It's a Sin (2021 Peter Hoar, writer Russell T. Davies)

About a group of friends in the eighties, and the gradual realisation that AIDS is a reality, this is weirdly timely in that health workers don't know what they're dealing with, think it's infectious (thus masks and distancing all over the place). The friends are Olly Alexander, Lydia West, Omari Douglas, Callum Scott Howells, Nathaniel Curtis,  and Neil Ashton; with Keeley Hawes and Shaun Dooley, Tracy Ann Oberman, Neil Patrick Harris (especially good as queer London tailor) and Stephen Fry. Plus an outstanding cameo from Ruth Sheen as another victim's Mum.

Immediately gripping, in the way Mrs. America isn't. Thought I'd be a quivering wreck at the end - I was, not having guessed who the bad guy would turn out to be. Really good cast, very moving story.

Does that great trick of pulling the sound out at a key moment in the finale.

Photographed by David Katznelson, edited by Sarah Brewerton (lots of TV).

The Dig (2021 Simon Stone)

From a novel by John Preston, adapted by Moira Buffini (Harlots, Viceroy's House, Tamara Drewe). Excavator Ralph Fiennes digs up Anglo Saxon burial ship on widow Carrie Mulligan's land - she's dying. Very elegantly and beautifully made, photographed by Mike Eley (The Selfish Giant, Parade's End) and edited by Jon Harris (Yesterday, Kingsman, The Two Faces of January, 127 Hours, Kick-Ass, Eden Lake), with many a low horizon, scrambled editing and a pronounced use of detached sound - so scenes between characters saying nothing but hearing their conversation. Really good.

With Lily Collins, Ben Chaplin, Ken Stott, Danny Webb, Archie Barnes, Johnny Flynn, Monica Dolan.

Marple: A Caribbean Mystery (2013 Charlie Palmer)

Pippa Bennett-Warner (maid, Roadkill), Charity Wakefield (The Great, Close to the Enemy, Any Human Heart as Land) and Robert Webb (owners), Alastair Mackenzie and Hermione Norris, Charles Mesure and Myana Buring, Anthony Sher, Montserrat Lombard and Warren Browne, Kingsley Ben-Adir (Peaky Blinders, One Night in Miami, Vera).

Set in Saint Honoré but actually filmed in Cape Town, it's another complicated tale, first published in 1964, with Juliet Mackenzie, made with a certain amount of bonkers style. And, for once, Marple is actually in danger - shot, to be precise - which makes a nice change - sorry, Jane, have some more cake.

Goldfinger (1964 Guy Hamilton)

Utter nonsense but great to see Connery at the height of his charisma (and sarcasm), Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn's adaptation is littered with incongruities, though is fun; Miami and Switzerland locations enjoyable. Classic opening in which Bond appears from under a seagull, sets an explosive in a heroin factory, strips off his wetsuit to reveal a white tux, enters a bar (where he's severely overdressed), consults his Rolex Submariner as the explosion occurs, kisses a half naked girl and then has a fight ending in murder by electric fire in the bath. Then a helicopter shot comes around the side of the Fountainbleu just as a high diver does a perfect dive..

Some of the dialogue is outrageous: Bond in bed with girl declines Leiter's dinner invitation saying 'Something very big has come up'. Forgot to mention his gay powder blue robe..

Soon after, the total madness starts - consider the logistics of painting a girl (who we are told isn't dead at the time) totally gold, without getting any on the sheets. Why make a car with a passenger ejector seat? Why kill a man, then have his car crushed with him in it, then have to uncrush it to retrieve the gold? Why kill all the heads of the mob? How can you be sure your nerve gas will actually catch all 60,000 people?

Highlights are the golf game (filmed at Stoke Poges), where Connery's interest in the game began, Switzerland, Peter Hunt's rapid editing of action, Gert Froebe and smiley Harold Sakata (Tosh Togo), and that gorgeous Aston Martin DB5.

With Honor Blackman, Tania Mallet (who's awful), Burt Kwouk, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Richard Vernon. Photographed with great skill by Ted Moore.

Like - really? Pussy Galore's Flying Circus, or something!

Connery died last October, Blackman in April (she was older), though pleased to report Eaton is still with us.

Marple: Greenshaw's Folly (2013 Sarah Harding)

Good film, from 1960 short story, as well as elements from 'The Thumb Mark of St Peter' (the stuff about atropine from the deadly nightshade). Marple takes Kimberley Nixon and her son into the protective custody of Fiona Shaw, who is an authority on plant medicine, at the house of the title - turns out her father has been involved in sinister experiments on children - an alternative 'folly'. Also involved is her actor son, Sam Reid again, and a dodgy gardener, Martin Compston. With Judy Parfitt, Julia Sawalha, Robert Glenister, Jim Moir, John Gordon Sinclair, Bobby Smalldridge.

Written by Tim Whitnall, photographed by Sam McCurdy (A United Kingdom), good music as always by Dominik Scherrer.

Palmer (2021 Fisher Stevens)

Written by Cheryl Guerriero, who has one other story credit.  Stevens is mainly known for bit parts in things, and music videos and documentaries (one about the environment featuring Leonardo di Caprio). How do people get these gigs? Well, Cheryl wrote a screenplay about girl gangs Girl on Point which got her an agent and was almost made, published a novel version. She was adopted out of a not too nice bit of New York and often wondered what her life would have been like if she hadn't been - which sort of points to this story about an ex-con who ends up becoming a surrogate father to a neglected boy in the trailer opposite.

Wondered who this great actress was playing a druggie so convincingly - it's only Juno Temple, thus reuniting her with Justin Timberlake from Wonder Wheel - good fallout. He's nicely restrained and the kid, Ryder Allen, nicely natural. June Squibb plays the grandma, with Alisha Wainwright, Lance Nichols (caretaker), Dean Winters, Jesse Boyd. 

It was sort of predictable but thoroughly enjoyable.

Photographed by Tobias Schliessler (Beauty and the Beast, Dreamgirls, Mr. Holmes, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom), edited by Geoffrey Richman.

Hope Gap (2019 William Nicholson & scr)

Yes - see. Based on his 1999 play. It's not even a new play. This is how not to do a filmed play. But, I think the real problem with this, other than it being too slow, is Annette Bening. Her accent is distracting - she sounds like a German who's lived in England for twenty years. Getting the accent right - or wrong, rather - means she delivers her lines at 0.2 mph. It's fatal.

No problem with Bill Nighy or Josh O'Connor (still in Price Charles mode, somewhat).

A dull way in which to celebrate having spoken to Alisa Lepselter - we should have watched a Woody Allen.

Mrs. America (2020 Creator Dhavi Waller)

Intelligent look at the Women's Equality Act movement from 1971 and the middle class housewives who objected to it, on grounds like they didn't want to go and fight in Vietnam, intelligently argued. Kate Blanchett leads the anti movement, supported by Sarah Paulson and husband John Slattery. Against are Ms. editor Rose Byrne and a group of feminists including Uzio Aduba, Tracey Ullman, Margo Martindale, Elizabeth Banks. 

Created and co-written by Dhavi Waller, made for FX. Directors are Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson, It's Kind of a Funny Story), Amma Asante, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre and Janicza Bravo.

The smile of a shark

But.. just not enough to engage us further than four episodes. Sorry...

Kinky Boots (2005 Julian Jarrold)

Geoff Deane and Tim Firth's screenplay is quite predictable, but good. The film is most enjoyable. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Joel Edgerton are both terrific, the latter coming over to me like a young Albert Finney. Sarah-Jane Potts is cute (I guess we recognise her from Sugar Rush), Nick Frost reliable. It's a great cast overall, actually, with Jemima Rooper, Linda Bassett, Robert Pugh, Joanna Scanlan.

Colourfully shot by Eigil Bryld in Panavision and edited in a hurry by Emma Hickox, who doesn't like to hang about. (Loved her Milan scene cut to the beat of the music.) It was her first collaboration with the director.

It grossed $10m, but I don't know what the budget was. Chiwetel was Golden Globe nominated.

Sweet and Lowdown (1999 Woody Allen & scr)

What genre is Sweet and Lowdown? Is it a mockumentary? Is that what Zelig is? (What's Scoop, come to that? A supernatural comedy thriller?) It's a bit like William Boyd's Nat Tate - making a wholly fictional character appear real by mixing in credible fact. In essence though, it's really a relationship drama about mute but Sweet Samantha Morton bringing out the emotion in egocentric and dodgy Lowdown guitarist Sean Penn - they're both fabulous.

