Manslaughter (1930 George Abbott & scr)

Paramount. $7.99 including p&p from iOffer - always check the quality!

Claudette Colbert, Frederic March

ph. Archie Stout (since 1921, many Westerns).

Certainly the worst print we'd seen, made worse by a poor home transfer from VHS.

For its day though, quite brisk with good location scenes, car/bike chase, water skiing. Camera / editing quite fluid.

Obviously plot seems quite dated and prison scenes tame (prisoners are called 'miss') but bribery and corruption bold, and interesting early montage in trial scene. So not without interest, but don't watch this print again! Also, as apparently in 1.2:1 ratio, lots of missing tops of heads! (i.e. if you stretch 1.2 across to fit the 1.33 standard TV ratio, you increase the height to 1.11, so the 0.11 is missing).

Marjorie Morningstar (1958 Irving Rapper)

Natalie Wood, Gene Kelly, Everett Sloane, Claire Trevor, Martin Milner, Carolyn Jones, Martin Balsam, Ed Wynn (uncle).

Harry Stradling would be turning in his grave if he could see Film Four's presentation, stretched in 1.85:1 (possibly from 1.66:1) and in a muddy, hazy print. It doesn't do Natalie's legs any favours either. OK, long drama. Music Max Steiner. I wonder where Gene got his scar from?

Warner Bros.

Cemetery Junction (2010 Ricky Gervais & Stephen Marchant & scr)

Christian Cooke, Tom Hughes & Jack Doolan, Felicity Jones, Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson, Ricky Gervais, Julia Davis, Anne Reid (gran), Matthew Goode (Match Point, Single Man, Brideshead), Steve Speirs (nice cop), Burn Gorman (nasty cop).

Not exactly original, with echoes of everything from Billy Liar to Saturday Night Fever and Good Will Hunting to Mean Streets, but convincing. Best scene: Cooke offering to dance with Mortimer (and ash in retirement bowl).

Wisely they chose Remi Adefarasin to shoot it (in Panavision).

Lisbon (1956 Ray Milland & prod)

Ray Milland, Claude Rains being nasty, Maureen O'Hara, Yvonne Furneaux

Music Nelson Riddle, ph. Jack Marta

Film Four cropped the 'Naturama' 2.35:1 print to 16x9, exposing the awfulness of the Trucolor print. It's mainly shot on location in Lisbon, and is a sort of Casablanca, not too bad. Milland is charismatic; we see how nasty Rains is when he kills some birds with a tennis racket! Marta has 221 credits and they're all B movies (even Duel).

Republic.

The Cranes Are Flying (1957 Mikhail Kalatozov)

Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasili Merkuryev (father).

Ph. by Sergei Urusevsky.

Scene of air raid / seduction  is amazing. Also where she is about to kill herself and rescues little Boris.

21 Grams (2003 Alejandro Gonzalez Iňarritu)

Written by Guillermo Arriaga.

Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benecio del Toro, Melissa Leo (his wife), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Sean's ex), Eddie Marsan, Danny Huston.

Ph. Rodrigo Prieto. Del Toro and Watts both nominated.

"Arriaga is a Mexican legend...[he] doesn't think in straight lines. His greatest hits are splintered masterpieces that look as if they've been bashed around with a sledgehammer and then beautifully reassembled in the fourth dimension." James Christopher, The Times.

I sort of know what this means. The  Iňarritu/Arriaga partnership was quite influential (think Crash, Traffic, Syriana) but the way this jumps around in time is totally absorbing, especially with the occasional guitar tremolo of Gustavo Santaolalla (wrote The Others, Linha de Passe, Oscars for Brokeback Mountain (05) and Babel (06)).

Did they like Nic Roeg?

Ministry of Fear (1943 Fritz Lang)

Paramount. Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Dan Duryea (pronounced 'Durr-ee-ay'), Carl Esmond (brother), Hillary Brooks (clairvoyant)

Scr. Graham Greene (novel apparently interesting) & Seton Miller.
Music Victor Young, Miklos Rosza
Ph. Henry Sharp (Duck Soup)

How can you not like a film that begins with an insane asylum, a mysterious cake, and a blind man who isn't blind?

Packed with interesting stuff in its 80 minutes.

Loved the final bullet hole through the door.

A Guide for the Married Man (1967 Gene Kelly)

Robert Morse (now in Mad Men) guides Walter Matthau how to cheat 'sensitively' on Inger Stevens.

Terry-Thomas and disappearing bra sketch, and man who denies everything, best.

Ph. in Panavision Joe McDonald, scr. Frank Tarloff. 20th Century Fox.

Kelly seems to be a bum man:

Almost Famous: Untitled (2000 Cameron Crowe and scr.)

Director's cut.

Billy Crudup (guitarist), Frances McDormand (AA nom), Patrick Fugit (William), Kate Hudson (AA nom), Jason Lee (My Name is Earl), Zooey Deschanel (sister), Anna Paquin, Philip Seymour Hoffman

ph. John Toll

Has a lightness of touch that makes 2 1/2 hour running time not seem long or padded; consistently funny.

