I Care A Lot (2020 J Blakeson & scr)

Who? I didn't know one name behind the camera. Blakeson has written a neat black comedy satire about the practice of forcing the elderly to become wards of the state, and about making it in the US. Rosamund Pike (who won a Golden Globe that day) revels in her performance as such a person, who picks on the wrong old woman to incarcerate, played brilliantly by Diane Weist, and Richard Dinklage comes looking for retribution. With Eiza Gonzalez (Baby Driver), Chris Messina, Isiah Whitlock Jr (judge), Damian Young (care home manager), Alicia Witt (doctor), Nicholas Logan (with the very blue eyes).

Paris (2008 Cédric Klapisch & scr)

Dancer Romain Duris (who I think is in the East of the city, or maybe Montmartre?) has a heart condition and may not live, his sister Juliette Binoche comes to stay but thinks her life is over. Historian Fabrice Luchini has a crisis of confidence and falls for student Melanie Laurent. Albert Dupontel has separated, meets Binoche; Gilles Lelouch romances Julie Ferrier. And so on. They variously intertwine. It really works, with the city as the glue. Great, eclectic music as well. Great acting all round.

Cinematography: Christophe Beaucarne. Music: Burke, Dury and Minck. Editing: Francine Sandberg.

L'Ultimo Paradiso (2021 Rocco Ricciardulli & co-Scr)

Co-written by star Riccardo Scamarcio, who appears as the main character's brother as well, and the father is played by the director. A 1950s tragedy, really, showing the desperate plight of the farmers under the yoke of the local bastard, with a fatal love affair thrown in. (What's shocking is that after the father is murdered, the town blames the daughters Gaia Bermani Amaral and Valentina Cervi.) It's so desperate that at one point the protagonist's sister says to her other brother, 'I'll do anything - I'll marry any of your friends'.. just to get away.

I quite like we don't know who killed the bastard, though I'm inclined to think it was the father. It was a bit of a downer really - the brother leaves his nice wife and safe job in Trieste to return home and stand by the girl. Also, you feel for the farmers who have tried to stand up for themselves being arrested under the pretext of the murder investigation, and imprisoned.

Beautifully photographed by Gian Filippo Corticelli.

Always good to hear Trenet's 'Que Reste T-il de Nos Amours', which bears an added poignancy at the end (now I think about it).

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2005 John Madden)

Two odd coincidences surrounded this viewing. I had just asked Q to buy a copy when I noticed it was on TV that very evening. Then, we were discussing it with editor Victoria Boydell and she said 'When was it on?' and revealed that her neighbour, Ronny Pickup, who's featured in the film, died that same day.

Dev Patel is slightly maddening as the over-eager puppy-dog jealous fiancé, but he's surrounded by a great cast of British stalwarts including Maggie Smith (whose accent shifts somewhat), Bill Nighy, Judi Dench, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie. Plus Tina Desai, Hubrayjoti Barat, Lilette Dubey. And Richard Gere, Tamsin Greig, David Strathairn.

Handsomely photographed by Ben Smithard, super score from Tom Newman, written by Parker and Madden, edited at a good pace by Victoria Boydell, whose name we now clap when we see it in the credits. The film's plot lines seem weirdly incomplete. Either that or it was me. When Dev suddenly leaves the wedding on a motor bike, it's like he's nipped off to appear in someone else's film quickly.

1940-2021

"It seems I'm cat nip to the ladies!"

The Accidental Tourist (1988 Lawrence Kasdan & co-scr)

Kasdan had teamed William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in 1981's Body Heat - here, he throws in a Geena Davis, to good effect. Editor Carol Littleton talks about the scene where Hurt gives her the letter about why he can't come over - the camera stays on him while he reveals his tale of grief - she says nothing, just leads him to bed. It's a good moment. Littleton worked with her husband, John Bailey, a useful cameraman, who seems to imbue his images with emotion, somehow (think Ordinary People, for example).

But - going to Paris, and eating in Burger King? Unthinkable!

With Amy Wright, David Ogden Stiers, Ed Begley Jr., Bill Pullman. Written with Frank Galati, based on Anne Tyler's novel.

