Unbelievable (2019 Showrunner Susannah Grant)

Fired by Danielle Macdonald's performance in The Tourist. I'd remembered how good she was in this, but so is Kaitlyn Dever as an extremely mixed-up girl. It is screechingly clear about the difference in how the police process Kaitlyn's rape and how they deal with Danielle's. Merrit Weaver and Toni Collette also give wonderful, nuanced performances (it's amusing how pissed off Toni is). All acting great.

Eight part Netflix series. Lisa Cholodenko directed three, Grant two and Michael Dinner three.

What was it? "One day's burden is enough for one day." Or something. It's the Bible (Matthew).

Liked after they've apprehended the rapist, he will only talk to the male detective - "You won't believe this, but he's uncomfortable around women."

Great screenplay, really good series.

High Sierra (1941 Raoul Walsh)

Peter B loved this film, its kinetic energy, and tried to emulate the high speed car chase (in which those cars are really flung round corners in a way you don't often see as good) in Targets. 

Fresh out of prison, Bogart is sent to California to hold up a swanky hotel, paired with wild Arthur Kennedy and Alan Curtis, with dancer Ida Lupino hanging around. Then there's a side story about Bogie befriending poor folk heading west, Henry Travers and his grand-daughter club-footed Joan Leslie, how he tries to help them. This involved somewhat shady doctor, who I could have sworn was Walter Huston, but turns out to be Henry Hull (Lifeboat, The Return of Jesse James and many other westerns, The Great Gatsby, Hollywood Story, ending up in The Chase). Cornel Wilde is the inside man at the hotel, Barton MacLane the former cop, Willie Best plays 'Algernon'. The dog 'Pard' is played by Zero.

It was only afterwards that I figured the Lupino character and the dog are essentially the same, unloved, passed from pillar to post, but loyal and desperately wanting to be with Bogie (and each other).

Written by John Huston and W.R. Burnett. Huston spares it a few lines in his autobiography. Says he admired Burnett's novels (this was an adaptation; he also wrote 'The Asphalt Jungle'), was pleased that Paul Muni turned down the lead and that Bogart took it - it was the film that made him a star, though in fact Lupino is top billed. So it's perhaps from Burnett that Huston's familiar theme of a band of criminals falling apart actually comes from.

Beautifully shot by Tony Gaudio, locations giving it a point of difference, with music from Adolph Deutsch. Produced by noir proponent Mark Hellinger.

Being the Ricardos (2021 Aaron Sorkin & scr)

A tricky week in the lives of Lucy and Desi, with flashbacks, played by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem (who seems to be doing his own singing). They're good. The bloody HUAC are at it again, the evil Committee for Destruction. Enjoyable film, framed by 'people who were there' (not really).

Of course it's talky - it's Sorkin.

With Nina Arianda (Midnight in Paris, Stan and Ollie, Billions), JK Simmons, Tony Hale (the producer, Veep), Alia Shawkat & Jake Lacy (the writers, he in The White Lotus, Fosse / Verdun, Their Finest, Girls), Clark Gregg. Photographed by Jeff Cronenweth, edited by Alan Baumgarten, music Daniel Pemberton, production design Jon Hutman. The children, Luci and Desi Jr., are exec producers. Made for Amazon Studios.

Promising Young Woman (2020 Emerald Fennell & scr)

Emerald's screenplay was particularly timely and won the Oscar and BAFTA, was Best Film and Best British Film also. Carey Mulligan was Oscar but not BAFTA nominated and editor Frédéric Thoraval nominated by both as Best Editor (who?)

This single, unexpected low shot is striking, and reminds me of that very high shot over the cliffs in Lady From Shanghai (which, incidentally, was one of several titles I proposed today that were rejected):

The scene leading up to, and of, the murder is one long brilliant take.

