Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
recent posts
- Is it Time for NASA to Retire Private Spaceflight Projects?
- Did Stalin’s Purge of the Generals Really Hinder the Soviet War Effort?
- Vassily Grossman’s Noisy post-Soviet Interlopers
- Putting the Third Wave of anti-Trans Panic in its Historical Perspective
- The Bone Temple: A Clockwork Orange with zombies (without zombies)
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Category: Reviews
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Today I am celebrating my first publication in my new job, and since it’s about a topic I’ll probably be coming back to a lot in the next year, I thought I’d cover it here. It’s not much of a publication – just a letter in the journal Addiction – but it covers what I…
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I am watching England being slowly ground into humiliation by an astounding Argentinian team On the second day of the biggest contest of the world’s most important sport. It’s a war of attrition out there but the Argentinians are proving once again that the future of sport lies in the southern hemisphere. Sadly I am…
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It’s a Sean Bean boom over here in Kichijoji, with 10 episodes of A Game of Thrones followed up this weekend with the 2010 Sean Bean movie Black Death. In fact, a few weeks ago I watched Red Riding too, where Sean Bean plays an evil paedophile shopping mall developer. He’s always good, is our…
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It’s ET for the noughties! This movie, by JJ Abrams (who apparently made Lost), reproduces many of the major themes of that classic alien encounter movie. It has the energetic and investigative children, the military moving in to cover up the situation, parents who don’t quite get it, and bicycles everywhere. It’s even set very…
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I really like the Pirates franchise: it’s got pirates (sometimes undead), swashbuckling, ships ‘o the line, monsters, magic, necromancy and demonology, back-stabbing, swindling and mincing ponces getting out of trouble by the skin of their teeth. It also has Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush playing parts they seem to really love, which is a joy…
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A new style of television that is part horror, part sci-fi, part drama and part comedy, Psychoville represents a huge artistic step forward for the makers of the League of Gentlemen. Of course, when we use the word “artistic” in connection with something by this group we don’t mean “beautiful” or “aesthetically pleasing”; but a…
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The Royal Wedding has led to a new round of debate about Republicanism in Australia, particularly since the Queen somehow managed to ban a particular comedy group from providing satirical coverage of the wedding on the state broadcaster[1]. The debate was reflected last week in a panel presentation on the state broadcaster’s current affairs TV…
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This is one for the OSR: it’s heart is in the right place but it’s production values are terrible. I was lured into watching this movie originally by hearing a sample on the Vanishing Point song A Day of Difference, and thought it must be a great movie on the basis of Peter O’Toole’s effort…
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The Road is a nasty post-apocalypse movie by John Hillcoat, based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. The basic story is very simple – a man and his son are walking south towards the coast through a post-apocalyptic landscape, trying to survive while they head for the sea. The cause of…
Compromise and Conceit 