melancholy, and Annie Coates' editing is invisible.

Paul Rhys makes an impression as Sidney Chaplin, as does Kevin Kline as Fairbanks.

"She's really not that bad."
" 'Not that bad?' Spoken like a man desperately in love."

Unexpected Item (2018 Stephen Gallacher)

Fun little short about a shy man in a supermarket (Jamie Blackley) and an intelligent till (voiced by Olivia Colman). Written by Chris Croucher.

Spaced - Series 1 (1999 Edgar Wright)

Incredibly inventive and influential series, as important as Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, making stars of Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes, bringing their down-to-earth screenplay - which brilliantly captures a place and time and state of mind - into the orbit of a brilliant visual team in Edgar Wright and Chris Dickens. In fact Wright, Hynes and Pegg had worked together on Asylum, in 1996 (not on DVD).

As previously claimed, the inspiration for the 'Three Flavours Cornetto' trilogy is here, as well as Wright's later Scott Pilgrim and Baby Driver. Nightclub episode, featuring 'Tyres' Michael Smiley, is unforgettable, as is rescue of 'Colin' from animal experimentation centre. Shot on video, very cheaply made, it's success no doubt encouraged Channel 4 to commission other experimental comedies like Green Wing and Black Books.

"You don't want to go in to your party?
"They're playing The Time Warp, Mike. I hate the time warp."
"Daisy likes it."
"So what? I hate it. It's boil in the bag perversion for sexually repressed accountants and first year drama students with too many posters of Betty Blue, The Blues Brothers, the Big Blue and Blue Velvet on their blue bloody walls!"

Ruby Sparks (2012 Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)

8 September 2013:

Loner writer Paul Dano imagines dream girl Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of Elia, and writer of the film), who suddenly materialises in real life. Chris Messina, Annette Bening & Antonio Banderas are family, Steve Coogan a celebrity author and Elliott Gould the psychoanalyst (it's always nice to see him).

 

How the writer then manipulates his new girlfriend is of course the relationship study that the film's all about, and it becomes quite powerful. The dilemma the first-time scriptwriter leaves herself though is how to resolve this fantasy scenario, which she does in a kind of cliched way.

Nonetheless, an interesting follow up to the same directors' Little Miss Sunshine, and an intriguing tangent on the writing process itself. Satisfyingly dark photography from Matthew Libatique, who often works in the weird world of Darren Aaronofsky.

We watched it on a hotel television on which it was impossible to adjust the aspect ratio and it was centred in the middle of the screen. Accordingly, it was one of the smallest films we'd seen in a long time.

18 August 2015:

Zoe Kazan has written a challenging screenplay which looks at how male writers write female characters, then goes bigger - how men think about and treat women. It's quite serious, and made us both think of Woody Allen (who would have handled it very differently) in its attempt to pull off a complete fantasy (as such the ending is somewhat contrived - there as a crowdpleaser). 

Paul Dano commendably plays it completely straight - his face is often really funny. This is a good actor. With Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Elliott Gould and Steve Coogan.

26 October 2020:

Pamela Martin's the editor again, and she does some lovely stuff in a swimming pool.

Zoe has lately been in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Big Sick.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006 Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton)

Last seen here, Little Miss Sunshine is an exceptional film, from Michael Arndt's Oscar and BAFTA winning screenplay on. (The silence of Paul Dano is a useful ploy for showing how he and Steve Carell's alliance forms.) It's a brilliantly directed (David Lean award nominee), photographed (Tim Suhrstedt) and edited (Pamela Martin), using the full width of the widescreen really well and catching the ballet of the eyes between characters.

What an ensemble cast too: Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, Steve Carrell (one of his best performances).

Absolutely loved the way the malfunctioning horn almost becomes a character - is there at the very last crash through a closed car park barrier, and into the fade out.

Only comment is that the actual Miss Sunshine contest is entirely dubious and suspect.

Props as plot points: the eyesight test Abigail picks up at hospital...

The (married) couple began making pop videos and commercials - this was their first feature.

Rebecca (2020 Ben Wheatley)

Written by Jane Goldman, and Joe Shrapnel & Anna Waterhouse (Seberg) - yes, one of those credits, Wheatley's version of du Maurier is proficient and watchable. The characters have more nuance than in the Hitchcock version, particularly Kristen Scott Thomas' Danvers, but also the cute-nosed Lily James as - what the hell is her name?? Armie Hammer's Max, Keeley Hawes his sister.. then the casting drops a notch with various familiar types in supporting roles.

Nicely shot by Wheatley regular Laurie Rose (who also shot series three of Peaky Blinders) in Panavision, music from Clint Mansell, edited by Jonathan Amos (Paddington 2, Baby Driver, Attack the Block, Scott Pilgrim).

