Last night I watched the marvellous The Cranes are Flying, a 1957 Soviet movie that I wish Vladimir Putin would watch. Here's my Letterboxd review, and a short thread of stills to show how superbly constructed a movie it is. (They won't show how ALIVE it is: it's a film that delights in movement.)

1/3. The Cinema (1920) by William Roberts - on display at Tate Britain. I love this painting, especially some of the details such as the pianist glimpsed through a gap in the curtains. But it posed a couple of questions that maybe silent film friends might be able to help answer.

1/2. Swiss Roll by Humphrey Jennings, 1939. The man who gave us some of the most potent and poetic wartime propaganda films also gave us a sponge cake juxtaposed by the Matterhorn.

I loved ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025), but spent the second half wishing that the film was the potential masterpiece I thought it might be during the first half.

1/3. Figures in a landscape - LETTER NEVER SENT (Mikhail Kalatozov, USSR, 1960). My second Kalatozov of the week. It's a 'survival' film - 4 young geologists battling the elements in a remote part of Siberia - driven as much by a sense of impending terror as by the dangerous beauty of the landscape.

1/2. THE CRANES ARE FLYING (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957) comes highly recommended. It has the energy of nouvelle vague with the poetry of Jean Vigo. This is one of many sequences that show the brilliance of Kalatozov, cinematographer Sergey Urusevsky, editor Mariya Timofeyeva and star Tatiana Samoilova.

The line-up for 2025's Channel 4 South Asian Film Season has just been announced. Highlights include Guru Dutt's MR AND MRS '55 (1955) and JOYLAND (Saim Sadiq, 2022). Nasreen Munni Kabir has been programming the season since the 80s. It's a remarkable achievement www.channel4.com/4viewers/blo...

We love this poster by @sparklymouse.bsky.social designed for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's classic melodrama, THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (West Germany, 1972). The film shows at BAC on Sat 1 Nov, 7.30pm bridport-arts.com/event/the-bi...

Erich von Stroheim was born 140 years ago today, which is more than sufficient excuse to post this publicity still of him taken to promote FOOLISH WIVES (1922). It's a shame that more actor/directors don't don silk shirt, knickerbockers, girdle, stockings and suspenders for the camera.

Maria's dance performed by Brigitte Helm in METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang, 1927) - music by Palooka 5. Few films are packed with so many extraordinary, iconic moments. Palooka 5 will be accompanying METROPOLIS live at BAC on Fri 10 Oct, 7.30pm bridport-arts.com/event/metrop...

Delighted to be participating in the Film Heritage Foundation's Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop. I'll be teaching the sessions on programming archive film. 12–19 Nov, Bhubaneswar, India Applications close on Sep 26 filmheritagefoundation.co.in/film-preserv...

Robert Redford enjoys a pint under Waterloo Bridge, London, 1973.

It's Comb-Over Night on BBC Four. Robert Robinson in an edition of CALL MY BLUFF from 1982 and Joseph Cooper presenting FACE THE MUSIC in 1975.

Faces and noir lighting in THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (Fritz Lang, 1944) - shot by Milton Krasner. I watched the film back-to-back with Lang's SCARLET STREET (see previous post) - a very rewarding experience. You can watch THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW here www.youtube.com/watch?v=URMX...

1/2. In SCARLET STREET (Fritz Lang, 1945) Edward G Robinson plays an amateur artist. His paintings were created for the film by John Decker. I wonder what happened to his striking portrait of Joan Bennett? You can watch the film here www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjwz...

Soon to be a movie starring Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Celia Imrie. Possibly. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Albert Memorial last night pre-Prom.

1/2. I have been wanting to read Katherine Anne Porter’s stories for years, so was delighted to find this almost pristine 1985 Virago edition yesterday. I don’t know who Virago’s art director was in the 80s, but they made some great choices and introduced me to artists I didn’t know.

1970s-style time travel with everyone's favourite resident of Festive Road. The first series of Mr Benn (first broadcast on BBC One from 25 Feb - 1 April 1971) has recently appeared on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctHB...

New on the blog today, I've written about some of my favourite spinsters in literature for @pear-jelly.bsky.social's #SpinsterSeptember, which starts tomorrow. Featuring books by Anita Brookner, Muriel Spark, Rumer Godden and many more! #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/08/31/s...

Social realism at its best - a deeply humanist film. I found it wholly engrossing and left the cinema on an emotional high.

The Birds goes to Bayeux. Have fun yourself at htck.github.io/bayeux/#!/

Battle of the British accents in MAN HUNT (Fritz Lang, 1941). Walter Pidgeon makes a half-hearted stab at RP. Joan Bennett gives cockney (at least, I think it’s supposed to be cockney) the works. Accents aside, the interplay between them is a delight. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf6A...

It’s your special day but fuck, I hate you. 🎂

The cover design of our Sep-Dec booklet uses a photograph of Joan Crawford that was taken as part of a publicity shoot to promote the original release of the great film noir/melodrama MILDRED PIERCE (1945). Showing at BAC on Sat 1 Nov, 2.30pm www.bridport-arts.com/event/mildre...

