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| | | Jim White presents the weekly film programme. Join in the discussion by visiting the Radio 4 Arts message board. | | | | | LISTEN AGAIN | | | |
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| | PRESENTER | | | |
|  | | | | 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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|  | | Charles S Dutton and Meg Ryan in Against the Ropes
As a rash of new fight movies head for the big screen Back Row asks sports writers Steve Bunce and John Rawling and boxing coach Brian Hughes what it is about the sport that appeals to movie makers and why they rarely get it right. Against the Ropes, starring Meg Ryan as boxing's most successful female promoter Jackie Kallen and The Calcium Kid with Orlando Bloom are on general release. The Cinderella Man starring Russell Crowe as prize-fighter Jimmy Braddock is currently in production.
Gérard Depardieu
By his own admission, Gérard Depardieu's looks hardly qualify him as a leading man yet his physique has never held him back. Antonia Quirke joins Jim White to define the secret of Depardieu's success. Depardieu's latest film release Bon Voyage will be in selected cinemas from 14 May 2004.
Guy Maddin
Canadian director Guy Maddin joins Back Row to discuss his eccentric and beguiling new film The Saddest Music in the World. Set in Winnipeg in the depths of a Depression winter and a pastiche of a 1930s musical it is the story of a contest to find music guaranteed to provoke tears.
Shattered Glass
Stephen Glass was a star writer for the respected journal The New Republic in the late nineties. He produced marvellous pieces about young Republicans partying all night like drunken frat kids. There was just one problem, as Billy Ray's new film Shattered Glass reveals, his stories turned out to be entirely fabricated. The New Republic's current editor Peter Beinart was a colleague of Glass and talks to Jim White about the memories the movie has brought back for him.
Please note that audio for this edition of Back Row will not be available on this website until after the programme's transmission on Radio 4 on Saturday 08 May 2004 at 5.30pm.
In the multi-plex
Van Helsing
In the art house
Performance
On DVD and video
Kill Bill Vol. 1
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RELATED LINKS
This week at BBCi films: DVD Reviews
Discoveries Film Programme 04
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