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Too Much Monkey Business
There’s been a lot of online coverage about the Cadbury’s drumming gorilla ad… viral activity that felt spontaneous and justified at first but which (or maybe it’s just me) is beginning to feel more than a little manipulative now. After some speculation as to whether it was actually Phil Collins in the gorilla costume (duh?)…
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Second Variety (2)
Right now I can’t do much more than pass along what’s appearing in the trades – here’s an extract from the fullest piece I’ve seen so far, in The Hollywood Reporter. There’s also an expanded version of the Variety coverage now online. Reuters, Hollywood News and Movieweb all carry versions of the story, none of…
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Second Variety
Well, it’s out now. Here’s the stop-press email from Variety.com: Following a fierce bidding war, CBS has beat out ABC for the rights to a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced adaptation of Brit thriller Eleventh Hour. Eye has committed to at least a pilot, with a hefty seven-figure penalty attached if the Warner Bros/Granada project – which remains…
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Crude, but Effective
Every little community has its in-jokes, and each community has its bottom-of-the-pecking order geek who catches on late and then fails to realise when everyone else has moved on. In the world of Doctor Who – which has become a big world again, due to the success of the TV series’ revival – the fast-track…
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Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn
I can’t remember when I last walked into a bookshop and paid full price for a book. Well, I can, because it was this afternoon. Before that, I mean. This afternoon I was in London with a train journey ahead of me and nothing to read on it. The Tube strike was in full swing,…
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The Count of Monte Cristo
I just watched the 6-hour Gerard Depardieu version of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO over four nights, and I think I maybe found some useful lessons there. The special power of the story lies in the way that Edmond Dantes remakes himself as a machine for vengeance and then reappears to engage with his enemies,…
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Freebies – at a Price
The price being that you have to go out and buy a copy of The Daily Express. I’ve just learned that this week’s running Express DVD giveaway is the complete set of Charles Edwards MURDER ROOMS films, along with Ian Richardson’s two outings in the role of Sherlock Holmes. Well, in purely selfish terms it…
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Future Proof
It’s not quite as bad as the days when companies were destroying assets to save themselves tape and space, but a certain short-termism still dogs the business. Richard Mitchell, who composes music for film and TV, told me, “A dubbing mixer recently explained that the UK TV industry has dug itself a hole which the…
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Ian Richardson
“An actor of astonishing power and magisterial presence on stage and screen; away from it, a humble, engaging, and truly likeable person. For any writer, it was an honour just to hear him speak one’s words.” Lines that I wrote for my website on hearing of the actor’s unexpected death earlier this year, and I…
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Because we’re all out of Piano Players
Did you hear the story about the British director Mike Figgis? He arrived at Los Angeles airport on his way to take up a TV job for Fox/Sony. When asked the purpose of his visit, he supposedly said, “I’m here to shoot a pilot.” As the story goes, it then took him five hours to…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
