Trigger Point (2022 Daniel Brierley)

Yes, clearly from the Jed Mercurio stable (it's made by his production company HTM, aka Hat Trick Mercurio). Episode 1 plays out in real, tense time, as bomb squad duo Vicky McClure and Adrian Lester check out booby traps on council estate, ends on the inevitable. Brierly has only written shorts before this - well, only published shorts.

'This isn't home grown terrorists,' Vicki's thinking, 'it's something more sophisticated...' Is it one of her own team, or is he a red herring? What's her brother got to do with it all...? We spotted the guilty party without too much trouble, and whilst it was quite gripping, we weren't knocked out by it.

Cast: Mark Stanley (boyfriend), Warren Browne, Manjinder Virk, Kerry Godliman (useful explosives expert), Ewan Mitchell (brother), Nadine Marshall, Pippa Haywood.

La Promesse (2020 Creator Anne Landois)

Landois was indeed a writer / showrunner on Spiral. So gripped were we by the opening of this thriller about child kidnapping that we watched all six hours of it in one day.

Sofia Essaïdi and Elisa Ezzedine make a great job of portraying the older and younger versions of the investigating detective, whose father Olivier Marchal has been so consumed by an earlier case it's driven him to death. And in taking on a new one, the detective is led back to her father's, and her home town which holds unpleasant memories.

With Lorànt Deutsch, Jules Houplain, Lili Aupetit, Natacha Régnier.

I love the two girls who escape. The first forces open the door of the van she's been kidnapped in and jumps out of it whilst moving - then runs away and hides in the woods. The second one has the enormously bright idea of hanging her necklace round the neck of a visiting cat, but in a brilliant bit of writing, it loses it immediately. Then she manages to free herself but causes a fire. Finally, she does manage to elude her captor, though almost dies in the attempt. This is gripping stuff.

Made for TF1. The woods of the Landes region in south-west France are used marvellously well.

The Power of the Dog (2021 Jane Campion & scr)

It's the awards season, and this is up for 12 Oscars. Jane won one before for the screenplay for The Piano, so she puts another piano in this and ends up being nominated again (and for directing). The Piano, by the way, is not a film I've ever wanted to revisit, nor Holy Smoke. Whilst this was on, I realised that the word 'piano' is contained within the director's surname.

Anyway none of this helps us with The Power of the Dog, which I didn't really get, and seems unbelievably over-praised. Benedict's good, but is it Oscar-worthy (especially coming off Cillian Murphy in Peaky Blinders)? Jonny Greenwood's music is good, of course, and not just because he also scored There Will Be Blood I kept thinking it was similar to that film in many ways (although not as good and with no humour). I wonder if reading Thomas Savage's book would help. Certainly in no way understand the relevance of the title, even though we see its bible origin, nor the dog visible in the hills.

Kodi Smit-McPhee is good as the young man, and he and Jessie Plemons and Kirsten Dunst are nominated, along with production design, sound, cinematography (Ari Wegner), editing (Peter Sciberras) and music. I've got a funny feeling it isn't going to win any.*

See it? That dog there?

It's New Zealand.

With Thomasin McKenzie again (Last Night in Soho, Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit), Frances Conroy, Keith Carradine.

Greenwood multi-tracked and recorded the banjo and cellos himself. Though Radiohead is his primary preoccupation, he has scored several films for Paul Thomas Anderson: There Will Be Blood (his first), The Master, Inherent Vice, Phantom Thread (Oscar nominated) and Licorice Pizza, We Need to Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here for Lynn Ramsey, and Spencer. This score was one of the twelve nominations but I think he should have got it for Spencer also.

* Wrong! But close - it won just the one for Campion as director.

Peaky Blinders - Season 5 (2019 Creator Steven Knight)

We thought we'd better get the previous season in before the finale. Great but sad to see Helen McCrory again.

Tommy's haircut is horrible. He keeps being very near to killing himself. I was surprised that they felt it necessary to murder the journalist just for being gay.

I was wondering if Tarantino's a fan. And Scorsese.

It's beautifully lit. Was somewhat bowled over by the technical virtuosity of the long take in which Arthur slishes the Quaker - to the extent I didn't actually understand what was happening - maybe the sound wasn't emphatic enough. (When you do know what's going on, it's a chilling scene. It was the facial disfigurement episode, what with the boiling tar on the Billy Boy.) But the Swan Lake / shooting scene is a real joy, bravura editing. Director Anthony Byrne, DP Si Bell* (you think of Janusz Kaminski when you see some of the gorgeous lighting), editor Paul Knight (same team on all episodes).

Brian Gleeson is the head of the Billy Boys.

The ending - the attempted assassination of Mosely - is a corker, and it ends where it begins - Tommy with a gun to his own head...

* Si's always been good. You can see how good from some of his old shorts, like the devastating B&W Shirin, and By the Time You Read This I'll be Dead. Lately he did Knight's A Christmas Carol, The Serpent and A Very British Scandal (the second one, unfortunately).

Shirin (2012 Stephen Fingleton)

Powerful 13 minute short film, with outstanding photography in black and white by Peaky Blinders' Si Bell. It's on Vimeo.

A young woman (Hussina Raja) shares dinner with her father (Bhasker Patel). And that's all I'll give away, other than that the ending is devastating.

Has since made a feature, 2015's The Survivalist, BAFTA nominated for Outstanding Debut.

Fifth Avenue Girl (1939 Gregory La Cava & co-scr)

As the two readers of this blog will know, La Cava also made the 1936 classic My Man Godfrey, with which this shares major similarities, not the least being they're set in the same Avenue. The plot is essentially the same - a dysfunctional rich family is repaired by the influence of an outsider, in this instance, tough working girl Ginger Rogers, who has befriended sad Walter Connelly, celebrating his birthday alone with the seals in the Park.

Rest of family: cheating mother Verree Teasdale, lazy son Tim Holt, and madcap daughter Kathryn Adams, who's in love with the communist chauffeur James Ellison (who gets many of the best lines). Franklin Pangborn, Louis Calhern and Jack Carson are in it a bit.

Photographed by Robert de Grasse, music by Russell Bennett. Morrie Ryskind wrote the story outline, screenplay by Allan Scott.

The director's She Married Her Boss (1935 Claudette Colbert) seems sadly available only in pirated edition.

Inventing Anna (2022 Creator Shonda Rhimes)

Dauntingly long investigation into fraudster Anna Delvey for Netflix, over 9 hours. Julia Garner's accent is somewhere between the Russian Georgia and the American one. Mostly of interest from the perspective of the investigating journalist, who has a worrying tendency to gurn, played by Anna Chlumsky, supported by veteran journalists in the office.

How these people can assume Delvey is a 'walking ATM' when she never has any money, nor feel the need to investigate her background, is beyond belief, and I am reminded of William Goldman saying that just because something's true it doesn't guarantee that the audience will buy it.

I think Shonda Rhimes is overrated. We only made it as far as episode two.

The Beast Must Die (2021 Dome Karukoski, writer Gaby Chiappe)

Good adaptation of Sean Day-Lewis novel (written under the pseudonym Nicholas Blake), filmed previously by Chabrol as Que La Bête Meure. Quite the best thing Cush Jumbo has been in so far. Great performance too from Billy Howle (Dunkirk, On Chesil Beach, The Serpent, Chloe).

Rest of cast good too. Jared Harris, Mia Tomlinson, Nathaniel Parker, Geraldine James, Barney Sayburn, Maeve Dermody, Douggie McMeekin (detective), Nico Mirallegro (young troublemaker), Aasiya Shah (PC).

Karukoski made Tolkein, something called Tom of Finland, and lots of Finnish films with unpronounceable titles. His mother is Finnish and father was the American actor George Dickerson, who was in Blue Velvet and much on TV.

I found the soundtrack rather noisy. I have a feeling that what's going on is we're getting sound effects from the yacht coming in earlier as kind of 'mood' noises, but I don't think it works very well.

Music Matthew Herbert, DP Joel Devlin, editors Mike Jones, Dan Roberts.

