THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN ****

 A legend in the theatre, Martin McDonagh's film career has been patchy at best; close to sublime with "In Brughes" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and almost irredeemably bad with "Seven Psychopaths". At least until now, since McDonagh's new film isn't just the best thing he's done on screen but very possibly the best thing he's ever done.

On the surface, "The Banshees of Inisherin" is a very simple affair with a plot that could have been written on the back of an envelope. The setting is the ficticious island of Inisherin off the mainland of Ireland. The year is 1922 and the Irish Civil War is raging. Padraic, (Colin Farrell) and Colm, (Brendan Gleeson) are seemingly best friends until one day Colm tells Padraic he no longer wants to be his friend, that he finds him 'boring', and so what begins as a dark comedy worthy of Beckett or indeed the McDonagh who gave us "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" turns slowly but inexorably into a tragedy worthy of Ibsen and dealing with such themes as loneliness, depression, masculinity and friendship and with an ending as sad as any I've seen in the cinema, (though others may see it differently).

Of course, it all could just as easily have fallen on its slightly absurdist face. Here is a scenario that could have gone any which way; McDonagh is hardly known for his subtlety and yet he never puts a foot wrong. By the time we get to the last act you could hear a pin drop in a packed cinema.

It's also magnificently acted both by Farrell and Gleeson in career-best performaces, both underplaying to the extent that they totally disappear inside their characters and there is a third magnificent performance from Barry Keoghan, (please, just give him the Best Supporting Actor Oscar now), as Dominic, ostensibly the village idiot he may just be the most intelligent person on the island and that is his tragedy; such intelligence can't be contained especially when it goes unrecognized. A masterpiece.

JOHNNY NOBODY *

 There's a terrific idea at the heart of this Irish-set thriller, particularly if you're a Catholic. A drunken Irish-American atheist stands outside a Roman Catholic Church in a small Irish village and defies God to strike him dead when out of nowhere a stranger appears and does just that in front of the local priest and the whole village. Since the killer doesn't appear to have a past or an identity, he becomes known as "Johnny Nobody", hence the film's title.

So far so good; unfortunately we get the denouement about two-thirds of the way through and it's not a very good one. From here on things get progressively more far-fetched, like a cross between a poor man's "The 39 Steps" and "Witness for the Prosecution".

Actor Nigel Patrick both directs and plays the sceptical priest, Aldo Ray is the killer and a really rather good William Bendix, the victim. Others in the cast include a miscast Yvonne Mitchell, Cyril Cusack and Niall Macginnis as well as the usual stock company of Irish players. On its level it's entertaining matinee fare but it could have been so much better.

CONVICTED **

 "Convicted" is based on the play 'Criminal Code', previoulsy filmed by Howard Hawks in 1931 and as remakes go this one is very good indeed. Glenn Ford is the guy serving up to 10 years in prison for killing someone in a barroom brawl. Broderick Crawford is the D. A. who sent him down but believed the sentence to have been too harsh and who then finds himself the warden of the prison Ford ended up in.

It's a good story and, like the earlier version, is well cast. Both Ford and Crawford are excellent and a very fine supporting cast includes Millard Mitchell, Will Geer, Dorothy Malone, Frank Faylen, Ed Begley and Carl Benton Reid as a sadistic guard. The director was Henry Levin, normally associated with much lighter fare than this, but this is one of his finest films. It's largely disappeared but this tough, intelligent picture is certainly worth seeking out.

THE HAPPY ENDING no stars

 You could say writer/director Richard Brooks fashioned "The Happy Ending" as a vehicle for his then wife Jean Simmons and this finest and most undervalued of actresses was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for her performance. She plays the unhappy wife of John Forsythe, (shot in soft-focus, the early part of the film explores their 'youthful' courtship though they do make for very unlikely 'kids'), who finally leaves him in order to 'find herself'. Unfortunately the film itself is something of a slog despite being a reasonably well-acted example of 'the women's picture', (even Forsythe isn't bad), with good work from co-stars Shirley Jones, Lloyd Bridges and Bobby Darin, billed here for some reason as Robert Darin.

The problem is the dime-store novel plotting and dialogue straight out of the worst kind of television soap as Brooks explores the rotteness at the heart of American marriage. Apparently it was something of a hit at the time though it's now largely and mercifully forgotten though its theme-song, 'What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life', has become something of a classic.

AMSTERDAM no stars

 I must admit I've never even heard of the real-life plot that forms the basis of the story that's told to us in David O. Russell's new film "Amsterdam" but I think it needed something more than the daft comedy-thriller Russell serves up, (I use the term 'comedy-thriller' cautiously as there is definitely a dearth of comedy on show). It's actually pretty terrible for about three-quarters of its lengthy two and a quarter hour running time, picking up in the last half hour when 'the plot' is finally revealed but by then it's much too little too late and a really rather good cast is totally trashed by the director.

It begins in 1933, flashes back briefly to 1918/19 before returning to the early thirties when fascism was on the rise in Europe and in America too if this film is to be believed. Christian Bale and John David Washington are the battle-scarred pals from the trenches who find themselves caught up in the murder of their former commander and his daughter and who go off to clear their names like a couple of amateur sleuths out of an Agatha Christie spoof.

