So I won't be interviewing Matthew Vaughn. The director of Stardust took objection to my review of the film's premiere. Although I genuinely found this British-made-and-accented fantasy charming and delightfully visually inventive, my reservations about the dialogue (which fails to come alive) and the pacing, as well as the miscasting of Robert de Niro in an unconvincing cameo as a cross-dressing lightning pirate, were enough to scupper our scheduled chat. I think this is a shame. I first interviewed Vaughn after his directorial debut, Layer Cake, which had enirely the opposite virtues and vices to Stardust (although slickly professional, it was entirely lacking in heart). He was charming and courteous, and let our interview run on: it had started late because he had been engaged in discussions on filming a Neil Gaiman book. Coincidentally, that book was Stardust, and even more coincidentally, I had a copy of Gaiman's Neverwhere in my bag at the time. I thought we got on well enough. Vaughn assured me then he had not intended to make a gangster movie like Layer Cake, and would never do so again - that his next project would be much less violent and more lyrical. I didn't ask him dumbass questions about what it was like to be married to Claudia Schiffer, and I even pronounced her name right. Sadly we won't now go to round two. Not this time.

To repeat, I think this is a shame, although I understand Vaughn's reasons. It's a pity that the journalistic tropes of criticism and feature writing are so often in opposition - since the pre-release interview tends to be predicated on a mood of uncritical admiration. It's a pity that one can't discuss a film's flaws with a director (an exception to this was Martin Campbell, who confessed to me that he wished he'd been able to make Casino Royale shorter). I realise it didn't help that my review of Stardust was one of the first to appear in a British newspaper. Although I liked the film much more than I disliked it (and was desperately trying to like it more), I can understand how my positive comments sounded like faint praise when set beside the negative ones. I hope I get to speak to Matthew Vaughn again. Next time, eh?