Archive:
DVD

Bobby Fischer Against the World

This year everyone has been talking about the Senna documentary, including me. But while praise for Senna has come from F1 fans and non-fans alike, I have been more impressed by another sport documentary from this year — Bobby Fischer Against the World. Chess may seem like an unlikely game to take to the big […]

Just remember the simple phrase

One of my odd little interests is public information films. Lately I have been getting stuck into the ‘Charley Says’ DVDs. Fantastic stuff. It was just after watching the ‘Splink’ PIF with John Pertwee that I realised that I hadn’t taken in what ‘Splink’ stands for at all. It always gets me how some mnemonics […]

Pulp reforming

I was pretty excited when it was announced a few weeks ago that Pulp are getting back together to play some concerts next year. Pulp have been one of my favourite bands since I was nine years old. Yet I have never seen them live. Many times my friends and I have discussed going to […]

An Easter egg on Freeview

This is interesting. We are used to the idea of Easter eggs (hidden extras) in DVDs and the like. But how could there be an Easter egg on television? Unless you are like me, it is probably not very exciting. But if you miss those late nights in the company of Carole Hersee and Bubbles […]

The entertainment industry’s wrong turns

Record labels and video distributors had been ticked off by consumers for charging high prices for quite a while. At first the labels got away with it though. This was because they actually added value to the product. They were the only ones who were able to actually deliver the product to consumers efficiently. However, […]

A surprisingly good Christmas

I hope you all managed to have a good Christmas. I have to say, I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed Christmas so much. In recent years I have enjoyed it just as a nice day off with a big meal. But beyond that I didn’t enjoy them much more than a normal day […]

Sigur Rós — Hvarf, Heim, Heima

I was beginning to lose my faith in Sigur Rós a bit. Takk… was a pretty good album, but lacked the oceanic beauty of Ágætis Byrjun, the novelty of ( ) and the experimentation of Von and Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do. The most recent EP, Sæglópur, contained the most boring output I have […]

Cold, hard facts show up entertainment industry’s scaremongering

Cinema has had a good year. The Scotsman reports: FUTURE-gazers claimed 20 years ago that it would be doomed by the arrival of the home video recorder. And more recently they’ve been claiming that the internet is killing the entertainment industry. So how do they explain the following two paragraphs? But figures released yesterday reveal […]

Predictable

This is what I got my brother for Christmas: This is what my brother got me for Christmas: I guess that’s almost the same as exchanging five pound notes.