They Were Expendable (1945 John Ford)

Another enormously engaging exercise in simplicity in the recognisably Fordian style. He takes us into the war in the Philippines, focusing on the Motor Patrol Group 3rd Squadron, and the growing respect for what they're capable of. Robert Montgomery leads the group with John Wayne (second billed) at his side, with the action taking place over several years in typically episodic fashion. Like Fort Apache (see, I know a lot about Ford - haven't even seen that one yet) ends on a failure - the withdrawal of troops, being overwhelmed by the Japanese - but 'We'll be back'. A bit of an epic for Ford, clocking in at 2 hours 10.

Very exciting and well-made action scenes mix with good natured banter, loss, and even romance as Wayne falls for a proficient nurse, Donna Reed (he and '11,000 other men'). And as usual lots of great little touches, like the sailor who deflates his returning colleagues' tales of action with 'we had blueberry muffins for breakfast - you missed them', and the way one of the boats picks up a very senior army figure and his family (MacArthur, or someone like him), and whatever thanks he gives our guys we don't hear it as it's in long shot. And the cat. And my favourite scene, Donna coming to dinner with the officers, which is in the main comprised of just two shots, the long shot with her at the end of the table, and the closer shot of the sailors singing below. (Actually it's not that simply filmed - it just looks like it is.)

It was written by aviator turned screenwriter Frank Wead, himself the subject of Ford's biography Wings of Eagles, from William White's book, photographed by Joseph August, for MGM. Filmed in Florida, believe it or not.

With: Jack Holt (General), Ward Bond, Marshall Thompson, Paul Langton, Leon Ames (Major), Arthur Walsh, Donald Curtis, Cameron Mitchell, Jeff York, Jack Pennick, Russell Simpson ('Dad').

Robert Montgomery was a real Patrol Torpedo Commander in the war

Wayne did not serve, causing Ford to rebuke him endlessly during filming... until Montgomery shut him up.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974 Michael Cimino & scr)

There's something slightly Houstonesque about this, an ill-fitted gang out to rob the same armoury they robbed before, and how it unravels. Cimino's script is good and he handles it all well - the widescreen is used properly, not just for the fabulous Montana locations but for those long cars (and the armour piercing cannon!) Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges make a delightful couple - the latter breaks your heart at the ending (he was Oscar nominated). With George Kennedy (always so good at playing these brutish thug types, whereas we know he was in real life a lovely fella) and Geoffrey Lewis. There are some nice touches of humour - my wife was particularly tickled by Bridges in drag...

I've got to say though the Bridges character does ask for it, constantly winding up Kennedy who we know is violently powerful - near the beginning he says 'It's a good job I didn't hit him in the face, or he'd be dead"...

One of many cross country car films that appeared in the seventies, probably in the wake of Easy Rider. Interestingly - and displaying the power of Eastwood the star then, he entrusted Cimino with the project following the latter's rewrite of Magnum Force, and that on set Clint wouldn't do more than three takes, saying "No, we got it". It's usually the other way round...

It's a Malpaso film, shot by Frank Stanley and edited by Ferris Webster.

Doctor in Distress (1963 Ralph Thomas)

Released three months before The Servant, in which Bogarde's romantic leading man image was indelibly altered forever, this was just the type of role he was desperate to get away from (this was his fourth and last Doctor film). Nicholas Phipps and Ronald Scott Thorn's story is not very interesting, really. Bogarde has hitched up with model Samantha Eggar whilst James Robertson Justice has fallen for physiotherapist Barbara Murray, who we just saw in The Punch and Judy Man, causing him to sleep piano play (a not uncommon condition, so I hear). With Donald Houston, Fenella Fielding, Ann Lynn, Leo McKern, Dennis Price, Frank Finlay, Amanda Barrie, Reginald Beckwith, Peter Butterworth, Ronnie Barker, only Pauline Jameson again and Mylène Demongeot.

