How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003 Donald Petrie)

A dreadful film, one of those that Matthew McConaughey had to start turning down in order to start being offered the good parts, e.g. Mud. He's reteamed with Kate Hudson from Fool's Gold. Performances look like they've been edited together, full of fake donkey laughing. Talking of donkeys, it was written by three - that tell-tale credit - Kristen Buckley & Brian Regan and Burr Steers - even the source novel was co-authored.

With Kathryn Hahn, Annie Parisse, Adam Goldberg, Bebe Neuwirth.

Photographed by John Bailey, music by David Newman (brother of Tom, son of Alfred). Filmed in NYC and Toronto. The bridge they end up on is the Manhattan Bridge, connecting the south of the island to Brooklyn.

Dinner at Eight (1933 George Cukor)

David Selznick tried to repeat Thalberg's success with Grand Hotel but with fairly disastrous results. Though played more for laughs, these sit uneasily with drama elements, e.g. John Barrymore's failed actor's suicide. Also the plot lines are oddly inconclusive - Lionel Barrymore is dying, his business is sunk. His daughter Madge Evans professed to be in love with JB, now presumably takes up with fiancee Phillips Holmes again? What of Wallace Beery and his two-timing wife Jean Harlow?

Up until the last twenty minutes there's no music at all. Which (unlike yesterday's Dead End) gives it a creaky feeling like it's older than its predecessor.

'How long ago did we watch this?' Q asked me.
'2007,' I replied.
'There's a reason for that,' was her sage response.

So (to try to find the good) Marie Dressler as (another) washed up actor is quite fun (one of her last performances), Harlow quite amusing trying to fit in with upper crust, the always reliable Beulah Bondi sympathetic as harassed wife trying to organise said dinner.

With Lee Tracy (agent), Edmund Lowe (doctor), Madge Evans (aunt), Jean Hersholt (producer), Karen Morley (doctor's wife), May Robson, Grant Mitchell. Based on a play by Kaufman and Ferber, adapted by Frances Marion and Herman Mankiewicz, with additional dialogue from Donald Ogden Stewart. Shot by Bill Daniels.

The editing (Ben Lewis) is disappointingly extremely slack - this was a couple of years before Margaret Booth became Head of MGM Editing - this wouldn't have happened on her watch.

Died 1937 aged 26

Bit more of this sort of stuff might have helped

I missed the very ending. Harlow says she's been reading a 'nutty book' in which every profession will be replaced by machines. Dressler looks her up and down and says "Oh my dear, that's something you never need worry about."

It was a big hit.

Dead End (1937 William Wyler)

Not Warner Bros. but a Sam Goldwyn production.* Sidney Kingsley's play has been transformed (presumably) faithfully by Lillian Hellman, in its single main set (remarkable work from Richard Day - incredible credits) and setting over a single day.

Killer Humphrey Bogart returns to his East River hood to see his Mom Marjorie Main (who we saw not so long ago in Undercurrent; also Heaven Can Wait, Another Thin Man, Test Pilot) - very disappointed in him - and ex Clare Trevor - now a prostitute he rejects. ('Can't you see - I'm sick' she says - a suggestion from the play she has syphilis, lost of course in the film version.) Observes youth gang from the slums at 'play' whilst the new rich neighbours in their swanky apartments abut the district. Trained architect Joel McRae (reduced to painting signs for the local Italian restaurant) dallies with socialite Wendy Barrie but has a soft spot for childhood friend Sylvia Sidney, whose hands are full with strikes for fair pay and an errant brother Billy Halop, who's one of the gang.

And a tough little gang they are too - and a tough little film, startlingly photographed by Gregg Toland (sometimes from vertigo-inducing height). The fact there's no incidental music adds edge.

Not many of Wyler's characteristic long takes, but the performances are as usual good. Edited by Daniel Mandell.

With Allen Jenkins, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey (the snitch), Gabriel Dell, Minor Watson, George Humbert and Ward Bond (doorman).

If that's the same bridge from Manhattan in the background then it's the Queensborough Bridge (also known as the 59th Street Bridge). Or it's the Manhattan Bridge, down to the south of the island.

Angels With Dirty Faces - featuring the same teenagers - is I guess a sort of reworking.

* Goldwyn - apparently notoriously difficult to work with - was fired from his own company Goldwyn Pictures in 1922 (or 1924, depending on your source) - thus when MGM was formed his name was part of the brand even though he had nothing to do with it. He remained an independent production company responsible for films such as Dodsworth, Stella Dallas, Wuthering Heights, Raffles, The Little Foxes, Ball of Fire, The Best Years of Our Lives, and The Bishop's Wife. (Interesting that seven of these films, including Dead End, were shot by Gregg Toland.)

Hotel (1967 Richard Quine)

Unlike Vicki Baum, Arthur Hailey did not I think have direct experience of the hotel industry, though did have a multitude of jobs before this was published in 1965 and became a hit. It's not the best written novel but its multi-stranded stories are readable, some of which (obviously) were dispensed with for the film, which was adapted by Wendell Mayes. The best of these is that of a poor old man with pneumonia who is looked after by the efficient PA to the owner, Christine - turns out to be a multi-millionaire who buys the hotel! Now why didn't they leave that in?

In my last review, I wondered if the hotel might have been saved at the last minute, though it turns out the old man's plans are to invest the remaining half million in a new hotel, smaller. "I'll start looking", Rod says. Also, the way the countess takes the blame for her husband is noble indeed. But overall we're slightly lacking in action and event.

Quine and top DP Charles Lang move things along smoothly on Universal sets, Sam O'Steen is the editor. Watchable cast: Rod Taylor quite credible as manager, Melvyn Douglas, Catherine Spaak, Karl Malden, Merle Oberon (who was in 'Keeks!' - you know, That Uncertain Feeling - for Lubitsch in 1941; this was almost her last role), Michael Rennie, Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1954, then mainly on TV), Richard Conte, Carmen McCrae.

Johnny Keating's music anchors it firmly in the late sixties, but his main theme is overused to the point of irritation.

The Suspect (2022 Writer Peter Berry)

Aiden Turner is a psychologist with recently diagnosed Parkinson's (his shaking is good). He becomes involved in a murder case but it turns out he knows the victim. Then he begins to suspect an unbalanced patient as being the killer, though the police behave stupidly (a major plot downside). It's one of those barely believable but reasonably watchable ITV thrillers, notable perhaps for Bobby Schofield's performance as the unhinged young man (no relation to Paul).

With Angela Griffin, Adam James, Sian Clifford, Camilla Beeput, Bronagh Waugh.

Shaun Parkes and Anjli Mohindra are the slow-footed investigating detectives.

A five-parter for ITV. Based on a novel by Michael Robotham.

Grand Hotel (1932 Edmund Goulding)

Vicki Baum's novel 'Menschen in Hotel', inspired by her time as a chambermaid in two Berlin hotels, was the inspiration for Thalberg's star-studded hit, the film that CC Baxter is so excited to see is coming up in The Apartment (but the number of sponsored ads beforehand makes him give up). Garbo gets star billing but for us it's the twinning of John and Lionel Barrymore that makes it so watchable, particularly as their relationship is so great - John being an urbane, good-hearted burglar, Lionel a mild-mannered nothing who's dying and wants to enjoy his last days in the best hotel in Berlin. Completing the star line-up is a young Joan Crawford (appealing, all big eyes) and a gruff Wallace Beery, with Lewis Stone as the cynical resident who's commentary is 'Nothing ever happens', and Jean Hersholt as an expectant father. The ending is tragic, sweet and ironic.

Directed in long takes, almost like theatre, with some very sophisticated crane shots, all orchestrated by Garbo regular Bill Daniels. This is just before King Kong and a composed music score - thus the incidental score features odd bits of classical music, which gives it a very old-fashioned feel.

I noted the last time we watched this - 2009 - that 'everyone falls in love immediately in the Grand Hotel' - that's certainly true of Crawford for Barrymore J. and Barrymore J. for Garbo; but possibly also Barrymore L. for Barrymore J. L. (sorry I started this now) certainly gives a great performance. Most enjoyable.

Won Best Picture. Edited by Blanche Sewell, art direction by Cedric Gibbons.

Q thought we were watching the Rod Taylor Hotel, so that's I'm sure now on the horizon. 

Sylvie's Love (2020 Eugene Ashe & scr)

An Amazon original, a sort of Harlem-set La La Land, or a fifties melodrama refreshingly made without a modern filter nor racial prejudice. (Maybe the latter is the modern filter.)

Tessa Thompson (who's also a producer), Nnamdi Asomugha, Eva Longoria, Aja Naomi King, Jemima Kirke, Tone Bell, Lance Reddick (the father).

Good score by Farbrice Lecomte and cinematography from Declan Quinn (on Super 16 film), edited by Dana Congdon, production design Mayne Berke. Lovely fifties jazz. Ashe had made just one film before. He quite often sensibly leaves characters in two shot.

The Half Of It (2020 Alice Wu & scr)

I was rather impressed by this, a sort of Cyrano de Bergerac idea, updated, but - and this is where it's really good - with an ending that could go different ways, a real breath of fresh air from your normal romantic comedy / dramas. Nicely drawn characters too.

Leah Lewis is the hard-working daughter of single parent Collin Chou, who starts to help jock Daniel Diemer communicate with the object of attraction Alexxis Lemire (who herself is dating another jock Wolfgang Novokratz).

Nice touches - the jock starts sharing his German (Polish?) cuisine with the Chinese; she sheds her 'Russian Doll's' layers of clothing; the wall 'art' that is painted over; painful uphill bicycle rides followed by a joyous car journey. We did think the father should have pulled himself together and get a job rather than watching a string of admittedly good films (most of which I identified, but failed to get Wings of Desire (tut, tut) and Ek Villain, 2014 Indian film - can't know them all).

Subtle, sweet, funny - Wu one to watch. Strongly female behind camera too - DP Greta Zozoula, female production designer / art director / make-up / costumes.

Wu was a computer science whizz at MIT, left a job designing software at Microsoft to write and direct her first film Saving Face in 2004. So what happened in the meantime?

“I thought I’d left the industry. I was 39 at the time, and I was like, well, I spent my twenties doing computer science, I spent my thirties doing this crazy film thing, my forties are going to be about taking care of my family. So that’s what I did.”

She read investment books to make her money work for her and started doing improv comedy for fun. Her mom got better (she’s doing great), and she saw the end of a long-term relationship. In short, life happened and at some point she seemed destined to write about it again.

Thanks again to Indiewire. 

The Last Command (1928 Josef von Sternberg)

Another late silent masterpiece is a powerfully ironic meditation on power and pride. It begins in a very modern way - anticipating Blimp - at the beginning of the last part of the story in Hollywood in 1928, with a now reduced and shell-shocked film extra Emil Jannings, then flashes back to Russia 1917 where he was formerly the cocky head of the Russian army.

von Sternberg's recreation of Russia scenes at Paramount Studios is impressive indeed - already we're seeing these richly textured complex frames and camera motion, shot by Bert Glennon, designed by Hans Dreier (uncredited, a major collaborator - amazing credits including his final one A Place in the Sun). Moves along well in shot sizes and editing, rarely shows signs of creaking.

The Jannings character (an incredible performance, by the way, won Oscar - later to appear in von Sternberg's The Blue Angel) imprisons revolutionary William Powell (impressive) but takes fellow revolutionary as his mistress. She is Evelyn Brent and she's also fabulous - a prototype for Sternberg's later heroines so often depicted by Marlene Dietrich. She finds herself unable to assassinate him, something he's well aware of that she's about do to, and it's because the Colonel has ideals - he will not sacrifice his men just to put on a pantomime for the Czar.

Full of great touches: sycophants offering a light to Powell, soldier's torn coat, military badge on the wrong side of the coat; 'We won't rehearse that - you know how to use a whip'.

The idea was briefly suggested by Lubitsch as an idea about how badly treated film extras were. This was developed into a story by Sternberg and John F Goodrich and Lajos Biro, with titles by Herman Mankiewicz. It's clear that they hold no special love for the revolutionaries either, who are depicted as a drunken rabble liable to shoot one another over a coat.

The ending is particularly moving. Hopefully Eureka / Masters of Cinema will revive Sternberg's other silent greats Underworld and The Docks of New York. (I myself would have preferred a full orchestral score but hey - most people would have seen it this way, with an organ accompaniment.)

