It has been six years that weve been hoping for another good Guy Ritchie movie. His 2002 collaboration with his wife yes, Madonna on Swept Away was not what the audiences wanted, to put it mildly, while 2005s Revolver was incomprehensible and pretentious beyond the point of tolerance. With that in mind, RocknRolla is saddled with the unwanted and unenviable task of either showing that Ritchie is still a filmmaker with plenty of energy and flair, or proving that he has finally lost it. Luckily, the former is the case and the wait for a new, good Ritchie film is finally over.
Archive for January, 2009
FILM REVIEW RocknRolla amp;1056; amp;1086; amp;1082; amp;1077; amp;1085; amp;1088; amp;1086; amp;1083; amp;1072;
Thursday, January 29th, 2009A true Renaissance man
Thursday, January 29th, 2009In 1947, Bulgarian diplomat Petar Ouvaliev was declared an enemy of the people after he fled his native country to stay in London. Yet, 25 years later, he was drinking with Todor Zhivkovs daughter, Lyudmila, in Sofia. Somehow, even in the midst of communism, he had managed to transcend politics to become a kind of Britishbased cultural ambassador to Bulgaria.
READING ROOM Friend or foe
Thursday, January 29th, 2009As the European Commission continues to lend an ear to warnings from scientists that prolonged listening to mp3 players can harm your hearing, The Sofia Echo outlines the controversies around some other everyday items of equipment
Mommy Diaries Always a mother
Thursday, January 29th, 2009My friend Katherine remembers taking her daughter, Anabel, camping in Lake Tahoe, California, years ago, when she was a few months old. She went with a girlfriend.They got there late; it was already dark and they put up the tent in the black of night. It got bitter cold and Katherine was convinced that Anabel might be freezing to death, so she hovered over her, checking her fat little arms and legs. Katherine didnt sleep a wink.
The English Angle Life on Mars
Thursday, January 29th, 2009A recent television series of the aforementioned name allowed us some nostalgia for those of us who grew up in 1970s Britain. But along with those iconic cultural memories long sideburns, flared trousers, the Bay City Rollers, Starsky and Hutch, a charttopping David Soul, Dads Army and dodgy Cortinas people always refer to the dreadful economy. Those were HARD times, is the refrain.
Macro Gas dramedy
Thursday, January 29th, 2009And the award for quote of the month goes to, who else Petar Dimitrov.With January headlines, quite understandably, dominated by the gas row between Russia and Ukraine, the consequences of halted deliveries on Bulgarian business and what needs to be done to diversify gas supplies in the future, Dimitrov added his own peculiar twist of comedy to the drama.
TO THE EDITOR Bring Back the BEEB, WHY
Thursday, January 29th, 2009.. only if you want repetitive, sliced, diced and processed news, illinformed commentary and no music.When the Stanishev Government took no action to restore the BBC to the Bulgarian airwaves, I, like many of you was annoyed but far from surprised.
FROM THE EDITOR The elections question
Thursday, January 29th, 2009The idea of holding the two elections scheduled for Bulgaria in 2009, those for the National Assembly and the European Parliament, on one day is perfectly sound.Unfortunately, the debate on the question has descended into mutual fingerpointing by advocates and opponents of the idea, accusing each other of partisan motives.