Eric (2024 Lucy Forbes, writer Abi Morgan)

1980s New York. An alcoholic, hallucinating children's show puppeteer neglects his nine year old son (Ivan Howe), who then goes missing. Benedict Cumberbatch does these manic roles so well. His wife who looks familiar is only Gaby Hoffman!

McKinley Belcher III is the missing persons detective, harbouring a secret in that his lover is not only a man, but one who's dying of AIDS. He manages to dig into the corruption in the force and in politics, partly through his relationship with a previous lover.

Dan Fogler (from Fantastic Beasts) is Cumberbatch's puppet partner. Bamar Kane finds the boy, Clarke Peters is a caretaker.

A six-parter for Netflix. It was partly based on Abi Morgan's own time as a nanny in 1980s New York. It was very good. Forbes also directed This Is Going To Hurt.

New York is played by itself, though interiors were shot on sets in Budapest.

There's a quick reference to Seneca Village in the final episode, a community in the 1850s of African-American and Irish homeowners who were involuntarily relocated when Central Park was developed - not a well known bit of NYC history.

It was filmed in 1.66:1, for a change. I didn't notice.

Inside No. 9 - Season 1 (2014 Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith)

'Sardines' memorable first episode, but the second ('A Quiet Night In') is a brilliantly worked out and hilarious one, in which Reece and Steve attempt to steal a painting. It's a silent episode, and the way it works to music (and without music) is inspired.

Queenie (2024 Candice Carty-Williams)

Poor old Queenie, who starts out as a not terribly nice character who dumps her boyfriend, then indulges in random sex with people who are horrible, then gets sacked because of one of those couplings. It turns out, through therapy, she's has a most unsettling childhood... Candice based it on her own novel.

Dionne Brown is the title character.

I liked the use of record static at various crisis / flashback points.

The Absent-Minded Professor (1961 Robert Stevenson)

Professor Fred MacMurray is so busy accidentally inventing Flubber he forgets to get married to Nancy Olson. Keenan Wynn (and his son Tommy Kirk) try to steal the invention, Leon Ames tries to steal her. Edward Andrews is the defence secretary. The highlight is undoubtedly a zany basketball match.

Disney managed to release a cropped version of their own film on DVD. Oh well done!

Oh yeah - there's a flying Model T Ford as well.

It was referenced in The MMM, should you be wondering.

Geek Girl (2024 Holly Smale, Jessica Ruston)

Holly Smale really was a geek who became a model for a short time and wrote the 'Geek Girl' book series. Her (slightly autistic) character is portrayed by Emily Carey.

It's not the best written thing in the world but is reasonably enjoyable. We particularly like Emmanuel Imani as her agent.

With Liam Woodrum, Tim Downie, Rochelle Harrington, Jemima Rooper, Daisy Jelley, Sarah Parish and Sandra Yi Sencindiver.

10 parts for Netflix.

Limbo (2023 Ben Sharrock & scr)

A Syrian refugee Amir Al-Masry joins others on a remote Scottish island to wait and wait... His brother is fighting in Syria, his parents are struggling in Turkey. Fellow immigrant Vikash Bhai has been there three years. Ola Orebiyi and Kwabenah Ansah are pretending to be brothers. Sidse Babett Knudsen and Kenneth Collard are .. trying to teach them to fit in.

A quiet, formally photographed and slow film in which not much happens, with the highlight his eventual playing of the oud at the end, where the film stretches out from 4x3 into widescreen. (There, though, I'm not sure why it goes into the strange music of the film rather than just staying on the music of the oud.)

An interesting film, not without its little laughs.

Out of Africa (1985 Sydney Pollack & prod)

It had been so long that I remembered nothing whatsoever about it.

It's based on the true story of Karen Blixen and her years in Africa. Meryl Streep is really good as she, opposite Robert Redford and Klaus Maria Brandauer.

The film is most enjoyable but not a true classic - there's no tears to the eye, no gasp  of surprise, no laugh out loud moment. The screenplay is good, by Kurt Leudtke, e.g.

"When did you learn to fly?"
"Yesterday."

David Watkin and John Barry give it a lush sheen.

With Michael Kitchen, Malick Bowens, Michael Gough, Suzannah Hamilton, Grahame Crowden, Leslie Phillips.

Edited by Sheldon Khan, Fred and William Steinkamp and Pembroke Herring.

It' a bit of a shame that the couple's spectacular flight in a biplane is marred by some back projected close-ups of them.

