Capote (2005 Bennett Miller)

Miller directed Foxcatcher and Moneyball; it's the first screenplay by Dan Futterman (also Foxcatcher), adapted from the biography by Gerald Clarke.

I think we'd seen it before, but when and where is mysterious. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Oscar.

Capote interviewed the Kansas murderers, begins to empathise with one, despite their awful crime (it turns out the other guy didn't kill anyone), changes literary history in writing a factual novel.

Catherine Keener plays Harper Lee. With Chris Cooper, Clifton Collins Jr., John Warkentin, Bob Balaban. Music Mychael Danna, ph. Adam Kimmel.

The Bliss of Mrs Blossom (1966, released 1968 Joe McGrath)

It is a sign of the times indeed that Paramount invested I don't know how many millions into this very silly film. Harry H Corbett refers to 'that picture, The Knack' at one point, but this is not anywhere near in the same league.

Amusingly, Q kept trying to apply logic to the craziness. Wife of brassiere designer Richard Attenborough Shirley Maclaine hides a lover in the attic of their far-out SW3 house (actually Howard's Lane, Putney - the house is pretty much unchanged). Farcical policemen Freddie Jones and Willie Rushton are in search of the missing man. With Bob Monkhouse, Patricia Routledge, John Cleese.

Geoffrey Unsworth is doing some interesting things with lenses, focus and the zoom, and the design is very far out in the Swinging London style.

The copy we saw on TPTV had the words 'bitch' and 'crap' censored!

O Lucky Man! (1973 Lindsay Anderson)

Epic satire, originating with Malcolm MacDowell's travelling coffee salesman story, developed into Candide-like look at contemporary Britain by David Sherwin.

Alan Price is 78. The songs act as a terrific counterpoint to the story.

Great cast has most actors in multiple roles. Helen Mirren, Ralph Richardson, Arthur Lowe, Rachel Roberts, Graham Crowden, Peter Jeffery, Dandy Nichols (tea lady), Mona Washbourne, Philip Stone, Mary MacLeod (vicar's wife), Michael Bangerter (other interrogator), Wallas Eaton, Warren Mitchell, Bill Owen, Michael Medwin, Vivian Pickles, Geoffrey Palmer, Geoffrey Chater, Brian Glover, Jeremy Bulloch, James Bolam.

Nice, grainy photography from Miroslav Ondricek.

The woman are important, they figure in key moments. They save and rejuvenate him.

Nights in Rodanthe (2008 George C Wolfe)

Still don't know how to pronounce 'Rodanthe' as it's not referred to in the film - stupid title. From Nicholas Sparks novel, so you know pretty much what you're getting - adapted by Ann Peacock and John Romano.

Third pairing (no pun intended) of Diane Lane and Richard Gere (The Cotton Club was 1984, Unfaithful in 2002). Doctor befriends divorcee in North Carolina guest house - ultimately it helps them get closer to their estranged kids. With Christopher Meloni, Viola Davis, Becky Ann Baker, Scott Glenn, Mae Whitman, Charlie Tahan.

Ph. Affonso Beato.

The Trouble with Harry (1955 Alfred Hitchcock)

But where the hitch is Fuckcock?

Dwight Marfield is the doctor.

It's the first Herrmann score for Hitch - and it's highly memorable.

"Perhaps I'll come back tomorrow."

"When's that?"

"The day after today."

"That's yesterday. Today's tomorrow."

"It was."

"When was tomorrow yesterday?"

"Today."

"Oh, sure, yesterday."

It's not just funny, it figures usefully later.

Pat and Mike (1952 George Cukor)

Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon screenplay has Tracy a slightly dodgy sports promoter, Hepburn an all-round sports goddess (tapping into her natural abilities), who gets the better of the man. Most refreshing battle of sexes story.

Aldo Ray is the thick boxer, William Ching the BF. With various real sports stars, and a Charles Buchinsky, for good measure.

The scene where Kate has to explain to the police (Chuck Connors) how she disabled the bad guys is a corker.

