A Date with the Falcon (1941, rel. 1942 Irving Reis)

Michael Arlen, writer and dandy and author of 'The Green Hat' created the 'Gay Falcon' in a 1940 short story of that name. That was also the name of the first film in the RKO series - this is the second, with George Sanders and Allen Jenkins as his loyal No. 2. Wendy Barrie is also a recurring character as the Falcon's uptight girlfriend, the title being an ironic reference to their mis-timed meetings.

James Gleason is very familiar to us as the detective. Mona Maris is the femme fatale. One of the thugs is familiar to us from Hail the Conquering Hero and Frank Moran is from Sullivan's Travels.

Robert de Grasse shot it.

It's a way to spend an hour.

Cinderella Liberty (1973 Mark Rydell)

Seriously well photographed film, in Panavision and De Luxe, by Vilmos Zsigmond. James Caan is nicely restrained, Marsha Mason as good as ever (Oscar nominated), Kirk Calloway good too as the kid (wasn't in much else - a couple of Kojak episodes). John Williams score (also nominated). Film really kicks in towards the end, has a lovely twist. Written by Darryl Ponicsan, based on his own novel (also wrote The Last Detail - a navy man, by all suggestion). Really good.

With Eli Wallach, Burt Young (still now going strong), Bruno Kirby, Dabney Coleman.

Rendez-vous à Bray (1971 André Delvaux)

Bray, you notice, not Braye-la-Foret, the actual location Mathieu Carrière travels to to meet his friend Roger Van Hool (rather good), to find only Anna Karina in residence. Flashbacks abound, including those involving delightful Bulle Ogier (particularly when attempting to eat chicken with a fork - in fact, the highlight of the film).

It's 1917 - because he's from Luxembourg he isn't in the army. There's a kind of suggestion of guilt throughout, though he doesn't seem to feel it. And his friend (?more than that) never turns up, despite bad weather having called off the offensive. It's an extremely enigmatic film, or is it less than that?

Based on a novel by Julien Gracq ('Le Roi Cophétua'). And featuring an extract from Fantomas (which Ogier seems to love.)

Superbly photographed by Ghislain Cloquet in a way (like Melville) that seems to strip the colour out of everything; piano music from Brahms, Franck and Devreese.

Seems to link to a child's nursery rhyme, somehow...

I've wanted to see it since I was a teenager. Now I have...

Mrs Doubtfire (1993 Chris Columbus)

Written by Randi Mayem Singer, Anne Fine and Leslie (Overboard) Dixon, film doesn't make much sense (surely the Sally Field character would have welcomed the husband to look after the kids), the outfit swapping is exhausting and the kids fairly odious (particularly the little one). Robin Williams is his usual bundle of nervous energy, improvising and soulful looks, Field good.

With Harvey Fierstein (make-up brother), Pierce Brosnan (pre-Bond), Robert Prosky (TV channel owner - though I felt Williams' attempt to spruce up kids' educational show worked better with him as him not Mrs. F.), Lisa Jakub.

"It was a run-by fruiting."

Support Your Local Sheriff! (1968 Burt Kennedy)

Amiable comedy Western with an amiable James Garner taming a lawless town, running in with local bad family (Walter Brennan, Bruce Dern etc.) With Harry Morgan, Jack Elam (Once Upon a Time in the West), Joan Hackett (described as 'strong-minded'... yes, I can see that), Henry Jones (The Girl Can't Help It, Vertigo, lots of TV).

Jail without bars, Madame Orr's House, cannon... Quite fun.

Written by William Bowers, photographed by Harry Stradling Jr.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960 Karel Reisz)

Albert Finney died on Thursday, aged 82. An appropriate tribute is this gritty Northern slice of life, written by Alan Sillitoe (from his own novel - a move of economics, as producer Harry Saltzman had no money to employ a screenwriter). He gives a striking, sizzling performance as a cocky lad - though possibly a nasty beating and a failed abortion make him change his ways. (Will he end up quietly watching TV like his Dad?)

Beautifully shot by Freddie Francis (with Ronnie Taylor operating), music Johnny Dankworth, editing Seth Holt. Fairground scene is particularly striking.

With Shirley Anne Field, Rachel Roberts, Norman Rossington, Bryan Pringle, Colin Blakley.

The Angel's Share (2012 Ken Loach)

Powerful Loach / writer Paul Laverty set-up with violent offender Robbie (an impressive Paul Brannigan) narrowly avoiding prison for community service, where he meets a decent chap (John Henshaw) who takes a liking to him. (Note when the youngster asks the older if he gets on with his daughters - 'gone down to London' - he doesn't answer.) More powerful scene where Robbie faces a young man he has beaten so badly his life is ruined (it is suggested Robbie has had his own shitty upbringing, of course. This is a Ken Loach film, for ever socially aware, balanced.) With loyal girlfriend Siobhan Reilly and new baby, he is determined to go straight, but will his violent past catch up with him? Well it does the minute they find a nice flat, and that continued to worry me right up until the end.