Wild (2014 Jean-Marc Vallée)

I didn't know Vallée had died (in December), aged 58. This is a wonderful tribute, an amazingly cinematic film. Particularly distinguished by its editing (Vallée himself, with Martin Pensa) and sound (both of which should have been Oscar nominated; supervising sound editors are Ai-Ling Lee, and Mildred Iatrou - who also worked on La La Land, First Man, Battle of the Sexes and What Men Want), and in the acting. I've said before it's Roegian. The fragmentary use of sound and flashbacks make it a fun mosaic. We have to attribute some of this to Nick Hornby's treatment, which gives it to you in jigsaw pieces.

Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern were Oscar nominated. Gaby Hoffman is the single women hiker she meets.

The Pacific Crest Trail is in fact 2653 miles long in its entirety ranging from California (near Mexico border) through Oregon to Washington. The one in the Robert Redford A Walk in the Woods is the Appalachian Trial in the East (Georgia to Maine).

Harry & Son (1984 Paul Newman & co-scr)

Well. Maltin thinks that Newman is unconvincing (when is Newman ever unconvincing?) and Time Out writes it off as one Great Acting Scene after another. What nonsense. This is a convincing story (which was co-written by Ronald Buck from Raymond DeCapite's novel) about a single father trying to get his son to commit to something; he is making an 'instant family' with his pregnant ex-girlfriend. It's not all sweet sugar either - scene where Newman is deliberately horrible to his daughter (at least she is able to take the piss back in retaliation).

Joanne Woodward is great as the dead wife's best friend, Robby Benson has plenty of vigour as the son, Wilford Brimley is Newman's brother, with Ellen Barkin, Ossie Davis (good), Judith Ivey, Morgan Freeman.

Do you think that supposedly amorous phrenology bump of his was in fact a brain tumor that is killing him?

Dede Allen cuts it most efficiently, without tricks, particularly delighting in a scene at a cardboard box factory. Donald McAlpine is on camera, Richard Cirincione is assistant editor and supervising sound editor. The sound is used well, particularly contrasts of demolition / factory to home / pet shop. He worked on sound with her on Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Missouri Breaks and Reds, also Apocalypse Now.

An Orion Picture.

Good Fight The (Michelle & Robert King 2021)

Good to have it back. The targets this time are anyone involved with January 6th and content platforms acting as publishers. There's a peculiar home-made court run by Mandy Patinkin, which attracts Sarah Chalke (the most charismatic character in it). 'You can make a joke about anyone' day challenges political correctness in humour.

Episode One ends with a charming credits scene featuring cute animals.

Nyambi Nyambi is having a post-Covid hallucination featuring historical characters. Charmiane Bingwa, the new associate, makes a powerful connection quickly, Ugly Betty's Tony Plana.

I love the opening sequences but it's David Buckley's music that gives it that oomph - the choral shouts / screams give it an incredible power that always gets right under my skin. Some of his incidental / play out music is also great.

I hope that episode about the acceptability of the word 'niggardly' was a joke - if not, we're in deeper shit than I thought. Becomes increasingly silly e.g. episode in which wacky judge starts randomly designating parking areas and fines. Also this stuff about Christine Baranski being edged out of her own company for not being black is surely as racist as the other way round?

10 episodes. Ends on essentially a reenactment / criticism of January 6 in the mock court. Overall it felt a bit messy.

Lubitsch / Bogdanovich double bill: Ninotchka (1939) / She's Funny That Way (2014)

Apart from the direct Cluny Brown quotation, there's more that links these two. It's perhaps no coincidence that Melvyn Douglas' daughter Illeana appears in the later film, and it's also interesting that both directors started out as actors, and both liked to act out scenes for their casts. When asked about which era Peter would have liked to have lived in, he replied 'the thirties. I'd want to be a film-maker under contract at Paramount as Lubitsch was head of the studio'. Lubitsch was the one great director not in 'Who the Devil Made It?' because he was already dead.