The Rebel (1961 Robert Day)

Not as successful as last night's Hancock. The opening is fine - the disquiet of the salaryman leads him to artistic harbour in Paris, where he develops theories about 'the colour being the wrong shape' and befriends an artist who's actually good. So Galton and Simpson's script is largely successful at poking fun at the elitism of the art establishment, but throws in a very tiresome plot in which Hancock's pursued by the wife (Margit Saad) of millionaire patron Gregoire Aslan, and extra-heavy sculptures. I quite liked his crappy paintings, especially the birds taking off. Alistair Grant contributes the good ones (Paul Massie plays the artist).

With lots of familiar faces: John Le Mesurier, Irene Handl, George Sanders, Dennis Price, Liz Fraser, Mervyn Johns, Peter Bull, Nanette Newman and Oliver Reed.

There has always been something quintessentially romantic about an artist seeking inspiration in Paris -  the impoverished artist's garret. Maybe the time has come for a variation on that theme?

"I got no time for naked women without no clothes on. They're lewd."

My own favourite of the artist's work

Photographed by Gilbert Taylor.

Southcliffe (2013 Sean Durkin)

A gripping drama, made in the most simple way - it comes over like an arthouse film. Durkin prefers not to cut - scenes are in long takes, or from a distance, gently zooming in, or in the back of a car, then hopping out of the car with the driver. Which is all good, as far as I'm concerned - it places you in the action more, particularly in the awful scenes in which Sean Harris (a brilliant, BAFTA-winning performance) begins his shooting spree (it was only afterwards we realised there's no music score).

Grisoni set about making a film about grief - not even about a mass shooting - once the killing's over, there's a lot of what could be seen as insane behaviour (notably, a wedding ceremony with a coffin), but it's just about how people cope with loss. It's a complicated structure, but you don't lose track of where you are for a minute. (Obviously he then researched Dunblane, Hungerford and Whitehaven, the feelings of residents, survivors, that the killer was one of them.)

Rory Kinnear is the returned reporter who escaped an unhappy childhood there. With Eddie Marsan, Shirley Henderson and Kaya Skodelario, Anatol Yusef (unfaithful husband), Emma Cunniffe (his wife), Al Weaver (gay vicar in Grantchester), Amanda Drew (Kinnear's wife), Joe Dempsie (ex army), Louise Bell (his wife), George Bell (his uncle).

Of Faversham (North Kent), Grisoni says" I like the bleakness, I like the salt marshes, I like how the sea filters into the land, I like the pubs and the people around there and I like the fact it's not London. [Being] able to shoot there was incredible. It's got a real wildness about it." (Independent interview.) This is well caught in the moment a whitish fog rolls in.

Victoria Boydell knows when to cut in a (rare) close up. She often has someone talking in a scene to someone else, who we can't see, and uses her 'detached sound' here and there to good effect. She told us Durkin has a distinctive approach, only filming the material he needs, with one camera, trying to keep the action is a single shot. It was photographed by Hungarian Mátyás Erdély.

I am reminded of Van Gogh's self-portrait

The Punch and Judy Man (1963 Jeremy Summers)

Written by Tony Hancock and Phillip Oakes. In Piltdown (Bognor Regis) seaside entertainer Hancock is talked into appearing at a snobby gala by his wife Sylvia Sims. He's the catalyst for the chaos that ensues, but frankly the snobs need no help fucking it up for themselves. This is a nicely observed little film and it's a great shame it was Hancock's last - he has a nice touch, evident in scene in which he takes care of a little boy, and they eat ice cream together. But he was apparently drinking copiously at this point, and felt the Punch was cursed... (I learned that a swozzle is what gives Punch the high pitched voice.)

A recognisable cast includes John Le Mesurier, Ronald Fraser, Barbara Murray (Lady Jane, Passport to Pimlico), Hugh Lloyd, Pauline Jameson again, Peter Vaughan, Norman Bird.

Photographed by Gilbert Taylor (Frenzy, Cul-de-Sac, Repulsion, A Hard Day's Night, Dr Strangelove, The Rebel).

Elizabethtown (2005 Cameron Crowe & scr)

An extraordinary film, inspired by thoughts of the death of Cameron's own dad. The aunt is played by Paula Deen from the Food Network.

