Maryland (2023 Anne-Marie O'Connor, director Sue Tully)

Suranne Jones and Eve Best are sisters who learn of their mother's death on the Isle of Man, where it seems she's lived a double life and gotten into relationship with a man (Hugh Quarshie) who isn't her husband.

There's lots of family falling out but things seem to slot into place by the end.

Dynamics of different sisters on display

It was like eating a meal that wasn't particularly nutritious or tasty, filled you up at the time, but didn't leave much of an impression.

No argument with Jones and Best in the lead roles, however. With Stockard Channing, George Costigan, Dean Lennox Kelly. 3 x 45 for ITV.

The Red Pony (1949 Lewis Milestone)

A Republic picture, based on a 1933 story by John Steinbeck, screenwritten by him, perhaps akin to The Yearling in that a boy learns to care for a pony but it dies and he grows up. A curious family relationship is at work, strict mother Myna Loy, Shepperd Strudwick the famer who doesn't quite fit in, farm hand Robert Mitchum, who seems more like the boy's father, and grandfather Louis Calhern, who tells of his days when they settled the land.

The boy, by the way is Peter Miles; it's a tough life: do your schoolwork, do your chores; his school friends are quite tough all of them. So if it's a kids' film, it's a tough kids' film.

Of further interest: colour photography from Toni Gaudio and a score by Aaron Copland.

Steinbeck's 1935 novel 'Tortilla Flat' was filmed with Spencer Tracey, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield in 1942.

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957 John Huston & co-scr)

..with John Mahin. Huston called Mitchum 'an actor of the calibre of Olivier, Burton and Brando'. It's a great script, making you involved and caring for Mitchum's marine and Deborah Kerr's nun - they got on famously and are both great. Like when Mitchum's waiting at the cave entrance with his knife out, looking seriously intent. (Kerr and the screenplay were Oscar nominated, whereas BAFTA nominated Mitchum for Best Foreign Actor).

It's also beautifully shot by Oswald Morris in CinemaScope (Arthur Ibbestson operating) in Tobago, and a typically interesting score from Georges Auric (notice the way it ends, for example, not a great big flourish like you'd expect) when it isn't silence. Lots of good long silent sequences, like Hitchcock's 'pure cinema'. Don't know why we hadn't watched it in such a long time. In fact subsequently I had real trouble in remembering the title... maybe that's why.

20th Century Fox.

The Marvelous Mrs Maisel - Season 5

It's the last one. Interesting in its forward scenes: 1981, Midge is a huge star, but she and Susie are no longer friends. Her kids are grown up, her daughter a super-intelligent physicist and her son works on a kibbutz.

Back in time, Midge is trying to make it in an all male TV writer's room.

The show features the usual amazing choreography (whether in a musical number or not). For example in episode 4, there's an incredible and very complex dance routine in 'the modern kitchen' requiring all sorts of pin-sharp timing and props, all in one take, and then when the action moves off-stage to Susie and her gangster pals, it's done without a cut, still in that one take, so after take 14 of the routine, or whatever, it's the three actors in the scene after that could fuck it all up - not risky film-making at all. Directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino.

In a marvellous episode 6 set in 1985, Suzie attends a 'Testi-Roastial' where numerous comics tell stories about her and her legendary career as an agent - and latterly, amongst each other, in a very Woody Allen way ('You're nuts - my sister was a nurse there and this is what really happened..' sort of thing). Great golf course sequence from 1970 where she makes up a comedy show on the spot, and sells it to television, talks one producer into a film  project and gets a record label to fund the first Lloyd Webber / Rice album. We also learn (a) why Joel went to prison and (b) why Midge and Suzie fell out. But is there a rapprochement coming as Midge has sent a welcoming video message...?

That lovely play out song is - believe it or not - Elton John, 'Love Song' (from 'Tumbleweed Connection').

And then - neither of us realised we were watching the last episode 'Four Minutes' in which Midge takes her decisive moment in front of the camera (and is promptly fired ) thus making her a star, with a lovely but poignant look into the future, where Midge and Susie - some space apart - both settle down to watch the same recording of 'Jeopardy', and chat. A sweet and perfect ending.

