Great Expectations (1998 Alfonso Curaon)

The screen shots I would have put in are already here.

Mitch Glazer, creator of the awful Magic City, wrote it. Neither Alfonsito nor Chivo rate the finished film, interestingly. "My first instinct was to say no... I allowed myself to be dragged in for the wrong reasons... The script wasn't there..." It made them go on to Y Tu Mama Tambien - "Let's do the film we would have done before going to film school.. It's probably the one I love the most". Hmm. Have to watch that again I suppose.

I always thought Y Tu Mama was one of his first films, but no, the order is:

Solo Con Tu Pareja (1991)
A Little Princess (1995)
Great Expectations (1998)
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
The Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Paris Je T'Aime (2006)
Children of Men (2006)
Gravity (2013)
Roma (2018)
Ascension (announced TV series)

Still... Music Patrick Doyle, editor Steven Weisberg. De Niro is great as is interesting production design (Tony Burrough). The choice to relocate to Florida was also inspired. Plus, Hank Azaria is cast correctly for once.

Andrei Rublev (1966 Andrei Tarkovsky & co-scr)

As you would expect to find with Tarkovsky, you get water, weather, committed acting, awesome moments. Did he see The Seventh Seal? Of course he did. Like that film, this paints a vivid picture of medieval life (15th century) in all its primitivity, sophistication, religion and barbarity. Episodic, but with strong continuing storyline (that's the dumb peasant girl at the end, I think.)

We see some of this stuff where the camera holds on to something a little longer, which he really began to do more in his later films like Stalker. How does it snow inside the church? Some incredible production design and staging, well photographed by Vadim Yusov. The music's by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov.

I was most amazed though to find near the opening a buffoon rapping.

After the quite astonishing leap to colour for the climax, and the montage of Rublev's remaining icons, the final shot is horses by the water in the rain...

Anatoliy Solonitsin, Ivan Lapikov, Irina Tarkovskaya, Nikolay Burlyaev (the bell designer).

As films about 15th century Russian religious painters go, it's one of the best. It's rather wonderful.

Didn't get much of a release at home or abroad. Ranked 26th in the 2012 BFI Sight and Sound poll. (Mirror is 19, Stalker 29th). One of Roger Deakins' Top 10.

There's a great word for Tarkovsky: numinous.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012 Crispian Mills & scr)

A barkingly mad and sweet film, featuring a barkingly mad and sweet Simon Pegg. Chris Hopewell's production design and animations are amazing, well caught by Simon Chaudoir (virtually his debut feature). Looking forward to Mills' new one Slaughterhouse Rulez.

With Amara Karan, Paul Freeman (psychiatrist), Clare Higgins (agent), Simon Kunz (policeman), Jacqui Chan, Bernard Cribbins (narrator).. and missed Sheridan Smith.

The Inbetweeners Movie (2011 Ben Palmer)

A load of crap. The offensiveness is slightly ameliorated by Simon Bird's wry narration. With James Buckley, Blake Harrison and Joe Thomas, Laura Haddock, Lydia Rose Bewley, Tamla Kary, Emily Head, Greg Davies, Theo James, Anthony Head, Alex Macqueen and Theo Barklam-Biggs (skint holiday-maker).

The Wife (2017 Björn Runge)

Meg Wolitzer's 2003 novel - adapted by Jane Anderson - proposes that it is the wife of Nobel prize winning novelist Jonathan Pryce who is the actual writer and genius - and not even their son knows.  Which makes you wonder, how could anyone allow themselves to take the credit for something they haven't done, and how could anyone else put up with it? Well, she doesn't in the end, but only by wanting to leave him. Then he dies, with no one the wiser.

Glenn Close was Oscar nominated, Max Irons the son, Cristian Slater a bibliographer. The younger version of the couple is played by Annie Maude Starke and Harry Lloyd. With Elizabeth McGovern, Richard Cordery (from About Time) and Karin Franz Körlof.

It's a bit like a filmed play, funnily enough.

