A Quiet Place Part II (2020 John Krasinski & scr)

Apart from a flashback Krasinski isn't in this one. Good cross-cutting of action between Emily Blunt's efforts to save son Noah Jupe and baby, and Millie Simmonds and Cillian Murphy's journey to reach survivors on an island. Millie steals the film for us. She was BAFTA nominated and came to attention with a fantastic performance in Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck.

Good music from Marco Beltrami. Photographed by Brit Polly Morgan (Where the Crawdads Sing), edited by Michael Shawver, production designer Jess Gonchor, sound design by Erik Aadahl and Ethan van der Ryn.

I guess it's not quite as creative as the first one, but then we have lost the element of surprise.

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942 Lew Landers)

Ridiculous childish nonsense B movie for Columbia. Mad professor Boris Karloff is trying to create a Superman in his cellar, teams up with multi functioning Peter Lorre and his crime solving cat whilst (Miss) Jeff Donell tries to fix up the 18th century house as a hotel. Also involved: Maxie Rosenbloom (who might be familiar from Nothing Sacred), Larry Parks, Don Beddoe as 'choreographer'.

Shares certain similarities with Arsenic and Old Lace, i.e. could have easily ripped off elements from 1941 play. Mainly of interest to see Karloff and Lorre together.

Six Four (2023 Ben Williams)

Written by Gregory Burke and Clare McQuillan, based on Hideo Yokoyama's novel. We're back in Edinburgh again, which seems fashionable. Why does detective Kevin McKidd's wife Vinette Robinson run off to London? And why does bearded James Cosmo claim his daughter was kidnapped by the security forces? And what does journalist (fill in actor name later) know? Are there too many questions being asked?

Yes, it's an interesting writing dilemma, isn't it? If you make the audience ask too many questions, they can get bored and give up. Unless you have strong central characters they care about. In this case, we don't even know what's going on between the couple.

A four parter for ITV.

Censor (2021 Prano Bailey-Bond & co-scr)

Written with Anthony Fletcher. It's the 1980s. Niamh Algar is a film censor of video nasties, suffering from the childhood loss of her younger sister, and thinking her parents Andrew Havill and Clare Holman secretly blame her. The moment she accidentally kills pervy film producer Michael Smiley is funny - "Thank you for the whisky. I'll see myself out." Then things go really crazy when she imagines her sister is in a horror film, and joins the cast.  The design is good, film has a diffused quality and starts changing shape when we get into the craziness of the story - ending up in 4x3, appropriately for the material. 

Niamh in interview said she was normally good at leaving the character on set but found this one less easy to let go - maybe the list of horror films the director had given her as research didn't help matters! She's typically completely convincing and subtle. "The camera catches everything," she says, "You don't need to do anything. Just thinking, and you can see it on screen." Yes, I'm not sure that it's as easy as it sounds. I think probably one of the hardest things to do when you're an actor is not to act.

Nicholas Burns, Vincent Franklin, Sophia La Porta, Adrian Schiller, Felicity Montagu, Clare Perkins.

Suitably creepy music from Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch (Living, Rocks), DP Annika Sommerson (Breeders), editor with tricks Mark Towns, production designer Paulina Rzeszowska.

It's quite daft, but only in so much as most horror films are, and quite stylish.

The director's earlier short Nasty  (2015) seems to cover similar ground.

I was going to say I'd watch Niamh in anything, even hanging out the washing, but that sounds a bit dodgy. So I won't.

Us (2019 Jordan Peele & scr, prod)

A bit of a disappointment after Get Out, this doesn't seem so funny or to have the same sharp satirical edge, it's quite silly and the twist ending doesn't really make any sense. The beginning is good, all Steadicam and creepy boardwalk, as the young girl gets lost. Then we jump forward and she's now the grown up Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave), married to Winston Duke, with useful-proving children Evan Alex and Shahdi Wright Joseph. With Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker. When crazy and super-powerful lookalikes turn up, it starts to get boring.

Photographed by Mike Gioulakis, music from Michael Abels, edited by Nicholas Monsour, all good.

Becket (1964 Peter Glenville)

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" I enjoyed this more than I though I would, partly I suppose because of the great Peter O'Toole - Richard Burton double-act, and Edward Anhalt's Oscar winning adaptation of Jean Anouilh's play, in which once great friends go on their different paths, leading ultimately to a shocking and true murder in Canterbury Cathedral which was never punished (that would in itself have been quite an interesting detail to have been in the screenplay).