Out of the Past (1947 Jacques Tourneur)

Don Macpherson in 'Time Out': 'Superbly crafted pulp is revealed at every level: in the intricate script by Daniel Mainwaring (whose credits for Phenix City Story and Invasion of the Body Snatchers need no further recommendation), the almost abstract lighting patterns of Nick Musuraca (previously perfected in Cat People and The Spiral Staircase), and the downbeat otherworldliness of Jacques Tourneur (only equalled in his I Walked With a Zombie). All these B movie poets were under contract to RKO in the winter of 1946, and produced the best movie of everyone involved...'.

Which is nicely put, but not quite the whole story. Mainwaring adapted his own novel 'Build My Gallows High', which then James M. Cain rewrote, simplifying the flashback structure and 'removing every last shred of lovability from the femme fatale'; Tourneur then had suggestions, and RKO script doctor Frank Fenton finally removed some of Cain's excesses and polished the whole thing, writing new dialogue for nearly every scene (I trust Lee Server's impressively researched book on Mitchum for this material).

Which also provides interesting stuff about Musuraca, who had found that if he was overlighting a scene, it was because one initial light was badly placed or adjusted, and once you'd fixed that, you could then take lights away and simplify everything. "It was so dark on the set, "said Jane Greer, "you didn't know who else was there half the time".

It was actually just filmed around Bridgeport in the Sierras and back at RKO.

Anyway, despite not being a critical or commercial hit at the time, it's still fabulous. With Mitchum (who Tourneur loved for his ability to listen) are Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Paul Valentine (good as hood), Virginia Huston (nice GF), Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb (nice guy back home), Steve Brodie (partner), Dickie Moore really good as deaf kid, Ken Niles (Eels).

Monk - Season 4 (2006)

We're in 16:9, finally. And watched eight in a stretch. Halloween episode features brother John Turturro again. 'The other detective' is Jason Alexander. 'Mr Monk Gets Drunk' good fun in wine country - Shaloub's drunken 'This is what happened' a series highlight. Then, is Trudi alive? And flashback little Monk, played by Grant Rosenmeyer (The Royal Tenenbaums).

Malcom MacDowell pops up as murderous fashion designer.

Monk - Season 3 (2005 Creator Andy Breckman)

Monk goes to New York - finds it overwhelming. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Really funny scene where Monk is trying to complete a sentence with pneumatic drill interrupting, goes on for ever - Shaloub can make that work. And can a chimp have killed a man in a panic room? Of course not, though we are treated to the bizarre and funny spectacle of Stottlemeyer trying to enrage the chimp to shoot him, unaware the gun is loaded.

Most of the plots don't stand up to close scrutiny e.g. episode in which Sharona thinks she's cracking up - how did 'dead' man swinging from bathroom ceiling vanish so completely so quickly? (Liked Monk's new sassy 'nurse' in this one, Niecy Nash.) Power cuts to stop concert being transmitted - it would have gone out eventually.

Weirdly, in episode 10 'Mr Monk and the Red Herring', Sharona has abruptly gone back to her husband in Jersey leaving Monk looking for a new assistant. What happened? It sounds like Bitty Schram tried to renegotiate her contract and was fired. She's only had one small film appearance since then. I guess they were negotiating the next season's contract, but to cut her out so abruptly mid-season seems somewhat draconian and cruel - the network is NBC Universal - don't fuck with the network.

The new Sharona is the rather more feisty Natalie, played by Traylor Howard.

Vegas episode is fun, as Stottlemeyer has solved the case, drunk, then can't remember how. Charming finale has Monk looking after two-year-old.

Without Sin (2022 Writer Frances Poletti)

Vicky McClure and Johnny Harris reunited from This Is England.  He's in prison for murdering her 14 year old daughter, and requests one of those forgiveness sessions - where he claims not only that he didn't kill her, but there's another missing girl in danger. She does some digging, and starts to believe him. Good performances from the leads, as you'd expect.

We're not sure who to believe - if Harris is just using her for reasons of his own? The ending isn't very easily guessable. The very ending is a little contrived - actual forgiveness session with real murderer.

