🍿 22 Jump Street (2014) was even better than its predecessor, with the best credit sequence in recent memory. I do hope they don’t skip medical school.

★★★★★ I remembered The Prestige was good. I’d forotten just how good a movie it is. By now we’re all used to Christopher Nolan playing with time and narrative structure, and he uses it to great effect here not just for thematic connections, but narrative twists and revelations as the two rival magicians undermine each other on multiple levels. Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale are both charismatic enough that you want to cheer them on, and cruel enough that you want them both to lose. And even…

Watch that coffee, stewardess!! Evidently, Jane Wyman didn't watch Flight from Ashiya otherwise she would have known not to bring coffee into the cockpit! Oh wait, that movie wasn't released until thirteen years after this film, I guess she is excused. Three Guys Named Mike is exactly what you would expect from such a title - one woman debating about the three men in her life all named Mike. One of them is played by the always dependable Howard Keel (right). From the Archives is our latest…

Local boxer beats his wife until she runs into the arms of an adoring Chinese shopkeeper. Multiple gossipy spies get involved, jealousy ensues, everyone dies. Nice story but the titles doing too much heavy lifting; they hadn’t invented cinematography yet. Lillian Gish (who I just watched yesterday in Night of the Hunter) lives a dismal life here. A weak tree with branches for no birds, good for nothin’ in this old world, I spent half of the movie thinking she should jump into the river.…

Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew return in a domestic comedy about a man who stays out all night playing poker, worrying his wife. His friends try to cover for him via telegram but end up making things even worse! Home Media Availability: Released on Bluray by Kino Lorber. The Bro Code I think it’s safe […]

Real animals in this one, and oh that cyclops design, that makes up for a lot. And there’s a lot to make up for: three hours of battle scenes and whinging about the downfall of respectful society. Bunch of excellent actors and the Nolan bombast and the seat-rattling IMAX beat us into submission. MVPs: Cyclops, Travis Scott, the murderous giants, Elliot Page, Leguizamo, Pattinson, Agamemnon’s armor, Samantha Morton, the raven.

This really is a masterpiece of science fiction. As well as being astonishingly prolific the author has an astounding imagination as big as the planet of Majipoor itself. We open on a pastoral scene with our hero having nothing of himself other than his name. He becomes a travelling juggler (inspiring me to pick up my own juggling balls again) and from that small beginning attempts to regain the stolen throne, a task that involves travelling across most of the vast landmasses of the giant…

By my count there are at least three "Heated Rivalry" musical parodies on at the Fringe this year. The zeitgeist skates to where the puck was six months ago, I guess! There's also a live version of a HR podcast if you just can't get enough of their wacky ice-capades. Just how much sexy-hockey can one city take? Produced by Quick and Funny Musicals, an American company specialising in cash-ins loving homages, this is surprisingly good! With songs like "Fuck Him Up The Butt (Metaphorically)" it…

Beseelt. Das ist das Wort, das es am besten trifft und das J und ich auch immer wieder benutzen, wenn wir uns auf dem Rückweg von irgendwelchen Kreativ-Events befinden oder bei einem Kaltgetränk noch etwas deflaten. Wir saßen eben noch im RB zurück von Wuppertal nach Köln und waren also wieder beseelt. Von Wuppertal mit seinen überraschend schönen Bauten und der Schwebebahn, vom queeren Zentrum Inside:out, vom Austausch mit den anderen Zinestern und vom untrüglichen Gefühl, das gemeinsames…

We haven't had a 'news/views' for a while, nor have we had a 'toys in the media', so here's a quickie, using a couple of dodgy shots I took off the screen, from a puff-piece on sci-fi movies on YouTube, where if you watch one, you get another hundred in your feed! "Movies which broke the studio", "Sci-fi movies nobody saw", 10 sci-fi movies which everyone's forgotten", Sci-fi movies which

I recently realized I have not properly detailed all the film locations associated with new Fat Trout Trailer Park from Twin Peaks: The Return. The original Fat Trout from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was demolished by February 2011 following multiple flooding incidents from the nearby Snoqualmie River. The relocated trailer park is found just... The post Twin Peaks Location – Mickey and Carl Rodd’s Ride Into Town appeared first on TWIN PEAKS BLOG.