The Phantom of the Open (2022 Craig Roberts)

Screenplay Simon Farnaby (Paddington 2), Scott Murray, based on a true story. Perhaps the resistance of the elder son who eventually rejoins the fold is a little clichéd.

Another delicious performance from  Mark Rylance who in barely believable circumstances keeps entering the Davis Cup in disguise, becomes an (inter)national hero. With Sally Hawkins, Jake Davies, Christian and Jonah Lees, Mark Lewis Jones, Rhys Ifans, Simon Farnaby, Johann Myers, Steve Oram.

Energetically directed and edited (by Jonathan Amos). DP Kit Fraser. Music by Isobel Waller-Bridge. Good fun.

The Daytrippers (1996 Greg Mottola & scr)

Greg's debut - he went on to make Superbad, Adventureland and Keeping Up with the Joneses. Low budget New York movie has Hope Davis and her family following husband Stanley Tucci after discovering a mysterious letter - is he up to no good? The journey exposes the complex nature of the family's relationship with each other and an accompanying boyfriend (who seems to chum up to the Mum more than the GF). They are Pat McNamara, Anne Meara, Parker Posey and Liev Schreiber. With Campbell Scott and Doug McGrath. The performances are fine.

Has a sort of road movie / episodic feel, a bit like After Hours, for example in the scene where Davis goes to help a lady with a heavy bit of furniture and finds two sisters arguing about their late mother's possessions, or an unexpected host (Paul Herman) who happens to be a fugitive for not paying alimony.

Edited by Anne McCabe (I'm Not Rappaport, You Can Count On Me, Can You Ever Forgive Me? A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood), pleasing incidental guitar score Richard Martinez, DP John Inwood.

A Place in the Sun (1951 George Stevens & prod)

From Theodore Dreiser novel, adapted by Patrick Kearney and Michael Wilson. Poor relative to rich family Montgomery Clift gets job in Uncle's factory, falls for simple but loyal worker Shelley Winters, gets her pregnant. But meanwhile he falls for socialite Elizabeth Taylor. (The scene where they meet, over a snooker table, is strongly reminiscent of the initial meeting between Jonathan Rhys-Myers and Scarlett Johannson in Match Point, interestingly).

Stevens directs in long takes, sometimes with one of the characters back to camera; William Hornbeck uses dissolves a lot, particularly between scenes, but occasionally to striking effect, particularly where a shot of the lake very slowly fades into one of Shelley. (Poor Shelley, she ends up drowned in Night of The Hunter, too.) His editing inspired Jim Clark on The Innocents.

Nice deep focus photography from William C Mellor, winning Oscar, such as in the great scene where the kids zoom away from the jetty, whilst we hear on the radio the body's been found.

Perhaps goes on a bit in courtroom scene - there's not really anywhere for it to go at this point (Raymond Burr is the DA). The irony is it looks like he's changed his mind about killing her. But he's done a lousy job about covering his tracks.

Good score from Franz Waxman winning him Oscar, along with Hornbeck, Stevens, writers and costumes (Edith Head, one of her eight).

"Stevens' version of the Dreiser masterpiece ultimately again misses the novel's tragic force. The novel's sociological study of class conflict is sidetracked, so one's abiding memoir of the film was not of a factory worker's ambition cheated by fate, but of enormous close-ups of Taylor and Clift kissing." John Douglas Eames, The Paramount Story.

Q thought she spotted an early version of the Jaws theme in the lake sequence.

Crossfire (2022 Tessa Hoffe, Writer Louise Doughty)

Spain (we assume - though I've just ruled out most of South America). Terrorists (we assume) start killing everyone in a remote seaside hotel. It turns out they're not terrorists but crazed disgruntled former employees, which - I mean, is that..?

I guess - ultimately - it's about female solidarity. The husbands don't manage to do anything useful; the women are brave and forgive one another for past flirtations. Though it's ironic that Keeley gets the medal when in three key moments she fails to just fire the gun, which is annoying.

It's crazy, people are being killed, but I was thinking 'I hope these swimming costumed people don't start getting cold'. Which perhaps points to the fact that it wasn't as riveting as it might have been.

