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| | | Jim Whitepresents the weekly film programme. Join in the discussion by visiting the Radio 4 Arts message board. | | | | | LISTEN AGAIN | | | |
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|  | | | | Listen to Jim White reveal his own celluloid highs and lows in a slideshow | | | | Jim White attended Manchester Grammar School and read English at the University of Bristol, though maintains most of his education came on the terraces at Old Trafford.
A founding member of staff at the Independent in 1986, he moved across to the Guardian ten years later, where his contributions have won the sports columnist of the year. A regular on Saturday Review and Front Row, he can also be frequently heard on Radio 5, where he was awarded a Sony Gold award for a documentary about the demise of Wembley Stadium.
Cinema has been a lifelong passion since his dad took him to see Lawrence of Arabia when he was a child and he returned twice a day every day for the next week to see the film over and again. After a youth largely spent oscillating between the football pitch and the local flea pit (his first date was at, bizarrely, 101 Dalmatians: it was all that was on) these days his favourite movies depend on his mood. The Godfather Part Two if in need of an epic, High Society for an uplift of the soul, This Is Spinal Tap when jokes are required. Though his children have shown him that there is not a lot wrong with Toy Story.
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|  | | 100 Years of the Western
A hundred years ago Edwin S Porter made a ten minute film called The Great Train Robbery. It is widely considered to be the first 'real movie' in its construction and plotting, but more importantly for many it spawned the greatest and most revisited genre of American cinema, the western.
Christopher Frayling, Ed Buscombe, Jane Tompkins, David Matuszak and Martin Raymond join Back Row to discuss why audiences and Hollywood have had a love affair with the western for a century.
The western has been in relatively poor health since its heyday in the 50s and 60s when John Ford and others were turning out their best work, but there are some big-budget westerns in the pipeline from the likes of Ron Howard and Kevin Costner. Jim White wonders whether Hollywood shouldn't just take it like a man and saddle up, ride into the sunset and watch the final credits roll.
In the multi-plex
Cold Mountain
In the art house
Amandla!
On DVD and video
The Fred and Ginger Collection
Play our Fred and Ginger Quiz
Go to our quiz page
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RELATED LINKS
This week at BBCi films: Review of 2003
Wild West Web
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