Addams Family Values (1993 Barry Sonnenfeld)

Same cast (Raul Julia's last film; he died aged 54, cancer), same director, same composer, but virtually everything behind the camera has changed. The cameraman is Donald Peterman, who weirdly lights the top of of Anjelica's face, like this:

Strange. The production designer is now Ken Adam, thus the house has changed. The writer is now Paul Rudnick, though the humour remains largely the same (babysitter / killer Joan Cusack on meeting Julia "Lady killer." Julia "Case not proven.")

Christina Ricci gets more to do in this one as the kids are sent away to summer camp, where they naturally upset Peter MacNicol (Ally McBeal) and Christine Baranski (The Good Fight). Good here at taking the piss out of elitist girl snobs, and even the Thanksgiving tradition. David Krumholz is a fellow camper; Nathan Lane and Tony Shaloub both appear fleetingly. Actually Granny has changed too - she's now Carol Kane.

"...and when they woke up in the morning, all their old noses had grown back."

The Arch (1968 Shu Shuen & scr)

Seventeenth Century South-west China. A captain is billeted in the schoolroom belonging to a widow, who lives with her mother and daughter. The widow takes a shine to the captain, and he to her, but she pulls back (maybe because remarriage was frowned upon). The captain ends up with the daughter and when her mother dies, the widow is left alone, though she receives the recognition (and some silver) of having an arch dedicated in her honour.

Interesting, subtle film with some brilliant sequences, such as a multiple dissolves sequence in the classroom, or when she goes crazy over her threading machine to abrupt flashbacks and dissolves, speedy editing and jump cuts. Edited, interestingly enough, by Les Blank (who went on to edit and film documentaries, including the one about the making of Fitzcarraldo, Burden of Dreams) and C.C. See. Shu (Tang Shu Shuen) is a woman, this one of only four films she made, the second being the similarly acclaimed China Behind (1974). She was the first Far East female film-maker and this is widely recognised as the first Far Eastern arthouse film. She left Hong Kong in the seventies and became a restaurateur with the acclaimed Joss on Sunset Boulevard!

Beautifully acted particularly by Lisa Lu, and Hilda Chou Hsuan, Chiao Hung, Li Ying (Old Chan), Wen Hsiu (Grandmother). Lu was in Saint Jack, Hammett and The Last Emperor - most recently in Crazy Rich Asians!

Dr S S Kwong wrote the captain's beautiful verse:

"The rice fields reach like threaded gold, far into the autumn sky;
In the courtyard she stands, as distant as the frozen mountain wind.
Across empty stones the soldier strides, awestruck by the piercing splendour,
Awestruck by that face of a goddess.
Helplessly he admires her majestic grace,
And adores her constant dignity.
But alas, cold are the vaults of her memory,
Unable to feel the flame of his feeling.
To whom, then, does the warrior burst his sorrow,
To what lonely peak does he wail his lament?
The leaf-fringed windows are closed between us,
The vacant courtyard is silent with dust.
Deep in the night are my yearnings.
Dim are the flickering of my hopes."

Photographed by Subatra Mitra (studio, Hong Kong), Chi Ho Che (exteriors Taiwan).

Music written and performed by Liu Tsun Yuen very nicely underscores the action, e.g. thoughtful scene of flowing river.

I wonder if Lisa and Shu hang out together still?

It's a yes from me.

Halloween (1978 John Carpenter & co-scr, music)

 Um. I'm getting a bit bored with it now.

I like Carpenter's stuff. Thus when the stoned girls drive away from the cop, in the same shot Pleasance walks up to him and requests a meeting, the cop tells him to wait; then we see the killer's car in the background pull out, still following the girls.

To start listing the plot's implausibilities is, I think, missing the point.

The Addams Family (1991 Barry Sonnenfeld)

The Addams family are Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christina Ricci, Jimmy Workman, Judith Malina, Carel Struycken and Christopher Hart's marvellously expressive hand. With Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya, Elizabeth Wilson, Dana Ivey.

Favourite moment: when Julia is romancing bound Huston and Ivey says 'Cut that out' and Marc Shaiman's lovely waltz theme is cut dead. A beautiful and intricate looking production, photographed by Owen Roizman, production designer, Richard Macdonald, art director Margie Stone McShirley. Edited by Dede Allen and Jim Miller for Orion / Paramount. Written with wit by Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Larry Wilson.