Photographed by John Toll, edited by David Moritz (Jerry Maguire, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic) and Mark Livolsi.

Good to recognise Elton John and Neil Young, but not the songs themselves.

It was our ninth viewing. For Q I wanted to record the line "I love your lips, and everything attached to them". Also loved the moment the mechanical coffin lowering malfunctions.

Knives Out (2019 Rian Johnson & scr)

Those big caricatures and the intricate design in the house reminded me of Sleuth - which may have been intentional. It's an absolutely brilliant screenplay - I love it when Blanc insists that Marta accompany him on his investigation, and she keeps finding bits of her own evidence. And the ending, which has been set up so brilliantly by Harlan Thrombey at the beginning.

A very fitting tribute to Christopher Plummer who died February 5 aged 91.

Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, LaKeith Stanfield.

Blue Crush (2002 John Stockwell & co-scr)

Derived from an article 'Surf Girls of Maui' by Susan Orlean, screenplay by Lizzie Weiss and Stockwell, a not exactly original story, but with spectacular surfing action. I presume the 'pipe' refers to the tunnel created when the wave peaks over itself. Kate Bosworth surely must have had some surfing experience. Matthew Davis we recognise from Legally Blonde, Michelle Rodriguez, Sanoe Lake. David Hennings photographed, Emma Hickox edited.

Burn After Reading (2008 Joel & Ethan Coen)

Terrific, barking comedy thriller, with the essence of a later Hitchcock like Torn Curtain. We watched it almost exactly ten years ago - rather unfairly neglected it. Great cast: Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt (who's very funny), John Malkovich, Richard Jenkins, David Rasche, J.K. Simmons. 

Plot involves discovery of what looks like CIA secrets in a gymnasium, and a cheating ex officer. Scene with wardrobe is stunning.

I always forget it's another one of Chivo's gorgeous bits of photography.

Carter Burwell's music is scored like an ominous and serious thriller, which makes it funnier.

Sky West and Crooked (1966 John Mills)

Hayley Mills' performance - which surely was BAFTA-worthy - had me in bits. John's film - of his wife's story 'Bats with Baby Faces' - is hugely successful, though he himself was unhappy with the script. It's wonderfully rural - Arthur Ibbetson is the photographer - gets into the minds of children, and the villagers.

This is the film on which Johnny gave every member of the crew a copy of the script so they'd really feel a part of it. (A trick he probably learned from Noel Coward, who did the same thing for In Which We Serve.)  I think he did a really good job. He and editor Gordon Hales move things along cinematically, but sensibly giving us single takes when effective. The acting throughout is excellent: you have to mention Geoffrey Bayldon and his wife Pauline Jameson and Annette Crosbie in particular. But Hayley's just so natural - it's a great screen performance.

P.S. April 2022. What is also remarkable is how unhappy Hayley was at this period of her life - she had no confidence whatsoever in her own acting, and spent much of her time off-camera hanging out with McShane and drinking too much.

One Fine Day (1996 Michael Hoffman)

This is rather a good film, actually, we both thought in the classic Hollywood model yet unmistakably modern (that it all takes place on location and in one day, for example). And it's not edited like ping-pong, thus giving Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney (a descendant of Lincoln's mother, don't you know) the air in which to perform (well). The little budding friendship going on between the kids Mae Whitman and Alex Linz is another good element. With Charles Durning, Ellen Greene, Amanda Peet, Holland Taylor.

Photographed by Oliver Stapleton, edited by Garth Craven.

Loved the ending too - they both fall asleep.

Oh yeah - it was written by Terrel Seltzer (How I Got Into College) and Ellen Simon, neither of whom have any credits to speak of.

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939 John Ford)

Young Mr. Lincoln is one of those sneaky films you find yourself discussing hours later. It's deceptive like that. For example, you've never seen Fonda looking like this, that makeup (Ford harangued Fonda into playing Lincoln - the latter thought he was too much like a deity - Ford had to remind him he's playing the young 'jack-leg' lawyer). And his height, and way of walking - I kept thinking of Raymond Massey in Arsenic and Old Lace, or Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York. In an incredibly weird coincidence, George Clooney, who starred in the next film we watched, is a descendant of Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks. (Ed. Hanks? Sure you don't mean Tom Hanks?)