Geoffrey Unsworth (won BAFTA) photographed John Bryan's huge and amazing sets (also won BAFTA) in a kind of faded tapestry colour. Despite the innovations of Lawrence of Arabia, Anne Coates is still using dissolves a lot to move from one location to another.

Third billed John Gielgud (Oscar nominated despite short appearances) doesn't even appear until 80 minutes in. With David Weston (loyal monk), Donald Wolfit (bishop), Martita Hunt, Pamela Brown, Sian Phillips, Felix Aylmer.

Roger Corman swiftly moved in and filmed The Masque of the Red Death on still standing sets!

Man Friday (1975 Jack Gold)

"You must learn to take your punishment like a stick." Richard Roundtree died on October 24, best known for the game-changing Shaft and its two sequels. He's very funny and infectious here in Adrian Mitchell's critique of Colonialism, pretending to bow down to Peter O'Toole's 'superior' civilisation and finding most of his ideas ridiculous. O'Toole's wonderful. It's a little patchy, especially the ending, but the rapport between the two is great.

Anne Coates' cutting of reaction shots to Friday's story is rather fabulous, as is her dealings with a parrot. The highlight is probably the hang glider scene (and the build-up: "What if we were not the eagle, but the pig?"), photographed by Alex Phillips off Mexico.

Halloween Triple Bill: Totally Killer (2023 Nahnatchka Khan) / Dead of Night (1945 Cavalcanti, Dearden Crichton, Hamer) / Halloween (1978 John Carpenter)

Totally Killer is a reasonably imaginative time travel horror film with knowing references to others of the genre, mainly Halloween, a very influential film in many ways. But more on that later. The script (David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, Jen D'Angelo) doesn't make the most of its contemporary commentary on the 1980s - it often isn't funny. And the killer(s) is one of those post-Scream ones who is not only impossibly invulnerable but fast - at least Michael Myers was normal speed.

Dead of Night. Moments to love. The way Anthony Baird slowly walks up to the the hospital window, all sound having disappeared. That slow track in on Ralph Michael as he tells Googie Withers he must be going mad. Sally Ann Howes' mother bursting in with the film's funniest line. Googie seeing the haunted room. Douglas Slocombe's eerie lake. That final look of Michael Redgrave - totally deranged. Georges Auric - demented brass.

It's quite funny how sanguine and stiff-lipped everyone is about their and the others' ghost stories.

"Milk and sugar, Mr Craig?" I love his expression.

But the line that stuck in my head this time was Basil Radford's - "Must count the cups, darling. Yes, always count the cups before going to bed."

Halloween started the trend for masked serial killers and invincible ones, and should be commended for keeping so much of the action in daylight and for its incredibly steady Panaflex camera - was it superior to Steadicam? And John Carpenter's brilliant score.

All Good Things (2010 Andrew Jarecki)

Written by Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling, and based on true events, in which it's made pretty clear that violent, unstable Ryan Gosling has killed and disposed of Kirsten Dunst, then (in a somewhat bizarre twist) starts wearing women's clothing and wigs! He is suffering from a terrible childhood incident. Dunst: "I've never been closer to anyone - but I don't know you at all." Or something. They are both excellent.

Twist involves Diane Venora, who's also murdered by duped Philip Baker Hall. With Frank Langella, Lily Rabe, Michael Esper, Nick Offerman, Kristen Wiig.

Great makeup, prosthetics by Mike Moreno. Solemnly photographed by Michael Seresin.  Some of the music / action seems to evoke Herrmann and Hitch.

In The Line Of Fire (1992 Wolfgang Petersen)

Written by Jeff Mcguire. An FBI agent who has failed to protect JFK is targeted by a mad assassin with sights on the current president. These Americans and their President slayings, I don't know. Perhaps if you guys had less guns...?

Clint Eastwood gives a lovely performance as the grizzled, piano-playing, romantic detective. He apparently wouldn't rehearse his scenes and would act slightly differently from take to take, giving Anne Coates a pleasurable headache. John Malkovich good too as the psycho. With Rene Russo, Dylan McDermott, Gary Cole, John Mahoney.

This is one of Anne's 'cheats' - in the previous shot he's holding an ice cream spoon in his right hand

Edited with aplomb. Photographed by John Bailey. Music (though mixed rather low) by Ennio Morricone. Michael Grillo is assistant director, campaign unit.

