FILM

There is absolutely no limit to the number of ways that you can plug a little – or a lot more – film culture into your life. It goes without saying that the best cinema is rarely at the end of that well-trodden highway to “the next big thing”. But that doesn’t stop most of us behaving like lemmings.

Improving your viewing habits, indeed streamlining them, is not rocket science. It’s a constant source of surprise and pleasure to discover that my local rep, the Harwich Electric Cinema – incidentally one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas in Britain – juggles old 1943 warhorses such as Powell and Pressburger’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (complete with National Anthem) with foreign-language films rarely seen outside an international festival. It takes surprisingly little effort and pain (annual memberships are rarely more than a couple of pounds) to take advantage of these rep cinemas, which are scattered throughout the land and invariably have better seats, punters and infinitely more atmosphere than your local multiplex.

The proliferation of private cinema clubs has opened the most exciting seam of opportunity for enthusiasts. I was sceptical about the attraction of sharing a hay bale in a barn with mad-keen strangers until I pitched up to an absolutely delightful bijou theatre that ascended from beneath the living-room floor of a cottage in Burnham Overy Staithe, Norfolk.

Mr and Mrs Faire’s esoteric taste in film would not embarrass the ICA. These local clubs, which are as popular now in cities as they are in the country, are well worth truffling out. Some film staples are absolutely priceless in terms of film culture, and the biggest and the best is the BFI Southbank. No serious film buff can possibly be without it wherever you live in the UK (or indeed abroad). The increasing number of research tools and films that you can access online complement the usual cascade of film events, cleverly themed seasons, limited access to the BFI archives, and, of course, priority booking to The Times BFI London Film Festival in October.

Finally, a little advice for those of you who have decided to bite the bullet and make that film in the bottom left-hand drawer. Once upon a time you had to hire eight tons of camera equipment from Don Corleone Inc. Today you can shoot your masterpiece on a mobile phone and post it online within seconds. Please resist this mad impulse. It will end in tears. Order a prospectus from a decent outfit, such as the Met Film School, based at Ealing Studios, which has a bewildering number of courses in every aspect of film-making. Then I’ll have something worth shredding next year.

JAMES CHRISTOPHER

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Possibly I’m the last person to discover this, but there’s a wonderful free website run by American academics who clearly have loads of time on their hands. But at least they are using it to help the rest of us. It’s www.aldaily.com (ie, Arts & Letters Daily, in old money), and it simply collates, on a daily basis, fascinating book reviews, essays and “articles of note” on cultural, sociological and even scientific topics published by magazines and newspapers across the English-speaking world.

Putting 15 minutes aside each day to scan its latest offerings is time well spent, believe me. Quite apart from impressing friends (and indeed foes) with your newly acquired cultural breadth, you will also make a discovery about Western civilisation: it’s not as dumbed down as we sometimes despairingly imagine.

That would be my first recommendation for a cultural 2008. And my second? Do something active in the arts. It’s odd how many “music lovers” don’t make music themselves, or how many people who “adore the theatre” would never consider giving themselves the thrill of treading the boards. Because this is increasingly a specialised world – and a world in which the commercial imperatives of the entertainment industry demand that as many people as possible are kept as passive consumers, not active participants – the description “amateur” has been turned into something of a dirty word, interchangeable with “botched” or “sloppy”.

Yet Britain’s amateur music and theatre scene embraces thousands of gifted individuals who, for one reason or another (usually financial), went into noncultural professions. What they find is that tapping into their own creative talents doesn’t dilute or dull their appreciation of the professionals. It sharpens it. In 2008, why not take up a cultural activity you’ve never tried before? I intend to learn to dance. Strictly ballroom, of course.