I’m a big fan of that publicity photo staple - film stars reading books. There are some surprises here, though we'll never know if some of the choices are those of the star - or of the publicist. 1/10. The greatest of them all: Eve Arnold’s photo of Marilyn Monroe reading James Joyce’s Ulysses.

SAFE (Todd Haynes, 1995) on 35mm! Julianne Moore's finest, but underseen, 2 hours.

1/4. This chap has 74 writing credits on IMDb.

The Trojan Horse, 1924 style. From the German silent epic HELENA (Manfred Noa, 1924), largely based on Homer's Iliad (though the horse doesn't appear in the Iliad). The film runs at over 3.5 hours and featured a cast of 000s. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aldq...

1979: Masquerade - Kit Williams' Treasure Hunt | Nationwide | BBC Archive www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1PP...

1/4. I’m a big fan of Simon Stone’s films The Daughter (2015) and The Dig (2021), but his most cinematic work to date is probably his remarkable reimagining of The Oresteia, currently at the Bridge Theatre.

1/2. Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta (1948-85) at Tate Modern. This huge, immersive exhibition is a rewarding fusion of art, nature and imagined archaeology and anthropology.

1/3. Just finished reading Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence. One of the novel’s unexpected pleasures is the way it inhabits the world of Turkish film in the mid 70s to early 80s.

Uncanny. 1. Self Portrait (1954) by David Hockney. 2. The Shopkeeper from the Mr Benn books and TV series by David McKee.

This is probably the most delightful location for a cinema that I have visited. I'm not sure if it still exists (I can't find any current information online), but it's the Sunday Cinema, located in a courtyard off Prymorskyi Boulevard, Odesa, Ukraine. Photo taken July 2014.

Eric Portman was born on this day 125 years ago. A popular star of mid-40s British cinema, Portman, who was gay, specialised in complex, obsessive characters. Publicity portrait taken to promote ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING (Powell & Pressburger, 1942).

Really enjoying @thefilmographers.bsky.social podcast, which is currently in the midst of a deep dive season covering BILLY WILDER’S films, one at a time. Lots of interesting stuff about the production of each film, and analysis, too. Recommended! #FilmSky podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Fassbinder on Claude Chabrol, 1975. At that time, Chabrol had just made some of his best films —Fassbinder saw things differently (though he did like Le Boucher) Although I don't share Fassbinder's view, the text is still worth your time. #Chabrol #Fassbinder #FilmSky www.enotes.com/topics/claud...

Que la bête meure/This Man Must Die/Killer! (Claude Chabrol, 1969). At first this shot feels familiar, then it becomes unnerving. Caroline Cellier’s and Michel Duchaussoy’s faces are like a Picasso portrait. Their eyes move independently, but they feel like a single person. Chabrol brilliance.

How to wear sunglasses - tips from the films of Satyajit Ray. 1/8. Sharmila Tagore getting ready for the shoot of DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST/ARANYER DIN RATRI (1970). Photo by Nemai Ghosh.

LA RUPTURE / THE BREACH (Claude Chabrol, 1970). This might be Chabrol’s wildest, a film that plays out like a twisted fairy tale in which Stéphane Audran finds herself being manipulated by a man employed by her evil in-laws, who are intent on gaining custody of their grandson. (1//3) #FilmSky

1/7. On what would have been Guru Dutt’s 101st birthday, I popped into the British Museum to see his passport. #gurudutt

Afternoon sun at the British Museum. It seems right that these ancient Egyptian sculptures should be warmed by Ra - the name of the sun as well as the sun god.

New on the blog today, I've written about THE PUMPKIN EATER by Penelope Mortimer. A superb novel about a married woman's descent into an inescapable abyss. Raw, unflinching and razor-sharp, it's the best book I've read so far this year. #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/07/07/t...

I was having a conversation with a friend about film tie-in covers, which prompted me to dig this out. It’s a very long time since I read it and I’m unlikely to do so again. But I love that the cover is from the now largely overlooked 1978 animated version directed by Ralph Bakshi.

The best edit I’ve seen in weeks, you absolutely have to turn the sound on for this one.

In awe of this guy. When you have to do a difficult job in 33 degree heat. Photos taken from Waterloo Bridge yesterday afternoon.

The dance scene from PICNIC (Joshua Logan, 1955). Just because. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJp...

1/9. First time watch of BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (Grigory Chukhray, Soviet Union, 1959). Set during WW2, it’s more a film about love than war. It follows the story of a 19-year-old soldier and his attempt to return home for a short period of leave. See 🧵 for some reasons why it comes recommended.

This is great to read. And thanks to Gen Z. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ju...

