I caught the reconstructed silent comedy The Spanish Dancer (1923) at the London Film Festival on Sunday. According to the Chicago Tribune figures show that attendance at the festival’s screenings this year across London topped 149,000. The BFi’s box office tills must have rung until meltdown. Read the summation of the festival, which closed with Mike Newell’s adaptation of Great Expectations here.

A clever idea from the people who gave you Secret Cinema – The Secret Hotel. Instead of just turning up and seeing a randomn movie in a mystery location, you can now stay on at a hotel that screens it (also kept secret), themed to tie in with the film and with staff in character. The Guardian has more information here; the Secret Cinema website is here.

The movie awards season is off to a very early start. The Hollywood Awards (the what? It’s been going for 16 years people, keep up!), held last week, is by dint of date the first in a long season of international award events. Among the winners, veteran actor Dustin Hoffman scooped best breakthrough director for his directorial debut Quartet.

Incisive, politico-cinematic critique of American cinema’s continued demonisation of Iran and Iranian people, in order to prop up the safe and secure ideology of Uncle Sam? Or slightly repetitive, quasi-intellectual rant with an impenetrable vocabulary that serves only to underline the author’s ‘higher’ intellect? You decide, in this none the less interesting and well referenced piece from Middle East online.