Bale's terrific, (when isn't he), proving that even with substandard material he can still light up the screen like few others. Washington can't really compete nor indeed can anyone else though Michael Shannon is very good in much too small a role and Robert DeNiro just about salvages his reputation in the last part of the picture. It certainly looks great if a little over-designed but this is one David O Russell movie I won't be returning to anytime soon.

THE FORGIVEN ***

 For a film that deals with such lofty subjects as crime and punishment, forgiveness or perhaps the lack of it John Michael McDonagh's "The Forgiven" is a lot less profound and certainly not as deep as it might have been or probably thinks it is. On the other hand, it's beautifully filmed, very well directed and with superb performances from its first-rate cast. It also deals with a subject not usually tackled in the cinema; the clash of cultures in contemporary society, in this case between Western hedonists and the Muslim faith.

A drunken driver, (Ralph Fiennes), travelling with his wife, (Jessica Chastain), to a house party in Morocco hits a young Muslim boy and kills him. It's a horrible accident but the man doesn't initially appear to have any remorse and continues onto the party, bringing the body with him. The local police are informed, they agree it was an accident and the boy's father is traced. However, when he comes to collect the body he insists Fiennes return with him for the burial, which he does, leaving Chastain and their dissolute friends to continue with the party.

You might even describe this picture as darkly comic. There are very few people on the screen with whom you can empathise, (the few you can empathise with are Muslims). The twist, when it comes, is that Fiennes is the most moral character in the picture, his greatest 'sin' is simply that he's an alcoholic and the film does leave a sour aftertaste but Fiennes, Chastain, Christopher Abbot as one of the guests and Ismael Kanater as the dead boy's father are so good it's impossible to take your eyes from the screen and there is a cold brilliance to the film. I doubt if it will draw crowds but it's definitely intelligent and certainly it's worth seeing.

THE 355 no stars

 This female kick-ass action flic features three Oscar-winning actresses so we should be looking at a class act, right?  Well, not quite; "The 355" is thoroughly formulaic and a waste of the talents involved which isn't to say it doesn't have its entertaining moments but it's just one of many such genre pictures and it's far from the best.

The McGuffin is some kind of computer drive that if the bad guys get it, (bad guys? who are they?), will do sufficent damage to make World War Three seem like a walk in the park. You know the sort of thing I mean; it's been the staple diet of 'espionage' films since the beginning of the movies and casting the likes of Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong'o, Diane Kruger, Edgar Ramirez and Sebastian Stan isn't going to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and this sow's ear has a very daft and impenetrable plot.

The action scenes are okay, the locations are certainly attractive and the cast do their best with very sub-standard material. There isn't even a decent villain; give me the super silliness of the wildly over-the-top but hugely enjoyable "The Gray Man" any day.

I CAME BY **

 Excellent, queasy chiller from Babak Anvari. The moral of the story seems to be if you're a graffiti artist, don't go breaking into people's homes as you never know what you'll find or what might happen to you. George MacKay is the graffiti artist who breaks into judge Hugh Bonneville's home and gets more than he bargains for. The material isn't particularly new but the handling of it is first-rate and Bonneville makes for a very unnerving villain. Good work, too, from MacKay, Kelly Macdonald as his mother and Percelle Ascott as his best friend. It even manages to pull a couple of unexpected rabbits out of the hat which makes it a genre picture worth seeking out.

DAISIES *

You can't say "Daisies" isn't original or that director Vera Chytilova lacks imagination even if you wish she would keep her 'originality' and her imagination under wraps. There is no plot to "Daisies"; two girls, (silly, childlike, dumb even), inhabit Chytilova's fantasy world getting up to all sorts of imaginary mischief. I can only hope neither of them are Chytilova's alter-ego.

It's certainly well made and there are people in this world who actually think this is one of the greatest films ever. It's like an extended Monty Python or Mack Sennett sketch minus the comedy and I suppose you do have to see it at least once to marvel or perhaps just gawp at what's on the screen though God knows what you will make of it. It's also quite short, which was something of a blessing.

 

PATTERNS ***

 Like a lot of American movies in the fifties, "Patterns" began life as a television play. It's unusual in that it's a film about corporate business and a very realistic one, a subject that in itself was hardly a box-office draw. Van Heflin is the out-of-towner who begins work in a large New York corporation only to find he's being groomed to take over from a man who's been with the firm for over 30 years, (Ed Begley), and who is now being unceremoniously side-lined and pushed towards the door by cold-hearted boss, Everett Sloane.

With a cast that also includes future Oscar-winner Beatrice Straight and Elizabeth Wilson you know it's going to be a well-acted drama and, of course, it is and with a Rod Serling script it's also an intelligent and well-written one. The drama comes from the fact that Heflin is a decent guy who likes the man he's pushing out and can clearly see what's happening. The director was Fielder Cook and this was his first film but he never went on to have the career of a Lumet or a Frankenhimer, spending most of his life in television. Hardly ever revived, this is a film worth seeking out.

NOPE *

 Only a few years ago we hadn't heard of Jordan Peele, the director, whereas now, after only three films to his credit, and three 'horror' films at that, he's 'a name' that can actually draw an audience to a multiplex and although his new film, "Nope" stars Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya I'm sure it's Peele people are coming to 'see'. The question is, after "Nope" will they be as quick to rush to the next Jordan Peele opus? Unfortunately, I think the answer may be nope.

