If you missed how I got here, you can read about Day 1 here. This is the second of 13 posts in The Great Balkans Road Trip series. I’m doing a circular tour with a travel company called Just You, for solo travellers (my partner, Lee, not being a keen flyer), taking me from Romania through Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia and back through Romania. This was the first full day of the Balkan Explorer trip. We’d landed in Bucharest last night – after two full days travelling for me – and…
Thinking, as we do often, of movie comedians who successfully transitioned from silents to talkies. Some studios and funmakers did better than others. Mack Sennett had his problems adapting to the new medium but did employ the likes of Harry Gribbon, Vernon Dent and Andy Clyde - and a couple of years later, the brilliant W.C. Fields.Next up: the comediennes, led by the following bravura performance of Marie Dressler in Hollywood Revue Of 1929. She must have been devastatingly great on stage!…
This post contains interactive content and is best viewed on my website import Gallery from '../../../../components/Gallery.astro' Took a walk around the city trying to spot the exhibits. I didn't want to take my camera off black and white mode though so here you go with a gloomy interpretation of the wacky exhibit <Gallery caption path="blog/2026-06-14 - blow-up jubilee" /> Thanks also to these pages that helped me get the names of the exhibits: Den Haag BlowUp art - djaktief Den Haag BlowUp…
In The Mandalorian and Grogu film, there’s a food pod where Martin Scorsese’s character serves up sandwiches, and just knowing it was a Jon Favreau film, I figured he brought in Roy Choi to help. Roy was his culinary advisor for another Favreau film, Chef, one of my favorite films. Sure enough, in the end credits, he was listed as a culinary advisor. The pair put up a video about making this sandwich that felt like a special episode of The Chef Show. All of this to say that today, we cooked up…
The world premiere of Stella, a new Australian musical, tells the stirring and affecting life story of literary great Stella Miles Franklin with fitting confidence and winning style. A work long in gestation, Stella happens to arrive shortly after 2025 hit musical My Brilliant Career. Stella gives audiences the welcome chance to learn about the woman behind the acclaimed Australian novel, which was written at the beginning of Franklin’s long and often challenging career. Achieving the all too…
I didn’t have a lot to say about Episode 9 of Widow’s Bay, titled “Emergency Shelter,” because it felt like a filler episode designed to set up the finale. It didn’t feel nearly as eventful as the rest of the season’s episodes, more like a showcase for a few funny scenes, slowing down the pace to build up to the big finish. Which made the key question: the big finish of what? Widow’s Bay the series, or just season one? We got the answer to that, at least, with the announcement that the series…
I’d been meaning to look at my secondhand DVD of BUNNY AND THE BULL for ages — it’s the first feature of Paul King, director of the excellent first two PADDINGTON movies, and stars, among others, Simon Farnaby, writer of those movies. And, OK, maybe he should have written this one. And maybe King, who […]
Dan Larson gives the lowdown on Pogs and their humble beginnings which then got really capitalist and then crashed and burnt after market saturation, followed by a weird NFT promotion that aged as well as left out… POG (Passion Orange Guava). I loved Pogs as a kid and played them with friends and then later collected Tazos. During the pandemic, I bought a couple of slammers for nostalgic reasons and I keep them in my bedside drawer because you never know when you might be challenged to a match.…
Movies Akira (1988) D: Katsuhiro Otomo. S: Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Takeshi Kusao, Tessyo Genda. Misanthropic cyberpunk anime epic about a teenage biker gang who coincidentally figure into an ongoing military plot to exploit post-nuclear mutant kids. The gang’s beta becomes the world’s most powerful mutant, and the alpha has feelings about it. Exceptionally thin characterizations and a meandering first half don’t help. The frequently impressive animation gets it to a fizzling…
Pearcy’s 1973 map of 38 redrawn United States. I work very hard, and I would like to try cake. An instant Onion classic that did the rounds a while ago from the print edition, now available in glorious HTML. A new Australian technology could prevent 70 million tonnes of milk waste each year. CSIRO for the win, yet again. (Even if it’s a spinoff company, the technology it sprang from was theirs.) NB: SIGH-roe. There’s desperate news out of Manus in Papua New Guinea, where an underwater volcano…
...will not appear this weekend.I am in Lone Pine, California, for the annual Concert in the Rocks benefiting the Museum of Western Film History.Dean Torrence will be performing in the Alabama Hills along with the Surf City All-Stars. Actor Bruce Davison, who starred in the TV-movie DEADMAN'S CURVE (1978), will also appear. I had the pleasure of meeting Davison in Lone Pine back in 2017.Around the Blogosphere This Week will return on June 20th.For recent links of interest to classic film fans,…
Joe Pesci in Casino (1995) Vitals Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro, sadistic mobster Las Vegas, Spring 1973 to Fall 1980 Film: Casino Release Date: November 22, 1995 Director: Martin Scorsese Costume Design: Rita Ryack & John A. Dunn WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background After multiple requests to expand my sartorial focus on Casino from Robert De Niro’s colorful tailoring as Ace Rothstein to Joe Pesci’s mobbed-up fits, today’s post finally zeroes in on Pesci’s style as the volatile Nicky Santoro. Just…
Despite a sewing challenge that produced hot garbage from the queens, Marshal Knight writes about why Drag Race All Stars 11 episode 7 was a fabulous group hang.
