Micmacs a tire-larigot (2009)

And now by comparison a brilliant and beautifully designed French film!

Now here was a nice surprise from the library. A French revenge comedy that featured an ensemble of homeless circus-freak-types (strong man, contortionist, human, cannonball, etc.) and yet it was not in the least bit grotesque, as sometimes these things can be- I found the freaks in The Vampire's Assistant(2009), a shit American kids film, too much - no this film knew what it was from the beginning, it was a bit of light relief. It was sensitive and sweet and most importantly it was very French; heavy on the traditional slapstick and mime, wonderful assortment of character actors, surreal plot and fabulous design in costumes and mad machines- think Wallace and Gromit but it's real!

Very obviously from the director of Amélie(2001), so if you loved that but you're sick of seeing it now, try this one, it's got one up on Amélie for me, it had a political message: satire on the world's arms trade!

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009 ish)

I really don't know what the reviewers were talking about. I was expecting an embarrassing mistake, something a hundred times worse than the Brothers Grimm- which I cringed all the way through. Have the reviewers of Dr Parnassus seen The Brothers Grimm?!? Well, i've got news for you I thought the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was Terry's best film for ages! I thought it was really good! It's probably too early for me to tell if that's only because my expectations were so low! But I don't care. I really enjoyed it.

I thought the replacement actors all did brilliant jobs doing impressions of each other and of Heath Ledger and it worked seamlessly! It made perfect sense that through the mirror in other people's imaginations Heath would change into some ideal! Brilliant writing! And actually quite a tight story! Especially for Terry!

And I loved the ending! I love how Gilliam does that! Fuck you Hollywood! The star turns out to be shit all along!! Yes, I'm a Gilliam fan. I mean, come on, I'm an illustrator and I like funny. Obviously I'm going to be into him. For me this was a good attempt at compromise between the slight-Hollywood of The Fisher King and the brilliant originality of Brazil. The Brothers Grimm was far too Hollywood and was awful because of it. I really liked Twelve Monkeys. I think that was probably the most successful Hollywood-Gilliam compromise but I don't have it in my collection. I know the critics thought it was awful but The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is in my collection and absolutely one of my favourites.

Well done to Terry and Charles McKeown for doing a great job on this one considering! I particularly enjoyed the Jonathan Pryce part, quite obvious that if it was made twenty-five years ago Andrew Garfield's part would have been played by him.

Desperate Romantics (BBC2-Tuesdays 9pm)

Oh, so another thing I'm desperately obsessed with is the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (I'm so cool) though I've never been that fond of Rosetti- who seems to be the leader of the boyband in the new television series. The show is written by Blackpool creator Peter Bowker, who has dropped some clangers in his time so we weren't really sure what might happen- judging from the amazing trailer it was going to be great; Rafe Spall as Holman Hunt, Posner (Sam Barnett) of the History Boys playing Millais and some pretty boy playing Rosetti, David Bowie singing in the background, yeah! But how was it going to be done, surely not with Bowie singing all the time? (this is what Anna hoped for) No, thank god, no modern songs playing over the top, but thank god it is not too serious either! It is very good and very funny.

Rafe is a fantastic actor and does comedy very well (I hope he doesn't turn ham one day, remember when Timothy Spall was so good in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, and then he got famous and now he's a total luvvie? sigh, the good old days) Sam Barnett is super-duper cute as Millais and even though it's sort of a Posner-role at least he's finally getting a chance to play someone who's not gay! I can't wait to see him and Effie being all cute together- Tom Hollander is fantastically serious as Ruskin, this is also a great change for him, his memorable roles are always so typecast creepy little slime-buckets, he is the straight man and he does it with surprising depth! It's only episode one so I don't know, maybe Aiden Turner as Rosetti (formerly seen in that BBC3 Vampire/Ghost/Werewolf flat-mate show) will grow on me, but I found him sort of wooden and very over the top- it is possible to play a drunken reprebate without going into caricature you know...

Of course another joy for me watching this show is the feeling I reckon my whole family get when we sit down to watch University Challenge and they get twenty or so and I only get the music and picture rounds... I know what they're painting! I can guess what masterpiece they are suddenly being inspired to paint! I am smug.

Catch up on the iPlayer! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvyq2