My Policeman (2022 Michael Grandage)

In flashback to 1957 Brighton, we learn that Gina McKee's husband Linus Roache had an affair with art historian Rupert Everett - now the latter's had a stroke and McKee is nursing him in their home, Roache won't even talk to him.

Their former selves are Emma Corrin (The Crown), Harry Styles and David Dawson - the casting is good.

The wife's known about this all along, but was unable to cope with it.

It's OK, didn't really feel that involved, didn't really need the sex scenes. Nicely shot by Ben Davis again, and I didn't notice a single thing about Chris Dickens' editing.

Written by Ron Nyswaner, based on Bethan Roberts' novel.

I'm reminded of that Monty Python sketch...

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022 Michael McDonagh & scr)

"It was all going fine until he chopped off all his  fingers." I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that when they were young, Martin used to entertain his brother John Michael with his ghoulish tales of people having parts of their bodies chopped off...

Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell are reunited as the sparring friends. With Kerry Condon (also Three Billboards), Barry Keoghan (Calm with Horses, Dunkirk, Chernobyl, '71 and, reuniting him with Farrell, The Killing of a Sacred Deer) - all four Oscar nominated. All four fabulous.

This is very funny and bizarre. But it's also a tragedy, as the 'nicest' feller on the island becomes embittered and wants to kill his former friend, whilst the abused young man is rejected by the object of his affections.

Crosses feature throughout

What's it about? There's a Civil War raging on the mainland (it's 1923). Is it about the divisions within Ireland itself?

The incidental music's by Carter Burwell, but lots of traditional Irish music features, along with distinctive songs by Brahms.

Fabulous photography by Ben Davis, edited by Mikkel E.G. Nielsen.

He does something very interesting with the animals. They're always looking at exactly the right place at the right time. I loved the horse that's looking in at the window. I can't help but think of Au Hasard Balthazar...

Film of the year so far, obviously...

The Great Ziegfeld (1936 Robert Z. Leonard)

A Hunt Stromberg production for MGM begins with the credits in lights like the same year's My Man Godfrey. It purports to co-star Myrna Loy with William Powell - but get this - she doesn't even make an appearance until two hours ten in. Yes. When  we realised there was an interval at an hour 25, our little hearts sank. We had been enjoying the trials and tribulations of impresario William Powell, but much less enjoying the Follies that he was putting on - not Busby Berkley, I can't really describe it... like a flamboyant meringue - good to look at but empty. So we did have to fast forward sections of it for our own sanity.

German-born Luise Rainer won the Oscar for her supporting part as the highly strung French singer and first wife of Ziegfeld. Frank Morgan is good as Ziegfeld's long-term friend. With the real Fanny Brice, Virginia Bruce, Reginald Owen, Ray Bolger, Nat Pendleton (the strong man), William Demarest.

Superbly photographed, mainly by Oliver T. Marsh, with the help of George Folsey, Karl Freund, Ray June and Merritt B. Gerstad.

It cost $2 million, which sounds funny now - it was MGM's most expensive picture since the silent Ben Hur, and brought in twice its cost. That looks like the MGM lion Jackie in the lion scene.

Blackface routines now look so shocking and wrong - as they always should have done.

American Beauty (1999 Sam Mendes)

I didn't realise that 'American Beauty' is actually the name of a type of crimson rose popular in the United States. But ultimately, the film is all about the real beauty that exists in the world - an interestingly hopeful film. It's a fabulous screenplay, by Alan Ball, and Conrad Hall's photography is outstanding.

We're almost in the face/rain territory of In Cold Blood here

Thomas Newman has had as many Oscar nominations as Roger Deakins - 15. It's about time he won or received a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Good performances: Spacey suitably flip, Annette Bening nicely intense (loved her singing while driving), Wes Bentley brooding, Thora Birch needy, Mena Suvari empty-headed, Allison Janney vacant, Chris Cooper conflicted.

Sam Mendes: "Conrad never ceased to ask questions. What interested him about film was not the craft, which he had down pat, but that area which is closest to dreams, in which the language of image is definitely more complex than words. He was trying to communicate beyond language all the time. I think that's what great art can do." (Quoted in American Cinematographer, May 2003.)

Ganga Bruta (1933 Humberto Mauro & scr)

An odd, interesting film, my first, I think, from Brazil. A part talkie, with some subtitles on the silent dialogue, but sometimes none. A man who has killed his wife for being unfaithful takes an engineering job on some massive (and staggering) construction project and falls for the wife of his co-worker, with tragic results. Has some stand-out moments - a barroom brawl, a scene of mad drunkenness, a flashback to a haunting folk song, the climactic battle.

An interesting score and some rather clunky sound effects. My 4x3 copy loses the very top of the image suggesting it was made in an even narrower format.

Durval Bellini, Dea Selva, Lu Marival, Decio Murilo. Photographed by Edgar Brasil, the brilliantly-named Afrodisio de Castro, and Paolo Morano.

La Perla (1947 Emilio Fernandez & co-scr)

Tragic presentation of John Steinbeck's novella, adapted by he, the director and Jack Wagner, hallmarked by fine performances and dazzling cinematography. Poor fisherman and wife Pedro Armendariz and Maria Elena Marquez (both great, but he particularly good) take baby, bitten by a scorpion, to obscene doctor Charles Rooner (also great) who refuses to help them as they're poor. Then the fisherman finds a valuable pearl, and all their real problems begin...

A difficult film to enjoy, as you're constantly dreading what terrible thing will happen to them next. Fernandez's direction is interesting and he and Gabriel Figueroa conjure up some extraordinary images in chiaroscuro light. Figueroa worked mainly in Mexico, though did shoot Under the Volcano, Two Mules for Sister Sarah, Kelly's Heroes and Night of the Iguana, as well as several films of Bunuel, and The Fugitive for John Ford. Director, lead actor and DP also collaborated on 1945 Maria Candelaria.

Released by RKO.

Though loved the scene with the magnifying glass:

I Went Down (1997 Paddy Breathnach)

Irish comedy drama, written by Conor McPherson. Standing up for his mate David Wilmot (Shadow Dancer, Calvary), ex con Peter McDonald is forced by crime boss Tony Doyle to locate missing man and money - and he's accompanied by himself dodgy Brendan Gleeson, in uproarious sideburns. When they find the man, he turns out to be a chatty liar, Peter Caffrey. With Antoine Byrne, Michael McElhatton.

Good, understated performance from McDonald, who's been in The Batman, The Dig, The Stag etc. Gleeson more ebullient but great fun.

Interestingly an early score from Dario Marianelli.

But - terrible title.

Free Enterprise (1998 Robert Meyer Burnett)

Amusing indie film has a BBT vibe, about two overgrown kids who still buy comics and toys and won't face up to life. Many film and TV references abound. Then they meet William Shatner, and are disillusioned to find out he's nothing like their hero Captain Kirk, and is on his own nuts odyssey to make a musical version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar!

Eric McCormack (from Will and Grace) and Rafer Weigel (now a journalist and TV presenter) are the friends, whose characters are based on the director and writer Mark Altman.

Hilarious credits include one for 'The artist formerly known as Shatner' and the 'Thanks to' includes one for 'SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation)'!

I was quite pleased with myself for getting Charade from a couple of seconds of audio.

Whichever one of them did the Shatner impression (can't remember now) was funny.

The Catch

From the World of Channel 5.

Fisherman Jason Watkins is immediately suspicious of his daughter Poppy Gilbert's new BF Aneurin Barnard.

The drone shots aplenty of the beach make this look like every other thriller for miles around. Hopefully they'll make dramatic use of the fishing background.

Taboo (2017 Writer Steven Knight)

I see in fact Tom Hardy is credited as coming up with the story, with Knight and someone called Chips Hardy, who turns out to be Tom's dad. It's directed by Anders Engstrom and Kristoffer Nyholm, four episodes each. It has that same moody yet perfectly photographed look familiar from Peaky Blinders (DP Mark Patten; also McMafia).

