Sorry to put a damper on things, but I am dreading this New Year's Day. Not because 2011 promises to be worse than 2010 (impossible, surely?), but because the day itself brings with it the "festive" Edinburgh derby. My beef with this seasonal set-to is that one of my brothers supports Hearts, while the other is a Hibs fan, so this particular fixture (along with its varied outcomes) has marred countless family New Years of yore (although we no longer live in Edinburgh, the match is still on ESPN, which means I will be taking myself as far away from the family hearth as possible. And hoping, in the interests of world peace, for a draw).

I'm sure we all know (or have been) siblings whose determination to set themselves apart from each other has manifested itself in allegiances to rival bands/teams/shows/brands etc., so what was (or maybe still is) the particular bone of contention between you and your beloved brethren? I'm sure Beatles-Stones and Liverpool-Everton are fairly common fraternal faultlines, but how about the more transient, obscure, local-interest-only (or just plain sad) ones*? For instance, were you a Wham fan subjected to ceaseless mocking by your Durannie sister? Did your attempts to make your Sonic-obsessed brother see the light with regard to Super Mario fall on deaf ears? Or were you piggy-in-the-middle while your siblings squabbled over the relative merits of Blur versus Oasis back in 1995?

(*I'm trying to keep it light, so am not really looking for serious political, religious or philosophical differences. Unless they somehow relate to Star Wars in some shape or form...)

Delivering her verdict on Almodovar's "Broken Embraces" in the current issue, Kate Mossman poses the question, "Why is Penelope Cruz so good in Spanish movies and more than a little bit annoying in Hollywood ones?"

It's a fair point: nobody would argue that anything Cruz has done Stateside could ever hold a candle to her European work (even if she did, by many accounts, act Ben Kingsley under the table in "Elegy"). But why the belief that Cruz is uniquely afflicted in this way? Isn't it simply that she, like just about every other continental European or Asian arthouse star who has ever had a crack at Hollywood, has found good parts much harder to come by Stateside than at home?

Let's face it, unless they can pass themselves off as Americans, all Hollywood seems to offer to European and Asian arthouse actors is a dispiriting rogues' gallery of national stereotypes or bizarrely half-baked hybrids you'd never find in the real world (though if they're male and cut from a suitably lugubrious cloth, there's always the Bond/other franchise movie villain option). Is it any wonder, then, that the stars of world cinema all too often seem to mislay their mojo in Tinseltown? While Cruz has given us a fair few Hollywood stinkers, so have Juliette Binoche ("Dan in Real Life"? "Wuthering Heights"?) and Gong Li ("Miami Vice"? "Hannibal Rising"?), to pick some examples at random. Just because Vincent Cassel seems physically incapable of being dull on screen, does not mean I ever want to sit through "Derailed" or "Ocean's 13" again.

Of course, some get lucky and land meaty roles, such as Javier Bardem's turn as Anton Chigurh in "No Country For Old Men" and Binoche's performance as Hana in "The English Patient", but am struggling to think of many more. Can anyone think of any other good or even great performances by continental European/Asian actors in Hollywood films?