TV: Lost, Season 5

I was annoyed by Lost when it first started. It was utterly addictive, but it made me feel like an addict. Each episode promised answers to the increasingly bizarre goings on on the Island, but instead only delivered more questions. So I watched, desperate for my next fix, but always dissatisfied by the ever-decreasing highs, and unable to invest in the characters as long as the story had me shouting at the television screen.

All that has changed now. About half-way through the story, the writers set an end date and planned out their ending properly... and with Season 5, that ending is almost here. No story that I can think of has had more layers, more mysteries, or more twists, but, rather wonderfully, everything really is coming together in a way that makes sense.

In Season 5 we lose the pretense that this is anything other than an out-and-out science fiction show, with the whole season revolving around a (very cleverly worked out) time-travel plot that puts many of the characters back into the Island's past and allows us to see with some clarity all the events that have led to this point.

There are still plenty of mysteries left to be revealed in the show's final year, but at last it's possible to get a sense of what the show is all about, and where it might be heading. (09/10)

Films: Sherlock Holmes

I saw Guy Ritchie's first film, Lock, stock and two smoking barrels, didn't think much of it, and couldn't possibly imagine what his version of Sherlock Holmes would be like. Would it be another convoluted story of boys-about-town, London geezers with guns and silver tongues? Or would it feel like authentic Sherlock Holmes? The answer is, astonishingly: both.

Robert Downey Jr as Holmes is, as ever, fantastic. He's an actor I could watch in anything, and he brings a roguish, childish charm to the master detective. On the other hand, Jude Law does nothing for me, usually, but the pairing of them here works well, with Holmes and Watson bickering with one another endlessly, and entertainingly, as old friends do. There are fist fights, there are shoot-outs, but there's also a lot of real detective work, and a mystery that blends gothic Victoriana with the supernatural in the best tradition of Arthur Conan Doyle. It is big, it is action-packed, and it works. (8/10)

Films: The hangover

The hangover (d. Todd Phillips) is a comedy about a Las Vegas bachelor party gone wrong. Three friends wake up with amnesia in a trashed hotel room - the groom is missing but there's a baby in the closet and a tiger in the bathroom. It's a funny set-up and an incredibly silly film, with a few big laughs but very little heart. (6/10)

Films: Avatar

I don't really understand why people are getting so excited about Avatar (d. James Cameron). While it's true that the flora, fauna and landscape of Cameron's imaginary world are astonishingly beautiful and rich, the story, which involves a capitalist, consumerist humankind exploiting the habitat of an indigenous people, is yawn-inducingly predictable. The idea of one man 'going native' and leading the savages to victory has been done to death, and always, it seems to me, as ponderously and humourlessly as its done here. Not a story I was interested in seeing again, but there's an undeniable level of special-effects artistry in Avatar that lets one switch off and just enjoy the pretty pictures. (6/10)

TV: Pride and prejudice

I had very mixed feelings about Pride and prejudice. Despite having mostly avoided all the BBC costume dramas, I was quite keen to have a look at this one because a) Jane Austen is, obviously, an author one should know a bit about, and b) so many people rave about this particular production (the image of Colin Firth, as Darcy, emerging wet-through from the lake seems ingrained in the public consciousness).

The first thing to say, I suppose, is that it is a great story. I loathed the character of Darcy at first, and was convinced I was going to hate a series that was about, I assumed, an attractive young woman falling for this vile and hateful man. It's not quite as simple as that though, and by the end, the story had won me over, just about.

However, leaving aside Firth's Darcy and Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennett, it is really the supporting characters that both make and break this series. Lizzie's father, and her sister Jane, are absolutely delightful to watch. The former is the only man in a household of six women, and bears this burden with a grumpy, sarcastic, twinkling wit that's just charming. And Susannah Harker as Jane lights up the screen every time she appears.

Sadly these two aren't centre stage, and their impact is greatly diminished by the most egregiously hammy, over-acted performance by Alison Steadman as Jane and Lizzie's mother. I get that she was supposed to be an annoying woman, but it felt as though she'd wandered in from a different production entirely. Everyone else was in a wry romantic comedy and Steadman thought she was doing panto. Her screeching and cackling was like nails on a chalk-board to me, and sadly prevented me from ever getting properly swept away in the story.(7/10)

Films: Planet 51

It's rare to find a film that is so completely lacking in any redeeming features as Planet 51 (d. Jorge Blanco). Not funny, not even a little bit (not for kids or adults - nobody in the audience laughed once). Not well-designed, or beautiful to look at (it's another computer-animated children's film, by the way). And so, so dull. (1/10)

Books: At Swim-Two-Birds

I couldn't finish At Swim-Two-Birds (Flann O'Brien). This is an experimental Irish novel from the 1930s, with a non-linear, nested structure of stories within stories, and characters who interact with their own authors. Padded out with faux epic poetry and non sequiturs, the writing is witty and some of the ideas are intriguing enough, but by the half-way mark I still felt adrift, with no clue as to what the book was about, so I put it down. (3/10)

TV: Dollhouse, Season 1

I was always going to have to watch Dollhouse. It's hard to imagine Joss Whedon, the geeky mastermind behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dr Horrible's sing-along blog ever making a show so badly received that I'd decide to give it a miss. But, blimey, was Dollhouse badly received.

