Mare of Easttown (2021 Creator/writer Brad Inglesby)

Kate Winslet is great in plain, grumpy, no nonsense mode as detective in toxic community. Potentially about a girl who has disappeared a year ago, but then another young girl is murdered... Kate's back story emerges gradually. Mood lightens with well-meaning detective drafted in from another county, Evan Peters.

Then the plot takes a daft turn when she plants some heroin on her dead son's wife. The police commissioner works out it was her immediately, and she's suspended. Then the action ramps up spectacularly in episode 5, directed - as are they all - by Craig Zobel.

With Angourie Rice, Guy Pearce, Julianna Nicholson, Jean Smart, Jophn Douglas Thompson

I keep thinking watching this that the original version of The Killing / Forbrydelsen (2007) was very influential.

Title is stupid. Well, try it yourself. "Nick of Reading." Seven hour long episodes for HBO. Good, well written series

Before We Die (2021 Adaptation Matt Baker)

Anaemic rewrite of Swedish original, fairly incredible, in this version, at any rate. Copper Lesly Sharp from highly unflattering opening titles on, allows ex-con son to join a restaurant populated by murderous Chechens. He is Patrick Gibson, who we think has some sort of presence, but we're not really sure - all the acting is slightly questionable. He was in Their Finest, the only thing we've seen. Issy Knopfler is - we think - Mark's daughter. Also Vincent Regan, some people...

'Original soundtrack by Jeroen Swinnen'. What does that mean? Music, I presume. Why not say that?

Great Expectations (2011 Brian Kirk)

Sarah Phelps' BBC three hour adaptation is typically dark - there's barely a laugh in the whole thing, the evil Orlick is in, the nice Biddy is out. Ray Winstone is a good Magwich, Gillian Anderson Miss Havisham, Douglas Booth a somewhat anaemic Pip. With Vanessa Kirby (Estella), David Suchet (a chilly Jaggers), Paul Ritter (Wemmick), Shaun Dooley (Joe), Mark Addy (The Salisbury Poisonings, White House Farm), Harry Lloyd, Claire Rushbrook, Charlie Creed-Miles, Tom Burke, Oscar Kennedy (young Pip).

DP Florian Hoffmeister, editors Victoria Boydell (episodes 1 & 3) and Guy Bensley (episode 2), composer Martin Phipps, production designer David Roger. BBC / Masterpiece (Rebecca Eaton).

I have two problems with this adaptation. One is that Orlick doesn't get punished, which is very disappointing for the audience. The second is that the money appears to be safe from the law, but then isn't mentioned again.

Master of None - Season Three (2021 Aziz Ansari)

Or Moments in Love, Chapters 1 - 5. This begins in a very chilly way, like Kubrick had lost his sense of humour and filmed it. Everything's in long, static wide angle shots, in 4x3, and this gives proceedings a very detached and remote feeling. In theory, it should be like John Ford, but it so isn't. We follow the decision of Lena Waithe and her girlfriend Naomi Ackie - living out in the country - to have a baby. Aziz is hardly in it, but it transpires that the fallout from the Bobby Cannavale storyline can't have been doing him any good as he's back living with his parents and new girlfriend.

Then we stick with the girls, who separate, episode 4 focusing entirely on Ackie and her decision to have IVF - a painful episode, good education for those wanting to go on the same journey. And then in an ironic ending, the couple are back together having an affair, whilst both married with children. The fixed camera and long takes style remains throughout, accompanied by countryside 'pretties' and classical songs.

Ackie's British, from the End of the F***ing World  and Yardie.

Written by Aziz, Alan Yang and Lena Waithe, who I didn't realise also wrote Queen and Slim.

So, a massive departure in content and style, dry and not funny, quite successful. We loved Cordelia Blair as the nurse, a former actual palliative care nurse, who was only originally in one scene but had a part that was considerably expanded.

This Is Us Season 5 (2020 Dan Fogelman)

This must have been written incredibly quickly, while it was being filmed, even. Everyone's distancing, quarantining etc. and the George Floyd story makes itself felt primarily through Randall and his family. Then when he confronts Kate about the fact that racism has in fact never been confronted in their family it's a brilliant way of combining the political with the personal. It's left to Beth to remind Randall that he came from misfortune and tragedy, and where that's taken him, cross cut against the story of young William and the baby. Randall and Kevin are really not connecting at all, after their last season finale fall-out.

