Dead Reckoning (1947 John Cromwell)

As discussed here, Bogart's supporting cast is good with Morris Carnovsky as an articulate villain who doesn't like the sight of blood, Marvin Miller as a nasty tough guy, Wallace Ford a safe-cracker, Charles Kane as the cop. (Liked his surprise at finding out Bogie's a former paratrooper Captain.)

Lizabeth Scott was a husky-voiced  'Dark City' stalwart whose career was ruined by sleazoid publication 'Confidential' in 1952 (according to Eddie Muller).

Good use of code word 'Geronimo' and a college pin as a plot device, plus leftover weapons of war used in showdown.

Shot by Leo Tover, music Marlin Skiles, Columbia.

A nervous George Chandler with Carnovsky

Carrie Pilby (2016 Susan Johnson)

Kara Holden adapted Caren Lissner's novel about a hyper-intelligent woman and her bids to become a human being, with help from her therapist Nathan Lane and father Gabriel Byrne. Had not heard of Salinger's 'Frannie and Zooey' (essentially two novellas).

Bel Powley is marvellous in the title role. Loved the long tracking shot take around NYC streets at night with her and William Moseley. With Vanessa Bayer, Colin O'Donoghue (college professor), Jason Ritter.

Not a great title, however. Frannie and Zooey may have been better, as the book is kind of key to things, though may have represented a copyright issue.

Café Society (2016 Woody Allen & scr)

 We wanted more Kristen Stewart. She's wonderful in this. But so is everybody else.

It's our sixth viewing and I still can't get over how breathtaking Vittorio Storaro's photography is.

Boiling Point (2021 Philip Barantini & co-scr)

The full-length version has pressure coming at chef Stephen Graham from all sides - an investor wants his money back, there's a food critic in, he inadvertently poisons a guest, is failing as a father and on environmental standards, and is a drug addict. What larks!

Single take is rather grimly photographed by Matthew Lewis, though you have to give it to him for operating that camera rather skilfully over an hour and a half; also to the First AD Jamie Hetherington.

Vinette Robinson sadly can't quite handle her key moments; with Alice Feetham (front of house), Hannah Walters (pastry chef; Mrs. Graham), Malachi Kirby (Roots), Izuka Hoyle, Taz Skyler, Lauryn Ajufo, Jason Flemyng, Ray Panthaki. Well done, guys! Best moment is when Walters notices her assistant has been self-harming - an emotional moment.

Seberg (2019 Benedict Andrews)

Rather well acted (Andrews is an Australian theatre director) depiction of Jean Seberg's association with the Black Panthers and how she was outrageously hounded (illegally) by the FBI. Kristen Stewart pulls off another fabulous performance, ably assisted by Jack O'Connell, Margaret Qualley, Vince Vaughan, Anthony Mackie, Zazie Beetz, Colm Meaney, Stephen Root. Written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse (both wrote the Rebecca update).

Photographed by Rachel Morrison (Cake, Mudbound) on 35mm and edited by the effervescent Pamela Martin.

Hue and Cry (1947 Charles Crichton)

Written by TEB Clarke, after contributing the 'Golf' episode to Dead of Night. Story of boys foiling criminal endeavour is ingenious. 'It was a great success and was praised by the critics, not least for the strongly indigenous feeling it had - it was, commented the Monthly Film Bulletin, 'English to the backbone' ('Forever Ealing', George Perry). The bombed out ruins were used brilliantly.

Funny how many 'milk bars' I noticed.

The scene on the stairs (boys visiting Alastair Sim) and the sewers episode both made me think of The Third Man.

Harry Fowler, Douglas Barr, Stanley Escane, Ian Dawson, Gerald Fox, Joan Dowling, Jack Warner, Alistair Sim, Valerie White, Alec Finter.

Sad footnote: Dowling and Fowler met on this film and were married. She discovered he was having an affair, committed suicide aged 26.

Brilliantly lit by Douglas Slocombe; music by Georges Auric, editing by Charles Hasse, both also notable.

Falling for Figaro (2020 Ben Lewin & co-scr)

You can't really extrapolate a feeling for the whole film from the giant pig on the hotel door key, but it does send you in the right direction - this is reasonably enjoyable nonsense. A fund manager (Danielle Macdonald) journeys to Scotland to be tutored by tough opera teacher Joanna Lumley, who's given no character back-story. There we meet a young man who's also in training, and has been for five years - W1A's Hugh Skinner. Gary Lewis is the pub/hotel owner where we're sort of in Local Hero mode - more could have been made of the regulars also being opera fans.

Overall it's odd, underwritten and predictable.

Gomorrah - La Serie 5 (2021)

Still in hiding, Genna tries to wipe out the remaining Levante brothers but the magistrate switches the burial site. He approaches the Savastanos who set up a trap, but he second guesses them and kills them, but not before he's learned that Ciro is still alive. He travels to Latvia for that bromance reunification that ends L'Immortale - but then, double-crosses Ciro and has him imprisoned in a gulag by Russian. Che cazzo? He has to understand his crimes or some bullshit. But Ciro escapes into the hands of a useful Latvian family who help him take out the pursuing Russians and their boss, a man who has far too long hair for what's good for him. (There may be a little commentary here on Russia -Latvia enmity.)

Meanwhile Genna attempts to do a deal with a new 'broker', who responds to the inviation by taking a piss in front of him. And Lil Monk (all the block house bosses have funny nicknames) approaches the Levantes to strike up better conditions, and ends up being directed to marry the sister. Taking her out for ice cream, he apologies for this forced move and she tells him he's the first person in her life to say sorry. That I think is a meaningful moment...

... Well I read that wrong. Shortly after, at the engagement party, all the Levantes are brutally murdered and he shoots her.  And the 'broker' is also killed, invoking the wrath of his widow (Nunzia Schiano, rather good), who first tries to kill Genna's estranged wife and son, then approaches Ciro for help. All the old Secondigliano and the Forcella lot are somewhat amazed that Ciro is back and really is 'L'Immortale'.

Marco d'Amore and Claudio Cupellini are the artistic directors. Ivana Lotito is Genna's wife, Arturo Muselli is 'Blue Blood', Mimmo Borelli ('Mistral') and Tania Garribba, Carmine Paternoster (Lil Monk).

Genna's new apartment is absolutely vile.

I find it funny that the show is subtitled even in Italy, so strong is the Southern accent (or to be more accurate, the Neapolitan dialect).

I wondered if it would be a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - I think it was the right ending. Also the show doesn't glamorise the gangster thing at all. The criminals here don't have any fun, they don't even seem to eat a good meal, their lives are grimy, they die or betray or are betrayed, they live in desperately poor environments, even the well-off gangsters either seem to spend half the time in hidey-holes or in vomit-inducing places.

Patrizia Marone continued to edit all episodes and now deserves a holiday. D'Amore and Cupellini shared the director duties. Leonardo Fasoli is the supervising writer. DPs are Guido Michelotti and Ferran Paredes.

... But at the very end, Ciro's eyes open... He is 'L'Immortale', after all... and that's how the next film will begin.

The Big Chill (1983 Lawrence Kasdan & co-scr)

 .. with Barbara Benedek. For William Hurt, an actor we've always admired, who died on March 13, our favourite character and actor in this. He won the Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman and was nominated for Broadcast News, Children of a Lesser God and A History of Violence. We also love him in Smoke and Second Best. Kasdan and he worked on three other films together, Body Heat, I Love You To Death and The Accidental Tourist.

Rest of cast: Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, Tom Berenger, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, Jeff Goldblum, Jobeth Williams. Several Kasdans are in bit parts. It's edited by Carol Littleton and photographed by her husband John Bailey. Carol recalls that the Columbia studio execs didn't find it all funny, didn't realise it was a comedy (an adult comedy) until preview audiences started enthusiastically reacting. (Actually - is it a comedy? I would have said it's a relationship piece with funny bits.) Michael Grillo is first AD.

The Good Fairy (1935 William Wyler)

A nimble, early film from Wyler - well, not that early - he started in silents - though distinguished by certain long takes between actors, and thus in a way set the model for Preston Sturges' own films (he wrote it) when he began directing. I was intrigued to read on IMDB that Wyler started to develop the style of deep focus photography in this film, but there's absolutely no evidence of that (Norbert Brodine shot it. What's the casual version of 'Norbert' - 'Norb'?*)

Orphaned Margaret Sullavan finds life in the Big City (Budapest; the source is Ferenc Molnar) daunting. She is fortunate to run into protective waiter Reginald Owen, less fortunate to be hit on by Frank Morgan, ends up helping impoverished lawyer Herbert Marshall. With Eric Blore, Beulah Bondi, Alan Hale, Cesar Romero, Luis Alberni. Universal.

Hilarious film-within-film in which man just keeps on saying 'Go' to the woman.

In Sturges' autobiography, he writes "Two weeks before the picture finished, Willie eloped with Maggie Sullavan. He asked my opinion of the proposed match beforehand, but he must not have heard what I said." (It didn't last long.) The script's peppered with the usual Sturgesisms, like "I can do with one honest lawyer, but don't overdo it."

* Ed. 'Bert' more likely, idiot.

Interview with the Vampire (1994 Neil Jordan)

Journalist Christian Slater interviews vampire Brad Pitt about his life of two hundred years or more, in which he is vampired by Tom Cruise and recruits little Kirsten Dunst (a remarkably assured performance) to join their gang. After about an hour of chomping in New Orleans we rather lost the will to live, despite mainly wonderful imagery from Philippe Rousselot (particularly good in fire scenes, though having a tendency to overlight some of the night stuff) and fabulous editing from Mick Audsley and his partner Joke van Wijk.

It's difficult to know how to take this - is it supposed to be funny ("She slept in my coffin at first")? Certainly seems rather camp. Can't really get interested about vampire things any more. After an hour, Banderas was in, Cruise was out, and so were we.

Anne Rice adapted her own novel. We missed Helen McCrory as '2nd whore'.

Green for Danger (1946 Sidney Gilliat)

Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Rosamund John, Alastair Sim, Leo Genn, Judy Campbell (the overwrought one), Megs Jenkins, Moore Marriott 

DP Wilkie Cooper, camera Oswald Morris, music William Alwyn. Written by Gilliatt and Claud Gurney, from Christianna Brand novel. A Gilliatt / Launder production.

Murders in studio-based, war torn hospital, with Sim a jolly centre as ironic (and somewhat cocky) detective in a hotbed of suspicion, sexual jealousy and murder. A nice mixture, a delicious performance.

Liked the moment Sim thinks he's solved the crime novel he's reading - turns to the end - realises he hasn't.

L'Amica Geniale / My Brilliant Friend (2018 Saverio Costanzo)

Based on the first Neopolitan Novel by the anonymous Elena Ferrante, written by her, the director, Francesco Piccolo and Laura Paulocci (do you think any of them met her? if it is a her), with Paolo Sorentino one of the producers.

Life in (near?) Napoli in 1950s is brutal for people and the two girls who become friends, Elise del Genio ('Elena / Lenù') and Ludovica Nasti ('Lila').

That scene in episode one where the woman throwing her stuff out of the window cries and cries - those cries got right under my skin. And there's equally lovely moments in two where Elena's dad beats her up for wanting to be educated, and Rafaella's dad throws her out of a window.

By episode 3 they're teenagers. Lenù is Margherita Mazzucco, Lila Gaia Girace. As Lenù's in high school, we're in proper Napoli for the first time. Lila and her brother Rino (Gennaro De Steafano) are trying to develop a new brand of shoe; but the local hood Marcello Solara (Elvis Esposito, a Gomorrah alumni) has his eye on her - she's grown up to be a feisty and intelligent woman, usually ahead of her friend academically.

Lenù spends a summer on Ischia where she's reunited with her childhood crush, but his father - a poet - is overly interested in her too.

Lila ends up with the grocer, who is the murdered Don's son Stefano (Giovanni Amura), and develops a taste for the high life. He invests in the shoe business but in the wedding finale, the despised Marcello turns up, despite Lila's insistence he won't be there - and he's wearing that first pair of shoes Stefano bought. Che stronzo!

Dora Romano is the teacher, Lila's dad is Antonio Buonanno, Lena's mum Annarita Vitolo.

