I started properly going to the movies in the 1960s so these are films from my formative years. Which perhaps explains why I’ve written so many books about films made in this decade. Sometimes, the film I’m writing about is exactly as I remembered, other times it’s worse or much improved. This decade was most unusual for the number of epics or longer films produced, in part because of the arrival of the roadshow, movies running twice a day for months (or years) at a time, often close to three hours long, the equivalent these days of a small screen or DVD binge. While it was an era of change with new directors, new perspectives, different kinds of stars, and the tackling of social issues there was plenty room for the reinterpretation of older genres such as western, horror, crime and the musical. They made lots more pictures then than they do now. You might find about a thousand pictures in circulation in any given year, so there’s no shortage of subject matter. I’m also a film historian, with three books on subjcts that begin in the silent era, so I’ve got a mass of memorabilia from different periods that I’d like to share. And I go to the movies every Monday, usually catching two films, occasionally three, so I’ll be touching on some of those and, of course, I’m catching up on new films and old on the small screen all the time.