With Dorothy Atkinson (The Gold, Mum), Andrea Lowe, Johann Myers, Ezra Faroque Khan, Perry Fitzpatrick, Con O'Neill, Callum Fuller (fellow cellmate), Kieron Burton (Harris's son), Justine Emma Moore (daughter) and Elise Ackerman (missing friend).

It was filmed in Poletti's home town Nottingham.

4 x 45m for ITV.

What is perhaps the worst thing about this is that the parents leave a 14 year old girl on her own, who goes out and scores drugs from older boys; then, when she's being killed, the father is off with his other woman, and the mother is getting pissed with her mates, sees a text from her, and ignores it. Which ironically leaves the Johnny Harris character looking pretty saintly in comparison.

I Believe in You (1952 Basil Dearden, Michael Relph)

Screenplay: Relph, Dearden and Jack Whittingham, additional scenes by Nicholas Phipps, based on the novel 'Court Circular' by Sewell Stokes, derived from his own experiences as a probation officer in 1941-5.

Cecil Parker is the bored ex-civil servant who decides to try the probation lark, aided by fellow officers Celia Johnson and George Relph (the director's father), doesn't really get into it at first, then develops empathy. Encounters a number of types, particularly is involved with young Harry Fowler and tries to steer him on the straight-and-narrow. Meanwhile Johnson's coping with sex-mad bad girl Joan Collins.

With Godfrey Tearle (in court), Ursula Howells (good as drunk, mainly on stage and small screen), Laurence Harvey, Sid James, Katie Johnson, Brenda de Banzie (knew I knew her from something), Laurence Naismith.

Again, nice location stuff shot by Gordon Dines, with The Servant's Chic Waterson operating.

It's a sort of cosy drama, really, though I suppose the Harvey character adds a bit of menace. I wonder if even then it had any remote bearing on reality? (Does make me wonder what being a probationary officer now is like - living hell, I imagine.) Still enjoyable, though.

The mischievous looking girl earwigging on this conversation is a nice touch

Not quite Joan's debut, aged about 19. Celia Johnson was - she has said - very supportive

Ten Pound Pom (2023 Creator Danny Brocklehurst)

At first glance, a refreshingly different set-up of 1950s emigrants to Australia. They are Michelle Keegan (Corrie, Our Girl), and family of Faye Marsay (Pride), Warren Brown, Hattie Hook and Finn Treacy.

Plotlines: Warren 'befriends' tough Aussie (David Field, who raucously laughs too much) who runs over Aborigine; one of the latter's tribe (Rob Collins) is a fellow ditch digger. Warren keeps making increasingly stupid choices. Marsay gets job in a department store, witnesses the birth of Australian TV, flirts with chap. Hook is pregnant, but befriended by Declan Coyle. Stephen Curry is the useless camp commandant, I mean supervisor.

Keegan is there to find her son, does so and confuses the poor chap; ex BF is after her.

There's also a dodgy accountant, Leon Ford, who sets up his own robbery, and his singing wife (Emma Hamilton, who looks a bit like a Farmiga) who's desperate to return home.

With Cheree Cassidy (department store), Berynn Schwerdt (booze provider.)

Themes: Frightful treatment of indigenous people; shipping off of orphans; PTSD.

It's all a bit of a mess, really, and nothing comes to any sort of satisfying conclusion, like it's all strands dangling for season 2, which I'm not sure I'd watch. 

Magnificent Obsession (1954 Douglas Sirk)

It's 1954, and we aren't quite yet in the Sirk subversive era yet, I feel. In interview with Jane Stern: "So it always is in melodrama... In Magnificent Obsession I was feeling my way. It is perhaps too much when Rock Hudson finally succeeds. This God-like creature is sitting up there. It is a good old image of God. He is benevolently smiling down on that stupid story. Of course, this is something that few critics penetrate. But I actually built the operating room for that scene. Throughout the picture this man is never being taken seriously. He's just a funny little man with crazy ideas. He's needed because down there on the operating table, a miracle really is happening. And it really has to be a Rock Hudson type there. At first he's just a stupid guy. All he can do is race his car. His change is quite impossible, and therefore just right." ('Bright Lights' film journal - which now I have to say does look somewhat pretentious.)

