My annual Hollywood treat is here!

I am really not one of these people who collect magazines or even regularly read them, but I have got every one of the Hollywood issues of Vanity Fair. I got the twentieth today and I’m just pleased it’s half-term!

I’m a bad person…

I can offer lots of excuses – I have had a really demanding job responsible for 17 people, I’ve bought my first house, moved in and helped with some decorating, my boyfriend has been made redundant…  However, basically I’m a terrible person and an awful blogger.

Anyway, Mark took me for a special Valentine’s Social Cinema screening at the Phoenix last night.  They were playing my favourite film of all time (if such a thing is possible), The Apartment, with a quiz, special food and a fun atmosphere.  After coming second in the quiz (free Phoenix tickets and a meal!), Mark reminded me that I hadn’t blogged for a while and as it is half-term and I only have a little bit of work to do, I’m going to get on it and start focusing on my love for film.

PS – The Phoenix is amazing, Leicester is very lucky to have it and I must make sure I use it more often.

An emotional day.

My mum texted me on the 13th October to ask if I would like to go to the V&A ‘Hollywood Costume’ exhibition during my half-term week.  Of course I would.  I had heard it was coming and couldn’t wait to see it.  I used to want to be a costume designer (which explains my A Level choices – textiles, history and English – no film studies in those days) and the power and importance of costume in film, as well as the amazing glamour, has alway fascinated me.

We arranged to go on the 23rd as I was going to be down in London for an Amanda Palmer gig anyway (dream day!) and it was the day before my mum started her radiotherapy.  We decided that it would be good to take her mind off it.  We met outside the doors at midday, had a lovely French lunch, a quick trip to Skandium (even more of a dream day) and then went in to the exhibition at just before 3.

Waiting to go in…

I don’t think I had prepared myself properly for what I was going to see.  One of the first costumes was Vivien Leigh’s green curtain dress from ‘Gone With The Wind’ and it made me cry.  I think it was the combination of my mum being poorly (and my sister Joey),  and the fact that I was so happy to be there with her, she had introduced me to the film when I was twelve.  I watched it twice in a row the first time I saw it (that’s seven and a half hours) and then every day for the entire holiday.  I watched it while writing a list of every costume change that Vivien Leigh made (I’m sure I have the list somewhere…), I have the poster over my fireplace in my current flat, a jigsaw, books on the film and its stars…  I haven’t watched it for years now, but it is part of my childhood and so to be faced with a physical representation of that was too much for me.  I felt like an hysterical Catholic faced with the relic of a saint.  But it felt lovely and comforting and surreal.

Yes – that one!

The whole exhibition is amazing, I recommend everyone to go and see it.