The problem of the Telmarines: book-Telmarines are Puritan colonisers, Early Americans if you will, pirates-turned-moralisers out of sync with the nature they’ve invaded. They had excellent pointy helmets and nifty mini-skirts. Film-Telmarines are Spanish Conquistadors extpriating the Aztecs, proud and treachorous all, except for tyrant-usurper Miraz, who is Hitler obv, and therefore Iranian. Their military knowhow is negligeable — they don’t even know that footsoldiers should break stride on a nearly built bridge — but luckily they are up against the cluelessl of Old Narnia.

The problem of Narnians: Centaurs and Satyrs and Furries oh my! Mr Tumnus (as channelled by Mallarmé, one afternoon): “I adore you, wrath of virgins–fierce delight/Of the sacred burden’s writhing naked flight/From the fiery lightning of my lips that flash/With the secret terror of the thirsting flesh:/From the cruel one’s feet to the heart of the shy,/Whom innocence abandons suddenly,/Watered in frenzied or less woeful tears.” <— This is what kosher fauns get up to when it isn’t winter. In the film, the massed ranks of centaurs are all nips up top, all pubes everywhere else. Old Narnians are REALLY REALLY none too bright, at least outside the ranks of Dwarf Nikabrik’s sadly thwarted Campaign for REAL Old Narnians (CAMRON) (Carmody to thread!)

The problem of war: is the problem of the story. War is, like, horrible: and to be remotely exciting on film today it has to be amped UP not tamped down. In the book it’s a romp where nearly no one gets killed; the film has to stand against LotR and Troy and 300 and whatevs. It’s a tough call guess which side adopts the more incompetently insane strategy: the Narnians who stand in FRONT and then undermine their own fortifications, or the Telamarines, who set their cavalry off at charge then fire massive trebuchet boulders at them from behind. “We detest and fear the trees! Let’s do battle right in the middle of them!” Etc. Perversely, I rather liked the added-in castle-attack: the book sees General Caspian, on his own and untrained, lead a failed foray — Giant Wimbleweather broke out “at the wrong time and from the wrong place”, and a centaur is “terribly wounded” — and its glum aftermath (poor dim Wimbleweather crying all over everyone). The film turns this into a Robin Hood-type escapade, which goes wrong bcz Caspian and Peter are squabbling inexperienced rivals, bcz plans are not stuck to, and bcz castles are kinda built to withstand Robin Hood-type escapades, 90 years of cinema cliche notwithstanding. So hurrah for PC’s plot-departing genre-busting daring here, even if it does mean a bunch of lovely Furries dying in horrible agony, a downer even Lucy’s winsome freckles and snub nose can’t entirely dilute. Lots of Narnians die because Peter and Caspian are idiots — not to mention KIDS d00d! — and the grown-ups, viz Aslan, are prancing about in the woods playing test-yr-faith hide-and-seek. Did I mention Aslan is a kn0b?

The problem of the children: why does Narnia need Kings and Queens who are Sons of Adam? It is of course because you are NOT ALLOWED TEH SECHS IN unless you already fell off the wagon, eden-apple wise. CSL gets himself in SUCH a silly mess about this — Aslan has set up an RPG with ad hoc rules that make a happening FantasyWorld totally impossible. (Old Father Time, last to leave, will put out the light before three of these Earthlets even lose their virginity; and the lion will be carpeted by the Emperor-Overseas: “With all due respect, Aslan, youre fired”))

The problem of Susan: beestung lippie-tastic stunna from the off, fending off mere mortal mingers, I will happily defend that Susan can’t keep her eyes or hands off Suave Latino Caspian, and vice versa — horn’n'faun jokes are the Rampaging Oliphaunt in the Narnian Spare Oom already, and TORCHWOOD AGENDA GET OVER IT ppl. Susan is a super-boring character without this dimension; I prefer the Pevensies flailing around getting stuff wrong and bickering convincingly.

The problem of High King Peter (the Magnificent): worst general evah (but then he is 13 AT MOST and quite properly expecting Aslan to arrive soon and sort stuff out). I liked the way Peter lurched from decency to flustered petulance — the oldest brother character is a classic dud in KidLit anyway (tone set by Swallows and Amazons, John Walker the utterly wooden-be-good stand-in for real-life tomboy Taqui Altounyan, who sounds like the Pirate Queen of the Calormenes). So yeah. “We would have got away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids FANNYDANGLING DEITIES WHO MADE THIS WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT” <— fixed

The problem of Aslan: is that like all monotheistic supreme being he was a preening self-absorbed tw@t, and being voiced by Liam Neeson makes it worse. I enjoyed this film immensely: TASH-SLASH NOW!

The problem of the Telmarines: book-Telmarines are Puritan colonisers, Early Americans if you will, pirates-turned-moralisers out of sync with the nature they’ve invaded. They had excellent pointy helmets and nifty mini-skirts. Film-Telmarines are Spanish Conquistadors extpriating the Aztecs, proud and treachorous all, except for tyrant-usurper Miraz, who is Hitler obv, and therefore Iranian. Their military knowhow is negligeable — they don’t even know that footsoldiers should break stride on a nearly built bridge — but luckily they are up against the cluelessl of Old Narnia.

The problem of Narnians: Centaurs and Satyrs and Furries oh my! Mr Tumnus (as channelled by Mallarmé, one afternoon): “I adore you, wrath of virgins–fierce delight/Of the sacred burden’s writhing naked flight/From the fiery lightning of my lips that flash/With the secret terror of the thirsting flesh:/From the cruel one’s feet to the heart of the shy,/Whom innocence abandons suddenly,/Watered in frenzied or less woeful tears.” <— This is what kosher fauns get up to when it isn’t winter. In the film, the massed ranks of centaurs are all nips up top, all pubes everywhere else. Old Narnians are REALLY REALLY none too bright, at least outside the ranks of Dwarf Nikabrik’s sadly thwarted Campaign for REAL Old Narnians (CAMRON) (Carmody to thread!)

The problem of war: is the problem of the story. War is, like, horrible: and to be remotely exciting on film today it has to be amped UP not tamped down. In the book it’s a romp where nearly no one gets killed; the film has to stand against LotR and Troy and 300 and whatevs. It’s a tough call guess which side adopts the more incompetently insane strategy: the Narnians who stand in FRONT and then undermine their own fortifications, or the Telamarines, who set their cavalry off at charge then fire massive trebuchet boulders at them from behind. “We detest and fear the trees! Let’s do battle right in the middle of them!” Etc. Perversely, I rather liked the added-in castle-attack: the book sees General Caspian, on his own and untrained, lead a failed foray — Giant Wimbleweather broke out “at the wrong time and from the wrong place”, and a centaur is “terribly wounded” — and its glum aftermath (poor dim Wimbleweather crying all over everyone). The film turns this into a Robin Hood-type escapade, which goes wrong bcz Caspian and Peter are squabbling inexperienced rivals, bcz plans are not stuck to, and bcz castles are kinda built to withstand Robin Hood-type escapades, 90 years of cinema cliche notwithstanding. So hurrah for PC’s plot-departing genre-busting daring here, even if it does mean a bunch of lovely Furries dying in horrible agony, a downer even Lucy’s winsome freckles and snub nose can’t entirely dilute. Lots of Narnians die because Peter and Caspian are idiots — not to mention KIDS d00d! — and the grown-ups, viz Aslan, are prancing about in the woods playing test-yr-faith hide-and-seek. Did I mention Aslan is a kn0b?