The Long Call (2021 scr Kelly Jones)

This immediately feels so familiar - seaside town, aerial shots of landscape, drone shots, murder, police procedural - Broadchurch has a lot to answer for. Has points of difference - detective is gay, had a strict religious group bringing up - but it seems entirely routine, all briefing room of detectives who find out things. A reminder from Emeric Pressburger - where are the thoughts, feelings, accidents, surprise, suspense? And where's the humour?

Ben Aldridge (Our Girl), Siobhan Cullen, Martin Shaw, Juliet Stevenson, Pearl Mackie. Anita Dobson good, though, as controlled housewife.

Quite nicely shot, by Bjørn Ståle Bratberg.

What's 'The Long Call' mean?

Guilt - Season 2 (2021 Patrick Harkins, Writer Neil Forsyth)

Yes, a recap of Season 1 might have been a good idea, as much of the original story is enmeshed. Leith is the port district of Edinburgh.

Mark Bonnar is out of prison, seeks revenge on man who stole his life and business. He does pull some intriguing expressions.

Like the way all the different plot lines are sort of connecting. Forsyth wrote Eric, Ernie and Me,  in which Mark Bonnar was Eric Morecombe. Though it does become a bit talky in latter two episodes (four in all). Conclusion though is ultimately satisfying (I think. We presume McHugh killed Bowman, but don't know.)

Good to see Sara Vickers in something else. When her character kills the intruder in self-defence, I think calling the police might have been a good idea, don't you?

With Phyllis Logan, Stuart Bowman (replacing Bill Patterson from series 1), Emun Elliott, Rochelle Neil, Greg McHugh. Harkins has dozens of episodes of Hollyoaks on his CV.

Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945 Robert Hamer & co-scr)

Period Ealing drama, festooned with unnecessary songs, one of several collaborations between Hamer and Googie Withers. Repressive household dominated by Mervyn Johns contrasted against easy living wife of seafront publican Withers, who's having affair with sleazy good-for-nothing John Carol.

The Johns family comprises Gordon Jackson, Mary Merrall, Jean Ireland and Sally Anne Howes. Publican is Garry Marsh (I See A Dark Stranger, Dead of Night), Catherine Lacey (Whisky Galore, The Lady Vanishes, The October Man) is a sort of tipsy commentator on the action.

Centres on the fact that strychnine poisoning can resemble tetanus. Roland Pertwee's play was adapted by Diana Morgan, music Norman Demuth, photography Stan Pavey (credited as Richard S. Pavey). I'm not sure it quite comes off - the ending is too pat - the most interesting thing cinematically is the long tracking shot of Googie emerging from the pub and walking to her death. But it's quite a tough world - the guy Googie's interested in has given his previous girl a nasty scar, is more interested in an elder widow because of her money, answers her 'You don't love me' casually with 'Well I never said I did'.

One of many interesting films from Hamer, whose full credits are:

Vessel of Wrath 1938 (editor)
Jamaica Inn 1939 (editor)
Turned Out Nice Again 1941 (editor) George Formby
Ships With Wings 1941 (editor)
The Foreman Went to France 1942 (editor)
San Demetrio London (co-scr) 1943. Crippled merchant navy ship in 1940. Hamer completed the film. Looks good.
Dead of Night ('The Haunted Mirror') 1945
Pink String and Sealing Wax (and co-scr) 1945
It Always Rains on Sunday (and co-scr) 1947
Kind Hearts and Coronets (and scr) 1949
The Spider and the Fly 1949 - French policeman, thief and girl in WW1 France, Eric Portman. 'The bleakest of all Hamer's films'. Not sure I'd agree with that...
His Excellency (and scr) 1952 - ex-docker becomes governor of Mediterranean colony, Portman again. 'A task for which he had little interest'.
The Long Memory (and scr) 1952
Father Brown 1954
To Paris With Love 1954
Bernard Shaw (doc) 1957
The Scapegoat 1959. Recut by MGM.
School For Scoundrels 1960
A Jolly Bad Fellow (scr only) 1963 - Black comedy about death inducing gas, with Dennis Price, and John Barry score.
55 Days at Peking 1963 (additional dialogue)

Full biog, by Robert Murphy, here, who provides comments above.

