Baby Love (1968 Alistair Reid)

Dreadful title - 'Mummy love' might have been slightly more accurate as it's the core of silly tale of nubile girl who attempts to win the desire of everyone in her new household - against tradition, father Keith Barron is the only one who can resist her.

Decently made film (Desmond Dickinson on camera, Bond editor-turned director John Glen cutting) can't be qualified as 'so bad it's good' through interesting camera work etc. though does rather fall into the camp classic category.

And not bad acting from Linda Hayden, Ann Lynn as the mother, Derek Lamden and Dick Emery. Hilariously wrong music doesn't help.

To The Wonder (2012 Terrence Malick)

After 15 minutes I did laugh and say 'this is the longest perfume ad I've ever seen'.

Extraordinary stuff - Malick is a poet. His films don't behave like other people's. Emmanuel Lubezki's camera is constantly moving, observing nature as much as people, the film is always cutting, the 'story' emerges gracefully.

,,,when we talk about using natural light, it’s not because we don’t want to have a truck with lights, but because what we want to capture can only be captured accidentally as it happens in front of us.[...] we’re always looking for the moments that editors normally throw out...

Interview with Chivo in ASC magazine. You have to rave Steadicam operator Joerg Widmer also, who also shot Paris scenes. The film had five editors.

Shot in Panavision 'spherical' - not the squeezed anamorphic way.

Incredible moments - love the way they keep popping in and out of view in the house. Pools of light, reflections. If any evidence was needed that Chivo is the Master of Light, this is it. Incredibly, he received neither Oscar nor BAFTA nomination.

By the way, there are some people in it: Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem and Rachel McAdams.

Great Expectations (2012 Mike Newell)

What's the point, I thought, trying not to compare it to Lean or Cuaron's great versions?  Well, the answer is maybe none. Though David Nicholls' adaptation does pull us in a slightly different direction (the nasty Rotter's Club is no place for our sensitive Pip and Pocket, or 'Handel' as the latter nicknames the former). And talking of sensitive, we get more sympathetic versions of Miss Havisham (Helena Bonham Carter), Estella (Holliday Grainger) and Jaggers (a slightly subdued Robbie Coltrane).

Jeremy Irvine is Pip (the young version played by his brother Toby), Jason Flemyng and Sally Hawkins Joe & Mrs Joe, Jessie Cave is Biddy (recognisable through Harry Potter not Lark Rise as I thought), Ewen Bremner good as Woolworth's Wemmick (who we've literally only just seen in Fool's Gold), Magwich played by the indestructible Ralph Fiennes and Olly Alexander as Herbert Pocket.

Shot by John Mathieson and edited by Tariq Anwar.

The stretched effect that signifies flashbacks is just silly.

A Thousand Clowns (1965 Fred Coe)

Reviewed last here.

The bicycle riding sequence, with its beautiful multiple overlaps, is - as John Torode would say - a lovely thing.

What happened was that the writer Herb Gardner was very disappointed with the rough cut - "It was still too much like a play" and the director agreed to hand over the whole thing to him and Rosenblum. Then Herb brought in various favourites bits of music (marching, circus, Dixieland, Handel's Messiah) and made Robards re-record the ukelele. This is where the second cameraman Joe Coffey comes in. Herb took him out one morning and shot the crowds going to work, then added marching music. "..and they started walking to the music". Then came the additional filming of the bike scene - '"it make you remember for the whole next hour of the movie that these people care for each other." Then the whole Chuckles scene was reshot with Gene Saks... Eleven months later...

I love the long list of names that Nick has adopted over the years (my favourite being Raphael Sabatini). Barry Gordon has ended up exclusively on TV, working steadily since,

Fool's Gold (2008 Andy Tennant)

I remember the first time we watched this thinking it was going to be a Matthew MacFadyen film - it was I think the first time we'd met McConaughey and we rather enjoyed this treasure hunting nonsense - especially from where he fires a gun underwater to unchain himself (yes, it is possible). He apparently then had to turn down offers like this and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past until the meatier roles (Mud etc.) presented themselves and we arrive to the Matthew M of today.

Benefits enormously from Donald Sutherland throwing in the perfectly timed one liners here and there. Goldie Hawn - I mean Kate Hudson - also hilarious in scene where she serves dinner.

The treasure legend is much more interesting than sub-plots involving local gangster Kevin Hart and rival treasurist Ray Winstone, who should stick to English accents.

Shot in Queensland Australia.

