HOWARD'S END

Merchant/Ivory's literary adaptations are not often called the stuff of great cinema, ("A Room with a View" may be the exception), but they certainly honoured the great books that often were their source. Nothing in "Howard's End" quite matches Forster's prose and story-telling but it's a memorable film nevertheless, superbly adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and cast to perfection. Emma Thompson is magnificent as Margaret Schlegel, Forster's most infuriatingly robust heroine and the woman who, by very roundabout means, ends up with the house of the title. She's goodness personified but like many 'good' people she's not entirely likeable, her main fault being an inability to keep out of other people's business even if her intentions are 'for the best'.

Anthony Hopkins is also superb as the former owner of Howard's End whom she marries after his wife, (a brilliant Vanessa Redgrave), dies and Helena Bonham-Carter is ... well, rather very much what she always was in those days, surly and impetuous as Thompson's younger sister. What really distinguishes the film is that none of the characters on the screen are necessarily sympathetic but they are always interesting. These are complex people drawn in shades of grey rather than in black and white and the narrative twists and turns with equal degrees of complexity. A sub-plot involving the character of Leonard Bast, (Samuel West and crucial in the book), here seems almost an imposition; otherwise this remains one of the finest of all literary adaptations.

SIDE STREET

Shortly after they made "They Live By Night", Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell started in this intricate and brilliantly plotted noir for Anthony Mann, (doing a superb job in an urban setting before the westerns and epics that made his name). It's a corker of a B-Movie and almost no-one has heard of it. Sidney Boehm provided the taut, economical script that finds Granger as a young petty thief way in over his head when he 'accidentally' steals $30,000 of blackmail money. There isn't a redundant moment in the picture which moves at lightening speed and is magnificently shot on location by the great Joseph Ruttenberg. The first-rate supporting cast includes James Craig, Paul Kelly, Charles McGraw, Harry Bellaver and the great Jean Hagen as a nightclub singer. I would call this a cult movie if only it were better known; seek it out immediately.

THE SOPRANOS

Across six seasons, (the last one being almost twice as long as previous seasons), and eighty-six episodes "The Sopranos" took in everything from the Kennedy Assassinations to the War of Terror as well as Ben Kingsley and Lauren Bacall playing themselves in an almost surreal spoof of Hollywood and the movie-making business. Elsewhere, Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra Jr. and, if only in a dream, (there were a lot of dreams in "The Sopranos"), Annette Bening also turned up as themselves.

It was a series in love with the movies and popular music, with almost every episode ending with a song. Naturally, it kept referencing the Godfather films while hardly an episode went by without an old movie cropping up on television; you could have a lot of fun seeing how fast you could guess what film was playing and it took some delight in casting Peter Bogdanovich as a slightly prissy analyst.

It cast Steven Van Zandt, he of the rock band Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, as Tony Soprano's consigliere and it cast Lorraine Bracco, she of "Goodfellas" fame, as Tony's analyst. Actually, it cast several of the "Goodfellas" cast in major roles, most notably Michael Imperioli and Frank Vincent. In a way, "Goodfellas" became its jumping off point. Was Tony some kind of extension of Paul Sorvino's Paul Cicero in the Scorsese film and was Michael Imperioli's Christopher in some way 'based' on the character of Henry Hill? I could certainly see similarities between the characters and a number of plot strands spread over those eighty-six episodes but you could say "The Sopranos" went further and deeper than any gangster film or series before or since.

It took its time getting to that controversial final episode but it never flagged; every episode was a diamond polished to perfection with the best episodes reaching the kind of dizzy heights we seldom associate with television. It was also one of the greatest examples of 'television by committee' that I can think of. David Chase may have originated the series but over several years it employed a number of writers and directors to carry it through; you could say it was the antithesis of the auteur theory. Was it the greatest television series of all time? Probably. I'm not sure we will ever see its like again.

