My mate Nathan knows more about movies than anyone else I know. I’m not talking about naming the third Tarantino (Jackie Brown) or who played a one-line walk-on part in The Graduate (Richard Dreyfuss), cos everyone knows dat shit. Nathan knows EVERYTHING. Who the first grip’s second assistant in Gone with the Wind was married to before the sex change. Where the plane at the end of Casablanca was bought, and from whom. Where the Marx Brothers had their barmitzvahs, and who catered. Everything.

And he hates the Everyman Cinemas. Hates them. “Coffee shops with a movie screen” he scathingly accuses. And he’s a judge, so he knows about accusations. So he won’t go to the Everyman. He is the ultimate movie-snob, refusing even to go to where most movie snobs (that’d be me, then) find sanctuary and comfort from the multiplex masses of popcorn munchers.

So I wonder what he’d make of the Picturehouse, Crouch End?

I went there last night and it is fantastic. Saw ‘Joy’ which was pretty good, but the whole experience was just fab.

It only opened in November so that explained why I’d never heard of it before. They’ve kind’a kept it quiet. Not the cleverest marketing tool. Yet it was busy. And its got 5 screens. The one we sat in had 21 seats. Really comfortable, individually reclining seats with lots of room. And the clearest screen I’ve ever peered at for 2 hours.

But there’s a coffee shop on the ground floor. Oh dear. And if that won’t have Nathan scampering off to the NFT on the South Bank, then the restaurant on the first floor probably would.

The place is minimalist heaven, bare brick walls, open scaffolding in orange, like a giant Meccano set, and it is just fab. Two full bars, you can eat, drink and slurp to your heart’s content, BEFORE the movie.

And its cheaper than the Everyman. Go there now.

Though how can you when Liverpool kick off against Man United in just a couple hours? And then Stoke, my team for the day, play the Arse at 4. And all after Spurs fairly wonderful-ish win yesterday????

Joy is a joy. But Jennifer Lawrence is something way beyond that. In most of the movie she’s scruffy, unpolished, almost ‘au natural’ but with clothes on. Primark clothes. And yet she simply mesmerises. Her presence, and her wonderful voice, simply possess you. Ok, they possess me. Whatever ‘star quality’ may be, J-Law simply has it in vast abundance.

Happy snowy sunday (my tennis courts at 10 this morning, when I went to check them out).

A xxxx