Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

The Contessa of the title (played by Ava Gardner) is a Spanish dancer from the back streets of Madrid, Maria Vargas, who becomes a movie star and sex symbol, Maria d'Amato, before marrying a Count. The film starts with her funeral so we know right away that this rags-to-riches story isn't going to end well.  Anyway we then follow Maria's life in a series of flashbacks as told by three narrators who knew her: first, Harry Dawes, who directed her only three films; then Oscar Muldoon, her publicist; and finally her husband. Harry is played by Humphrey Bogart, and he is the other main character, becoming Maria's closest friend.  He's quite cynical about the movie business, so at first the film is a satire of Hollywood, complete with producers with no aesthetic sense, and insensitive and vacuous PR men. But when Maria attaches herself to a very rich South American playboy the film's target switches to the international jet set, as seen through the eyes of Oscar, as p...

For some unholy reason I started watching 'End of Days' (11% on Rotten Tomatoes) but after a few execrable scenes I decided to bail out and instead I went to the other extreme and watched this sedate 1958 adaptation of a stage play. Or to be more accurate it is the adaptation of two  one-act plays, written by Terence Rattigan, to be performed back to back, both set in a Bournemouth hotel, and with some of the lead actors playing a different part in each play. Someone then had the bright idea of merging the two plays into a single screenplay for this film, although h owever skilfully the two stories have been interweaved they are clearly still two separate stories, just happening in parallel.      The more compelling story features the friendship (which might become more) between Major Pollock (played by David Niven), who is not all he says he is, and the timid and repressed Sibyl (Deborah Kerr).  The other story features a love triangle comprising John (pla...

No, this has nothing to do with vampires.  It's a 1998 thriller with a staggering cast - Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Susan Sarandon, Reese Witherspoon, James Garner, Stockard Channing.   The fact that I'd never heard of it rang immediate alarm bells, and sure enough Wikipedia confirmed that  it was a box-office bomb.  But some critics liked it so why not give it a whirl? Paul Newman is Harry, a retired cop and private eye, who is living as the guest of Jack and Catherine (Hackman and Sarandon), who are a married couple, and who were once famous movie stars. There's a mystery as to what happened many years ago to Catherine's first husband.  And when someone starts rooting around in that mystery people start getting killed. So the film, which is sedate to say the least, follows Harry as he tries to solve the twin mysteries as to what happened in the past, and who is the murderer now. The main reason to watch this is to enjoy seeing Newman.  For some reaso...

You have to hand it to Robert Harris - he's a master at extracting drama out of very unpromising material, whether it be the 1938 Munich peace conference or as here the election of a new Pope. If this film is accurate then the successful administration of the election depends on the Dean of the College of Cardinals.  Likewise the success of the film depends on who plays said Dean.  Thankfully it is Ralph Fiennes so we are in safe hands. I had read the novel but naturally had forgotten pretty much all of it, including the shock revelation at the end, so I was able to enjoy the story all over again. It's well put together, with good supporting performances all round by the likes of John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini. So I don't really have any complaints except that I would have liked a few scenes of deep  theological discussion but I'm probably in a minority of one on that score. When I read the novel I don't think I found the shock revelation at th...

The first time I watched this I came away a little disappointed, but this time around I left totally on board with its reputation as one of the best 1930s romantic comedies.  OK it's not 'The Philadelphia Story' (what is?) but it's definitely up there with the likes of 'His Girl Friday', 'Holiday' and 'Bringing Up Baby'. Mind you, reading the lengthy Wikipedia account of the making of this picture it does seem something of a miracle that it got made at all, let alone be the classic it is. The main problem was how to come up with a screenplay that turned the source play into a comedy.  It proved so difficult that when filming started the director Leo McCarey had no screenplay that he was satisfied with.  But McCarey already had a long career behind him as a writer and director of film comedy (including the immortal 'Duck Soup') so nothing daunted he sat doodling at his piano, as his way of seeking inspiration.  He also encouraged the cast,...

I find this 1962 French New Wave classic, directed by François Truffaut, to be quite irresistible. I'm a sucker anyway for any halfway decent black-and-white French film, something about the sound of the language I guess. Everything here is delightful and top-notch, from the cinematography to the score, to the acting.  Truffaut's direction is full of youthful panache, matching the vitality of the three main characters, who form an unstable love triangle. The source of the instability is Catherine, played wonderfully well by Jeanne Moreau as a kind of prototype cerebral pixie-manic-dream-girl.  In contrast Jules and Jim have a rock-solid friendship which endures despite first one then the other being the object of her affection. Although the three of them behave as though they are creatures of the Swinging Sixties, the film actually covers some twenty years starting before the First World War and ending in the 1930s.  Truffaut does a great job of incorporating real fo...