And the doctor's melancholy version of 'Blue Skies' then laid over the ending... terrific stuff.

The old team are there of course - it's beautifully photographed and scored.

Love those episodes which begin completely randomly - lovely relationship between Vietnamese and his grand-daughter - how do they fit in? We think this ties in with the shock revelation that Randall's mother did not, after all, die.. at least, not when we thought she did. Meanwhile Kevin is relating to his new girlfriend Madison, played by Caitlin Thompson, who is married to Dan Fogelman and has a small part in Crazy, Stupid, Love. 

To support my opening contention, we now have to wait until the New Year to continue, because Episode 5 hasn't been completed!

Picking up in 2021, six is an entire flashback episode, telling the story of Randall's mother, played totally convincingly (as always) by Jennifer C Holmes and Angela Elayne Gibbs, narrated by Vien Hong (and featuring Kane Lieu as he, younger). It's a tearjerker. But where's the little girl, and who's is she?

It seemed a long haul, not concluding until the end of May. It all culminates at the wedding...That house above the cabin's finally been mentioned, and we think the next season will be the last. Ends on one of those scary flash forwards in which it looks like Kate is getting married again..

Chernobyl (2019 Johan Renck, writer Craig Mazin)

Swede Renck started out as a music video director, from Bowie and The Streets to Robbie Williams and Madonna, and ads, then got into TV via episodes of Breaking Bad etc. plus French-British crime drama The Last Panthers in 2015. Mazin had a not too interesting background of co-writing sequels like The Hangover II & III and Scary Movie 3 & 4. This is a five hour Sky / HBO co-production, showered with Emmys.

Despite the (literally) scalding treatment and subject matter, a series with great momentum and excitement, brilliantly written with what I coined 'Big Picture and Little Picture' - momentous events made real through human stories. Thus we have the totally doomed control room operatives, Paul Ritter, Robert Emms, and Sam Troughton (grandson of Patrick) intercut with the doomed fireman Adam Nagaitis and his wife, Jessie Buckley. Then in comes the combative pair of Jared Harris and Stellan Skarsgard, who gradually begin to respect each other, and a group of tough miners, who provide some of the funnier moments, which are most welcome (e.g. they all pat the Mining Bureaucrat so he's filthy, end up mining in the nude).

Harris is really a terrific actor, but so is Buckley - when they're onscreen you cannot take your eyes off them.

Then dog shooting (a mini essay on being corrupted by war), moon buggies to clear the roof, a court case and Harris being silenced - his suicide finally made the cover-up public. The fact it took until 2017 to finally seal over the reactor, which is only designed to last 100 years... what then? And that the other three reactors were still operational.

Very ominous music from Hildur Guonadottir (preferred it to her Joker score), DP fellow Swede (but not I think former collaborator with the director) Jakob Ihre, stunning editing (when you notice it - montage at end of episode 3, for example) from Jinx Godfrey and Simon Smith (assistant on Patrick Melrose and A Royal Night Out; edited episodes of Endeavour and Victoria).

With Emily Watson, Con O'Neill, Ralph Ineson, David Dencik, Adrian Rawlins, Barry Keoghan, Michael Socha (This Is England), Laura Elphinstone, Adrian Rawlins & Jamie Sives (both in Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself), Mark Lewis Jones (who's in everything), Billy Postlethwaite, Ron Cook, Donald Sumpter.

Goes without saying the makeup is incredible, and probably wincingly accurate.

At one point I asked Q how she knew the reactor had exploded. "What do you think happened," she replied. "a bird shit on the roof and it fell in?" Which serves me right for asking a stupid question.

Another Stakeout (1993 John Badham)

If Stakeout is a bubble gum movie, what's this - a candyfloss movie? ('More sugar and more holes' as Q quipped.) It certainly begins in an identical way to the first one, for some lazy, reassuring reason, but then turns into a different thing, with Rosie O'Donnell from the DA's office joining them on the stakeout and acting as a surrogate mother figure. Is it possible it's actually better than the original?

They certainly went to town on the house being blown up.