Liked the James Joyce 'Ulysses' quote: "His soul swooned softly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

A Little Princess (1995 Alfonso Cuaron)

Alfonsito has made a terrific family film from Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1905 novel - she also authored 'The Secret Garden' which had a similarly successful adaptation two year earlier. The screenplay is by Richard LaGravenese and Elizabeth Chandler, music Patrick Doyle, editing Steven Weisberg,  production design Bo Welch and photography (both Oscar nominated) from some chap called Emmanuel Lubezki:

Oh yes, there are some people in it too. Liesel Matthews, Eleanor Bron, Liam Cunningham, Rusty Schwimmer, Vanessa Chester, Errol Sitahal.

The Heavenly Body (1943 Alexander Hall)

Astronomer William Powell's wife Hedy Lamarr becomes so convinced by astrologist that she decides to leave her husband as another, better man is predicted to come along. Well, that seemed so darned silly that despite the presence of these two, we just couldn't continue.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964 Byron Haskin)

Interminable film in which astronaut Paul Mantee and horrible monkey crash on Mars (Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, with orange skies) and manage to survive through damn fine American initiative (well, luck, basically). Then, as you tip into the chasm of unconsciousness, invaders nip across the skies...

Very much the predecessor of Star Trek. Shot by Winton C Hoch in Techniscope, music by Van Cleave. Father of big budget A picture widescreen colour sci-fi films?

Paramount.

Couldn't bring myself to finish this nonsense.

Arabesque (1966 Stanley Donen & prod)

Written by Morse's Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price and Peter (Charade) Stone, under the pseudonym 'Pierre Martin', from Gordon Cotler's novel.

Features every bit of trickery that annoyed us in The Sins of the Fathers but there's two big differences: 1. it's 1966, the age of psychedelia and experimentation, 2. it's done fantastically well - the tilts (optician scene), reflections (Loren reflected in numerous camera lenses, for example), editing (particularly in scene where Peck is off his head on the motorway), zooming, filming up through glass tables etc. all very stylish, especially when mixed with Loren's costumes and Mancini's score. It's one of Christopher Challis's best pictures.

There are though rather too many people in dark make-up for its own good. Also scene involving wrecking ball is silly - could have done with some humour to make it self-referentially funny.

Story-wise it's Charade + Hitchcock on the run + Bond.

"He neglected to mention that part of his job description was to be murdered."

Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Alan Badel, Kieron Moore (achingly bad 'groovy daddy-o' character), Carl Duering (rather good as Arab prince), George Coulouris (fleetingly).

Maurice Binder designed credits scene

Good one for the film quiz

Inspector Morse - Season 4 (1990)

The Infernal Serpent d. John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), scr. Alma Cullen (bizarrely, like Russell Lewis, she wrote a different version of Christie's The Pale Horse, without Miss Marple, nothing recent). A different kind of episode, not based on Dexter at all (who appears in funeral scene).

Powerful story involves ecological cover-up by big business and paedophilia, is slightly more exciting than most, with chase scenes, arson, Morse being in a foul mood even Lewis can't manage. Great acting from Geoffrey Palmer, Barbara Leigh-Hunt (Frenzy), Tom Wilkinson and Cheryl Campbell, who's fantastic:

Lots of piano music in score, which suits subject matter perfectly. The music Cheryl's playing when the gardener interrupts is Mozart's Sonata k 331 andante grazioso at 2.37 (the third - minor - variation). And Byrd's 'Miserere'.

The riverside pub 'Ye Olde Fighting Cocks' is in St Albans. The 'Master' is simply Head of College.

The Sins of the Fathers d. Peter Hammond, scr. Jeremy Burnham - another original story involves inter-family tensions and murder at the brewery, finding the key back in the 1850s.

Isabel Dean (A High Wind in Jamaica, Ransom, Light in the Piazza) makes impression as matriarch, with young Alex Jennings and mum Betty Marsden (Carry Ons), Kim Thomson, Lisa Harrow (who flirts outrageously with Morse after husband has been killed!) Morse doesn't seem to be making inappropriate advances to suspects or victims' wives any more, but where's Dr. Russell, who Morse was getting on so well with in Series 3? And Max?