He won an Oscar for his first film "Get Out" which very cleverly blended racism, white supremacy and the Frankenstein myth into a fairly intoxicating brew. His follow up, "Us", wasn't quite in the same class, settling in large part on the fright factor but in that department it certainly delivered. "Nope" takes us into the realm of sci-fi and while he again uses black leads, (Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as a brother and sister, both very good), their ethnicity isn't really central. This is basically a homage to the kind of alien flics we enjoyed in the fifties, (think "It Came from Outer Space"), and with a better class of alien it might have been very enjoyable.

Sadly Peele doesn't seem to know that if you're making a monster movie you need a convincing monster or at least a scary one and simply tweaking the flying saucer genre won't cut the mustard. There are no real 'jump' moments here, (there's a subplot involving a killer chimp that never goes anywhere), and as "Nope" progresses it just gets sillier. This might have made for a good one hour episode of "The Twilight Zone" but stretched out to 130 minutes in an attempt to draw in the multiplex crowds, seems to me something of a con-trick. In a word, nope.

THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE ****

 An opening credit informs us that this is the film that Terry Gilliam has been making for the last 25 years, (and then 'unmaking'), or rather for the last 25 years Gilliam has been trying to make a film of Cervantes' masterpiece 'Don Quixote' that never happend and this, "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote", is the outcome of those attempts. It is, of course, another movie about a man making a movie, in this case Adam Driver's Toby, (Gilliam's alter-ego we must assume), making his film of 'Don Quixote' and failing and what's left is this glorious mess, a series of scenes, (very fantastical, very Gilliam), that in their way manage to approximate closely to what might have been in a 'real' film version of the novel and in some ways this might be the best version yet.

Jonathan Pryce, (superb as always), is Toby's Quixote, a cobbler the director discovers and who really believes himself the real thing and who also in turn mistakes Toby for his Sancho Panza. Their 'adventures' together make up the Cervantes side of the story until finally, and accidentally, Toby 'kills' off his hero just as perhaps Gilliam killed off the Quixote of his dreams leading, not to the film he wanted to make, but to the film we are watching. It should have been a disaster, and maybe Gilliam thinks it is, but I loved every mad moment.

It's not as funny as it thinks it is or it should be but it is highly imaginative and there are scenes here as good as anything Gilliam has given us. Of course, it helps if you know the movie's backstory, how it came to be made etc.; there's certainly more here than meets the eye. If Pryce's Don never finds his Dulcinea, Toby does in the form of Angelica, (the lovely Joana Ribeiro), the village girl cast as Dulcinea and in the end it's Toby who becomes his own Quixote. All the performances are fine and, of course in typically Gilliam fashion, it looks terrific, so even if it's not perfect it's so much better than we had any right to expect. Don't listen to its critics and seek this one out for yourselves.

2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY **

 Something of a mess, (I think it's meant to be a black comedy), but this amalgam of stories set, as the title tells us, over "2 Days in the Valley", involving a dozen or so characters is at least a very enjoyable mess with a terrific cast while the stories themselves are very nicely linked together. What it lacks is a decent script. That terrific cast aren't given the material to sink their collective teeth into so players as talented as Charlize Theron, Marsha Mason, James Spader, Eric Stoltz, Keith Carradine, Jeff Daniels and Teri Hatcher never rise to the occasion. Only Danny Aiello as a not very successful hitman and, surprisingly, Paul Mazursky, gently sending himself up, as a suicidally down-on-his-luck writer/director hit the mark. There's certainly a lot going on and since the main story involves a psychopathic killer, (Spader), it's never less than interesting.

FALLING *

 Often terrifically well acted and very nicely directed and yet this tale of the fractious relationship between a middle-aged gay son and his elderly homophobic father never catches fire. Perhaps the fault lies with the screenplay which seems to search too hard for 'drama' or maybe it's the continuing jumping back and forth between the past and the present so our attention is never really focused. Long before we get to the half way mark we get the point and we soon tire of the father's bile and the son's self-sacrificing.

The writer and the director and the actor playing the middle-aged son are all Viggo Mortensen which makes you wonder how much, if any, of himself is invested in his character and if there is why don't we feel anything. Cliche climbs upon cliche, (during one argument the climatic scene of "Red River" is playing on the television), until it all becomes very tiresome. That said, Lance Henriksen is terrific as the father, Sverrir Gudnason is very good as his younger self and both Mortensen and Laura Linney, in much too small a role, are first-rate as the grown-up children. For Mortensen this may have been a labour of love but it's one that has backfired. Let's call it an interesting failure.

RULES DON'T APPLY ***

 This was the movie that brought Warren Beatty out of his own self-imposed retirement playing Howard Hughes at much the same advanced age as Beatty was at the time. There are two plots going on in "Rules Don't Apply", one involving Hughes' attempts at keeping TWA in the air, so to speak, and the other involving Lily Collins as a starlet who has come to Hollywood to audition for Hughes and who starts up an on-again, off-again romance with one of Hughes' drivers, (Alden Ehrenreich).

It might have looked like a very good idea at the script stage, (Beatty not only stars and directs but co-wrote the original story with Bo Goldman as well as writing the screenplay), and yet the film's a mess, a very charming mess I admit but a mess nevertheless. Beatty was still able to convince an all-star cast to contribute cameos including Mrs. Beatty herself as Collin's uptight mother and the film itself, (set in the years 1959 and 1964), looks great.

