CARLITO'S WAY

Brian De Palma may have built his reputation as the man most fond of paying homage to his idol, Alfred Hitchcock but if his career had amounted to nothing more than Hitchcock pastiches he could hardly be called an auteur in his own right. For many his gangster picture "Carlito's Way"
is still his best film. Look closely and you still might see the odd Hitchcock trope but this serious, beautifully written, (by David Koepp from two novels by Edwin Torres), and superbly acted movie shows a major film-maker working at the height of his powers. Al Pacino, in a stunning performance, is the gangster trying to go straight but finding it increasingly difficult to shake off his former life, particularly when he has a crooked lawyer dogging his every step, (a superb Sean Penn). Shot magnificently by Stephen H Burum in widescreen, this feels like a real epic. It's certainly one of the key American films of the nineties.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE, TWO, THREE

With a terrific screenplay by Peter Stone and brilliant direction from Joseph Sargent, (it's easily the best thing he's ever done), "The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three" is still one of the most enjoyable heist movies ever made, (in this case, heist as in the hijacking of a subway train). I've seen it countless times and never tire of it. In fact, I love so much I have deliberately avoided the Travolta/Washington remake so I can't pass comment there.

It has a very simple but ingenious plot; four men hijack a New York subway train and hold 18 passengers hostage. The ransom is a million dollars and the getaway plan, considering they are in an underground tunnel, is perhaps the most ingenious part of the plot. Robert Shaw and Martin Balsam are two of the hi-jackers and Walter Matthau, the New York cop doing the negotiations but the whole cast are first-rate. This is a great ensemble piece, in front, as well as behind, the camera. Unmissable.

MISTER ROBERTS

A comic variation on 'Mutiny on the Bounty' set during the closing days of World War Two with James Cagney as the Captain Bligh character and Henry Fonda as his Fletcher Christian. It was based on one of the longest running shows ever to play Broadway and Fonda was reprising his Tony award-winning role as "Mister Roberts". He's fine in the part but it's Cagney and, in a lesser role, Jack Lemmon who walk off with the picture and, in Lemmon's case, the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Despite location shooting in Hawaii, it's still very stagey and there are times you expect the sailors to burst into a chorus of 'There's Nothing Like a Dame', (Joshua Logan was in part responsible for both this and "South Pacific"). Still, its reputation as a classic has been justly earned and while it may be a tad on the obvious side, it's still very entertaining.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT

When Richard Linklater followed "Before Sunrise" with "Before Sunset" I held my breath. Could he and his actors, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy recapture something so sweet and so apparently transient as that long walk through Vienna together? I needn't have worried; meeting them again years later in a thoroughly romantic Paris was like meeting up with two old friends. They weren't together but were obviously in love, (yes, with each other), so we willed them to try to make a go of it even if by this stage Hawkes' character, Jesse, was turning into something of a conceited boor. It was a lovely film, even better than the first with pitch-perfect performances and superlatively written and directed.

Now comes "Before Midnight" or part three in the, as now, 'Before Trilogy' and the question is, can they do it again? What's left? Would this be Linklater's "Scenes from a Marriage", all angst and vitriol? Would we want to spend another day in their company? Again I needn't have worried. Jesse and Delpy's Celine did stay together and have twin girls and are now spending the summer at a writer's commune in Greece, (so we know we are going to get pretty pictures if nothing else), presided over by an old English author called Patrick, (a terrific turn by former DoP Walter Lassally). Jesse is now 41 but he still hasn't grown up. He behaves like a super-smart over-aged teenager but Hawkes is so amazingly good it no longer matters. I can't imagine another actor growing into a role in the way that Hawkes has done. He isn't someone I'd want to spend time with in real life but he's just about perfect company for a two hour movie.

Delpy's Celine has always been the more likable, more approachable character although again her intelligence works against her. I've always found there's more intellect than emotion with Celine. Again she isn't necessarily someone I'd want to spend time with but she makes for a wonderful movie heroine.