A Britbox original in 5 one hour parts.

Chiappe wrote Misbehaviour and Their Finest and thus is a bloody good chiappe. Before that, episodes of Vera, Shetland. The Paradise, Lark Rise.

Ode to Joy (2019 Jason Winer)

Written by Max Werner and Chris Higgins, slightly nutty film has Martin Freeman a sufferer from Cataplexy (a precursor to Narcolepsy, though during attacks the sufferer remains conscious), causing him to avoid Joy, which should have been the name of his romantic interest, played by Morena Baccarin.

With Jake Lacy, Melissa Rauch.

It was quite funny, I think. It was filmed in Brooklyn but not at the actual Brooklyn Library.

The Courier (2020 Dominic Cooke)

A true story, written by Tom O'Connor, who wrote the thin action film Hitman's Bodyguard. Benedict Cumberbatch plays a businessman who is recruited by Intelligence to courier secrets out of the USSR, 5000 documents, as it turned out, from double agent Merab Ninidze. With Angus Wright, Rachel Brosnahan, Jessie Buckley, Angus Wright, Anton Lesser.

Photographed by Sean Bobbitt, music (which is somewhat repetitive) by Abel Korzeniowski. Cooke's primarily a theatre director, was responsible for the underwhelming On Chesil Beach adaptation.

Light in the Piazza (1962 Guy Green)

Yvette Mimieux died January 17, aged 80. She's rather good in this, playing a young woman with the mental age of ten. How she will cope with marriage, separation from her mother, sex and childbirth might have made an interesting sequel. She sure learns Italian fast.

O de H plays her over-protective mother. With George Hamilton, Rossano Brazzi, Isabel Dean, Barry Sullivan. Photographed by Otto Heller in CinemaScope.

I didn't understand why the horse and carriage rider is such a maniac.

Produced by MGM. Written by Julius Epstein, from Elizabeth Spencer novel.

Time Out's Phil Hardy comments "It quickly falls prey to that most awesome of cinema's horrors - Rossano Brazzi - as attraction develops between de Havilland and the boy's father. A terrible film."  Which I wouldn't agree with but find funny.

So Dark the Night (1946 Joseph H. Lewis)

An esteemed Parisian detective takes a holiday in rural France, falls for a girl, then murders begin. It builds to a literally incredible climax but is made in a most interestingly cinematic way, Lewis always doing something creative. It's not as good as Gun Crazy or The Big Combo but nevertheless well worth seeing.

Didn't recognise a single person. Steven Geray, Micheline Cheirel, Eugene Borden, Ann Codee, Egon Brecher, Emil Rameau. Crisply photographed by Burnett Guffey, music by Hugo Friedhofer, made at Columbia.

Flag Day (2021 Sean Penn)

Written by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, based on Jennifer Vogel's own book. Penn (who's wonderful as usual) casts his daughter Dylan to play his daughter (as well as Addison Tymec and Jadyn Rylee) in true story of loser and his wife who almost manage to screw up their daughter. Made in that same fragmentary style as the Jay Cassidy Penn films, this time though edited by Valdis Oskarsdottir (Eternal Sunshine), who worked on the first cut then fled back to Iceland before lockdown, then Michelle Tesoro (The Queen's Gambit), and beautifully shot by Danny Moder (The Last Tycoon remake),

I wondered if some of the emotional showdowns were filmed with two cameras, such is their spontaneity and fluidity. I was right. 'We had two cameras rolling 85% of the time and on bigger days got into five or six'! Interview in Filmmakermagazine.com.

I realise the Penn's films are all about journeys which usually span some time - Into the Wild gives us much of his journey through the States, The Pledge spans some years, this...

It was shot in super-16mm and films they referenced were Scarecrow and McCabe & Mrs Miller (both Vilmos).

Apart from the title, I thought it was really good. Those montages must be hard to do.

With: Regina King, Katheryn Winnick, Josh Brolin, Dale Dickey (Palm Springs, Unbelievable, Hell or High Water, The Pledge), Hopper Penn, Eddie Marsan.

