Just a quick one as I am EXTREMELY busy. First, I'm surprised by the more upbeat reviews of The Illusionist, which I suspect owe more to the general respect in which Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti are held than to the substance of this limp and decidedly unmagical tale of a conjurer trying to pry his lady love from a psychopathic Viennese prince (Rufus Sewell, wearing a moustache that makes him look as if a swallow has flown up his nose).

Second, you know you're getting old when the hot babes of your cinemagoing youth suddenly start playing Moms. These thoughts were prompted by seeing Patricia Arquette amid the excellent ensemble of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. More on this dramatised adaptation of the hit shock-fact book when it opens in April.

While on the subject of age, Shane Meadows's This Is England took me right back to my teens. At 16 I remember being more alarmed than I should have been by the absurd rumours going round our playground that all 17-year-old were going to be drafted to fight in the Falklands. More, Meadows's semi-autobiographical film brought back to me the absolute visceral fear that skinheads inspired in me - the shaven heads, the biro knuckle tattoos, the sprayed on jeans and grossly oversized boots. I remember wearing anti-racism badges and - you'll love this - deliberately sitting next to black or Asian people rather than whites on buses to show my non-prejudiced credentials (this may, I admit, have been a rather too subtle gesture for anyone to notice). Lest I get protests from non-racist suedeheads, past or present, I should point out that the film draws a distinction between the "original skins" who loved reggae and dancehall, and thuggish later incarnation, but by the end of the 70s a skinhead was pretty much a promise of aggression. It was only the adoption of short hair and big boots (and even Harrington jackets) by gay men in the 80s that redeemed the skinhead look (you could never imagine Jimmy Somerville giving you a kicking). Anyway, for another vivid account of racism in the 70s, read Billy Bragg's quirky book The Progressive Patriot. This is England is tremendously well-acted, especially by its young lead Thomas Turgoose. More, again, when it opens in April.

Caught up last week on Blood Diamond at last, and thoroughly enjoyed Leonardo diCaprio relishing a thoroughly unsympathetic role (until his 11th hour redemption, natch). This week, though, I finally caught The Good Shepherd, which struck me as unsatisfying as both a story of the genesis of the CIA and as a study of Matt Damon's spymaster Edward Wilson. I could have told director Robert De Niro - well, I'd probably be too scared to, but you know what I mean - that a character whose chief characteristic is his reticent silence is not the ideal anchor for a movie pushing three hours. The way Angelina Jolie's character Clover pursues him, then seemingly discards him, then protests that he doesn't love her or share his life with her, also makes no sense. Jolie looks extraordinarily beautiful in the film but also alarmingly thin, as if she has been sculpted in a wind tunnel or somehow winnowed. Ange, if you are reading this, pick up the phone. Forget Brad, I'll cook you a pie.

Off-brief for a moment - Boeing Boeing is superbly acted and staged but I'm surprised more critics didn't point up the rickety structure of this 60s farce or its blatant sexism (so this is post-feminism); Man of Mode at the National starts slowly, then improves, and, my companion and I agreed, features some of the best women's shoes on the London stage; Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths aquit themselves well in Equus, but the play is, and always was, over-rated, and now seems dated to boot; and the staff at the National Portrait Gallery are, I reckon, quite the rudest in London.

Off to Brixton this weekend to record a cover version of Gary Numan's Cars, then I'm making pizza for my wife in the evening. (Go on, ask me about either of the above, go on...)