The Paperboy (2012 Lee Daniels)

Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman (who seems to have stopped ageing), John Cusack (unrecognisably monstrous), David Oleyowo, Macy Gray, Scott Glenn.

Stylishly made of course (note dissolves in editing e.g. of Kidman to Efron in car:

 

Joe Klotz edited; also Precious.) 

Ask yourself though, had you been a reporter, would you have done anything at the suggestion of clearly nuts Kidman? And after meeting Cusack once, wouldn't you have said "I'm not getting you out of prison!" And if you'd been Zac, how could you have thought anything after Nicole's performance in prison but "YEEACH".

It is most unpleasant. The best thing about it is the relationship between Zac and Macy. It is a film to admire but not to like.

Daniels has once again brought a great performance out of a singer. Macy's voice is like smoke. All the performances are great.

Roberto Shaefer shot it (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, The Kite Runner.) Peter Dexter wrote the novel and he and Daniels adapted it.

Daniels himself had problems with his father, a policeman who reacted badly to his son being gay (but, always reading, also positively influenced the boy). He died when Lee was 12. After an interesting career first in healthcare, then as a music industry agent, he produced Monster's Ball and The Woodsman and then started directing with Shadowboxer with Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding Jr and Mo'Nique, then Tennessee (Mariah Carey). The Butler with Forrest Whittaker, has just been released.

Gulliver's Travels (2010 Rob Letterman)

Jack Black, Amanda Peet, Chris O'Dowd (good & showing real range), Emily Blunt (looks like she's often about to laugh, beautifully camp, great as always), Jason Segel (subdued), Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, James Cordon.

When the 'Beast' sings "War. What is it good for?" to the squabbling peoples of Lilliput and Blefuscu, and everyone dances, Q turned to me and only then did she say "This is going a bit far isn't it?" If only that song worked like that in real life.

Joe Stillman and Nicholas Stoller are responsible for 'adapting' Jonathan Swift's novel (well, a bit of it).

We enjoyed it. You have to have a bit of nonsense now and then, and want it served with verve.

Contains the biggest product placements in any film ever.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012 Derek Cianfrance)

Well, this was a lot better than Blue Valentine.

We were somewhat surpised when 50 minutes in a second story began, then a third, which wrapped the first two together into a little epic.

Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper were succeeded by Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen respectively (both good), with Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn (also good), Mahershala Ali, Rose Byrn, Ray Liotta and Gabe Fazio. Ryan and Eva's baby is the cutest I think I've ever seen.

Cianfrance and Ben Coccio wrote the story and Darius Marder joined them in scriptwriting. Sean Bobbitt (Hunger, Shame, Byzantium) shot it, often from behind and following the actors. The chase sequences with cameras located in the cars are exceptional and reminded me of C'Etais un Rendezvous.

Sean Bobbitt lighting Ryan Gosling

 It was until I'd been watching it for an hour and a quarter that I realised it was a period piece.

Hitchcock (2012 Sacha Gervasi)

Anthony Hopkins (a great Hitchcock), Helen Mirren (good as always), Scarlett Johansson (good as Janet Leigh), Toni Collette (Patricia Hitchcock, good as always), Danny Huston, Jessica Biel, James D'Arcy (playing Anthony Perkins; British).

Written by John J McLaughlin (Black Swan), book Stephen Rebello.

How did virtual newbie Gervasi get the gig?

They should have used the true story that on hearing Herrmann's score, Hitch doubled his salary (particularly as Hitch had to pay it personally).

Shot by Jeff Cronenweth in Panavision and scored by Danny Elfman. Edited by Pamela Martin (Little Miss Sunshine).

Yes. I rather enjoyed that.

"I told Mrs Bates she could use your dressing room." Shitty screen cap courtesey Flixster, the shittest way to watch a movie.

Across the Pacific (1942 John Huston)

Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, Victor Sen Yung (all pictured below).

Also Charles Halton (as 'Smith') is familiar from somewhere, Lee Tung Foo (Sam), Monte Blue (alky father), Keye Luke (steamship office clerk).

Ah so! Confusingly, film was made after Pearl Harbour but is set before it.

Huston's first film about people who aren't in their natural habitat, a recurrent theme from African Queen to The Man Who Would be King.