Hammond directs very annoyingly, shooting randomly at an angle and incessantly through reflective glass or in mirrors.

Driven to Distraction d. Sandy Johnson (Love Soup, Professor Branestawm, Hold the Sunset, Jonathan Creek, The Comic Strip Presents...)

Dexter didn't come up with the ideas for any of this series (though does appear here in a launderette). Anthony Minghella again starts with an interesting cross-cutting of music - which is quite up to date for a change this episode, well, Cole Porter and Marian Montgomery - in helping to lay a red herring as to the clue of the murderer. Well, any experienced watcher of shows like this will know it's not Patrick Malahide as it's too obvious and you tend not to reveal the identity of the killer early.. though maybe that would make a good, twist approach to writing one. Anyway it makes it quite amusing that Morse relentlessly pursues the wrong man for most of the episode (film).

And he and Lewis fall out over their methods, especially lack of search warrant - quite right. Morse is abetted by useful CID colleague Mary Jo Randle (The Bill, Between the Sheets, Lewis). Good too that it moves out of the world of academia for a change.

With Tessa Wojtczak, Christopher Fulford, David Ryall (driving instructor), Carolyn Chao  (Minghella's wife) and probably not Fay Ripley as a learner driver (she would have only just graduated from the Guildhall School of Drama).

Masonic Mysteries d. Danny Boyle, one of his earliest credits. (Before this he had made an interesting looking TV drama For The Greater Good, written by GF Newman, with Martin Shaw.)

Julian Mitchell's story continues the previous with the device of putting our hero in danger - the first series didn't exploit this idea, which is great from the audience point of view. This is the episode where Morse is really up against it, framed for murder, jailed, almost burned to death (scene in ambulance with enraged Morse is great moment for John Thaw) in his house (house? I always assumed it was a flat, as he never seems to go upstairs) and - worse than any of that - his beloved record collection is destroyed.

Q's observation though that Morse would not have had sex with the first victim, then left his pants and shirt there, is quite right. Sub plot involving computer hacking seems quite ahead of its time.

With Ian McDiarmid, Richard Kane, Iain Cuthbertson (Morse's mentor) Mark Strong (the PC who stops them for drink driving - didn't recognise him), James Grout of course, Dexter (in the chorus) and lots of The Magic Flute, which Morse encourages Lewis to see - ''Can't tonight - it's Eastenders'"!

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004 Simon Cellan Jones)

Rupert Everett as Sherlock and Ian Hart as a sympathetic Watson - almost in the mode of the Wilder/Diamond version - written by Allan Cubitt (Prime Suspect 2, The Boys Are Back, The Fall). And it's rather good, as a villainous fetishistic murderer abducts and kills young posh girls in the thick London Fog (shot by David Katznelson).

With Neil Dudgeon (Lastrade), Anne Carroll (Mrs H), Helen McCrory (Watson's fiancee), Perdita Weeks (young girl set as bait), Tamsin Egerton (narrowly escapes - St Trinian's, Chalet Girls etc.), Michael Fassbender (with his shark-like teeth), Guy Henry.

Music by Adrian Johnston, pd. David Roger. BBC / Tiger Aspect / WGBH.

Inspector Morse - Season 3 (1989)

Ghost in the Machine d. Herbert Wise (I, Claudius), scr. Julian Mitchell, from an idea by..

Do we buy this one? An aristocrat is murdered by his wife because she finds a fairly tasteful nude photo of the nanny... Mm. I don't know, but the Morse-Lewis repartee is going well with banter over use of grammar. And when Lewis manages to find a way into the attic and Morse looks at him with disdain it reminded me of Laurel & Hardy. Max has had a stroke so the stand-in is A Very Peculiar Practice's Amanda Hillwood. (Why was Max written out? He's a great character. I loved the background detail of him in affectionate conversation with the coppers at crime scenes.)

