It's been a hell of a long time since I posted anything on here, as Geeky Tom pointed out yesterday. Rubbish excuse, but I have been meaning to post for ages (I even started one on Pixar's UP a few months ago but got sidelined partway through and never finished). So to try and make amends, here's a bumper post on all the film and telly things recently viewed, in a not-very-concise-at-all manner.

First up - the latest Steven Soderbergh film, THE INFORMANT.


Based - loosely - on the story of real life corporate whistleblower Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), who discovers his agro-chemical company are involved in international price fixing. He turns spy for the FBI, but it becomes apparent over time that Whitacre is a fantastist (perhaps even bi-polar) - and not the most trustworthy of informants...

Damon is excellent as the moustache-sporting, lumpenly egotistical Whitacre, demonstrating strong comedic chops after honing his action hero skills as Jason Bourne. Soderbergh's eye for detail and careful production design lovingly re-creates the look and feel of a midwestern US office in the early 90s, making it seem every bit as historic to us now as the 1960s and 70s. Unfortunately, the satirical schtick only goes so far to make this an entertaining dark comedy, and Whitacre's unreliability as a narator and constant evasiveness make it difficult to engage as a viewer. There's also too much repetition of the central conceit, causing the movie to lag in the middle. Ultimately, The Informant is an exercise in style over substance, lacking a much needed bite of meaty drama.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a preview screening of highly-anticipated Spike Jonze feature WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Having read a couple of swooning reviews and an interesting feature on the genesis of the movie and the 8 foot tall puppets created by the Jim Henson Company, I was looking forward to this film a lot - perhaps too much. Hearing something's praises sung to the highest heavens does tend to create unrealistic expectations, and while I truly liked this undoubtedly bold, brave, singular movie, I didn't quite feel the sense of magic, of being transported and uplifted, that I secretly wished for.



Nonetheless, I don't have anything bad to say about this movie and it does achieve something really hard to come by in Hollywood movies - a true sense of originality and artistic vision. Max Records gives a wonderful, unreserved performance as 9 year old Max, riven with feelings, fears and impulses he can't fully express. The adult actors, from Catherine Keener as his harried single mother, to James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker and Catherine O'Hara who voice the astonishing puppets are by turns endearing and scary. And a special mention must go to the beautifully atmospheric music created by, amongst others, musicians from the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, The Raconteurs and Queens of the Stone Age.

Some have said Where The Wild Things Are is about childhood but not for children, and it's hard to see what young viewers used to live action kids' movies and animated family films will make of this. But it does convey the tumultuous and volatile feelings of growing up in way that does justice to Maurice Sendak's bestselling book, with no Disney-fied sugar coating to sweeten the pill.
Go see - and in the right mood, you might really feel the magic Jonze has laboured to create on screen.

This post has run away from me, but in brief then, TV I have been watching recently that you too should be watching:
E4's Misfits - acerbic, dark, funny, self-deprecating and very British;
Sky's Modern Family - best new US sitcom this year;
Glee (coming to E4 next year) - a mix of comedy, drama and musical that is original and joyous;
Mad Men - 60s set ad-men drama continues to scintillate;
Vampire Diaries (ITV2 in Jan) - chiselled teen vamps with enough lust and angst to tide you over til True Blood returns;
Fringe - mind-boggling sci-fi drama brimful of inventiveness;
The Good Wife (More4/C4 next year) ER alumni Julianna Margulies plays a woman who stands by her adulterous US State Attorney husband in this finely-crafted drama;
Flash Forward - it aint Lost, but it's getting better all the time;
V - loved the pilot, not sure I've been convinced by the subsequent three but will persevere.
Finally - it's not current but I've just finished The West Wing and it's now in my all time top shows. If you've never seen it, it's sublime - invest in the box set.

That's it for now...over and out.

What makes a good kids show? How about one that you can still laugh at now. A show which includes spitting image style puppets, "Jim Jam Ya Ha" and the guy from "Men Behaving Badly" -  the one that isn't "Bob the Builder". Let me introduce you to "Roger and the Rotten Trolls". One of the funniest children's shows since "Maid Marian and Her Merry Men".

Written by Tim Firth who recently wrote the script for Blackball and Calendar Girls. The first series won the 1997 Bafta for "Best Children's Entertainment Show" - indecently beating the "Ant and Dec show". I bought the videos at university when VHS was still the in thing.  We really were spoiled for great TV back when I was a kid.

