Once in a blue moon,1 someone at an advertising agency actually comes up with a decent idea. But the moon has to be a very…
CIPC #318: Midsomer Murders S22 E1, The wolf hunter of Little Worthy
The last time we met inspector Barneby from Midsomer Murders, I barely talked about the series itself and, frankly, I remember nary a thing about…
CIPC #317: Bedazzled
In the early nineties, Harold Ramis was a kind of God of cinematic comedy. He directed Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s vacation, and Groundhog Day, he wrote…
CIPC #316: All in the family S5 E14, Mike’s friend
All in the family is an absolute classic in the ever — but unaccountably — popular sitcom genre of obnoxious people being terrible to each…
CIPC #315: MacGyver S1 E1, Pilot
One of the best ways to see the impact of a particular work on general culture is to look at the traces it left in…
CIPC #314: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Maid of Orleans
One reason I rarely discuss music videos on this blog is that I don’t know of that many which feature chess. Another reason is that…
CIPC #313: Maigret S2 E5, Maigret and the minister
I want to complain about something. Not just because I like complaining — although I definitely do — but because something has been bugging me.…
CIPC #312: The beast must die
#This movie is a bit weird. The writers seem to have had an idea for a movie, but no plausible way to set it up.…
CIPC #311: Tales from the darkside: The movie
Way, way back, in medieval times, framing devices were all the rage: there was Chaucer’s Canterbury tales, One thousand and one nights, the Heptaméron by…
CIPC #310: Mercedes-Benz ad
In 2008, South-Africa was already bracing itself for the big event that would briefly add the word vuvuzela to the world’s vocabulary: the 2010 FIFA…