Kill Shakespeare

You might imagine that on a Venn diagram illustrating people who read comics and people who enjoy Shakespeare, the area of intersection would be slight. You would, of course, be mistaken. After all, many comic fans grew up on the high-falutin' prose of Stan Lee, who modelled the dialogue of characters like Thor on a cod American take-off of the Stratford bard. Then in the late 80s, a new breed of...

SHAOLIN (2011)

MyRating: YYYY1/2Director: Benny ChanCast: Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Jackie Chan, Fan Bingbing, Wu Jing, Xing Yu, Yu Shaoqun, Xiong Xin Xin, Yue HoiThere are at least two things that make this movie special and well worth to wait. First, this movie was said to be the updated version of the 1982 The Shaolin Temple, that launched the career of Jet Li in his debut cinematic role. Second, the involvement...

Friday Flash - Hairshirt In Reverse

Some days, you eat the bear. And some days, well, the bear, he eats you.This has been one of those weeks where the bear wore a bib. A blocked week. I left my Thoughtballoons strip to the very last minute, and paid for it in the comments. And as for Friday Flash, inspiration failed to strike.Rather than force it, or leave you without my weekend sermon, here's another old Elephant Words story, dusted...

The King's Speech

For those of you who think I only go to the cinema to see dreadful, shlocky tat like Season The Witch... it's not true. I do go see decent, critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated "worthy" pics too. They're much harder to review.Take The King's Speech. It really is as good as you've heard. Colin Firth gives a tender, moving performance as the stuttering royal; Geoffrey Rush doesn't overplay the comedic...

Top Ten Spell Songs

After last week's Witches, I thought about following on with a Top Ten Wizards but found just seven in my library (not counting Roy Wood) and only The Who was a classic.But I'm not done with the occult just yet... so here's my Top Ten Spell Songs, which ties in quite nicely with this week's Thoughtballoons character, Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts. If you're so inclined, you can read my one...

The Redeemer

Seeking for an author to fill the Steig Larsson-shaped hole in my library, on the shelf marked "grim, yet gripping, Northern European detective thrillers", I happened upon Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, whose latest novel The Snowman is being helpfully touted as "the new Larsson". Before I got to that though, someone recommended I first read Nesbo's earlier book starring policeman Harry Hole, The Redeemer....

Justin Time

Twice now I've had tickets to see former Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie playing live in his new solo incarnation. Twice, despite the fact that he's written some of my favourite misanthropic songs of the last twenty years, I've had to give those tickets away... once because I'd just broken my arm, once because my back was so bad I couldn't stand up. (Back update - I still can't stand up for long, but using a combination of seated or partly-seated...

THE AMERICAN (2010)

MyRating: YYYYYDirector: Anton CorbijnCast: George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Johan LeysenMPAA: Rated R for violence, sexual content and nudityUS Gross: US$ 35.6 MillionWorldwide Gross: US$ 65.5 MillionA fine thriller-drama adapted from the 1990 novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth. Jack (George Clooney) is an assassin and a master craftsman, who specializes...

SIGN MY GUEST BOOK

Dear My Value Readers,It has always been a pleasure for me to know if someone visited my blog and read my reviews. Even if you just came by to take a peek, but knowing that will give such joy in my heart as the writer. Anyway, what is more important for a writer than to know that his/her writings are being read? And what is the meaning of a blog without readers?I really want to know what you think...

Bradford On Sea

It's now more than six years since they destroyed Bradford, the city in which I work. I originally reported on the demolition back in 2007. (I didn't have a blog in 2004 when it actually began.) They knocked down a large part of the city centre - right outside our office window - in preparation for an exciting new shopping and leisure palace of wonderment... which never actually materialised. A year...

Top Ten Witch Songs

Following on from last week's Top Ten Bitch Songs by changing just one letter in my search engine (yes, I'm that lazy) - and also in celebration of the unholy mockery that was Season Of The Witch - here are ten songs filled with hubble, bubble, toil and trouble...10. Jeff Buckley - Witches RaveEveryone knows the story. Jeff Buckley made one classic album, Grace, then floated away down the Mississippi...

The Small Hand

Susan Hill is the author of The Woman In Black and over 50 other spooky stories in the tradition of MR James and Shirley Jackson. Her latest tells the story of Adam Snow, a dealer in rare books who takes one of those pesky wrong turns without which so few of these stories would ever get told and ends up at a derelict house with an overgrown garden in the middle of anywhere. Something draws him to...

THE 68TH ANNUAL GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS RESULTS

AND HERE ARE THE WINNERS...1) BEST MOTION PICTURE - DRAMA- BLACK SWAN- THE FIGHTER- INCEPTION- THE KING'S SPEECH- THE SOCIAL NETWORK2) BEST ACTRESS - DRAMA- HALLE BERRY (FRANKIE AND ALICE)- NICOLE KIDMAN (RABBIT HOLE)- JENNIFER LAWRENCE (WINTER'S BONE)- NATALIE PORTMAN (BLACK SWAN)- MICHELLE WILLIAMS (BLUE VALENTINE)3) BEST ACTOR - DRAMA- JESSE EISENBERG (THE SOCIAL NETWORK)- COLIN FIRTH (THE KING'S...

Season Of The Witch

So just before Christmas, we're at the cinema, me and I and P, about to watch Unstoppable (which I never got round to reviewing but it was all right, if you like based-on-true-story runaway train gubbins with Denzel Washington and the new Captain Kirk) when up pops a trailer for some new medieval action thriller with lots of dramatic set pieces, spooky intrigue and sexy witches. It was one of those...

5-IN-1 MINI REVIEWS (PART-5)

SPLICE (2010), EAT PRAY LOVE (2010), SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010), THE NEXT THREE DAYS (2010), THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER (2010)SPLICE (2010)MyRating: YYYYDirector: Vincenzo NataliCast: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chanéac, Brandon McGibbon, Abigail Chu MPAA: Rated R for disturbing elements including strong sexuality, nudity, sci-fi violence and languageUS...