Critic Cal

The ceaseless boundless thoughtless tribal head-to-head which is the social interweb plays host to many glorious, definitive, profoundly opposition-overwhelming JPEGs which are variously tweeted, posted, liked, re-tweeted, followed, commented-on, shared, reported, voted (up or down), removed from News Feed (hide all stories...? change what updates...? send feedback to [insert friend here]...?) and generally marvelled at in any of several possible senses for all of a matter of seconds before the page refreshes to deliver a fresh cavalcade of bite-sized resolutions to the deepest, most bewildering bewilderments of human nature and existence: Reality? Wow! Really? For sure? I mean...really? 'Cos, well, I always, like, totally wondered about that. What is the deal, then? All this stuff around me...the fabrications of Descarte's malevolent demon ? the projections of my own imagination ? What am I? a  brain in a vat ? a cell in a giant battery powering the Matrix ? if every

The Rings Of Akhaten  -- episode 2 of the current Doctor Who series -- culminates with a sweat-dripping, hubris-bristling rendition, from the eponymous physician himself, of what is essentially an out-and-out New Atheist manifesto, all set to a stirring choral accompaniment and staged in front of a cosmic CGI backdrop: "Okay then. That's what I'll do. I'll tell you a story. Can you hear them? All these people who lived in terror of you and your judgment. All these people whose ancestors devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves to you. Can you hear them singing? Oh you like to think you're a god. But you're not a god. You're just a parasite. Eat now with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them. On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow, so... so come on then. Take mine. Take my memories. But I hope you're got a big a big appetite. Because I've lived a long life. And I've seen a few t

Steve Carell  established himself in my estimation as among the most virtuosic of all comics with his role as Brick Tamland in Anchorman  -- a film which isn't really a film at all but which makes you seriously question whether you would ever choose to watch a film again were there sufficient like extended assemblages of 'funny' to fill up those time slots in which you would normally be watching films. Sadly, this question is academic, as there aren't. Since Anchorman, Carell has gone on to prove himself equally expert at attaching himself to disappointingly mediocre films  [1]. It recently struck me that were I, as a fan, to wait for a good one to come along, I might be waiting a while. So, I threw caution to the wind and placed £8.50 and 100 minutes on  The Incredible Burt Wonderstone  not being unbearable. The bet paid off -- I was adequately amused throughout, with moments of acute merriment and even the odd burst of mental provocation. One such burst was pr