There Will Be Blood

#128 at time of writing.

This film aspires to be a sweeping epic about family, greed, religion, and oil, centred around a turn-of-the-century prospector. It was released a week apart from No Country For Old Men (they were even filmed at the same time in the same area of Texas), and both films were seen as behemoths battling it out for Oscar glory. History seems to be favouring No Country For Old Men, and rightly so.

Daniel Day-Lewis turns in the performance of a lifetime as amoral Daniel Plainview (winning his first Best Actor Oscar for 18 years), but the rest of the film just gets swallowed up by him. If Eli the preacher had been cast as someone capable of facing up to Day-Lewis, the result would have been astounding - but Paul Dano fails to cut it. Who the hell is he anyway?



The film progresses slowly, and somehow doesn't quite hold together. The characters do not grow and it's hard to care about any of them. There is nothing in this movie as big as Day-Lewis' performance, and the story remains off balance from start to finish because of it. I'm glad I watched it, it's a great film, but it's a hard film to enjoy.

Looking through director Paul Thomas Anderson's other films (in particular Magnolia and Boogie Nights), I'm beginning to suspect that I just don't like his style...

The fictional character of Daniel Plainview bears some resemblance to a real early 20th-century Californian oil tycoon named Edward L. Doheny. The monologue about milkshake delivered in the film is based on transcripts of congressional hearings concerning the Teapot Dome Scandal, in which Doheny had been accused of bribing a political official. The film's concluding scene was filmed at Greystone Manor, a California estate Doheny built as a present for his only son.

Don'ts and Be Carefuls

During the relatively socially liberal 1920s and early 30s, Hollywood was increasingly seen as a breeding ground for immorality.

Films frequently included such conservative vices as sexual innuendos, references to homosexuality, miscegenation, illegal drug use, infidelity, abortion and profane language. This reputation was made worse by stories of decadent dope parties, which were connected to the fall of silent film stars like William Desmond Taylor and Fatty Arbuckle.

The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (later renamed to today's MPAA) didn't yet have the clout to enforce censorship. That is, until Will Hays got into his stride.

In October of 1927, Will Hays published a set of censorship guidelines split into things that must never be portrayed on film, and things that required "special care". The Hays Code, which became known in the industry as the Don'ts and Be Carefuls, formed the basis of the guidelines that governed the production of almost all USA motion pictures until 1968, when age-related ratings were introduced.

Below, unadulterated apart from the comments in [square brackets], is the complete original list of Don'ts and Be Carefuls. How times have changed.

Don'ts

1. Pointed profanity - by either title or lip - this includes words "God," "Lord," "Jesus," "Christ" (unless used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), "hell," "damn," "Gawd," and every other profane and vulgar expression, however it may be spelled. [Hence why Clark Gable's famous line in Gone with the Wind was so controversial. Frankly my dear, I think you should see The Aristocrats.]
2. Any licentious or suggestive nudity — in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture. [In silhouette?!]
3. The illegal traffic in drugs. [An odd choice for the one of the few crimes in the Don'ts.]
4. Any inference of sex perversion. [In other words, except for a man kissing a woman (who he's married to) on the cheek, don't show anything.]
5. White slavery. [Why is this at number five? Would portraying it encourage it? Or would it offend the white slavers?]
6. Miscegenation (sex relationships between white and black race). [The same people who supported rules like this have moved on to hating gays and barring them from getting married. And they'll look just as foolish when the history books are written.]
7. Sex hygiene and venereal diseases. [Would that get portrayed a lot if it wasn't banned, do you think?]
8. Scenes of actual childbirth - in fact or in silhouette. [Fake childbirth ok then. Storks.]
9. Children’s sex organs. [Like, babies?]
10. Ridicule of the clergy. [Does the pope shit in the woods?]
11. Willful offense to any nation, race or creed. [Isn't number 6 itself a willful offence to race?]

Be Carefuls

1. The use of the flag.
2. International relations (avoiding picturization in an unfavorable light another country’s religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry).
3. Arson.
4. The use of firearms.
5. Theft, robbery, safecracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron). [The moron! Ha!]
6. Brutality and possible gruesomeness.
7. Technique of committing murder by whatever method.
8. Methods of smuggling.
9. Third-degree methods. [ie torture]
10. Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime. [Perhaps if you're ashamed about showing it, you shouldn't do it...]
11. Sympathy for criminals.
12. Attitude toward public characters and institutions.
13. Sedition.
14. Apparent cruelty to children and animals.
15. Branding of people or animals.
16. The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue.
17. Rape or attempted rape.
18. First-night scenes. [Eh?]
19. Man and woman in bed together.
20. Deliberate seduction of girls.
21. The institution of marriage.
22. Surgical operations.
23. The use of drugs.
24. Titles or scenes having to do with law enforcement or law-enforcing officers.
25. Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a "heavy." [A what?!]

Of course, these days the list would be very different:

Don'ts
-

Be Carefuls
1. Two girls, one cup.

Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi

#10 and #112 at time of writing.

I watched these two in quick succession today. The Empire Strikes Back is too... unfinished to watch on its own. It starts off slowly - the whole ice planet sequence is disappointingly reminiscent of the interminable desert planet scenes from the original Star Wars. But it picks up. A few buckles are swashed, sure enough.

It received mixed reviews upon release. Inevitable, I suppose, after the impact of the first in the trilogy - expectations were impossibly high. But since then it has come to be considered as the best Star Wars film.

Certainly, the emotional resonance of these two films is much more effective than the first film. They're packed with action, Henson muppets and glorious, glorious incest.

Return of the Jedi is the best of the three, in my opinion.

The epic backstory is implied with such pizazz that there would be no need to actually make the prequels...

I wonder if episodes VII-IX will ever get made? Actually, I'm sure they will, even if it's over George Lucas's dead body.

