UN FIN DU JOUR ****

 One of the lost masterpieces of French cinema, popular at the time, (it was released in 1939), but not much seen since. It was directed by the great Julien Duvivier, perhaps the most underrated of all the early French masters, (he also did "Pepe Le Moko" and "Un Carnet de Bal"), and the setting is a retirement home for aging actors and it stars three of the greatest actors of European cinema, Michel Simon, Victor Francen and Louis Jouvet.

Jouvet is the vain newcomer to the home, a matinee idol with a large female following and the one-time seducer of the wife of another resident, (Victor Francen, who may have been a great actor but who was never popular), and who may have been responsible for the suicide of Francen's wife. Simon is the home's resident rogue and life and soul of the place and the film is a love letter to French theatre and the art of acting. Often very funny and deeply moving and magnificently played by the three leads.

SEBASTIAN **

 'Sebastian' is the name Max uses when he's working as an escort and Max, his real name, is the one he uses when he's writing his novel about Sebastian, a young sex worker. The film "Sebastian" doesn't really go anywhere we haven't been before but this one is intelligent, well acted and just explicit enough to ring true, (well, you can't really make a movie about a sex-worker without showing some sex).

Newcomer Ruaridh Mollica as Sebastian/Max shows real promise but it's Jonathan Hyde as the older man who becomes his #1 client and later his friend and mentor and, I suppose, his lover who steals the movie. As written, Hyde's character might just have been another 'John' but Hyde embues him with layers of feeling and a depth that is actually quite moving.

It's also a telling picture of the London literary scene, packed with hypocritical sycophants dishing out faint praise like crumbs from a table and it's a scene Max finally embraces not as Sebastian but as himself. The cliches of violence and abandonment are still there but at least he gets his happy ending.

WOLFS ***

 Watching "Wolfs" I kept asking myself why aren't all George Clooney/Brad Pitt movies this good. In fact, I kept asking myself why aren't all movies this good and what, if anything, could I compare it to. I tried to imagine a gangster comedy scripted by Samuel Beckett and that really only got me about half way there. 

Jon Watts' movie is funny, very smart and a terrific vehicle for both Clooney and Pitt. It's also got a great supporting turn from Austin Abrams and is brilliantly photographed, at night, by Larkin Seiple. As with Beckett, the plot matters not a jot; in fact, the less you know about it the better.

You might say it's like a series of surreal sketches so completely off-the-wall that they are both ridiculous and inspired while the fact that it also enticed Francis McDormand to make a cameo (non) appearance says a lot. Don't miss it.

THE NIGHTCOMERS no stars

 This prequel to "The Innocents", the film version of Henry James' 'The Turn of the Screw', doesn't come remotely close to the poetry or the terror of Jack Clayton's extraordinary film. In fact, Michael Winner's "The Nightcomers" reputation as something of a dog in justly earned since nothing here works. Surely the evil that permeated "The Innocents", enough to perhaps bring the corrupters of the children Miles and Flora back from the dead, deserved better than a grunting, miscast, (as an Oirishman, no less), Marlon Brando and a prim but panting Stephanie Beacham as the embodiment of all that's bad, (at worst, they just come across as a couple of free spirits who enjoy kinky sex).

So what's the reason for "The Nightcomers" since it adds nothing to what we already knew about the characters of Quint and Miss Jessell. It's certainly not a horror film nor, despite the grunting and the panting, a sex film and as a vehicle for Brando, in what may be his worst performance, it's an insult. As for the 'children', (Verna Harvey was 19 when she played Flora), I  would have dropped the proverbial 16 ton weight on them five minutes into the film. Even the great Thora Hird can't save this crock. Definitely one to avoid.

CODE OF SILENCE **

 An above-average Chuck Norris vehicle perhaps because it was directed by Andrew Davis who also made "The Fugitive". The plot, involving drug wars and corrupt cops, is nothing you haven't seen a hundred times before and Davis gives it a lot of zap and there are several first-rate set pieces as well as an excellent use of Chicago locations. Norris is as stiff and wooden as ever but it's always nice to see Henry Silva as a suave villain even if he's underused. In fact, this is a movie that does exactly what it says on the tin. Perfect Saturday night popcorn fare.

CICADA no stars

 "Cicada" is heartfelt and clearly autobiographical but also excruciatingly boring. Matthew Fifer and Sheldon B. Leonard are the lovers coping with the traumas of their past, both sexual and racial. They also wrote the film and Fifer co-directed it with Kieran Mulcare. I kept wanting to engage with them but they are very dull company and this feels like their home-movie, both a vanity project and a kind of exorcism as it flits back and forth through their relationship, feeling ultimately like a movie made for themselves and for their friends but if they do want anyone else to feel involved they need a much better script and maybe a couple of more polished actors to play them. I found this Dull with a Capital D.

