Globalisation, or not

Due to the fact that I am a sad dweeb, I get most of my film news and film reviews off the internet. Because the Americans get most films first, I tend to read mostly US critics. (One bonus of this is that a great more films are shown in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago than in Sydney or even London, and if something sounds good but is obviously not going to be released wherever I am, I can hunt down the DVD over the internet or something.

The usual annoyance of reading American reviews is that I see a review and have to wait months (or sometimes even years) to see the film. However, living in the UK or Australia there can sometimes be a reverse problem. Sometimes films will be shown in the UK or Australia before they are shown in the US. These are usually local films, but not always. Because I pay less attention to local movie buzz than American buzz, I will sometimes miss such a film when it shown in cinemas locally, and then discover that I want to see it when it opens in the US and I read the American reviews. The current example of this is Dirty, Pretty Things, which sounds pretty good. (I was aware of it, and it sounded pretty good when it did open here, but this didn't hit me hard enough to make me go and see it). However, it is now mostly gone from British cinemas. I might be able to find a screening at a repertory cinema somewhere if I am lucky, but I rather doubt it. I may have to wait for the DVD.

This is partly my fault though. I was quite familiar with many of Stephen Frears' earlier films, but for some reason I had never put them together in my head as a single body of work. When I do, they are a very impressive body of work. If I had done so, I would have paid more attention when the film opened here.