Er, nice dog, too, quite well assimilated into the story, which is by Jim Kouf.

With Dennis Farina, Cathy Moriarty, Marcia Strassman, Miguel Ferrer (Twin Peaks, Traffic, son of José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney).

Glossily photographed by Roy H. Wagner (in Panavision) in that cinéma du look style which had crept in from France, giving the bubble gum its requisite sheen.

Bit of a shame to see Dreyfuss in stuff like this after his eighties heyday.

Where Hands Touch (2018 Amma Assante & scr)

Whilst it sounded intriguing, I don't think we really needed a film about the Nazis were horrible to black people too, even mixed race half German ones. I think the screenplay handles its various issues in a clunky way, and in its plot development at the end actually makes no sense. I found the way everyone speaks with a slightly German accent terribly distracting - what's wrong with the Death of Stalin / Chernobyl approach and leaving accents regional? So all in all I'm afraid it's a no from me, and as A United Kingdom was also a bit disappointing, it leaves Belle as the only decent film she's made. Not a great title, either.

We both kept thinking of JoJo Rabbit!

Amandla Stenberg, Abbie Cornish, George MacKay, Chris Ecclestone, Tom Goodman-Hill. The nice baker Will Attenborough is the grandson of Dickie and Sheila Sim.

MacKay has a funny kind of presence - a slightly nervy but distracted one.

Photographed by Remi Adefarasin. Edited by Steve Singleton, who's normally at work in TV on things like Strike, Line of Duty, The Fall and Bodyguard. Filmed in Belgium and the Isle of Man.

Play Misty For Me (1971 Clint Eastwood)

I was out making cheese on toast for the whole of Roberta Flack's 'The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face' montage* and the Monterey Jazz scenes, and didn't miss anything - in other words, a redundant section. Otherwise thriller is quite good, and benefits from Carmel location, giving it a difference. Clint shoots uncomfortably close, but manages some good stabbing scenes, and the ending is really funny.

If he hadn't slept with her the second time, or the third, things might have been different. The randy racoon gets his comeuppance.

Jessica Walter is the nutter, Donna Mills the other girlfriend, John Larch the detective, Don Siegel the bartender and Jack Ging the fellow DJ.

Photographed by Bruce Surtees, edited by Carl Pingitore, written by Eastwood family friend Jo Heims (also Breezy) and Dean Reisner. Alexander Golitzen still acting as head of production design.

Clint didn't like the way Universal had handled The Beguiled, so elected to make this a Malpaso production - they still released it, but his relationship with Universal was on its way out.

*It's inclusion in the film contributed to its success.

Steve Jobs (2015 Danny Boyle)

Enjoyed this much more than last time, perhaps because I'm more familiar with - and a bigger fan - of Aaron Sorkin. Based on three pre-launch events taking place in 1984, 1988 and 1998, Sorkin even addresses the slightly artificial nature of the screenplay with a line about 'How come all these emotional pressures occur before a launch?' Michael Fassbender is the strange and unsympathetic leader, Kate Winslet is marketing manager / partner, Michael Stuhlbarg and Seth Rogan programmers and Jeff Daniels Apple's CEO. Katherine Waterson is the feckless mother of the little girl whose paternity is contested.

"It's not binary. You can be decent and gifted at the same time."

Has a great momentum, fuelled by direction, Daniel Pemberton's music and Elliot Graham's editing. Alwin Küchler is the DP.

Sleeping Murder (2006 Edward Hall)

Written by Stephen Churchett, the last published Marple, though written during the Blitz. The one where Sophia Myles thinks she's seen a murder, though couldn't possibly have, set in Dillmouth (Sidmouth, not sure about the house). Aiden McArdle is her helper, Geraldine McEwan the super sleuth.

With Julian Wadham, Harry Treadaway, Dawn French, Sarah Parish, Martin Kemp, Peter Serafinowicz, Russ Abbott, Una Stubbs, Helen Coker, Harriet Walter, Paul McGann.

Avanti (1972 Billy Wilder)

You have to wait until the very end of Wilder and Diamond's jewel of a screenplay for Wendell Armbruster Jr to call Carlucci 'Carlo', like his dad did. Unlike Miss Piggott, he never really warms up to the country - only to her.

