The Sun Comes Up (1949 Richard Thorpe)

The Lassie musical. Well, Jeanette MacDonald warbles powerfully, reminding me of Bianca Castafiore in the Tintin series. The dog is there principally to help her bond to orphan Claude Jarman Jr. Amusing stuff with locals, particularly general store owner Percy Kilbride, who I guess we recognise from Fallen Angel and The Southerner (and Margaret Hamilton from The Wizard of Oz). Lloyd Nolan shows up eventually.

Pal doesn't have an awful lot to do until a tense fire at the orphanage in the finale.

According to my records I previously saw this on 7 Feb 1976, and awarded it 3 out of 10!

Photographed by Ray June, music by André Previn.

The Painted Hills (1951 Harold F Kress)

The last of the MGM Lassie films, this is an adaptation of Alexander Hull's novel 'Shep of the Painted Hills', written by True Boardman, concerning gold prospecting in the 19th century. 'It's not Treasure of the Sierra Madre' I told Q, but actually she'd hit the nail on the head - the greed for gold turns the wheels of the plot (and as such, Greed can't stop coming to mind). Paul Kelly is the nice prospector who's murdered by Bruce Cowling, who then poisons the dog. It turns into a battle of vengeance between these two, ending in the snow.. I hadn't expected it to be so good - Pal at his most growly...

With Gary Gray as the kid, Art Smith, Ann Doran, Chief Yowlachie. Music by Daniele Amfitheatrof, photographed by Alfred Gilks and Harold Lipstein. We saw a public domain version with very washed out colour. The Roan Group copy is apparently the one to go for. I am told the Digiview 'Digitally Remastered' copy is as bad as all the others.

'Lassie' actually gets top billing!

Harold Kress was of course the editor of The Yearling, later in life Oscar winner for How the West Was Won and The Towering Inferno, which he shared with his son Carl (who actually cut 75% of it). Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Mrs Miniver were other notable credits. This was one of just three features he directed.

According to my old filing card records, I had never seen this one before.

The Deal (2008 Steven Schachter & co-scr)

William H Macy helped adapt Peter Lefcourt's novel. We very much enjoyed his Hollywood wheeler-dealer, who manages to get a black Jewish action movie about Disraeli (!) into production whilst beguiling exec Meg Ryan (who's in her weird hair and lips period cf. Kate and Leopold (2001)).

We have it on good authority that Hollywood actually is this crazy.

With LL Cool J, Elliott Gould, John's son Jason Ritter, Fiona Glascott, Sharon Raginiano (director), Natasha Nova.

Soul (2020 Pete Docter (with Kemp Powers), co-scr)

They and Mike Jones wrote a story about a jazz musician who's stuck in a kind of pre and afterlife, where he has to engage recalcitrant spirit 22 to follow him to Earth to get his body back. It's quite weird and not as focused as Docter's others (and perhaps over the heads of children) but the jazz sequences are absolutely remarkable and the barber's shop / sycamore scenes lovely.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross shared the soundtrack Oscar with Jon Batiste, who provided the jazz compositions and arrangements. It also won for Best Animated Film.

The eclectic cast comprises Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad (This Is Us), Angela Bassett.

The Descendants (2011 Alexander Payne)

The other great Hawaii film.

Ten years... Clooney (I think it's his best performance) lost the Oscar to Jean Dujardin, Payne to Hazanavicius, Kevin Tent to Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The screenplay won. It's very nicely shaded - you can't help thinking that part of the reason he's not selling the land is simply to deprive his wife's lover of commissions from sales of property that would be built there.

Amara Miller: "George is amazing. He’s a really, really fun guy. I mean he’s hilarious, of course! He’s really energetic and super playful. He definitely made me feel really welcome and I learned a lot from him. It was fantastic working with him on my first movie."

Shailene Woodley: "I’m not an actor who approaches films doing a lot of research. I do zero research... On this film, I thought a little about her back history, but I maybe spent an hour thinking about it, and that’s it. I think you get the most honest performances when an actor shows up to set with their lines memorized. That’s a very important thing that a lot of people seem to forget. You have a pre-conceived notion of what you want the scene to be, but once you get there, that goes out the window and it turns out to be a way that you never imagined. When you’re on set and you professionally listen to what the other actors have to say, then the emotion is naturally evoked, especially with this screenplay. So many times, you get a script and it says, “And then, the character cries,” and you read the lines and think, “That would never make me cry. Those lines are so untruthful.” But, with this script, if our characters were supposed to be emotional, we would be overly emotional because the words were so thought-provoking and emotion-provoking. My approach is just to be honest to the situation.... Someone asked me about George Clooney’s image, but he has no image. He has the image of what materialism has given him, but as a human being, he has no image because he is just so normal and so human. Talk about a professional. He’s a great actor because he’s a great actor, not because an editor makes him look good. I think a lot of people don’t realize that about him. I literally could talk about him for hours. It’s a dangerous subject."

