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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

The Roosevelts/PBS

A radio programme to which I always listen is Great Lives on radio 4 at 4.30  every Tuesday. It is presented by ex-Conservative MP Matthew Parris who has made an easy transition from politics to broadcasting.  Generally somebody well known advocates a Great Life and an expert fills in the [...]

December 15, 2019 // 0 Comments

Clive James RIP

Yesterday my brother gave me a lift from the south coast back to my home. On the way I commented that we should remember the date Wednesday 27th November 2019 because one day in some far off Pub Trivia Quiz it was possible that the question might come up as to which three culturally-significant [...]

November 28, 2019 // 0 Comments

Robert Mitchum and Winds of War

The recent reference in Bernadette’s (Angell) negative review of World on Fire to Winds of War prompted me to acquire the 6 DVDs of the series and revisit the career of Robert Mitchum, one of my favourites of the leading Hollywood actors. Robert Mitchum was certainly not yer normal Hollywood [...]

November 17, 2019 // 0 Comments

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