Arts & Entertainment Journalism

Dir. Roman Polanski Writing by Roman Polanski and Yasmina Reza Cast: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly.´ Roman Polanski has decided to throw to the public this brilliant film adaptation of the no-less-outstanding play by Yasmina Reza. Carnage is a pure exhibition of the meanness hidden beneath political correctness.  However, Polanski’s approach is [...]

A divorce, a suicide and a rehab stint filled the off-air activities of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ proving it’s not all perfect in Hollywood. The glamorous ladies were back- with only some of their significant others in-tow for the second series which follows their privileged lifestyles in Los Angeles. At the end of [...]

Carnage (15) DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski WRITERS: Roman Polanski, Yasmina Reza CAST: Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly Carnage is a film about breaking down the barriers of what you can and can’t say in social situations. What people really think is often not what they communicate to others publicly, and the film [...]

This competition has just found its way to me: http://blogs.chi.ac.uk/shortstoryforum/?page_id=8033  

Another hatchet job, from today’s Guardian GUIDE, by film writer Jonathan Patterson. Here are just some of the adjectives and adverbs he uses, in less than 500 words, to condemn Stephen Daldry’s Oscar-nominated movie of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel: manipulative, fraudulent, twee, child-centric, whimsy, fathomless solipsism, crapulous, cutesiness, self-satisfied, worth despising, tripe, deplorable, crap. Phew! [...]

Chronicle (12A) Directed by: Josh Trank, Starring: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russel, and Michael B. Jordan Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have super powers? If not, then either take a second and imagine, or, stop reading.  The sci-fi action film Chronicle puts a provocative spin on the hero formula that has [...]

Only this morning we were discussing the terrible temptation of writing a hatchet job review, how easy it is to demolish something in a review (compared to how surprisingly hard it is to write a professional review of something you admire enormously). But once in while, a demoliton job is deserved. Here’s the Guardian story [...]

BBC 1 Sunday 29 Jan  21’00 Director: Philip Martin. Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Lauren Lafitte, Clemence  Poésy. The BBC co-produced this adaptation of the Sebastian Faulks’ well-known novel.  Half way between an historic epic film and a romantic tear-jerker, in two chapters this tele-film told the story of Stephen Wraysford (Eddie Redmayne), a young English lieutenant [...]

TWITTER feeds flooded with overwhelmed fans as the new series of ‘The Only Way is Essex’ crashed onto our screens in all its trashy glory. As tweets shrilled with glee at being reunited with their Essex TV friends, I just manage to contain myself and see past the fakery. Take away the gleaming bleached teeth, [...]

…ahead of today’s assignment, for which I think quite a few of you are planning to do a TV review from this week. TENSES: What tense to write your reviews in? The old golden rule was, for a one-off event that has been and gone, use the PAST tense (a concert), but for something that [...]

Hustle (BBC1) Date: Friday January 27th Time: 9:00pm We’re half way into the 8th and final season of BBC’s primetime Ocean’s Eleven-esque con show Hustle, with the first two episodes bringing the series back to fine form after its break away. Last week’s episode continued the streak of quality with perhaps one of the best [...]

BBC3 saw a whopping 50% increase for their average 9pm-10pm slot on Monday night as over 700,000 viewers tuned in to watch would-be presenter Amel Fashanu on factual documentary, “Britain’s Gay Footballers”. The documentary explored homosexuality in football, or indeed the lack of openly gay men in British football. Homosexuality in football is still a [...]

Title: David Bailey: 4 Beats to the Bar and No Cheating Channel: BBC 4 Broadcast on: Thursday 26 January Director: Jerome de Missolz Mick Jagger, Lennon and McCartney, Michael Caine, The Krays. Just some of the people featured in the vast slideshow shown in documentary 4 Beats to the Bar and No Cheating, a portrait [...]

Monday January 23, 10pm, E4. If you had hoped the gang had been conscientiously catching up with their homework in the year they’ve spent off our screens your illusions will have been unceremoniously quashed the moment Mini announced: “Let’s get f*****.” Chucked straight into the sensory-overdose that is Skins – with every scene drenched in [...]

I am indebted to my old friend Dr Ian Hunter of Leicester De Montfort University, for drawing my attention this morning via facebook to this think piece from the Guardian’s Suzanne Moore on the problems of the online “democratization” of reviewing of everything, prompted by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority’s critical report on some reviews [...]

Hustle, Series 8: Episode 3 (BBC One) Aired 9pm, 27th Jan 2012   This week our team are set for just another con – exploiting Linda Runcorn (Nina Sosanya), CEO of an online hotel and restaurant guide, who bullies smaller businesses for profit. The plan is to trick her into believing a wealthy long-lost relative [...]

Top Gear BBC2, Sunday (29th January 2012) 8pm With: Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May WITH the reputation that Top Gear is getting in the press, some doubted it would even return for another series. However, with the infamous trio returning for their 18th series of outings, it would be an odd decision for [...]