'It's a dangerous subject.' I like that.

Shailene had been in lots and lots of TV, things like The O.C. and Without a Trace but this was her film breakthrough, which led to The Spectacular Now, Divergent, The Fault In Our Stars, Big Little Lies and The Mauritanian.

Aloha (2015 Cameron Crowe & scr)

 Utterly brilliant in all departments.

The Way Way Back (2013 Nat Faxon, Jim Rash & scr)

You really feel the boy's situation, and thus why 'Water Wizz' and Sam Rockwell in particular are such a salvation. Is Sam Rockwell ever not brilliant?

Faxon and Rash shared Oscar for The Descendants.

Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, Liam James, Allison Janney (so good at catching an essentially unhappy but overly-sociable type), AnnaSophia Robb, Maya Rudolph, Amanda Peet, Rob Corddry, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash.

Let Him Go (2020 Thomas Bezucha & scr)

From Larry Watson novel. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner travel to North Dakota in order to try and retrieve their grandson from bastards. He knows it will end up in the shit - it does. Chief mama bastard is Leslie Manville, giving an extraordinary performance, with Jeffrey Donovan and Will Brittain as sons, and Booboo Stewart as the Red Indian. Has more than its share of odd character names: Blackledge, Weboy and Dragswolf. Beautifully photographed by Guy Godfree in Panavision, production design by Trevor Smith, music Michael Giacchino.

Lane looks good in cowboy gear.

Adventureland

Enjoyed this. Like Mottola. Script has ring of truth. Always good to see Eisenberg and Stewart - good match.

Lassie Come Home (1943 Fred M Wilcox)

As well as well-known cast, have to acknowledge the old couple. She's Dame Mae Whitty (of course) from The Lady Vanishes with her real life husband Ben Webster (one of whose films is The Gay Lord Quex!*) Love the way she calls the dog 'Herself' and Gwenn 'Your Highness' - neither want to name her.

Also Arthur Shields familiar from Ford - he is in fact the brother of Barry Fitzgerald, who I was only thinking about when cutting the grass. J. Pat O'Malley is the horrible Hynes. Batman's Alan Napier also in cast.

Pal was about three here, lived to the ripe old age of 17 - not bad for a rough collie (particularly one that had had so much exertion), died at the home of his trainer Rudd Weatherwax, who then couldn't bear to watch another Pal film.

* The 1917 version, obviously. 'An affianced Lord tries to compromise a maid, the witness to his affair with a Duchess.' Remade for the BBC in 1983. An 1899 comedy play by Arthur Wing Pinero.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949 John Ford)

I know - it was only February - but as we are doing the Cavalry Trilogy, I couldn't allow Q to miss this divine chapter. And do you know what? It was so easy to watch again. It looks stunning (Winton Hoch), the acting's great, and the barroom brawl is hilarious.

One of my favourite scenes emerges as that in which Wayne comes in to his CO's office to complain about having to take women along on his mission (which he's right to do, by the way). The CO allows him to put his complaint in writing, helping him with his spelling. Then one of the women in question, who is the CO's wife, enters - the indispensable Mildred Natwick - 'Iron Drawers' or something - and she greets him like an old feisty friend, which they are.. and suddenly the whole dynamic of the scene is altered - it's no longer just his CO but an old friend and ally. This friendly relationship with superior officers is something that comes up time and again in Ford.

It's fabulous. Q said the last sunset scene reminded her of GWTW - I knew exactly what she meant. And to answer her question, it was shot in 28 days. 'Of course he shot very spare. He never made unnecessary close-ups.. If he had a three shot in a dramatic scene, he didn't go from head to head, he kept it in that three shot to get the contact between the people.' (In fact if you watch closely, he does sometimes move the camera to bring in another person. It's all very subtle, to be sure, to be sure.) And on directing Ben Johnson: 'Ford finally got him so loose he practically stole the picture.' Harry Carey Jr. to Lindsay Anderson, 'About John Ford' (1981).

And: Two great women of strength. Though when McLaglen shouts at Joanne Dru 'Shut your gob!' it's hilarious.

And: That dog sleeping on parade. Q's right, it accompanies the cavalry everywhere.

