Films of the Year 2021

The Father.

Minari.

The Rider. Joshua James Richards gets a special mention.

Promising Young Woman.

Rocks.

The Mauritanian

The Trial of the Chicago Seven

Groundhog Day for a Black Man.

Ben Is Back

In the Mood for La La

TV: It's a Sin. Master of None. Gomorrah. Chernobyl. Fargo. Maid. Sex Education. And the revived Fox.

John Ford: Fort Apache / The Wings of Eagles / They Were Expendable / Young Mr. Lincoln / She Wore a Yellow Ribbon / 3 Godfathers.

Discovering world cinema. Darazhan Omirbaev: Cardiogramma and Kairat, Shu Shuen: The Arch.

Special mention - Denise Gough in Too Close. And Niamh Algar (Calm with Horses and Deceit).

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994 Joel & Ethan Coen)

Also written with Sam Raimi, who's also the second unit director. Also.

If The Man Who Wasn't There is the Coens' Double Indemnity, this is their His Girl Friday, with Jennifer Jason Leigh and John Mahoney perfect as fast-talking newspaper editor / sassy journalist (Bruce Campbell as 'Smitty' is another link back to Raimi / The Evil Dead, on which Joel was the assistant film editor).

Tim Robbins, Paul Newman, Charles Durning, Jim True-Frost (Buzz), Bill Cobbs.

Fittingly takes place on New Year's Eve, 1958. Great model work. Another dazzling bit of cinematography from Roger Deakins. Carter Burwell music (themes from Aram Khachaturian), edited for once by no-Coen Thom Noble (Thelma and Louise, Witness, Fahrenheit 451). Great sound design from Skip Livesay, production design Dennis Gassner, costumes Mary Zophres.

Loved the super-fast letter-filer who's worked in the mail room 49 years.

Paul Newman's make-up is by Monty Westmore, who'd been 'doing' him since 1972's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.

The Coens love a big cigar

There's surely no argument that the Deakins-Coens relationship has been a particularly fruitful one

And... Finally. OK, it's not a triple stitched suit, as I always remembered, but double-stitching which saves someone's life. Been trying to remember that one for years...

The Man Who Wasn't There (2001 Joel & Ethan Coen)

Brilliantly plotted film noir somehow seems to be running at 50% speed, partly attributable to Billy Bob Thornton's overly deadpan performance and piano music; pretty much as reviewed last time 25/10/09 'Combination of pacing, Thornton's voice and piano music quite sleep-inducing. Not as mad as I remembered.' Somehow brilliant and dull at the same time - quite an achievement. The Coen Brothers' only black-and-white film.

With Frances MacDormand, Michael Badalucco, James Gandolfini, Katherine Borowitz, Jon Polito, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Jenkins, Tony Shaloub.

I  had also commented 'The Coens' Double Indemnity (sure someone's called Diedrickson)?' There is.

Roger Deakins' eye-watering and BAFTA-winning cinematography adds to the sense of perversion.

Notting Hill (1999 Roger Michell)

 Was the script written for her? Had she seen Four Weddings?

Julia admits to being hooked by the film from the time she received the script. "The script was great. When I sat to read it I did not have any great expectations. I had been given a brief synopsis and it sounded unappealing.

"But when I read it, from the very start with her going into the bookshop and she seems very mysterious and there is this guy having all these troubles and they leave and collide and she is at his house and she kisses him, I thought 'Jesus Christ, this is great', I was completely sucked in.

(Freelibrary.com.) Well, I've spent half an hour Googling this.. Actually didn't just Google the question. Hang on a minute........ No, not really. This is on Wikipedia:

Julia Roberts was the "one and only" choice for the role of Anna Scott, although Roger Michell and Duncan Kenworthy did not expect her to accept. Her agent told her it was "the best romantic comedy she had ever read".[2] About the Production". Notting Hill.com. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2007... 

No, come on - it's been about three quarters of an hour now, and I'm especially bored of having to click 'Agree' or 'Accept All Cookies' or not be able to see something without subscribing or being asked to donate or reading the same story that's been reposted. I shall just ask Richard Curtis.