Like all the best Fords, it feels episodic, but blends into a tremendous whole. For example, that incredible opening when he's chatting to his sweetheart, and in the very next scene, she's already dead. And that bit where the townsfolk ask what he knows about being a lawyer and he replies "Not enough to get me into trouble". And that great moment where the forward southern dame tells him he's a terrible dancer and invites him outside to talk - and when they're out there Lincoln sees his river and it reminds him of his gal and there's not a word spoken (quiet simplicity is very much a Fordian trait). And where he stops the mob. And selecting the jury - the drunk man who admits he's lied is accepted as an honest man. And that take where Lincoln rounds on witness Ward Bond that he's the real killer - one take - there's a cut in it but I bet it's not because that one take wasn't great - everything in the shot. And that scene at the end where Carrie Sue (Judith Dickens) kisses him - actually we didn't even know they were there, they appear after Ma's horse and cart have moved out of shot - and says something like "I don't know how I couldn't have kissed you", and then, as though spontaneously, she and her beau just run off.

As Q said, it's a film we'll be watching over and over again. I LOVE Ford. He's so goddam SUBTLE.

Ma is Alice Brady. What? Yes, the mother in My Man Godfrey. She was 46 and died that year of cancer. Ann Rutledge plays Lincoln's first love, Marjorie Weaver the southern lass, Richard Cromwell and Eddie Quillan the brothers and Arleen Whelan and Dorris Bowdon their girls and Ward Bond the witness. With Donald Meek, Edwin Maxwell.

Ford. "Everybody knows Lincoln was a great man, but the idea of the picture was to give the feeling that even as a young man you could sense there was going to be something great about this man. I had read a good deal about Lincoln, and we tried to get some comedy into it too, but everything in the picture was true. Lamar Trotti was a good writer and we wrote it together.
PB: That thunderstorm at the end very much gave a sense of Lincoln's future.
Ford: That was another one of those things we had to make up on the spot. There was a real thunderstorm, so I said 'Let's have him walk away, and then we'll dissolve into the statue at the Lincoln Memorial." 

Fonda did three Ford films that year back-to-back: this in the spring, Drums Along the Mohawk in the summer and The Grapes of Wrath in the autumn. For the record, Peter Bogdanovich's favourite Fords are Young Mr. Lincoln, How Green Was My Valley, They Were Expendable, My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, Wagon Master, The Searchers, The Wings of Eagles, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

The music's by Alfred Newman, photography by Bert Glennon.

Gilda (1946 Charles Vidor)

Not really a noir - the femme fatale turns out not to be, and there's a happy ending. Glenn Ford (The Big Heat, Human Desire, Cowboy), Rita Hayworth and George Macready are all good. Dialogue is crisp and ironic, especially from mens' room attendant Steven Geray, who acts as a kind of Greek chorus. Sophia Coppola picked the scene where we first meet Gilda as one of her favourites. Emotional obsession and destruction well depicted. Good Rudolph Maté photography. Maybe one Rita song too many in Montevideo (or wherever they are) - interrupts the momentum of the film. Joseph Calleia familiar from Touch of Evil and The Glass Key, Joe Sawyer is the heavy.

Story: EA Ellington, adaptation Jo Eisinger, screenplay Marion Parsonnet (and, uncredited, Ben Hecht). Liked some of Charles Nelson's editing, e.g. when Ford and Hayworth are dancing, as well as their meeting scene in which Macready is entirely cut out - it's just about these two.

Rita (or rather Vidor) does that snap into shot again later, in one of the dance numbers. She's iconic, whether acting or strutting her stuff, e.g. in 'Put the Blame on Mame' - - who's Mame?

Columbia. Didn't recognise Macready, from My Name is Julia Ross, The Big Clock, The Great Race, up to Count Yorga Vampire! He kept reminding me of the dummy in Dead of Night!

