Varastettu Kuolema / Stolen Death (1938 Nyrki Tapiovarra)

Distinctive, unusual Finnish drama featuring rapid cutting, moody lighting and weird angles tells of revolutionaries plotting rising against Russian oppressors (set therefore pre-1917). Interesting acting as well, with Tuulikki Paananen as the heroine, Ilmari Mänti as the leader, Santeri Karilo the blackmailing gun runner and Annie Mörk as an amusingly money-grabbing old lady, plus several other intriguing actors as fellow revolutionaries.

Scene with switched coffins, darkness, murder of bad guy, gallows humour, near miss chases, feeling of constant danger, all blend together to impressive effect.

One Day (2011 Lone Scherfig)

Novel and screenplay by David Nicholls, who just adapted Great Expectations and Far From the Madding Crowd. We catch up with the progress of friends every St Swithin's Day (and sometimes fill in the gaps in flashback). It's quite moving. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, plus Patricia Clarkson, Ken Stott, Rafe Spall, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Mison.

Shot by Benoît Delhomme (The Theory of Everything, Breaking and Entering) in Panavision, edited by Barney Pilling (Grand Budapest Hotel).

La Belle et la Bête (1946 Jean Cocteau & scr)

Utterly wonderful. Arms holding candelabras surely influence on Polanski's Repulsion - scene where Josette Day runs through the hall and up the stairs in slow motion, then seems to float, incredible, as are many other distinctive Cocteau moments. Loved the faces in the decor. And her bedroom, which seems to open out into an enchanted forest. And things smoking, like the Beast, and even the Magnificent horse, at one point? Cocteau's partner Jean Marais really good and oddly touching as the Beast.

Classy collaborators too: Henri Alékan, Georges Auric, René Clement (uncredited co-director).

Nimble, sensuous, dazzling.

Angel (1937 Ernst Lubitsch)

Uh oh. Can't believe I'd already bought this film once. At least realised we'd seen it before immediately. Not as funny as other Lubitsches but double romantic triangle and development of plot as characters do and don't find things out is wonderfully sophisticated (Samuel Raphaelson script, Melchior Lengyel play).

It's amusing to wonder whether Marlene told Charles Lang how she wanted to be lit - on this occasion I somehow doubt it.

Woman in Gold (2015 Simon Curtis)

Helen Mirren good as always as Austrian refugee, Ryan Reynolds suitably restrained as her lawyer, Daniel Brühl is Viennese contact. Pleasingly, the Klimts do remain in Vienna.

And I had no idea that gold leaf was used in the portrait.

Based on the real story told by participants Maria Altmann and E Randol Schoenberg.

Inadvertently we can't seem to get away from war films, but this one is sensitively handled in flashback scenes.

Girls - Series 1 & 2 (2012 - 13 Lena Dunham)

Not at all sure what to make of this at first, finding Dunham and girlfriends Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke and Zosia Mamet and their respective boyfriends somewhat unsympathetic. Then of course we get to find out more about them...

Adam Driver's rebarbative behaviour definitely off-putting, though by the unexpectedly moving series two finale, we of course love him.

Sullivan's Travels (1941 Preston Sturges & scr)

Maybe his best film, thoroughly admired here. Some films you grow up with, some you grow up to (this being one of the latter).

Much quicker paced than the others.

This is the one where the photograph of the late husband keeps changing its expression.

And, Lubitsch gets a name check.

Unbroken (2014 Angelina Jolie)

Jack O'Connell is the unbroken title character in wrong-footed war film which dwells endlessly on torture - the Coen brothers are associated with the script. Much CGI. Acting good: Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi. That the bastard got away with war crimes and wouldn't face his former captive leaves a bitter taste, though final shots of the real 80 year old Luis Zamperini running at Tokyo Olympics is fine.

P.S. 29/2/16. Seem to have completely missed this was a Roger Deakins film, his 12th Oscar nomination.

The Good Lie (2014 Philippe Falardeau)

Title derived from a classroom assessment of 'Huckleberry Finn' - if an African immigrant can read it, so should I (one day). Thoroughly charming film about - and acted by - Sudanese immigrants (two of which were boy soldiers), doesn't dwell on troublesome background, but opens our eyes to it all the same.. Their attitude - for example about cows, or to a police office - is completely beguiling.

