Five Thoughts About The Last Samurai: 4
I know villains are suppose to twirl their moustaches, but surely it is too much of a signal to the audience to have a villain whose moustache comes pre-twirled?[…]

Five Thoughts About The Last Samurai: 3
Fans of Liquid Swords by the GZA/Genius will thrill at the moment when the Emporor sends his ninja spies to the Samurai village to kill everybody. Unfortunately fans of decent martial arts movies will note th[…]

Five Thoughts About The Last Samurai: 2
The totality of Tom Cruise’s characters involvement in the politics of the Japanese situation seems to be, these people seem quite nice and are a bit like the savage Indians wot I killed lotsin the States[…]

Five Thoughts About The Last Samurai: 1
How much fun is it to watch Tom Cruise get tthe snot beat out of him with a stick. In the rain.
Answer: Lots and lots. Unfortunately it only happens once.[…]

Visitors to Barcelona often find that the works of Mr Gaud’ are overshadowed, nay, pummelled into submission by the pleasures of Voll-Damm, the super-strong local lager whose premises loom into view as soon as the airport bus begins its slow tr[…]

I LOVE YOU, YOU BIG DUMMY
Val’rie Belin’s photographs often seem to be about death, such as the empty dresses in coffin-like boxes, Miss Haversham’s ghost gone AWOL. But what if death is replaced with a simple lack of life? The unti[…]

I always thought that there was no upper bound to the amount of wine you could add to a risotto when cooking. After all, it is pretty essential that it be there in the first place, so why should there be a maximum. Well, last night i glugged a wee bi[…]

Julia Davis in Nighty Night is probably the furthest we can go with nasty a protagonist in a comedy. It causes quite a massive dichotomy really. How can Jill, the really unpleasant Beauty Shop propriator be so well formed as a character and yet be so[…]

The unpoliced zones of Brit TV are on a total high currently, as regards unexpected science, its hardcore and its social aspects – Monday 12 Jan on BBC2, C4 and C5 saw a fantastic run of documentaries, end to end (and not even clashing a bit!)[…]

On the whole I watch TV as anti-stimulation – same reason as I DON’T listen to music (music generates way too much whirly stuff in my head, so unless I’m actually writing about it or researching something I avoid it). Anyway, I don&[…]