With all its period detail, looks like a bigger budget than usual. And as usual, feels like you've watched a film longer than an hour and a half - the opposite of the Scorsese effect, with its interjections and plot twists. Most of the fabulous guitar music is covered by Howard Alden and band.

Belle (2013 Amma Asante)

Thoroughly enjoyed this again - see here. Editor Victoria Boydell took over from Pia di Ciaula. Ben Smithard shot it and the rather beautiful score is from Rachel Portman.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, Miranda Richardson, Sarah Gadon, Penelope Wilton, James Norton, Tom Felton, Sam Reid, Alex Jennings, Matthew Goode.

Her 2004 debut, A Way of Life was about a 17 year old with a baby who fears it's going to be taken into care - it won the BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer. Where Hands Touch (2018) features another mixed race girl, this time set in Nazi Germany. She then did two episodes each of The Handmaid's Tale and Mrs. America. The Billion Dollar Spy with Armie Hammer is supposedly in pre-production.

Castletown in the Isle of Man was one of the locations, standing in for bits of old London, docks etc.

Death to 2020 (Al Campbell, Alice Mathias)

Charlie's Brooker's piss-take on the events of the year, populated by people like Samuel L Jackson, Hugh Grant, Lisa Kudrow (denying everything Republican), Kumail Nanjiani, Tracey Ullman (the Queen), Samson Kayo, Diane Morgan - and a brilliant Cristin Milioti as a white middle class woman who is deeply racist and understands nothing. Can't remember a single thing I laughed out loud at.

Scoop (2006 Woody Allen & scr)

It's a marvellously entertaining fantasy in which a dead journalist comes back long enough to identify the identity of 'The Tarot Killer' - to student Scarlett Johannsson and amateur magician 'The Great Splendini' Woody Allen. He must have enjoyed filming Match Point here (made the year before).

It did make me ponder that murderers feature quite prominently in his films - Manhattan Murder Mystery, Shadows and Fog, Cassandra's Dream, Match Point, Irrational Man, Café Society... 

You wonder if part of Alisa's contribution is to the construction. For example, here we go from McShane on the side of the Death boat to quite a lot of action occurring in Life, then back to McShane in the same moment jumping over the side; and there's another moment of played-with time when Scarlett's searching the music room, and Jackman wakes up, realising she's not there, then back to her, and back to him.. and then she just turns up in the bedroom. I'm not complaining, just noticing.

I like the undercutting of sentiment when Allen tells her she's the daughter he never had, and then says 'Just joking - I never wanted to have children'. And lines like 'Land is so difficult to come by, especially outdoors'.

Photographed by Remi Adefarasin. The original cut was two hours fourteen minutes, if you can believe that. A hit - made almost $40m. The music's all classical.

Anna Karenina (2012 Joe Wright)

Anna Karenina is an incredibly frustrating film. The first forty-five minutes - my mouth was just hanging open. I mean it's amazing. It's sort of like we're in a theatre, but the scenes keep changing in an incredibly interesting and fluid way - occasional musicians walk in as their instruments are heard in the score, there's a wonderful momentum, like Magnolia, it's funny - MacFadyen gives a wonderful, funny performance - everything looks amazing. It's almost like an opera.

So what happens? It becomes boring. There's a sub-plot going on about Domhnall Gleeson's love for Alicia Vikander, nicely resolved in a scene involving blocks with letters on them, but their story peters out. "I just realised something" he says to her at the end, and she says "What was it?" and he doesn't reply, which is not really maddening or anything. And there are still some lovely flourishes, like the stagebound horse race, and when Jude Law tears up the letter from his wife and throws the pieces in the air and then the whole theatre it's raining torn up bits of paper - but - and here's another thing - the Gleeson scenes are all on location, real snow and grass and country houses - and you suddenly think, 'well how does all this artificial stage stuff actually fit in?' and it almost blows the magic of it.