1814. Tom Hardy returns from Africa, believed dead, inherits a key strip of land between Canada and America, and the evil East India Company want it. Myths fly about the man's savage past. There's something about a sinking slave ship too (in one of those silly 'whoosh!' flashback sequences that I've a feeling are all Emma Hickox's fault).

From whence cometh Knight's darkness? The show seems determined to wallow in its own filth, focusing on the baser aspects of contemporary London; the masqued ball seems more seventeenth century than nineteenth; the 'magical' aspects of the plot are distracting, to say the least. But there's enough of interest to keep us going. The ending seems to change plot entirely and is bewildering.

The War of 1812-15 was fought over the Northwest Territories, amongst other things.

Great cast: Jonathan Pryce, David Hayman, Oona Chaplin, Jefferson Hall, Richard Dixon, Jessie Buckley, Stephen Graham (almost 'doing' Tom Hardy in Peaky!), Tom Hollander, Nicholas Woodeson, Jason Watkins, Talullah Rose Haddon, Roger Ashton-Griffiths (one of many in the cast who you know but can't name), Christopher Fairbank, Louis Serkis (the boy), Edward Hogg, Mark Gatiss, Franka Potente, Michael Kelly (the American, Now You See Me, Person of Interest), Lucian Msamati (investigating the ship sinking).

Editors: Matt Platt-Mills, Katie Weiland, Beverley Mills, Guy Bensley, Mark Davis. Music: Max Richter.

Cause for Alarm! (1951 Tay Garnett)

Loretta Young is looking after ill, bedbound Barry Sullivan - I personally would have liked to know what's wrong with him - he looked fine in flashback - but he thinks she, in league with friend /doctor Bruce Cowling, plans to kill him. When he pulls a gun on her, but then dies, she goes to pieces, because he's revealed he's sent a letter to the DA exposing the plot. She begins to make a series of mistakes, starting with - just call the police and explain what's happened. Then she becomes desperate about the letter...

So the plot (Lawrence Marcus story, originally for radio, Mel Dinelli / Tom Lewis script) is somewhat disposable, but the point of difference is in the number of chatty encounters she has along the way, with a talkative boy, a complaining postman (Irving Bacon), a verbally torrential aunt and a neighbour. Otherwise, it's routine and forgettable, and could just as easily have been a Hitchcock Half Hour. The title's terrible.

Music: André Previn; photography Joseph Ruttenberg. MGM.

H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941 King Vidor & prod, co-scr)

A man reflects on his staid life after a former love reappears. They are Robert Young and Hedy Lamarr, in one of her best performances: she really does seem like a capable, single, NYC ad agency worker, who's refreshingly shown in a position of power over other male colleagues.

Interesting uses of sound by silent director Vidor, such as when he tries to read a letter from her but is continually interrupted by employees.

The wife is Ruth Hussey (The Uninvited). With Charles Coburn, Van Heflin, Fay Holden, Bonita Granville, Douglas Wood, Charles Halton, Leif Erikson, Sara Haden.

Photographed by Ray June; uncharacteristically reserved score from Bronislau Kaper; edited by Harold Kress. MGM.

Love Life - Season 2 (2021 Creator Sam Boyd)

We now pick up with book editor Marcus, played by William Jackson Harper. He meets Jessica Williams, and it causes his marriage to explode. And it's all about how the two then connect and disconnect over the following years, and how he learns to be a better man (and a novelist).

Narrated by Keith David (who sounds oddly like George Takei). Anna Kendrick has the odd cameo. With Leslie Bibb, Arian Moayed, Punkie Johnson, Jordan Rock, Janet Hubert, Steven Boyer.

Now, Voyager (1942 Irving Rapper)

Better Davis, Paul Henreid, Gladys Cooper, Claude Rains, Bonita Granville, Ilka Chase, Janis Wilson, John Loder, Mary Wickes, Franklin Pangborn.