Good Trouble 2 (2019)

Yes... I'm beginning to think I'm too old to be watching this, which I now call The Teenyboppers. Too much stuff about woke, people who wants to be called 'they', trans issues, body image - issues not plot - I'm the wrong audience. Plus annoying Callie who is perpetually indecisive about which feller she wants. None of the 'cool' editing tricks made it over from Season One.

But at least I now know what 'double quince' referred to - the 'Quiñcenera' - a 15 year old's coming-of-age party (Latin American) - when it takes place at age 30.

Dead Of Night (1945 Cavalcanti, Crichton, Dearden, Hamer)

One of the best (horror) scores anywhere, Georges Auric was always a most unpredictable composer; here he's added a real layer of menace in his orchestrations and themes (monstrous brass, if that makes any kind of sense). I just watched a 75 minute documentary on it and interesting though the comments of Matthew Sweet, Keith Johnstone, John Landis etc. are, the music doesn't get a single mention. And the cinematography gets 60 seconds, where Sweet mistakenly attributes the photography to Douglas Slocombe alone. No mention of the fine work of editor Charles Hasse (also Hue and Cry) either, though that's never a surprise.

Is that a very early zoom in on Miles Malleson as the hearse driver? It could be, but it would be very early.

Is that Michael Redgrave doing the ventriloquist dummy's voice? No - it was ventriloquist Arthur Brough.

Esmé Percy as the antiques dealer. "Perhaps I should have mentioned all this at the time!"

Love those trees and the reflections, photographed by Douglas Slocombe

They sure smoke a lot of cigarettes. I almost expected Sally Ann Howes to start puffing away at one point.

McPhail writes and Dearden directs the interlinking sequences. Note the hush in the room after the Haunted Mirror, and the expert construction to then change mood and give us Golf. It also - I am reliably informed - gets darker after each successive story.

The Francis Kent story is true and was fictionalised as 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher'.

Expert use of sound in hospital / hearse scene.

19 May 1977: 'Far more scary than countless later versions, the final twist is beautifully pulled off. Cavalcanti's magic makes up for shoddy effects on 'Hearse Driver'.'

19 October 1994: 'He narrowly escaped death by toy bus. Chilling and believable performances add to effect, especially Redgrave and Michael; the former adumbrates Anthony Perkins in Psycho.' 

'Adumbrates' eh? Must have been the time I was a proofreader.

Reece Shearsmith is (of course) a fan, and particularly rates the way it is five separate stories but also one great story.

According to BFI Screen Online, Douglas Slocombe shot the framing story, The Haunted Mirror and Golf. It's also one of Buñuel's favourite films.

Love the daze that Johns is in when he arrives at the house and meets everyone. "Milk and sugar, Mr. Craig?" Walter Craig - seen the film so many times and could not remember that name.

The Night My Number Came Up (1955 Leslie Norman)

Michael Hordern turns up at an airbase after a plane has disappeared, claiming he can see where the plane has crashed, and directs a search to the north-west coast of Japan. He had dreamed the crash, makes the mistake of telling a couple of the people destined to fly, and as bits of his dream become true, it puts the willies up them something rotten, especially former nervous breakdown pilot Denholm Elliott.

With Michael Redgrave, Sheila Sim, Canadian-born Alexander Knox, Ralph Truman, Ursula Jeans, Nigel Stock (pilot), Bill Kerr & Alfie Bass (soldiers), George Rose, Victor Maddern (who I probably remember from The Dick Emery Show).

Written by R.C. Sherriff, based on a story by Victor Goddard, photographed by Lionel Banes, music by Malcolm Arnold, cute model planes courtesy of Ealing Studios.

It's kinda funny that the Knox character, pictured above right, has written a book critiquing superstition but is the one most frightened (and in an amusing scene, won't walk under a ladder).

Ealing / Michael Redgrave then link us to the second in our supernatural double bill, Dead of Night.

Miss Austen Regrets (2007 Jeremy Lovering)

Written by Gwyneth Hughes, based on Jane Austen's surviving letters to her sister Cassandra and niece Fanny, which make it clear she preferred not to be married despite their poor circumstances. These are played by Olivia Williams, Greta Scacchi and Imogen Poots, and their mother by Phyllida Law.

This is one of those zippy Austens with Steadicam and editing. Looks good enough and handled competently, DP David Katznelson, editor Luke Dunkley (Dark River, A Royal Night Out, National Treasure).