This 1967 spy thriller was the third in as many years to star Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. Whereas the two previous films were anchored closer to le Carré's dour reality than to Fleming's sex-and-gadgets fantasy world, this one veers very much towards the latter.  But it  lacks the stunts and budget to compete with the Bond films, and in fact at times (especially the opening credits) seems more like a spoof.  For whatever reason it was a commercial and critical flop, and killed the franchise. Who to blame?   Is it the screenwriter John McGrath, a playwright who used his plays to promote socialism?  Judging from his short Wikipedia entry this might have been the only screenplay he wrote. Or is it the director,  Ken Russell, not anyone's first choice to direct a gritty espionage thriller?  At this early stage in his career he had worked mainly in TV, but was recommended  for this assignment by Caine himself, who later regretted it.  Or p...

This 1958 Western is directed by Anthony Mann, who made several superior Westerns in the 1950s, usually starring James Stewart.   But by the time this film was being cast Mann and Stewart had fallen out and so the leading role was offered to Gary Cooper.  This was despite the fact that the part was clearly written for someone 20 years younger (Stewart of course would also have been far too old). Cooper's character Link is the nephew of Lee J Cobb's character Dock, but given that Cobb is some 10 years younger than Cooper this key aspect of the story never makes much sense. So although the film has a lot going for it, in terms of performances, direction, cinematography, it is always hamstrung by the miscasting of Cooper, albeit that he is typically fine. Anyhow, the early scenes of this film give absolutely no indication of where we are heading. Link is taking the train to Fort Worth with the savings of his community so that he can hire a school teacher, although we are gi...

It’s fascinating of course to watch this 2011 Stephen Soderbergh film about a global pandemic to see how prescient it was. For starters the fictional virus originates in a Chinese market where live animals are sold. And the film gets a lot of technical detail right apparently, and even references R0 at one point. On the other hand instead of lockdowns it imagines whole cities being isolated, leading to breakdowns in law and order. And the speed with which a vaccine is created and the way it is proved safe are not credible but that's understandable given that the reality of how a vaccine is developed and tested is not that riveting.  Which brings us to the main issue here, which is that a pandemic is not in itself necessarily make for good drama. This film tries to solve this problem by focusing on half a dozen or so individuals, and so how much you enjoy this film hinges on how satisfying you find their stories. The one I was most into was that of Kate Winslett who goes to Minneapo...

Both the writing and direction of this film are credited to Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza.  The latter is a former  U.S. Navy SEAL and the film is based on his experience of an incident du ring the Iraq War. More specifically it's about Mendoza's platoon breaking into a local house to carry out some surveillance in support of a wider military operation.  Unfortunately the house becomes a target for insurgents, and the question is whether the platoon can be rescued. The film aims for absolute realism so there's no score and events are shown in real-time.  It makes for a thoroughly gripping and tense viewing experience, and at times a terrifying one. The sense that I was watching c inéma vérité was enhanced by the fact that none of the actors were familiar to me, except for Kit Connor from the excellent Netflix series 'Heartstopper' who I somehow failed to recognise (that's military camouflage for you, I guess). As one example of how nothing here is sugar-coated t...

The pitch for this classic 1953 French film must have been really simple: we've got some desperate guys transporting some highly unstable nitro-glycerine across hundreds of miles of inhospitable terrain in Puerto Rico.  What more do you need to know? It's a sure-fire recipe for suspense, and the director Henri-Georges Clouzot doesn't fail to deliver. But my goodness we have to sit through a full hour of build-up before the suicide mission sets off.  What little we learn about the four protagonists at this point could have been delivered in half the time.  There are two lorries (to double the chances of success).  In one we have two Frenchmen, an ageing ex-gangster Jo who likes to act the tough guy, and the younger Mario who looks up to him.  In the other is genial Luigi (Italian in case you hadn't guessed) and dour Bimba (Dutch). Very soon it's clear that Jo's nerves are not up to the task, and during the journey Mario becomes increasingly contemptuous of h...

This is the first film I've seen by the great French director, Robert Bresson.  It is greatly admired by the cognoscenti but frankly I don't know what to make of it. It's a minimalist tale of Michel who is a budding pickpocket.  He acquires a couple of more experienced accomplices but in the end he gets caught and ends up in prison. This is all directed in a spare style that matches the low key story.  Michel doesn't seem to get any pleasure from the money he steals, or indeed anything.  He has a friend Jacques who tries to find him gainful employment but who doesn't add much to the plot and doesn't have much of a character. Michel has an odd relationship with a police inspector who knows Michel is a criminal but can't or won't arrest him.  There's at least one scene between them where they engage in a kind of philosophical discussion (very French, very 1950s).  Michel has some half-baked theory that there are 'supermen' who should be above t...

This is the second and last film with Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. It's no surprise that this sank the nascent franchise given that whilst there's nothing especially bad about it it's all quite forgettable. Is Tom Cruise miscast as Reacher?  I can't really say given that I've never read any of the novels but judging the recent Amazon Prime series Reacher is very much the strong silent type of hero, which doesn't really play to Cruise's strengths.  He gets very little opportunity here to show any of the Cruise pizazz and when he does it seems out of character. The critics didn't much like the plot. Compared with Lee Child’s source novel it's clear that what we have here is a much simplified story with one character, Sam (a teenage girl who might be Reacher's daughter), brought centre stage.   She's not as irritating as I feared, showing some spirit and initiative early on, but unfortunately towards the end she does something very stupid and out...

