July 30th
Stan**
GB TVM 2006. BBC. 60m.

At Oliver Hardy's deathbed in 1957, Stan Laurel reminisces about the old days.
Touching, slightly severe but sympathetic biopic, dramatising (speculatively) the Boys' initial tensions as a teaming as well as their troubled private lives. The old studio re-creations are basic but functionable.

Written by: Neil Brand.
Producer: Ben Evans.
Director: Jon Sen.
Starring: Jim Norton, Trevor Cooper, Nick Harden, Mike Goodenough, Dearbhla Molloy, Lorelei King, Martin Marquez (as Hal Roach), Charlotte Emmerson.
Photography: Balzas Bolygo.
Music: various.

Preceded by:
Empathy*
(GB TVM 2006. 1m.; d: John Worland; s: Harvey Cannon, Claire Worland.)

+ winner of BBC Look East BAFTA "60 Seconds of Fame" Award 2008

July 25th
The Black Knight*
GB 1954. Columbia/Warwick. 85m.

In the days of King Arthur a blacksmith avenges his honour and foils a plot to overthrow the King.
Fairly elementary but sustained swashbuckler containing strong elements of Errol Flynn and the later Hammer raunchiness (in one scene Stonehenge is amusingly destroyed because of a Pagan orgy), with one American star - and a very busy stunt double - amidst an otherwise all-British cast, with some interesting credentials.

Written by: Alec Coppel, Dennis O'Keefe, Bryan Forbes.
Producers: Irving Allen, Albert R. Broccoli.
Director: Tay Garnett.
Starring: Alan Ladd, Patricia Medina, Peter Cushing, Patrick Troughton, Andre Morell, Harry Andrews, Anthony Bushell (as King Arthur), Laurence Naismith, Bill Brandon, Ronald Adam.
Photography: John Wilcox.
Music: John Addison.
Art Direction: Alex Vetchinsky.

+ some film connections: though noted for his screen partnership with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing also frequently worked (in notable films such as Hammer's The Hound of the Baskervilles and the TV version of 1984) with Andre Morell, whom here plays an Obi-Wan Kenobi-ish knight training Alan Ladd to become the Black Knight - and it was Alan Ladd's son, Alan Ladd Jnr., who gave the green light for Star Wars, in which Peter Cushing once again played the villain.

July 23rd
Too Many Crooks**
GB 1959. Rank. 87m. bw

Inept criminals try to burgle from a womanising millionaire.
A reliable line-up of comedic faces from the pre-Carry On days bolsters up this amusing farce, piling up one funny situation after another.

Written by: Michael Pertwee, from a story by Jean Nery, Christiane Rochefort.
Producer/Director: Mario Zampi.
Starring: Terry-Thomas, George Cole, Sidney James, Brenda de Banzie, Bernard Bresslaw, Joe Melia, Vera Day, Delphi Lawrence, John Le Mesurier, Rosalie Ashley, Nicholas Parsons, Terry Scott, John Stuart.
Photography: Stan Pevey.
Music: Stanley Black.

July 21stSuperman** (PG)
("Director's Cut")
National Film Theatre, BFI South Bank

US 1978/2000. Warner Bros. 155m. Panavision

An orphaned baby is sent away by his doomed parents from the planet Krypton just before its destruction, and travels to Earth to begin a new life as the Man of Steel, where master criminal Lex Luthor has a few plans of his own...
Still the definitive telling of the Superman legend; entertaining, occasionally witty and spectacular, although rather long and slightly hampered by exorbitant big stars (Brando, Hackman), in a budget given rather too much to spend. Loads of pleasurable moments however, and a now famous signature tune.

Written by: Mario Puzo, David Newman, Robert Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton (and Tom Mankiewicz).
Producer: Pierre Spengler.
Director: Richard Donner.
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, Valerie Perrine, Jackie Cooper, Glenn Ford, Phyllis Thaxter, Trevor Howard, Harry Andrews, Jeff East, Marc McClure.
Photography: Geoffrey Unsworth.
Music: John Williams.
Production Design: John Barry.

