narwalker

WHY NAZIS WANT GREENLAND --Sunday Dispatch, 25 May 1941

1941

Needed the years for 2 & 4. Didn't get the theme, and couldn't remember Beck off the top of my head. Though I knew the Lopezes were the songwriters, so I'll presumptuously award myself a 14.

Chuffed at Mary Poppins Returns' inclusion. Shaiman knocked that out of the park!

My Christmas gift - panto for FREE 🌟♥️🌟

10 yrs ago I made Panto! for BBCStoryville. A feature doc about an am-dram group staging a panto - Puss in Boots at the Nottingham Arts Theatre.

A tiny budget, a punishing schedule & a ramshackle donkey costume are just some of the challenges they face

Confessions of a Film Freak 2025 By Roderick Heath Jump to review index Jump to Favourite Films of 2025 List Both personally and in cinematic terms, 2025 has been a very rough road, and perhaps the end of the line in general. As s…

Here it is: Confessions of a Film Freak 2025, the biggest yet, featuring comments on 76 films and my Favourite Films of the Year list:
filmfreedonia.com/2025/12/29/c...

"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. "When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

Pixar designed Toy Story to be printed on physical film. The Disney renaissance movies were the same.

Today, it's hard to see them as they were meant to be seen. The versions on streaming and home media aren't quite the same films that ruled the '90s:
animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-toy-st...

In conversation with Nicholas Hytner | The Choral, The Madness Of King George, Nigel Hawthorne, Alan Bennett and more Nicholas Hytner has directed The Choral, The Madness Of King George, The Lady In The Van and more. Now he's chatting to Film Stories!

New Film Stories podcast! Nicholas Hytner (not pictured) has directed The Choral, The Madness Of King George, The Lady In The Van and more. Here's our chat with him:
filmstories.co.uk/news/in-conv...

Where nobody knows your name... Tracing the anonymous faces at the start of Cheers.

Ever wondered where all the Cheers title photos are from? I did. And I've gathered everything I can find into this post. That was fun.

joelmorris.substack.com/p/where-nobo...

What Robert Redford contributed to American films via Sundance is genuinely immeasurable. He was also an extraordinarily talented director--Ordinary People and Quiz Show are two of the best American studio movies of their eras--and an actor who somehow wore his incredible charisma almost shyly. RIP.

Today's @artukdotorg.bsky.social #OnlineArtExchange is ‘Victorian’ for Victorian Treasures from Cecil French and Scott Thomas Buckle at Leighton House. We have chosen Jubilee Procession in a Cornish Village, June 1897 by George Sherwood Hunter, which is owned by the Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery.

Cliff near Pourville - 1882 #artbots #monet
https://botfrens.com/collections/41/contents/9727

Billy Wilder’s Battle With the Past How the fabled Hollywood director confronted survivor’s guilt, the legacies of the Holocaust, and the paradoxes of Zionism.

I have a new piece up @thenation.com on Billy Wilder, the Holocaust, survivor's guilt, and confronting the limits of Zionism. www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Made this cute little website over the past month in my spare time. So many fish have been drawn!!! No idea where they're all coming from. A real field of dreams moment :)

Favourite first watches, June 2025:

The Company of Strangers (1990)
The Satan Bug (1965)
99 River Street (1953)
The Devil's Disciple (1959)
Jezebel (1938)
Misery (1990)

I just finished watching the third season of Mission: Impossible. Including seasons 1 & 2, that's 78 episodes. And I can tell you that EVERY time the theme plays... it is a perfect thing. Mission accomplished, Mr Schifrin. Farewell to a jazz god.

Rio Bravo (1959) / El Dorado (1966) . Director: Howard HawksScreenwriters: Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman / Leigh Brackett By Roderick Heath The inspiration of Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo has become folklore. After going from strength to…

New at Film Freedonia, a side-by-side look at two legendary variations on a Western theme from Howard Hawks, Rio Bravo and El Dorado:
filmfreedonia.com/2025/03/13/r...

Miyazaki, Disney and Eisenstein Plus: news.

Animation isn’t only about drawings. In the films of Disney, Miyazaki and more, so much relies on the way a scene is shot.

That's an art form, fueled by competing theories. Miyazaki’s style is hugely influential — but it's one of many, as we explore: animationobsessive.substack.com/p/miyazaki-d...

Springtime by Claude Monet 1872
Oil on Canvas
(Walters Art Museum, Baltimore)

Etretat, Cliff of d`Aval, Sunset

Etretat, Cliff of d`Aval, Sunset, 1885

Recent Activity: The Testament of Dr Mabuse; Josie and the Pussycats; Diva; Beatles '64.

Art in conversation!

Ship in the Stormy Sea, by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900)
Oil on Canvas

The earliest published picture of Tintin and Snowy, depicting them walking right to left across an expanse with a sign writen in Cyrilic lettering, behind which are the outlines of the domes of a Russian Orthodox church. Tintin and Snowy are being watched by a uniformed Russian officer.

Today marks 96 years since Tintin and Snowy departed Brussels to investigate what was happening in Russia, at the start of “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets”.
Their first public appearance was the week before, when this image was published to advertise the start of the story.

YouTube video by Pink Martini - Topic Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year!
Maybe?
Hopefully!

YouTube video by Linda Lavin - Topic It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman: You've Got Possibilities

"You've Got Possibilities" from It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman, sung by Linda Lavin (1937-2024), and simply one of the most delightful cast recording tracks ever recorded.

Yes, it's Confessions of a Film Freak 2024, my year-in-review survey and best-of list! It's smaller than Ben-Hur, but only just! Get down, get loose, get furious!
filmfreedonia.com/2024/12/28/c...

Review of 2024: Part 2 – Movies Here's part two of my review of the year, focusing on FILMS. The format: 25 'discoveries', six old favourites, six stinkers, six movies re-a...

My favourite movies of the year: 25 discoveries, six old favourites, six calamities, six re-evaluations, five obsessions. Feat. Margaret Sullavan, John Hughes, Denzel, Basic Instinct, a noir about Satan, a British late-silent... oh all sorts, really. advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2024/12/Film...

Review of 2024: Part 1 – Books Hello, It's been a challenging year, hasn't it. Got through a few books, anyway. As is traditional, I start the round-up by telling you...

I've jotted down thoughts on everything I read this year. Lots of Janet Malcolm, Graham Greene and Wodehouse, along with a few classics, and books about Abe Lincoln, Bob Dylan, the far-right and football. advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2024/12/Book...

"...and "Commerce" on any and every occasion—that he has only to re-read that novel to live again those childhood days. Trollope would join in all the games, contriving with great ingenuity that at "Commerce" the children got the winning cards.'"

In an endnote: "The parties at Waltham House, one of AT's nephews remembered, according to Michael Sadleir [in Trollope: A Commentary (1945)], were 'so like those at Noningsby in Orley Farm—with blind-man's bluff and snap-dragon by candlelight at Christmas time...

John Everett Millais illustration from the first edition of Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope. Image depicts the back of a large man playing blind-man's bluff, possibly "a fond representation of [Trollope] at such games" (Francis O'Gorman, ed.)

...The dinner was a serious consideration, especially with reference to certain illuminated mince-pies which were the crowning glory of that banquet; but time for these was almost begrudged in order that the fast handkerchief might be tied over the eyes of the first blindman."