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Uncut Gems and Ernst Lubitsch

Two film buffs I know well recommended to me Uncut Gems. One described it well as a New York Jewish Del-Boy film. Howie Rayner is a gem dealer living life on its edge. Up to his knees in debt because of his gambling he acquires a rock from an Ethiopian mine with an opal in it. A top basketball [...]

February 29, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Vietnam War /Ken Burns

One of the advantages of seniority, as most Rusters are, is our very personal memories of chronicled events. Thus in watching the 10 disc set of Ken Burns’ superb documentary on Vietnam my own memories flooded back. I can recall the school debates, the domino theory that all South East Asia [...]

February 21, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Directors/Joseph Mankiewicz

Although I was not that impressed by the first choices of directors in this new SKY ARTS series – Sydney Pollack and Otto Preminger – I certainly was by the third Joseph Mankiewicz. From this distance of time I do not recall when why or where I  saw his masterpiece All About Eve [...]

February 14, 2020 // 0 Comments

Kirk Douglas, Otto Preminger and Paul Gambaccini

My favourite Kirk Douglas movie was neither Spartacus nor Paths of Glory but Cast a Giant Shadow (1966). This was the true story of David Daniel “Mickey” Marcus and it’s an inspiring one unlike the loosely strung “based on a true story” of many a contemporary film. Mickey [...]

February 8, 2020 // 0 Comments

It Ain’t Right …

It’s funny how the modern world operates sometimes – I’m thinking of such recent phenomena as the ‘diversity’ row over at the recent BAFTA awards which even Prince William felt necessary to complain about, even though he’s President of the ruddy organisation. As an oldie, what strikes [...]

February 5, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Personal Story of David Copperfield

The controversy over this film is the degree of diversity in the casting where virtually every family seems to be of mixed parentage. My own view is to quote Oscar Wilde: “There is no such thing as a pornographic book: it’s either good or bad.” In my view this was a good film, well paced, [...]

January 30, 2020 // 0 Comments

“Fake News” musings

One of the joys of being ‘being a certain age’ is the sense you has seen it all before even if, on a personal level, that isn’t quite necessarily true. The art of staying personally relevant in the 21st Century is tied to the notion that, whatever is going on, the essential nature of the [...]

January 27, 2020 // 0 Comments

On the way out, but laughing

Being a Ruster, my relationship with large swathes of the modern world – including technology, a bug-bear mentioned recently by my colleague William Byford – is generally tentative or somewhat hit-and-miss and so I set out to compose my post today with positive intent but also with [...]

January 4, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Longest Day (1962)

We resourceful Rusters have various ways of getting though the festive period, mine was the film The Longest Day. I had seen the 1962 movie but it was some time ago. Various attractions  led me  to select it from the World War 2 section of my DVD box. The first was the cast: virtually every major [...]

December 28, 2019 // 0 Comments

Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker

The latest Sky Wars movie attracted poor reviews and I for one was pleased. There are those critics and viewers who hail the 1975 original film produced by George Lucas as the turning point of Twentieth century cinema. If that is so I would cite three reasons why the effect was negative: (1) After [...]

December 24, 2019 // 0 Comments

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