Ninotchka isn't my favourite Lubitsch but it is a highly polished and enjoyable MGM picture, with Garbo laughing and falling in love, and that unbeatable trio of Felix Bressart, Sig Ruman and Alexander Granach in a screenplay by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reich. There are plenty of jokes and nice little observations, such as the Paris swallow that picks up a crumb of Moscow black bread and discards it. Ina Claire is Douglas's other love interest, Bela Lugosi has only one scene, thankfully; Richard Carle is the 'little father' butler. Like many of Garbo's pictures it's shot by William Daniels.

She's Funny That Way is in many ways the perfect Bogdanovich swan-song. It's about actors and the theatre, where Peter came in, while doing the big film reference bit (not just Lubitsch but Audrey Hepburn and Breakfast at Tiffany's - one of Peter's 'Movie of the Week' choices, too). And Imogen Poots is a really wonderful lead ("Say, could you kiss me again, before the thirty grand"), and the other girls Jennifer Aniston and Kathryn Hahn and Debbie Mazur are wonderful too. 

It's cool also in that several important people in Peter's career also appear - Cybill Shepherd, Austin Pendleton, George Morfogen, Tatum O'Neal and even Colleen Camp (missed her), whilst the newcomers are all fine - Owen Wilson, Rhys Ifans, Will Forte and Tarantino in a hilarious cameo.

Also has a nice line in film myth vs. reality, and 'don't let the facts get in the way of a great story'. It was co-written by Louise Stratten. I guess it wasn't a success because people don't 'get' an essentially old-fashioned film like this any more.

Peter liked Wilson and Aniston together in Marley and Me and offered her the part of the wife. She wisely recognised that the psychiatrist was the better role. He also liked that Wilson frequently ad-libbed lines, such as the argument in the taxi.

Four Lives (2022 Writer Neil McKay)

Appropriate Adult, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher.

Dramatized study of killer of young gay men, played by Stephen Merchant in an interesting performance. I'm loving his new lease of life both as a comedic and straight actor. Rufus Jones (actor and writer of Home) good. Sheridan Smith, Michael Jibson (terrible liaison detective), Daniel Ryan, Robert Emms, Jaime Winston, Stephanie Hyam, Leanne Best (Cold Feet, LOD), Samuel Barnett (killer's neighbour; Dirk Gently, The History Boys).

The victims: Jakub Svec, Tim Preston, Leo Flanagan, Paddy Rowan.

The focus is on the inoffensive young men and their determined families; but unfortunately also on the homophobic and listless police force and their appalling mishandling of the evidence and of the victims. The IPCC verdict was not issued until December 2021, holding up the airing of the series. It referred to 'fundamental failings' in the Barking and Dagenham police force, that the case was 'one of the most widespread institutional failures in modern history' and that the Met's actions were, in part, 'driven by homophobia'.

Four Daughters (1938 Michael Curtiz)

Entertaining Warners romantic drama. Gruff but lovable musician Claude Rains has four unmarried daughters, played by Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola Lane (a popular singing trio) and Gale Page. Into their lives come boyish charmer Jeffrey Lynn, square but solid Frank McHugh (who I literally only just found out was editor Dorothy Spencer's husband), dependable Dick Foran and methody self-hating John Garfield, whose presence and performance quite unsettle the film. May Robson is Aunt Etta.

It's got a sweet ending. Written by Julius Epstein and Lenore Coffee, from Fannie Hurst story. Couldn't make up my mind whether this is a censor-dodging joke about sex:

"How do you know Mr Ridgefield?"
"I've never heard of him."
"But I don't understand. How did you know his back was bothering him?"
"Well, Mrs Ridgefield looks like the sort of woman whose husband would have trouble with his back."

Photographed by Ernie Haller and scored by Max Steiner.