With Hugh Bonneville, Adrian Edmondson, Tom Hiddlestone.

Austen's cottage near Alton is now a museum.

BBC / WGBH Boston.

Kaïrat (1991 Darezhan Omirbayev & scr)

A sort of Kazakh 'L'Etranger'* as a sombre young man studies, wanders around the city and has a short affair with another student, punctuated by good Bunuelian dream sequences (e.g. on a Ferris wheel), with a dreamy sort of Tarkovskian eye. Lots of trains everywhere, good scenes: rocks through the windows, the unobserved fight in the building under construction, where the pigeons suddenly take flight, the boy ("I can whistle"), the amorous couple on the train, a head-turning blonde dinner lady, the final shot of snow. Yes, very good. Very short (an hour 12).

With Talgat Assetov, Indira Jeksembaeva.

Photographed by Aubakir Suleyev.

A rare smile from Kaïrat

I don't get how that bus driving training machine worked at all, unless it was a live video feed.

* Or, on reflection, is it more of a Kazakh Baisers Volés? The scene with the young man staring at himself in the mirror could be a nod to the 'Antoine Doinel' mirror scene.

Did not recognise the early German talkie they were watching.

The scene where he decides to fight the bully is curious - he has no reason to. You know it's going to end up badly, because almost exactly the same thing happens in Cardiogramma. Even the way they are found sitting afterwards is exactly the same position, youth and boy.

County Lines (2019 Henry Blake & scr)

Feature debut from UK-based New Zealander Blake, Conrad Khan (Baptiste) is the kid who becomes a long-distance drug dealer for Harris Dickinson; Ashley Madekwe (Secret Diary of a Call Girl) is the barely coping mother. It's a low budget, grim little film, not without interest cinematically, shot in a weird ratio of 1.5:1 by Sverre Sordal.

Table 19 (2017 Jeffrey Blitz)

Because we saw Stephen Merchant on Graham promoting his new show The Outlaws, which looks great. Ian McKellan was also on. Stephen said when they filmed that episode of Extras he hadn't seen anything as great as Ian parodying himself as a great actor and Sir Ian confessed that when he was feeling lonely or depressed he would watch that episode on YouTube.

But back to Table 19. Stephen is very funny in this, which is a bit like a play. Only it isn't.

DP Ben Richardson.

Dave (1993 Ivan Reitman)

Pure Hollywood - but sometimes that's what you want. Nice guy Kevin Kline is hired to double for the President as he sneaks off to have an affair. Well, that's not very credible to begin with, but the writer is Gary Ross, so it's a cut above your standard fare. Although, having said that, I wish they'd made more of secret service guy Ving Rhames, who might have been integrated into the plot better. (Actually that applies even more so to the Laura Linney character.) And lynchpin plot person Ben Kingsley doesn't come in at all before the Third Act. Actually, how well written is this? Better than it turned out on the finished film, I bet. Though why even say that? I don't know, is the answer.

So perhaps it wasn't as good as I thought. Still, very enjoyable. With Bad Guy Frank Langella, Mrs President Sigourney Weaver, writer Kevin Dunn, friend Charles Grodin (Midnight Run, The Heartbreak Kid, Filofax, 11 Harrowhouse). And Anna Deavere Smith, who's in both The American President and The West Wing.

Photographed by Adam Greenberg, edited by Sheldon Kahn, music by James Newton Howard.

Features many real life congressmen, Arnold Schwarzenegger and (an amusing cameo) Oliver Stone, who posits a conspiracy theory (must watch JFK). Also Jason Reitman (VP's son) and Ross himself is Policeman #2.

Ross also wrote Big, Mr Baseball, Lassie, The Misery Brothers (which has truly terrible ratings), Pleasantville, Seabiscuit, The Hunger Games, Free State of Jones (disillusioned Civil War deserter starts uprising against corrupt local government, true story, looks good) and Ocean's Eight.

Good Trouble - Season 1 (2019)

Created and co-written by Bradley Bredeweg, Peter Paige and Joanna Johnson. A sort of mix of This Life (1996) and Attachments (2000), set in LA. Adopted sisters Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) start working in law and high tech, move into communal lodgings in an old theatre, and meet bright young things: bisexual artist Gael (Tommy Martinez), vlogger Davia (Emma Hunton), den mother Alice (Sherry Cola), activist Malika (Zuri Adele); and an aged rocker Dennis (Josh Pence).

