The walk across Waterloo Bridge offers my favourite view of London. In one direction you can see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, whilst in the other direction stands St Paul’s Cathedral and a jagged high-rise skyline. Below your feet the River Thames powers along with surprising force and speed. But on this dreich […]
‘City Lights’, Pathé Tuschinski, Amsterdam
A passing thunderstorm wakes me just before 5 a.m. Heavy rain batters against my bedroom window. There are occasional flashes of lightning that I can sense through my still-closed eyes, and the long drawn out rumble of thunder. By the time I leave the apartment a couple of hours later the storm has passed and […]
‘Backdraft’, Cinema Sâo Jorge, Lisbon
Sâo Jorge cinema, like Condes cinema just along the road, is another gigantic city centre dream shrine on Avenida da Liberdade. The avenue’s plane trees and palms are swaying and rustling in the blue afternoon gust. By the Sâo Jorge cinema entrance steps, plenty pre-Backdraft smoke is swirling up from a roast chestnut vendor. In Screen […]
‘Ao Fim da Noite’, Amoreiras and ‘Zandalee’, Cinema Nimas, Lisbon
After last Saturday’s State of Grace I went up to Bairro Alto to meet Pete and his flatmate Sarah in As Primas. I mentioned to them how Portuguese subtitles in films always seem to tone down colourful language. In a film I saw recently, one character lamented the fact that everything was ‘fucked up’, which got […]
‘Anna Karenina’, Phoenix Cinema, London
East Finchley tube station is a station worth lingering at for a few minutes, instead of bolting out of it the instant you have stepped off a train there. The station building is wonderful. Standing on the platform is like stepping back in time to the 1930s. Designed by Charles Holden, one of the country’s leading […]
‘An Italian Straw Hat’, Barbican Cinema, London
With this being a Sunday, Smithfield Market isn’t trading today. But you can still walk through the impressive central passageway, its elegant ironwork painted in vivid pink and purple, the dramatic bright colours like those of Hockney’s recent landscapes. It would be good to return here early on a weekday morning when the market is […]