I am an idiot because the housekeeper is not Megs Jenkins but Patsy Byrne (from Blackadder).
Patricia Hodge, Charles Rose, Bernard Lloyd (rather good as a professor), Michael Godley and a particularly wooden Michael Thomas as the groundsman. Irina Brook was born in Paris, John Cater is the dean. And yes, that was Claire Skinner right at the beginning.

It's the Gosford Park house. The painting is by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 'In the Tepidarium'.

The Last Enemy d. James Scott, scr. Peter Buckman. Based on 'The Riddle of the Third Mile' (1983) - though they are apparently very different.

I'm not sure these people would really scream when they see bodies - particularly this one, which is floating in the canal and difficult to make out (turns out it's missing head, hands and feet). A college professor with a London flat has gone missing - but it turns out they weren't the same body. Barry Foster is a roguish professor who has stolen his student's work. he is shot with a Welrod, a quiet gun made by the SOE.

We learn that Morse didn't complete his degree because of a woman.

Deceived by Flight d. Anthony Simmons (The Optimists of Nine Elms), scr. by Anthony Minghella - and it's one of the better episodes. Loved the writing of the opening with various radio stations and the Test Match coming in and out of play, signalling the story ahead. It's the episode in which Lewis goes undercover as a Porter so he can infiltrate the cricket team - which gives him the opportunity to address Morse as 'Pagan' (the first time we've heard this). Funny scene in which Morse begins to warm to cricket. Good sneaky plot ends up involving drug smuggling.

Interesting cast too with Daniel Massey (much on TV), Norman Rodway, Sharon Maughan, Nicky Henson, Nathaniel Parker, Jane Booker, Bryan Pringle (porter) and Stephen Moore, as a particularly unsympathetic radio producer.

"We can't go on meeting like this, Lewis."

We never learn who fire-bombed the gay bookshop and killed three people.

The Secret of Bay 5 d. Jim Goddard (Out), scr. Alma Cullen from 'The Secret of Annexe 3' (1986).

Relationship between Morse and pathologist Amanda Hillwood is warming up. Otherwise it's an unfortunately poorly acted episode involving a man in the woods, an insurance firm and over-emoting women.

Haven't spotted Dexter once this series.

Interestingly, the supervising editor on this series was Laurence Méry-Clark.

Somewhere in this season (I think) Lewis impresses Morse by knowing that 'The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them' is Hemingway.

Endeavour - Series 6 (Creator Russell Lewis, 2018, released 2019)

Pylon. 1969. That fact that everything has changed is underlined by the opening beautiful recreation of a Pelican Crossing ad, featuring Ch. Insp. Bright. Moustached Morse is back in uniform, Thursday demoted and Strange a 'pen pusher'. Then their separate lives insect when a little girl is found dead, and another goes missing...

Apollo. Directed by Shaun. Morse's new 'colleagues' (Simon Harrison and Richard Riddell) are being shits (Morse is relegated to 'exhibits officer'), Thursday's wife's barely speaking to him, Joan's in a huff, Strange is obsessed with Fancy's killers, Bright's in traffic (how did that happen?).. There's a wonderful sense of melancholy hanging over proceedings. Weirdly today we're in Apollo 11 territory again (coupled with a wonderful Thunderbirds type recreation), with lots of fabric designs and strange table lamps very much of the time (1969). Shaun gets good performances out of the kids, especially Sasha Willoughby. (Sophie Winkleman is her mum.)

May have a moon landing theme, but also involves car keys in the bowl... Matthew Cottle is the annoyingly difficult to place actor (Game On was that nineties TV series with Neil Stuke.)

It's the best thing on television.

I think that was the third time we'd seen that distinctive blue and white sportscar (once also in the rich guy who lived next door amongst his collection).

Confection (Leanne Welham). Unexpected insights into private lives - Win's gone off dancing, Mrs. Bright's got cancer, Jim Strange doesn't have a love life at all... and Morse picks the wrong woman, again. (And not for the last time.)

This is all to do with a small village, a red and green chocolate factory and Happy Families (ironically). And has Thursday gone onto the 'payroll'...?