An eight hour series for HBO, RAI and Timvision. The girls' neighbourhood is a huge set designed by Giancarlo Basili in Caserta, Campania. Music by Max Richter, DP Fabio Cianchetti, editor Francesco Calvelli.

Holding (2022 Kathy Burke)

Adapted from Graham Norton's novel by Karen Cogan and Dominic Treadwell-Collins (2 episodes each), for ITV. Like Nick Hornby, he felt he'd spent enough time with the characters not to want to do the adaptation, but liked the way his story had been opened out - "They've really elevated it".

Very enjoyable and immediately engaging characters in tale of bones discovered of possibly long-missing man. Perhaps has some influence from The Guard.

Conleth Hill is good as the sergeant (we've just seen him in Magpie Murders  and unlikely though it seems, he was in Woody Allen's Whatever Works), Clinton Liberty his police sidekick (didn't quite understand the way his character behaves), Siobhan McSweeney the drinking mother, Brenda Fricker, Charlene McKenna as the wild one, Father Ted's Pauline McLynn (overdoing it) as gossip, Helen Behan (The Virtues, another great performance, as Abigail, the one with cancer), Amy Conroy, Pauline McLynn, Olwen Fouéré.

It has a warmth and feeling for people that most detective / crime shows don't.

That line from husband to wife - "we'll muddle along, won't we?" - I found strangely moving.

Crack-Up (1946 Irving Reis)

Pat O'Brien is the unlikeliest art expert ever, but the mystery surrounding his apparent train crash is intriguing, and the plot that unfolds regarding missing works of art is interesting.

Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, Ray Collins, Wallace Ford (detective), Erskine Sanford.

Written by John Paxton, Ben Bengal and Ray Spencer  from Frederic Brown short story 'Madman's Holiday'. Music from Leigh Harline, dark photography Robert de Grasse, RKO. Reis made The Big Street, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, Enchantment.

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel - Season 4 (2022 Amy-Sherman Palladino)

Lovely to have it back, love the long takes (a real hallmark of this show - Coney Island scene for example - often choreographed). Midge is working at a strip club, dad is the theatre critic for the Village Voice. Obviously, hadn't read my Greenwich Village book before, didn't understand all the relevance, e.g. John Waters' cameo in Christoper Street (where gay liberation started) directing Midge to a lesbian club, Cherry Lane Theatre, Lenny Bruce on TV, Susie's office overlooking Broadway.

Some of the Jewish humour writing is terrific, Shaloub wonderful. Comedy routines really good also. Also some of the outlandish strip acts e.g. the Wizard of Oz routine with 'Dorothy' spinning around upside down in tornado.

Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle, Luke Kirby, Jane Lynch.

Husband Daniel Palladino is a writer alongside Amy; also Kate Fodor. They also share the directing in turns (one episode was directed by Scott Ellis). Amy was a writer on Roseanne, created and wrote The Gilmore Girls, does not believe in a room full of writers, but rather 'one or two clean, creative voices in charge'.

David Mullan is the DP but rightly Jim McConley gets a big credit as A Camera / Steadicam operator.

The Adam Project (2022 Shawn Levy)

Could have done with less video-game CGI 'action' but an enjoyable time-travel adventure with Ryan Reynolds and Walker Scobell as his younger self. With Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldana, Alex Mallari Jr.

Written by Jonathan Tropper, TS Nowlin & Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin.

Q told me that a week after dropping on Netflix, it had been seen by ninety million people. 'It wasn't that good'' she said.

Pieces of Her (2022 Minke Spiro, Creator Charlotte Stoudt)

Has quite a beginning, in which mom Toni Collette protects her daughter Bella Heathcote from a killer in a restaurant, and it turns out she isn't what she seems at all (in fact is some kind of super-agent). The daughter goes on the run, but is being followed and can't trust anyone - I was getting echoes here of Odd Man Out, a film which I haven't even seen, and the car buying episode is straight out of Psycho. And why do I keep thinking The Manchurian Candidate?

The transitions from past to present are very creatively done - Minke Spiro also directed an episode of Fosse / Verdun. Based on a novel by Karin Slaughter. It's consistently intriguing and interesting, right to the twist end. But it's slightly lacking in heart. Could have done with more stuff with the housekeeper, for example.

