Occupation: Engineer

Relationship status: Single

Brandi Carlile, Bruce Springsteen, Lenny Kravitz, Jonatha Brooke, Apocalyptica, Kishore Kumar, Eric Clapton, David Gray, U2, Roxette, Sara Bareilles, Def Leppard, Nelly Furtado, Enigma, Beck, R.E.M., Beth Orton, Alicia Keys, Matchbox Twenty, Seal, Tori Amos, Velvet Revolver, Holly Brook, Silversun Pickups, Queen, Lata Mangeshkar, Led Zeppelin, The Smashing Pumpkins, Dire Straits, Alana Davis, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Duffy, Gemma Hayes, Alanis Morissette, Annie Lennox, Fuel, Bush, Guns n' Roses, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Meat Loaf, Everlast, Rob Thomas, Paul Mccartney, Joan Osborne, Green Day, Staind, Rihanna

Edward Norton, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Cusack, Jodie Foster

Nick Hornby, Pat Barker, Neil Gaiman, Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, J K Rowling, Matt Ridley, Agatha Christie, Frederick Forsyth

All reviews - Movies (72) - TV Shows (20) - DVDs (11) - Books (24) - Music (47) - Games (21)

What's with the camera??

Posted : 3 months ago on 23 August 2009 12:28 (A review of District 9)

Sci-fi at it's best this year. Takes the typical alien invasion movie that we've seen umpteenth times and puts it's own unique take on it. What prevents the movie from really soaring is the unfortunate decision of the director to shoot in a faux documentary style throughout. The grand scale of cinema is one of the things that differentiates it from television and the camera confines the movie and robs it of drama and grandeur. For large swathes of the movie, I felt like I was watching a made for television movie. Still, it's originality makes up for a lot of it's shortcomings.

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Gavin & Stacey review

Posted : 3 months, 4 weeks ago on 25 July 2009 04:54 (A review of Gavin & Stacey)

This is a bizarre show. The first series is a funny romantic comedy that is great to watch. The second series morphs into a bizarre drama about a marriage in trouble combined with an uncomfortable situation regarding a pregnancy. It makes absolutely no sense to me how the writers took such a drastic turn, maybe they just lost their touch. While the humour flowed naturally in the first series, their attempts at it in the second series come off as extremely forced and unfunny. They also leave the show on a cliffhanger of sorts but I don't have any desire to watch the promised third series.

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Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge review

Posted : 3 months, 4 weeks ago on 25 July 2009 04:42 (A review of Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge)

Alan Partridge is your run-of-the-mill chat show host. He is self-obsessed, self-promoting and just plain selfish at times. What sets him apart is his brilliant sense of humour that lights up every show and the music of Abba, of course. His guests seem like pale shadows of themselves when face to face with his brilliance. He is also very innovative in coming up with ways to vary the show each time. It's a shame that the show did not get an extended run.

(If anyone doesn't quite get that review, they should watch the series, it's hilarious.)

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Star Trek: The Motion Picture review

Posted : 5 months, 1 week ago on 14 June 2009 04:29 (A review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

In many ways, this movie is the forgotten step-child of the Trek movies. It does not get a lot of credit for being as good as it was. Most Trek fans prefer the sequel, The Wrath of Khan, and give this an unfavourable comparison. On it's own merits, it's a very good, if not exactly great, sci-fi movie, made in the grandest traditions of sci-fi.

We already knew the characters very well, so there's not much need to go into character development. Still, a considerable amount of time is spent in the re-introductions before we get into the main plot. The story is familiar, a strange alien force, destroying everything that clashes against it, headed towards Earth. The Enterprise is to go and intercept the alien and to try and stop it.

Before we get to the climax, we go through a lot of philosophical questioning about the meaning of life, the value of emotions and other human frailties. There is very little action in the movie, I can't seem to recall even a single phazer being fired.The writers weren't looking to make a space adventure, they were looking to make a space opera, the next 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just for that, I give this movie and it's makers a lot of credit. The musical score is also fantastic, giving us a great atmosphere.

It's not roses all the way though. The movie plods along too much in the second half. The special effects are also dated but don't really detract from the story. Saving time from all the re-introductions in the beginning and better pacing in the second half, and focusing on the 'alien' a little more would have made this a better movie.