During the 2001 Census there was a viral email campaign encouraging people to record their religion as Jedi. You can't be prosecuted for lying about your religion on the Census, so I thought I'd register as a Jedi myself. I wasn't alone. In England and Wales 390,127 people (almost 0.8 percent) stated their religion as Jedi on their Census forms, surpassing Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

#19 at time of writing.



This is a near-perfect film, from back when George Lucas still had new ideas. Actually, it is perfect. A script full of wit, cracking characters, wonderfully tongue-in-cheek hokum, truly creepy bad guys...

It's the king of B movies, with a depth of attention to detail that surpasses even the best high-budget flicks. This movie has it all: action, romance, comedy, and suspense. From beginning to end you are hooked. Critic Bernard Weinraub said it best: "Deliriously funny, ingenious, and stylish." Harrison Ford is at his best as Dr. Jones. Can you imagine Tom Selleck as Indy, as was originally intended? Hm...

It starts with one of the most memorable opening sequences of all time, lifted from old Scrooge McDuck comics. Then it sprints from set-piece to brilliant set-piece, packed with iconic moments from the red line travelling across the map to the warehouse full of boxes.

Matt Groening has said that the secret of designing characters is to make them immediately recognizable in silhouette. Indy's fedora and whip ensures that he fulfills that criteria. The original kangaroo-hide bullwhip was sold in December, 1999 at Christie's auction house in London for $43,000, and again in 2008 for $57,500.



The infamous scene in which Indy shoots a flamboyant swordsman was not in the original script. Harrison Ford was supposed to use his whip to get the swords out of his attacker's hands, but the food poisoning he and the rest of the crew were suffering from made him too sick to perform the stunt. After several unsuccessful tries, someone made the off-handed remark, "Why doesn't he just shoot him?" Steven Spielberg immediately took up the idea. (But, someone tell me please, hadn't this already been done in a Bond film? You Only Live Twice or something?) Another great ad-lib was Indy's line to Marion when they are on the ship - "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

The music is fantastic - as good as Star Wars. But, unlike Star Wars, there are some scenes that dispense with music altogether (like the brawl in Marion's bar) and the tension is compelling on its own merit. The editing is ten times pacier than Star Wars. The cheesiness is a few Hobo Power units more tolerable.

Forget Star Wars. This is it.

Star Wars

#12 at time of writing.

Star Wars. You had to be there.

I don't doubt that for teenagers in 1977, it was an absolutely mind-blowing experience. It's ambitious, and peppered with iconic (and very parody-able) moments. The universe is thoroughly imagined. But, well, it's not actually very good is it?

I avoided seeing Star Wars until I was at University in 2000, and predictably it didn't live up to the hype. It starts off promisingly enough, but then there's an interminable series of arid scenes on the desert planet and it doesn't get much better from there.

The acting is horrible, the story is unoriginal, it has plot holes big enough to drive the Millennium Falcon through, and the dialogue is beyond silly. That's not to say it wasn't an important film. Most know that Industrial Light and Magic was formed to do the special effects for Star Wars, thereby ushering in the age of the special effect driven movie.

The special effects were mind-blowing at the time, and so was the marketing. George Lucas may be a hack director, but he is a master of marketing. Star Wars was the first film to successfully create a line of merchandise and toys. And they sold like gangbusters, even though the first action figures were an empty box with an IOU inside!

I'm sure I'm being unfair. But there are certainly more than 11 better films. For one, Raiders of the Lost Ark was twice as good. Mind you, Empire Strikes Back was a vast improvement, and Temple of Doom was rubbish.

Having said all that, I remember enjoying Flash Gordon on Betamax when I was a kid, and that's a fucking awful film.



Believe it or not, several Star Wars characters are derived from Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. George Lucas acknowledges this in the first conference room scene on the Death Star. Just as an Imperial Officer is saying the line "...the Rebel's hidden fort..." he is telekinetically strangled by Darth Vader, shutting him up before he can say the full title.

Shame that Carrie Fisher did a Judy Garland and ended up addicted to drugs and wishing that she had turned down the film that made her famous.

For interest, here's a review from 1977. And for fun, here's the Star Wars Kid. This trailer made me laugh as well - why wasn't Fanboys released in the UK?

Keep it on the QT, but...

You may recall that I was writing a couple of short-film screenplays.

The first drafts are done, and so far both are on track to be produced (one in England, one in Germany).

I received some very exciting news about the English one this weekend. A well-known British actor wants to star. I almost feel like I shouldn't be telling anyone in case I jinx it. But yes, I am excited. :)

I'm meeting my MA Creative Writing screenwriting tutor tomorrow, and I'm pitching a feature-length idea to him to try and interest him in co-writing it. Hollywood, here we come.

The Hangover

#130 at time of writing.

This is a very funny film.

It's a wonderfully obvious idea for a film, like it should always have existed. You know exactly what's going to happen, but the joy is in finding out how it happens - just like sharing morning-after tales with a group of buddies.

Pure entertainment, but I predict that it won't last on the Top 250. We're supposed to care about the protagonist's marriage, but he's missing for most of the film so we never truly engage with him. Thus, the heart is missing. Laugh-out-loud comedy works best when it surprises you with an emotional punch while your defenses are down. Superbad did it better. Juno did it better still. Why aren't they in the Top 250?

On a side note, the character played by Ed Helms had a missing tooth that was remarkably convincing. I couldn't see how it could have been done with effects or prosthetics. It turns out Ed Helms never had an adult incisor grow, so he just had to take out his fake one. What an odd casting call that would have been.

Best Year for Film?

I was musing the other day about how 1999 was a truly fantastic year for film. Fight Club, The Matrix, American Beauty, Being John Malkovich, South Park... even Toy Story 2 was colossal. I used to love films, but after 1999 I became obsessed.

I wonder, what year was the best ever for film? 1939 also seems stuck in my head as a great year (The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind). But what about the sixty years in between?

Geeky as I am, I decided to run the stats on IMDb's Top 250 list. Here's the rundown:

The earliest film on the Top 250 is from 1921 (The Kid). Since then, only seven years do not feature in the Top 250 at all: 1924, 1928, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1937 and 1947. (1947 misses out despite Miracle on 34th Street - which goes to show how many wonderful and well-loved films must fall just short of IMDb's Top 250.)

Years that appear once each in the Top 250:
1921
1922
1923
1925
1926
1930
1934
1942
1956
1964
1965
1970
1978
1990
The early 1920s is in danger of dropping off the list altogether.

Years that appear twice each in the Top 250:
1927
1933
1936
1938
1941
1943
1945
1949
1955
1958
1963
1969
1971
1972
1973
1977
1981
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1992
1993
1996
2009
Although 2009 may yet get promoted.

At this point there are only half a dozen years left before 1950. Does that mean that films didn't used to be as good? Or that our tastes have moved on? Or that the best early films just don't get watched any more? Most likely all of the above.

Years that appear three times each in the Top 250:
1931
1939
1944
1948
1952
1953
1961
1962
1966
1974
1976
1982
1984
1986
1988
2002
2005
Well, this is a very unscientific measure, but there goes 1939...

(Actually, this is quite a scientific measure, but therein lies it's fault. You can't rightly judge great films using scientific measures.)

Years that appear four times each in the Top 250:
1950
1951
1960
1967
1968
1979
1980
1997
1998
2001

Now the big hitters. There are fifteen years left - the fifteen greatest years for film.

Years that appear five times each in the Top 250:
1940
1946
1954
1959
1975
Good to see that plenty of golden oldies are still very much appreciated.

Years that appear six times each in the Top 250:
1994
1999
2000
2003
2007
So 1999 truly was a great year for film after all. Yet 1994 was even greater - with The Shawshank Redemption in the #1 slot and Pulp Fiction at #5.

Finally, the top 5 years for film... drumroll please...

#5: 2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Downfall
Hotel Rwanda
Million Dollar Baby
The Incredibles
Crash
Kill Bill: Vol. 2

#4: 2006
(Same number of films on the Top 250 as 2004, but higher rated on average, so more likely to stay there.)
The Departed
The Lives of Others
Pan's Labyrinth
The Prestige
Children of Men
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine

#3: 1995
(Ditto.)
The Usual Suspects
Se7en
Braveheart
Heat
Toy Story
Twelve Monkeys
Casino

#2: 1957
The top ten years are all within the last decade and a half, except 1957. This defiance of the bias suggests that 1957 is our true winner.
12 Angry Men
Paths of Glory
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Seventh Seal
Witness for the Prosecution
Wild Strawberries
Nights of Cabiria
Sweet Smell of Success

#1: 2008
No fewer than nine films in the Top 250, with a very strong average ranking - although not as strong as 1957.
The Dark Knight
WALL·E
Slumdog Millionaire
Gran Torino
The Wrestler
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Let the Right One In
In Bruges
Changeling

Five Short Films

Prologue: The Evolution of Life
Act I: Signs
Act II: What's in the Box
Act III: Forever's Not So Long
Epilogue: World Builder

Star Trek

#82 at time of writing.

Batman Begins did it. The Pink Panther did it. The Incredible Hulk did it. And now, Star Trek has rebooted too. This is not a straightforward prequel to the franchise, but a resetting of the entire story world. The rules have been rewritten, and now anything can happen.

And, wow, director J.J. Abrams has set the bar high.

This is the fourth film in the series to use time travel as a plot device. An extremely disgruntled Romulan is accidentally cast 150 years into the past, determined to avenge the destruction of his home planet (which hasn’t, of course, happened yet), coincidentally arriving at the moment of James T. Kirk’s birth. Thus, an alternative timeline begins.

Now, I’m a Next Generation guy. Shatner was too smug for me, and DS9 was trying too hard. But this? This I can get on board with.

After watching this, I watched a bunch of old Star Trek on You Tube. Tribbles rock.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

#228 at time of writing.

The Time Machine got the treatment. So did The War of the Worlds. And the latest golden age sci-fi epic to be remade Noughties-style is The Day The Earth Stood Still.

I saw the remake last year, and I left the cinema feeling kind of empty. It should have been a great film - indeed it started excellently (as far as I can remember, the start is the only bit that's similar to the original, which tells you something) - but it ended up being special effects over substance.

(To be fair, the remake did have one or two good moments. I liked the "You came to save the Earth... from us" twist, even if it was awfully delivered. Oh stop whining at me for giving away the twist, just watch the original instead.)

So I was excited about seeing the original. Did it, as I hoped, better fulfil the potential of the idea?

Yes. Much better. And much simpler. The story focusses on the characters, with few special effects. The background of paranoia creates ample tension, injected as it is with the 1950s Cold War mentality. The extra-terrestrial visitor has moments of convincing alien-ness despite appearing to be human.

After being poisoned by the remake, I was expecting a climactic ending, but the original ends abruptly. I felt like I wanted more - but on reflection, I am thoroughly satisfied.

In an echo of Warner Bros' attitude to Casablanca (as previously blogged), actress Patricia Neal has admitted in interviews that she was completely unaware during filming that the film would be considered a great science-fiction classic. She assumed it would be just another one of the then-current and rather trashy flying saucer films that were popular at the time, and she found it difficult to keep a straight face while saying her lines.

As an aside, this is the 1950s version of special effects: To give the appearance of seamlessness to the space ship, the crack around the door was filled with putty, then painted over. When the door opened the putty was torn apart, making the door seem to simply appear.

Movie Posters

Recently I got a big payrise at work. And I spent it all on film posters.

There are some great films with terribly mediocre posters. Either they just have mugshots of the top-billed actors on them, or they try and crowd too much stuff on. Or both (see Lord of the Rings).

And there are some excellent posters for awful films. For example...



I tried to find the happy medium, whilst avoiding the too-popular choices (Pulp Fiction) and avoiding posters that my wife would never let me put up (Phase IV).

So, several hundred pounds later (framing is expensive!), our lounge sports these:







Our hallway features:





The spare bedroom has:









And a Bilinsky in our bathroom:

The Lives of Others

#52 at time of writing.