Um. Good editing, by Nick Moore - The Full Monty, About a Boy, Love Actually, Leap Year, Morning Glory, She's Funny That Way, Burnt.

Hadn't realised before (well, that's impossible to say, having seen the film 14-20 times over the years) that the pregnant woman at the beginning of the 'Seasons' sequence has had her baby at the end. IMDB claims 'The long shot where William Thacker walks through Notting Hill during summer, fall, winter, and spring was actually four different shots, all filmed the same day. Computer technology morphed Hugh Grant seamlessly from one shot to the next' but that's unsubstantiated.  There's certainly what looks like a hidden edit going into summer where the whole shot is momentarily obscured by a person in front of the camera. Again, I need to ask Michael Coulter. (Or Nick Moore.)

It's a great supporting cast, of course, but you have to give it to Roberts and Grant, who are both fabulous.

Gone, Baby, Gone (2007 Ben Affleck & co-scr)

Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, co-written by Aaron Stockard (also The Town). Good thriller, steeped in local Boston colour - or grime, if you like - about two private investigators trying to track down missing girl, finding a whole mess of deceit.

Ben hopefully didn't direct Casey Affleck too much as he's clearly the better actor*, Michelle Monaghan we've just seen in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. With Ed Harris, John Ashton, Morgan Freeman, Amy Ryan (the mother), Amy Madigan (the sister). Titus Welliver, Michael Kenneth Williams (from The Wire, who just died in September aged 54), Edi Gathegi.

Classily put together by John Toll and William Goldenberg, with local detail; music by Harry Gregson-Williams.

Nice that it ends not on a thrillery moment but an ethical dilemma.

* Though, having said that, cut forward to The Tender Bar...

Sabrina (1954 Billy Wilder)

When she's describing the Viennese operetta she's seen to Bogart, you can't help thinking she's talking about a Lubitsch, real or imagined, as the characters sail off into the sunset, singing, on a zeppelin. Also, not sure I'd noticed before Ellen Corby herself smelling the smelling salts (thanks Q).

Bogie through flexi-glass or whatever it's called

Great score from Frederick Hollander.

Pixie (2020 Barnaby Thompson)

Or, Nuns with Guns, as Q would have it. As far as I recall, I haven't seen a gun battle in a church before. Written by Preston Thompson, I guess the director's son, who we know from Fragile / Ealing films mainly as a producer (St Trinian's, An Ideal Husband). This is great fun, somewhat in the McDonagh style, as a spunky girl, played with full wattage by Olivia Cooke, takes control of a drugs situation that friends Ben Hardy and Daryl McCormack have got themselves in to. With Colm Meaney her hard nut father, Turlough Convery her step-brother, Fra Fee, Alec Baldwin, Sebastian de Souza, Dylan Moran.

DP John de Borman

A big relief after the first twenty minutes of the latest Sarah Phelps torture, A Very British Scandal 2.

Ammonite (2021 Francis Lee)

Right from the off, the film is bothered by a curiously over-emphatic sound track, which is distracting. Kate Winslet is extremely grumpy when James McArdle calls for tips on fossil-hunting, gradually thaws as she falls for sour-looking Saoirse Ronan. After an explicit sex scene too far, Saoirse invites the other woman to be her 'house guest' - presumably sharing it with the husband, when he's around - who's a cunt, by the way - and it all falls apart. If it's about the difficulties of being two women together in that era then - yeah - I think we had guessed that.

Ah - it's by the writer of God's Own Country, which was the same story but with two lads. Despite one of them being Josh O'Connor I'm glad I didn't bother.

With Gemma Jones, Clare Rushbrook, Alec Secareanu, Fiona Shaw. DP Stéphane Fontaine (A Prophet, Jackie), music Volker Bertelmann & Dustin O'Halloran.

I wonder if Saoirse had a bottom double.

Hot Fuzz (2007 Edgar Wright)

Manhattan or Casablanca? I suggested.

Hadn't noticed before - there's an aural history of police sirens right at the start of the film.

It's a beautiful partnership between Edgar Wright and editor Chris Dickens - neither of them individually have produced anything quite so startling as the way this is set up and edited. I guess Chris's next film Slumdog Millionaire, which won him the Oscar, then propelled him into a different career; 'additional' editor Jonathan Amos then came in for Wright's next film Scott Pilgrim vs the World in 2010, with Paul Machliss. As I remind myself every time I review it, Dickens received no awards for this at all, which is an oversight of epic proportions - a Samuel L. Bronston oversight.

Essentially, it's a love story between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Love the scene in which Pegg walks into the hotel and that record's playing weirdly, and she says 'You've always been here'... and then the banter over the crossword - 'Fascist' and 'Hag'. And 'If you wanna be a big copper in a small town, fuck off up the Model Village.'

When Harry Met Sally (1989 Rob Reiner)

Written by Nora Ephron, but not including the stories of older couples, who (according to IMDB) Rob Reiner collected and then had actors act.

Was overjoyed to be able to identify Washington Park - New York's suddenly falling into place - and the 'orgasm' scene takes place at Katz's delicatessen in the East Village.

I used to find Billy Crystal annoying, not so here, though I think it's fair to observe that there is very little difference in being really deadpan and just not reacting at all. With Meg Ryan (her first big hit, I guess), Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby. Nora Ephron's great screenplay was Oscar nominated (lost to Dead Poets Society) but won the BAFTA. Very enjoyable. Great little touches too. For example, when she walks into the diner and says "I've had lots of good sex" the guy sitting at the table behind her just goggles at her whilst his date is clearly trying to get his attention back on her. And in the montage, we can clearly see the order Meg's given in a Chinese restaurant is both complex and very annoying.

Considering how often we watch You've Got Mail and Sleepless.. I don't quite know why we've ignored this for ten years... Loved the split screen four-way phone conversation.

DP Barry Sonnenfeld, editor Robert Leighton.

Hold Back the Dawn (1941 Mitchell Leisen)

The third Leisen-Wilder-Brackett Paramount collaboration after Midnight and Arise My Love is a superior piece of entertainment. They didn't bother reading the story (by Ketti Frings) on which it was based, adapting the formula 'In the novel, it's a bunch of roses; in the screenplay it's a torpedo boat.' Story of immigrant Charles Boyer deceiving a school teacher (Olivia de Havilland) to marry him to gain US residency is beautifully handled, from the beginning, in which he seeks out a Paramount film director (Leisen himself) and tells him the story, to the ending in which we don't see the couple reunited, just a fade out on Boyer rushing through the crowd to greet her. They're both terrific.

Great writing includes -

"I don't quite know how to say it. That hot July afternoon, it was like kissing fresh snow. I could feel her hand trembling on my shoulder. From the church behind us came the breath of incense."

"Yes I like her enough not to give her a sudden kick, not to slap her face in front of her whole little town. I care enough to do it all with a little style. All right - I like her enough not to behave like a swine, for once in my life ."

And the way she removes the wedding ring and just places it on a bench.

Really nicely photographed by Leo Tover, receiving one of its six Oscar nominations - also for Victor Young's music (though most of it appears to be naturally occurring), picture, screenplay, art direction and Ms de Haviland.

With Paulette Godard, Victor Francen (distinguished older immigrant), Walter Abel (immigration officer), Curt Bois and Madeleine Lebeau (from Casablanca), Rosemary De Camp (pregnant), Eric Feldary, Charles Arnt and in cameo, Veronica Lake.

Second time we've heard of Azusa recently (also A Woman's Secret).

Dream Horse (2020 Euros Lyn)

Downbeat Welsh community from the Valleys starts a horse racing syndicate under guidance of Toni Collette and Damian Lewis. Their horse, 'Dream Alliance' (possibly a good title) does good. It's a true story.

With Owen Teale, Karl Johnson, Joanna Page, Alan David, Rhys ap William, Anthony O'Donnell, Sian Phillips, Di Botcher, Darren Evans, Nicholas Farrell, Peter Davison and a couple of horses.