In the end, I admire the grand scale on which this movie was conceived, even if the execution did leave something lacking.

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The Girlfriend Experience review

Posted : 5 months, 1 week ago on 13 June 2009 03:25 (A review of The Girlfriend Experience)

A faux documentary shot almost completely in a soul-less manner, it still manages to retain a certain rawness that makes it compelling, at least in parts. I'm not sure what Steven Soderbergh was aiming for here, I don't think he does either. Ultimately, it feels like an excuse to put Sasha Grey on the big screen to see what could come of it, and that, it does succeed at.

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A Little Romance review

Posted : 5 months, 3 weeks ago on 30 May 2009 07:44 (A review of A Little Romance)

Superb little romantic comedy about a teenage boy and girl who run away from their homes in Paris to have a kiss in kiss in a gondola in Venice. This was Diane Lane's debut movie, and she along with her relatively unknown French co-star (he only made two movies) really light up the screen with their very charming performances. Director George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting) paces his movie perfectly and cuts out the sappiness that infects the large majority of movies in the this genre.

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The Masterplan review

Posted : 6 months, 3 weeks ago on 3 May 2009 07:18 (A review of The Masterplan)

The 90s were a great time for Oasis, and for their fans too. They made great albums, sold millions of them and released a string of singles with B-sides that were hardly throwaways. This collection of aforementioned B-sides really demonstrates that when they were good, they were truly outstanding. As a collection of songs from their creative peak in the 90s, this album is better than some of their weaker studio albums from the next decade, which just makes my point. Kicking off with 'Acquiesce' (B-side of 'Some Might Say), a song that features both Liam and Noel on vocals, the album is in high gear right away. The title track 'The Masterplan' (B-side of the iconic 'Wonderwall') is another highlight. It is so good that it can be included among their best songs, which just boggles my mind.

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Early Summer review

Posted : 6 months, 3 weeks ago on 3 May 2009 04:45 (A review of Early Summer)

A snapshot in the lives of a family going through rapid changes after several years of a peaceful existence. The story is focused on, but not confined to the youngest daughter. She is pressured by the family to finally get married to a man proposed by her boss but has ideas of her own, something almost unheard of in a traditional Japanese family of the time. The real charm of the film is that it paints a peaceful but realistic portrait of family life with it's subtle pulls and pressures without resorting to melodrama. The ending is almost bitter-sweet, as all change in life always is.

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Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut review

Posted : 6 months, 4 weeks ago on 26 April 2009 04:54 (A review of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut)

This is an updated port of the PC game from 1994 with some additional material added for this release. It says something about the state of this genre of games on the Wii that a fifteen year old game is currently the best of the lot. There's is still much to like here. The story is good, even if it feels dated. The animation is pretty, it feels like you're playing a cartoon on television. The puzzles are mostly interesting, even if some of them feel like they've been shoehorned in for no reason at all.

There's also much to dislike here. The game really shows it's age. The creators of the game quite obviously did not keep around any high quality source material for the game elements. You can easily detect compression artefacts for the sound and the videos, which really betrays the age of the game. The control scheme is frustrating to use at several points in the game, especially if you have to use the Wii remote to rotate anything. The hint system is a great addition, if only it worked better. It would give me hints about things I'd already done and forced me to go through all the hints to get to ones I actually found useful.

The bottom line is that for fans of this genre, this is as good as it gets on the Wii right now. So rent it, take a weekend to finish it and return it. This isn't a game that has any replay value once you're done with the story.

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Trailer Park review

Posted : 7 months, 1 week ago on 12 April 2009 08:01 (A review of Trailer Park)

Beth orton made a stunning debut in 1997 with this fusion of folk rock and electronica. She, along with David gray, straddles the line between acoustic folk rock and 90s electronica very successfully. This album and David Gray's 'White Ladder' are the two albums that I love most in the folk-electronica genre. The fusion is best symbolised on this album by the opening track 'She Cries Your name' and also 'Someone's Daughter' near the very end that combine acosutic instruments with electronic beats. The rest of the songs usually lean one way or the other but such is the strength of her music that neither style of song feels out of place here.

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