Highly recommended talk in advance of Hippfest (or, for armchair cinephiles like me, Hippfest at home). If you want to see a beautiful Leni Riefenstahl on the slopes with a skiing goat, this is the place. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7tB... www.hippodromecinema.co.uk/hippfest/hip...

Looking forward to seeing Paul Fischer in conversation with @pamhutch.bsky.social tomorrow at Lewes Depot, followed by a screening of American Graffiti. That's a film I've not seen since 1973 or 1974 (eek!). Hoping Paul's book is a corrective to (admittedly enjoyable) Biskindian machismo!

Ditto - looks like this is going to be a cracker! (hope I’ll be able to afford it) 😀

#MARvynLeroy continues with a pre-code double-bill. Cagney as a wily con-man is upstaged by a great over-the-top turn from Ruth Donnelly. Then John Gilbert in an almost schizophrenic role is man of leisure-turned bootlegger, oddly distanced from the remaining cast. Marie Prevost is wonderful again.

With #Chabruary now expired (but #Marchabrol activated) we move to #MARvynlLeroy , sampling the pre-code collection now on the Criterion channel. Three zingers already in the bank. Later in the month, #Silent2026 gets into full flow with the online portion of Hippfest. Who needs Easter?

#LetterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched Chabruary continues; diverting now into the first of a few Muriel Boxes.

Very much looking forward to this!

#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched #Chabruary has generated a few morceaux this week.

Finally got around to watching this on the Criterion channel, and I can confirm it’s a very cool cockle-warmer.

Reminder to self: need to get back in the noir groove, and this bunch of NYC beauties will be great to revisit.

My favourite first watch at last week's Slapstick festival was this gem. Buster Keaton with sound, in French, but with comic inventiveness and timing as sharp as his silent heyday. Thank you for treating us with it @slapstickfest.bsky.social @theflyingeditor.bsky.social

After today I can safely say that I have learnt all I know about The Vamp and The Flapper from Z & S Fitzgerald and now also @pamhutch.bsky.social . Many thanks! @slapstickfest.bsky.social

#Chabruary gloom is on hold as I attend this. I may even laugh a bit. @andrewkelly.bsky.social @lucyportercomic.bsky.social @pamhutch.bsky.social @theflyingeditor.bsky.social and others... @slapstickfest.bsky.social‬

🚨 ONE WEEK til Slapstick Festival is back for 5 days of hilarity in Bristol (Wed 4 - Sun 8 February)! With 33 events across Watershed, Bristol Beacon, Bristol Megascreen, and St George's Bristol covering over a century of screen comedy, there's something for everyone via the link below 👇

Pastoral opening scenes yield to an atrocious act of callousness - an obsessive will to punish drives the plot. The protagonist inveigles himself into the loathed and repulsive villain's nest. A bland absence of empathy, an aura of rippling misanthropy, no relief. I loved it. #Chabruary2026 #3

Hitchcock has the jagged tones of Herrmann, Chabrol defaults to sinister chamber music. It's all about the quotidian, the unarticulated, yet she knows he knows she knows... Adultery is mundane, yet it unhinges the complacency of the framework that validates it. Chillingly subversive. #Chabruary #2

Erotic , seemingly about love, but in 1968 the theme is power. Power exacted by the bourgeoisie (Audran at her haughtiest, Trintignant the shit) over all around them. Lovers are toys, friendships are tossed aside, feelings of others are barely acknowledged. Something has to give. #Chabruary #1

My snail-like progress through world cinema continues, with extensions from Jan to #Japannum2026 and #Barbstannum2026. Additions this month are #Chabruary and #Silent2026. Other background obsessions also continuing slowly…. nothing can go wrong now.

RIP Sly Dunbar. Here's a lovely edition of the South Bank Show all about the wonderful Sly and Robbie. A few people were asking to see it, so I've uploaded it to YouTube and I'll leave it there until Monday. Hopefully it'll get a proper repeat soon. youtu.be/M-cuOdr6DpQ

Very shocked to hear that Sly Dunbar died earlier today. Sly was at the forefront of reggae music's development and innovation for decades. His extraordinary drumming on this dub is a personal favourite. youtu.be/1sAqYgPghGY?... RIP Sly 🙏 #reggae #reggaesky #musicsky #vinyl #vinylsky #slydunbar

#lastfourwatched #letterboxdfriday Mainly #Barbanuary but #Japanuary continues to provide an astonishing range to this mangenue.

Raw Nietzschean Stanwyck fucks a railwayman in a cargo train one day, and a randy executive in the ladies' room on another. Then she does his father, for advancement that ultimately proves to be hollow. The original end is better than the bowdlerised edition, but still too tame. #Barbanuary 2026 #5

A tough watch in our political climate. Stanwyck and Cooper both terrific, it nails the sickening manipulations of American politics with truth forever negotiable. The ending falls between the (teleo)logical and the sentimental: the schmaltz comes at us like a hanging curveball. #Barbanuary2026 #4

The self-flagellating joy of a vicarious Stanwyck as she reinvents herself via her daughter is miraculous. The banal affectations of allaround her only serve to concentrate Stella's authenticity so she can be reborn in glimmering, glorious and uniquely proud Stanwyckian squalor. #Barbanuary2026 #3

Steeped in traditional Japanese fable, capturing gruesome ambition and male violence; beautiful to watch, but also deeply troubling on the eye. Each male character is vile, goading others to unspeakable acts. Couldn't watch another film for a few days after digesting this. #Japanuary2026 #10

On Sky Arts this evening. I'm quite fancying it. If he did, he's got a few things to answer for.

