“Looking a little bit worried there Rex, like this might all be your fault…”

Hello Everyone :-)

Bit late on this but my weekend has been smattered with pub visits and other such procrastination, but we got here in the end. Torchwood is the order of the day today.

So, quick recap, people have stopped dying, the CIA has flagged Torchwood as connected and they’re bringing them to the US to get to the bottom of it.
We start this episode where we ended last week; Jack, Gwen and Rhys have been captured by Rex Matheson of the CIA. Gwen and Jack are forced onto a plane to Washington DC and Rhys is left in Wales with Anwen (cutest baby of the week award winner).
Meanwhile back in CIA headquarters Esther Drummond and Rex (Rex albeit unknowingly) are being set up by their own organisation because they know too much.

This wasn’t quite the punchy, action packed second episode I was expecting but I enjoyed it none the less. There is a lovely bit of ‘will they won’t they’ suspense when Gwen et al are on the plane, ripping it to bits to try and save Jack. It’s an excellent bit of writing by Doris Egan, as is the rest of this episode, come to mention it.

Thumbs up all round cast wise. Alexa Havins as Esther is infinitely more interesting than last week and she has the most amazing shoe collection.
Captain Jack takes a back seat in this one mainly because for the most part he's suffering the effects of arsenic poisoning. Not that that means he's dull (when could Captain Jack ever be dull?!?!) but he’s a little more reigned in. Gwen however is at her best. Eve Myles is great, I just love Gwen and this episode made me want to be her when I grow up. She starts tearing the plane apart trying to build a home made antidote to cure Jack and there is the well publicised smack in the face that she delivers to the CIA Agent Lyn Peterfield (played by Dichen Lachman who delivers some of the most ridiculous ‘villain’ faces I’ve ever seen) which is a definite ‘get in!’ shouting at the TV moment.

I must applaud Bill Pullman’s performance as Oswald Danes. I love Bill Pullman, to me he will always be President Thomas J. Whitmore from ‘Independence day’ (who delivers the excellent ‘we will not go quietly into the night’ speech), but in this he is truly creepy. He’s like the kid in your class who was always a bit odd and has grown up to be properly unhinged (my class had a boy called Daniel, he routinely used to put his head down on the table and start smacking his forehead against it and if we ever had food tech he used to linger that little bit too long around the knives). This episode also introduced Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose) the PR agent who is a bit savvier that she lets on. She and Danes look set to be a sinister double act of the highest order.

Arlene Tur is great as Vera Juarez the surgeon who operated on Rex in the first episode. Her role could have been fleeting but it’s a stroke of genius because she gives us an entirely new insight into the ‘Miracle Day’ and the implications that it has for the Human race.
It might be because I work in a healthcare environment but I think the whole medical subplot is great. Vera takes part in a forum of other doctors and medical boffins to discuss what the chuff is going on and how they’re going to deal with it. Vera is brilliant because she sees the bigger picture (something people lack in many areas of healthcare). People aren’t going to die so emergency admissions aren’t emergencies anymore; hospitals need to concentrate on dealing with minor problems quickly to free up room for people that need beds. She also has a brilliant epiphany about antibiotics and how giving them to people that can’t die is counter productive. In a show that is so clearly fantastical in its ideas these scenes really bring it back to earth and looks at the logistics. If this actually happened the medical world would have to radically reform itself and go from predominantly saving lives to pain management. It’s a really clever aspect of the story and I commend whoever decided to go with it.

I really enjoyed it this week. Nicely paced, mixing the plane drama with the medical stuff and what’s going on at the CIA. We were left with an excellent ending and plenty of questions. Who is Jilly? Why is Jack suddenly mortal? Who’s mucking about with the ‘Morphic Field’ (I love the names they come up with for this stuff!)? Why does Brian Friedkin (Wayne Knight, the one off of ‘Jurassic Park’ that gets spat at by that Dinosaur with the flappy head things) have it in for Torchwood? Who are the people in the masks we see in all the promo trailers? Hopefully some of those questions will be answered sooner rather than later but regardless, it’s still looking good for Torchwood!