Foyle's War: High Castle (2015 Stuart Orme; writer Anthony Horowitz)

Another ingenious tale, this one involving Nazi smuggling, though Horowitz also has time to work in a plot about women's working rights and puts Sam in danger. Love the way Foyle puts his boss in the picture about what's really going on.

With Nigel Lindsay and his rather questionable accent are John Mahoney and Madeleine Potter.

Sammy Going South (1963 Alexander Mackendrick)

Written by Dennis Cannan from 1961 W.H. Canaway novel. Another of Mackendrick's exercises in films about kids that are rather adult, this one more so even than A High Wind in Jamaica, as a young boy's parents in Port Said are killed, and he journeys solo all the way to Durban in South Africa, a mere 5000 miles. The kid is splendidly played in his debut by Fergus McClelland, who himself recalls on the DVD interview that there were even darker scenes filmed, such as when he murders a bunch of crabs, pretending to be a British bomber, reflecting the turmoil of what he's going through. Edward G. Robinson becomes his surrogate father, Harry H Corbett is his partner, Paul Stassino a frustrated pursuer, Zena Walker the elusive Aunt Jane, Orlando Martins as fellow traveller.

Fabulously photographed by Erwin Hillier in Cinemascope, scored by Tristram Cary (though weirdly, re-scored for the US, where it was also retitled A Boy Ten Feet Tall).

Also great is the way he instinctively trusts certain locals rather than whites. He's a most resourceful and resilient boy.

Orlando Martins and Fergus McClelland on the Nile

Google Maps usefully informs us that the journey will take 1,783 hours on foot (74 days). Which doesn't actually seem that long.

It was an independent Bryanston Production - the company was headed by Michael Balcon, and included Tony Richardson and Ronnie Neame in the team. It ran 1959-1964.

Foyle's War: Elise (2015 Andy Hay, writer Anthony Horowitz)

 A young man confronts Hilda (Ellie Haddington) on the Intelligence HQ steps.
"Don't you remember me?" he asks.
"No," she replies.
"This is for Elise," he says, extracting a gun from his coat, and shoots, twice.

It's a fucking great beginning to what turned out to be the last of the entire series (season eight). And as it's all about the brave girls of the SOE, and the suggestion (which I happen to believe) that they were betrayed from within, it's a powerful and emotional film. Good for you, Horowitz.

And in fact Foyle's parallel brief, to trap gangster Damian White (Leo Gregory), is almost secondary, though he does, of course, get his man (with Honeysuckle's help). I like the way he brings in the black market, and the clandestine gay scene, and rationing (Sam's cooking whale meat for them in this one).

With the usual cast are Conleth Hill (MI5), Hermione Gulliford, Emma Fielding, Katherine Press (the betrayed 'Elise'), Nick Caldecott.

I didn't realise Horowitz wrote the first seven episodes of Midsomer Murders, nor that he has a third Bond novel out, 'With a Mind to Kill', nor that he has written two Sherlock Holmes novels, 'The House of Silk' and 'Moriarty'. Must catch up on his TV series Collision (2009) and Injustice (2011). One of his heroes is William Goldman, which makes me like him even more.

This Is Going to Hurt (2022 Lucy Forbes, writer Adam Kay)

This is really something, as knackered labour ward surgeon Ben Whishaw battles fatigue and overwork in a blackly comic tone reminiscent of Bringing Out the Dead. Moving and often hilarious, it's one of the best things this year.

Kay found more than one channel wanted to make a series based on his diaries. "Two things were very clear to me from the start. Firstly, it needed to be a comedy drama. The only accurate way to reflect the NHS is with a blend of the two, and leaning too hard in either direction would be a mistake. Secondly, Ben Whishaw needed to play me... His performance is absolutely astonishing - dancing seamlessly from the hilarious to the heartbreaking - I couldn't have hoped for a better, truer depiction of a junior doctor's life."

It particularly shows how able newcomer Ambika Mod has become over her brief journey. Episode involving private hospital is particularly effective cross-cutting to the much more basic, yet much more capable, national health version.

