A big bunch of thumbs ups for all these, from the past couple of months. The First Casualty by Ben Elton — a mystery set close to a century ago, a bit like Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George, and also very reminiscent of Black Adder 4, but with a much more serious look at the ... [More]
The 2006 Australian census is tomorrow night, and once again participants have a chance to answer the religion question as: JEDI. Apparently 70,000 did last time (including me). As the Australian Bureau of Statistics says: If your belief system is “Jedi” then answer as such on the census form. Taking a look at the Jedi ... [More]
Arthur And George (Julian Barnes) — not quite historical novel, not quite biography, following the true story of Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji. Somewhere in between, perhaps. Really well written, I thought (no wonder if was on the 2005 Booker shortlist), getting inside the heads of the main characters using language they’d probably use ... [More]
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang — A kinda violent-yet-funny Lock Stock/Snatch type comedy-mystery-drama. Very well done, with some nice touches on the narration. Plenty of laughs, very enjoyable. Broken Flowers — Another of Bill Murray’s refined, old bloke, laid-back movie roles. Very good. Corpse Bride — Reminded me of one of those 80s/90s afternoon kids’ programmes, ... [More]
Walk The Line — The story of Johnny Cash, and in particular his drug addiction and relationship with June Carter, based on his autobiography, which doesn’t paint him in entirely a good light. Interesting to see where some of his better-known songs, such as Folsom Prison Blues, and Walk The Line, come from. Really good. ... [More]
Crash — Superb drama. More than a little unsettling at times, but not a total depressionfest. Some Pulp Fictionesque dialogue and interconnecting story threads that reminded me a bit of Lantana. Nobody really gets off scott-free in this movie, and it really makes the point that none of us is totally good, or totally bad. ... [More]
I got Isaac a Doctor Who DVD for his birthday which has two documentaries on it totalling almost two hours. Is that too much? I haven’t watched the docos yet, but it is a truly classic story (Genesis of the Daleks), with plenty to talk about in terms of how the story was written and ... [More]
Saw a guy on the train with an old-style portable CD player. ‘Cos, you know, digital music from real CDs have a warmth that MP3/AAC on iPods just can’t match… Watched WarGames again the other night. As Marita commented, no wonder geeks like it — geeks get to save the world. (Though they almost destroyed ... [More]
Goodnight and Good Luck — A dramatised version of the campaign against Joe McCarthy by 50’s CBS programme See It Now, but with so many modern parallels in today’s climate of terrorism, fundamentalism, secrecy and censorship. Beautifully shot, and compelling. My eyes didn’t waver from the screen for the full 90 minutes. On a couple ... [More]
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — OMG, it’s Johnny Depp playing Michael Jackson playing Willy Wonka. Deep Roy (who 30 years ago played Mr Sin in Doctor Who — The Talons of Weng-Chiang) must have worked hard on this, playing all the Oompa Loompahs. All in all, enjoyable, and thankfully the spectre of the old ... [More]
It’s been almost two years since we went looking unsuccessfully for Mulholland Drive on DVD. Kept looking for it during that time, but no luck, apart from one aged looking VHS copy spotted recently. Finally though, a copy turned up on DVD. Oh, the anticipation. By about midway through, I was beginning to wonder what ... [More]
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — Good stuff. I’m not sure if I agree with the other reviews saying it’s the best HP movie ever, but I really enjoyed it. It’s not really worthy of the M15+ rating the OFLC gave it. Had to chuckle at the (probably unintentional) Doctor Who references: the ... [More]