The train imagery throughout, like a foreshadowing, is interesting, but the problem actually is the story, in which case the problem is the novel. Or to put it another way, why did Joe Wright wish to make this story? Tom Stoppard wrote the adaptation. Wright said that Anna was 'both terrible and wonderful'. But I'm sorry to say that we both found it boring. And in fact, she's also quite annoying. Which after such an amazing beginning is terrible. I mean, you can argue that Daisy Miller is annoying, but you still feel for her, but after a while you don't feel for Anna, who brings it all upon herself.

So - the good bits. Seamus McGarvey's photography and Sarah Greenwood's production design, they're both brilliant. So is Dario Marienelli's score - no problem about that. Nor Melanie Oliver's editing - Wilder! - that dance scene. And, like last time, I kept having weird Last Year at Marienbad flashes. As to the acting, great performances from La Knightley, Jude Law, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Gleeson, Kelly Macdonald, Olivia Williams, Alexandra Roach, Holliday Grainger, Ruth Wilson, Michelle Dockery, Emily Watson, Emerald Fennell and Steve Evets (and, fleetingly, in fact annoyingly - why's she there at all? - Vicky McClure).

Also - costumes and make up - Jacqueline Durran (won Oscar) and Ivana Primorac. Knightley looks stunning.

Best Books about Films

McGilligan's Hitchcock.

Conversations with Wilder, by Cameron Crowe.

'Who the Hell's In It?' and 'Who the Devil Made It?' by Peter Bogdanovich

'Adventures in the Screen Trade' and 'Which Lie Did I Tell?' by William Goldman.

'When the Shooting Stops', Ralph Rosenblum.

'Dark City - The Lost World of Film Noir', Eddie Muller.

'Something To Do With Death', Christopher Frayling.

'David Lean - A Biography', Kevin Browlow. Or Brownlow, even.

Staged (2021 Simon Evans, Phinn Glyn)

Brilliantly clever and funny, the show plays on itself, the notion that season one was improvised by the actors and not scripted at all. In the fictional world, Staged is being remade, but Sheen and Tennant aren't well known enough and have to endure read throughs for casting with the likes of Pegg and Frost, Christoph Waltz, Hugh Bonneville, Ken Jeong, Jim Parsons and, ultimately, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kate Blanchett.

Also cannot help but be a commentary on the depressing effects of lockdowns.

Hilarious e.g. Waller-Bridge: "You wouldn't know a joke if it came on your face."

With Anna Lundberg, Georgia Tennant, Simon Evans, Whoopi Goldberg.

Edited by Dan Gage, music by Alex Baranowski.

Mansfield Park (2007 Iain B. MacDonald)

Billy Piper takes the lead as Fanny Price, and the action as far as I recall does not move out of the house and grounds of Mansfield Park  - Newby Hall, Yorkshire - where it was shot on location (indeed, inside it still looks exactly the same today). With Blake Ritson, Douglas Hodge, Jemma Redgrave, James D'Arcy, Maggie O'Neill (who I think overdoes it), Hayley Atwell, Joseph Beattie, Michelle Ryan, Rory Kinnear, Catherine Steadman and Dexter Fletcher.

It's handsome enough but somehow fails to quite hit the mark. Adapted by Maggie Wadey.

One of many period pictures edited by Melanie Oliver. She's now working on Last Letter from Your Lover with Felicity Jones and Shailene Woodley.

ITV and WGBH Boston, from legendary producer Rebecca Eaton.

We're not really sure about Billie Piper...

Le Divorce (2003 James Ivory)

Kate Hudson comes to visit her step sister Naomi Watts in Paris, just at the time the latter's husband unexpectedly decides to leave her for another woman. Not wishing to divorce, Watts has to face his horrible family, the French legal system, and the crazy husband of her husband's lover (Matthew Modine). Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Ivory adapted Diane Johnson's novel.

Hudson hooks up with Romain Duris initially, then allows herself to become the mistress of Thierry Lhermite (La Pere Noel est Une Ordure, Les Bronzées, the original  Doc Martin). Leslie Caron is the tough French matriarch, Sam Waterson and Stockard Channing the American parents, Glenn Close an ex-pat writer and Stephen Fry a Christies' dealer (a possible Louis La Tour is at the heart of the story, as is a red Hermes handbag), Jean-Marc Barr a nice lawyer. Plus Nathalie Richard (Caché), Catherine Samie (old lady at apartment), Bebe Neuwirth.

It's quite a pot, photographed by Pierre Lhomme, with another elegant score from Richard Robbins, edited by John David Allen. We enjoyed it.

'To My Dear and Loving Husband' is that rather fine poem by Anne Bradstreet. Café Flore features.

Master of None - Seasons 1 & 2 (2015 Aziz Ansari, Alan Yang)

Aziz is the star and co-writer, Yang is a Parks and Rec writer/producer, in which Aziz appeared, and thus probably where they met. Their episode 'Parents', about the gulf between the immigrant experience and the spoiled next generation, won the Emmy, and was a subject that hadn't been touched on before. And some of the observation - the Indian character in Short Circuit 2 isn't played by an Indian - is as relevant. 

We had no idea a comedy about an Indian commercials actor in New York would end up in Italy (Moderna) - otherwise we would have watched it sooner. In fact we were so hooked that we didn't realise we'd watched the whole of Season 1 and actually started Season 2 in one evening. Eric Wareheim is his giant friend, Lena Waithe his gay friend, Noel Wells his girl friend and Kelvin Yu his Asian friend. It's rather sweet, e.g. episode in which Aziz takes out his girlfriend's grandmother (Lynn Cohen, Manhattan Murder Mystery one of her earliest credits in 1993), and the parody of Bicycle Thieves in black and white. And funny - 'The Sickening'.

This has balls - when Dev drops off Francesca (Alessandra Mastronardi, from To Rome With Love - I didn't recognise her!), who Bobby Cannavale (in exuberant form) has spotted he's in to - there's just a long single take of him in the taxi, thinking, emotional, along to Soft Cell 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' (about the first time I've heard that song without wincing). Then there's a tangential episode (which made me think of the other outside-the-box series Atlanta) in which we follow a door man of a posh apartment block, a taxi driver, and a deaf woman, whose scenes are played out without any sound at all on the soundtrack. All the while we get all these refreshing digs about race in US society and culture.

"You can't sue someone for diarrhoea."
"Try telling that to her beach house."

The finale has some of the most beautiful images of New York at night, a kiss through a glass door, and a 'will it be The Apartment?' ending. We absolutely loved it. And that song, 'Un anno d'amore' by Mina.

Walking and Talking (1996 Nicole Holofcener & scr)

Nicole's quite tough on her women friends - played by Catherine Keener and Anne Heche - exposing them as petty and silly. Heche for example never wears her engagement ring. The film plays out rather like a Woody Allen, which you can't help thinking really, as this is the only film Alisa Lepselter was credited with as editor before her partnership with the New Yorker began - so far she's edited 22 of his films. Anyway, back to Walking. The men are Todd Field and Kevin Corrigan, with Liev Schreiber and Randall Batinkoff, and The Sopranos' Vincent Pastore as 'Devil-seeing patient'. The film unusually also features a cancer-ridden cat. Rather enjoyable. Allison Janney appears fleetingly, with Alice Drummond (Pieces of April) and Lynn Cohen pops up again, unexpectedly (we just saw her in Master of None).

Songs by Billy Bragg.

Paper Moon (1973 Peter Bogdanovich & prod)

In my 2018 review I thought it remarkable that Peter didn't get an Oscar nomination for directing or writing. Well if he did get one for writing that would have been remarkable, as the script is credited to Alvin Sargent, who came from TV, co-wrote The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and survived, to go on to a varied bunch including Bobby Deerfield, Straight Time, Julia, Ordinary People and Unfaithful. Though having spoken to the director yesterday on how he alone edited The Last Picture Show (though it's credited to Donn Cambern) we'll probably find out next he did write Paper Moon too!

None of this really helps our evaluation of Verna Fields though, who had done a great sound job for Peter on Targets. More later?

Loved the moment where Ryan's looking at the moon photo she's left him and all the background sound goes.

This review's grade: C-.

Jaws (1975 Steven Spielberg)

Steven pulls off some lovely oners, but Verna cuts things like the crowded beaches and streets brilliantly. Williams' score may be iconic, but it's his other themes that are equally memorable: the passage that plays over the scene with Scheider and his son, that jaunty chasing the shark one, and the wonderful moment where the shark dies. Oscars went to him and Verna, and to Robert Hoyt, Roger Heman, Earl Madery and John Carter for Best Sound. Zanuck and Brown were nominated for Best Picture. None of the actors were nominated, surprisingly, though Dreyfuss was by BAFTA.

