My love affair with Cinema

First of many blogs, I hope, on a passion instilled into me by my father. As a young man, he used to finish work , get fed and washed and vanish off to one of the many cinemas available to him in Wallsend and surrounding areas in the 40s and 50s. Pure escapism.

Sharing this passion I have been fortunate to have gone through a recent bought of truly great cinema. The kind that takes you to a different, if not higher plane.

Chronologically, I've seen Gone Girl, The Judge, What we did on our holiday, Mr Turner, Interstellar and just today, a fabulous performance from Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game.

Reviews of all these can be found anywhere and I often take the time to look at Rotten Tomatoes or watch Claudia Winkelman and Danny Leigh agree to disagree over that weeks offerings on TV. I must say though, there was a time when if Barry Norman said it was crap, I avoided it. I tend to go see for myself these days, plus there are always those special offers prior to official release date.

Barry had such a soft spot for Woody Allen, who was at his peak during Baz'z golden TV years. Still recall those 'Phil Matey' t-shirts. I've kept pace with most of Mr Allens output in the intervening years but he has never surpassed Annie Hall and particularly Manhattan. Never has a B&W film looked so gorgeous from the opening shot to the moody interior of his flat in New York. That's not forgetting the humour of course which seems to have faded over the years for more loftier ambitions

We'd be taken as kid's to see the latest Bond movie and on leaving the theatre, we would turn right, down a dark back alley next to the old Pilgrim street Odeon and I would imagine all manner of nafarious activity that would have me reaching for my Walther PPK. Afraid that the current franchise of Bond leaves me somewhat cold. Bond was always a figure of fiction to me, an unrealistic agent involved in unrealistic, cinematic adventures that were pure escapism. Who wants reality?
Ok, they were rather sexist, but other than our testosterone filled hero, I grew up without thought of why a woman would watch it anyway; it's probably grown up now and not taken me with it. Harry Palmer, a contemporary, was probably more in keeping with today's version of Bond. But they both were all the better for a John Barry score. Great stuff.

Particular likes and dislikes - well, I do love a good comedy, not too many about these days but What we did on our holiday is a good recent example of the art done well, without mawkish sentiment but with good dialogue, charm and no little wit. Comedy done poorly, well, there's nothing worse, is there?