It flopped, of course, not being rom-com enough to appeal to contemporary rom-com audiences and not being enough of a biopic or movie about the movies to appeal to film aficionados and yet it is a very difficult film to dislike. There are some really fine sequences here and Ehrenreich displays real star quality, (I'm still waiting for him to break through into the big time). Maybe one day it will be rediscovered as a cult movie and I'm certainly looking forward to revisiting it.

THE COWARD ***

 This Satyajit Ray movie, made in 1965, is virtually unknown here and while it's not one of his great masterpieces it is very fine and well worth seeing. "The Coward" is very much a chamber piece with really only three main speaking parts. The great Soumitra Chatterjee is Amitabha Roy, the screenwriter who finds himself stranded in a remote backwater after his car breaks down. He is 'rescued' by a friendly plantation owner, (Haradhan Bannerjee),, who invites him home for the evening but when he gets there he discovers the plantation owner's wife, (the equally great Madhavi Mukherjee), is his old love he let go years before. He still carries a torch for her but she seems indifferent to him.

Is Chatterjee the coward of the title for not committing himself to Mukherjee when he had the chance or is she the coward, unable or unwilling to face up to her feelings in the present? In just seventy minutes Ray presents us with a devastating character study as he peels away layers from each of the three protagonists revealing the feelings and the frustrations beneath. (He's also not afraid to tackle issues like colonialism and the caste system). In the grand scheme of things this may be 'minor' Ray and yet it is a film that will stay in your memory long after it's over.

MUSIC BOX no stars

 It's hard to believe that the same Costa-Gavras who made "Z" and "Missing" made this thick-eared melodrama about a war crimes trial. Costa-Gavras' heart may have been in the right place but his ultra-liberal agenda clearly got the better of him and everything is written in capital letters, every T crossed and every I dotted with no room for manoeuvre.

Armin Mueller-Stahl is the man accused of being a former member of an SS death squad now being defended by his daughter, no less (Jessica Lange doing her best to underplay). A totally miscast Frederic Forrest is the prosecutor and real-life judge James Zagel, acting under the name of J. S. Block, is the presiding judge.

Perhaps in Europe, 20 years earlier, Costa-Gavras might have made something out of this material but this is a Hollywood version of the Holocaust and Hollywood has never been known for its subtlety so what should have been shocking or at least moving is now merely offensive while the father/daughter scenario completely backfires. As always Mueller-Stahl is very good but even his performance is not enough to save this deeply mediocre film.

PERSUASION no stars

 Almost nothing about this new version of Jane Austen's "Persuasion" works from its multi-cultural cast, (perfect in "Bridgerton", incongruous in Austen), its mismatched central pair of lovers, (Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis), or our heroine's constant asides to the audience. The comedy is forced, the romance never catches fire and any attempts at making it all feel more 'modern' totally backfires. It's a Netflix production and it does have that 'made-for-tv' look about it. In the end it's left to Richard E. Grant as Mr. Elliot to give it whatever lift it has but his part is much too small to make much of an impression. A major disappointment.

THE WEAPON **

 The most interesting thing about this Val Guest directed thriller is its use of actual London locations, something of a rarity at the time, and which gives it that touch of realism missing in the script. Overall, "The Weapon" isn't a bad little B-Movie, about a boy, (Jon Whiteley, Britain's favourite child star until Haley Mills came along), who finds a gun in some ruins and accidently shoots another boy with it. Of course that means young Whitely takes off while said gun had been used in a murder ten years before and it's up to Steve Cochran, Herbert Marshall and seemingly not very concerned mother Lizabeth Scott to find the boy before the killer does as well as catch the killer at the same time. It's a decent enough plot and Guest handles it more than competently. Unfortunately the performances let it down making this more of a guilty pleasure rather than a contender but it's still a pleasure and worth seeing.

MONEYBOYS no stars

 The clue may lie in the title. "Moneyboys" is about male sex workers in Taiwan and one sex worker in particular. Liang Fei, (Kai Ko), is gay and has moved from his village to the city where he can be himself or at least use his body in ways he couldn't back home and it's there he finds love but not happiness. C. B. Yi's feature debut is a slow, depressing film with an unsympathetic hero. It's certainly well made and Yi uses the widescreen to good effect but without what we might call a 'story' or characters we can identify with or feel anything for this is something of a long haul and a dull one at that.

MISTER BUDDWING no stars

 A good director, (Delbert Mann), and a fine cast, (James Garner, Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette, Angela Lansbury, Katharine Ross), can do nothing to save what the French might call a 'pot de merde'. "Mister Buddwing" is based on an Evan Hunter novel and has Garner waking up in Central Park not knowing who he is; he's the amnesiac to end all amnesiacs and he spends this dumb movie wandering around New York looking for himself and a woman named Grace, (well, he does remember that much), meeting mostly women who may or may not be said Grace. There are flashbacks to an earlier life that are just as bad as the scenes in the present. Is this meant to be a drama, a thriller or, God forbid, a comedy, (it's certainly unintentionally funny), and what audience did they think would pay money to see it? Garner himself hated it; 'the worst film I've ever been in', he said and he most probably was right.

IT MUST BE HEAVEN ***

 Trying to pin a plot or even a theme on Elia Suleiman's deadpan "It Must Be Heaven" may prove difficult as the director, who is also the central character, observes the world around him through seemingly jaundiced eyes without opening his mouth, (he doesn't speak until about two-thirds of the way into the movie and only then to tell a New York cabbie that he's from Nazareth).

