Runaway Bride (1999 Garry Marshall)

Runaway Bride opens with Julia Roberts riding a horse whilst acting. I'm just saying.

Unfairly panned reteaming of Pretty Woman stars and director is very well written (Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott) and produced comedy. Lots of reviewers thought it was rubbish - no idea why. Has a particularly nice way of observing smaller character parts.

With: Joan Cusack, Hector Elizondo, Rita Wilson, Paul Dooley, Christopher Meloni.

On camera - Stuart Dryburgh (Panavision). Editor - Bruce Green.

We notice that Julia has her own bum editor.

Song for Marion (2012 Paul Andrew Williams & scr)

Terence Stamp comes out of himself after Vanessa Redgrave dies, through music, with help of Gemma Arterton. Film is OK.

One Fine Day (1996 Michael Hoffman)

Funny, successful romcom in classic style. Clooney rated script (Terrel Seltzer and Ellen Simon) and director Hoffman in contributing to his first major studio film. That he was a success in it was no surprise to anyone who'd seen E.R.

Michelle Pfeiffer.

A Long Way Down (2014 Pascal Chaumeil)

Wasn't entirely convinced by story's premise on reading Nick Hornby's novel, which has been adapted by Jack Thorne, best known for the two This is England sequels. So, Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots and Aaron Paul find themselves all on the same roof, planning to commit suicide.

Film is emotional, and fun.

With Sam Neill, Rosamund Pike, Tuppence Middleton.

The Big Wedding (2013 Justin Zackham)

Zackham has adapted French film Ma Frère se Marie by Jean-Stéphane Bron & Karine Sudan.

Not as bad as I was expecting, with good turns from deNiro, Sarandon and Keaton.

The Devil and Miss Jones (1941 Sam Wood)

Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Spring Byington, SZ Sakall, Edmund Gwenn, William Demarest, Rebecca's Florence Bates.

Funny overlooked Golden Age comedy written by Norman Krasna - hilarious scene in police station (with Edward McNamara, also a cop in Arsenic and Old Lace, and Regis Toomey). Great cast. Sam Wood a talented director, e.g. cramming the frame in beach scene (the same trick from his 1935 Night at the Opera), interesting compositions and angles throughout.

Difficult now to be certain, but it appears that the Romanée-Conti 1903 which nobody likes was from "a messed up wine year of unsatisfactory quality by the cold weather. The wines were watery and short also within young years. No wine has survived well from this weak volume today and one therefore hardly finds drinkable copies." (Source: european-fine-wine.com.)

Shot by Harry Stradling.

Not to be confused with The Devil in Miss Jones, which is another matter all together!

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943, released '44, Preston Sturges & scr)

The most remarkable thing about this mad, screwball, censor-defying, racy and hilarious comedy is that it is composed of so many long takes, often with old pro cameraman John Setiz masterfully tracking couple Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton down the town's streets - indeed sometimes the odd cutaway really interrupts the pacing, which has given the editor little to do.

Though it has a great all-round cast including William Demarest, Porter Hall, Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff, we usually agree that Diana Lynn's older-than-her age sister steals the film.

Her (2013 Spike Jonze & scr)

Frequently astonishing, mad, Oscar/BAFTA-winning, funny script has you frequently open-mouthed as Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his computer's operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johanssen, who is excellent. (The great Amy Adams is in it too.) It was amusing that she won Best Actress at the Rome Film Festival, especially when you think that Italian films are usually dubbed (she was ineligible for the Golden Globe who rule that you must be visible, which would have just made Claude Rains OK for The Invisible Man!)

Hearing Scarlett reminded me of Woody Allen saying how funny she was, and that whatever smart joke he came out with she would go one better.

Problem with a film of such a weird concept is knowing how to stop / get out of it. Ultimately it can rather disappear into its own crazy world.

The Monuments Men (2014 George Clooney)

Why was this so slagged off? OK, it does seem a bit fragmented at the start, but essentially it's The Magnificent Seven but fighting Nazis to regain art treasures, not a normal subject matter, though will ring bells with anyone who has seen Sydney Pollack's strange 1969 film Castle Keep.