I learned from the extras that the head in the boat did not excite the preview audience so it was re-edited to get that jump that everyone's so familiar with, that the scene where the shark mashes up the cage was from the Australia shooting - the shark was caught in the ropes and went crazy - and the frightened reaction of Hooper in the cage was a stuntman, filmed in Verna's swimming pool! 

Peter Benchley adapted his own novel, then Steven had a go at re-writing it to push it more in the direction he wanted it to go, then someone called Howard Sackler was called in to rewrite, but wanted no credit because he could only give the project limited time (he was credited for Killer's Kiss, The Killing, Jaws 2 and Saint Jack). Carl Gottlieb came on originally as an actor but was drafted in to simplify Benchley's story and humanise the characters. John Milius famously wrote up the short speech Sackler had conceived for the Indianapolis scene, which Shaw then himself reinterpreted.

The fraught filming schedule is evident in the continuity errors that litter the film. There's even a shot near the end where the land's actually visible, that I'd never noticed before:

(Ed. note - they are headed back inland so I think that's quite acceptable.)

The Sugarland Express (1974 Steven Spielberg)

I don't know why they had to kill him - they could easily have arrested him at the end - that's the USA for you, even then (it's a true story). This was murder.

Verna is absolutely fab at cutting those crowd and chase scenes. Vilmos's cinematography is great.

'Ace in the Hole', Q said to me in one of the crowd scenes, at the exact moment I was thinking it.

Good to see Slaughterhouse Five's Michael Sacks again, alongside Goldie Hawn, William Atherton and Ben Johnson.

Daisy Miller (1974 Peter Bogdanovich)

Absolutely agree with everything here. Cybill is particularly good, but all the cast excels.

Love the shot near the end through the lace of the hotel door - it's almost funereal. And that last look of the boy, James McMurtry - it's almost like saying 'It's all your fault' - which it is, sort of. She played her game independent of society's rules, and lost. (The response from the Eileen Brennan character is particularly horrible.)

Lots of witty and amusing details, like the guide at the Chateau de Chillon having nothing to do, the terrible string quartet in Rome, and 'Pop goes the waizel'.

Great scenes in Pincio Promenade and gardens (Villa Borghese), and at the Colosseum.

George Morfogen gives a performance of some gravitas. With Mildred Natwick, Cloris Leachman*, Barry Brown, Duilio del Prete.

One of those films I love more each time I see it. Written by Frederic Raphael. (Or not. I subsequently read a 1997 interview by John Gallagher. Peter says "The movie is exactly the book. I added one sequence that I wrote that Freddy Raphael had nothing to do with. In fact Freddy Raphael had nothing to do with that script, it was so funny. There's two things he wrote. One idea was the little miniature painter and the other thing was to have that scene play in the baths. Everything else was the book and I couldn't use his script 'cause it was really way over the top.")

* A timely viewing - Cloris died nine days later, aged 94.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 Frank Lloyd & prod)

Written by Talbot Jennings, Jules Furthman and Carey Wilson, rather ambitiously based on the Bounty trilogy by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, 'Mutiny on the Bounty', 'Men Against the Sea' and 'Pitcairn's Island'. Sets the tone from the off with the Press Gang and the flogging of a dead man by sadistic Charles Laughton. To me, the fate of Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) on Pitcairn seems rather bleak, slightly ameliorated by Franchot Tone's pardon (though I presume the other non-mutineers were executed).

Looks good. Filmed in Tahiti and Catalina Island; two ships and Portsmouth were recreated. Shot by Arthur Edeson and edited by Margaret Booth, one of her last, as she became the feared Supervising Editor at MGM from 1937 (not 1939 as claimed in IMDB), until 1968.

With Herbert Mundin (as the comedy relief), Eddie Quillan, Dudley Digges, Donald Crisp, Henry Stephenson, Francis Lister (Nelson), Spring Byington, Movita, Mamo Clark, Byron Russell, Ian Wolfe and - some way down the cast list - David Niven.

Exciting and enjoyable.

The accompanying short Pitcairn Island Today, i.e. in the thirties, is absolutely fascinating.