He's a Palestinian Jacques Tati who begins his journey of (self) discovery in Nazareth before flying off to Paris, a city seemingly filled with beautiful women that Suleiman observes, or you might say ogles, to the strains of Nina Simone. It's also a city of the homeless or the dispossed and people running from the authorities who pursue them on various forms of motorised transport. Of course, none of this makes much sense; this is a comedy of the absurd that is never particularly funny.

Midway through this Parisian section it seems to hint this might be a film about the film we're watching. Geddit? Gotit! Good. It then moves to a slightly more vibrant New York where Gael Garcia Bernal makes a brief, funny appearance as himself before going full circle back to Nazareth. Throughout, Suleiman makes brilliant use of the widescreen; visually the film is a constant treat but maybe the taciturn director isn't the best guide, even to his own idiosyncratic world, and 104 minutes in his company may prove too much for some. Stick with it, though, (at least until the scene-stealing little bird appears), and you may find, as I did, that he will win you over.

ELVIS ***

 Perhaps the most surprising thing about Baz Luhrmann's film "Elvis" is just how conventional a biopic it is, at least in terms of what it tells us about the man in question. This is The Elvis Story or rather The Elvis and Col. Tom Parker Story as we might have expected it from anyone of a dozen directors with a beginning, a middle and an end very much in that order. But this is also a Baz Luhrmann picture and if you have seen "Moulin Rouge" or "The Great Gatsby" you will know what that means; Luhrmann's "Elvis" is, if nothing else, a musical spectacle and it looks and sounds terrific. It could just as easily have been called 'The Elvis Show' for that is what it is, a show and in the person of Austin Butler, Elvis Presley is its heart and soul.

Of course, for it to work at all it had to have a convincing Elvis, a star who was, at the same time, an unfamiliar face and in Butler that's exactly what it has. He is not only the best Elvis impersonator imaginable but a very fine actor who can get inside the head and under the skin of the man. Butler delivers on all counts and should find himself an Oscar front-runner next year while as the Machiavellian Colonel a certain Tom Hanks could well be on his way to a third Oscar, this time as Best Supporting Actor. Together they easily overcome the deficiencies in the over-egged screenplay.

And then there's the music and the recreations of those concerts and television specials which are pitch perfect from beginning to deeply moving end, (a cut from Butler as Elvis singing 'Unchained Melody' to the real thing is quite breathtaking), and no Elvis fan will find themselves short-changed. Naturally, the first thing you will want to do after seeing this film is watch those television specials again and marvel at just how great an entertainer he was. Failing that, Butler and this film will do very nicely.

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES **

 "The Battle of the Sexes" wasn't an Ealing comedy but it may as well have been. It's certainly in the Ealing class and is one of the best British comedies of its period. Of course, it had a great pedigree in James Thurber's short story 'The Catbird Seat' and it had an excellent cast headed by Peter Sellers, Robert Morley and Constance Cummings.

Morley is the new owner of an antiquated Scottish tweed-making business, (his father, the great Ernest Thesiger, died with a dram in his hand), Cummings the officious American efficiency expert intent on modernising it and Sellers, the old accountant who will resort to anything, including murder, to stop her. It's a black farce and a very funny one and it represents something of a high point in the career of director Charles Crichton although, surprisingly, it isn't particularly well-known outside the UK.

61* ***

 This Billy Crystal directed baseball movie isn't really a biopic although it is based on actual events. In 1961 team mates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle set out to beat Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a single season and it's one of the few 'made-for-tv' movies that could just as easily have been made for the cinema, helped in no small measure by Haskell Wexler's excellent cinematography. It's also extremely well cast. Barry Pepper is outstanding as Maris and there's fine work, too, from Thomas Jane as Mantle as well as from Richard Masur, Chris Bauer, Christopher McDonald, Donald Moffat and Seymour Cassell, (and it was nice seeing Renee Taylor again as Babe Ruth's widow).

In fact, the only problem with the picture, (and the problem with so many similiar 'inspirational' pictures), is Hank Steinberg's somewhat one-dimensional and sentimental script. Of course, if you're a baseball fan you're not going to be paying too much attention to what's being said off-field and the on-field action, and the underrated Pepper, more than compensate for the mostly banal dialogue. Indeed, here's a sports movie that could even convert non-believers like myself. It really deserves to be better known.

FANNY BY GASLIGHT **

 This Victorian melodrama has enough plot to fill several volumes and is, what you might call, 'a rum yarn'. Anthony Asquith's "Fanny By Gaslight" was based on a best-selling novel by Michael Sadleir and was a huge hit in its native Britain and it's an exemplary example of its kind. Phyllis Calvert is Fanny and let's just say what happens to her in the course of this tale would put any Dickens heroine to shame or to quote Thelma Ritter, 'all that's missing is the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end'. Stewart Granger is the young man who loves her and James Mason, the nasty brute who would like to ruin her and others in the fine cast include Wilfred Lawson, Jean Kent, Margaretta Sccott, Cathleen Nesbitt and Nora Swinburne. Given that it's basically a soap opera, Asquith handles it with considerable aplomb and the performances are first-rate. If it's a guilty pleasure, it's certainly a highly enjoyable one.