I saw this film for the second time today, and I think I appreciated it even more than before. It portrays a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, corruption and injustice, with perfectly judged subtlety. An absolute triumph for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's directorial debut. Bittersweet and moving.

The story is set in East Germany in (appropriately) 1984. Captain Wiesler, an agent of the secret police, conducts surveillance on a writer and his lover and gradually finds himself becoming absorbed by their lives.

The actor playing Captain Wiesler, Ulrich Mühe (who sadly died shortly after the film was released), was once the subject of Stasi surveillance himself, and his story mirrors that of the film to an eerie degree. While the film itself is fictional, it is real enough to make you think.

I watched it today with my Film Club at work, and one of my colleagues was particularly affected by it. She lived in Iran before the 1978 revolution, and she remembers the feeling of constantly being watched and judged. She remembers having to whisper in her own home if she wanted to say something that might be interpreted as subversive. She remembers finding forbidden material (a book in English, a countrywide rail map) that someone must have dropped because they thought they were being followed - or perhaps an unfriendly neighbour left it there to frame her family?

I wonder what I would do if I found myself trapped in a society in which I could get arrested merely for owning a book.

Much more worryingly, I wonder if I already live in that society?

Since the various Terrorism Acts in the UK, it is now illegal for me to photograph a policeman. I can be detained for 28 days without charge - indefinitely if I was a foreigner (which, with dual nationality, arguably I am).

And I'm constantly being tracked by five million CCTV cameras, credit card transactions, my Oyster card, NHS patient records, mobile phone triangulation, licence plate recognition cameras, shop RFID tags, Internet cookies, Google, Facebook, and no doubt lots else. (Wow, looking up all those references has made me even more paranoid.)

Yes. Makes you think.

Let the Right One In

#192 at time of writing.

I'm not big on vampire movies. But this is a little vampire movie. Not a little movie, you understand, but a little vampire.

On the face of it, the story is simple: Bullied pre-teen boy falls for outcast pre-teen girl - but she ain't no ordinary girl.

The atmosphere and the actors, particularly the child actors, elevate this film into something both tender and horrifying. It's a love story, a coming-of-age story, and a frighteningly bare horror story.

It's satisfying to see a film once in a while that Hollywood couldn't possibly have made. Grubby, sexualised children? Not since The Exorcist. Ooh, me Hays Code is itchin'...

Makes me want to see more Swedish films. What else is on the list? Seventh Seal no doubt... hold on a sec while I have a look... aha, Wild Strawberries as well. Both of those are from the 50s. Well, Swedish cinema, welcome back.

Gran Torino

#77 at time of writing.

Violence begets violence. And casual racism makes you a hero.

I have a feeling I'm not going to be entirely fair on this film.

Don't get me wrong, it's good, I liked it. But it's too flawed to be so high on the Top 250. It's as subtle as a breeze block wrapped in silk. The acting is occasionally shaky (although not from Clint Eastwood). It's stuck between parable and realism in a way that niggles at my suspension of disbelief.

But the characters are cool, the dialogue is witty, the story is simple and compelling. So maybe I'm being unfair, but this gets a solid seven out of ten for me - and no film would get into my personal Top 250 without at least a high eight.

Entertaining? Yes. Makes you think? A little. All-time great? Nah.

Snapshot afterthoughts

I found a breakdown of the IMDb Top 250 movies by genre here (as of October 2008).

And it occured to me that you can see historical lists of IMDb's Top 250 films using the Internet Archive (also try this link). Back in 1996, IMDb users rated Star Wars as the number one film, and Trainspotting as number two...

Snapshot of IMDb's Top 250 films - Feb 2009

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but wouldn't it be interesting to see how the Top 250 changes over time?

Below is a snapshot of how it looks today. Since I blogged about them:

7 films have gone up in the ranking (including The Prestige, which gained an impressive 104 places).

6 have stayed the same (including Little Miss Sunshine, dammit!).

And the rest have gone down - including five films that have disappeared from the Top 250 altogether (Walk the Line, Star Wars III, Pirates I, Hero and - I'm particularly disappointed about this one - Almost Famous).

My mission is about 14% complete...

---

IMDb Top 250 films as of 09 February 2009:

Rank	Rating	Title	Blogged?
1.	9.1	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2.	9.1	The Godfather (1972)
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4.	8.9	Buono, il brutto, il cattivo., Il (1966)
5.	8.9	The Dark Knight (2008)	Yes
6.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)
7.	8.8	Schindler's List (1993)
8.	8.8	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
9.	8.8	12 Angry Men (1957)
10.	8.8	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
11.	8.8	Casablanca (1942)	Yes
12.	8.8	Star Wars (1977)
13.	8.8	Shichinin no samurai (1954)	Yes
14.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
15.	8.7	Goodfellas (1990)
16.	8.7	Rear Window (1954)	Yes
17.	8.7	Cidade de Deus (2002)
18.	8.7	Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
19.	8.7	C'era una volta il West (1968)
20.	8.7	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
21.	8.7	The Usual Suspects (1994)
22.	8.7	Fight Club (1999)	Yes
23.	8.7	Psycho (1960)
24.	8.6	The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
25.	8.6	Sunset Blvd. (1950)
26.	8.6	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
27.	8.6	Memento (2000)	Yes
28.	8.6	North by Northwest (1959)
29.	8.6	Citizen Kane (1941)
30.	8.6	The Matrix (1999)
31.	8.6	It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
32.	8.6	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
33.	8.6	Se7en (1995)
34.	8.6	Slumdog Millionaire (2008)	Yes
35.	8.5	Léon (1994)
36.	8.5	Apocalypse Now (1979)
37.	8.5	American Beauty (1999)
38.	8.5	Taxi Driver (1976)	Yes
39.	8.5	Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
40.	8.5	WALL·E (2008)	Yes
41.	8.5	American History X (1998)
42.	8.5	Vertigo (1958)
43.	8.5	Paths of Glory (1957)
44.	8.5	Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
45.	8.5	Forrest Gump (1994)
46.	8.5	M (1931)
47.	8.5	The Wrestler (2008)	Yes
48.	8.5	Double Indemnity (1944)
49.	8.5	To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
50.	8.5	The Departed (2006)	Yes
51.	8.5	Alien (1979)
52.	8.5	A Clockwork Orange (1971)
53.	8.5	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
54.	8.5	Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
55.	8.5	The Third Man (1949)
56.	8.4	The Shining (1980)
57.	8.4	Chinatown (1974)	Yes
58.	8.4	The Pianist (2002)
59.	8.4	Saving Private Ryan (1998)
60.	8.4	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)	Yes
61.	8.4	Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
62.	8.4	Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
63.	8.4	Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
64.	8.4	Aliens (1986)
65.	8.4	L.A. Confidential (1997)
66.	8.4	Requiem for a Dream (2000)	Yes
67.	8.4	Das Boot (1981)
68.	8.4	The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
69.	8.4	Laberinto del fauno, El (2006)
70.	8.4	Reservoir Dogs (1992)
71.	8.4	City Lights (1931)
72.	8.4	Rashômon (1950)	Yes
73.	8.4	The Maltese Falcon (1941)
74.	8.4	Raging Bull (1980)
75.	8.4	All About Eve (1950)
76.	8.3	Metropolis (1927)
77.	8.3	Modern Times (1936)
78.	8.3	Der Untergang (2004)
79.	8.3	Singin' in the Rain (1952)
80.	8.3	Rebecca (1940)
81.	8.3	Gran Torino (2008)
82.	8.3	Some Like It Hot (1959)
83.	8.3	The Prestige (2006)	Yes
84.	8.3	Amadeus (1984)
85.	8.3	2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
86.	8.3	The Elephant Man (1980)
87.	8.3	Vita è bella, La (1997)
88.	8.3	The Apartment (1960)
89.	8.3	Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988)
90.	8.3	The Great Escape (1963)
91.	8.3	Sin City (2005)	Yes
92.	8.3	Full Metal Jacket (1987)	Yes
93.	8.3	Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
94.	8.3	Touch of Evil (1958)
95.	8.3	The Sting (1973)
96.	8.3	The Great Dictator (1940)
97.	8.3	No Country for Old Men (2007)
98.	8.3	Hotel Rwanda (2004)	Yes
99.	8.3	Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
100.	8.3	Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
101.	8.3	On the Waterfront (1954)
102.	8.3	Ladri di biciclette (1948)
103.	8.3	Back to the Future (1985)
104.	8.3	Braveheart (1995)
105.	8.3	Batman Begins (2005)	Yes
106.	8.3	The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
107.	8.3	Jaws (1975)
108.	8.3	Strangers on a Train (1951)
109.	8.3	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
110.	8.3	Blade Runner (1982)
111.	8.3	Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
112.	8.2	The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
113.	8.2	Unforgiven (1992)
114.	8.2	There Will Be Blood (2007)
115.	8.2	Notorious (1946)
116.	8.2	The Green Mile (1999)
117.	8.2	High Noon (1952)
118.	8.2	The Big Sleep (1946)
119.	8.2	Fargo (1996)
120.	8.2	Oldboy (2003)
121.	8.2	Gladiator (2000)
122.	8.2	Cool Hand Luke (1967)
123.	8.2	Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)
124.	8.2	The Wizard of Oz (1939)	Yes
125.	8.2	Die Hard (1988)
126.	8.2	Mononoke-hime (1997)
127.	8.2	Yojimbo (1961)
128.	8.2	Donnie Darko (2001)
129.	8.2	Ran (1985)
130.	8.2	The General (1927)
131.	8.2	Annie Hall (1977)
132.	8.2	Smultronstället (1957)
133.	8.2	Salaire de la peur, Le (1953)
134.	8.2	Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
135.	8.2	Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
136.	8.2	It Happened One Night (1934)
137.	8.2	Heat (1995)
138.	8.2	Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)	Yes
139.	8.2	The Deer Hunter (1978)
140.	8.2	The Sixth Sense (1999)
141.	8.2	Ben-Hur (1959)
142.	8.2	Platoon (1986)
143.	8.2	Into the Wild (2007)
144.	8.2	Million Dollar Baby (2004)
145.	8.1	The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
146.	8.1	Notti di Cabiria, Le (1957)
147.	8.1	Life of Brian (1979)
148.	8.1	Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
149.	8.1	Diaboliques, Les (1955)
150.	8.1	Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
151.	8.1	8½ (1963)
152.	8.1	Ratatouille (2007)
153.	8.1	The Big Lebowski (1998)
154.	8.1	The Killing (1956)
155.	8.1	Amores perros (2000)
156.	8.1	The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
157.	8.1	Finding Nemo (2003)	Yes
158.	8.1	The Graduate (1967)
159.	8.1	Snatch. (2000)
160.	8.1	The Night of the Hunter (1955)
161.	8.1	Brief Encounter (1945)	Yes
162.	8.1	Stand by Me (1986)
163.	8.1	Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
164.	8.1	Gandhi (1982)
165.	8.1	The Wild Bunch (1969)
166.	8.1	The Gold Rush (1925)
167.	8.1	Gone with the Wind (1939)
168.	8.1	Trainspotting (1996)
169.	8.1	V for Vendetta (2005)	Yes
170.	8.1	The Princess Bride (1987)
171.	8.1	Scarface (1983)
172.	8.1	The Thing (1982)	Yes
173.	8.1	The Incredibles (2004)	Yes
174.	8.1	The Lion King (1994)
175.	8.1	Groundhog Day (1993)
176.	8.1	Harvey (1950)
177.	8.1	Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
178.	8.1	Battaglia di Algeri, La (1966)
179.	8.1	Toy Story (1995)
180.	8.1	Children of Men (2006)
181.	8.1	Sleuth (1972)
182.	8.1	The Terminator (1984)
183.	8.1	The Hustler (1961)
184.	8.1	Umberto D. (1952)
185.	8.0	The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
186.	8.0	Twelve Monkeys (1995)
187.	8.0	The African Queen (1951)	Yes
188.	8.0	Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)	Yes
189.	8.0	Låt den rätte komma in (2008)
190.	8.0	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
191.	8.0	Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
192.	8.0	Duck Soup (1933)	Yes
193.	8.0	The Conversation (1974)
194.	8.0	The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
195.	8.0	The Lady Vanishes (1938)
196.	8.0	The Kid (1921)
197.	8.0	Stalag 17 (1953)
198.	8.0	The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
199.	8.0	Casino (1995)
200.	8.0	Hotaru no haka (1988)
201.	8.0	King Kong (1933)
202.	8.0	Scaphandre et le papillon, Le (2007)
203.	8.0	Crash (2004/I)
204.	8.0	Dial M for Murder (1954)	Yes
205.	8.0	Ed Wood (1994)
206.	8.0	The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
207.	8.0	The Exorcist (1973)
208.	8.0	All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
209.	8.0	In Bruges (2008)
210.	8.0	The Lost Weekend (1945)
211.	8.0	Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
212.	8.0	Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)	Yes
213.	8.0	A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
214.	8.0	Rope (1948)
215.	8.0	Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
216.	8.0	Patton (1970)
217.	8.0	Rosemary's Baby (1968)
218.	8.0	Wo hu cang long (2000)
219.	8.0	Frankenstein (1931)
220.	8.0	Glory (1989)
221.	8.0	Little Miss Sunshine (2006)	Yes
222.	8.0	Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
223.	8.0	His Girl Friday (1940)
224.	8.0	Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
225.	8.0	Magnolia (1999)
226.	8.0	Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
227.	8.0	Strada, La (1954)
228.	8.0	Safety Last! (1923)
229.	8.0	Belle et la bête, La (1946)
230.	8.0	Network (1976)
231.	8.0	Spartacus (1960)
232.	8.0	The Philadelphia Story (1940)
233.	8.0	Manhattan (1979)
234.	8.0	Big Fish (2003)
235.	8.0	In the Heat of the Night (1967)
236.	8.0	Great Expectations (1946)
237.	8.0	Roman Holiday (1953)
238.	8.0	Mystic River (2003)
239.	8.0	Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
240.	8.0	Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
241.	8.0	Rocky (1976)
242.	8.0	Dolce vita, La (1960)
243.	8.0	Frost/Nixon (2008)	Yes
244.	8.0	The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
245.	8.0	Laura (1944)
246.	8.0	Planet of the Apes (1968)
247.	8.0	Changeling (2008)
248.	8.0	Harold and Maude (1971)
249.	8.0	Eskiya (1996)
250.	8.0	The Message (1976)