Alex Jennings is deliciously caustic as the senior registrar, Ashley McGuire good fun as a tough talking surgeon.  With Rory Fleck Byrne, Michele Austin, Phillipa Dunne (truly irritating wife), Josie Walker, Tom Durant Pritchard, Harriet Walter (despicable mother).

Foyle's War: Trespass (2015 Stuart Orme, writer Anthony Horowitz)

What starts out as a film about the Israel/Palestine situation (Horowitz was born into the family of a Jewish north London businessman), racism (and Fascism) turns out to have a much more subversive underbelly involving the Foreign Office, whose machinations force Foyle to resign... briefly. Amber Rose Revah, Alexander Arnold, Hermione Gulliford, Alex Jennings, John Heffernan, Richard Lintern (vile Fascist rabble-rouser). Good twisty story, exciting climax. And he often writes sweet little mini-stories. In this one, an ill boy is being looked after by a sweet older Polish couple, and Sam (Honeysuckle) tries to help.

Foyle's War: Sunflower (2013 Andy Hay, scr Anthony Horowitz)

What was Operation Sunflower / Sonnenblume? A horrible Nazi is being protected by British Intelligence;  Foyle is asked to look after him, though the Americans want him for a war crime of the title. But someone from his past is after him too.

Lars Eidinger is the odious German. Charles Aitken gives a stunning performance as the war-shocked survivor. It was something of a nuisance that we missed the last 20 minutes.

Magpie Murders (2022 Pater Cattaneo, writer Anthony Horowitz)

A Famous Author is murdered (he seems a bit of a shit). The way he gets annoyed when people call it 'The Magpie Murders' made me think of Q - 'No, it's not The Bodyguard, it's Bodyguard!' Editor Lesley Manville must find the missing last chapter of his last book. Meanwhile, in the book, a country squire is murdered... Offering good opportunities for characters to appear in both.

I kept thinking of The Singing Detective, with which it shares a similar structure. It was thoroughly enjoyable. Seems to reflect in the plot Conan Doyle's dislike for Sherlock Holmes.

We had attempted to watch a very rough-and-ready film from 1974, The Lords of Flatbush, with Sly Stallone and Henry Winkler, but it was very badly recorded and seemed to be in the Department of Clichés, so we abandoned ship. After the relative disappointment of Cry Macho we just couldn't be there.

With Tim McMullan (a Foyle's War alumni) as Atticus Pünd (not a German word), Conleth Hill (author), Pippa Heywood, Michael Maloney, Daniel Mays, Nathan Clarke, Harry Lawtey, Ian Lloyd Anderson.

Filmed in Ireland and Kersey in Suffolk.

Good opening credits animation by Huge Media:

Cattaneo made The Full Monty and Military Wives and episodes of The A Word and Rev.

Foyle's War: The Cage (2013 Stuart Orme, writer David Kane)

Rupert Vansittart is the new intelligence boss, who is quickly impressed by Foyle, investigating murders of Russian double agents. Honeysuckle's working there too, whilst helping her husband win his local election. Plot also centres on abduction of the wrong Eveleyn Green (a neat plot point). Tom Beard, Jonathan Hyde, Ellie Haddington, Tim McMullan.

It's filmed in Ireland. The Intelligence Services HQ is the Custom House, Dublin. The military base was Kiladoon House.

Crazy Stupid Love (2011 Glenn Ficarra, John Requa)

 Written by Dan Fogelman.

"This is going to be fun!"

Spencer (2021 Pablo Larraín)

Or, The Spencering, as I was getting a strong echo of The Shining, with its feeling of isolation, tracking shots down long corridors, ghastly decoration - even the scene between her and Timothy Spall in the larder - I almost expected him to say 'You've always been here, ma'am'. And weird music (Johnny Greenwood - an amazing score).

Kristen Stewart is simply fabulous as Diana.

Have to mention on camera Claire Mathon, whose team follows, watches, tracks, laterally tracks, pans, runs and nimbly goes wherever it needs to.

