And behind door number 22... a guide to some music of the more traditional kind
Catherine Munn and Jacob Martin list their Top 5 programmes to watch over the festive period.
And behind door number nine... some dazzling musical delights
The complete arts guide, for week 9
Since the dawn of human history, man has often travelled. Sometimes travelling was a necessity; when you have a herd of rampaging mastodons heading your way, or a climate which used to be pretty humid suddenly turning sub-arctic, you don't really have a choice in the matter. Some other times, it was for the sake of curiosity - if we go far enough in any one direction, people wondered, will we really fall off the world's edge? Other times, for acquisition: 'those people have some really cool head-gear, and their food is so much tastier than ours’. All this happened so often that, eventually, travelling became an end in itself. And as the art and science of travelling progressed, so did the means by which it was celebrated in the hearts and minds of man...
David Lean's final film sees two English ladies abroad in India, where one of them succumbs to powerful delusions and claims that the nice Dr. Aziz attacked and raped her in the local caves. This is what not to do when travelling.
Dr Henry Walton Jones Jr. - otherwise known as the fedora and bullwhip sporting Indiana - often crisscrossed the globe in search of rare antiquities to sell and/or donate to museums. (Apart from the one set in India, which we'll forget about.)
Astronauts Frank Poole and Dave Bowman travel to the outer reaches of our solar system, to investigate strange goings-on connected to an ancient system of mysterious monoliths, along with their not-so-trustworthy computer HAL.
Suspending the belief that man can only travel in one direction in the fourth dimension is crucial to enjoying this film about two worthless slackers who must travel through time to assemble a raft of historical figures to give a school presentation.
Sequel to the original Ocean's Eleven, which remains derided even though it is both infinitely superior to its predecessor, and features excellent travel directing as Clooney and friends hop-scotch over continental Europe, in competition with the suave and dastardly Night Fox.
I'm not sure how a Middle-Earth 'league' translates into miles or kilometres, but those plucky hobbits must have walked the equivalent distance of Berlin to Beijing and back again. (Although why they didn't get those eagles to give them a lift is never really explained.)
In which the intrepid Kazakh journalist travels across the United States to make a documentary for the bogus Kazakh Ministry of Information, exposing the weird, insensitive, bizarre, and bigoted shortcomings of contemporary America.
Three brothers travel across India in a 'luxury' train called the Darjeeling Limited (which, despite being on rails, frequently gets lost) on what appears to be a tourist trip but becomes a quest for family reconciliation and losing one's baggage, both metaphorically and literally.
After Scotty's high-school girlfriend breaks up with him (for Matt Damon) he decides to go to Europe in search of his sexy German pen-pal. Cue lots bizarre cultural missteps and outrageous adventures, including Vinnie Jones as a singing football hooligan.
The original and still the best story of epic travel, Phileas Fogg makes a bet that he can circumnavigate the globe in his hot-air balloon within eighty days, along with his manservant Passepartout. Also inspired a particular brand of crisps.
Into the Wild?
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