Norham CastleMONDAY 28 JANUARY
A few blogsters (or whatever we’re called) have had the enormous effrontery to criticise me - ME! - for not being more forthcoming in the personal details attached to this blog; the ‘profile’. I’ve had requests to know what my favourite songs are, or my favourite colour or book or item of clothing. Why on earth anyone would want or need to know such things is well beyond me; it strikes me that there are much more interesting things to know about people - like ‘what superpower would you like?’, ‘who would you hate to be stuck in a lift with?’ or ‘what’s your most expensive (or most personally-valued) possession?’
So Top Ten Favourite Films it is, then! As a matter of fact, when I sat down to draw up my list about an hour ago, it took no time at all for my Top Ten Films to become my Top Forty-Two Films. Where do you draw the line? How can you include Fred and Ginger in a list that also contains Pan’s Labyrinth and then justify the list? What criteria should you use for including a film in the first place - nostalgia, acting, direction, overall quality? I suspect that this is the reason I’ve avoided making such a list in the first place. On the plus side, being forced to make choices in this way quickly becomes an interesting intellectual exercise. Try it for yourself.
Having whittled the list down to just ten, I have genuinely found it impossible to rank the movies from 1 to 10. So in no particular order, here goes....
The earliest film I can positively remember watching on nana’s old monochrome tv set (bought, like thousands of others, for the 1953 coronation) was I Remember Mama. It was probably of no particular merit, and its ‘leading lady’ was Irene Dunne - quite a star in the 40s but now long forgotten. Interestingly, the film’s only claim to any kind of tenuous ‘fame’ was that Barbara Bel Geddes was in it. If you want to know how she found wider acclaim later in her life.....look it up!
Naturally, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers must be included. Even though it’s not just your disbelief you have to suspend when you watch them, they still have the power to transform a miserable damp Sunday in Elswick to a sunny warm Sunday in Hollywood. Their best film is probably Swing Time. Or perhaps Carefree. Or maybe Top Hat. Dammit!
One of my favourite composers is Philip Glass, some of whose music I once played on The Nightshift. He once co-operated on what was, at the time, a ground-breaking trilogy of films. The best of them is called Powaqqatsi and I must include it in my list.
I am of an age, too, when any list of top-notch movies must include something from the Ealing Studios. But which one? The Ladykillers? The Titfield Thunderbolt? The Lavender Hill Mob? The Man In The White Suit? Laughter In Paradise? Passport To Pimlico? This really is an impossible choice; they all mean so much to me, even now. But I’ve decided that The Belles of St Trinian’s says it all. You really can’t go wrong with Alastair Sim, George Cole and the sainted Joyce Grenfell.
I’m a big fan of William Hurt and agonised over which of his movies to include. Second Best is a real charmer but it was pipped at the post by Smoke - if only because of that film’s closing sequence.
And how do you choose between The Railway Children and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, both of which I watched over Christmas. I swear I know the scripts by heart. The answer is to omit them both. Sadly, that’s what I’ve done.
It’s generally regarded as unfashionable to like Steven Spielberg’s films these days. But I do. So I’m bunging Close Encounters Of The Third Kind into my list, if only because of ‘that’ moment when the entire cinema audience gasps in amazement.
For not dissimilar reasons, I couldn’t possibly leave out 2001: A Space Odyssey. I remember sitting in my cinema seat long after the film ended, open-mouthed in sheer awe.
Things are now getting tricky. There’s Napoleon Dynamite, Fight Club, Gattaca, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Golden Compass.....I knew it. It just can’t be done. You’ll find that you end up with the same headache I’ve got if you try to do this. But.....
I must include three of the films I’ve most enjoyed in the last few years. I’m usually not a big fan of subtitled films - there’s too much for me to do while I’m watching them! But Amelie (since branded as a ‘chick-flick’ by some critics) and A Very Long Engagement (also starring the wonderful Audrey Tautou) are truly irresistible.
And the very best film ever made? It’s called The Lives Of Others and was released only about a year ago in German. It concerns life in East Germany during and after the Berlin Wall period. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know perfectly well why I’ve chosen it. If you haven’t, there is a very big gap indeed in your cinematic experience which you should fill as soon as you can.
OK, OK. I know you disagree with everything I’ve said and every film I’ve chosen. So try it yourself and you’ll see just how tricky it can be. Be imaginative and perhaps there’s a Nightshift item in the making here!
CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN
NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.
A few blogsters (or whatever we’re called) have had the enormous effrontery to criticise me - ME! - for not being more forthcoming in the personal details attached to this blog; the ‘profile’. I’ve had requests to know what my favourite songs are, or my favourite colour or book or item of clothing. Why on earth anyone would want or need to know such things is well beyond me; it strikes me that there are much more interesting things to know about people - like ‘what superpower would you like?’, ‘who would you hate to be stuck in a lift with?’ or ‘what’s your most expensive (or most personally-valued) possession?’