Torchwood is back on Thursday at 9pm on BBC1 (it clashes with The Rattigan Enigma by Benedict Cumberbatch on BBC4, I’ve been waiting all year for that  and it clashes with one of my favourite shows, thank god for Iplayer).

I’m forgoing my ‘reasons to be cheerful’ today because last weekend was a tragic one by anyone’s standards.
The car bombing and subsequent shootings in and around Oslo, Norway on Friday 22^nd July claimed the lives of 76 innocent people. The gunman wasn’t (as so many ‘experts’ on rolling news channels claimed) from some Islamic fundamentalist sect, he was a native Norweigan with disgusting, far right, extremist views who wanted attention. The only encouraging thing to come from this is the demonstration of unity displayed by the people of Norway. The images of tributes left for the 76 and of people with roses stood shoulder to shoulder to remember the dead are some of the most moving things I’ve ever seen.
Saturday brought with it the news that the singer songwriter Amy Winehouse had bee found dead in her home.  I’ve heard a lot of people say since Saturday words to the effect of ‘she had it coming’ and ‘she only has herself to blame’. I implore these people, do some reading into addiction before you contribute this opinion to any discussion in which you may find yourself. Addiction is an illness and like all illnesses it needs treating properly and again like all illnesses, it is the sufferer that decides they need treatment. Unfortunately for Amy this realisation didn’t come soon enough. No matter what you thought of her, the world lost a musical talent at the weekend and two parents lost their daughter.
My deepest condolences are with the friends and family of the 76 and of Miss Winehouse.

Goodbye till next time :-)
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“The devil’s in the detail”

Hello Everyone :-)
You find me in a really good mood because Tuesday night was the beginning of the new BBC2 series ‘The Hour’.

The show is set in 1956 and follows Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) and Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw) trying to launch a new, topical news show. Bel is the Producer, Freddie is Home Office news and the presenter is Hector Madden (Dominic West) who Bel finds attractive. The story follows the interplay and between the news team set against the backdrop of Freddie's controversial and dangerous investigation of a murder that an old friend tipped him off about.

There are no points for guessing why I’m interested in this. It’s a period of time that I feel great affection for, I’ll watch anything with the faintest whiff of 50’s about it.

It was a good start; love the murder mystery edge to it. The characters of Freddie, Bel and Hector were pretty established by the end of the first episode as you would expect.
I’m a fan of Romola Garai from seeing her in the series ‘The Crimson Petal and the White’ and I think she’s perfectly suited to this kind of role. Bel is obviously career driven and has had to make her mark in a male dominated profession but also has a weakness for a man in a sharp suit and debonair smile.
Dominic West plays Hector Madden, charming, charismatic – a man clearly used to getting what he wants. West slips effortlessly into Hectors designer shoes. He’s not my cup of tea but I can see why Bel likes him.
The supporting cast are great, there’s a whole host of British talent.  The usually gorgeous Julian Rhind-Tutt plays a really slimy government official that made my skin crawl. Lix is played by Anna Chancellor (aka Duck face from ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral); she’s the hard-drinking foreign correspondent that cajoles Freddie into coming with her and Bel to the new show.
The standout for me was Freddie. Every time he was on screen he was all I could watch. Ben Whishaw has an amazing face, he’s so magnetic. Freddie practically fizzes when he’s talking about he stories they should be reporting, he’s just on the right side of bitter and who could not love a man with a floppy fringe, tweed suit and braces?

The producers must be rubbing their hands with glee; this show couldn’t have come at a better time. In a moment of pure serendipity the debut of this drama comes at a time when journalism and the extents to which journalists will go in pursuit of a story are at the forefront of the news. I think every viewer gave a knowing smile when Freddie slipped a policeman some money in order to get a look at the cadaver of the political academic Peter Durell. Add in the recent revelation that one of the whistle blowers in the current phone hacking scandal has turned up dead and this series seems to have a resonance above that of usual period drama fare.