1/2. Blindfolded court singers. Egypt, late 18th Dynasty, c1340 BC. The fragment shows Syrian women (indicated by their hairstyles) musicians performing in Akhenaten's palace. On display in the ground floor sculpture gallery, British Museum.

1/12. Loved THE INVITE (Olivia Wilde, 2026). Jade Healy’s production design is a treat. Even though the apartment's design is a target of the film’s satire, it’s still HANNAH AND HER SISTERS level gorgeous. Feel free to call me shallow. See 🧵 for 11 other movie interiors in which I'd like to live.

Brock Peters was born 99 years ago today. Best remembered for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962), he is particularly interesting for 2 other groundbreaking performances. 1/2. In THE L-SHAPED ROOM (Bryan Forbes, 1962) Peters was one of the first Black actors to portray a sympathetic gay character.

1/3. Saw the (largely) faithful, full size replica of the Bayeux Tapestry @readingmuseum.bsky.social yesterday. Unlike the British Museum's forthcoming exhibition, it's free and there are no crowds. You can book yourself on an excellent tour, too www.readingmuseum.org.uk/bayeux-tapes...

Some of the collection of Huntley & Palmers biscuits that were taken to the front in WW1, but not actually eaten, on display @readingmuseum.bsky.social

1/2. ‘A new Ava Gardner’ actually made an exciting movie in Pakistan, not in India. BHOWANI JUNCTION (George Cukor, 1956) - set in 1947 at the time of Partition - was the first major international feature to be shot on location in Pakistan, predominantly in Lahore.

Penelope Keith and Elizabeth Taylor in the same shot. SECRET CEREMONY (Joseph Losey, 1968) www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8fz...

Visited the Imperial War Museum yesterday. Necessarily, a lot of the work reminds you of war films, but these two paintings both made me think of iconic shots from Powell and Pressburger's A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (1946). 1/2. RAF Morse School at Olympia, Blackpool by Charles Cundall, 1940

1/2. Charlie Chaplin briefly lived on the top floor of 39 West Square, London SE11, when he was small. “West Square! At the back of the Bedlam Lunatic Asylum. This is as far back as I can remember as a child. It was there, somewhere around the age of three, we lived in a large house”.

Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art, Imperial War Museum. A great, small, free and under-promoted exhibition - I had it almost to myself - predominantly featuring work commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. 1/10. 1. Henry Carr, Familiar Silhouettes, 1942.

Two days this week, two distant views of central London. 1. From Richmond Park. 2. From a rooftop in Brixton.

1/4. Frida Kahlo photographed by Nickolas Muray. Some of the photos in this thread are currently on display as part of Tate Britain's Frida: The Making of an Icon exhibition.

Now a useful Letterboxd List. letterboxd.com/claxtondog/l...

Divine documentary: dust dry narration about the economics of children’s toys, TV & books, electrifyingly enlivened by gloomy Sunshine Desserts style Spirograph execs, Alan Garner getting arsey with kids outside a library & an enthusiastically anticapitalist Oliver Postgate youtu.be/xyK6wsYMfYQ?...

Mae West by Frida Kahlo. Detail from ‘My Dress Hangs There’, 1933, currently on display as part of Tate Modern’s exhibition, Frida: The Making of an Icon.

Actors go classical. Sometimes to underline their Greek or Italianness. Sometimes to assert a sense of white classical beauty. And sometimes, simply to add a bit of class/authority. NB some of the statues are not the real thing! 1/10. Katharine Hepburn by Cecil Beaton for Vanity Fair, 1934.

1/4. The finale of Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929) sees the blackmailer (Donald Calthrop) chased through the British Museum.

I think it’s probably advisable not to chop fruit while barefooted. Even in this weather. There was swearing. And blood.

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

Billy Wilder was born on this day 120 years ago. Here he is during the shoot of his underrated penultimate film, FEDORA (1978) - see previous post for a few reasons why you should watch it. Publicity photo by Lars Looschen.

1/6. First time watch of Fedora (Billy Wilder, 1978). I’ve been meaning to watch it ever since reading Jonathan Coe’s hugely enjoyable novel, Mr Wilder and Me, set during the film’s production. The film bombed on release, but in subsequent years has acquired a number of fans - and I’m one of them.

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

Peter Doig does Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980). Echo Lake, 1998, is one of several paintings by Doig based on images from Friday the 13th (1980). Currently on display at Tate Britain. One of Doig's Friday the 13th sequence sold for £30 million in 2021.

Pilgrimage. Tate Britain.

1/8. I’m new to the concept of Bleak Week - a brilliant piece of summertime cinema programming from the American Cinematheque and now at cinemas in the UK. Here’s my unofficial list of Bleak Week films - 7 films for 7 days of misery. It’s all on YouTube, so you can enjoy despair anywhere. Links in 🧵