"I have searched the hotel with a fine tooth comb - even the mudbaths." Revill and Mills' best performances. He is 91, she 79.

Maybe this mosaic would identify the church:

It did. It's the Chiesa del Soccorso, on the west coast of Ischia. (It was quite easy actually. I Googled 'Churches in Ischia' and it was the first one shown. Things must have been much more fun for location scouts before Google came along.)

Q called it a 'setup of mishaps'. Is that what every film is?

Malice (1993 Harold Becker)

The screenplay's credited to Aaron Sorkin (his first after A Few Good Men) and Scott Frank (who had Dead Again and Little Man Tate to his credit), but I don't know how that worked, and it was based on a story by Jonas McCord. Sorkin now calls it a 'mess', but we enjoyed it, it sort of reminded me of a 1940s film, with its slightly bonkers plot and femme fatale.

Good cast: Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman (great), Bill Pullman, Bebe Neuwirth, Anne Bancroft, Peter Gallagher, George C Scott, Josef Sommer, Gwyneth Paltrow.

I liked the writing, which is constantly sending you off in the wrong direction. You think Baldwin is going to be the baddie. You wonder if any of them might be the student killer. Because Pullman has married one of his students, you start to wonder if he's having an affair. And so on. And the story you think it's going to be isn't.

Enhanced by Gordon Willis' typically dark photography and Jerry Goldsmith's score.

Carry On Constable (1960 Gerald Thomas)

It was on. Rather cool to see the younger cast before they were made to do outrageous things, though Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey in drag is still funny. Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Eric Barker, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Leslie Phillips, Joan Sims, Shirley Eaton, Jill Adams, Joan Hickson, Irene Handl, Esma Cannon. Filmed in Ealing.

Innocent (2021 Writers Matthew Arlidge, Chris Lang)

Directed by Tracey Larcombe, four part ITV drama is about a woman (Katherine Kelly) released from prison after five years having been retried and found not guilty. Ex Jamie Bamber is with another - horrible - woman Priyanga Burford (good), Sean Dooley is investigating. Andrew Tiernan (Prime Suspect, Cracker) is the ex-para.

It wasn't who you thought dunnit, innit? A week from now it will all be forgotten. I agree with Q, who thinks a lot of recent TV drama is 'flouncy'.

Filmed in Keswick in the Lake District. Here there's a live webcam on the town centre and it's strangely fascinating.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943 Preston Sturges & scr)

Difficult to argue with this. 

Demarest to Diana Lynn: " Listen, Zipper-puss! Some day they're just gonna find your hair ribbon and an axe someplace. Nothing else! The Mystery of Morgan's Creek!"

Demarest with Diana Lynn

Akim Tamiroff, Brain Donlevy

Closer (2004 Mike Nichols)

We don't know what happened to Patrick Marber's foursome as after an hour of swapsies we switched off. The characters were unattractive - we should've stopped when Jude Law goes onto a sex site and pretends to Clive Owen he's a filthy version of Julia Roberts; Natalie Portman is the fourth. They should've played bridge instead of 'Did you fuck him here?' etc. A shame as a great cast and director.

Marber wrote for Steve Coogan a lot, also did Notes on a Scandal - remind me not to watch that again. It was quite a talked-about theatre success, but the film received mixed reviews. Derek Malcom said 'There is something terribly cold and uninvolving about this" which would have been good to read before buying it.

The Pursuit of Love (2021 Emily Mortimer & scr)

Lily James, Emily Beecham, Dominic West, Andrew Scott, Dolly Wells, John Heffernan (reuniting these two from Dracula), Freddie Fox, Assaas Bouab (Call My Agent), Shazad Latif 

Q pointed out Spanish Civil War parallels it with Any Human Heart, but that's in a completely superior category - the protagonist of this story is rather annoying and feeble - James' performance doesn't help. Did like the joke though about the basis on which she selected the cabins - 'Anyone with Labrador next to their name I put in one of the best rooms'. Turns out 'labrador' is Spanish for labourer.

Dominic West's character is too one-note, really. Enjoyed many of the performances but this isn't much of a story (Nancy Mitford) and it's not particularly well told, and the use of contemporary music tracks from all over the place didn't work for me.