THE LADY WITHOUT CAMELIAS

"La Signora senza Camelie" is arguably Antonioni's first masterpiece. It's about a shop-girl 'discovered' by an ambitious producer who doesn't just want to make her a star but his wife as well and who then proceeds to make her miserable. It's not a great film about the cinema but then that's hardly the point; rather you can see in it the seeds of his later films about unhappy women and mentally abusive men.

As the unfortunate Clara, rich and bored like so many Antonioni heroines, the little known Lucia Bose is excellent and visually it is often extraordinary. It doesn't quite fit into the broader and deeper contextualization of the trilogy that began with "L'Avventura" but in its treatment of its heroine it is unmistakably the work of its director and it's a much more intellectually rigorous picture than anything his contemporaries was doing at the time, For anyone remotely interested in following the trajectory of Antonioni's career this is essential viewing.

THE BAND'S VISIT

"The Band's Visit" is a thoroughly delightful comedy from Israel that might remind you of early Milos Forman or the films of Aki Kaurismaki. It was directed by Eran Kolirin, a filmmaker I'm not acquainted with but after this I will certainly be looking out for him. Indeed, this is something of a small masterpiece and if it were an American comedy it would almost certainly be a cult classic.

The very simple plot is about an Egyptian police band who comes to Israel to play a concert, more as a political gesture than a cultural one. Naturally nothing goes quite according to plan. It's beautifully acted down to the smallest part and although very funny, the humour is totally unforced, (it might also remind you more than a little of Bill Forsyth). A joy from start to finish, this simply shouldn't be missed.

LE BONHEUR

Even as early as "Le Bonheur", you could tell that Agnes Varda was born to make documentaries. This slight, if extremely beautiful, little film is an everyday tale of adultery, of a man happy, and in love with, not one woman but two, his wife and the mother of his children and his mistress. For most of its length, until near the end when a tragedy occurs, it's not a film full of drama. The title says it all; the husband is guilt-free and happy and Varda's use of colour expresses that. Even that tragedy is expressed very matter-of-factly.


It's also like a documentary in that Varda uses untried actors, (it was Jean-Claude Drouot's first film), and simply observes them in a series of everyday situations in which very little actually happens, just like life and it becomes clear quite early on that observation is everything for Varda, (the long opening sequence of a summer picnic is a stunner). When I say the film is slight I don't mean in form or construction or even in content but in attitude. Varda views the world with great simplicity and the closest she comes to being critical is simply to say that perhaps happiness isn't all it's cut out to be after all. A small gem of a picture.

QUAI DES ORFEVRES

It's hard to believe that the same Henri-Georges Clouzot who made "Le Corbeau", "Le Salaire de la Peur" and "Les Diaboliques" made this terrific comedy-thriller. It's about the murder of a loathsome businessman and impresario and the three main suspects are one of his potential proteges, (Suzy Delair), her jealous husband, (Bernard Blier), and a female photographer, (Simone Renant). Louis Jouvet is the investigating inspector and his methods are, to say the least, somewhat unorthodox. The setting, superbly captured by Clouzot and his cameraman, Armand Thirard, is the seedy milieu of the Parisian music-halls. It's very funny and beautifully acted and less obvious than its surface suggests. But perhaps the most surprising thing is that the usually morose to the point of morbidity Clouzot could display such a light touch. A real treat.

MASTER AND COMMANDER; THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD

Peter Weir's superb "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" set the benchmark by which all other movies of this kind would be judged. To this day it remains the most realistic account of what life must have been like on a Man of War during this period in history, (the early years of the 19th century). So much attention is paid to detail it could almost be a documentary; that's not to say Weir skimps on the action which also has a documentary-like realism to it. When cannon balls streak through these vessels you feel the suffering, the pain and the damage as if you were actually there. Basically this is an account of one (English) vessel's pursuance of another (a French ship; it's set during the Napoleonic Wars). The captain of the English vessel is a superb Russell Crowe; he's dashing and immensely like able here, and he's very ably backed by a splendid supporting cast that includes an equally superb Paul Bettany as the ship's doctor. Russell Boyd's brilliant cinematography deservedly won the Oscar.