Abi Morgan’s script (writer of the upcoming film/Oscar bait ‘The Iron lady’) is a bit uneven. It flips from witty and intriguing to unnecessary plot exposition. I think we’d worked out that Bel kicks ass long before Hector says “You work twice as hard as men, and none of them is half as good as you”. It’s hardly cause for massive annoyance but I’m of the opinion that if you credit your audience with a bit of intelligence (i.e. not signposting the plot points) your audience will appreciate your work all the more.

It looks lovely. The set dressers have done an amazing job, everything, even the scraps of paper on Freddie’s desk, looks like they were lifted from the 50’s. The clothes are also brilliant; the wardrobe department clearly did a hell of a lot of research because it all looks like it could be genuine.

It’s been compared to ‘Mad Men’ and as a fan of that show I’d like to say this isn’t a fair comparison. Not because it’s worse or better than ‘Mad Men’, it’s just very different. ‘The Hour’ is set in 1956 in the UK and centres on the employees of a news show; ‘Mad Men’ is set in America in the 1960’s (season 1 starts in 1960 and the latest season finished in 1965) and follows the exploits of a group of people that work in advertising. It’s different times, different people and a totally different feel. ‘‘The Hour’ is dark and moody and I think it owes more to film noir of the 1940’s and 1950’s than it does the bright shiny colours of ‘Mad Men’.  
Also how much pressure do you want to put on a show?!?! ‘Mad Men’ is one of the biggest shows of recent years and ‘The Hour’ is only just starting and comparisons like that are heaping massive expectations on it from the start which isn’t fair.

The first episode of ‘The Hour’ was punchy enough to elicit squeals of excitement from me. It isn’t running at breakneck speed; it seem to be pacing itself quite nicely, starting off slow and building up to a cliff hanger. Can’t wait till next week!

‘The Hour’ is on at 9 o’clock, Tuesday night on BBC2.

Now…

Reasons to be Cheerful
1. Eduardo Saverin has been to the gym! The trailer for ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ has been released and Andrew Garfield has buffed up! I totally love him. ‘The Social Network’ is one of my favourite films of last year, ‘Never Let Me Go’ is one of my favourite films of this year, prior to that I’ve seen him in the Channel 4 dramas ‘Boy A’ and ‘Red Riding’ in both of which he’s just amazing. I did find it a bit of a weird step from those kinds of roles to this which is undeniably Superhero, popcorn movie fare, but variety is the spice of life and I suppose he wants to diversify. I say good luck to him and OMFG check out his arms in that trailer *Rachel goes all jelly knee’d*! Also Emma Stone is my girl crush and she looks gorgeous as a blonde :-)

2. More Superhero movie news, the ‘Batman: Dark Knight Rises’ trailer it out! This is, without a doubt, one of the most anticipated films of 2012. In 2005 Christopher Nolan really showed audiences how good a superhero movie can be with ‘Batman Begins’, 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’ is the 8^th highest grossing film of all time and won a posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger so understandably the pressure is on for Nolan to wrap up the trilogy in style. This is obviously only a teaser trailer and my god does it tease! A fleeting glimpse of Bane! So excited!

That’s me done for today!

Goodbye till next time :-)
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New World, Old Faces

Hello Everyone :-)

Last night was the UK airing of the first episode of ‘Torchwood: Miracle Day’ called ‘The New World’.

We open in America with convicted paedophile/rapist/murderer Oswald Danes on death row about to be given a lethal injection. The injection is administered and complications arise as he convulses and the injection fails to kill him. Meanwhile, CIA Agent Rex Matheson (Mekhi Phifer) is on the phone to his colleague Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins) as members of US intelligence services have received e-mails simply containing the word ‘Torchwood’ which she discovers is a UK intelligence agency that has been shut down. Matheson has a car crash and is rushed to hospital where he survives despite the odds being against him.
We rejoin Gwen (Eve Myles) who has moved to the isolated coast of Wales with her Husband Rhys (Kai Owen) and daughter Anwen and lives in fear that someone will find her and try and restart Torchwood
Back in the US Esther visits Matheson in hospital and is told by the surgeon that no one has died that day and it transpires that the following day no ones dies either until it becomes apparent that there is some power at work that has stopped people dying. She does some digging and finds some archive information about the team only to be met by Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) who gives her amnesia drugs so she forgets about Torchwood thus keeping him and Gwen safe.

