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mtljeff.bsky.social
Balconville
@mtljeff.bsky.social
29 followers 53 following 34 posts
In Montreal, writing about movies, music, wine and other good things in life. More at www.jeffheinrich.com. Previously at https://qoto.org/@montrealjeff.
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mtljeff.bsky.social
Also updated my list of summer 2025 new releases with reviews of Vermiglio, Who Wants to Kill Jessie?, The Sons of Great Bear, High Noon, The Dresser, The Hireling, and a Zoltán Huszárik boxset. jeffheinrich.com/Summer-2025-... @criterion.bsky.social @secondrun.bsky.social @indicator.bsky.social
A screengrab from the 2024 Italian film Vermiglio, showing a young couple kissing at the entrance to a stone hut in the snowy Italian Alps.
November 28, 2025 at 5:21 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
Been waiting years for this: Mephisto, Colonel Redl & Hanussen, three seminal German-language '80s dramas by Hungary's István Szabó, now restored and together on region-free Blu-ray from @secondrun.bsky.social. Also excited by a lovely Bille August twofer via MVD. jeffheinrich.com/Autumn-2025-...
His face made up in white greasepaint, smoky-eyed and red-lipped, a Nazi-era stage actor (played by Klaus Maria Bandauer) examines himself in the mirror in a scene from István Szabó's 1981 film Mephisto.
November 26, 2025 at 11:01 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
Albums, plural.
Front cover of Dire Straits self-titled first album, released June 9, 1978. Inside a wide yellow border, a painting in earth tones depicts a woman in shadow on a wide balcony, leaning against a pillar. Front cover of Elvis Costello's second album, This Year's Model, released March 17, 1978. In suit and tie, he stands behind a Hasselblad 500 mounted on a tripod, staring straight ahead, hands on the camera. Front cover of Bruce Springsteen's fourth album, released June 2, 1978. He's shown at home in a white T-shirt and black jacket, hands in pockets, leaning against a doorway and staring straight ahead. Front cover of Al Stewart's eighth album, Time Passages, released Sept. 8, 1978. Out a window, a white camper van half-disappears in a time warp splitting Monument Valley in Arizona; inside, a radio dial glows.
November 17, 2025 at 5:05 AM
mtljeff.bsky.social
98 producers, 465 wines & Jonathan Gebser's lesson on the "slow wine" movement: for me, the Italian Trade Agency Canada's tasting event at Montreal's Marché Bonsecours also meant quaffing some lovely white Abruzzo blends and Aurelio Settimo's great Barolo 2019, now just arrived at the SAQ ($55).
November 11, 2025 at 6:38 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
Nicholson & Garfunkel, Polanski, Ealing Studios & Basil Dearden: get to know them all a bit better via these four new Blu-ray and UHD releases from @indicator.bsky.social.
jeffheinrich.com/Summer-2025-...
Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel look at a blonde in Mike Nichols' 1971 film Carnal Knowledge.
June 13, 2025 at 11:00 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
#LEGACY When we met in Montreal in 2013 for a @ridm-festival.bsky.social‬ career retrospective at @cinemathequeqc.bsky.social, Ophuls wrote atop the cover of an old French film magazine‬ he'd been featured in for 'The Sorrow and the Pity": "Le jeune cinéma n'est plus jeune. Il est vieux comme moi."
May 29, 2025 at 5:28 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
#OBIT I've always thought Canadian caricaturist Kerry Waghorn best captured the essence of #MarcelOphuls, who died Saturday at age 97: lips, glasses, jumper, slouch. And is that outstretched hand begging for funding or simply making a point?
French-German documentary film director Marcel Ophuls (The Sorrow and the Pity, Hotel Terminus) drawn in 1988 by Canadian syndicated caricaturist Kerry Waghorn.
May 29, 2025 at 5:12 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
Me too; huzzah to you both :-) The 10-year-old was long my go-to. Snagged a bottle for my travel companions a couple of years ago at a shop in Pitlochry. Salesman said they rarely get any in, receive no advance notice, and sell out within a matter of hours.
Orange-and-black label of Springbank 10 whisky.
April 11, 2025 at 2:21 AM
mtljeff.bsky.social
A hero. He gets half a shelf in my library (there's more behind).
A home library shelf of books, DVDs, Blu-rays and a lone 7" single (from 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' soundtrack) featuring the late British actor Alec Guinness.
April 2, 2025 at 5:28 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
Icyww, "Ornithologist" doesn't exist. The actual "International Journal of Avian Science" is called Ibis.
April 1, 2025 at 5:23 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
Born a century-and-a-half apart but united by notes on a music sheet: French composer Mel Boris and Quebec pianist Élisabeth Pion. They featured yesterday in an 'Off Bach' concert at the 18th Montreal Bach Festival. Playful, soulful, Romantic – the miniatures sing! atmaclassique.com/en/product/f...
Mel Bonis at age 19, painting by Charles-Auguste Corbineau (1877). Elisabeth Pion in her mid-20s, in a photo by Frederick Robitaille.
December 4, 2024 at 11:38 PM
mtljeff.bsky.social
At its popular 'Off Bach' series of free shows on St. Laurent Blvd., organizers like to ask: "How many of you also plan on attending one of our (paid) evening concerts?" Well, count me in: I just bought the last ticket for this, tomorrow night: festivalbachmontreal.com/en/concerts/...
Luka Coetzee, 20, a Canadian cellist now based in Germany, will play the Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours on Monday, Dec. 2, 2024. The sold-out show is part of the annual Montreal Bach Festival, which has been running since 2005.
December 2, 2024 at 2:03 AM
mtljeff.bsky.social
Tenebrous: young Sandy Ratcliff casts a long shadow in Ken Loach's psycho-drama 'Family Life' (1971). Satirical: on the campaign trail, Cupid's arrows fly 'Left Right and Centre' (1959). New to Blu-ray, exclusive to Canada and the U.S., from @indicator.bsky.social.
jeffheinrich.com/Autumn-2024-...
Sandy Ratcliff as Janice, in Ken Loach's 'Family Life' (1971).
December 2, 2024 at 1:34 AM