The Birds (1963 Alfred Hitchcock)

In tribute to Rod Taylor, who died recently aged 84 of a heart attack. Not the greatest actor maybe, but just always so damn likeable.

Enjoyed superb filmic story-telling more than last time - film has so much 'pure' cinema that it's tempting to watch the whole thing with no sound. I was marvelling at the way the camera set-ups keep changing within a scene. Whilst there's no music at all (c.f. Rear Window) the soundtrack is put together with the usual amount of detail and imagination.

Lulls you into a complete false sense of security. Note how early on Hedren is always photographed soft focus with a soft background - no doubt to offer a vivid contrast to her shell-shocked latter state. Film indeed begins like a good family melodrama, and when Jessica Tandy appears it's the scariest thing that's happened so far!

Jump cuts to dead man with eyes gouged, and the infamous petrol station cutting, are perhaps nods to the nouvelle vague...

Rush (2013 Ron Howard)

Not overly convinced by Chris Hemsworth's acting, Daniel Brühl better, and Peter Morgan hasn't really written much of a story (the women are particularly underwritten). Q was certainly bowled over by super-fast kinetic editing - film is in fact edited so fast that BAFTA-winners Daniel Hanley and Mike Hill are mid-way through their next film before this one's even finished. But, I couldn't help wondering, wouldn't a scene that cuts between just two cameras (one in each car) and a long shot not have made a tense scene, or something that doesn't cut three times in a second? I think I know the answer to that. Anyway, it's very well done, and Anthony Dod Mantle and his team of a billion second unit cameramen have done a great job catching all the footage necessary, and I liked the way the real Hunt and Lauda (now 65) are meshed in at the end.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 Tay Garnett)

Who says MGM didn't make films noir? From the pen of Double Indemnity author James M Cain comes another story of a man who kills for a woman - it's in a very different league to Wilder's film but is not without its cinematic moments of interest, e.g. the way we keep cutting to John Garfield as Cecil Kellaway (the priest in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?) informs him and Lana Turner he's moving to Canada.

Nice contrasty photography by Sidney Wagner, whoever she is.

Hume Cronyn does turn up, eventually, and he's rather good.

Tay Garnett made China Seas and ended up on TV.

I Was a Male War Bride (1949 Howard Hawks)

Opens like Bringing Up Baby, with Cary Grant now clashing romantically with Ann Sheridan; becomes The Seven Year Itch. Very economically staged, as you would expect from Hawks, witty script (Charles Lederer, Leonard Spigelgass, Hagar Wilde, based on a true story by the real Henri Rochard), leads in great form.

Shot by Norbert Brodine and Osmond Borradaile.

Very funny, by the way.

Before I Go To Sleep (2014 Rowan Joffe & scr)

Mix 50 First Dates with Memento and you have a mystery thriller in which amnesiac Nicole Kidman doesn't know whether to trust husband Colin Firth, psychiatrist Mark Strong or old friend Anne-Marie Duff. Book was by S.J. Watson. Could almost have been a play. Didn't like the violence to woman.

Not bad, not bad.

Shot by Ben Davis (Kick Ass, Stardust, Seven Psychopaths) and edited by Melanie Oliver (Anna Karenina).

A Late Quartet (2012 Yaron Silberman & co-scr)

Very well acted by Christophen Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir and Imogen Poots (British: A Long Way Down). But film is just talking, and Beethoven string quartet.

OSS 117: Le Caire, Nid d'Espions (2006 Michel Hazavicinius)

On the day of 'Je Suis Charlie' we wanted to celebrate the French spirit with something quintessentially French, irreverant and funny - cue the unbeatable smile of Jean Dujardin and his muezzin-bashing antics. Film delightfully recreates 60s spy films down to Ludovic Bourse's early Bond score and dodgy back projection, skilfully recreated by Guillaume Schiffman. That he has somehow learned to speak fluent Arabic and to play the oud by the end of the film is great - and his next assignment is Iraq - "All the world loves Westerners"!

With Bérénice Bejo, Aure Atika, Abdellah Moundy, Philippe Lefebvre

The Devil Wears Prada (2006 David Frankel)

Because Meryl Streep was on Graham Norton talking about how she deliberately distanced herself from the rest of the cast to get the necessary character angle. Was Katharine Hepburn right, can you 'see her acting', as she very quietly summons the help? Anne Hathaway stars but Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci make the strongest impressions in Aline Brosh McKenna's adaptation of novel by Lauren Weisberger. Also with Adrian Grenier and Mad Men's Rich Sommer.

Shot by Florian Ballhaus.

The Kids Are All Right (2010 Lisa Cholodenko)

There's something slightly different about the way women directors work. For a lesbian, Julianne Moore sure does like Mark Ruffalo screwing her.

