So, there I was, attending a few screenings at the London Film Festival in October. I found myself at the Leicester Square Vue some 25 minutes early and decided, contrary to my usual practice, to take my seat well ahead of time. As I was meandering down the aisle heading for C5, I realised that two of only four people in the cinema were sitting at C4 and C6 respectively, and that I would have to sit down between them in a near-empty cinema in order to take my seat. Well, as someone whose usual seat choice is governed by a set of spontaneously, mentally calculated, complex algorithms, the variables of which – viewing angle/distance and the proximity to other people, with special reference to those holding popcorn boxes – were now unavailable to me (that’s reserved seating for you!), I simply didn’t know what to do. Sit down between them? Too weird. Turn on my heels and return later? Too late! For before I’d thought it through fully, I sat in C10 and waited for the inevitable... C10’s ticket holder. I thought I’d got away with it until, 5 minutes into the film itself, she arrived. She sat in C5... with only a modicum of fuss.

Just when you thought it was safe to open a Filmhouse programme and not have to read something about Orson Welles, December 4 sees the release of Richard Linklater’s brilliant Me and Orson Welles, featuring a performance by one Christian McKay (as the great man himself) that defies belief. It crossed my mind, as I watched his opening scenes, that CGI had been perfected to the extent they could digitally place deceased actors in new film, he's that good! Marvellously entertaining, and I’d have to agree with Roger Ebert on this one, “one of the best movies about the theater I’ve ever seen”. Rob Marshall’s stunning, star-studded – Day-Lewis, Dench, Cruz, Cotillard, Loren, Kidman – keenly-awaited, film adaptation of the stage musical version of the play inspired by Fellini’s 8 1⁄2, Nine, gets a Boxing Day release; Unmade Beds tells the charming, hip tale of two young Europeans emotionally adrift in our nation’s capital (London, that is); The First Day of the Rest of Your Life is a funny and insightful family drama; the Kazakh steppe provides the spectacular backdrop for Sergey Dvortsevoy’s gently humorous tale of a nomadic sheep herder, in Tulpan; and in Cold Souls, a sort of ‘Being Paul Giammati’, the actor (as himself) trades-in his own, pesky soul, which keeps getting in the way of his performance as Uncle Vanya...

For your viewing pleasure, we have secured a short theatrical run (prior to its debut UK DVD release) of Thorold (Gaslight) Dickinson’s rare and neglected baroque classic, The Queen of Spades (1949), and... have I really got this far in the December issue of our programme without mentioning the impending holiday season? Fear not, for we have our customary fine selection of seasonal fare – The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Scrooge – as well as a fully restored re-release of Powell and Pressburger’s magnificent The Red Shoes. Screening Scrooge fulfils my promise of earlier in the year to track down Alastair Sim’s definitive Ebenezer and the spontaneous applause (and subsequent popular demand) that greeted some of the other titles in our Sim retro earlier in 2009 has left us little choice but to bring back som eof your favourites. There's also a short season of musicals to carry us into 2010 in style, as well as plenty more than I've mentioned above, so please, read on.

And the warmest compliments of the season to you all!