Tim Rding

Found a copy of this in an Oxfam a couple of weeks ago, so it’s on the pile. Your writing has made me want to read it sooner rather than later.

Absolutely. Top notch programming. And good audiences. Never had a bad time there… I’m just clearly not in sync with their stylist!

It’s an interior cosplaying as a place with a longer history than it has. It’s designed for your instagram rather than somewhere to sit and read a book whilst you wait for the screen to open.

Feels a bit Lynchian in places.

The interior is decorated as a nightmarish boudoir, the doors constantly stutter open throughout the film and everyone seems incapable of finding their seats…

… but the views of the smallish screens are decent, the sound quality is good and the films have interesting introductions usually.

I’m so glad you loved it. It’s funny, but it’s the unfinished pieces that have stayed with me since seeing the exhibition.

A painting of Audrey Hepburn in red

A painting I once did of Audrey Hepburn in red

Maybe the single greatest paragraph about England ever:

It’s the way she does it on the same page. Extraordinary.

A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor

Been fortunate to read lots of very good things recently, but this stood out. Taylor was exceptional at balancing wit and heartache, and she was so perceptive about both.

That interview is awful. I once stood next to Jane Campion after a screening on 35mm where two total strangers randomly and awkwardly invited her to dinner. In my mind the film is cursed with people asking inappropriate questions to those involved.

Blu-rays of Prince of the City, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and The Verdict; all directed by Sidney Lumet

I’ve been on a bit of a Sidney Lumet kick recently and have loved how deeply he explores how over time circumstance causes compromise.

A hardback copy of The Bay of Angels by Anita Brookner

I knew I would love this, as I love all her books, but this crept up on me and bowled me over.

The first couple of chapters feel like a speed run through classic Brookner, but then it becomes a rich reflection on grief and how our lives can be suddenly upturned overnight.

It’s a book that has stayed with me in the three years since. It is a very special book.

She comes back to tell me she’s gone
As if I didn’t know that
As if I didn’t know my own bed
As if I’d never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead

Robert Duvall was an actor I’d choose to watch over any other. And I love that he knew his worth, refusing to participate in (and ruining) The Godfather Part III and filming Days of Thunder instead (an all-timer for me).

Like anything in the Portrait Gallery, it feels a little cramped. But it felt more satisfying than the last couple of London retrospectives of his work. It’s well worth a visit.

And on a purely technical level his etchings are exquisite, perfectly capturing form and shape. I really wasn’t that familiar with them and the exhibition gave new depth to an artist I love.

Lucien Freud: Drawing into Painting does a decent job of trying to capture the process an artist whose models could sit for at least 120hrs for a piece. There’s a sense of time passing in the gallery; an artist obsessed with the new.

The Criterion blu-ray of Love Jones

I loved the heart and intelligence of this movie. A very special film.

Absolutely. And great on telly once she realised it wasn’t an enemy to her career

A hardback copy of a biography of Celia Johnson by Kate Fleming

Read this after the umpteenth rewatch of Brief Encounter: even her daughter can’t capture why a very comfortable, conservative life led to such luminous performances.

My thoughts are with you and everyone else who loved him

I might actually now be able to get round to reading all the books I’ve bought after listening to episodes…

Thankyou so much for a wonderful show and wishing you a creative rest.

A watercolour painting of Marlon Brando

A very old painting I did for a friend of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now

A blu ray copy of Hollywood 90028

I’m not sure I could recommend this film, but it contains some amazing things; the soundtrack, the ending, its depiction of Hollywood in the 70s , its moments of surprise. But overall, it is a little bit sceevy.

A Blu Ray of 24 Hour Party People by Michael Winterbottom and starring Steve Coogan

I feel like I’ve had The Perfect Kiss on loop in my head for the last week or so, so I decided to sit down and watch this…

Was initially confused about the adult content warning… thought my short, fairly anodyne review wasn’t that bad…

A Note in Music by Rosamond Lehmann

Beautiful book about the small, slight things that somehow manage to change and not change relationships. Every page is like a sliver; Lehmann writing more in phrases than sentences. Gorgeous.

A copy of The Journey of August King by John Ehle

I adored reading The Landbreakers a few years ago, so decided to hunt down Ehle’s follow-up. Here a man throws away his ordered life to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

Warner Archive Blu-Ray of The Cobweb

Lush Melodrama and angst over drapery… what more do you want from a film?