Darren Jones

View of Delft, 1661. Sunlight splashes through soft clouds onto weathered hardness of brick & stone. Breathtaking. Vermeer, born OTD 1632.

Is it a trick or a treat to use last year's Halloween sweets?

My last four films watched were The Good Wife (1987), It Takes Two (1988), Nightshift (1981) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). There are film posters for all of them.

My #LastFourWatched for #LetterboxdFriday featured three very different films from the 80s and a classic from the 50s.

Hypnosis Tapes

My song of the week is Hypnosis Tapes by Mute Swan #sotw open.spotify.com/track/1Bc4yO...

Yeah, think it's still quite limited. Could you limit your search to followers/following on Twitter? Seem to remember having to use usernames in the advanced search, but not sure if there was another way.

Blue Crawler Blue Crawler is a free website that provides the latest Bluesky stats.

Looks like someone has built their own advanced search, based on the search operators bluecrawler.com/tools/bluesk...

Weirdly, this started playing on my release radar just as I scrolled to your post....

I'm watching a bizarre 80s comedy where one scene takes place inside the lead's stomach after he's had a dodgy burrito.

Ah, I don't have Sky, so it will have to be later.

My wife and eldest daughter are going out for the evening. I have the TV to myself. What am I going to watch?! Don't overthink it, Daz....

Had such fun watching it in the cinema! Still laugh when I think about the Abraham Lincoln shadow puppet...

No, exactly, and we had moved from AA (14+) to 15 at some point, so had no equivalent to the US.

Think it was a 15 when it first came out? Although, that might have been because the only alternative was PG at the time. Think I prefer Gremlins 2, mind.

YouTube video by The Go-Betweens - Topic Cattle And Cane

🎶 🎶 It's further
And higher
And longer
And older 🎶 🎶
youtu.be/ygz2RP-_bOs?...

Just amazing. My daughter is writing about him at the moment for her university course, so I feel like I'm immersed in his work, too.

12 seconds from 8 stop-motion films (1968–present) across the career of animator Yuri Norstein

Front cover of Measures of Joy by Virginia Wing. It has a black background with an abstract picture with various red, green, blue and yellow shapes. There are wavy coloured lines around the edge

#NowListening Measures of Joy by Virginia Wing. It has quite a Broadcast/Stereolab vibe. Really liked it when it came out. Then they became a two-piece and went more electronic. Also great. #5DebutAlbums1014

YouTube video by World Classic Movies Nightshift (1981)

It's on YouTube youtu.be/QyohSzkEZ4k?...

It looked great, like a Dutch interior painting at times, but was also very funny. Particularly the first half. It went more self-consciously surreal later, when it left the reception desk, which broke my reverie a bit. But there were some striking scenes and lots to love about it.

A still from Nightshift (1981). Most of the frame is dark. The reception desk is dimly lit. There is a red telephone on it. Jordan, as the hotel receptionist, sits in the corner drinking a cup of tea or coffee.

A close up of Jordan as the hotel receptionist in Nightshift (1981). She is staring at the camera like a renaissance painting.

A scene from Nightshift (1981). Three women in white nightgowns are having a pillow fight in a hotel bedroom. Feathers are flying.

Jordan, as the hotel receptionist in Nightshift (1981), is lying on a sofa. Her dress and the sofa are a similar beige colour. Her knees are tucked up and she is crossing her arms under her chest.

It's half term, so I ended up with time to kill before work this morning. Watched Nightshift (1981) by Robina Rose. That was 68 minutes well spent. Loved it.

Front cover of Relayted by Gayngs. It's a gold circle with intersecting lines inside.

Remembered a favourite album from 2010, Relayted by Gayngs. A soft-rock supergroup featuring nobody I had heard of, apart from Bon Iver. Reminds me of fun times at work, singing along to their cover of Cry by Godley & Creme #5DebutAlbums1014

A scene from The Strangeness (1985). A group of four people in a mine. They are wearing hard hats. One is carrying a lamp. There is another person behind them, but it's too dark to make them out.

A scene from The Strangeness (1985). A woman is in the mine, holding a torch and looking through a magnifying glass. Her face is magnified.

A scene from The Strangeness (1985). A man and woman are lying down in the mine, peering over a ledge. He had a hard hat with a torch attached to it and has a red flare in one hand. The whole image is red.

A scene from The Strangeness (1985). A woman is in the mine, wearing a hard hat and holding a camera to her face. It is pointed towards us.

Week 8: 80s trash horror: The Strangeness (1985). Ridiculously low budget, but strangely effective. Made good use of its setting in a mine, although it was often too dark to see much. I liked its talky nature and the stop motion monster. Watched on Prime.

Yeah, Hayward could have eaten him alive, as I recall.

Ah, I've got Marguerite of the Night (1955) in my watchlist. Must have been looking up Michèle Morgan films.

That story rings a bell, although I'm not sure where from, as I haven't seen any of his films. Must have been looking something up, like you, but don't think it involved Alastair Sim!

Love it. And the album.

My last four films watched were Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), 633 Squadron (1964), Sorcerer (1977) and The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

My #LastFourWatched for #LetterboxdFriday were from the 60s and 70s. Ukrainian poetic cinema, British WW2 doomed heroics, 70s remake of a 50s classic and a 1970 film where Roger Moore references James Bond a few years before he became him.

Where The Road Goes From Two Lanes Down To One

My song of the week is Where the Road Goes from Two Lanes Down to One by Julie Doiron #sotw open.spotify.com/track/6paLrQ...

A scene from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965). A man swings an axe towards the camera. A thick band of red blood covers part of the lens.

A scene from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965). Marichka's face appears in the frame of a window. Her hands are pressed against it.

A scene from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965). It is Ivan and Palagna's wedding. Their eyes are covered with scarves. They have a yoke over their heads

A scene from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965). The camera is underwater, looking up at Ivan and Marichka. Their hands are in the water and their faces are blurred by the ripples. There is a tree branch in the water between them.

I watched Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) with my daughter tonight. Haven't seen it for nearly 10 years, but it's still astonishing to look at. The camera angles and movement, the colours, the music (those trembitas!). Just incredible.

A scene from The Whole Town's Talking (1935). Edward G Robinson as Jones the clerk is standing behind his desk with paper in one hand and what looks like a typewriter in the other. Behind him are others in the office, sitting or standing at their desks.

A scene from The Whole Town's Talking (1935). Edward G Robinson as Jones is with Jean Arthur at a restaurant table. He is surrounded by policemen and has his hands up. Two policemen are pointing guns at him

Jean Arthur in The Whole Town's Talking (1935). She is being interviewed by two detectives sitting in front of her, with two uniformed policemen behind her. She has a cigarette in her mouth.

Edward G Robinson as both Jones and Killer Mannion in The Whole Town's Talking (1935). They are in Jones's apartment, facing each other over a table. There is a big lamp and a typewriter on the table.

Week 7: Multiple Roles: The Whole Town's Talking (1935). Screwball meets gangster flick, with Edward G Robinson playing a clerk and the gangster he resembles. Jean Arthur is great, but it drags slightly when she's not in it. But there were some great moments and lovely noirish lighting in parts.