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Donald Clarke

Whingeing about cinema and real life since 2009

Monthly Archives: December 2009

It’s the tenth anniversary of Millennium Eve.

And, of course, the end of a strange decade. To celebrate, The Ticket returns, for one week only, to Thursday’s edition of the paper. Happily, the supplement is as packed with unmissable feature articles and transcendent filler as ever. Why …

Grand Theft Auto IV and double time-wastage.

I’ll tell you what I hate about Grand Theft Auto IV. Bloody nothing, that’s what. Who knew recreational murder, casual arson and amateur car theft could be such darn good fun? In all the chatter about the best of the …

Ah, the madeleine that is Rodney Bewes…

In a classic Christmas episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? Bob Ferris found himself being diverted from his usual Christmas Day activities. “But The Great Escape is on. Isn’t it? It usually is,” he whined. Now, this was, …

But not for viewers in Northern Ireland.

Armando Iannucci used to do an excellent routine in which — remembering his childhood — he’d impersonate a BBC continuity announcer detailing the array of delights set to be broadcast that evening. I can’t remember the exact details, but I …

Trailerspotting goes down the rabbit hole in search of Irish films.

What’s the most eagerly awaited film of 2010? There’s a stupid question. If you’re a big fan of the excellent Jennifer Lopez and her many splendid romantic comedies then you will, no doubt, be slavering for The Back-Up Plan. If, …

Golden Globessszzzzzz…

I sense that awards fatigue is already setting in among readers, so I’ll just offer a brief paragraph on the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations this afternoon. There weren’t many surprises and our pointers towards the Oscars — for …

Update on the Oscars.

Back in the summer, the Academy surprised virtually everybody by announcing that the number of nominations for the best picture Oscar was to go up from five to ten. The strategy was not hard to discern: as less mainstream films …

Up sweeps the first Screenies Awards.

No more Cone of Shame for you, Dug. Eager for displacement activity from real work, your host finally got round to scrolling down the comments on the best-of the-year post and assembling a readers’ top 10 for 2009. The rules …

Ho hum, it’s the end of the year.

After all the end-of-decade lists, our round-up of the best films from 2009 may seem like a little bit of an anti-climax. At any rate, today’s Ticket features a comprehensive analysis of what’s hot and what’s not from the big …

Tomorrow belongs to us!

Am I alone in finding the current Meteor phone commercial absolutely infuriating? I’m talking about the one with the carol singers. Maybe it’s my  age or the fact that I wasn’t raised by baboons, but I simply can’t understand why …

Boo! It’s the five #$*!est films of the decade.

You haven’t escaped from this end-of-decade stuff, yet. Oh no, my friend. There’s a great deal more of this idiotic list-making still to come. Obviously, picking the worst films released theatrically this decade is — for those of us infected …

Readers SLAM Screenwriter’s best of the decade (not really).

Well, wouldn’t you know it. For the first time since this blog started, due to a mild technological irregularity while holidaying, I was unable to moderate comments for a full 24 hours. As it happened, that was, of course, the …

The best bits of the outgoing decade.

(Unless you’re the sort of pedant who insists the decade ends in 2011. In which case, write a furious “rant” to the “letters” page.) I am not currently at my desk, so excuse the brevity of this note. Today, we …