Wishing you all best luck with it, Jake!

Tom Mothersdale, Romola Garai and Olivier Huband in A Doll's House. They are hugging and dancing in a chilly blue light, with Garai in the centre: a dance that looks like a disaster. Photo by Marc Brenner

Anya Reiss is one of our best playwrights: funny, fierce & ruthless, propelled by love & rage. Her new version of A Doll's House at the Almeida is scalpel sharp & pindrop tense, wrenching the play into the present, almost to the hour, with Romola Garai as a glorious, dangerous Nora.

Yes, the Renko novels are such a rich shadow history of Russia, and his prose so unfussy, unhurried, unerring. They're wisdom without sanctimony, and always that dark humour too. Like le Carré — and Hergé! — he's a writer whose work will always be essential to understanding his era.

Such a great novel! My favourite Renko story: so prescient, so poignant. I really miss Cruz Smith’s wry, witty, world-weary voice on the page.

How wonderful! Congratulations, and what a promising year of new films ahead.

Benjamin Voisin as Meursault and Rebecca Marder as Marie in L'ETRANGER. They are shot from above, in monochrome, lying on a beach in fierce sunlight, his head on her stomach.

François Ozon's haunting, timely adaptation of L'ETRANGER is a masterclass in directing. The first half is almost silent, told in striking, sensual imagery, the second driven by two dramatic set pieces. Benjamin Voisin is a charismatic, unsettling Meursault and Rebecca Marder a heartbreaking Marie.

Georges Seurat (1859-1891), Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy, 1888, oil on canvas. A canvas divided diagonally, with a grassy cliff on the left side and a shimmering sea on the right, not long before sunset.

If you can't get to the real seaside this Easter, Seurat and the Sea at the Courtauld Gallery is a holiday in 26 paintings. I found it very moving: Seurat sold only 3 pictures in his lifetime before dying at just 31, making these shimmering summertime seascapes feel as fragile as they are beautiful.

Have you read Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon? Hugely successful in its day, it's a sensational tale of bigamy, murder, ambition and revenge, with a daring, dangerous female lead. Here's the Audible version by Olivia Poulet, there are probably others: www.audible.co.uk/pd/Lady-Audl...

Tim Crouch as Prospero in The Tempest at the Globe: a bearded magician standing in front of a backdrop that includes a model ship, a feathered wing and relics from many cultures.

Tim Crouch's The Tempest at the Globe is spellbinding, combining his characteristic playfulness and thoughtfulness to create an original, beautiful version that confronts the play's problems while enhancing its magic. Sophie Steer is, of course, a marvel as Miranda, and the whole cast is a delight.

“Having been in Silicon Valley for 50 years, I’m an expert in assholes. 99.9 percent of assholes are egocentric assholes. But Steve was one of the very rare mission-driven assholes."

Guy Kawasaki, quoted in David Pogue's quest to understand Steve Jobs, for @nymag.com: nymag.com/intelligence...

Arif Jakup as Ahmet and Agush Agushev as his younger brother Naim: two boys, one standing and one sitting on a blue tractor, set against Macedonian farmland in DJ AHMET.

I hugely enjoyed Georgi M. Unkovski's DJ AHMET (Диџеј Ахмет) a coming-of-age tale with teeth about a young Macedonian shepherd who loves dance music and his beautiful neighbour Aya, but whose conservative community seeks to deny him both. Wonderfully acted & beautifully shot, it's in UK cinemas now.

‘Project Hail Mary’ Filmmakers Had a Radical Idea for Composer Daniel Pemberton The composer, also known for Phil Lord and Chris Miller's 'Spider-Verse' movie, discusses his process on the hit film, which he calls the most challenging of his career: "I don't think I've ever been ...

I think Gore Vidal got it wrong: there are few greater pleasures than celebrating a friend's success. So I'm thrilled for Daniel Pemberton, whose magnificent music is a huge contribution to PROJECT HAIL MARY's impact. Here he is on creating the score: www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

Becoming a Centenarian Like The New Yorker, I was born in 1925. Somewhat to my surprise, I decided to keep a journal of my hundredth year.

