Cake (2014 Daniel Barnz)

From funny Jen to serious Jen - addicted to painkillers and scarred and smashed to pieces, film doesn't dawdle in misery and is at times quite funny. She likes the gritty parts. Benefits enormously also from performance by Adriana Barazza (who was Oscar-nominated for Babel) as the maid.

We got another reference to Saint Jude (the last one was in Man on Fire).

With Felicity Huffman, Sam Worthington, Anna Kendrick, Lucy Punch, William H Macy. Written by Patrick Tobin (whose only other credit is HIV drama No Easy Way).

She's Funny That Way (2014 Peter Bogdanovich)

Immediately felt it was the kind of film we really need, an old-fashioned comedy that only someone like Peter could bring off; interestingly, written when he and Louise Stratten were falling out of love; one of those very rare films which you want to watch again while it's still on. Made with the support of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach.

A fabulous cast comprises PB alumni like Cybill Shepherd (hilariously loud), George Morfogen and Austin Pendleton (great to see him again) plus newcomers Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Rhys Ifans, Debi Mazar, Lucy Punch, Ileana Douglas, Will Forte, Kathryn Hahn and Richard Lewis (all great). But the show is stolen by a fantastic Imogen Poots as the heroine - her speech about Breakfast at Tiffany's and miracles made me want to cry.

Very simply made (and, it seems, quickly and efficiently shot), the film is every bit as much a pleasure to watch as it must have been to make. Loved the 'squirrel to the nuts' moments (not realising the Lubitsch reference), Wilson's predilection for helping hookers, taxi driver who deserts vehicle, bearded Morfogen in fake moustache, Aniston's forthright therapist, small dog chasing big dog, etc. etc.

Shot by Yaron Orbach. Edited by Nick Moore (Richard Curtis films) and Pax Wassermann (who's married to Peter's daughter Sashy. And her sister Antonia was co-exec producer.)

Mixed reviews. Robbie Collin, The Daily Telegraph ("cracking performances and great fun"), the Evening Standard ("an absolute riot"), Derek Malcolm ("good script, lively playing") and the New York Times got it. Variety, The Guardian, Empire, and The Independent didn't. Leading us to deduce that half the film critics in the world don't know what they're talking about.

A joyous thing that so cheered up the house even the pigeons were cooing in delight. My only criticism is that Peter, like Douglas Sirk, sometimes picks titles that aren't catchy or easy to remember (like this one).

The Invention of Lying (2009 Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson & scr)

Learning that Gervais had also written this made it even worse. Dumb premise is not just that no one can lie, but there's also no compassion, fun, tact, sensitivity or intelligence in this projected universe that might as well be modern USA - or is that a bit unfair? Film seems to be aimed at the 5 - 13 age group.

In 2010 I was in a more gullible mood, stating "Quite a neat idea proves difficult to pull off, though suggestion that the afterlife is The Big Lie is a good one." Clearly, I had no critical head on that day, Sunday 21 February (though I had preceded this by The Conformist in the morning, which perhaps absorbed all of my critical faculties.)

Anyway, it's pretty awful and Gervais is not a great leading man. Sorry. With Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Jeffrey Tambor (boss). Shot by Tim Suhrstedt in Panavision.

Dial M for Murder (1954 Alfred Hitchcock)

Hitch's most static film - or is it? For the main part shot from low down, lower than Ozu. Then has great scenes - long explanation of planned crime - all from way up high. Mr Scorsese is a fan of these different positions, best exemplified in the scene in which Grace Kelly sets herself up and both her and the reverse shot of John Williams and Ray Milland are shot straight on.

Frederick Knott's ingenious play has been adapted by the author. Milland is funny when he's being unsympathetic - when Kelly says she's been attacked by a strange man his initial question (hopefully) is "Did he get away?"

Typical of Hitchcock the athlete to be dabbling in 3D - end effect of this though is there are too many obtrusive lamps.

Loved the trial scene - shot completely abstractly against coloured backgrounds.

...this is one of the pictures  I see over and over again...Basically it's a dialogue picture, but the cutting, the rhythm, and the direction of the players are so polished that one listens to each sentence religiously. It isn't all that easy to command the audience's undivided attention for a continuous dialogue. I suspect that here again the real achievement is that something very difficult has been carried out in a way that makes it seem very easy. (Truffaut: Hitchcock.)

I think this is partly down to the easy-seeming, casual way in which Milland acts out his lines.

Shot by Robert Burks (is the terrible back projection some complication over 3D?) with score by Dmitri Tiomkin. Robert Cummings is the crime writer who slowly pieces it together. Is it John Williams' best film?

Nightfall (1956 rel '57 Jacques Tourneur)

Not a noir - as the 'Columbia Film Noir' box set would have us believe - in fact there's a good argument that the genre was already over with The Big Heat in 1953.

More a straight thriller involving stolen loot left Fargo-like in the snows of Wyoming, and an innocent man and girl (Brain Keith and Anne Bancroft) pursued by psychotic killers (Aldo Ray and Rudy Bond), with sympathetic insurance man James Gregory hot in pursuit.

