Bill Murray plays Frank Cross, an ambitious, ruthless, workaholic, TV executive. Frank Cross is the Scrooge character of this version and Murray’s schtick is perfectly suited. We see him take great joy in firing people, oppress his PA and various underlings and generally be a nasty piece of work. Frank has achieved success but has become cold hearted and cruel. It’s the same story as always. Frank is visited by three ghosts who show him the error of his ways.

Murray is typically brilliant and benefits from a wonderful supporting cast. John Glover is toe-curlingly slimy as the LA producer who is trying to usurp Frank’s job. Equally brilliant is Bobcat Goldthwaite (long before he made a film about dog blowjobs) as the executive who becomes decidedly unhinged once he loses his job. Karen Allen is excellent as the woman left behind and her infectious warmth will melt even the coldest of hearts.

Scrooged is the first part of a compulsory christmas eve movie double bill. Every 24th December I have to watch Scrooged and It’s A Wonderful Life. Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to watch it. It’s the perfect mix of christmas cheer and laughs…and it’s got Bill Murray in it!!!

This latest release shows an artist who is maturing and developing. An artist who is finding their own voice…even if no voices are actually present. Even though I adore ‘Coral’, Beyond The Sea is a far better album, I think I double adore it. On ‘Coral’ Monster Rally demonstrated an awareness of the hook and the sample that is lacking from most similar artists. With ‘Beyond The Sea’ he shows us that not only can he find little audio gems to turn into beat fragments but that he can now take those beat fragments and craft fully fledged and considered pieces of music. You only need to listen to the third track, ‘Honey’, for an instant understanding. ‘Honey’ bares all of the hallmark Monster Rally touches but it’s so much more than the sum of it’s parts. This is coherent beat making that some very famous (and obnoxiously wealthy) hip hop producers could only dream of.

All of the charm of ‘Coral’ is still here but it just feels more like an album of songs than a collection of cool beats. ‘Deep Sea’ is another example of Monster Rally’s progression. There’s a definite event arc on that track which wasn’t always apparent in earlier efforts.

If you haven’t yet discovered Monster Rally then you really are missing out. Go here and rectify this situation immediately. You’ll be grateful you did when it starts popping up on adverts and all of you media-idiot friends start banging on about it like they’ve discovered a Higgs-Boson particle.

I decided that I should probably give it more of chance given how much I adore ‘Hexes’. I listened to it during a couple of commutes and I was hooked. Be warned. This album is addictive. It’s full of little hooks and refrains that will confuse your hypothalamus to such a degree that it’ll be writing them as new, old AND future memories.

As an album it displays an awareness of the different ages of hip hop production that you don’t often hear without it actually being Dilla or Madlib that you’re listening to. It’s also far more musical than most artists that have been influenced by the towering gods of hip hop production. The melodies are more complex than you would normally hear and the breadth of musical spectrum that is encompassed within the twenty three tracks is greater than you’d expect. It ranges from hip hop to jazz to IDM to rock to soul to funk to psychedelia without ever missing a beat. It’s worth keeping an ear out for some very familiar melodies being treated in a most unfamiliar way. I haven’t spent the time to sit and work out what all of them are yet as I’m too busy enjoying the flow and even if I had I wouldn’t ruin the fun of working them out for yourself.

My only criticism, if you can call it that, is that I wonder what the hell is going on in ‘American Death Express’. There seem to be beats out of synch in the background of the main track. It’s the same sound as when your crossfader starts to pack up. Maybe it’s intentional but I don’t like it.

Dirty Art Club get extra points for producing an album that flows wonderfully. It’s pacing and emotional peaks and troughs make it an extremely pleasant musical journey. It’s one of those albums that no sooner has it finished then you want to start it all over again. That’s pretty rare for me and it’s fitting pay off for the obvious love and care that has gone into crafting this album. It’s like a hip hop hug and I love hugs.

Hexes is eight tracks of sheer beat joy. It borrows snatches from pyschedelia, electronica, hip hop and blends them all together in a most pleasing way. If I were going to be really lazy I’d call it Trip Hop. I’m not so I won’t. It did remind me of Portishead in places. I don’t mean that Dirty Art Club just thought “let’s do a Portishead track”. I mean that they have studied Portishead and learned their lessons well and used that to influence their style. Influence not plagiarise.