Mostly location shot by William H Daniels for MGM. Memorable nightmarish tennis scene. Also love Kate hitting the six golf balls in a row.

Notorious (1946 Alfred Hitchcock)

Things to love about Notorious. It seems to be made in a slightly different style to other Hitchcocks. For example there are plenty of long takes, not just the famous apartment kissing scene, but in the very early meeting between Grant and Bergman. It also does these amazing dives, for example, a perfect crane shot from the upstairs balcony down to the key in Bergman's hand. I've never seen a Hitchcock that's so in close up. Normally good directors reserve their close ups for key moments - this just gives it a feeling of continuing intensity and intimacy. Also love that shot where the mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) appears in very long shot on the stairs and walks right up to the camera.

It's amusing that various producers had a problem with the uranium bomb plot element - things changed when the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan. Also that Hitch predicted South America as a likely destination for Nazis. And that most of the cast are antifascist German emigrants.

Selznick was one who mistrusted the script, and also wanted Joseph Cotten over Grant. He sold the property to RKO, where Hitch was able to specify his own cameraman (Ted Tetzlaff; Gregg Toland shot the second unit Rio stuff.) Ben Hecht and Bergman were both regular visitors to the Hitchcock houses. 

Grant and Bergman are both absolutely brilliant.

Paris Can Wait (2016 Eleanor Coppola & scr)

Film producer Alec Baldwin leaves his wife Diane Lane in Cannes to be driven to Paris by business associate Arnaud Viard, who's obsessed by food to the point of boredom. Danger signals arrive when he tells Lane they are stopping off at a hotel, and he needs her credit card to book a room. (At that point we would have said 'No - I'll make my way to Paris on my own, thank you.') 

Thus it continues, food, unexpected diversions, Lane taking pictures of things, he vaguely trying to seduce her (but, it seems, bopping an old flame at the Lumiere museum en route). Saying it's Brief Encounter for foodies and culture hounds would be being too complimentary.

Didn't know Crystel Fournier on camera, though did recognise sound designer Richard Beggs.

So, no, Mrs. Coppola, it doesn't work, particularly the ending to-camera look, which is painfully embarrassing.

We did, though, get to hear Trenet's 'Que Reste-t-il de Nos Amours' for the second day in a row, which you can hardly argue about.

French Kiss (1995 Lawrence Kasdan)

Adam Brooks' script has the somewhat loony premise that whilst working in Paris, fiancé Timothy Hutton falls for another woman and dumps his long term girlfriend Meg Ryan - rather than be disgusted and angry, she flies out there desperately to try to win him back. If you can get over that, she runs into louche Frenchman Kevin Kline (in good restrained mode) who uses her for a little grapevine and necklace smuggling. But the cops (Jean Reno) and petty criminals (Francois Cluzet) get involved.

In the version we watched there were no French subtitles - it was fun trying to work out what the missing passages were on about.

Entertaining and different in that the leads aren't interested in each other at all romantically until the film gets well underway.

Edited by Joe Hutshing with Mark Livolsi assiting.

Enough Said (2013 Nicole Holofcener & scr)

Julia-Louis Dreyfus starts dating divorced James Gandolfini, unaware that he's the ex of her new buddy Catherine Keener. When she finds out, rather then telling anyone, she begins to pump her for inside info ('like doing a Trip Advisor on him' she says) which begins to sour the relationship (particularly at an awkward dinner party with friends Toni Collette and Ben Falcone). Both the couple also have daughters about to head off for high school, Tavi Gevinson and Eve Hewson.

Unusual romantic drama from the uneven Holofcener feels real. Good performances, little details.

Hollywoodland (2006 Alan Coulter)

1959. What is Adrien Brody's character? A sort of private eye / PR guy? That could've been clearer. He was with the police, that much we know (seems to be more than one Chinatown shadow that hangs over this story, which is based on true events). Anyway, he's investigating the death of TV's Superman George Reeves, Ben Affleck, financed by his mother Lois Childs, whilst in parallel flashback, we see Reeves' relationship with lover Mrs Mannix (Diane Lane) and her husband, powerful MGM figure Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), and various other sundry characters.

