The shipyard painter, political activist and razor-sharp cartoonist Bob Starrett has just written a new book The Way I See It on his eventful life and times. Below we reprint one of his stories and review an essential read
ENO's production of La Boheme is a triumph,
NOT so much Love, Actually as lesbian love actually, Imagine Me and You, yet another English rom-com set among the Range Rover set, is an Ealing Studios production financed by BBC Films.
BASED upon Christopher Buckley's sharp satire of sleazy Washington lobbyists, Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking as scripted by Cameron Bright has about as much sting as a nicotine patch.
DAVID SLADE'S Hard Candy is a viscerally violent and unsavoury illustration of what might happen when a sweet 14-year-old girl decides to turn the tables on a paedophile whom she met in a computer chat room.
BASED upon Mickey Spillane's dime novel, Robert Aldrich's 1955 B-noir version features Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer and Cloris Leachman as the mysterious woman who flags him down at the beginning of the movie, only to get murdered and set the seedy detective on his intriguing trail to - well, that's for you to find out.
DUMPLINGS as an elixir of life. Why not? It's the staple diet of many billions of Chinese, ever respectful of their elder statesmen, their cuisine becoming a cultural symbol of an almost fetishised alternative medicine market.
JEFF SAWTELL points out the flaws in a bloody gangster movie filmed on the Caracas streets.
AS THE English hordes seek to return to their Saxon soil in pursuit of the Holy Grail, consider the plight of those less fortunate football fans, those who have no chance of seeing their team in the flesh.
HAVING detoured from his Pusher 1 (1996) and 2 (2004) to make Bleeder and Fear X, Nicolas Winding Refn continues his saga set among the druggies and dealers of Copenhagen with The Angel of Death.
SET in Hong Kong, the Election in question is the biennial poll to choose the next chairman of the oldest triad, the senior members of the organisation having to choose between hot-headed Big D and a cool-headed Lok (Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Simon Lam).