December 2011
5 posts
Listmania ’11! The Best Movies Of The Year →
A major caveat needs to be applied to this exhaustively thought-through list of the year’s best cinema, and I don’t mean the usual caveat I add about missing some key movie. The number 4 film on…
Listmania ’11! Music Round-Up →
This post wasn’t supposed to happen. This year has been spent writing, not for the blog but for a higher purpose, and I’ve found that the perfect accompaniment is jazz. As a result the majority of…
New Poll: What Was Your Favourite Movie of 2011? →
Hello, bloglings. Quick post to cover my next big poll for the next year, after the last one became a bigger project than I had expected. Every year I run a poll of the best movies of the past 12…
BFI LFF 2011: Let The Bullets Fly / Dendera →
Forgive me for this, but my final report on this year’s London Film Festival requires a bit of a digression. A crisis of confidence paralysed me after seeing two mystifying movies, and it’s affected…
BFI LFF 2011: Six Degrees of Jude Law (360 +... →
My first experience of the 2011 London Film Festival was attending 360, the instantly derided new project from Fernando Meirelles and Peter Morgan, who were in attendance for the movie’s second…
November 2011
3 posts
BFI LFF 2011: W.E. →
Madonna’s biopic of Wallis Simpson was notorious long before screening at the 2011 LFF, following a disastrous premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The version screened in London was reportedly…
BFI LFF 2011: Take Shelter / The Artist →
Times are tough. The economy looks like a dessicated version of its former self, waiting for rehydration that won’t ever come if our right-wing overlords have anything to do with it. The planet’s…
BFI LFF 2011: Two Weeks Enduring Central London’s... →
It says something about a man’s life that attending a film festival just a few dozen miles from his front door is so far and away the highlight of the year that once one has finished, he starts…
October 2011
12 posts
The 2010-2011 Caruso Awards: Miscellaneous TV... →
It’s not over! I feel like a horror movie antagonist popping out of hiding ten minutes after the credits have finished rolling, but yes, the Caruso TV Awards have one last gasp before I retire them…
The 2010-2011 Caruso Awards: The Worst New... →
As I said yesterday, there were very few good roles for actresses this year, but even more annoyingly, there were plenty of bad ones. It’s the usual thing; most shows need a shrewish nagging wife to…
The 2010-2011 Caruso Awards: The Best New... →
In case you hadn’t noticed from my various rants about banks and politicians, I’m of the left, politically speaking. Like yer actual stereotype, I agonise about things I say on here, hoping that my…
The 2010-2011 Caruso Awards: The Best Episodes of... →
And now, the big top ten. Looking at this list again, I’m absolutely awed by the quality of these episodes. Every one of them is a mini-masterpiece of drama or comedy. This might be the best year of…
The 2010-2011 Caruso Awards: The Best Episodes of... →
2011 has been a bit of a crap one for movies so far. There’s very little I’ve outright loved — only Attack The Block, Rango, and Fast Five have really fired my imagination, and even the current…
The 2010-2011 Caruso Awards: The Best Episodes of... →
In a previous post I remarked that I wouldn’t be able to write about Spartacus: Gods of the Arena as I hadn’t seen it; a terrible oversight partially explainable as discomfort following on from the…
The 2010-2011 Caruso Awards: The Best Episodes of... →
Watching TV for a living is probably a depressing job. Poor Harry Hill is reportedly on the verge of quitting TV Burp because he can’t handle having to watch countless hours of Emmerdale and …
The 2010 – 2011 Caruso Awards: Lessons What I... →
My pledge to be better tempered didn’t really last. Warning: this is a long and angry one, and it starts with me sounding like an enormous prude. For the record, I am in fact an enormous prude, and…
The 2010 – 2011 Caruso Awards: Lessons What I... →
Longtime readers will know that I’ve dedicated much of the last few years obsessively watching Cuse and Lindelof’s sci-fi masterpiece Lost, and that I liked the finale. Many didn’t, and with great…
The 2010 – 2011 Caruso Awards: Lessons What I... →
Please forgive me for that angry detour. And now, on with the complaining about bad TV.