Where this leaves us is with various possible murderers, or suicide, and I wonder whether it would have been a better idea for Paul Bernbaum to have made his mind up and present one version or another as he saw it. Whilst very watchable, the film is elusive, like Mount Etna on a cloudy day, and it doesn't help that the Brody character is not very likeable - the film could have done with a couple of measures of humour too.

Robin Tunney is the tartish girl who ends up with him at the death house, Kathleen Robertson plays someone else, Caroline Dhavernas is I think Brody's PA, Larry Cedar is an investigator, Joe Spano is the Mannix PR guy and Jeffrey DeMunn makes an impression as, er.. someone. Yes, I did feel a little confused here and there.

The score is also a Chinatown soundalike (Marcelo Zarvos). Photographed by Jonathan Freeman.

The real Eddie Mannix, shady MGM 'fixer' and protector of the stars' images, was the inspiration for Hail, Caesar!

The Desperate Hours (1955 William Wyler & prod)

It had been a while since we stepped into the Hilliard house, where Frederic March, Martha Scott, Mary Murphy and (to a lesser extent) Richard Eyer are terrorised by escaped criminals Humphrey Bogart, Dewey Martin and Robert Middleton. Have to say police chief Arthur Kennedy and that guy from TV, Whit Bissell (I'm probably thinking of The Time Tunnel) don't do a lot, and adding mayor Ray Collins right at the end is pointless (other than it's nice to see him). Talking of which, this whole thing is Joseph Hayes' fault, as he wrote the novel, play and screenplay.

It's still a good, tense experience, which is probably why it was remade twice, as a TV movie in 1967 and by Michael Cimino (with Mickey Rourke and Anthony Hopkins) in 1990.

Shot by Lee Garmes in VistaVision for Paramount.

Lady Bird (2017 Greta Gerwig & scr)

Last review applies, though this time I thought the mother was quite fractious. Took me almost the whole film to remember the name Laurie Metcalfe.

The nice nun Lois Smith is in Wes's new The French Disptach, and was in the Nice Guys, Killshot, Hollywoodland, The Pledge, Fried Green Tomatoes, Green Card, Midnight Run, Black Widow, Next Stop Greenwich Village, Five Easy Pieces and East of Eden!

Lucas Hedges we just saw in Three Billboards.

It's an uncritical look at teenagers.

The Lady Vanishes (2013 Diarmuid Lawrence)

You can see why Hitch and his writers added a lot of material to Ethel Lina White's story - to add humour and action. The stripped down version (by Fiona Seres) is more serious and less fun, and the heroine, played here by Tuppence Middleton, comes over as petulant and irritating. A good cast is left with not much to do: Alex Jennings, Tom Hughes. Keely Hawes, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Gemma Jones, Sandy McDade, Pip Torrens, Stephanie Cole, Benedikte Hansen, Emerald Fennell.

It's also uncomfortably directed so that the camera feels too close to everybody all the time.

Bringing Up Baby (1938 Howard Hawks)

Leo McCarey may get the credit for discovering the comedy side of Grant in The Awful Truth, but here Hawks (in their first collaboration) guides him into completely unrecognisable screwball territory, in classic encounter of man vs. woman. It's Hawks - the woman wins.

The talking over each other (or barking or growling), the speed, gives it a wonderful memento.

The plot - Dudley Nichols from Hagar Wilde story - is a doozy.

Hepburn is also absolutely wonderful, as is Charlie Ruggles. With Walter Catlett, Barry Fitzgerald, May Robson, Fitz Feld and Skippy.

Can you believe it was a critical and commercial flop - when Peter Bogdanovich ran a Hawks retrospective in the sixties, it hadn't been shown in New York for twenty years. Hawks himself thought a problem with it was that every character was crazy, but you're laughing too much to notice.

Photographed by Russell Metty, music by Roy Webb, RKO.

Hawks also mentioned that the cheeky line when Grant's shielding her drawers "I feel a perfect ass" was missed by the censors as they were laughing too much.

Under the Tuscan Sun (2003 Audrey Wells & scr)

From Frances Mayes' autobiography.

I love Diane Lane. She may not have the greatest range*, but she's immensely natural and likeable. (Being beautiful doesn't hurt either.)

Good cast. Sandra Oh, Lindsay Duncan, Raoul Bova, Vincent Riotta, Mario Monicelli, Pawel Szajda.

Wells died just before the release of her last screenplay, The Hate U Give.

Photographed by Geoffrey Simpson, in Cortona, Firenze, Montepulciano and Positano.

"Live in all directions, with childish enthusiasm."

* I'm not sure that's true, with hindsight (April 2025). I think she is often cast in roles as likeable characters, so it's not necessarily that easy to judge. But I do know she made her stage debut aged six in a Greek production of 'Medea'! And that over the years I have built up a really strong regard for her.

The Secret of Chimneys (2010 John Strickland)

 ..who directed episodes of Line of Duty and Bodyguard.

A German count (Anthony Higgins, who we last saw in Lewis) comes back to Chimneys (Hatfield House, also location in Paddington 2, The Favourite, Wild Bill, The Crown, Mister Holmes, Anna Karenina, My Week with Marilyn), forms relationship with the daughter of the manor Charlotte Salt, and is then murdered. Step in Marple Julia Mackenzie and Scotland Yard inspector who will soon be put in his place, well played by Stephan Dillane (The Crown, Darkest Hour, The Tunnel). A giant missing diamond plays its part.

With other recognisable faces: Edward Fox, Matthew Horne, Adam Godley, Jonas Armstrong, Michelle Collins (The Illustrated Mum, Two thousand Acres of Sky), Dervla Kirwan (Goodnight Sweetheart) and Ruth Jones.

The unlikely sounding Julian of Norwich was our first female author, writing in the 14th Century.

Pool of London (1950, released 1951 Basil Dearden)

Most interesting, on location Ealing drama about shore leave of sailors in London. Mates Bonar Colleano and Earl Cameron (who died July 3 aged 102) encounter Susan Shaw and Renée Asherson; the American gets involved in a diamond robbery, leading to exciting chase finale.

The dark streets caught by Gordon Dines; music John Addison.

With Moira Lister, Max Adrian, Alfie Bass, James Robertson Justice, Leslie Phillips, John Longden.

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018 Peter Jackson)

Because of 'The New Confessions' - John James Todd is telling of his war experiences and says 'Think of the Great War. You only know it in black and white. There are no colour photographs of the Great War yet I can assure you it was a very colourful event'.

And here we are, with the voices of dozens of soldiers to illustrate the clips, which only omit actual battle footage.

That the soldiers generally respected the enemy is shown in the clips of captured soldiers. And of the declaration of ceasefire, 'There was no great cheer, just silence. We had all gone too far...' And that no civilian could ever understand what they had been through.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017 Martin McDonagh & scr)

"So, how's it all going in the nigger-torturing business, Dixon?"
"It's 'Persons of color'-torturing business, these days, if you want to know."

"They ain't going to listen to some guy's mother, asking them to get rid of some black guy. Things have moved on in The South!"

Loved the advertising guy Caleb Landry Jones, and the really thick girlfriend Kerry Condon ("I read it on a bookmark?... Which was in a book I was reading?... About Polio?... Polo..") And, well - all the performances. Darrell Britt-Gibson as the billboard guy, Lucas Hedges the son, Abbie Cornish as Harrelson's wife (she was also in Seven Psychopaths - McDonagh's establishing a little repertory group..)

And the three letters Woody Harrelson leaves, which are so full of poignancy and humour, drily delivered - in particular the one for Sam Rockwell (as the police station's burning down around him), which makes him change.

It just gets better and better.

I wonder if the brothers consult each other / read each other's scripts?

Music: Carter Burwell. Camera: Ben Davis. Edit: Jon Gregory.