As semi-autobiography (Cameron worked for Rolling Stone and in 1975 went on tour with The Allman Brothers for three weeks, aged 18) it catches the places and times brilliantly. Kate steals the film (when William tells her she was sold for 50 bucks and a case of beer she asks "What kind of beer?") as Penny Lane.

Why we didn't own a copy already... And I must write to Cameron!

Frances also good, running gag about pot...

The romantic plot is The Apartment, complete with suicide attempt (so sweet when he tells her - unconscious - he loves her).

When Penny asks William to Morocco and he says "yes, ask me again" he's out of character, asking for the line again, but Cameron liked it and kept it in.

The albums William's sister leaves for him are Cameron's.

Avanti

Again! Because of our hotel.

Jokes about America. 'Will and Kate Carlucci'. Pippo Franco is Qued's wonderful mortuary guy. So well constructed. Use of 'avanti', three coffins, 'weight problem' etc.

Once Upon a Time in the West / C'era Una Volta Il West (1969 Sergio Leone)

Written by Leone and Sergio Donati; story by Bertolucci, Argento & Leone!

Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti (OHMSS).

Photography Tonino Delli Colli, Techniscope.

Many images could be framed, framing (use of full width) great, high key on the actors, interior lighting great.

It's an opera: Ennio Morricone. Pure cinema.

Amazing sound effects (opening scene, where train guy dies and we hear the sea), great scenes. The look of Cardinale when she's (not) looking at herself in the mirror for the second time.

Even Bronson is quite likeable, but he doesn't project any love interest at all, so I don't really buy the love triangle aspect to it.

The Sorrow and the Pity / Le Chagrin et la Pitié (1969 Marcel Ophüls)

(The son of Max.) French experience of World War Two told in fascinating detail by cross-section of society, including farmer/resistance who wouldn't take revenge on traitor; endemic racism and anti-Britishness; French pilots who dangerously hedge-bombed close to target accurately; normal life in Paris; horrendous trials both before and after Liberation. The truly unpleasant stories are in the last of its four hours. Ophüls a quietly determined interviewer.

Anthony Eden surprising with fluent French and urbane non-judgmental attitude. Quietly gathers force through build-up of detail.

Watched on consecutive Sundays.

Thunderball (1965 Terence Young)

As Q was asleep. With Adolfo Celi, Claudine Auger, Luciana Paluzzi, even Philip Stone is in it!

Ph. Ted Moore, Panavision. Music John Barry.

'Sean was most relaxed when Terence directed him' (Ken Adam). Watched all the extras too. Sounds like filming was a lot of fun!

Hijacking of bomber still ace.

The wipe dissolves make it look really old-fashioned.

The Lives of Others / Das Lebender der Anderen (2006 Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

Ulrich Mühe has one of those remarkable faces that changes in minute registers and manages to express some quiet, complex emotions. He lived to see the film win the Foreign Language BAFTA and Oscar, and to receive Best Actor at the German Film Awards, but died of stomach cancer aged 54. He also starred in several Michael Haneke films including Funny Games (1997).

Ulrich Tukur is also very good as his slimy boss. You can see that it is the kind of uplifting film that does seem to win foreign film awards,

Barry Lyndon (1975 Stanley Kubrick)

And so to the now rated BARRY LYNDON which was not at all boring, as I and the dogs found last time when Q. was in Tenegrief (actually the dogs were asleep, but this could have been down to boredom).

The cast is interesting, from the greatly undervalued Leonard Rossiter (a scared officer, below) to the familiar reliability of Hardy Krüger, with Murray Melvin slyly watchable as Rev. Runt. Philip Stone - The Shining's eternal barman - features briefly, and Barry's young stepson Dominic Savage wrote and directed TV's Freefall earlier this year.

Michael Hordern's ironic voiceover and the formal and deliberate structure of the film beautifully balance the 18th Century setting and wry turn of events.

(Kubrick) "I first came across the Handel theme [Sarabande] played on a guitar, and strangely enough it made me think of Ennio Morricone."

(It can't have been this rendition - it's too recent - but this is a beautiful version.) Leonard Rosenman at one point dramatically orchestrates it on timpani alone, and effectively uses other music like the Irish melodies early on.

Now the cinematography, at no. 16 in the ASC's Best Shot Films 1950 - 1997, as much I think for Kubrick's technical skills as to those of the photographer alone. (What is Psycho doing at no. 15, by the way? Apart from this, John L. Russell has no notable credits, just a welter of B movies. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that Hitch chose all the lenses and compositions. In fact my only complaint about Psycho is that it isn't shot by Hitch's regular Robert Burks.) This is I think one of the best shot films of all time. John Alcott took over from Unsworth after six months on 2001 (no. 3 in the list), then photographed A Clockwork Orange. For this film he

"studied the lighting effects achieved in the paintings of the Dutch masters but they seemed a bit flat [also not quite the right period?] so we decided to light more from the side... an awful lot of diffusion was being used in cinema at the time".