Naturally there’s been a bit of hype surrounding this new series. The fact it’s set both in the UK and America is a point of interest and the acclaim that the previous series ‘Children of Earth’ garnered makes me intrigued to see if they can replicate that success.

I like this episode. There is a lot of introduction, partly for the new characters of the Torchwood Universe, partly as a reintroduction to the characters from previous series but most notably it serves as a starting point for the show's new American audience. It definitely has an element of getting them used to characters, places and generally get a feel for the show.
It’s great to have Eve Myles back. I love Gwen; she is my favourite, female Russell T Davies creation. She’s initially cautious in this episode about her identity and people finding her but that doesn’t last and it’s made obvious that Gwen misses the days of Torchwood. Also I’m starting a campaign to get Gwen the ‘Kick Ass Mum of the year Award’ purely for the scene when she fires a Bazooka at a Helicopter.
Mekhi Phifer is quite good as the prickly, workaholic CIA Agent. It’s hard to sympathize with him and his injuries as he tracks down the remaining Torchwood members but I’ve a feeling he’s going to soften up as the series progresses.
Alexa Havins is a bit dull as Esther but you never know she might perk up a bit later on in the series.
Obviously the star of the show is Barrowman. Captain Jack is a fan favourite and seeing him on screen again is a joy. He’s introduced in a fantastic way, pure Harkness style, but his conversation with Esther is restrained and pensive which is nice because at the end of last series he was a right bastard (to put it lightly) so morally he’s had a lot to mull over.

I had some concerns about flitting back and forth from the US to the UK but it actually works really well. It’s good to see that this kind of shiz doesn’t just go down within a stones throw of The Millennium Stadium.

There are 10 episodes in this series and this one is very much a scene setter. That said there’s enough action and intrigue to keep you interested and I’m still enjoying the novelty of seeing old characters again. Hopefully next week will ramp up the action but for now, Jack’s back and it’s all looking good!

I think it’s about time for…

Reasons to be Cheerful
1. Ricky Gervais has responded to accusation of ‘dwarf cruelty’ made in The Sun newspaper. Ricky replied by saying
"Dear Sun, Ricky Gervais here. I object to your claims of dwarf cruelty on the set of my new sitcom.”
"I take their welfare very seriously and I even keep them in protective cases when they are not fighting." I love that! I mean the ridiculousness of the The Sun making these claims is mad, accusations of ‘dwarf cruelty’ in a show written by and starring arguably the worlds most famous dwarf actor???? Ricky, you are a legend!

2. This is possibly my favourite ‘Reason to be Cheerful’ in the history of this blog. Stuart Baggs the brand, star of the last series of ‘The Apprentice’ has a one man show at the Edinburgh Festival. I’m tempted to come home early from my holiday just so I can go and see the man himself wax lyrical about his “field of ponies”.

3. Hobbit News! Meet the dwarves Fili and Kili played by Dean O'Gorman and Aidan Turner who we’ve previously seen in the excellent ‘Being Human’. They look brilliant and it also answers the question of what are we going to look at now we haven’t got Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom; Answer – Aiden Turner :-)

4. A shed load of pictures of 'The Amazing Spiderman' have been released. I was dubious about the choice of Andrew Garfield to play the web slinger but after seeing these I'm quite excited. How gorgeous is Emma Stone as a Blonde?!?! Her an Garfield make a sickeningly beautiful couple. And yay Rhys Ifans! And yay Martin Sheen! Just a whole lot of Yay!