It was Garfield's debut. Raised by father after mother died when he was seven. Problem kid, took up boxing and acting. He's best known in this house for films noir like The Postman Always Rings Twice, Body and Soul, Force of Evil, Out of the Fog (actually, not sure I've heard of that one before; with Ida Lupino), though Eddie Mueller points us also in the direction of We Were Strangers (1949, Cuban revolution in the thirties, John Huston, with Jennifer Jones), The Breaking Point (1950) a tough version of Hemingway's 'To Have and Have Not', with Patricia Neal, and He Ran All the Way (1951, with Shelley Winters) "an overlooked noir classic that features Garfield's best performance" (most of these titles are now difficult to get hold of). Run afoul of HUAC, refused to name names, was exiled from Hollywood. Died prematurely of heart problems aged 39. Director Abe Polonsky: "He had defended his streetboy's honor and they killed him for it." 

The Tourist (2022 Written by Harry & Jack Williams)

They wrote The Missing and its sequel Baptiste, and the rather less successful Liar and Angela Black (both with Joanne Froggatt). Maybe they had the involvement of a director who steered the plot? But it had two directors, Chris Sweeney (Back to Life, Liar) and Daniel Nettheim (some LODs). Q was getting flashes of Fargo which made me think of No Country For Old Men (killer stalking a desert countryside), Coens / TV Fargo definitely, but either way, it's still got the Killing Eve vibe - from the titles, through the ironic use of music and the black comedy - a most influential show.

This seems to work well as Probationary Constable Danielle Macdonald (Dumplin' and Unbelievable, good again) is the only one trying to help amnesiac Jamie Dornan after a horrific crash. Then he meets Shalom Brune-Franklin and the plot thickens. Good stuff about the cop's relationship with her most unsympathetic husband, diet etc. Liked the chess playing helicopter pilots, and the guy in the shop who gets excited about the amnesiac's plight.

On the helicopter:
"She handles like shit. How old is this thing?"
"A lady never tells."

And particularly loved the line "Beware the fury of a patient man."

Are we going to see any of these roos at night they keep going on about? Yes! I wasn't sure about the ending. I think I would have preferred it without the horrible revelation about his past. I don't think we needed that - it sounds the wrong note. It's the only complaint.

Olafur Darri Olafsson is the hunter, Alex Dimitriades (The Slap). Six parter for BBC.

The Tender Bar (2021 George Clooney)

Good screenplay by William Monahan (The Departed) from J.R. Moehringer's memoir. Though I was surprised when it ended - it didn't seem to have arrived anywhere. Anyway, still thought it very good.

Ben Affleck is better than I've ever seen him - he actually seems to be doing something. Tye Sheridan is great as the young man. Lily Rabe, Christopher Lloyd, Daniel Ranieri, Rhenzy Feliz, Briana Middleton, Max Casella.

Great photography by Martin Ruhe (Control, Harry Brown, The American, Page Eight, Catch-22, The Midnight Sky). Edited by Tanya Swerling (episodes of Catch-22, Six Feet Under).

Hopper?

Nickelodeon (1976 Peter Bogdanovich & co-scr)

The director's cut is a little longer (four minutes). Has some great in-jokes like "Any jerk can direct" and "I'm not in them - I make them." "Oh - he just makes them." Most of the incidents in it were based on stories told to him by Alan Dwan, Raoul Walsh and Leo McCarey.

It captures the early, crazy days of film-making really well, and the slapstick scenes just prove how difficult it is to get it as good as the classic silents (it's harder than it looks). Love the way that little dog charges in and out of scenes. And that Tatum's usually driving. (The Oscar win hadn't gone to her head, Peter says, she was great to work with.)

What I'd forgotten is the ending, The Clansman (the original name of The Birth of a Nation) screening (Peter sensibly omitting the dubious aspects of that picture), in a big cinema with a full orchestra and sound effects behind the screen, and their producer Brian Keith recognising that everything has changed. "You're giving them tiny pieces of time they'll never forget" (something Jimmy Stewart said to the director). It's somehow unexpectedly moving, especially with Peter slowly creeping his camera in for maximum impact (something he first did on Targets and frequently thereafter).

