May 16th   
Fever Pitch**     
(GB 1996)       
Film Four/Channel 4 Films. 102m.

A London schoolteacher finds his love life and his beloved football team are following a similar course that season.
The author's own confessions of an Arsenal fan, dressed up as sporting romantic comedy where the romantic interest and most of the other supporting characters are essentially ciphers for the central character's male psyche. Very little of an outside voice is heard, but the film has some funny moments of recognition for those familiar with the milieu and the time.

Written by: Nick Hornby, from his novel.
Producer: Amanda Posey.
Director: David Evans.
Starring: Colin Firth, Ruth Gemmell, Mark Strong, Neil Pearson, Lorraine Ashbourne, Holly Aird, Ken Stott, Stephen Rea, Annette Ekblom.
Photography: Chris Seager.
Music: Bob Hewerdine, Neil McColl.

+ American remake in 2005, with a baseball instead of soccer obsessive

Preceded by:   
Tom and Jerry in  
Saturday Evening Puss**      
(US 1950. 6m.l w, d: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera; p: Fred Quimby.)

May 12th  
The Kid Brother***   
(US 1927)      
Paramount. 84m. bw. silent    

The weakling of three lumberjack brothers makes good when combating the strongman in a local touring theatre that has stolen his father's funds. 
Standard but innovative Lloyd vehicle, not quite as convincing as a story as previous efforts, but with touching moments, a full-blooded chase climax, and some strong production at the twilight of the silent era.

Written by: Howard J. Green.
Producer: Harold Lloyd.
Director: Ted Wilde.
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Walter James, Olin Francis, Leo Willis, Eddie Boland, Constantine Romanoff.
Photography: Walter Lundin.

Music Composer/Conductor: Carl Davis.

+ parts of the film were also directed by Lewis Milestone

May 2nd   
North by Northwest***    
(Prince Charles Cinema, London)

(US 1959)    
MGM. 136m. Vistavision

An advertising executive mistaken for a spy is implicated in a manhunt across America, and then sets out to find the real "George Kaplan".
Wonderful comedy thriller with just about the right mixture of everything. Any implausibilities in the plor are smoothed over by Hitchcock's skillful set pieces, and some delightfully farcical ones at that, sustained by a marvelously droll central performance. 

Written by: Ernest Lehman.
Producer/Director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau, Leo G. Carroll, Jessie Royce Landis, Adam Williams, Josephine Hutchinson, Nora Marlowe, Phillip Ober.
Music: Bernard Herrmann.
Photography:Robert Burks.
Titles: Saul Bass.



100 Favourite Films: North by Northwest

Apr 12th   
True Confessions**    
(US 1981)
United Artists. 108m. 

A Los Angeles vice squad detective uncovers a series of brutal murders that implicate his Catholic priest brother.
Sensitively handled in its ecclesiastical element, and beautifully photographed in the manner of The Godfather (including two of its main actors), though as a murder plot containing the usual bouts of sex, violence and profanity that are supposedly good box office (based on the Black Dahlia murder case in the 1940s). A belated Easter tribute to the late Robert Duvall.

Written by: Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, from his novel. 
Producers: Robert Chartoff, Irwin Winkler.
Director: Ulu Grosbard.
Starring: Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Charles Durning, Burgess Meredith, Cyril Cusack, Kenneth McMillan, Ed Flanders, Dan Hedaya, Rose Gregario, Jeannette Nolan.
Photography: Owen Roizman.
Music: Georges Delerue.

Apr 11th  
The Magic Faraway Tree*  (U)      
(Century Clacton)        

(GB/US 2026)                       
Elysian/Ashland Hill Media. 110m. ws

A young father takes his dysfunctional family to their new woodland home where the children investigate a mysterious tree leading them to magical adventures.
Modernization of Enid Blyton's stories where the adults are more moving and engaging than the children, with the transition from fantasy to reality a little overstylised in design and performance (with a belated brief villain), and lacking the whimsy of the original.

Written by: Simon Farnaby.
Producers: Pippa Harris, Nicholas Brown, Danny Perkins, Jane Hooks.
Director: Ben Gregor.
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Billie Gadson, Phoenix Laroche, Nicola Coughlan, Nonso Anozie, Mark Heap, Lenny Henry, Michael Palin, Simon Russell Beale, Jennifer Saunders, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Farnaby.
Photography: Zac Nicholson.
Music: Isabella Summers.

Apr 1st   
Three Fugitives**   
(US 1989)       
Touchstone. 96m.

A serial bank robber is released from prison but has the misfortune to be taken hostage by an incompetent thief trying to raise funds for his mute daughter.   
Practically a scene-for-scene remake of Veber's own comedy Les Fugitifs from 1986, and just as funny with the American cast and settings giving it the right amount of comic energy.

Written and Directed by: Francis Veber.
Producer: Lauren Shuler Donner.
Starring: Nick Nolte, Martin Short, Sarah Rowland Doroff, James Earl Jones, Kenneth McMillan, Alan Ruck, Bruce McGill.
Photography: Haskell Wexler, David McHugh.

THREE FUGITIVES. The poster, for once, is not an exaggeration: there is a scene in the film where Nick Nolte literally carries both Martin Short and Sarah Rowland Doroff up a flight of stairs! 

Mar 24th   
Wonderland*   
(US 2003)
Lions Gate Films/Flirt Pictures. 104m. 

Porn film star John Holmes becomes implicated in the Wonderland murders in July 1981 among the drug-fueled Los Angeles underworld.
Stylized in the manner of Rashomon to show different perspectives on an unsolved murder case, and hardly a good advertisement for LA justice, but carried along in a certain glitzy nostalgia to hold the attention, and also a barely cohesive plot.

Written by: James Cox, Captain Mauzaer, Todd Samovitz, D. Loriston Scott.
Producers: Michael Paseornek, Holly Wiersma.
Director: James Cox.
Starring: Val Kilmer, Kate Bosworth, Dylan McDermott, Lisa Kudrow, Josh Lucas, Christina Applegate, Eric Bogosian, Carrie Fisher, Ted Levine, Janeane Garofalo.
Photography: Michael Grady.
Music: Cliff Martinez.

Preceded by:
A Hole Lot of Trouble*
(GB 1969. Monarch Film. 27m.; Builders dig a hole in the wrong part of the road, in this weaker but almost as engaging variation on The Plank.; w: Ian Flintoff, Francis Searle; d: Francis Searle; s: Victor Maddern, Arthur Lowe, Bill Maynard, Ken Parry, Tim Barrett; ph: Terry Maher; m: Peter Jeffries.)