Interesting that its flashbacks are introduced by a straight cut rather than the sort of optical effect that old Hollywood was used to. Otherwise doesn't have the distinctive touches that Tourneur brought to the Lewton-RKO horrors.

Exciting climax with snow plough.

David Goodis (Dark Passage, Tirez sur le Pianiste) novel adapted by Stirling Silliphant. Shot by Burnett Guffey and scored by Charles Durning.

Man on Fire (2004 Tony Scott)

Never been a big fan of either Scott. Distractingly directed and overlong film fails to engage the emotions, perhaps for this reason, though works best in relationship between burned out bodyguard Denzel Washington and ward Dakota Fanning. Otherwise lots of torture and killing ensue, with the dumb Americans deciding that dismemberment, bomb up the arse etc are fine for kids through its R rating. Not great screenplay either, though disappearance of Walken's character may have been down to post production mucking about. (I was hoping he'd suddenly appear at the end to save the day.)

Some of the in-out flicky camera (Paul Cameron), editing (Christian Wagner) and post processing made me laugh out loud.

With Radha Mitchell, Giancarlo Giannini, Marc Anthony, Rachel Ticotin and Mickey Rourke.

Remake of 1987 film based on novel by A.J. Quinnell, allegedly suggested by video store employee Quentin Tarantino.

Was wondering how it was received in Mexico...

The Brothers Rico (1957 Phil Karlson)

Most interesting film which with its specifically Italian / family / Mafia milieu kept making me think of Scorsese. It's also low on action, concentrating on the inexorable descent made by its hero Richard Conte (who's great) into tragedy, and thus really has an ending too happy for its material (it should have finished with the couple being watched by a sinister figure, showing that the 'Organisation' won't leave him behind....)

From a Georges Simenon story, screenwritten by Lewis Meltzer and Ben Perry. With Dianne Foster, James Darren (younger Rico), Kathryn Grant, Larry Gates, Argentina Brunetti (mama, has a small part in It's a Wonderful Life).

Shot by Burnett Guffey.

Letters to Juliet (2010 Gary Winick)

Wet and floppy film set in touristy northern Italy (not in itself a bad thing), where everyone fortunately speaks English - unlike our male protagonist Christopher Egan (a Home and Away alumni, not that that in itself isn't necessarily a badge of dishonour), who has an accent all his own.

That Oliver Platt had his name removed from the project perhaps is down to Egan sinking it, though he must have read the script...

Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Redgrave, Gael Garcia Bernal, Luisa Ranieri (Mrs Luca Zingaretti), Milena Vukotic (the sex mad letter-answerer, a Buñuel regular and - I thought I recognised her name from somewhere - the other night's Arabella), Fabio Testi ('Count' Lorenzo) and Franco Nero (the real Lorenzo).

Pushover (1954 Richard Quine)

Quine had made several features before he was introduced to Kim Novak, here in her debut (and very creditable it is too - Phffft was the same year). Made the same year as Rear Window this film also has fun with spying through windows, as Fred MacMurray and Philip Carey stake out Novak's apartment (though the latter evolves feelings for neighbour Dorothy Written on the Wind Malone) for arrival of bank robber and the inevitable dough. Perhaps an inspiration for the Dreyfuss film Stakeout. E.G. Marshall is their boss.

Neat opening with credits taking place over wordless bank heist. Screenplay by Roy Huggins from stories by Thomas Walsh and Bill Ballinger. Film is tight and springy.

Noticed plug for Columbia's It Should Happen to You outside cinema (Holliday / Lemmon).

Didn't know Lester White (camera) or Arthur Morton (score).

Barnacle Bill (1957 Charles Frend)

Purely because we couldn't find Man in the White Suit this unseen number presented itself and was the sort of funny Ealing film we needed, though it was a surprise to see an MGM logo at the beginning of it (the studios had by then been sold to the BBC). TEB Clarke's screenplay opens with the nautical history of seasick sailor's family, including two great gags - "the family has always moved in nautical circles" and a man being boiled by natives in a cauldron which is impossibly small (a neat trick shot).

Lacks the bite of Ealing's best films and is somewhat capsized by a particularly silly ending, but fun nonetheless. Loved the wonky house set. Crap title is what probably put us off watching it so long.

Photography by Douglas Slocombe, music John Addison.

Second Coming (2014 Debbie Tucker Green & scr)

SECOND COMING is not a bad film. It lets us make up our minds about uncommunicative but loving mother Nadine Marshall, who is suffering from depression (and hallucination) perhaps because of her four miscarriages. Story and detail emerge slowly, and there's a painful long scene where the camera stays on their son Kai Francis Lewis whilst mother and father Idris Elba argue. Also, her sister is horrible.

But painful is a key word here - it's not enjoyable and a bit dull. (Would have been funny if it had been written by someone called Charlie Chuckles.) Well acted, though 25% of the dialogue is inaudible due to mumbling (as opposed to sound recording), which I think is inexcusable and ultimately down to Green's direction - so marks off for that.

Human Desire (1954 Fritz Lang)

From Zola 'La Bête Humaine', by way of Renoir, though this has a dramatically different outcome.

Force of big trains, railways, momentum, well caught. Nasty.

Loved Peter B asking Lang why in the climactic scene where he's supposed to kill Crawford the camera is so high up. 'So you can see everything.'

Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame (always great), Broderick Crawford (always menacing).

Shot by Burnett Guffey and though it seems wrong for a film of this era it actually does seem to be in 1.85:1.

The ending of unpunished crimes seems shocking and against the code?

The Maggie (1954 Alexander Mackendrick & story)

Wry, unsentimental story - 'the puffer is on the subway'. It's another William Rose screenplay! Gets about two lines in Perry's book.

Paul Douglas (Executive Suite, We're Not Married, A Letter to Three Wives) thaws after tangling with rapscallion Scottish cargo operators Alexander Mackenzie, Tommy Kearins ('the wee boy', who Q immediately recognises has the most sense of all of them), James Copeland, Abe Barker.

Shot on nice Western Isles locations by Gordon Dines, score by John Addison.

Un Giorno Perfetto / A Perfect Day (2008 Ferzan Ozpetek & co-scr)

Isabellea Ferrari (mother; la Grande Bellezza), Valerio Mastandrea (ex), Nicole Murgia (daughter), Gabriele Paolino (son), Valerio Binasco (politician) Nicole Grimaudo (the new wife), Federico Constantini (troubled stepson), Monica Guerritore (the teacher, Tell No One), Angela Finocchiaro (medic, Benvenuti al Sud/Nord, My Brother is an Only Child), Stefania Sandrelli (grandmother, Divorzio all'Italiana).

Mainly unhappy characters lives intersect one 'perfect' day - heavy, but rich.

Liked the subtleties: why he has a gas tank in the back, that the tarot customer's husband is almost certainly gay, that we don't know what the teacher was told on the phone, the politician's daughter laughing at him while he cries, that the daughter may be OK.

Q had the plot well before me. Nicely shot by Fabio Zamarion in Panavision, though sadly our Vita release is not anamorphic and you can't zoom in without losing the subtitles.

AMOLAD (1945 P&P)

"Shall we watch The Birds?" I queried.
"The Birds or Psycho?" Q retorted.
So we watched this.

If I had a criticism it would be that the heavenly trial goes on a bit.

Kotch (1971 Jack Lemmon)

Well reviewed here. The imaginative use of sound in the first 30 minutes sadly disappears.

Deborah Winters is the girl and Ralph Winters the editor (no relation).

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963 Stanley Kramer)

Considering that it's written by William Rose, of The Ladykillers and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, it isn't that funny, though film does revel in destruction. I think without a few sherberts in you it would be hard going. And what's wrong with 'It's a Mad World'?

Spencer Tracy provides the film's best look (turning slowly to Buddy Hackett at unearthing scene), and Terry-Thomas the best lines (his rant about the state of America).

The fortune hunters are Milton Berle and Dorothy Provine, Sid Caesar, Edie Adams and Ethel Merman (as the worst mother-in-law in the world), Mickey Rooney, Hackett and Jonathan Winters, who are joined by Terry-Thomas, Phil Silvers, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson and Peter Falk (cab drivers).

And guest stars include William Demarest, Edward Everett Horton, Joe E Brown, Andy Devine, Norman Fell, Buster Keaton, Zasu Pitts, Jimmy Durante and Carl Reiner.

Great stunts.

Filmed by Ernest Laszlo (and. no doubt, a few other people). Weirdly, because it has so many people in it, they're almost always shot face on and there's very little of the standard shot-reverse shot stuff you see, giving the film quite a flat look.

Opening Night (1977 John Cassavetes)

After 40 minutes, decided I wasn't in the mood for long film about actress, despite the clear talent of those involved.

Hustle (1975 Robert Aldrich)

Deneuve leads us to seventies noir, shot in shadows by Joseph Biroc. Burt Reynolds was not the best actor but holds it together as detective in love with hooker, investigating death of young girl (who it turns out was no saint). Ben Johnson and Eileen Brennan, reteamed from Last Picture Show, are her parents, Paul Winfield the fellow cop. With Eddie Albert, Ernest Borgnine, Catherine Bach.

Rather successful. Written by Steve (Save the Tiger) Shagan.

The April Fools (1969 Stuart Rosenberg)

Feeling in a seventies mood we then opted for this unfamiliar work, last seen a year ago.

Not much to add - Deneuve is just great, she has a sort of opaque quality (you never know what she's thinking) - no wonder I bought a boxed set of her films a year ago (none of which we have yet watched). Also I lit up every time Myrna Loy was on screen (she was still acting in the early eighties).

There's a good tension in the ending.