Say it with slang... UK slang!

So, I'm watching a Ken Loach movie — a pretty funny one, I might add, in a vaguely depressing kind of way — and I went online to look up some bit of Mancusian slang. And that led me to this page, which will translate your plain vanilla, American English sentences into various types of UK slang.

I particularly like the Scouse translater, but the Irish one is pretty good, too.

Oh, the movie is Waiting for Eric... and don't be put off by the fact that one of the two Erics is Manchester United soccer star Eric Cantona (the other is a suicidally depressed postal worker; as I said earlier, funny in a depressing kind of way). I don't give a good god-damn about soccer — sorry football — and Cantona is hilarious. He either has one hell of a sense of humor about himself or is so self-absorbed that he has no idea how

Broken Mirrors/Broken MInds mugs: Be the first on your block!

Imagine sipping your morning coffee/tea from a Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds mug... now imagine that you don't have to imagine. You can order one here: All three covers are available, and they look fabulous.

New Reviews: Pornography: A Thriller, the Red Riding Trilogy, Behind the Burly Q and more...

Check out my reviews of delightful burlesque documentary Behind the Burly Q, darkly twisted thriller Pornography: A Thriller, the epic UK crime films that comprise the Red Riding Trilogy and art-world satire Boogie Woogie.

Next week: Survival of the Dead!

Words I Wish I'd Never Heard... (An Occasional Series)

Hey, every occasional series has to start somewhere. Today's word is "vajazzling," and it means exactly what just streaked through your head. Suddenly Damian Hirst's diamond-encrusted human skull is no longer the most vulgar thing I've ever seen.

1980s Video-Game Characters Stomp Manhattan... Film at 11!

Space Invaders reduce yellow taxis to heaps of multi-colored cubes. Frogger snarls midtown traffic and subway stations vanish as Pac-Man gobbles his way through the MTA map. Tetris stacks permanently alter New York’s iconic skyline… what the hell is happening here? Welcome to French writer-director Patrick Jean’s Pixels, produced by the Paris-based visual-effects house One More Production.

So yes, it was made by corporate cogs in the robo-consumer machine… welcome to the 21st century, Rip van Atari. But if the thought of Donkey Kong going all Gojira on Manhattan’s ass shivers your joystick, it’s two minutes of sheer, retro-geek bliss.

It's Spec...... sorry, Splice -- I'm So There!

...and not just because this is a great trailer.

But also because it has a serious pedigree: Produced by Guillermo del Toro, co-written and directed by Vincent Natali (Cube) and starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley — sure, they've both done less than fabulous movies, but neither is a crap-film whore.

For my money, June can't come soon enough...

Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds... on Miss Flickchick.com

Just a reminder that in addition to the Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento Facebook page I created for the new edition, there's also a page on MissFlickChick.com where I'm posting news and links to interviews. The plus with this page is, of course, that you don't have to belong to Facebook.

And now, one for the fans: Above, the real Mother of Tears, as glimpsed in Inferno.