Broadening my horizons

I haven't been anywhere for fun this year except Berlin, at Easter. Unusually, I've had two trips away with work, to York and Preston, and it was nice to get a brief change of scene. I'm looking forward to a trip to London at the end of this month, though. Of course, there are lots of things to do indoors there, but it would be nice to get out and have lunch in a riverside pub, or see the wildlife at Richmond Park - that kind of thing. I can put up with cold and dull weather for another week or so, but I hope it improves by then, both there and here.

Comments

Buckets of blood

Sadly, I think a lack of imagination has meant a serious drop in standards and attitudes in "horror" films. I do love old horror/fantasy films (Terence Fisher's expression was “adult fairy tales”) but want to be uplifted – film should be an emotional experience, but not one that makes you want to slash your wrists. I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the films covered and praised in podcast s and on line ( Night of the Demon, The Devil Rides Out, The Wicker Man etc) are retrospective, and more than thirty years old. Just to establish where I'm coming from, can I say that I really liked Witchfinder General, Hellraiser and Candyman , all of which were gruesome films. One of my favourite horror films is Brian DePalma's Carrie , because it's psychological horror. What distinguishes all of these from lesser films is character and plot. I actually read a review of Carrie on IMDB where the (amateur) reviewer rubbished it because there wasn...

New Who

The name at the top of the bookmakers' lists this summer for the next Doctor Who was Peter Capaldi. I was interested to see the list but pooh-poohed this, as it seemed the production team were set on casting only young actors - I think it was even said at one point that only someone in their 20s could keep up with the pace of production. I was delighted to hear back in August that the rumours were, in fact, true. The choice pleased me for two reasons - firstly, as a long-term fan of the programme (except for the awful period in the 1980s when the production went badly astray) I wanted to see a Doctor with the authority that only an older man could have; secondly, I knew Peter back in the 1970s as a fellow fan - we're the same age and I've followed his career since the 1980s. I had met Jon Pertwee a couple of times, during the making of Death to the Daleks and Planet of the spiders , and got to know Peter through the Jon Pertwee fan club (started by an old school friend, ...

BFI Mediatheque

On a recent visit to London we discovered the excellent BFI Mediatheque where we watched films about the less-advertised recent history of London like London in the raw . The Mediatheque is described as a "digital jukebox" and you can spend up to two hours in a session there. A much better film that we also saw is The London nobody knows . This is a melancholy trawl around some of the ruins and forgotten bits of London in the late 1960s with James Mason. Unfortunately this one isn't available on DVD and, as far as I know, the only place to see it is at one of the four mediatheques around the country . These are great free resources for anyone who is into film or television so, if you’re in London or one of the other three locations, have a look.

You're a beautiful woman probably...

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