“... life, anyone who can give it to you, in whatever way and for whatever motive, is a magician. She may even think that is what the very idea of a gigolo stands for. Avigal is rebuilding her life with Fioravante’s help, and in one of the film’s genuinely brilliant moments, when we think the next move in the story will continue the intercultural romance, she ...”

“... when pushed, revises his estimate to 23. This would be a good score for the worst bandit, and it may be more shocking that the marshal is still guessing. But is anyone in the novel shocked? No, and least of all the 14-year-old Mattie Ross, who is looking for a man to help her find the man who killed her father. She has heard that Cogburn has ‘true ...”

“... feel creepy; it’s meant to make us feel how much in love with creepiness it is, and how much we may share this love. Böhm is Mark Lewis, an assistant cameraman at a film studio with a hobby and an ambition, although the full scope of both only becomes clear quite late in the movie. He is making a film of his own, and it involves filming murders and their ...”

“... the president on the dark and seedy streets of the wrong side of Washington says in language that may seem a little advanced for the 1860s: ‘Well, I’ll be fucked.’ Lincoln says: ‘I wouldn’t bet against it.’ The posters for the movie, its length (two and a half hours) and the general air of piety that surrounds Lincoln’s name lead us to expect ...”

“... Herself places on Herself. However, readers over seven might take exception to HRH’s tone: ‘It may be a bit daunting if I suggest at the outset that I want to include in this journey a brief tour of “traditional philosophy” but I can assure you that such an explanation will be painless and that everything will be explained simply.’ And he clearly ...”

“... failed to prove that, when the Dmanisi folk emerged from Africa, they turned left for Paris. They may just as well have hung a right for Tehran or Kabul. Now comes ‘Old Europe’. The Oxford exhibition is small, but utterly spectacular. Its objects – the figurines, the painted ceramics – are irresistible. Its message adds a new page to the conventional ...”

“... This is a very impoverished idea of film; perhaps she should inhabit something else. But then she may already be inhabiting something else, since whatever she is doing with this elaborate staging or photographing of metaphor, she is doing it all the time in this movie – not at great expense in terms of equipment but at an absurdly high price if you think of ...”

“... on the astral timing of Thanksgiving. It is 2035. Weir has confirmed that this is correct, but he may be joking. He was more serious when he admitted that the violent sandstorm that opens the film, stranding Matt Damon from his astronaut colleagues, causing them to assume he is dead and to leave him behind, is a fictional convenience rather than a scientific ...”

“... The quest turns up various memories and locations, including a magical theatre and a corpse that may belong to Diane herself – a figure of fear that has crept from one story into another. Mention of the actress – Watts’s performance is marvellous, ranging from wide-eyed near stupidity to cracked-up despair – reminds us that the movie is a movie and ...”

“... obvious, even to the person doing the wanting, and talent, which you feel ought to be a clue, may be a red herring. During the war, he became an effective civil servant at the Admiralty, and turned down an offer to stay on – how dreadful to admit that bureaucracy is your true vocation. I’m tempted by the idea that Hughes set me a bad example, but ...”

“... and I said it was. She asked me if anything was the matter, and I denied it.’ His first novel may be thought to have furnished a model for the clifftop-to-shoreline murder site in le Carré’s 23rd. He was outshone by the blaze and sophistication of le Carré’s success. His friend’s discriminating treatment of the secret service was seen by him as a ...”

“... the library’s thoroughfares, which are often bedlam. High-minded modernist ideas and aspirations may have driven Colin St John Wilson to design his building as he did, but it’s the unruliness of some who go there that makes it appealingly lived in. Study describes what goes on inside, obviously – except, and equally obviously, when it doesn’t – but ...”

“... even if it goes wrong, and the other can’t really do idolisation, even if that is what it may be trying for. What Kapadia and his writer Manish Pandey seem to want first and last is a kind of low-key divinisation. The god is still a god, but also a humble fellow at heart, uncomplicated by success. There is nothing in the film to confirm this view ...”

“... but it was used to refuel the reactor when it was restarted in 2003 and refuelled in 2005. There may have been some left over. Sigfried Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, has visited North Korea on several occasions since 2002, and acknowledges that ‘North Korea could conceivably field one more reactor-load of fuel rods ...”

“... have a tendency to roll over if they hit a fixed object, such as a guard rail. Market forces may cause industry to act where government has failed. Bradsher wrote last year that gas prices in the US would have to hit $2.50 a gallon and stay there for a while to have any negative impact on SUV sales. (A gallon of petrol in the UK costs $5.75, a figure ...”