 (Kubrick again) "I have always tried to light my films to emulate natural light."

Thus daylight was used as much as possible, or diffused light (Alcott lighting through windows with mini Brutes through plastic material):

"If you shoot towards the window you get a very beautiful and realistic flare effect."

For the much discussed candlelit scenes, Kubrick found a 50mm Zeiss f. 0.7 lens, 100% faster than any other existing lens, developed by NASA. It was adapted by Cinema Products Corp, on an old Mitchell BNC with a projector lens adapter to give a 35.5mm length. President Ed Di Giuliu recalls:

"He wanted to preserve the natural patina and feeling of these old castles at night as they actually were. The addition of any fill light would have added an artificiality to the scene."

The equipment produced a very short depth of focus, no problem for NASA when shooting at infinity focus, but rather more problematic shooting candlelit actors. These scenes are still extraordinarily beautiful and haven't been surpassed. The slow 10-1 zooms out (on an Arriflex 35BL, whatever that is) are also most distinctive.

(Alcott) "That old bit that says you cut because the sun's gone in doesn't go any more." (Noticeable in scene where Barry buys son a horse.)

 More 4's print is correctly at the peculiar ratio of 1.59:1.

Smultrönstallet / Wild Strawberries (1957 Ingmar Bergman)

As engaging as the last time I saw it, and definitely one of the director's most accessible films, shot with hard light (particularly in that over-exposed opening dream) by Gunnar Fischer (singled out in 'Making Pictures: A Decade of European Cinematography').

Is there a twinkle in the housekeeper's eye when she asks "if there's anything you need..."

Silent legend Victor Sjöström, an influence on Bergman, is excellent as the aging doctor who feels he is already dead (and accordingly, so does his son).

I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth (2005 Vincenta Ferraz)

And a documentary about Soy Cuba ('a Siberian mammoth found in the Caribbean sand') reveals the dominance of Urusevsky, who sounds like the driving force from many stories ("move this waterfall ... we'll wait three days until there are clouds in the sky") though as the film ultimately bombed* and disappeared, he and Kalatozov never recovered (Urusevsky shot only two more films and died at 66). Scorsese and Coppola rescued it in the nineties.

*The Cubans thought the tempo of the film was not Cuban; there was too much American decadence for the Soviets.

There's also a nice understatement about "we had to shoot some of the scenes more than once..." Indeed.

P.S. Infra red film used to get those incredible skies!

Bande a Part (1964 Jean-Luc Godard)

Godard's Jules et Jim is as light and funny as a souffle. For example, Odile's kiss "with tongue" (a diffident Anna Karina), and the mucking about of Arthur Clause Brasseur, diving through the back window of his car - later on we hear the roof doesn't work any longer) and Franz (Sami Frey, in gangster hat and raincoat). All three still going strong.

It's also innovative, the editing going on to the opening titles is amazing. There are experiments with sound, such as the minute's silence, and trademark moments where the music (Michel Legrand - why "For the last time"?) doesn't fit the scene properly.

And those throwaway touches of intrigue at the end (the aunt isb't dead; the money's in the kennel) and 'Franz and Odete's next adventure will be in Technicolor and CinemaScope'... delightful.

Doctor in Clover (1967 Ralph Thomas)

Leslie Phillips ('Ding dong!'), James Robertson Justice, Shirley Anne Field, Joan Sims, Arthur Haynes (funny as difficult patient), Elizabeth Ercy, usual people who turn up in films of this era.

Clever title you see, contains 'Love' or 'Lover', very clever?!? Poor even by Pinewood standards: they could have been doing something more interesting than fire extinguisher gags in 1967. Eric Steward's photography if anything is getting worse.

Soy Cuba saved my life! *

* Not actually true. Claims made on blog may be false as well as true.

Near the beginning of Mikhail Kalatozov's eye-popping SOY CUBA (1964), the camera watches models parade, glides Spider-man like down a wall, circulates a pool party and then, still in the same take, goes underwater swimming for Christ's sake!

Sergei Urusevsky's constantly moving (roving is possibly a better word) camera, steadier than a Steadicam, yet performing unbelieveable traverses of height and obstacle, is fascinating: in one almost throwaway shot he walks us through a top storey cigar factory (where the revolutionary flag is unfurled) and then blithely continues out of the window, and floats way out over a funeral procession from the air, making Luciano Tovoli's famous trick shot in The Passenger look positively insipid in comparison (indeed, in an online review of the same pair's The Letter Never Sent (1959) there's reference to another such brain-defying stunt; The Cranes Are Flying (1957), their initial collaboration, is also highly rated).

These long takes of constant movement, the very wide angles, black skies, sound effects and Carlos Fariñas' unfamiliar score give this an almost hallucinatory quality, but the combination of powerful cinematic technique and revolutionary propaganda make this distinctly Soviet.

See also review I am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth