Has John Cleese become embittered? He suggests that the Bond films after Die Another Day (his second and final) were humourless because the producers wanted to pursue Asian audiences. Humour, he says, was out. ‘Also the big money was coming from Asia, from the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, where the audiences go to watch […]
Tag: film
Google Plus is about to turn three: will media remember the hype?
As Google Plus nears yet another anniversary—I believe it’s its third next week—it’s interesting to reflect back on the much-hyped launch. Or, more accurately, on the number of people who drank the Google Kool-Aid and believed this would be the biggest thing since Facebook. Have a glance at the cheerleading: a handful of links I […]
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The TV and film ideas that Ireland pioneered
My friend Lou, who I enjoy winding up, just arrived in Belfast on holiday with her fiancé. I wrote on her Facebook the following slice of forgotten Irish television and film history. If I was in Belfast, I would be rapping. I pulled up to the house about seven or eight, And I yelled to […]
Sherlock Holmes, US-style
There’s a good reason (other than time) I do not watch Elementary, though I did try about 10 minutes’ worth before giving up. The last time I watched the US make Sherlock Holmes, it was the above: The Return of Sherlock Holmes (though I believe it was 4:3). CBS updated Holmes to the modern […]
Why I ran
In two elections, I told people some blarney on why I decided to run. In 2010: ‘I was working at Lew’s Diner and this guy had been picked on. I told him, “Stand tall, boy, show some respect for yourself. Do you think I’m going to spend the rest of my life in this […]
Do mayoral candidates dream of electric sheep?
The original link is long gone, but I sure wish the media here did its job during the 2013 mayoral election and administered the Voigt-Kampff (I know it was spelt differently in the movie) test from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. This was from The Wave, 11 years ago, during San […]
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Monica Z now out on DVD and Blu-ray
Monica Z, the bio-pic about the late Swedish jazz singer starring Edda Magnason, is now out on Blu-ray and DVD, as of earlier this week. I learned about the movie not through my Swedish contacts—they were messaging me only when the film was in the cinemas—but when Edda appeared at Allsång på Skansen in […]
Steve Guttenberg shows us how a Kiwi accent is done
Back in September, The Dominion Post claimed on its front page that I have an ‘accent’ that is holding me back. It was a statement which the editor-in-chief subsequently apologized for, and which she had removed from the online edition—you can judge for yourself here if the claim was a falsehood. Still, despite having lived […]
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A look back at 2012: from an Italian Job remake to a royal pregnancy
Last year, it was quite humorous looking back on 2011 and what appeared on my Tumblr. And since my decade summary in December 2009 was a bit of a hit for some of you, I thought it might be worth a review of the year. In case you thought you missed out on much from […]
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Has it really been 20 years? Billy T.: Te Movie débuts August
I still have a lot of the Billy T. James shows on video cassette, and I’ve avoided many of the compilations, since I just don’t feel right seeing the sketches in an order that Billy himself might not have had a say in. Silly reason, I know. However, this does feel right: a film about […]
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