Time to hitch a ride with the Cosmic Hobo and take in some more Second Doctor audio releases. Last time we got four Companion Chronicles, one set in Season 4, two in Season 5, one in Season 6; this time, we’ve got three Season 6-era stories and one yarn from Season 4 – and one of the Season 6 stories is the Second Doctor’s first outing in the Lost Stories. Tune in, gang, as we take in a strong candidate for the worst Doctor Who story in any medium. Echoes of Grey It’s some 40 years since the…

I haven’t seen Jane Schoenbrun’s other movies, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, but I thought I had a fairly accurate high-level idea of what they were. Art film horror. Heavily influenced by online culture and queer society, but almost certainly humorless and dripping with self-serious pretentiousness. So I’m happy to say that whether I’m right about those movies or completely off-base, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is silly and funny as hell. It pulls off the…

Two articles have popped up in the wake of Cyan's fandom-rattling pitch reel for Anglerfish. To recap from last week: Anglerfish was the Myst-universe project that Cyan started prototyping in 2024. They teased it as "PREFALL" because it was set in the golden age (and Age) of the cryptic D'ni civilization, centuries before Atrus and his family. Damreus's desk has the shape of his Guild symbol, a Writer's pen nib. Cyan spent four months building a fully playable prototype of Anglerfish. They…

besorgt Ich mache mir Sorgen um meine Zukunft. Mein Psychiater ist der Meinung, dass es schlecht für meine psychische Gesundheit ist, wenn ich mich auf Stellen im Bereich Design bewerbe. Deshalb muss ich andere Wege finden. In den letzten Wochen dachte ich, dass ich einen Kaffeestand eröffnen könnte. Zunächst war ich sehr motiviert, doch inzwischen habe ich Zweifel. Am Donnerstag habe ich mit einem Pitch-Deck für eine Werkstatt begonnen. Diese Werkstatt vermietet ihr Untergeschoss. Ich werde…

Our first show at the Fringe! Caught by a rainstorm (in Scotland?!?!?) the app said this was the nearest comedy show to our sodden carcasses and it was free! This is bang-average stand-up. That isn't to disparage it at all. Four Australian blokes each doing 15 minutes of material - nothing particularly avant-garde or challenging. Just some decently funny (albeit well worn) observations about kids names, customer surveys at Tescos, and whether leaving skid marks is cultural heritage. That said,…

Always allow your dreams to last you your lifetime. I guess that’s the message behind this very sweet animated short, written and directed by Nicholas Arioli. A young boy wants to be an astronaut, as makes sure that he wears his space helmet wherever he goes, just in case he gets the chance to reach his destination – the moon. Then one day he comes across a coin operated ride which is – of course – a rocket ship. At five cents a go, it’s a must – so his mum leaves him to it while she goes…

Just wanted to share a photo tribute to Sharon on the anniversary of her murder. R.I.P to Jay, Sharon, Abigail, Wojciech, Steven and unborn baby Paul. R.I.P also to Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Which of Sharon’s films and performances are your favourites? Sharon and her dog Prudence. Photographed by Jay Sebring(Sharon’s friend and ex, who fought so bravely that night to try and save her)in her garden. Image source Wikimedia Commons. Sharon and Wojciech. Photographed by Jay Sebring in Sharon’s…

I picked up for a pound a weird DVD combining some olde Scottish musical shorts and a couple of short silent comedies starring and made by Rikki Fulton in the 50s. I figured I’d get intertitles and also some Awful British Comedian content. The first thing on the short is a filmed performance by Sir […]

Welcome to Day 10 of 13 of my Great Balkans Road Trip with Just You. So far in this series, we’ve travelled from Romania through Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. We’re now back in Romania for the final few days of the tour. In this episode, we’re starting with a tour of Timişoara and ending up in Braşov. You can find the whole series at the link below. This blog contains affiliate links to help support my writing. Travel Diaries What is Hotel Timişoara like? The highlight of this…

