Sometimes. Always. Never.

I love stylish movies. I love funny movies. Sometimes Always Never is filmed like a series of Hopper paintings with jokes hidden in plain sight. If you like your dialogue crisp and your establishing shots crisper, this is the film for you.
Bill Nighy's name is above the door in this terrific directorial debut from Carl Hunter. Frank Cottrell-Boyce's screenplay about a retired tailor looking for his prodigal son is given a seemingly minimalist treatment by Hunter, but look a little deeper and this tight family based drama is a rich seam of Scrabble words, missing children, Marmite gags and red Triumph Heralds; what's not to like when references to Pickwick label Top of the Pops albums and which buttons to do up on your suit jacket* flow as naturally as Jenny Agutter walking out of the bathroom wearing nothing more than a towel?

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, it turns out the soundtrack is only written and performed by Edwyn bloody Collins. This is a film I will watch time and again; I just know it.

Edwyn Collins - It's all About You (2019)

* Top (sometimes), middle (always), bottom (never).

Imaginary girlfriend

Do you recognise the girl above? Would you be able to pick her out in an identity parade? Chances are that even if you couldn't your parents almost certainly would be able to tap her on the shoulder; though they probably wouldn't know what she was called.

Tina, her given name, was as ubiquitous as flock wallpaper in households during the 60s and beyond. She took pride of place, clutching that tree for dear life, above many a mantle up and down the land. Art? Sort of. Wall decoration? Most certainly.

She was the brainchild of artist J H Lynch who would conjure up these nymph photofits and fill a whole canvas with a pretty face, cascading hair and bare shoulders. Always on the right side of the prevailing decency and moral codes of the day, Lynch had discovered a winning formula and he stuck to it. These days Jack Vettriano ploughs a similar furrow.