Modern Archaeology may seem a contradiction in terms, but its a big thing in acadaemia at the moment. Maybe its because students like rummaging through landfills. Fact of the mattr is with the disposable aspect of everyday culture there are aspects o[…]

FT TOP 100 FILMS
10: FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF
Matt DC has a Save Ferris 1986 T-Shirt. It is now 2004.
The character of Ferris Bueller is irresistable. Smart, funny, laconic = iconic. A cool kid, but a nice kid, who just wants to take a day off[…]

I know that Biskind’s Down And Dirty Pictures is not supposed to be an academic piece*. But should he really set his stall out quite so clearly in the foreword (not even the Introduction)? In his summary of 90’s independent films he starts of[…]

I have gotten Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy mixed up before. Not in a prose identification way, they are distinctive enough, but merely in the name filing part of my brain. I was reminded of this by looking at the blurb for David Peace’s Nine[…]

One of my favourite things about being a meat eater (aside the meat I guess) is having a casserole or stew with the meat on the bone and discovering offal popping out of the fluid near the end. This is particularly good with smaller animals which you[…]

The Grudge. Not Ju:on. A film which would like us to believe that not only are ghosts nasty buggers (like the Japanese version) but in the even more unbelievable suggestion that there are so many Americans in Tokyo they have their own social services[…]

The cover of Murphy’s Favourite Channels is not very promising, it is indeed almost offputtingly poor. John Murray’s book which, in a cosy fashion, juxtaposes the life of a Northern lad made good with the television he watched is actually[…]

The biography channel on satellite is no way to learn of Carole Lombard’s death. I appreciate that I am probably running behind the rest of the world a touch in acknowledging the death of Lombard, but it had never occurred to me before that her[…]

On the last chapter of Vernon God Little. Yes or no? See a similar issue I had last year about a film for potential clues to this question. You will need to read the much more entertaining than I expected* book to make up your own mind about the answ[…]

BBC3’s go at serious documentaries recently actually consists pretty much solely of a docusoap called Paparazzi. Beyond the chummy calling of said photographers “Paps” the programme’s problem is in its identification with its […]