Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

Sam Mendes' own tribute to cinema, this had all of the bits that you would hope for in a homage to cinema of his youth, and with clear tributes to Cinema Paradiso amongst others, and so it was a lovely trip down memory lane for me.   Empire of Light is set in 1980-81 in a seafront cinema in Margate and focuses on Hilary (Olivia Coleman) the deputy cinema manager, who clearly has a challenging past, and her relationship with new colleague Steve (Micheal Ward).  Anyone who was around in that period will remember the air of faded glamour, and glory days long past that hung around cinemas in that period.   I was an usherette in the Barking Odeon between 1978 and 1980, and so I spent my time at the cinema yesterday in a little haze of nostalgia, from the empty and dusty function rooms full of stacked chairs, and the feel of the empty place when there were no customers,  to the sweet stand at the front, and the meticulous collection and audit of the tickets....

  Continuing on my Olivia Coleman odyssey, last night I caught up with The Father.     What a fantastic piece of work this is.     Anthony Hopkins channels King Lear with his anger, frustration and bewilderment with what appear to be his three daughters.     We share his view of the world as it changes around him seeming to make no sense, and as all spirals to the devastating ending,  he and we briefly have clarity before the fog descends again.       Olivia Coleman is stunning too (of course) as the daughter with impossible choices, and makes it possible to sympathise with her decisions even while we are seeing the consequences.     Absolutely gut-wrenchingly impressive.

Still following the degrees of connection in my viewing I decided to follow the breadcrumb trails from Olivia Coleman and Paul Mescal which led me to finally watch this film, written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, which is (partly at least) another meditation on parenthood.  Olivia Coleman is Leda, a deliberately evocative name if I ever heard one, spending a week alone in a beachside get-away. The family that arrives to disrupt her peace is an irritant and a trigger for a series of flashes of memory about motherhood and relationship with her daughters.  Having so recently watched Aftersun, I can’t help but see this as a partner piece, but this time there is no nostalgic childlike filter to soften the edges.  The chaotic, brutal and unsparing look at the constant denial of self that parenting often requires was really on point, and the petty triumphs that the young version of Leda (an excellent Jessie Buckley) exacts are as recognisable as they are painful.  This...

I am in love, that giddy sort where you want to tell everyone about your new love, and your heart leaps every time someone mentions them. One of the features of a crush is the need to mention them as often as possible to anyone who will listen. So, I am going to gush - look away if it is too painful.  My new love is Alice Oseman's Heartstopper series. I had read some of the graphic novels and webcomic and thought it was beautifully done, but missed the Netflix series when it first appeared. I've made up for it since.  The TV series is a real gem, a shining jewel which has unfrozen my cynical old heart. There have been a lot of reviews celebrating the inclusivity and importance of authentic casting and the representation of the LGBTQ+ teen experience in this series, and they absolutely are some of the reasons it is so successful but not the only ones.  Using fresh takes on romcom tropes, idealised and pure of heart it may be, but these feel like real 3D teens navigating...