David Cairns
LightNews LightNews
banner
dcairns.bsky.social
David Cairns
@dcairns.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1K following 950 posts
Film maker, film critic, film teacher, film lover, fool for film
Posts Replies Media Videos
dcairns.bsky.social
Wyler's WUTHERING HEIGHTS has some really impressive feats of cinema in it.
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/12/b...
Best Thunderclap
William Wyler’s version of WUTHERING HEIGHTS has possibly the best thunder and lightning in movies — a real coup de cinema. Unlike most films — POLTERGEIST excepted — they h…
dcairns.wordpress.com
February 12, 2026 at 1:05 AM
dcairns.bsky.social
Robert Weide's Woody Allen documentary is excellent. But its complete silence about the Dylan Farrow allegations now looks... peculiar.
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/10/t...
February 10, 2026 at 10:05 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Short one.
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/f...
Foy Down Below
Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.
dcairns.wordpress.com
February 9, 2026 at 5:44 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Shadowy goings-on and rampant nitrate decomposition in DAS UNHEIMLICHE HAUS (1916).
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/t...
February 8, 2026 at 11:46 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Man continues to laugh at window. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/1...
Man Continues to Laugh at Window
Welcome back to Shadowplay, the film blog where we discuss a man laughing at a window. I suddenly got a huge spike in my visitors here yesterday, which I have to assume is due to the fact that, for…
dcairns.wordpress.com
February 6, 2026 at 2:05 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Man laughs at window.
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/05/m...
February 5, 2026 at 5:44 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Hippodrome Silent Film Festival is back and silenter than ever! dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/04/a... #HippFest
A Stately Hippodrome
Hippodrome Silent Film Festival in Bo’ness just announced their exciting programme (18th – 22nd March). You can attend some of it virtually if you can’t be there physically. Aside…
dcairns.wordpress.com
February 4, 2026 at 12:14 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
So, John Barrymore's son has raised a zombie army to attack Rome? What else have I missed? dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/02/03/b...
February 3, 2026 at 9:18 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
HELL'S KITCHEN may be the best juvenile detention ice hockey movie I've ever seen. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/31/1...
January 31, 2026 at 10:11 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Someone's lost his head on the witness stand...
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/m/
m
Shadowy reflection on duckpond — a bad omen. Films about child murder are rare, thankfully — though not as thankfully rare as actual child murder. Truffaut’s suggestion that for a…
dcairns.wordpress.com
January 30, 2026 at 7:45 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Disappointed to find Rod Serling doing a plagiarism. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/29/w...
Who’s on Faust?
My latest haul of second-hand stuff included THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA on DVD, DEATH OF A POET on Blu-ray, and two paperback collections of short stories by Henry Kuttner. One of the first stories I re…
dcairns.wordpress.com
January 29, 2026 at 6:27 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Five desperate men! dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/28/s...
January 28, 2026 at 7:56 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
EA Dupont's KINDER DER FINSTERNIS reaches a dead stop. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/27/s...
January 27, 2026 at 6:22 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Kanye West has denied he's a Nazi, even though he said he was a Nazi. "I'm not a Nazi, but I *am* a liar," he's effectively saying. And are you lying now, Herr West?
January 26, 2026 at 9:05 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
The auteur theory, revisited.
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/k...
January 26, 2026 at 1:55 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
You can sing "Jabberwocky" to the tune of "Across the Universe." And as in uffish thought he stood / The Jabberwock with eyes of fire / Came whiffling through the tulgey wood / And burbled as it came. What you do with the "Jai guru deva omm" bit is your own affair.
January 26, 2026 at 1:52 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
The abode of Mr. Puffy. dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/25/t...
The Sunday Intertitle: Puffy!
I guess this is the second leg of my see-everything-by-Dupont phase. In my first, I appreciated VARIETE, PICCADILLY, THE SCARF, LADIES MUST LOVE, and MOULIN ROUGE, good films, as well as THE NEANDE…
dcairns.wordpress.com
January 25, 2026 at 7:56 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Something I haven't heard for forty years but am still annoyed by is Ray Charles' cover of Eleanor Rigby. I like Ray Charles, obviously. But he interpolates things like "He turned to me and he said -" thereby making "All the lonely people" into something *Father McKenzie* is saying. Whereas [cont.]
January 23, 2026 at 9:38 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Hello! dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/23/g...
Grunt Work
I briefly wrote about E.A. Dupont’s THE NEANDERTHAL MAN (1953) as part of my neverending quest to see every film depicted in Denis Gifford’s seminal Pictorial History of Horror Movies, …
dcairns.wordpress.com
January 23, 2026 at 1:22 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Didn't recognise the leading man of THE ANCIENT LAW. Should've, though...
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/22/1...
January 22, 2026 at 11:00 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
SAHARA! dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/20/n...
Nothing but static and Heil Hitler
I picked up a DVD of Zoltan Korda’s SAHARA, having never had the interest before but here it was at 50p and I’d just heard that the tank in Spielberg’s 1941 is called Lulu Belle i…
dcairns.wordpress.com
January 21, 2026 at 2:52 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Try this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEmW...
george harrison - baltimore oriole
YouTube video by 17k92k
www.youtube.com
January 20, 2026 at 12:35 AM
dcairns.bsky.social
Do a version of Sympathy for the Devil but with Hugh Herbert doing the "woo woo"s.
January 19, 2026 at 11:53 PM
Reposted by David Cairns
midcenturycinema.bsky.social
HBD Richard Lester! Beatles films & much more
[Seek out Petulia, w/Scott, Christie - Our take: midcenturycinema.org/node/151
More:
@meheuck.bsky.social: thenewbev.com/blog/2016/07...
@dcairns.bsky.social: www.criterion.com/current/post...
@petersob13.bsky.social: www.rogerebert.com/features/kee...
Keep Moving!: The Films of Richard Lester. | Features | Roger Ebert
An appreciation of Richard Lester as a retrospective of his work is about to unfold in New York City.
www.rogerebert.com
January 19, 2026 at 4:26 PM
dcairns.bsky.social
Does Herzog's rejection of ideology just result in him becoming reactionary? I think maybe so. RESCUE DAWN.
dcairns.wordpress.com/2026/01/17/b...
Bale Out
I finally caught up with Werner Herzog’s RESCUE DAWN, which I’d always been mildly curious about — the only instance of Herzog turning one of his documentaries into a dramatic fea…
dcairns.wordpress.com
January 17, 2026 at 9:03 PM