I'm glad Sirk also thought the story was crazy, but he was attracted to elements like the blindness (the 'antinomy' - a word Sirk likes using, meaning 'paradox') and the balance of a hidden identity, and the death of one so another can live - which he references to Euripides' 'Alcestis'... And I liked "There is a very short distance between high art and trash."

This being early late-Sirk (if you know what I mean) there aren't so many of his famous symbols evident - other than that in the hospital sequences there are a huge surfeit of flowers everywhere. All caught in the beautifully lit dark tones of Russell Metty, in the now popular 2.00:1, underscored by Frank Skinner, who seems to be borrowing Beethoven's Ninth.

Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Agnes Moorhead, Otto Kruger, Barbara Bates, Gregg Palmer.

Based on a novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, adapted by Wells Root, originally screenwritten by Sarah Mason and Victor Heerman, then rewritten by Robert Blees. I'm not sure we've ever seen the 1935 version (which is included on Criterion's DVD).

Lantana (2001 Ray Lawrence)

Multi-character relationship drama which ostensibly seems to be a murder investigation. Anthony Lapaglia is a pent-up detective who's having an affair with divorced Rachel Blake - her neighbours are nurse Daniela Farinacci and unemployed Vince Colosimo - whilst Blake's ex Glenn Robbins (familiar from Kath and Kim) lurks nearby. Lapaglia's wife Kerry Armstrong is seeing psychotherapist Barbara Hershey, who's married to distant Geoffrey Rush (they lost their daughter two years before). Peter Phelps is a slightly threatening therapy patient, Leah Purcell is a fellow detective.

A character-driven slow-burner, benefitting from slow-burn music from Steve Hadley and fellow members of Professor Ratbaggy, and nice high contrast lighting from Mandy Walker. It reminds me to some extent of a seventies American neo-noir.

Very successful - written by Andrew Bovell from his play - you wouldn't know - 'Speaking in Tongues'. Nice little touches involving Lapaglia's kids, fellow detective fancying man in restaurant; well observed. Nicely nuanced characters - there's no black-and-white here. In fact the moment Lapaglia starts to cry (having earlier said "You just hold it in") is almost the key moment in it.

Empire of Light (2022 Sam Mendes & scr)

A repressed cinema manager falls for a younger black man in racist eighties Britain, whilst the cinema beckons and takes you away from reality. (Having said that, Raging Bull is one of the films on offer.)

The old cinema is beautifully designed, but the film doesn't quite capture the magic of cinema in the way that something like Cinema Paradiso does; it's really well made and acted, but doesn't quite... It's a 'not quite there' film for me, or as J.K. would say in Whiplash, 'Not my speed'. The central relationship doesn't quite engage me, I'm not sure why, and though the supporting characters are good, it doesn't quite gel in that satisfying way that a film like My Week With Marilyn (I know - here we go again) does.

 I used 'quite' five times there, something of a personal record.

But Roger Deakins does make Mark Tildesley's designs look marvellous. Filmed in Margate where the cinema - a listed but empty building - still stands.

Try telling me this isn't lit purely by candlelight

Great cast: Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Tom Brooke, Tanya Moodie (mother), Hannah Onslow, Crystal Clarke, Monica Dolan (didn't recognise her), Ron Cooke, Sara Stewart (just seen her on Dalgliesh). Edited by Lee Smith.

Liked the ending Philip Larkin poem 'The Trees' (and the Tennyson New Year one). (Though you could argue - what have these got to do with Cinema?)

Causeway (2022 Lila Neugerbauer)

Jennifer Lawrence is recovering from an Afghan war head injury - which she largely does quite quickly - returning home to lacklustre mother Linda Emond, befriending similarly damaged Brian Tyree Henry, whose leg amputation came from a crash that killed his nephew. A sympathetic doctor (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is in no hurry to send her back. She ultimately visits her junkie brother in prison Will Pullen, who it turns out is deaf. (The mother's probably an alkie, just to round off the dysfunctions).

A quiet, slow, character-led film, made in New Orleans and photographed by Diego Garcia, with production design by Jack Fisk. Not in the Mike Leigh calibre, but definitely worth watching.