Good script from Richard Macaulay (based on the newspaper serial by Robert Carson), in which Bogie seems to be a disgraced soldier turned mercenary who enjoys flirting with Mary Astor. They're in the safe hands of Arthur Edeson (camera) and Adolph Deutsch (music, who bravely didn't Americanise his name!) The Astor-Bogart relationship is more enjoyable than in the previous Maltese Falcon.

Famously, Huston went off to make war films, leaving Vincent Sherman to finish this. (In his autobiography An Open Book, Huston describes leaving Sherman with the problem that Bogie is tied up in a room surrounded by Japanese guards, an impossible situation to escape from. That's all very well, but there's no such scene in the film, just going to show that you can't necessarily trust famous directors' autobiographies. Powell is another one with a rather fanciful memory.)

'You certainly are a girl of many colours. First your legs get blue, then your face turns green, and now you're red all over."

End sequence is a Bond blueprint: cinema escape, monstrous villain's lair, weapon of mass destruction, and suited hero in exotic setting. Cue Goldfinger / Thunderball.

Private's Progress (1956 John Boulting)

Ian Carmichael, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, Terry-Thomas, William Hartnell (predating Carry on Sergeant by two years), John Le Mesurier, Miles Malleson, George Coulouris, Michael Trubshawe, Jill Adams, Christopher Lee (uncredited)

Written by Boulting and Frank Harvey from a novel by Alan Hackney.
Ed. Anthony Harvey.

Price with Jill Adams

Typically ineffectual Carmichael gets involved in WW2 behind the lines art robbery, then rather unfairly gets nicked for it! Lots of very familiar faces. Film is cheekily dedicated to those who got away with it!

As a complete tangent, John Le Mesurier = Boris Karloff (it's in the eyebrows)!

Lethal Weapon (1987 Richard Donner)

Donner is not related to British director Clive Donner.

Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitch Ryan, Tom Atkins, Darlene Love (Mrs Murtaugh) Traci Wolfe (Rianne).

After Glorious 39 I argued the only way I could top it was with Colonel Blimp on Blu-Ray, but it was not to be. This came up instead as a real tangent, but I'd happily argue for it in my top 100 (this, not the lamentable sequels). From the brief period when Mel was cool. It's his best film as a man on the edge who is humanised by his friendship with a fellow cop. (Which other thrillers deal with attempted suicide quite so forcefully?) It's very well written by Shane Black, but he didn't write anything better, making me wonder if Donner didn't contribute uncredited (and some of the wisecracks sound ad-libbed).

The whole story's in this one shot.

The Director's Cut has seven good additional minutes, including a sniper shooting kids at school (the first time we saw this version on 16 December 2012 was just after the Connecticutt school shooting), though I can see why this originally may have been left out as it perhaps makes Riggs too much like Dirty Harry too quickly. There's also a sweet moment where he picks up a hooker just to have some company watching The Three Stooges (who are also referenced in the drug deal Christmas tree sequence).

I think Donner was good at directing kids. There are great scenes with the Murtaugh family at dinner (requiring I wonder how many takes), and with these witnesses to an exploding house ("Do it again!"):

"Is it true cops shoot black men?" Murtaugh has no answer for that one.

 

Stephen Goldblatt is responsible for the Christmas lights gloss of the film. And Stuart Baird is behind the brilliant editing, notable right from that spectacular death dive at the outset, which was filmed for real. Jackie Swanson did the dive into an airbag painted to look like a car. It was arranged by Dar Robinson who was killed after filming ended, and to who the film is dedicated (his debut was doubling for Steve McQueen in Papillon). The final fight between Riggs and Joshua is almost impressionistic in its lights and cutting:

Memorable music by Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen.

Glorious 39 (2009 Steven Poliakoff & scr)

Romola Garai (she's in every scene isn't she?), Bill Nighy, Eddie Redmayne, Juno Temple, Julie Christie, Hugh Bonneville, Christopher Lee, Corin Redgrave, Jeremy Northam, David Tennant, Jenny Agutter.

Once you know Poliakoff had Rosemary's Baby in mind for mood it's easy to see its influence in many scenes, and has the same feeling of increasing paranoia.

It's beautifully baleful, magnificently menacing and strikingly sinister e.g. in use of children. Shot sizes and angles interesting.