Keeley Hawes and Lee Ingleby, plus grown up daughter Alba Brunet, Josette Simon and Daniel Ryan, Rikash Bhai and Anneika Rose. Hugo Silva is the heroic hotel manager. I Googled 'who plays the killers' and just got Brandon Flowers (Killers' vocalist) debut single 'Crossfire'.

Filmed in Tunisia. 3 parter for BBC.

The Crown Season 2 (2017 Peter Morgan)

Begins on a boat in Lisbon (great sound here) where the Queen and Philip are having a right royal bust-up. We then rewind five months to his Royal Tour, and takes until the end of episode 3 to come back full circle. Not sure we need that. 

Anton Lesser comes in as the traitorous Macmillan, who supported Eden in Sudan then completely denied it - the Queen knows though, and gives him short shrift. Will Keen is the secretary, though Pip Torrens is still in the mix. Greg Wise is Lord Mountbatten.

Daniel Ings is Philip's buddy who breaks the code of silence and is fired - we're not sure whether Philip's been unfaithful or not (though the suggestion is he has).

Great episode focuses on Margaret's relationship with a bohemian photographer (Matthew Goode). Great stuff from Vanessa Kirby, won Emmy. The great song which appears here is Ella Fitzgerald 'Angel Eyes'. Ultimately though, the Queen can't tell her what she's found out about him (multiple lovers male and female) knowing she won't thank her for it nor believe it, and allows the marriage to go ahead.

Of course she's reading a book about horses

Another episode which begins in the middle tells the true story of an independent journalist and Royalist who has perfectly correct recommendations that help the Queen become more with it and approachable. He's well played by John Heffernan.

Interesting episode about Philip vs Charles' days at Gordonstoun (William Boyd's school) and the tragic death of Philip's Nazi-loving sister. End title has Charles describing the school as a 'living hell'.

Season finale is Profumo episode, to which Philip may be remotely linked (you'd think if he was at one of the parties then someone would have identified him). Nice cross-cutting (something of a regular feature) of Stephen Ward trial and Cambridge Footlights and journey to Balmoral, well edited as montage of image and sound (Yan Miles, Andy Kennedy).

Directors: Philip Martin (3) Benjamin Caron (3) Phillipa Lowthorpe (2), Stephen Daldry (2).

DPs Stuart Howell (6) and Adriano Goldman (4), who should thank me for adding his missing name from the IMDB credits.

Editors: Ben Lester, Celia Haining, Chris Barwell, Yan Miles (2), Alex Mackie, Tim Porter, Una Ni Dhonghaile, Pia di Ciaula (2).

State of the Union (1948 Frank Capra)

Another one of Capra's naive political 'little guy saves America' films, cf. Mr Smith Goes to Washington (having said that, I haven't actually seen the latter for a million years). An interesting choice for Tracy as the film mirrors his own life - Angela Lansbury is the public figure with whom he's having a not-quite-private affair, Kate is the estranged left-at-home wife, explicitly mirroring the Spence-Louise-Kate situation. ('State of the Union' is of course also about the marriage.)

But what's wrong with this film? It's very talky and in places it's like Capra can't direct a continuous take, with ugly cutting - as these scenes often involve Adolphe Menjou you can't help wondering if he was the problem. There's a surfeit of words in the screenplay, many of which are contemporary political references which go over our head, dating the film, so it doesn't hold up very well. Van Johnson's wise-cracking PR guy seems to me to overplay it. Tracy does deliver his long speeches perfectly and it has the customary good-guy-comes-clean ending, full of people and passion cf. It's a Wonderful Life (in that respect the endings are very similar). (Seem to be doing this-that-other frequently this morning.)

See what I mean?

Lansbury was only 21 - she has a bitchy control of the screen.* And according to James Curtis's excellent Tracy biography, the filming took place as the HUAC interviews began - Menjou being on the side of the anti-commies, branding Hepburn as a 'pink' and saying derogatory things to the press - resulting in a 'tense but cordial' set.

The play was by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, adapted for the screen by Anthony Veiller and Myles Connelly. With Lewis Stone, Howard Smith, Charles Dingle, Maidel Turner (cocktail imbibing wife), Raymond Walburn, Margaret Hamilton (who Q identified correctly as The Wicked Witch of the West), Tom Fadden (room service, It's a Wonderful Life). Music by Victor Young, photographed by George 'Falsey' (tut,tut) for Liberty Films.

