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The End of an Era?
Steve Jobs has died at the young age of 56. He had a massive influence on at least three industries: computing, film animation and music. I thought that Dan Gillmor’s eulogy on Jobs probably came...
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Little Shop of Horrors
The Guardian is running a series on the theme of “My Favourite Film”, and this week, Jessica Hopkins pens a love letter to “Little Shop of Horrors”. Not the Roger Corman original, but Frank Oz’s...
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Ken, Meet Grim…
I was saddened to read today that Ken Russell has died. He was 84. He once said that “the Grim Reaper is the only thing that will stop me making films”. Alas, introductions have now been made. It was...
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Hugo
A few years back, I bought The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Although it’s ostensibly a children’s book, I was attracted to it because the book is a work of art in its own right. Even...
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The Joy of Books
What books get up to at night. I sometimes wonder what happens in my library deep in the night as well. (hat tip to Matthew Cobb over at Why Evolution is True)
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The Devils
Hurrah! The British Film Institute has just released the complete UK ‘X’-rated version of Ken Russell’s The Devils on DVD. It’s in its original aspect ratio of 2:35:1 and looks absolutely stunning....
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A Talent To Watch…
He’s a young man called Cosmo Jarvis, a singer-songwriter. I came across the video of his song “Gay Pirates”, and thought it was pretty good… And then I found a much darker song: “Sure As Hell Not...
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Facets of Delius
I was first introduced to the music of Frederick Delius back in 1968 via Ken Russell’s brilliant biographical film portrait: Song of Summer. The film dealt with Delius’s last six years of life, when he...
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Cloud Atlas
“Cloud Atlas” is the name of a remarkable book by David Mitchell. A Russian Doll of a book, it contains stories within stories that link and arc to form a narrative that spans centuries and...
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This Land is Mine
I’m currently reading (very slowly) Steven Pinker’s magisterial The Better Angels of Our Nature. It’s a history of violence in human societies, and his thesis is that violence has actually declined...
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Paperman
Nice to see that Disney can still produce heartfelt animation. Short and sweet.
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The Challenger
Last night, BBC Two showed “The Challenger” – a film dramatisation of the public inquiry (the Rogers Commission) that investigated the causes of the catastrophic accident that befell the space shuttle...
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More Bad News
Following on from the news that Iain Banks is not long for this world, comes the news that Roger Ebert has now departed it. I admit that I was only an occasional reader of Ebert’s film reviews, but I...
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Just Tying Threads Together
The news that Roger Ebert has died has brought out instances of what he meant to many people. Including the shout-out from Nina Paley, who thanks Ebert for his review of her film. Sita Sings the Blues...
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The Hidden Talents of Giraffes
I never knew that giraffes could do this. They must have remarkably strong teeth.
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Rewriting 2001
The Dreams of Space blog has an entry that shows a children’s comic produced in 1968 that ties-in to the release that year of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It depicts two children, Debbie and Robin, being...
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Good and Bad Shorts
I occasionally peruse the io9 web site. Occasionally, because, quite frankly, I find it a bit tiresome. It just seems a bit over the top and too much in love with itself. Here, for example, is the...
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Watch Anytime, Anywhere…
I notice that some DVDs are now advertised as including a digital copy of the film, intended for playback on PCs, Smartphones and Tablets. I seem to recall that at one time, the digital copy was...
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Under The Skin – Again
As I wrote back in 2009, Michel Faber’s first novel Under The Skin will probably get under your skin, and provoke a severe reaction. I see that the novel has now been made into a film. While it sounds...
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Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean’s film Lawrence of Arabia was first released in 1962. Until a few days ago, I had never seen it, but last week I bought the Bluray version of the restored and remastered 50th Anniversary...
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