Henry, who we first encountered in Atlanta, is certainly getting around, we're pleased to see.

Film is refreshingly free of war flashbacks - we can see the damage done to Lawrence by the state she's in at the beginning.

Half Broken Things (2007 Tim Fywell)

A somewhat sweet and strange story, from Morag Joss novel, adapted by Alan Whiting.

Petty criminal Danny Mays, in a beautifully sensitive performance, rescues abused Sinead Matthews, and they go on the run. Meanwhile house-sitter Penelope Wilton's last job before enforced retirement is a large country estate for the summer. They collide and for a short time find true happiness (Wilton clearly thinks of Mays as a son figure).

It descends into murder and melodrama, and is quite unlikely, though the characters are all damaged fantasists, and that fits.

Photographed by the underrated David Odd.

Monk - Season 2 (2003 Creator Andy Breckman)

Funny how certain things stick in the head after fifteen years - I remember clearly Monk being unable to drink any other than his favourite brand of water in Mexico episode, Q remembered the snake moment where he has to stand on the table.

Some of these stories are far-fetched, to say the least, but always fun, such as The Odd Couple episode where Stottlemeyer - or what ever his name is - comes to stay and they drive each other nuts. Man who delivers time delayed mail bomb, using ketchup bottles glued to the ceiling to work out his timing, is genius.

We also meet Monk's brother, John Turturro, who teaches us the difference between sarcastic (use of irony to mock or show contempt) and sardonic (grimly mocking or cynical).

In ingenious story of prospector's hidden gold (it's in gold ink in his hundreds of journals) we see early appearance by Jane Lynch... but Nestor Carbonell is not Will & Grace's Eric McCormack (although he does appear in a later series). Also funny in that Sharona and Monk have to pretend to be married.

Season finale has Monk in prison as 'Dale the Whale' (Tim Curry) has promised him information about Trudi's killer. There he gets on the right side of Danny Trejo by making his bed, finding a better hiding place for his shiv, retaping the handle, and finding the thief of his watch! Also with Kathy Baker.

Best Sellers (2021 Lina Roessler)

A struggling publisher tracks down former successful author who under contract from fifty years ago still owes them a book. He's initially a nightmare, but they start to work together... The writer (of this) is Anthony Grieco, his only published screenplay.

Unlikely sounding teaming of Aubrey Plaza with Michael Caine works quite well - the latter is as good as ever. At 88, and with mobility problems, Caine has admitted this may be his last role. If it is, it's a fitting one. (Bet it isn't, though.) Also with Scott Speedman, Ellen Wong, Cary Elwes

A largely Canadian crew (it was filmed there in suitably wintery locations) with DP Claudine Sauvé and editor Arthur Tarnowski. It was interesting to read that Plaza was shot with a tight lens and Caine had more of a wide, messy one with distortions.

Caine's character maybe becomes a bit too sweet too quickly but we generally enjoyed it and its twists. The writer thinks the heart of it is 'daddy issues'; it's dedicated to 'My Dad' - presumably Roessler's?

The Manhattan Bridge

There's something very old and low tech about the places they're on tour.

Good extensive interview with writer and director here, in which the writer, fondly refers to The Apartment ('it's perfect') but asks the intriguing question - Can you imagine pitching that today? It's a weird sex comedy about a guy lending out his apartment to get ahead, then falls for a girl who tries to commit suicide there! Ok. that's not quite the synopsis, but I know what he means...

The Mouse That Roared (1959 Jack Arnold)

A film of two halves. The first, in which the tiny country of Grand Fenwick goes to war with the USA, and finds a deserted New York, I'd file under 'cheerful nonsense'. This must be one of the first Peter Sellars films in which he plays multiple roles, which is fun, especially his Duchess. However the abduction of professor David Kossov and daughter Jean Seberg, and the 'Q Bomb', and the return to Europe, becomes progressively more silly, the romantic storyline between Sellars and Seberg is hollow and seems thrust upon them, and the ending increasingly desperate in terms of finding a decent resolution (the screenplay is by people I'd not heard of.)

