• My wife recently got a stack of Mills & Boon novels from a friend and basically devoured them over a couple of sessions. Seeing them reminded me of the problem I’d always had with M&B — neither is it good writing in service of a love story, nor is it sufficiently raunchy to fit in…

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  • Boggarts beware!

    No, not Humphrey. I mean Boggarts with two g’s, the magical creatures that will take the shape of that thing you fear the most. The method of banishment involves thinking of something funny, pointing your wand and saying Riddikulus! If none of this makes sense, you might want to borrow a set of Harry Potter…

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  • Thin isn’t always in

    I just got a glimpse of Nigella Lawson on Discovery Travel & Living. Like I mentioned in my earlier post on Julie & Julia, watching people cook isn’t really my thing. But for Nigella, I am willing to make an exception. In the interest of not getting kicked in the shins by my wife, who…

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  • Just in case anyone ever accuses me of not having enough variety in my diet. Now, on with the reviews: Julie & Julia Imagine you’re a guy, and a vegetarian to boot. And someone told you that there’s this movie, about two hours long, featuring two women (and a couple of men by way of…

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  • First things first. If you haven’t watched The Shawshank Redemption so far, please do the following: Compulsory: Find a DVD of the movie and watch it. If you happen to live in a small town where the only available copy of the DVD is with a curmudgeonly octagenarian neighbour of yours who insists on watching…

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  • Wake Up Sid

    Wake Up Sid starts off more or less asleep for the first hour, stratches and groans a bit for the rest of its running time and manages barely a few moments of absolute clarity in between. And yet, you don’t come away disappointed. If it does wake you up to anything at all, it is…

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  • Inglourious Basterds

    On the way back from watching Inglourious Basterds yesterday, I had a conversation with my wife that made me realize something. There’s no way you can actually convert someone to the Church of Tarantino. His style of filmmaking doesn’t lend itself to persuasive argument. Consider the opening scene of Basterds, for instance. Set somewhere in…

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  • Three reviews, one post

    I went on a spree recently and ended up watching three movies in more or less quick succession. Hey, people gorge on chocolate, I watch two movies back to back at a multiplex. So sue me. None of them really deserves a longish review (actually they do, but I’m a lazy bum), so here’s a…

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  • Manjal Veyyil

    There was a short-lived show on TV called Love Monkey starring Tom Cavanagh as an A&R rep for a record label. In the pilot episode, he starts off by saying that he’s a crime fighter, and his job is to ensure that criminally bad music doesn’t hit the music stores. If I were to be…

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  • The Reader

    After having watched The Reader I realized something interesting: It is a movie about guilt and involves a former guard at Auswicz, but this description simultaneously tells you everything and nothing. I will not spend much time on the plot, which is beautiful. Or on the writing, which feels like a punch to the gut.…

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