THE BREAKING POINT

"The Breaking Point" comes from the same short story by Hemingway as "To Have and Have Not" but you would never really know it. If the Hawks movie was "Casablanca"-light, this is top notch Hemingway with a terse, beautifully written screenplay by Ranald MacDougall. Michael Curtiz, who directed "Casablanca" made this and it shows he had a much tougher edge than perhaps we're used to, but then remember Curtiz also made "Mildred Pierce" and she was no pushover.

John Garfield is the hard-nosed cruiser captain, tougher even than Bogie if you can believe it, and instead of Bacall we have Patricia Neal, brilliant as the blonde who has been around the block a few times. Instead of cuddly Walter Brennan we get the great Juno Hernandez who is a long way from cuddly and Wallace Ford is his usual magnificent self as the scuzzball who does the dirty on everyone.

Some people rate this as Curtiz' masterpiece and it's not hard to see why even if I still prefer "Casablanca" and that waitress. There isn't an ounce of fat to be found in this picture, not a single shot that is out of place and if you do want to think of Curtiz as an auteur and not just the greatest of studio directors then this is one to go for.

ATTACK

Robert Aldrich's great war film "Attack" differs from other war films in that it deals with the subject of cowardice. Made just over ten years after the Second World War ended you might even say it was a brave film for Hollywood to make. It was based on a play and while Aldrich 'opens it out' its theatrical origins are still in evidence. It's very much an actor's piece and a cast that includes Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, (magnificent as the coward), Lee Marvin, Richard Strauss, Buddy Ebsen, Richard Jaeckel and newcomer William Smithers do some of their very best work here. James Poe did the adaptation, (superbly), and Joseph Biroc was responsible for the brilliant black and white photography. It's certainly up there with "Kiss Me Deadly" and "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"
as one of Aldrich's very best films.

LOVE, SIMON

A gay coming-out movie that is laugh-out-loud funny with a charm factor that goes all the way up to eleven, a star-making performance from its young lead and a great song score; yes, it can only be "Love, Simon", the feelgood movie of the current season and a delight for all but the most virulent of homophobes.

Based on a YA novel it tells the tale of Simon, (a terrific Nick Robinson), a typical sweet-natured high-school jock whose secret is he's gay and who falls in love with another boy, who signs himself 'Blue', online. The problem is the other boy isn't out either and their correspondence must be anonymous. There are several candidates as to who Blue might be and we have to wait, as does Simon, to find out his identity. Perhaps what's most amazing about Greg Berlanti's film is that it's a product of Trump's America and like Simon himself, hopefully it will encourage a lot of other young adults to come out. An LGBT classic.

TRISTANA

 The perfect companion piece to "Viridiana". Bunuel's later "Tristana" is also about a virginal young girl, (a superb Catherine Deneuve), corrupted by an older man, (once again, the great Fernando Rey). Although she gives herself to him willingly, it's an act that makes her both bitter and vengeful but while "Viridiana" had a mordant streak of humor running through it, this is a much darker affair. It was adapted by Bunuel and Julio Alejandro from the Benito Perez Galdos novel and it remains one of the cruelest films about women that the cinema has given us.

Tristana is a complex character and one who is very difficult to empathize with. Was she ever a victim or was she always much more knowing than she first appears and, despite the tragedies that befall her, she is never sympathetic or likable. Both Deneuve and Rey are terrific; as Tristana's younger lover, Franco Nero is slightly less wooden than usual, which is a blessing of sorts and, at least, he never upsets the film's equilibrium. This may be an old man's film, stripped of all artifice but it remains one of its director's finest works.