The Pact (2021 Writer Peter McTighe)

Rather silly six part BBC drama about four friends who leave their dastardly boss drunk in the woods as a revenge prank ('The Prank' is an alternative title possibility.) When he's found dead, they begin to quaver. What makes matters worse is that one of the friends' husbands is the investigating police officer.

Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad), Eddie Marsan, Jason Hughes (This Life, Midsomer Murders), Heledd Gwynn, Eiry Thomas (Keeping Faith), Julie Hesmondhalgh (Happy Valley, Broadchurch), Abbie Hern, Rakie Ayola, Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk, The Personal History of David Copperfield), Aled ap Steffan (son), Gabrielle Creevy (BBC3 dark comedy In My Skin, Operation Mincemeat).

Q smartly guessed the ending.

The Odd Couple (1968 Gene Saks)

 Matthau, Lemmon, Simon. What?

The Fight (2018 Jessica Hynes & scr)

Well we thought Jessica's debut worked well, from the self-help tapes' ironic relationship to the action - and the way its music (by Luke Abbott) swells into the main story - to the twisty nature of the story itself, as Mum Jessica Hynes has to face that her daughter Sennia Nanua is being bullied, by the daughter of an ex school acquaintance. Loved the Blow Upish moment where the two mums confront each other through the wind in the leaves.

Jessica also learns to box, with Cathy Tyson teaching - but we were somewhat confused as to how this relates to the main story, which is about the way parental abuse filters down into the kids. Thus we have Jessica's back story with parents Anita Dobson and Christopher Fairbank (who was not in Porridge) and the bully Liv Hill (who's fabulous) and her alcoholic mum Rhona Mitra. With Sally Phillips, Shaun Parkes.

DP Ryan Eddlestone, editor Anna Dick.

Big Stone Gap (2014 Adriana Trigiani & scr)

Pharmacist Ashley Judd lives in a small mining community in Virginia. When her mother dies, she discovers (via solicitor Anthony Lapaglia) that she is in fact half-Italian. Meanwhile she's being sort of romanced by miner Patrick Wilson. The ending is somewhat corny, but we quite enjoyed it.

With: Whoopi Goldberg, Judith Ivey, Angelina Fiordellisi, John Benjamin Hickey (who we recognise from The Good Wife / Fight), Erika Coleman, Jenna Elfman, Jane Krakowski (30 Rock).

Miss Potter (2006 Chris Noonan)

Chris Noonan co-directed and co-wrote the 1987 Australian TV series Vietnam, which was about that country's involvement in the war, starring Nicole Kidman, then made Babe. This is a well-written and pleasing film from Richard Maltby, not seemingly based on any published material. It's his only theatrical feature script - one other TV movie credit. Perhaps he was just a massive Beatrix Potter fan.

Renee Zellweger is typically accomplished - makes it look easy - but that moment where she is told of the death of her fiancee Ewan McGregor by his sister Emily Watson puts her in the Oscar category.

With Bill Patterson in enormous whiskers, Barbara Flynn, Matyelok Gibbs (the silent governess), Anton Lesser, David Bamber, Phyllida Law, Lucy Boynton (young Beatrix), Lloyd Owen.

Good music by Nigel Westlake, and Rachel Portman. Charming animations.

Shot in London, Isle of Man, Lake District.

It's photographed by Andrew Dunn. Have to mention that tracking shot over the dining table through the course of the meal - unless it was digital, they must have had to replicate that camera move exactly at least four times to get it - most impressive.

Hail the Conquering Hero (1944 Preston Sturges & scr)

Sturges' wartime nod to the Marines, characterised by the last lines: Bracken: 'I knew the marines could do almost anything, but I never knew they could do anything like this." Bugsy: "You got no idea."

I didn't recognise Bugsy, Freddie Steel, from other Sturges or from anything else, for that matter. Despite not being in much else of note he was a supporting character in Black Angel. He makes a strong impression as slightly shell-shocked soldier.

As noted before, notable for its many scenes in one take, lasting several minutes - it's one of the least edited Sturges films. Raymond Walburn is one of many cast able to carry out these long scenes word perfect, with much complicated action and dialogue. And in that great bar room moment with Bracken and the marines, and the camera gradually tracks in on him, the sound disappears - and then, as noted before, when he says 'They bled and died' and you hear the cash register, that's when the sound comes back in. I think.

