When I was in Belgium last week, I was surprised to discover that it was just like the movies:
So there’s no new content here, but qwghlm is back with an excellent, funny post about ads attacking movie “piracy”. (I’m not sure why he’s so down on the first “viral” video though.)
[A New England meadow. A delicately beautiful Indian woman in a simple smock dress picks daisies with which to decorate her hair.] INDIAN WOMAN [singing to herself as she gazes into the forest beyond]: “बिछड़े अà¤à¥€ तो हम, बस कल परसों,” “जियूà¤à¤—ी मैं कैसे, इस हाल में बरसों?” “मौत न आई, तेरी याद कयों आई?” “हाय, […]
Over at my other blog I’ve been writing about touching up women, and summarising what I learned about photographing weddings from watching Armageddon. The latter has proved to be popular with outsiders so I am linking it from here for those who aren’t regulars at The Wedding Photography Blog. I don’t mention it there and didn’t […]
Given that I spent New Year’s Eve alone at my computer keyboard tidying up my remote UNIX home directory, this is going to read like a middle-class white guy wibbling on about how “vibrant” the local “community” is as he moves into a flat in one of London’s tiny ethnic war-zones instead of the Georgian […]
Watching grim news reports from Iraq lately, many people have hoped that the ongoing suffering of its people might be put into proper perspective by a funny-looking Italian bloke clowning around Baghdad in retro underwear. At last that dream has come true. Sentimentality, slapstick, glib geopolitics, and cut-and-paste ethnic colour. On the evidence of this trailer […]
Happy Christmas, one and all! No content from me today, but the trailer for this movie looks like it will have something to offend everyone.
Gerard Butler spends almost all of the trailer for the upcoming 300 SHOUTING HIS BEARD OFF.
I am notoriously sensitive to people revealing the plots of television series and films. As pharma geek Anthony correctly diagnosed, I watch things long after their broadcast/release, often via Amazon’s cheap and cheerful rental-by-post system, and I don’t have a TV. A side-effect is that many of my reviews here are out-of-date, but at least […]
For regulars here not also regulars at Norm’s place: the Prof is currently in Upsidedownland watching the cricket between Australia and England. Yesterday he linked to an article from The Australian about England bowler Monty Panesar. Reading it, this passage, er, struck me: [T]he safest way to dive into the water is to keep your […]
Clive Davis is discouraged from seeing Casino Royale, the new new Bond, by of this review by Cosmo Landesman. He shouldn’t be. Landesman fails to grasp even the basics of the (not particularly complicated) plot and then complains that what he thinks is going on is “absurd”. It’s worse than that: understanding what is actually […]
From a review entitled “Understanding Borat” on the blog The Libyan Observer: Moreover, nowadays, when the Jewish State’s influence within the American administration is academically and historically established (The Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt) when the support for Neoconservatism that has lead to a genocide in Iraq is largely endorsed by the Zionist […]
EDWARD BURNS: Yes, I am Edward Burns, the legendary molecular bio-something-or-other. Like all world-famous interdisciplinary scientists I have a cuboid jawline and impeccable upper-body development. You can tell I’m an intellectual from my stubble, my carefully ruffled hair, and my slightly messy luxury urban apartment. No, they couldn’t afford Matthew McConaughey. ASTOUNDINGLY UNCONVINCING STROLL AGAINST BACK-PROJECTION: […]
Brian Micklethwait has a post up about Sierra Leone. It’s opposite of the sort of thing many of journalists would write about the place, being politically incorrect, interesting to the casual reader, and crude but accurate—as opposed to sensitive but misleading. It’s the sort of summary of the place you might get from a mate […]
During our Keira-frenzy, I forgot to draw attention to the photoshoppery that accompanied one of her earlier “historical” movie romps. Check out her amazing inflating chest [safe for work]. Also on Defamer you can watch Mel Gibson’s TV confession. What he did was wrong and he doesn’t pretend otherwise. It’s toe-curling stuff, but you can’t take […]
Regulars will know that I am not a lover of art house cinema. (I have been meaning to slag off the execrable Volver here since I saw endured it a few weeks back.) But yesterday evening I watched a grim, documentary-style Belgian film and enjoyed it. Hilariously, the plot, such as it is, centres almost […]
This description of comics conventions is over five years old, but it’s still funny.
Jeff Bridges is a quirky and talented actor. He has also an interesting Website. Like me he puts his music and his photographs and his bad jokes online. Unlike me he’s a hugely successful Hollywood superstar with great hair. Check out his urinal endorsement. Nicole Kidman’s not going to be doing an ad for Armitage […]
All the women reading this must now punish me in the comments here for giggling like a schoolboy at Jo Salmon’s Star Wars blog post yesterday, in which she actually resorted to the “lesbian-interrupted-by-the-plumber” plotline beloved of another cinematic sub-genre. Spank me, girls.
If I’d thought about it for a second before, I’d have guessed that there were blogs written in Klingon, but I do like that the first one I’ve actually “read” is called “bo logh”.
Wikipedia will eventually triumph over all other existing encyclopedias. Does any edition of Britannica or Encarta have a “List of films ordered by the use of the word ‘fuck’”? Yesterday’s featured article was about philosopher and socialist Hilary Putnam, who is the Putnam in the “Quine-Putnam indispensability thesis” and definitely my kind of thinker. (By that […]
While I’m on the subject of academics writing rot and being called on it, I discovered this weekend that Uwe Boll, widely criticized as one of the worst directors of all time, has a doctorate in literature. An IMDb contributor reviews a work from his oeuvre, the videogame-“inspired” Alone In The Dark, like this: “[T]he […]
Note to government advertisers: this is how to make disposing of litter cool. (Of course, Defra or whoever’s responsible could be showing ads like this already, but I wouldn’t have seen them because I don’t have a TV.)
Al Gore seemed to have been engineered by a mad scientist to become President of the United States of America: born in Washington DC to a former senator, elite education, lots of practice being Vice-President to one of the more distracted actual Presidents, George W. Bush for his opponent, tall, good hair. How could it […]
Today’s featured Wikipedia article reveals that velociraptors were probably covered in feathers, stupider than cats, and the size of turkeys. Once again scientific accuracy ruins a fun night out at the cinema.
Two special Ks from the Beeb’s Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 première gallery: Kelly—a figure lusted after by many men Keira—a figure aspired to by many women I used to work with a bright, attractive, independent woman. She even maintained her own classic car. (She’s the only female I’ve ever met who owned her own grease gun.) […]
Trevor Rabin, 80s hair-guitarist-with-pretensions and the man who wrote Owner Of A Lonely Heart (one of the greatest pop singles of all time) while sitting on his toilet, has scored the orchestral music for Snakes On A Plane! Does it get any better than this? The film is so important to me now that I fear […]
I’m not very good at crossword puzzles. My dad, however, was schooled by Jesuits, did classics at university, taught English for decades, and collects useless information. If you wanted to build an elite special forces crossword-solving unit then that is probably how you would train its members. Since he is a connoisseur of the biggest […]
After you’ve read this blog’s harmless and amusing comparison of real college life with co-ed porn movies, check out the comments, where, for no immediately obvious reason, a visitor launches an irrelevant tirade about, well, you can probably fill in the rest if I reproduce the last couple of sentences: “I hope those Iraqis kick […]