I shall start this blog with the ignominious Big Brother. Have you noticed how all the characters have an obsession with people being genuine? The only interesting people are mountebanks and fraudsters. Sure, I have time for unselfconscious confident people. Some of my best friends are genuine. But give me a brittle self-deceiving egomaniac any day of the week.

Moving on to The films of the summer: The Dark Knight is a good film. I am duly ashamed to enjoy a high-grossing movie. With Watchmen coming out next year, it seems all the things that used to be cool are being taken over by the man. They'll find us all in the end and sell us things.

So is it the greatest Batman film ever? Too early to say. My first impulse was yes. Because it's super-duper. But think back to the other contenders...

Tim Burton's Batman is obviously a benchmark. The first post-Miller movie. But this has dated badly, I think.

Batman Returns is a million times better. Tim Burton certainly preferred it.

The Adam West movie is exempt from consideration. Not bad, mind you. Goodness, no. But to compare it to these other movies is to do it a disservice. It comes from another place.

Mask of the Phantasm is great. Honestly. But you can't nominate it without people thinking you are trying to be clever. And they are right, you smart arse. But it is really good. The animated series was great, and is the reason I love Batman as much as I do. This spin-off movie got a small theatrical release I think. It's atmospheric, character-led. It's got some of the best Joker stuff. So it is my favourite Batman movie. And Sylvester McCoy is my favourite Doctor Who, and My favourite James Bond is Timothy Dalton.

Saw Wall-E Last night. The title creates confusion here. In American pronunciation, Wall rhymes with Doll, so Wall-E reads the same as Wally. Here, of course, Wall is pronounced whorl. So when I asked for a ticket to Whorl-E, I felt, retrospectively, like a James Mason character stranded in a baffling future. Bonus. The confusion is exacerbated in Leicester, where Wally is pronounced Wolleh.

Nobody feels good about enjoying a Disney film. I had to punish myself afterwards by thrashing myself with an assortment of spiked effigies of various alternative film directors. And yet it was good. I'm pretty certain I won't see this again. It's been, what, four years since the Incredibles? I loved that and I haven't seen it again since. These movies feel very satisfying on the night, but once you know what's in them, there's no point revisiting them. Or at least that, in case you haven't guessed, is my opinion.

Opinions are a funny old thing. There is a temptation to begin each of these reviews with "for me..." or "in my opinion..." Since relativism happened (In 1982, I think.) all responses are subjective. So it's okay to express your response in objective terms. The greatest Batman Movie is Mask of the Phantasm. Wall-E is an okay film.

In fact, Wall-E is better than No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Not because I saw it more recently and I have forgotten how good those other films are. Not because I am drawn to dazzling computer animation and robots. No. This is an objective fact. God agrees.

I read The God Delusion on holiday. What a brilliant book. I'm a confirmed atheist now, as opposed to a postmodernist, and a Roman Catholic before that. I sure am glad I had a Catholic upbringing, though, since I haven't grown out of ANY of my other obsessions from the time. I still love Vic and Bob. And I still even have time for Thundercats. But I am not a total retard, because I no longer believe in a god. There's character development for you.

Some people don't like Richard Dawkins, because they don't like being told what to think. I love being told what to think, though. It's how I got mixed up with religion in the first place. And I love Richard Dawkins' enthusiasm. He's like a rock 'n' roll Johnny Ball.

So now I don't belive in a god or a dualistic notion of the soul or life after death. I'd like to think this will change my life, but not really. I'm going to carry on as normal. In fact, I think it's fair to say I have picked my ideology to suit my lifestyle. And atheism suits my modern bohemian gangsta way of life.

I also just finished The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. Don't judge me, okay? It was 60p in the PDSA. Actually, I have decided to change gear with reading. I'm going to indulge myself for a while. I read My Booky Wook too. Okay? Do you have a problem with that? Well I don't care. I'm not reading these books for your benefit.

The Little Friend was good, actually. A page-turning southern-gothic tale about a little girl who seeks revenge on her brother's redneck murderer. The humour is so black and deadpan, it nearly isn't humour at all.

The Booky Wook is enjoyable too. Chock-full of scandalous vim. Well written though it is, it doesn't quite escape the celebrity memoir paradigm.

I'll end this blog by firing off a load of mini opinions about some other things:

Happy-Go-Lucky:
The Film of the year so far. I'd be surprised if anything tops it.

The Darjeeling Limited:
Not Anderson's worst (that's Bottle Rocket) but it falls far below the giddy heights of The Life Aquatic and The Royal Tenenbaums. Worth watching, though.

Bad Education and Volver:
I am ravenous for more Almodovar, having only seen these two. I feel restless just thinking about it. I won't be happy until I have seen many more of his films. I suppose I will acheive some fleeting satisfaction from actually watching the films. But mostly I just want to have seen them, so I can relax like a lion with a belly full of facts.

Slavoj Zizek:
The king of baffling opinions and outrageous statments. ("In this quite formal sense love is evil") I wish I liked him for making philosophy accessible. He doesn't, though. I think he is deliberately obscure. Therefore it is wrong to like him. He will lead our minds into a state of chaos. But he is enthralling.

Death Race 2000:
Tremendous Bank-Holiday-Movie fun. Smokey and the Bandit as Micheal Moorcock might imagine it. They're re-making it with Jason Statham, which could be brilliant, but I guess will be fairly depressing. Like the Wicker Man, Death Race 2000 was only accidentally brilliant. Roll the dice one more time and you have a disaster.

Short Cuts:
This is the first Robert Altman Film I have really enjoyed. I will now track down more of his films. The Player and Gosford Park are overrated yawnfests. But I seem to recall MASH wasn't bad. And I wanna see the one about Nixon.

Night of the Living/Dawn of the/Day of the/ and even Land of the Dead
All brilliant. I am ashamed at only having seen them in the last year or so.

Diary of the Dead:
Avoid avoid avoid.

Thanks for getting to the end of this rather extended blog. you must really love me or something.