The Illusion of Depth

Thursday, the 15th of December marks the final film night of the year at the Victoria Park Baptist Church (we will be starting up again on the 12th of January) and for our final film of the year, I plan to break the habit of a lifetime. That's right, folks. This Thursday, for the first time ever, I will be showing... a Christmas film . The Christmas Movie is basically a film genre in its own right. There have been more Christmas Movies (by orders of magnitude) than, say, Easter movies, Yom Kippur movies etc. (I did briefly consider showing Chanukah at Bubbe's , but I'm not going to...) In fairness, there are many, many Diwali movies, but we can save those for some future film series devoted to the magic of Bollywood. When it comes to classic and beloved Christmas Movies, there is one film that emerges time and again as THE Christmas Movie; the one that everyone comes back to without fail; the one that is guaranteed to bring joy to the hearts of everyone who sees it (and no

Part the First:  Where is the Music Coming From? This Thursday (the 8th of December) I plan to screen the 1962 film version of Meredith Willson's Broadway classic, The Music Man . Before I get into that  however, take a look at this cartoon: It may seem a little odd to begin my discussion of The Music Man with a "Far Side" cartoon, but that's just the way it's going to be. This is my film series and I can do what I like. There is an old story about Alfred Hitchcock that is probably apocryphal. Hitchcock was working on his 1944 film Lifeboat (which takes place, appropriately enough, entirely in a lifeboat) and decided not to use any music at all during the film.  When questioned about this, he said,  "It's the middle of the ocean. Where would the music come from?" The composer Hugo Friedhofer is alleged to have responded, "Where did the cameras come from?" Who knows whether this exchange actually took place, but it does serve to illustrate

 Welcome back, everyone! We are back for a few more weeks of film nights after our brief recess. I am happy to announce that we are also back upstairs in the Main Hall (or "Screen One" as I like to call it) now that the essential repairs have been completed. A great big thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding while we showed films in our "temporary accommodations" downstairs in the basement ("Screen Two"!). I plan to show three more films in December before we break for the holiday season, and we will then resume on the 12th of January with a brand-new film series (more about that in due course, so stay tuned!). For our first December screening (on Thursday, the 1st of December) I want to draw a line under our recently concluded series of Ordinary Ladies with a film that is, effectively, the antithesis of Ordinary Ladies. The Stepford Wives (1975) is based on Ira Levin's 1972 novel, and plays out like Betty Friedan's darkest in

 I know I introduced last week's film as The Last Ordinary Lady (and those of you who saw the film will understand why) but we have time to squeeze one more "bonus" lady into the series before we move on to other topics. Those of you who know me at all will be aware of my love for all things stereoscopic, and I try to include at least one 3D film in each series. In this instance, the choices were surprisingly limited; something that tells you a lot about mainstream cinema's attitudes toward female characters. In fact, I was able to come up with exactly one film that fit the Ordinary Lady criteria, so, unsurprisingly, that is the film I will be showing next week! (Presumably that means there was actually  no choice, since you can't really choose between a single option. But I digress...) Fortunately, the film in question happens to be a lot of fun: Monsters Vs Aliens was released in 2009, at the very beginning of Hollywood's modern 3D era. Hollywood has actu