Properly think through any second season revamps for shows that have only just avoided cancellation
V…
Cutting Off Our Nose To Spite Our Face →
Before I get into this next set of Lessons Learned From Bad TV, I just want to write a few words about the recent announcement of cuts within the BBC. Without getting into specifics, I just want to…
The 2010 – 2011 Caruso Awards: Lessons What I... →
Normally I’d add a big opening paragraph to this, but it’s been a busy day (i.e. I’ve been on Twitter AND Facebook), so I’ll just get to the next three lessons I learned by watching bad TV over the…
June 2011
1 post
Austin Superpowers In: The Mutant Who Shagged Me →
Regular readers will probably already know about my passionate hatred for X-Men Origins: Wolverine in: The Origin of The Man They Call Wolverine: The Pre-X-Men Years, which I thought was the worst…
May 2011
1 post
Happy Birthday, Superhero Bob Dylan →
Today marks the birthday of Robert Zimmerman, known to most of the world as the superhero Bob Dylan, who has protected the town of St. Augustine for forty years. Patrolling the streets in his boots…
April 2011
4 posts
The Rock and The Diesel: Titan Clash →
Until about ten days ago I did not give a single damn about the Fast & Furious franchise, having endured the first one several years ago and finding it wanting. It was easy to dismiss yet another…
Off He Went With A Trumpety Trump...
It’s no surprise that Donald Trump - a man who resembles a smug car transporting a fluffy carpet around on its roof - is proud of himself for being instrumental in the release of the birth certificate of President Barack Obama. After all, Mr. Trump is the kind of man who gives himself a round of applause every time he does pee-pees or poo-poos without needing the assistance of Nanny.
...
Can Someone Please Buy Kenny Branagh A Spirit... →
Apparently, according to professional troll and tired-shtick-purveyor Joe Queenan and mysteriously grouchy former colleague Stephen Evans, British acting-giant Kenneth Branagh is suffering from…
Sucker Punch: Moulin Rouge + Bayonetta + Inception... →
Okay, let’s get this post out of the way so I can use my words in more constructive ways. Yes, I just saw Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, and as a member of the nerd community I am therefore compelled…
March 2011
1 post
STFU, Conservatives: Honestly, the thing that... →
stfusexists:
…is this notion that pro-choicers want abortion to continue to be a reality for so many women. That isn’t true. I want to live in a world where no woman faces unplanned pregnancy, because birth control is affordable, sex education is adequate, and reproductive coercion is an…
February 2011
1 post
In Which I Become Horribly Grumpy In The Process... →
Traditionally this is one of those periods in the year when I get obnoxiously, nerdily excited about something many discerning film buffs dismiss as irrelevant: the Academy Awards, where overpaid…
January 2011
3 posts
Listmania ‘10! Miscellaneous Movie Observations:... →
One last post, and then I’m done for a bit, though I may return to film blogging when the Oscars happen. As usual, I had finished writing most of this series of year-end posts just before seeing the…
Listmania ‘10! Miscellaneous Movie Observations:... →
In the interests of not writing off-puttingly long 5000-word blogposts any more, my Miscellaneous Gubbins post has been split in two. The next one will feature more pictures than words, I promise….
