Funny Bones (1995 Peter Chelsom & co-scr)

I don't know how this got financed - it's such a mixed bag. The plot of Oliver Platt being in the shadow of his comedian father superstar and being connected to his lost other family in Blackpool is interesting, but the way he reconnects with them is annoyingly undeveloped. The insane brothers and their ghost train and house with its tilted camera angles is a bit much. Lee Evans... there's something both amazing and annoying about him, and I'm not sure being perched on top of a pole is funny - it's skilful and acrobatic like a monkey. The plot about the eggs containing rejuvenating powder (cocaine?), the Frenchman's feet and Oliver Reed is just a load of nonsense. (Though the scene in the mortuary is funny.) 

Blackpool locations used well. The acts they review are hilarious. That Evans has killed a performer on stage casts a weird and unpleasant shadow.

So yes, I can't really unscramble these eggs and conclude it's an interesting failure.

Good role for Leslie Caron as the mother. With Jerry Lewis, Freddie Davis and George Carl (brothers), Richard Griffiths, Ian McNeice, Christopher Greet good as booker, Ruta Lee.

Eduardo Serra on camera, Martin Walsh edited, John Altman music.

Chelsom (incidentally, was born in Blackpool) made the much better Hector and the Search for Happiness and the less successful Serendipity.

Play Dirty (1969 André de Toth)

Michael Caine is briefed to go behind Rommel's lines to destroy a fuel dump, accompanied by Nigels Green and Davenport. Nothing very interesting happens - there's no surprises, accidents, suspense, humour - so I gave up after 50 minutes.

Primary Colors (1998 Mike Nichols)

 2017 review worth repeating:

Still in Emma Thompson mood, here she plays (with a somewhat wavering accent) the First Lady to John Travolta's Governor in Elaine May's adaptation of a novel by 'Anonymous' - Joe Klein - based on Clinton's first candidacy. Adrian Lester (good) gets sucked into the tour - it sort of reminded me of Almost Famous in that regard. It's very well, subtly written e.g. how well-oiled Lester's amateur team of aides has become, how the relationships (Billy Bob Thornton, Maura Tierney (ER), Kathy Bates) develop. Indeed, in just two shots, we learn that Lester and Tierney are in a relationship, and that Bates and Stacy Edwards (that was a hard name to track down) are too.

And it's subtle in that we are presented with who this man is right from the off - a serial adulterer and maker up of convenient tales. In fact in a way it's odd how Lester is so sucked in knowing those things. Though the Governor is charismatic...

With Rob Reiner, and a good performance from Larry Hagman, Diane Ladd, Alison Janney, Caroline Aaron. Abd Tony Shaloub.

Photographed by Michael Ballhaus - the widescreen is well used. Music from Ry Cooder. Quite long, but good.

I wonder why Lester didn't stay in Hollywood...

“It was kind of hard to swallow, because surely if you executed a role like that to any degree of believability you were a shoo-in for major auditions for other major roles… But it didn’t happen. Costa-Gavras wanted me to play the lead role in a movie. And Sidney Lumet was doing an updated version of 12 Angry Men and offered me a choice of two roles, so I went home thinking, ‘Great!’ Then both films fell through – they couldn’t get the money – and I sat at home unemployed for a year.

'Radio Times' December 2011.

Today. I had forgotten Nichols made this when watching Regarding Henry yesterday. He's of course a great actor's director and likes leaving things in long takes.

There are a couple of outstanding zoom or track-ins - one is Lester looking at a donut shop out of his hotel window and the camera goes all the way in to it. There's another great one on  a balcony in which we go in close and Travolta and Thompson. Terrific work from Ballhaus and operator Peter Hutchison. It was edited by Arthur Schmidt.

It's a clever film because you are quite sucked in by the charisma of the candidate at the outset only to realise by the end that's he's a terrible shit and has built his campaign on lies - this demonstrated in the brilliant way we see him shake hands, something that's been identified at the outset. But the Lester character renounces his integrity and stays with the senator. An honest film about politics.

I love something about the colours and textures of this shot

Another amazing shot as the camera lifts off the highway and up...

My House in Umbria (2003 Richard Loncraine)

Hugh Whitemore adapted William Trevor, an Irish writer noted for Chekhovian short stories; as a novelist he wrote the books on which Fools of Fortune (1990) and Felicia's Journey (1999) were based; this was from a novella published in 'Two Lives'.

Maggie Smith plays a reclusive, rubbish romance writer and alcoholic in Umbria who looks after the survivors of a train explosion. And, as it turns out, has had something of a sordid and unhappy past, so it's not as straightforward as you might think. She's an excellent judge of character and situation.

The survivors are Ronnie Barker - so great to see him in his last and serious role - Benno Fürmann, and Emmy Clarke, who was also in Monk. Tim Spall is the loyal Oirish housekeeper, Giancarlo Giannini the detective and Chris Cooper the repressed uncle.