The Long Day Closes (1992 Terence Davies & scr)

Another lyrical and deeply personal film from Davies, this centring on the life of a boy, played by Leigh McCormack, in what is clearly an autobiographical tale, set in Liverpool in 1956. It looks at his family life, particularly fondly at his mother, Marjorie Yates; and Anthony Watson, Nicholas Lamont and Ayse Owens. With Tina Malone, Jimmy Wilde, Robin Polley, Peter Ivatts.

My favourite moment remain the light and rain shadows on the walls and carpet, but there's an awesome shot at the end of the clouds scudding over the moon which last several minutes.

We look at the boy's interactions at brutal school, at home, church, a fair, and visiting the cinema, where he finds refuge from loneliness and outsider status (the film is peppered with sound from contemporary films like Private's Progress and The Ladykillers). Displaced sound, complex fades, scenes turning into something different, all add up to a most impressive though languid film. Like its predecessor, very handsomely filmed, by Michael Coulter, in an odd aspect ratio of what looks like 1.57:1 (certainly not 1.85:1 as claimed on IMDB). Edited by William Diver.

In this strange sequence it looks like family Christmas dinner is taking place in the street outside the house

No. 72 in Time Out's Top British films 2018. Davies was a man who turned his own life into art.

Boiling Point (2023 Phil Barantini)

So - we're back in the semi-improvised chaos of kitchens in Barantini's third foray into restaurant life, this time not only in long takes but also in snappy editing. Stephen Graham, whose production company made it - deliberately chose to take a back seat to the other actors, and spends much time moping about in the background. The focus is on new restaurant manager Vinette Robinson. But actually it's the rest of the staff that are more interesting as we get to know them and care about them. They are newcomer ex-Army who's a bit lost Stephen Odubola, mother hen figure Hannah Walters, Gary Lamont gay front of house, chef Izuka Hoyle, struggling older brother Daniel Larkai, fellow pot washer Hannah Traylen (also from the film), self-harming Stephen McMillan, bartender Taz Skylar, and Aine Rose his afflicted girlfriend, Shaun Fagan as aggressive but loyal sous chef. Certainly enough strands for a second series.

'Like a ship' by Pastor TK Barett and the Youth for Christ Choir takes us out.

The Rocking Horse Winner (1949 Anthony Pelissier)

John Mills: "In January 1949 Anthony Pelissier suggested DH Lawrence's 'The Rocking Horse Winner' as my next production. Although I considered it to be a difficult subject to tackle, flushed with what I thought at the time was the box office success on [The History of Mr] Polly, I decided to take a chance. The Rocking Horse Winner finally emerged as another artistic triumph and a box-office disappointment. It was again well-directed, well-acted, by that superb actor Ronald Squire, Valerie Hobson, and a young child actor, John Howard Davies. Looking back I realise I made one stupid mistake - I played a small part in the picture. This, at a time when I was a big draw at the box-office, and able to carry a picture with my name alone above the title, was asking for trouble. I got it, and I deserved it. I was deluged with mail from my fans, who said they didn't expect to pay good money only to see me on the screen for about ten minutes."

Yes, with its strange subject matter and downbeat ending, I did wonder what the public thought of it. It holds its own very well, but I don't think the box office failure was Johnny's alone - there wasn't a better part in it for him, and therefore, from the star's point of view, it was probably ill-advised in the first place.

The fact the adults in it are a despicable lot (Johnny aside) doesn't help with audience empathy.

It's stunningly shot by Desmond Dickinson and edited by John Seabourne, with Anne Coates assisting. It certainly has its fans in this household.

Strangely, the UK DVD is three minutes shorter than the 91m NTSC version, and an inferior quality print.

Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988 Terence Davies & scr)

Mr. Davies died on 7 October aged 77. He was a critically highly regarded but little known director. who struggled to get financing. This, his first feature, is regarded as his best, and features in the BFI's Top 100 list (no.82)

In a way it's as unconventional as Song to Song, but works - individual scenes, moments from lives, predominantly people singing, build up a Big Picture. The camera tracks politely, often filming face on. The story revealed in part one is of a Liverpool family from the 1940s and a long-suffering mother Freda Dowie and the abusive husband, played by Peter Postlethwaite and three children - it's sadly autobiographical, to the extent that the filming upset Davies to the point where he would be found 'sitting on Postlethwaite's lap, being comforted by his on-screen father' ('The Week' obit). Part two, which is slightly different stylistically, often featuring fades to white, no longer dwells on the father but on the now grown up and married three children, who carry some of the emotional weight.

