Four films

Heat (1995)

A freeview offering, watched for Al Pacino. Managed about half of it before deciding that it was all too nihilistic. A well made affair, but far too much a glorification of cold blooded killing. Glorification of violent crime. FIL, who had spent some years in field operating theatres during the second war, used to say 'I have seen quite enough mangled bodies for real, no need to see any more on telly'. In my case it is maybe just age: old enough for real ailments to take the fun out of fake death and too old to have much aggression left to need stimulation.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Another freeview offering, watched because I had once owned and more than once enjoyed the book, ditto the television series. Managed about half before giving up. Somehow it just managed to irritate, having become more a costume drama than a thriller. While, having joined the civil service not long after the story was set, I had enjoyed the portraits of civil service life both in the book and in the series, in the film the portrait seemed to have morphed into a costume drama with too much emphasis on the costume and not enough on the drama. Another well made affair, but did nothing for me. Maybe, as with 'Heat', better suited to a younger audience than me.

Miss Congeniality (2000)

And another freeview offering, watched because we had previously seen Sandra Bullock disporting herself in 'Gravity' (see 12th December). Another take on the the love-hate relationship that the US has with beauty pageants and beauty queens. Another take on the 'Pygmalion' yarn. Entertaining twaddle and we made it all the way through. Perhaps we will get onto Morecambe and Wise yet.

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

The only one of the four paid for, prompted by Amazon, the buying of Amarcord (vide supra) having made them think, rightly on this occasion, that I was a good punt for this one. Not bad for an old film which had been dubbed from the Italian. A thin plot about bicycles, providing a frame on which to hang a series of vignettes about life in Rome shortly after the second war. Moderately entertaining and we managed it all the way through, if perhaps not living up to what it said on the tin about it being the best foreign language film ever.

Nature notes

Back in the real world, the bright and breezy morning called for a Horton Clockwise, where there was one handsome heron flapping its way across the edge of the Country Park and the first few celandines in the verge along the west side of Horton Lane. What looked like one small tree down in the Longmead Road with the adjacent stream a good bit lower than it had been the previous afternoon, on the way back from the Neapolitan Kitchen (http://www.theneapolitankitchen.co.uk/), our Valentine lunch spot.