Walls and Bridges:
by Joel Meadows

1-9-06

This weekend BBC News announced that Tony Banks, former Sports Minister, had a stroke and died Sunday night our time. The man was against hunting, a vegetarian and came across as a genuinely nice bloke. Bugger. Life just doesn't seem fair sometimes…

1-4-06

Just before Christmas I went to see Good Night And Good Luck, George Clooney's latest directorial effort. Not out on this side of the water until February, I was lucky enough to go to a press screening. And I've got to say that it's pretty good: it deals with the career of American TV journalist Edward Murrow and his run-ins with Senator Joe McCarthy. Clooney has managed to assemble a superb ensemble cast including Robert Downey Jr who proves here that he is a great actor who's made some questionable choices in recent years and the incomparable David Strathairn as Murrow who commands the screen every time he's on. Clooney's pretty respectable here too in a supporting role and the film just reinforces the respect I have for him as a Hollywood figure: he can make tosh like Ocean's Twelve and then turn around and create a cinematic masterpiece like Good Night And Good Luck. This film is so hard-bitten you can almost smell the nicotine off the screen and if it doesn't win at least one Oscar this year, then there's no justice.

I also rented The Assassination of Richard Nixon starring Sean Penn. Penn plays Sam Bicke, a nebbish whose life gets worse and worse until he is forced to take drastic action. Penn is a force of nature here: his features look like they're carved onto his face and he demands the audience's attention whenever he's up there. Don Cheadle as his friend and Naomi Watts as his estranged wife turn in very impressive performances too. The film manages to convey the sense of time and place (1974 Washington DC) so eloquently that it reinforces the suggestion that Sean Penn is the greatest actor currently appearing in Hollywood.

1-2-06

Welcome to 2006

38 arrests for violent behaviour in London on New Year's Eve. Highest number in recent years. Obviously 24 hour licensing in our pubs has definitely created that continental feel on our streets :)