REVIEW: 'Calendar Girls'

I was slightly wary about going to see this play, as it could have looked as if I was sloping into the theatre in the hope of seeing a burlesque show starring women of my mother's generation, so I wore my hat strategically dipped below one eye and my scarf covering my face, and nobody seemed to notice anything amiss.

Anyway, as you probably know, this is the stage version of the film adaptation of the true story of a Women's Institute group in Yorkshire, who posed nude in 2000 for an 'alternative WI calendar' to raise money for a sofa in the visitor's area of a nearby hospital. The women were prompted to do this following the death of one of their husbands. The calendar was an immediate - and ultimately international - success, raising millions of pounds for leukaemia research. In fact, a tenth anniversary calendar will be produced for 2010.

The stage version features an impressive cast (Patricia Hodge, Linda Bellingham, Julia Hills, Brigit Forsyth, and other familiar names) and they seem to have a lot of fun with a funny script, and everyone performs well, though arguably - and perhaps inevitably - the scene where they're posing for the photos gets the biggest laughs, but it is very cleverly done. I'm not any kind of expert on these things, but the set and scene-changes were smoothly done too.

I might quibble slightly with the way a couple of obstacles in the second half seem to come up rather without warning, as if there's a need to create some conflict, but to be honest that minor complaint is more than outweighed by the overall quality of the show, and I should add that I was particuarly impressed by the way that the husband's death which is the catalyst for events isn't milked for every last ounce of emotion, which would have been an easy route.

Definitely worth a look, I'd say, and a good example of a very 'English' kind of comedy, if you know what I mean - witty, and a little bit bawdy, but unlikely to offend (though two people in our row didn't return after the interval; can they really have come to see the play without knowing what it was about and been that shocked?).

Ironically enough, this play about women taking off their clothes is running at the Noel Coward Theatre in London (until September, I think, though the run may have been extended). You can get tickets at good prices (we were right up in the balcony, and could still see all right) from the usual online places.

And just to reassure my male readers, no, it wasn't like an oedipal burlesque show. You can safely attend without danger of feeling all strange in that way.

Tiananmen Ghost Square Dance

I don't know if you've seen the film iThree Amigos! or not. It's not particularly good - it has its moments, but overall it's a bit obvious and feels somehow self-indulgent. Still, there are far worse things you could see on TV.

My own feelings about iThree Amigos!, though, are rather coloured by the first time I saw it. It was round at a friend's house, where we watched it on video, and as the film ended and we all agreed we thought it was only so-so, one of us pressed STOP, bringing up the default TV channel, which turned out to be a BBC channel.

Onscreen, Kate Adie was speaking over live footage of people being shot in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It was 4 June 1989, twenty years ago to this day, and under orders from the government, the army were shooting protesting students. Any lingering traces of feeling lighthearted or flippant after watching the video dropped away pretty sharply.

The exact number of people killed that night is unknown; some reports have it in the thousands, whereas others suggest that hundreds died. Whatever, it's a matter of historical record that a large number of students died for protesting that night, as a result of an order from their government. Officially speaking, on the other hand... well, it's pretty much as if the events didn't occur.

Which is, to my mind, an intellectual insult to physical injury (and far worse); attempting to erase these events from history, as if the past were an Etch-A-Sketch is just plain daft. And given the evidence that it occurred, pretending it didn't is akin to a government pressing its hands to its ears and singing ner-ner-ner can't hear you. Though that's pretty much the overall attitude to human rights from the ruling party in China, it seems (ask the Tibetan people).

I've written before about my dislike for the habit of 'rewriting events', and I still find it frustrating to this day (mainly because it means a choice of some sort to ignore things which happened in favour of things which didn't happen), but when it manifests on a national scale, it's even more alarming.

Granted, the UK isn't immune to this either - from the way people carry on, you'd think that the nation did nothing but venerate the Princess of Wales constantly before her death, and that nobody at all was fooled at the time by the lies about weapons in Iraq - but it doesn't tend to end up with tanks rolling into the middle of a protest zone and hundreds of teenagers dying of bullet wounds, only to have their blood and their memory wiped away as if it had never been.

This post, along with a lot of other online information, may not be available to Chinese readers, for which I apologise, though in a way I feel it backs up the point made.

Review: 'High Crimes' by Michael Kodas

My claim in the profile to the right about climbing mountains isn't an idle one (honest), and so I found this book, detailing some of the not-so-ethical behaviour on Mount Everest, was very interesting. And, at times, unsettling.

Michael Kodas tells the story of his own ill-fated attempt to summit Everest from the Tibetan side, and contrasts it with the death of Nils Antezana, a 69-year-old doctor who died whilst descending on the Nepalese side of the mountain. Whilst Kodas's attempt floundered due to conflicts within the assembled team, Antezana died alone on the mountain after summiting but being left to descend, alone, by his guide.

These two stories are well told and quite unnerving, but there are other snippets as well - one climber was forced to rappel down one of the routes, and it was only by chance that he looked over his shoulder and realised that the (fixed) rope he was descending had, for no apparent reason, been cut off; had he not turned to look, he would have fallen to his death. Other climbers find their tents or equipment have been stolen as they ascend to higher camps on Everest.

There's some good analysis of why 2006 saw so many deaths on Everest, and the chilling fact that almost anyone can claim to be a 'guide' and charge tens of thousands of pounds to lead you up Everest, even if they've had limited - or next to no - experience of guiding.