The problem of the children: why does Narnia need Kings and Queens who are Sons of Adam? It is of course because you are NOT ALLOWED TEH SECHS IN unless you already fell off the wagon, eden-apple wise. CSL gets himself in SUCH a silly mess about this — Aslan has set up an RPG with ad hoc rules that make a happening FantasyWorld totally impossible. (Old Father Time, last to leave, will put out the light before three of these Earthlets even lose their virginity; and the lion will be carpeted by the Emperor-Overseas: “With all due respect, Aslan, youre fired”))

The problem of Susan: beestung lippie-tastic stunna from the off, fending off mere mortal mingers, I will happily defend that Susan can’t keep her eyes or hands off Suave Latino Caspian, and vice versa — horn’n'faun jokes are the Rampaging Oliphaunt in the Narnian Spare Oom already, and TORCHWOOD AGENDA GET OVER IT ppl. Susan is a super-boring character without this dimension; I prefer the Pevensies flailing around getting stuff wrong and bickering convincingly.

The problem of High King Peter (the Magnificent): worst general evah (but then he is 13 AT MOST and quite properly expecting Aslan to arrive soon and sort stuff out). I liked the way Peter lurched from decency to flustered petulance — the oldest brother character is a classic dud in KidLit anyway (tone set by Swallows and Amazons, John Walker the utterly wooden-be-good stand-in for real-life tomboy Taqui Altounyan, who sounds like the Pirate Queen of the Calormenes). So yeah. “We would have got away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids FANNYDANGLING DEITIES WHO MADE THIS WORLD AND EVERYTHING IN IT” <— fixed

The problem of Aslan: is that like all monotheistic supreme being he was a preening self-absorbed tw@t, and being voiced by Liam Neeson makes it worse. I enjoyed this film immensely: TASH-SLASH NOW!

Anyway, they’ve finally got it right, so to celebrate here’s my own list of Who cliffhangers that stick in the brain. Some of these are, I believe, canonically accepted as awesome, others more obscure. The list draws heavily on ones I saw as a kid, the prime time to be shoXoRed by a Who ending… and yes, there will be spoilers!

The “Oh Shit” Cliffhanger: The Ark Part 2
- for those brought up on the strong liquor that is the eeeeooowww sound, the silent cliffhangers of black-and-white era Who are somewhat underwhelming. This First Doctor story is the exception, using the silence to full advantage by letting the implications of the cliffhanger sink in. In The Ark, the TARDIS crew visit a huge spaceship, populated by the remnants of mankind and their servant race, the Monoids, fleeing the destruction of Earth to find a new homeworld. Under construction en voyage - only its torso complete - is a vast statue of a man, which will stand on the new world as an emblem of mankind’s survival. At the end of episode two, the crew jump forward 700 years to find the ship’s journey almost over. They arrive on the bridge and see the completed statue - the camera pans up it to reveal… a Monoid’s one-eyed head carved into the stone. What has happened to mankind? Find out next week!

The Widescreen Cliffhanger: Caves Of Androzani Part 3
- this is often cited as the best Doctor Who cliffhanger ever: the penultimate episode of the Fifth Doctor’s final adventure, with him suffering from terminal poisoning, hijacking the spaceship of the mercenary who’s captured him and sending it hurtling at full speed towards the surface of a planet. In many ways it anticipates New Who: big, noisy, widescreen planet-busting cliffhanger action. But what makes it so awesome is the way Davison, wrestling with the ship’s controls, also gives a speech explaining to the mercenary with remarkable patience exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing. Polite and reasonable to the end: it’s the perfect Fifth Doctor moment.

The Cerebral Cliffhanger: Four To Doomsday Part 2
- another Fifth Doctor story, representative of a short-lived species of cliffhangers based on atmosphere and unfolding plot rather than sheer thrill-power. Several McCoy stories have them, as do stories like “Kinda” and “Warrior’s Gate”: this is my favourite, an incongruously powerful moment in the middle of a slow-building story. A very kindly Ancient Greek dude, who the TARDIS crew have met on a huge spaceship, explains patiently, as if to children, that he is no longer human - “This is the real me”, he says, opening up his chest to remove a hard drive. It’s corny, and it shouldn’t work, but he’s been such a sympathetic character it’s still a shock somehow.

The Behind-The-Sofa Cliffhanger: City Of Death Part 3
- if you watch this now, with a bumbling scientist being aged into a skeleton by the time machine he’s been building, it’s played as much for comedy as anything. However, I was six and I was ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED - it is the one cliffhanger which I simply refused to watch the following week, hiding at the other end of the house and insisting my Dad call me when it was over. For that I had to include it.

The WTF Cliffhanger: Carnival Of Monsters Part 1
- this is another famous one, a Third Doctor story which is notable for how well its first episode builds up weirdness and then resolves it with one extraordinary stroke. The story is quite bold in the way it simply doesn’t connect its two plot strands - the Doctor and Jo on board a 1920s ship which seems to be caught in a time loop, and a pair of galactic carnies trying to pitch their show on a xenophobic planet - until the closing shot, when one of the carnies reaches down inside his machine, and the Doctor is faced with a gigantic hand appearing to pluck the TARDIS away. More “what is going ON?” style cliffhangers, please!

The Nightmare Cliffhanger: The Deadly Assassin Part 2
- set inside the (later much overused) Time Lord Matrix, this sees the Fourth Doctor stuck in a dreamlike landscape, where, as in a nightmare, he gets his foot stuck in a rail and finds himself about to be crushed by an onrushing model train, driven by a sinister figure wearing a gas mask. The direction is the hero here, making the surreal images seem connected and horribly logical and giving real urgency to the Doctor’s imaginary peril.

The ‘Master In Disguise’ Cliffhanger: “Utopia”
- as mentioned in the intro, before this week this was as good as New Who got for its episode ends. They hammered it home a bit, but the “oh look it’s the Master” cliffhanger had never, ever been done well before in what seemed like a grillion old series tries, so they can be forgiven for going a little over the top. And the actual cliffhanger - stuck at the end of time with the TARDIS stolen - is pretty good too!

The Dalek Cliffhanger: Power Of The Daleks Part 2
- most Dalek episode-ends tend to just be some Daleks going “Exterminate!”. There’s nothing wrong with this as a climax really - it’s what Daleks do, after all - but the best ever Dalek cliffhanger is from this Second Doctor story. The Doctor has found an obscure Earth colony planet, struggling for resources, which has happened on a stroke of real luck - faithful and tireless robot servants they’ve salvaged from a crashed ship. We know, and the Doctor knows, that these servants are Daleks, but as the Doctor tries to warn the colonists the Daleks drown him out with an ever-rising chorus of “We! Are! Your! Ser-vants!”.