It was a TV movie made for HBO. Photographed by Marco Pontecorvo and edited by Humphrey Dixon (A Room with a View).

I was thinking about Giancarlo Giannini in Swept Away, and wondering whether that film inspired Overboard. Loncraine and Maggie had worked together before on The Missionary. According to The Guardian obituary, Ronnie "had been at architectural college with Smith’s two brothers and had left them to join her at the Oxford Playhouse".

The Internecine Project (1974 Ken Hughes)

I was going to say that I had long wondered what this film was about, but it turns out I'd already seen it, on 16 June 1980 (rating 5/10). It's a really stupid title because I can't be the only one that doesn't know what 'Internecine' means - it's an immediate put-off. ('Destructive to both sides in a conflict.')

Anyhow. For reasons I wasn't really paying attention to, 'economist' James Coburn has to wipe out a secret network he's created, comprising Michael Jayston, Harry Andrews, Ian Hendry and Christiane Krüger. How he achieves this is the main bit of the film and makes it worth watching. In parallel he's having an affair with ex Lee Grant. Other than that, Coburn spends his whole time walking in and out of various locations, pouring himself a Scotch (or Brandy, on one occasion) all the time.

It was shot by Geoffrey Unsworth but the print on Legend is not of good quality.

Stardust Memories (1980 Woody Allen & scr)

A stupidly neglected film. At the time it caused some confusion - the critics thought Woody was attacking them and his audience - he's having a dig, certainly, at over-critical thinking and crazy fan worship - not specifically his critics and fans. In fact Woody doesn't have the best opinion even of his own films or abilities as a film maker. Though this was one of his favourites at one point.

Whilst it certainly evokes 8 1/2, there's also a very strong Preston Sturges reference right from the off - Sullivan's Travels. It even begin in the same way - what we think we're seeing is the ending of a film which the execs then discuss as being terrible. But yes - the way scenes turn into flashbacks is definitely very much like the Fellini film. (That bit on the train - is this some reference to death camp trains from WWII?)

And about a man who cannot find the right path in love. That montage of the fucked up Charlotte Rampling, direct to camera, is still one of the director's most powerful moments.

The POV camera through the fans, and the 'interesting' faces, and Gordon Willis' beautiful darkness, all memorable. And, you know, a depressed man, who has that photo from Vietnam, massively blown up his wall - what do you expect?

Woody's useless agent is another good touch, as is the fact that it's his first wife, Louise Lasser!

Good one for SSS

Woody likes long takes

Don't bother telling me how many awards Gordon Willis was not nominated for

The ending - the film is over and the cast swap notes - is a doozy.

Jessica Harper... I fell for her in Phantom of the Paradise, on the 10th of December 1977, aged 14. How many decades ago was that? She's still working...

With Marie-Christine Barrault, Tony Roberts, Daniel Stern, Woody's dentist and accountant, Sharon Stone as 'Pretty Girl on Train'...

Regarding Henry (1991 Mike Nichols)

My review from 2013:

Scr. JJ Abrams (before he started doing silly things like Lost and Super 8, which is apparently an amalgamation of old Spielbergs).

Harrison Ford, Annette Bening, Elizabeth Wilson (the secretary, also in Nine to Five, Catch 22, The Graduate), Donald Moffat, Mikki Allen (daughter, one of those sensible children who probably decided making films was too boring and didn't do it again), Bill Nunn (therapist: Legend of 1900, Spider Man films), Bruce Altman (partner).

Well written, and shot with the lush and rich camera of Giuseppe Rotunno (not captured in screen shot).
This was as good as the first time we saw it (for the record 18 April 1992. Review: Wonderful humane story is moving without being manipulative (?), great script, superb central performance. Not a dry eye in the house.")

Not mad about Hans Zimmer's music in this (not generally).

Loved the moment when daughter knocks glass of orange juice over, so Dad does the same.

2024: I also love the way that Nichols or whoever decides that Ms Allen is third billed in the titles, as she should be - a key member of the cast, and not relegated to 'and introducing...' after everyone else.

Edited by Sam O'Steen. Nichols likes to keep actors in long takes; also has a propensity for starting a scene with his camera somewhere - looking out of a window, for example - and then gracefully tracking in.

Ladies in Lavender (2004 Charles Dance & scr)

In 1930s Cornwall, or somewhere, a young man is washed up on the beach. What the hell is a Polish violin virtuoso doing in a boat off the edge of Cornwall anyway? Do we find out? I don't think so. Anyway, the sisters (or Dames) Maggie and Judi Dench look after him. And as Judi's never experienced love she rather crazily falls for him. And in parallel, David Warner thinks he has a chance with young Dane or wherever she comes from Natasha McElhone, who interestingly does not have a thing going on with the German - I mean Pole - who is, by the way, Daniel Brühl. In fact, Brühl is half-Spanish, not that that has anything to do with anything. The final piece performed is original, 'Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra' by Nigel Hess.