THE HUMANS ****

 Stephen Karam has not only adapted his Tony award-winning play for the screen but has also directed it and an exceptional job he's made of it, too. Set almost entirely inside a virtually empty New York apartment that Beanie Feldstein's Brigid and her partner Richard, (Steven Yeun), appear to be moving into it's definitely theatrical as her father, mother, sister and grandmother join them for a Thansgiving that will turn out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. It's the kind of apartment that Rosemary's baby might feel happy being born in, in a building that has clearly seen better days and is the kind of place that enjoys working its old black magic on anyone who visits.

In some respects it's thoroughly banal but in a deeply disconcerting way. Karam definitely has an ear for the kind of everyday, inconsequential dialogue that we call 'small talk' yet which tells us all we need to know about the people we are interacting with and his cast of six are all superb; this is a great ensemble piece with Jayne Houdyshell, repeating her Tony award-winning performance , the stand-out. Of course, it won't do any business. This is too like real life and not enough like the movies to appeal to anything like a mass audience but in its very niche way it's utterly brilliant, a horror movie in all but name and one of the best films you will see this year.

THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET no stars

 Madelon Claudet's sin is that she's had an illegitimate child by a rat who jilts her and will prostitute herself to provide a decent life for her son. Made before the Hays Code "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" is a 'daring' women's picture that makes Madelon something of a saint. Well, she is played by that doyen of respectibility Helen Hayes who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. It's a terrible film but Hayes just about redeems it though Lewis Stone is also very good as Madelon's shady 'benefactor' yet despite Hayes' Oscar win the film is virtually unknown today. Still if, like me, you're an Oscar completist you should seek it out.

KITTY FOYLE no stars

 Ginger Rogers could clearly carry a tune and she certainly could dance. She was also a terrific comedienne; what she wasn't was a particularly fine dramatic actress so when she was cast in the title role of "Kitty Foyle" as the working-class girl who falls for a rich socialite but can't measure up to his family's expectations, she really was up against it and yet, despite some very strong opposition, the Academy gave her the Best Actress Oscar. Maybe they were amazed she could act at all. It's a nice enough performance but nowhere near her best and certainly not Oscar-worthy.

The movie itself is a rather third-rate 'women's picture', adapted by Dalton Trumbo, with a little help from Donald Ogden Stewart, from Christopher Morley's best-seller which bills itself as 'the natural history of a woman' but despite the talented Sam Wood in the director's chair it's never very engaging. In fact, it's really rather dull as Kitty is torn, (it's told mostly in flashback), between rich heel Dennis Morgan and nice doctor James Craig. Personally, I didn't care who she ended up with though enough people obviously did to make this one of the year's sizeable hits. As well as Ginger's win, the film itself was nominated for Best Picture.

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN ***

 Zhenia, (Alec Utgoff), is a kind of itinerant masseur who's also something of a shamen. He was born in Chernobyl seven years to the day before the accident and as a client suggests he may be radioactive. He's now plying his trade around a fancy gated estate in Poland, the kind of place where the Stepford Wives might live. There's no backstory to Zhenia other than he can hypnotise people and momentarily take over their lives, (that's how he seems to have got his work permit), and Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert's wonderful film "Never Gonna Snow Again" could be a Polish 'Wizard of Oz' before Dorothy came on the scene as Zhenia makes himself at home in other people's houses, bending them to his will while simultaneously becoming a little like them for a time.

'Realism' in the conventional sense is conspicuously absent. I mean, how did Zhenia get in touch with these clients, all living within walking distance of each other in this strangely bland community? What's his purpose there and who exactly is he and why can he move a glass across a table without touching it? Teasingly these are questions Szumowska and Englert want us to ask without giving us any answers.

Naturally, it's a comedy and a rather black one though it's never particularly funny. Whimsical would be a better term. It might even remind you a little of Pasolini's "Theorem" and visually it's often quite extraordinary. That it slipped by, virtually unnoticed, even in the art-house circuit, is a shame since it is totally engaging from start to finish. Do try to see it.

PETITE MAMAN ****

 At just 72 minutes "Petite Maman" might be described as the perfect miniature and after "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" it clearly establishes Celine Sciamma as one of the finest directors working today. The premis is very simple; after the death of her beloved grandmother a little girl, Nelly, travels with her parents to the family home where, through some strange osmosis, she meets her mother, Marion, as a child. Is it a dream; has she travelled back in time? Nelly never questions what's happened but observes and accepts the other child as a new playmate as the two lives merge.

Of course, Nelly knows who the little girl is; she just accepts this new person in her life as a means of discovery, both of the past and of what will come, and nothing Sciamma does here seems incongruous or out of place. This is a new take on the 'lonely child' movie that's also a profound meditation on life, death and the love of a child for a parent and Josephine Sanz is wonderful as Nelly, (her sister,Gabrielle, is also excellent as her 'petite maman'), while it's also incredibly moving. Here, life isn't disappointing at all but something to grasp with both hands since we never quite know when it will be taken away from us.