Omari Harwick, David Wenham, Jessica Barden (the young Toni), Jacob Scipio (cop), Joe Dempsie (from Southcliffe; didn't recognise him), Terry O'Quinn. The little girl's good too.

Photographed by Ole Bratt Birkeland (Judy, The Crown, The Missing), edited by Michael Riscio, Mako Kamitsuna (and Adoma Ananeh-Firempong). For Netflix.

They Won't Believe Me (1947 Irving Pichel)

Yes, I didn't realise we'd seen this quite recently, but enjoyed it more second time around, particularly Susan Hayward in film-stealing role as gold-digging siren (who, ultimately, has a heart - just before that heart stops beating). Has a kick-snorter of an ending.

Robert Young (Sitting Pretty) is the incessantly cheating husband who tries to get away with murder, but in the end, doesn't have to. His long-suffering wife is Rita Johnson, the girl who he betrays is Jane Greer. The story is by Gordon McDonell and the screenplay Jonathan Latimer.

An RKO production. Photographed by Harry Wild, music Roy Webb, producer Joan Harrison.

The Gilded Age (2022 Michael Engler, writer Julian Fellowes)

Somewhat clunky, as we're beginning to expect from Fellowes, but rather enjoyable as suddenly bankrupt  Louisa Jacobson comes to her aunts' in New York, picking up wannabe writer Denée Benton en route.

Christine Baranski is the 'old money' guardian, Blake Ritson her son, Cynthia Nixon her more open-minded sister. 

Carrie Coon represents new money, her husband Morgan Spector is a ruthless businessman (who is somewhat annoying), Taissa Farmiga their daughter, Harry Russell the son.

Simon Jones is the classic British Butler.

There are some other people in the cast, but one doesn't have all day.

Increasingly resembles a filmed play by on over-acting cast. Not sure Fellowes is really any good as a writer.

Produced by HBO / Universal Television. The buildings are inspired by real Vanderbilt mansions.

Fifth Avenue, 1895

No Man of Her Own (1950 Mitchell Leisen)

Based on a William Irish (Cornell Woolrich) 1948 novel 'I Married a Dead Man', whose writings have germinated The Window and Rear Window, Phantom Lady, La Mariée Etait en Noir and Mississippi Mermaid, The Leopard Man, Black Angel and The Chase - and they're just the ones I've seen. By all accounts an unhappy gay alcoholic recluse who started as a Jazz Age novelist, tried unsuccessfully to become a Hollywood scriptwriter, spent his latter days in seedy hotels around New York.

Pregnant, and rejected by the brutish father, Barbara Stanwyck takes a train to San Francisco, meets a nice couple and takes on the wife's identity after a fatal train crash (but not before Snowflake* has told them all what they're having for dinner - a nice touch). She's adopted by the dead man's family, engaging the interest of brother-in-law John Lund, but then the past comes back to haunt her. The past's played well by Lyle Bettger (his debut).

With Jane Cowl, Phyllis Thaxter, Henry O'Neill, Carole Mathews, Esther Dale (the maid).

Shot by Daniel Fapp, music by Hugo Friedhofer. Produced by Richard Maibaum, better known as the original James Bond screenwriter. This by the way was scripted by Sally Benson and Catherine Turney.

*At least I thought it was... turns out it was Dooley Wilson!

"It's usually pretty deserted down there this time of night"

Still don't understand though where that shot sounded from if her own gun wasn't fired and the guy was dead already.

No Man of Her Own is also the title of an earlier Paramount 1932 film with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, after which she presented the actor with the gift of a ham!

Cheaters (2022 Elliot Hegarty)

In 18 ten minute episodes, a couple who've had an affair in Iceland - Susan Wokoma and Joshua McGuire - realise they live opposite each other with partners Jack Fox and Callie Cooke, and the affair continues. It ends inconclusively.

Written by Oliver Lyttleton.

