So, catching up on some film reviews, then, plus a little bonus "wot I did for NYE", since that's when I watched both of the two I'm about to write up.

I spent New Year's Eve, as I often do, at the home of the lovely ms_siobhan and planet_andy. Upon my arrival, chief cocktail-maker-in-residence planet_andy fixed me a Vampire, while ms_siobhan stuffed some innocent field mushrooms with a ( Read more... )

I spent Sunday in Birmingham having a late, time-shifted family Christmas. It went well - we enjoyed a nice lamb dinner, of which Dad was able to eat a modest but reasonable portion, gazed adoringly at Eloise, who played in the middle of the floor like a little angel, and exchanged various well-received presents. Amongst these in my case were all ( Read more... )

I went to see this this morning amongst one of the fullest houses I have ever seen at the Cottage Road cinema. I've watched and reviewed it twice before in this journal: once in 2010, when I found James Stewart's profile pleasing, but just couldn't buy into the sentimentality or the idealisation of small-town America and its reactionary values, and ( Read more... )

Right then - it's time for some more Draculising! I watched this one a week ago with the ever-patient and accommodating ms_siobhan and planet_andy, after an absolutely delicious dinner of corned beef hash made by the former, and 'poshed up' via the use of sweet potatoes, mustard and sun-dried tomatoes. Yum! We had to watch it on one of my old-school video tapes, ( Read more... )

So, I did actually spend last Friday to Tuesday inclusive at my parents' house, sorting out stuff for Mum and visiting Dad in hospital. I'll probably write about that properly at some point, but the short version is that things are basically fine there at the moment, though they certainly do (and will continue to) need a lot of monitoring from me ( Read more... )

It now looks like I will be going down to Birmingham tomorrow morning to take over primary duties on the parent front, but since I was still in Leeds last night I seized my chance to go along and see this at the Cottage Road cinema, along with ms_siobhan and big_dazIt is basically a typical romance story of the Hollywood Golden Era, in which the primary plot-line ( Read more... )

I saw this on Wednesday with ms_siobhan and planet_andy at the Cottage Road cinema. Like Back to the Future a couple of months ago, although it was a classic film shown at the Cottage, it wasn't strictly a Cottage Classic (that was Destry Rides Again this month), but instead part of the Leeds Back In The Day series. I don't think I've ever seen it on the big screen ( Read more... )

Right then - time for my next Dracula sequels review. I may seem to be watching them in a completely random order, but in fact it is determined by a complex algorithm which takes into account a precisely-balanced combination of how long ago it is since I last saw each one, and how much I remember liking it. On that basis, Prince of Darkness is up ( Read more... )

This was a Cottage Classic, of course, seen with redoubtable picture-going chums ms_siobhan and planet_andy. Beforehand, we were 'treated', if that's the right word, to a 20-minute short called The Specialist, which was made in 1966 but set in the 1920s or '30s, and was all about a carpenter who decided to specialise in making outdoor privies. We saw him going about ( Read more... )

After a wonderfully Whovian weekend, it's time to get back to some film reviews. Not least because I'm already three behind, and am going to the cinema again tomorrow.

So, having watched Cracks and sent it back to Lovefilm, I've progressed onwards to borrowing some of the Hammer Dracula sequels from them on DVD. I still want my own copies for ( Read more... )