Cine-Files

On Tuesday The Guardian's Film website published a review I wrote for their Cine-Files blog, a weekly look at cinemas across the world. My review was for the Amsterdam cinema Kriterion, a beautiful cinema in a city filled with gorgeous cinemas.

Kriterion is at the heart of the film industry in Amsterdam, and everyone I know in that city has worked there at some point or another.

You can read the article here.

The day we met Mark

Last night, Robert Beames and I recorded a podcast with Mark Kermode, Britain's most popular film critic, who was at the cinema for his book tour. The show was sold out and we didn't have a lot of time, so we were ready for him to be stressed and not very amenable to talking on our little podcast.

We were wrong - he was not only amenable, but went on for longer than we expected, and answered our very non-sycophantic questions with wit and verve. I disagree with almost everything he says (and I told him so on the podcast) but compulsively listen in every week anyway. He does make talking about film, discussing it, and arguing about it, exciting, and although I wish he was paired up with a serious film critic instead of Simon Mayo, I do enjoy it.

His book, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE MULTIPLEX is a collection of his most famous thoughts (3D is bad, projectionists are good, multiplexes are bad, indies are good) and I was ready to dismiss it until one of the chapters where he argues for public funding for independent and arthouse cinemas. This is something close to my own heart and I have been arguing for it for years. So it was nice to be confounded by my own expectations.

You can listen on iTunes here: Splendor Cinema Podcast