Nyman Piano Concerto and MGF
Really - this CD is fantastic. Introduced to me by a very wise man I really reccomend a listen.

Avenue Q - Broadway Soundtrack
This is funny!! How funny? Well I almost crashed my car when I heard "The internet is for Porn" the 1st time. Lifes not complete until you hear this soundtrack.

Classic Review - Why I think you should buy and watch this film now!!!!!

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg

Has been a film that I loved and was intrigued by form the very 1 st time I saw a faded print shown on UK television many hours past my bed time. On 1 st viewing you would be forgiven for feeling skeptical about this film. There are a few things about this film that make it totally unique, the most obvious being is that there is no spoken dialogue – the whole thing is sung and set to Michelle Legrands' score.

Michelle Legrand writes with minimal thematic material, he uses wonderful 2 – 4 bar hooks that manage to encapsulate the entire mood and intention of the story he’s writing for and then, using a series of variation and sequence development techniques reels us in. It’s very difficult to stop listening to a Legrand melody part way through so think of a melody that runs the entire length of a film, twisting and turning providing the drama, sorrow, anger, happiness that the dialogue delivery would be giving us in any other film.

Suffice to say this film makes for compulsive viewing (and listening). Demy also takes intrinsic states of mind from the characters and plasters them all over the walls and puts them in the action, for example when lovers express love all the walls are painted in clashing bright day-glo paint, outdoors to reflect the characters inner euphoria.

Technically this movie is boundary breaking for a film of its year / budget and the story broke all the rules that Hollywood wrote for a musical love story. Thanks to Demy’s amazing foresight; he shot the movie on Eastman neg. stock to capture the vivid colours he required, however this stock had a very short shelf live so by the 80’s there was no good print of the film available – he had however thought to make 3 negative prints of the separate colours and lock them away, we are able to see the film in its original glory today.

Starring Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel, Ellen Farner, Mireille Perrey

Stuart Fox

A Restoration of this film is available very cheaply from Amazon.co.uk - Click below and get your copy.