RIP Calvin Tomkins, the @newyorker.com's great profiler of contemporary artists, and a terrific biographer of Rauschenberg, Duchamp and more. Here's his funny, tender, touching memoir of his 100th year, from December: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

La main du diable Directed by Maurice Tourneur • 1943 • France A "helping hand" comes at a high price for a painter named Roland Brissot. Offered a bargain too good to refuse, Brissot accepts a talisman that leads to ...

Apologies, I just discovered that it was released in the US as CARNIVAL OF SINNERS, for no good plot reason! Here's the link to stream it on Criterion in the US: www.criterionchannel.com/videos/la-ma...

Mr Klein is such a smart, slippery film! Delon at his best. And yes, cinema is a such a potent medium for stories about collaboration: it’s so good (sometimes dangerously so) at manipulating our sympathy and playing with point of view.

Yes, on Criterion disc in UK and US and streaming on Criterion in US and Canada.

Pierre Palau as the devil in The Devil's Hand: a smallish, balding man in a dark suit and hat with a deeply un-nerving expression, sitting in front of a ticking clock ...

THE DEVIL'S HAND (Maurice Tourneur, 1943) is a Faustian tale about a struggling artist who sells his soul for wealth & renown. Made under German occupation, it's also a powerful & enduring warning about the perils of collaboration, with a truly unsettling performance by Pierre Palau as the devil.

There's a Criterion blu ray in US and UK, and it's streaming on Criterion in US and Prime in Canada.

It's wonderful! Some remarkable sequences: Duvivier spent the war in Hollywood and clearly learned from watching Hitchcock and Welles. The Patrice Leconte version (1989) is also very good, and closer to Simenon's novel. Duvivier's is on UK Criterion blu ray: www.criterion.com/films/29510-...

Michel Simon in PANIQUE (1946): a bearded man, shot from below, set against a corner house with a woman peering down from above.

Julien Duvivier’s PANIQUE (1946), adapted from Simenon's Les Fiançailles de M. Hire, really shook me. It's Duvivier's first French film after WW2 & its portrayal of mob justice in a paranoid society is timely & chilling today. Stunningly shot, with a heartbreaking lead performance by Michel Simon.

Harrison Ford: Life Achievement Award Acceptance Speech | 32nd Annual Actor Awards YouTube video by Netflix

Beautiful speech by Harrison Ford, accepting his SAG-AFTRA Life Achievement Award last night with warmth, grace and love of his craft and colleagues: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV_2...

I sometimes struggle with historical films to see past the reality of actors in costume on set, but for me Ann Lee had the magic of The Seventh Seal, The New World or Barry Lyndon: I was completely transported into its world and form (while totally understanding why it doesn't work for some people!)

What a great interview! Thanks so much for this, sounds like you had a really good time with AS. I saw her wonderful Barbican concert with Daniel Blumberg last month after a screening of the film: it was thrilling to see the intensity & trust between them as collaborators. Love the film, too.

Natasha Hodgson made this lovely radio doc about it, and her relationship with it: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Honestly the dream for me ... www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...

I loved Robin Sloan's MOONBOUND, a wildly ambitious, playful far future adventure: www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/

A poster for HAROLD AND MAUDE (Hal Ashby, 1971) designed by Sam Ashby with art by Paul Slater. It shows a young man and an older woman standing beneath a yellow umbrella as perilous objects fall from the sky.

RIP the great Bud Cort, b. 1948 and one of cinema's most distinctive and original actors. We commissioned this poster for a LOCO screening of Hal Ashby's HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971) co-starring Ruth Gordon, one of the most magical, mischievous, melancholic movies ever made.

Congratulations Mark! Hope premiere goes really well, looking forward to seeing it.

Peter Lorre in THE LOST ONE, lighting a cigarette in the darkness, his face sallow, his eyes hollow.

Peter Lorre’s THE LOST ONE (1951), his only film as director, is the darkest of noirs. A Nazi doctor kills his lover for her treachery, has his crime covered up by the state and, crazed with guilt, kills again. A powerful portrait of how authoritarianism corrupts, from @filmsradiance.bsky.social.

How wonderful! Congratulations, really looking forward to it.