Written by Neil McKay (Appropriate Adult), photographed by Erik Wilson, music by Benjamin Woodgates, edited by Jamie Pearson.

It was OK, a crowd pleaser. Actually might have been more interesting if the horse hadn't won or hadn't recovered. But nevertheless the community somehow was advanced or got into something else.

Water (1985 Dick Clement)

Um. Not quite sure what went wrong with this film, written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and made by Handmade Films. Maybe the writers were stoned? I can see what I think they were going for, something like those fifties films with Ian Carmichael and Terry-Thomas like Carlton Browne of the F.O. Brenda Vaccaro's way-over-the-top performance doesn't help a bit, though Michael Caine and Leonard Rossiter are as reliable as ever. Filmed on St. Lucia. 

With Valerie Perrine, Billy Connelly, Dennis Dugan, Fulton Mackay, Jimmie Walker, Fred Gwynne (Q identified him correctly from The Munsters), with cameos from Maureen Lipman (a rather good Thatcher), Ruby Wax and Alfred Molina.

TPTV were only able to acquire a cropped version of a 1.66:1 print, and so Dougie Slocombe's photography is not showcased brilliantly.

Leonard Rossiter's last film

Anatomy of a Murder (1959 Otto Preminger)

Great performances - Stewart, Arthur O'Connell, Eve Arden vs. Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick, George C Scott. At two and a half hours it's a shade too long, and in the end, we don't really know what happened, not even that she was raped, or that her husband didn't beat her up. With Kathryn Grant, Murray Hamilton, Joseph N Welch.

Shame they couldn't have got a bit more Duke Ellington into the actual courtroom. Based on the novel by Robert Traver, adapted by Wendell Mayes (The Spirit of St Louis, Von Ryan's Express). Photographed by Sam Leavitt, edited by Louis Loeffler.

When he's not shouting at people, Stewart's in his wryly amused mode, like Harvey.

Titles by Saul Bass

Cruella (2021 Craig Gillespie)

Great fun to see Stone vs. Thompson, and glorious design in costumes and art direction; but the film is lacking emotion and feel-good moments, and is something of a cold affair as it centres on revenge, doesn't have enough friendship / romance / warmth. What's really off-putting also is the CGI dogs all over the place and the endless library of pop songs - I think I counted bits of six of them within the first thirteen minutes, and the supporting players don't make much of an impression.

The script - by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara, from a story by Aline Brosh McKenna, Kelly Marcel and Steve Zissin - is largely to blame. 

With Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, John McCrea (as 'Artie' whose character doesn't really add anything), Mark Strong, Kayvan Novak (another pointless character), Emily Beecham. DP Nicholas Karakatsanis, editing Tatiana Riegel, production design Fiona Crombie, stunning costumes by Jenny Beavan. Some nice bits of London.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992 Chris Columbus)

Written by John Hughes. The kid ends up in the Plaza with Tim Curry, Rob Schneider and Dana Ivey, bumps into lovely pigeon lady Brenda Fricker and lovely toy store owner Eddie Bracken. Donald Trump only allowed filming at the hotel if he could have a cameo. The house isn't a real one.

Pesci and Stern's characters must be indestructible.

Music by Williams, DP Julio Macat. That equestrian statue with the chap pointing is George Washington in Union Square from 1856.

No Time to Die (2021 Cary Joji Fukunaga)

Neal Purvis and Rob Wade are joined by Fukunaga and - at the invitation of Daniel Craig - Phoebe Waller-Bridge, thus we kept finding ourselves exclaiming 'Phoebe' at such lines as the new 007 'May I cut in?', though of course it's impossible to tell. (Though stuff like 'It blew his mind' is straight out of the Bond cheese machine.) At two and three quarter hours it's way too long, and the spirits sag as soon as we get to the Bond villain lair yawn bit - the whole death garden, stolen from the novel of You Only Live Twice, is entirely superfluous. Thought whole plot about nanobots invading the DNA is all prescient for me (the film should have debuted in April 2020). The plot is really far too complex, though the little girl adds a cool element, the first kid in a Bond film, I think, and a sneaky way to extend the franchise into the future.