The Camomile Lawn (1992 Peter Hall)

Mary Wesley's novel adapted for Channel 4 by Ken Taylor, produced by Sophie Balhetchet and Glenn Wilhide.

The house is Broom Parc in Cornwall, looks to have been a B&B, not sure now? It's essential to the film. The production designer was Stuart Walker. Photographed by Ernest Vincze, edited by David Martin.

A fabulous cast, particularly Felicity Kendal, who steals the film as a strong willed woman and her rather grumpy older self. Paul Eddington is her husband, who rather casually announces he's a paedophile, of sorts, but no one seems to mind. She replaces him with Jewish musician Oliver Cotton. Then we have the kids. Toby Stephens has always had a crush on Jennifer Ehle, who finds herself unable to get emotional about anyone, and little Rebecca Hall (very good in her debut) has a crush on him. Tara Fitzgerald ends up with twins Jeremy and Joss Brook. The action moves to London in World War II, and the Ehle character marries Nicholas Le Prevost, and has a dog called 'Highland Fling'. Amazingly, everyone survives the war.

In 1984, most of the cast (but not the twins) reunite for a funeral. Here they are played by Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Virginia McKenna and Rosemary Harris, who really is Ehle's mother.

Characters and dialogue good, behaviour unpredictable and human.

Peter Hall had directed Kendal on stage for the first time in 'Amadeus' in 1979. She's still acting on stage, lately in 'Noises Off' in 2023. Her last significant TV thing was Rosemary and Thyme 2003-6 but she did feature in an Inside No. 9 episode called 'Private View'.

Q Triple Bill: Bagdad Cafe (1987 Percy Adlon & co-scr) / Hand In Hand (1961 Philip Leacock) / Bend It Like Beckham (2002 Gurinder Chada & co-scr)

Adlon is rather over-fancy with his technique at the beginning - luckily he calms down as we encounter displaced German Marianne Sagebrecht and how she transforms the lives of the people of the run-down cafe and its customers. CCH Pounder is initially so so mistrustful - after 50 minutes and "Look after your own children" - "I don't have any" - that everything changes.

Boomerang boy / thermos / coffee maker / Moonlight Sonata / a rose.

A celebration of normality, in all its strangeness. With Jack Palance, Christine Kaufmann, Monica Calhoun, Darron Flagg, George Aguilar, G Smokey Campbell, Apesanahkwat.

Written with Elenore Adlon and Christopher Doherty. Photographed (with, one suspects, a variety of filters) by Bernd Heinl; it's in the 'cinéma du look' category.

Killer title track "Calling You" by Bob Telson, performed by Jevetta Steele.

Well, neither of us had even heard of Hand In Hand, a sweet British film told entirely from the points of view of two kids who become best friends, though he's from a Catholic family and she's Jewish. Luckily the Priest and Rabbi have a shared interest in football and get on marvellously. The kids are Loretta Parry (who to Q seemed like a young Billy Piper) and Philip Needs, neither of who made it, the religios are John Gregson and Derek Sydney. Cast also includes Sybil Thorndike, Finlay Currie and Kathleen Byron. It's based on a story by Leopold Atlas and screenwritten by Diana Morgan and produced by Helen Winston. Freddie Young' photography is exquisite (though there is one shot that is noticeably out of focus). Editor Peter Tanner worked on many an Ealing film.

Continuing in a religious vein is Bend It Like Beckham, in which Indian culture and Hindu religion are up against football. Parminda Nagra and Kiera Knightley are the super-obsessed footballers, tutored by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I have never had a stomach that looked as good as Kiera's. She recently admitted that people thought the film would be a failure and she should be embarrassed to be in it, particularly as women's football was not at all big back then, but the film was a huge hit. The two stars were in fact 26 and 16 at the time of filming.

With Archie Panjabi (by no means her debut; she has been acting since 1993 and before this was in East Is East), Anupam Kher, Frank Harper, Juliet Stevenson, Shaheen Khan, Ameet Chana. 

"I swear on Babaji's name!"

Enjoyable stuff. It does, however, suffer from three montages-to-music too many (five in all).

The Outlaws - Season 3 (2024 Stephen Merchant, Elgin James)

In order to keep drug dealing over-actor Claes Bang in prison, Rhianne Barreto needs to reassemble the old gang - well, most of them - Christopher Walken has a cameo. And Eleanor Tomlinson has to sue her dad Richard E Grant, with the help of Stephen Merchant, Clare Perkins has a new boyfriend Patrick Robinson (who we just saw in Granite Harbour), Darren Boyd seeks to regain his father's company, Gamba Cole has a new girlfriend, and I can't remember what Charles Babalola's involvement was. Jessica Gunning has a new trainee, Harry Trevaldwyn, and cops Grace Calder and Kojo Kamara are still on the / a case.