The book sometimes strays from the central narratives a bit, though it only tends to do this when recounting something else of interest or which adds to the background, so I felt this could be forgiven. The writing style is good and straightforward, and thankfully it generally avoids giving lines of dialogue when no witnesses were to hand, or speculating wildly about events. There's a lot of referencing and quoting from eyewitnesses, and a bibliography and index to back all this up.

So, if you're interested in Everest, or climbing generally, this is a solid account of an aspect of the mountain which doesn't tend to get much coverage. I was lucky enough to be given a copy of the hardback (thanks, Mrs Wife!), but the paperback's out in November, so you could save your recession-hit pennies until then. Either way, I recommend it.

Review: 'Unwritten' by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

I don't often review single issues of comics here on't blog - or collected comics, for that matter - but this is a good 'un, and I thought it was worth drawing to your attention.

Unwritten is a new series published by Vertigo Comics (the 'mature' wing of DC Comics). It's written by Mike Carey and drawn by Peter Gross, and tells the story of Tommy Taylor. Taylor's father was a writer, and like A.A. Milne, wrote books featuring a character with the same name as his son. Taylor Senior has disappeared, leaving a legacy of books which bear a resemblance to - but, we are told, are more popular than - the Harry Potter series.

As the series opens, Tommy's making a fairly unsuccessful living attending conventions and making personal appearances. It's at one of these conventions that he's asked some questions by an audience member which start to suggest that Tommy may, in a way, not be as real as he might believe. Things unravel pretty quickly from there, and the first issue sets things up very promisingly. The art's good and clear, and flashy and impressive when needed, and the dialogue is - gasp - close to how people actually speak, which has to be a good thing.

So, a good comic, and the final selling point is that this first issue, which contains 32 pages of story, is on sale at the lure-you-in price of $1 (or, here in Blighty, about 75p). You can spend that on a fizzy drink, which your system will just turn into wee, so why not give this comic a read instead ? You may have to go to an actual comic shop to get it, but it's a very decent read. If nothing else, you can smile, as I did, at the opening pages and their similarity to events in the Potter books/films.

(Mini) Review : Star Trek

As you probably know, this film is the big-screen 'reboot' of the long-running series (though it's possible to interpret it as an altered history thing, given the time-travel elements). It's been getting very positive reviews, and there are all manner of background stories etc to be found elsewhere, so I won't get into that sort of stuff here, I'll just try to stick to giving you a mini-review.

Put simply, it's a lot of fun, and I recommend it highly. I have mixed feelings about the Trek franchise, liking some bits, being left cold by others, and often being frightened by the passion of its fans, but this film has a decent story, solid acting, impressive special effects, and a good balance of action scenes and character interaction. I reckon you could see it with someone who'd never seen an episode or film or even heard the names of the characters before, and they'd still have fun.

For my money, the most impressive thing the film does - and I wouldn't like to guess whether this was a conscious move away from the recent, less-successful films, but it would make sense if it was - is to invest enough time and effort into making the viewer give a damn about what's happening, as opposed to leaning on the fact that these are well-known characters and therefore you're supposed to have some pre-existing affection for them. As a result, when characters are in peril, it's dramatic within the context of the film, and not because you're expected to care because, hey, these are iconiccharacters.

So, a definite thumbs-up from me, and I've often been lukewarm about Trek.

You'll no doubt have noticed that the picture accompanying this review isn't of the film poster or the cast or whatever, but I wanted to draw a smidgin of attention to the fact that the current US Edition of Wired magazine is guest-edited by JJ Abrams, the director of the film. As well as having a number of interesting articles about mysteries and magic and the like, there's a comic strip that leads into the film, drawn by well-respected comic artist Paul Pope, and written by the film's screenwriters, which is worth a look as it provides a nice little bit of background. As I say, this is the USA edition (though the UK edition's worth checking out as well), is labelled as such with a shiny gold sticker, and can be found on the shelves of slightly-larger newsagents.

I Arrive Late For The Party Once Again, But Here's Your Ticket To The Screening Room

I recently watched the entire run of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, the short-lived comedy-drama from Aaron 'West Wing' Sorkin.

It got very mixed reviews and limited ratings, and kind of limped to the end of its first and only season, and wasn't renewed. In comparison with the not-entirely-dissimilar 30 Rock, it's a lot more worthy and less funny, but I enjoyed it; there are signs of changes of direction and tone as the end drew nigh, presumably as they tried to find new ways to draw viewers in.

In my (frankly pretty worthless) opinion, there were two fundamental problems with the show:

1. It kind of assumes that the audience has an enormous familiarity with, and affection for, Saturday Night Live. As a limey, my exposure to it has been very limited, but I'm aware of it and some of its history. So it didn't trouble me, but I can imagine that audiences of pretty much any nation who are unaware, or actively unfond of, SNL might well be put off.

2. Whilst The West Wing deals with heavy-duty stuff like kidnappings and war and terrorism, Studio 60 is rather hobbled from the start by the fact that, for all the on-screen depiction of concern and hard work, it is ultimately 'only about a TV show'. I'm not denigrating TV as a medium, but I think the show has an uphill struggle to make some of the plotlines seem as important to the viewer as they appear to be to the characters. This is slightly echoed by the way a lot of the in-show comedy bits aren't gutbustingly funny, despite the way the in-studio audience may be reacting. There's a slight mismatch between the way you're told to react to an item, and the way you may actually react.

For all this, though, I think there was a lot to like about Studio 60, and Matthew Perry did a pretty good job of making me forget he'd been in that other TV programme.

Anyway, I mentioned a Screening Room up above, and by that I mean a new-ish feature on Amazon (UK version) whereby you can watch entire TV shows - including, yes, the pilot episode of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip - for free.

