About Schmidt (2002 Alexander Payne & co-scr)

Novel Louis Begley - adapted by AP and Jim Taylor.

Subtle, grey film (by that I mean not black and white), open to interpretation (is the son-in-law just a 'nincompoop' or is the father incapable of seeing that his daughter is marrying for love?)

Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates.

Music Rolfe Kent (and featuring piano music that is unmistakably Satie). Edited by Kevin Tent. Ph James Glennon.

Mark Venhuizan, with the Nicholson

Goodbye Again (1961 Anatole Litvak)

Not having read François Sagan's novel, I can't comment on its adaptation. And why should I anyway? My neighbour Ann cannot understand that a novel is a novel and a film is a film, and there is no mileage in comparing the two. In any event, it's been adapted by the great Samuel Taylor, author of the plays and screenplays of Avanti and Sabrina, and screenwriter of Vertigo (as regular readers will know, a thoroughly good chap).

The always fabulous Ingrid Bergman has made the mistake of allowing womanising boyfriend Yves Montand to get away with it for five years; she finally succumbs to the assiduous advances of young lover Anthony Perkins, who I've never seen smile so much.

Great use of Brahms 3rd Symphony, incidental music by Auric, nice jazz also with singer Diahann Carroll.

Jesse Royce Landis and Allison Leggatt (This Happy Breed) co-star.

I like a film set in Paris which actually is set in Paris.

Avoid Korean DVD though, which is at the wrong frame rate and not anamorphic, though does preserve the 1.66:1 ratio.

Erin Brockovich (2000 Steven Soderbergh)

Scr, Susannah Grant (Oscar nom, also In Her Shoes and The Soloist).

Julia Roberts (AA, BFA, great, the way she says "Please don't make me beg"), Albert Finney (nom, also great), Aaron Eckhardt, Peter Coyote, the real EB as a glamorous looking waitress.

Edited by the legendary Anne Coates, using one of her distinctive jumbled up bedroom scenes, lots of canny shot size choices and much use of the dissolve. Shot by Far from Heaven's Ed Lachman.

Music by Thomas Newman is very simple, centring on a piano riff over an electric piano.

Lots of great scenes and moments e.g. when Julia hears her kid has spoken her first word. Great dialogue e.g. speech to Eckhardt when he wants her number (though probably quite unrealistic).

Thoroughly professional and enjoyable, and true. Last on 7 April 2012.

The Goodbye Girl (1977 Herbert Ross)

Written by Neil Simon.

Richard Dreyfiss (AA, BFA, Golden Globe, even the David di Donatello!), Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings (we like a smart, funny kid).

Last watched it on 31 October 2012 - was way overdue. No doubt if we'd had it in our collection earlier we would have watched it loads.

Gay Richard III v. funny.

Scene where Dreyfuss romances Mason is great, both of them - note long takes e.g. in bathroom.

Also, moments of real grit - nasty mugging, violent drunk.

Music Dave Grusin, Ph. David M Walsh (many comedies).

Margaret Booth, editor of Orphans of the Storm and feared head cutter at MGM, was the supervising editor aged 79. She lived till 104.

La Grande Bellezze / The Great Beauty (2013 Paolo Sorrentino & co-scr)

Distinctly Felliniesque (the light which turns into an aircraft is a direct quotation), La Dolce Vita for the 21st Century, but funnier.

Toni Servillo (Gomorrah, Le Conseguenze dell' Amore) is absolutely splendid as the weary cynical observer of the party-going ruling class in modern Rome (a chilly representation of the city).

cineblog.it

Fantastic, sweeping photography in Panavision by Luca Bigazzi (This Must be the Place, Romanzo Criminale) with stunning candlelit scene in a museum, and incisive editing by Cristiano Travaglioli, great music too Lele Marcitelli.

With Olivia Magnani, Sabrina Ferilli,

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004 Wes Anderson)

Another totally original tale from Anderson (there's a hint of things to come in Rushmore with diving footage and a book featuring Jacques Cousteau) in which Bill Murray seeks revenge against a Jaguar Shark which has eaten his friend. Meanwhile Owen Wilson, who may be his son, tags along and gets involved with pregnant Cate Blanchett. Also features Anjelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, Bud Cort and Seu Jorge, who sings most of the film's Bowie songs in Portuguese! Seymour Cassel also guests.

