Sweet Nothings

What a curious business this AV referendum is turning out to be. Britain's first referendum in 30-odd years should be a huge deal. Unfortunately, the Great British Public's general disillusionment with politics in general combined with the relative complexity of the AV system is threatening to reduce the whole thing to a sideshow. The ever-increasing tetchiness between the coalition partners makes it a rather entertaining one, admittedly - these kind of spirited exchanges of views are exactly what should have been happening from day one of this Government, at least from a Lib Dem point of view. But the sight of High Tories standing side by side with Labour grandees will confuse many voters, probably making them less likely to vote than they already were. Anyone who's even thinking of voting should be compelled BY LAW to read this briefing paper  which gives as fair and unbiased an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed system compared with the cur...

Source Code is the second film from Duncan Jones, who previously brought us Moon  and who was brought to us in part by David Bowie, him being his dad and all [/obligatory Bowie mention]. Firstly, I enjoyed this much more than Moon , but then I took the slightly heretical position of not enjoying that movie all that much. In fact, the same applies to pretty much all of the bona fide, classic dialogue-based sci-fi movies that I've seen - 2001, Solaris, Silent Running ... I've clearly been raised on an unhealthy diet of space opera, action and blockbuster FX, for which I can only apologise. Anyway, Source Code on the surface is a big leap into the mainstream by Jones - big budget, A-list star, plenty of explosions (well, technically the same explosion but it does happen LOADS of times). But even from the opening titles, sweeping aerial cityscapes accompanied by pleasingly old-school bombastic music, you get the feeling that this is a filmmaker who cares. Jake Gyllenhaal helps...