Overall it's very beautiful, realistic, well acted and paints a vivid picture. It's slow moving but rich and deeply rewarding. Some of the father's outbursts are terrifying, and two workers falling off a scaffold is utterly dazzling and original.

Rest of cast: Angela Walsh, Dean Williams, Lorraine Ashbourne (I Used to be Famous, Sherwood) as the children, and Sally Davies, Nathan Walsh and Susan Flanagan as them as kids. Plus Michael Starke (Brookside's Sinbad), Antonia Mallen, Debi Jones (the vivacious friend), Chris Darwin, Marie Jelliman, Andrew Schofield and Pauline Quirke.

Images above from William Diver (who also edited) and Patrick Duval.

I liked the soldiers' song which included the stanza:

It takes a worried man
To sing a worried song
I may be worried now
But I won't be worried long

 

Blue Valentine (2010 Derek Cianfrance & co-scr)

An honest and powerful look at a relationship is not an easy watch, but will have moments of familiarity for any couple. Ryan Gosling and Oscar nominated Michelle William's relationship is observed over a couple of years, cross cutting from their meeting and the beginnings of their relationship to some time later, with a young daughter, and a particularly potent scene in a horrible motel, and the violent day after.  This is all perhaps why we hadn't watched it in ten years. Not sure we really need all the sex scenes either. The brief sketches of their family lives are revealing, and they both catch well the way time and their relationship has changed them.

Sweetest moment is Ryan sorting out the room the old man's being moved into.

Written by Cianfrance, Joey Curtis and Cami Delavinge.

Photographed by Andrij Parekh.

Sometimes you wonder about the life of a film after it is over. I think that she won't leave him, at least not just yet, but whether they make it long term I'd be doubtful...

Hell Is a City (1960 Val Guest)

A Hammer police thriller set in Manchester  = Manchester is Hell? Seems slightly unfair. Cop Stanley Baker must locate escaped killer John Crawford, particularly after a street robbery that turns into murder. Film is quite tough, with thrilling ending and realistic, well written characters, and fast and overlapping dialogue which keeps it moving. Screenplay by Guest and Maurice Procter.

With Donald Pleasance, Maxine Audley, Billie Whitelaw. Photographed in 'Hammerscope' by Arthur Grant.

Features quaint Northern customs such as coin tossing, cheating, drinking and armed robbery. Our TPTV copy had the word 'bastard' removed.

Magnum Force (1973 Ted Post)

John Milius's story has a vigilante force operating from within the San Francisco Police Department, "Like those death squads in Brazil", which is a good idea. Only Dirty Harry can stop them. Milius then went off to direct Dillinger, so Michael Cimino took over rewrites.

Only the very ending is somewhat underwhelming, in which Harry overpowers one of the cops on board a ship - but then empties his gun rather than taking it with him. Also not quite sure who the people are in the swimming pool who are massacred. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Felton Perry (Harry's partner), Mitchell Ryan, David Soul (probably what brought him to the attention of the Starsky and Hutch people), Tim Matheson, John Mitchum (ex cop now hamburger salesman), Christine White, Adele Yoshioka.

Frank Stanley shoots some interesting SF locations, Lalo Schifrin's score is fun. Edited by Ferris Webster, produced by Clint's mate Robert Daley for Malpaso / Warners. With a $20 million US gross it was a huge hit. Ted Post was somewhat put out that Clint was co-directing, at times overriding him with the actors, and - being the production company - ultimately his boss.

"If you're not with us, you're against us."
"I'm afraid you've misjudged me."

Cape Fear (1991 Martin Scorsese)

'Bob Mitchum or Bob de Niro?' Q had questioned on one of her film groups. Mitchum was hands down the preference of over 200 respondents.

And Lee Thompson's version is also easily the winner, for what Scorsese and writer Wesley Strick have done is to considerably muddy the character waters. The lawyer (Nick Nolte) has a shady past, he and his wife Jessica Lange are on the point of divorce, and instead of being repelled by the psycho, teenager Juliette Lewis has something of a crush on him. All this does is to severely dissipate the tension. It is also - naturally - over 20 minutes longer.