We see evidence of the director's keenness for fake trickery - the crabs and the shark.

Rushmore (1998 Wes Anderson)

Well-made film, written by Anderson and Owen Wilson, in which student Jason Schwartzman is befriended by industrialist Bill Murray - they both get involved with Olivia Williams with echoes of The Graduate. Seymour Cassel - a Cassavetes alumni - plays the father. Many amusing moments and details (such as Scottish teenaged thug who excels in Apocalypse Now-style school play!)

Robert Yeoman on camera, David Moritz edits.

Vertigo

Voila.

Funny People (2009 Judd Apatow & scr)

Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Bana, Aubrey Plaza, Iris & Maude Apatow.

Perhaps because director spends too much time on his wife and kids, film is way too long.

Pride and Prejudice (2005 Joe Wright)

For his first feature, my favourite working British director could only muster a second rate cast: Keira Knightley, Matthew McFadyen, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Rosamund Pike, Tom Hollander, Judi Dench, Claudie Blakley, Simon Woods, Carrie Mulligan, Talullah Riley, Jena Malone, Kelly Reilly and Pip Torrens.

Showdown between Dench and Knightley is like two great generations of actors coming to blows.

Adapted by Deborah Moggach, photographed by Roman Osin (in Panavision), edited by Paul Tothill, music by Dario Marienelli.

Beautifully choreographed scenes make me think of The Magnificent Ambersons.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008 Nicholas Stoller)

I wanted another classic but had to settle for something lower-brow. This from co-producer Judd Apatow is written by star Jason Segel and also features Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Kristen Bell and stock company regulars Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill and Jack McBrayer.

Why do films never really capture Hawaii? I'm thinking of the Hawaii of Hunter S Thompson...

Atonement (2007 Joe Wright)

Atonement  is one hell of a film and Joe Wright is one hell of a director.

Just when you think you have been dazzled enough by a wonderful Dario Marienelli score featuring a typewriter, scenes which take place from different points of view and David Lean moments (Brief Encounter in a tea room, Doctor Zhivago with a bus) he throws in the most amazingly choreographed and shot five minute single take which - like Soy Cuba - defies the brain with how it was achieved: it clearly isn't hand held / steadicam, so how does it traverse the steps? (OK. It is a remarkable Steadicam shot, operated by Peter Robertson, sometimes in a vehicle, sometimes being pulled on a two-wheel trolley and sometimes hand-held. Full info here.) Naturally, we had to watch it twice.

Full marks go to Seamus McGarvey (DOP) and Paul Tothill (editor), Christopher Hampton and Ian McEwan (screenplay and novel), and a great cast, headed by the fantastic James McAvoy, comprises Kiera Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brenda Blethyn, Danny Huston, Daniel Mays (superb), Kristin Scott Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave and Romola Garai.

The film showing is apparently Le Quai des Brumes (Marcel Carné 1938).

Role Models (2008 David Wain)

Essentially a decent-hearted movie, filtered with crudity rather than sentimentality, and that's a good thing: shall we call it the Apatow Effect? Stands the acid test of still being laugh-out-loud funny after zero glasses of wine.

Energetically performed. And talking of the Apatow influence, there seems to be a stock company of recognisables who appear frequently such as:

Paul Rudd (everything)
Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad)
Jane Lynch & Elizabeth Banks (both 40 year old virgin)
Ken Jeong (Knocked Up, Pineapple Express)
Joe Lo Truglio (enthusiastic game player) (Pinepple Express, Superbad)
and all the others I didn't recognise.

Seann William Scott and Bobb'e J Thompson seem to be having a lot of fun with risqué material.

Photographed by Russ T. Alsobrook.

Comfort and Joy (1984 Bill Forsyth & scr)

A year after Local Hero Forsyth delivers another offbeat, gently funny little gem about a DJ (Bill Paterson) who's getting over the sudden departure of his girlfriend (he actually helps her move her things out of the apartment in a typically understated scene) and gets involved in ice cream wars between rival Italian families in Glasgow.

Eleanor David, Clare Grogan, Patrick Malahide support. Many funny and sweet moments e.g. psychiatrist discovery, friend's kids.

With more lovely low light photography from Chris Menges, night scenes look fabulous and perhaps not diffused but resulting from fast film? (research.)

