Oddly enough, I've only seen the sequel. I watched it at an age where boobs was enough for me to forgive any flaws in a movie, though I didn't like it enough to seek out the first film.

Laura does have a great theme in the score, though.

You should watch Le Doulos which is a Melville film with an even more Noir aesthetic than Le Samourai. Honestly though, I've never seen a Melville film I didn't like.

This week, I watched Gremlins, the two Thor movies and About Time. I really dug Gremlins. I loved the way that it started off as a typical holiday movie, before becoming a pretty gruesomely funny horror film. Dante has a great handle on staging, and uses it to full effect in the scene at the house and the department…

It wasn't exactly on the sly, as my parents were extraordinarily permissive in what I could watch (they taped Beerfest for me when I was 14), but I watched most of Angel and Buffy while trying to not bring it up with my parents when they asked what I was watching. This was because it was the late '00s and I didn't…

Actually, I don't start again until the end of February. I'm basically starting my equivalent of the summer holidays in the US.

I generally become inspired when walking to work, or after banging my head for hours trying to get something right. Most of my best ideas actually come from time pressure - I tend to find unreasonable deadlines (or deadlines I've procrastinated on) the best thing to get my creative juices flowing.

Good on you TV Club Classic coverage of Mad Men for starting the day after I finish university for the year.

The thing that surprised me the most in the stuff match summary was their condescension towards Munro. To me, it's a surprise he isn't generally considered a first-string player, given his strong record in the few games he has played and his very strong first-class and List A stats. I suppose that's the price which is…

So you missed the Bangla Wash?

This week, I watched Ride Lonesome. I really liked it, with the use of Cinemascope and the score being particularly notable from a technical standpoint. Boetticher has a knack for staging in a cinematically effective manner which, combined with a smart script and good acting, creates tension in a film which has very…

That's the one.

This kind of reminds me of a series of documentaries about the Human Body by Robert Winston that I watched as a kid. One of the episodes dealt with death and, in addition to depicting a guy dying (not for real like this, though), it instilled me with a fear of death that has stuck with me.

Six in a row, now. It's a shame I support Waikato (despite being born and raised in Christchurch).

I'm still watching Masters of Sex because one of my flatmates likes it a bit more than I do, and it's fun to pick at. Given up on Homeland, though.

I think you'll find the subtitles are fairly unnecessary by episode 5 or 6. It just takes a couple of episodes to tune into the language. I didn't watch with subtitles, and it was about then that the language clicked.

This week I watched Black Moon and State Fair. I really liked a lot of Black Moon, which was hypnotising and very strongly put together. Malle, like Lynch, doesn't fall into the trap of self-indulgent pretension that so often happens when people make films with very little dialogue - example A, The Tree of Life. I…

If you'd dressed as the Riddler you probably could have won the race (and possibly the costume contest, depending on what the judges are into), as his costume is basically a speedsuit.

How are the actors playing Phyllis and Neff? Does the speeding ticket line work at all?

Isn't it virtually identical to Wilder and Chandler's screenplay?