With the great Spall, Sean Harris and Sally Hawkins are Jack Farthing again, Stella Gonet (the Queen), Amy Manson (Anne Boleyn), Jack Nielen and Freddie Spry (William and Harry). Elizabeth Berrington apparently plays Princess Anne but I can't say I actually saw her face.

And written by Steven Knight. Love the joke about Diana's concern for safety when shooting. "Of course it will be safe. We wear protective glasses."

It blew me away. Larraín made Jackie, which I wasn't mad about, perhaps need to reevaluate. Something they share is an odd aspect ratio - this I think in 1.66:1. In the totally underwhelming 'making of' film, we did not talk to Knight, Mathon nor Greenwood, who I would have thought are all key collaborators. Nor film editor Sebastian Sepulvida, but that's par for the course. (I should mention the wonderful montage scene.)

Stewart has been Oscar nominated but I would have voted for Mathon and Greenwood also.

Cry Macho (2021 Clint Eastwood)

Cry Macho - which is not a good title, by the way - begins with some clunky expository dialogue and acting - it isn't necessary to say 'You've won five rodeo championships and then broke your back, and since your wife and kid weren't around I've looked after you'. Absolutely none of that needs to be said, especially as we see all his trophies and newspaper headlines - all the rest can emerge slowly, as in the best screenplays. And this is odd, because Nick Schenk has been involved in Gran Torino and The Mule and The Judge. And therefore, you'd think, knows what he's doing. Plus, as we know Eastwood the director gets involved in scripts, you would have thought he would have found problems there himself, so maybe some accusations that the ninety-year-old is losing his grip are valid.

He also finds the boy (Eduardo Minett) far too easily and the boy comes along far too easily - where's the conflict? Anyway, when the couple find the town and sleep in the church and meet the widowed grandmother, then it begins to find its feet and becomes an amiable adventure, with the boy's chicken proving useful. It's also beautifully photographed, by Ben Davis (Three Billboards, Doctor Strange, Seven Psychopaths). Edited by Joel and (I'm guessing his son) David Cox.

Based on a novel by N. Richard Nash, who co-wrote. With Natalia Traven, Fernanda Urrejola, Dwight Yoakam, Elida Munoz, Horacio Garcia Rojas.

Foyle's War: The Eternity Ring (2013 Stuart Orme, writer Anthony Horowitz)

In between The Cage and this, Foyle has been to America and is person non grata with the FBI, like there's a missing episode (maybe it's a novel). Straight off the boat he is summoned by MI5 to look into a case involving nuclear scientists and Honeysuckle Weeks, which he grudgingly accepts. Michael Kitchen's great, incisively cutting through the crap.

Cross-cut with this is the story of how a former constable of Foyle, returned from a Japanese POW Camp, is having difficulty settling back in. Hopefully we haven't seen the end of it.

With Ken Bones, Stephen Boxer, Tim McMullan, Ellie Haddington, Nicholas Jones, Daniel Weyman (Honeysuckle's husband). And ex solder Jo Duttine, wife Jennifer Hennessy and son Sam Clemmett.

No Return (2022 John Alexander, writer Danny Brocklehurst)

I bet Sheridan Smith's agent was happy that two things with her came out so close together. Brocklehurst is best known in this house as the adapter of dodgy Harlan Coben stories.

On holiday in Turkey, her boy is accused of sexually assaulting another kid and arrested. This leads to an Uncovering - or an Unwinding - writer's conflict, if you prefer. It's enacted by Sian Brooke, Michael Jibson, Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Murat Seven, Dabid Mumeni and Lily Sutcliffe

We loved the character and performance of the Turkish lawyer, Philip Arditti. Also Cosh Omar as the judge.

Four-parter for ITV. Moral of the story? Don't go on holiday to Turkey. (It was filmed in Spain - not Morocco, as I had guessed.) Which considering the Turkish Tourist Board has been quite active in advertising recently, I found quite funny.

Maybe it's an Unravelling. Something Bad happens, and everything Unravels. It's in Chapter 3 of the TV Scriptwriter's Book.