And: The stampeding of ponies. Incredibly well directed and photographed.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009 Marc Lawrence & scr)

Unfortunately, my previous thoughts still apply. A much inferior film to Music and Lyrics. There's the chemistry problem again - there's none between Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, who's never been my favourite actress to begin with. They are pursued into witness protection in Ray, Wyoming by killer Changeling's Michael Kelly, sheltered by nice gun-totin' cop Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen. Grant's quips ("Luckily I booked ahead to get a table by the mayonnaise") seem out of place, and the small town feeling so successfully mined in a film like Doc Hollywood isn't there.

Not without style - it's photographed by Florian Ballhaus and edited by Susan Morse.

With Elizabeth Moss, Jesse Liebman, Wilford Brimley.

Even the title is rubbish. They don't seem like Morgans at all.

Kidulthood (2006 Menhaj Huda)

Bleak look at fifteen year olds in and around Ladbroke Grove, written somewhat bluntly, but effectively, by Noel Clarke, who gives a performance of glowering anger. None of the adults seem to know what's going on , and most of the kids are severely lacking in feelings in one way or another. They are Aml Ameen, Red Madrell (pregnant girl), Adam Deacon, Jaime Winston, Femi Oyeniran, Madeleine Fairley, Nicholas Holt, Cornell John (rather scary as Uncle Curtis), Rafe Spall.

Interesting music, shot by Brian Tufano (Sean Bobbitt was 'additional photographer'). Victoria Boydell was doing some very interesting things with split screen but otherwise I wasn't really paying attention to the editing, because I'm an arse. Though I recall now there was a good montage of the two girls taking drugs.

Music and Lyrics (2007 Marc Lawrence & scr)

Q's antidote to Sorry to Bother You, also reviewed here, is most welcome, with Grant in great form as faded eighties pop star, (with 'pop hip') plenty of funny lines, viz.

"We need to get some ice on this."
"Only if it's attached to some whisky."

You can't really detect the slightly chilly relationship between Grant and Drew Barrymore, but they don't have much chemistry and you can't really believe they'd make a good couple, somehow.

Horribly sexualised female pop performer well caught (Haley Bennett).

Sorry To Bother You (2018 Boots Riley & scr)

Right from the off, when we see these ads for WorryFree, we know we're in strange and probably sinister waters. Then when Lakeith Stanfield (good as ever) suddenly develops a 'white voice' that clearly isn't his, we understand there's a pointed satire at work here with various targets: office culture, corporate greed, US TV, the behaviour of giant corporations like Amazon, race - performance art, even - underscored by extremely quirky music (by Nate Brenner, Merrill Garbus, Boots, Tune Yards and The Coup). It becomes extremely weird, with the discovery of horse-people (shades of  O Lucky Man! here when he discovers them) being bred to improve productivity. It's rather difficult to digest and long, leaving you exhausted, but does provide some laughs, e.g. 'niggershit' rap.

With Tessa Thompson (War on Everyone, Westworld), Danny Glover, Steven Yeun, Armie Hammer, Jermaine Fowler, Patton Oswalt, Kate Berlant (office manager).

Brick Lane (2007 Sarah Gavron)

'See you on Thursday?" Christopher Simpson says to Tannishtha Chatterjee, and it sounds like a line from Brief Encounter, which is then glimpsed on TV. And we somehow seem to be in In the Mood for Love territory again, too, especially with the beautifully designed colours of the interiors, and Robbie Ryan's frankly stunning photography. In the Mood for a Brief Encounter and a Bhaji.

And the loser husband Satish Kaushik, who goes to the meeting and actually says something worthwhile. In other words, Laura Jones and Abi Morgan's adaptation of Monica Ali's novel isn't as straightforward as you might think. We thought it was rather good.

With Naeema Begum and Lana Rahman as the girls, Lalita Ahmed as the money-lender.

Melanie Oliver cuts in those flashbacks to Bangladesh artfully.

The Next Karate Kid (1994 Christopher Cain)

Shows signs of having being mucked about with. Surely the reason the Zen monks are there is to get involved in the action at the end? Where's the reunion with Mom (Constance Towers)? Some of the action looks badly staged, a lot of the dialogue is awful, so is the music. The hawk is kidnapped, then the next scene is they pick it up from animal rescue? (By the way, there are two shots of the hawk flying that are the same shot used twice, which I think is very poor.) The Oldsmobile 442 doesn't do very well. What is the boyfriend's job? He says it's 'security', but just seems to walk up and down on top of trains.

Still, we quite enjoyed it although it was nonsense and Hilary Swank is good in the title role. Maybe Pat Morita was on the sauce. Laszlo Kovacs shot it, so that alone makes it worth watching. Is it worth watching? Not really.