Annette Bening is good and uptight, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson are the kids, and Yaya DaCosta the other woman.

Good.

Capturing Mary (2007 Stephen Poliakoff & scr)

Set in one of those incredible properties that Poliakoff finds all over the place (in fact the outside of The Naval Club, 38 Hill Street Mayfair and the inside of Langley Park House near Slough), film has Maggie Smith tell house custodian Danny Lee Wynter about her life in the fifties, where she's played by Ruth Wilson, and her unfortunate encounter with David Walliams.

Like all Poliakoffs it reels you in, though I found it a little bit more murky than usual, and perhaps overweight.

It was Gemma Arterton's debut.

Music Adrian Johnston, editing Clare Douglas and Tom Kinnersly, shot by Danny Cohen.

Raw Deal (1948 Anthony Mann)

Having tried to watch Pawlikowski's Last Resort (couldn't disable Italian subtitles), A Farewell to Arms (Spanish version, terrible print) and On Dangerous Ground (Spanish version, couldn't disable Spanish subtitles) we turned to this.

Review 8 September 2010.

Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, Raymond Burr (v nasty), Marsha Hunt, John Ireland.

Minimum exposition and bang! we're straight into classic noir, expertly painted on a totally black canvas by John Alton, so dark, but we see everything we need to. Claire Trevor's voiceover a change, adds to presentiment of doom. Taut, economical and consistently thrilling.

Today. Nothing much to add. Paul Sawtell's using a theremin, which adds a dimension.

North by Northwest (1959 Alfred Hitchcock)

It's a shame the back projection is so bad (made worse by Blu Ray) as the on-location shooting is fine. Quintessential chase movie has many highlights including surreal climax on Mount Rushmore, crop dusting sequence (not the most efficient method of trying to kill someone, but the plot should not be subjected to close examination), drunken drive, shaving with tiny razor. I wonder if after the relative lack of success of The Wrong Man and Vertigo Hitch felt he needed something more commercial and 'safe'.

I liked the scene where Leo G Carroll explains things only it's covered by aircraft noise - Buñuel would have enjoyed it. Scene ends on another great use of sound as Cary Grant learns he's endangered Eve Marie Saint's life.

Colourful score by Bernard Herrmann (check out just the little passage that plays as Grant escapes from hospital). Shot by Burks, edited by Tomasini. With a perfectly smooth James Mason, Martin Landau, Jessie Royce Landis, Josephine Hutchinson, Adam Williams.

MGM wanted him to remove a key scene towards the end (you can see why as it's his longest film) but Hitch's agents MCA had given him a complete control contract. Ernest Lehman wrote it (they had been working on Wreck of the Mary Deare but they found it was like having the climax of a film at the beginning, then ponderously having to explain it).

Hitch made so many films you can watch exactly one a week for a year without getting a repeat.

Q notices that 21 is referenced again (also in Rear Window and Spellbound):

According to Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal, authors of Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco, Mr. Hitchcock had a long-standing connection to the '21' Club. Starting with his first trip to the United States from England in the late 1930s, he was a regular patron of the restaurant throughout his life.

According to prevailing myth, Hitchcock was particularly fond of '21' Club's steak with fries, followed by an ice cream parfait. Hitchcock may have met and dined there with another regular Salvador Dali, who was often seen adjusting his waxed mustache, drumming his gold-headed cane on the floor, and celebrating commissions he accrued while lunching at '21'. Hitchcock and Dali collaborated during the making of the movie Spellbound, starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. In the film's Dali-designed dream sequence, there is a cinematic reference to the '21' Club.

http://www.freewarehof.org/21club.html

Saboteur (1942 Alfred Hitchcock)

Didn't spot Hitch in familiar wrong man on the run story in which Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane receive help from unusual people, such as a bored truck driver and a troupe of circus freaks. Otto Kruger is rather good as a smiley villain, so is Norman Lloyd as the bomber, who meets his end in a terrifying finale on the Statue of Liberty (without music), featuring a great stunt as he goes over the edge. This all became our next film, North by Northwest.

Joseph Valentine does some lovely long shots - such as a scene where Cummings finds himself having to praise the hostess at a posh party.

It was well overdue.

Roald Dahl's Esio Trot (2014 Dearbhla Walsh)

Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer have adapted Dahl's story, giving us a narrator in the shape of James Cordon, in sweet tale of shy Dustin Hoffman who fancies neighbour Judi Dench, and helps her to grow her tortoise. Tale benefits from what looks like slightly artificial sets.

No Way to Treat a Lady

Last review.

Didn't enjoy it quite as much as before. You have to be in the right mood.