Running on Empty (1988 Sidney Lumet)

Rather good screenplay - by Naomi Foner - about radical parents who are constantly on the run with their sons following a terrorist (Peace) act that went wrong - film might as well be about families (and their conflicts) generally.

Good cast comprises the uniquely talented River Phoenix, Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti and Jonas Abry, with Martha Plimpton.

Shot in that slightly mournful pallette of Gerry Fisher. Andrew Mondshein's editing is distinguished by long dissolves.

River is playing Beethoven's Pathétique piano sonata and Mozart's Fantasy No. 4 in C-Minor.

The Sun Also Rises (1957 Henry King)

Because we wanted to breathe in Hemingway's Montparnasse - and indeed there is 'Le Select' (perhaps the interior is a set). Then the second half is in Mexico - I mean Pamplona - where there is much bull taunting (interesting to see but makes the film flabby).

I've never been convinced by Tyrone Power. Apart from his character, everyone else is falling to pieces - Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Eddie Albert and real-life alky Errol Flynn (who's rather good). Film benefits from Leo Tover's CinemaScope De Luxe location photography. Hemingway himself did not approve.

IKWIG (1945 Powell & Pressburger)

The bloody beautiful Criterion copy.

Blend of location and studio is expertly done.

Much fun with C.W.R. Knight and his trained eagle 'Torquil'.

Pamela Brown absolutely crackles with energy.

No one - no one - made or makes films like these two.

Scoop (1987 Gavin Millar)

Adapted from Evelyn Waugh's 1938 satire on journalism - based on his own Italy-Abyssinia coverage - for ITV, film had the sort of decent budget you now rarely find (Morocco - as ever - standing in for the fictional Ishmaelia) by William Boyd, only his third screenplay.

Really rather well done all around, with Matthew Maloney the innocent - but not as stupid as he looks - correspondent Boot, and a solid supporting cast comprising Jack Shepherd, Donald Pleasance, William Hordern, Nicola Pagett, the irresistible Denholm Elliott, Herbert Lom and Renée Soutendijk. (Q also manages to place young Jake Wood from Eastenders as a paper boy.)

Plenty of laughs involving Boot's country relatives, behaviour of journalists and their journey to Laku ('I don't know'), Soutendijk's cheerful fleecing of Boot...

Shot by Roger Pratt, music by Stanley Myers

Still Alice (2014 Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland, both scr)

Lisa Genova, herself a neuroscientists, self-published 'Still Alice' in 2007.

Glatzer died earlier this year: he and Westmoreland were married.

Julianne Moore won the Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe. Supporting is Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Shane McRae, Hunter Parrish and Stephen Kunken as the neurologist.

Doctor at Large (1957 Ralph Thomas)

Written by Nicholas Phipps, based on novel by Richard Gordon.

Dirk Bogarde, Muriel Pavlov, James Robertson Justice, Donald Sinden, Shirley Eaton.

Seems to go on forever. Tries and fails in various private practices. Still, scene in which he has finally become a good doctor is great.

Laughed quite a bit.

4x3 TV print does seem cropped (VistaVision original). Eastmancolor.

Quick Change (1990 Howard Franklin & Bill Murray)

Bill's only film in the director's chair was made with screenwriter Franklin (who based it on Jay Cronley's book). (Bill's only Oscar nomination, by the way, was for Lost in Translation. He has big fans in this household, partly perhaps because of his rich long association with Wes Anderson, though Groundhog Day has yet to be bettered.)

He, Geena Davis and the overacting Randy Quaid are on the run from a bank heist, pitted against an unforgiving New York (replete with a wonderful Spanish joust) while Jason Robards, the only intelligent cop in the city, pursues them.

Someone has commanded Taxi Driver's Mick Chapman to shoot all the night scenes high key, which makes everything look overlit and artificial.

True Detective Season 1 (2014 Creator / writer Nic Pizzolato)

Dark, creepy goings-on in swampy bible belt don't exactly make a Louisiana tourist board promo. Matthew McConaughey (fantastic and barely recognisable in either incarnation) slightly steals the mumbling honours away from Woody Harrelson (making the most of his unpleasant character) in ultimately redemptive tale. Sometimes wanders off on its own philosophical journey via McMumbles' character. Solidly builds story and characters over its seven and a half hour runtime.

Good design / locations (finale filmed at 19th Century Fort Macomb).

Michelle Monaghan is Woody's long-suffering wife. Has one stand out scene of tension in ep 4 as McM escapes from bikers in a long continuous take.

Nice little touches that are there for a reason (the little girls' dolls - an eerie touch that remains unaccountable, the kid who identifies spaghetti head, the smell of aluminium).

