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Listed below are comments made by Chartered Streets between Monday, 29th September 2008 and Tuesday, 17th November 2009.

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The Best Christmas Movie Ever 1:09pm on 17 Nov 2009 It is not 'time to court your opinions on the best Christmas movies of all time'. It is the middle of November. The early release of "A Christmas Carol" is a cynical marketing move, the idea being that the twin monoliths of Disney and Carrey (not to mention 3-f*@%ing-D) will ensure it's still playing in plenty screens come Christmas time.
In the Realm of James Ferman 12:48pm on 24 Aug 2009 Didn't David Cronenberg anticipate movies like 'Grotesque' when he made Videodrome?

Death to narrative cinema. Long live the new flesh.
In the Realm of James Ferman 3:11pm on 21 Aug 2009 When I was about 16 my mum took me to the Filmhouse in Edinburgh to see a movie she'd heard about and been quite interested in. It was Ai No Corrida. I cannot remember ever being more uncomfortable in a cinema - or anywhere else for that matter. When I told a professor at university this he asked if I'd sued her yet.

As for the 'Grotesque' movie, my feelings about the BBFC's decision are mixed. I can understand their position, but when they said that the problem with the torture and violence of 'Grotesque' is that it doesn't have the characters or narrative context of, for instance, the 'Hostel' movies, it's a bad joke. The other thing is it's already available to download on the internet (not legally, if that matters), and the BBFC's decision will simply encourage some people to go seek it out.
Online Movie Piracy: Sorted, no problem 3:26pm on 27 Apr 2009 I remember a couple of years back getting my dictaphone taken off me before a press screening of Kinky Boots, lest I record the audio track and act the movie out for people.

Just the other day it was reported that research showed the people most likely to download music illegally were also the people most likely to download it legally; the anti-piracy campaign seems based on the idea that these can't be the same people. But most people aren't either good little consumers or pirates; most people who download movies or music illegally will also generally have large collections of DVDS and legally purchased music, and will continue to pay for these things even with the option to get them for free over the internet. Punishing people for it or, worse, actually making examples of people for it as a way to scare people won't work and is an unrealistic and naive response to what the internet allows. Dodgy websites offering free movies aren't going to go away; iTunes realised this and offered a legitimate and highly successful alternative, so why haven't the studios in Hollywood followed suit?
Review: There Will Be Blood 7:38pm on 24 Jan 2009 'When you look at the world you don't see cuts every two or three seconds.'

I've always thought you kind of do. As there's clearly a bit of John Huston in Plainview, here's a quote from the great man:

'You pan from one object to another in order to establish a spatial relationship; thereafter you cut. We are forever cutting in real life. Look from one object to another across the room. Notice how you involuntarily blink. That's a cut.'

In truth I think the way we see the world is closer in resemblance to a choppier style of editing than the elegance of Kubrick or Scorsese (or Anderson - whose biggest influence so far seems to be Robert Altman, though Altman couldn't have made TWBB). In real life we never really do a smooth pan with our eyes.

This has almost nothing to do with the point being made in the video blog, but one should never resist the urge to quote someone like John Huston.
More Points of You: Part Two 4:15pm on 16 Jan 2009 Doesn't the 'Version You've Never Seen' contain that dumb-as-nuts ending where they break the mood completely by having Lee J Cob talking about Wuthering Heights, or something?
5 Live: Kermode and Mayo's Weekly Film Review 01:22am on 15 Jan 2009 The last few seconds of this video were weirdly reminiscent of Eraserhead.
Top Ten Reasons to love Mary Poppins 5:20pm on 30 Nov 2008 You didn't even have to convince me; I vaguely remembered Mary Poppins as an entertaining family movie, but I caught it on TV not long ago for the first time in more than a decade and I was blown away. It's masterpiece: visually beautiful, funny, sad, and, yes, a little eerie in places. Aside from being a great family movie, it is a great movie about family; Mary doesn't come into their lives to make them happy, she comes into their lives to show them how to find their own happiness. Let's Go Fly a Kite is a joyous way to end the movie. Love it.
Preview: The Many Faces of Richard Nixon 3:23pm on 30 Sep 2008 What about the great Philip Baker Hall in Robert Altman's "Secret Honour"?
Review: Waltz with Oscar 3:04pm on 29 Sep 2008 Not only are rotoscoped movies not unrealistic, they seem to contain to me a weird hyper-realism, by capturing and animating the little tics, obscurities and moments of the real world they present them in a new way that traditional animation cannot do. It is also, as Richard Linklater demonstrated with "Waking Life", a way to make a great-looking movie for very little money. You just need time, patience, imagination and Apple Macs.

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