No, we thought it had a lot of lively, funny moments, e.g. scene where Damon is standing on an unexploded mine. And some seriousness too. A good balance.

Written by Clooney with his co-producer Grant Heslov, shot by Phedon Papamichael, edited by Stephen Mirrione who has cut all of Clooney's films, scored by Alexandre Desplat.

With Hugh Bonneville, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Kate Blanchett. And in a nice touch, George's dad Nick plays his older self at the end.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974 Sidney Lumet)

Having one of the most amazing casts ever assembled it's a slight shame we don't see more of Bisset, Connery et al. However we can't complain, and nor can Bergman, who won Oscar - note how in the key scene with her, Anne Coates doesn't cut at all - it's one sensational uninterrupted sequence. Compare this to a few scenes later - the Belgian sleuth roughly interrogating Vanessa Redgrave, and the intervention of Sean Connery - quite an amazing moment of cutting from our Ms Coates (we had to watch it not twice but three times), once again beautifully shot in super-diffused style by Geoffrey Unsworth, who I would have guessed had won more BAFTAs than anyone else ever (five), though I see that a certain W. Allen has received eight!

Albert Finney (who with writer Paul Dehn won Oscars) is so good that you forget it is he most of the time.

And not credited above, George Coulouris (Citizen Kane), Colin Blakely.

Benefits enormously from Richard Rodney Bennett's music - memorably queasy in the flashback scenes but bursting into majesterial melody when the train pulls out.

The Sapphires (2012 Wayne Blair)

We were expecting a comedy with singing, and didn't expect the emotional punch the film delivers, nor indeed the good singing. Chris O'Dowd is an alcoholic manager of aborigine group comprising Kylie Belling, Miranda Tapsell, Deborah Mailman and Jessica Mauboy.

Labor Day (2013 Jason Reitman)

Reitman's script is based on Joyce Maynard (who at age 18 had affair with J.D. Salinger) book of the same name. Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Clark Gregg, J.K. Simmons. It's extremely well cut by Dana Glauberman (using some nice dissolves), and we were shocked when the meaning of the flashbacks became clear; nicely shot by Eric Steelberg and scored by Rolfe Kent, exactly the same team in fact as Up In the Air.

We were feeling quite sick with dread, especially when Gattlin's new girlfriend evokes the memory of Bonnie and Clyde.

Don't Bother to Knock (1961 Cyril Frankel)

Not the Marilyn Monroe thriller; instead the energetic Richard Todd is a randy slut who falls out with his girlfriend June Thorburn because she won't shag him, then goes round Europe, rather easily getting into the knickers of Nicole Maurey, Elke Sommer and other women, who then all come to stay in his Edinburgh apartment (luckily of a reasonable size) and thereby complicate matters further with aforementioned Thorburn. That is, incredibly, Rebecca's Judith Anderson as his swinging older lady friend, plus Ronald Fraser and John Le Mesurier in support, with fleeting appearances by Graham Crowden, John Laurie, Kynaston Reeves and Carry on Cleo's Amanda Barrie. We thought we also recognised Fulton Mackay as a waiter, but he's not credited as such.

Music is by Elisabeth Lutyens - it's rather different from the norm. She was a pioneer of discordant music and thus I suppose wrote the very strange bit that is performed to an audience of about two! Anne Coates cut it, invisibly, and Geoffrey Unsworth is on camera. More about those two later... Interestingly Frederic Raphael provided additional dialogue...

Must have been quite risqué when released.

In the French Style (1962 Robert Parrish)

Featuring the fabulous Jean Seberg, who was persecuted to death, and who kept making us think of Scarlett Johannson, in clearly two conjoined stories about the same expat in Paris, written by Irwin Shaw, who one presumes spent some time there. In the first she is romanced by a somewhat odd young man, Philippe Forquet; a few years later her dad Addison Powell comes to visit and she's in love with intense Stanley Baker while scarily the surgeon she's going to marry instead is the spit of daddy (who comes out with line "I don't drink, but when I'm retired I'm going to soak it up and let my hands shake like Autumn leaves").