* She died not long after this review, October 11, aged 96. New York Times obit. I think my favourite of her performances might have been in The Manchurian Candidate.

The King's Speech (2010 Tom Hooper)

Writer David Seidler.

I only just twigged that Derek Jacobi of course was a famous stutterer in I Claudius. 

Noticed that before Firth's first attempt at a speech, a horse whinnies; then before his last, in the Palace, a corgi barks.

Loved that Loge and the King remained friends. Firth and Geoffrey Rush are a match made in heaven. Loved the moment the Queen tries to stuff a sweet into the King's mouth to shut him up.

I Used to Be Famous (2022 Eddie Sternberg & co-scr)

A not very good film is not very well-written and doesn't really have an ending.

Ex-pop star Ed Skrein happens to meet autistic drummer Leo Long and they start a band (of somewhat dubious quality). Mum Eleanor Matsuura disapproves. (When she tells Skrein she doesn't want him to see her son again it doesn't make any sense.) Meanwhile former band mate Eoin Macken may be helpful but former slimy manager Neil Stuke definitely isn't. With Naomie Ackie as a slenderly-written bargirl, Lorraine Ashbourne, Kurt Egyiawan as enthusiastic drum therapy teacher.

A Netflix film.

Paddington 2 (2017 Paul King & co-scr)

A rare sequel to out-do the original, partly down to Hugh Grant's film-stealing performance (though Brendan Gleeson is particularly funny too). Script (with Simon Farnaby) and visual design more interesting, arresting train / chase scene (which just makes you think how incredible people like Buster Keaton were doing it all for real).

To answer my own question, it looks like the live actors acted to stand-ins, but not to Ben himself. More here.

And ultimately, it led to this...

... which was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Jon Fraser and James Lamont.

Keeper of the Flame (1942 George Cukor)

Spencer Tracy is a joy as usual as dedicated journalist trying to get to the bottom of supposedly patriotic, hero-worshipped man who has died in a car accident. Hepburn plays the dead man's wife who is keeping something secret. It takes a while for it to emerge exactly what is going on, which perhaps works against it a little, and the ending is rushed, and compromised by the censors, but there's a great cast and it's skillfully directed with lots of pleasurable long takes.

Didn't know this cast - Audrey Christie (Hepburn's recommendation) as journalist buddy, Richard Whorf as secretary, Darryl Hickman a boy who's involvement in the story is more than first appears - all good. Hickman (later becoming an acting teacher) helped by Tracy particularly in a long head-to-head scene in which Tracy was 'there for me all the time', even when off camera filming the boy's close ups.

Begins with one of those great Vorkapich-influenced montages. Benefits from moody Bronislau Kaper score. Written by Donald Ogden Stewart from I.A.R. Wylie novel, timely post-Pearl Harbor, based perhaps on a real politician with suspect motives. Photographed by William Daniels, at MGM.

With: Margaret Wycherly (Kate's mother), Forrest Tucker (journalist), Frank Craven (doctor), Stephen McNally, Percy Kilbride (Fallen Angel), Donald Meek, Howard da Silva. 

The Wind (1928 Victor Sjöstrom)

It's indeed an irony that silent films were just getting really good when sound came in and killed everything. Lillian Gish is great as a young woman who moves to a terribly windy and inhospitable dustbowl to live with her cousin - her problems begin when his wife hates her. Then two neighbours offer to marry her, and though she's tempted to move away by a third man, he's a cad who is already married. And all the while, the wind, the wind. The storm sequence itself - all light and fury and motion - is incredible.

Good cast too: Lars Hanson (the man she is forced to marry), Montagu Love (the cad), Dorothy Cumming, Edward Earle, William Orlamond (the other proposer).

Orlamond is there as a little comic relief. Great scene where Gish and her new husband are finally alone and she is clearly disgusted by everything. Nicely worked out story by Frances Marion, from a novel by Dorothy Scarborough (hopefully not in any way autobiographical). 

Only thing - the print I saw was 74 minutes but the film is supposed to run 88. Would like to hear the version with the 1983 Carl Davis score, but the film is hard enough to get hold of as it is. (Maybe it was the Carl Davis version - there were no credits.) Having said that, I was glad I had two copies as the first one I tried had a music track of such weirdness to render it unwatchable - recorded live in front of an audience of two, by the sounds of it.