I watched Night of the Hunter a few evenings ago and the best way I can describe it is half horror and half fairytale. It's as if Flannery O'Connor's stories met up with Alfred Hitchcock films and those in turn got involved with Jean Cocteau's.

1/3. I last watched Jodorowsky's SANTA SANGRE at the London Film Fest in 1989. Rewatching it this evening I could almost anticipate every shot. Unsurprising, given how many extraordinary images it contains. Whether you want some of them rattling around in your brain for 35 years is another matter.

This bowl is pretty phenomenal. It's c6500-7000 years old and was made in Tall-i Bakun (Persepolis), Iran. The fineness of the pot is remarkable and the design could almost be a Matisse cut-out. On display in room 51 - one of the Middle Eastern galleries - at the British Museum.

What a great poster! Though I'm not convinced that Terence Stamp's influence on The Teletubbies has been sufficiently acknowledged.

1/8. First time watch of Electra (Michael Cacoyannis, Greece, 1962). See 🧵 for a few reasons why you should tune in - and 1 that might be off-putting for some, but have a certain appeal for others…

1/2. The pre-Code flirtation and sensuality in this scene between Joan Crawford and John Barrymore is more than sufficient excuse to rewatch Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932). It has just arrived on BBC iPlayer.

It’s #worldelephantday, apparently - an excuse to dig out this snap, taken in Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand. What I found remarkable was the careful and delicate way that the herd climbed the steep hill into the jungle. I hadn’t imagined elephants behaving like graceful mountain goats.

My new favourite TV programme is the 3-part Japan’s Master of Restoration on BBC Four. It's a combination of watching paint dry and broken pots stick, but it's wholly compelling. Though I find some of the ethics of this kind of restoration a little uneasy. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

JOB ALERT! Bridport Arts Centre is looking for a marketing assistant to join its small team. The post holder will work across BAC, the Bridport Prize and From Page to Screen, Bridport’s film festival. Recruitment pack: www.bridport-arts.com/jobs/current... Deadline: 5pm, Wed 27 Aug 2025.

1/8. See 🧵 for reasons to watch House of Bamboo (Samuel Fuller, 1955) - and don’t be put off by the cliched ‘oriental’ titles.

We're delighted to announce a celebratory evening exploring the extraordinary play that galvanised our community over 40 years ago. Includes a screening of the BBC documentary that charted the production’s development through to performance. Sat 4 Oct, 7pm www.bridport-arts.com/event/the-po...

Clara Bow was born 121 years ago today, so I'm celebrating with this photograph. It's described as 'Clara Bow in the Mojave desert with cigarette and gun' which sounds like the opening of a movie. It's preserved by UNLV Universities Libraries, Special Collections and Archives.

Loved this insightful discussion of Max Ophuls’ THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE… It’s an episode from Tim Coleman’s THE TOP 100 podcast (new to me), which delves into individual films from the Sight and Sound top 100 list, with a different guest each time. #FilmSky podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

You can only pick one. Which one?

We're delighted to announce our film programme for the autumn with some of the best of contemporary cinema and a wide range of classics. We look forward to welcoming you back to the best place to watch a movie: the big screen. www.bridport-arts.com/whats-on/?ca...

1/2. A shout-out for SHAMBHALA (Min Bahadur Bham, Nepal, 2024), showing at London's Garden Cinema on 22 July and 10 Aug. It was one of the most rewarding films I watched last year, but I don't think it's had a UK release www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/shambha...

We have a new arrival on the BAC forecourt. We're delighted that Emily Young's ‘Lost Mountain Head I’ (2013) will be on display outside BAC throughout the summer. Sculpted from pyroclastic stone, the large sculpture (H 102cm x W 56 cm x D 101cm) makes an extraordinary impact.

The Proms begin this week, but I’ll be amazed if I get to hear anything as edge-of-the-seat thrilling and life-enhancing as @londonsymphony.bsky.social performing Salome this evening. Danger, urgency and eroticism dialled to the max. Astonishing.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948) is not my favourite Preston Sturges film, but there's much to love. In particular, Rex Harrison as a Sir Thomas Beecham-like conductor giving a performance that feels like a dry run for Henry Higgins. And this shot - so good that Sturges used it 3 times.

New on the blog today, I've written about some of my favourite novels set in London. Featuring books by Patrick Hamilton, Muriel Spark, Anita Brookner, Olivia Manning and more! #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/l...

Very excited that the Bayeux Tapestry will be back in the UK for the first time in 1000+ years - it will be on display at the British Museum in 2027. The tapestry inspired the title sequences of two favourite films from my childhood, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and The Vikings (1958).

1/5. Two Stage Sisters (Xie Jin, China, 1964) in 20 images.

Today is the centenary of the birth of #GuruDutt. He directed 2 of my favourite films - Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959). His passport is currently on display at the British Museum www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...