Foyle's War: The Hide (2010 Stuart Orme, writer Anthony Horowitz)

Good film. Foyle has retired, but still gets involved in trial of young man (Andrew Scott) caught in Nazi POW troop, survivor of Dresden. Many echoes abound with back story of his family (set at West Wycombe Park again), father David Yelland and step-mum Anastasia Hille.

Beautifully melded into this is Foyle's previous DI Anthony Howell and how his investigation of the murder of a young woman in Brighton fits in.

And in another side story, Honeysuckle Weeks and her man Max Brown are struggling to keep their boarding house afloat - face redevelopment by profiteers.

With Richard Goulding.

West Wycombe Park has been in Endeavour: Canticle, Belle and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Chloe (2022 Alice Seabright & scr)

She's a Sex Ed director. Concerning a strange young woman, and her anonymous and sneaky penetration of a circle of friends who are connected with the mysterious Chloe, clearly an ex-friend of hers who has cast her aside, now dead. The husband turns out to have been a controlling freak, the musician friend is in denial, as is the girl's supposed best friend. It evokes Rebecca / The Uninvited, slightly, with its dead woman and cliff-top ending. The ending seemed a bit nebulous, somehow, like nothing was really resolved. And how she is then supposed to go on with no job, no place to live and Mum in expensive care home, we can only guess. (She does seem quite good at PR, when she's not being sneaky.)

Erin Doherty (The Crown) is appropriately sly and furtive; with Billy Howle (The Serpent), Jack Farthing (Poldark), Pippa Bennett-Warner, Brandon Michael Hall (looked familiar but wasn't), Poppy Gilbert (Chloe), Ashkay Kannah, Lisa Palfrey (mum). Made with a certain flourish in the editing, music and sound mixing (the death of the little sister is particularly well done), but it all adds up to I don't know what, and as usual, I'm left wondering if it's a six hour story. And if you're going to keep showing shots of text messages, make sure we can fucking read them!

In the Heat of the Night (1967 Norman Jewison)

Broadcast by the BBC as a tribute - quite right. Good though Steiger is though, the Oscar should have gone to Poitier. Though as it turns out, he wasn't even nominated! (BAFTA did so.) That is scandalous. Film also won Best Picture, Screenplay, Editing and Sound.

Jewison's blocking is noticeable, Hal Ashby's editing is incisive, Haskell Wexler's photography is subtle but exceptional (very long shot zoom in on bridge is perfectly in focus). Well acted by all: Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Larry Gates, James Patterson, William Schallert, Beah Richards (also Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?), Peter Whitney, Ms. Quentin Dean, and the creepily good Anthony James (also in High Plains Drifter). Plus a young Harry Dean Stanton. Scott Wilson, as the suspect, was in In Cold Blood because Poitier recommended him.

A Mirisch Corporation film released through United Artists. Music by Quincy Jones. Written by Stirling Silliphant, based on a novel by John Ball.

Earthquake (1974 Mark Robson)

Watch out! For falling papier mâché and script clichés! ("This used to be a helluva town.") Enjoyable soap opera / disaster movie, starring Charlton Heston, George Kennedy, Ava Gardner, Genevieve Bujold. With Lorne Greene, Richard Roundtree, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Marjoe Gortner (with the hair), Victoria Principal (also with the hair), Walter 'Matuschanskayasky', Monica Lewis, Pedro Amendariz Jr, John Randolph, Donald Moffat.

The earthquake bits are not badly done, except for the moment when a cattle truck goes off a freeway and the cows don't fall out and all look like plastic. Crazy soldier killing looters / impending sexual assault story seems somewhat out-of-place, misjudged.

Real cheese-o moment when lift plummets to bottom and this happens:

I guess Heston and Gardner got swept away, then? One missed opportunity - unharmed Matthau should have been there right at the end.

Edited by Dorothy Spencer (Oscar nomination), who used a take of a real bike crash and had extra lines filmed so it could be worked into the story. Sound won Oscar (Ronald Pierce, Melvin Metcalfe), Philip Lathrop's photography nominated. Universal.

The film on in the cinema is High Plains Drifter, released (of course) by Universal.