Frost/Nixon

#243 at time of writing.

Ron Howard's competent film adaptation of Peter Morgan's play dramatises the famous interviews between David Frost and recently-resigned Richard Nixon from 1977.

The story remains reasonably faithful to the facts; the occasional edit or flourish adds to the drama without undermining the truth (cf Pearl Harbour and the like). You might say the film captures what the collective consciousness remembers of the Frost/Nixon interviews, rather than exactly what happened.

Frank Langella plays Nixon brilliantly, as a fallen man desperate for an act of contrition but still in too deep with his old trickery and slick ways. The film leaves us feeling satisfied that America got its confession from the dastardly Nixon, but it also leaves us feeling sympathy for the man.

Fascinating, but not really a must-watch film. It'll be off the Top 250 in a week.

Memento

#27 at time of writing.

After watching Memento at the cinema I left with my head spinning... I love films that do that. If you like twists, this is the twistiest.

Leonard (Guy Pearce) is determined to find his wife’s killer. However, the attack left him suffering from a type of amnesia whereby he can no longer store new memories. He can remember events before the attack, but not what happened fifteen minutes ago. Therefore, he relies on a system of notes, photos and tattoos on his body to record information about himself and others. This unique thriller unfolds in two separate narratives, one in chronological order and one in reverse, so the audience experiences the same disorientation as Leonard.

I have heard it argued that this backwards storytelling is a gimmick that could have been applied to any film (and indeed there are other films that use reverse chronology - see Betrayal and Irréversible). Certainly, this kind of storytelling could come easily to a director who is used to filming things out of sequence. Perhaps that's true, but Memento transcends gimmickry. The story could not have been told better any other way.

With this and the Batman films under his belt, director Chris Nolan is shaping up to be an all-time great, even if he does look uncannily like Harry Enfield.

London’s most famous tube station

Aldwych tube station, formerly known as Strand, was built in 1907 as an offshoot of the Piccadilly Line. Because the branch is entirely self-contained, and was always closed at weekends, it has long been a popular location for film and television companies wanting to film on the Underground.

The station closed to the public in 1994, but it has been reasonably well-preserved, and for £1000 an hour (not including the use of a train) you can bring in your own film crew.

Thanks to Transport for London’s Film Office, I recently had a look around. We were shown the defunct lift shafts that spelled the station’s doom when their repair bill was deemed uneconomical, and then we descended the winding spiral staircase.

Aldwych’s remaining platform is used to test mock-up designs for new signage, tilework and advertising systems. The walls feature replicas of posters from decades gone by. The trackwork and infrastructure remains in good condition, and a train of ex-Northern Line 1972 tube stock is permanently stabled on the branch, which can be driven up and down the branch for filming and to keep the trackwork in good repair.

We walked through the train used in V for Vendetta; we peered into the tunnel used for The Prodigy’s Firestarter music video; and we imagined the wave of water through the corridor as depicted in Atonement (where Aldwych stood in for Balham station). That water, we were told, was CGI; film crews are expected to leave the station as they found it. Which isn’t always easy – goodness knows how the film crew for Creep cleared up after releasing hundreds of real rats into the empty lift shafts!

The Dark Knight

#5 at time of writing.

