JULIET OF THE SPIRITS

 "Juliet of the Spirits" may be 'minor' Fellini, the first of his films to feel like an indulgence more than anything else and also his first film in colour; of course, it looks gorgeous. You might call it a 'divertissement' and it moved further away from the realism of anything he had done previously and, of course, it's yet another love letter to his wife, Giulietta Masina.

She's the Juliet of the title, a bourgeoisie housewife whose fantasies, mostly revolving around her husband's potential infidelity, make up most of the film's running time. It's as if Fellini were taking those fantastical elements of his previous couple of films,  serving them up as a beautifully over-the-top extravaganza and in glorious colour. In its way it's quite as radical as "8 1/2" if not in the same class, (there is no real depth to it, everything is on the surface), but you certainly couldn't mistake it for the work of anyone else and maybe that is praise enough.

JOCKEY

 There's nothing particularly original about "Jockey"; we've been down this Indie road numerous times before and yet Clint Bentley's debut feature is a constant pleasure nevertheless, a throwback to something Bob Rafelson might have made in the seventies and which Chloe Zhao has been turning out in the last few years. The lack of originality lies in the screenplay which is about an ageing jockey, (a superb Clifton Collins Jr., in what might be a career best performance), coping with the onslaught of a debilitating illness while dealing with the revelation that the up-and-coming young jockey on the horizon, (Moises Arias), may be his son.

What gives this film its considerable edge is director Bentley's superlative handling of familiar material and the brilliant performances of Collins Jr,, Arias and Molly Parker as the warm-hearted trainer with more than a soft spot for Collins while the luminous cinematography of Adolpho Veloso perfectly captures the ambiance of the circuit of horses and their riders.  Of course, don't expect this little gem to turn up at your local multiplex but seek it out wherever it's showing. I guarantee you won't regret it.

BAD TIMING

 It's Nicolas Roeg so you know it won't be straightforward and it isn't. It opens with Klimt on the credits and Tom Waits at his smokiest and then we're at the beginning of the story or maybe we're at the end. Time doesn't really stand still in the first five minutes . All we really know is that a comatose Theresa Russell is being rushed to the emergency ward accompanied by a not-too-worried looking Art Garfunkel while the film jumps back to when they met withour really explaining who they are.

"Bad Timing" isn't a pleasant film and I didn't like it first time round but with Roeg it's easy to recognize the brilliance, the construction and even people who don't like Roeg often admire his work and there are a few of his admirers who consider "Bad Timing" his masterpiece. Yes, it's a director's picture but it's also an actor's picture though you may feel Garfunkel hopelessly miscast as a brilliant psychoanalyst; after all, wasn't he the 'lesser' half of Simon and Garfunkel.

Actually I've always thought Garfukel a very fine actor and he's very fine here; blank, chilly and not at all likeable, a man living entirely within himself. Russell's teriffic, of course. Like Monroe she was never a great actress but like Monroe she could be great, fully embodying the character she was playing and pouring more of herself into the part than may have been necessary. The supporting cast includes Harvey Keital and Denholm Elliott and they are excellent even if Keitel is a very American Austrian policeman. The brilliant cinematography is once again by Anthony Richmond and Yale Udoff wrote the elliptical screenplay. I still didn't like the film but I can see the brilliance.

THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT

 There's an awful lot of plot to get through in Nunnally Johnson's slick, long (153 minutes), highly melodramatic screen version of Sloan Wilson's bestseller "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit". It's a Darryl F. Zanuck production made for Fox in Cinemascope and colour in the mid-fifties. The kind of 'big' picture designed to bring people back to the cinema in the blossoming age of television and it's certainly a handsome looking movie though not a very good one.

Gregory Peck is his customary wooden self as the man in question, a former soldier haunted by his actions in the war, (including fathering a child with Marisa Pavan), and now working on Madison Avenue where his integrity is further tested. Fredric March is his boss, a decent man with problems of his own and as was so often the case with March, he walks off with the movie. There's a large supporting cast, none of whom are given much to do, and as I said it does go on a bit. It's not dull exactly despite Peck's best efforts to make it so and while it was a hit at the time it was ignored by the Academy and hasn't been seen much since.