Interesting Mark Knoplfer score, though use of Love Over Gold passages isn't quite right for the material.

Michael Ellis edits.

Out of Sight

Cool, hip movie (reviewed here) probably led to the lesser Ocean's films.

Sabrina (1995 Sydney Pollack)

Not a bad remake with Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond and Greg Kinnear in the lead roles, adapted by Barbara Benedek and David Rayfiel. Unfortunately it's not so different that you can't help comparing it to the original the whole way through, with predictable results. The supporting characters are particularly lacking in comparison: played by Nancy Marchand, John Wood, Richard Crenna, Angie Dickinson and Dana Ivey. (Look out for a young Paul Giamatti in the kitchen.) Even Giuseppe Rotunno's photography is a notch below the richness of say Regarding Henry.

Edited by Frederic Steinkemp (since 1960, many Pollacks, and Wilder's Fedora), using a lot of dissolves, with a nice John Williams score.

Good lines not from the original:

"More isn't necessarily better. Sometimes it's just more."
"Paris is always a good idea."

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (2004 Wendy Apple)

Fascinating documentary takes us through the progression of the art form:

Hollywood: invisible editing
The Russians
The Nouvelle Vague
Fracturing space and time
Shaping the actor's performance

Great clips from the likes of Anne Coates, Dede Allen, Sally Menke and Quentin Tarantino, and Michael Kahn (who claims he lies around all day chatting and eating chocolate!), though I would have reduced the focus on films like XXX and The Matrix to give more time to Anthony Gibbs (who's in it too briefly) and not to mention Powell & Pressburger's incredible way-ahead-of its-time editing (John Seabourne and Reginald Mills). And Orson Welles. And Ralph Rosenblum. And that chap who edited 49th Parallel...you know, what's his name... someone Lean.

Thelma Schoonmaker I guess was too busy!

Highlights for me:

The brilliant Walter Murch talking about the opening of Apocalypse Now
Anne Coates and Steven Soderburgh making that famous bedroom scene in Out of Sight
Overlaying the audio tracks to hasten an argument
The opening of A Bout de Souffle

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007 Sidney Lumet)

Shown by Channel 4 as a tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman without any ad breaks (nor announcement of this), which I thought was rather cool (unheard of, in fact). Here he encourages his hard-up brother Ethan Hawk to join him in robbing their parents' (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris) jewellery store, with unfortunate results. Flashbacks reveal past lives and moments, including girlfriends Marisa Tomei and Aleksa Palladino and brother Michael Shannon.

PSH is good as creepy and unlikeable drug addict.

We were slightly thrown by an opening sequence which looks like it's the end - but it isn't.

Debut of screenwriter Kelly Masterson; Lumet's swansong, aged 83.

Hugo (2011 Martin Scorsese)

Marty's love letter to cinema is also his most enjoyable film of late, a recreation of Brian Selznick's illustrated children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" which supplies many of the key visual ideas (eye in clock, station, toy shop, automaton):

Asa Butterfield (Son of Rambow), Chloe Grace Moretz (great as usual), Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Emily Mortimer, Helen McCrory, Ray Winstone, Jude Law, Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, Kevin Eldon.

A great technical achievement, it is gorgeously photographed by Robert Richardson and designed by Dante Ferreti: they both won their third Oscars (Dante's were for The Aviator and Sweeney Todd) as did the sound design and mixing and special effects, which offer us a slightly artificial but cute CGI Paris, and it is of course superbly edited, by Thelma Schoonmaker. Music is by Howard Shore.

Loved the still-terrifying clip from Safety Last and the compilations of silent classics and Méliès' own highlights.

Why I'm such a sucker for dragons I have no idea.

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde (2003 Charles Hurman-Wurmfeld)

Our pink heroine ("she's so shiny!") shakes up Washington to get her dog's mother released from animal testing.

It had been a hard week and we just needed something frothy, though it does finally drift too far in the silliness spectrum. It does go to prove though that the interpretation of a film is governed as much by the mood you are in as anything else.

Reese Witherspoon confronts Sally Field, Regina King and May Lynn Rajskub and senators Dana Ivey and Bruce McGill with blank authority; Bob Newhart is the world's most useful hotel door man.

Shot by Elliot Davis (Out of Sight, Lawn Dogs, I Am Sam).