Has a couple of neat twist endings.

I'd be quite happy if they left it there.

Footlight Parade (1933 Lloyd Bacon)

James Cagney and Joan Blondell reteamed again, he as a producer and she his faithful assistant (who's in love with him, of course). Cagney gets to do some moves, and singing. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler also make out (she looks terribly uncomfortable in watery scenes - must have been freezing).

With Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, Claire Dodd. Thought I recognised Jimmy Conlin, and Busby Berkeley plays the drugstore clerk, Sam McDaniel has a tiny walk on as the hotel porter.

George Barnes shot it.

The musical numbers are all in the last half hour, which unbalances the film, though overall it's fun. Was Berkeley on drugs? (I don't think so, though he was something of a heavy drinker.) It was Warner's third BB musical of 1933, so nimble was the studio in those days. This is the one that definitely influenced the Coens' Hail Caesar!

Hit Man (2023 Richard Linklater & co-scr)

Based on a true story in which a philosophy college professor becomes a pretend hit man for the police to trap potential murderers. Falls for woman who you suspect from the off is making something up. So it's a kind of comedy film noir, if such a thing is allowed. With Glen Powell (Hidden Figures) and Adria Arjona (True Detective #2, some way down the cast list). With Austin Amelio as the disgruntled cop, plus Retta and Sanjay Rao.

Amelio, Powell and editor Sandra Adair were all in Linklater's college comedy Everybody Wants Some!! (2016). Photographed by Shane Kelly. Glen Powell was the co-writer.

Big Mood (2024 Camilla Whitehill)

Nicola Coughlan and Lydia West (It's a Sin) head cast, are friends in story of bipolar ups and downs.

6 x 30 for Channel 4.

Inside No. 9 (2024 Reece Sheersmith & Steve Pemberton)

The ninth and final season. Apart from Steve as a transvestite on a tube train, have to mention the wonderful episode, perhaps derived from Rear Window, shot (almost) entirely from a doorbell camera, in which Reece has supposedly bumped off his wife.

The panic room episode is clever, though perhaps not entirely original. 'The Curse of the Ninth' plays upon that myth about composers' ninth symphonies.

The last ever episode is a perfect take on the show's wrap party, with many of the former actors in cameos, and a crucial part for Robin Askwith, of all people. There are doubtless lots of references for die hard fans to pick up on, the only one I noticed was that the early closet scene is like a recapitulation of the show's opening episode featuring a game of sardines.

Perfect Friday (1970 Peter Hall)

Opens with one of the wobbliest crane shots down a corridor I think I've seen. Double-crossing crime caper, written by Anthony Greville-Bell and Scott Forbes, from the latter's story. In cross-cutty, early 1970s style, bank manager Stanley Baker enlists the help of aimless swinging couple Ursula Andress and David Warner to rob his bank. Considering Hall's a theatre director it's very lively cinematically.

With Patience Collier, T.P. McKenna, David Waller, Joan Benham and Johnny Briggs (as a taxi driver).

The rather dingy looking flat in Grosvenor Crescent would now be worth a fortune, as that's one of London's most expensive roads.

Music: John Dankworth. Camera: Alan Hume. Editing: Rex Pyke (asst. on Our Mother's House), also edited Hall's Akenfield (1974). Hall also made Three Into Two Won't Go (1969; finally available again), Pinter's The Homecoming (1973), Poliakoff's She's Been Away (1989) and the mini TV series The Camomile Lawn (1992). I didn't realise - did I? - that Rebecca Hall is his daughter.

It's quite enjoyable.

Andress was Swiss - I always thought she was Swedish, for some reason. Her nude scenes seem very natural, rather than titillating.

Breeders: Season 4 (2023 Chris Addison, Simon Blackwell)

It was a good job that we renewed our Now subscription (temporarily) for True Detective otherwise we would have forgotten all about this.

Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard's couple have agreed to split up; and subsequently are getting on much better. But the son Oscar Kennedy is having a baby, and daughter Zoe Athena finding her feet in first relationship (with Jessie Williams). Both are new to the show. Deepica Steven is the pregnant girlfriend and her parents are Sunetra Sarker and Nitin Ganatra.

Grandparents Alun Armstrong, Joanna Bacon and Stella Gonet are still around, though Bacon's losing her eggs.