The Lovebirds (2020 Michael Showalter)

Written by Aaron Abrams, Brendan Gall. A couple - let's identify them as Issa Rae (wrote and starred in five season Insecure) and Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) - become embroiled in a murder, try to solve the crime before the police catch them. Not that funny, but quite enjoyable. Showalter made The Big Sick too.

Palm Springs (2020 Max Barbakow & co-scr)

Andy Samberg (SNL) hooks up with Cristin Milioti (Modern Love, Fargo Season 2, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Sopranos). Turns out he's been stuck in a Groundhog Day time loop - now so's she. Kept getting a hint of Vanilla Sky's 'Abre los Ojos'. It's fun, and works, despite derivative nature of story (Andy Siara and Barbakow), thanks to enthusiastic performances from the leads and J.K. Simmons.

Loved all the beer cans he seems to have permanently in his hands. And when she's messing with the motorbike cop - "I touched your bike!" Very enjoyable.

With June Squibb, Peter Gallagher, Meredith Hagner, Camila Mendes, Tyler Hoechlin.

Too Close (2021 Sue Tully, writer Clara Salaman)

An unusual ITV three-parter, in that it's not a police procedural nor a bonkers thriller but what is effectively a two-hander psychological drama, extremely well acted by Emily Watson and Denise Gough, who's a revelation. Adapted from Natalie Daniels' novel (and therefore I don't think the credit 'Creator' for Salaman should apply. Ah. Daniels is a pseudonym for Salaman. So I take that back). Tully does a good job, isn't annoying. Ends well. My only slight carp is that Gough seems to be able to read the psychoanalyst rather too well (I was thinking Silence of the Lambs at the beginning), whereas there isn't really any sign of her being so perceptive when she's 'normal'.

With Thalissa Teixiera, James Sives, Risteard Cooper, Chizzy Akudolu, Karl Johnson.

Photographed by Neus Ollé.

Honestly the lengths these actresses have to go to to land a decent part - have your hair fall out, cover yourself with bleach, walk half naked through the night rain...

(un)Safe House (2012 Daniel Espinosa)

Watched it mainly for Brendan Gleeson. That was a mistake - he's only in it for about 6 minutes.

Let's gleefully smash up Capetown. Yay!

It's essentially very rapidly edited chases, gun battles and fights all the way, and it's a shame there isn't more repartee between Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, some humour, which might have made it more fun. Set in South Africa, featuring a nice old BMW, it's utterly incredible and has an unsatisfactory ending (writer David Guggenheim). Comes across like a bad version of Homeland. Not sure Reynolds has made a good film.

With Vera Farmiga, Sam Shepherd, Ruben Blades (counterfeiter), Fares Fares (the pursuer), Nora Arnezeder.

The Forty-Year Old Version (2020 Radha Blank & scr)

Not exactly a debut, Radha is best known as a playwright and stand up - her birth date is not known. A sharp and funny (e.g. theatre director explaining the soya milk symbolism) look at modern day Harlem and the creative process (and aging). Somewhat long, nicely shot in black and white widescreen (subtly fading into colour at the end) by Eric Branco.

With Peter Kim as her friend and agent, Oswin Benjamin the writer of tracks, Haskiri Velazquez her adoring student, Imani Lewis, Antonio Ortiz, T.J. Atoms, Reed Birney (theatre producer). With amusing commentary by various people from the hood, and the interjections of a homeless man.

Rocks (2019 Sarah Gavron)

Gavron made Suffragette in 2013 and before that Brick Lane, in 2007. This isn't the rough, hand held film I imagined it to be (though it does go hand held when it wants to, or uses phone footage for more a sense of what the kids see). Hélène Louvart (have a look at her filmog to read a load of titles you've never heard of before) is on camera (hooray), the music's by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch and the editing by Maya Maffioli.

Anyway, the main event of course is Bukky Bakray, who won the EE Rising Star Award at BAFTA on Sunday, who's great, but actually all the cast are very natural (Lucy Pardee won the film's one BAFTA for casting these non-professionals), particularly best friend Kosar Ali, little brother D'angelou Osei Kissiedu  and Shaneigha-Monik Greyson.

It's great to see how well generally the kids from this melting pot of Morpeth School, Bethnal Green, mix and get on. It was also filmed in Hackney (tower blocks) and Dalston Market.

Good script from Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson, with the actors involved in shaping their characters. In fact it's a terrifically female ensemble behind the camera - apart from the above, all key roles in production design, art and set decoration, makeup and costumes, first AD even, all women - most refreshing. And which fits the film well as apart from a couple of school authority figures, sometimes known as 'teachers', there's an almost total absence of male characters.

