In the dim days before the internet and social media, I wrote, produced, directed and performed a one-man show based on the life and works of US poet and novelist Conrad Aiken. I just liked his poetry, and found his life story fascinating, so I thought it would also help raise a struggling actor's profile. I sent…

This won't win me any credibility (like I have any) but when I was a teenager, my first pop musical love was Elton John. I picked up on him at the time of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", bought all his back-catalogue thanks to Columbia record club and loved every album, right through "Captain Fantastic " (RIP Alan…

I'm not sure - I followed REM to the bitter end, with the exception of "Around the Sun" which I didn't even buy, and I felt that "Accelerate" was the obnoxious sound of a band desperately trying to prove they could still RAWK, like middle-aged uncles on the dance floor, while Collapse Into Now provided an overview of…

Oh, yes, they're very popular. But I don't get them. Monster, to me, was the time that REM stopped setting the pace and started acting as people expected them to, like rock stars. It's the album of theirs that, as I listened to it for the first time, I kept checking the CD track number, thinking, "Wait, it's on…

I have to admit that, despite the hyperbolic reviews, "Automatic for the People" underwhelmed me. I thought it got off to a good start, but peters off into stupidity and mawkishness too many times. I'll admit, I love "Nightswimming" and have come immune to "Everybody Hurts" but I listened to this album for the first…

Sitting through Toni Erdmann was one of the most painful experiences of my film-going life. Overlong, dreary, unfunny and with a script that sounded as if it was improvised by people who didn't know how to improvise, it didn't even get a smile out of me, although I did check my watch more often than I've ever checked…

I love The Final Cut. It was a rare fierce and eloquent voice of dissent during the Thatcher years. Pink Floyd, from "Dark Side of the Moon" on, have always been bold in confronting personal demons and contemporary malaise, as well as taking on current events (quite rare for a prog band) but The Final Cut is…

This is a brilliant documentary. Although it does examine the last five years, it does so in context of his whole career, so constantly flashes backward and forwards to show how his last years were influenced by his past, and how he uses it as a launch pad to explore his future.

Thanks - I was pondering that myself. Two bored, rich people lie around a luxury Tokyo hotel and sneer at everybody else. Luckily for them, Coppola portrays everybody else as shallow and/or stupid, so it's easy targets.

There was a cheap 1970s horror film called "Wicked, Wicked" that I remember getting terrible reviews when it came out. Filmed in "Duo-Vision" it was split screen throughout. I managed to see it on TV about thirty years ago and thought it wasn't that bad, and some of the split-screen work, is similar - a faded…

I finally caught up with Toni Erdmann on Friday night, and welcome any Hollywood remake, in the hope that they make it shorter and the possibility they might actually make it funny.

Damn, I love this stuff. When I lived in America we used to get it shipped over from the UK (along with Cadburys) and in later years, when I lived in NYC, it was the only thing I shoplifted from a nearby supermarket because they were charging outrageous prices for a small jar that originated from Canada. I have a…

Brooklyn's fekkin' horrible. Everywhere - both Brooklyn and Ireland - has the squeaky-cleanness of a backlot set, everyone talks in "To be sure…." Oirish cliches straigfht out of the old "Irish Spring" adverts and plot points turn on outlandish coincidences. Excruciating!

The only one of these I saw was "11 Minutes" - and I actually really liked it, and can't see what the problem is with it.
Sorry.

I watched the finale of The Fall, Series 3, which really isn't worth it. No spoilers, but the whole series is dull and moves at a glacial pace, as if Bergmann had directed Silence of the Lambs and cut out all the good stuff, leaving just the interviews and pontificating. Anderson, usually an actress I love, delivers…

I saw this at the London Int'l Film Festival a couple of weeks ago. It looks brilliant and is acted very well, but it's long and feels longer. I kind of liked the three-sided story-telling, but when "Part II" flashes up on screen it already feels like you've seen an entire film and it's, like, "Really? There's…

A really enjoyable actress - I'd like to see her in vehicles that really let her shine, as Suranne Jones and Sarah Lancaster have managed to do.

Maltese Falcon - good one. There's a US DVD set that has all three versions (including Bette Davis and Warren Williams in the loosest remake, "Satan Was a Lady" and it's interesting watching them, especially the first two - the original is (as a lot of early talkies were) static and stiff, but still boasts some great…

Oooh, that sounds like an interesting DVD. For years, apparently, the original was thought lost. Does the DVD have the weird colour process I've heard about?

I watched both, back-to-back, recently, and I was amazed at how faithfully the remake followed the original in terms of plot (but at much, much greater length) and Ann Dvorak was just unbelievably sexy for the time. To be fair to the original it was made at a time when the industry was still trying to get to grips…