I've seen The Dark Knight twice - once at the UK premiere, and once at the excellent Roxy Bar and Screen on Borough High Street. Both times, I was on the edge of my seat with anxiety for the full two and a half hours. This is no mere superhero movie – it is an epic crime drama of remarkable complexity and substance, tackling sweeping themes of retribution and sacrifice.

Whether this film deserves to be scored as the fifth best film of all time - or even the #1 film as it was for a few weeks on IMDb - is moot, but it's hard to deny that it is an incredibly powerful cinematic experience. (It came out the same week as Wall·E - what a week that was for the silver screen!)



Heath Ledger’s untimely death in January 2008 ensured that the Hollywood hype machine would be in overdrive, but incredibly his performance - and the whole film - lives up to even the most excessive expectations.

Heath Ledger's apocalyptic performance is certainly Oscar-worthy. Compare the Joker to Ennis Del Mar from Brokeback Mountain and it's very hard to believe that they are the same person.

It’s not flawless. It's long, Bale’s Batman voice is sometimes over-the-top, and, well, it’s not Batman Begins. But the scale, tension and sheer dark depths of the characters will leave you in awe.

(A far cry from my opinion of Batman & Robin...)

Wall·E

#39 at time of writing.

The teasers for Wall·E had me salivating for more since Ratatouille graced our screens. With that much anticipation, it’s almost impossible not to be let down. But the truth is even more unlikely: My colossal expectations were not only met, but exceeded – with room to spare.

This fairytale of a robot who falls in love boasts a host of superlatives. It's the highest rated animated feature on IMDb. It's the most expensive animation ever made (it cost more than Waterworld). And it's the probably the movie with the least dialogue to ever be nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay.

Director Andrew Stanton and the Pixar team watched one Charlie Chaplin and one Buster Keaton film every day for almost a year, to give them confidence in how a full range of emotions could be portrayed silently.

All that research paid off in spades. Sumptuous animation, endearing characters, the most romantic robots you've ever seen - this tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale is an instant classic.

Surely it can’t be THAT wonderful, I hear you say. Well, it's a bit preachy, linear, and has a couple of cheesy lines. But everyone knows there are only two kinds of Pixar films: great ones and perfect ones – and Wall·E is Pixar on top form.

Films for Free at a Monitor Near You

There are 1000 megabytes in a gigabyte. There are 1000 gigabytes in a terabyte. And there are 1000 terabytes in a petabyte. The Internet Archive has been archiving the entire Internet since 1996, and now contains nearly two petabytes of information – more than even the world’s largest library.

Among that ocean of information is a huge archive of copyright-free and copyright-expired movies. Last week, I browsed the Moving Image Archive and treated myself to a string of films from the dawn of cinema.

I started with Le voyage dans la lune, a short film created in 1902 by Georges Méliès. Méliès created a number of special effects that are still used today, and is credited as the first person to use celluloid to tell self-contained stories.

With my appetite whetted, I spent the next few hours downloading and absorbing Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Fritz Lang, The Man With a Movie Camera, Battleship Potemkin, Nosferatu – and a few Merrie Melodies along the way.

These golden oldies are a pleasure to experience on two levels. First, because they are oddly familiar. The styles and stories, the idioms and issues that characterize the range of cinematic possibility as we perceive it today, were nearly all present from the very beginning. And secondly, never mind the historical interest, they are just wonderful films on their own terms – a great joy to watch.

The Thing

#174 at time of writing.

John Carpenter’s sci-fi horror movie about a shape-shifting alien is as chilling now as it was when I first saw it almost a decade ago, inducing an unshakeable sense of paranoia.

This remake of 1951 film The Thing from Another World somehow manages to make the lonely ice sheets of the Antarctic feel breathtakingly claustrophobic. Much of it was filmed high in the mountains near Stewart in British Columbia.

In August 2003 a couple of hard-core fans, Todd Cameron and Steve Crawford, ventured to the remote filming location and, after 21 years, found remains of the Outpost #31 set and the Norwegian helicopter. The rotor blade from the chopper now belongs to Todd and rests in his collection of memorabilia from the film.

The special effects - which have dated somewhat, but are still unsettlingly creepy - were considered a new high-water mark at the time this film was released, all the more impressive when you discover that effects designer Rob Bottin was only 22 when he started the project.

Comically, There is a character name "Mac" and another named "Windows"; since the film was made in 1982, this is purely coincidental.

Letters from Iwo Jima

#187 at time of writing.

It could have been seen as a gimmick when Clint Eastwood decided to film the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima from both the American perspective (Flags of Our Fathers) and the Japanese perspective (Letters from Iwo Jima). But it is not a gimmick.

This film is remarkably brave, honest and non-Hollywood. It portrays the Japanese soldiers as ordinary people forced by circumstance to battle for a lost cause, abandoned by the mainland and doomed by an insane cultural fear of losing face. It's visceral in scope and personal in tone, and there's always an assured hand in dealing with the performances and characters.

There are some desperately moving scenes as the soldiers and General Kuribayashi gradually realise the hopelessness of their situation. One of the most affecting aspects of the film is the tension between those soldiers that think it treasonous not to commit suicide in the face of failure, and those soldiers - the General included - who doubt the wisdom of such sacrifice.

As you watch the events unfold, you feel fear, loss, anger, and a mixture of sadness and admiration for the courage and persistent humanity of these ill-fated people.

This film is a significant, fascinating achievement.

Films I've Made (and other films)

OK, this boast - I mean post - is just me showing off. Cope.

Did you know that I've made a few of my own films?

Not proper films, but the kind of films you shoot on a Casio Exilim (best automatic cameras on the market) and edit in Windows Movie Maker.

This is the one of which I'm proudest. If you think watching a video of someone else's holiday is dull, I challenge you to be bored by this. Mind you, it was the best holiday of all time, so not surprising it's a great video.

My family and I made a few videos for my little brother as a Christmas present when he was away in the USA during his gap year (back then we didn't know he would end up living there for good). Ferris Bueller's Day Off in 3 minutes has broken the 10,000 views barrier on You Tube - which is great, until you read all the nasty comments about the "actors" (that's my sister you bastards!). And I'm so glad I did A Day in the Life - it makes me dead nostalgic for the wonderful first year I had living in London.