Al Bridge with Walburn

Mogambo (1953 John Ford)

We decided to stay in Africa and hang out with Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly. Peter B rates it for the performances (both Gardner and Kelly were Oscar nominated) and for the way Ford seems to side with the Gardner character, the underdog. The way Gable rips off Kelly's headscarf is quite a moment.

Also good is the supporting characters - particularly Philip Stainton (the P.C. in Passport to Pimlico) who's benignly trying to get to know Gardner; also Donald Sinden, Eric Pohlmann, Laurence Naismith (didn't recognise him as drunken skipper) and Denis O'Dea.

Photographed by Robert Surtees and Freddie Young, edited by Frank Clarke, written by John Lee Mahin from Wilson Collison's play. 

We both loved Ava's silent impromptu confession to priest.

Africa United (2010 Debs Paterson)

Only heard of this because Vic Boydell edited it - she told us it was a 'sweet' film. Which it genuinely is. But it's not sugar-coated either, depicting extreme poverty, child soldiers, young prostitutes and HIV. It's also a useful geography lesson, as our young footballers journey south from Rwanda to South Africa.

Eriya Ndayambaje is the charismatic manager, Roger Jean Nsengiyumva the football prodigy and Sanyu Joanita Kintu the girl who we thought was Eriya's sister, but turns out she isn't - she wants nothing more than to be a doctor (these two never acted again). Then they run into former soldier Yves Dusenge, who has great presence - also never acted again - and sex worker Sherrie Silver, who later on worked as a choreographer on Childish Gambino's extraordinary 'This Is America' video.

It's also populated by animations telling the story of the football. Colorfully shot by Sean Bobbitt, it's a little treasure.

Rhidian Brook is the credited screenplay writer, but if you delve further into the credits you'll see it was 'based on a story premise' by Eric Kabera (also a producer and President of the Rwanda Cinema Center), co-developed by Ayuub Kasasa Mago and Moukhtar Omar Sibomana; and 'story developed' by Brook and Gardner-Paterson.

3 Godfathers (1948 John Ford)

Screenplay Laurence Stallings, Frank S Nugent, from a story by Peter Kyne.

In a great opening, three would-be bank robbers start inadvertently chatting to the town's Marshal, who then pursues them across the Mojave Desert, Arizona (remind me not to go to Arizona). Then, they find his daughter, who gives birth. There's a lengthy and gruelling (and tragic) desert crossing section. The neighbouring towns, if you can believe it, are Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem, the latter giving it a weird Christmas slant.

The bandits are John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry Carey, Jr. whose father died the year before and who the film's dedicated to (Ford directed many of his westerns in the twenties). The Marshal's Ward Bond and his wife Mae Marsh, who puts eggshells in her coffee to keep the grounds down, like Carey's mom.

There's a scene early on when the Marshal is giving instructions to his deputies and one of them smiles ironically and its very much reminiscent of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon where something similar happens (Ben Johnson is in both films). There's lots of humour, as you'd expect, some of it concerning stubborn mules, and the difficulties faced by three men and a baby in the desert. It's stunningly shot by Winnie Hoch.

Also in the cast: Charles Halton, Mildred Natwick, Jane Darwell, Guy Kibbee (judge), Dorothy Ford (6' 2" and no relation).

I was actually speechless by the end.

The dedication to Harry Carey

The baby - uncredited - is apparently Amelia Yelda, who never appeared in anything else.

Morning Glory (2010 Roger Michell)

In a way a variation of Aline Brosh Mckenna's The Devil Wears Prada, with new girl a TV exec on a daytime TV show rather than in a fashion magazine. Good fun. A sort of Broadcast News lite.

Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, John Pankow (Episodes), Ty Burrell, Patti D'Arbanville, 50 Cent.

The Flight Attendant (2020 Developed by Steve Yockey)

Based on a book by Christopher Bohjalian, this should have been called The Idiot, as flight attendant Kaley Cuoco finds a dead man in her bed in Thailand and then proceeds to do everything as wrong as can be done. In such a way, in fact, that you start to wonder if there's a mischievous sense of humour at work, amplified by the fact that she keeps whizzing back to the murder scene, where the corpse drily comments on the action. Meanwhile her friend Rosie Perez seems to be involved in stealing military secrets, whilst her other friend Zosia Mamet luckily is a top lawyer.

