While I agree that chamber musicals are probably better suited to film, I disagree with the general premise of the piece because it is all about adapting Broadway material, instead of making original film musicals.

As an NZ fan, it's a pretty exciting time. But looking at the scorecards, I think Zimbabwe are going to surprise people. They bowled us out cheaply and beat Sri Lanka in the warm-ups, and are currently looking good against South Africa.

This week I watched Dead Again. It was alright, but was kind of let down by the very average plotting. Branagh does quite a good job of setting the style of the film, and has a more than passable American accent. The chemistry between him and Emma Thompson is great, and Derek Jacobi is impressively hammy, but it is…

I definitely agree that it didn't seem to understand journalism too well, but I thought they had on-screen chemistry (although I wish Rock had gone with the more ambivalent ending).

Yeah, I guess pretentious was the wrong word because of all the negative connotations it has. It's more that I didn't like the opening and closing half-hours at all, but liked the middle quite a bit.

I haven't seen The Tree of Life since it first came out, but I remember it as a nice impressionistic movie about family tension trapped inside an incredibly pretentious framing device.

In that way, it's a lot like Kate and Leopold, which is also a plodding rom-com with a saving grace of a lead performance (Hugh Jackman in that case).

I'm surprised it's so controversial. I agree that they probably didn't need that ass shot, but I thought it very much in keeping with Vaughn's "Bond, but more explicit" vibe through the whole movie.

This week I ended up watching all modern movies: Top Five, Enchanted and Kingsman.

I've heard a bit about Tan Dun, but not any of his music (outside of the Crouching Tiger score obviously). What's a good entry piece?

Zelig is my Dad's favourite Woody Allen film. My overall favourite Woody Allen film so far is The Purple Rose of Cairo, but I've only seen a handful due to my habit of jumping around instead of watching entire filmographies.

Hiroshima Nagasaki sounds like a great book, you've made we want to check it out.

I found The Haunting very overrated when I watched it. The voice-overs really bugged me, and the direction was typical middle-of-the-road Wise stuff. I did think Russ Tamblyn was very good, though.

I'm no Ozu buff, but I love watching his movies. The gently meditative energy and amazing use of space are always impressive. One I quite liked which was less portentous was Good Morning, about two kids trying to get a TV and farting a lot.

So the book is quite different to the movie, I take it?

This week I watched Lifeforce, Night of the Hunter, When Harry Met Sally, Tootsie, and Hannah and her Sisters.

I watched Birdman this week. I liked it in parts, but found it unsatisfying as a whole. This was primarily due to two incredibly narcissistic, self-serving speeches given by Emma Stone and Michael Keaton about the internet and criticism. Inarritu chooses to frame these by moving into a tight close-up, suggesting the…

That's a pretty good way of putting it. I do think Smile is closer to their stuff together than Menken's post-Ashman stuff, though. I love the Howard Sings Ashman CD where him and Hamlisch sing the score.

It's great seeing Noel Murray's writing back at the AVClub. I read The Dissolve, too, but it was writers like Murray that first attracted to me to the AVClub, and his honest and shamelessly un-"hip" viewpoint is always refreshing.

I kind of lean towards Sullivan's Travels, because it was the first one I saw.