Also has that rarest of things in a US series - a sex scene that is actually sexy.

Last Chance Harvey (2008 Joel Hopkins & scr)

Written by Brit Hopkins for the acting giants Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman (who contributed his own version of the wedding speech). With Eileen Atkins, Lian Balaban, James Brolin, Richard Schiff.

A very pleasant experience.

Featured location is Somerset House, not the V&A as I thought.

Tootsie (1982 Sydney Pollack)

Screenplay credited to Larry Gelbart (who created and wrote MASH, and The Notorious Landlady) and Murray Schisgal from a story by Gelbart and Don McGuire. Dustin Hoffman is wonderful (winning BAFTA) and Jessica Lange won Ocar. Support from Teri Garr, Pollack, Bill Murray, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Geena Davies.

Still fun.

The Big Blue / Le Grand Bleu (1988 Luc Besson)

A film as old as our relationship.

Begins beautifully in black and white Greece - the kid playing the young Enzo is fantastic. (In fact there's an argument for the opening section being better than the rest of the film.) Then picks up well in adulthood (Sicily, Peru, Taormina - The San Domenico hotel). Fantastic underwater scenes, Jean-Marc Barr clearly at home with terrific supporting cast of dolphins (love the moment where he frees the captive dolphin in to the sea - then later spends the night with it!)

Enzo a great character, perfectly realised by Jean Reno - Q thinks only he could have played it so well. Rosanna Arquette is the largely irrelevant female.

Eric Sera was certainly appreciated for his music as only his credit is outlined. (Insanely, the US release replaced the score with a new one by Bill Conti - which judging from this link was terrible - what were they thinking??) Carlo Varini shot it in Panavision with occasionally uncomfortably wide lenses.

Juggernaut (1974 Dick Lester)

Seriously cool, almost documentary-like thriller in which no one but Omar Sharif seems to be acting.

Tony Gibbs is cutting lots of action scenes to voiceovers.

The kids seem a wonderful counterbalance to the tension.

Great cast comprises Richard Harris and David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, Clifton James, Roy Kinnear, Freddie Jones and Roshan Seth.

Written by producer Richard de Koker with additional dialogue by Alan Plater - whoever did what it's full of very well-written, natural and often very funny dialogue. In fact thinking about it I'm sure we can assume that the funny dialogue is from Plater. Gerry Fisher is on camera.

Cold Comfort Farm (1995 John Schlesinger)

Broad adaptation of Stella Gibbons' presumably broad novel, by Malcolm Bradbury. Kate Beckinsale is the calm centre of village idiocy in which Eileen Atkins and Ian McKellen are somewhat overplaying. Satisfying story. With Sheila Burrell, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, Rufus Sewell, an unrecognisable Freddie Jones, Miriam Margolyes, Maria Miles and Rupert Penry-Jones.

Shot by Chris Seager ( Five Daughters, The Girl in the Cafe) in 4x3 and edited by Mark Day (the two collaborated on Yates' State of Play and Sex Traffic and he cut the last four Harry Potters) for ITV.

American Sniper (2014 Clint Eastwood & prod)

Based on Chris Kyle's autobiography 'American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History' (written with Scott McEwan and Jim De Felice, published 2012), well screenwritten by Jason Hall, who finished the first draft the day Kyle was killed. For example there's a lovely jump from Kyle with the boy in his sights to himself as a boy (though this of course may have been Clint's idea, or the editor's - how can you tell?). On that subject it is very well cut by Malpaso regulars Joel Cox and Gary Roach. They are able to make a fast action scene move really well but remain completely understandable, something many action films lose.

Also I like the very quick moment where we see the enemy sniper (Sammy Sheik) himself has a young wife and baby and thus is Kyle's complete counterpart.

Bradley Cooper is great - he looks like a wolf at times. Sienna Miller is his wife. With Max Charles, Luke Grimes, Kyle Gallner, Sam Jaeger, Jake McDorman.

Tom Stern shot it of course, digitally, in Panavision, and Morocco once again stands in for Afghanistan.

Prompted a discussion between us about how it didn't look like an old man's film (84), but you can't really make judgements like that as directors are different anyway.

The moments of humour are invaluable and it moves along with that some terrific momentum that marked Changeling.

Entourage 7 & 8 (2010 - 2011)

I was wondering if E would end up with his dishy secretary Janet Montgomery.

The boys are all looking out for one another in big style.

Has a most satisfying conclusion (and post credits finale with the 'vacationing' Ari).