Little touches: Sol Polito's camera follows Charlotte Vale's feet down the stairs - we hear her being talked about, the feet falter, turn to go back up. When you step outside of the film, as it were, you observe the way Sol's camera rushes into her face in moments of high drama, like when she accepts Jerry's (Henreid) invitation to accompany him on the cruise excursion. I mean, the camera's always moving, even in what might be a static two shot, it's edging in or creeping around, almost like a really modern Steadicam shot. And I'm not necessarily a fan of moving the camera without purpose - Hawks' and Ford's static shots are fine with me. But here, it seems to serve the drama or the story well, like a fluid track in to Bette's restless fingers. Much credit here to Sol Polito, who by this time really knew what he was doing, but also to his flawless camera operator and focus puller, who are of course uncredited (though IMDB lists the operator as Al Green) - and Orson Welles would remind us the various grips are also important here. He was not Oscar nominated but Max Steiner won for his score.

It makes the film very interesting. Patricia White's essay for the Criterion release tells us that '[Irving] Rapper had told Davis of unit producer Hal B. Wallis's plan to cast Irene Dunne as Now Voyager's lead; Davis lobbied for the role and for the relatively untested Rapper as her director. Born in England and with a stage background, Rapper started as a dialogue coach - helping with Warners' stable of non-native-speaking directors: Michael Curtiz, William Dieterle, and Anatole Litvak'. That suggests to me that the cinematic fluidity in this film is largely the work of Polito.

Casey Robinson adapted Olive Higgins Prouty's novel and 'drew liberally on Prouty's dialogue'. And see here for more jottings on the subject.

A similar shot appears in Brief Encounter

Bombshell (2019 Jay Roach)

See here. Just been on a tangent on Jean Harlow 1933 Blonde Bombshell - cut to, the future...

This isn't that. This is a bombshell of a true story about Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, and how courageous women stood up against his sexual harassment (the Margot Robbie character is fictionalised), and how he was sued and sacked. The writer is Charles Randolph. The year-long abuse Gretchen receives for badgering Trump is beyond belief.

Massive and complex cast. Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Allison Janney, Malcolm McDowell, Connie Britton (Mrs Ailes), Jennifer Morrison, Alice Eve, Bob Delaney, Mark Duplass, Richard Kind (Giuliani), Kate McKinnon (gay co-worker).

Kazu Hiro, who also did the prosthetic makeup on Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour, here transforms Lithgow, and Charlize into Megyn:

Good article on this in Elle

Photographed by Barry Aykroyd.

Match Point (2005 Woody Allen & scr)

Reviewed of course several times previously, latterly here. Sorry Woody, but I now have gone back on thinking the murder-to-opera scene doesn't really work! What a noodle!

I don't think the meeting scene between Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Scarlett Johansson is too reminiscent of the meeting in A Place in the Sun, but actually the whole film is a bit like that film in plot - a socially climbing man commits murder when his lover becomes pregnant.

Very well acted by Matthew Goode, Penelope Wilton, Brian Cox, Emily Mortimer (especially natural), James Nesbitt, Ewan Bremner. I noticed Zoe Telford in bit part as secretary, but identified her as Andrea Riseborough (not for the first time).

One of the few films Woody was entirely satisfied with how it turned out.

Brooklyn (2015 John Crowley)

Excellent adaptation (by Nick Hornby) of Colm Toibin's 2009 novel is sincere and absorbing, telling the story of a young woman from Ireland who emigrates to a very Irish Brooklyn, meets Italian, then returns home and faces a conflict of emotion. Good scenes with girls in boarding house.

Good cast: Saiorse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domnhall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters, Brid Brennan (horrible woman with shop), Fiona Glascott (the sister), Jane Brennan (the mother), Michael Zegen (from The MMM).

Music: Michael Brook. Photography: Yves Bélanger. Editing: Jake Roberts.