Martin Cuff Consulting

I’m conflicted about Margaret Thatcher. As as fiscal conservative, I’m aware she made ludicrously hard economic decisions that radically and brutally overhauled socialist-style Britain, and made way for the prosperity (and greed) of the 90′s and naughties. As a social liberal however, I revile her repressive “Victorian values” – classist, sexist, homophobic – that set [...]

In Julie & Julia, Meryl Streep is joyful, resplendent, lovely as Julia Child, the woman who brought French cooking to servantless Americans. Amy Adams (sob!) is ghastly as Julie Powell, the grasping, strident, petty, whining, self-obsessed, miserable and really quite horrid (oh, ok, one day I’ll come down off the fence and tell you what [...]

I just read a remarkable book, Selling Your Father’s Bones, by a young British writer called Brian Schofield. It charts the onslaught waged by mega-corporations from London and Boston, against the “free” land and resources of the American West. Within mere decades the homelands of the Nez Perce and others were stripped of lumber and [...]

A zealous congressman launches a new military strategy designed to win the war in Afghanistan and details it to a lefty journalist. Two friends, soldiers involved in the operation, are caught behind enemy lines due to bad intel. Meanwhile, their former college professor tries to re-engage a promising but disillusioned student. These are the people [...]

Yes, Mamma Mia! is cheezy. Yes, it’s uneven and it’s unlikely and, if you look at it dispassionately, it’s all ridiculously silly. But the thing is, you simply cannot watch it dispassionately…… Blame those damn catchy tunes. Blame the fact that absolutely everyone seems to be having an absolute blast (you know it’s daft when career vamp [...]

My second Made in Cape Town movie of the weekend was Rendition, the first Hollywood production of South African director Gavin Hood, who won a Best Foreign Language Oscar for Tsotsi. Cinematography was by another high flying South African, Dion Beebe. “Rendition” refers to the ability of the CIA to detain anyone suspected of terrorist dealings, [...]