Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007 David Yates)

Michael Goldenberg wrote this; and it's Yates' first. Nicholas Hooper wrote the music, Slawomir Idziak (Three Colours Blue) photographed it and long-time Yates collaborator Mark Day (also with a TV background) edited it - the result is a more straightforward telling with - well - less magic. The fire and lights stuff towards the end is truly spectacular.

New people in cast :Natalia Tena (Tonks), Robert Hardy, Imelda Staunton and Helena Bonham Carter, who makes an impression as Bellatrix Lestrange.

Barry Lyndon (1975 Stanley Kubrick)

Also reviewed here at some length, but I completely failed to catch the dry humour that Kubrick has written from William Makepeace Thackery's no doubt already funny novel, voiced sardonically by Michael Hordern.

Everyone always forgets that Kubrick was a funny guy.

Ryan O'Neal (really very good), Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger, Steven Berkoff, Gay Hamilton, Marie Kean (Barry's mother), Murray Melvin, Frank Middlemass, André Morell, Leonard Rossiter, Philip Stone, Arthur O'Sullivan (highwayman), Leon Vitali (Lord Bullingdon).

Tony Lawson edited it, apparently, for two years. After the film's release and failure, Kubrick contacted Lawson with an idea that they joked about as they worked on it - let's cut it backwards, all in  flashback. Lawson said he was too busy!

Final dual scene is amazing. Film is hypnotic.

Last Year at Marienbad

At last without subtitles, and on Blu-Ray.

Utterly extraordinary.

Home Alone (1990 Chris Columbus)

Opinions are divided in this house. I contend that film comes with own bucket. John Hughes is three spoons of sugar too many.

Mix sugar with Swiss Family Robinson and a sprinkle of Warner Brothers.

Do not attempt to apply logic to this film.

The Tarnished Angels (1957 Douglas Sirk)

There's always more going on with Sirk than appears at face value. Here you start to wonder why he chooses shots of giant Mardi Gras puppets and masked faces - the moment where Hudson and Malone's kiss is interrupted by a partygoer masked as death is one of Sirk's most startling images and is there for a reason. Similarly the shot of the planes through the fairground flyers is similarly giving us a forward message. He was a clever guy.

Story of Depression-era troupe of flying gypsies 'from another world' - a moody Robert Stack (was he ever anything else?), wife Dorothy Malone, son Christopher Olsen and loyal mechanic Jack Carson - and their decisive encounter with sensitive newspaperman Rock Hudson. Based on the William Faulkner story Pylons (which Howard Hawks inspired him to write!*), around which the flyers race in scary flying sequences that probably now wouldn't be allowed.

Music by Frank Skinner. Metty is off filming in colour somewhere else and we are left in the reliable hands of lrving Glassberg, who shoots in black and white and CinemaScope.

* Source 'Who the Devil Made It?'

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942 Roy William Neill)

Basil Rathbone (in a variety of disguises), Nigel Bruce, Lionel Atwill, Kaaren Verne (Kings Row), William Post Jr.

Good beginning in the thick of the action as Holmes disguised as Nazi manages to extricate Post from dangerous situation in Switzerland.

Clever stuff with code must clearly be from Conan Doyle original story "The Dancing Men".

Moriarty proves himself particularly inept in despatching Holmes this episode.

Shadow of the Thin Man (1941 Maj. W.S. Van Dyke II)

New writers - Harry Kurnitz and Irving Brecher - provide entertaining episode in which Nick is back on West Coast home territory, Nick Jr is being taught the racetrack and Asta (or whichever hound is now playing the role) is shown at all sorts of dizzying film speeds for comic effect.

The couple are enjoying a drink or two again I'm glad to say - at one point Nick owes Nora 240 Martinis on terrapin race betting!

Nora can summon Nick from the park just by mixing a cocktail. Louise Beavers: "Can he hear it or can he smell it?"