With Miriam Margolyes, Freddie Jones, Clive Russell, Toby Jones. Photographed by Peter Biziou, Oscar winner for Mississippi Burning (also Unfaithful, The Truman Show, The Road to Wellville, Life of Brian).

Why Ladies in Lavender, though? And why don't they want him to be a successful violinist? Because they want to 'keep' him? A film that asks more questions than answers them is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case, it is.

Maggie Smith Memorial: Travels With My Aunt (1972 George Cukor) and A Room With A View (1985 James Ivory)

Dame Maggie died this morning aged 89. I'm glad we'd seen two of her earlier films - The Pumpkin Eater and Young Cassidy - not too long ago but we made a mistake with Travels With My Aunt as though she's fine as always - in her mid-thirties playing seventies and twenties - the film doesn't really work. I suppose where it does come off is that it's a coming-of-age story of a stuffy middle-aged banker, played by Alec McGowan, but the story and situations are bland. We couldn't even finish it.

It looks great thanks to Douglas Slocombe and John Box, though Dougie's efforts to de-age mid-thirties Maggie using filters are quite transparent. There's no camera operator credited, unusually.

Our next choice though was fried solid gold. Maggie is Aunt Charlotte, on the one hand an overly prim and proper guardian ("I'm sorry to take the larger room, but the young man was using it") but conversely gossipy and at heart romantic.

E.M. Forster's story is a wonderfully observed critique of Edwardian manners and morals, adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

The film was 'Not Rated' in the USA

It was also Helena Bonham Carter's feature debut (and that of Rufus Sewell), and she's wonderful. Beautifully photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts.

Memory (2022 Martin Campbell)

Crap title; film written by Dario Scardepene is based on a Belgian film De Zaal Alzheimer ('The Alzheimer Case'), itself based on a novel of the same name by Jef Geeraerts, which it follows closely.

Liam Neeson is a hit man with Alzheimer's who gets involved in the case of a 13 year old girl who is being sold as a sex slave. He refuses to kill her, but when she is silenced anyway, he goes after those responsible - which goes all the way to the top. Neeson is in his neck snapping mode, and loses the plot rather too quickly. Supporting him are Taj Atwal (Line of Duty), Guy Pearce and Harold Torres. With Ray Fearon (We Hunt Together), Monica Bellucci, the now sadly deceased Ray Stevenson (from Rome), Mia Sanchez.

Campbell, DP David Tatersall, Atwall, Stevenson and Fearon are all British based. Editor Jo Francis is Paul Haggis's sister. It was filmed in El Paso and Sofia, Bulgaria.

We quite enjoyed it.

Armageddon Time (2022 James Gray & scr)

A Quatre Cents Coup set in NYC in the 1980s. Wilful teenager Banks Repeta only gets on with his grandfather, a sage Anthony Hopkins, in family of Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong and Ryan Sell. Befriends delinquent Jaylin Webb (a charismatic performance) who is having much more serious family problems of his own. It leads them to crime...

And as he walks off in the end, we don't know really if he's listened to anyone.

I would not have guessed it's a Darius Kondji film, it's so murky - shot with 1970s lenses on digital.

Nightsleeper (2024 Nick Leather)

Six part BBC thriller is somewhat incredible, to say the least, and some of the dialogue is rather clunky, but it is reasonably gripping. It's Stagecoach in essence as a group of passengers in peril get to find out about one another, as the Edinburgh-London overnight train is 'hackjacked'. Love the British way of dealing with it - let's open the bar!

On the train: Joe Cole, Ruth Madeley, James Cosmo, Katie Leung, Scott Reid & Sharon Rooney (train staff), Alex Ferns (drunk one), Daniel Cahill (oil rig), Sharon Small, Lois Chimimba, Leah MacRae. And Adam Mitchell as the boy.

Back at the office: Alexandra Roach (No Offence), David Threlfall, Parth Thakerar, Pamela Nomvete, Gabriel Howell. And that was Jonjo O'Neill as the aggressive Intelligence guy.

One of those TV things where no one's phone battery ever runs out.

The ending is as unbelievable as the whole thing. 'What a load of bollocks' I exclaimed over the end credits.

The Ladykillers (1955 Alexander Mackendrick)

Yes, covered here. It's so well directed - it must have been on the strength of this that he got the Sweet Smell of Success gig. Everything just fits together so well, the smooth camera movements ('Chick' Waterson operating) that tell stories, the artful editing, the production design. Alec Guinness is marvellous as the leader of the gang. William Rose won the BAFTA (as did Katie Johnson) and was Oscar nominated. Rose came here in WWII as a volunteer and after the war stayed, taking his demob money to train as a writer and stayed until the 1960s. (And as he died in the Channel Islands, came back,)

Our Studio Canal DVD is rather fuzzy and surpassed easily by the 2020 restoration.