Some time ago, the Dirty Three (who include Nick Cave collaborator and bearded man-king Warren Ellis) released 'Cinder', another masterpiece in a back catalogue of stellar LP's. This record consolidated the bands shared wealth of staggering musical ability, and reined in their (often welcome) tendency for extended improvisational jams in songs. On the heels of this record, we find the band gracing the intimate confines of Whelan’s of Georges St. Dublin for another breathtaking live performance

Director: David Bowers.

Animators: IMAGI animation studios.

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Freddie Highmore, Donald Sutherland, Kristin Bell.

Duration: 94mins (PG).

Genre: Action/Adventure/Animation/Sci-fi

For a movie that I hadn’t heard was coming out till three days before; Astroboy was a thrilling children’s film. It is about a robot clone of a child loaded with a positive blue energy. Pinocchio style, the robot boy thinks he is real, and rejected by his father the boy retreats to “the surface”. Metro City is a metropolis in the sky where robots are slaves to humans - they do all the dirty work like cleaning up and so on - and are then cast away to the rubbish heap that humans have turned Earth into miles below the city. He is forced to return when another robot (powered with the by-product of the blue energy; negative red energy) starts to destroy the floating Metro city.