Netflix / Working Title.

Small Time Crooks (2000 Woody Allen & scr)

Reviewed here and here, film features a couple who - despite Allen's constant threats of violence - which we don't believe for a second - actually get on really well and - despite the lurings of rascally Hugh Grant - end up still happily together - despite having lost everything.

Allen cast himself against two brilliant comic actors, Tracey Ullman and Elaine May, who has some of the best lines:

"He said I reminded him of his wife, who's dead. I assume he meant when she was alive."

"It's not physically possible to carry yourself across a room."

Zhao Fei was known for Raise the Red Lantern, then shot Sweet and Lowdown and Curse of the Jade Scorpion.

On the Rocks (2020 Sofia Coppola & scr)

Mother of two young children Rashida Jones senses something's not right with her husband Marlon Wayans; involves her eccentric father Bill Murray in a detective scenario leading ultimately to Mexico and the truth. Problems of upper class New Yorkers may not be of interest to all. Murray is as engaging as ever and the journey is fun. Jessica Henwick is the 'other' woman and Jenny Slate is the extremely annoying and self-centred mother at school. With Barbara Bain.

Music by Phoenix, dark ph. Philippe Le Sourde, ed. Sarah Flack, sound Richard Beggs.

We know Rashida principally from Parks and Rec.

Loved the scene with the cops.

It Could Happen to You (1994 Andrew Bergman)

Super-nice cop Nicolas Cage offers waitress Bridget Fonda half his lottery ticket as a tip; he wins and keeps his promise, much to annoyance of shrewish wife Rosie Perez, particularly when they fall in love. Sweet film is actually very old-fashioned, written by Jane Anderson. It's very loosely based on a true story of cop and waitress friends who shared a lottery ticket and won big, but there was no romantic involvement or fall-out.

Cast includes Wendell Pierce, Isaac Hayes, Seymour Cassel, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Red Buttons and The Sopranos' Vincent Pastore.

Photographed by Caleb Deschanel, music by Carter Burwell, edited by Barry Malkin.

To answer my own question, Bridget retired in 2002 to start a family, aged 38. Good for her, but a loss to us.

Loved the hold-up scene - Cage knows exactly what's going on as the Korean wife is reportedly ill ("She'd carry on working if she was dead") and the husband gives them the coffees "on the house".

Music and Lyrics (2007 Marc Lawrence & scr)

When Drew Barrymore returns to Hugh Grant's flat with a plaster on her finger and Grant says "I see they managed to save the whole hand", it's again a line that makes you wonder if he wrote it himself. There's no way of knowing (without asking them), but it's a fun game.

In the climax performance, Grant having managed to write the last verse perfectly well all by himself, that fluttering sound you hear is the script flying out of the window.

"Well, Drew, I think did hate me a bit. But I admired her. We just were very different human beings," Grant explained. "She was very LA and I was a grumpy Londoner. The funny thing is, although it was fractionally tense on the set of that film, I think the chemistry is rather good between us. Sometimes tension makes a good crackle." 2018 interview on TooFab.

3rd Rock's Kristen Johnson after giving Drew a makeover: "Eleven years of therapy and I finally helped someone."

Love Life (2020 Creator Sam Boyd)

Anna Kendrick's love life in ten installments, from graduate through short-lived marriage and finally motherhood.

With Zoe Chao, Peter Vack, Sasha Compere, Hope Davis, Jin Ha, Kingsley Ben-Adir (the 'person').

For HBO (not everything's on Netflix). Series 2 is commissioned.

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010 Woody Allen & scr)

Not one of the funny ones - my takeaway is that we observe all the characters in an unhappy state and by the end, they're all mainly worse off - partly thanks to Pauline Collins' spiritualist. Quite bleak, in an ironic and knowing way.

Here and here. As to how it crops up in the Eric Lax book - I can't tell you, as the film's missing from the index! (A sign it's overlooked and unloved.)

"Grave Assai' guitar solo from Fandango by Boccherini against New Orleans jazz from Benny Goodman and Tom Sharpsteen and his Orlandos, Mozart and a dash of Donizetti ('Lucia de Lammermoor') at the Old Vic.

La Rete di Protezione (2020 Alberto Sironi, Luca Zingaretti)

The very last Montalbano, Andrea Camillieri having died July 2019 - this one is all his work and displays many a characteristic turn of the pen - parallel stories, some which emerge seemingly from nowhere, puzzling mysteries, Montalbano looking out for the underdog, not being above twisting the truth occasionally, cannoli and Adelina's cooking, Catarella's buffoonery, Mimi's woman-chasing, interrupted meals. And the past, quite often we go back in time - an emotional trip back from a deathbed confession. An excellent way to go out.

