Friday Film Thoughts

On Fridays, "The Guardian" newspaper has a separate film and music review section. It is my habit, every Friday for breakfast, I walk into town, buy a copy of "The Guardian", go to a coffee shop (the Costa on Lendal in York is my current favourite, the head barista always asks "do you want your usual?") buy coffee and danish pastry and scour the review.

(A small digression - did you know that in France a danish pastry is known as a viennese pastry.)

I may have mentioned this before - at University I studied politics and I still love that academic side of politics. I was at Uni in the early eighties - the early years of that woman Thatcher (pantomime boo), the Falklands/Malvinas war, the Belgrano, Michael Foot's donkey jacket, Greenham Common, the miners' strike, it was a great time to be studying politics.

In today's film section, the recommended film for our proposed trip for lunch and then to the cinema, "Gone Girl", directed by David Fincher and starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

Turn the page and I see, joy o joy, reviews of two political films.

First; "Tony Benn : Will and Testament". For those outside the UK - Tony Benn was a left wing politician, a member of the Labour Party, a Member of Parliament for Bristol and then Chesterfield. He was a member of Harold Wilson's Government in the sixties but he went his own way from 1970 onwards - Harold Wilson said Benn "immatured with age".  The film reviewer says "Only a curmudgeon would deny the charm of this eulogy to Tony Benn". I think I will be going to see this film, but by myself, B will not want to see this.

Second; "Still the Enemy Within" - a documentary abut the Miners' Strike of 1984 and 85 - this sounds good but I think I will wait for the dvd.

Turn the page again - the 1939 French film "Le Jour se Leve" is on rerelease. This stars two of my film heroes, Jean Gabin and Arletty. I would love to see this film on a big screen, when we go to Picturehouse York this weekend I may have to beg them to list it.