Fraud, fraud and football

F for Fake: Orson Welles semi-documentary on art fakery. A strange film in that it is totally unlike any other early-seventies film I've seen, and yet somehow manages to feel completely and totally of the period. Extra marks for sweetly charming scenes of Orson Welles performing magic tricks.

Hell Drivers: A rewatch this one, but still entertaining. Although the story is cleverly told (with the crime which the protagonist has committed never being totally revealed to the audience, who are forced to figure it out through hints and allusions, and with the villains' scam being carefully worked out), it carries extra amusement through the fact that most of its cast would go on to be known for far different things. Just ten years later, who would believe a girl would turn down Sean Connery in favour of Stanley Baker? Or that Doctor Who and Number Six had gone in together on a complicated business fraud? Actually, perhaps that one's not so unbelievable.

The Damned United: I'm not a serious football lover so I was surprised when I wound up quite enjoying this movie, a drama based on a true story about Brian Clough, a football manager who specialised at taking poorly-performing teams and turning them around, who gets the chance to manage top-of-the-first-division Leeds United and fails. The characters are well outlined, with no one being terribly likeable and yet everyone's motivations being completely understandable, and the whole thing had the feel of a Greek tragedy rather than Golden Gordon.

Movie count for 2010: 75