Jack Hedley is another lover, Thunderball's Claudine Auger has a bit part as his girlfriend, Moustache is the barman.

It's rather good and actually is set in Paris, as viewed by the prolific Michel Kelber.

Sony release shows opening credits in 1.66:1 then crops it to 1.85:1, which is frankly a stupid thing to do.

We Bought a Zoo (2011 Cameron Crowe)

Yes, yes.

http://nicksfilmjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/we-bought-zoo-2011-cameron-crowe.html

A Single Man (2009 Tom Ford)

Is Tom Ford the best-dressed film director ever? he's certainly the least prolific, showing no sign at all of venturing into his second film, the first being based on a Christopher Isherwood story he always loved. Colin Firth is simply sensational (winning BAFTA but missing Oscar) and we really believe in the romantic relationship between him and the fleetingly glimpsed Matthew Goode. Julianne Moore and Nicholas Hoult are there to help him not end his life at the end of the day.

The warming up of scenes (Eduard Grau) is absolutely beautiful, never seen this before except of course in Vertigo... Psycho is referenced in a big poster, Abel Korzeniowski's music is also reminiscent of the former. Slow motion scenes e.g. when Firth kisses the dog, sound (only sound is rain when he visits Julianne with the terrible news).

Now Voyager (1942 Irving Rapper)

Bette Davis sags under the weight of Perc Westmore's eyebrows, but Paul Henreid comes along with two cigarettes, thereby changing smoking fashion (at least for the moment). Casey Robinson has adapted a novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, and Claude Rains is perhaps the most sympathetic doctor ever. The wonderful Max Steiner tells us what to feel, but we don't care, bathed in Sol Polito's light. The horrendous mother is Gladys Cooper, and it's a true five hankie number.

Rapper, not known for much in this household, lived until 101.

The Stag (2013 John Butler)

Not as bad as I was half expecting, feature debut for Butler and co-written with actor Peter McDonald. I prefer Andrew Scott in the sort of Moriarty role where he's charmingly dangerous, and feel 'The Machine' needed playing by a different actor to McDonald, someone who could really run away with the part. Hugh O'Conor is the weirdly named and pronounced Fionnan, who's getting married.

The April Fools (1969 Stuart Rosenberg)

Lemmon is terrific as usual as unhappily married man who finds himself drawn to unhappily married woman Catherine Deneuve, who is every bit as good as he is. They meet at a sort of pop art party given by her husband Peter Lawford, which is quite an eyeful, then move on to an even worse safari themed nightclub, finally ending the evening in the delightful company of Myrna Loy and fencing mad husband Charles Boyer.

 Jack Weston is in it again, Sally Kellerman plays Jack's wife.

Written by Hal Dresner, who also adapted a TV series of Catch-22 with Richard Dreyfuss...Apparently only one episode aired...

I was a little worried that the ending was going to reflect The Graduate - but then he takes her hand... These two will be OK...

Shot by Michel Hugo in Panavision; somewhat choppy editing by Bob Wyman.

The Notorious Landlady (1962 Richard Quine)

Lemmon moves into London home of suspected husband killer Kim Novak, and not unnaturally they fall for each other in Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart (best known for TV's MASH, and Tootsie) adaptation of Margery Sharp's 'The Notorious Tenant'. Quine moves things along briskly with Arthur Arling on camera and some nimble operating (uncredited) cut together by Craig Nelson, evident in silent movie style finale involving Gilbert & Sullivan and a lady in a wheelchair (Estelle Winwood). (Cruelly, I would have liked to have seen the lady fly off the cliff edge, though as sagacious Q points out, the open end leaves anything possible.)

Again, vastly unknown / underrated Columbia Lemmon vehicle has much to recommend it. With Fred Astaire, Lionel Jeffries, Phillipa Bevans.

I liked the story of the woman who made her lover help her brick up her husband; then two weeks later leaves the lover for the brick salesman.