The Escapism Festival begins tonight and runs til late on Sunday evening – Jett and I are ensconced and ready for the show.  One sentence previews follow: hope you’ll be with us in spirit if not body; and we’ll podcast next week about whether or not the experience renewed Jett’s love of the movies, or brought mine to an end…

Superman: The Movie – It’s the simple pleasures that I remember: Marlon Brando’s uppercrust English accent, small town Americana, Gene Hackman’s megalomania, Lois Lane’s sincere but complete missing of the point.

Planet of the Apes: It has a real story, with believable pacing, and actually manages to stay on the right side of melodrama in unfolding an only slightly implausible story about the end of the world.

Dr Strangelove: It has a real story, with believable pacing, and manages to stay on the right side of melodrama in unfolding a dramatic and only slightly implausible story about the end of the world.

The Black Hole: It has no believable characters, is paced like a rollercoaster whose tracks haven’t been oiled, and is brim-full of melodrama, but it was the first film I ever saw, and therefore can’t be evaluated as anything other than miraculous nostalgia.  I can’t wait to see it again.

All four screen tonight, tomorrow and Sunday, except ‘The Black Hole’ which you can see tonight and tomorrow only. Join us if you can.