Lumbering propaganda piece Hero is of high interest if you like colour-coded interior design or CGI madness involving arrows. Otherwise it’s gorgeous cobblers, a waste of five or six great pop videos. The portentious narrative style may be an a[…]

Brain damage
I wrote here a while ago about some aphasias, linguistic losses due to brain damage that say perhaps surprising things about the way the brain processes language. I’ve been reading about some other losses, not just around language,[…]

i don’t know, FIRST they say it’s bad for you, THEN they say it’s good for you[…]

THE RULES OF THE GAME
Dir. Jean Renoir
A few months back I had the chance to pick up La Grande Illusion, a film by a filmmaker I had heard much about but never seen outside of a still or two. A lucky used find — then again I’m always happ[…]

BELLS, LOCKS AND A PINT OF VINEGAR PLEASE
Every now and then you have a night in the pub which turns strangely surreal. Last nights boys night out was one such magical conjunction. Passing over the tremendous pub conversation, our fortuitous transfer[…]

Eight Great Minutes of TV

I put the telly on at around 10 am, Dick and Dom are caked in gunge already. A Kate Bush impersonator is singing “Wuthering Heights”, two men in white coats come and take her away. Then it’s time for &#822[…]

AMBUSHED BY UNEXPECTED EMOTION (ps idea stolen from this guy)
ok so i only just got to watch it, and i kinda knew the deal already – except for the music involved – bcz it first aired in the US two years ago (and ppl talked abt it a lot)[…]

Good coverage of the MomArt fire of a few months back from the Guardian here: MomArt don’t come out of this terribly well.
There’s the text of an interview with Michael Craig-Martin, in which he comes off as being a reasonable sort of fe[…]

kid-lit comment: wicked stepmothers vs the merely ill-advised: (mild spoilers alert)
Hattie’s aunt in Tom’s Midnight Garden is classic fairytale wicked – unstintingly cruel and cold toward Hattie, her orphan niece, who in her lonel[…]

FT TOP 100 FILMS
25: A Matter Of Life And Death
Martin Skidmore says: This has a great setup and it expands on it with imagination and extraordinary flair. It starts with a wonderful conversation between sexy aircraft coordinator Kim Hunter and doome[…]