The Imitation Game (1980 Richard Eyre)

I was intrigued by this Time Out review, by John Wyver: "Ian McEwan's brilliant script, perfectly realised by Eyre, was the television drama of 1980." Long unavailable, it's now out on DVD. Its story of a young ATS volunteer (the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army) in the early days of WWII, who is crushed by men throughout was as relevant to its year of broadcast. Her father doesn't speak to her, her boyfriend belittles her, a publican tries to throw her out for doing nothing, then assaults her, her CO punishes her, and finally a friendly code-breaker who's unable to make love with her throws a hissy fit - she ends up in a cell for the duration. And all this for trying to do something useful in the war effort, and use her bright mind.

Harriet Walter and Brenda Blethyn look terribly young; with Nicholas le Prevost, Lorna Charles, Bernard Gallagher, Gillian Martell, Simon Chandler, Patricia Routledge, Geoffrey Chater, Carol MacReady (sergeant), Danny Webb. A BBC Play for Today. Whilst involving Bletchley Park, is has nothing to do with the Alan Turing story filmed under the same title.

Eyre is also a prominent theatre director, also made Notes on a Scandal, Iris, The Insurance Man, several other Plays for Today.

Life on Mars (2006-7, Matthew Graham, Tony Jordan, Ashley Pharoah)

Quite a clever idea - to show a current day policeman at odds with the way things were done in 1973 - which is also not a little fanciful and silly. Enjoyable to watch again, particularly verbal and physical sparring scenes between John Sim and Philip Glenister, and Sweeney-ish moments.

With Liz White, Dean Andrews, Marshall Lancaster and Noreen Kershaw, with guest stars such as Joanne Froggatt, Lee Ingleby, Kevin McNally, Archie Panjabi, Steve Evetts, Peter Wight.

But. The last of sixteen episodes is a real mess, incomprehensible, wrong-footed, terrible. You have to know how to get out of these things. Was the end written at the beginning, because it feels more like it was made up on the spot by imaginative eight year olds?

As well as Pride, Liz still works on TV and is in the new series of Unforgotten.

The Boat That Rocked (2009 Richard Curtis & scr)

Favourite moment: Chris O'Dowd singing along to 'Stay With Me Baby'.

And Nighy: "Ah. I'm afraid we're in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Going back to earlier comments, in the first fifty minutes of the film there's hardly a single shot longer than two seconds. It's exhausting. Was Ms Hickox hopped up on gin and juice? We'll ask her...

Storywise, there are too many characters and not really a central driving story. Despite some fun moments it's really not one of Curtis's best.

Sabrina (1954 Billy Wilder)

 

Long Shot (2019 Jonathan Levine)

Story by Dan Sterling (writer / producer King of the Hill, Seth's The Interview), screenplay by he and Liz Hannah (The Post). It manages to be credible and avoids gross-out humour - scene where she's tripping and manages a hostage situation is terrific.

Dans la Ville Blanche (1983 Alan Tanner & scr)

A slow, quiet, sad film - the 'white' city signifies depression and loneliness. Ship engine room worker Bruno Ganz gets off at Lisbon and doesn't go back, wanders the city and falls in love with bar girl Teresa Madruga, whilst writing to his wife back home in Germany, Julia Vonderlinn. Becomes somewhat hypnotic. Super 8 footage of girl, city cobbles, a pair of curtains blowing in the wind, the sea. And the final moments - he's on his way home, and there's another girl..

Score by Jean-Luc Barbier wouldn't be out of place in a Mike Leigh film.

The Road to Perdition (2002 Sam Mendes)

A wonderful collaboration of talents, both in front of and behind the camera. Best take-aways: the calmness of Tyler Hoechlin, the score by Tom Newman (who I just found out is a lovely feller) and Conrad's 'every frame's a painting' imagery.

Edited by Jill Bilcock who's worked with Baz Luhrman on Romeo+Juliet, The Dressmaker, and Moulin Rouge, as well as Red Dog, The Young Victoria, Elizabeth, The Dish, I.Q., Muriel's Wedding, Strictly Ballroom, A Cry in the Dark and Dogs in Space.