The Cyberman Cliffhanger: Tomb Of The Cybermen Part 2
- most Cybermen cliffhangers are just marching cybermen: again, a Second Doctor story used them best, the cyber-leader’s flatly inhuman “You belong to us. You will be like us.” both summing up the monsters’ USP and sounding really horrible and scary.

The NOES DONT DO THAT Cliffhanger: The Daemons Episode 1
- a lot of great cliffhangers rely on the Doctor trying to prevent some human or other doing a really really stupid thing. Often, as here, he fails. The Daemons spends its entire first episode building up to the stupid thing, in loving detail - some nice meta-television with the BBC interviewing locals and archaeologists about a (doomed, imminent) dig, the Third Doctor gradually realising that something is very very wrong. Will he prevent the human fools from unleashing forces they can’t possibly understand? Come off it.

The Next Episode Trailer Special Bonus Cliffhanger: “Bad Wolf” - instead of cliffhangers New Who has the “Next….” trailer, which was clumsily used at first, often revealing too much or getting in the way of the previous story. The trailer at the end of “Bad Wolf”, coming after a servicable ZOMG Daleks finish, was much better - a bonus extra cliffhanger, really, the booming “THEY SURVIVED THROUGH ME” at the end pitching fans into a world of speculation they hadn’t even known existed.

Anyway, they’ve finally got it right, so to celebrate here’s my own list of Who cliffhangers that stick in the brain. Some of these are, I believe, canonically accepted as awesome, others more obscure. The list draws heavily on ones I saw as a kid, the prime time to be shoXoRed by a Who ending… and yes, there will be spoilers!

The “Oh Shit” Cliffhanger: The Ark Part 2
- for those brought up on the strong liquor that is the eeeeooowww sound, the silent cliffhangers of black-and-white era Who are somewhat underwhelming. This First Doctor story is the exception, using the silence to full advantage by letting the implications of the cliffhanger sink in. In The Ark, the TARDIS crew visit a huge spaceship, populated by the remnants of mankind and their servant race, the Monoids, fleeing the destruction of Earth to find a new homeworld. Under construction en voyage - only its torso complete - is a vast statue of a man, which will stand on the new world as an emblem of mankind’s survival. At the end of episode two, the crew jump forward 700 years to find the ship’s journey almost over. They arrive on the bridge and see the completed statue - the camera pans up it to reveal… a Monoid’s one-eyed head carved into the stone. What has happened to mankind? Find out next week!

The Widescreen Cliffhanger: Caves Of Androzani Part 3
- this is often cited as the best Doctor Who cliffhanger ever: the penultimate episode of the Fifth Doctor’s final adventure, with him suffering from terminal poisoning, hijacking the spaceship of the mercenary who’s captured him and sending it hurtling at full speed towards the surface of a planet. In many ways it anticipates New Who: big, noisy, widescreen planet-busting cliffhanger action. But what makes it so awesome is the way Davison, wrestling with the ship’s controls, also gives a speech explaining to the mercenary with remarkable patience exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing. Polite and reasonable to the end: it’s the perfect Fifth Doctor moment.

The Cerebral Cliffhanger: Four To Doomsday Part 2
- another Fifth Doctor story, representative of a short-lived species of cliffhangers based on atmosphere and unfolding plot rather than sheer thrill-power. Several McCoy stories have them, as do stories like “Kinda” and “Warrior’s Gate”: this is my favourite, an incongruously powerful moment in the middle of a slow-building story. A very kindly Ancient Greek dude, who the TARDIS crew have met on a huge spaceship, explains patiently, as if to children, that he is no longer human - “This is the real me”, he says, opening up his chest to remove a hard drive. It’s corny, and it shouldn’t work, but he’s been such a sympathetic character it’s still a shock somehow.

The Behind-The-Sofa Cliffhanger: City Of Death Part 3
- if you watch this now, with a bumbling scientist being aged into a skeleton by the time machine he’s been building, it’s played as much for comedy as anything. However, I was six and I was ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED - it is the one cliffhanger which I simply refused to watch the following week, hiding at the other end of the house and insisting my Dad call me when it was over. For that I had to include it.

The WTF Cliffhanger: Carnival Of Monsters Part 1
- this is another famous one, a Third Doctor story which is notable for how well its first episode builds up weirdness and then resolves it with one extraordinary stroke. The story is quite bold in the way it simply doesn’t connect its two plot strands - the Doctor and Jo on board a 1920s ship which seems to be caught in a time loop, and a pair of galactic carnies trying to pitch their show on a xenophobic planet - until the closing shot, when one of the carnies reaches down inside his machine, and the Doctor is faced with a gigantic hand appearing to pluck the TARDIS away. More “what is going ON?” style cliffhangers, please!

The Nightmare Cliffhanger: The Deadly Assassin Part 2
- set inside the (later much overused) Time Lord Matrix, this sees the Fourth Doctor stuck in a dreamlike landscape, where, as in a nightmare, he gets his foot stuck in a rail and finds himself about to be crushed by an onrushing model train, driven by a sinister figure wearing a gas mask. The direction is the hero here, making the surreal images seem connected and horribly logical and giving real urgency to the Doctor’s imaginary peril.

The ‘Master In Disguise’ Cliffhanger: “Utopia”
- as mentioned in the intro, before this week this was as good as New Who got for its episode ends. They hammered it home a bit, but the “oh look it’s the Master” cliffhanger had never, ever been done well before in what seemed like a grillion old series tries, so they can be forgiven for going a little over the top. And the actual cliffhanger - stuck at the end of time with the TARDIS stolen - is pretty good too!

The Dalek Cliffhanger: Power Of The Daleks Part 2
- most Dalek episode-ends tend to just be some Daleks going “Exterminate!”. There’s nothing wrong with this as a climax really - it’s what Daleks do, after all - but the best ever Dalek cliffhanger is from this Second Doctor story. The Doctor has found an obscure Earth colony planet, struggling for resources, which has happened on a stroke of real luck - faithful and tireless robot servants they’ve salvaged from a crashed ship. We know, and the Doctor knows, that these servants are Daleks, but as the Doctor tries to warn the colonists the Daleks drown him out with an ever-rising chorus of “We! Are! Your! Ser-vants!”.

The Cyberman Cliffhanger: Tomb Of The Cybermen Part 2
- most Cybermen cliffhangers are just marching cybermen: again, a Second Doctor story used them best, the cyber-leader’s flatly inhuman “You belong to us. You will be like us.” both summing up the monsters’ USP and sounding really horrible and scary.

The NOES DONT DO THAT Cliffhanger: The Daemons Episode 1
- a lot of great cliffhangers rely on the Doctor trying to prevent some human or other doing a really really stupid thing. Often, as here, he fails. The Daemons spends its entire first episode building up to the stupid thing, in loving detail - some nice meta-television with the BBC interviewing locals and archaeologists about a (doomed, imminent) dig, the Third Doctor gradually realising that something is very very wrong. Will he prevent the human fools from unleashing forces they can’t possibly understand? Come off it.