Our House (2022 Sheree Folkson, scr Simon Ashdown)

Based on a novel by Louise Candlish. 4 x 45 for ITV. Tuppence Middleton is understandably a bit put out when she gets home and finds her lovely house has been sold from under her by separated husband Martin Compston, though it turns out he's being blackmailed by Rupert Penry-Jones (who I have to say we thought would be dodgy the moment we saw him) and Buket Komur.

The ending is awful. Before committing suicide, having returned the money, Compston drops Tuppence in it for the murder of RPJ. If that's the novel ending, Mr Simon Ashdown, I would have changed it. In fact the more I think about the plot, the more ridiculous it was. Was RPJ road raging for a bit of fun? Why did the solicitor still transfer the money when he'd had evidence that the real wife had visited? Why didn't people involve the police at all the moments when you or I would have?

With Veruche Obia, Bronach Waugh.

The house is in Dulwich, South London, overlooking Peckham Rye, and the interior was created in detail in the studio.

Inside No. 91!

Miss Tatlock's Millions (1948 Richard Haydn)

Written by Charles Brackett (who produced) and Richard Breen. Based on the play 'Oh Brother!' by Jacques Deval.

A wily Irishman (Barry Fitzgerald) persuades a stunt man (John Lund) to pose as a long-vanished heir to a fortune to protect his own interests. The son has a screwy personality, to put it kindly - Lund's depiction of a clearly mentally challenged person is slightly queasy, and prevents it from being quite as screwball funny as it might have been. The slightly risqué brother-sister incest thing is hinted at and dealt with as expertly as the under-age plot of Wilder and Brackett's The Major and the Minor.

Good cast. Wanda Hendrix, Monte Woolley, Ilka Chase, Robert Stack, Dorothy Stickney, Leif Erickson (doctor), Dan Tobin, Richard Haydn himself (billed as 'Richard Rancyd').

Like Hold Back the Dawn it begins on the Paramount lot with Mitch Leisen acting as the director.

Our hazy from-VHS copy can't disguise the customary lighting skill of Charles Lang. Doane Harrison is the supervising editor (who therefore was around to make sure Haydn didn't balls it up).

The Curse (2022

The 1980s. Our hapless and inept band of thieves: Allan Mustafa (and his wife Emer Kenny), Tom Davis (in an outrageous accent, much imitated in this house, though it keeps turning into Tom Hardy in Peaky Blinders), Hugo Chegwin and Steve Stamp. The bad guys who get involved: Abraham Popoola and Peter Ferdinando. Detectives Geoff Bell and Ambreen Razia. Plus Michael Smiley, and that guy from This Life.

Written by Stamp, Davis, Mustafa and Chegwin.

Again London is played by Liverpool.

60 x 30 for Channel 4. It's quite fun, though ends most abruptly - perhaps cueing a second series.

Poster artwork as teaser images are fun

Houseboat (1958 Melville Shavelson & co-scr)

Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Martha Hyer, Harry Guardino (Dirty Harry, The Enforcer), Eduardo Cianelli, Murray Hamilton; and Mimi Gibson, Paul Petersen and Charles Herbert as the kids. Written by Shavelson and Jack Rose (who also produced), photographed by Ray June, music by Charles Duning.

Grant and Loren make a marvellous pairing (Grant was apparently madly in love with her, but she had just married Carlo Ponti) and the story isn't too icky.

Shavelson has been a staff writer at Paramount since the forties, this one of his early director jobs. He did the later Jack Lemmon comedy The War Between Men and Women. He and Rose also wrote another Cary Grant / kids comedy, Room For One More in 1951.

A Time to Kill (1996 Joel Schumacher)

John Grisham novel, adapted by Avika Goldsman, two and a half hours that doesn't drag, though I still don't know who Mickey Mouse guy was (who rescued Sandra). Did I miss something?

Matthew McConaughey is rather good, especially in court room summation scene, Samuel L Jackson too as accused man. I have to say the whole ethics of this are particularly murky. There was a not unwelcome scent of Anatomy of a Murder hanging over it.

Sandra Bullock, Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Charles Dutton, Brenda Fricker, Donald Sutherland (kind of a non-part really), Keifer Sutherland, Patrick McGoohan (overdoing it), Chris Cooper, Ashley Judd (wife).

Photographed by Peter Menzies Jr, edited by William Steinkamp.

