I saw a charming film at the weekend. "Bikur Ha-Tizmoret" or "The Band's Visit" for those not versed in (I suspect though can't be sure - though can be sure that Someone will correct me) Arabic.

An Egyptian band find themselves stranded in an Israeli town on their way to perform at a cultural festival. As is often the way with these films, nothing much happens. To my mother's consternation, there isn't even much of the band's music on offer. But what little does happen has unexpected and poignant consequences. It possibly isn't a film for the unsentimental but luckily I have soppy sentiment aplenty so I was quite happy.

In stark contrast to this, I caught "The Golden Compass" on Sunday. The first in the Philip Pullman trilogy. The girl is cute, Nicole Kidman is marvellous and I almost wept for the polar bear. But it was schmaltzy rather than touching. Less stars to my mind though Mr Guardian disagrees.