The Next Episode Trailer Special Bonus Cliffhanger: “Bad Wolf” - instead of cliffhangers New Who has the “Next….” trailer, which was clumsily used at first, often revealing too much or getting in the way of the previous story. The trailer at the end of “Bad Wolf”, coming after a servicable ZOMG Daleks finish, was much better - a bonus extra cliffhanger, really, the booming “THEY SURVIVED THROUGH ME” at the end pitching fans into a world of speculation they hadn’t even known existed.

All of this is in some way an excuse for liking “the already decided to be a flop” Speed Racer. It is a film whose colour palate comes from a Crayola box (apt with its own crayon based animation scenes at the start). It is an expensive folly from start to end, a five-year-olds Heaven’s Gate in many ways. Because whilst I really rather enjoyed the relentless kineticism of the film, and its naïve stabs at doing live-action anime, I cannot see what the market was for it. Of course attacking a film for a lack of a market, when the film itself is really rather chirpy and fun (albeit too long) is the kind of thing that a capitalistic critical industry can happily do now. But artistically Speed Racer is almost 100% successful. It manages to create a consistent alternate universe, convince its audience of its internal rules, and throw in some dazzling cinema in the process. Its story may be simplistic, but considering its source material it doesn’t feel simplistic or even particularly stupid. As a film bemoaning the effects of big business in sport it is considerably more successful that Leatherheads, and is aimed at people who may not already know it.

What was also interesting was that despite the film being based on a source material that I know nothing about (Speed Racer anime), it didn’t matter. Partially as the storyline is pretty simplistic to allow general knowledge of anime tropes to explain away the particularly extended family. But more importantly the film has another source material. That is of a five year old child playing with matchbox cars on his own. The cars have personalities, they do unrealistic jumps, drive up the walls etc. Why have cars which can only do what real cars to. Who wants to see the traffic jam movie?

But bear in mind what I said about the Wizard Of Oz, and that I also have a real affection for heroic failures too. I saw Speed Racer a week and a half after it was released in a major London cinema, in the evening, with two other people. I don’t think I have been in that cinema with so few people, and I have seen some godawful stinkers in there. And yet my main reaction at the end was of glee for a self contained, piece of sythesized cinema. Actors, effects, monkeys, anime and cinema in motion. It may all be in the service of a pretty dumb project, but sometimes you have to sit back and let the cinema drive. Sometimes down a yellow brick road, sometimes on a three dimensional dayglo racetrack.

*There is nothing at all Christmassy about The Wizard Of Oz, unless you count the munchkins as some sort of elves. But when you consider the subtext of the wizard behind the curtain being your parents pretending to be this mythical all powerful gift giver Santa Claus, suddenly the film seems rather apt.

All of this is in some way an excuse for liking “the already decided to be a flop” Speed Racer. It is a film whose colour palate comes from a Crayola box (apt with its own crayon based animation scenes at the start). It is an expensive folly from start to end, a five-year-olds Heaven’s Gate in many ways. Because whilst I really rather enjoyed the relentless kineticism of the film, and its naïve stabs at doing live-action anime, I cannot see what the market was for it. Of course attacking a film for a lack of a market, when the film itself is really rather chirpy and fun (albeit too long) is the kind of thing that a capitalistic critical industry can happily do now. But artistically Speed Racer is almost 100% successful. It manages to create a consistent alternate universe, convince its audience of its internal rules, and throw in some dazzling cinema in the process. Its story may be simplistic, but considering its source material it doesn’t feel simplistic or even particularly stupid. As a film bemoaning the effects of big business in sport it is considerably more successful that Leatherheads, and is aimed at people who may not already know it.

What was also interesting was that despite the film being based on a source material that I know nothing about (Speed Racer anime), it didn’t matter. Partially as the storyline is pretty simplistic to allow general knowledge of anime tropes to explain away the particularly extended family. But more importantly the film has another source material. That is of a five year old child playing with matchbox cars on his own. The cars have personalities, they do unrealistic jumps, drive up the walls etc. Why have cars which can only do what real cars to. Who wants to see the traffic jam movie?

But bear in mind what I said about the Wizard Of Oz, and that I also have a real affection for heroic failures too. I saw Speed Racer a week and a half after it was released in a major London cinema, in the evening, with two other people. I don’t think I have been in that cinema with so few people, and I have seen some godawful stinkers in there. And yet my main reaction at the end was of glee for a self contained, piece of sythesized cinema. Actors, effects, monkeys, anime and cinema in motion. It may all be in the service of a pretty dumb project, but sometimes you have to sit back and let the cinema drive. Sometimes down a yellow brick road, sometimes on a three dimensional dayglo racetrack.

*There is nothing at all Christmassy about The Wizard Of Oz, unless you count the munchkins as some sort of elves. But when you consider the subtext of the wizard behind the curtain being your parents pretending to be this mythical all powerful gift giver Santa Claus, suddenly the film seems rather apt.

Vine is just a twat. No, sorry that’s a bit harsh. ON TWATS. Sorry, I still haven’t recovered from this bit of footage which was on at about 1am last night. Results were slowly rolling in, a little bit of punditry had happened and then Dimbleby suggested they go over to Vine who had something that he thought Charles Kennedy (a guest) might like. Now I know a lot has been said about Charles Kennedy over the last few years, but I believe nothing more insulting than the fact that he might like this:

Jeremy Vine explaining the position of the Lib Dem leader via the medium of a roboticised Clegg doing a tin can shootout in a Western Saloon. (Make sure you restrain yourself before clicking through and have nothing with which to gouge your own eyes and ears out).

You have been warned about the link. Clearly Vine, his script writer, the graphics producer and potentially his accent coach have all colluded to make the dumbest three minutes of election coverage I have ever seen. If there were using the Peter Snow model of graphics making something more accessible to the layman, they are clearly assuming the layman lives in Deadwood, has a bizarre US accent and can only understand percentages via the amount a tin can will jump when shot. I was preying that robo-Clegg would shoot Vine instead. No, this was an all time low for election coverage: and that includes David Dimbleby interviewing Don King for the last US presidential election. Or indeed a previous insult from Vine to the Lib Dems via the medium of Mings Bling. For shame BBC, for shame.

Vine is just a twat. No, sorry that’s a bit harsh. ON TWATS. Sorry, I still haven’t recovered from this bit of footage which was on at about 1am last night. Results were slowly rolling in, a little bit of punditry had happened and then Dimbleby suggested they go over to Vine who had something that he thought Charles Kennedy (a guest) might like. Now I know a lot has been said about Charles Kennedy over the last few years, but I believe nothing more insulting than the fact that he might like this:

Jeremy Vine explaining the position of the Lib Dem leader via the medium of a roboticised Clegg doing a tin can shootout in a Western Saloon. (Make sure you restrain yourself before clicking through and have nothing with which to gouge your own eyes and ears out).

You have been warned about the link. Clearly Vine, his script writer, the graphics producer and potentially his accent coach have all colluded to make the dumbest three minutes of election coverage I have ever seen. If there were using the Peter Snow model of graphics making something more accessible to the layman, they are clearly assuming the layman lives in Deadwood, has a bizarre US accent and can only understand percentages via the amount a tin can will jump when shot. I was preying that robo-Clegg would shoot Vine instead. No, this was an all time low for election coverage: and that includes David Dimbleby interviewing Don King for the last US presidential election. Or indeed a previous insult from Vine to the Lib Dems via the medium of Mings Bling. For shame BBC, for shame.

Of course the show trades on its mysteries, though the web of unexplained nonsense is so tangled that I believe nothing coherent will really come out of it (its at least one persons dream*). But this has been further confirmed by USA Today running a competition for viewers to submit what they think is going on to the producers to be graded. They are also voted on in popularity by the readers too. Some of the theories are said to be “very close to the actual plot”.

Now hold on. There are two transparent reasons for running this competition, neither of which bode well for the ongoing series.

a) That the producers have a few various ways they want to go, and are faking entries so the audience can grade the ones they like the best without giving anything away.

Or much more likely

b) Lost nerds have a much better grasp of everything that is happening, and are much more likely to make up some convoluted but basically sound final plot which would at least satisfy those of us who have been watching it from day one. And are a lot cheaper than writers. It also seems to be the best way out of a massive hole (some say research station) that the producers have dug themselves into with its nonsense plots.

*My money is on the Polar Bear.

Of course the show trades on its mysteries, though the web of unexplained nonsense is so tangled that I believe nothing coherent will really come out of it (its at least one persons dream*). But this has been further confirmed by USA Today running a competition for viewers to submit what they think is going on to the producers to be graded. They are also voted on in popularity by the readers too. Some of the theories are said to be “very close to the actual plot”.

Now hold on. There are two transparent reasons for running this competition, neither of which bode well for the ongoing series.

a) That the producers have a few various ways they want to go, and are faking entries so the audience can grade the ones they like the best without giving anything away.

Or much more likely

b) Lost nerds have a much better grasp of everything that is happening, and are much more likely to make up some convoluted but basically sound final plot which would at least satisfy those of us who have been watching it from day one. And are a lot cheaper than writers. It also seems to be the best way out of a massive hole (some say research station) that the producers have dug themselves into with its nonsense plots.

*My money is on the Polar Bear.

ii: viz that i (and all viewers) have to endure jacques peretti constantly concluding that “no one can possibly know what really happened” ftb HE THE GREAT JACQUES PERETTI cannot get someone to confess all on-camera after a rigorous interrogation of duration 23 seconds

iii: to be fair the depth of JP’s bad faith is by no means of broomfieldian dimension, and he spent a fair part of the show angst-ing at the awfulness of it all: which if yr generous you can interpret as “i JP am ashamed of myself for plunging this low”

iiia: but basic rule — jacques if yr ashamed of yrself DON’T DO IT

iv: i tht JP’s “investigative” docs on michael jackson and heather mills were more or less on the right side of OK; in the sense that, denied access by MJ and HM, he nonetheless took care to weave a convincing motivational drive for the vilified objects of investigation that wasn’t the patented broomfieldian manipulative bumble-gotcha: what MB does is orchestrate a deliberately clumsy request for interview or access, and then present its being turned down as evidence of Sinister Goings-On; NB’s faux ineptness — cast as an ordinary-bloke innocence of the “working of the system” — is subtly managed so as produce faux-guilty responses —> eg the target, on the spot on camera, tries to slam the door on the doorstepping foot, looking shifty or worse; by contrast JP was willing to allow that MJ and HM might have very good reason indeed to want to keep unscheduled confrontation at bay, reason that fell a long way short of circumstantial proof of guilt

v: in the barrymore doc — possibly bcz someone actually died, greatly upping the stakes — and possibly bcz he was unable to imagine what drives barrymore, no such atttempted fairness emerged, which leaves the entire manipulative broomfieldian machinery
exposed

va: the conceit of this type of doc is that 1: (a given) the proper authorities have screwed up or are covering up, 2: so call in the doughty untrained amateur! cz only his up-until-yesterday utter disinterest can possibly ensures he is not invested in a particular outcome; 3: all prior knowledge of case or demonstration of professional journalistic expertise (nay competence) merely goes to invested interests, hence 4: new (or “new”) information must appear to arrive in real-time, with the doc structured as a sequence of cliffhangers (this last also of course a response to remote-control short-attention-span culture); 5: these pseudo-cliffhangers can often only be presented as baffling mysteries IF you pre-assume something stupid and/or reactionary abt “what ppl are like”; 6: which if you are ACTUALLY reactionary or stupid you will probably present upfront, no harm no foul (or anyway less harm, less foul); 7: but if you are posing as an everyman innocent, disinterested sekker-after-truth, you will almost certainly have to slip in disguised

vi: anyway the gap in the MB doc was between the actual revelation of interest (and to his credit JP spotted it and clearly WAS interested, see vii) and the pseudo-revelation-as-final-GASPO!-cliffhanger, which was that “OMG the police may not have closed this case after all — stayed tuned for exciting documentary sequels”

vii: “the actual revelation of interest” — that an MB drug-and-sex party was not at all the vast sinister eyes-wide-shut power-perviness ritual of overheated tabloid hopes, but a depressively awful little bottle-and-bong back to mine w.local essex estate lads and ladettes randomly picked up at the nearest crappy club: not out of predatory intent, but rather “my kind of people” (MB’s showbiz motto) invited into this massively unhappy and self-isolated man’s home in the hope that they — as per ideology? (that sounds far too glibly zizek-ish BUT barrymore’s misery is nevertheless obviously locked into a species of idealistic quasi-political co-dependency) — magically deliver him back to heartsease, as the life-and-soul-of-the-anti-metropolitan-anti-light-etertainment-establishment party

viii: the follow-on insight — also apparent in jon ronson’s also-flawed doc on jonathan king some years back — is that the essex lads and ladettes in question, far from being at unbiddable bulldog-breed salt-of-the-earth distant from pervy luvvie shenanigans are A: as chuckleheadedly star-struck as any of the rest of us (where “i’ve met [legend X]” morphs in our ambition-centre into “i’m ON MY WAY to legendhood myself”); B: at the same time by contrast as pruriently fascinated by us (the doc viewers) in the lame and ordinary off-camera behaviour of the rick and famous; C: quite possibly up to test their own experimental polymorphous limits when these present themselves apparently uncomplicatedly, as part-and-parcel of a kind of surreal jumpdoor out of the quotidian smalltownboy prison of essex het humdrum (translation: “i’m not gay no but YES OF COURSE I’D FUCK [legend x] IF THEY SOUGHT ME OUT ON MY OWN PATCH AND OFFERED ME A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME-ADVENTURE”)

ix: point of above being not that any of it should be counter-assumed as non-stupid non-reactionary fact, but that this story provides a tag to explore such pregnant no-one’s-as-straight-as-that material: not least bcz a gay barrymore as-is is SUCH a weird and interesting problem for GAY CULTURE AS-IS, and the meeting point of these two apparently far-flung milieus (essex heartland; camp central) crackles with unsettling possibility… (haha situationist cliffhanger: “nothing is as pat as it seems — stayed tuned for exciting overthrow-of-everything sequels”)