It's edited by William Carruth, supposedly. Laszlo Kovacs did actually shoot it though, and those iris dissolves were done for real on the camera, not in the lab.

Ryan O'Neal (who is still with us), Burt Reynolds (who is not), Tatum O'Neal, Stella Stevens, John Ritter, Jane Hitchcock. Though Peter had wanted John Ritter and Jeff Bridges to play the leads as they were younger, as well as Cybill Shepherd, and Orson Welles as the producer (wouldn't that have been great?)

Spy City (2021 Miguel Alexandre & ph, Creator William Boyd & scr)

How exciting to receive Will's new screenplay, his first original screenplay since A Waste of Shame / Man To Man in 2005.

Berlin, 1961. It's a sinewy world, where no one can be trusted, and though the plot's complicated, it's set out very lucidly. Dominic Cooper's good as the spy, particularly in moments of action (though occasionally, if I'd been the director, I might have said 'do less' here and there). We like he has friends - Romane Portail (Severine), a former lover, and Seumas Sargent, though can either be trusted? We know his secretary Eliza (Leonie Benesch) definitely can't be, as she's working for the Stasi (or someone) to keep her boyfriend out of trouble (he's a sort of folk rebel). Talking of the latter, I notice that the songs rhyme in German but not in English and I'm wondering if Will wrote them in German - I wouldn't put it past him.

Good writing in that the women have important roles. Good visual writing too. Like the burglar who needs 'no stairs or doors'. Brilliant (and very tangy) ending - the usual Boyd trick of planting fictional characters into a real situation.

Ingenious use of props - camera in book, book of matches.

Johanna Wokalek is the jazz-loving photographer / artist (shades of Sweet Caress). And there's a murder by pen (shades of Restless - not that I'm complaining - it's one of the best bits). With Rupert Vansittart, Adrian Lukis, Ben Münchow, Tonio Arango.

Thomas Franz production design, editor Marcel Peragine.

A macabre scene

A German production shot in the Czech Republic of course.

Via Mala is a real film for a change (it does appear in the stock footage, after all), from 1961, starring Gert Frobe.

To Sir With Love II (1996 Peter Bogdanovich)

Sidney Poitier (94) and Peter died yesterday within twelve hours of each other - this was the only way to memorialize the two of them together and whilst it's neither's best film, it's sweet and was an emotional experience in the circumstances.

On 25 January 2015 Peter wrote this to me:

I think you're the first person to write about the Poitier picture I did. I thought it was pretty damn good for 24 days in freezing Chicago weather. In fact, I blush to say, but I think it's better than the original, which doesn't really hold up that well. Sidney was fun to work with. All I ever said to him was "a little faster, Sidney" in as many variations as you can imagine, including gestures to indicate the same thing.

The screenplay is OK (Philip Rosenberg) and pleasing, Peter moves it all along fast, moving his camera in on key moments. 

Cast includes Christian Payton, Dana Eskelson, Fernando Lopez. Lulu and Judy Geeson guest.

Peter Bogdanovich is Dead

'Noooooo' I heard Q exclaim from the other room. Idly intrigued, I wandered in about ten minutes later (not really) to find out what was up. 'Peter Bogdanovich is dead'. It was quite a shock. We had spoken to him about a year ago, and he seemed absolutely fine. He was only 82.

He had had quite an incredible career, though now you say to people The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon they look blankly at you - not Alec Baldwin, though, who yesterday said Paper Moon was one of his favourite comedies. By his own admission Peter made some questionable choices along the way, but we consider him one of the Greats, and They All Laughed his masterpiece, a film which - as I've said in this blog before - should be taught at film school. His books also should be obligatory academic texts (and they're really funny - the way he writes Cary Grant's pronunciation, for example, is hilarious).