American Splendor (2003 Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini)

Paul Giamatti gives a typically committed performance as Harvey Pekar, comic book writer and personality, with Hope Davis as his wife and Judah Friedlander, also featuring (rather successfully) the real Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner and Toby Radloff. This couple made The Nanny Diaries; she plays the interviewer and Pulcini the film director - he also edited it. Terry Stacy filmed it in dour Cleveland locations, and Robert Crumb is one of the artists featured.

The unfolding story of the little girl they eventually adopt is unexpectedly sweet. Pekar died in 2010.

The Jacket (2005 John Maybury)

Emma Hickox told us she really wanted to make this film and pitched hard for it, and that the lab told her she had more cuts in the first quarter of the film than most films have in their entirety. It certainly is a dazzling piece, though we did wonder whether she managed to set a most unwelcome trend for in-your-face editing that marred such programmes as Whitechapel. And when she isn't racing seventeen clips a second at us she does some very elegant dissolve work, like this:

As to the story - screenplay by Massy Tadjedin, story by Tom Blecker and Marc Rocco - a Gulf War vet with brain injuries (Adrien Brody) is witness to a roadside murder and unjustly sentenced to a mental institution, where he's experimented on with mind bending drugs by Kris Kristofferson. What seems to happen - and we're in murky waters here - is that he appears to go into the future, meets the grown up version of the little girl he befriended (Kiera Knightley) and finds out that in the past he only has four days to live. It doesn't really make any sense, in fact, but is delivered with such panache by an interesting cast that it doesn't matter, and the ending - though incomprehensible - is sweet.*

Clooney and Soderberg were producers. Photographed by Peter Deming. That's Iggy Pop doing "All the Time in the World", incidental music by Brian Eno. The leads are as good as always, though every time I see Brody now I think "Rhinocer-oose?" Rest of cast - Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kelly Lynch, Daniel Craig, Steven Mackintosh, Brendan Coyle, Brad Renfro, Laura Morano (young girl).

It reminded me a little of Groundhog Day (though perhaps more of its predecessor, 12:01).

Hadn't heard of Maybury, a former pop video director specialising in gay bands, and director of a film about Francis Bacon, and a couple of episodes of Rome. To claim the credit 'A John Maybury film' is hubris indeed. Massy wrote and directed Last Night, also with Kiera, and an episode of Berlin, I Love You, which has simply terrible ratings.

Deming shot Evil Dead II, Mulholland Drive, Married Life, Last Night, Cabin in the Woods and the new Twin Peaks. Filmed in Canada and Scotland, thus the presence of various Brits.

* I read that in one of the endings, he wakes up and is still in hospital, which actually is the only ending that makes any sense, though would have pissed off the audience. Actually I expect nobody who went to see it understood it anyway, so who cares? It's - I mean - what script was green lit, for Wilder's sake?

Broken (2012 Rufus Norris)

We'd been talking to Victoria Boydell earlier, and she told us that there was more of her in this than any other film she edited (we're becoming like the young Peter Bogdanovich, interviewing the masters!) It's an awesome piece of work, and often had me thinking of Tony Gibbs' work on Petulia, where he telegraphs action - the flash forward. Here. she shows a little bit of the next scene at the end of the previous one. And much more than that - so after the opening assault, we then go back to the daughter and her rape allegation.  There's also great use of detached sound (I expect there's a professional term for that), for example when Rory Kinnear learns his daughter is dead. It comes over at times like a Lynne Ramsey film. Also, what's fascinating, is it was Rufus' first film, so how did he and Victoria come together, and how much did her input guide him towards what it is, for a theatre director, a bloody impressive work of visual cinema. The answer, I predict, is a lot - more on this later.

There are two moments of great subtlety in the focus - where Kinnear goes in to pummel Emms, he's in the background out of focus - same trick later where he's standing outside his house, and in the background you can see Denis Lawson (well you can't identify him, because he's out of focus), walk, zombie-like out of the front door.

The ending is very tense, but what becomes (slightly) clear - especially if you pay attention to the credits - that the dream Roth had the night Skunk was born was of her in the future - Lily James, no less.