x: actual JP follow-up — AMY WINEHOUSE — XO
JP: “i am absolutely mystified why she fell over after she came out of that pub… SEE AFTER BREAK FOR CLUE TO BAFFLING FELL-OVER-OUTSIDE-PUB SHOCKER”

ii: viz that i (and all viewers) have to endure jacques peretti constantly concluding that “no one can possibly know what really happened” ftb HE THE GREAT JACQUES PERETTI cannot get someone to confess all on-camera after a rigorous interrogation of duration 23 seconds

iii: to be fair the depth of JP’s bad faith is by no means of broomfieldian dimension, and he spent a fair part of the show angst-ing at the awfulness of it all: which if yr generous you can interpret as “i JP am ashamed of myself for plunging this low”

iiia: but basic rule — jacques if yr ashamed of yrself DON’T DO IT

iv: i tht JP’s “investigative” docs on michael jackson and heather mills were more or less on the right side of OK; in the sense that, denied access by MJ and HM, he nonetheless took care to weave a convincing motivational drive for the vilified objects of investigation that wasn’t the patented broomfieldian manipulative bumble-gotcha: what MB does is orchestrate a deliberately clumsy request for interview or access, and then present its being turned down as evidence of Sinister Goings-On; NB’s faux ineptness — cast as an ordinary-bloke innocence of the “working of the system” — is subtly managed so as produce faux-guilty responses —> eg the target, on the spot on camera, tries to slam the door on the doorstepping foot, looking shifty or worse; by contrast JP was willing to allow that MJ and HM might have very good reason indeed to want to keep unscheduled confrontation at bay, reason that fell a long way short of circumstantial proof of guilt

v: in the barrymore doc — possibly bcz someone actually died, greatly upping the stakes — and possibly bcz he was unable to imagine what drives barrymore, no such atttempted fairness emerged, which leaves the entire manipulative broomfieldian machinery
exposed

va: the conceit of this type of doc is that 1: (a given) the proper authorities have screwed up or are covering up, 2: so call in the doughty untrained amateur! cz only his up-until-yesterday utter disinterest can possibly ensures he is not invested in a particular outcome; 3: all prior knowledge of case or demonstration of professional journalistic expertise (nay competence) merely goes to invested interests, hence 4: new (or “new”) information must appear to arrive in real-time, with the doc structured as a sequence of cliffhangers (this last also of course a response to remote-control short-attention-span culture); 5: these pseudo-cliffhangers can often only be presented as baffling mysteries IF you pre-assume something stupid and/or reactionary abt “what ppl are like”; 6: which if you are ACTUALLY reactionary or stupid you will probably present upfront, no harm no foul (or anyway less harm, less foul); 7: but if you are posing as an everyman innocent, disinterested sekker-after-truth, you will almost certainly have to slip in disguised

vi: anyway the gap in the MB doc was between the actual revelation of interest (and to his credit JP spotted it and clearly WAS interested, see vii) and the pseudo-revelation-as-final-GASPO!-cliffhanger, which was that “OMG the police may not have closed this case after all — stayed tuned for exciting documentary sequels”

vii: “the actual revelation of interest” — that an MB drug-and-sex party was not at all the vast sinister eyes-wide-shut power-perviness ritual of overheated tabloid hopes, but a depressively awful little bottle-and-bong back to mine w.local essex estate lads and ladettes randomly picked up at the nearest crappy club: not out of predatory intent, but rather “my kind of people” (MB’s showbiz motto) invited into this massively unhappy and self-isolated man’s home in the hope that they — as per ideology? (that sounds far too glibly zizek-ish BUT barrymore’s misery is nevertheless obviously locked into a species of idealistic quasi-political co-dependency) — magically deliver him back to heartsease, as the life-and-soul-of-the-anti-metropolitan-anti-light-etertainment-establishment party

viii: the follow-on insight — also apparent in jon ronson’s also-flawed doc on jonathan king some years back — is that the essex lads and ladettes in question, far from being at unbiddable bulldog-breed salt-of-the-earth distant from pervy luvvie shenanigans are A: as chuckleheadedly star-struck as any of the rest of us (where “i’ve met [legend X]” morphs in our ambition-centre into “i’m ON MY WAY to legendhood myself”); B: at the same time by contrast as pruriently fascinated by us (the doc viewers) in the lame and ordinary off-camera behaviour of the rick and famous; C: quite possibly up to test their own experimental polymorphous limits when these present themselves apparently uncomplicatedly, as part-and-parcel of a kind of surreal jumpdoor out of the quotidian smalltownboy prison of essex het humdrum (translation: “i’m not gay no but YES OF COURSE I’D FUCK [legend x] IF THEY SOUGHT ME OUT ON MY OWN PATCH AND OFFERED ME A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME-ADVENTURE”)

ix: point of above being not that any of it should be counter-assumed as non-stupid non-reactionary fact, but that this story provides a tag to explore such pregnant no-one’s-as-straight-as-that material: not least bcz a gay barrymore as-is is SUCH a weird and interesting problem for GAY CULTURE AS-IS, and the meeting point of these two apparently far-flung milieus (essex heartland; camp central) crackles with unsettling possibility… (haha situationist cliffhanger: “nothing is as pat as it seems — stayed tuned for exciting overthrow-of-everything sequels”)

x: actual JP follow-up — AMY WINEHOUSE — XO
JP: “i am absolutely mystified why she fell over after she came out of that pub… SEE AFTER BREAK FOR CLUE TO BAFFLING FELL-OVER-OUTSIDE-PUB SHOCKER”

Where P-2 is a dodgy two handed horror thriller film coming out this weekend. Staring Rachel Nichols (who I quite liked in Alias), it is a mash-up of a survival horror flick and Die Hard Inna - where the Inna is a parking garage. Level P2 no less hence the name of the film. Whilst I doubt it will be much good, I fancy a slightly brutal horror where the female lead uses her brains to get out of the situation. (And you can’t begrudge a film with such an awesomely stupid tagline: “The only thing more terrifying than being alone, is discovering you’re not.”

And P3 is the new Portishead album. Which I have to say I was in no way interested in at all, until I heard two tracks, and Matos has - in this AV Club review managed to write the sentence which piqued my interest. “The triumph of Third is that it sounds exactly like Portishead and nothing like trip-hop.” I liked Portishead, didn’t everyone until the inevitable dinner party music issue came up, but if there was ever a band whose sound was so crystalised that you never needed to buy another album by them, it was them. And clearly they have taken their time to work their way through it (and make nasty clanking noises in the meantime).

So find me a P1 why doncha?

Where P-2 is a dodgy two handed horror thriller film coming out this weekend. Staring Rachel Nichols (who I quite liked in Alias), it is a mash-up of a survival horror flick and Die Hard Inna - where the Inna is a parking garage. Level P2 no less hence the name of the film. Whilst I doubt it will be much good, I fancy a slightly brutal horror where the female lead uses her brains to get out of the situation. (And you can’t begrudge a film with such an awesomely stupid tagline: “The only thing more terrifying than being alone, is discovering you’re not.”

And P3 is the new Portishead album. Which I have to say I was in no way interested in at all, until I heard two tracks, and Matos has - in this AV Club review managed to write the sentence which piqued my interest. “The triumph of Third is that it sounds exactly like Portishead and nothing like trip-hop.” I liked Portishead, didn’t everyone until the inevitable dinner party music issue came up, but if there was ever a band whose sound was so crystalised that you never needed to buy another album by them, it was them. And clearly they have taken their time to work their way through it (and make nasty clanking noises in the meantime).

So find me a P1 why doncha?

Brand’s schtick is being the erudite dandy. The juxtaposition between his look, his language and the way he uses his language creates a comic persona. Which was absolutely perfect on a strange phone in show like Big Brothers Big Mouth, a show where people ring up about the minutiae of a pretty unimportant reality TV show and this conversation is spun out into half an hour. A DAY. Russell was our guide, sharp witted, quick, clever but not condescending. With enough material to make the show work even if the guests and the phone-ins were rubbish, but equally enough generosity of spirit to take unscripted and run with it. He did not want to condemn the housemates, their dimwitted supporters or the rent-a-gob celebrities, but he was happy to let them do it to themselves. That was the clever Russell Brand we all liked.

But that’s not the Russell Brand the newspapers wanted. They wanted the rampantly promiscuous ex-heroin addict. Which is fine because Brand is happy being that too. Because he has to hold his hand up and say “that is me”, so he may as well make a joke about it (he is a comedian). But that Brand became the Brand we got, day in day out, because he suddenly wasn’t on TV every day but in the newspapers. I’ve not read his autobiography, I understand its amusingly written, but he only wrote it because he was being biographied every day and there was a market for him. Which got to the point of Brand suddenly appearing to be one of those celebrities for celebrity sake, a professional chat-show guest. (The fact that he and Amy Winehouse’s seemed to have symbiotic barnets like Brian May and Anita Dobson didn’t help). St Trinians as a film certainly did not want him there as anything but the cartoon version of himself, it was stunt casting.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall Brand does play a version of himself. But its a shy version, the version glimpsed at every now and then back on BBBM. You can tell he is comfortable in the role, and that the film-makers have allowed him a fair bit of space to improvise,a lot of the language is pure Brand, built into this surprisingly sympathetic character. But spending this relaxed time with him in character I remembered what I liked about him in the first place, and this role picks it up perfectly. For all the womanising, the ex-addiction, the over-exposure and the silly hair, Brand is actually quite a nice person. Or at least he is remarkably convincing when he plays one. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a fun film, with what we are recognising as the Apatow touches (ie its a chick flick for men). And it works because the film has a heart, surprisingly much of which is provided by Brand. The rest by the puppet Dracula musical.

*The best thing is its attempt to try and contextualise every characters behaviour, in as much as there are no bad guys, not really even any thoughtless people, just slightly flawed people in relationships. Then thrust into a sit-com plot with the usual contortions that requires.

Brand’s schtick is being the erudite dandy. The juxtaposition between his look, his language and the way he uses his language creates a comic persona. Which was absolutely perfect on a strange phone in show like Big Brothers Big Mouth, a show where people ring up about the minutiae of a pretty unimportant reality TV show and this conversation is spun out into half an hour. A DAY. Russell was our guide, sharp witted, quick, clever but not condescending. With enough material to make the show work even if the guests and the phone-ins were rubbish, but equally enough generosity of spirit to take unscripted and run with it. He did not want to condemn the housemates, their dimwitted supporters or the rent-a-gob celebrities, but he was happy to let them do it to themselves. That was the clever Russell Brand we all liked.

But that’s not the Russell Brand the newspapers wanted. They wanted the rampantly promiscuous ex-heroin addict. Which is fine because Brand is happy being that too. Because he has to hold his hand up and say “that is me”, so he may as well make a joke about it (he is a comedian). But that Brand became the Brand we got, day in day out, because he suddenly wasn’t on TV every day but in the newspapers. I’ve not read his autobiography, I understand its amusingly written, but he only wrote it because he was being biographied every day and there was a market for him. Which got to the point of Brand suddenly appearing to be one of those celebrities for celebrity sake, a professional chat-show guest. (The fact that he and Amy Winehouse’s seemed to have symbiotic barnets like Brian May and Anita Dobson didn’t help). St Trinians as a film certainly did not want him there as anything but the cartoon version of himself, it was stunt casting.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall Brand does play a version of himself. But its a shy version, the version glimpsed at every now and then back on BBBM. You can tell he is comfortable in the role, and that the film-makers have allowed him a fair bit of space to improvise,a lot of the language is pure Brand, built into this surprisingly sympathetic character. But spending this relaxed time with him in character I remembered what I liked about him in the first place, and this role picks it up perfectly. For all the womanising, the ex-addiction, the over-exposure and the silly hair, Brand is actually quite a nice person. Or at least he is remarkably convincing when he plays one. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a fun film, with what we are recognising as the Apatow touches (ie its a chick flick for men). And it works because the film has a heart, surprisingly much of which is provided by Brand. The rest by the puppet Dracula musical.

*The best thing is its attempt to try and contextualise every characters behaviour, in as much as there are no bad guys, not really even any thoughtless people, just slightly flawed people in relationships. Then thrust into a sit-com plot with the usual contortions that requires.

full size here

full size here

The key scene in The Last Mistress takes place just after a duel takes place. Our hero (telling this in flashback) loses said duel and has a serious chest wound. Argento turns up while he is being treated, steps in and savagely licks and pretty much fucks the wound. She then backs off and asks the barber surgeon if he will live. A nice snappy reply comes back, he has less chance now you’ve licked the wound. No matter to what extent this scene exists in the book (I doubt it) or in the script (possibly), but the essence of the scene completely comes from Argento’s on screen persona. The shock is inherent in how she does it, aggressive, petulant and always, always watchable.

She played a very different but equally unpredictable character in Transylvania last year, and has been playing such roles way back into the nineties in a number of languages (B.Monkey being a memorable example in English). And she is a true renaissance woman, writing, directing, knocking out the odd novel. Her imdb page is pretty packed for a woman of 32 - though one particularly wonders about the acting coach job on the Bruce Willis film Hostage. But there are very few actresses who I will pretty much seek out all of their work, and Asia has moved into that bracket. The Last Mistress is a fun costume drama, but I imagine very little outside the wound fucking scene will stick with me. But I think that scene will last a lot longer than most.

But can anyone tell me, whose maybe read the book, why its called the Last Mistress?

The key scene in The Last Mistress takes place just after a duel takes place. Our hero (telling this in flashback) loses said duel and has a serious chest wound. Argento turns up while he is being treated, steps in and savagely licks and pretty much fucks the wound. She then backs off and asks the barber surgeon if he will live. A nice snappy reply comes back, he has less chance now you’ve licked the wound. No matter to what extent this scene exists in the book (I doubt it) or in the script (possibly), but the essence of the scene completely comes from Argento’s on screen persona. The shock is inherent in how she does it, aggressive, petulant and always, always watchable.