The Screening Room is located here. Keep your feet off the chairs, if you don't mind. Night vision technology may be utilised to ensure compliance.

REVIEW : Knowing

This is the new film from director Alex Proyas, and starring Nicolas Cage. It concerns a chap who realises that a list of numbers found in a time capsule from 1959 are a code which gives details of disasters (both man-made and natural) which occurred after the time capsule was buried - and, he realises, there are numbers covering future dates as well. An intriguing premise, which is why I went to see it.

I'm not entirely sure that the film quite makes good on the promise in the premise, mind, and given the way it's been advertised, other audience members may be left feeling slightly duped; it's been trailed more like a thriller with supernatural undertones, which isn't really very accurate at all, as it's much more of a science fiction film. And I know that's not everyone's cup of tea - one woman outside the cinema complained rather loudly about the sudden veer into SF towards the end (if you've ever seen The Watcher In The Woods, it's in that sort of vein).

Anyway, it's not a bad film, for all that; Cage isn't an actor who draws me to the cinema just by his name being on the poster, but he turns in a decent enough performance here - though the grieving widower father isn't a million miles away from Mel Gibson's role in Signs, though that's more to do with the script than his playing of it, I think. The rest of the cast are perfectly fine, too.

The pacing of the film is a bit uneven; it's a bit slow at the start when the story's being laid out, then it kicks into a much faster pace when the disasters start happening (the first major one is very effective indeed, and is all in one take; the second is more grisly but none the less well done), and then it keeps going with a gradual unravelling of what's going on until the aforementioned ending. The direction of the film kind of matches this, only really livening up when there's mayhem on the screen, but it's perfectly watchable, and you're never in any doubt what's going on.

While I was watching the film, I enjoyed it, but afterwards, a few stray plot threads kind of niggled at me (skip to the next paragraph to avoid the semi-spoilers); why, if the various fates were inevitable, were people given the power to predict them? Since the film bothers to bring up pre-destination versus free will, why were the results of the former all so gloomy? Given the 'EE' situation, what could Koestler or any of the other characters have done to show they were learning from the events ? What were the tall strangers there for - help, or just watching the end times? And what were the black stones for?

These questions aside - and only one of them (the first, but don't look back if you don’t want spoilage) is a really huge plot problem to my mind - Knowing is an enjoyable enough film, as long as you don't mind a side order of science fiction with your on-screen destruction. Worth seeing at the cinema for the well-filmed disaster sequences (which are suitably unnerving), but if you have a big screen and good speakers, you can quite cheerfully wait for it to come out on rental.

One Of My Intermittent Posts About Twin Peaks, This Time With Pictures

I've written before about my fondness for the TV show Twin Peaks, and I'll no doubt do so again (perhaps, one day, even explaining why I like it so), and in case you haven't guessed it by the start of this sentence... well, this is one of those posts. If you're not interested in this subject, normal service (if that's what it can be called) will be resumed as of the next post.

Anyway - for those of you who are still here - I was rather amused to hear that a Twin Peaks variant of a range of skateboarding trainers was being released; partly because it's almost two decades since the show was last on TV, and also because I'm 37 years old, for goodness' sake, and the idea of trainers featuring motifs from a TV show really shouldn't elicit the question 'Where can I get them?' and have me reaching for the internet so quickly. Still, I think we've established I'm an overgrown infant, and so the pictures surrounding these words are pictures I've actually taken of my shoes, which I received yesterday.

The first picture gives you a general idea of the trainer - as you can see immediately, there's an owl pictured on it, in line with one of TP's signature phrases (or should that be warnings?) "The owls are not what they seem". As well as the green stitching along the shoe, and the spare green laces supplied, there's a hint of patterning on the 'grey' area which might be faintly fern-like or leafy, but that might be me looking for more of a bucolic motif than is actually present.

The second picture is perhaps not a usual angle to take a photo from, but people with perhaps even a passing familiarity with TP will probably understand why I did it; the red sides of the inside of the shoe, combined with the zig-zag pattern on the insole, combine to create an in-shoe replica of the 'Red Room', one of the series' most memorable locations (if indeed it has a physical existence). Only certain people can enter the room, and in certain circumstances, but with these shoes any old clown (by which I mean me) can at least send their feet in. And, for what it's worth it, they're really rather comfy.

I'm no kind of trainer expert - though my father often maintains that I "should be trained by now, surely?" - but these seem well made, and comfy, with enough extras and doodads to keep Twin Peaks fans amused. How they work for skateboarding or other physical activities I couldn't say, but there will probably be proper reviews elsewhere on the internet of that sort of thing. Oh, and one final touch I forgot to mention - the paper surrounding the shoes (in the box they arrived in) has a wood-style print on them, which seems to continue the generally 'nature-based' look of the whole package.

Overall, then, a nice job on a slightly odd choice of TP-tie in, and they've brought a smile to my face and a slightly increased bounce to my step. I got mine from Flatspot, and the service was very good, though of course other firms should be able to supply them.

REVIEW: 'Dreams on Spec'

Dreams on Spec is a 2007 documentary which follows three writers as they work on spec film scripts.

The three writers - David, Joe and Deborah - are at different stages; David works at a talent agency and has sold one of his scripts, Joe's been working on a script for a number of years whilst day-trading and looking after his autistic daughter, and Deborah used to work for a creative agency and is now trying to find funding to film her first script. As well as being at different stages in their careers, their screenplays are on wildly diverse themes - David's is a modern take on the slasher film, Joe's written a coming of age piece, and Deborah's film is described as a 'gory commitment comedy'.