That powerful Brits were seeking to buy off Hitler is surprising; as is detail that pets were being put down in droves, which is artfully woven into the plot.

Danny Cohen's pink filter in opening scenes is not welcome.
Music Adrian Johnston (lots of Poliakoffs including the recent Dancing on the Edge,  plus The Politician's Husband, Accused, The Street, Becoming Jane). Editing Jason Krasuki.

A very, very nicely made and acted film with Nighy stealing the show as usual.

Chalet Girl (2011 Phill Trail)

Felicity Jones, Bill Bailey, Tamsin Egerton, Bill Nighy, Ed Westwick, Brooke Shields

Felicity rises above clunky material (banter sounds artificial). She's most impressive in moment of telling of mum's death.

She's in the next Spider Man movie.

Nice scenery and snowboarding.

IQ (1994 Fred Schepisi)

Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan, Walter Matthau, Lou Jacobi, Gene Saks, Joseph Maher, Charles Durning, Stephen Fry, Tony Shaloub

an attractive couple.

L to R: Gene Saks, Joseph Maher, Lou Jacobi, Matthau and Ryan.

A friendly and warm film that is a little thin in the plot department (Einstein encorages mechanic to woo his daughter, who is with the wrong man), though the script does have funny bits (Matthau to Fry: "We're working on attraction at a distance".) It's almost a spin-off of Ball of Fire. Matthau makes a great Einstein.

Andy Breckman came up with the story which was screenwritten by him and Michael Leeson.

Music Jerry Goldsmith
Ph. Ian Baker (Panavision)

Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967 Clive Donner)

 

ITV's Doctor series; suspicious death at 53

Barry Evans,  Judy Geeson, Angela Scoular (OHMSS), Sheila White, Adrienne Posta, Vanessa Howard, Moyra Fraser & Michael Bates (parents), Christopher Timothy, Denholm Elliott, Nicky Henson.

Hunter Davies adapted his own novel.

Alex Thomson (Excalibur) shot it.

You never know if the music in films of this era will be naff; it isn't. Spencer Davis Group / Steve Winwood & Traffic.

Swinging sixties films can be knackering. Constant monologuing, gags, pastiche scenes, jump cutting. This manages to stay engaging. Actually it's a lot of fun and pretty classy, not to say a little poignant (scene where Evans attempts to unzip dress and her bored look must be familiar to just about anyone). I wondered how they did the sound recording of the long tracking shots on a bicycle and guess they must have been post-dubbed (if so, rather well).

Stevenage is distinctly 'modern' (the only old building in the whole film is vinophile Denholm Elliott's house).

I like Spike's reported chat up line "C'mon girl, we haven't got all day." Scenes with book loving mother amusing. Some cuts were originally made. Ending (what's happened to the girls) funny.

Vanessa Howard in trippy Bond pastiche sequence

Evans with Moyra Fraser

Erika Raffael and Denholm Elliott

Angela Scoular, Barry Davies

I think I've fallen in love with Judy Geeson. Her Three into Two Won't Go, with Rod Steiger, unfortunately is not on DVD (except in dodgy iOffer quality). Nor is her 1969 Two Gentlemen Sharing.

Major Barbara (1941 Gabriel Pascal)

Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison (both pictured below), Robert Morley, Robert Newton, Sybil Thorndike (The General), Emlyn Williams (the spiv), Marie Lohr (mother), Walter Hudd (the son), Deborah Kerr, Donald Calthrop (the 'old' man), Miles Malleson, Felix Aylmer, Stanley Holloway. And that's an uncredited Edward Rigby down on the quayside (A Canterbury Tale  and Young and Innocent).

Written by Bernard Shaw from his play.

Despite being credited as director, Pascal didn't know the first thing about it, so hired West End director Harold French for the actors, and David Lean, who knew where to put the camera and which lenses to use. Lean also ended up completing the editing after Charles Frend had a breakdown, but he ends up with the credits 'assistant to the director' and 'montage by'. Nevertheless having survived a particularly difficult production (during which, for example, Pascal ended up refusing to talk to Morley at all) it proved to Lean he could direct solo.

Deborah Kerr's debut aged 18.

Not too play-like - just when you think it's getting bogged down, something cinematic happens or the scene changes.

Refreshingly playful and cynical in attitude. For example, the first two people being helped by the Salvation Army reveal they're conning them for free hand-outs. Harrison is clearly only interested in Hiller for herself, not the Army. Morley doesn't want to be named as the benefactor or all the other charities will be on him. Ultimately I suppose, it being wartime, the thought of a munitions factory 'making war on war' would have been acceptable to the public.

On camera, Harry Stradling went home when war was declared, Osmond Borrodaile had problems with 'scratches on the negative', Frederick Young (who did not initially hit it off with Lean) was recalled to another film, and he finally recommended Ronald Neame: it was the beginning of a fruitful relationship with Lean and is very nicely shot:

Bearded Morley with Miles Malleson, who for years always looked the same age.

Shot in the height of the blitz. Robert Newton and Donald Calthrop would retire for a few during the air raids!

Music by William Walton, art direction Vincent Korda.

Source for stories: David Lean, Kevin Brownlow

Run (2013 Charles Martin, Jonathan Pearson)

Desperately downbeat 4-part Channel 4 drama written by Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan (which sounds just like one of the names we'd make up in this house) and Marlon Smith, who could have used a shot of humour.

Of the four vaguely connected episodes, the standout cast members are the astonishing Olivia Colman (as a tough, herself domestically abused mother of two brutish sons) and Lennie Jones, who's brilliant as a junkie trying to get it together for his daughter's sake.

The other two leads are Katie Leung (Harry Potter's Cho Chang) and Katharina Schüttler, and Jaime Winston also features.

Well, I must go and cut my throat now.

Field of Blood (2013 David Kane & scr)

BBC 2-parter.

Jayd Johnson (as watchable as last time), David Morrissey, Katherine Kelly (familiar from The Obnoxious Mr Selfridge) (all pictured below) & David Kiernan.

Well-written, and the direction duly follows the script and realises there's no need to do anything tricksy or annoying.

Plucky reporter this time gets mixed up in lawyer's unpleasant murder; the newspaper has a new owner.

Kept wondering if Kiernan was related to Cold Meat's Greg McHugh (don't think they are though).

Benefits enormously from a few timely laughs, e.g. Kiernan being threatened, seeing Johnson has made her escape, says "well if that's the way you feel about it, interview concluded". Overly serious screenwriters (McGovern, Abbott, Run, Top Boy etc etc.) take note. Also the secondary characters are properly cast, unlike say any random episode of New Tricks, where they simply don't care.

Which all leads me to wonder why this is sidelined into the August schedule when no one's around? And wasn't preceeded by a rerun of Series 1? Surely not because it's from Scotland?

So Well Remembered (1947 Edward Dmytryk)

John Mills, Trevor Howard, Martha Scott, Patricia Roc (played at 5 by Juliet Mills), Richard Carlson, Reginald Tate.

Novel: James Hilton (who also narrates: it's good to hear the slightly owlish voice of the writer of Lost Horizon), scr John Paxton.

Ph. Freddie Young. Music Hanns Eisler (quite unintentionally amusing when underscoring textile machinery!).
It's, interestingly, an RKO film.

Mills is idealistic Northern councillor who falls for deranged Scott; Howard is an alcoholic doctor who warns of impending diphtheria epidemic in rainy industrial town.

"Give me the 'mayor'. I insist we vote ourselves into a stupor"

John  telling it like it is to Martha Scott

When I see John Mills in anything I can't help but associate him with the best of British cinema.
When he died, it really was the end of an era.

Juliet Mills aged 5! Compare to still from Avanti

The Member of the Wedding (1952 Fred Zinnemann)

It's not often that I'm unable to watch a film, particularly one I've elected to watch. It maybe happens once a year?

This was one of those films. 15 minutes of horse-faced Julie Harris' petulant teenage stropping was enough.

Brandon de Wilde was in Shane, later Hud.

The Apartment (1960 Billy Wilder)

On Blu-Ray.

No one likes CC Baxter, certainly not the jerks who borrow his apartment for affairs, don't pay him for his booze, kick him out in the middle of the night, and threaten him when he doesn't play ball. And their boss, Sheldrake, is a complete shit, who finds the attempted suicide of his girlfriend - one of a long string - an annoying inconvenience. (His secretary is a bitter bitch). Of his neighbours, Mrs Dreyfuss and the landlady don't think much of him. Which finally leaves Dr Dreyfuss, who is quite amused by Baxter but has totally the wrong idea about who he is. And Fran Kubelik, who likes Baxter because he is polite (he always takes his hat off in the elevator) but who says at one point "Why can't I ever fall in love with someone nice, like you?"

