Silver Screen Cities: Celebrating city cinema-going

Celebrating City Cinema-Going

‘Vita & Virginia’, DCA, Dundee

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I doubt that many in this Saturday afternoon’s audience for ‘Vita & Virginia’ would be interested in going to see ‘The Fast and the Furious’, despite Vin Diesel’s exhortations to do so in an ad that preceded today’s showing of the Vita Sackville-West/Virginia Woolf film. Thankfully the pre-film ads and trailers didn’t seem to go […]

‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’, Cinema Vendôme, Brussels, Belgium

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Tucked away on Rue Keyenveld in the Ixelles area of Brussels, off the beaten track for tourists, and neighbouring the house where Audrey Hepburn was born, Les Brassins restaurant was a good choice for lunch this sunny mid-February Saturday. We lingered in Les Brassins for over three hours, enjoying the hearty unpretentious food and superb […]

‘Stan & Ollie’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Dundee

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I was really looking forward to ‘Stan & Ollie’. I love the old Laurel and Hardy films, like the hysterically funny ‘A Chump at Oxford’ (1940). Judging from the trailer, ‘Stan & Ollie’ looked like it would be a fitting tribute. Today’s opening day for the film arrived with it accompanied by lavish praise from […]

‘A Cool Fish’, Broadway Cinematheque MOMA, Beijing, China

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When I searched online for ‘best cinemas Beijing’, Broadway Cinematheque MOMA (BC MOMA) appeared in the results and I’m very glad it did because it’s a wonderful place. Set in a futuristic cityscape plaza towered over by apartment blocks linked high up by aerial walkways, the cinema itself is an architectural statement of intent, a […]

‘Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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We went for a pre-film beer at the Phoenix bar, a Dundee institution that looks a bit grim and forbidding from the outside but once you’re inside it’s welcoming and characterful. Perched on bar stools we ordered a couple of pints of Deuchar’s IPA which slipped down very smoothly. The DCA cinema is just across […]

‘Vertigo’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA)

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Hot and steamy’s not the kind of weather you typically associate with the east coast of Scotland, but that’s what it was like this afternoon as I headed along Perth Road to Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) to see Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ in a new 4K print released to mark the film’s 60th anniversary. ‘Vertigo’ is […]