We don't get to learn too much about the content of their scripts, but the focus of the film is more on their attitudes and perseverence; David's concerned about losing control of the script as it goes into production, Joe's meetings with a script advisor suggest it's almost ready to be sent out, and Deborah is trying to pay the bills whilst hoping that money's forthcoming to make her film. Intercut with their three tales are short 'talking head' spots with established screenwriters like Nora Ephron, Carrie Fisher and Ed Solomon, all of whom talk in a realistic way about the nature of working in the film industry, and the ways they've been treated by studios in the past.

The film's about 90 minutes long (plus an extra 30 minutes of material featuring the established writers), but I found it seemed much shorter than that, as it was very engaging; it's an interesting insight into the often mundane reality of writing (that is: re-writing, and re-writing, and so on), interspersed with some very amusing insights. The three writers were well presented - for example, it's hard not to feel for Joe when he asks his wife to read his latest draft, and she sharply replies that she's already read several drafts for him.

The direction, editing, and general film-making on this documentary are pretty much perfect - by which I mean that it's as good as invisible; whilst it's very professionally made, there are no flashy or obtrusive directorial tricks, and so it just gets on with telling the story - and it's a story which, if you're interested in writing, is an interesting one. In a way, the film could be seen as a bit of a litmus test to establish whether writing's for you - given the stated unlikelihood of succeeding (it's likened to the chances of winning the lottery), the film makes one either feel that there's little point in applying pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), or rather stirs the feeling that trying harder is the way to go (you can probably guess which camp I fell into).

I don't know if this film has been shown on UK TV (More4 or BBC4 seem the most likely channels for a broadcast of it), but it's available to buy on R1 DVD, and I certainly recommend it - if nothing else, it's nice to see that there are people in the same boat as you are. You can buy the DVD from the official website, or from Amazon, and I think it's well worth watching.

Review: 'Bodyworlds - The Mirror Of Time'

'The Mirror of Time' is the latest incarnation of the 'Bodyworlds' series of exhibitions, run by the anatomist Gunther von Hagens. And yes, the Bodyworlds exhibitions are the ones with real dead bodies preserved by a process called 'plastination'.

Let's just deal with the issue of looking at dead bodies first; I have no problem at all with it - I don't consider the human body, even stripped of its flesh, ugly or scary or gross or anything like that, though I understand that a lot of people might feel that way. That's fine, though I do dislike it when saying 'I don't like it' gets conflated with 'ah, but were the bodies obtained legally?' and the like. I'm absolutely fine with the idea of something I'm interested in not being to someone else's tastes.

As an aside, I think part of the reason that such sights might creep people out is because the only times we're generally likely to see the human body with its musculature exposed, or nerves poking out, is in a horror film (example: Hellraiser) where it's not exactly presented in a good light. And its sheer lack of familiarity (to most of us, anyway) makes looking at such sights feel like looking at one of those lifeforms from the bottom of the Marianas Trench - just too outside of our frame of refence to be immediately comfortable, basically.

Anyway, all that aside, I thought this was an interesting exhibition. It starts off showing the stages of development in the womb, and then shows various stages in the lifecycle, with particular emphasis on aging and other ways that our internal organs change and decay over time. There are several other plastinated forms which don't really fit in the 'chronology' really - a plastinated horse and giraffe, for example - but the overall theme just about holds, and I was genuinely surprised at some of the items, such as the size difference between a healthy and a diseased liver.

This was the first time I'd seen one of these exhibitions, and thus the first time I'd been within such a short distance of a dead body. I have to say that, even knowing that these were real people who'd once been walking and breathing and eating and pooing like you or I, after seeing the first one, I didn't really focus on that aspect of it, but instead was more intrigued by the way you could see the nerves or whatever. Which, I guess, is the point of the exhibition.

I did come away, though, with a renewed sense of being impressed at just what a clever device the human body is; fragile in some respects and yet resilient in so many others, and whether you believe that the form developed as a result of some divine intervention or evolution or some other route, it's nonetheless an incredible organism, and the mere fact that you're able to see these words and read them and interpret them as having some meaning is, in itself, the result of a number of biological processes in a system that we could all too easily take for granted. That said, Mrs Wife and I did go on to the chip shop afterwards, so one might argue that the respect for the body was short-lived.

If you don't find the idea of the plastinated forms off-putting, there's some informative stuff to be gleaned from this exhibition, and I'd recommend it.

It's on at the (now post-)Millennium Dome in Greenwich, London, until August 23, 2009.

Review: 'The End Of Mr Y' by Scarlett Thomas

I talked back here about how pleased I was to get this book at a bargain price, and I'm even more pleased to be able to report that it's a cracking read.

The plot, put very simply, is that student Ariel Manto finds a copy of the rare book 'The End Of Mr Y' - she's pleased about this, as it's covered by a thesis she's writing on the author of the book, who disappeared. Like the main character in the book. And where exactly has her tutor vanished to?

The writing style is very readable, even when characters have to talk about some fairly in-depth theoretical stuff, and it's got enough twists and turns to keep you unsure what's going to happen next - it was, cliché as it may sound, the kind of book that made me wish I had just one more tube or bus stop to go before I had to stop reading.

My only niggle was that the slight romance sub-plot felt just that - slight - and I thought it was going to develop into something slightly more interesting than it did, but really this was just a disappointment in comparison to the way the other plot elements flowered so satisfyingly.

Definitely recommended, and if you're wavering, do bear in mind that the edges of the pages are all black, so as one carries it around it looks like a grimoire, or some other book containing mysterious knowledge. A book that's both a good read and physically well-designed? What's not to like?

