The General **** (1st Time)
1926, Keaton, US
In the Civil War, a Confederate train driver pursues Union soliders when they kidnap his girl and engine.
A chase comedy with one visual gag after another; tremendously shot, wonderfully played, and delightful to watch.

Heat ***
1995, Mann, US
A work-obsessed cop and professional thief go head to head and cause an uproar in LA.
Immense crime epic which shows two obsessed loners on opposing sides of the law going head to head in LA; it seems desperate to make a simple plot convoluted, and with its best scene an hour from the end, it is overlong.

Songs From the Second Floor ***
2000, Andersson, Swe
In a city in which the traffic moves only a few yards every hour, the inhabitants suffer from insanity, vagrancy, impatience, old age, atheism, and more.
Fantastic, unique film in which every scene is an unedited long take. The pace is painstaking, and the timing is flawless; a masterpiece of modern surrealism.

11 ' 09 '' 01-September 11 ***
2002,
Makhmalbaf/Lelouch/Chahine/Tanovic/Ouedraogo/Loach/González Iñárritu/Truchot/Gitaï/Nair/Penn/Imamura,
Iran/Fr/Egypt/Bosnia-Herzegovina/Burkina Faso/GB/Mex/Isr/Ind/US/Jap
Eleven short films, each eleven minutes, nine seconds and one frame long, made by directors from around the world, about or around the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001.
A varied edcollaboration piece which presents the conflicting needs and duties of a wildly contrasting contemporary world. The most effective are (arguably) Ken Loach's remembrance of a CIA-backed coup d'etat of a democratically elected Chilean government on September 11, 1973; González Iñárritu's sound montage and Biblical metaphor of various sources taken from September 11; Amos Gitaï's one-take episode of a journalist's report of a Tel Aviv bombing just as the New York Trade Centres are attacked; and Samira Makhmalbaf's opening, in which an Afghan teacher tries to engage a young class with the tragedy of the World Trade Centre attacks.

GoodFellas ****
1990, Scorsese, US
The account of Henry Hill, an Irish-Italian gangster turned Government Witness.
Excellent depiction of crime, directed with an assured verve and energy that never lets up, so that every aspect of the tour de force filmmaking combine together for a treat for the senses.

A busy two days, to catch up on the lost weekend.

Mick