Stories centre around teething problems - what's going on with Judge Roger Bart's son - working in all-male environment - and a court case involving the shooting of an unarmed black man. Most intriguing and fun is the growing relationship with Mariana and her seemingly autistic boss T.J. Linnard. Lots of stuff about gender and sexuality and race.

Quite a loud show - music blaring all over. Has an editing motif reused frequently involving displaced sound, as well as a trendy flashback device (thus Callie flirting with Gael is shown after we've seen them bonking) to make it extra 'cool'. Also often used is a scene where something imaginary happens, then the real scene.

With Beau Mirchoff, Ben Kirby, Sarunas J Jackson, Dhruv Uday Singh, Daisy Eagan, Kara Wang (Alice's annoying ex), Charlie Bodin (obnoxious team leader).

Oh, I see... This is actually a sequel to the five season The Fosters, which is the initial story of how troubled care home teenager is adopted by two lesbians, and is a juvenile delinquent, with the same key cast, also created by Bredeweg / Paige.

That photo, that was so nicely animated in the cannabis cookies episode - the brave, fifteen year old Elizabeth Eckford was one of nine students sent to Little Rock School in Arkansas in 1957 who faced a storm of racist abuse:

After 13 episodes I'm still not really sure what I think of it. Which in itself I guess tells you something.

Top 5 Horror Films

The Shining.

The original Halloween.

Dead of Night.

Abigail's Party!

The Innocents.

Yes, I suppose Psycho. And The Birds.

And, if you can describe it as a horror film, IWWAZ (and so, in fact all the Val Lewtons).

And Suspiria.

(Ed. Yes, not really five though, is it?)

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018 Barry Jenkins & scr)

Adapted from James Baldwin's 1974 novel. Loved the line 'Unbow your head, sister.' A poignant look at a black love affair and the families around them and the racial hatred that causes the man to be unjustly imprisoned; it's rather timely, elegantly made and quietly powerful, underlined by a great score from Nicholas Britell - in fact the same key team as Moonlight with James Laxton on camera and Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders editing. Production designer Mark Friedberg is a new addition (Joker, Mildred Pearce, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited). 

Great cast as well: KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King the mother (won Oscar), Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, Dominique Thorne, Ebony Obsidian, Michael Beach, Aunjanue Ellis (God bothering mother), Finn Wittrock (lawyer), Ed Skrein (cop), Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta's Paper Boi again).

Music and script were both BAFTA and Oscar nominated. Good structure, as film constantly dips back into the past. 

Jenkins, Laxton, McMillon and Sanders were all fellow students at Florida State University, where the director's favourite text book was Walter Murch's 'In the Blink of an Eye'. Whilst there he worked for Richard Portman, Robert Altman's sound editor, and places a lot of importance on the soundtrack. Was looking forward to the epic ten hour The Underground Railroad,  with the same team, only to have it reviewed as 'more torture slave porn' and 'like a ten hour version of 12 Years A Slave'... no, thanks.

Great use of photos, too.

The Awakening (2011 Nick Murphy & co-scr)

Written with Stephen Volk. An original story, then, set in 1921, and initially focusing on Rebecca Hall's pursuit of fake mediums and man-made ghosts. She's summoned to a boys' school by initially stammering Dominic West, where there's been a death. Imelda Staunton, Shaun Dooley and Joseph Mawle may or may not be involved. The after effects of the war are nicely caught: the pupils are like 'orphans', West has PTSD, Dooley appears to have been gassed, Mawle didn't fight and is reviled.

Not really into films about the supernatural, but this was quite pleasing, especially with the repressed memory twist, though thought Staunton trying to poison her a step too far, really. Difficult to write your way out of things like this satisfactorily. Hall good. Eduard Grau fittingly shoots everything really sombre (Grau German for Gray). Vic Boydell has fun cutting spooky scenes and thrills. A massive departure for the director of Occupation. Isaac Hempstead Wright is the boy, since in Game of Thrones.

You just can't help thinking of The Shining when you see stuff like this.

Filmed in Gosford House, East Lothian.

Parenthood - Season 1 (2010 Showrunner Jason Katims)

Meet the Bravermans. Peter Krause, Monica Potter, Sarah Ramos and autistic Max Burkholder. Single mom Lauren Graham (Bad Santa, Sweet November), Miles Heizer and Mae Whitman. Legal brain Erika Christensen (Traffic the only thing I've seen her in), Sam Jaeger, little Savannah Paige Rae. Dax Shepard, who finds out that with Joy Bryant he has a child, Tyree Brown. And parents Craig T Nelson (The Incredibles) and Bonnie Bedalia (Die Hard).

Quite successful long form update of the film; perhaps not as funny, reuses some of same ideas. Somewhat predictable but an engaging enough lite watch.

Katins wrote three episodes of My So Called Life, wrote and produced many TV series.

That song we know is 'Wait' by Alexi Murdoch.

Features John's son Jason Ritter as the teacher.

The Girl in the Café (2005 David Yates)

Very well made film for the BBC; Yates is now disappointingly firmly embroiled in the JK Rowling universe, Mark Day still working alongside him as editor. Having made the wonderful State of Play, then Sex Traffic, this was his last work before Harry Potter took over.

Bill Nighy fabulous as diffident political aide, Kelly Macdonald great too. With  a lovely supporting cast of Paul Ritter, Ken Stott and Anton Lesser.

Written by Richard Curtis. "Ah. Three hours next to the dullest man in Canada. That's quite a competitive category."

KAPБИOГPAMMA / Cardiogram (1995 Darezhan Omirbaev & scr)

Well - what a confusion. I thought I was watching a film called Kairat (described by film historian Neil McGlone as 'one of the best films of the nineties) so when I saw the title above it did seem rum - but then some films have more than one name. It turns out I wasn't looking at the DVD menu very closely because Kairat is the second film on the disc. This is a very good drama from Kazakhstan about a boy who is sent to a Russian-speaking convalescent home in Alma-Ata (the largest city in Kazakhstan), makes no friends and develops an interest in women generally and his nurse specifically. Ends with a note of Les Quatres Cent Coups as he escapes to an uncertain future.

Very quiet and minimal, short, simple filming with a good eye for details - Kazak embroidery, mosaics, the girl waiting for the date, the mirror falling over, the burning painting. Boris Trochev is on camera. It's a slow burner - you keep thinking about it after it's finished - a sign of the best films. It's autobiographical, to the extent that as a boy, Omirbaev did spend a month at a convalescent home and spoke Russian poorly. He likes to put his own life into his films.

Swear that scene near the beginning references North by Northwest:

(And someone's playing The Godfather theme on a piano later.)

"Red leaves fall from the trees. Grass red from wooden blood. Do you remember your happiness as the grasshopper was staring at you? No hostility in my forest, pools of light on the grass. On your arm, an ant was walking, before it disappeared. Birds were singing unknown melodies. Tobol was mute behind the trees." Unfortunately could not track down this rather good excerpt the nurse is reading. Tobol is the country's principal river.

Zhasulan Asauov is rather good as the boy. With Saule Toktybaevo, Alynai Tatybekova, Goulnara Dusmatova, Serik Joubandykov.

I was thinking that it doesn't really matter what country a film is from, because cultural differences aside, stories and themes are pretty much universal. I'm looking forward to watching my next film from Kazakhstan soon.

Didn't get that film is set in USSR era, thus Russian is the major language spoken. 

The Mother (2003 Roger Michell)

No, not one of Florian Zeller's plays, but a good tribute to Roger Michell, who died recently and too young, displaying his skill, no doubt acquired in the theatre, as a great actors' director, in which everyone gives a good performance and the direction isn't fussy. Ostensibly about a repressed woman finding Life, but as it's a Hanif Kureshi screenplay, everyone has their dark side, leading me to the conclusion that as a 'realist' he's perhaps also a misanthrope? The subtitle could be Everyone's a Shit.

Anne Reid gives a marvellous performance, though the stress is less about 'motherhood' (a duty which she has obviously shirked) and more about her being 'difficult', conducting an affair with the builder (Daniel Craig) who she knows is in a relationship with her flaky, damaged daughter, Cathryn Bradshaw. Steven Mackintosh is her son (who clearly doesn't have a great relationship with her either), who's married to vacuous Anna Wilson-Jones.

