Month: January 2004
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Girl with a Pearl Earring
Two Scarlett Johansson films in as many weeks? But you are spoiling us. It took a little to persuade me to see this film. Colin Firth isn’t exactly a box office draw in my book, but the beauty of the film was mentioned by everyone I heard talk about it. So I relented. Taking a…
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Democracy of Access – No Democracy of Talent
“The vast majority of them, I would say, are not worth the time it took to type them into the keyboard.” Val McDermed speaking about weblogs on The Message. I certainly hope that this writing isn’t “sub Bridget Jones” and I can honestly say that despite the fact that I read The Guardian, I don’t…
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The Boat Show
I last went to the Boat Show about five or six years ago, and must admit that I had a thoroughly good time. It’s full of large vessels for which you must earn millions to even think about owning. But there’s more to it than that. I suppose it comes of being an island race…
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Paycheck
From the outset, let’s just say that this is not a good film. Ben Affleck is so so, Uma Thurman seems to be on autopilot after Kill Bill, and there’s no chemistry between them whatsoever. Based on a Philip K Dick story, the producers no doubt thought they’d be more than happy with Bladerunner or…
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Mars and Space Exploration
So what to make of all the excitement we’ve had over the near year period about space exploration? We’ve had the disappointment of the Beagle 2 which does now seem lost. Then the success of NASA’s first Mars lander, including this spectacular Martian landscape. And now the lander has rolled out it’s lander. This is…
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A Dedicated Man
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Dodgy TV Comedies
Tuesday night seems to be new comedy night, and I certainly can’t claim to have watched any or all of them properly, but there’s something suspicious when a pair of programmes appear from 10.35 on BBC1 after the news without any notable previewing. First up there was Doctors and Nurses which stars Adrian Edmondson. This…
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The Avalanches
I’ve just been listening to a show on BBC London that I’ve never heard before presented by Sean Rowley (I think). He played a remix of a Belle & Sebastian song that’s soon to be released as a single. It’s an amazing remix with some very African influences. I can’t quite remember the details of…
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Lost In Translation
I’d been curious about this film from the poster alone, so when I didn’t manage to get along to the cinema at the weekend, tonight seemed a good time to go, and what a marvellous film. It’s slightly disconcerting to discover that director Sofia Coppolla is a couple of years younger than me – well…
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Danny Baker and Curb
I meant to write something about this last week. The fourth series of Curb Your Enthusiasm has just started on HBO, and I downloaded it and watched it last week. Why wait for BBC4 when we’ve only just seen the end of series two? The theme of this season is that Larry is offered a…
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Don’t Look Back
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Disturbing
Apropros of nothing, there’s a thoroughly disturbing video airing on the EMAP music channels just now. It’s a German band called the Boogie Pimps and their crass Euro remake of “Somebody to Love”. However, it’s the video that you really have to wonder about. It features seven very small babies skydiving from a plane in…