I love movies. I love all types of movies. Action thrillers, action thrillers and also action thrillers. Ok, that’s a joke. I’m not even keen on action killers and wouldn’t see a ‘Bond’ if ya paid me in gold-plated Aston Martins. But I will see a thriller and I’ll see art house and I’ll see absolutely anything by the Coen Brothers and wouldn’t miss any new Woody Allen, even though he’s now Hollywood’s most celebratedly perverse and sick hate-figure of a Hollywood abusive Jew, after Harvey Weinstein. Sometimes art must transcend life. I suppose I really like ‘Indy’ films because they’re always a bit ‘different’ from the mainstream. But then the Indys get bought by the mainstream studios to increase their offerings beyond mere blockbusters and thus really should rename them Ds. Because no longer independent they must ergo be Dependant.

But its Oscar time. When all the good movies come out. They save them. For the ‘recency effect’. The last great film you saw was the best film you saw. Unless its shit.

So we went to see ‘If Beale Street could talk’ last night. Which was a million miles from ‘shit’. It’s a powerful film. It’s a sad film. It’s a charming film. It’s a tragic film. And most of all it is an exceptionally beautiful film. But a film so self-consciously aware of its own beauty that its also something a very slow film. And I don’t know how they do that when the plot seems to move much more quickly than the action. Yet every shot is considered, contemplated, cogitated upon, mulled over and presented in the most wonderfully beautiful manner. The acting is fantastic and strong. The characters believable and, yes, beautiful. So for 2 hours you wallow in this astounding beauty whilst feeling the pain of the plight it represents. Because this is not a happy film. You want it to be as happy as it is beautiful but that is probably the whole point. Beauty is skin deep and in this case that skin in black, in Harlem, in nineteen sixty-something. And the poignancy of the tale is in stark contrast to the amazing cinematography.

Thus it becomes a very ‘interesting’ film. Slow but never boring, spectacular to watch but rather sad and tragic. And, obviously, the tale of institutional racism. Back then. Which is rather like it is ‘back now’ but without so much shooting.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx