----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Mon, 14 Nov 1994 22:08:18 CST <[log in to unmask]> said:
 
>BTW--On another thread, I'm going to be in London for a short time this
>week and wondered if the Museum of the Moving Image was worth seeing on
>such a short jaunt at the expense of more traditional tourist spots.
>Any comments?
 
If you have a couple of hours to kill while you're waiting for a show at
the NFT, by all means take in the Museum.  Actually, I'd recommend it
more lightly than that sentence indicates.  As a thematic tour through
the chronology of the cinema and television, it's instructive and a lot
of fun.  It's also interesting in its own right, like many such sites,
as a museum, a spectactle, and an expressive historical text itself.
 
It is a little on the expensive side, but in general in England expect
that a pound has a buying power closer to that of a dollar than you
would really like to see, given the exchange rate.
 
My own personal caution about the Museum:  watch out for a particularly
aggressive guide in Victorian dress right at the opening exhibit,
insisting that you play with the toys of the pre-cinema era.  (But
what if I don't wanna play with the Phenakistoscope??!!)  My senti-
mentally favourite exhibit:  the agit-train car, running Eisenstein's
Strike, with the guide dressed in worn woolen clothing and plain, cloth
cap.
 
Blaine Allan                           [log in to unmask]
Film Studies
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario
Canada  K7L 3N6