Cafe Society

Last night I watched the movie The Usual Suspects, directed by Bryan Singer. The movie is told in flashback as con-man "Verbal" Kint (played by Kevin Spacey) recounts the events leading up to a horrific gun battle at the Los Angeles docks which led to 27 dead. Events that began six weeks earlier when Verbal and four other crooks (played by Benicio del Toro, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak and Gabriel Byrne) are brought together in a police line-up. The film has one of the most famous end twists in cinema history. The movie won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (for Kevin Spacey) and Best Original Screenplay.

The new issue of Sight and Sound arrived in the mail, as did a new hat that I had ordered.

I went to the movies this afternoon and saw Cafe Society, directed by Woody Allen. It stars Jesse Eisenburg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carrell and Blake Lively, and is set in the 1930s and tells the story of a young man from New York who goes to Hollywood to work for his uncle, who is a big-time Hollywood agent, and where he falls for a girl who is already involved with a married man. It's not very funny, but it is one of the better Woody Allen films, it's certainly his best looking film, the whole thing is beautifully shot.