In 1973 Lothar-Günther Buchheim published a hugely successful anti-war novel, 'Das Boot' based on his experiences as a war correspondent on board U-boats in World War 2.  Eight years later this film adaptation was released, followed by a TV miniseries which used extra footage (the film is a mere 148 minutes!), and then subsequent 'director's cuts'. We follow one particular U-boat on a patrol in the Atlantic. The lengthy runtime enables us to appreciate that there are long stretches of boredom during such a patrol, which of course makes the action sequences that bit more exciting when they do come. Although the film was a huge critical success Buchheim himself expressed disappointment, saying that it didn't do justice to his anti-war views. I find this surprising because there is no way that this film glorifies war, and it has a devastatingly bleak ending. What it does do, which may be part of Buchheim's objections, is to  pay tribute to the courage and profe...

This is François Truffaut's love letter to the theatre in the same way that 1968's 'Day For Night' was his love letter to cinema.  Both are essentially light in tone but this film has darker undertones, being set in Nazi-occupied Paris of 1942. Catherine Deneuve is Marion Steiner, a celebrated actress who has had to take over the running of her husband Jacob's theatre because he has had to go into hiding, being Jewish.  Fairly early on we learn that he hasn't left Paris at all, and that instead he is ensconced in the cellar of the theatre, until Marion can arrange his safe passage out of France. The other main character is Gérard Depardieu as Bernard, an up-and-coming actor who is to star opposite Marion in the theatre's next production.  Given Depardieu's real life conviction for sexual assault it is unfortunate that the film starts with a scene in which Bernard is pestering the theatre's designer with his unwanted advances.  Perhaps because of this...

I have something of a love/hate relationship with Wes Anderson’s films so I approached this, his debut feature, with the hope that it might be a bit looser than his later hermetically sealed work. So it’s about a couple of guys who, like a lot of Anderson’s protagonists, combine innocence, melancholy and delusion.  Dignan (great name) is played by Owen Wilson and is someone under the delusion that he is competent although underlying his bravado lurks a lot of insecurity. His friend Anthony (played by Luke Wilson) starts the film leaving a mental hospital. We’re never told why he was there other than 'exhaustion’ which I think points to depression.  Dignan is seeking a life of crime with the help of Anthony and a rich but downtrodden friend of theirs, Bob. Cue an amusing raid of a bookstore followed by hiding out in a motel. Rather surprisingly the film then kind of stalls as Anthony starts a romance with a Paraguayan housemaid Inez,  Eventually all three friends return ho...

Well, we got off to a terrible start in the cinema with a short clip before the film started in which Tom Cruise addresses the audience directly to say something, I forget what. And of course anyway I went into this with very low expectations following the disappointment of 'Dead Reckoning'. Sure enough the first hour of this film doesn't have much to offer, other than Luther's death. After that though I had a good time. The Russian submarine sequence is terrific and looks great, and before that we get some nice action, intercutting between the team on St Matthews Island and Ethan in a fight on the US sub.  I'm always happy to be in a submarine although I was naturally disappointed we don't get to hear the commander hand over the conn to anyone. Bringing back William Donloe from the first film is a masterstroke; he and his Innuit wife bring some much needed humanity to proceedings. The biplane sequence is spectacular (even if something of a rerun of the climax o...

Wow, occasionally a film comes along that is so original and perfectly executed that it grabs you by the throat from the start and never lets go. There's a quick setup at the beginning: Lola's hapless boyfriend Manni has left a bag containing the proceeds of a drug deal (100,000 marks) on a train, and unless he can come up with the money in 20 minutes (!) the bad guy who is expecting the money will kill him.   And then we're off, or rather Lola is off, running out of her apartment to try to get the money off her rich father who has some senior position at a bank. As a complication Manni is going to try to rob a nearby supermarket if Lola doesn't come up with the goods on time. Things go very badly wrong, but that's when the real originality kicks in, because it turns out we are in a time loop film, and we go back to the moment when Lola runs out of the apartment.  This time round, due to small random factors, such as a dog on the stairs of her apartment building, th...

This 1970 "psychological comedy drama film" (according to Wikipedia), directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and starring Jane Asher is the kind of low-key offbeat film which doesn't get made these days.    It's about Mike, a 15-year old dropout who gets work as an attendant at a swimming baths, and Susan, who already works there and who is several years older.  He gradually becomes infatuated with her (understandable given how sexy Jane Asher is in this film) which leads to an ending which combines tragedy and farce as well as a soupçon of eroticism. Before we get to that we meet Susan's fiancé who is not an appealing character but whom she is resigned to ending up with it seems.  She is also still sexually involved with her ex-school master, also not a very nice person who likes to get involved with his female pupils despite being married.   The scene towards the end when Susan tears into him is probably my favourite.  Another memorable scene involves a cameo...