SCTV's "Maudlin's Eleven" was a much better remake.

I'm with you on this - I love it and it improves on the original manifold. Most horrifying of all, a kid gets eaten, and kids have always been sacrosanct in movies.

I've never seen the original "Internal Affairs", but found The Departed, with its convoluted, gobsmackingly implausible plotting and over-the-top, completely dislocated Nicholson performance, embarrassingly bad. (Not to mention Ray Winstone's bizarre accent and the heavy handed symbolism, which even the Simpsons…

I caught up with this on DVD a few months ago - I knew it would be difficult and when it got underway I thought it was going to be REALLY difficult, but once you get into the concept it's really pretty mind blowing, right down to the repeated, "And…and..um…" that punctuate real speech. I once wrote a play in which I…

Well, okay, but you're missing out on real treat, as it's still an excellent show. Also, don't take my word for it - it's not something I was aware of, as I was focusing more on the human than the political side of it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there at all.

Hmmm…tricky. I'd say yes to the former but no to the latter. It doesn't make a political issue of it - it's more about the personal impact and the groping towards an understanding of the condition and the way different' people deal with it (inappropriately or in complete denial). There is a somewhat political angle…

Brillaint show - it takes a difficult subject and presents it with humour and tragedy and doesn't skimp on the human flaws, unafraid to present its main characters as flawed and often unsympathetic. Great performancs and quite stunning scenery, as well. look forward to the second season!

Whatever you do, avoid "Undercover", a series that started about the same time. Great cast - Sophie Okenedo and Adrian Lester - wasted in some truly dire writing, inconsistent plotting, head-slappingly awful logic drops and a courtroom climax that is so godawful, I'm amazed at their ability to keep straight faces…

It's been a while but I do do remember being bitterly disappointed with Short Cuts, but I really don't remember the "nightmarish scream" you mention, just the painful ending of "So Much Water…" being changed to "Everyone into the hot-tub!". The teenager's beaten to death but the killer gets away with it, thanks to…

Having loved Altman's work in the early 70s and his loopy, anarchic stile (The Last Goodbye is one of my all-tme faves, and I even liked A Wedding), I looked forward to this on its release, and was very disappointed. I imagine expectations had a lot to do with it, but, as the review says, it seemed a bit too full of…

I saw this at the London Film Festival and really liked it - it's loopy, but I loved that dystopian black humour and the imagination behind it. Hiddleston continues his run of suitably blank characters, but the film is crammed with so many other great characters that he just gets swept along. My partner decried it…

I think The Rutles did it better and first.

Yes, but in this the songs, although supposedly sung by a "New Wave" band, aren't even remotely New Wavified. The guitarist, if memory serves me correctly, is a guy with long hair and some medieval tabard costume, wailing on his guitar like a barroom band member at a fancy dress party. Groups like the Dickies used…

Thanks - I love this. I also fondly remember the "New Wave" band, Snow Pink, who seemed to only do covers of old rock 'n' roll numbers.

You are far, far too kind to this episode. Apart from the cringe-inducing preaching that pervaded the later Quincy episodes anyway, plus the dreadful acting of Anita Gilette as his paramour/partner/moral foghorn, this show does what Hollywood always does when it tries to address any kind of counter-culture: it…

You forgot to ask him about Atlas Shrugged. I would have liked to have heard the stories behind THAT.

The entire Nektar album "Journey to the Centre of the Eye", their debut. While it's pretty embryonic Nektar, never the hippest or biggest of bands anyway, and doomed to be dismissed as B-list proggers, it's all told from the POV of an astronaut who gets lost in space and undergoes a "2001"-style voyage of inner…

Rio's definitely does NOT count!

Is that a euphemism? We lived on St George's Avenue - Gemma Redgrave moved in a few doors down after Laurie left (my barber told me he'd gone to America to try his hand there and I snorted in derision) and I used to see Cicily Tyson around quite a bit, but it was all quite low-key, "can't afford Camden or Hamstead"…

We lived there about 20 years, finally moving to West London 9 years ago. Not a lot going on there when we were there - it seemed overlooked - but I miss it for the proximity to the tube (even if it was the Northern Line) and to Hampstead Heath.