Loved the last track on the end credits. Finally tracked that down as 'Throne' by Koffee.

Perfect 10 (2019 Eva Riley & scr)

Definitely from the Andrea Arnold school of film-making (though without those little touches that make her so great), Perfect 10 is a very enjoyable and realistic feature debut for the film-maker and stars Frankie Box and Alfie Deegan. (Like Arnold, Riley had made several shorts, including Joyride, a Scottish BAFTA nominee, Diagnosis and Patriot, Palm D'Or nominated at Cannes.) It's nice and short, too.

With Charlene Whyte, William Ash, Billy Mogford.

Farewell My Lovely (1975 Dick Richards)

Raymond Chandler's wry, snaky private eye thriller's been adapted by David Zelag Goodman but remains firmly in period; no doubt the producers (the British company ITC) were chasing the success of Chinatown, though lack that film's budget or style; David Shire's score is emulative (if that is a word), and it even shares the same cameraman (John Alonzo). The Godfather's Dean Tavoularis is the production designer.

Robert Mitchum is suitably weary in the part of the private eye, Jack O'Halloran somewhat wooden as 'Moose' Malloy (I wouldn't say that within earshot, naturally). Charlotte Rampling is suitably slutty but lacks the true femme fatale aura. With John Ireland, Sylvia Miles (Oscar nominated), Harry Dean Stanton, Anthony Zerbe, Sylvester Stallone and - way down the cast - as 'woman in ballroom' (the chatty one, I guess) none other than Joan Shawlee.

It works well enough, and makes explicit what the forties version would only be able to allude to. Good ending.

Interestingly, the Judge's mansion was Greenacres, Harold Lloyd's former home, which also features in Shampoo. Though Lloyd left it to the public as a museum, he didn't leave any money to fund its upkeep. It was sold in 1975 and demolished the next year to make 15 separate houses.

It Happened One Night (1934 Frank Capra)

Joe Walker's cinematography is so shimmeringly diffused that it almost imparts a sense of fairytale over the gradual warming of relationships between Princess Colbert and Peasant Gable (both marvellous). Capra's camera is fluid, but relishes long takes when it finds them, Robert Riskins's screenplay (from Samuel Hopkins Adams' short story) is tough and sweet, and seminal, reaching anything from The Sure Thing to Runaway Bride.

"Why don't you take off all your clothes? You can stop forty cars."

Always Be My Maybe (2019 Nahnatchka Khan)

Thoroughly enjoyed this Asian romcom, written by its stars Ali Wong (Sasha) and Randall Park (Marcus) (and Michael Golamco). They play it well, too, and although it's all thoroughly predictable, that's sometimes what you want.

With James Saito, Michelle Buteau, Vivian Bang and Keanu Reeves.

花樣年華 / In The Mood For Love (2000 Wong Kar Wei & scr)

A sneaky, brilliant, gorgeous thing. It's elusive, like a Marienbad, and indeed there are comparisons, for example in the way you see a scene which seems to be told twice with a different outcome - you have to keep your eye on it. And sometimes you're not quite sure where you are in time. And, like the French masterpiece, it is (a) absolutely gorgeous to look at, and (b) a sad, almost tragic, experience.

Clive James finds Maggie Cheung, and her hundred cheongsams, gorgeous; Cannes thought Tony Leung the Best Actor of the year; BAFTA saw fit to give its foreign film award to another Asian film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The cinematography, by Christopher Doyle (and Ping Bin Lee) and production design by William Chang (who unusually was also the editor and the costume designer!) are so good and distinctive that you could take any frame of film and call it art. 

It's shot in the old 1.66:1 ratio and looks like it's old film stock to make it absolutely right for the 1960s. It's perfect - I mean, there's a scene where Maggie Cheung walks up the stairs from the noodle place to Michael Galasso's music (the theme in fact written originally by Shigeru Umebayashi), and every footstep is on the beat. 

And a scene with Tony Leung smoking, and you've never seen cigarette smoke in such a beautiful way. (It makes you want to smoke.)

And there's this pattern, particularly in the musical sequences, of the camera laterally tracking its subjects and leaving them behind a texture, obscured or hidden in some way, like their love has to be hidden. It's very like Brief Encounter, and Sofia Coppola is a big fan, specifically mentioning it in her Oscar acceptance speech for Lost in Translation.

It's very wonderful. Have to mention the indispensable Mrs. Suen, Rebecca Pan, and the earthy Ping Lam Seu. And the great (noisy) sound design (Li Chi Kuo and Shiang-Chu Tang).

Finally, Nat King Cole in Portguese adds an intriguing resonance. WELL overdue. Must watch 2046 and other Wais.