That really is the most striking impression you’ll get from listening to Hexes. It’s that these guys have obviously spent a lot of time listening to music and they’ve learned from the successes and mistakes of their favourite works. This album is like a distillation of everything that is wonderful on the groove based side of the street. It really is that good.

There are heavily effected vocals, strange percussion, weird ghostly instruments and an overarching sense of how wonderful hip hop and beat making should be. In this respect they are much the same as Portishead. When Portishead released Dummy it was like a breath of fresh air for hip hop heads. The production on Dummy was, at the time, a clarion call to all hip hop producers to get their shit together and do it right. Remarkable when you consider that Dummy is not a hip hop album. Hexes does much the same thing.

If you love hip hop but more importantly love music then make sure you investigate this beautiful EP. You won’t regret it.

You can listen to and download Hexes here

Let me start by saying that I find most of the genre of Westerns to be tiresome. Growing up I was always much more interested in sci-fi and that still holds true now. I find it difficult to gather about me the few particles of interest that I have for period dramas. At least with some period dramas you actually have buildings. The western seems to be populated by shacks, mud and livestock. It’s like playing a computer game which employed early 3D modelling techiniques…endless fucking seas of brown.

I ask you to take the aforementioned into account when I tell you that Deadwood is truly brilliant. It’s so good that it managed to puncture the, quite formidable, disinterest that I have for westerns. If other westerns were like this I’d watch them all. Actually, if other TV shows were like this I’d watch them all. Alas, they’re not.

What could possibly be so good about Deadwood? It got axed after just three series, didn’t it? I’m very sad to say that this is true. Don’t let that terribly harsh judgement fool you though. Remind yourself that this show was axed, no doubt due to ever diminishing ratings, in a country that didn’t like Arrested Development, Family Guy or Futurama! Deadwood is just another entry in a long list of shame for the U.S. of A.

The show charts the development of a gold rush encampment from camp to fully fledged town. It manages to convincingly weave together fact and fiction. Deadwood is a real town and many of the characters in the show are based on real historical figures.

That sounds pretty dull, right? The thing is it could so easily have been really dull but the presentation is the key here. This is a bawdy, crude, violent and often disgusting portrayal of the early settlers. You will unlikely have heard swearing like this on TV before or since.

The real star of the show is Al Swearengen, played by Ian MacShane. It’s odd for a UK audience because he is and forever shall be Lovejoy. I think it’s testament to his great skill as an actor that within a few episodes he will forever be Al Swearengen in your mind. Swearengen is the ruthless proprietor of ‘The Gem’, the town’s first bar and brothel. He also acts as the unofficial ruler of the town. You will see him do despicable things, treat people terribly and you will love him. MacShane clearly relishes the role and delivers the fantastically sweary put-downs with great gusto. It may not have quite the same imagination or panache that Malcolm Tucker’s swearing does but Al Swearengen swears with a genuine earthy understanding of how to do it and what it means. Top notch swearing.

MacShane is ably supported by an excellent cast. Powers Boothe is wonderfully icy as rival pimp Cy Tolliver. The only real weak link of the show is Timothy Oliphant as Seth Bullock. Whether he’s mean to look like a meerkat with trapped wind or that’s just his default mode of expression is unclear. It seems like such an integral character should have offered so much more than he does though. It’s a small failing and the sheer joy of watching MacShane and the others try to outdo each other at being unpleasant more than makes up for it.

In and amongst all the violence and muck though are some truly hilarious moments. This series has it all. Tension, political intrigue and brilliant comedy. No mean feat.

It’s therefore a crying shame that we will never get to find out the fate of the characters that you will have formed a real bond with after three series. Apparently the chances of anything ever happening are exceptionally remote. You’ll probably struggle to even find the DVDs on a shop shelf now.

Track down a copy as soon as you can and start practicing your swearing, “cocksucker”.

It’s written in un-rhymed free verse to remind the reader of its ancient origins (bear in mind that Homer’s epics were originally sang) but don’t let this put you off. It’s fast paced and extremely well written, following Penelope on her adventures across the seas to see the Pythian Oracle. Penelope’s desire to travel is intriguing (since women were expected to stay in the house in Ancient Greek times). You would imagine that a woman who had been separated from her beloved husband for nearly twenty years would want to stay at home to be with him. Rawlings ensures that Penelope’s adventurous nature doesn’t overshadow her role and duty as faithful wife and mother, staying true to the essence of her character in the Odyssey. The main thing that The Penelopeia has in common with the Odyssey is the journey aspect. As Odysseus encountered many obstacles on his journey home, Penelope also encounters obstacles on her journey away from home. The Peneleopeia also recalls characters from both the Iliad and the Odyssey, such as Helen, reminding the reader of the basis of the story.

Something I really liked about this book was that Penelope was able to express her feelings as a mother, a wife and also as a woman. In the Odyssey, Penelope was pursued by many suitors wishing to marry her when Odysseus was thought to be dead; here we are given a first-hand account on her thoughts and feelings when propositioned by yet another suitor (Captain of her ship).

Traditionally, epic tales begin with an invocation to the Muse/goddess (“Tell me, Muse, a tale of arms and man…”). Interestingly, The Penelopeia doesn’t invoke the muse; instead it instructs Penelope to speak, almost as if she is the goddess or muse who is being invoked in order to complete the story.

The book itself is beautiful from cover to cover. Beneath the gold dust jacket is a burgundy book with a cream spine. The golden lyre on the front once again reminds the reader of the oral tradition of the epic. Inside the front and back covers, there are maps of Greece with their ancient names to help the reader position themselves within the ancient world. At the start of every other chapter or ‘book’ there is a vase painting illustrating what happens in the chapter. The vase paintings are gorgeous, in black, white and terracotta colours. It was common in ancient times to have stories and myths painted onto vases, so it’s quite a neat little inclusion to have the illustrations depicted as if they were on vases. The pages are ivory coloured which gives the book a rustic charm.

I would recommend that anyone who has an interest in Classics read this book, particularly those with an interest in gender studies as it gives voice to a female character. This book can also be read without having read the Iliad or the Odyssey, but some awareness of what happens in the Odyssey is helpful.

The Penelopeia is an engrossing and captivating story, which is, surprisingly, easier to read than I had expected.

It’s been five, long, hard, years since El-P deigned to grace our headphones with his presence. Five long years of waiting to see in which direction he’ll push the artforms of making beats and being verbally and sardonically angry.

Cancer 4 Cure takes us even further into the dystopian future nightmare of his mind then we’ve ever been before. It’s a thrilling and at times exhilarating journey. El-P has long been my favourite producer and he confirms that (like EPMD) it’s business as usual with this album. He’s no intention of relinquishing his place among the best producers in the world.

The album starts off with Request Denied which sounds like it wouldn’t be out of place on Chemical Brothers’  ‘Exit Planet Dust’. It’s almost as if this is the track that accompanies your descent into the world of future horror. It made me feel like I was Snake Plisskin on that glider entering a broken New York.

It’s often been said that El-P’s music is Blade Runner-esque. This is probably because the man himself is (apparently) such a big fan of the film and it’s all a bit futuristic sounding. That may have been more relevant to previous releases but not so this time. I think it’s far less the future vision of Ridley Scott that El-P inhabits and far more the future of John Carpenter’s dystopian fantasies. For all of Blade Runner’s bleak future depiction there is still a clean, crispness. A suggestion of order. That’s not to say that El-P’s music isn’t crisp it’s more to say that his music manages to give a sense of the seething volatility of a repressed society. A society waiting to explode. It’s this explosion and the aftermath that we find so readily in Carpenter’s films and El-P’s music.

El-P deals with scenarios of a future where The State is in complete control of our every move and thought. He even goes as far as mocking the hopes of a future utopia on ‘The Full Retard’. El-P modifies his voice to sound like a blissed out child as he talks of a place “where harmony and love reign”, a time when “no longer do we live in a society bent on it’s own destruction” and “children of every race creed and religion frollick through fields of golden dandelions”. Beautiful sentiments right? This is El-P though and that little interlude is punctuated by the sound of machine gun fire. You’re left in no doubt as to what El-P believes will happen in our future.