Why did I originally like it? The combination of the sax-led theme tune, the night, the loneliness of the character...

It came from Brief Encounter (Wilder started wondering about the guy whose apartment they borrow), so we have to thank David Lean. Talking of which, when he discovers the suicide attempt, 'Rickshaw Boy' is playing against the mood in upbeat tempo, and it made me think of the jolly music that's playing in the garden scene in This Happy Breed, similarly against the mood....

"Ring-a-ding-ding."
"Octoberwise."
"You'd better get a new refrigerator... I didn't mean right now!"
"I don't want to take advantage of you in bed, like last night" (as he opens the door to her brother-in-law).
"One day I saw a footprint in the sand and it was you."

It's beautifully written and constructed. For example, she goes to the apartment not knowing it's Baxter's. Lemmon dances to Rickshaw Boy because he's never heard it before (that's a separate part of the film). They never kiss - well, she kisses his forehead and he says "It doesn't hurt a bit".

When she puts the Rickshaw Boy album on, it's actually playing the film's incidental music. Have you ever seen that before in a film?

Great Lubitsch touch, when he walks over to meet his "date", who is then perfectly met by her real date - it's beautifully choreographed. Great touch: Sheldrake's new secretary is an old lady. Great touch: Lemmon putting his bowler hat on the head of a cleaner.

Even Miss Kubelik doesn't know Baxter's first name.
When she rushes up to see him at the end: "How's your knee?"

Well I thought I'd said quite enough in the previous review, but clearly, I hadn't!

The Sopranos 6 - the Final Episodes (2007)

Stylish finish. Had to watch it twice. The most talked about ending! (Make up your own ending. In mine, no one comes in to kill them. That's Meadow coming through the door and the suspicious looking people aren't.)

A riverside birthday that (as usual, like Christopher's intervention) goes spectacularly wrong. Bobby's shooting cut against a model train wreck - cool.

Junior flew over the cuckoo's nest.

The end of Christopher (didn't remember that one coming).

The relationship of Tony and the FBI agent throughout the entire series.

Silv - our favourite character. He's the only one who croaks a little on hearing Chris is dead (which is why we love him). That moment when the guy next to him is shot (kind of similar to a moment in Gomorra (2008)). This is a great visual joke:

Steven Van Zandt

Carm on AJ: "Maybe the army would be great for him if there wasn't a war going on".

Little Carmine who always gets his words wrong. (No one notices.) "King Lewis and the Palace at Ver-sails."

Alik Sakharov shot the finale stylishly (and 37 other episodes, plus Rome and Game of Thrones.)

The sound is always so well done.

The Sopranos 6 (2006)

Tony is 'Marvin Gayed' by Junior (Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his own father) and conseqently spends two episodes in a most intriguing coma dream, played quite straight this time, in which he has misplaced his identity (he sells energy hardware). The dream climax is sensational as Tony narrowly avoids walking through the 'door' after hearing Meadow calling for him. It was written by Chase and Weiner and directed by Jack Bender.

The Sopranos 5 (2004)

Seems more bouncy than 3 & 4: it moves more quickly and seems to have more of the old humour. (A car-jacking at a wedding: "They left all the American cars." Tony being told Junior has Alzheimer's: "Good. Maybe he'll forget my phone number." Tony being introduced to white bearded poker player: "Did you get my list of presents?" Meadow wants to go to Europe. "I knew all this harping on about art would lead to trouble".)

"Judas didn't go into an apostle protection programme."

That Silvio is deployed to end Adriana was a smart writing decision, as he's probably the most sympathetic and least hands-on of all of them. The way she crawls away from him... I wept. Drea de Matteo won the Emmy for this season.

Loved the very odd dream episode. The sound effects are always really good, even things like Meadow and Finn's crappy air conditioning.

New blood from Steve Buscemi ("I rubbed him up the wrong way." "Maybe you shouldn't be a masseuse then.") Robert Loggia and Frank Vincent.