Once Upon a Time in America (1983, rel 1984 Sergio Leone)

The new 'director's' cut has several scenes of dubious quality laced in (almost as though no attempt has been made to colour correct them or sort out the audio), though they are beneficial to the story, e.g. McGovern acting out death scene from Cleopatra is great. Film is now just over four hours long but doesn't feel it. In a funny twist, Leone was nominated for a David di Donatello for best foreign director! (Milos Forman won for Amadeus.) It was completely ignored by the American Academy; the Brits had more class and awarded it for best costumes (Gabriella Pescucci) and score (Morricone, beautiful as ever), and nominated it for photography (Tonino delli Colli) and supporting actress Tuesday Weld. But for me, where awards should definitely have been showered was over the make-up department (Nilo Jacoponi, Manlio Rocchetti, Gino Zamprioli), whether we're looking at beautifully aged characters, ones who've been beaten to a pulp, or the actress removing her makeup to show her age underneath. And the amazing production design (Carlo Simi).

It is skilfully put together by Leone (and Pasolini) regular Nino Baragli.

Talking of violence it is eye-wateringly so, and I don't think we really needed the rape scene in as much detail, though it does add to the tragic thrust of the story. It's epic and huge but also powerfully elegiac. Highlight moments are the boys' ingenious trick, Max and Noodles' relationship, the opening with that phone ringing, Woods stirring his coffee (a sort of version of a classic Leone gunfight set-up) and that ever so subtle ending.

Of the cast, Scott Shutzman Tyler and Rusty Jacobs are the young Noodles and Max who grow into de Niro and James Woods; Jennifer Connelly and Elizabeth McGovern are both great as Deborah. Then we have Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Danny Aiello, Treat Williams and Larry Rapp as Fat Mo.

It was filmed in New York (where an entire block was recreated), Manhattan Bridge, Florida, Venice (the hotel Excelsior) and the Gare du Nord (standing in for Grand Central Station).

Mistress (1992 Barry Primus)

Begins promisingly enough, with Albert Brooks-ish writer Robert Wuhl being offered the chance to film his old screenplay by producer Martin Landau (good as ever), and facing all sorts of compromises, not least having a young bullish writer Jace Alexander in tow.

Robert de Niro is somewhat different to usual as an investor (reminding me rather of the older Truffaut), Sheryl Lee Ralph makes an impression as a woman who's sleeping with both de Niro and Danny Aiello and Eli Wallach also appears.

Light tone changes as we learn about the fate of one of the writer's former cast, in a startling scene with Christopher Walken. Material doesn't seem quite balanced / integrated. Pretty Woman's JF Lawton co-wrote Primus's story / screenplay.

The film he keeps watching is Renoir's La Grande Illusion.

Edited by Steve Weisberg, who cut Azkeban, Great Expectations and A Little Princess for Cuaron.

The copy we saw at any rate was oddly in 4 x 3. Title is wrong, too.

Snow Falling on Cedars (1999 Scott Hicks)

Young Reeve Carney and Anne Suzuki (who's fabulous) grow up to be Ethan Hawke and Yûki Kudô, whose husband is accused of murdering a local fisherman. Japanese internment during war may be behind it.

Great senior cast in Max Von Sydow, Richard Jenkins, James Cromwell and Sam Shepherd. Film is pieced together in beautiful bits, shot by Robert Richardson and edited by Hank Corwin (Tree of Life, The New World) who seems to be using frames of black as punctuation (at times, anyway). I liked James Newton Howard's music.

It slightly lacks emotion though and I wonder if the mosaic structure is partly responsible for that. It was based on the 1994 novel by Dave Guterson and adapted by Ronald Bass and Hicks (Shine, The Boys are Back).

Minor carp: I would have liked to have known where and when we were at the outset.

Clueless (1995 Amy Heckerling & scr)

Continuing our season of Jane Austens, this is a loose adaptation of Emma, with Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Dan Hedaya (who greets BM with "Get out of my seat!"), Stacey Dash, Jeremy Sisto (Six Feet Under), Wallace Shawn.

My 21/1/09 review was 'gone a bit flat over time' but I thoroughly enjoyed it again. Lines like "The PC term [for virginity] is hymenally challenged".

Sense and Sensibility (1995 Ang Lee)

Excellent adaptation written by Emma Thompson (AA).

Emma Thompson (nom.), Kate Winslet (first of six nominations), Gemma Jones (mother), Hugh Grant, Elizabeth Spriggs (gossip), Alan Rickman, Greg Wise (Willoughby), Imelda Staunton (great), Hugh Laurie (brusque, good), James Fleet, Tom Wilkinson, Harriet Walter (his bitchy wife), Robert Hardy.

Emma's performance is very restrained - until the moment she loses it. Wonderful.

I love the diffidence in Hugh Grant, especially the way he walks into a room.

Ph. Michael Coulter (nom.)

Niftily put together (editor Tim Squyres), very successful,