So how good is "Before Midnight"? Could it, I asked myself, improve on "Before Sunset"? Well, the answer is a resounding yes; indeed this is Linklater's masterpiece, the most intelligent romantic drama in decades. It's still basically a long conversation or at least a few long conversations as Linklater and fellow writers and actors Hawke and Delpy have opened things up a tad. Jesse and Celine are no longer the only characters to hold our attention. There are three other couples at the writer's commune and during a long, beautifully written and acted, (and directed), dinner sequence we get to know all of them and they all make for wonderful company. This dinner sequence is so terrific, in fact, I half wished it could go on for the rest of the movie but no, Jesse and Celine still have a lot to talk about and talk they do but, as with the first two films, we never tire of listening to what they have to say however self-indulgent they might appear. Before "Before Midnight" I wondered if I would want to meet them again. Now I pray Linklater, Hawkes and Delpy resurrect them again in another 10 years or sooner; they now feel like part of my family.

DODSWORTH

"Dodsworth" is one of William Wyler's greatest films and arguably his most underrated, despite the seven Oscar nominations it received at the time; a brilliant adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel by way of Sidney Howard's theatrical version and with a script by Howard. It's one of the great films about Americans abroad and it's one of the great films about a marriage in decline and it's magnificently played by its three leads; Walter Huston, in his greatest part and performance, in the title role, Ruth Chatterton in her greatest role as the hick wife with ideas above her station and Mary Astor at her loveliest as 'the other woman'. Seldom seen these days it's up there with "The Letter",  "The Little Foxes", "The Best Years of Our Lives","The Heiress" and "Carrie" and it cries out to be seen.

FIVE EASY PIECES

"Five Easy Pieces" is one of the best American films of the seventies; perhaps it is one of the greatest of all American films. It not only confirmed Jack Nicholson as a star but also one of the great actors and his Bobby Dupea is one of the key performances in all of cinema, a great anti-hero and Nicholson does nothing to make him likeable. It was also the film that should have marked out Bob Rafelson as one of the potentially great American directors but apart from the very underrated "The King of Marvin Gardens", (also with Nicholson), and perhaps his version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" 

(again with Nicholson), his has been a career that hasn't really amounted to much. Of course, this had a great screenplay by Adrien Joyce (aka Carole Eastman) and the Chicken Salad Sandwich scene and the performance of Helena Kallianiotes as the lesbian hitchiker are much quoted. Indeed you could say it was a profound coming together of a number of remarkable talents and it has stood the test of time brilliantly. Indeed it gets better with every viewing; a true classic.

THE OSCARS 2019

I think most people would agree that no self-respecting cinephile would look on the Oscars as a guarantee of cinematic excellence. I suppose a rough analogy would be to say they are the cinematic equivalent of pop-art compared to Michaelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel but without the level of excellence that the best pop-art can sometimes reach. Most of the time, the year's 'best' films and performances are completely overlooked by the Academy.

Oscar is about quantity rather than quality. They are about how much money a film has made or how many people have seen it and this year is no exception. This year a relative newcomer, Rami Malek, is almost certainly going to win the Oscar for Best Actor and it would take a foolish man or woman to vote against it, (hardly a year goes by without someone winning an Oscar for playing a 'real' person; in this case Malek is playing Freddie Mercury), but in all honesty I think I would pick any one of the four other nominees before I would vote for Malek while in typical Oscar fashion, the best performance by an actor last year, (Rupert Everett playing another real-life figure, Oscar Wilde in "The Happy Prince", wasn't even nominated. Of course, that was probably because very few people actually saw "The Happy Prince" and not, hopefully, because Everett is an openly gay actor.

Indeed, sometimes if your film is 'foreign', in other words not American or British, it may not even get an L.A. screening and will, therefore, be ineligible. This past week I watched two films on Mubi that in a just world might have been contenders, from Japan, a masterpiece called "Hanagatami" and from France a terrific thriller called "Black Tide" in which Sandrine Kiberlain gave what, in my opinion, was the best performance of 2018 by an actress in a supporting role. So what and who will win on Sunday night?