Just one final thing, there's a blog run by some of my friends that I've started reading and it's really good. I have little to no knowledge of Football (all my information comes via the yummy Dan Lobb from 'Daybreak' at about 10 past 6 in the morning so I'm never in the right frame of mind to give it my full attention) but I found all this genuinely interesting. They also have a highly amusing podcast to which you can find a link on the blog. Read it please!

That’s it for today

Goodbye till next time :-)
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Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

Hello Everyone :-)

Today we’re going hand in hand down memory lane. Let’s wander down about 14 years ago and pay a visit to my 8 year old self.

It’s November 1997. There’s a book out that my Aunty has read and keeps telling my Mum and Dad is ‘brilliant, it’s for kids but it’s for adults as well’. My Dad had been reading to me and my little brother for years and by this point we’ve gone through ‘The Hobbit’, all three ‘Lord of the Rings’ books and massive pile of Enid Blyton books so we’re in need of something new so Mum goes and buys this book.
We get through the first chapter and I’m hooked. It’s obviously fantastical but rooted in reality, like this really could happen. I think it took us two weeks (if that) to get through it and as soon as we’d finished I read it again by myself. The book was ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’.

My Dad read up to book number 3 to us and from then on I read them myself. I just loved them, everything about them, the characters (I think the Potter books first sparked my love of red hair), the places and the adventure. I can remember staying up all night reading book number 4 the day we got it so no one could spoil the ending for me at school the next day.
So I read and read, I cried and laughed and when the films came out I watched them all in the cinema.

That just about brings us up to date.

Tomorrow sees ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2’, the 8^th and final film in the Octalogy (yes that's a thing). I’ve tried and I find it impossible to be objective about these films, they’re just too much a part of me and my formative years to criticise. They’re not perfect, I’m aware of that, but I can’t bring myself to think they’re anything other than awesome (yes, even the first two).

I feel a bit weird about the last film. I don’t think it’s helped by the fact that I’ve gotten so used to film series’ going on and on, sequel after sequel and ‘rebooting’ and ‘revisiting’ and ‘reimagining’ and whatever else that it seems odd that something has a definite end.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to see it but I’m also a bit sad. I can’t help but feel like the posters are true and tomorrow ‘it all ends’. I’m sure I’ll feel differently when I leave the cinema and of course I’ll always have the books and DVDs to read and watch to my hearts content.
I’m probably going to cry but tomorrow I’ll be first in line at the pictures to see how it all ties up for the boy who lived.

It’s time for today’s…

Reasons to be Cheerful
1. The teaser trailer for ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’’ is out! I was never a massive fan of Guy Richie’s previous but ‘Sherlock Holmes’ was a total revelation. The inclusion of Stephen Fry, Noomi Rapace and Jared Harris in the cast is so exciting :-)

2. It’s a trailer bonanza today as Aardman animations release the trailer for new stop motion creation ‘The Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists’. The story is that The Pirate Captain and his crew of swashbuckling pirates attempt to beat his rivals Black Bellamy and Cutlass Liz in the Pirate of the Year Award. On their quest they battle Queen Victoria and meet a young Charles Darwin. The voice cast is AMAZING, Martin Freeman, Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek, Jeremy Piven, David Tennant, Russell Tovey, Ashley Jensen, Imelda Staunton and Brian Blessed! Due out on 30^th March, it looks like it’s going to be a riot!

3. There’s a new legal drama comedy series on E4 called ‘Franklin and Bash’. Recognize those faces? Of course you do! It stars Breckin Meyer who played Travis in ‘Clueless’, Mark-Paul Gosselaar who played Zach in ‘Saved by the Bell’ and 'A Clockwork Orange' nutter turned go to for eccentric authority figure Malcolm MacDowell as Franklin and Bash’s Boss Stanton Infield. The pilot aired last night and I really enjoyed it. It’s a fun little legal bromance story and it gets a thumbs up from me. ‘Franklin and Bash’ is on Thursdays at 10pm on E4.

That’s all I’ve got for you today.