One to own, and certainly read more than once, I'd say.

REVIEW: Kung Fu Panda

This film's been out for a while now, but I thought it was worth a quick review… if nothing else, it gave me an excuse to put this picture up, which is actually a pretty good summation of the general tone of the film.

Anyway, the basic story is that Po, a rather rotund Panda living in a valley with many other anthropomorphic animals (well, this is a Dreamworks animated feature), ends up being nominated as the 'Dragon Warrior' who will defend the valley and its citizens against the vicious snow leopard Tai Lung. Po, of course, is wildly unsuitable to be the Dragon Warrior, having more enthusiasm for Kung Fu than actual knowledge or ability. The previous five candidates to become Dragon Warrior (Monkey, Tigress, Crane, Viper and Mantis) are also sceptical of Po's credentials, and are open in saying as much to their Kung Fu master, Shifu. Shifu's position is further complicated by the fact that Tai Lung was his student some years ago, and developed his fighting skills under Shifu.

Upon the news that Tai Lung has escaped from prison, the five would-be Dragon Warriors (and Po) set about preparing to defend the valley, and essentially the film is about them finding a way to do this. I'm simplifying a lot here, but I'm keen to avoid any spoilers, as I really would urge you to see this film and enjoy the story for yourself, because it's a lot better than you'd probably imagine or expect - I'll cheerfully admit that I had my reservations about it going in.

My main reason for feeling hmm about Kung-Fu Panda was - aside from the fact that it's yet another CGI film featuring animals - the fact that Po is voiced by Jack Black. I really liked his turn in the film version of High Fidelity, but since then it's felt as if he's been playing the same character, and it's not necessarily a role I want to see over and over again. So, I was wary, but he seems to be well-cast here, and the setting of the story seems to rein in any possible tendency towards overdoing it.

The playing of Po is pretty decent then, and Dustin Hoffman is really good as Shifu, his master, but the stand-out voice performance in the film has to be that of Tai Lung - the villain of the piece - who, I was amazed to find out, is played by Ian McShane. I know, I know, he'll always be Lovejoy to most of the people in the UK, but he snarls and menaces his way through the film like Terence Stamp as General Zod, in a really well-judged performance.

The animation in the film is top-notch too - opening with a great sequence which looks like old-style Chinese paintings brought to life, and featuring some glorious scenery, it's almost a perfect example of how to do CGI. The fight scenes are really busy and action-packed, but you always know what's going on, and the sequence in which Tai Lung escapes from prison is visually very exciting.

The story's not overly demanding, but it's well-paced, with some nice little character bits, and a lot of laughs (many of them slapstick). Perhaps the most telling remark I could make on this would be to point out that in the cinema where we saw the film, there were quite a few children in the audience, and whilst some of them were talking a bit in the first few minutes, they were sufficiently drawn in by the film that they were quiet for the rest of its running time. That, in itself, might be recommendation enough for those of you who have children.

Overall, then, I'd recommend this film - my expectations were only moderate, but I enjoyed it a lot, laughed out loud several times, and thought it looked great (especially on an IMAX screen, where the often beautiful vistas completely fill your field of view). If you can, I'd recommend seeing it on the big screen. It's rated 'PG for Mild Martial Arts Action', but as the BBFC rating decision says, the film's generally light tone means that there's not much to scare in it, and so it strikes me as a pretty perfect film for a family outing. Definitely worth leaving home for.

REVIEW: Buddha Bar, London

Now, I don't normally review bars and/or restaurants on the blog; I leave that sort of thing to Mr Factory and his fancy mediterranean lifestyle), but as this place only opened on Friday, and I was there on Saturday, I thought I might try to get in ahead of Anton Ego and his colleagues.

If you've not come across it before, the Buddha Bar is a small-ish chain of restaurant-bars at various locations around the world which, unsurprisingly, are themed around the orient and Buddha. The picture above shows the Paris venue, and the London branch is very much the same in layout - the whole place is dominated by a massive Buddha statue, and the restaurant and bar alike are more shadow than light (as I mentioned in point 5 of this post, that can mean you fall over things). But it's certainly got an atmosphere about it, despite effectively being within a hollowed-out leg of Waterloo Bridge (well, they call it Victoria Embankment, but it's inside the northmost stump of the bridge, so)…

Anyway, the London branch was due to open some months ago, and its opening date was pushed back by several weeks if not months, meaning that the laydee and I turned out, by chance not design, to be dining there on what was its second night of actually being open. In terms of the environment, this was fine - the place was clearly finished and ready for business - and in terms of service, it meant that we often had several members of staff looking after us at once, which was a pleasant change from most dining experiences (and only once did one of them bump into a piece of furniture, which is more than I'd be able to do in such a darkened workplace).

As for the food and drink, well, take a look at the menu, and you can see if it's your sort of thing or not. The absence of a specific vegetarian main course option on the menu is something of an omission, because there is one - I had a very nice vegetarian curry served within a hollowed-out coconut, which was tasty but not heavy, and nicely presented. The desserts are very good too, and, again, not overly filling.

If you followed the link above to the menu, you'll see that the prices are pretty high (though if you want to see really big numbers, take a look at the bottom right corner of page 2 of the wine list. Crazy). And I won't argue with that - the Buddha Bar isn't cheap, but I think it's not just a place to eat but also an interesting atmosphere to be in; more a place to go to celebrate an anniversary, or someone's birthday, or a date when you want to do something a bit different.

