Extreme Ops (2002)

Listen to this, this is the summary from the Radio Times and the reason why I set the video and taped this film:

"Mediocre action film starring Rupert Graves and Rufus Sewell. A group of snowboarders persue a war criminal."

And it did it's job; it passed an hour and a half with my father who is not happy unless he is in front of a screen (or at Lidl). It was as expected bloody awful. But sort of rewardingly bad, you know, we enjoyed the appallingly bad dialogue and bad acting, the overacting to compensate for the miscasting of Gravesy as an obnoxious American... and in general this very poor attempt at finding a suitable leading role for Rufus Sewell.
Ah, Roofy, you had such promise... But somebody blew it, you never got to be Heathcliff, and Heathcliff you were born to play. Yes, he is at his charming best when in period dramas, somehow his smouldering charm does not come across in modern settings, probably because he looks like an old painting, I know how you feels Roofy, I am in that same boat, we should probably just get married... I hate seeing him cast as bad guys, creeps and obnoxious wankers, that's what Hollywood thinks of him! What do they know?!
Anyway, in the end I was quite getting into it despite it being about something I have no interest in and it being so badly written (the last scene showed Rufus Sewell looking out of the window at his extreme-sports friends doing a wacky stunt on a train that happened to be passing his office at that exact moment, Roofy rolled his eyes and muttered: "Here we go again!") But then it just ended and all the bad guys suddenly died! It needed someone to come in and write a proper ending! Then I would have given it a nice average two stars instead of one. Pah!

Bright Star (2009)

This film does nothing for Keats' poetry at all. The few times that verses are recited they're recited by people who have hideously inconsistent accents. I was expecting more, damn it! I bloody love Keats and I was willing to try and overcome my dislike of Ben Wishaw to watch the movie of his life- well it wasn't the movie of his life, it was the movie of the last three boring years of his life.

And what a waste of Sam Barnett!! He comes in all jolly and we all shout "Posner! Hooray! There's going to be a song!!" and in the following scene there was a song- but effing Ben Wishaw sings it and we don't see Barnett again until the end when he spills a cup of tea over himself in the background in attempt to put some humour into the god damn film!

Charmless actors = charmless film.

I'm sure Wishaw will one day surprise me and be gripping, but I don't like him. And don't even get me started on how awful that Australian girl was as the lead. Ugh!

Matt Smith in Doctor Who (BBC 1)

I know the rest of the world was all sobbing because David Tennant's "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" Doctor was dead, but I was gung-ho for Matt Smith's Doc as soon as they announced him- well, half an hour before they announced him actually, when sitting around the dinner table with the family wondering who it would be, "J.J. Field perhaps?" my sister hoped, "Imagine if it was Lankenstein!" Said I.

Well, it was Lankenstein.

You see, my sister manages to fall in love with up-and-coming actors after seeing them in a local play or hearing them on the radio reading Book of the Week. We went all the way to Edinburgh to see David Tennant who had previously been seen as the creepy vicar in He Knew He Was Right and NOTHING ELSE in a play because Anna fancied him. Then he became world famous as Doctor Who and everyone loves him. Matt Smith Anna saw in Cast B of the History Boys original tour (he was Lockwood) and then heard him read God's Own Country on Radio 4 where he played a psycho-rapist who was fond of Heartbeat and had the unfortunate nickname of Lankenstein. Anna laughed at my flip prediction, she secretly hoped that Lankenstein (Matt Smith to you) would never become famous and she could marry him, so when he appeared it was shock, thrills and horror... Lankenstein was no longer hers, he was to be the nation's favourite alien. The Doctor.

And on Saturday we saw his debut episode. I thought he was bloody good. Instantly engaging, and throughout he was in no way cringy or sentimental- makes a change- well done, all memories of Tennant are erased, Lankenstein, you are The Doctor.

It was time for a young Doctor. Doctor Who is aimed at a young audience- get a life 40 year old sci-fi fans, this is obviously a kids show- Tennant had to go, It was good when he started, really good, because he was relatively young and he had Rose and Martha; twenty somethings that the audience could relate to. His final series with Catherine Tate lost it for me and I'll tell you why, kids don't want to watch two 40 year olds having adventures. Matt Smith and his young sidekick are exactly what the show needs, leads that the target audience want to be friends with.

Problem though (not for me, I loved all of it): Americans don't get Scottish accents. She's lovely and feisty and all but Doctor Who might just have lost it's American following. And another thing Americans like; shmaltz, Tennant was good but sometimes there was too much of that embarrassing sentimentality, *shudder* So American! Of course this was not just Tennant's doing, it was Russell T. Davis, now that he's gone we will have good well-written scary episodes of science fiction. I really look forward to watching the rest of the series.