Hans Zimmer – Film Music Genius
Fascinating documentary about a musical genius Hans Zimmer is the most successful composer of film scores this century. His story was told in a recent BBC2 documentary which can now be seen on BBC iplayer or downloaded from the internet at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001d9jf/hans-zimmer-hollywood-rebel It tells how he was expelled from eight schools in Germany before his […]
A witty, insightful and entertaining film about a mature woman with problems with work and romance
French Film, Aurore, I got Life A witty, insightful and entertaining film about Aurore, a 50 year-old woman looking for love and struggling to cope with men, work and other stresses. I Got Life Aurore with her friend Aurore meets her daughter’s boyfriend Aurore is divorced, looking after her two teenage and maturing daughters and […]
OUR YORKSHIRE FARM – New series
Welcome return of that positive, inspiring and cheerful programme about a couple raising 1000 sheep and nine children – OUR YORKSHIRE FARM. New series. 9pm Tuesday 5 October 2021, Channel 5. We are gradually catching up on all the previous programmes using the watch-again facility, “My5” via my phone and Chromecast. Brilliant people, brilliant family. […]
Great TV – Our Yorkshire Farm on My5 Watch Again
Great TV – Our Yorkshire Farm on My5 Watch Again Our Yorkshire Farm A TV programme that is truly positive and life-enhancing. You may not be interested in sheep farming as a topic but it is hard not to find the events on this particular farm really interesting – especially if you have ever tried […]
Philharmonia – psychological thriller on All4, on demand
Philharmonia – psychological thriller on All4, on demand Philharmonia is a French six-part psychological drama. We are watching it on All4 via our phone and chromecast but there are other ways to access All4 free on demand series.The story is set in Paris, mainly in the concert hall of a top French orchestra. The cast […]
Montalbano – the last ever book and film
Montalbano – last ever book and film Have we seen the last of Montalbano? One episode has not been shown on British television. This episode is called Beloved Salvo, My Livia. It was shown on Italian television on 8th of March last year, 2020, and viewed by 9 million Italians. It has still to be […]
All About Montalbano – the international TV and literary hit
All About Montalbano – the international TV and literary hit Montalbano and The Young Montalbano Montalbano and The Young Montalbano are two crime series set in Sicily.They have enjoyed huge worldwide success. And in Italy, when the series were running on tv, 45% of the Italian population viewed the dramas. The title roles are played […]
Ernest Hemingway – Fascinating BBC Documentary on i-player
Ernest Hemingway – 1899–1961 – Fascinating Documentary on BBC i-player We have just started watching a fascinating BBC iPlayer documentary about the life of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was one of America’s most celebrated novelists and short story writers who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was a war reporter and himself a […]
Two witty, thoughtful and entertaining films about mature women with problems with romance
Two witty, thoughtful and entertaining films about mature women with problems with romance The films, one English and the other French, are about two mature women looking for love and struggling to cope with men, work and other stresses. – Bridget Jones’s Baby (not about the baby) and Aurore/I Got Life. Bridget Jones’s Baby is […]
A United Kingdom – true, political, social, romantic drama
A United Kingdom – a moving and important film Romance / drama, 2016, 1-hour 51 minutes Directed by Amma Asante Seretse Khama – David Oyelowo Ruth Williams – Rosamund Pike Currently (April 2021) available on BBC iPlayer, Amazon, etc This powerful, and impressive love story concerns Seretse Khama, a black, Oxford educated law student in […]
Brilliant French psychological tv drama on All4 – in French
Bruno Debrandt and Julie Gayet as Florent and Victoire in French drama, “Torn” This 6-part French tv drama has recently arrived on the All4 free streaming service. In French with English subtitles it is called Torn in English. Its French title is Soupçons, (Suspicions) which I think is more fitting. Also, there was a mini-series […]
The Bridge, Saga Noren and the pornography of violence
The Bridge, Saga Noren, and the pornography of violence The Bridge, Swedish/Danish crime series, is addictive (We’ve watched 29 episodes, almost at the end of series 3.) but isn’t there really too much of the pornography of violence? Our addiction We started watching The Bridge near the beginning of lockdown in March 2020 and after […]
The Announcer – great little drama on All4 – in French
The Announcer – great little drama on All4 We really enjoyed and would strongly recommend this powerful story. Described as a period drama The Announcer is set in 1962 in de Gaulle’s France and the time of the Algerian fight for independence from France’s colonial rule. French youths are dying in a fight they cannot […]
Shoplifters – A film I highly recommend
Written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda (2018) Winner at Cannes of the Palme d’Or. This is a deep, fascinating, absorbing film that you may find yourself thinking about long after it is finished. Father and son shoplifters returning home on a cold winter night in Tokyo come across a small girl shivering outside her house […]
Film – Julie and Julia
This is a frothy, light-hearted, witty intelligent and very entertaining film which also happens to be true. It concerns two characters. The first is Julie Powell who is a young New Yorker, stressed out by working in a call centre. She has the idea of cooking her way through Julia Child’s famous French cookbook and […]
A Late Quartet, film by Yaron Zilberman
A study of a quartet of stellar classical musicians who, for twenty-five years have toured the world’s top musical venues as a harmonious, finely honed and perfected musical team but are now facing a crisis. One of the members of the team, cellist, Peter Mitchell, is facing retirement on health grounds and the break-up of […]
Quartet, a witty film about old musicians in a retirement home
Quartet is a feelgood film that can be seen on BBC One this Sunday (16 August 2020) at 10.30 pm with another opportunity to catch it on BBC Four on Thursday at 9 pm. After that it should be available on BBC i-player. Also available on Amazon Prime Video and DVD and Bluray. The subject […]
The White Crow – Nureyev’s sensational defection
This film tells the story behind an event that made headlines around the world in June 1961, the defection of ballet star, Rudolf Nureyev. It was at the time when the Soviet Union, whilst still holding a tight communist grip on its populations wanted to present itself to The West as culturally sophisticated. Indeed it […]
I Am Not Your Negro – Impressive film about the treatment of black people in America
This is a film the whole world should see. It demonstrates so clearly what has been happening to black people in the US over a long period and up to the present time and goes some way to explain the strength of feeling that has erupted in the USA and around the world since the […]
