2009-08-10

The English Patient

A few words. Not many. But they're necessary.

The movie 'The English Patient' is the antithesis of the movie 'Casablanca'. It says you can do anything for personal purposes. One's private matters are not just a 'hill o' beans' - they're more important than the considerations Rick Blaine recognised.

And that totally stinks.

There. That's it. Thank you.

2009-03-24

183 Days

What an utter - and typical - waste of money. Tuva Novotny said it was going to be a great series and was going to expose the 'Big Brother' shows for all their crassness. Would that it had been so. For the writers really copped out. They wrote an extremely slipshod trashy teleplay around the idea but rarely delved into what was supposed to be the subject matter.

You got to follow cute Tuva as the winner, a rich boy with gambling debts as the runner-up, then three other total losers. The point that the 'Big Brother' shows ruin their lives was hardly touched on at all: they were trash before they joined the show and they were trash after they left it. The consequence of the idea didn't even last to the end of the first episode.

The series started five weeks ago and ended tonight with a less than spectacular final sixth episode. The series got terrible reviews from the beginning but an honest appraisal had to wait until the final tally was in and one saw what these loser screenwriters had in mind - how they tied everything together.

They didn't bother. They started with a basic premise with five main characters and a starting point and just 'hacked' it out from there, ad-libbing as they went along with their writing, creating more and more unbelievable (and often detestable and deliberately gory) situations. Such as the rich kid chopping off his own toe and an egregious amount of gross gay sex (where sweet straight sex with Tuva was cautious at best). You have to wonder what kind of perverts actually wrote this - what deep dark secrets they carry around and only indirectly and inadvertently reveal in the writing. Not cool people at all.

It wasn't good. And what a shame for Tuva for she's truly a first class actor and human being.

2009-01-24

Suicide Rain

There's a place in the south of Sweden where it rains horizontally. Not at an angle - horizontally. People who are sent to the area often have to leave. They can't stand it. Rain comes right at you. Right in your face. You probably get paranoid. Why is this rain coming straight at me?

Where we are in our current 'paradise' it's been raining nonstop for ten days. Unbelievable. The combined weather forecasts give us a chance of partly sunny one day in the coming week.

It's time to ask for a refund and get out. This is bloody ridiculous.

2008-12-08

Eulogy

So she didn't make it. It was probably inevitable. She had a bit of a comeback but the sickness and above all the mad insanity and vitriol of the tweenies rooting for other acts seem to have taken the geist out of her. And wee Eoghan was playing game after game with her, crumbling her down. Now he's after Alex of course.

Enough of these dumb talent shows. Nobody really cares anyway. Simon said it all two years ago: Leona Lewis was the only person up to then who'd had any real talent anyway. And since then it's been your typical washout. Until this year.

Diana is not a technical singer like Leona. She does a lot of fancy stuff with her voice but she doesn't have a 'big' voice and she knows it.

But she's also the most original artist ever seen on any of these shows - including Leona. Brutalising this girl as people have done is unconscionable.

Gary Barlow wants to sign her. OK Gary. Do it. Simon says 'no thank you I can sign her' to Gary. So OK Simon. They you sign her. But one of you sign her. Now. And do the smart thing whoever wins her: hire on Cheryl Cole as her manager and mentor.

Cheryl Cole's got the X Factor.

2008-11-19

2008-11-15

X Factor: The Old Queens and the New Queens

If the X Factor is to survive another season Louis Walsh will have to go. He's already been kicked off once; Simon Cowell promised he would never be back; Sharon Osbourne tossed water on him on live television; he's a grumpy old man - a grumpy old gay man. He sits there in his own wee world, he knows he's under siege by everyone, he takes notes. Takes notes? Notes for what? You're supposed to listen to the music, not write your memoirs! But Louis does this as his 'tell' - he's trying to run from his embarrassment.

And he's so spiteful. And so mean. Almost everyone he's ever worked with hates him. And he has to continually wag his tongue at the other judges and remind them of how many hits his (former) 'groups' have had. He's not wanted anymore.

Sorry, Louis. Bye, Louis. Won't miss you, Louis.

Simon's over the hill too. More and more his repugnant arrogance is becoming yesterday's worst news. His excruciating caution in meting out compliments together with his unabashed delight in insulting people doesn't work anymore. And his taste in music is atrocious. He's the one had Robson Green record a horrifying cover of Unchained Melody; he's the one who chose Leon Jackson's painful holiday single last year. Simon Cowell doesn't have it.

Unfortunately the X Factor is his show so if he's not smart (and he's not) he won't be turning over his chair to anyone else.

Then we have Dannii Minogue and above all Cheryl Cole. The new queens of the X Factor. (Simon and Louis are the old queens.). Watch Dannii and Cheryl talk to the artists. Their eyes don't waver all over the place furtively as especially Simon has to do. They look them straight in the eyes, often with a big beaming smile. They encourage the artists. They don't revel in putting them down. They nurture talent. And particularly in the case of Cheryl Cole they know what people want and how to get their artists to produce it.

Watch the 'Man in the Mirror' clip below. But don't watch the singer Diana Vickers - watch Cheryl Cole. She's literally beaming at Diana and sending messages across all the time. Watch how Diana answers her.

Watch the 'Call Me' clip immediately below and see the close contact Cheryl has with Diana.

Watch the 'Man in the Mirror' clip again, particularly the introduction, and watch how Cheryl wraps her arms around Diana so protectively. Cheryl's found an even higher calling.