Exceptional photography by John Arnold, filmed in the Mojave Desert. 

Paddington (2014 Paul King & co-scr)

Quite clear sub-text here about how 'outsiders' can fit in, underscored by calypso band that appears, commenting on the action. Creative treatment, e.g. the painted trees on the walls of the house lose all their leaves, Bonneville becoming Hawkins' comic strip 'hero'. Kidman good as pantomime baddy.

Hugh Bonneville, Ben Whishaw, Sally Hawkins, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Tim Downie (explorer), Madeleine Harris & Samuel Joslin (the kids), Matt Lucas, Geoffrey Palmer, Kayvan Novak and Peter Capaldi. The old gentleman in the cafe who waves at Paddington is presumably the creator, Michael Bond.

Co-writer Hamish McColl. It's a bit like Mary Poppins, really. Marred by occasional bits of silliness. Shot by Erik Wilson, editor Mark Everson, music Nick Urata.

Father's Little Dividend (1951 Vincente Minnelli)

Good sequel, also written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, puts Spencer Tracy as potential grand-father. (He, like them, didn't like sequels.) He plays it beautifully, often in long takes with Joan Bennett or Elizabeth Taylor. Loved the moment where he's taken a sleeping pill, the phone rings, he gets up and starts to dress. And averting daughter-leaving-home crisis while his wife is blissfully asleep - by the time he gets back it's morning. Also losing baby sequence.

Public domain film comes out in abhorrent copies. It was originally shot by John Alton, for MGM.

The Crown Season 1 (2016 Peter Morgan)

Like many, I suspect, we are re-running the series in the wake of the sudden death of Queen Elizabeth. It's nice to be back amongst all the familiar faces (Jared Harris probably stealing the acting honours) and timely to be reminded of the sacrifices - to her family especially - that she had to make (and, by default, Philip had to make).

Stirling cast led by Claire Foy and Matt Smith; with John Lithgow, Eileen Atkins, Victoria Hamilton, Vanessa Kirby, Alex Jennings, Jeremy Northam, Pip Torrens, Ben Miles, Greg Wise, Lia Williams (Mrs Simpson), Harriet Walter, Verity Russell (young Elizabeth). Kate Phillips, in the fog episode, might be familiar from Peaky Blinders.

Lovely music score by Rupert-Gregson Williams and photography from Adriano Goldman and Ole Bratt Birkeland. Edited by Kristina Hetherington, Pia di Ciaula, Stuart Gazzard, Luke Dunkley, Una Ni Dhonghaile*, Mark Eckersley, Yan Miles; production design Martin Childs.

According to Marketwatch, it costs $13 million per episode to make, each season running 10 episodes.

Good moments with The Queen's tutor (Alan Williams), Churchill and Edward Sutherland (Stephen Dillane); clear sub-text in scene of Elizabeth and Philip watching horses mating while across from them is person (Joseph Kloska) who Queen probably should have married; ensuing argument is shown without sound.

* Bugged me how you pronounce this - Oona Nee Gon-eel-a.

The Capture - Season 2 (2022 Phillipa Langdale, James Kent)

Writer Ben Chanan. A charismatic Secretary for Defense, Paapa Essiedu (Gangs of London, I May Destroy You, Kiri, The Miniaturist; also theatre, RSC), is deep faked into supporting a Chinese national surveillance pitch in the UK, then can't reveal the idea of 'correction' as the UK use it too. There's also invisible killers about. What larks!

Real plot hole though with scene where he's live on TV being interviewed but the fake is being broadcast - namely that all the crew and studio people would not only have seen the real broadcast but the cameras probably would have had a backup of it on their cameras.

Anyway the good guys seem to win in the end by managing their own broadcast deep fake - which would seem to muddy the waters considerably. The bad guy - Mr Big Tech (Joseph Arkley) - has an algorithm that will predict human behaviour, apparently. Still, at least we get a sense of closure, of some sort.

Holliday Grainger, Ben Miles, Lia Williams, Nigel Lindsay, Cavan Clerkin, Tessa Wong, Harry Michell, Daisy Waterstone (The Durrells).