First trailer for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, here's the first trailer for Warner Bros' big Christmas movie that isn't The Hobbit, The Great Gatsby... If you hadn't guessed it beforehand, the new trailer should confirm it: Warner Bros has Oscar hopes for The Great Gatsby. An adaptation of the F Scott Fitzgerald classic, the new film version has been directed by Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge), and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton. It's set for release on Christmas Day in the US, in both 2D and 3D, and the first trailer for the film has been released. If all goes to plan, you should be able to see it beneath these very words... Follow ... Continue reading →

"Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that's a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That's not simple. "The quest for simplicity has to pervade every part of the process. It really is fundamental." That simplicity in the hardware has not always been matched in the software, which since the rise of iOS - the operating system for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch - has been marked by something known as skeuomorphism, a tendency for new designs to retain ornamental features of the old design. Thus the calendar in Apple's Macs and on iOS has fake leather texture and even fake stitching. When I mention ... Continue reading →

Draft is a series about the art and craft of writing.As I noted in my earlier article, rules and conventions about when to use and not to use commas are legion. But certain errors keep popping up. Here are a few of them.Identification Crisis If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. I’m referring to a student’s writing a sentence like:I went to see the movie, “Midnight in Paris” with my friend, Jessie.Comma after “movie,” comma after “friend” and, sometimes, comma after “Paris” as well. None is correct — unless “Midnight in Paris” is the only movie in the world and Jessie is the writer’s only friend. Otherwise, the punctuation should be:I went to see the movie “Midnight in Paris” with my ... Continue reading →

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Pop critic Jon SavageA cinematic drone comes in fast from silence, quickly overtaken by two synthesised rhythm tracks that will go in and out of phase for the next lifetime. On top, Donna Summer soars and swoops as she tackles the minimal lyric: "It's so good [x five], "Heaven knows" [x five], "I feel love" [x five]. The words are so functional that her voice becomes another instrument, almost another machine, but then there is the real heart of the song: "Fallin' free, fallin' free, fallin' free …"I Feel Love was and remains an astonishing achievement: a futuristic record that still sounds fantastic 35 years on. Within its modulations and pulses, it achieves the perfect state of grace that is the ambition of every dance ... Continue reading →