It was 36 years ago today that Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer. I was not one of the 28.4 million people who watched the event on British television, or one of the two million who lined the streets of London to see the happy couple, and nor was my father. Instead we went to… Continue reading A Royal Wedding Double Bill
Back in May I wrote extensively about my first trip to New York City. This was partly as a test of my memory and also to record, somewhere, the details of that week in 1999. Most of the stories we tell, however many times we tell them, remain unrecorded. Some of the pieces on this… Continue reading The Formosa Café
Last week I wrote about home videos and time spent making digital copies of cherished recordings using our last working video player. While the VCR was set up I also took a look at some of the other old tapes that I’ve kept. In recent years I have recycled or thrown away thousands of videos.… Continue reading Robert Bresson, films on video, and pinball in the movies
A question in the last series of “Only Connect”, BBC2’s fiendish weekly quiz show, was right up my alley and has been on my mind ever since. It listed the four artists who have reached #1 in the UK charts and also won an acting Oscar (Best Actor or Best Actress). Can you think of… Continue reading Music and movies: three questions from “Only Connect”
“Is there a point to all this?” This question has not emerged from some deep existential reflection, nor from a review of the pieces posted on this Blog so far. It’s a line from a French movie I saw in the 1980s, which comes to mind every now and then. Back then, without search engines,… Continue reading “Is there a point to all this?”
30 years ago this week I was at the Dublin Film Festival. As the saying goes (and it’s a saying that I never use), “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt”. I still have it, as you can see here: As I noted in this piece, some people are much more organized than I am,… Continue reading This t-shirt is 30 years old
What a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon, lying on the bed watching “The Lady Vanishes”, unquestionably one of my favourite films. It was shown on BBC2 yesterday. My son, who turns 12 next week, was in and out of the bedroom at various times and couldn’t be persuaded to watch the whole thing,… Continue reading “The Lady Vanishes”
Earlier this month I wrote about film titles which are displayed above cinemas in movies, in scenes set in the past. The sight of “Spartacus” in the recent Oscar winner “Bridge of Spies” places the action in the early 1960s. Similarly, cinemas showing “The Godfather” (in “Field of Dreams”) and “The Poseidon Adventure” (in “Milk”)… Continue reading “The Bells of St Mary’s”
The recent Oscar winner “Bridge of Spies” (Best Supporting Actor for Mark Rylance) is set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, during the Cold War. Part of the movie is set in Berlin, before and after the Wall between east and west is built. In one scene two characters (one of them played by… Continue reading Attention to detail in the movies
Back in the 1980s a school-friend made a comment about TV dramas that still holds true much of the time. When food is introduced in a scene there is a strong chance that one of the characters will throw it at another. Similarly in many movies food can’t be allowed just to sit there: one… Continue reading Food in the movies
The Compartments 