zumbruk

For years, to paraphrase the famous quote, I didn't know anything about music, I just liked the sound it made. People talked to me about chords, keys and time signatures. I even bought a book or two. But it might just as well have been in Martian. The terms they were using to explain things themselves made no sense. Enter Howard Goodall. And suddenly someone was prepared to explain time signatures, chords, keys, rhythm, "beat" and all that stuff in terms I could understand. Suddenly, I knew what a chord was. And why it's called a "diminished seventh". A whole new world opened up before my eyes, or rather, beside my ears. Goodall even made me realise that hip-hop is a real art-form and not just angry noise, and why. The man's a genius.

If you like music, but don't understand it, you simply *must* watch this series. More like it, please, Channel 4. And the sooner this gets onto DVD, the better.

Please may I have the 90 minutes of my life back?

I haven't been so bored by a movie since "Bad Lieutenant". I know the principals were driven together by boredom, but was it really necessary for the audience to join them? What with that and cheapo-travellogue footage of Tokyo, I really cannot understand what the fuss was about. I can only think this got the adulation it did because of who the father of the director is. I ended up watching the last half of the movie at 24x speed and my wife went to bed. There was, after all, no dialogue worth listening to. OK, Scarlett Johannson is absolutely gorgeous, but so what? And hasn't Bill Murray got old?

Null points.

I'd forgotten that Americans don't do irony, or humour other than slapstick, until I read the comments on this movie. Of *course* it isn't a "serious" horror movie. It's full of tongue-in-cheeck references to other movies, to horror "conventions" and general silliness. I guess because it isn't utterly "in your face" it doesn't make sense to the average American viewer. Watch it again, and look for the references to Star Wars, James Bond, Polanski's "Dance of the Vampires", and doubtless many more I've missed.

Personally, I thought Roxborough was one of the best Draculas, in context, I have ever seen. Ditto the Brides and Frankenstein's Monster. Jackman was pretty wooden, but acceptable. Pity Beckinsale was a sexist joke from beginning to end.

I've seen it twice and would be happy to see it again.