My rule: when you're responsible for several of the best films in cinema history (plus slew of other great ones), you get Birthday post. BOTD: Sidney Lumet, genius filmmaker 6/25/1924 Oscar nods: 58 12 Angry Men 🎬 75 Dog Day Afternoon 🎬 76 Network 🎬 81 Prince of the City 📖 82 Verdict 🎬 #filmsky 📽

I can only do Éric Rohmer in small doses but joined in the #SummerWithRohmer fun last night with a rewatch of one of his most archetypal films, and perfect seasonal viewing: Conte D'Été (A Summer's Tale), 1996. 1/6

C'est sans danger / "Is it safe" Laurence Olivier @jamesewand.bsky.social @preacherman.bsky.social @xp78.bsky.social

THE BAKERY GIRL OF MONCEAU (Éric Rohmer, 1963).  Such a simple premise, beautifully executed. An educated young man falls for a sophisticated young woman he often sees walking in his Parisian neighbourhood. While waiting to bump into her again, >> (1/3) #FilmSky

Been thinking a lot lately about Anton Walbrook's monologue in the refugee office from THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COL. BLIMP (1943)

New on the blog today, thoughts on LADIES OF THE RACHMANINOFF EYES by Henry Van Dyke. A fabulous coming-of-age story featuring a precocious black teen raised by 2 eccentric women in 1960s US. Witty, barbed, tender & poignant, a 5-star knockout read for me! jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/06/23/l...

boxd.it/eULhyT Another great Ghatak film. Less poetic surrealism, more Tati-esque satire. Still great ❤️ #FilmSky

[insert football related witticism here]

Fantasy Virago Modern Classics covers. Channelling the striking covers that Virago used for their Modern Classics range in the 80s and 90s, the artworks giving weight to the work of often forgotten writers. Afraid it's not quite the original font. 1/10. Three Girls (detail) by Amrita Sher-Gil, 1935

It's too hot to think. I'm going to spend the evening switching between monster movies and football

Perfect opening sentence to a Ray Bradbury short story.

Well, Disclosure Day is great cinema, a really smashing time. I felt like I’d been picked up and carried away by something very powerful, swung about like a doll a few times, then finally set down safely but in a very different place from where I’d started. It is a full on experience

Almost 15 years ago and still no film treatment. This used to be a proper country www.bbc.com/news/uk-engl...

First watch: APARAJITO (India, 1956). This film tenderly, magnificently explores a strong mother-son bond that is tested after the son earns a chance to go away to school in Calcutta, far from home. The film follows Apu from childhood to his late teens, with … #FilmSky #MovieSky 1/3

One of the best novels I have read in ages. Political manipulation, being a pawn in others' plans, the corrosive but irresistible nature of revenge, lost chances, lost loves, lost lives. And it’s funny and witty and charming. The rare book that would make me severely judge anyone who didn’t like it.

Genuinely quite strange. An auteurist statement from John Travolta. A reverie to his childhood, filled with early 1960s pop-optimism; a fetish for airplanes, and a bizarre tonal balance between child's eye view and knowing adulthood.

Not the usual pre-performance warning for a play

Starting the summer with this beautiful thing.

Yes, I have! My piece on A FAMILY ROMANCE is here: jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/04/01/a...

reading the 22nd Greatest Novel of All Time™️ instead

Just been outside. Wouldn't recommend

I am going to need a bit of time considering what I made of Death in Venice. Other than, I wish I had seen it at the cinema. It has an all-encompassing mood and atmosphere, and you get completely sucked into the rather sickly patina. The overwhelming music, and Dirk Bogarde's striking performance.

#BOTD Lalo Schifrin's score for BULLITT is fabulous; this cue adds so much in ramping up the tension, then Peter Yates lets the action speak for itself - knowing when to, and when not to ... #FilmSky youtu.be/hq8YD7-Aimw?...

