Englishman in New York

Simon Pegg (Sidney Young) is the Englishman in New York, a man of some spunk and, who, by any which means, wants to break into the Page 3 circuit, in particular the Sharps Magazine after-party. The proverbial shot comes by way of a gatecrashing attempt and a call from New York. Sidney in Sharps’ cut-throat culture, makes friends and proves himself after a near-disastrous series of faux pas’ – thanks to the support of girl next door and lead editor Alison (Kirsten Dunst). The other characters make for fair viewing too - the sultry and overtly sexual Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) with an unforgettable across-thre-pool saunter for promoting her latest release “Mother Teresa”, driven entrepreneur with a short fuse Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges) who cannot suffer fools gladly but eventually comes round to Sidney, the ambitious Eleanor Johnson (Gillian Anderson) and Danny Huston (Lawrence Maddox). While How to Lose Friends and Alienate People has moments of genuine humour and introspection, overall this is good rather than remarkable fare, that will keep you occupied, as Sidney remains true to his character

11.5/20

Reserving Judgement (Day)

Roland Emmerich of Independence Day, The Day after Tomorrow and Godzilla fame brings another doomsday magnum opus that seems to be pieced together from all three, with a few dollops from say Volcano and the likes. 2012 starts well and the heightening agitation of Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) as events start unfolding that give credence to barely believable theories, and the ame along with the sense of urgency of young scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are quite well depicted. In fact it is quite remarkable that the failure of this movie is identical to that of The Day After Tomorrow - a lack of believability in the emotional content - beyond the fact that Jackson Curtis does appear to be attached to his kids, every other interpersonal relationship in the movie for some reason appears contrived - and this is just why all of the one hour or so oard the ark is quite excruciating. In summary, it will be difficult for Emmerich/ Hollywood to keep attracting audiences to these doomsday sagas with ever-improving special effects alone - the movie needs to hold together with genunie human emotion - the rest is just programming

12/20