Goodbye till next time :-)
x x x x x x x x x x x

Schools Out

Hello Everyone :-)

It was my birthday the other week and I decided to go to the pictures. My first choice was to go and see ‘X:Men First Class’ but alas that screen was broken so I had to go with what was behind door number 2, ‘Bad Teacher’.

‘Bad Teacher’ is the story of Elizabeth Halsey a Teacher that gets dumped by her fiancé and sets about securing a rich man for herself. Halsey is set on raising the money to get a breast augmentation because she thinks this will help her get a man. In steps substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) who is the heir to a watch making business and Halsey’s ticket to a cushy life. Meanwhile, Gym Teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) is trying to get Elizabeth to go out with him.
It transpires that every year the teacher with the class that scores highest in the end of year test gets a bonus and this pitches Halsey against Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), who wins this bonus every year.

It’s not a bad film but it’s not a good film either. I did laugh, but not a lot.

The problem is Cameron Diaz’s titular teacher. She’s less ‘Bad Teacher’ and more ‘Awful Person’. We’re supposed to find humour in her general badass-ery but I just thought she was horrible which doesn’t work when the end of the movie relies on you having some kind of sympathy for her, I wanted her to get her comeuppance.
She’s also not as funny as she should be. I found most of the laughs came from the supporting cast and not from the Halsey character which isn’t right. The name of the film is ‘Bad Teacher’; if the title character isn’t funny enough there’s something really wrong.

I don’t think its Diaz’s fault (I’ve seen her do comedy and do it well in things like ‘My Best Friend’s wedding’ and ‘Shrek’), I think it’s bad writing and bad direction. It was directed by Jake Kasdan and the screenplay was written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky which surprises me because they wrote some of the scripts for ‘The Office: An American workplace’ of which I’m a huge fan and usually has me in hysterics. I can’t say I’ve ever seen any of Kasdan’s work before and based on this endeavor I won’t be first in line for his next feature film.

On the plus side the supporting cast are great.
Lucy Punch is excellent as the outwardly happy, smiley Teacher who finds is hard to suppress her frustration with Halsey. You’ll probably know her as Eve Draper from ‘Hot Fuzz’ the girl who plays Juliet in the Sandford Am-Dram society performance. She was good in that, she was good in this; she looks like a promising comedy talent.
Justin Timberlake continues to add good performances to his filmography as Scott Delacorte. He plays the substitute as a holier than thou, new age prick and he does it very well. A lot of laughs come from his stupid self-righteousness and a ridiculous song he writes about Amy. I really enjoyed him but there is a moment during which he lost all of the allure that I had seen in him previously. Hopefully this will be re-established in his upcoming film ‘Friends with Benefits’.
I fell in a little bit in love with Jason Segel during this film. He’s funny, cute and the character that talks the most sense in the whole film. I really liked him and the ‘LeBron James/Michael Jordan’ argument between Russell and student Shaun is hilarious.

So it’s ok. Not as funny as it needs to be but it’s elevated slightly by some good performances and the fact I didn’t want her to get the guy is a flaw of the film’s design.
I’ll give it a D, must try harder.

So now let us look at today’s...

Reasons to be Cheerful

1. The trailer for The Inbetweeners is out :-) I love The Inbetweeners and I have a special interest in the film because the boys go on a boy’s holiday to Malia. I’ve been on a girl's holiday to Malia so I’m excited to see A) places I’ve seen/been in/been drunk in on the big screen and B) how accurate the film is in its portrayal of an 18-30’s type holiday because for my money the Inbetweeners paints a more truthful picture of being a teenager than Skins ever has done.

2. It’s nearly time for ‘Torchwood: Miracle Day’!!! Excited! It’s no surprise as a massive fan of Doctor Who I’m also mad about Torchwood. Tune in to BBC 1 at 9pm on Thursday 14th July to see Jack and Gwen back and kicking some intercontinental arse!

That’s it for today.

Goodbye till next time :-)
x x x x x x x x x x x x