This evening Kate and I watched a funny and delightful film, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, which tells a story of time travel in a pub. Chris O’Dowd and Anna Faris star. Recommended.

BBC4 broadcast last week’s “Last Night” concert from the Caird Hall in Dundee. The only time I’ve been in the Caird Hall was to see the Manic Street Preachers (who were excellent), supported by Mogwai (who I thought were rubbish). That was a long time ago.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to see Nik for lunch; she is in St Andrews for the weekend. On Sunday Beth has a birthday party to attend at “Muddy Boots” near Cupar.

Kate and I watched The Sea Wolves this evening, a 1980 war film starring Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, David Niven, and a large cast of older British actors. It is based on the true story of a reserve regiment made up of expats, the Calcutta Light Horse, attacking German ships in a neutral harbour in Portuguese Goa during WWII.

Despite being set in 1943, much of the film looks straight out of the 1970s. It would be hard to claim that this is a good film, but it is entertaining, and contains many familiar faces. Kate pointed out that when she worked as a dental assistant she had two of the cast as patients, one in London and one in Frome.

There was a splendid scene with Peck, Moore, Niven, and Patrick Macnee, all looking deeply disreputable on a dockside, just before stealing an Indian riverboat. Joy.

Kate and I watched Dreamgirls (2006) on Friday evening. I’d picked it up on Bluray a few months ago, but only now got around to watching it. And what an excellent film! Based on a 1970s Broadway musical, it is a fictionalised story of the Supremes and Motown. It features a splendid cast (including Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, and Eddie Murphy), and super songs. One can see why Hudson won an Oscar for her performance.

For me, musicals are like films but with emotion that works. I’ll look forward to watching it again.

Tonight we watched “Alien Nation”, a 1988 cop/buddy/action film starring James Caan, Mandy Patinkin, and Terence Stamp. Neither Kate nor I had seen it before, although I was mildly aware of a television series in the late 80s, which was apparently a lighter, more comedic, spin-off.

I enjoyed the film; it exhibited the usual clichés of the genre, but the script and performances pulled it beyond its roots. Oh, and there was a bit of a metaphor going on, but it didn’t feel leaden or over played.

And Brian Thompson turned up in a small but memorable part.

Our evening entertainment continued with “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie” (1972), a rather silly Australian film. Based on a character created by Barry Humphreys for a Private Eye comic strip, the plot concerns Barry McKenzie, a young Australian, visiting Britain with his aunt Edna Everage. With the cast including Peter Cook, Spike Milligan, Dennis Price, Julie Covington, and Joan Bakewell, there is a richness of talent and a lot of good — and crude — jokes.

The film was a significant success, spawning a sequel, buoying up the Australian film industry, and launching the career of director Bruce Beresford (who went on to direct the Oscar-winning “Driving Miss Daisy”).

I’d love to see the 1974 sequel “Barry McKenzie Holds His Own”, which featured Donald Pleasance as the villain Count von Plasma.

We watched “Cobra”, a 1986 Stallone film that I’d not seen before. A maverick cop with sunglasses, and a frizzy-haired girl, take on an anarchic gang; there isn’t much more to say about the plot. However it is delivered with a some style, and the supporting cast are excellent, including Andrew Robinson, Brian Thompson, and a brief appearance by David Rasche.

And Kate was tickled by the cutting-leftover-pizza-with-scissors scene.

Tonight we watched “Gambit”, a 1966 heist caper starring Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine, and Herbert Lom. Very entertaining, as stylish as one would expect, and with moments of great amusement. There have been rumours in recent years that a remake is on the way; I’d be happier to stick with the 60s.

We watched “Sweeney!” this evening, the 1977 feature-film spinoff from the television series. I’d seen the second film several times (imaginatively titled “Sweeney 2”), but I don’t remember seeing this before. Action, villainy, shouting, hard drinking, and John Thaw — lots of enjoy here. Barry Foster had a silly accent as the baddie, Lynda Bellingham was almost-unrecognisably young, and Ian Bannen added character as a government minister. Dennis Waterman didn’t have much to do, though.

Apple treated us to twelve days of freebies from their iTunes Store over Christmas and New Year. One of the freebies was the recent 'comedy horror' film, Lesbian Vampire Killers. Starring James Corden and Mathew Horne, it is a low-budget British film that received pretty dire reviews on its release in March 2009. As the film was free, and I had time to kill, I settled down to watch it on my iPhone on the train back from Carlisle on Monday.

Having not seen the sitcom "Gavin and Stacy", my only previous experience of Corden and Horne was their dire performance hosting last year's Brit Awards. Based on this, and on the bad reviews, I didn't have high hopes of 'Lesbian Vampire Killers', but I'm always happy to give a cheap horror film a chance, in the hope of finding splatty gore and hammy overacting.

Mathew Horne was reasonably effective as a somewhat-bewildered reluctant hero. His performance was fine, and his character worked in the plot. He looked and sounded a little uncomfortable with some of the dialogue, but otherwise acquitted himself well. James Corden, on the other hand, was dire. Based on this film, my conclusion is that he can't act. His performance was appalling, and the character he was playing was no better - coarse, unpleasant, bullying, and juvenile. He swore too much, to no comic or dramatic effect, and at times appeared to improvise bad dialogue (as I can't imagine it could have been scripted). Other cast members included MyAnna Buring showing some acting talent as the female lead (and at times looking disconcertingly like Glynis Barber in 'Dempsey & Makepeace'), and a thankfully hammy performance from Paul McGann as the local vicar.

It turned out that the director was trying to be trendy, with odd cuts and camera tricks that didn't impress much; by the end of the film I was dreading another page-turn-style cut between shots.

The vampire design and behaviour was uninspiring, but other aspects of the production design were effective with a cheap Hammer-ish look. The vampires splatted when killed, but the goo was white and not particularly plentiful, so not as much fun as it could have been. Part of the excitement of a typical vampire story is that there is a sexually seductive element in the threat from a predatory attacker to a more innocent victim; unfortunately this was lost with the lesbian vampires attacking our male heroes.

The plot was weak but reasonably coherent; it was let down by the script and the performances. As a 'horror comedy' it lacked both horror and comedy. The film looked as though it had been more fun to make than it was to watch. However I am happy to say that it wasn't quite as bad as many of the reviews suggested.

As I watched the film on my iPhone, it was a distinctly 'small screen' presentation, and I found it hard to judge how it would look on a larger screen. However, listening to the soundtrack through headphones was very effective (something I seldom do for films), and the orchestral music worked well.