He was a great director firstly because he could act - he studied as a teenager with the legendary Stella Adler - then because he had studied and interviewed so many great directors, he really knew the medium well, and when you see a film like They All Laughed or The Last Picture Show, you can feel John Ford or Howard Hawks behind the camera with him. And his later pictures which no one ever remembers, like The Cat's Meow, To Sir With Love II and The Mystery of Natalie Wood were nothing if not interesting, and highly underrated.

A real loss.

About a Boy - Season 1 (2014 Adapter Jason Katims)

Film transferred to San Francisco and developed as 22 minutes episodes, not as good as Parenthood unfortunately, but quite fun.

David Walton (Bad Moms, mainly TV), Benjamin Stockham (quite acceptable), Minnie Driver, Al Madrigal.

High Wall (1947 Curtis Bernhardt)

Screenplay by Sydney Boehm and Lester Cole from a story (and play) by Alan Clark and Bradbury Foote. Shortly after, Cole was jailed by HUAC for refusing to name names and blacklisted.

A brain-damaged ex-soldier appears to have killed his wife. In a mental hospital he receives treatment and falls in love. Neat, eh? (It sounds a bit far-fetched when you put it that way.) The ending somewhat stretches credibility. Good, though, in its acknowledgment of the huge mentally ill population of prison, the unsensational treatment of the patient characters, something rarely seen...

Bernhardt made Juke Girl (1942) with Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan, Devotion (1946) with Ida Lupino and Olivia de Havilland, A Stolen Life with Bette Davis (1946), Possessed for Joan Crawford (1947), and Miss Sadie Thompson with Rita Hayworth (1953). Last film in Germany was Der Tunnel (1933); also known for French thriller Carrefour (1938) remade as Dead Man's Shoes in the UK (1940) and Crossroads (1942) in the USA, with William Powell and Hedy Lamarr.

Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall, Dorothy Patrick, H.B. Warner. Crisply photographed by Paul Vogel, music by Bronislau Kaper. MGM.

Elizabethtown (2005 Cameron Crowe & scr)

A thoughtful film - that's my reasoning for why it didn't do better - audiences weren't sure how to react to it. Whilst there are a lot of popular songs over it, they are well picked and actually relate to the action, and something interesting's always going on. That Neil Young we didn't know was... there isn't one.

There's actually three moments where Kirsten does the camera-click. It's our favourite performance of hers. The last things we've seen her in were The Beguiled (2017), Hidden Figures and Midnight Special (2016) and Fargo (2015).

"You don't need the jokes. I like you without the jokes."

"Most of the sex in my life was not as personal as that kiss."

That moment at the end, where they find each other, is so beautifully done (editor David Moritz).

We've all had our Route 60B journeys.

To Be Or Not To Be (1942 Ernst Lubitsch & prod)

Brilliant anti-Nazi comedy, Lubitsch's most political film is as richly enjoyable as his more frivolous fare. Absolute classic Lubitsch scene involving Jack Benny and Sig Ruman over identity of imposter - great acting, and they are just so civilised with each other. Benny so funny in 'To Be or Not to Be..' moments, Lombard fabulous in her final film. (She died before it was released.)

The Larry Swindells book reports that Lubitsch and Lombard got on famously, that she essentially co-directed with sideline reactions, brought young Robert Stack in on the project. It was her happiest film shoot and she told Lubitsch she'd like to make many more films with him. No studio was willing to make it (Pearl Harbor was just around the corner). Getting Lombard on board helped secure the financing. She took top billing over Benny, saying "It's only fair, Jack - you've got all the best lines!"

It was an independent production (the London Films credit on our print must refer to the UK distributor), photographed moodily by Rudolph Maté, edited by Dorothy Spencer, written by Melchior Lengyel and Edwin Justus Mayer, production design by Vincent Korda. Lubitsch likes his whip pans - they're almost as distinctive a feature as his famous scenes around doorways.

With Felix Bressart, Lionell Atwill, Stanley Ridges, Tom Dugan, Charles Halton, Halliwell Hobbes.

The Banksy moment