Unlike 'the old days', when one film dominated, the 'smaller' Oscars will be probably be distributed amongst a number of films. With no nomination for "Black Panther" in the Visual Effects category, almost anything could win here. Personally, I'd like to see "Solo; A Star Wars Story" win but I have a feeling this is "Avengers; Infinity Wars" Oscar to lose. "The Favourite" should pick up both the Oscars for Costume Design and Production Design with "Vice" winning for Make-Up. The two Sound awards, (Editing and Mixing), I think will go to different films; "Black Panther" for Editing and "Bohemian Rhapsody" for Mixing with "Vice" winning for Film Editing.

In the Best Song category "Shallow" is a shoo-in but I think Best Original Score is an open book, (though let's just pray that "Mary Poppins Returns" doesn't win here). In a strong year, I think I may put my shilling on Alexander Desplat adding to his Oscar tally with "Isle of Dogs" but would be equally happy if "Blackkklansman" or "If Beale Street Could Talk" were to win. Alfonso Cuaron is virtually guaranteed to win both Best Cinematography and Best Director for "Roma" while "The Favourite" is likely to edge out "Green Book" in the Original Screenplay category. "Blackkklansman" should finally see Spike Lee pick up his first Oscar in the Adapted category. Since I still haven't seen all of the films nominated for Documentary, Animation or Short Film, I will hold fire here.

So onto the acting awards. I am still a little amazed at the praise being heaped on Regina King for her work in "If Beale Street Could Talk", (yes, she's very good but it's not a significant role). I would have gone with Amy Adams, long overdue, but hers too is a small role which fundamentally leaves Stone and Weisz in "The Favourite". However, I think their joint nominations could split the vote so I will go with 'the favorite', namely King.

Richard E Grant would be a welcome winner for Best Supporting Actor but surely this is Mahershala Ali's Oscar to lose, (his second in three years). I've already said Malek is on a roll for his performance in "Bohemian Rhapsody", overtaking early favorite Christian Bale which brings me to Best Actress. In any other year, Olivia Coleman would be the odds-on favorite to win for "The Favourite" and if she does I won't complain but surely this is Glenn Close's year. A seven-time nominee, Close was never better than in "The Wife" so she should have both the sentimental vote as well as a vote for giving what I believe to be unquestionably the year's best performance.

 

And now, finally, to the Best Picture. "Roma" is still the favorite and should have no problem in winning in the Foreign Language category, (despite strong opposition from "Cold War"), but in over 90 years no Non-English language film has ever won Best Picture. Could this be the year that will change? "The Favourite" is its biggest rival but there are two outsiders. Both "Green Book" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" are crowd-pleasers but also films of quality, (though allegations of sexual impropriety against Bryan Singer will probably sink "Bohemian Rhapsody's" chances). I would be happy with a "Green Book" win but I will stick my neck out and go with "The Favourite". Oscar may not, then, reach the pinnacle of cinema excellence but now and again they do get it right. Will they get it right this year?

BLACK TIDE

As a very angry alcoholic police inspector with a troubled teenage son, who finds himself investigating the disappearance of another teenage boy, Vincent Cassel is terrifically good in Erick Zonca's first-class policier "Black Tide". The material may not be particularly original but the handling is splendid. In this case, the devil's in the detail; this is a brilliantly written, directed and acted film. You might say it's even old-fashioned and what's wrong with that when it's coupled with this degree of intelligence, (it's even got a couple of nice twists). For once, a thriller well worth seeking out.

IN THE HOUSE

Francois Ozon's delightful, delicious new comedy "In the House" is a wonderfully clever and very funny treatise on the written word delivered in very cinematic terms, on the thin line between fact and fiction, truth and lies and the individual's need for attention. The central characters are two misplaced males destined, perhaps, to be together and who find each other almost by accident. Germain is a middle-aged (and bitterly cynical) schoolteacher, (a terrific Fabrice Luchini), who one day finds that an essay handed in by handsome young loner student Claude, (Ernst Umhauer, excellent), has all the promise of a blossoming literary talent simply because it deals, in a well-written way, of course, in 'truths', (it describes Claude's infatuation with a fellow student and his family and what might go on 'dans la maison' in which they live), and the essay ends 'to be continued'.