The science fiction show, about an underground organisation that sells the services of brainwashed people, programmed to be the perfect lovers, assassins, bodyguards, detectives or anything else the clients desire, was panned in America from day one. Viewing figures were abysmal and the show remained constantly on the verge of cancellation. Imagine my intense surprise and happiness then, when the first season turned out to be really quite decent after all.

Admittedly the weakest of Whedon's shows so far (I think mainly because too many of the characters are too 'normal', too much like the standard cookie-cutter roles that litter US drama), Dollhouse still has more than enough of the inventiveness, thoughtfulness, surrealism and endearing characterisation that sets his work apart. Add to this a constant stream of twists and reversals as the FBI hunt down the shadowy organisation, and the mind-control and false personalities become ever more sinister, and it's really quite hard to figure out why this show didn't do a little better. (8/10)

Books: The idea of perfection

Set in a small town in the Australian outback, The idea of perfection (Kate Grenville) is a love story without romance, a tale of the coming together of two people who have given up on love. The characterisation isn't subtle - the three main characters are called Harley Savage, Douglas Cheeseman, and Felicity Porcelain, and you can tell almost everything you need to know about them from their names - but the writing is deft, with a plot that ticks along nicely, and a consistent, cleverly woven theme that explores and celebrates imperfection in all its forms.

Harley and Douglas are damaged characters, flawed, and at times unsympathetic, and it's refreshing to find a story that treats the protagonists as imperfect, but doesn't show this imperfection as driving them apart. Instead it is these insecurities, their hang-ups and idiosyncrasies, that draw the two together; Harley and Douglas aren't "meant for each other", but they are "right for each other", and while the book itself is not perfect, I did end up caring very much about whether the two would find happiness together. (7/10)

Films: The last king of Scotland

The last king of Scotland (d. Kevin Macdonald) tells the story of a (fictional) Scottish doctor who travels to Uganda in the 1970s and gets brought into the inner circle of the infamous dictator Idi Amin, just as he begins his descent into barbarism. Interesting (for me, as someone born just after these events took place) to get a sense of what went on back then, but there are no real surprises. Most importantly, the character of the doctor doesn't really ring true, and does some pretty astonishingly silly things, just in order to move the story along to its conclusion. The highlight of the film, by far, is Forest Whitaker's performance as Amin, which is frightening and powerful. (6/10)

Films: The magnificent Ambersons

This family saga from the 1940s revolves around the central character of George Amberson Minafer, a man who is heir to the Amberson fortune and is soon revealed to be spoiled and conceited to the core. Following George throuh mild social scandal and a hesitant love affair is interesting to begin with, but without any empathy for the main character The magnificent Ambersons (d. Orson Welles) grows increasingly uninvolving, and fizzles out with an attempt, far too late, to make you care for his fate. (05/10)

Films: Fantastic Mr Fox

Here we have Wes Anderson, the smugly esoteric and existential American film-maker, wrestling with the ghost of Roald Dahl, the charmingly eccentric and child-like English author, over the spirit of Fantastic Mr Fox.

Wes Anderson wins hands down. This is not a children's film. It's not even a good grown-up's film, unless you like Anderson's noodly, wishy-washy, robotic style (I don't). If the direction, script and acting weren't enough, any chance of avoiding complete disappointment is scuppered by the decision to animate the story using what appears to be a set of slightly mangy Sylvanian Families. (2/10)

Films: An affair to remember

An affair to remember (d. Leo McCarey) is apparently considered one of the most romantic movies of all time. It does get off to a very promising start, with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr meeting on an ocean liner and sparring with each other mercilessly, and flirtatiously, until eventually admitting their mutual desire. The dialogue is sharp and funny, with both parties giving as good as they get. Gradually, though, the banter subsides, to be replaced by pining, and obstacles put in the way of true love, and a lot of standard, mawkish stuff that's been done to death before and since. A good film to snooze to on a Sunday afternoon. (6/10)

Films: Belle de jour

Belle de Jour (d. Luis Buñuel) stars Catherine Deneuve as a bored housewife who decides to see what life is like as a prostitute. Shocking in the 1960s perhaps, but not much to speak of now. There is an interesting detached surrealism that lends an unsettling air to the story - adding to the discomfort in an already uncomfortable tale. But as with many of the films of the period I found it too slow-paced to really hold my attention. (06/10)

Books: The elephant vanishes

As someone who has adored most everything that I've read of Haruki Murakami, I found this collection of his short stories terribly disappointing. Perhaps it's the fact that, although everything Murakami writes is opaque, and much is unresolved, these aspects seem to have been magnified, and made problematic, by the short story form.