Eight 45 minute episodes developed for Showtime. Noticed Line of Duty's John Strickland as one of the directors. Its animated credits sequence and music suggest a coked up version of Catch Me If You Can (an alcoholic version would be more accurate), but the vibe of the show is something weirder. Or sillier - sub-plot involving Perez selling weapons data to Koreans stretches credibility to max, as does fellow flight attendant suddenly announcing he's in the CIA. Overall, I'd say in style it owes a lot to Killing Eve.

That opening credits scene was designed by Taka Ikari and scored by Blake Neely:

Michiel Huisman is the dead man, Michelle Gomez, Colin Woodell, T.R. Knight (brother), Merle Dandridge & Nolan Gerard Funk (cops), Bebe Neuwirth.

Yockey was a playwright, got into TV via Supernatural and Scream: The TV Series. This was 'a departure from the book in a lot of insane ways' - that I can buy.

Stakeout (1987 John Badham)

Liked the in-joke, Emilio Estevez testing Richard Dreyfuss on movie quotes: "This was no boating accident!" Jim Kouf has written a thriller-comedy with some absurdity (Dreyfuss in pink hat) and well-managed car crashes. Madeleine Stowe is the subject of surveillance, Aidan Quinn the psycho they're after.

Shot in that colourful blue-red eighties look by John Seale, edited with visible cheating.

A bubble-gum movie.

The Adventurers (1970 Lewis Gilbert & co-scr)

Massive Joseph E Levine international blockbuster, based on Harold Robbins novel, is quite bad, despite good people in front of and behind the camera. An example: Anne Coates edits a love scene by a swimming pool in quite an interesting way, cross cutting to the statues.. but then it's ruined by an in-out in-out emulating screwing zoom trick which is totally laughable. As is greenhouse scene and sex/torture dungeon!

When he introduces himself, it always sounds like 'I'm Deck's Anus' (it's Dax Xenos).

And in mood - it starts out as a violent revenge / revolutionary epic, but mid-way through turns into a slushy melodrama / romance, with music to match. Film is on safer ground when it sticks with Blowing Things Up, but it's massively inflated and dodgy.

Bekim Fehmiu is the lead (not as bad as rated). Alan Badel somewhat improbably plays the head of a South American country, Fernando Rey the father. With Candice Bergen, Ernest Borgnine, Rossano Brazzi, Charles Aznavour, Olivia de Havilland, Leigh Taylor-Young, Sydney Tafler.

Filmed in Colombia, New York and Rome. Photographed by Claude Renoir in Panavision.

Your Honor (2020 Creator Peter Moffat)

I was thinking of The Night Of, forgetting that was Moffat too, adapted from his UK series Criminal Justice. It begins in a strong, Hitchcockian way, when a young man (Hunter Doohan) leaves a memento for his mom in a dodgy ghetto, is chased away, has an asthma attack, then accidentally kills another young man on a motorbike... Panics, runs away. Lovely great 'show don't tell' writing. His father is a well-meaning judge, played by Bryan Cranston, who initially tells his son to confess.. but when he realises the victim is the son of the head of the worst crime gang in New Orleans, changes the plan. More black irony arises when a friend, a political campaigner, offers to get rid of the hit and run Volvo, but the young black gang member (Lamar Johnson) stealing it is himself stopped by the cops and the car returned.

Is this a ten hour story? That's always the question. I am reminded of the Emperor in Amadeus - 'Too many notes.'  To put it another way - can you tell this story in three hours? Yes - strip out some unnecessary characters and storylines. What does the extra time give you? Dog stuff. Gang stuff. Romantic sub-plots. Political sub-plots. Police corruption. (The one bit of unnecessary stuff I liked was Stuhlbarg winding up his wife by insisting he wants his gazpacho heated up.)

The other thing was I was hoping the smart guy judge would find a clever way out of his predicament, which would have made a much more pleasing storyline. Instead, it's something of a reworking of Breaking Bad, in that the initially sound and upright guy becomes more and more corrupted. The circularity of the ending is quite successful, though, for after all, Cranston has, no matter how innocently, caused the death of the young man's entire family.