He shows the essay to his wife, (a lovely performance from Kristin Scott Thomas), and, on the one hand, egged on by her and, on the other, despite her misgivings he takes Claude under his wing, so to speak, encouraging him to produce more 'to be continued' episodes on what goes on behind the walls of his friend's family home. As someone says, it can only end badly.


The brilliance of Ozon's conceit is that what we see and what we hear aren't always the same. Sometimes if Germain thinks 'a factual' description of events is not worthy of his talents, Claude will change it in the next scene and as Claude's 'literary career' progresses some of the things he writes has no basis in fact whatsoever so that we, too, are left wondering what's real and what isn't.
It is, of course, a hugely sophisticated comedy where a subplot involving Germain's wife's preoccupation with the art gallery she runs is used to counter-balance Germain's increasing preoccupation with Claude, a preoccupation his wife thinks may even have a sexual basis. Without giving anything away, the film itself ends with the words 'to be continued'; if only ...

ACE IN THE HOLE

If you want cynicism in your movies you need look no further than the films of Billy Wilder and "Ace in the Hole", which he made in 1951, is as cynical as they come and while Kirk Douglas could well be the nicest man in Hollywood when it came to playing men you love to hate Douglas was in a class of his own. Chuck Tatum, the character he plays here, has become one of the movies' great anti-heroes, a grade A bastard who exploits a real-life tragedy for the sake of a good story; it's an Oscar-worthy performance and probably the best thing he's ever done. There's great work, too, from Jan Sterling as the wife of a man trapped in a cave, (and the subject of Tatum's story). She's some piece of work, a tramp who would rather see her husband die so she can escape the no-horse town they live in. "I've met some hard boiled eggs in my time", she tells Douglas, "but you, you're twenty minutes". With so many unpleasant characters on screen it isn't an easy movie to engage with but it has the same cold, hard brilliance of "Double Indemnity" and is as powerful today as it was when it first appeared

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

James Baldwin was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He was an African-American and he was gay and he allowed both these intrinsic elements to elucidate his writing and to get inside the mind and under the skin of his characters. If you read Baldwin you knew exactly where he was coming from; he put you on the page the way great writers should. Amazingly, he has always been ignored by the cinema perhaps because until now few film-makers felt they were up to the task of conveying on screen what Baldwin conveyed in print. Until now; now we have the remarkably gifted Barry Jenkins, a film-maker with many of the gifts of Baldwin. His first film, "Moonlight", though not adapted from Baldwin, dealt with both the African-American and the homosexual experience as it traced the story of a young African-American through three stages of his life. It was a deserving, if surprising, winner of the Oscar for Best Picture.

Now Jenkins has turned directly to Baldwin and applied his poetry to Baldwin's love story "If Beale Street Could Talk" in which a young girl struggles to prove the innocence of her boyfriend on a trumped-up rape charge. It could have been an angry film and Baldwin knew what it was like to be angry but in place of anger Jenkins fills his film with love and honesty in place of sentimentality. The affection Jenkins feels for these characters is conveyed in images of real beauty and in performances of extraordinary clarity.


As the young lovers, KiKi Layne and Stephan James are superb but then every performance is perfectly balanced with Regina King perhaps the stand-out as the girl's mother. This is a great film and it should finally establish Jenkins as one of the finest film-makers working anywhere in the world today. That it failed to pick up a nomination for the Best Picture Oscar is shameful, particularly when you look at some of the films that did make the list. Essential viewing.

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

Jim Jarmusch's delicious new comedy is a vampire movie unlike any other. It's set in the present but forget those "Twilight" sagas; these are vampires for the art-house crowd, smart, funny and yes, sexy creatures of the night, (the whole film takes place at night; there isn't a single shot in daylight), and I was crazy about them. Indeed Jarmusch has fashioned a masterpiece about a couple of lonely people whose only solace is each other, doomed if you like to be together for all eternity or until one of them gets a stake or a wooden bullet in the heart or drinks some 'bad blood'; (I loved the subtle AIDS metaphor; be careful who you bite). Adam, (tall, dark and sexy Tom Hiddleston), and Eve, (a mesmerizing Tilda Swinton), have been married to each other, several times it would appear, over the centuries but living separate lives, he in Detroit as a reclusive musician, she in Tangier where she has another old vampire for a friend. He is Christopher Marlowe, (yes that Christopher Marlowe), and he's played by John Hurt with a twinkle in his eye. It's when Eve visits Adam in Detroit, flying by night, (in a plane; what did you expect - bat-wings?), that all hell breaks loose in the shapely form of Eve's sexy sister, (a terrific Mia Wasikowska), who can't keep her fangs to herself. As you would expect from Jarmusch this is funny, intelligent and off-the-wall. Hiddleston proves to be a highly dapper comedian while Swinton is superb as Eve, getting all she can out of a life she knows is going to go on forever. Unmissable.