It looks fabulous, Linus Sandgren shooting in a very familiar style and colour on 65mm celluloid; Oscar-worthy in my humble opinion. The opening's brilliant, Lea Seydoux a great co-star, Ana de Amas brought in again at Craig's invitation off the back of Knives Out in a great sequence where she claims to have had only three weeks' training. Here we see some of the longer takes in action scenes - a great approach though possibly some CGI here. As such didn't really notice the editing of Tom Cross and Elliot Graham.

Thought the theme song by Billie Eilish curiously underpowered, though the title sequence is a mini work of art. Hans Zimmer responsible for familiar score, with reprise of 'All the Time in the World' signalling death right from the off. An intriguing ending.

Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Feinnes, Ben Whishaw, Naomi Harris, Rory Kinnear, Jeffrey Wright, Billy Magnussen, Christoph Waltz, David Dencik, Dali Bennsalah.

It's A Wonderful Life (1946 Frank Capra)

I am glad to say that Stewart was Oscar nominated, as was film, director, sound and editor (William Hornbeck). I wonder what Bergman had to say about Stewart's long dark night of the soul?

Die Hard (1988 John McTiernan)

From producer Joel Silver a year after Lethal Weapon, with which is shares some similarities, namely the Christmas setting, white cop-black cop partnership and composer Michael Kamen, who works in Beethoven's Ninth presumably as a nod to the German team of - what would you call them? - terrorist-burglars. Also The Towering Inferno springs to mind.

I guess Alan Rickman isn't in the sequel, then. With Reginald VelJohnson, Bonny Bedelia, Paul Gleason, De'voreaux White, William Atherton. Photographed by Jan de Bont, edited by John Link and Frank Urioste.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018 John M Chu)

Constance Wu, Henry Golding; so funny that the Ah Ma is Lisa Lu from The Arch.

The film's as shallow as most of the people in it.

Much to my surprise it was released in China, did a healthy $1.6 million.

"If there's one thing rich people love, it's free stuff."

The Big Combo (1955 Joseph H Lewis)

Sensational black and white photography by John Alton is a highlight of Lewis's nasty noir, in which Richard Conte excels as vile crime lord, Jean Wallace the innocent in his grip (she kept reminding me of Claudia Schiffer, although I am reliably informed she doesn't look anything like Claudia Schiffer). Cornel Wilde is out to get him; he's assisted by former boss Brian Donlevy and a slightly gay couple of hoods in the shape of young Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman. Helen Walker is also mixed up in things.

I don't think this is one of Lewis's low budget efforts, but if you analyze the ending, it seems to take place in a garage with a corrugated iron wall, and a searchlight in the distance - talk about beautiful simplicity (and actually reminded me a bit of the ending of Casablanca). Very memorably directed e.g. moment when Conte 'spares' Donlevy by pulling out his hearing aid, and we get his silent POV as the machine guns open up.

Conte kept making me think of someone else, maybe someone more recent*, in memorable performance. Alton's blacks are amazing. It's almost like he just has a totally black canvas and then just paints in the bits he needs. He even wrote a book about it called 'Painting with Light'.

Music by David Raskin is a bonus.

Hopper?

My last review of 31 August 2009 observes a 'lovely shot as hood lights cigarette in distance which flares out of black' - didn't even notice.

It's written by Philip Yordan. With Jay Adler, Jon Hoyt, Ted de Corsia and Helene Stanton. Well overdue taut, tight, nasty, memorable latter noir.

Eddie Muller's take on all this? '..The gangster picture is distilled into a sexual battle between the saturnine, sensual Mr Brown and dogged but frustrated flatfoot Leonard Diamond. Both men covet the appetising Susan Lowell...Diamond may genuinely want to staunch the the spread of Brown's corruption, but he'd rather castrate than incarcerate him..' ('Dark City: The Last World of Film Noir' (1998).

* Ed. afterthought 22/11/22 - F. Murray Abraham?