I discovered Cornell Woolrich twenty years ago, his dark, macarbre thrillers leaving me a terrified teen! With this in mind, the novels and short stories collected in the omnibus were 're-reads' for me, yet they still left me in a state of spellbound suspense. However, if you're looking for an 'Agatha Christie' type whodunnit where, by the final page, the killer is safely locked up and everyone has tea...Forget it. Woolrich's work is dark and truly haunting, leaving a thrillingly eerie aftertaste. I recommend this omnibus edition to fans of Film Noir and/or people who like to scare themselves silly!

Simon Schama's 'A History of Britain' is an absolute 'must have' for anyone interested in history and/or PEOPLE, for it is the PEOPLE who inhabited the Sceptred Isle which Schuma makes his focus in this wonderful series, with even 'old chestnuts' like The Battle of Hastings taking on a new glamour as Schama asks us to imagine we were Norman knights or Saxon foot soldiers on the brink of the bloody battle.

A thousand fabulous locations and silently 'dramatised' footage of events bring this history of Britain into visual context, yet it is Schama's chatty, polemic style of narrative which give this series its slightly 'revisionist' kick (Thomas Becket is described as a 'cockney', Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II are said to have 'fancied' each other.)

The history of the British Isles has sort of been 'done', and as a former history student myself, I knew it would take something pretty special to make this history 'exciting' and 'new' again. Schama's 'History of Britain' succeeds where so many similar series have failed; it throws a delightful and exciting new light upon a history we THOUGHT we all knew.

Highly recommended.

,

...and open your knees!"

So says the dastardly Mr Neville, the epitome of the self-made 17th Century Englishman in Peter Greenaway's sumptious 'Draughtman's Contract', the contract in question being one of a sexual nature; Mr Neville agrees to sketch the financially embarrassed Mrs Herbert's house and gardens in return for twelve sexual favours from his reluctant employer.

Yet what begins as a simple story of a sado masochistic relationship unravels into a perlexing jigsaw puzzle of a film where nothing is as it first appears, our affections switching from one character to another as we (as well as THEY) try to figure out exactly what is afoot in Mrs Herbert's beautiful garden.

A film about perception, art, sex, age, gender, 17th Century British politics, murder, love (and pineapples!), 'The Draughtman's Contract' is as cerebrally challenging as it is visually beautiful, with Michael Nyman's sensational mock-Baroque score the perfect icing on this multi-layered cake.

Anthony Higgins is worryingly sexy as the autocratic Mr Neville, and Janet Suzman is wonderfully womanly as the much older Mrs Herbert, their strange relationship confusing us as much as them until the shocking final scene.

An absolute delight.

,

...and open your knees!"

So says the dastardly Mr Neville, the epitome of the self-made 17th Century Englishman in Peter Greenaway's sumptious 'Draughtman's Contract', the contract in question being one of a sexual nature; Mr Neville agrees to sketch the financially embarrassed Mrs Herbert's house and gardens in return for twelve sexual favours from his reluctant employer.

Yet what begins as a simple story of a sado masochistic relationship unravels into a perlexing jigsaw puzzle of a film where nothing is as it first appears, our affections switching from one character to another as we (as well as THEY) try to figure out exactly what is afoot in Mrs Herbert's beautiful garden.

A film about perception, art, sex, age, gender, 17th Century British politics, murder, love (and pineapples!), 'The Draughtman's Contract' is as cerebrally challenging as it is visually beautiful, with Michael Nyman's sensational mock-Baroque score the perfect icing on this multi-layered cake.

Anthony Higgins is worryingly sexy as the autocratic Mr Neville, and Janet Suzman is wonderfully womanly as the much older Mrs Herbert, their strange relationship confusing us as much as them until the shocking final scene.

An absolute delight.

A little film with a big heart from a small island with growing reputation for making great movies! BRASSED OFF is a terrific film which loses nothing in translation to an American or Mainland European audience. I highly recommend it, although I warn you to stock up on Kleenex for the Albert Hall scene!

I LOVE this movie! Touching, gripping, scary, suspensful, moving and hilariously funny, no matter how many times I watch it (and I watch it a lot!) I am always amazed how emotionally involved I become with a group of characters who (it must be stated) have VERY little in common with ME (or anyone ELSE who has lived on earth in the past twenty thousand or so years!)

The characters, none of who have names or can speak, are marvellously three dimensional and avoid being 'Flintstone-esque' at all times. Top marks go to Ron Perlman as the slightly LESS intellectually gifted of the fire-seekers (Jean-Jacques Arnaud used him again to great effect as the deformed monk, 'Salvatori', in the wonderful 'Name of the Rose'.)

It doesn't really matter how anthropologically accurate QUEST FOR FIRE is - that's not the point. It's a movie to be watched and enjoyed and 'lost' in, and if nothing else, it makes you REAL glad that you don't live in Neolithic times; life on the tundra ain't easy!