If a novel ends obscurely, one can take comfort from the tales told along the way, the characters one gets to know, and the themes that come out of the writing. In The elephant vanishes, everything is unfinished, every story is unsatisfying, and the book feels like a string of non sequiturs, with nothing whatsoever to grab hold of.

Added to this, the stories collected here were all written in the first half of Murakami's career, perhaps before his skills as an author really developed. Indeed, the first story of the collection was later reused, and certainly improved upon, as the first chapter of The wind-up bird chronicle. The wind-up bird is a novel that everyone should read as an introduction to Murakami; The elephant vanishes is only for the completist. (06/10)

Films: Red River

As someone who has never seen a Western from start to finish, Red River seems like an excellent introduction to the genre. The treasure of the Sierra Madre is the closes I've come, but unlike that film, Red River is no simple morality tale. It's the story of a cattle farmer forced to lead his vast herd half-way across America in order to sell them, contending with rain and stampedes and indians and dwindling food all along the way.

John Wayne plays the lead, not as a heroic figure, but as a determined man losing his humanity as the obstacles mount up. The men who join Wayne on the road are a varied, well-written bunch of characters, who bring humour, humanity and tension to the story. Montgomery Clift stands out as a young man, raised by Wayne, allied to him, but not subservient, who comes to understand that his father figure is losing his grip on sanity. Human moments playing out against an epic back-drop led me to enjoy Red River far, far more than I was expecting to. (8/10)

Films: Up

The thing that marks Pixar out, it seems to me, is their ambition. There is an enormous glut of animated movies aimed at children these days, all striving to make the whole family laugh and to take the audience on a seat-of-their pants adventure. Most fall short of these goals. Very occasionally a fantastic Dreamworks picture will come out that is genuinely funny and exciting (Cloudy with a chance of meatballs and Kung Fu Panda are the two worth seeking out), but only Pixar dares to take things further. Because Up, which follows a retired old man and an over-eager young boy as they journey off in a floating house for a Roald Dahl-ian adventure in South America, is incredibly fun and funny, fast-paced and stylish, but is also sad and touching, even heart-breakingly so, in a way that kids films almost never get near. (10/10)

Books: The death of grass

Too often I find myself plodding through the second half of a book, still enjoying it, but looking forward to moving on to something else. The death of grass (John Christopher) on the other hand is a novel whose only flaw is that it doesn't go on long enough.

Written in the 1950s when memories of WWII were still fresh and cold war paranoia was in its infancy, The death of grass begins with two English brothers taking very different paths. One opts for the life of a farmer, inheriting and working the farm that's been in their family for years. The other moves to London and builds a life as an architect, with a loving wife and two kids. And then, as the story starts, the world ends. What looks at the outset to be some sort of family saga, rapidly descends into the starkest, most uncompromising, post-apocalyptic struggle for survival that I think I've ever read or seen.

What is so wonderful about this slim book is that it acheives a perfect balance of page-turning, locomotive plot with thoughtful insight into the nature of man. This is what all science ficition should be. Just how flimsy is the cloak of civilisation that we all stride around believing in so completely? How will we react if the next bird flu or swine flu turns out to be the big one? How will we be forced to act?

The story is told economically, at a break-neck pace, and this is good in so many ways, but sadly it does mean that there's little time for the characters to really reflect on their actions. And this is such a shame. Because apart from this ever-so-slight flaw The death of grass is one of the best books I've read all year. (9/10)

Films: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

In Vicky Cristina Barcelona (d. Woody Allen), two American friends fall for the same seductive, unconventional, uninhibited Spanish painter, but neither can compete with his violently passionate and slightly unhinged ex-wife when she reappears on the scene. Allen makes beautiful films, and though this one is far less funny than most he is known for, it is no less insightful or engaging.

A meditation on love in all its forms, Vicki Cristina Barcelona is powered by a couple of memorable, charismatic performances from Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, and is well worth seeking out. (7/10)

Films: The invention of lying

The invention of lying (d. Matthew Robinson & Ricky Gervais) is a film based around a single idea: in a world where everyone tells the truth, one man discovers how to lie. Initially, this concept is played for laughs; hearing people say what they really think is funny, and it suits Gervais's comedy-of-embarrassment to a tee. The little details that flesh out this world, like the way advertising is transformed when exaggeration and embellishment are impossible, also work very well.