Stalkers are never fun – but they are nothing new, either. Even Queen Victoria was stalked a number of times during her long reign, most notably by Edward Jones – who became known in the nineteenth century media as The Boy Jones. And he has something of a strange story, to say the least. Jones became infamous (much to his family’s chagrin) for breaking into Buckingham Palace when he was just 14 years old. That was in 1838 and despite being discovered with various stolen items on him, he was…
The first recording today starts with a trail for Blue Peter. There’s a trail for The Legend of Dick and Dom. Then it’s Spirit Warriors – Fortune Favours the Brave. The warriors are asleep when they’re attacked by Hwang. There’s a big fight, bit it all turns out to be a dream. On their way to find the next spirit piece they meet a fortune teller called Master Wu. He tells them about a labyrinth, and gives them all fortune cookies. We see a flashback, where Master Wu was mentoring the villain,…
Although there's no sign of The Musical making a return any time soon, the three original, lo-fi comedy shows from Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe aka Police Cops continue to resurface every so often. I've previously caught Police Cops in Space, and now marking their 10th anniversary as a comedy troupe, the three shows have all been playing in rotation. This includes a London residency at Soho Theatre (the one that's actually in Soho,) where I caught the two I hadn't seen before.…
Gorgons is a late addition to Yellow Tree Theatre's season, replacing the regional premiere of the Pearl Cleage play Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous which has been rescheduled to next season, but it's an inspired choice of play, with the perfect cast for this dark comedy two-hander. Playwright Don Nigro based the play on the infamous rivalry between actors Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and their movie What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, imagining what their relationship might have been…
For more than three decades, I’ve wondered about the “RASW” decal affixed to the front door of the Double R Diner best seen in the Twin Peaks pilot. I figured the sticker on the glass door was something found at the actual Mar-T Cafe (known today as Twede’s Cafe). It was something added by the crew... The post Twin Peaks Prop – Restaurant Association of the State of Washington (RASW) Decal at the Double R Diner appeared first on TWIN PEAKS BLOG.
Last week, barely anything to see. This week, stuff's blocking each other! The clear big deal is Disclosure Day, a new science fiction adventure from Steven Spielberg and writer David Koepp, starring Josh O'Connor as a man who has discovered humanity is not alone and intends to get the word out to the entire world at once; it also features Emily Blunt, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, and Eve
The Television Critics Association's 2026 TCA Award nominations were unveiled today, including 10 reality TV shows.
Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness (2026) is HBO’s seven-episode stumble through the last
The Chicago Cubs have decided to essentially quit acting like a professional baseball team. Chock-full of talent, yet seemingly unable to play the game. My wife is away on a theatre gig. (The show opened wonderfully last night.) So I decided I needed an entertaining distraction and queued up Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot’s Spider-Noir, now streaming on Prime Video. Bottom line, it is a stylish, entertaining distraction, and a treat for fans of the noir genre. I won’t call the eight-episode…
As his follow-up to his collaboration with Yung Lean on Storm, French musician and producer Benoit Heitz (as GENER8ION) brings us something completely different. Love & Tears, the title track from GENER8ION’s new album features Yannis Phillipakis (Greek-born English singer, songwriter and guitarist and lead singer of the band Foals). It stars very famous movie actor Charlize Theron in her first music video since “Crossfire” by Brandon Flowers back in 2010 when she played a dramatic action-role…
The big day is finally here! It is time to celebrate all things Audrey. Please check back to this post throughout today in order to read all of the fabulous reviews, articles and more as they come in. My thanks go to all of the participants for helping me celebrate Audrey’s life and career. NitrateGlow gets the party started by penning a deep dive on Fred Zinneman’s The Nun’s Story. I agree with her that this film features Audrey’s best performance. The Audrey Hepburn Blogathon: The Nun’s Story…
Sp,e years ago, netbooks were everywhere. Now they aren't. But for the dedicated fan they're still achievable.
Oscar Wilde and Noël Coward are often spoken of in the same breath: wit, polish, social satire, a shared instinct for turning manners into theatre. But seeing Wilde after last year’s woeful Private Lives at the Bristol Old Vic only sharpens the difference between them. Coward, in that production at least, felt stranded inside his own period, his sophistication preserved rather than activated, like a drawing-room set left permanently under museum lighting. Wilde, by contrast, refuses…
Barbarosa (1982)
(1959) Directed by Terence Fisher; Written by Jimmy Sangster; Based on the play The Man in Half Moon Street by Barré Lyndon; Starring: Anton Diffring, Hazel Court, Christopher Lee, Arnold Marlé, and Delphi Lawrence; Available on Blu-ray and DVD Rating: ***½ “I must insist in saying that there are no South American versions, nor are there any Japanese versions or any other versions. This is what happens: we shoot the scenes up to the point where we say, ‘This is it; no further; this is how it…
Multimedia hyperlink cinema done right. A reporter boards a futuristic superyacht, hears various stories and maybe becomes unstuck in time and experiences some of them. Guest directors/writers/DPs take on different sections, Joseph acting as curator, with the cinematographer of Arrival and editor of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Reminded us of Adam Curtis and Dahomey and a hundred other things. It’s very difficult to explain – fortunately, Robert Daniels is on the case.
Eighteen months is too long to wait… but it looks like we’ll have to wait even longer than that. After previously announcing that Doctor Who would return with a Christmas special in 2026 – a bit over eighteen months after the transmission of The Reality War – the BBC has now announced that the Bad Wolf era of Doctor Who is over and the show will be put out to open tender. That tender process doesn’t necessarily mean that a new production company will come out of the ether to make pitches –…