Won't miss Franco Piersanti's music for long though as no doubt we'll soon watch all 36 films from the beginning! It began in 1999.

To Rome With Love (2012 Woody Allen & scr)

Here, here, here, here and here. Considering its critical drubbing, it's popular with audiences, rating 3.9 on Amazon and 6.3 on IMDB. Fuck the critics. Though weirdly, Rotten Tomatoes' audience only gives it 40%. And it only came 7th in the top ten WA's of the 2010s, voted by fans on http://www.woodyallenpages.com/. The editors' response - 'Oddly, this film had the strongest negative reaction, with 5% of votes outright hating it, the most for any film. ' Unsurprisingly it played most successfully in Italy (almost $10m), also well in Spain, France and Germany, and made a most respectable $73m worldwide.

"So now I'm working with Penelope Cruz again and Judy Davis in Rome. Judy and I still don't speak, but now it's in Italian. I get to work with Alec Baldwin, always a privilege, and Ellen Page and Greta Gerwig, who went on to direct a wonderful movie herself. Both Ellen and Greta would later denounce me and say they regret having worked with me, but I loved working with them and thought they were terrific. Half the movie was in Italian and I got two big thrills. First, I was directing an Italian movie.  Me, who grew up on De Sica, Fellini, Antonioni, was directing Italian actors in Italian with sub-titles. I knew it would cut down on the box office... [in fact it took a respectable $16m domestically.] Second I had the honor of directing the great Roberto Benigni, who I can't say enough about.." ('A Propos of Nothing'.)

"First Camus, then breaking in, next thing she'll have you holding up filling stations."

The King's Speech (2010 Tom Hooper)

Here and here.

Q thought Guy Pearce should have looked older than Firth.

Absolutely the right way to do the credts

Imagine Me and You (2005 Ol Parker & scr)

Let's clear up the two Oliver Parkers. 'Ol' wrote and directed this, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Now Is Good, the Mama Mia sequel. 'Oliver' is responsible for An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest (adapted both of these too), St Trinians, Swimming With Men, Dad's Army. Confusingly, both have worked for Ealing.

Q thought this was too much of a stretch. A woman (Piper Perabo) spies another woman on her wedding day (Lena Headey) and falls for her, eventually leaving her new husband Matthew Goode. There's no indication that the bride has any previous gay leanings. I don't know whether that's plausible or not, but works OK for me as a romcom device, of which this sort of is. With Darren Boyd, Celia Imrie, Anthony Head, Sue Johnston and Boo Jackson who - sixteen years later - is in pre-production on her second film, Faded Roses.

Photographed by Ben Davis. I quite enjoyed it.

Scenes with randoms buying flowers (including Ruth Sheen) offer some amusement.

Ealing / BBC.

Two Weeks Notice (2002 Marc Lawrence & scr)

 Here.

We learned recently that Grant gets involved with scripts and writes his own dialogue, thus when you hear this -

"My friend Elaine Kominsky really wants to meet you but she's shy. Is that OK?"
"Yes that's fine - I've been too nervous to go and meet Elaine myself." 

- you wonder whether Grant has written the response himself as it sounds so like 'Hugh Grant'.

Donlad Trump's in it.

Classy, invisible photography by Laszlo Kovacs.

'Comin' Home Baby' by Mel Torme.

Role Models

 Here.

Mickey Blue Eyes (1999 Kelly Makin)

Here.

He's Just Not That Into You (2009 Ken Kwapis)

 Reviewed here and here. 

A Good Man In Africa (1994 Bruce Beresford)

Good cast, Colin Friels, Sean Connery, John Lithgow, Diana Rigg (died September 10), Louis Gossett Jr, Joanne Whalley, Sarah-Jane Fenton, Maynard Aziashi.

I heard Will talking in a Q&A that Bruce 'lost his nerve' when directing, and some of the humour, which was written to be delivered straight and dry, was somehow directed in some scenes in a too broadly comic style, leading to a feeling that the tone of the film shifted about awkwardly. I suppose that's evident for example in the scene where he sets fire to the car and the resulting explosion blows him into the air, which seems entirely unnatural... I guess he's right, if you contrast that with the terror of being pursued by an angry mob, or the death of the doctor.

Could it be that the ambitious politician Adekunle (Gossett) has deliberately set up his wife to sleep with Leafy so he can ambush him? I think so, but is she complicit too?