But this film has more going for itself than simple comedy. When Gervais speaks, people believe him. And when his mother is dying (in a moving scene that shows just how versatile Gervais can be) he can't bare for her to pass away believing that all she has to look forward to is an eternity of nothing. So he invents heaven.

And from this point onward, the humour takes a back-seat as issues of conformity and the need for religion, begin to be explored. The film has been criticised for not being funny enough, but I think that is to miss the point. It is funny, but it's not an out-and-out comedy, and isn't meant to be. Taken on its own terms, this is a thoughtful, wry, bittersweet movie, that just happens to have more than a few lines that will make you laugh out loud at their audacity. (8/10)

TV: I, Claudius

I, Claudius, produced by the BBC back in the 1970s, often seems to be cited as the high water-mark of television drama, so I've been curious for a while to see what it's like. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out not to be a patch on the best that TV has to offer today.

What did surprise me is that the problem is not with the production values. Everyone talks about the wobbly sets, and the crowd scenes made up of three men with a pitchfork, but this didn't bother me for a moment. The sets are actually very good, and although they mostly get out of showing large crowds, this is done artfully, and is all but unnoticeable.

The problem, as with Smiley's people, is chiefly the pacing. Though not nearly as turgid as the aforementioned spy thriller, there just isn't enough drama or fast-paced dialogue to hold one's attention. There are dozens of classic actors peppered throughout the series (which chronicles the life of the Emperor Claudius of Rome and takes in Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula along the way), but many play their roles as so theatrical and broad that it's difficult to buy into the reality of the scene.

As a bit of a Roman history geek, I was interested enough to follow the series through to the end, but stacked up against The wire, The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica, or The West Wing, I, Claudius comes off looking old fashioned and more than a little stagy. (7/10)

TV: Battlestar Galactica, Season 4.5

Well, it's over. I can imagine that in twenty year's time a whole generation of geeks will be united by the memory of this summer, spent wondering who the final cylon would turn out to be. Battlestar Galactica finished up with the second part of Season 4, and it was a pretty decent ending. A little slow and ponderous in parts, gripping and fascinating in others. The final episode was action packed, in a way that I was never sure it would be, and also touching, which I did expect, of course.

What's more, the many mysteries raised over the course of the series were revealed in a startlingly spiritual climax. At its best, Battlestar Galactica has always been a show that addressed difficult issues - much of the middle part of the storyline cast the cylons in the role of an occupying force and the humans as an insurgent resistance in a clear, and controversial parallel of the Iraq war. Afterwards, issues of collaboration and of segregation were explored unflinchingly and unsentimentally. And without wanting to spoil too much, the conclusion of the final season hinges on the intervention of the divine in our characters' lives, making the show unequivocally theistic, in a way few are in this sceptical age. Literally a deus ex machina ending.

Beginning with a no-holds-barred mutiny, and finishing up with revelations and Revelation, this turned out to be an absolutely satisfying, fitting, and nail-biting conclusion to Battlestar Galactica. (8/10)

TV: Smiley's people

Smiley's people is a six-part drama from the early '80s, adapted from the novel by John Le Carre, and large sections of it are mind-bendingly dull. Many worthy actors, including Alec Guinness, Beryl Reid and Patrick Stewart assemble for a cold war thriller that has Guinness' George Smiley investigating the death of a Russian general on British soil.

It's a promising start. Unfortunately, Smiley's investigation is so drawn-out, so tediously paced, that it literally sent me to sleep. More than once. In one episode, Smiley visits only four potential leads, which means four conversations, four scenes, in a 50 minute episode. Four, twelve-minute, two person conversations between the terse Smiley and his equally downbeat 'people'. I'm prepared to accept that our attention spans may have shortened a little in the last two decades, but this is simply astonishing.

In the last episode everything falls into place and the pace moves from a crawl to a brisk walk. There's an interesting story here, but one that is sadly smothered by the worst visual story-telling I think I've ever seen. (5/10)

Films: Don't look now

A child dies, her parents grieve, and a year later are in Venice, trying to put the past behind them. Don't look now (d. Nicolas Roeg) uses every trick in the film-maker's book to keep the audience off-balance and unsettled as Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie obsess over their child, convinced that her presence lingers with them, her red-coated form emerging from within the Venetian fog as an omen of death. (7/10)

Books: The girls

The girls (Lori Lansens) is about a pair of conjoined twins growing up in small-town Canada, and it is very much a 'girls' book, it seems to me. It is one of those, like The time-traveller's wife or My sister's keeper, that is more interested in making you say "isn't that sad?", than "isn't that interesting?". It's the least sensational story about two girls joined at the head that you could imagine, focusing instead on how the pair overcome their difficulties and try to live a normal life. Not that there's anything wrong in a book striving to be uplifting, but The girls was just a little too earnest and home-spun and rose-tinted for me to be able to love it. (7/10)