Marty's direction (and Thelma's editing and Freddie Francis's photography) are of course all very interesting, so it's very watchable, and Marty's had the sense to reuse Herrmann's score (slightly adapted by Elmer Bernstein) but actually that doesn't always sit that well over a more modern film.

It was nice - briefly - to see Peck, Mitchum and Balsam from the original. With Joe Don Baker, Ileana Douglas.

'71 (2014 Yann Demange)

The searing Jack O'Connell runs and hides in violent, divided Belfast, in Gregory Burke's uncompromising script, which even manages to provide us with a happy ending. Demange had made Top Boy Season 1 before this - good preparation. You can't help but think Odd Man Out, though in that film, the attention wanders off James Mason where here O'Connell is always the centre.

Also, though, making a strong impression - Barry Keoghan as young wannabe terrorist who has a moment of compassion, who absolutely makes an impression as the only expressionless face in a row of rioting locals, and young Corey McKinley, who is fantastic as a bolshie Loyalist boy.

Sam Reid is the out-of-depth officer, Sean Harris in charge of a rogue plainclothes unit, Richard Dormer the army medic who intervenes, David Wilmot, Jack Lowden, Babou Ceesay, Peaky Blinders' Paul Anderson (didn't recognise him), Denise Gough (brave woman in riot), Killian Scott, Charley Murphy. All acting good.

Fabulous natural light photography from Tat Radcliffe, who had also worked on Top Boy - no camera operator is credited so I'm assuming Tat handled it himself; the editor is Chris Wyatt.

This Means War (2012 McG)

Tom Hardy and Chris Pine, FBI agents, compete for the attentions of Reece Witherspoon, who fancies them both.

Still don't want to know who McG is.

Best moment: Reece singing along to 'This Is How We Do It' by Montell Jordan.

A very colorized film. With Til Schweiger, Chelsea Handler, Abigail Spencer (Mad Men, True Detective), Angela Bassett.

Song to Song (2017 Terence Malick & scr)

Or, Vacuous Couples Prancing About. Only made it to one hour 26 despite best Endeavours (it's two hours three minutes). And this is why. It's not a movie in the conventional sense, more a series of arty, pretentious sequences loosely linked together into some kind of chronology, or 'story'.

Moody music. A flock of starlings. A little boy runs across the grass. Michael Fassbender caresses Rooney Mara's neck. A band plays. We see a leaf in the water. "I could not find a way to love him", she whispers. A sunset. Ryan Gosling caresses Rooney Mara's leg. A modern apartment in Austin, Texas, shot from high up. Natalie Portman laughs just as someone else laughs. "I couldn't find my heart," Ryan Gosling whispers. The music changes, the branch of a tree, a rock concert, a goat.

Photographed using some very wide lenses by Emmanuel Lubezki with some undeniably creative editing by Hank Corwin, Rehman Nizar Ali & Keith Fraase. All sorts of music in the soundtrack from Mahler and Ravel through to Bob Dylan.

Cape Fear (1962 J Lee Thomspon)

Weirdly like watching a Hitchcock, with Herrmann score and Hitchcocky moments - like the lurking figure in the hall that is a hanging hat and coat.

George Tomasini has this incredible way of dissolving into the next scene, almost like liquid, even before a sentence is finished.

It's overall a very smoothly crafted film.

Of the scene with Mitchum and Polly Bergen on board the boat, Mitchum wound himself up into a fury and they just shot without rehearsal. He ripped his hand open on a cabinet and used her as a battering ram to break a door down. "It went much further than we were even able to use" said the director. So in the moment were they that they didn't even hear the instruction to cut and had to be separated. Afterwards Mitchum hugged the actress saying "I'm so sorry..." It certainly comes over on screen.

Lori Martin is the at-risk teenager. Lee was good with young actors e.g. Hayley Mills in Tiger Bay

Amazing dream scene overlays

More striking photography from Sam Leavitt

With Martin Balsam, Jack Kruschen, Telly Savalas.

Half Nelson (2006 Ryan Fleck & co-scr)

Written with Amy Boden, who also edited. It's a good story. A drug addict inner city teacher is drawn to a vulnerable teenage girl and tries to steer her away from drug dealing. Shareeka Epps and Ryan Gosling are perfect.

With Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker, Seberg, The Night Before).

Photographed entirely hand held by Andrij Parekh.