Did I ever tell you I been struck by lightning seven times?

I know it's nice for a film to have a moral, but does it really need to be spelled out in a montage at the end of the film? I was thoroughly enjoying The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and was getting abit weepy at the end, when I was bombarded with messages. And why was it set during Hurricane Katrina? It just seemed completely irrelevant.

Other than that, it's an excellent film. Wonderfully acted and beautifully shot.

c’mon let’s get high

Some forgotten person once said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. To that person, I give Tonight: Franz Ferdinand. The really peculiarly sexy (is it just me?) Scots have taken everything that was working about their indie formula and mixed it around abit. The result is still undoubtably a Franz Ferdinand cd, but like nothing they've done before.

They've always been something abit new and exciting, and in a time where there's too many Kooks-a-likes being played in hmv, they refuse to settle in that rubbish guitar band stereotype. The album opener, Ulysses, takes all expectations and goes beyond them. It's addictive, it's sexy, and it'll get your sholders moving. They're dipping their toes into the sizzling waters of dance music and the result is a seductively dark album. The second half of lucid dreams, an 8 minute long track that starts out as your run of the mill Franz Ferdinand track and descends into pure electronica half way through, wouldn't sound that out of place in a dance club.

It's not without flaws though. Between the stand out tracks, everything blurs into one track. It's all good, but it's all kind of the same. After four or five listens, I still couldn't put a name to some of the tracks. Alot of them offer promising starts and then fall into the same format as the rest, and it's a real shame because this album could have been something truely great. It could have been a pop masterpiece that sent the boys back to the chart success they achieved with their debut.

For now, Franz Ferdinand are still firmly on the shores of indie, and I doubt true electronia fans will be rushing out to get their copy, but it should get some indie kids on the floor.

How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love Scarlett Johansson

Ask me a few months ago about Scarlett Johansson, and I'd tell you I hate her, with probably more than a little jealousy for her perfect pout and beautiful hair and flawless sense of style. I'd rant on about how miserable she is, how all her characters are the same miserable frustrated women and she's probably not even acting very much when she plays them.

I really didn't like her. So her releasing an album was just another reason to dislike her. Oh god, another celebrity that thinks just because they have one talent, they're talented in every creative area. I expected it to be awful, told everyone I knew as such, then promptly forgot all about it. It was fairly recently, when I learnt that all the tracks were covers of Tom Waits songs, not to mention that Nick Zinner and Bowie were involved, that I became interested, and I downloaded the album. Strictly out of curiosity, you understand.

I never expected to fall in love. But that is the best kind of love. I was so determined to dislike it, yet within the first thirty seconds, with the melancholy, discordant noise washing over me, I let go.

Her voice does leave a little to be desired, but maybe that's just part of her charm, because everything else about "Anywhere I Lay My Head" is amazing. It's haunting and dreamlike. Tom Waits originals seep through every song, but with Scarlett's femininity and less-than-perfect but distinctive voice it truly becomes a masterpiece. The tracks are deliciously dark, 'Green Grass' is almost scary. It’s music you'd expect to hear on an abandoned old fashioned carousel, probably haunted by the ghosts of dead children. Just when you’re slipping into this perfect nightmare, 'I Don't Wanna Grow Up', snaps you out of it into this wonderful world of electronic pop that’s even better.

The whole thing is beautiful, and if it can convert me, it must bring existing Johansson fans to their knees.

Asking a friend of mine if he had "Wake Me Up Before You Go" by Wham! at a party, I was only half joking. I'm probably alone in thinking this, but it's such pure catchy pop. Yes, it's abit cheesy and if you put it on your Mum is probably more likely to dance to it than you are, but it's a such fun song. The lyrics are brilliant ("You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day" being a favourite.) I don't know if it's physically possible for me to listen to it without at the very least wiggling my sholders. If you're open to being a little bit eighties and camp, pull it out of your Mum's record collection and dance around your bedroom to it right now, you'll feel better for it.