Eloise Laurence is terrific in the lead role. With Tim Roth (a great character), Rory Kinnear, Robert Emms, Faye Daveney, Martha Bryant (really amazing as the youngest of the terrible sisters) and Rosie Kosky-Hensman (the rape accuser), George Sargeant, Bill Milner (brother), Zana Marjanovic and Cillian Murphy, Denis Lawson and Clare Burt.

Apparently author Daniel Clay acknowledged 'To Kill a Mockingbird' as an  inspiration. Mark O'Rowe adapted it (he also did Boy A). To my amazement, it's not particularly well reviewed. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, with a great score from Damon Albarn aka Electric Wave Bureau (the junkyard / fairground music is brilliant, and the scene where a car just drops from the sky, which I've only ever seen before in Eternal Sunshine). Rob Hardy shot it.

Rufus on Eloise: "We saw 850 girls for this role and El came in right at the end, thank god. Working with her was about the easiest experience I have had with an actor. No special techniques or considerations were necessary; she just came in with energy and complete enthusiasm every day. She never once complained, except that it was ending too soon. I thought the greatest challenge would be to keep her natural, to stop her -acting', and I never gave that note once. You worry, of course, that you are in some way corrupting a child who could be spoilt by the experience, the attention. Fortunately, both for her and us, her parents are both totally grounded and I think if anyone can get through it, it is she. She is very musical, and I think it helped that she hasn't acted before, and had no great desire to do anything other than sing."

LipSync (The Nice Guys, Shame, We Need to Talk About Kevin) / Bill Kenwright Films / BBC / Cuba.

2 Days in Paris (2007 Julie Delpy & scr, ed)

After an unsuccessful two weeks in Venice, Adam Goldberg and Julie Delpy stop off in Paris en route back to New York. There he meets her colourful family and encounters some of her past boyfriends, leading to good line "There is a small world network, but it just contains your love life". It's not a great Paris film because we don't see enough of it, though there are several amusing encounters with contentious taxi drivers.  Delpy's character is quite a pain in the arse, really; I think if I were either one of the couple I wouldn't be going out with the other - but that's the point she's making, isn't it (especially in the last scene) - sometimes people who don't seem to fit together just need to be together regardless.

In a way it inhabits the same kind of space between comedy and drama as the Tamara Jenkins films we've been watching lately.

I know what she means about being in a new place and spending all your time photographing it and not being there - well, I can vaguely remember the concept of foreign travel.

Daniel Brühl has an amusing cameo. Her father is Albert Delpy and her mother is Marie Pillet - her real parents (also both in Before Sunset). You wonder whether it's their real apartment. (It was.)

Delpy: "I watched Jaws four times before I did my film, because I thought Frenchmen are a bit like sharks... [Not sure if this is intended as a joke.] We shot guerilla style, sometimes, without permits. And we shot in HD, using a Sony 750 camera – a camera that you can bring into small places. I also wanted to use a long lens. So the person is in focus but everything in the background is out of focus and blurry. That way it feels like you’ve stolen the shot in the streets of Paris. It’s got the vibe of a documentary style.
I knew that with the 20 days we had to shoot…we’re not going to be able to achieve like a perfect clean look anyway. So why not take the decision to make it like that? It works with the subject matter of the film." [Also thought it might be that you don't see gawkers in the background looking at the film being shot.]
Indiewire interview. 

It was a big hit. And there was a 2012 sequel Two Days in New York.

Best Paris films

Midnight in Paris

Paris

Paris Je T'Aime

Truffaut's Antione Doinel films

A Bout de Souffle / Bande a Part / Vivre Sa Vie / Une Femme est une Femme

Zazie dans le Metro

Diva

Intouchable.

Before Sunset

Amelie

La Haine! (apparently)

My Favourite Film Directors

It's interesting to note, that - credited or not - these are all writer-directors:

Powell & Pressburger

Hitchcock

David Lean (before River Kwai).

Billy Wilder.

Preston Sturges.

Woody Allen

Cameron Crowe

François Truffaut

Wes Anderson

Cédric Klapisch

Howard Hawks

Peter Bogdanovich

Bresson and Tarkovsky

Orson Welles

The Coen Brothers and the McDonagh brothers.

Mike Leigh

Quentin Tarantino

Sergio Leone

Alfonso Cuaron

John Ford

Ernst Lubitsch