“... trying to prevent the villains from stealing a biological weapon. Captain America is there, and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Between them, they can fly, mechanically calibrate distances, drop bombs, kickbox like maniacs, and shoot fire from their fingers, but they have ...”

“... of the same picture we see the eyes and glasses again but this time we are more conscious of the black-gloved hand taking up a piece of the frame. Another poster shows Oldman looking preoccupied. The slogan is: ‘The secret is out.’ In yet another the picture is full-length, and Oldman stands tall against a background of snapshots of the other members of ...”

“... out. In what is perhaps the film’s most tense and understated scene, we are shown a large black SUV parked in an alley. Inside the car a conversation is taking place, which must settle our question one way or another. But we don’t know which way it will go, and we just stare at the dark windshield, the lumpy crude vehicle, the litter in the ...”

“... lady is supposed to, and the maid, Emilia (Laura Betti), taking care of a few chores. All this in black and white, as if to remind us what Neorealism used to look like before Fellini got hold of it. A postman fluttering his arms like an angel’s wings – just for fun, no symbolism intended, even if his name is Angelino – delivers a telegram to the ...”

“... new films to see at home, even if we have to wait for renewed acquaintance with Wonder Woman, the Black Widow and James Bond. Among the best of the recent releases is Arkansas (US only so far), directed by Clark Duke, perhaps best known for playing Clark Green in the American version of The Office. He has directed films before, but only short ones.The film ...”

“... driver in Kirill’s place. The scene takes place in a public baths. You get the idea: two men in black with short sharp knives and an intended victim with no clothes on: lots of blood and grunting; two deaths, one gouged eye; one unlikely survivor. It can’t be that Cronenberg has lost control here, since the scene is beautifully choreographed. But what ...”

“... disorientating. But the contrast between the immaculate physical setting – with its black or white gallery walls, some curved and some straight, small rooms, long passageways, snug little mezzanine at the end and introspective pebble beach from some Scandi-noir outside – and the derisory and unsightly paintings was troubling. One felt a little ...”

“... Is there anything stranger than a pop star out of time? Before Elvis Presley, before Michael Jackson, there was Al Jolson – ‘the most popular entertainer of the first half of the 20th century,’ as Michael Rogin describes him. Eyes wide and mouth agape, arms outstretched and face painted black, Jolson concludes his performance in The Jazz Singer (1927) down on one knee, serenading the delighted actress who plays his mother in a voice as strong and piercing as a foghorn ...”

“... were three other people in the dock, charged with conspiracy to cause explosions. One of them was Michael Murray, a workmate of two of the six, who made no secret of his membership of the IRA. In the best IRA tradition he chose not to participate in the proceedings. His presence in the dock alongside the six was deeply damaging to their case. This is no doubt ...”

“... cycles of boom and bust. One variant goes: ‘In America, the harvest was underway. As usual, Black people picked cotton, kerchiefs on their heads. As usual, the farmers in Canada harvested wheat. The cotton was gathered into great bundles and sent off on ships; the wheat was gathered in large silos and sent off on ships. The harvest was meagre. Prices ...”

“... The stocking cap, solid black on top and red-ribbed across the tube, an eye popping out at the face end. Red outline for ear, forked red line for mouth, blue-grey near-rectangle vertically placed for shoulder. These lines and shapes precipitate a face, itself un-outlined, from out of white space, the unmistakable head of Harpo Marx ...”

“... the neck of a broken bottle lying on the bank glimmered in the moonlight, and that the shadows lay black under the millwheel. There you have a moonlit night before your eyes, but I speak of the shimmering light, the twinkling stars, the distant sounds of a piano melting into the still and scented air, and the result is abominable.Paustovsky is a ...”

“... What’s striking about McEwan’s later work – I’m thinking particularly of The Innocent, Black Dogs and his new novel Enduring Love – is its intimacy with evasion and failure, combined with an alert intelligence about these things which itself looks like grounds for hope. McEwan’s characters talk past each other, go manic, stumble into ...”

“... most of the world’s supply of the gems. It appears never to have occurred to them that the black migrants who dig the diamonds out of the ground have any grievances. A much more serious problem for the mining companies has been that the miners might steal diamonds, swallow them, excrete them and sell them on the open market. This is one of the reasons ...”

“... the first of six Pontic rulers to bear the name Mithridates had welded the Greek cities of the Black Sea coast to the Persian and Anatolian lands of the interior to create one of the most successful such mini-states. Mithridates Eupator could likewise face in both directions, a cultured Greek on the one hand, with a fabricated ancestry stretching back to ...”