Oh, yes, the Oscars…

That there is a category for Foreign Language Film tells you everything you need to know about the Oscars. Still, a few things about this year's cinematic fashion show have managed to get past my old codger's cynicism... I'm pleased that The Artist and Hugo have done well. I love the former and I hear …

The story behind a favourite portrait: Stan Tracey by William Ellis

One of my favourite portraits of the jazz legend Stan Tracey is that by William Ellis. So I was very pleased to come across this New Statesman piece where Ellis discusses some of his portraits, starting with the one of Stan. This photograph of Stan Tracey, sometimes called the "Godfather of British Jazz", was taken …

Fay Godwin – a subtle eye

Large White Cloud near Bilsington, Kent, 1981. Here lies a subtle eye; and an even sutler human spirit. John Fowles, Land Fowles is describing the landscape photographs of Fay Godwin in his 1984 essay featured in her book Land. It's a book I treasure. As an avid collector of all things Fowles, it was the …

Too Many Cinematic Masterpieces?

This short piece by Geoff Andrew caught my eye: O masterpiece, where art thou? [no longer available]. Between a couple of Berlin’s press screenings, Nick James and I found ourselves discussing the overuse of ‘masterpiece’, a word apparently as vulnerable to abuse as ‘classic’. I felt uncomfortable on reading this, since I'm probably guilty of …

The danger of the single story…

It's thanks to Rich Pollett on Google+ that I watched the TED talk given by novelist Chimamanda Adichie. It is an eloquent and moving account of the power of stories. Adichie sets the scene by illustrating the power of stories in her childhood:- I was an early reader, and what I read were British and …

Ronnie Scott and All That Jazz

I managed to catch some of the two programmes featuring the great saxophonist Sonny Rollins on Friday night; both shown as part of BBC Four's jazz weekend. The second programme looked particularly interesting, with Sonny on fine form at Ronnie's back in 1974. I didn't get as far as the jazz bagpipes (not played by …

Huw Warren: Infinite Riches In A Little Room

On its release in 2001, John L Waters wrote in the Guardian that:- This solo piano album already sounds like a classic. It's an album that has grown in stature the more I've listened to it, and one that never loses its freshness or its ability to reveal new treasures. Huw Warren is a pianist …

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow

There have been many good books on human rationality and irrationality, but only one masterpiece. That masterpiece is Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. So says William Easterly, writing in the Financial Times. Having just finished this book, I would add that not only is it a masterpiece, it is an eminently readable and comprehensible …

From The Artist to Dracula

Last weekend I saw The Artist for the third time: I still love it! At the back of my mind there was the vague memory of another film which had impressed me with its use of the stylings of silent cinema. Thanks to a rather circuitous chain of associations that emerged out of various conversations …

David Kelly (1929-2012)

Today has been a touch miserable, as I've been coping with a nasty bug; but it became much worse when I heard the very sad news of the death of actor David Kelly. In my youth, I remember him vividly and with great fondness as the one who always stole the scene in Fawlty Towers …