Fury is a brutal, transfixing, visually impressive tale of a tank crew deep in hostile territory at the end of World War Two. There’s not much plot to speak of – the brave guys have to hold a strategic crossroads as their company is decimated around them is just about all there is to it…
Read moreWorld War Z
World War Z, if you hadn’t heard, is a book that’s styled as an intellectual history of a massive, unprecedented global calamity which happens to involve zombies. Written by Max Brooks, it’s obviously not high art, but it is terrifically well written and the world it conjures is truly vivid and truly scary. So when…
Read moreThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I don’t do death. I’ve spent my entire life blocking out the fact that death happens. But yesterday I learned that my most dearly beloved – the sweet and loyal and gentle Finley Dogchild – has a tumour the size of an orange growing between the muscles of her right thigh. It’s not going to…
Read moreBurn After Reading
With Burn After Reading, the Coen Brothers channel Evelyn Waugh. Gym bunny Chad and grasping Linda discover a cd rom on the floor of the changing rooms at the Hard Bodies Gym in Washington DC. When they realise it may contain highly sensitive CIA information, they proceed to try to flog it to the highest…
Read moreBabel
Caught Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel on tv again last night – a beautiful, gut wrenching and entirely appalling exposition of the confusions and mistakes and misunderstandings that separate us. In light of the xenophobic wrath unfolding in Johannesburg right now, it’s a timely reminder of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – our humanity connects us, a person…
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