Having been positively OBSESSED with 'Planet of the Apes' as a child (I was convinced I'd grow up to marry Cornelius) I was interested to see how enchanted I'd be with it as a movie-jaded 35 year old. Let me tell you, I am 'newly' obsessed with this fabulous film! As a child, I didn't 'get' the hidden agenda behind the movie's simeon exterior, but the questions it poses on so MANY very 'human' issues are so beautifully handled that one truly comes away breathless!

(The sound of the gorilla soldier's horses off-screen is still one of the scariest sound-effects in motion picture history, and the final scene (yes, THAT scene!) still sends shivers down the spine!)

Next year's remake may promise better special effects, yet the enormous impact of this timeless original could never be equaled!

I was lucky enough to see 'The Rise and Fall of Little Voice' on the West End stage a few years ago, and was so overwhelmed by the play that I was eager to see the screen adaptation. Imagine my disappointment and, well...confusion! Alison Steadman took the lead as Little Voice's mother in the stage play, and gave what I believe to be a 'landmark' performance. And the performance was so brilliant thanks to the ROLE being so complex; throughout, the character of L.V's mother is absolutely TORTURED, swinging from vile, obnoxious and over-bearing to vulnerable and pathetic. At the end of the stage play, we finally learn WHY she is so over-bearing and aggressive; it is because her husband, Little Voice's dead father, was so WEAK and INEFFECTUAL that she, the mother, had to take on the responsibility for the whole family in a town which laughed at her husband for his obsession with Judy Garland and the likes. Your heart absolutely BREAKS for her, and the whole 'idea' behind 'Little Voice' as a play about two women struggling with their own psychosis caused by a dead man falls into place and absolutely knocks you over! Boy, did they 'dumb it down' for the movie version! The entire 'point' to the original story is 'missing'; the mother, played by Brenda Blethyn, is nothing more than an over-played charicature of an obnoxious woman (so what! ) and I am tempted to think that this is the fault of bad direction; Brenda Blethyn is a marvellous character actress, and I was frankly surprised to see her giving such an over-acted and one-dimensional performance. The moving monologue at the end of the stage play where the mother EXPLAINS why she has become such an ogre has been totally cut from the movie, and so the 'resolution' you're waiting for throughout the film never, ever happens. Jane Horrock played 'Little Voice' on the West End as well as in the film version, and although fine in the film, she was 'better' on the stage because their was more 'meat' for her to grapple with in terms of her character's psychology. In the film version, we're never quite sure what her 'problem' is, and quite frankly, her 'silent psychosis' gets a little irritating! Michael Caine's character of 'Ray Say' did not exist in the stage play (although I believed he was referred to) and I was glad it was included in the film, as he at LEAST was a three-dimensional character one could 'believe' in. So what are we left with? The story of a girl who doesn't speak but can do GREAT imitations of legendary singers who eventually breaks free of her over-bearing mother to take up life with a telephone repair man. There is nothing MORE to the movie than THIS, and if their IS a deeper subtext, it doesn't come through at all. The 'mistake' that was made in adapting this play for the screen was in making it 'L.V's' story; on the stage, it was her MOTHER'S story. And in my own opinion, the story of a weak girl who does a GREAT 'Judy Garland' isn't ENOUGH of a story to keep me interested - especially as every scene goes on FOREVER!

Having followed the career of the marvellous Miss McKennitt from 'folky' Canadian harpist to New-Age Troubadour, I feel that as an artist, composer, vocalist and musician, she has thoroughly 'come of age' with THE BOOK OF SECRETS, her many talents and interests culminating in an album which defies description! With THE BOOK OF SECRETS, Loreena takes us on her musical magic carpet through mysterious, ancient lands; one minute, we're travelling with Marco Polo through 14th Century China, the next, we're standing on a wind-swept moor in 17th Century England. Her astounding musical diversity is rivalled only by her rich imagination. THE BOOK OF SECRETS is an album one can truly 'lose' themselves in, escaping the materialistic restraints of 21st Century life and plunging into the beautiful tapestry of sounds and mental images this lovely Canadian lady has invited us to exlore with her. I await with baited breath her next studio album, although I cannot imagine anything rivalling the wonder of THE BOOK OF SECRETS.

'Dancing at Lughasa' is an interesting (if somewhat depressing) movie, but worth watching for the sterling performances; Streep is sensational as the priggish elder sister trying to hold her family together, but the screen is really stolen by the excellent Cathy Burke, one of Britain's finest character actresses. The real 'loose link' in this movie for me was the child the plot centres around - this kid is no Mark Lester, and his hopeless performance adds a 'surreal' element to his scenes; one minute, we are so swept up in the believable performances that it is completely our'reality', yet as soon as the kid walks into a scene, it's like; "Oh yeah. I'm watching another movie about an Irish family. Bring out the fiddles." Furthermore, there is no real 'action' in this movie; events build up and then turn into non-events, the ending so depressing (and predictable) that you feel a little resentful for investing so much EMOTIONALLY in this movie. Still, it's worth seeing for the performances, if nothing else.