The Parent Trap (1998 Nancy Meyers & co-scr)

Still as silly as it's always been. Wallpapered with music. Written by Shyer, Meyers and David Swift (original screenplay). Dean Cundey on camera.

Nancy's daughter Hailee is one of the kids.

What Women Want (2000 Nancy Meyers)

Nancy ticks the Howard Hawks box - 'a good director is one who isn't annoying'. She didn't write this one = Josh Goldsmith, Cathy Yuspa and Diane Drake. 

Dean Cundey's on camera.

Delta Burke and Valerie Perrine

With Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt, Marisa Tomei, Alan Alda, Ashley Johnson (the daughter), Mark Feuerstein (In Her Shoes, The West Wing), Judy Greer (still the best part of the story), Sarah Paulson.

Salvo Amato, Livia Mia (2019 Alberto Sironi, Luca Zingaretti)

Adelina's naughty son is up to burglary again - Salvo steals the food she's brought in to prison for him. But the real story here is the murder of a young woman in the archives - you'd have to be a genius to guess that one.

It was good to be back in Sicily with the gang. I'm glad to say Franco Piersanti's music is as good as ever - playful, dramatic, moody.

Something's Gotta Give (2003 Nancy Meyers & scr)

She surely is the most successful female director in .. the world?

Great to see Keaton and Nicholson together - two top class acts. The scene where they're enjoying a 'pyjama party' and Amanda Peet interrupts is so great - all looks between the two.

"What about birth control?"
"Menopause."
"Who's a lucky boy?"

Stars and Bars (1988 Pat O'Connor)

 I don't think that was John Cusack as the artist - but David Strathairn is in it.

Very entertaining film has unfair rubbish reputation. Not available in the UK, bizarrely.

It's Complicated (2009 Nancy Meyers & scr)

The Intern (2015 Nancy Myers & scr)

With his experience, especially in sales and marketing, the de Niro character is actually criminally underused. At one point he identifies that areas of high spend for them aren't producing the best sales, other areas are potentially more profitable - but then nothing's made of that, and he resumes as babysitter, chauffeur, daddy figure. A more satisfactory end is that he becomes the boss's number two, thus taking some of the pressure off her shoulders. So in a way, it celebrates the values of older people, but then blows it.

Having said that, all of that occurred to me while I was enjoying it. With de Niro and Hathaway are Rene Russo, Anders Holm (the husband, who's forgiven ridiculously easily), JoJo Kushner (daughter), Andrew Rannells again, Adam Devine (Modern Family), Zack Pearlman (hairy intern), Jason Orley, Christina Scherer (boss's PA), Nat Wolff (to be in Hallie's Home Again), Celia Weston.

Pearlman, Orley, Devine

Welcome to the Rileys (2010 Jake Scott)

Sweet, subtle, open film in which unhappy husband on business in New Orleans befriends a wild teenage sex worker, because she reminds him of his dead daughter. Meanwhile his wife is so overwhelmed with grief she cannot leave their house. Well acted by the three, James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart, Melissa Leo, written by Ken Hixon in such a way that it doesn't resolve itself neatly.

Dark (rather too dark - this is no Eduardo Serra) photography by Christopher Soos, simple music by Marc Streitenfeld. Steven Zailllian and the Scotts are exec producers (ah! - Jake is Ridley's son).

Title isn't great. Riley's Girl?

Took me a while to catch up with how good Kristen is - Cafe Society in fact.

The Boys in the Band (2020 Joe Mantello)

Who thought it was a good idea to revive Mart Crowley's 1968 play, then to film it with the theatre cast? It's unbearable - one of those one act plays, claustrophobic, with people ripping into each other, like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or Abigail's Party - and irrelevant today to boot. And that whole play-like thing - the straight guy who's dropped in, then won't leave - sits half the time in silence. No, I'm afraid, no. Not even as a play, let alone a film. 

The cast: Jim Parsons, Matt Bomer, Andrew Rannells (Girls, The Intern), Zachary Quinto (the pot smoker), Tuc Watkins, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin, Robin de Jesus, Charlie Carver (cowboy).

This is the problem with streaming channels - you put something on, without really knowing what it is, with no independent critical review - and you can end up in the fridge. (Filmed plays that do work: The Odd Couple, Dial M For Murder.. it's not a big list. The Man Who Came to Dinner.)

Emily in Paris (2020 Creator Darren Star)

Social marketing expert Lily Collins is sent to Paris agency where naturally everyone's initially hostile to her - wins them over whilst managing amorous manoeuvres. Great to see so much of Paris in trendy show for teens.

'Molly', it turns out, is another name for Ecstasy.