What else? I had a lot of fun making this as a task for an artsy game community called SFZero.

And loads of people have made short films inspired by my short stories. Search for "Death by Scrabble" on You Tube and you get, like, 40 different adaptations.

And now I have to write a screenplay. No, I haven't started yet...

Casablanca

#11 at time of writing.

I don’t know how it’s possible after so many years of being addicted to films, but – believe it or not – until yesterday I had never seen Casablanca. I think I am instinctively wary of canonical old films; perhaps I have been disappointed a few times in the past by a purported classic that felt dated, wooden, slow, contrived...
And, well, Casablanca might be guilty of some of those faults too, but it easily transcends its faults with pace, witty characterisation and sheer cleverness. Yes, I loved it.

Also, watching it for the first time 66 years after its release allows me to enjoy it on an unusual level: Thanks to its immense influence on popular culture (and thanks to dozens of parodies) I already know what to expect; and it is gratifying to see that the source is deserving. Like reading 1984 for the first time in 2004.

I was fascinated to learn that at the time this film was made, the studio was churning out 50 films a year, and this one was not thought to be special. The lead actors switched around at the last moment, the gaggle of scriptwriters barely kept up with the production (During filming Ingrid Bergman asked them which man she would end up with and they had to admit they didn’t yet know), the release was rushed to coincide with the real-life invasion of Casablanca, and the film had a tepid reception at the box office.

Yet this film stood out, winning three Oscars and growing to be one of the world’s favourite films. Makes you think, might there be other gems among the 50 films per year which have been overlooked? Maybe if fate had twisted slightly differently, instead of “Here’s looking at you, kid” we would be quoting from Gentleman Jim (“Fine way for a gentleman to behave”), or Kings Row (“What's the harm in a little kiss”)?

Man on Wire

Unranked at time of writing.

A couple of months ago I went to the cinema, and I was treated to one of the most inspirational films I’ve ever seen. It’s a British film about the Twin Towers; it swept the board of awards for documentary films; yet I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t even heard of it. (Why doesn't IMDb include documentary films in its Top 250?)

The film follows the story of a charismatic and headstrong young circus artist. His name is Philippe Petit, a Frenchman with a particular fondness for tightrope walking. His signature act? Breaking into world landmarks, illegally rigging a highwire, and dancing his way across. In 1974, he turned his attention to Manhattan’s newly built World Trade Center.



The story is told by Phillippe Petit himself, now 59 years old. We see his motivation, his meticulous planning, and his friendships that were sacrificed to achieve the “artistic crime of the century”. It has all the tension of a Hollywood heist story, enriched by breathtaking photography, and an yet it has an underlying poignancy. The film itself never mentions the sad fate of the Twin Towers, but it is somehow deeply moving to know that Phillippe Petit and his friends managed to break into the beloved towers not to destroy them, but to celebrate them.

Screen Play

I'm currently studying screenwriting as part of my MA in Creative Writing.

To up the stakes, I've accepted two offers from production companies to write a screenplay for them. (That makes me sound pretty cool, huh? Well, I think so.)

One is a German production company that previously adapted one of my short stories into a short film called Ja Ich Will - which is effing brilliant. And the other is an Australian production company trying to break into the feature-length market.

Meanwhile, I've asked my boss if I can go down to four days a week so I can give over more time to writing. She was, in her own words, "sympathetic but unenthusiastic" - but I think we'll manage to reach an arrangement.

All of this adds up to some great opportunities. The planets are aligning.

This is the kind of shit I will seriously regret if I fuck it up.

I'll keep you posted.

The Wrestler

#57 at time of writing.

Breathtaking. Desperately sad. Brutal and beautiful. This is Darren Aronofsky's most mature piece yet, full of subtlety.

Mickey Rourke deserves an Oscar for his performance as washed-up wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson. Nicolas Cage and Sly Stallone were considered for the part, but I doubt the film would have been as memorable with one of them in the lead - Rourke's real-life history as an ageing big-time boxer makes it personal.

This film is full of great set-pieces - from the quiet (Randy playing himself as a Nintendo character) to the hardcore (the match with the razor wire and the staples).

The most effective aspect of Randy's character is that no matter what mistakes he might have made in the past his sense of regret is so strong and genuine that it is impossible not to forgive him. As beaten down and alone as Randy gets, he never loses his fighting spirit.

Don't dismiss this film because of its subject matter. If you're inclined (as I was) to dismiss professional wrestling as laughable fakery, you will come out of this film with a new perspective. These guys are tough nuts. With emphasis on the nuts.

Brief Encounter

#158 at time of writing.

I saw Kneehigh Theatre's adaptation of Brief Encounter at the Haymarket - it was the best piece of theatre I saw in 2008. In fact, I'd rank it in my top three or four favourite shows of all time. (In case you're curious, the others would be Masque of the Red Death, Avenue Q, and The Woman in Black.) They're still touring the show - see it while you can.

After the stage show, I felt like I'd seen the film - like I'd laughed and cried and fallen in love with it. So when I finally did see the film last week it felt warm and familiar, like sitting in front of an open fire at Christmas. The film didn't blow me away (like the play did), but it was quiet, and sad, and beautiful, and nostalgic.

Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard's performances are restrained and realistic, far from the stagy melodrama I tend to expect from golden oldies. This film is like a precious museum exhibit, a glimpse into the mores of 1940s life. It seems almost comical now that it was banned by the Irish censorship board on the grounds that it portrayed an adulterer in a sympathetic light.

It’s thoroughly British, with occasional comic touches, and it’s so rooted in the 1940s that a film will never be made like it again. People were brasher then, accents were stronger, and social attitudes to affairs quite different. The period of the film gives it much of its charm.

Brief Encounter is based on a short play by Noel Coward, and it earned director David Lean his first Oscar nomination.