So David Mamet thinks audience research is rubbish. Pity. Maybe his most recent film would have been improved if he had done the scantest peice of research. F’rinstance the audience no longer considers Val Kilmer to be a leading man, especially[…]

Will Smith is on the radio which reminds me of an urgent question: where is the I, Robot song? The Rules Of Entertainment clearly state that all Will Smith blockbusters – except the ‘serious acting’ ones like Ali – must come w[…]

Listen again, my teenage goblins
OK, I haven’t heard this yet (goes straight to audio feed, sorry no more details on the radio 4 website), but half an hour of “Dicing with Dragons” with Kim Newman delving into the roots of the role-[…]

Some Quick Notes on Cheap Surrealism
Just got home from seeing Anchorman with my brother Jeff, clearly the most surreal film of the decade so far, and that’s saying a lot, considering the stiff competition from Harold and Kumar Go to White Cast[…]

Innovative, audacious, useful…unimaginative, cowardly, lazy…You could apply any or all of these adjectives to Channel 4’s new late night show Flipside, that consists of a bunch of K-listers (MTV dudes), pwned props (Victor Big Broth[…]

FT Top 100 Films
43: ZU WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
Martin Skidmore says: I mentioned director Tsui Hark in my review of Crouching Tiger a week or so back. I’ve seen, and loved, only a tenth of his films – there’s a recent sequel[…]

Bum Barometer: David Mamet has a go at audience research in the cinema. Even though I have to stifle a cynical cackle at the thought of punters going all sensible and objective when confronted with a questionnaire, I think he has some good points. Th[…]

I note there has been a massive increase in road traffic accidents recently. Not in real life, but at the cinema, where every other film seems to have a surprise “someone getting run over” scene. It provides the twist in Last Life In The […]

“You are a very handsome man.” — yesterday as part of that odd film series I mentioned in this post I ended up seeing the sometimes okay sometimes pretty damned draggy Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (they’re showing the f[…]

FT Top 100 Films 44: COOL RUNNINGS
Tom Says: The traditional sports film comes in two varieties – sporting hero(es) win and sporting hero(es) lose. Either is a banker; neither is sad. Losing at real actual sports is often sad but tends to be ac[…]