THIEF

Michael Mann is one of cinema's great visual stylists. He's also one of the best directors of male dominated 'action' pictures still working, (his most recent film, "Blackhat" is a terrific thriller and has been massively underrated). He made "Thief" in 1981 and it's a classic. It's the kind of film about urban crime that could sit quite comfortably beside anything by Melville, (or for that matter early Kubrick or Aldrich or Joseph Lewis). It's one of the great crime films that isn't afraid of talk; good, intelligent, grown-up conversation magnificently delivered.

The thief of the title is James Caan and it may be his greatest performance. The woman in his life is the wonderful Tuesday Weld. Other thieves include Jim Belushi, a superlative Willie Nelson and the always great Robert Prosky who is phenomenal here. The plot is less important than the almost forensic analysis of how criminals go about their business. Amazingly this masterpiece wasn't really a success. Its cult status is guaranteed.

LE DOULOS

Another tale of dishonour among thieves and another masterpiece from Jean-Pierre Melville but this one's a little more complicated than most. "Le Doulos" is slang for a hat but in criminal circles it also means a police informer. The informer here is Jean-Paul Belmondo and he seems to be playing one side against the other, police and crooks, but to what end? The movie is tortuously plotted until it's all very neatly and beautifully tied up at the end and it pays homage, not just to the great Hollywood gangster movies, but to such classically poetic French films of the thirties such as "Le Jour se Leve" and "Les Quai Des Brumes". Belmondo is, of course, magnificent and SergeReggiani is suitably fatalistic as the gangster who sets everything in motion. An absolutely essential movie.

HUMPDAY

A classic comedy of embarrassment from writer/director Lynn Shelton who brings an unerringly accurate eye to her tale of two life-long buddies who decide to make a 'gay' porn video together, ('Two straight guys bang each other'), drawing totally terrific performances from leads Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard, (the guys), and Alycia Delmore, (Duplass' much too talented wife), in the process

It's a very funny and surprisingly truthful picture, full of the kind of people you would probably cross the road to avoid, (with the exception of Delmore who is sexy and sweet in equal measure). Amazingly the premiss never feels that far-fetched; the chemistry between Duplass and Leonard is strong enough to make you think there might be more to their friendship than meets the eye and if their characters aren't that endearing the movie most certainly is.

FUNNY GIRL

One of the great openings in cinema may only last a few seconds but it makes an indelible impression and that's when we are introduced for the first time to Barbra Streisand, glimpsing her own reflection in a mirror, in "Funny Girl". 'Hello, gorgeous' indeed, and when a few minutes later she sings her first song, "I'm the Greatest Star", we know instinctively that she is. "Funny Girl" isn't a great film; it isn't even a great William Wyler film but it may be a great musical. Jule Styne and Bob Merrill wrote a very good score augmented in this film version by several standards including the tremendous "My Man" number that closes the movie, (even if that great song, "The Music that Makes me Dance", had to be jettisoned). Most of the songs, of course, went to Streisand, making it primarily a vehicle for this greatest of stars and I have no quarrel with that but there is no depth to the movie and as a biopic it's just like those Fox musicals of the '30's and '40's but on a bigger scale. But it does have likeable supporting work from Omar Sharif, (looking great, even if his acting is about as stiff as his starched shirts), Kay Medford, Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis. But it's Streisand's show, one of the great screen debuts and a worthy winner of the Best Actress Oscar, even if she did have to share it with Katie Hepburn. An ill-advised sequel, "Funny Lady", turned out to be something of a disaster.

THE BOY FRIEND

A camp classic but also so much more. The critics came down like a ton of bricks on Ken Russell's musical comedy which was, on the one hand, a screen version of Sandy Wilson's show and, on the other, a comment on the 'putting-on-a-show' kind of musical popular in the early thirties. Russell's idea of opening up most of the numbers, as in a big Busby Berkeley production, worked brilliantly but didn't please either the critics or the public; still it made a movie star (of sorts) out of the model Twiggy who is charm personified while the former ballet dancer Christopher Gable is a delightful leading man. It's also got a great supporting cast of some of the best British character players of the time, including an unbilled Glenda Jackson - Go out there and be so great you'll make me hate you - and whatever happened to Antonia Ellis and Georgina Hale, both brilliant here, as well as Broadway's Tommy Tune whose dancing comes close to stopping the show. Unfortunately it wasn't really a commercial success and is seldom seen now but if, like me, you have any interest in the musical, catch it; it's absolutely fabulous!

FIRECREEK

Outstanding 'adult' western that very few people have seen or even heard of. It was made in 1968 at a time when the western as a genre was going out of fashion. The stars were James Stewart, (much too old for the part of an expectant father but excellent nevertheless) and Henry Fonda, (better cast as one of the bad guys), and the director was Vincent McEveety who, on the strength of this, should have gone on to better things or at least be better known.


The theme of the picture is moral cowardice and the town of the title, "Firecreek", is one of those back-waters filled with losers, Stewart, the town's part-time sheriff being the biggest loser of all and it's into Firecreek that Fonda and his gang ride. The set-up is predictable but very well handled. There's a fine script by Calvin Clements Sr and a splendid supporting cast that includes that fine, underrated actor Gary Lockwood as the most volatile of the bad guys, Ed Begley as a preacher, Dean Jagger as a storekeeper with a past and Inger Stevens, only two years before she took her own life, as the woman Fonda is drawn to. It isn't much revived, hence its cult status, but it's definitely worth seeing.

NOAH

I've always had a problem with the Bible; well, the Old Testament to be exact. The historical basis of the New Testament is largely beyond dispute, after which you believe or don't believe (the literal story of Jesus) depending on your faith or lack of it but the Old Testament is a totally different ball game; all that business with Methuselah living 900 years and Jonah checking into the belly of a whale and even if you sign up to the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah and Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel etc you still have, on the one hand, the theory of evolution to contend with and, on the other, the notion that the Biblical God is both vengeful and unforgiving. The story of Noah is probably the most problematic of all; that God should have decided to destroy the whole world and just save Noah, Mrs Noah and all the little Noahs which family would, in effect, become the new Adam and Eve.
Darren Aronofsky's telling of the Noah saga has been criticised as not adhering strictly to the Bible but if it had done would it have been any less far-fetched? Admittedly Aronofsky's NOAH is more Marvel Comics than Holy Scripture but would a literal reading been any more believable to non-Christians or even sceptical Christians? I doubt it, so what we have here is the story of Noah and his ark for a universal audience more familiar with the film versions of the Lord of the Rings saga. Does it work? Damned right it does.

This is a movie of two halves. Part one is a "Dawn of Time" epic complete with stone giants come to life, (very handy when you need to build an ark), and Anthony Hopkins as a Methuselah coming to the end of his 900 years. Part two is an altogether darker affair as Noah, (a remarkably good Russell Crowe), take it on himself to be judge, jury and even executioner all in the name of God, (or as He is known here, the Creator). Ring any bells? Judging from this movie all the terrible deeds carried out in the name of religion down through the millennia can be traced back to Noah. It's certainly a theory and a movie that will alienate a lot of people but as Biblical pictures go this is one that dares to be different and stick its neck out.

It's also very well acted, perhaps surprisingly so since the script doesn't give the characters a great deal to work with. Crowe, as I've said, is excellent as Noah while Jennifer Connelly is positively brilliant as the wife who finds the man she married isn't quite the man she imagined he was while Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson and Ray Winstone work wonders with underwritten roles. The brilliant cinematography is by Matthew Libatique and the special effects are superb but ultimately this is Aronofsky's vision; bold, imaginative and well worth seeing.

AIR FORCE

"Air Force"'is one of the Howard Hawks movies that got away and that's despite having an original screenplay by the great Dudley Nichols and superb cinematography by the great James Wong Howe as well as a first-rate cast that includes Arthur Kennedy, John Garfield, Gig Young and Harry Carey. Maybe it's because it's a war movie dealing with Pearl Harbour and its aftermath and is chest-thumpingly patriotic that it is no longer fashionable to rate it despite it being one of Hawks finest films. Most of it takes place on board a Flying Fortress and like so many of Hawks best films it deals beautifully with the camaraderie between men in dangerous situations and the interplay between the almost entirely male cast is very well realised. The action scenes are also handled with typical Hawksian aplomb making this another essential film in the Hawks canon.

THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY

A masterpiece and one of the greatest of all literary adaptations as well as one of the most beautiful of all period pictures. Laura Jones did the screenplay from Henry James' novel but "The Portrait of a Lady" belongs, really, to its director Jane Campion and her extraordinary cast. Its themes are manifold; Americans abroad, the cruelty or just the impossibility of love, greed, misogyny and it's the most explicit visualisation of James on screen. 'Washington Square's here but so, too, is Laclos' 'Les Liaisons dangereuses' as young heiress Isabel Archer, (Nicole Kidman), is put into harm's way in the form of unscrupulous and manipulative artist Gilbert Osmond, (John Malkovich), by the machinations of the scheming Madame Merle, (Barbara Hershey).

All three players are quite magnificent particularly Kidman and Hershey. Campion has always been one of the greatest directors of women and here is no exception and they are surrounded by a superb supporting cast that includes Martin Donovan, Mary-Louise Parker, Richard E. Grant, Shelley Winters, Shelley Duvall, Viggo Mortensen, Christian Bale and John Gielgud, all chosen not for their ability to bring star quality to their roles but for their ability to inhabit them while, naturally, it is a gorgeous looking picture although again, never conventionally pretty for its own sake.


It's certainly not an 'easy' film, of course; the pace is slow, the dialogue heavily Jamesian and it runs for two and a half hours but it holds you in a vice-like grip. It wasn't 'a hit'; audiences didn't embrace it in the way they embraced, say, "The Piano" or Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence" which it does resemble but this is a much darker film, much more cruel. There are no really sympathetic characters and that includes the foolish and fool-hearty Isabel. In the end, it's not a film you might like but it is, as I've said, a masterpiece.

AUTUMN SONATA

Ingmar Bergman shot "Autumn Sonata" in ravishing colour, (Sven Nykvist again was his DoP), and set it in the present but it may as well have been in black and white and set a hundred or so years ago since this is one of his most rigorous films, seen almost entirely in close-up. It's about the relationships between a mother and her daughter, (two daughters if you count the girl in near vegetative state upstairs), and the great and painful chasm that exists between them. The mother is a great concert pianist, poised, self-assured and frostier than any ice maiden and she is played by Ingrid Bergman, working with the director for the first time and giving a magnificent performance. The daughter is the mousy, timorous wife of a vicar until one extraordinary night she roars and pours out all the bile she has inside her and she is played superbly by Liv Ullmann.

To say that the characters in Bergman's films don't speak or act the way 'real' people do is like saying Shakespeare's characters don't behave like people do in 'real' situations. It doesn't matter a damn; as with Shakespeare, Bergman's characters bare their souls to us and this greatest of actor's directors draws performances from his players that go beyond mere acting allowing us to get under their skins and inside their heads.

There are a number of characters in this piece but most of them are glimpsed only in the background. Fundamentally this is a sonata for two people and both Bergman and Ullmann have seldom been better. It was Bergman who won all the awards and got the Oscar nomination but Ullmann, too, was equally deserving of recognition. If it isn't quite the masterpiece it might have been, (there are times it does feel a bit schematic and even predictable), it is nevertheless a major work of art and an essential work in both Bergman canons.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

If Michael Mann was out of his comfort zone with "The Last of the Mohicans" you would never have guessed it for this is one of the most energised and exciting of all historical epics. Based, for the most part, on James Fenimore Cooper's classic novel, as well as on the screenplay of the 1936 film version, it positively soars with a visual poetry rare in this kind of movie, (the cinematographer, Dante Spinotti, won the BAFTA but didn't even manage to pick up an Oscar nomination).

Most people will, of course, know the story. Daniel Day-Lewis turns Hawkeye into a great romantic hero, helping the British to fight the French as well as Magua's murderous Indians, in the Colonies prior to the War of Independence. Madeleine Stowe is the spunky general's daughter who falls for him and Wes Studi makes Magua one of the greatest of all screen villains.
For a director more accustomed to urban crime dramas Mann handles both the period setting and the plentiful action sequences superbly. There isn't a false note to be found anywhere in this picture which, in the 25 years since it first appeared, has built up the reputation of a contemporary classic.

FANTASTIC MR FOX

I have always maintained that Wes Anderson's films are really just New Yorker cartoons brought to life. "Fantastic Mr Fox"
is just a New Yorker cartoon in cartoon form and it's fabulous; as a piece of animation it's even more visually extraordinary than his live action films. It's based on a Roald Dahl story but the dialogue is pure Anderson, (with a little help from the equally idiosyncratic Noah Baumbach), and in George Clooney's Mr Fox it's got one of the great voice-over performances but then every performance in this picture is perfect, (others include Meryl Streep and Michael Gambon as well as Anderson regulars Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson). It's also pitched perfectly at its audience; kids of all ages and their smart parents will love it. On the other hand, if Anderson seems a little too sophistical for your tastes then you will probably find this a little on the precious side whereas I, as a worshipper of all things Wes, absolutely loved it.

THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI

Albert Lewin's reputation rests almost entirely on two films, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" but his masterpiece must surely be the little known and little seen "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" from the novel by Guy De Maupassant. It is, of course, a very witty portrait of a cad, beautifully played by George Sanders, but it is also a film of considerable psychological depth and one of the most adult and intelligent American pictures of the forties with not a trace of the camp usually associated with the director.

Rather we get an incisive picture of a period and that rarefied milieu of high Parisian society, beautifully written by Lewin and superbly played by everyone. In particular Angela Lansbury is outstanding as the one woman Sanders might actually have feelings for. It's a great performance that should have made Lansbury a major Hollywood player rather than simply the great character actress she became. Even the usually wooden Warren William excels here. If any film cries out for a restoration it is this one

COLLATERAL

Michael Mann's "Collateral" is one of the best looking films I've ever seen. It could be argued that it hardly matters if it's got an interesting plot, is well directed, written and acted, (it has and it is), just so long as you can keep looking at the screen. It was photographed by Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron and it makes LA at night look like the kind of place you might even want to visit. But enough of that; what of that plot, direction etc? This time round Tom Cruise is a villain, (and he's very good indeed playing bad), a hit-man in Los Angeles for a night of murder who commandeers Jamie Foxx and his taxicab as his hostage/accomplice and it's terrifically exciting; a brilliantly constructed noirish thriller with two terrific performances, (Foxx and Cruise compliment each other perfectly). It's brilliantly written by Stuart Beattie and the direction is superb but then what did you expect from a Michael Mann movie. When will Holllywood recognize the fact that he is one of the best directors on the planet and give him the Oscar?

FOR ELLEN

Paul Dano is outstanding, (when is Paul Dano anything less than outstanding), as the rock star on a road trip to see his young daughter, Ellen, (the extraordinary Shaylena Mandigo). The Korean director So Yong Kim made this very American film and, like so many other 'outsiders', brings a very astute eye to both the characters and the landscape as well as paying homage, in its closing shot, to one of the great American films of the seventies.

Not a great deal happens but the films emotional core is very strong thanks, in large part, to Dano's extraordinary performance. He's never really off the screen and he dominates virtually every shot. His lack of an Oscar nomination is still something of a mystery to me. In the small but telling part of Dano's lawyer, a mother's-boy infatuated with his client, Jon Heder is also outstanding. Both these performances are Oscar-worthy but "For Ellen" is a small, independent film that never received the distribution it should have so not many people saw it. If you are one of those who allowed it to pass you by, seek it out; you certainly won't regret it.