Reece Witherspoon, Arnold Oceng, Ger Duany, Emmanuel Jal, Corey Stoll (Woody Allen's Hemingway) and Kuoth Wiel. How Margaret Nagel came to write it is described here.

Director, cameraman Ronald Plante and editor Richard Comeau are Canadian.

Rear Window (1954 AH)

Well, we hadn't watched it since December. Missed the flash at the beginning, despite looking out for it. Same comments as before. The focus pulling is great throughout, almost magic, one of the finest examples of the craft. The background sound is extremely well thought out. There is for example a scene between Stewart and Corey backed by scales being practised - and the moment Stewart's argument is disproved it changes to singing. I wonder if Polanski was influenced by this for Repulsion? Probably.

Half the film is Stewart's reaction shots.

There seemed to me (through a fog of armagnac) that there is a direct correlation between the shot length (distance) and the emotional significance.

Could Cary Grant have played the lead? No. Could anyone else have played it better? It's a fun game, despite being totally pointless. Is it Thelma Ritter's best film? She was six times Oscar-nominated (once for the excellent Pickup on South Street), though not for this. Yes, it probably is.

So, the ending. In the final struggle, the cutaways are all speeded up, which looks quite funny. Why has he done this? I think it's to accelerate the climax, making it seem like a violent rush.

The purest of Hitch's 'pure cinema' and very possibly his best film (it's certainly more fun than Vertigo).

That Uncertain Feeling (1941 Ernst Lubitsch)

Screenplay by Donald Ogden Stewart and Walter Resich from the play 'Divorçons' by Victorien Sardou and Emile DeNajac, previously filmed by Lubitsch as Kiss Me Again (unfortunately no known prints exist) in 1925, with Marie Prevost, Monte Blue and Clara Bow.

Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas, Burgess Meredith, Alan Mowbray, Eve Arden, Harry Davenport, Sig Ruman.

Brilliant Lubitsch touch (on three) when he has to slap his wife. Notice shots of closed doors / action happening off-screen. Inspired use of "Keeks!" Many sour-faced photos of Meredith (one being put out of the bedroom like it's a cat). Douglas / Meredith funny. Witty. Photographed by George Barnes with a lovely rain pattern on a bed. Phooey!

P.s. "Keeks!" has since become a much used general purpose expression in this house.

Rocket Science (2007 Jeffrey Blitz & scr)

Film is half-asleep or I am. Don't understand or like the way high school debates work - speakingreallyquicklydoesn'tgetmessageacross. Kendrick's fluent delivery and somewhat baleful presence probably helped get her Up In The Air though. Korean friend funny. Lacks laughs and insight.

Reece Thompson (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Vincent Piazza (brother), Denis O'Hare (father), Nicholas D'Agosto (ex boyfriend), Margo Martindale, Aaron Yoo (also a cameraman).

Hangover Square (1945 John Brahm)

The gentle-voiced madman Laird Cregar, Darnell shot by LaShelle, Herrmann score (clearly pre-shadowing Vertigo in a couple of passages) - what more could you want as your late night movie?

Brahm opens in a Hitchcockian manner sweeping his camera up from street into first floor window and a murder, and follows this with all manner of weird angles, distorted lenses, and textures up until fiery finale where Cregar so much wants to hear the end of his concerto he plays himself to a fiery death - in a scene which doesn't look tricked, and therefore must have been quite dangerous.

Barré Lyndon's screenplay (from Patrick Hamilton novel) has a few grim jokes.

Also stars George Sanders, Alan Napier, Faye Marlowe, Glenn Langan, for Fox.

Another Country (1984 Marek Kanievska)

I haven't seen Julian Mitchell's play but it would seem he's opened it up nicely into real locations populated by the bunch of bastards that are / were Britain's elite. Not Eton - actually shot around Brasenose College and the Bodleian in Oxford, with interiors at Althorp in Northamptonshire, richly caught by Peter Biziou (though my usual complaint of overlit night scenes applies here in spades - the cuddled boat scenes between Rupert Everett and eyelash-flutterer Cary Elwes look positively floodlit - hardly a discreet setting for a late night tryst).

