Got a spare 20 minutes? Then press 'play' and watch this lovely film about the unlikely friendship between a young runaway and an old homeless man. It features beautiful cinematography and long, lingering scenes of stillness in a busy city. And the music, by Mumford & Sons and Radiohead, is a treat, too.
You can find out more about the film, which was produced to help promote the homeless charities Anchor House and The Big Issue Foundation, on the official website.
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I had wanted to see Black Swan at the cinema when it was first released but never got around to it. Watching it on our Apple TV on Saturday night may have not been quite the same, but I found it a profoundly disturbing film about one woman discovering the dark side of herself. It's set in a prestigious New York ballet company but this isn't really a film about ballet: it's a psychological thriller of the finest order and a clever depiction of mental illness. Natalie Portman's performance in the star role is mesmerising.
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Once-upon-a-time — well, 2006 anyway — I spotted Irish actor Brendan Gleeson wandering the streets of Venice. No one blinked an eye at him, but I knew him from The Snapper and Braveheart and Michael Collins and The General and a whole host of other movies. After his star turn in The Guard — which we saw at The Electric cinema in Notting Hill last weekend — I doubt he'll have the freedom to move around Venice without being mobbed by fans, or someone wanting to have a go at him for being a racist cop!
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I seem to be going through a period of watching sporting documentaries.
A few weeks ago I saw Closer to the Edge, a 3D movie about the Isle of Man TT, at the cinema. It was an exciting film but I had a few journalistic issues with it.
And then, on Saturday, we went to see Senna, a documentary about the life and death of Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna, which left me reeling in its wake. I came out of the cinema feeling completely shell-shocked, and I've been thinking about the film ever since.
I think it's fair to say that Senna is a triumph of film editing. There are no "talking heads" in the film. The entire feature has been put together using archived footage of interviews with Senna, including race footage and home movies.
Similarly, there is no single person narrating the story. It is told by sound clips and interviews with people close to Senna -- his mother, his sister -- and those that worked or raced alongside him, including key figures in Formula One racing.
It all adds up to a well-rounded portrait of a young Brazilian who is regarded as one of motor racing's greats.
Even if you don't like F1, I'd urge you to go see this film. Not only is it a a truly remarkable feat of documentary film-making, it tells a compelling story about a man who transcended sport to become a global superstar without losing his integrity, his values and his beliefs.
Obviously it doesn't have a happy ending -- Senna was killed at the San Marino Grand Prix on May 1, 1994 -- but the film is inspiring, dramatic and sobering, by turn. I hope it garners awards aplenty for the director Asif Kapadia.
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The names of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Michael Holding dominated my childhood and teenage years. For 15 years, the West Indies cricket team ruled the world. They were the only team that toured Australia that everyone wanted to watch.
But it wasn't always that way.
This documentary, which I watched on DVD last night, reveals how they climbed to the top, with, I might add, a little help from Australian media mogul Kerry Packer, who apparently gave them a kick up the backside and told them he'd boot them out of his World Series Cricket competition if they didn't lift their game. The rest, they say, is history.
(Dad, if you are reading this post, you've got to see this film, you'll love it!)
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Three of us have just been to see the Yangshou Impressions Light Show (also known as Impression, Liu Sanjie) which can only be described as a triumph of choreography, team-work and human creativity.
Directed by film director and cinematographer Zhang Yimou (who also directed the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics), it uses the limestone peaks as a natural backdrop and the entire performance is set on water. More than 600 locals, including fishermen and their cormorants, take part in the show.
I had no idea what to expect when I got there. Indeed, we didn't even know if we had seats for the 70-minute performance or whether we had to stand up. Not being able to understand Chinese was a slight problem, and the convoluted queuing system where we were herded up and corralled like sheep, on three separate occasions (first to be assigned a ticket guide, the second to get into the main gate, the third to enter the arena) was a little frustrating.
But once we got into the venue proper and discovered our seats were in the third row, it didn't seem so bad after all.
Of course we had no idea what the story unfolding before our eyes was all about (because of the language barrier), but the performance was undoubtedly eye-catching and spine-tingling all at the same time. The colours and the sounds were just stunning. That everything was done on water was even more impressive.
At one point a line of happy smiling girls dressed in national costume stood in front of us and belted out a high-pitched song that would have shattered crystal if any had been present. Talk about awesome lungs!
Some of the stage direction reminded me of the strong colours in Raise the Red Lantern, one of Zhang Yimou's films, and there were elements, such as the women with dresses adorned in electric lights, that would not have been out of place at a U2 concert.
As for crowd behaviour, it was pretty much impeccable. The Chinese don't seem to be particularly enthusiastic or demonstrative -- hardly anyone clapped or cheered -- but they did seem to enjoy the children whenever they took centre stage.
And getting out of the venue was nowhere near as complicated as getting in: we simply followed one of the Chinese chaps we shared a mini-bus with, met our Chinese driver at the designated meeting point and we were back in our hotel room within 20 minutes of the gig finishing. Try doing that at Wembley Stadium.
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