Along the path of this album El-P deals with futuristic drugs ‘Works Every Time’, approves of a victim of domestic violence killing their abuser ‘For My Upstairs Neighbour (Mums The Word)’ (which has the best chorus line ever: “If you kill him. I won’t tell”), Brooklyn being attacked by drones and the effects of violence on the perpetrator and victim ‘Tougher Colder Killer’.

It’s testament to the pure talent that this guy has that after all of that, overtly miserable subject matter, your first impulse, after listening to the album, will be to play it again.

It’s rare that you come across a hip hop producer who has such muscular control of his lyrical output but that is exactly what we have in El-P. Not only is he at the crest of the wave in terms of production but he’ll also give most MCs a run for their money. His lyrical rhythms are complex, dense and demand your attention to decipher their meaning. He’s also a master of imagery in the stories that he tells.  It’s difficult not to be envious and if I wasn’t so enamoured with his music I’d probably hate him.

Musically this album is very obviously El-P. It has all of his signature style but it’s still a progression from ‘I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead’. This album feels much more like a prog-rock album in places than a hip hop album. I guess it’s prog-hop. It’s not really sonically that that parallel most accurately describes it. It’s more in the spirit of experimentation and willingness to explore the far reaches of a musical style.

There is a line of progression that can be traced through from Cannibal Ox’s amazing ‘The Cold Vein’ (which was produced by El-P), through ‘Fantastic Damage and ‘I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead’ but that line is really audible in the nuances of the sound that are particular to El-P. The fidgety beats, the choked brass stabs, the ‘space’ synths. This album is as far away from ‘traditional’ hip-hop as El-P has taken us though. Don’t get me wrong, this is still pure hip hop. It’s just that it’s far more musical. It’s not just a bunch of loops sewn together. There is real melodic intent here.

I can imagine that this album would appeal to fans of music and not just the hip hop heads. It is a powerful and aggressive sounding album. It paints pictures of disaffection and takes a stark and unflinching look at the human condition. It’s bruising listening but also strangely uplifting. I’d like to say it’s his best work yet but I feel like I’d be betraying his earlier works. What I can say though is that this is the work of at an artist who just keeps getting better. I would say he’s at the peak of his powers but I suspect the El-P is not even close to that plateau yet.

It’s hard to watch Moonrise Kingdom and not wonder if Wes Anderson watched Richard Ayoade’s Submarine and decided to show him how it’s really done. In much the same way it was hard to watch Submarine and not feel like you were watching a Wes Anderson fan copy his style.

Moonrise Kingdom is a tale of young love. It’s a tale of learning how relationships work. What it isn’t is emotionally engaging. For some reason it feels like the audience are constantly kept outside of the action. We are purely spectators here. It’s fortunate, then, that I love everything about Anderson’s style because that is what is left here.

The big hitters in the cast are superb but underused as the real stars of this film are the two young leads.

For all that is wonderful about this film I can’t help feeling that this is not in any way a leap forward for the director. Everything here is familar territory and the two lead characters could easily be Rushmore’s Max and Tenenbaums’ Margot.

If you’re an Anderson fan you’ll love it but feel like you wanted more and if you’re new to his work you’ll enjoy a sweet and quirkily made story of young love.

When I think of Ridley Scott films I think of grand spectacle films that will be thrilling in the cinema but will not be as rewarding at home or upon repeat viewings. He is the master of style over substance.

With all that in mind I tempered my excitement about Prometheus. Judging by the anguished howls of derision and disappointment on twitter I was one of the few who expected little. I’m afraid to say that if you expected so much from this film then you only have yourself to blame for your disappointment.

In retrospect I was wrong to so heavily weight my expectations in toward rubbish. A large part of the success of a science fiction film is the suspension of disbelief. This suspension is achieved by showing a believable world. How convincing that world is depends largely upon the look of the film. So this is exactly the kind of film that makes its home deep within Scott’s skill set.

Prometheus made me realise that the films of Ridley Scott that I do enjoy are science fiction or fantasy. Blade Runner, Alien and Legend all look wonderful. They may not be the most deep of films but as vehicles to transport you to another plane of reality they are hugely successful. When he decides to focus on more mundane subject matter his flaws as a filmmaker become thrust into the foreground for all to see.

