Feb 26th
The Left Hand of God
US 1955. Twentieth Century Fox. 87m. Cinemascope

An American pilot takes the identity of a priest in order to save a small village and escape the Chinese warlord who has enslaved him.
A heavy amount of Hollywood gloss smothers this earnest melodrama, shot in colourful locations, but can't get away from the fact that Humphrey Bogart doesn't convince as a priest - either fake or real. In spite of the cliches, it still holds the attention.

Written by: Alfred Hayes, based on the novel by William E. Barrett.
Producer: Buddy Adler.
Director: Edward Dmytryk.
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Gene Tierney, E.G. Marshall, Agnes Moorehead, Lee J. Cobb, Victor Sen Yung.
Photography: Franz Planer.
Music: Victor Young.

Feb 24th
The Good Shepherd*
Empire Leicester Square

In 1961 a senior CIA officer investigates the reasons for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and traces the conspiracy back to the early foundations of the organisation in WWII.
Long but engrossing historical thriller drama woven together in a complex narrative, trying to have the pathos of an American style John Le Carre spy thriller but lacking the proper style. Some typically gritty supporting roles under Robert De Niro's capable direction, but Matt Damon is simply too young looking to carry off the part of the experienced, quietly authoritative CIA operative Edward Wilson, especially in the scenes with Wilson's grown-up son.

Feb 22nd
De-Lovely**
US/GB 2004. MGM. 125m. Panavision

At his death composer Cole Porter watches over a performance of his life, and how his wife Linda had to cope with his homosexuality as well as a later crippling horse riding accident.
Glossy musical biopic which moves along in typical fanciful fashion at first, with Dennis Potter-type musical numbers choreographing almost every major scene (and with modern singers making minor appearances), but settling down into more conventional drama during the story's heavier phases. The stars and the general professionalism behind the camera make it worth watching.

Written by: Jay Cocks.
Producers: Irwin Winkler, Rob Cowan, Charles Winkler.
Director: Irwin Winkler.
Starring: Kevin Kline, Ashley Judd, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin McNally, Sandra Nelson, Allan Corduner, Keith Allen (as Irving Berlin), James Wilby; and Robbie Williams, Lemar, Elvis Costello, Alanis Morissette, Caroline O'Connor, Sheryl Crow, Mick Hucknall, Diana Krall, Vivian Green, Natalie Cole.
Photography: Tony Pierce-Roberts.
Musical Direction: Stephen Endelman.
Production Design: Eve Stewart.
Costume: Janty Yates, Giorgio Armani.
Make-up: Sarah Manzani.

Feb 16th
A Colour Box**/Partie de Campagne**/Listen to Britain***National Film Theatre

A spare evening in London to return a video to a store in Camden, so I used it to see this triple bill of notable short films at the NFT. The first of them, A Colour Box, is a quirky but attractive looking little 3-minute handpainted animation of subliminal patterns set to some pleasant jazz music. Whether or not the G.P.O. intended Len Lye's film to advertise their parcel service in this way is doubtful; some brief messages appear on screen advertising cheaper parcel fares, adding a minor touch of nostalgia.

Jean Renoir's Partie de Campagne (aka A Day in the Country) is an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story of a group of reasonably well-to-do Parisiens who go on a picnic in the country, with two of the ladies catching the eye of the local boatmen. The satire is fairly gentle, as with most French films of this period, and photographed with Renoir's characteristic eye for the human foibles of life. Renoir himself fled France because of the German occupation, and in his absence what was left of the film was edited together into this pleasant featurette.

Listen to Britain is, beyond doubt, a classic short by Humphrey Jennings, a visual overture of sights and sounds of the country going about its daily life during World War II, and in spite of a very clunky introduction (by the Office of Information), very much of its time, the succeeding images - of factories working, troop trains chugging, school children playing, and Myra Hess performing Mozart at the National Gallery - are a superbly evocative example of positive propaganda about what we were fighting for.

Feb 11th
F for Fake*
aka: Vérités et Mensonges; ? About Fakes
Fra/Iran/WG 1974. Astrophone/Saco/Janus. 85m.
Orson Welles narrates and edits a film about recent examples of art forgeries, including some examples of his own.
Experimental semi-documentary done in a very flashily edited Brechtian style, from a famous actor-director in the autumn of his career. Enjoyable and rather soulless, but Welles still has the same exuberant flair for style over content as when he first made Citizen Kane.

Written by: Orson Welles, Oja Kodar.
Producers: Dominique Antoine, Francois Reiçhenbach.
Director: Orson Welles.
Starring: Orson Welles, Elmyr de Hory, Clifford Irving, Oja Kodar, Francois Reiçhenbach, Richard Wilson, Joseph Cotten, Paul Stewart, Laurence Harvey.
Photography: Francois Reiçhenbach.
Music: Michel Legrand.
Editing: Marie-Sophie Dubus, Dominique Engerer.

Feb 10th
Bobby**
(Odeon Swiss Cottage)

The lives of various disparate characters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in June 1968 are affected by the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy.
Retrospective history; a prosaic and often preachy script (and politically very one-dimensional in its unquestioned admiration of Bobby Kennedy), which is smoothed over by some individual ensemble performances and good period detail. The film works most effectively as a collage of the peripheral background characters (most of whom are fictionalised) that are quite skilfilly interwoven without giving the appearance of a series of vignettes strung together.

Jan 31st
Dune
US 1984. Universal/Dino De Laurentiis. 130m. Todd-AO
Spice miners in a faraway galaxy tussle for control of a desert planet that is the source of the spice, with one particular young man rising into the ascendancy to fulfil a prophecy.
A colossal undertaking that simply does not engage as a story, a clumsy adaptation of an epic novel where the director's eye for visual flair overrides both plot and structure, and some of the detail is repulsive. An extraordinary cast look as baffled as everybody else, and all the archaic sets and massive expertise go to waste.

Written and Directed by: David Lynch, from the novel by Frank Herbert.
Producer: Rafaella De Laurentiis.
Starring: Kyle McLachlan, Francesca Annis, Jurgen Prochnow, Max Von Sydow, Sian Phillips, Jose Ferrer, Virginia Madsen (narrator), Kenneth McMillan, Sting, Brad Dourif, Sean Young, Patrick Stewart, Dean Stockwell, Freddie Jones, Linda Hunt, Silvana Mangano.
Photography: Freddie Francis.
Music: Toto, Brian Eno.
Production Design: Anthony Masters.

+ David Lynch cameos as a spice miner