The fashionable thing to say about The Ladykillers is that the Ealing version isn’t that funny either.  (The either is optional depending on whether you found the Coen’s version funny. I’m leaving the either in.) I think that k[…]

FT Top 100 Films
62: GHOSTBUSTERS
Can you review a film by the quality of its spin-offs? Let’s see. I’m not talking about The Real Ghostbusters the significantly less real cartoon incarnation of the who-ya-gonna-call guys. No, I am going […]

Its a Brown Wedge piece about a television show. So it gets a link here too![…]

It seems clear to me that the animal and fantasy characters in the Shrek films are much more emotive than the human ones. It seems odd that this was not clear to the film-makers, especially as the crux of Shrek 2 turn Shrek himself into a human for a[…]

‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ left me outraged. Through some convoluted process I can’t myself divine, Michael Moore was able in mid-2004 to release — as in show in multiplexes worldwide — a film criticizing the entire course of US […]

What does the latest round of Guiness (Extra Cold) adverts (a follow-up pastiche compilation of previous classic Guiness ads) suggest? That they’ve run out of ideas and are squeezing the last drops of the black stuff (not Bovril) from the damp […]

Brilliant People of Television1: Ptolemy Dean
I was quite pleased when Restoration came back to our screens last night. Now, yes it’s a good thing that old buildings are being saved and returned to their former glory or put to some new use. Tho[…]

FT Top 100 Films
63: THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
What do I like about the Royal Tenenbaums? There is only one thing I really, really like about it (there are lots of little things I like a bit about it but I must admit the whole thing did not overwhelm me).[…]

Those Mean Girls posts not quite in full. I have written and discarded three posts about Mean Girls, which suggests that I think this might be the most important film of the year. It is not. It is instead a rather good, smart teen comedy which happen[…]

The British Film Festival is something I’ll return to after I’ve visited Cambridge’s own this weekend, but meantime Edinburgh has announced this year’s line-up. I’ve gone the last two years but can’t really afford […]