Definitely, Maybe (2008) written and directed by Adam Brooks is a movie I have seen a couple of times now and throughly enjoyed on each occasion. Unfortunately, also on each occasion I have watched the film in the middle of a depressive episode, and am therefore unable to write about it as much as it …
Category: movies
Letter From An Unknown Woman
After a long period of closure Birmingham's main 'arthouse' cinema at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) has reopened. Actually the whole of MAC has been resigned/redecorated/refitted and it is now a much more pleasant and airy space. I don't think they have done that much to the cinema, but it does mean that foreign language/independent/reissues …
February 2010 Miscellany
Two more short Turgenev novels, included in one volume, both very good indeed. Rudin is the tale of an idealist young talker who inspires love in the young Natasha, but when it comes to a question of action (eloping with her in the face of her mother's disapproval) fails both Natasha and herself. The intensely moving, …
Three February Movies
Three fairly quick movie reports as I don't have much time these days. Easily the best both in terms of quality and enjoyment was Godard's Une Femme est Une Femme (1961) ; well that almost goes without saying. Godard's third film and his first in colour it is, by his standards, a lighthearted, even frothy …
January 2010 Miscellany
A substantial change to the way in which my life is organised, and especially the time I have available, took place this month when, to my considerable surprise, I was elected Chairperson of the Birmingham LINk (an organisation which seeks to improve the provision of Health and Social Care in Birmingham). I now have to …
Some thoughts on Kane
Embarking on an Orson Welles programme I have started chronologically, which means of course Citizen Kane (1941). There are a couple of major problems with this. In the first place the rest of the programme, whatever delights and treasures it contains, is inevitably something of an anti-climax, a disappointment, a slide. Would it have been …
Dreamgirls (OP)
2nd March 2007 Dreamgirls is the best film I have seen at the cinema for a good while; this may not be that much of a recommendation since sadly we rarely go the cinema nowadays! But most trips over recent years have left me sadly disappointed so it was a wonderful change to walk out …
Diary June 2007 (OP)
June 22nd 2007 Another diary blog, covering in haphazard form the past few months. I have in fact at various times during these months felt capable of blogging, if only at a rudimentary level, but have desisted because I have felt that any blog should reach a certain standard, and also because I felt I …
December Miscellany (2009)
December, as may be surmised from the comparative paucity of blog entries, was not a good month. This should come as no surprise to me as it is, with January, one of the two worst average months. Although this might indicate some form of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) this is not so as February is one of the …
December Movies
First Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932) which is the earliest of his films available from Lovefilm. The film stars Michel Simon as Boudu, a tramp whom bookseller Lestingois saves from drowning and adopts into his household; there the anarchic Boudu causes great disturbance before he wins the lottery; having married the maid the whole household embarks on a boating trip, …