Late Night (2018 Nisha Ganatra)

Emma Thompson is fine as usual as a declining chat show star, who starts to benefit from the advice of ex chemical plant employee Mindy Kaling, who wrote it also. Quite enjoyable, though ending montage is just lazy.

With John Lithgow, Hugh Dancy, Denis O'Hare, Max Casella (Blue Jasmine, Inside Llewyn Davis, The MMM), Paul Walter Hauser (BlackKklansman, Richard Jewell), Reid Scott, John Early.

On the Basis of Sex (2018 Mimi Leder)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who appears briefly at the end) died recently so this was a timely memorial. Felicity Jones plays her, Armie Hammer her husband and Cailee Spaeny her daughter. Focus is on the first case Ginsburg was able to win to overturn sex inequality in law. The acting's fine - Kathy Bates, Sam Waterston, Justine Theroux are there too - but it's a bit dull, a spoken history record (compare to The King's Speech, for example). Daniel Stiepelman wrote it.

The Trench (1999 William Boyd & scr)

Will's debut is not annoyingly directed - he knows where to use a close-up, a subjective camera (Danny Dyer having drunk too much rum), when to track from up on high (they're all about to face their death going over the top). It captures what the experience must have been like - boredom leading to silly feuds, tension, waiting for the attack to happen, sudden chaos and death. It's quite an experience. The moments of humour are welcome.

Will wanted an unknown cast, most of whom are slightly better known now than they were then - Daniel Craig, Paul Nicholls, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Danny Dyer, James D'Arcy, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, Antony Strachan. Shot by Tony Pierce-Roberts, edited by Jim Clark and then Laurence Méry-Clark, music by Evelyn Glennie and Xavier Marchand.

"I wanted to make a film about the First World War, which obsesses me, and I wanted to make it super-accurate. We took enormous pains to get everything right, from the badges on the caps to the state of the trenches in July 1916. Everything was scrupulously accurate. And one of the things I wanted to do was have no stars. And I achieved that. The only thing that's happened is they've since become enormous stars. But actually at the time, when I cast Daniel Craig, he wasn't well known at all, Ben Whishaw - it was his very first film, he was doing his A levels - Cillian Murphy, I think had made one little film in Ireland, Danny Dyer had yet to take over the pub in Eastenders, Julian Rhind-Tutt, James D'Arcy  all these guys have gone on to have fantastic careers, and they owe it all to me, or course! But they were unknowns at the time. The most famous actor in it was Paul Nicholls, who had just come out of Eastenders.. It cost a million pounds, it was an arthouse war movie, it was fascinating to do.. As a portrait of the reality of trench life in World War One - which was in a way my main ambition - I don't think it can be faulted."

(Interviewed in 2018.)

"Soldiers swear, vilely, all the time - swear like troopers, in fact. Anyone who wants to know how soldiers swore in 1916 should read 'Her Privates We' (published in 1930), a magnificent novel by Frederic Manning, a writer who served at the Somme as a private soldier.  Manning's fellow soldiers swear vigorously and colourfully.

"The war had been going on for two years and everyone - from the generals to the private officers - thought the battle would be a walkover. They thought the week-long barrage before it started would kill every German soldier opposite. They didn't know the German soldiers could descend to deep concrete dugouts and sit the barrage out. If you had said to a British Tommy, on the eve of the battle, that the Germans were just sitting there, waiting, he'd have thought you were joking.

The trenches at the Somme were solidly constructed, deep, well revetted and duckboarded. The Somme valley had been a quiet sector until the decision to have a battle there in 1916. People tend to forget that it took place in the middle of summer. Wildlife abounded, No Man's Land was unmown, uncropped pasture. Summer was everywhere except in the earthy confines of the trench, its only evidence in the strip of blue sky above your head."

(Excerpts from 'Bamboo', published 2005.)

'A very fine actor..' Will later proposed Craig as the lead for Sword of Honour

Der Amerikanische Freund (1977 Wim Wenders & scr)

From Patricia Highsmith's 'Ripley's Game'. A serpentine plot, in which ill picture framer Bruno Ganz is tricked into murder by Gérard Blain, befriends art dealer and crook Dennis Hopper, who's somehow involved. Lisa Kreuzer is Ganz's wife, and the cast includes, Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller and Jean Eustache!

Almost like watching a Jim Jarmusch, with its little touches, e.g. Ganz sharing his booze with a girl who wants to wash down a pill - then she kisses him on the cheek. It was only towards the end that I realised Wenders made the great Der Himmel über Berlin, also with Ganz.

Very distinctive photography by Robby Müller, using coloured as well as available lighting.

The murders themselves are very excitingly staged.

Set in Hamburg and Paris. Good music too, By Jürgen Knieper.