INHERENT VICE

"Inherent Vice" is the first outright comedy that Paul Thomas Anderson has made and it's only the second film he's made based on someone else's work, (in this case Thomas Pynchon, whose dialogue he has faithfully reproduced). Consequently the film has been somewhat side-lined and underrated so while it may not be "Magnolia", "There Will Be Blood" or "The Master" it is still head and shoulders above anything else out there at the moment. The plot may be virtually impenetrable, (but then who gives a toss about plot these days), yet as a snapshot of a drug-fuelled LA in 1970 this is close to priceless. If Anderson was Altman in a previous life then this is his "The Long Goodbye" by way of Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep".

When I said the plot was impenetrable I think I should have said it was more or less irrelevant since it is easily summed up in the opening and then conveniently disappears down a rabbit-hole. 'Doc', (a terrific Joaquin Phoenix), is a spaced-out PI 'hired' by former girl-friend Shasta, (newcomer Katherine Waterston), to track down missing billionaire Michael Wolfmann, (Eric Roberts), whom she believes has been kidnapped by his own wife. He isn't very far into the investigation when he wakes up beside a corpse and finds himself surrounded by the fuzz, chief among whom is one Bigfoot Bjornsen, (a never better Josh Brolin). After that you really need to pay very close attention or just go with the flow as more and more characters slip in and out of the frame and an organization called 'The Golden Fang' begins to loom large. Oh, and I did mention this was a comedy and a very funny one, too. It's the kind of surreal, psychedelic comedy movies don't do these days and in that respect it's another throwback to independent American movie-making in the seventies.

As well as Phoenix and Brolin, both at the top of their game, there is Reese Witherspoon as a promiscuous Assistant DA, an amazing Martin Short as a very peculiar dentist, (and on screen for much too short a time), Owen Wilson as some kind of whistle-blower, (at least I guessed that was what he was), not to mention cameos from the likes of Jeannie Berlin and Jefferson Mays. It's a fun film though it might confound Anderson devotees and anyone who thought him incapable of doing anything other than "The Master" or "Magnolia" and, of course, it looks the part. As well as being a great writer, Anderson has always been a great visual stylist and here DoP Robert Elswit imbues the film with a Vilmos Zsigmond hue. Yes, this is a film that isn't just set in 1970 but which could have been made then, too. It may not be Anderson's best work but it is absolutely essential nevertheless.

GEORGY GIRL

Not quite 'the kitchen sink' but very much in the same ballpark, Silvio Narizzano's "Georgy Girl" came late in the 'genre', (1966), and was a lot less downbeat and depressing than many of the films that came before it, (it's even got a happy ending). You could call it a 'dramedy', not quite a comedy and not quite a drama. In the title role of the frumpy heroine, relative newcomer Lynn Redgrave is quite magnificent. It's a star-making performance if I ever saw one. As her father's employer who asks Georgy to be his mistress and even draws up a contract, James Mason is equally superb; both he and Redgrave were Oscar-nominated for their performances and a young Charlotte Rampling is terrific as the bitch who shares a flat, (and a boyfriend), with Redgrave. He's Alan Bates and he's the blot on the picture; his is an annoying and unfunny 'comic' performance and when he's on screen, which is much too often, the film becomes a kind of surreal farce like a poor man's, or woman's, version of "The Knack". Nevertheless, it's well directed by Narizzano whose career never really went anywhere, (he did direct Tallulah Bankhead in "Fanatic" and made the highly unusual Terence Stamp western "Blue"), and is certainly worth seeing.

