My head that is. Ichi, the recent Japanese samurai bit of fluff is a puzzling piece. Not to be confused with the brutal, mental but considerably better Ichi The Killer by Takeshi Miike, Ichi is a gender swap run around at Zatoichi (also recently made[…]

And so its BRITAIN’S GRAND CANYON WATCH, with a new contender throwing his deep and awesome hat into the ring. Because London already has a Grand Canyone of course, which I always assumed would double nicely as BRITAIN’S GRAND CANYON. But[…]

We are not usually in the business of baiting the Daily Mail, but clearly everyone who works there are on holiday and someone has turned on the Daily Mail story generator today. For as Starry of this parish just tweeted, this item about Christopher H[…]

Bruno, Sacha BARON Cohen’s new stab at outraging the entire world, suffers from the weight of expectation. Partially it was always going to have difficulty replicating the seemingly out of nowhere shock tactics of Borat, and lack the candidness[…]

Has there ever been a person where the proportion between hagiography and actual talent been so disparate as there is with Sid Vicious? Attitude of punk perhaps but cack-handed bassing aside, he is known for spitting, swearing, drugging, dying and ma[…]

We are all the Human League. WE WISH! If there was a band that, given a few early synths that we would want to be, it would be the League. How hard can it be, a few simple melodies and semi-portentous lyrics sung over the top? How hard is that. And […]

I’ve been watching British TV this week. I don’t usually do that. I’m not normally in, but I have been pleasantly surprised with nearly all of the new shows that have popped up (especially Gettimg On). It strikes me that early July […]

So a car breaks down in a small town and our hero heads out to get it fixed. Not much money, and generally depressed what follows is a low key exploration of small town life from the losers end. Un-cooperative garage owners, trouble with dogs all com[…]

Any live action version of a manga or anime, especially one which aims to appeal to an American audience, has to make concessions. Usually these concessions render the whole thing oddly flat or nonsensical: the film of Dragonball Z (Dragonball: Evolu[…]

There is something strange about an author adapting and directing a film of her own novel. Rebecca Miller’s The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee is exactly this thing, and you wonder how long Miller wants to live in the head of her remarkably passive cha[…]