A Pygmalionesque plot echoed as Capra unveils Stanwyck's acting range. The highlight is the sexy scene of unrequited love in Graves’s apartment where her expressive acting is pitch-perfect. Marie Prevost (Sennett and Lubitsch alumnus) is a hoot, and her comic timing is wonderful. #Barbanuary #1

There's a vibe of other films of the era: Czech absurdism, a touch of Losey's Accident (or other early Pinter), maybe Godard's Weekend. More trenchant than any of those, with its unfiltered pacifism and unambiguous disgust at racism. Powerful, funny and unadulterated. #Japanuary2026 #8

The jagged veins of post-war Hiroshima spill copious blood. Hand-held, random, with music that brings lives to screeching ends. Only Hirono, Eastwood-like, abides by the code. The thread of tension between Hirono, Yamamori and his chilling wife is gripping to the end. #Japanuary2026 #7

After a gourmet start to my inaugural Japanuary, this one felt like leftovers. Too much is going on, requiring a surfeit of disbelief suspension. Initially grounded in some real traumatic history, all descends to mysticism and sentimentality. Could have been so much less muddled. #Japanuary2026 #6

Many Western echoes in such a distinctly Japanese film: Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, even Olivier in Marathon Man. But to transform the torture into a vengeful catharsis of deep-rooted origin, that is where the genius lies. #Japanuary Film 5

A bout de souffle sans jouissance. Joy is solely destructive in this extraordinary effort, and its only viable syntax is untethered jazz. Brando begat Dean begat Belmondo…. who begat Kawachi. Without any moral shackles. #Japanuary2026 #4

There is huge economy of plot in this 1960 heist-noir, furiously anti-elitist despite its apparently staid setting. What seems superficially as if it could be a TV crime episode belies a steely and grim moral resolve. Its faux-civilised tone defines passive-aggression. Very fine. #Japanuary2026 3

Multilayered, vital. Visually and thematically it moves from landscape to portrait mode, as the characters slowly discover social modi operandi that are unfamiliar to them. The camera's humanity transcends the aridly procedural to make a wonder of where we may arrive. #Japanuary2026 #2.

A film about impotence (creative/sexual) captured through juddering hand-held shots, flecked with monochrome flashes of destructive light masquerading as power, mediated by gangland punk violence. The urban landscape holds nothing save a bleak yet beautiful death drive. #Japanuary2026 Film 1

This beauty just arrived through the letter box - looks absolutely fantastic. @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social

My sincere thanks to those who have shaped and enhanced my cultural 2025 on Bluesky, including but not only: @annebillson.bsky.social @pamhutch.bsky.social @andrewmale.bsky.social @jamesmjharrison.bsky.social @tippingmyfedora.bsky.social @midcenturycinema.bsky.social @rememberthispod.bsky.social

Evening viewing is set

Wonderful album, poignant at the time and increasingly so now.

I don’t know if the person who does BBC2’s Saturday afternoon film selection also writes obituaries in the Telegraph, but it seems that the same war films are on a permanent loop. Ice Cold in Alex today, joining The Wooden Horse and Judgment at Nuremberg in the echo chamber.

Many thanks to @pamhutch.bsky.social for an illuminating contextual guide to The Vamp at Fabrica Brighton this evening. As usual, entertaining and scholarly in an uneffacing way.

Four shining moments for me at @filmnoiruk.bsky.social Festival today. Gun Crazy obvs, but also the measured tension and sly red herrings of Plunder Road, the claustrophobic Beware My Lovely and the Neil-Branded Forgotten Faces with its lucid silent grammar. A memorable weekend, thank you.

I am not normally an impatient being, but I simply can’t wait for this

Just received my BFI Sep-Oct programme but haven’t got to read it yet as it smells too good to open. Might take up glue-sniffing at my advanced age.

After watching the fabulous Henry Fonda for President at #cineredis25 today I have impulse-bought the Bea Arthur series Maude on eBay. It will be queued behind Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and The Mary Tyler Moore box sets, also recently purchased.

@cineredis.bsky.social @markcosgrove.bsky.social I am not good at talking to people at events, but I wanted to say here that #cineredis25 is exceeding all my expectations. Just came out of Killer of Sheep an emotional wreck - thank you so much!

Tremendous evening at the BFI with 2 absorbing films selected by @rememberthispod.bsky.social Audience levels disappointing. The Liberation of LB Jones - visceral, stark and shockingly contemporary. The Only Game in Town evinced how meticulous Stevens was even in his decline. Thank you, Karina.

#SaveThePCC Some of you may have read about the situation regarding our new landlord wishing to add a new redevelopment break clause, with only 6 months notice to our lease. For now, we're simply asking you all to share & sign the petition below; you.38degrees.org.uk/p/princechar...