THE ICE STORM

The lives, or at least the sex lives, of two small-town American families. "The Ice Storm" is Ang Lee's brilliant adaptation, with, as usual, a screenplay by James Schamus, of Rick Moody's novel. In the wider world, Watergate is happening but only the 14-year-old daughter of one of the families is interested. The parents are more interested in their infidelities and in stopping their children from screwing around while all the while the weather gets colder and wetter and more deadly.

This is the kind of smart, funny and adult film we don't see very often these days and, of course, it's brilliantly acted and not just by the older players, (a smug Kevin Kline, a wound-up Joan Allen, a sluttish Sigourney Weaver), but by the youngsters as well, (Christina Ricci showing real promise as well as Tobey Maguire and Elijah Wood). Amazingly, the film didn't receive a single Oscar nod though Weaver did win a BAFTA for her performance and it's still one of the best things Lee has done.

MOONLIGHT

"Moonlight" arrives garlanded with prizes. It is, I am reliably told, the movie most likely to give "La La Land" a run for its money at this year's Oscars and a very fine movie, perhaps even a great movie, it is, too so why am I surprised at its success? Because "Moonlight" is not really a commercial film; it's an art-house movie that has crossed over into the mainstream, bolstered I have no doubt by the controversy over diversity. A year ago it might have slipped under the radar.

It seems to me a deeply personal movie. I know nothing of the history of its writer/director Barry Jenkins but surely, I kept asking myself, there must be some element of autobiography at play here. It is the story of one man through three stages in his life; boyhood, his teenage years and as a man in his thirties and he is played, quite magnificently and seamlessly by three actors, (Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes), through each chapter in his life. He is African-American and he is gay, though he never really acts on his sexuality so you can't say the picture 'accurately' reflects what it's like to be black and gay in America today.

Perhaps a more accurate title would have been 'One Boy's Story' and on this level it works beautifully. This is an extraordinarily empathetic study and it's deeply moving. It's also a love story, a gay one I admit, yet almost totally devoid of sexual contact. Chiron, who is the central character, is in love with his best friend Kevin, who loves him back but in the macho world of African-American male culture, where your race and skin colour rather than your sexuality determine your path in life and the choices you make, neither boy is free to act on their feelings. Crime, violence and drug use seems to be the mark of a man if you're not white; even the sympathetic adult Juan, (a superb Mahershala Ali), who takes the boy under his wing, is a drug pusher and even with a drug addict for a mother, (an equally superb Naomie Harris), this is the path Chiron finally chooses for himself.

On some levels, of course, this is a deeply depressing picture. There is little in the way of social uplift to be found. What it does have, however, is a depth of feeling that is overwhelming. Love, it would seem, conquers all if you are prepared to work at it and to wait. I came away from this film feeling hopeful, for Chiron, for Barry Jenkins and for cinema in general.

ALICE IN THE CITIES

 All of Wim Wenders' preoccupations were already on display in his early masterpiece "Alice in the Cities"; the road, travel, America, (and American music), alienation, angst. The 'story' is simplicity itself; a German photo-journalist, on an assignment in America, and one which he fails to complete, finds himself saddled with 9 year old Alice after meeting her and her mother as they try to book tickets back to Germany. When the mother abandons the child with him he seems to readily accept the responsibility of looking after her. He is something of a lost soul and in the child, Alice, perhaps he sees a mirror image of himself.

Today the premiss may seem somewhat unlikely yet it fits perfectly into Wenders' skewed vision of the world. He shot in monochrome, (Robby Muller was again DoP), giving it the feel of a documentary and as our hero, Rudiger Vogler is superbly naturalistic as is Yella Rottlander as Alice. They make a great, unsentimental team; the film may owe a debt to American cinema but it's without any of the sickly sentimentality you usually find in American films dealing with 'lost' children. Indeed, everything that happens seems remarkably matter-of-fact but this is a picture of life, not as it's lived, but as Wenders imagines it should be lived; it's both abstract and humanist and it remains one of the finest of all German films.

