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Glistening in its uniquely statuesque way, Rome seemed to await only a hero's arrival

Rome in a hot autumn sun looked more like its legend than any visitor has a right to expect. Glistening in its uniquely statuesque way – a Hollywood epic setting sprung to life – the city seemed to await only a hero's arrival: an epic-sized hero who wouldn't be dwarfed or made to sound inflated like Mussolini. This made it a testing place in which to meet the present heavyweight champion of Hollywood epics, for what had happened to Mussolini beneath this lowering architecture might easily happen to him. Deflation of "Ben Hur", alias "Moses", alias "El Cid".

But against the flickering civic backcloth of Roman churches, squares, statues, columns, and courtyards – all of them flickering because they were only glimpsed from a speeding Cadillac – Charlton Heston sounded well aware of the dangers of appearing here on the wrong side of the cameras.

Teaser for what I thought was a well-made, engaging, melancholic 15-minute short film I had the opportunity to watch over the weekend, titled The Bluest Note, directed by Marques Green, from a script penned by Oliver Webb. The brooding, atmospheric short film stars Len Xiang, Stacey Lewis, Jaynelle Clarke, and Rob Morgan, and its synopsis reads: Before losing his singing voice, Tony Mann was a well-respected musical artist whose raison d’etre was his music. After spending months undergoing an extensive battery of medical tests and appointments, he doesn’t have a probable diagnosis. Tony is hopeful for a change in his condition, but silently he is slipping into a...