I think that the American cinema went away, and is still away, for a while.
Brass Monkey Cinema Tucked away on Drummond Street, just off "the Bridges" (South bridge, not the Forth), lies student favourite the Brass Monkey (no website, 0131 556 1961).
And he played a key role as Italian cinema moved away from the neo-realism of the postwar years to incorporate stylization and artifice.
Others would like to see Bruce Dern, a great veteran of offbeat American cinema, walk away with the golden statuette, in recognition of his poignant performance in Nebraska.
The Indonesian artist Sardono W Kusumo is celebrated at this year's Sifa and the first of three presentations of his work is Expanded Cinema, tucked away in a dark gallery on the bright and beautiful grounds of the Malay Heritage Centre.
I'm not sure that, after this movie, I will be able to take quite such unquestioning pleasure in the suave, all-knowing dons of the "Godfather" trilogy, let alone the stylized brutality of "Scarface"; the spoiled earth of "Gomorrah" is the ground zero of Mob cinema, burning away the sleekness and self-congratulation of the genre.
James Cameron's Avatar, which has taken more money at the box office than any other film in the history of cinema came away tonight with just two Bafta awards in an evening dominated by arthouse films made on a fraction of its budget.
Since then, with the wow factor reduced by years of exposure, and even 3D cartoons now a run-of-the-mill school holiday cinema trip away, Disney-Pixar has had to learn a new but immensely old-fashioned trick to stay ahead of its rival animators: draping its movies – notably Up and Wall E – in a velvet sadness that makes them far more resonant and profound than anything from its competitors.
If there is only, say, a 25% charge left in the battery, nipping out with the family to a cinema about 15km away on a rainy night might leave you stranded.
A hundred years ago, cinema audiences ran away from an approaching train.