20TH CENTURY WOMEN

Okay, I'm happy to admit it; I'm in love with Annette Bening, (sorry, Warren). Actually I think I've always been a little in love with Annette all the way back to "Postcards from the Edge" and "The Grifters" though over time Annette met Warren and kind of gave up movies and we sort of drifted apart over the years. Then a few years ago she made a comeback of sorts in "The Kids are All Right" and I started to get stirrings all over again but then I didn't want to break up what she had with Julianne Moore. But now she's back and it would seem she's up for grabs and I'm head over heels all over again.

The movie, of course, is "20th Century Women" and the Academy are absolutely bonkers; they've completely ignored last year's best performance by an actress. In fact, they've ignored the most likeable movie of 2016 altogether; (it's sole nomination is for director Mike Mills' terrific screenplay). This is a feelgood movie the way feelgood movies should be; not soppy and sentimental but smart and funny and sexy and intelligent, chock full of people you would actually like to spend time with. Come to think of it, I'm actually a little in love with Greta Gerwig, (and she can be hard work at times), Elle Fanning, Billy Crudup, (has he ever been smoother or sexier or more grounded), and a kid named Lucas Jade Zumann that I wanted to adopt.

Mike Mills wrote this as an original screenplay but it plays out like a good book. It's literate but it's not stuffy. People in this movie talk intelligently the way intelligent people talk in reality and not in the movies. It feels natural as if they've opened the door and let you into their lives. Yes, I totally love "20th Century Women" and if Annette ever gets tired of Warren, I'll be waiting.

99 RIVER STREET

Excellent, beautifully plotted B-Movie from Phil Karlson. A former boxer (John Payne), now working as a cab driver, discovers that his wife is having an affair. What he doesn't know is that her lover is a jewel thief and a murderer. The plot of "99 River Street" may not make a lot of sense but it has some great pulpy dialogue by Robert Smith, from George Zuckerman's story, a first-rate supporting cast that includes Brad Dexter, Jay Adler and Frank Faylen and is marvellously photographed in noirish black and white by the great Franz Planer. In fact, it's just the kind of classic little programmer we don't see anymore, more's the pity and, just so you know, Karlson's direction is flawless.

THIS SPORTING LIFE

Watching Richard Harris' performance as Frank Machin in Lindsay Anderson's 1963 masterpiece "This Sporting Life" you might be reminded of Marlon Brando's work in "A Streetcar Named Desire" or indeed of Robert De Niro's Jake La Motta in Scorsese's later "Raging Bull", (Scorsese's film owes a great deal to "This Sporting Life" without ever quite measuring up). All three characters share the same animalistic intensity and an inability to communicate except in the most primordial level. This was the film that made Harris a star and it's his greatest performance; he was nominated for the Oscar and won the Best Actor prize at Cannes. His co-star is the great Rachel Roberts as the widowed landlady who takes Machin into her bed. Like Harris, she too was nominated and deservedly so; she's as fine here as she was in Karl Reisz's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", (Reisz produced this film while Anderson made his feature debut as a director). David Storey did the superb adaptation from his own novel and the brilliant supporting cast included Alan Badel, William Hartnell and Colin Blakely. Denys Coop was responsible for the cinematography and Peter Taylor was the editor. It's still one of the finest of all films that uses sport both as a backdrop and as a metaphor and is one of the greatest of all 'kitchen-sink' movies.

STAN & OLLIE

"Stan & Ollie" may be the saddest film you will see all year; it is also one of the funniest. It's the story of the concert tour Laurel and Hardy took to the UK and Ireland in 1953 and in these roles Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are pitch-perfect and in Oscar-worthy form, (the failure of either actor to be nominated is another badge of shame for the Academy). The reason for the tour, presumably, was to raise money for a Robin Hood film which they hoped would mark their comeback to the big screen. The money never materialized and the film was never made though judging by the material on view here it might have been a classic.

They were, of course, like an old married couple; bickering, fighting but clearly very much in love and the film is often heartbreaking as it shows how out of favor they were, playing to near-empty houses at the start of the tour until coaxed by Bernard Delfont, (a smarmy Rufus Jones), into making 'personal appearances' to boost their publicity, yet even when they started to play in sold-out venues, things didn't always run smoothly between them. Stan blamed Ollie for abandoning him at the height of his career, although it was Stan who got the sack for bad behavior while Ollie counter-attacked saying they were never friends to begin with but just working partners. Of course, that wasn't true; they were life-long friends who seemed to be as funny off-screen as on while both Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda are also superb as the wives who were something of a double act in their own right. This is a small film, certainly not ostentatious in any way but in this case, small is very definitely beautiful.