So what of Prometheus? It seems that many were expecting to see a film that had the same impact as the original Alien film. I don’t think that that was even remotely possible. I just wanted to see something about the space jockey. I wasn’t upset by what I saw.

I avoided all the trailers except for the fake Peter Weyland TED Talk and I’m glad I did. I hadn’t seen anything of the film before I watched it and that allowed it to seem fresh.

I won’t talk about specific plot points but I can say that Prometheus deals with ideas and concepts that are far removed from what studio films will normally allow. This deserves huge praise. It’s as close to proper science fiction as we will get from the studio system. Normally major science fiction films are nothing more than genre films on a spaceship. Prometheus asks questions though and that is what real science fiction does. Don’t get me wrong though. This is still a sci-fi horror but it’s also a bit more than that.

I’ve seen people complaining that Noomi Rapace is not as good as Sigourney Weaver. She is not Ripley though and to her credit she doesn’t try to be. It’s a different character and as such that comparison is unfair.

Yes. The film does have some rather gaping plot holes and yes some of it is cliche but it looks amazing. There are some wonderful inventions and a palpable sense that we have travelled far from earth. In the same way that Event Horizon plunges you into a vast and lonely universe so does Prometheus.

The character design is top notch and the set design is of similar quality. It’s also so pleasing to see that this is not a green screen film. These are real sets and props and CGI is only used when necessary. That makes a big difference when you compare it to George Lucas’ computer-diaorrhea Star Wars prequels. In the battle of the sci-fi prequels Ridley Scott is winning after Lucas suffered three knock downs in the same round. All the naysayers should remember just how bad those Star Wars films are. Prometheus is a far superior film to all of those.

On the whole though this is a film that allows you to feel the wide eyed wonder of being transported far away from home. I can’t wait for the prequel sequel. Remember how you felt when you watched a film as a child? That.

Imagine the delight then when the Red, Hot & Blue AIDS awareness charity embarked on a series of musical projects to raise funds for their work. One such project was NO ALTERNATIVE. With a charity record by various artists you usually only get a few artists that are enticing and a load of chaff. Not here. With a charity record by various artists you usually only get a few songs that are enticing and a load of chaff. Not here.

This album is stunningly brilliant. You might never had heard, or even heard of, it. How can I interest you in it? Let’s start by listing the artists involved. Contributing original or cover versions to this album are: Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, The Breeders, Patti Smith, Goo Goo Dolls, Sarah McLachlan, Uncle Tupelo, The Beastie Boys, Soundgarden, Urge Overkill, Buffalo Tom and Bob Mould. Pretty impressive, right? Yes. It is.

There are some cracking songs on this album. Soul Asylum’s cover of ‘Sexual Healing’ is a treat. Urge Overkill’s ‘Take A Walk’ is a stirring delight. Bob Mould’s ‘Can’t Fight It’ is a melancholy tinged hymn to the process of breaking up.Uncle Tupelo do a super job of covering Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Effigy’.

Not only are all the songs on this album great but it also works quite well as an album in its own right. No mean feat when each consecutive song is performed by a different artist.

So far, so brilliant but wait there’s one more thing to come. The icing on this grunge cake is that track nineteen (on my copy of the album) isn’t listed or mentioned anywhere on the cover artwork or sleevenotes. I remember putting the CD on for the first time and just thinking it must have been one of those stupid blank two second tracks somewhere on the album. It wasn’t and it isn’t. The uncredited track nineteen is by…Nirvana! As a fifteen year old that totally blew my mind. The biggest band in my universe at that time were so cool that they didn’t even list their track on the album. Almost as if they didn’t want the credit for helping. What was even more amazing was that ‘Verse Chorus Verse’ is one of Nirvana’s best songs.

I realise, in retrospect, that the album may have shifted many many more copies had they listed Nirvana as having contributed to the album but for me it was like the best secret gift I had ever had on an album.

Like an awesome mixtape made by a friend who really knows what you like NO ALTERNATIVE is sure to thrill the fifteen year old grunger that lurks within us all.