A lot of reviews of the other branches tend to focus on the prices or to suggest it's a slightly pretentious place, and I can't pretend there isn't some validity to that kind of comment, but if you want a change from the usual sort of environment, and don't take it too seriously, I'd say it's worth a visit.

REVIEW: The Dark Knight

I think I've written before about my near-obsession with Batman (consider it akin to Jerry Seinfeld's feelings for Superman), so you probably won't be surprised to know that I went to see the new film last night.

There's been a lot of hype and hoo-ha and coverage about it, not least because of the death of one of its stars and recent allegations made against another (hence the picture above, which is something that is oddly appropriate given aspects of the film), but I'm going to stick to commenting on the actual film here, not personal aspects connected to the cast or the marketing push.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, and it's probably about as good a Batman film as you could hope to see; the plot's full of twists and genuine surprises, and even though the film lasts something like 150 minutes, I get the feeling that certain storylines or scenes could have been given a bit more room to breathe. That said, it scoots along at a fairly breathless pace, in a nice taut way - even the sequences which look more like character moments tend to have some resonance or ramifications later on in the film.

I'm trying to keep this review spoiler-free, but suffice to say that the overall plot is a logical continuation of the situation at the end of the previous film ('Batman Begins'), with a new District Attorney in place as Gotham's various gangs scramble to take control of the various rackets in the city. Cue the Joker, in a performance by the late Heath Ledger which is more likely to generate nervous laughter than genuine chuckles. The Joker's played here as an agent of chaos, and given that Batman is almost the living embodiment of one man's attempt to impose some kind of order on a chaotic situation (both in his own life and that of his city), it's only right that, as the film goes on, Batman struggles to anticipate the Joker's next move.

You're probably wondering, though, about the explodey-boom bits, and if there are good gadgets and vehicles, and oh my goodness yes there are; some of the stunt-based sequences are really rather spectacular, but like a film such as Raiders Of The Lost Ark, the scenes actually have a reason to be there as the story unfolds.

I mentioned Ledger's performance, but I think it's fair to say that there is not one bad turn in this film; it's a strong cast, and all of them do very creditable jobs, even if some of them have to do less to impress - maybe it's just me, but I do feel that Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman have sufficient goodwill in the bank that just seeing them in a film is a good thing.

The end of the film is interesting, too - whilst it leaves things open for another in the series, the status quo has been shaken quite considerably, so it would be interesting to see how the story would be continued. Given the box office success of the film, a continuation seems likely, but if it wasn't by the same team (cast and crew) a dip in quality would seem pretty much inevitable, though I'd be happy to be surprised.

Overall, then, this is a film I'd wholeheartedly recommend - it functions well as a crime film or a thriller, and has enough character bits and explosions to keep the eyes as well as the brain entertained. If you can see it at an IMAX cinema, by the way, I urge you to do so - some of the sequences have been specially shot to take advantage of the screen and sound capabilities of the IMAX technology, and it's very well used indeed - it enhances the film without being gratuitous.

Review: 'Born Standing Up' by Steve Martin

Again, it was one year ago today when I suggested Steve Martin's skill now seems to lie in his precisely-written novels, and this non-fiction memoir of his experiences doing stand-up comedy seems to suggest this is still, or indeed, the case.

As noted in m'colleague's mini-review, there was a time when Steve Martin's stand-up talent was such that he could well have been voted the funniest man in the world; he filled huge venues and sold vast numbers of LPs (yes, it was back in the days before CDs and downloads), and in this book he tells you how he did it.

Well, not exactly, as his comedy was far more fragmented and intuitive than that, so it's not like it worked to a formula which you could learn from this book and then copy - unless the lack of a formula could be seen as an approach in itself, much like I often fear that the 'ethical relativist' stance is, in its way, a positive position. But in this book, Steve talks about how his stage act gradually developed, what worked and what didn't, and how he felt about his success.

If you're interested in comedy, both the jokes at the front of it and the process that goes into their creation, this book will almost certainly be of interest; his writing is very precise and easy to understand, and the book's short and to the point - given that it's a small-sized hardback (a format I really like), the phrase that kept coming to mind as I read it was that it's 'a bonsai book' - there's not a lot of it, but everything that's there is there for a reason.

I've read a few books purporting to tell you how to write and/or perform comedy, but they're usually written by people I've never heard of, which hardly inspires confidence; this book, though, is written by a man who rose to the very top of the comedy ladder, and who honed his act carefully and thoughtfully for some time before finding success. A great read, and most definitely recommended - but if you have any lingering doubts about whether it'd be for you, you can read the first chapter here.

Review: 'Blind Faith' by Ben Elton

Exactly one year ago, I wrote about how Ben Elton seems to do more interesting work in his books than his stage and screen work ('Get A Grip', his most recent TV work, was pretty weak, though I think that was partly due to the format and his co-host; Alexa Chung may be popular with the papers and fashion magazines, but her presenting skills are, I feel, doubtful - compare her to, say, Mikita Oliver, and it's all too obvious who's most comfortable and natural on-camera. But I digress).

And lo and behold, here I am 365 days on, reviewing his most recent novel, 'Blind Faith'. As you could guess from the cover and the title, it's very much a novel about belief.

Set in a future London after a disastrous flood (which, now I think of it, links with several religious stories), the book features a man called Trafford who starts to have doubts about the society he lives in - everyone shares everything (literally - sex and childbirth are public events) on constantly-streamed websites, people walk the streets barely-clothed, and there are vast religious events which have more in common with a political rally than, say, a charismatic gathering.