Mr. 880 **

 This comedy about an inept counterfeiter who manages to keep one step ahead of the law for years on end earned Edmund Gwenn an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. The stars are Burt Lancaster, (the Secret Service man on Gwenn's trail), and Dorothy McGuire, (Gwenn's friend that Lancaster falls for), and the director was Edmund Goulding who doesn't do anything special here other than keep things ticking along very nicely. If it feels 'Capraesque' at times perhaps it's because the screenplay was written by Capra collaborator Robert Riskin and maybe it's a little too gentle than it ought to be but it's well-played, (the always excellent Millard Mitchell is another Secret Service Agent), with both Lancaster and McGuire proving very adept at comedy. Not much seen now but worth seeing if you get the chance.

THE LATE GEORGE APLEY **

 In 1947 "The Late George Apley" would definitely have been what was called a prestige production. It began life as a novel by John P, Marquand before being adapted for the stage by Marquand and George S. Kaufman so it seemed inevitable that it would be filmed. Primarily it's a vehicle for the actor playing Apley, the stuffy, rich and hugely snobbish Bostonian who is finally brought out of himself and down to earth by his children and the people they choose to fall in love with and in Ronald Colman they did indeed find the perfect Apley, not that he has to do a great deal of acting, (that's left largely to the supporting cast). Colman just has to swan about, speaking in those beautifully dulcet tones and he does it beautifully. It's also a comedy; gentle, sweet-natured and genuinely funny. The director was Jospeh L. Mankiewicz and while it may not be among his best work it is very likeable if also very old-fashioned.

MASS ***

 "Mass", in the title of Fran Kranz's excellent debut film, stands for mass murder but it could also mean the Catholic Mass, which is a sacrament, since one of the subjects of this film is forgiveness. Two sets of parents meet in the basement of a church; they are the parents of boys involved in a school shooting, those of the killer and those of one of the victims. What is the real purpose of their meeting? Closure, forgiveness, to vent anger, to divest themselves of pain, to try to understand? Kranz's film covers all of these and is blessed with an extraordinary cast of four. Reed Birney and Ann Dowd are the parents of the killer and Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton are the parents of the victim.

It is a theatrical concept and yes, it does feel like a filmed play with well rehearsed arguments but the cast raise onto a different level; painfully we feel like eavesdroppers on their grief and that is Kranz's achievement. Apart from a few shots at the beginning and end we never leave the one room and the cast mostly sit around a table and they talk. This is hardly a film to pack them in on a Saturday night but it is still one fo the best films of the year and certainly it has the best ensemble cast.

DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK **

 At just 76 minutes this B-Movie thriller, directed by British director Roy Ward Baker in the U.S., is just the right length and features an early dramatic performance from a 25 year old Marilyn Monroe. OK, we're not talking Oscars here but Miss Monroe certainly gives a credible performance as a psychotic babysitter. The action takes place over the course of one evening in the single setting of a New York hotel where Marilyn is babysitting the daughter of Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle. She attracts the attention of pilot Richard Widmark who is in the throes of a breakup with girlfriend Anne Bancroft who works as a singer in the hotel but it's not too long before Marilyn's behaviour starts to worry Richard.

"Don't Bother to Knock" may not be much of a movie but it has built up something of a cult reputation mainly due to to Monroe's performance and as a thriller it does deliver the goods like a decent episode of 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour' and Widmark is excellent as usual. There's also a fine performance from Elisha Cook Jr. as Monroe's uncle who also happens to be the hotel's elevator operator. It's certainly no classic but it does what it says on the tin.

DEERSKIN ***

 Georges, (a superb Jean Dujardin), drives into the mountains to buy himself a 'new' second-hand jacket having tried to flush the one he was wearing down a service-station toilet. The jacket is 100% "Deerskin", which is the title of Quentin Dupieux's new film, and it comes with an almost new digital video camera. Dupieux is the man who gave us "Rubber", about a killer tyre, so you know that this, too, is going to be off-the-wall to say the least and off-the-wall it certainly is.

Could it, in fact, be a movie about a killer jacket or about a man having a really bad mental breakdown or just another movie about making a movie from yet another movie brat? Let's say it's about all three and did I mention it's also a comedy and a very black one? It's also a considerable step up from "Rubber" though it would make a nice companion piece and as horror-comedies go, for this is indeed a horror-comedy, it's certainly an original. I can't wait to see what Dupieux does next.

NOBODY ***

 Bob Odenkirk might not seem like your typical action hero but after "Nobody" I think all that might change. Odenkirk's Hutch does appear to be something of a nobody, an ordinary working class guy who can hardly tell one day from the next since they are all the same, that is until one night his home is broken into and his family threatened. No, he doesn't go all 'John Wick' suddenly, (in fact, he does nothing), but the incident awakens something in him and before you can say Keanu or Bronson, Hutch's past has crept up on him and all hell looks like it will break loose, (it does).

Ilya Naishuller's hugely entertaining action-thriller came and went without getting anything like the attention it deserved. It's deeply silly and very violent yet it's also highly original in its cartoonish kind of way with movie references scattered here and there and it's very stylishly directed by Naishuller; you might even call it a 'post-modern' John Wick movie. Everything that a movie like this should have it has but Naishuller keeps his tongue firmly in his cheek and a lot of the time it's laugh out loud funny. Great fun, maybe even a classic, though I'm worried in case the inevitable follow-up doesn't make the grade.

