Wilson

Children of the Corn

Tonight's film

Nuada badge from Hidden Britain.

Mrs H: "What's that?"

Me: "It's my Nuada badge!"

Mrs H: "What's that?"

Me: [enthusiastically] "Well, it's a WICKER MAN thing from @hiddenbritain.bsky.social, it shows that I'm a..."

Mrs H: "Wanker?"

Me: [resignedly] "Yes..."

I Know Where I'm Going! This programme will be available shortly after broadcast A headstrong woman who intends to marry for money is marooned on the Isle of Mull en route to her wedding. But when she meets the Laird of Kiloran, she is no longer sure she wants to go ahead with her wedding plans. 1 hour, 31 minutes On TV BBC TWO Next Saturday 11:05

Next Saturday, January 31st, from 11.05am BBC2 is showing a brace of Powell & Pressburger masterpieces - first, the absolutely gorgeous restoration of I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING followed by the incredible A MATTER OF LIFE & DEATH... #FilmSky

"l'd rather swim in the sea than in a swimming pool."

"I love you June. You're life and I'm leaving you"

No-one wrote better romantic declarations than Powell & Pressburger. Two of the best films.

After spending 30 minutes scrubbing through Pacifiction, and shockingly finding a pristine white suit from beginning to end, I remembered the best pro-CIA film ever made, Claire Denis' Stars at Noon.

(Why won't PrimeVideo let me take screenshot!)

The level of effort wasn't worth it for the photo.

A ★★★★★ review of La Chimera (2023) The magic of this film is hard to put into words. Josh O’Connor plays Arthur, an Englishman in Italy who has a strange gift for being able to find hidden tombs, tombs filled with Etruscan treasures th...

This evening’s film: La Chimera. Something really special, my god. boxd.it/cP63Yb

Great American Novels

Great American Novels. #BookSky💙📚

Modern audiences will watch with one hand reaching for diagnosis, but Truffaut's restrained and conservative film knows that matters little, rather it is the humanity that strikes the fullest note.

I'll never watch it again.

It is a remarkable achievement in its own right - with its silent film grammar, Truffaut's sensitive performance as the Doctor, and its compassionate and dignified take on neurodiversity.

I remember seeing The Elephant Man as a teenager and thinking it was very good, and then I watched it as an adult and could barely complete it as I found it so painful to watch. Well, that's The Wild Child, except this time around I have a kid, and that made it acutely worse for me.

The Wild Child

This afternoon's film

It felt like watching a neglected accompaniment to The Uninvited, The Unseen, Dark Shadows (pre-Barnabas), and Rebecca, with its gothic romance, con artists, psychics, ex-magicians, and séances.

(I might be getting carried away, but I loved this movie)

The film probably lacks a truly great central performance. Lynn Bari is a bit of a nothing, but everything else works marvellously for 80 minutes.

It is probably a better film under the better title - The Spiritualist. It is a mix of spiritualist enthusiasm and completely aware of how to expose psychic frauds. The séance scenes are really brilliantly captured, and even better as you are walked through how Turhan Bey fakes them.

I loved this film. A séance-noir with spectacular lighting from John Alton, and quick paced melodramatic direction from Bernard Vorhaus. There is little better set-up than phony spiritualist wandering an impossible to reach beach, meeting a woman with a dead husband and boring boyfriend. Cinema!

Film poster - an illustration of a painting featuring a blonde-haired girl in a green top next to a plant pot containing hyacinths.

GIRL WITH HYACINTHS (Hasse Ekman, 1950).
This was excellent, a bleak investigation into the reasons behind a young woman’s suicide, delving into her backstory and gradually revealing the circumstances that led to her death. It is the woman’s female neighbour who correctly intuits >> (1/2) #FilmSky

The Amazing Mr..X

Tonight's film

The poster for Showing Up (2022), directed by Kelly Reichardt and starring Michelle Williams as an artist (shown here looking pensive among the figurines in which she specializes)

First watch (courtesy of Mubi): Showing Up (2022). Low-key even by Kelly Reichardt's standards, with Michelle Williams as a struggling Portland artist dealing with professional jealousy, dysfunctional family, and ... erm ... an injured pigeon. 1/3

From Gardens Where We Feel Secure - Virginia Astley

Currently listening to

Marcello Mastroianni

Jean Marais

Maria Schell's choices in Le Notti Bianchi.

Cinematic mist and wind and shadowy light is brought to a Cinecittà soundstage making the film seem rather otherworldly. Marcello Mastroianni accuses Maria Schell of chasing ghosts, and with Visconti production design and camera movement that is exactly how the film feels.

Wonderful film. Hazy and dream-like poetic realism, with a sharp sense of melancholy woven throughout. Luchino Visconti drift from neorealism to swooning melodrama benefits all of us (who like that kind of thing). The camera drifts, everyone is sad, and happiness and loneliness diverge at the end.

You know what they say, never fall in love with a girl looking in a canal who is already in love with a mysterious man who rents a room from her protective, near-blind grandmother.

A film company logo that tells you you're about to see highly entertaining greatness.

Le Notti Bianche

This morning's film

Mother of Flies, on the other hand, is a low-budget folk horror with a puninshingly slow pace. It isn't bad, but you can really feel the film trying hard. I guess you could be cruel and call it wannabe Robert Eggers, but I thought it was a touch better than that. Mostly. Or at least for 45 mins.

Chow Yun-fat wasn't often better. His run from 1986 to 1990 is wonderful. In 1987, alone, he made: City on Fire, Spiritual Love, Flaming Brothers, Scared Stiff, An Autumn's Tale, Rich and Famous, Brotherhood, Prison on Fire, Tragic Hero, A Better Tomorrow II, and The Romancing Star.

A film of jewellery store robberies and endless chases across the pavements and underground of Hong Kong. Rarely do you get to spend so much time roaming Hong Kong as you do in City on Fire. It is a one-city travelogue.

City on Fire is even better than I remember it being from when I saw it 25 years ago. A shaggy dog crime story, that has undercover cops, a seriously charismatic Chow Yun-fat, and seriously beautiful Carrie Ng. The comparison to Reservoir Dogs are both overstated and do City on Fire no favours.