Jon Gamble

Peter Hall's cinematic poem Akenfield is also a trip back to the 1970s heyday of left wing British political film-making. FOTW. Union City was a neo-noir before the genre got going - a great film almost ruined by studio vandalism.

#letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

One life tells the story Nicholas Winterton who helped to save 662 Jewish children from Prague under threat of Nazi occupation. Anthony Hopkins knows how to deliver a moving understated performance. But FOTW for me is Good Bye Lenin.

#letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

View of Toledo by El Greco

El Greco's dramatic and mesmerising View of Toledo. ~1600. I love the threatening clouds, the hills seem about to swallow the town or perhaps slide into the Tajo below. This is one of the earliest examples of a landscape painting though not a true topographical representation.

Revisited The Field after a long time. A bravura performance from Richard Harris losing his grip on the land, his family and finally, his mind in conflict with Tom Berenger. John Hurt steals every scene he is in. A forgotten classic.

#letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

CHAGALL'S BLUE...

Most of the blue mixtures in Chagall's painting are predominantly made with cobalt blue. But he also used a lot ultramarine, and sometimes prussian blue.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, 1952
Color Lithograph, 68.5 cm x 49.8 cm.

Catching up with two Moviedrome cult classics. Rob Reiner's perfect New York movie never gets old. Yet Fanny Lye Deliver'd is arguably the best film about the English Civil War ever made, for my dirt and mud - so film of the week.
#letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

Anyone looking for Tom Hiddleston in a non-action role, could do worse than Terence Davies' adaptation of The Deep Blue Sea. Yallah Gaza is a heart-breaking French documentary about pre-war Gaza made shortly before its destruction. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

Make 2026 the Year of Thomas Paine As America celebrates its 250th birthday, remember the founder who rallied the people against British and American oligarchs.

Thomas Paine rejected the authoritarian ruler of his day as “nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtlety obtained him the title of chief among plunderers.”

No King in 1776

No King in 2026.

Chronicle of the Years of fire is my film of the week in a strong field. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

The Return is my film of the week #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

Death of a Poet painting

Walter Rheiner (1895–1925) was a German Expressionist poet and writer who died of a morphine overdose on June 12, 1925, at the age of 30.
This painting depicts the cocaine addicted Rheiner jumping out of a window.

A curate's egg of films. Eclipse is a creepy Christmas chiller that just gets colder. It breaks a major British movie taboo which probably helped to next to nobody here ever seeing it. Tom Conti does a rare turn. Death Watch, ennui. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

The French documentary, The Tank and the Olive Tree (2019) was my film of the week for its forensic analysis the colonial oppression of Palestine by European settlers. It would make a great double bill with Palestine 36 (2025). #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

Since it’s #Noirvember, an aptly named novel for this Friday by David Goodis from 1954. Goodis is a well known noir writer whose works have been made into films like DARK PASSAGE with Bogart and Bacall, THE BURGLAR with Duryea and Jayne Mansfield, and even Truffaut’s French masterpiece SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER. #BlackFriday #filmnoir

Since it’s #Noirvember, an aptly named novel for this Friday by David Goodis from 1954. Goodis made into films like DARK PASSAGE with Bogart and Bacall, THE BURGLAR with Duryea and Jayne Mansfield, and even Truffaut’s French masterpiece SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER. #BlackFriday #filmnoir

Extraordinary vintage colour cinematography from Jack Cardiff in Western Approaches from 1944. A delicious dark comedy with Danny Glover in To Sleep With Anger. The White Disease is a forgotten masterpiece from 1938. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

The Outcasts and The Reflecting Skin are two forgotten folk horror gems. Wild at Heart is a tepid watch for me. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at 50: the spirit of rebellion lives on The 1975 drama, one of the only films to ever receive the big five Oscars, remains a touchstone of American cinema with a resonant message of resisting conformity

When it comes to unforgettable movies that can stand the test of time, this one is hard to beat. IMO. #OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...

Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in her self-choreographed solo performance, The Dragonfly. Circa 1915-16

Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in her self-choreographed solo performance, The Dragonfly. Circa 1915-16

Last four watched: The Rocking Horse Winner; Satan's Slave; The Beyond; A Bullet for the General

The Rocking Horse Winner takes it over A Bullet for the General by a short head. BftG is a deep red spaghetti western set in revolutionary Mexico. TRHW is a truly spooky, atmospheric vintage horror which leaves the rest standing. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

I can't pick a winner. Lon Chaney in the 1941 The Wolf Man was hugely influential but is pure ham and cheese. The Ghost Story was like a bad TV movie. Jack Nicholson in a small role steals the show in The Raven. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky #halloween #horror

Ruhr fighters on the barricades after the Kapp Putsch attempt in 1921

Ruhrkampf" (Ruhr Struggle) - Barthel Gilles. Egg tempera and oil on wood panel. 1930. The artist portrayed armed revolutionary workers in battle against government soldiers. The work was based upon the real world event known as the "Ruhr Struggle" or "March uprising".

Weimar political satire with cats as Dignitaries

Cats were a popular vehicle for political satarists: the perception of them as cunning. The title Dignitaries flags the work as satire, as does the contented smirk of the handsome striped cat who is toying with his victim before devouring it.

Gerhard MARCKS
Dignitaries
(Hohe Herrschaften)
1921

The Hidden Room (aka Obsession) with an icy, sinister Robert Newton is my film of the week. Peter Cushing also makes a formidable Holmes in Hammer’s bovine outing. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky #halloween

Government loses bid to block Palestine Action ban appeal In a highly significant ruling, the Court of Appeal paved the way for the review of the ban before a High Court judge next month.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

So Zionists Starmer & Murray lose at the first Hurdle .

Banning a non violent Group comes back to bite them in ass !

Why Maccabi Tel Aviv fans with record of violent rampages were really banned Starmer has condemned restrictions on Aston Villa match amid widespread outrage, but the Israeli club's supporters have a history of violence and disruption

Starmer is a supporter of Zionism. The violence by Israeli football fans is an expression of Zionism.

www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-mac...

This week's offering has two obscure British 1980s horrors sandwich with a classic noir and an arthouse love letter to Paris filling. Xtro is my movie of the week - a gory sci-fi/horror mash-up. Van Hefflin is a close second monster. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

Jack Nicholson is never less than compelling.

Last for films watched : The woman in the Window; The Baby; The Call of Cthulhu; Carnal Knowledge

The standout film of the week is the low budget adaptation of HP Lovecraft by Andrew Leman which captures both the cosmic dread and existential anxiety of The Call of Cthulhu. Carnal Knowledge is also pretty bleak in its own way. #letterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #letterboxd #filmsky #moviesky

‪Working my way through my Moviedrome unwatched list but a forgotten Italian masterpiece of the Italian Civil War (1943-45) and a "don't go knocking on the doors of strangers" slowburn, gory horror got in the way. You can't live on a diet of cult candy. Bella ciao
#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched

The Agitator (Otto Rühle Speaks), 1920. Oil on canvas Staatliche Museen, Berlin Otto Rühle (1874-1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars, and a founder with along with Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and others of the group and magazine Internationale.

The Agitator (Otto Rühle Speaks), 1920. Oil on canvas
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Otto Rühle (1874-1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars, and a founder with along with Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring of the Internationale group.