Red Road by Andrea Arnold. Scottish thriller that was gripping in its intensity. You really didn’t know where the film was going, and because the history between the CCTV operator and the criminal was only slowly revealed, what ensued was shocking and disturbing. Kate Dickie and the underclass she infiltrates with unknown consequences, motives and intentions make this a very good film.

The Lemon Tree – ‘true’ story of a Palestinian woman who lives on the border with Israel, her neighbours being the Israeli defence minister whose secret service consider her lemon grove to be a safety hazard to the minister and want to cut it down. Not knowing the film was based on a true event, made me sceptical about the plot while watching, but non the less this was a good film to see, and I hope not stereotyping the characters too much. There was a wedding on in the Photography Museum which made any excursions from the cinema interesting as I had to walk through a very finely dressed wedding party, whooping it up, whilst my headspace was deep in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

Underground Shorts Vol 1: Some good shorts – Matt Burn’s ‘Arachnotelephotophobi’, a horrific animation of a woman afraid of spiders in her TV. Shelly Wain’s ‘The Love Nest’ – a gloriously colourfull animation of an aristocrat and his caged bird. ‘Boxed In’ – Will Becher’s animation of an old man and a mouse. Last: Monkey Shoe by Mark Jackson for a last chuckle.

Underground shorts vol 3 – watched this varied DVD of short films. Some very good, some not so good but still diverting, some pretty bad. The good ones were:

- True to form, Mark J Blackman. About a boy poisened by an old man (really good).

- A case of you, Jack Davies. About a couple having relationship problems all set in one room.

- One down, Simon Munnery. A cartoon about the two thieves on the cross after ‘you know who’ was taken down and their subsequent conversation. Very funny.

- The passenger, Adam Levine. About a Bosian Refugee who comes to live in Britain after his girlfriend is shot by British soldiers.

- Red Tale, Guillaume Touveron. About the relationship between a Parisian hooker and a mute guy.

- Crack, James Esposito. About a writer who diverts himself from his writers block by peeping at a beautiful girl next door through a crack in the wall.

Angela – Luc Besson not quite at his best – but the combination of the incredibly tall not quite beautiful Angela and the dodgy Andre with black and white Paris made an interesting film.

Arthur and the invisibles good animation with Madonna and Bowie doing voices. Arthur slightly nauseating child in the live action bit, but no problem as an animation. Switch between live film and animation was kind of jarring … but a good Friday night film.

Pretty persuasion … bitchy teens striving to become actresses … funny but scary film … how real are those characters I wonder?

The Prestige … slightly inebriated my irrational dislike for historical cinema, and being close to dropping off for the first 15 minutes, was soon dispelled as the film turned into a battle of wills between the two magicians right up to the very grizzley end. This film has nothing to do with witches and warlocks I should add, and distracted me from the pick and mix quite intensely.

first movie of the day … chick flick ‘garden state …. any movie with
that and ‘three times a lady’ on should be really bad … but it was just about ok …
Natalie Portman almost ruined it but there were so many freaky people in it, held my attention

‘Push Up’ – how come all the guys are balding old geezers (except one) and all the gals are saucy minxes – my initial thought on this strange play in a London pub theatre. This argument is made more interesting when the whole cast of the play decides to join in with the riotous soul evening going downstairs in the pub immediately after the show. A pub cast of lesbian dancers, very handsome young men, people even cooler than hipsters????, and an ageing french man with bad facial hair going out with a supermodel (bah the french) mixes with the plays cast … and I start to wonder which is the more interesting set and where the play is really happening. Or did the Czech beer just take over my befuddled mind, coupled with a lack of interval 99s?