Plot features Donna Reed, DA Barry Nelson and Judge Henry O'Neill. Bad guys and gals are Alan Baxter, Stella Adler*, Joseph Anthony, Lou Lubin. Regular cop is Sam Levene. Louise Beavers (Imitation of Life) is the maid and that's Adeline de Walt Reynolds as landlady with radio.

Silkily shot by William H Daniels.

*Postscript 9/12/14. I had no idea I was watching the legendary acting teacher in one of only three feature appearances, making this a must to see again.

Fargo (1996 Joel Coen)

See here.

Did not notice any overlighting of snow this time, proving that I am an idiot. Sorry, Roger.

Carter Burwell music memorable.

Loved scene of the two bad guys having sex with girls they've picked up in motel; then next shot is the four of them watching TV! (One of many scenes to love in delightful, ironic, violent thriller.)

Also I thought the movie ended with a shot of the fence. It doesn't.

The Five Year Engagement (2012 Nicholas Stoller)

Also here. Blunt's academic career drags the couple to Minnesota, where it appears to be continuous winter.

I thought it was a bit dull this time round.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005 Mike Newell)

An interesting choice - Mike's best known in this house for Enchanted April and Four Weddings and a Funeral - not, you would think, an obvious first choice. Roger Pratt has gone back on camera (a bluer, colder look than Seresin) and Mick Audsley is editing - sensational cutting in early crowd scenes, then, as usual, I forgot to notice. Patrick Doyle has taken over from John W.

Brendan Gleeson is good value as the new Dark Arts teacher. Miranda Richardson is a journalist and Ralph Fiennes debuts as Voldemort. Plus: Clémence Poésy, David Tennant, Roger Lloyd Pack, Eric Sykes, Katie Leung, Robert Pattinson, Frances de la Tour.

It's the one where they need to invite girls to a dance, and Ron and Harry fall out. Rupert is getting into his acting stride. Suede are in it.

There really aren't many films with the word goblet in the title - look for yourself.

The Holiday (2006 Nancy Myers & scr)

What's wrong with this film? I don't understand the negative reviews. Jude Law ("I sew and I have a cow") is super charismatic against Cameron Diaz (whose film trailer voiceover moments are great), Kate Winslet sweet with Jack Black and veteran screenwriter Eli Wallach, who quotes Lubitsch in his 'meet cute' example:

Kate excited about having a pool:

Also with Rufus Sewell.

The way that dog suddenly pops up from nowhere though is just WRONG.

Shot by Dean Cundey and scored by Hans Zimmer.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004 Alfonso Cuaron)

I am just nuts about Cuaron's Harry Potter film, which stands head and shoulders above the rest in the series and also is the best of the books. It brings a real sense of magic to the proceedings, and real danger, plus is written through with strong themes e.g. fear. Notice the use of silent movie iris dissolves - attack on train one of the great movie sequences:

On a bit of a tangent, it takes a Mexican (the director) to remind us about our own film heritage:

I hate lists because films are not groceries, but here I am trying a quick one – in no special order.

I opted for variety, otherwise I would have included more titles from the Brighton School: James Williamson, George Albert Smith and Alfred Darling. Those guys were brilliant, they pretty much invented the film grammar we still use and nobody gives a damn about them.* I would have also included every film Hitchcock directed on this island.

(http://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-100-best-british-films-directors#alfonsocuaron)

Note use of time imagery underlying film's great twisty sub-plot (and the ticking makes its way into the soundtrack):

Absolutely brilliant animation of Buckbeak. Ray Harryhausen would have been just amazed.

Use of light wonderful:

New cast includes Michael Gambon as Dumbledore (with the film's best line), David Thewlis good as Lupin, Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), Emma Thompson. Julie Christie is hardly visible through Harry's Cloak of Invisibility. Lovely moment when Hermione punches Malfoy.

Hats off too to Michael Seresin for his moody old-fashioned photography. John Williams' score has gone somewhat medieval, except for the remarkable night bus scene which is modern jazz. Even the end credits are nicely imaginative. Love the painting of a single eye!


