11 – 17 NOVEMBER 2023

As I remarked before our showing of She Said, members do enjoy films with a political or newsroom/conspiracy background and two of the very best are on BBC 2 this week. All the President’s Men is on Sunday evening (and repeated Thursday evening on BBC 4), and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation is on late Monday evening. Also starting Monday on BBC 4, timed perfectly, is documentary maker Norma Percy’s 1998 6-parter The Fifty Years War. However, my main focus this week is on some of the film premieres – there are more than usual and so, for once, the older releases will have to take a back seat. 
BLACK BOX (2021) Saturday 11 November 9.00-11.00pm BBC 4    P             
Black Box is a French conspiracy thriller of more recent vintage: a forensic expert is asked to look into the events surrounding an air crash. 
LET IT SNOW (2020) Saturday 11 November 11.50pm-1.15am BBC 2    P       
I know members don’t like horror films, but I hope to catch this interesting drama from Georgia. Mia would have to stray onto a restricted slope when snowboarding – will youngsters never learn . . .?
DOUBLE CONFESSION (1950) Sunday 12 November 10.45am-12.25pm TP (Ch 82)           
Just the one oldie for this week if only because it is a film I do not know and its credentials intrigue me. Set in ‘Seagate’ (which could easily be Lyme Regis), there is a lot of work to be done when two bodies are washed ashore. Ken Annakin had a much smaller budget than he would have for his contribution to The Longest Day (1962); the real interest for me, though, will be seeing William Hartnell and the great Peter Lorre sharing screen time. 
DRIVE MY CAR (2021) Wednesday 15 November 10.50pm-2.25am Film Four    P            
Drive My Car enjoyed splendid reviews on release and Radio Times awards it 5 stars; unfortunately, we couldn’t programme it because of its long running time. A theatre director is on his way to Hiroshima; on the way, he begins to build a relationship with the woman assigned as his driver. 
WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (2021) Friday 17 November 1.10-3.40am Film Four    P            
A Haruki Murakami short story formed the basis of Drive My Car. Here, three of them make up this anthology (and use the same director, Ryusuke Hamaguchi). Anthology films are not a new idea, of course (there was a spate of them in the 1940s/early 1950s, and they served the horror genre well in the 1970s), but this is a rather good example.  
WORDS ON BEDROOM WALLS (2020) Friday 17 November 9.00-10.45pm BBC 3    P            
And so to our final premiere of the week! Lean on Pete didn’t do particularly well when we showed it in our 2018/2019 season, but Charlie Plummer was very good – and he is here, too. He plays a student who is diagnosed with schizophrenia and who then falls in love with a fellow student.