film: saint etienne: finisterre finisterre's day, like london's, begins and ends with the early train from the south. and like real-life london the film's full of unfamiliar familiar sights, and stuffed with enough half-remembered quotes from songs and books to keep me searching on the internet for a year. I spotted lines drawn from dexys, new order, mccarthy and the blue orchids but who knows what other wonders hide in the screenplay? this is an outsider's inside view of london. it's familiar with the old town but retains the london wonder which burns in suburbanites or hicks (like me). this london's a playground with infinite possibilities and endless excitement. there's no nod to london's battles or problems, but why should there be? this is a cheap awayday in someone else's wonderland, and ours. tim

film: dogs in space screening, acmi, federation square, melbourne, jan 31: the audience at this special re-screening didn't look as old as I thought they would. how refreshing. I think the girl in front of us was one of the girls in the scene where they dye deanna bond's hair. except she looked the same age. the things I had forgotten about dogs in space are that it was originally made in widescreen—so if you get the video you only really see about a third of the film and you miss some great bits, too, like when the police are on one side of the screen quizzing tony about whether there are drugs in the house and right over the other side of the screen which is also the far end of the corridor, there is a kewpie doll with syringes stuck in it hanging off the wall. very clever. the crowd scenes are great on the big screen as well and you know I just end up thinking maybe dogs in space should be like the mousetrap, you know, shown all the time in some special place. michael hutchence has improved as an actor since 1986 (richard lowenstein, who directed the film and spoke about it afterwards, says that hutchence wasn't overacting—he played sam better than sam). we were also told that the reason people keep shouting "ballarat!" in the film is that ballarat is where the first 7-11 in victoria was. dogs in space is heading for dvd later this year with heaps of extra stuff and I greatly look forward to seeing it for a third time this year. david

dvd: pet shop boys pop art (emi): the best thing about pop art is the commentary track, which the psbs conduct with their long-time cronkler chris heath—a lot of the time it's just like watching a bunch of psb videos with your friends who are huge psb fans (sometimes they just snicker, sometimes they sing along; there's a running joke whenever either tennant or lowe show something other than deadpan delivery—someone will say "acting!"). they only occasionally comment on the songs themselves. and they are very nice about everyone and everything—in one video, lowe says he hates the cap he's wearing, but he's soon talked around. and some of the videos are great, too. most frequently they're by eric watson; "what have I done to deserve this?" and "domino dancing", shot in puerto rico, are probably the best of these. wolfgang tillmans' video for "home and dry" is a minimalist masterpiece that can't be described but has to be seen. david