My wife and I recently rewatched all of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and I managed to catch all the episodes I’d missed the first time through. I was surprised to find Les Misérables featuring prominently in a fifth-season episode, “For the Uniform.” Captain Sisko is pursuing a defector from Starfleet who joined the Maquis (an ad-hoc militia of mostly humans from planets that had been disputed between the Federation and the Cardassians, and ceded to Cardassia as part of a treaty). He’s always…

Miscellaneous bits of news and fun stuff from around the Internet... ...We have a winner for my bloggiversary celebration giveaway! She has been notified. I'll be posting the MAVERICK quiz answers on Sunday....August 8th is the birthday of Esther Williams, Rory Calhoun, and Richard Anderson. Please visit my photo-filled tributes to Calhoun here,Williams here, and Anderson here. They each gave us many wonderful hours of entertainment!...Film Masters is releasing a Blu-ray containing SECOND…

Long doc, full of split-screens to fit as much rock action into the widescreen frame as possible, and still manages to miss major events (Creedence) in favor of a portrait of the guy who cleans the toilets (a highlight) and reporters hounding the fest organizer over whether the fest is losing money. With 30+ hours of music recorded that weekend plus all the interviews and split-screens, this event would be a prime candidate for the Eno treatment.

The only recording today is a repeat of The Simpsons – Stark Raving Dad. Media Centre Description: Homer encounters a character who calls himself Michael Jackson. Is he the real McCoy? Recorded from Channel 4 on Friday 30th April 2010 17:58 After this the recording ends with the start of Hollyoaks. Here’s the ad breaks. Adverts: Tesco Sony Ericsson Experia 10 Miss Dior trail: The Ricky Gervais Show Bing Audi R8 Spyder Enjoy England Argos Sony Ericsson Experia 10 Direct Line Home Insurance B&Q…

Four years after Sunset Boulevard, a movie that opens with the death of someone in the movie business then rewinds to show us the backstory. Our tragic contessa is Spanish Ava Gardner, last seen in the similarly-technicolored Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. It’s not a deal killer for a Hollywood movie but her Spanish is not good – what’s more important is she can speak English with a Spanish accent. The guy who pulled Ava from her unhappy home (her father later murders her abusive mother) is…

MACAO (1952), just released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection, is, as the saying goes, "more fun than a barrel of monkeys."MACAO has always struck me as a bit in the shadow of HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951), the first RKO film starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell.HIS KIND OF WOMAN is a wildly entertaining ride, but the final act is frankly quite disturbing at times, mixed in with fun humor.I don't think I'd seen MACAO since I reviewed it here in 2008. I'd forgotten what a good time it…

Gregorio Cortez is a folk hero among Mexican Americans along the Rio Grande border in Texas. In 1901, he was questioned by Sheriff W. T. (Brack) Morris regarding a reported horse theft. When asked by Sheriff Morris's interpreter Boone Choate if he had traded a horse, Gregorio Cortez truthfully told him, "No." Mr. Cortez had traded a mare (in Spanish, yegua), which in Spanish is distinct from a male horse or stallion (in Spanish, caballo). Boone Choate misunderstood this, and as a result Sheriff…

Magnificent Apple Strudel kindly baked by Farokh Talati, Head Chef at St John Bread & Wine for the lucky guests on this Sunday’s tour of Whitechapel. Click here to book for Whitechapel tours on Sundays 23rd August, 6th and 23rd September, and 18th October We are delighted to show these splendid cut paper collages by favourite illustrator Marion Elliot which are the subject of her exhibition MAKING GOOD at Tinsmiths in Ledbury, opening this weekend and running until 4th September. For those of…

glimpses of what could be igniting the fire look how brightly I burn

Indebted to Tim Lucas for mentioning the existence of Cockatrice, a novel by Wolf Mankiewitz a satire on the British film industry that aims to do for it what EXPRESSO BONGO did for pop. Mankiewitz felt that Val Guest did a fine job directing that one, but steered it away from its wider social satire, […]