BRING HER BACK no stars

 Children have been a staple in horror movies for decades bur rarely have they been used so offensively as they are in "Bring Her Back". After the death of their father Andy (Billy Barratt) and his stepsister Piper (Sora Wong) find themselves being fostered by Sally Hawkins' clearly deeply disturbed Laura whose own daughter Cathy has drowned in their swimming pool. Laura would appear to have one other kid in her care, silent Oliver who likes to put his hand through glass panels and chew on butcher's knives and who isn't above taking a bite out of Laura on occasion.

As Oliver Jonah Wren Phillips is extraordinary and yet I kept feeling his performance was almost tantamount to child abuse on the part of the films directors, brothers Danny and Michael Philippou. I don't know how old young Phillips is but surely no child should be put through the rigors that he seems to have been  put through. Barratt, too, is excellent and Hawkins is terrific, (but isn't she always), while the brothers direction is mostly first-class but the film itself is far too unpleasant to pass as entertainment. This is a horror movie, alright but not in a good way.

THE RAINS CAME *

 From a time when 'blackening up' wasn't just acceptable but apparently essential if you wanted to make a movie set in some exotic locale. "The Rains Came" is set in India so in the absence of any Indian actors of note or indeed of any Indian actors at all, here we get Tyrone Power, H.B. Warner, Joseph Schildkraut and that go to actress when you need someone to play someone of whatever nationality going, Maria Ouspenskaya, (this time she's a Maharani), applying the make-up and going native.

It might seem offensive today but if you can get your head around such carryings on back in the day then this is a slightly better than average melodrama with some really special special-effects, (they won the Oscar), comprising not just the rains of the title but also an earthquake and a flood, killing thousands no doubt but sparing most of the cast at least until the plague hits, (disaster movies really lived up to their name in the thirties).

Cast somewhat against type as a rich bitch who finds love and a kind of salvation when the rains come, Myrna Loy gives the movie a touch of class while the supporting cast of Hollywood regulars are all excellent. Remade as "The Rains of Ranchipur" with Richard Burton applying the paint as the Indian doctor and Lana Turner as the self-sacrificing lady but despite all the glitz and glamour it never measured up to the original. For reasons that should be obvious it's unlikely that either version will be seen much today.

ROMEO IS BLEEDING *

 This tale of a corrupt cop whose past catches up with him is certainly stylishly made but is so confusingly plotted and so hard to take seriously that it's difficult to work up too much enthusiasm for it. Hungarian-born British director Peter Medak made "Romeo is Bleeding" in the US and it was a fairly typical neo-noir of its period. Gary Oldman is excellent as the dirty cop but his character remains utterly unbelievable while Lena Olin as a Russian hit-woman is straight out of a cartoon so it's left to Roy Schneider as the Mr. Big character to give the film a tiny touch of class. Otherwise it's watchable in its dumb fashion but it still feels like something David Lynch or Tarantino might have passed on.

HAMNET **

 There's one great moment in "Hamnet" and it occurs at the very end, (I won't say anymore on that score for those who have yet to see it), but it's a long slog getting there. Of course, even if you haven't seen the film most people will know that "Hamnet" is the story of how Shakespeare's young son Hamnet died of the plague and how Will and his wife, here called Agnes, coped with their grief and it's based on a highly praised novel by Maggie O'Farrell who co-wrote the screenplay with director Chloe Zhao.

I haven't read the novel but perhaps my expectations were unduly high having loved Zhao's early work and being very much part of the Buckley/Mescal fan-base and neither of them really disappoints here. Indeed the four central performances, (Buckley, Mescal, Emily Watson and the remarkable young Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet), are excellent so I suppose the fault has to lie with Zhao.

This is a movie about grief and nothing else; everything is directed towards Hamnet's death and how his parents deal with it, Agnes by withdrawing into herself and Shakespeare, we are lead to believe, by writing 'Hamlet' and if you are going to channel everything into grief then it must be primal if it's to devastate you or even move you but Zhao gives us grief smothered in a blanket of good taste and all the restraint of never allowing your primal scream to upset the neighbours.

This is grief that finds its climax at a performance of 'Hamlet' at the Globe Theatre to a packed house with Agnes standing right at the front. It might have worked were it not for the fact that Zhao casts Jupe's older brother Noah as the young actor playing Hamlet and he simply isn't up to the challenge while, at least what we assume is this initial performance of the play, Shakespeare casts himself as the ghost of Hamlet's father so he can weep and embrace his dead son, (Hamlet/Hamnet; getit-gotit-good?).

This performance of the play takes up about the last twenty minutes or so of the film and just when I thought it was all over Zhao pulls off one final magnificent coup with a great final single shot that, if it didn't quite jerk my tears, at least ended the film of something of a cinematic high. Still, Buckley, Mescal and young Jacobi deserve better than this noble weepie.