Science and reason are actively frowned upon and punished, meaning that vaccination is outlawed, and Trafford begins to wonder if all this is right, especially after his wife gives birth to their daughter. His wondering turns into active doubt, and he begins to seek people who, like him, think that things could be different.

As you've probably guessed, there are definite parallels with Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', but to be honest this is almost impossible to avoid in a dystopian novel, as Orwell's book casts a long shadow. Elton's take on these things, though, is more acute in its attacks on what he sees as being wrong in the present day (the current obsessions with 'sharing', public emoting, celebrity and the like), and as a result is, to my mind, more satirical.

And it's not toothless satire or restrained prose, either - here's an example from one of the book's key scenes:
"... no society based on nothing more constructive than fear and brutish ignorance could survive for ever. No people who raised up the least inventive, the least challenging, the least interesting of their number while crushing individual curiosity and endeavour could prosper for long."
… those are meant to be Trafford's thoughts, but I think it's not too much of a reach to imagine that it's what Ben Elton thinks too.

This isn't a gut-bustingly laugh-out-loud gagfest, but is certainly one of Elton's stronger books, and the points it makes are, to my mind, solid ones, and it's well-written. It just came out in paperback last week, and I heartily recommend it to you as a good read, and one which might well set you thinking about some of the issues it raises.

REVIEW: 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'

This film, as you may well know, opens nationwide today. It's the latest film to be produced by Judd Apatow, who also made 'The 40 Year Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up' (yes, and 'Superbad', but I haven't seen that one).

Like the two films I mention above outside of parenthesis, the plot of 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' is pretty much summed up in the title; a chap who's going out with Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) is dumped by her, and spends the rest of the film trying to come to terms with it. The lead character, Peter, is played by Jason Segal - I'd not heard of him before, but if you're a fan, you may be pleased to know there are several glimpses of his genitals in the film, which is all the more impressive or worrying given that he also wrote the screenplay.

Anyway, heartbroken Peter goes off to Hawaii to try to get over his emotional trauma, where he bumps into Sarah and her new beau, a rock star played by Russell Brand. Frankly, I like Brand - I find his standup different if often self-indulgent, and his weekly BBC Radio 2 podcast demonstrates an active mind, though I'm painfully aware that his tabloid reputation as someone who prowls the streets of London (and now Los Angeles) looking for women to sleep with does rather overshadow his body of work. That said, I don't really think Brand is acting much in this film, though perhaps slightly surprisingly his character isn't painted as some kind of out-and-out villain, which would be all too obvious in this sort of story.

Against a frankly beautiful background of beaches and ocean sunsets, Peter tries to get over Sarah, whilst inevitably bumping into her a lot, but also befriending a local woman called Rachel (played by Mila Kunis, who I know only as the voice of Meg on 'Family Guy'). I think you can probably guess where it all goes now I've told you about her character, and yes, you'd be right. Nonetheless, the film's pleasant enough, and there are some genuinely funny moments.

However, the film suffers from a problem common to both the Apatow-produced films which I've seen before; it's appallingly loose in its structure, containing entire scenes and characters who could cheerfully be removed with no effect on the plot. The film runs at about 110 minutes, and it really doesn't need to - the characters played by Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill really contribute nothing to the overall story. Because of this, the film felt slightly old somehow, as if from an era (the late 1970s or early 1980s, for example) when tightly sticking to the main plot and maybe a couple of sub-plots wasn't seen as so important.

Don't get me wrong, the film's perfectly enjoyable, and whilst you're in the cinema you're unlikely to find yourself glancing at your watch, but it's pretty forgettable; I have to admit that I was rather bewildered at the fuss surrounding 'Knocked Up', which I stopped watching after about 80 minutes and have yet to finish off (despite the reviews and people I know all claiming it was a non-stop laughterfest) and I wonder if people are likely to rate 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' similarly highly. And, in my ongoing attempts to either swim against the tide or be ahead of the crowd, I wanted to put my opinion on record.

So, it's quite watchable and fun, but it's not really worth a trip to the cinema to do so - you may as well wait until it comes out to rent. Though that does of course mean an increased risk of you stopping the film to go to the loo or make a cup of tea and not bothering to set it playing again.

REVIEW: 'The Tao Of Bergerac' by Will Smith

(I originally wrote this review for Channel 4, and I linked to it in this post, but the transient nature of the internet means that the location I linked to has now been overwritten. So here's the review in all its unedited glory [that is to say, before I trimmed it to fit C4's specified wordcount]...)

Will Smith (no, not that one) grew up on the isle of Jersey, which may be why he appears to be obsessed with the long-running BBC detective series, Bergerac. It was - in case you don't remember it - set on Jersey, and ran for the best part of a decade, starring John 'him off Midsomer Murders' Nettles as a slightly unconventional detective with a nice car and a troubled personal life.

However, as this CD set of his radio series shows, Smith is more keen on Bergerac than most people - having found an audiobook of John Nettles reading the ancient chinese book of the Tao, he decides to use this as a source of inspiration and advice in his everyday life. In his dealings with his lazy flatmate or with potential girlfriends, he turns to the oriental wisdom, as read in the sonorous tones of Nettles. On the face of it, a fairly ridiculous idea, but it works - and is often very funny - for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the whole thing is played absolutely straight. Yes, there's audience laughter, but other than that there's no suggestion from Smith that his decision to live his life by the Tao of Bergerac is anything other than valid. Of course, this makes it all the more ludicrous as we repeatedly see the vast gulf between his Bergerac-influenced attitudes and the world as it actually is.