She played a very different but equally unpredictable character in Transylvania last year, and has been playing such roles way back into the nineties in a number of languages (B.Monkey being a memorable example in English). And she is a true renaissance woman, writing, directing, knocking out the odd novel. Her imdb page is pretty packed for a woman of 32 - though one particularly wonders about the acting coach job on the Bruce Willis film Hostage. But there are very few actresses who I will pretty much seek out all of their work, and Asia has moved into that bracket. The Last Mistress is a fun costume drama, but I imagine very little outside the wound fucking scene will stick with me. But I think that scene will last a lot longer than most.

But can anyone tell me, whose maybe read the book, why its called the Last Mistress?

woman: excuse me do you know where albert square is?
p^nk s lord t: er d’you mean the real albert square or the one on telly?
woman: YES!
p^nk s lord t: ok but they aren’t the same! the one on telly isn’t a real place — it’s a film-set up in north london somewhere that they film on
anguished voice from deep inside car: what? but we’ve driven all the way from birmingham to visit it!
p^nk s lord t: ok well it is findable but it’s far from here and i don’t know the way
woman (despondently): ok thank you
*car drives off trailing collective thinks-bubble of baffled upset*
p^nk s lord t (thinks to self): oh dear i wonder if they meant fassett square — that’s what albert square is based on and it’s just round the corner

woman: excuse me do you know where albert square is?
p^nk s lord t: er d’you mean the real albert square or the one on telly?
woman: YES!
p^nk s lord t: ok but they aren’t the same! the one on telly isn’t a real place — it’s a film-set up in north london somewhere that they film on
anguished voice from deep inside car: what? but we’ve driven all the way from birmingham to visit it!
p^nk s lord t: ok well it is findable but it’s far from here and i don’t know the way
woman (despondently): ok thank you
*car drives off trailing collective thinks-bubble of baffled upset*
p^nk s lord t (thinks to self): oh dear i wonder if they meant fassett square — that’s what albert square is based on and it’s just round the corner

Anyway… COME DINE WITH ME. Last night’s was more than awesome. This show has grown — a day-time staple, it’s gathered celebrity editions, and now it comes in a new format. No longer a short show every day of the week covering 5 people — they now compress 4 people in to a one hour show. It’s a sensation. Well for something that’s come from day-time. (It even has a rip off version on the beeb hosted by Simon Rimmer who seems to be trying to be on telly every day of the week for an entire year.)

But then having established a regular format, with often witty and interesting people who occasionally come to verbal blows, it goes HAYWIRE. Remember that first edition of Wife Swap with the foul mouthed racist woman — it was well train wreck. This was much the same but written by Mike Leigh.

The point of the show, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is to impress strangeres with your culinary skill and hosting ability. Remember that.

We’re in Newcastle. (oh the shame of it all). And we have (mis)matched up a pompous Tory with aspirations to become an MP, a harpy, an oversize child and a quiet studious looking woman. Just guess who won? Go on. Run with that prejudice.

The Tory boy is Brian Moore. No not that one. This one reminded me of a less suave David Van Day. Throw away lines that were painful. Dinner-party question: “If you had a thousand pounds to spend, what would you get?” “Well I do have a thousand pounds…”.

For some reason Brian is making a point about cheap super markets and bought everything from Netto - intending to wow everyone with the sumptious 3 course meal and then reveal his secret. But he can’t keep his powder dry and blurts it out before the dessert. Which is a shame as the dessert is a killer - half bananas and tinned mandarin segments on a plate. Oh with squirty cream on it. “Check the website for the recipe” says the narrator (one of the ‘writers’ in Moving Wallpaper).

Brian does not get on with Brenda. Brenda has already explained, over the first meal of the week, that red-meat ‘isn’t digested it just rots inside you’. She later reveals that Brian’s meal has made her sick. A meal that she was augmenting with enormous quantities of Tabasco. Oh and extra fried chillies made for her on request. And she continues to mention this while they are eating another meal.

Brenda didn’t really like anything, managed to make faces at all the food presented to her, yet actually produced… well a very ordinary meal. The most uncomfortable meal I have ever seen on reality television. No on television full stop. Scripted drama has nothing on it. I might have to rewatch it to transcribe some of the exchanges. The studious lady and the overgrown child shrink into the background — ‘let it be over soon’ all over their faces. “Phenomenal” as Brian says. Repeatedly.

The drunk scoring and bitching in the cab on the way back from the dinner was just unbalanced. I actually had to stop watching at one point, from the pain.

Perhaps you have to have seen other editions to see how unusual and agonizing it all was. Nobody here seemed out to make any effort — like an extra filler episode with people pulled off the street at the last minute. These people had not thought “I have a killer signature dish and my parties are legendary, i should go on that telly show! Now where’s the application form”

The winner was the studious lady (Rebecca).

Indeed when you look at the similarities between Blair Witch, Cloverfield and [REC], the genre tricks of the camcorder film come into shaky autofocus. The camera, more than the cameraman, is a character (in [REC] it is rewound at one point), and built in lights and night vision features all come into play. A much more traditional first act is often in play too - perhaps to familiarise ourselves with the shakycam before the monsters kick in (the one move from Blair Witch is having actual monsters). But what suddenly hit me tonight was despite potential budget savings from the cheap equipment, there are almost always budget savings from a cheap, unstarry cast. Rather than splurge those Best Boy savings on Bruce Willis or Penelope Cruz, you get a bunch of z-listers.

The reason, I initially thought, was that the verisimilitude of the cheap camerawork would be destroyed by the lack of verisimilitude of a stars bridgework. No matter how good an actor, any star comes with baggage which destroys the idea of the everyman horror. Its one of the reasons why teen horrors can get by with their identikit casts, plus of course stars don’t get killed in the way you or I would ever get killed. But whilst this may make sense, I think it comes back to the finances. If a director has had to plump for cheap equipment, he is damned if anyone else on the set is going to be earning more then him.

[REC] is pretty good by the way, and shares at least one other excellent trait with its fellow films. It is brutally (word chosen on purpose) short, sharp and savage. [REC]omended.

Indeed when you look at the similarities between Blair Witch, Cloverfield and [REC], the genre tricks of the camcorder film come into shaky autofocus. The camera, more than the cameraman, is a character (in [REC] it is rewound at one point), and built in lights and night vision features all come into play. A much more traditional first act is often in play too - perhaps to familiarise ourselves with the shakycam before the monsters kick in (the one move from Blair Witch is having actual monsters). But what suddenly hit me tonight was despite potential budget savings from the cheap equipment, there are almost always budget savings from a cheap, unstarry cast. Rather than splurge those Best Boy savings on Bruce Willis or Penelope Cruz, you get a bunch of z-listers.

The reason, I initially thought, was that the verisimilitude of the cheap camerawork would be destroyed by the lack of verisimilitude of a stars bridgework. No matter how good an actor, any star comes with baggage which destroys the idea of the everyman horror. Its one of the reasons why teen horrors can get by with their identikit casts, plus of course stars don’t get killed in the way you or I would ever get killed. But whilst this may make sense, I think it comes back to the finances. If a director has had to plump for cheap equipment, he is damned if anyone else on the set is going to be earning more then him.

[REC] is pretty good by the way, and shares at least one other excellent trait with its fellow films. It is brutally (word chosen on purpose) short, sharp and savage. [REC]omended.