"County couldn't find their arse with both hands and a map."

"It's a bloodbath, not a Côte du Rhone."

Russell Lewis was a child actor - he was in The Kids From 47A!

Degüello (Jaimie Donoughue). Echoes of Grenfell Tower in story which (partly) involves building corruption and partial collapse of tower block. Otherwise it's about a murder at the Bodleian, stamps and wartime alliances, and the culmination of the police corruption story that's been festering.

It's been quite a grim series, none of your Thursday sandwiches banter sort of thing. We've grown to quite like Shaun's moustache.

The City Boys are back - we're clearly in Western territory here:

Degüello = beheading; no quarter (Spanish).

That sure sounds like Roger doing the voiceover for the film at the beginning.

Two For the Road (1967 Stanley Donen)

A double tribute, as Stanley Donen just died (94). A jewel of a screenplay, nominated for both BAFTA and Oscar (A Man For All Seasons and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner won) - Fred's 87, birthday on August 14, and has been married to Sylvia since 1955. You hope they get on better than Mark (Albert Finney) who's very selfish and chauvinistic and Joanna (Audrey Hepburn) who's materialistic - a nicely shaded couple of characters, in fact. Plus the marvellously shallow Manchesters (Eleanor Bron and William Daniels).

Finally tracked down Audrey's poem as the reasonably obscure  'The Bumble Bee' by Laura Elizabeth Richards - the line 'He never got home for early tea' is used quite effectively also in relation to her affair with George Descrières - and the hotel as the Domain St Just, which is now the Chateau St Just and looks like some kind of meetings venue (unfortunately)...

"We've invested $60 in anti-snake equipment."
"Well let's hope someone gets bitten by a snake."

It's marvellously put together too though by Donen and editors Madelèine Gug and Richard Marden.

Maurice's place sure looks like the same villa in La Piscine which was at L'Oumède, Var, St Tropez.

The Naked Truth (1957 Mario Zampi)

Written by Michael Pertwee. Despite presence of Sellars and Terry-Thomas  film isn't one of those classics of the period. Dennis Price is blackmailing celebrities who (sort of) band together to get rid of him. Could have been better written. Sellars isn't actually that funny when going through various make-up and accent changes and works better for me when he's semi-straight viz. I'm All Right Jack or Only Two Can Play.

With Shirley Eaton, Peggy Mount, Georgina Cookson (Thomas' wife), Joan Sims, Miles Malleson and Kenneth Griffiths (both fairly redundant characters), David Lodge.

Shot by Stan Pavey with Gerry Turpin operating.

Mud (2012 Jeff Nichols & scr)

Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Reese Witherspoon, Jacob Lofland, Sam Shephard, Ray McKinnon Father), Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Joe Don Baker, Paul Sparks.

Great cinematography by Adam Stone (I think on celluloid).

Secrets and Lies (1996 Mike Leigh & scr)

Timothy Spall is absolutely sensational here. Some of these long takes (café, barbecue) are exceptional. Exceptional cast all round. Brenda Blethyn, Phyllis Logan (Downton), Claire Rushbrook, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Elizabeth Berrington, Lee Ross. And with various guest stars in photography montage (which is very funny) one of whom, it turns out, is not James Corden.

Usual team of Andrew Dickson, Dick Pope and John Gregory.

Won BAFTAs for film, screenplay and Blethyn - Spall was nominated.

The Pale Horse (2010 Andy Hay)

The one and only Marple written by Russell Lewis, after Christie's 1961 novel, featuring a coven of witches in an old English pub. It has an ingenious ending.

With Julia McKenzie: Nicholas Parsons, JJ Feild, Pauline Collins (great as ever), Neil Pearson, Jonathan Cake, Nigel Planer, Susan Lynch (Killing Eve, Apple Tree Yard, Happy Valley), Sarah Alexander, Holly Valance.