+ the so-called "Director's Cut" released in cinemas in 2000 (in the US only, making this screening something of a UK first), is more an officially approved version by Richard Donner of certain selected extra scenes, most of which are superfluous but of minor interest.

100 Favourite Films: Superman

July 19th
Wall-E** (U)
Flicks Clacton

700 years in the future, a waste disposal robot falls in love with a surveillance robot sent from outer space to search for signs of life on Earth.
Charming animated romantic sci-fi, but still a little soulless (the heroes are robots and the humans are even more robotic); a witty technological take on the Creation as well as a satire on American consumerism, which for the purposes of mainstream cinema becomes an adventure to get back to a rather dirty Earth, complete with 2001-style computer villain. Likely to become another big hit for the Pixar studio.

p: Jim Morris.
d: Andrew Stanton
voices of: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver, and featuring Fred Willard

+ WALL-E: Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-class

Derek Malcolm (Evening Standard) review
Preceded by:
Presto*
(A magician's rabbit refuses to co-operate until he gets his carrot.; d: Doug Sweetland.)

July 11th
Casino Royale**
GB/US/Czech/Ger 2006. MGM/Columbia/Eon. 144m. bw/colour. Panavision

James Bond acquires his double-o licence, and uses it to hunt down a terrorist financier whom he competes with at the card table.
After 40 years of trying to adapt Fleming's first Bond novel, the official Bond film makers finally got round to it with this sensational new tough-as-nails 007, perhaps the most sadistic and closest to the original version of the character ever produced. The most startling elements of the novel also remain, in spite of anachronistically switching the setting from the Cold War to the present day.

Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis, based on the novel by Ian Fleming.
Producers: Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli.
Director: Martin Campbell.
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, Caterina Munro, Simon Abkarian, Jesper Christensen, Sebastien Foucan.
Photography: Phil Meheux.
Music: David Arnold (song "You Know My Name" sung by Chris Cornell).
Editing: Stuart Baird.

100 Favourite Films: Casino Royale (2006)

A GUIDE TO BLOGS

As we're roughly halfway through the year, here's a little key to the structure of this review page:

Date of film (as screened in the cinema or the day I happened to watch it on TV/DVD)
Film Title**** (Cinema Certificate) (star rating 0-4; zero generally covers standard product or worse, 4 stars is that rarely given accolade to those films which are outstandingly made as well as being personal favourites. Make what you will of the other ratings in between.)

Cinema Venue, plus town/city

Country of origin + year. Studio or Distributor/Production Companies. Running Time of Film. bw (Black & White film). silent (if either are relevant). Screen process used (Panavision/Cinemascope/3-D, etc.)

General plot synopsis, trying not to give away too much detail, but enough to give the flavour of the story.
Review and general comments. The intention here is to be fairly concise and to try and appraise the film from an overall perspective. I prefer to use objective analysis in these reviews, although personal opinion is an inevitable element, and where appropriate, individual reflections may creep in every now and then.

Credits: Director, Stars (including the occasional forgotten veteran and/or stars of the future); and where I feel like going into more detail, writer, producer, photography, music, and any other miscellaneous departments worth noting.

Emphasis: Italics for those whose contribution is of merit.

Special Emphasis: Underline and italics for those whose contribution to the film is of outstanding merit.

+ extra little bits of trivia connected with the film, or the occasional dialogue quote

Preceded by:
The Occasional Short Film (also with star rating)
(With more succinct credits and comments; similar to the above.)

July 3rd
Wanted (18)
Odeon Colchester

A down-on-his-luck office worker inherits the family business by joining a secret guild of assassins.
Ludicrous, obscene thriller, with next-to-no sympathetic characters, and where action always comes before plot. The Luke Skywalker-style twist in the tale prolongs the agony even more.

James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Thomas Kretschmann, Terence Stamp, Common, Kristen Hager, Marc Warren, David O'Hara
(d: Timur Bekmambetov)