First watch: The Cement Garden. I’ve been doing some viewing of early Ian McEwan adaptations for tv and film for a talk I’m working on and I’ve finally seen this 1993 version of his novel of the same name, co-starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and directed by her uncle Andrew Birkin (brother of Jane) 1/7

SPRING NIGHT, SUMMER NIGHT (Joseph L. Anderson, 1967, rewatch). Desire, frustration, despair & rebellion simmer away in rural Ohio. There’s a raw, unpolished quality to the performances that feels very in keeping with the film’s subject matter, a story brimming with sexual tension >> (1/3) #FilmSky

Just read: A Family Romance - Anita Brookner (1993). Despite the rather unpromising title, this was the novel of hers I responded to most strongly. Many of the usual Brooker hallmarks are there: loneliness, solitude (not the same thing of course), a feeling of being slightly out-of-time 1/4 📚💙

Straight Time (1978) dir. Ulu Grosbard One of the last great 70s crime movies. I'd been saving this one to watch for some years. Tonight was the night and it didn't disappoint. Dustin is so cool in this film. The entire cast were perfect. Loved it. 🎬 #filmsky #moviesky #cinema

Not too common, but love paperbacks with rounded corners, like this snazzy edition of James Branch Cabell's JURGEN, from Avon Library in the mid 60s. #booksky #paperbacks #designsky

Daughter (incredulous, secretly admiring): "*you* have a Mazzy Star album?"

Given recent reading, #BookSky💙📚 - what are your favourite ‘challenging/bonkers’ books? I’ll start: Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (Young) Infinite Jest (Wallace) Gravity’s Rainbow (Pynchon) The Tunnel (Gass) House of Leaves (Danielewski) Solenoid (Catarescu) At Swim-Two-Birds (O’Brien) Lanark (Gray)

Saw Powell & Pressburger's GONE TO EARTH and kept thinking how wonderful a double bill it would make with Erik Blomberg's WHITE REINDEER. Animist feminist pagan themes, and both Jennifer Jones and Mirjami Kuosmanen are like the wild, untamed nature being taken down by fear and jealousy. #FilmSky

TFW: my daughter perusing and listening to my CDs from the 90s with the same curiosity and distance that I had looking at my Dad's old vinyl back in the day

Interiors is about three sisters who have to come to terms with their parents separation. Their father leaves their emotionally and psychologically unstable mother to take up with a less difficult woman. This is essentially the whole plot, as it interweaves the fall-out amongst the family.

There could not be two more diametrically opposed views of history than events & people portrayed in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS & WOLF HALL. Yet I could not love both more; Robert Bolt frames his story as an analogy of the HUAC witch-hunt in the US, Mantel's is a tale of misogyny, class warfare &.... /1

I do love a hotel room that manages to combine my two favourite Kubrick films.

Hey, let's show all the Bluesky newcomers what we're made of by politely agreeing to disagree!

Clint in London 🎬 #filmsky #moviesky #cinema

1/5. Rewatching Boogie Nights (1997) for the first time since its release, I think it might be my favourite Paul Thomas Anderson film.

First watch: Father Mother Sister Brother (2025). Jim Jarmusch can go either way for me, and so can anthology films, so this three-parter was always going to be a tough sell. Briefly: I enjoyed the first part, although it seemed to answer all its own questions. 1/3

Yeah, this is stunning.

New on the blog today, I've written about SHAME by Annie Ernaux (tr Tanya Leslie). Another illuminating slice of autofiction from Ernaux, which takes as its jumping-off point a terrifying incident that took place shortly before her 12th birthday #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/06/18/s...

Marc Maron interviewing Paul McCartney: When you see The Stones, is there a part of you that wishes you'd kept the band together?' 'Yeah but unfortunately two of mine are dead.’

First watch: TOKYO STORY (Japanese, 1953) It’s so impressive how director Yasujirō Ozu tackles complex family relationships with such simple storytelling. An aging couple travels from small town to Tokyo to visit children whose busy work lives make the visit … #FilmSky #MovieSky 1/3

Colonial folly, imperialist fever dream, sublime romanticism and the rise and fall of the übermensch in Herzog’s compelling slice of New German Cinema. #filmsky boxd.it/ePiQv3

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (Jonathan Demme, 2008). What an amazing film this is! I’m struggling to think of a better portrayal of a family trying to navigate the trauma of grief, guilt, blame and addiction, all while trying to get through what should be a joyous celebration. (1/2) #FilmSky

From the archive for Laurie Colwin, whose birthday it was yesterday, my thoughts on ANOTHER MARVELOUS THING, A wryly humorous story of a downbeat love affair laced with a seam of poignancy that quietly breaks through - an understated gem. #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/07/24/a...

I couldn’t resist these - a complete set of vintage Puffin children’s books by Susan Cooper.

Ishiguro's novel sounds like a cross between The Unconsoled and Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes i.e. strangeness on a train. Let's hope it is. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

I seriously underrated this on release. It is Ed Harris's Open Range, with shots and moments directly talking to My Darling Clementine. It superbly old-fashioned, but with the occasional spiky moment of character development.