* James Williamson made The Big Swallow (1901) in which a man nears the camera and then swallows it and the cameraman, An Interesting Story (1905) about a chap who is so engrossed in his book - touches of The Trouble with Harry - that he allows himself to be run over by a steam roller, and the self-explanatory Fire! (1901).

George Albert Smith made A Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) with a camera mounted to a train, a lady's foot As Seen through a Telescope (1900) and Mary Jane's Mishap (1903). He invented the first colour film process.

Alfred Darling developed much of the cinematography equipment.

The World's End (2013 Edgar Wright)

A bit of a disappointment. I liked the way Pegg and Frost's roles were originally reversed, but then they don't really make anything of it (Pegg and Wright wrote a sort of spin on Invasion of the Bodysnatchers on the back of a fag packet).  That the ending gives way to a race against a CGI fireball shows how the imagination is on low power (think of the inspired ending of Hot Fuzz in a model village). It isn't really character driven (again compare to the previous two films) and not as funny as previous efforts.

The pub crawlers:

Simon Pegg, Paddy Considine, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan:

And: Rosamund Pike, David Bradley, Michael Smiley (Rev Green), Pierce Brosnan, Steve Oram, Darren Boyd, voice of Bill Nighy.

Shot by Bill Pope (Matrix films). Paul Machliss (also Scott Pilgrim) is emulating - less successfully - the editing style of Chris Dickens, who has moved on to better? / different things (Les Mis, Berberian Sound Studio).

Rome Express (1932 Walter Forde)

Let's get our train thrillers shunted into the right order. Graham Greene's seminal 'entertainment' Stamboul Express (well worth reading) was also published in 1932 (and intriguingly, filmed in 1934 under this title and Seven Lives Were Changed*), two years before Agatha Christie's classic (published 1 January 1934). The Wheel Spins  (Ethel Lina White) came out in 1936, two years before Hitchcock filmed it as The Lady Vanishes (Sidney Gilliat is the writer who links Forde's and Hitch's films). 1932 was also the year of Dietrich train cult hit Shanghai Express.

I didn't know Walter Forde, but the direction's quite interesting: beginning with a (somewhat wobbly) camera prowl around a Paris station while we eavesdrop on various passengers alighting, already such a convention that Hitch deliberately avoids it in his train thriller. (Günther Krampf (Pandora's Box, The Student of Prague, The Hands of Orlac) is on camera.) And there's some quite interesting intercutting between scenes.

Donald Calthrop (Blackmail, Major Barbara) is on the run and gets mixed up with Harold Huth and Joan Barry (both married, but not to each other) while trying to dodge fellow villains Conrad Veidt and Hugh Williams, who's smitten with ex and now film star Esther Ralston, managed by publicist Finlay Currie. Also involved are hard-assed millionaire Cedric Harwicke and humble employee Eliot Makeham, and Poirotish sweet-popping head of the Sûreté Frank Vosper. Gordon Harker is the train bore, who we heartily wished had been thrown off the train or murdered (think of Lionel Jefferies in annoying role).

Esther Ralston.

"I saw her first!" Harker, Calthrop, Huth.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

* No sign of it on DVD, naturally. Even the BFI doesn't have a copy.

Train of Events (1949)

Multi-story Ealing film (unfairly criticised - in both George Perry's Ealing book and by Time Out - as a substandard replication of Dead of Night) linked together by a fateful journey of the Euston-Liverpool express, begins in a very modern way - with a dramatic train crash, followed by the title "Three days earlier" -  a staple device of modern TV dramas.

The intercut stores aren't actually titled on-screen. They are:

"Engine Driver" (director Sidney Cole). Our familiar and beloved Ealing staple, the nice working-class family, Jack Warden, Gladys Henson and Susan Shaw as the daughter. With Miles Malleson and Leslie Phillips (missed him again!) Reality of working for British Rail well caught.

"Prisoner of War" (d. Basil Dearden). Joan Dowling loves on-the-run tragic German Laurence Payne. Can they escape their succession of truly grotty digs?

