Once up for Best Song

Oh, it deserved more than one category, though the song deserves the nomination… would it have stuck in the Academy’s craw to put it where it belongs, the Best Picture category? The film’s basic conceit is a musical one, that two strings in tune will resonate and amplify, and the joy in John Carney’s filmmaking [...]

The Problem with Punk

Peter Carlton of Film Four in the UK has said that they make films your mother wouldn’t like. If you’re a filmmaker it’s a constant mantra from financiers… “hip and edgy”. A few years back, I went to the local supermarket and was loading up the aisles when I noticed the music over the tannoys. [...]

Podcasts worth listening to

I’ve moved away from live radio almost completely now. A surprising thing for me, given that the spoken word has long been my favourite medium for news and politics by far. My earliest personal relationship with media was listening to Radio Caroline and later John Peel chronicling the arrival of punk in the mid seventies. [...]