It's amazing to see how well the Freeman character is managing to hold his temper compared to earlier days, and how good a dad he is turning out to be. Well-written, believable.

True Detective: Night Country / True Detective 4 (2024 Issa Lopez)

With its eternal darkness, prophesies from beyond the grave, screams (admittedly really well performed and produced screams of the most unnerving type) and grisly frozen bodies caught in mid-death, and a mutilated hospital patient who tells you "Your [dead] mother says hello", you may be forgiven for mistaking this for one of those over-the-top horror films. However we think something rational may be going on.. or at least detective Jodie Foster does, so we're inclined to hang on (just about) through ten - no, thankfully only six - parts through mysticism, phantoms, and natives vs. the mine.

Kali Reis is our trooper who won't take shit from men, Finn Bennett is keen younger cop, John Hawkes his abusive father, Chris Ecclestone, Isabella Star LaBlanc (Jodie's step-daughter). You can actually hear what the characters are saying, which is a nice change for TD. I have to say I haven't wanted to rewatch any of the other series, indicating it's perhaps something that is interesting enough to experience without wanting to go back - a trademark of all the series is flawed and unpleasant characters, who don't exactly pull you back.

Interesting editing credits with Matt Chessé working on ep. 1 & 4 and Mags Arnold on 2.

"You're asking the wrong question," is the best bit(s).

After four episodes we felt unable to do any more. It was just too dark - a major audience alienator.

Granite Harbour (2024)

 A stowaway on a cargo ship is caught and offloaded in Aberdeen, reckons her husband, also on board, has been murdered and seeks the help of the police. meanwhile a murdered man may signal the beginning of a gang drugs war.

Dawn Steele is the DCI overseeing Jamaican Romario Simpson, ambitious Hannah Donaldson, Bhav Joshi and Michelle Jeram. Afsaneh Dehrouyeh is the illegal immigrant who is in danger.

Each of the three episodes has a different writer. For BBC Scotland.

DP: Len Gowing

Kotch (1972 Jack Lemmon)

Another well overdue film, this one nine years ago. Walter Matthau, then early fifties, plays the grandfather who isn't wanted at home, and ends up looking after a young pregnant girl. It's totally unsentimental. The old man faces rejection with stoicism until people come round to his way of thinking. Love the rambling conversations he has which end up with people not listening to him, and the way he deals with his 'sexual abuse' charge.

Ralph Winters noticed news of the film in the trades, phoned Lemmon and asked if he had anyone editing it. "Yes - you, " was the reply. He was Oscar nominated, he thinks maybe partly because of the way he cut the three sequences together of the birth in the washroom.

As director Jack tried to give the actors as much latitude as possible. Obviously with Matthau, there was no communication problem whatsoever. If Lemmon had an idea, Matthau would grasp it immediately. Matthau apparently came on to the set with "You're not going to tell me how to act, are you?" Jack said "He did what he wanted to do, and it was his best performance." He was Oscar nominated but the film had mixed reviews and didn't do well enough for Lemmon to want to try it again.

With Deborah Winters, Charles Aidman, Felicia Farr as the unsympathetic wife. Photographed by Richard Kline. Q thought Marvin Hamlisch's music was really familiar and I asked if it sounded like Martin Hamlisch's other scores.

Producer Richard Carter had been trying to get it off the ground for a while, originally with Spencer Tracy. Eventually Felicia mentioned it to Matthau's wife Carol and that's how Walter ended up in it. John Paxton wrote it from Katharine Topkins' novel.

A Little Romance (1979 George Roy Hill)

An absolutely delightful film, featuring the absolutely delightful coupling of Diane Lane (13, her debut on screen) with Thelonious Bernard (14, one of only two films). In its focus on young people it's reminiscent of Hill's earlier The World of Henry Orient. Laurence Olivier gives a mischievous late performance, by no means his last - he went on working for another 10 years. Arthur Hill is the nicest step-father ever and Sally Kellerman is the feckless mother. With Ashby Semple (her only film) and Graham Fletcher-Cook (actually English) as the cheeky French friend, and Broderick Crawford.

It's not sentimental, though. Written by Allan Burns from Patrick Cauvin's novel 'E=mc² mon amour' (1977).

Photographed by Pierre-William Glenn (L'Argent de Poche, La Nuit Américaine, Une Belle Fille Comme Moi - just bought this), really well edited by William Reynolds (and assisted by Claudine Bouché of Jules et Jim and Tirez sur le Pianiste).

Paris, Verona and Venice settings welcome, as are references to Hill's own films!

I can't believe it had been ten years.