When Autumn Falls is fascinating mix of cosy drama and opaque, uneasy, and uncertain mystery. François Ozon manages the tone perfectly, evoking an autumnal loneliness and then something darker lurking in the scenes we don't see. Horror in the ellipses of what we don't see.

For the writer Elizabeth Taylor, #BornOnThisDay in 1912, my thoughts on ANGEL. A magnificent novel that charts Angel's rapid ascendancy as a writer of wildly popular but ludicrous romance novels, and her gradual decline into relative obscurity. #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024/10/06/a...

I'm pretty big on the 17th century Dutch Golden Age of painting, so today I materialised in Leiden for the 400th birthday exhibition of local boy Jan Steen (1626–1679), boozy master painter of peasants making merry plus tavern owner. Proost..!

“Lewis reflected that Andrew’s wife’s dim personality was entirely matched by her ineffective jewellery.” Reading Lewis Percy (1989) by Anita Brookner.

'Sunset over the Thames, Waterloo Bridge' (1918) by Emile Claus (Private collection)

#BOTD George Sanders - FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, also includes an uncredited James Finalyson stepping off the kerb into the road...

New on the blog today, a few thoughts on a recent exhibition at the NPG...LUCIAN FREUD: DRAWING INTO PAINTING, and the accompanying book. Raw, penetrating, intensely observed portraits that shed light on the inner lives of his sitters. #Art #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/07/03/l...

My #LastFourWatched for #LetterboxdFriday. Chabrol being Chabrol with fabulous interiors & clothes; a rewatch of a beautiful Masumura; a sexually charged, Antonioni-esque queer love triangle in 1960s Italy; and a knockout tragic love story from Ritwik Ghatak. A terrific run this week! #FilmSky

Can recommend the Shahzia Sikander: HIGH SEAS; CLOSED SKIES exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery, London, until the end of July. Striking mosaics and other artworks, plus a beautiful 9 min animated film. All free to view. #Art #ArtSky

'Ann with Indoor Plants.' (1971) Alfred Heyworth's career-long fascination with painting indoor plants began with his friendship with Lucian Freud. His works capture the individual characteristics, form, and texture of many plants including aspidistra, tradescantia, and ficus.

Charles-François Daubigny and Eugène Boudin both made Villerville, a fishing village located between Honfleur and Trouville, familiar to art collectors. This work by Félix Vallotton belongs to a series of four paintings, all dedicated to the same subiect in 1902.

That cold walk to and from school in winter. I walked past these council houses (since demolished) every day for four long years in the late 1950s. Winter Morning, Ingram Crescent Hove (a memory): watercolour and pencil

More Elizabeth Taylor brilliance with THE SOUL OF KINDNESS, which feels somewhat underrated in her oeuvre. A wonderful character study & ensemble piece, revolving around the dangerous & deluded Flora, one of Taylor's finest creations. #BOTD #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2017/01/24/t...

For the writer Elizabeth Taylor, #BornOnThisDay in 1912, my thoughts on ANGEL. A magnificent novel that charts Angel's rapid ascendancy as a writer of wildly popular but ludicrous romance novels, and her gradual decline into relative obscurity. #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024/10/06/a...

‘I always say, the film is the thing. The film is the thing. It’s the film, the language of cinema. You work so hard & the second it’s finished, people want you to change it back into words.’ - David Lynch

Joining in with #nyrbwomen26 July read 📖 this will be my 2nd Pym (after Excellent Women), slightly apprehensive as I’ve not felt in the mood for my midcentury ladies lately. Hope this will get me back on track #booksky

New on the blog today, a few thoughts on a recent exhibition at the NPG...LUCIAN FREUD: DRAWING INTO PAINTING, and the accompanying book. Raw, penetrating, intensely observed portraits that shed light on the inner lives of his sitters. #Art #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/07/03/l...

Bonsoir (Jeanne Moreau)

Wonderfully entertaining event with Kazuo Ishiguro at the BFI just now - an intro to the STATION TO STATION season, featuring his top ten train films. Loved the anecdotes about all the messages he’d received from the likes of Scorsese & Walter Hill, lobbying for the inclusion of specific movies!

'View of Rhenen.' (1908) Around 1895, the Dutch painter Ferdinand Nibbrig began experimenting with divisionism to help him capture heat and light; how he has succeeded here with a painting that has the composed grandeur of a fresco.

JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL (Claude Chabrol, 1971). Shades of Simenon in this disquieting story about an affair that ends with the lover’s death - not a spoiler as this happens within the first 5 mins of the film. Stéphane Audran is excellent as ever…meanwhile, her husband wrestles >> (1/3) #Filmsky

My thoughts on Barbara Pym's THE SWEET DOVE DIED, the current read for @joiedevivre9.bsky.social's #NYRBWomen26 Top-tier Pym. A charming, poignant, beautifully written novel about the narrowing opportunities for love as we age & lose our lustre. #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/03/02/t...

