Sep 30th    
This is My Life*   
(US 1992)     
Twentieth Century Fox. 105m.

A single mother becomes a stand-up comedian.
Largely sentimental and self-indulgent comedy drama, not as funny or as hard-edged as it thinks it is, with supporting cameos that don't get much of a look-in, but with the occasional titter and some talented younger performances.

Written by: Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron, based on the novel by Meg Wolitzer.
Producer: Lynda Obst.
Director: Nora Ephron.
Starring: Julie Kavner, Samantha Mathis, Gaby Hoffman, Carrie Fisher, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Najimy, Estelle Harris, Louis Di Bianco.
Photography: Bobby Byrne.
Music: Carly Simon.

Sep 10th
See How They Run (12A)
(Everyman Muswell Hill)

(GB 2022)
Searchlight/DJ Films. 98m.

An attempted film adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is prevented by actual murder in the theatre!
Sloppy murder mystery pastiche with politically correct miscasting in a semi-fantasy version of 1950s Britain. The two comedic detectives don't really gel, and some good cameos are all too short.

Written by: Mark Chappell.
Producers: Damian Jones, Gina Carter.
Director: Tom George.
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, David Oyelowo, Ruth Wilson, Reece Shearsmith, Harris Dickinson (as Richard Attenborough), Charlie Cooper, Shirley Henderson (as Agatha Christie).
Photography: Jamie D. Ramsay.
Music: Daniel Pemberton.

Sep 4th  
The Magnificent Ambersons***     
(US 1942)                                
RKO. 88m. bw

In the mid-to-late 19th century a Midwestern American family is unable to adapt to the new age of the automobile.
The second of the much vaunted films of Orson Welles, stylishly made again, where the characters resemble pieces in a melodramatic jigsaw puzzle;  abruptly brought to a halt in its later modern sections by the studio together with a happy ending not in the original. What remains is interesting and occasionally moving, although hardly exhilarating (as maybe the original version was too.)

Written, Produced and Directed by: Orson Welles, based on the novel by Booth Tarkington.
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Anne Baxter, Dolores Costello, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Richard Bennett, Donald Dillaway.
Photography: Stanley Cortez.
Music: Bernard Herrmann.
Editor: Robert Wise.

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. After the hoopla surrounding Citizen Kane, Orson Welles chose to make another American melodrama more akin to his Mercury Theatre style productions, together with cheeky boom microphone to keep his own face discreetly out the picture for his distinctive narration.

Preceded by:
The Elephant Will Never Forget**
(GB 1953. British Transport Films. 11m. bw; Heartfelt and only occasionally insensitive covering of the last trams to run through London towards Elephant and Castle.; w, d: John Krish; p: Edgar Anstey; narr: Brewster Mason; ph: Bob Paynter.)