And then we get into the distillery, the whisky and the mates he makes on community service: William Ruane, Gary Maitland, Jasmine Riggins. Oh, and Roger Allam turns up, too.

It's about giving people a chance in life. Brannigan was very like his character, scarred, ex-con. He met Laverty when he was researching characters - the writer suggested he be given a go.

Robbie Ryan shot it very naturalistically and in your face in those gritty scenes.

Frankie and Johnny (1991 Garry Marshall)

Perfectly well reviewed here - yes the Clair de Lune does receive both piano and orchestrated versions, and Hector Elizondo's cute niece at the beginning does seem to drop out of the story (she's replaced later by his aunt or grandmother).

This is a good one for Christian Marclay

Very nicely opened out play, with good New Yorkisms.

Crime of Passion (1957 Gerd Oswald)

I must have made a mistake - this can't have been a key film noir recommended by Peter Bogdanovich - can it? (It's too late for a noir for one thing.)

It's more of a bonkers melodrama really. Hard-nosed newspaperwoman Barbara Stanwyck rashly marries cop Sterling Hayden but begins to resent his life and friends (well caught in a scene in which Stepford Wives - to borrow my wife's description - discuss olive and cream cheese) and starts to plot his career improvements. (One way in which the film is nuts is she could easily have got another job working for an LA newspaper.) This involves alienating buddy Royal Dano, sleeping with boss Raymond Burr and ultimately killing him in a way in which she will obviously be caught.

Also with Fay Wray, of all people.

Performances are fine, film moves along. Written by Jo Eisinger, photographed by Joe LaShelle.

Les Misérables (2018 Tom Shankland)

Cannot comment on Andrew Davies' adaptation of Victor Hugo classic, other than that it moves along wonderfully. At end of Episode 3 of 6 it does seem that any time there's a glint of happiness for poor Jean Valjean (a wonderfully vivid Dominic West) or Cozette, something awful happens - usually in the shape of unrelenting nemesis Javet (David Oleyowo at his most steely - do we learn why he's so obsessed?), but let's not forget vile Adeel Akhtar and Olivia Colmans neither.

Good old Lily James for electing to play a smaller part, sans hair and teeth!

Oh - the end. Well, we were underimpressed by Andrew Davies' adaptation, finally. We don't understand why Javet has this fixation, and therefore that aspect is annoying. When he proposes his prison reforms, it's lost - surely that's something we want to hear? And we don't feel that Shankland has wrought the best performances - Oyelowo is too slow, Akhtar comes over like the pantomime baddy, Ellie Bamber is too drippy, even Josh O'Connor (so good in The Durrells) seems flammy.

To be honest, I'm not sure that Hugo's story is that good to start with.

Quite liked Erin Kellyman, and Reece Yates as Gavroche.

Gangster Squad (2013 Ruben Fleischer)

Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn and Emma Stone in The Magnificent Seven again (The Monuments Men), relocated to seedy 1940s Los Angeles. Will Beall (himself a 90s LA cop) wrote it from Paul Leiberman's novel.

Another nice slice of rich photography from Dion Beebe with production design by Maher Ahmad and Melissa House.

Such is the adherence to formula that Stone is of course sleeping with the bad guy, and it ends with Lethal Weapon. Plus, you start to think 'I wonder which of the Seven will make it through to the end?' The others are Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Pena and Robert Patrick (the literal cowboy sharp-shooter), and Mireille Enos, Brolin's wife, who hand picks the team.

Title is crap but the Gangster Squad (formed in 1946) was real. Some nice forties dialogue in violently entertaining movie, well edited by Alan Baumgarten and James Herbert.

Blood and Wine (1996 Bob Rafelson)

From a story by Nick Villiers and the director, screenwritten by Villiers and Alison Cross. Stephen Dorff's stepfather Jack Nicholson has planned a jewel robbery with vile and emphysemic British ex-con Michael Caine. He's also having an affair with Jennifer Lopez, who happens to be the nanny of the place where the jewels are. But owing to a bust up with his alcoholic wife Judy Davis, the jewels end up in the wrong place...

Nicholson is nasty (he's probably only using Jay-Lo for inside information) but at least does display ounces of compassion, unlike Caine, who's an out and out bastard. Great performances from both, and Dorff, Lopez and Davis. It's got a sort of doomed John Huston feel to it.

Newton Thomas Sigel (Bohemian Rhapsody, Drive, Towelhead, Leatherheads, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Usual Suspects) shoots Florida locations in nice rich tones suggestive of dawn and dusk.

L'Année Dernière à Marienbad (1961 Alain Resnais)

Emotion - everyone is sad. She is scared.

He is 'a phantom, waiting for her to come'. He doesn't exist. He prowls the corridors for ever...

He has died - falling from the broken balustrade.

She has been killed by her husband.

The drawer of identical photos - then rearranged in game layout.

Marienbad doesn't exist. And I don't mean that as some kind of clever pronouncement on the film. No, it really doesn't exist, which is why I could never find my car that I parked there again.*

P.S. 5 April 2022. I learned today with interest that Resnais was Agnes Varda's editor, and that they were both influenced by William Faulkner's 'Wild Palms' (two stories, cross-cut). (Mark Cousins 'The Story of Film'.)

* I think it does - Nabokov wrote one of his short stories there. It was a very popular German spa town, but after World War 2 the German population were expelled. The Czech name is Mariánské Lázně. All this does of course add to the confusion. I guess the Germans carried on calling it Marienbad, and the French perhaps did likewise.

Easy Living (1937 Mitchell Leisen)

Yes.

The Big Lebowski (1998 Joel Coen)

You have to feel sorry for Steve Buscemi's character who is constantly told (by John Goodman) to 'shut the fuck up' and ultimately dies of a heart attack.

The film when stripped of its stoner components is like an old forties Big Sleep or something.

Loved the ending where stranger Sam Elliott says to camera something like 'Don't you just feel better when there's someone like The Dude out there?'

Good Will Hunting (1997 Gus Van Sant)

I agree with Q that this is an incredible (Oscar-winning) script from two youngsters Matt Damon 27 and Ben Affleck 25, which Matt had begun writing as part of a class at Harvard. Interestingly neither has much of a screenwriting career since, which is kinda amazing considering how good it is. The two long monologues spoken by Damon and Williams are incredibly good and filmed in perfect long takes - Damon every bit as good as Oscar-winning Robin Williams, though it's one of the latter's best performances (and Minnie Driver's).

Contrary to urban legend, William Goldman did not write or re-write the script.

Oh, OK, Casey Affleck is one of the gang.

The painting is by Van Sant

This Means War (2012 McG)

Buddy secret agents Chris Pine and Tom Hardy fight over Reece Witherspoon. That's it. It isn't very good, really, but amiable enough.

Controversially, Reece's character cites Notorious, Rebecca, Vertigo and anything 'from 1960 to 1972' as prime Hitchcock.

DVD includes three different endings which were filmed... which I think is quite telling.

There's a clip of Titanic in the background which means Russell Carpenter is shooting his own film.

Dead of Night / Deathdream (1974 Bob Clark)

Apparently, Alan Ormsby's screenplay is supposed to be a Vietnam commentary as dead soldier (John Marley) comes home, sits sullenly in a rocking chair and begins to murder random people including a truck driver, a doctor and his ex - not very friendly. And his parents' marriage starts looking rather rocky to boot (they are Lynn Carlin and Richard Backus). In fact it sounds like his dad shoots himself towards the end...?

I say apparently because that isn't very clear to me. Has some interesting touches and sound effects but no laughs - unless you count the zombie-like character getting into his own grave at the end.

Milk Money (1994 Richard Benjamin)

We wanted something fluffy and neutral and John Mattson's fairy story of hooker living in the tree house delivers that in Kennedy-Marshall production.

Melanie Griffith, Ed Harris, Michael Patrick Carter, Malcolm McDowell, Anne Heche. Shot by David Watkin.

Spotlight (2015 Tom McCarthy)

Oscar and BAFTA-winning screenplay from McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor, story of Up) and Josh Singer (The West Wing, The Post, First Man) tells the story of how The Boston Globe uncovered a massive child abuse scandal (involving seventy priests preying on disadvantaged children) in the Catholic Church in a calm and methodical way, gradually revealing the characters of some of the participants.

With Mark Ruffalo (Oscar and BAFTA nominated), Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams (nicely methodical), Leiv Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d'Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup (rather good as dodgy solicitor), Neal Huff (action group), Richard Jenkins (uncredited voice of Catholic paedophile investigator).

Nice details - Ruffalo's character says he's married but doesn't appear to be so, McAdams' stops going to church, Keaton's school friend has never told a soul... And the old priest who McAdams doorsteps and he basically just admits his abuse - shocking moment caught matter-of-factly.

Music Howard Shore, photography Masanobu Takayanagi, editor Tom McArdle.