“... and ‘rotten’ spring; crops are failing and prices are high; people are falling ill with what may be the plague. The town’s new governor, Lukas Einhorn (the ‘False Unicorn’) is lazy, cynical and eager to find someone to blame for the woes of his petitioners. When Ursula Reinbold, the wife of a ‘third-rate glazier’, comes to him with a story ...”

“... pages but from a battered notebook, as if it was semi-private or still “in progress”.’ This may be so; on the other hand, Calder’s ‘as if’ may be the truth. There was certainly more than a single battered notebook: the one from which we read on that lurching train in the 1970s was full, with twenty-five years or ...”

“... familiar aspect of his work that dominates the current exhibition, Van Dyck and Britain (until 17 May). It includes about a tenth of the 400-odd portraits that emerged from his studio – around one a week – during seven and a half years of court patronage. In England a rare talent was diverted; what is more to the point, a portrait painter with an ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... a portrait of blindness, or of seeing without seeing. Even the wonderful last frames of the film may leave us there. Shand is shut up in the kidnappers’ car, a gun trained on him. Apart from occasional glances at the gunman’s face, the camera just watches Shand in close-up for more than two minutes. At first he seems to grin in a troubled fashion, ready ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... can make an immediate difference. The most chilling moment on election night was hearing Theresa May, when asked what she now wanted a Conservative government to do that it had been prevented from doing by having to work with the Lib Dems in coalition, answer that her first priority was to pass legislation that would empower the security forces and the ...”

“... that is why this film qualified for government support. Well, that and its air of dissent that may confuse the West. Leviathan is Russia’s official selection for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. The drinking is symptomatic of a deeper, bewildered hopelessness. Other symptoms are scarcely controllable rage, and reckless misbehaviour that can only lead to ...”

“... 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 ...”