A Memory Of Verennes, Summer: acrylic on canvas.

Rocks and Swirling Water - 1916 https://botfrens.com/collections/173/contents/3105011

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.

Reggie, enjoying the current respite between heatwaves before the next one kicks in. #Reggie #uksummer

A wall in the hot, July sun. Artist: CF Tunnicliffe What to Look for in Summer, 1960

First watch: All or Nothing (2002, courtest of Arte). After a grim and tense night of World Cup football, I was looking for some light relief. Oh, wait! I'd convinced myself I'd seen this lesser-favoured Mike Leigh, but in fact I had not. It turned out to be richer than expected. 1/

‘Willie, I refuse to be cross-questioned. You might make me angry, which I have no wish to be. You ought to know me better by now. You love me & you must try to understand me. I know it’s hard, I am unreliable. I am wanton. I am ruled by my moods.' #BookSky jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/06/28/o...

'Woman Descending a Staircase.' Carl Holsøe studied with Vilhelm Hammershøi at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen and with Peter Ilsted formed the Danish School of Interior Painting. Holsøe's works are generally less austere than those of his contemporaries and have more glow.

Just read: ‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’ by Carson McCullers, 1941. Set on a US Army base in Georgia where everyone is fucked up and/or entangled with each other in some complex way: “The Captain... had a sad penchant for becoming enamoured of his wife’s lovers...”

‘Willie, I refuse to be cross-questioned. You might make me angry, which I have no wish to be. You ought to know me better by now. You love me & you must try to understand me. I know it’s hard, I am unreliable. I am wanton. I am ruled by my moods.' #BookSky jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/06/28/o...

What I watched in June 📺 #filmsky

From the archive for Jean Stafford, #BornOnThisDay in 1915, my thoughts on THE MOUNTAIN LION. A gloriously unsettling coming-of-age novel - think Elspeth Barker's O CALEDONIA meets Carson McCullers with an undercurrent of menace. I loved it! #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023/08/08/t...

Painting created c.1950s in the art therapy studio at Netherne Hospital, Surrey, by an individual who was compelled to live there, whose identity is currently unknown to us. This image is taken from art therapist Edward Adamson’s lecture slides, the original is currently missing, presumed lost

Thank Christ for that! Why do we put ourselves through this?

JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL (Claude Chabrol, 1971). Shades of Simenon in this disquieting story about an affair that ends with the lover’s death - not a spoiler as this happens within the first 5 mins of the film. Stéphane Audran is excellent as ever…meanwhile, her husband wrestles >> (1/3) #Filmsky

Game of cards. Don't know which is more mesmerizing, outsize mirror or tall, narrow house looming outside window. By Cornelis de Man, born on this day in 1621.

Not long to wait now, sports fans.

Can’t go to Robyn at the O2 on Friday due to my agonies so if you want two tix in Block 102 and to give me, say, some of the money, hmu

Pauline Boty, who died 60 years ago today, taken by John Aston in 1962 and posted by her estate on Instagram this morning. The photograph is new to me. I love it.

First watch: Hair (1979). Miloš Forman's adaptation of the broadway musical a decade prior seems a little forgotten now (only one review from the several hundred people I follow on Letterboxd). Admittedly, some of the songs haven't aged terribly well, but it has interesting New Hollywood chops: 1/5

Happy Birthday Debbie Harry ♥️ © Peter Mazel

Gloucester in 1912 was a hybrid America—Italian immigrant homes pressed against New England's fishing docks. In Italian Quarter, Gloucester (1912), Hopper renders the neighborhood in crisp geometry, capturing cultural fusion through the built environment.

We have gone to print! Now to build a digital box office, assign chairs to events, and do a hundred other tasks. Tickets on sale late July, when I can tell you more about our authors. Do come see us this autumn. #WigtownBookFestival

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...

From the archive for Jean Stafford, #BornOnThisDay in 1915, my thoughts on THE MOUNTAIN LION. A gloriously unsettling coming-of-age novel - think Elspeth Barker's O CALEDONIA meets Carson McCullers with an undercurrent of menace. I loved it! #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023/08/08/t...

STILL PROCESSING (Sophy Romvari, 2020) Loved this, a profoundly moving short film about processing grief and trauma within a close-knit family with a heritage in filmmaking and photography. 
It makes even more excited about seeing Sophy Romvari’s feature debut, BLUE HERON, this week! #FilmSky

June was a weird month for viewing. The heatwave turned by brain to porridge, so I struggled to engage with lots of things. Plus there was the football, quite a few rewatches etc. Anyway, here are five that I most enjoyed seeing for the first time last month, in the order that I watched them...