Tag: Film

A camera!

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What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?

We were cycling home on our tandem one summer evening, when suddenly we turned round in the road. I had no idea what was going on, it was a narrow country road and it surprised me.

We pulled up and my hubby started looking on the grass verge. There was a camera just lying there! We didn’t know what to do, so we took it home (we were in the middle of the countryside), with the idea of seeing if there was a film inside and getting it developed if there was. We would try and get it back to its owners somehow? This was about 30 or so years ago before we had the Internet, so there wasn’t much hope of finding its owners.

We sent the film off, but it came back blank, it must have been lost when someone put a new film in, maybe put it on top of a car and forgot to move it when they drove off.

I have to say I had forgotten all about it until I saw this prompt, and now I feel guilty for not reuniting it with it’s owners.

Ten Favorite movies.

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What are your top ten favorite movies?

I’m going to choose ten starring James Stewart rather than lots of random films…

Mr Smith goes to Washington (an honest politician).

Harvey (costarring an invisible rabbit)

It’s a wonderful life, with Clarence (an Angel)

Destry Rides again (cowboy)

The Philadelphia story,

Winchester ’73 (cowboy)

No Highway in the sky (about metal fatigue in a plane)

The Glenn Miller story

Vertigo (Hitchcock film)

Rear Window (Hitchcock film)

There are many more but these are ones I remember. There is a filmography on Wikipedia with more details of his films. He was an amazing actor and I loved his films from an early age.

Ustinov

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Quick sketch of Peter Ustinov.

I just watched a compilation programme of Peter Ustinov being interviewed by Michael Parkinson. It was fascinating to see him after so many years. He was a writer, actor, mimic, humorist. He was of Russian and descent but also had ancestors from other countries. He acted in Spartacus and Quo Vardis amongst other films.

Hearing his tales of his time in the army, film, school life, and theatre among other things was hilarious. He was charming and debonair.

I had forgotten how funny he was. He made Parkinson laugh and chuckle as he told tall stories. This was in the 1970’s or 1980’s. I can’t remember much about the programme when it was first shown, but this was wonderful. If you can get the BBC Iplayer I would suggest trying to see it…. Or if not look him up and try and find some of the films he was in.

Daisy daisy

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Artrage drawing with metallic and non metallic textures. Duplicated because I was thinking of the song ‘Daisy daisy, give me your answer do…’, I remember at the end of the film ‘2001 a space oddessy’, the computer Hal2000 starts to sing the song as its memory is being deleted by Dave Bowman, the sole surviving astronaut.

If you’ve never seen the film, or read the book (by Arthur C Clarke), I’m sorry for the spoiler. The book goes into a lot more detail, and several of the main parts of the story were changed in the film. Clarke went on to write sequels to the story from different protagonists perspectives. I can’t remember them all but they were good reads too. When you think how old the original book is you can forgive some of the odd, old fashioned ideas, and the film seems slow in comparison to films in today’s times, but it’s a beautiful piece of work. No massive cgi special effects or green screen, just well painted images merging in with the live action. Worth a read or a watch….. I won’t reveal the rest of the story….

Watching the end of Close Encounters

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UFOs

Describe one of your favorite moments.

I watched the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind when it first came out. It had been a wild adventure for the hero and heroine and it wasn’t clear what would finally happen. So it was joyful at the end when the moment came that the hero got to go on board the space ship. The music soared and so did it, glowing lights and a wild structure lifting up into the dark sky.

I felt so elated at the end. So happy, it had been an amazing film. It was mysterious, comedic, obsessive, intriguing, a real journey of discovery. That final moment was like the icing on the cake!

Steven Spielberg was the director and the film was great, no real violence, a lot of thought behind it, references to UFO mythology like a group of aircraft that had gone missing over the Bermuda triangle suddenly reappearing decades later. The sound track was amazing with the humans and aliens communicating with musical tones. The special effects were wonderful, beautiful, extravagant. But I still keep going back to the final moments. That’s what I remember, magical entertainment and a wonderful time,

Summer is….

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An ancient song…

Summer is icumen in

Lhud-e sing cuckoo

Groweth seed and bloweth mead

And springs the wood-e noo

Sing cuckoo

Ew-e bleateth after lamb

Low th after calv-e coo

Bullock starteth

Buck-e parteth

Merry sing cuckoo

Cuckoo cuckoo

Well sing-est thou

Cuckoo, nay stop thou never noo

(Foot/Burden)

Sing cu-ckoo noo sing cuckoo

This is an ancient summer song from England. It’s rustic words are a real tongue twister to sing. Our choir tackle it at this time of year. I tend to sing the burden because it’s a simple repeating line. You need good breathing though because it runs along below the main song and usually starts before and ends after the rest of the choir. We sing the music as a round, normally four groups for the tune singing summer is icumen in.. Summer is icumen in.. One group after the other. The foot/Burden group is usually split into two groups of two and start Sing Cu-ckoo… Sing Cu-ckoo…. Over and over.

As a side note, the first time I saw the song was in the film ‘the Green Man’ with Edward Woodward. The villagers sing this after he is captured as a sacrifice. I always get a little chill down my spine when we sing it! You can probably find it on YouTube…..

On the other side of the sky

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I just looked at the sky from the other side… I mean I watched the film Gravity and it struck me that it looks much the same from above and below? Maybe the clouds are on a different scale, but they are still white and grey, the blue sea mimics the blue of the sky. We are truly a blue and white marble in the deep ocean of black space. We fall up to space, or down to earth, the thin atmosphere is all that protects us against hard radiation and vacuum.

Watching videos

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I’ve fallen into a bad habit, I’ve started to watch a lot of Facebook videos, one after the other. My phone keeps showing me hairdressing videos, five minute crafts, films about Agate, car crashes, American politics, police stopping cars. The trouble is its easier to watch one after the other rather than whole TV shows. Part of it is because hubby likes watching train and war films. I get bored by whether the train is running on narrow or standard gauge or even broad gauge. I don’t want to know the difference between tanks and armoured cars. I don’t want to know which general won what battle. So the phone videos have increased, which I think might be impacting on my arm problems. I don’t think I’m addicted, but it’s keeping my mind off things….

Watching a Wonderful Life

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Christmas is the time I like to watch old films, cheerful and poignant. Today I had the pleasure of watching James Stewart in a Wonderful life. Its a lot more complex than I remember it. Stewart plays George Bailey who runs a small savings and loan company. He is up against a villain called Potter who wants to own Stewarts company as well as everything else in the town. The story turns on a mishap with the companies money. Stewart in desperation want to kill himself, but is shown a world without himself, and doesnt like what he finds. I’m not posting any spoilers. Watch it if you can!

Three years ago…

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Three years ago I was an extra in a film called Humanus, this is me made up for the preview which was featured on local TV. It was a comedy /rom com/horror /mystery and it was fun to be in! The cast were members of the inter- theatre company and the director was Steve Mitchell. If you look it up you might find Humanus, or at least the trailer on YouTube. It was especially good because part of it was filmed in the Leopard Hotel in Burslem (sadly destroyed by fire earlier this year). Better times…