Category: Film, TV & Radio

Scandi-noir

A Scandi-noir TV series was recommended to me last week: Follow the Money. The second series has just finished so I am not an early adopter The forecast is for rain in London most of this week so, unseasonably, it may be an opportunity to get started on it.

Hit and Myth

Bookshops are piled high with copies of The Essex Serpent, a novel by  Sarah Perry. I read it at the end of last year and have some reservations.

Micawber

If I gave you a butterscotch early 1950s Fender Telecaster with a Gibson PAF humbucking pickup, what would you do with it? I might add, to make my theoretical gift more interesting, that it’s called Micawber.

Dolce Vita Confidential

The title of this new book by Shawn Levy continues “Fellini, Loren, Pucci, Paparazzi and the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome”. La Dolce Vita, as you will not need reminding, is Federico Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece.

All Change

Life throws up some strange juxtapositions or rather I have such an unfocused mind that I find myself doing different things at the same time.

I, Daniel Blake

The weather has been so miserable with a biting east wind and snow flurries that I went back to the cinema. What I saw did not cheer me up.

Pretentious Post about French Film

It is quite unusual to see a film through fresh eyes, not knowing the plot or having read any reviews. That’s what I did at the Ciné Lumière in South Ken on Sunday afternoon.

All-Day Brekker

You cannot buy a MacDonald’s all-day breakfast in the UK – not yet. There are lots of London cafes that will oblige but let me point you in the direction of the best all-day brekker in the solar system, probably.

Jackie

Why leave the comfort of your home to go and see a film that has a storyline you are familiar with? I didn’t see Sully about the ‘plane that crash landed without loss of life on the Hudson River in 2009. I have been to Jackie, although the story is even more familiar.

Song and Dance

It is a pleasure to write about a film that delivers unalloyed pleasure – a little bitter-sweet and a bit feel-good – a good combo like a dark chocolate and orange pudding. I will be surprised if you don’t warm to La La Land and shed a tear too.