Anyway sit back, relax and enjoy the first episode.

I was recently having a chat with my mum about Children's television. I was basically watching some of the toss that kids these days get peddled, and I said that I didn't remember TV being this bad when I was young.

And it wasn't. So I went out and found the proof.

I'm now going to show you some you of the shows that got me in to Sci-fi and made me the man I am today.

The Finder, also known as Finder Keepers.

This was on Channel 4 really early on a Saturday...or was it a Sunday morning? I forget now. However I was very young but I remember getting up really early to watch it every weekend. I'm not sure if I quite grasped the concept because I would have been around 8 years old.

Anyway this kid gets invited to participate in a game show in another dimension - nice huh? He has to find objects from the parallel world that have been lost in ours - to be in with a chance of winning a million pounds.

He has to cross something called the time barrier which is the thing that separates their would with ours. Clocks weaken the barrier and allow people to cross over. The strange one in the shopping centre seems to have weakened it the most because that's where all this shit goes down.

If you read some of the comments on youtube, a lot of people thought that they had dreamt this show. I thought I had too, apparently not though as here is episode 1, it's worth a watch. It really is a great bit of Sci-fi.

(Part 1)

(Part 2)

The Girl From Tomorrow

This was a BBC program. Watching it now; the special effects are terrible, but that doesn't really matter as it was made in 1990 which would have made me 7 for the people that are bothered.

In the year 3000 the world is recovering from 'the great disaster'. To better understand it they are travelling back in time to find out what happened. However a Mad Max style Criminal from the 2500 steals a time capsule when they come to visit in order to try and take over the future. He travels to the year 3000 but fails miserably and escapes with Alana - the main character - to the year 1990...woah. Considering I was 7 I can't believe I got this.

Alana must steal back the time machine from the Mad Max guy before it automatically travels back to the future without her.






The Odyssey

This is a Good-un...in fact I think I 'm going to try and find this on DVD.

This was another Channel4 early morning special. I love the concept of the show. I really want it to be remade, it could even be a film. Ok - I have hyped it enough - lets go:

Jay, the main character falls from a tree house and lapses in to a coma.

In the coma, Jay finds himself in another world. A world where none of the kids ever reach the age of 16. There are no adults so the kids have shaped the world on their own. I seem to remember that it resembled a fascist police state for some reason.

All the people from Jays life appear in his dream even his dad who he has decided he has to find, and is the key for Jay to get home.

Mean while in the real world his mum and his friends try to help him regain consciousness which sometimes results in the merging of the two worlds.

I found the first episode on lovely lovely Youtube.

(Part 1) 

(Part 2)
(Part 3)

I have missed a good few more out of this list on purpose because I'm going to do another post when I have the time.

It’s dissatisfying watching Dragon’s Den on Dave Ja Vu all day for two crucial reasons. The first being that instead of having a job and earning some money myself, I’m wasting my time watching the most sour-faced turds on the face of this stupid planet scowling and grumbling despite the fact that if one of them developed a brain tumor the size of a watermelon and put all their money on Eddie Van Halen winning the Grand National, they’d still be in a far stronger financial situation than me by tea time thanks to a life time of clever investments.



The second reason it’s sad is that all the romance has gone from the world of invention. I’m sure when Dragon’s Den was developed and in pre-production, everyone imagined that the contestants would be eccentric, white bearded old men who stink of piss, waddling up to the dragons to pitch their idea for a lizard powered bicycle that will carry a team of astro-men to Proximus Centauri and back in seven seconds. Well that’s what I thought it would be like anyway and it’s not. Every time a proper old school inventor does make an appearance from his shed to pitch a rain-proof washing line or gadget made from cogs and pulley’s they invariably get told to piss off back to the stone age and die.



The only ideas that get taken seriously are those conceived by some greasy little computer programmes student in a shit shirt who’s built a micro chip that counts money taken by slot machines or a micro chip that prevents file sharing or a micro chip that stops helicopters exploding in a ball of hilarious flames. The problem is that this is progress. We need all these boring little chips and programmes and the probably make the world – certainly the one we’ve created – a better place. It’s progress and it’s ever so dull.

So let us salute the mad old inventors who achieve absolutely nothing in their sheds and basements for soon they shall be a thing of the past like penny-farthing’s and codpieces.

Oh and one more thing. Dragons live in a ‘lair’. Lions live in a "den" - Pricks.