Fun-ish fact: like Liza Minnelli and other entertainers, Zetterlund had scoliosis. And flourished in spite of it.

Bowie, Bulgakov and hiding upstairs at a party. I have more in common with Lloyd Cole than I thought.

From Mephisto to Vermiglio and beyond, once again I join my fellow reviewers (242 this time) ranking the best of the past year's movie releases on #Blu-ray: www.dvdbeaver.com/subsite/best... @dvdbeaver.bsky.social @criterion.bsky.social @secondrun.bsky.social @indicator.bsky.social

Program illustration for the free concert given in the Off Bach series of Montreal's annual International Bach Festival on Dec. 2, 2025 by locally based musicians Quinn Robinson (viola), Thomas Beard (cello) and Russell Iceberg (violin), shown here with their instruments. They played the 1985 Sitkovetsky arrangement for string trio of Bach's 1741 'Goldberg Variations'.

What's better than a front-row, dead-centre seat for a local string trio playing Bach's 'Goldberg Variations'? Well, maybe this: when it's a free concert just a short walk from home. Here's the original 1985 arrangement by violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky, with his trio: www.youtube.com/watch?v=duVA...

Abdul-Wahab Kayyali in white shirt and jeans posing with his oud outdoors against a background of pale stone buildings in a hilltop town.

Harpsichord player Elizaveta Miller posing in an open-necked orange blouse against an embroidered wall hanging, gazing off-camera.

At the free "Off" shows of Montreal's annual Bach Festival, one of the joys is seeing unusual instruments up close, played by masters of their art, some new to Canada. This weekend it was the harpsichord with Russian emigré Elizaveta Miller and the oud with Lebanese-Palestinian Abdul-Wahab Kayyali.

Microdisney - A Friend With A Big Mouth (Peel Session 14 April 1984) YouTube video by Yoav Dolev-Hashiloni

youtu.be/QttSQc_LzZc?...

A screengrab from the 2024 Italian film Vermiglio, showing a young couple kissing at the entrance to a stone hut in the snowy Italian Alps.

Also updated my list of summer 2025 new releases with reviews of Vermiglio, Who Wants to Kill Jessie?, The Sons of Great Bear, High Noon, The Dresser, The Hireling, and a Zoltán Huszárik boxset. jeffheinrich.com/Summer-2025-... @criterion.bsky.social @secondrun.bsky.social @indicator.bsky.social

His face made up in white greasepaint, smoky-eyed and red-lipped, a Nazi-era stage actor (played by Klaus Maria Bandauer) examines himself in the mirror in a scene from István Szabó's 1981 film Mephisto.

Been waiting years for this: Mephisto, Colonel Redl & Hanussen, three seminal German-language '80s dramas by Hungary's István Szabó, now restored and together on region-free Blu-ray from @secondrun.bsky.social. Also excited by a lovely Bille August twofer via MVD. jeffheinrich.com/Autumn-2025-...

Adding my voice to the many reminiscences: in 2012, daughter in tow, I met Jimmy Cliff backstage after he closed the Montreal International Reggae Festival. "My energy's up!" Memorable. montrealgazette.com/entertainmen...

Front cover of Dire Straits self-titled first album, released June 9, 1978. Inside a wide yellow border, a painting in earth tones depicts a woman in shadow on a wide balcony, leaning against a pillar.

Front cover of Elvis Costello's second album, This Year's Model, released March 17, 1978. In suit and tie, he stands behind a Hasselblad 500 mounted on a tripod, staring straight ahead, hands on the camera.

Front cover of Bruce Springsteen's fourth album, released June 2, 1978. He's shown at home in a white T-shirt and black jacket, hands in pockets, leaning against a doorway and staring straight ahead.

Front cover of Al Stewart's eighth album, Time Passages, released Sept. 8, 1978. Out a window, a white camper van half-disappears in a time warp splitting Monument Valley in Arizona; inside, a radio dial glows.

Albums, plural.

