Feb 28th     
Bagdad Cafe*     
(WG 1987)
Island Pictures/BayerischerRundfunk/Hessischer Rundfunk. 95m.

A German woman is abandoned by her husband in the middle of the California desert, and finds refuge in a ramshackle motel cafe.
The epitome of quirkiness in this offbeat road-stop movie about dysfunctional characters stranded together coming to terms with their lives, both eccentrically made and cast.

w: Eleonore Adlon, Percy Adlon
d: Percy Adlon
s: Marianne Sagebrecht, C.C.H. Pounder, Jack Palance, G. Smokey Campbell, Christine Kaufmann, Hans Stadlbauer
ph: Bernd Heinl
m: Bob Telson

Feb 23rd  
The Fabelmans**  (12A)
(Cinema City, Norwich)

(US 2022)  
Universal/Amblin/Reliance. 151m.

Young Sam Fabelman (aka. Steven Spielberg) is taken by his loving parents to see De Mille's The Greatest Show on Earth, and develops his enthusiasm for film making through his troubled teenage years.
Laboured memoir from a nowadays more leisurely 76-year old wunderkind; almost transforming into a Spielberg film as his life story likewise progresses, with minor hints of his later films (just as E.T., Poltergeist, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park and others all had minor references to Spielberg's childhood.) Some occasional eye-catching performances and moments of magic, in what is not surprisingly, a sentimental family tribute.

Written by: Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner.
Producers: Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, Kristie Macosko Krieger.
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Starring: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Gabriel LaBelle (as Spielberg), Seth Rogan, Judd Hirsch, Chloe East, David Lynch (as John Ford)
Photography: Janusz Kaminski.
Music: John Williams.
Editing: Michael Kahn, Sarah Brosher.

+ Spielberg himself introduces the film to cinema audiences

Leonard Maltin review

THE FABELMANS. A great likeness of the teenage Steven Spielberg by Gabriel LaBelle, flirting with Christianity in the form of his high school girlfriend Monica (Chloe East)

                                     

 Feb 14th  
The Notebook*  
(US 2004)
New Line/Gran Via. 124m. ws

Two elderly residents at a South Carolina nursing home tell the story of when they were young lovers in the 1940s.
Slushy romance on a grand scale but with most of the interesting characters and situations in the sidelines; as in the similarly trashy Titanic, the young lovers look winsome and modern within their period trappings, and the whole flashback is a possible fabrication from the notebook anyway. The veterans know how to carry off a decent drama in the film's poignant ending.

Written by: Jeremy Leven, Jan Sardi, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks.
Producers: Lynn Harris, Markm Johnson.
Director: Nick Cassavetes.
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner, Gena Rowlands, James Marsden, Joan Allen, Kevin Connolly, David Thornton, Sam Shepard, Jamie Brown.
Photography: Robert Fraisse.
Music: Aaron Zigman.

Preceded by:
Frozen Hearts
(US 1923. 25m. bw. silent; Flabby Tolstoy spoof from Laurel's early Hal Roach days, pre-Hardy.; d: J.A. Howe; s: Stan Laurel, James Finlayson, Mae Laurel, Katherine Grant, Pierre Couderc.)