Secondly, Smith doesn't hold back in making himself a figure of fun. You might think that admitting being fixated with Bergerac was enough of an embarrassment, but there's more - teenage years spent role-playing, snobbery in adulthood, and a total lack of knowledge of women and how to talk to them, all feature, as does a running joke that he might be denying his true sexuality. Granted, a lot of this is the character that he's been playing in his stand-up for a while now, so if you don't like his 'pretend posh boy' persona, this might not work for you. As the saying goes, 'your mileage may vary'.

Finally, and probably most worryingly, in each of the episodes, Smith plays 'Six Degrees of Bergerac', in which he asks the audience to shout out the name of a film, and then attempts to link it to Bergerac in six steps or less. Spookily, a quick Google makes me think he's not making the answers up, and that he genuinely does know the names of all the cast members and episodes. It's an impressive trick, no question about it - but it does make me wonder if the show might not actually be the joke that it at first appears to be.

Overall, this is a funny and enjoyable show - the basic premise is bonkers enough to begin with, but add in Smith's character and quirks, and the straight delivery, and it's even more silly. The CDs feature some appropriate extras too - for example, 'John Nettles reads the Letters to Hustler Magazine' - which show that Nettles is a good sport about the whole thing.

Well, either that, or it was the only way he could get Will Smith to stop pestering him.

REVIEW: 'Speed-The-Plow'

Given that I always seem to take the longest possible route through a sentence, you might be surprised to learn I'm a huge fan of the writing of David Mamet. He's arguably best known for his screenplays for The Untouchables and Glengarry Glen Ross, or for the semi-fuss surrounding his play (and later film) Oleanna, all of which feature a very distinctive rhythm to the dialogue - in essence, clipped sentences, frequently overlapping. I like it - it's a pleasant change from most other forms of dialogue which you see on stage or screen.

Which is why I was rather excited to see that Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum were starring in a version of Mamet's play Speed-The-Plow at the Old Vic Theatre here in London, and even more pleased when m'lady got me tickets for a performance last week by way of a Valentine's Day pressie.

Goldblum plays Bobby Gould, a rising film producer. His friend Charlie Fox (played by Spacey) brings him a sure-fire hit, an action film featuring this month's latest star - but his temporary secretary Karen (Laura Michelle Kelly) recommends he should green-light a more worthy project, adapting a novel she's very keen on. As he's taken a bit of a shine to Karen, Bobby finds himself torn between a sure-fire commercial hit (honouring his friendship with Charlie) and a film of artistic merit (the commissioning of which might well lead to some sauciness with Karen).

The first act is fast and funny - Goldblum's an enthusiastic tangle of limbs as he and Spacey exchange lines, and they're surprisingly physical as they get more and more excited about their inevitable success. I knew Goldblum could do comedy, but Spacey surprised me in doing this so well - I tend to think of him as a more weighty and serious actor, but the jokey dialogue bounces along cheerfully here. The second act slows things down a fair bit (as Goldblum and Kelly discuss the novel that might become a film), but things liven up again in the third act when all three actors are onstage for the conflict caused by Bobby Gould's dilemma and need to make a decision, though there are still laughs even here. Spacey's very much in his element here - a genuine sense of barely-suppressed anger in his performance, and on more than one occasion the audience stopped laughing dead as the mood swung from funny to tense.

And the ending? Ah, that would be telling, but trust me when I say it's a solid ending and perfectly logical given everything that's gone before.

Overall, this is a very strong play, with a good cast (I'll cheerfully admit I was drawn to it by the combination of a writer whose work I admire and the chance to see two actors I like live on stage, but Kelly does a fine job in their company, even if she is rather hindered by having to rhapsodise a book which sounds like a radiation-fixated version of The Celestine Prophecy). It's on until April 26, and you can book tickets via the Old Vic's website.

I heartily recommend it as a night out - and as it runs 90 minutes with no interval, you'll be out shortly after 9pm, leaving enough of the evening remaining to get a cup of tea (or something stronger) before heading home.

Declare Your Independents Part Two of Two: Claro Intelecto

Sometimes, you just have to lash out the cash, and hope the reviews are accurate. In fact, that's pretty much what I'm asking you to do here, I guess.

As you can probably guess by the fact it's linked to in the column to the right, I read and enjoy Word magazine. I like it, not least because they summarise the review using actual words, and not stars (for fun, when I see a film poster with ***** on it, I pretend it's a plural swearword).

Anyway, in the latest issue, they had a roundup review of a handful of techno and trance albums. It might surprise you to know that I adore euphoric and/or progressive trance music, but I do (Hybrid's a particular favourite), so I read the review with interest. In it, they referred to the album 'Metanarrative' by Claro Intelecto as being 'music to stare out of windows by'. Oh, I thought, hel-lo.

A quick search (engine) around the interweb produced very little info on the CD, and the usual online sources (for example: tall one-breasted warrior woman) seemed to suggest that it would be an import for about £15, which felt like slightly more than I wanted to gamble (yes, I could download it, but I wanted to have a copy in my hands, to feel and hold and smell and okay I'll stop now).

So, I looked around a bit more, and lo and behold I found this - the site of the label that the album's actually issued on, where you can get the CD, including postage, for £8.95.

I've got mine, and if you’re into this kind of music - which, as I say, I am - it's 40 minutes of classy trance, closing with a track called 'Beautiful Death' which didn't kill me (or anyone else, as far as I know) but which is indeed beautiful. You can listen to some samples at the link above, I think, and get an idea of whether it's your thing.

As I said earlier today: Go on, support the independent folks instead of giving money to Global Omnicorp Inc. You won't regret it.