98 producers, 465 wines & Jonathan Gebser's lesson on the "slow wine" movement: for me, the Italian Trade Agency Canada's tasting event at Montreal's Marché Bonsecours also meant quaffing some lovely white Abruzzo blends and Aurelio Settimo's great Barolo 2019, now just arrived at the SAQ ($55).

Where Do You Start? YouTube video by Rosemary Clooney - Topic

A classic break-up song. This track came over the car radio back in '89, catching me by surprise and making me pull over. Thanks, Rosie. youtube.com/watch?v=pQMl...

Brings to mind Maclean's magazine critic Brian D. Johnson, re. Jon Voight in the Arctic thriller Runaway Train: "A rare glimpse of wood north of the tree line."

Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel look at a blonde in Mike Nichols' 1971 film Carnal Knowledge.

Nicholson & Garfunkel, Polanski, Ealing Studios & Basil Dearden: get to know them all a bit better via these four new Blu-ray and UHD releases from @indicator.bsky.social.
jeffheinrich.com/Summer-2025-...

RIDM - Ophuls, dans les coulisses de toutes les tyrannies Invité d’honneur des 16es Rencontres internationales du...

You're welcome, but that link gives a 404 error. Here's the correct one: www.ledevoir.com/culture/cine...

Credit for this delightful photo should go to Montreal photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Pedro Ruiz. Here's his full-colour original in the daily newspaper Le Devoir: www.ledevoir.com/culture/cine...

Meanwhile, in the world of #AI ... (Gros soupir)

#LEGACY When we met in Montreal in 2013 for a @ridm-festival.bsky.social‬ career retrospective at @cinemathequeqc.bsky.social, Ophuls wrote atop the cover of an old French film magazine‬ he'd been featured in for 'The Sorrow and the Pity": "Le jeune cinéma n'est plus jeune. Il est vieux comme moi."

French-German documentary film director Marcel Ophuls (The Sorrow and the Pity, Hotel Terminus) drawn in 1988 by Canadian syndicated caricaturist Kerry Waghorn.

#OBIT I've always thought Canadian caricaturist Kerry Waghorn best captured the essence of #MarcelOphuls, who died Saturday at age 97: lips, glasses, jumper, slouch. And is that outstretched hand begging for funding or simply making a point?

Just getting to this, but oooph, what a harmonious musical experiment for our dissonant times. A big bravo!

"Dignity. Always dignity."

Orange-and-black label of Springbank 10 whisky.

Me too; huzzah to you both :-) The 10-year-old was long my go-to. Snagged a bottle for my travel companions a couple of years ago at a shop in Pitlochry. Salesman said they rarely get any in, receive no advance notice, and sell out within a matter of hours.

Everything But The Girl - On My Mind (Official Video 1983) YouTube video by Cherry Red Records

"In all honesty I’m terrified, but also quietly determined, in a way I haven’t been in a very, very long time." In 1983, your resolve was already plain to see – literally written on the wall! www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Zy...

This would be him made up for the role of the Soviet arms negotiator Botvinnik in Lee Blessing's 'A Walk in the Woods.' I saw that show in 1988 at London's Comedy Theatre, and met him afterwards at the stage door while he waited for his cab. Memorable!

Guinness in a suit and hat, sitting on stage in an empty theatre.

Remembering Alec Guinness on his birthday 🎂
📷 Michael Ward, 1985

"There was nothing he lacked, as far as I could see, except tact."
- John Gielgud

A home library shelf of books, DVDs, Blu-rays and a lone 7" single (from 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' soundtrack) featuring the late British actor Alec Guinness.

A hero. He gets half a shelf in my library (there's more behind).

Icyww, "Ornithologist" doesn't exist. The actual "International Journal of Avian Science" is called Ibis.

Tweets in a blue sky, cries of intelligent life: the birds and us.

a silhouette of a person standing next to a tree with a telephone pole in the background ALT: a silhouette of a person standing next to a tree with a telephone pole in the background

Did you know he loves rock groups, too ... as a scholar of dolmens and menhirs? #TheModernAntiquarian