They seem to live in a way too big house, too.

With A Serious Man's Michael Stuhlberg convincing as the crime boss, Hope Davis as his awful wife, Carmen Ejogo, Lilli Kay (gangster's daughter), Sofia Black D'Ella (the teacher), Margo Martindale, Amy Landecker (cop), Isiah Whitlock Jr (politician, The Wire), Benjamin Flores Jr (young gang member). Andrene Ward-Hammond makes an impression as the gang leader.

It's based - somewhat improbably - on an Israeli series called Kvodo. Photographed by John Lindley (Pleasantville) and James Friend (three episodes). Liked Volker Bertelmann's theme.

Promising Young Woman (2020 Emerald Fennell & scr)

A timely and well-deserved BAFTA and Oscar winning screenplay, and a confident feature debut from former Call the Midwife / The Crown actor and Killing Eve writer (who gives a Hitchcock cameo). (She was nominated as Best Director by both also.) Carey Mulligan gives an outstanding performance as a woman out to get revenge on men in general and in particular those who raped her friend when drunk. Full of surprising twists, including the unexpected key scene in which the rapist's lawyer (Alfred Molina) breaks down with remorse, and she forgives him. And the great scene where she 'kidnaps' the Dean's daughter. The murder seems like an echo of George Floyd, intentional or not.

With Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Laverne Cox (coffee shop friend), Jennifer Coolidge, Chris Lowell (rapist), Max Greenfield (his accomplice, New Girl), Clancy Brown (father), Connie Britton (Dean), Adam Brody, Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

With its strong, almost psychopathic heroine and crazy music (Anthony Willis) has a flavour of Killing Eve to it, but its production design (Michael Perry) and costumes / make up (Nancy Steiner, Angie Wells) put it into an altogether individual place, as does its serious theme. Shot by Benjamin Cracun, edited by Fréderic Toraval (Taken).

Great, black, left field sense of humour:
"Will you go out with me?"
"Really? I just spat in your coffee."

Probably the Film of the Year so far.

To answer my own question, Killing Eve has been a huge critical and public success in the US.

Night and Day (1946 Michael Curtiz)

It was quite a shock to see that Warner Bros logo in colour, and Cary Grant. Autobiog of Cole Porter is unfortunately top heavy with musical numbers (most of the songs are great of course) and dramatically lacking, so the film itself is a bit of a bore, and overlong. Would have been more interesting if it had been allowed to deal with Porter's homosexuality. (Maybe it slightly does hint at it, come to think of it.) Does though have the distinction of Monty Wooley playing himself - we had no idea about his background at Yale nor his involvement in the story (nor that he too was gay, a close friend of Clifton Webb).

We'd watch Grant - who does his own singing - in anything, though most contemporary critics thought his performance uneasy. With Alexis Smith, Ginny Simms, Jane Wyman (filmed at the same time as The Yearling - I didn't even recognise her), Eve Arden, Victor Francen, Alan Hale, Dorothy Malone, Henry Stephenson, Sig Rumann.

Photographed in the brightest blues by Peverell Marley and William Skall. Directed with consummate skill by Curtiz. Max Steiner provides the odd bit of non-Porter music.

Note early appearance from Woody Allen on the right

Dix Pour Cent - Season 4 (2020 Fanny Herrero)

The concluding season, featuring the diabolical Anne Marivin as the rival agent who joins, then betrays, them. Sigourney Weaver and Jean Reno are the biggest guest stars. Hervé becomes an actor.

Left to right, one last time: Camille Cottin, Laure Calamy, Thibault de Montalembert, Stéfi Celma, Liliane Rovère, Grégory Montel, Fanny Sidney and Nicolas Maury. I'd have bought Rovère's book, 'La Folle Vie de Lili', but it's only in French - more here.

You Kill Me (2007 John Dahl)

Alcoholic hit man Ben Kingsley meets sponsor Luke Wilson and sassy - what does she do? anyway it's not important - lady Tea Leoni. Good fun black comedy, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. With Bill Pullman, Dennis Farina, Philip Baker Hall.

Dahl made thrillers like Kill Me Again and The Last Seduction, then directed much on TV.