Inspector Morse - Season 2 (1987-8)

The Wolvercote Tongue d. Alastair Reid, scr. Julian Mitchell. (Dexter's 1991 novel 'The Jewel That was Ours'.)
American tourists in Oxford finally get sick of the arrogant member of their party - missing archaeological treasure vs tourists good contrast. Tour being guided by Roberta Taylor and involved lecturers Simon Callow and Kenneth Cranham. Lewis offers Morse a drink while interviewing Taylor - firmly: "No thank you, Lewis, not while I'm on duty"!

Max says as Morse operates on the theory the last person to see the victim alive is the murderer, he should arrest himself.

Dexter's visible behind Morse and Lewis in a pub (apparently in discussion with Mitchell!). Hear (at amusing 'Elizabethan' banquet) rare performance of 'O Flow My Tears' by John Dowland - the equivalent of a seventeenth century pop star. Lewis is tired.

The Excalibur moment!

Last Seen Wearing d. Edward Bennett, scr. Thomas Ellice, Dexter's 1976 novel.
Missing girl (Morse is convinced she's dead) takes us to investigate girls' school. Good story.
Peter McEnery, Suzanne Bertish, Glyn Houston, Fiona Mollison. And at school, Elizabeth Hurley and Julia Sawalha.
Missed Colin Dexter.
Morse gets a PC to fill a mug of whisky for him at crime scene! (Strange finds out.) He doesn't like the sight of blood or dead bodies - he's in the wrong job. He should have retired and become a crime writer instead!

The first edition had a great cover illustration:

The Settling of the Sun d. Peter Hammond, scr. Charles Wood (The Knack). Based on an idea by Dexter.
Good, barbed Japanese war themed episode involving murder at college peopled by foreign students - denouement is slightly fanciful but they're never as suspect as Endeavour's. The first example of an investigation being hindered by higher powers (naturally Morse takes no notice of this).
Q found Anna Calder-Marshall annoying, Robert Stephens as great and funny as ever as ultra-cynical don. With Derek Fowlds, Robert Lang, Avis Bunnage, Amanda Burton.
Missed Colin Dexter again (he's at the hospital at the end).
Good, moody Clive Tickner stuff again.
Morse dealing with friend's daughter is the sweetest thing we've seen of him so far.

Last Bus to Woodstock d. Peter Duffell, scr. Michael Wilcox. Dexter's debut 1975 novel. He is sat behind Morse at the lecture.
Anthony Bate (lecturer), Terrence Hardiman (boss), Fabia Drake (great old lady witness), Jill Baker (adulteress), Holly Aird (nice student who likes Morse), Paul Geoffrey (her dodgy tutor).
Themed around poet John Wilmot and dangers of love.
Lots of art evident everywhere.

Inspector Morse - Season 1 (1987)

The Dead of Jericho d. Alastair Reid (Baby Love) scr. Anthony Minghella. Colin Dexter's fifth Morse novel (1981).
Gemma Jones, Patrick Troughton.

With Thaw and Whately are Peter Woodthorpe as Max (i.e. DeBryn) and Morse's boss James Grout (Chief Superintendent Strange...)

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn d. Brian Parker, scr. Julian Mitchell Another Country, Arabesque. Dexter's third Morse novel (1977).

School's trade in exam papers. Lewis developing to be irrepressibly cheerful, and quite cheeky to Morse, who's very particular about his beer. He even takes a scotch at the home of a dead man, which rather raises Lewis's eyebrows.

We think we've spotted Colin Dexter twice now, who himself suffered from deafness. He's at the party at the beginning of this, and walking somewhat oddly through the cloisters in the first.

Service of All the Dead d. Peter Hammond, scr. Julian Mitchell. The fourth, 1979, Colin Dexter novel.
"I don't like this kind of church." Nor would anyone, as murders abound, though DP Clive Tickner seems to enjoy lighting it. Morse falls for wrong woman (Angela Morant) again and lies for her in court. Michael Hordern's in this one.

"Never disturb me when I'm reserving my opera tickets, Lewis. I might get Madame Butterfly instead of Berlioz." Odd comment as young Endeavour's a big fan of Puccini, and so is later Morse (there's even a Verona Madame Butterfly episode).