Somewhat confusingly, both Everett and Firth (and Daniel Day-Lewis) played the lead figure Bennett (clearly modelled on Guy Burgess) in the original play, with Branagh as Judd. The latter was unavailable (Henry V) when filming began, thus Firth got the job. It's a shame really that neither of them subsequently had much of a career.

Guy Henry as the head boy is familiar from all sorts of things such as the Harry Potters, and Adrian Ross Magenty is rather good as the junior 'fag' whose face captures the fear and reverence whilst the camera shows their slave-like service.

Just like in If.... the masters rarely get a look-in - the 'Gods' and fancy-waistcoated Prefects are in charge.

It was rather good.

The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956 Richard Quine)

Warmly acted (by Judy Holliday and Paul Douglas) expansion of play (George Kaufman and Howard Teichmann) by Abe Burrows, with amusing scene-setting voiceover by George Burns. Able support from 'rotten to the core' Board led by John Williams and Fred Clark, with Ray Collins and Arthur O'Connell.

Peanut butter and smoked salmon sandwiches.... hmm.

Amusing pot-shots at corporate mis-governance are still just as relevant today. Shot by Charles Lang for Columbia (of course). Most enjoyable, with memorable Technicolor ending.

City of Fear (1958, rel 59 Irving Lerner)

Lots of great location photography in cars (Burnett Guffey) - one of the edits is almost Godard Bout de Souffle. Somewhat daft story of criminal on the run who has stolen a cannister of Cobalt-60, a highly radioactive substance which you get knocking around in prisons - it can endanger the whole city and starts leaking into the bodies of those near it.

Vince Edwards is the culprit, Patricia Blair his girlfriend.

Has an extraordinarily silly finale in which the police, knowing of the whereabouts of the man and the chemical, announce their arrival with sirens, thus giving him the chance to run again.

The Ghosts of Berkeley Square (1947 Vernon Sewell)

Droll comedy (S.J.Simon and Caryl Barnes' novel 'No Nightingales' adapted by James Seymour) with neat visual and sound effects traces 'life' of ghosts over two centuries. Opens with a stunningly shot and lit track back over a dinner table with 100 or so diners, courtesy of Ernest Palmer (the British one). The complicated arranging then of the Great Exposition performers is another great one. Good music by Hans May.

Felix Aylmer and Robert Morley make winning ghosts. With Ernest Thesiger, Wilfred Hyde White.

A proper breakfast in 1900 is beer and chops, apparently.

Good.

Due Date (2010 Todd Phillips)

Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis essentially reprise Planes Trains and Automobiles, and whilst fun is also at times just plain wrong - there's nothing funny about Downey's dad leaving him, being beaten up by a disabled war veteran or wanking next to your co-pilot.

There'a a good car crash, and ending song (Ice Cube, 'Check Yo Self').

Shot by Laurence Sher.

Starred Up (2013 David Mackenzie)

It might have been helpful for the title to have been explained (moved to adult prison).

Searing drama in which you keep forgetting to breathe, so unpredictable is the behaviour of Eric Love and his actor Jack O'Connell. It's almost a scary question to ask where he draws his anger from to give a performance of this intensity. Was originally drawn to the film by this quote from Mark Kermode in 'The Guardian': "you half expect him to jump out of the screen and remonstrate forcibly with the audience" and indeed it is an amazing performance, ably supported by Rupert Friend, Ben Mendelsohn, David Ajala, Anthony Welsh, the fabulously named Gershwyn Eustache Jr etc. (Scenes in group do occasionally seem like an actors' workshop).

Jonathan Asser - debut screenwriter - was a prison therapist himself, told here, and the film has things to say. The ending is moving.

So, the best way to watch it is after you've been lulled by the St Trinian's films.

St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009 Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson)

Despite some amusingness involving pirates and David Tennant, film is quite a lot worse then the original, with a downright silly plot. Jodie Whittaker has been reduced to a nonsense character. Some of the cooler girls (Cole, Faith) have been lost; even Gemma Arterton only has a (good) cameo. Scene where choirboys start rapping is just embarrassing. Still, at least we still have Firth, Riley etc newly joined by Zawe Ashton (Fresh Meat), an uncomfortable Sara Harding and Montserrat Lombard.

Also is nicely lit by David Higgs (Indian Summers) and edited by Emma Hickox.