Review: Michael Jackson’s This is It, My Year Without Sex, The Limits of Control and Black Ice

November 14, 2009
Thi is It poster

Full dis­clos­ure: I wrote a play about Michael Jack­son once (“Dirty Doris”, BATS 1995) so I’ll con­fess to always being inter­ested in the real char­ac­ter behind the tabloid and music video façade so the arrival of This is It (what some have described as a cheap cash-in flick) is of more than passing interest to me.
And […]

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LBJ checks his Twitter feed

November 13, 2009
LBJ checks his Twitter feed

[Image found at 1001 Rules for My Unborn Son]

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Bands of brothers

November 9, 2009
1943, Europe --- Soviet Soldiers Charge to the Front --- Image by © Dmitri Baltermants/The Dmitri Baltermants Collection/Corbis

I’m finally watch­ing the Spielberg/Hanks mini-series “Band of Broth­ers” in the beau­ti­ful new blu-ray edi­tion. It’s stun­ning tele­vi­sion and I can’t wait for the expec­ted sequel (of sorts): “The Pacific”, due out next year.
Com­ing across this blog entry at If Charlie Parker Was a Gun­slinger, it occurs to me that a sim­ilar drama from the Soviet […]

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Review: Julie & Julia, Food, Inc., Saw VI and three more …

October 29, 2009
Julie & Julia poster

Back before the days of “Iron Chef”, “Mas­ter­chef” and “Hell’s Kit­chen”, television’s top food expert was a very tall, slightly ungainly, woman who soun­ded a little drunk. She was Julia Child and in the 60s she taught Amer­ica how to cook. In an era where tv din­ners, pre-prepared sauces and easy cake mixes were top […]

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Review: The Damned United, The Final Destination, Red Cliff and A Pain in the Ass

October 25, 2009
The Damned United poster

Four films are on the agenda this week and only time will tell this early in the sea­son whether they are going to be genu­ine title con­tenders, gritty bat­tlers hop­ing for a shot at mid-table obscur­ity or no-hopers doomed to a sea­son of heartache and inev­it­able releg­a­tion. Please excuse the laboured foot­ball meta­phors but the […]

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Management Consultancy

October 21, 2009
CM3 box (1999)

If I could have another life to live, sim­ul­tan­eous with my own, I would prob­ably spend most of it play­ing Sports Inter­act­ive’s Foot­ball Man­ager (aka Cham­pi­on­ship Man­ager). While I tend to scoff at those who get excited at Beatles Rock Bands and am baffled but impressed by those who take games ser­i­ously, I can­not deny […]

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Review: An Education, Couples Retreat and Fighting

October 20, 2009
An Education poster

Twick­en­ham in 1961 might well have been the most bor­ing place on Earth. The 60s haven’t star­ted yet (accord­ing to Philip Lar­kin the dec­ade wouldn’t start until 1963 “between the end of the Chat­ter­ley Ban/and The Beatles first LP”) but the train was already on the tracks and could be heard approach­ing from a distance […]

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Top Gear Tribute Tour

October 16, 2009

So, here I am sit­ting in the deser­ted cafe of the Ant­arc­tic Centre at Christ­ch­urch Air­port, wait­ing to pick up Marty R for the start of his birth­day trip.
We’ve hired a sporty sil­ver Mer­cedes so we can drive him back to his gaff in Dunedin and then hoon around Otago pre­tend­ing to be rock stars. I […]

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Review: (500) Days of Summer, Samson and Delilah and In the Loop

October 13, 2009
(500) Days of Summer poster

The romantic com­edy is moribund. The first traces of its demise can be dated to the turn of the mil­lenium, when Hugh Grant decided that he didn’t really want to be the floppy-haired object of middle-class women’s affec­tions. Since then, the genre has been a reli­able pro­du­cer of tired and cyn­ical “battles of the sexes” […]

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Start the Week is back

October 7, 2009

It’s Octo­ber which means that the best radio pro­gramme in the world my favour­ite radio pro­gramme is back — Start the Week with Andrew Marr. The walk to work is made that much more intel­lec­tual when STW is on the iPod.
This week there was a lovely moment when Peter Maxwell-Davies (Mas­ter of the Queen’s Music), […]

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