News of the World (2020 Paul Greengrass & co-scr)

Something of a Paper Moon variant, with travelling newspaper reader Hanks taking orphan ex squaw Helena Zengel to relatives across 1870 Texas. Interesting about post-war attitudes and laws (slavery hasn't yet been abolished, southerners aren't allowed to carry firearms). Exciting and satisfying despite - or because of - Hollywood ending.

Photographed by Darius Wolski in natural light, music by James Newton Howard, edited by William Goldenberg. Adapted from novel by Paulette Jiles, by Luke Davies and Greengrass.

Clint Eastwood: A Life in Film (2007 Michael Henry Wilson & scr)

Filmed around the time of Flags of Our Fathers and Letters to Iwo-Jima, a project Clint obviously found quite personal - he relates how the battle is little talked about or documented. And to make a film about the Japanese side, in Japanese, took balls.

The interviewer suggests Bridges of Madison County is closest to the actor's real personality; he doesn't disagree, but cites Million Dollar Baby as being more emotional.

Lovely to see Spielberg turn up on set, and they hug.

Some of Heat and Dust (1983 James Ivory)

It takes a while for the twin plots - involving Julie Christie in the present and Greta Scaachi in the 1920s - to get going, and Q became bored.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote it, Walter Lassally shot it, Richard Robbins wrote the music.

The Serpent (2021 Hans Herbots, Tom Shankland)

An original screenplay by Richard Warlow and Toby Finlay, based on real events. Jenna Colman is fine of course as partner of murderer Tahar Rahim; Billy Knowle and Ellie Bamber are Dutch people on the case. (Bamber was in Shankland's Les Mis.)

My heart sank during episode 4 when I realised it was eight hours. What's with this excessive length thing? Could Warner Bros have told this story in an hour and a quarter? It seems to go on forever, and the ending doesn't make sense (why does the Statute of Limitations apply in Thailand but not in Nepal?)

Structurally I think it was a good idea to tell the current day story of our embassy investigator, but I would have cross cut that against the charisma-less Serpent's story told chronologically - all these '3 months' earlier / 2 months later' in that annoying flight departures board graphic are wearisome.

Also slightly fascinated by all the smoking. Seems too many shots of people lighting cigarettes, which in older movies tended to be done at more significant moments. Also Howell doesn't look like he has ever smoked.

Some dreadful dialogue, though did like:

McInnerney: If you'd known all this was going to happen, would you have let me kill him?
Howell: No.
McInnerney: Maybe there is a future for you in the Diplomatic Service.

The Cat's Meow (2001 Peter Bogdanovich)

Orson Welles told Peter thirty years before about the unspoken story of the death of film director Tom Ince on board WR Hearst's yacht in 1924 - it was totally covered up. The most likely explanation was that Hearst killed Ince thinking he was Chaplin fooling around with Hearst's mistress Marion Davies, and that he bought Louella Parsons' silence by giving her a lifetime contract as a journalist - as Peter himself said, up until that point she was a nothing. Abuse of power stories remain topical. This is very successful.

Kirsten Dunst as Davies, Joanna Lumley as novelist Elinor Glyn and Eddie Izzard as Chaplin, take the acting honours. With Cary Elwes as Ince, Edward Herrmann as Hearst, Claudia Harrison as Ince's mistress and Jennifer Tilly as Parsons. With Victor Slezak, James Laurenson (doctor), Roland Vibert (steward), Chira Schoras, Claudie Blakely.

Written by Steven Peros. Photographed by Bruno Delbonnel. Lovely production design too. Weirdly it didn't get an international release.

Dunst as Davies larking about on set is one of the highlights, as well as Peter's super-long dissolves.

Judy (2019 Rupert Goold)

Who Goold? Made film of Fiennes's Richard III, then King Charles III, an imagining of Charles becoming king, then this, which was written by Tom Edge (Strike), from Peter Quilter's play.

This is really successful, Zellweger's Judy perfect but Jessie Buckley also great in supporting role. The others don't really matter, through we should mention Darci Shaw as young Judy.

The Hackney Empire stands in for the Talk of the Town, beautifully photographed by Ole Bratt Birkeland.

Melanie Ann Oliver knows when not to cut - more later.