Oooh, yes, Gargoyles — one of those great tv movies, wasn't it? I'll second that! If I remember the setup was better than the execution (rubber-suited monsters) but it was surprisingly grisly with one eccentric character being found dead & strung up by her feet at one point in the movie (sorry, was that a spoiler?)

@JuMeSyn — I'll second The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. Never saw it, but I read the book shortly after it came out and when the flick came out I was curious to see how they'd done it. I think I was vaguely aware of her as an actor and Sheen through TV work he'd done, like the stunning and groundbreaking TV…

How about the original "Willard"? It was a huge hit in its time, but it's completely fallen off the face of the planet these days. Great performance from a young Bruce Davison, plus sterling support from a mean Ernest Borgnine and a late appearance by Elsa Lanchester.

I saw the Raimi/Cohen Bros Crime Wave many moons ago: Alex Cox ran a cult film series on UK TV that was brilliant for this kind of thing, and Crime Wave was one of them. I kind of liked it. Cartoonish and dumb, yes, but good fun

Executive Action, one of the earliest JFK conspiracy films (1972?), with a stunning cast that includes Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan, a slo-mo reconstruction of the Zapruder footage, and a chilling credits sequence in which they list all the witnesses to the assassination….and how they mysteriously died in the…

@anchovy — I'll second that. I think I've only seen bits of it (including the end, so I know whodunnit) but a great cast and, if I remember correctly, great ending credits with a Bette Midler song playing over it.

Oh, and I'll second Charley Varrick — a great, gritty, nasty little thriller.

How about Shanks, the Marcel Marceau film (early 70s)? A real oddity, I think I caught up with it on TV once, but it's completely disappeared.

I can only second that she's a really good, strong and fiery actress, one of the few to beak out of the soaps — Sarah Lancashire has had similar success. She was great in Corrie, and I was really sad when she left (although keep an eye out for Katherine Kelly, who kind of stepped into her shoes and is due to leave at…

As one of those who yearns for the days of OK Computer, I was surprised to find myself liking King of Limbs Bear in mind, as well, that there was also my fury at the way they handled the In Rainbows release, which reeked of contempt for a certain demographic ("You want a physical copy? You like reading liner notes? …

Ahhh, Ronny Graham. Mr Dirt from the ads (can't even remember what he was advertising) and one of the prime movers behind "New Faces of 1952", along with Paul Lynde, Eartha Kitt and Robert Clary. He wrote and sang that wonderful "Waltzing in Venice With You" song, for a start. But personally, I'd disagree. I think…

I second that — Present was fantastic, better than anyone dared hope it would be, a nervy, visceral collision of sound. I agree that Trisector was a step down, and I think they felt the loss of Jackson more than they thought, but with their new one, A Grounding in Numbers, they seem to have found their feet again and…

If you've never seen it, check it out. I've seen the first series and I can assure you it has everything you could want in a cop show: the dedicated, honest cop with a failed marriage (wife never understood his dedication) and a bit of a drinking problem, who's a maverick but gets results — or would if it weren't…

As someone who still gets a laugh out of both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead after all these years (although I did get an appreciation of architecture after reading the latter) and having lived in both the States and that bastion of socialism, the UK (and despite all its faults the NHS is great:don't let anyone…

I can't believe the disregard for Green on this board, which is not only my fave REM album, but one of my top album of all times. What gives? I got into them late, having heard bits and pieces, got Fables of the Reconstruction and thought, "Yeah, okay", then "Document" and thought "Good, really good" but "Green" was…

Rob Knepper
Over 30 years ago, I went to the same University as Rob Knepper, and we had a passing acquaintance. He was a brilliant actor — I saw him in a production of "The Ruling Class" back then — and we were both interested in the same woman. She wasn't interested in either of us and now lives happily in Indiana,…

I always found Bette Midler a guilty pleasure: while I found her singing style a bit strident, I really liked her acting and I thought she was brilliant in "The Rose", which I thought was a great film — you don't see it around much on this side of the pond. Unfortunately, I then found, on YouTube, a clip of her…

Oh, yeah, after Inception I dreaded watching Shutter Island, but loved it. A stylish, well-acted, atmospheric film with a great soundtrack that wasn't relentlesslyshouting in my face and trying to be clever

What with the slabs of exposition and the overblown, ripped-off action sequences, Inception became the first film in years I almost walked out on, a dreadful bit of nonsense that, it turns out, is also a bit of self-regarding Hollywood wank. On the other end of the spectrum, Mike Leigh's dislike of single people and …

A couple you missed…
I'm so uncool, I've not even heard of a lot of this stuff, but as someone who loved Yeasayer's debut, I eagerly snapped up their follow-up, only to find myself almost vomitting at the cheap, tinny, overwrought and fussy synth sounds and pimping for pop and craven chart-chasing on display here. …