So Top Ten Favourite Films it is, then! As a matter of fact, when I sat down to draw up my list about an hour ago, it took no time at all for my Top Ten Films to become my Top Forty-Two Films. Where do you draw the line? How can you include Fred and Ginger in a list that also contains Pan’s Labyrinth and then justify the list? What criteria should you use for including a film in the first place - nostalgia, acting, direction, overall quality? I suspect that this is the reason I’ve avoided making such a list in the first place. On the plus side, being forced to make choices in this way quickly becomes an interesting intellectual exercise. Try it for yourself.
Having whittled the list down to just ten, I have genuinely found it impossible to rank the movies from 1 to 10. So in no particular order, here goes....
The earliest film I can positively remember watching on nana’s old monochrome tv set (bought, like thousands of others, for the 1953 coronation) was I Remember Mama. It was probably of no particular merit, and its ‘leading lady’ was Irene Dunne - quite a star in the 40s but now long forgotten. Interestingly, the film’s only claim to any kind of tenuous ‘fame’ was that Barbara Bel Geddes was in it. If you want to know how she found wider acclaim later in her life.....look it up!
Naturally, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers must be included. Even though it’s not just your disbelief you have to suspend when you watch them, they still have the power to transform a miserable damp Sunday in Elswick to a sunny warm Sunday in Hollywood. Their best film is probably Swing Time. Or perhaps Carefree. Or maybe Top Hat. Dammit!
One of my favourite composers is Philip Glass, some of whose music I once played on The Nightshift. He once co-operated on what was, at the time, a ground-breaking trilogy of films. The best of them is called Powaqqatsi and I must include it in my list.
I am of an age, too, when any list of top-notch movies must include something from the Ealing Studios. But which one? The Ladykillers? The Titfield Thunderbolt? The Lavender Hill Mob? The Man In The White Suit? Laughter In Paradise? Passport To Pimlico? This really is an impossible choice; they all mean so much to me, even now. But I’ve decided that The Belles of St Trinian’s says it all. You really can’t go wrong with Alastair Sim, George Cole and the sainted Joyce Grenfell.
I’m a big fan of William Hurt and agonised over which of his movies to include. Second Best is a real charmer but it was pipped at the post by Smoke - if only because of that film’s closing sequence.
And how do you choose between The Railway Children and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, both of which I watched over Christmas. I swear I know the scripts by heart. The answer is to omit them both. Sadly, that’s what I’ve done.
It’s generally regarded as unfashionable to like Steven Spielberg’s films these days. But I do. So I’m bunging Close Encounters Of The Third Kind into my list, if only because of ‘that’ moment when the entire cinema audience gasps in amazement.
For not dissimilar reasons, I couldn’t possibly leave out 2001: A Space Odyssey. I remember sitting in my cinema seat long after the film ended, open-mouthed in sheer awe.
Things are now getting tricky. There’s Napoleon Dynamite, Fight Club, Gattaca, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Golden Compass.....I knew it. It just can’t be done. You’ll find that you end up with the same headache I’ve got if you try to do this. But.....
I must include three of the films I’ve most enjoyed in the last few years. I’m usually not a big fan of subtitled films - there’s too much for me to do while I’m watching them! But Amelie (since branded as a ‘chick-flick’ by some critics) and A Very Long Engagement (also starring the wonderful Audrey Tautou) are truly irresistible.
And the very best film ever made? It’s called The Lives Of Others and was released only about a year ago in German. It concerns life in East Germany during and after the Berlin Wall period. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know perfectly well why I’ve chosen it. If you haven’t, there is a very big gap indeed in your cinematic experience which you should fill as soon as you can.
OK, OK. I know you disagree with everything I’ve said and every film I’ve chosen. So try it yourself and you’ll see just how tricky it can be. Be imaginative and perhaps there’s a Nightshift item in the making here!
CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN
NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.
3 comments:
ian it,s true, the horse n neptune are gonna be removed from durham market, its the "vision" of 2010 i think, it was in durham times. a lot of people have opposed it.
chitty chitty is a fave of mine too.
Hi Ian ,i cant agree with all your selection of movies as such, however i will aggree with the ealing productions, and the st trinians etc
but then i would go to the pink panther films and what ever happend to those old christmas films , circa 1960,s, i seem to remember on boxing day there would be a film (or documentary) on in the morning about the MET police and seemed to co-incide with a display of the good old BBC outside broadcast units.
on a different note a rather strange and unusual but verry welcome sight on land adjacent to where ANDY BARTONS used to be there are ,wait for it
HIGHLAND CATTLE on the graze .
i have been meaning to take a photo of them yes more than one , i will try this weekend, give me a reminder some-how.
on the other hand it might mean more to me than others.
first time i saw highland cattle was at EDINBURGH ZOO and they were tame i have got in my archives a photo of me making friends with said highland bullock, at least i think it was a bullock. we did get on rather well.
i will try and find said photo , but please remember this is getting on for nearly 50 years ago.
Highland cattle? Yes please, Pickler - photographs!
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