Loved (t)his review of TRANSFORMERS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0d6G1X278s&feature=related

even throwing in a mention of EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIABALS! Now there's a man who knows his stuf!!!!

And, there's plenty more invective where that came from. Check out his take on PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3 while you're there!!

I'm not sure if you can get it outside the UK, but his weekly film reviews with Simon Mayo are available as a podcast. I'm glad Kermode is back in the 'middle ground' of film criticism. I've never liked him amongst those insufferable dullards on Newsnight Review.

Mark came up to Lincoln University here in the UK in November, where we were hosting a conference entitled 'Spielberg at Sixty.' He did a very entertaining turn on the first evening, discussing a Spielberg interview he did for the BBC a while back, along with anything else that happened to pop up. Not only is he great writer (and often astute critic - who I often disagree with), but man, can he TALK!

He also now has the honour of having a fictional character based upon him in 'The Golden Age of Censorship' the recent novel by former BBFC censor Paul Hoffman. Named Mark Carmody (very subtle), the character appears in a section of the novel in which the narrator (a ghost) remembers the UK censorship battles over LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Not a very flattering portrait mind (he is referred to as 'that tosser Mark Carmody' whose very name elicits 'universal growls of derision' from the novel's thinly disguised BBFC characters.) It's an entertaining read but I'm only half way through.