"The Composer" (d. Charles Crichton) is Raymond Hillary; Valerie Hobson has fun playing his far too understanding wife; Irina Baranova is the other woman. The music 'The Legend of Lancelot' is not Rachmaninov but written for the film by Leslie Bridgewater. Amusingly saucy conversation in musical metaphors.

"The Actor" (d. Basil Dearden) is the screen debut of Peter Finch whose war has left him hardened to philandering wife Mary Morris; with Laurence Naismith and Michael Hordern.

The writers are TEB Clarke, Dearden, Angus MacPhail and Ronald Miller and the stories of tatty post WW2 England hold up well, though they don't integrate, and there are many good touches of script ("That boy's going far") and effect (Trafalgar Square / Underground sequence).

Would a film like this work now?

Photographers are Gordon Dines, Lionel Banes and Paul Beeson.

Another Thin Man (1939 W.S. Van Dyke II)

Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett are still writing the third of MGM's series. Nick and Nora have been touring America with Nick Jr and Asta, and "Nick was sober in San Diego". Thereafter the couple's drinking has been toned down radically as they become involved in plot to murder C. Aubrey Smith (because he shouts at everyone), though there is the usual nightclub scene (the 'West Indies', featuring some very unusual dancing).

With Virginia Grey, Otto Kruger (somewhat mad-looking detective), Ruth Hussey, regular Nat Pendleton, Sheldon Leonard and Don Costello as creepy villains, Patric Knowles and Tom Neal as the nice boys, and Marjorie Main fun as a forthright landlady. The murky plot - in which all the attendants of the denouement look as guilty as one another - is from Dashiell Hammett.

Photographed by Oliver T Marsh and William Daniels.

Asta provides most of the laughs and has a great relationship with Nick Jr:

The real Asta (real name Skippy), who starred in Thin Man I & II also appears in The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, and Topper Takes a Trip but had actually retired by now, and therefore there's some mystery as to which wire haired terrier this actually was. He's very acrobatic, anyway.

Bridget Jones and the Edge of Reason (2004 Beeban Kidron)

I like this one because Q never remembers the twist involving Jacinda Barrett.

Friends as before: Sally Phillips, Shirley Henderson, James Callis (a recognisably Curtis bunch). Adrian Biddle shot this one, apparently in a more diffused style than One.

Noticed another bit of unforgivable CGI excess: late night London Bridge scene has flock of birds flying over. Why? Why?

And far too many songs.

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001 Sharon Maguire)

Apart from Incendiary Maguire has hardly directed anything but documentaries. Did she get the gig because she was a friend of Helen Fielding? It is neatly put together, though we really have to credit co-writers Andrew Davis and Richard Curtis, who's influence is all over the place.

With Renee Zellweger, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Celia Imrie. It's great watching the pairing of Grant and Firth, though the latter's character is annoying (he frequently doesn't say anything).

Photographed by Stuart Dryburgh in Panavision, with annoyingly CGIed snowy village bookends.

I like the way he scoops her up in his coat at the end:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002 Chris Columbus)

Much as before, with a beautifully animated house-elf, some spiders, an independent-minded Ford Anglia and a giant snake which owes a certain something to Ray Harryhausen. Over-acting honours this time go to Jason Statham. Kenneth Branagh is the new Defence of the Dark Arts teacher.

Shot by Roger Pratt (Brazil, Batman, The Fisher King, Dorian Grey) in Panavision.

It is useful to have a phoenix about you.

I love the attention to detail and production design.

Loved (1997 Erin Dignam & scr)

William Hurt cross-examines an annoying girl (Robin Wright Penn, one of an annoying family) about her obsession with violent controlling ex. When the ex does finally open his mouth, we realise why she 'stepped' out of the window.

Indulgent film eats itself. It's so boring. How did it get funded?  Luckily Dignam - who may have been watching too much Bergman - wasn't allowed to do much other damage.

At 1:14 a bird flies into the shot and it's the most exciting thing that happens.

Sean Penn is in it a bit and Richard Schiff is familiar - perhaps from Any Human Heart.