What a fab movie – M. Night Shyamalan right back on form! I really enjoyed The Sixth Sense (and no, I didn’t see it coming). Unbreakable I could take or leave, certainly an interesting concept. Signs left me pretty cold. The Village is another matter altogether, and I loved it! The film is set in […]

It’s not very often that I am utterly bemused by a film, but I got to the end of Donnie Darko and said WHAT??!!??!!. Moving away from the plot for just a minute; the acting, casting, and directing are spot on. I was drawn in from the opening scene, and was completely absorbed throughout. The […]

Clearly going through a bit of a martial arts phase at the moment – what with Hero last week, Kung Fu Hustle today, and Flying Daggers on the way too! Still, gotta love them. So Kung Fu Hustle… bit of an odd film, to be honest. A strange combination of cartoon violence and real blood, […]

Well, what a surprising film, at least in terms of story. I won’t go into too much detail, as I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say it’s not very Hollywood. Very Crouching Tiger in feel – sweeping scenery, sword fights that are closer to ballet, beautifully filmed and choreographed… very much a […]

Mean Girls was actually a much better film than I was expecting – I’d heard all about Lindsay Lohen in the press, but she absolutely nailed her part in that film. Her descent from innocent self-giving all-round lovely person to ‘mean girl’ was played to perfection. A lot of this is of course down to […]

Seem to be doing better at seeing films that are not on my to see list then films which are! Anyway, latest flick is Dogville (starring Nicole Kidman), which is a very curious but interesting film, quite apart from normal Hollywood fair. The entire play is shot in a single location – the titular town […]

I read The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, many moons ago, and yet in the last few months it seems to have made a comeback, regularly appearing in the “Top 10” shelves in Smiths, or being read by people on the train. Let’s be frank – this is not a nice book, deeply disturbing with […]

I’m turning into an old cynic – two reviews on the trot where I haven’t raved about a film. But I’m getting ahead of myself… I found Signs to be quite a disappointment. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I was sort of waiting for the shocks, the chills, and the gasp at the […]

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper FForde, is a very odd but brilliant book that takes you on something of a magical mystical tour to an alternate reality of modern England, where Dodos are not extinct, certain people have special talents (like being able to move through time, or enter into the text of a book), […]

Strangely billed as a children’s book, Mark Haddon tells the story of Christopher Boone, a 15 year old with Asperger’s, who finds a neighbour’s dog murdered, and sets out to solve the case. The book is written as Christopher’s diary, and gives a real insight into the mind of a child with this condition. There […]