One of the best things about attending the Raindance Film Festival was that the whole cinema going experience was a pleasure. The Apollo Piccadilly is a lovely cinema, the seats were comfortable, the staff were pleasant and helpful …
Top Ten: Movie Explosions
4 November 2011 by Leave a Comment
One of the best things about Guy Fawkes Night is the plethora of firework displays that take place. I love fireworks, I genuinely oooh and aaah when a rocket goes up and explodes in a flash of bright colours. As you can probably guess I’m also a big fan of loud and bright explosions in movies. I know they aren’t subtle or intelligent but they are great fun….
Top Ten: Scary Movies
28 October 2011 by 1 Comment
It’s only a couple of days now until Hallowe’en and like many other film reviewers I’ve been thinking lots about my favourite scary movies. At first I was apprehensive, I seem to have spent a long time telling you that I’m not a fan of the genre so I really thought that it would take me ages to even come up with 10 that I liked….
Top Ten: Books To Read This Year
21 October 2011 by Leave a Comment
Like many avid readers I have a huge pile of books still to be read. Some have been sent to me for review, some have been presents and others I bought myself. I’m currently observing a book-buying moratorium – no more books until I can get through a good chunk of my to-be-read list…
Top Ten: Raindance Films
14 October 2011 by Leave a Comment
My series on the 19th Raindance Film Festival has now come to an end. In the past couple of weeks I’ve brought you 23 movie reviews and 3 interviews, over on Twitter I’ve had some great discussions with directors and fellow movie-goers….
Interview – Leaving Baghdad Director, Koutaiba Al-Janabi
9 October 2011 by Leave a Comment
Koutaiba Al-Janabi is an Iraqi-born cinematographer and director whose first feature film Leaving Baghdad is a deeply personal examination of collaboration and guilt in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq…
Top Ten: Children’s Books
7 October 2011 by 5 Comments
I’ve been thinking for a while about writing a post on my favourite children’s books. It’s been going over and over in my head and I’ve been wondering how to choose the list. Would it be my favourite books specifically from childhood…
Interview – Fambul Tok Producer, Libby Hoffman
4 October 2011 by Leave a Comment
Fambul Tok is a moving documentary about the power of forgiveness and reconciliation which held its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival…
Interview – Raindance Founder, Elliot Grove
28 September 2011 by Leave a Comment
The Raindance Film Festival starts today in London and I’m delighted that Elliot Grove, founder of the festival, took some time out of his extremely busy schedule to speak to me…
Top Ten: Classic Books I’ve Never Read
23 September 2011 by 7 Comments
Every so often a new list of the 100 “best” books is released. The most recent is World Book Night’s Top 100 and others include the BBC Big Read and the Telegraph’s Top 100. To an extent these lists are popularity contests and many of the choices will change from year to year…