"And . . . where there used to be some shops . . . "

I agree, @Prankster. And as much as I'll always be grateful to Davies for bringing the show back, and for some very strong casting decisions (in particular, Eccleston, Tennant and, to my astonishment, Tate), I find it hard to accept people dismissing this season as 'uneven'. Anyone recall 'Love and Monsters'? 'Fear…

I"m with you, @Yoga. Everything from that falsetto first line, to those chiming, churning guitar figures, just sends shivers up my spine. (Though apparently, within the band, it's one of their least-liked songs: go figure.)

Yep, it really sucks - so far, at least. What's to look forward to? 'Scott Pilgrim' looks like fun, as - in a very different register - does 'Inception' … to my mind, Nolan's the most interesting commercial filmmaker in the US right now. I'm hoping Affleck's 'The Town' is as good as 'Gone Baby Gone' was; and Anton…

The novels of David Malouf. The photography of Bill Henson. The music of The Necks. The TV show 'Love My Way'. Plus, you know, an 80s indie-rock pedigree of unbelievable riches (The Go-Betweens, Died Pretty, Laughing Clowns, The Lighthouse Keepers, The Jackson Code, The Triffids, Not Drowning Waving, et al.). AND the…

Far from dreary - it's tense, compelling and moving … and Jennifer Lawrence is incredible. 2010 might be shaping up to be the shittiest year in US cinema history ('Knight & Day'! WOO-HOO!), but even if it weren't, this and 'Blue Valentine' pretty much dwarf anything that's come out of the studios this year.

@Vadasz, For a moment I thought you meant, I was taking the opposite view of something I'D already written about 'Children of Men' - and so I went searching for that article, wondering what exactly the hell it was I'd said. Goddamn, that's a long thread. But I didn't comment there, even though that was my favourite…

Weirdly, 'Satantango' inspires a lot of responses like @Caged Horse's 'Fuck this shit' - as if the film's some kind of personal affront.

Yep. And 'My Way Home', and 'The Round-Up', and 'Silence and Cry' … Jancso, at his peak, was really someone to reckon with. And his (and Tarr's, and Ophuls') use of mise-en-scene in the traditional sense - the careful choreography of actors and camera within a physical space - still strikes me as real directing, not…

In Conclusion
Can't argue with too many of your choices for awards, Mike. But I actually think that, of the now fourteen (!) Cannes I've attended - yes, in the words of Comic Book Guy, 'I have wasted my life' - this was actually one of the better ones, thanks in no small part to the programming of Frederic Boyer at…

I got a laugh out of the line 'Ennis didn't take the project too terribly seriously' in the 'The Darkness: Origins' review. What, as opposed to the vaulting ambition he's shown in the rest of his oeuvre? Guy most be the laziest, most juvenile writer in comics — which, considering Mark Millar and Rob Liefeld are out…

I'm not suprised. I'm not so familiar with Michael Phillips' work, but Tony Scott's a really lovely guy, a very fine critic, and an elegant and sophisticated thinker.

Warren, I just mean those thick, crunching riffs, that satisfyingly meaty production (not thin and undernourished, like most of the Brit-punk albums of the time) and the melodic strength of songs like 'Pretty Vacant' and 'Bodies' (those keening vocal lines of Rotten's are still pretty tuneful, mapping the changes…

@Frankie80: If you really think the Pistols are more 'shouty' than, say, UK Subs or Sham 69 or GBH … then you ain't listening. 'Never Mind the Bollocks' is a great classic-rock album in punk guise — much like 'Nevermind'.

Nicely put, E.V.L.

'Unbreakable', yes … until the last 10 minutes or so. But before that, masterly.

Jarmusch, etc.
His contribution's nice, and beautifully shot, but I think that you could have at least mentioned, amid the undeniable 'dicking around' of much of the 'Ten Minutes Older' films, the segment by Victor Erice, 'Lifeline' - a concise, typically masterly piece of work from a guy who's never made anything…

Isn't Stacy the new board-persona of 'Elegant Victorian Lady'?

And let's not forget our French cousins:

Lobo Tommy, you say, "those extremes [of behaviour] are fairly common in people with great creative or intellectual capacity", and this is undoubtedly true. But we're not talking about a George Steiner, here. Moore's very lack of intellectual substance — his inability to mount a cogent or sustained argument, his…