THE TOMB OF LIGEIA

You may be surprised, as I was, to find that the script of Roger Corman's "The Tomb of Ligeia" was written by none other than Robert Towne but then again perhaps not since this is an unusually  intelligent 'horror' picture, filmed not on the Californian coast like the earlier Poe pictures, but in England like its immediate predecessor "The Masque of the Red Death". It also marked the end of the Corman/Poe cycle and like its predecessor is one of the best examples of the genre. Price may still be hamming it and the supporting cast are mostly wooden, (although Elizabeth Shepherd is surprisingly good as both heroine and villainess) but it looks terrific, (Corman was never really given the credit he deserved for his use of colour), and as a study of obsessive love (or hate) reaching out even beyond the grave it is worthy of any number of great directors. Maybe not quite the masterpiece some people think it is but it's certainly superior to any number of 'prestige' pictures of the time.

POISON

Todd Haynes first full-length film was a triptych of stories inspired not only by the novels of Jean Genet but also by the schlock-horror B-Movies of the fifties and sixties. Sex, primarily homosexuality, is the main theme and is presented both poetically and with a good deal of self-deprecating humor, (one tale, modeled on "The Fly", is obviously about AIDS), and prefigures much of Haynes later work; "Far from Heaven" isn't far from the surface in the presentation of the story about a boy who kills his father and literally flies away. It's certainly not commercial and was clearly aimed at a specific art-house audience but it marked a breakthrough both in Independent American Cinema and in LGBT cinema. It also marked Haynes out as a major talent and someone to watch.

THE SALT OF LIFE

Gianni Di Gregorio's"Mid-August Lunch" was one of my cinema-going delights of the past few years. It was a 'little' film in which very little happened. A middle-aged man, played by the director and living with his ancient mother, is tasked with looking after a few other old ladies for the night. Next day he makes them all lunch and that, as they say, is that but there was a joie de vivre to the film rare in movies today.

In "The Salt of Life" the director again plays a middle-aged man, also called Gianni, and again with mother problems, (the magnificent 97 year old actress, Valeria De Franciscis Bendoni, who played his mother in "Mid-August Lunch", is again his mother here), who decides to have a final fling with a younger woman. Of course, things don't go according to plan.

As a writer and director, (and indeed as an actor), Di Gregorio has a wonderful Tatiesque sense of the vagaries of life. There is a lot of comedy in the small everyday things he encounters, and virtually no dramas at all. He is the gentlest of movie-makers and one of the most affectionate. Life may frustrate Gianni but he never lets it disturb him. He makes movies designed to make you smile and I grinned like the Cheshire Cat all the way through "The Salt of Life".

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THESE THREE

In 1936 when William Wyler made this film of Lillian Hellman's play "The Children's Hour" the subject of lesbianism was strictly taboo on the screen, or at least in a film aimed at a commercial audience so the love that dared not speak its name was dropped in favour of a heterosexual triangle yet it worked and worked beautifully. Hellman herself did the adaptation of her play and the title was changed to "These Three"
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Apart from what appeared to be a somewhat minor adjustment to the plot, (even in the play lesbianism was never really the focal point of the piece but the lie that suggested it), the story remained very much intact; the lives of two women teachers at a private school they run together are destroyed by the malicious lies of an evil and vindictive child. The teachers were very well played by Merle Oberon and Miriam Hopkins and that very fine and hugely underrated actor Joel McCrea was the man in the middle while Bonita Granville was terrific as the little monster.

In 1961 Wyler remade the film under its original title and with the rumour of lesbianism reinstated but despite very good performances from Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine and Fay Bainter, (magnificent as the grandmother; an equally good Alma Kruger was the grandmother here), the remake never quite lived up to this version which is a highly intelligent and very grown-up example of the artistry of the studio system at its very best.