Seberg had appeared in Bonjour Tristesse - A Bout de Souffle was just around the corner (she seems to be wearing the same stripy top).

A Columbia film, interestingly (the logo sequence one of the film's few funny moments). It was former publicist Walter Shenson's first film as a producer and the film was (I don't know why) a massive hit in the US (unbelievably, Maltin still rates it ***1/2). An exceedingly low budget film, its success warranted a sequel, The Mouse On the Moon, Wilder rest its soul (though this did bring Shenson together with Richard Lester, beginning an important partnership).

Apart from titles by Maurice Binder (and the director), didn't recognise any of the names behind the camera. With Leo McKern, William Hartnell. 

The Street With No Name (1948 William Keighley)

A follow up to The House on 92nd Street, apparently, in which a true FBI case is depicted faithfully and in as many of the real locations as possible. Thus we have some very good on location photography from Joe MacDonald, much in inky chiaroscuro, but also some rather clunky voiceover. 'Center City' is mainly LA.

Mark Stevens goes undercover to infiltrate Richard Widmark's gang of killers, uncovers an inside man on the force, but is rumbled. Fortunately his No. 2 John McIntyre (Winchester '73, Rooster Cogburn) is hot on the trail. Donald Buka makes impression as tough hood. With Lloyd Nolan, Barbara Lawrence, Joseph Pevney (girl obsessed hood), Howard Smith.

McIntyre, Stevens

Donald Buka

Widmark started out playing psychotic criminals

The Long Arm (1956 Charles Frend)

One of the last films to bear the Ealing Studios crest is a matter-of-fact look at the work of Superintendent Jack Hawkins, who's pursuing a case of theft where the thief has the safe keys, whilst breaking in a new detective, John Stratton. This ultimately involves the murder of a night watchman, a small role for Ian Bannen, and a quite thrilling finale in and outside the Royal Festival Hall (London at night has rarely looked so deserted), where the two detectives almost let the criminal get away because between them they DON'T HAVE ANY HANDCUFFS.

With Dorothy Alison, Richard Leech, Geoffrey Keen, Sydney Tafler, Ursula Howells, Meredith Edwards, William Mervyn (The Railway Children) and, somewhere there in uniform, Nicholas Parsons.

Lots of good on location filming by Gordon Dines, music by Gerard Schurmann, written by Robert Barr and Janet Green.

An alternative title was The Three Keys, which those who've seen the film will agree with me is a stupid title.

Air (2023 Ben Affleck)

True story of how Nike man Matt Damon managed to woo Michael Jordan (who's never shown, like Mohammed) into signing with the brand, mainly through contact with his powerfully influential mother Viola Davis, and how it changed deals for sponsorship for sports people for ever. 

It's well enough written and made, but doesn't really connect with me. The little humour comes out at the end - Damon's attempt at track running, followed by conversation with basketball expert at convenience store - "Everyone knew Jordan was great".

With Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Chris Messina (obnoxious agent), Julius Tennon (Jordan's father), Chris Tucker, Matthew Maher (designer).

Robert Richardson's photography is quite - how can I put it - gloomy? Which is a surprise. Of course Ben's going to work with editor William (Argo) Goldenberg again. The music is almost all eighties numbers, mostly of the unwelcome kind. Oh look - there's our Ai-Ling Lee again, secreted away in the credits as Supervising Sound Designer. As usual, didn't really notice it, except in the scene where Damon first meets Davis and they go 'out back'.

Dalgliesh: The Murder Room (2023 Jon Wright)

Helen Edmundsen adapted all of them. This features a museum of murder exhibits and a couple of deaths, plus a sex club for the powerful members of society.

Features Anastasia Hille (as ex SOE museum worker), Sorcha Cusack (with the cottage; Cyril's daughter), Michelle Duncan, James Esler, Nathaniel Christian, Sylvestra le Touzel, Robin Soans (Major).

A different DP again (Will Baldy - there's seems to be a conspiracy on IMDB to list all the crew but the DP?)

These have been the best things on Channel 5 in simply ages. And that's a lot down to Bertie Carvel and the writing between his character and his No. 2 Carlyss Peer.

Production designer: Nicola Moroney

Sylvestra le Touzel