Harry’s Place Arts

I started watching The Devil’s Whore with a sense of annoyance.  I’m all for Civil War dramas, but why have a female central character, (Angelica Fanshawe, the whore of the title), when the Civil War was made out of those two traditionally masculine pursuits, fighting and politics?   Then, when Angelica was shown as the usual sexy, [...]

An excellent series, A History of Scotland, has been playing on BBC Scotland.  The most recent episode, “Bishop Makes King”, dealt with Robert the Bruce, who seemed to enact aspects of the Shakespearean kings in real life.  Like Henry V, he was a fine warrior and a savvy tactician.  Like Macbeth, he slaughtered many in the process of consolidating [...]

Looks like one of my favorite TV shows, “King of the Hill,” is heading for cancellation next year. It had a good long run of 13 seasons. I’ll admit, it took a few years to grow on me.
A few years ago I linked to a New York Times magazine article by Matt Bai, [...]

For some reason the past few years have seen a resurgence in zombie movies. The fear of  a large unthinking mass of individuals slavishly following their simplistic programmed blood thirsty urges obviously taps into a common fear.
Starting with the low-budget 28 Days Later, which pioneered the fast running Zombie (although the Zombies were not true [...]

The BBC’s science fiction drama, Dr Who, has brought “shame” upon the corporation and exhibits “brutal dumbing down”, according to one of Britain’s most high-profile scientists.
Stephen Hawkings, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and author of a book on the nature of time, said that the series, which has been criticised for its inaccurate science, was “lowest [...]

 
Well, I’ve just finished watching the second installment of Alan Yentob’s fantastic documentary series following the history of the guitar, from it’s earliest evolution to the present. This is a series that simply MUST be released by the BBC on DVD, complete with extended interviews and performances from the array of guests Yentob talks to [...]

A bit delayed, but here is everything I’ve got that was released in September.  Again, one is made up; the first person to spot it wins any one album of their choice from the list.  It’s not quite such a fun list as last month, but there’s some real gems…

After a flurry of interest in Burial thanks to his Mercury Award nomination, and The Sun’s Gordon Smart outwitting himself by trying to persuade the world that the name was a pseudonym for Aphex Twin or Fatboy Slim (!!!!), the man himself has decided to reveal on his MySpace that he is…
wait for it…
drumroll….
MADELEINE MCCANN [...]

Apparently petty greed is taking its place as the marketing theme that will define the first ten years of this century. To those of you who thought Flock of Seagulls and Ronald Reagan were swell, this is not their big shiny Wall Street greed. Indeed this is the miniaturized version spawned by the isolating effects [...]

I have just watched the first 15 minutes of a new BBC drama series called “Bonekickers”
It was, without doubt, the worst programme I have ever seen.
I cannot bring myself to tell you anything about it, except to say that it was about archaeologists, and it was wrong in every possible way you can think.
Watching it, [...]