Film Festival Weekend

I've been otherwise engaged this last weekend, as my young man came up from London to visit.

One of the reasons he came was the Film Festival, and the chance to see The Wicker Man on the big screen (the original version with Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee rather than the re-make with Nicholas Cage).
Earlier in the evening, we got to go to the Launch Party on behalf of the Cinema (Deb generously said that, as I did the cinema window, I should get to go to the party). It was held upstairs in Booths, and the re-decoration had only just been finished. It used to give off a general aura of shabbiness - but now! Two-seater settees down the middle of the floor, piled with comfortable cushions and blankets, and a tree fern at the far end. New roof lights, more comfortable seating at the front of the shop - it's all very impressive.
Addyman's won the bottle of champagne for the best window (they put up a lot of old movie posters and even have a costume for Henry VIII), and Backfold Books came runner-up - chiefly, I think, for the inclusion in the display of a book about the history of the chicken in film!

The Wicker Man was great fun, and we also went to see Carravagio, directed by Derek Jarman. Which was - odd, and disjointed, and visually gorgeous, and starred a young Sean Bean. Carravagio himself, Mark informed me, also played King Arthur in Excalibur. We staggered out of that one saying "I need a drink now," and retired to Kilvert's to try to make sense of what we'd just seen!