4 - 10 FEB 2023

A December recommendation was the Storyville documentary A Bunch of Amateurs about the long-standing Bradford Movie Makers collective. There is some talk now that it is about to be turned into a feature film, which begs the question: Why? To answer, at least in part, my own question, I guess it is because, with the occasional prestige exception such as a Spielberg film, what we are offered seems to be divided thus: special effects laden franchise film (MCU, Avatar etc) or heritage cinema (some friends of a fisherman, marigolds, lady plus van, Phantom of the Open and the forthcoming Allelujah).  Praise the Lord, then, that we still have film societies!
JOJO RABBIT (2019) Saturday 4 February 9.00-11.10pm Channel 4   P       
10-year-old Jojo, a member of the Hitler Youth whose imaginary friend is the Fuhrer himself, befriends a Jewish girl. A hint of Marmite for some (and Hunt for the Wilderpeople was also, shall we say, different fare) but I think it is an audacious and quite brilliant piece of work. 
NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS (2020) Monday 6 February 11.15pm-12.50am BBC 2   P      
This evening’s premiere is an award-winning drama - 31 and counting - that follows a teenager’s journey to New York for an abortion. Sensitively performed, it is a film that really hits the mark. Call Jane, a more recent release whose story takes place before the 1973 Supreme Court judgement, will be on next season’s questionnaire.  
THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019) Wednesday 8 February 9.00-11.15pm Film Four   P       
Robert Eggers is the new, exciting director on the block – his most recent film The Northman also had rave reviews. In this b/w, eerie thriller Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson have just arrived at a remote lighthouse . . . .
JAVA HEAD (1934) Thursday 9 February 3.10-4.55pm Talking Pictures (Ch 82)      
Here’s a very rare showing for this early British talkie that is set in 19th-century Bristol (though the locations used were a maritime site in Massachusetts). Two brothers (played by John Loder and Ralph Richardson) take different paths in life; Anna May Wong heads the cast and marries one of them. The director, J Walter Ruben, made only a few films before his death in 1942, the biggest by far being Riffraff (1935) starring Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy. As for the British studio ATP, who made Java Head, their biggest successes of the decade were those that starred George Formby.