Now this makes it unique among film that aren’t already direct by Gilliam, but the comparison doesn’t do it any favours. Mostly because the visual styles are so close, from the beautiful Shynola-made guide animations in between scenes, to[…]

One of Private Eye’s more sanctimonious regular features is “Dumb Britain” – a record of stupid answers given by quiz contestants on telly/radio. Not withstanding the fact that Family Fortunes has been providing such wonders f[…]

Much has been written about how much Douglas Adams is honoured in the new Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy movie. Nothing has been written about an equally significanct nod to another god of radio. Look at the posters to Hitch-Hikers, the ones on bus[…]

I tend to think that all screwball comedies of the thirties are a priori better written, directed and acted than any comedies being made these days. The awful truth is that this is not the case, and actually the superior batch are a small bunch (Pres[…]

“Look, this is a movie I was genetically predisposed to love” says Kevin Smith. At no point does he say “It’s daaaaaarrk, innit”[…]

A bit of water can make a lot of difference, and the one separating Ireland (Sky comes with the basic cable package, which also supplies life-giving BBC/ITV/CH4) and England (where I understand it’s a more exotic option) can lead to strange sig[…]

And here it is. I’m actually a bit disappointed with it because I was trying to aim at something more which a revision will require. But I hope it’s both informative and interesting, so let me know what you think.[…]

Half way through this afternoon’s Coronation Street repeat on ITV2 came this, the most frightening advert I have ever seen (you have to click on the banner at the top).[…]

Thus could be summed up my experience last night at the Newport Beach Film Festival, the first such formal thing I think I’ve attended. It’s only been around for a few years and is not yet a tradition per se — and the amateurishnes[…]

This joy was specifically to mop up films I had never seen from – ahem – the canon so I feel more confident when I slag them off/talk anout them. Note, that is more confident, I can currently slam down a nicely nuanced argument about why […]