If the KKK were / are still active in this way, that is rather worrying. The American Civil War is, I think, at the heart of the country's division even today.

King Richard (2021 Reinaldo Marcus Green)

Produced by and starring Will Smith, a performance which has won him an Oscar nomination, as did Aunjanue Ellis (If Beale Street Could Talk) as his wife. Saniyya Sidney also great as Venus. With Demi Singleton (Serena), Jon Bernthal (trainer Rick), Tony Goldwyn.

It was also nominated for Best Film, screenplay (Zach Baylin), editing (Pamela Martin) and song. Photographed by Robert Elswitt.

Long but absorbing story of how Richard Williams focused all his energies on ensuring two of his daughters were tennis champions, proving that he was himself no mean coach, nor that being Compton based was a barrier. And that he didn't do it on his own - that the mother was also a critical presence. The film also clearly shows how white the sport was, before these two women blazed a path through it.

Theater of Blood (1973 Douglas Hickox)

Written by Anthony Greville-Bell, from an idea by Stanley Mann and John Kohn. Good fun, as hammy Shakespearan actor Vincent Price and his daughter Diana Rigg takes revenge on the theatre critics who've never given him a good notice, aided by a gang of vagrant drunkards (who Q referred to - for eccentric reasons known only to her - as 'the cast'). The critics are Arthur Lowe, Ian Hendry, Harry Andrews, Coral Browne (soon to become Mrs Price), AMOLAD's Robert Coote, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern and Robert Morley. Slightly sad to see this lot relegated to gory victims, as they approach the twilight of their careers. Milo O'Shea and Eric Sykes investigate.

References to plays form ingenious murder methods, best involving Lowe's head and Morley's precious dogs.

Shot by Wolf Suschitsky.

The French Dispatch (2021 Wes Anderson & scr)

From a story by Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness and Jason Schwartman.

The French Dispatch is so packed with stuff (ideas, images, design, jokes, people) that it's a little overwhelming the first time round. But don't get me wrong - these are jaw-dropping, brilliant and gorgeous ideas, images, designs, jokes and people, and it's frequently laugh out loud funny. 

Once you get round it, it's the last issue of a strange newspaper about life in Ennui, France, aimed at the people of Liberty, Kansas.

The titles are too small and on too quickly, and in fact the same is true of the end credits, which fly by too quickly to read... and that's a serious issue. Imagine if that happened at the end of a great opera performance. It's mainly in 4x3, and flits as well from colour to black and white, often in mid-scene, in the usual array of lateral tracking shots and square on compositions.

The essence is three disparate stories. Benicio del Toro is a convicted murderer who creates modern art based on his muse, warder Léa Seydoux. Adrien Brody is an investor who ropes in his uncles Bob Balaban and Henry Winkler. Tilda Swinton is a commentating art critic.

Timothée Chalamet (good) is some type of revolutionary who writes a manifesto which journalist and lover Frances McDormand edits. Lyna Khoudri is his spirited opponent.

And lastly, Jeffrey Wright (good), a food critic with a typographic memory is interviewed by Leiv Schreiber about a memorable meal, interrupted by a kidnapping, which also involves Mathieu Amalric, Christoph Waltz, Willem Defoe, Saoirse Ronan and Edward Norton. This one ends as an animation.

Maybe it's this lack of focus that makes it - whilst dazzling and funny - more unwieldy than the similarly stylish Grand Budapest Hotel. And it's perhaps hard not to disagree with Chad Byrnes in The Village Voice who ends his review with 'Too bad the same filmmaker who went to dreadful pains to design the house and hang the drapes, forgot to inhabit it with actual human beings.'

Usual collaborators are Robert Yeoman, Alexandre Desplat and Andrew Weisblum, production designer Adam Stockhausen.

With: Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Steve Park ('Nescaffier'), Lois Smith, Tony Revolori, Larry Pine, Cécile de France, Elisabeth Moss, Jason Schwartzman, Griffin Dunne, Rupert Friend, Anjelica Huston (narrator).

Phew! is response to both experiencing and writing about this film.

Bruno Delbonnel is one of several people who receive a 'special thanks', and is in a cameo.