LICORICE PIZZA ****

 Who would have guessed it; Paul Thomas Anderson has made the best romantic comedy in years but then, this being a Paul Thomas Anderson film, where's the surprise. Perhaps it's in the setting, (LA in the seventies, a world of film, television and waterbeds), if not in the treatment which is as idiosyncratic as ever. Firstly, take the ages of the young lovers; he's 15 and she's 25 and it's an on-again-off-again romance that's never really a romance but a friendship as sweet as any in the movies. This is Anderson's most accessible film as well as the funniest but again, this being a Paul Thomas Anderson film, it's not without its dark side but that move in and out of darkness is flawlessly done.

Of course, how much of this is autobiographical I haven't the faintest idea. Let's just say it's about a boy coming of age in California in the 1970's where Anderson himself was born in 1970, too young to be the film's hero but old enough to remember the movie brats of whom Anderson is perhaps the youngest and possibly the most talented but unlike Tarantino, Anderson doesn't people his film with 'real-life' cameos, (witht the exception of Jon Peters, one-time 'Mr. Barbra Streisand'), but some nicely disguised portraits like Jack Holden, (think William, with a dash of Steven McQueen; a terrific Sean Penn) and Lucy Doollittle, (think 'Ricardo',circa "Yours, Mine and Ours").

But then all of this is just window dressing, if brilliant window dressing, to the movie's main love story that is carried along by two truly wonderful performances from Cooper Hoffman, (son of Philip Semour with both the looks and talent of his dad), and newcomer Alana Haim. They are unknown now but their futures are assured; these are two of the best performances of 2021 though Bradley Cooper does his best to upstage them as Peters.

Yes, Anderson may fill his film with crowd-pleasing cameos, (Harriet Sansom Harris is another gem), but he saves the best moments for Hoffman and Haim; a silent phone call that speaks volumes, an initial meeting in high school grounds that is one of the sweetest getting-to-know-you moments in movies, running towards each other during various stages of their relationship as if fate really had decreed that these two people should be together.

In its way, this is Anderson's love letter to the movies, the ones we pay our money to see in the multiplexes, but it's equally Anderson having the time of his life and passing it on. "Licorice Pizza" is easily the sweetest movie of the year and almost certainly the best.

THE FUGITIVE no stars

 Not John Ford's finest hour. "The Fugitive" was his 1947 adaptation of Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory" and like "The Informer" it suffers from a heavy dose of Expressionism and worse, 'religiosity'; this is enough to turn the best Catholic to paganism. Filmed in Mexico and, presumably, set there, though the opening narration informs us it's a 'nameless state'. It's about a place where religion is banned and where priests must hide out and become fugitives.

Henry Fonda is 'the fugitive' of the title, a priest trying to keep one step ahead of the law, represented here by Pedro Armendariz. No-one is given a name but simply a title, 'a figitive', 'an Indian woman' (that's Dolores del Rio), 'a Lieutenant of Police' and so on. Symbolism is the order of the day and Fonda's priest is decidedly Christ-like, (we also have a Judas, a Magdalene, a Barabbas etc.), and for a country where religion is banned on pain of death the peasants seem to embrace it and to burst into song at every opportunity. The superb black and white cinematography of Gabriel Figueroa is the only plus.

VOYAGE OF TIME **

  Not short enough to be a short and not long enough to be a feature, Terrence Malick's "Voyage of Time", (subtitled, 'The IMAX Experience' to give you an idea what kind of screen you should see it on), is like an extended sequence from "The Tree of Life" or outtakes from "2001; A Space Odyssey" and is visually superb as we might expect from Malick but it's hardly informative and even at 46 minutes is just as likely to bore as to enthrall.

Brad Pitt is the narrator who asks us do we ever wonder where we came from when we look at the stars or when did dust become life. Malick doesn't tell us and you will almost certainly get more information from a David Attenborough documentary than from this. That said, it looks amazing in ways that even Attenborough can't match and to Malick's credit he does ponder 'big' questions as if the asking itself is enough to satisfy the lack of an answer and anyone remotely interested in the visual power of cinema won't want to miss it and yes, see it on the biggest screen possible. There's also a 90 minute version, narrated by Cate Blanchet, and still awaiting a release.

VIVARIUM no stars

 If you're wondering what it takes to get a movie made just look at the number of executive producers and production companies behind "Vivarium". Fundamentally, it's an Irish film but with input from Belgium and Denmark as well. The setting, of course, is everywhere and nowhere since "Vivarium" is a horror-cum-sci-fi picture and its appalling Yonder, where every house and every street is identical, could be anywhere or nowhere. Stepford, perhaps?

Gemma and Tom are the young couple in search of their first home and Martin is the deeply weird, almost not quite human, estate agent who shows them around 'Number 9'. The thing is they don't like the house, the area or Martin but when they try to leave they find they can't. Lorcan Finnegan's movie is a fantasy that's grounded in a kind of reality thanks only to the lived-in performances of Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg as the young couple trapped in a nightmare from which there is no escape and things get even weirder, if that's possible, when a baby turns up on the doorstep of the house they thought they had just burned down and grows up into a strapping, screaming broth of a boy almost overnight.

The problem with "Vivarium" is that there is enough material here for maybe a decent episode of "The Twilight Zone" that's now been stretched to over ninety minutes and despite Poots and Eisenberg's best efforts it gets boring very quickly and it didn't take me long to figure out why it took so many people to get this misbegotten project off the ground. Let's just say "Vivarium" is a hard-sell. On the plus side Senan Jennings is very good as the child from hell before he grows up to be Eanna Hardwicke.