Good use of sound - the chaos at the beginning versus the moments of quiet / silence (it's never silent in films). (Danny Hambrook supervising sound editor / recordist.) And Alwin Küchler catches some lovely moments of changing sunlight.

With Peter Vaughan, Oliver Ford Davies.

Wouldn't watch it again in a hurry.

Ridley Road (2021 Lisa Mulcahy, Writer Sarah Solemani)

Agnes O'Casey (her debut) gets drawn into Jewish counter-offensive to National Socialist Party, i.e. Fascists. Had no idea things were that bad for Jews in 1962.

Eddie Marsan as militant Jew and Rory Kinnear as Fascist both great.

Interesting treatment mixes stock footage with widescreen 2.4:1. Ben Onono's music is good.

There's something about it I can't quite get in to. We wondered if actually it's O'Casey's performance - she's just not strong enough to carry it? Also wondered about the direction. And the ending.

Good cast overall includes Tracey Ann Oberman, Rita Tushingham. With Henry Wilton-Hunt, Samantha Spiro, Will Keen, Julia Krynke, Danny Sykes (Marsan's son), Allan Corduner, Tamzin Outhwaite, Gabriel Akuwudike, Hannah Traylen, James Craze, Danny Hatchard

Sex Education - Season 3 (2021)

The casting of Alistair Petrie and Connor Swindells as father and son is great, but although they physically resemble one another, the acting is so good, in character and nuance, that they seem genuinely to be the real article.

Jemima Kirke arrives as the new head teacher, but she's a fascist menace - I'm amazed the pupils take it. Of those causing trouble, Dua Saleh is the 'non-binary' one.

Rakhee Thakrar is the teacher. Chinenye Ezeudu has had a personality change now she's head girl.

I keep thinking of Skins when I'm watching this, I guess because of strong, realistic storylines of teenagers, and private lives gradually revealed. The writing's really good (lots of different writers).

Even the telephone rings are from the eighties, and the TV interview is in 4x3, though Q points out that all the cars in Nigeria are modern.

Ends somewhat predictably with another sex musical performance, and Otis and Maeve being kept apart again. And the little girl left without mother or big sister. But still that lovely warm heart, and we can't wait for Season 4.

The Cleaner / Alma's Not Normal (2021)

Have to mention these six part 30 minute comedies for the BBC written by their stars, respectively Greg Davies and Sophie Willan.

The Cleaner has great guest stars like Helena Bonham Carter, David Mitchell and Stephanie Cole. Very inventive stuff. Funny episode with influencer Layton Williams mad about eighties stuff but knowing nothing about it, and an extremely clever and funny joke involving a tree.

Alma features Jayde Adams, Lorraine Ashbourne and Siobhan Finneran (junkie mother).

Sex Education - Season 2 (2020 Laurie Nunn)

Um. So. Otis (Butterfield) is going out with Ola (Patricia Allison) who makes him stop seeing Maeve (Emma Mackey) - a big mistake, because she then dumps him in favour of Lily (Tanya Reynolds).

Maeve's useless mum Anne-Marie Duffy turns up with little daughter in tow - one of the season's pleasures is how Maeve gradually takes to the girl. She's also befriending a sarcastic disabled guy in the trailer park.

Connor Swindells as Adam has now perfected a face of passive sadness. He's still hanging out with his former prey Eric, Ncuti Gatwa, who's also dating a Frenchman.

And Gillian Anderson has been giving sex ed at school, thus undermining the kid's business.

In a great Breakfast Club type episode, Aimee Lou Wood confesses the bus masturbator is ruining her life, and despite rivalries, the girls band together to support her.

In a wild finale, there's an extremely unorthodox performance of Romeo and Juliet during which Adam comes out publicly - when Eric's parents greet him warmly, he actually smiles, like the sun has come out. But in a dramatic turn, Maeve shops her mother to the social services because her mother's still using and the child's in danger - I somehow thought Maeve would end up with the little girl but it was not to be. Finally, Otis tries to tell Maeve he loves her, but the envious paraplegic destroys the message; so the two end up not together again.

We love it. It must be very welcoming to teenagers who suffer some of the problems aired in the show and helps them to feel normal about themselves. It still has this weird eighties design thing going on. It has a heart.

The former University of Wales in Caerleon, Grade II listed 

My favourite variation of the title as someone had the bright idea to suggest the letters cast shadows

"I'm divorcing your father. Would you like some mango?"