Listmania ‘10! Crew Contributions Of The Year →
It’s weird how Black Swan and Inception completely took over 2010, to the extent that I’ve barely thought about any other movies. In the Best Movies list I finished last week, I intended to make a…
December 2010
8 posts
Listmania ‘10! Performances Of The Year →
It’s tempting to think of 2010 as the year that women ruled cinema. That would almost certainly be too bold a statement, but it’s worth noting that when collating my favourite performances of the…
Listmania ‘10! The Worst Movies Of The Year →
With the miserable regularity of the Grinch’s alarm clock, my deafening hoots of praise give way to similarly loud hoots of derision, aimed at the lowest of the low. This inevitable post also sees…
Listmania ‘10! The Best Movies Of The Year →
A last mad dash to the end of the year, watching as many movies as I can, and I still don’t catch everything I wanted to see. It’s always the way, and I don’t see any other way to beat it other than…
BFI LFF 2010: Black Swan →
When writing about the London Film Festival I like to compare and contrast in order to convey the mentally claustrophobic experience of seeing so many movies in such a short space of time. My…
BFI LFF 2010: Amigo / Meek’s Cutoff →
I’m a terrible cinemagoer. No, I’m not one of those inconsiderate creeps who takes calls during the movie, or eats the largest bag of popcorn in the slowest manner possible while obliviously…
BFI LFF 2010: Blue Valentine / Biutiful /... →
It’s been a tough year at Shades of Caruso HQ. Not wishing to get into personal details, but if 2010 was a boat, it would be the Titanic after crashing into the Lucitania and the Poseidon on the…
BFI LFF 2010: It’s Kind of a Funny Story /... →
Regular readers will roll their eyes as I once again make note of my long-standing antipathy towards the coming-of-age genre, which often strikes me as a lazy excuse for writer/directors to throw a…
BFI LFF 2010: Never Let Me Go / Archipelago / 13... →
Never Let Me Go achieves something almost unique: it’s a movie whose artistic achievement arguably dooms it. Directed by Mark Romanek and adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel by Alex Garland, the…
November 2010
1 post
BFI LFF 2010 – Self Made / Tabloid →
2009 was the first year I attended the London Film Festival — despite having lived in the capital for ten years – and the experience was so enjoyable the concentrated cinematic download instantly…
October 2010
5 posts
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: Miscellaneous Gubbins... →
It never ends! This is the bad thing about not blogging regularly: I have a year’s worth of observations stuck in my brain, and only by barfing them out here can I get some rest. Seriously, I…
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: Best and Worst New... →
We’re still going, even though my attention has been completely taken over by the London Film Festival (one film down so far! Gillian Wearing’s Self-Made, a fascinating experimental movie that…
Highlighting Our Genitalia-Centric Prescience →
A quick break from the seemingly endless Caruso Awards, thanks to Gawker, Celebitchy, and a lot of other eagle-eyed bloggers out there. Well, I say eagle-eyed, but the size of this package could…
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: The Worst New... →
Even the best show can be hamstrung by the introduction of a poorly realised character. Most showrunners will realise the folly of their ways and kill them off as quickly as possible: look at how…
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: The Best New... →
Yes yes, I’m still not done. Traditionally Shades of Caruso feels obliged to praise showrunners for creating new characters that embody all that is great about a show, draw attention to aspects of…
September 2010
5 posts
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: The Worst Episodes of... →
The bottom ten episodes of the year have a few things in common, usually revolving around some pretty unevolved views on women or by treating IRL issues as some kind of ghoulish entertainment. Guess…
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: The Worst Episodes of... →
Shades of Caruso apologises in advance for the following posts. They’re filled with complaints and bitching and all sorts of unpleasant negativity, but they’re something that needed to be written…
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: The Best Episodes of... →
As I said in an earlier post, Shades of Caruso needlessly busted ass to watch as much TV as possible in an effort to widen the scope of these awards. It meant catching a lot of reliably great shows…
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: The Best Episodes of... →
A quick reminder of the stupidly complicated rules of the Caruso Awards: only shows whose latest season (or half-season) has finished by the time of publication are eligible, hence the inclusion of…
The 2009-2010 Caruso Awards: The Best Episodes of... →
The Caruso Awards traditionally occur at the beginning of the new US TV season, which lands a few days into September. I say traditionally, but as ever these awards are being announced a couple of…