Is the world crazy or am I?

As I commented some weeks ago. Yogi Bear was yet to be unrecognisably mangled from its 2D cartoon form, into a 3D live action film by the hacks of Hollywood. Then I discovered this: Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake? Seriously? I couldnt think of a worse pairing, aside from maybe Russell Brand and Ian McKellen (and that's as the leads in ANY film, live action or no). Also in the case of the latter, does the presence of J.T. mean that Boo Boo is going to sing? I wouldn't put it past the producers to fit that in too.  Whilst I am pleased that I accurately predicted Hollywood might do something as misguided as a Yogi Bear live action film (note: I wasn't aware it had been approved as early as 2008, but then it wasn't common knowledge!), I really didn't want to be proven right!

They say lightning never strikes twice; they also say that only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change, begging the question who are ‘they’, and what makes ‘them’ so damn wise in the first place? All these questions were passing through my mind after yesterday’s German Grand Prix, where race leader Felipe Massa was ordered by his Ferrari team to relinquish position to Fernando Alonso, who went on to win the race. This of course bore an eerie resemblance to the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when Ferrari forced Rubens Barrichello to move over to let Michael Schumacher past. The Ferrari team has been an outspoken critic should anything not benefit the team in the sport, such as technical and sporting regulations, as seen this year when Michael Schumacher took advantage of a grey area in the rules at the expense of a Ferrari car. Now, I’m not saying Ferrari is always wrong when it comes to its bleating and blubbering that it’s been unfairly treated, the Schumacher case for insta...

Having been hard at work job hunting for the last couple of months, I have now progressed to the stage of getting regular interviews with prospective employers. This is also a brief excuse for not updating more regularly. I don’t know who I’m apologising to. Maybe it’s to me? In which case; I’m very sorry me. In other news, look! Burger King have just been reprimanded by the ASA for displaying a larger than life (literally) burger in one of its adverts. Misleading of course considering if, like me, you’ve been to Burger King, looked at the lovely juicy burger on display on the menu, and been disappointed with the flaccid, unkempt disappointment that is served up to you. That’s right I’m calling a burger from a fast food restaurant disappointment in the shape of a burger! What will the King have to say about that then? Also what’s up with the King? There is something unnerving, and yet cool about this self appointed, jolly old monarch that seems to like forcing his greasy wares ...

It’s no exaggeration to say that TV exists in a world of its own. But what happens when that world contains another world? Sometimes things can get very existentially confusing, although sometimes the result can be comedy gold. Today we look at some of the best TV shows within shows, to see what happens when TV becomes too reflexive for its own good. Children of Castor (As seen in Cruise of the Gods) "What's the point in being human, if we lose the ability to be humane?" Do you remember that weird cult series from the eighties, which had kids battling monsters in a post nuclear-apocalyptic world? You know the one with the cheesy lines and the incomprehensible plot? Well this is the ultimate parody of dystopian nineteen-eighties sci-fi. Also I am a particular fan of the opening sequence containing a doomed man screaming “I’m changing! I’M CHANGING!” due to the nuclear apocalypse described in the back-story. Albi the Racist Dragon (As seen in Flight of the Concho...

When I was young children’s TV occasionally dealt with the theme of children getting revenge on their parents. The gunge-happy Get Your Own Back was probably the most memorable, where disgusting brats who felt their parents had irreversibly wronged them - for trivial crimes like wearing a Wallace and Gromit tie to work - could deal sticky gungy punishment upon their birthgivers, whilst host Dave Benson Phillips ran around with his arms flailing, and screaming like a banshee. Well this is the twenty-first century and children today have tired of gunge, (aside from a brief revival during the dark times of Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow) so instead the spoilt gnomes have decided to ruin the family holiday instead of dunking their parents in gruel. Gimme A Break, fronted by Jake Humphry, is the result. The format works like this: The kids moan about what they don’t like about family holidays, so get to pick the rules for the next one. Not only that, but they also get to chose the dest...

T Mobile have been playing catch up to the highly successful Orange Wednesday two for one cinema promotion by teaming up with flagging video rental chain Blockbuster. The result has been a TV ad campaign where idiots from the public get to make their own (cheap budget) ad, advertising the sort of theme night they would host for their film night. Now T-Mobile has a long and proud history of making some really grating adverts; the flash-mob dance in Liverpool Street being a shining example of this whimsical communal bullshit. So in that way these ads are a continuation of the brand’s tradition. The people in the clips are eye-poppingly annoying, especially as they don’t look like the types that would have friends, and would sit at home alone acting out scenes from their favourite films with puppets made of their own faeces. Don’t believe me? Then watch this 101 lesson in psychotic behaviour . The woman is having a conversation with a home-made mannequin with a balloon head – and whic...

Good News! Top Gear is back! Everyone’s favourite car magazine show, hosted by three bickering children in the guise of middle aged men. This time we are faced with a new dawn as Top Gear becomes ‘more serious.’ A fact that the presenters repeated – probably to remind themselves, let alone us – that they have toned down the excessive sillyness that’s been seen in the recent series. Now don’t get me wrong as there is a lot to love about the OTT antics of Hammond, May and Clarkson, such as: · A chance to see men live out their craziest fantasies involving cars – like for instance car darts, racing a car against a train, build-your-own- stretch limos and, of course, the Reliant Robin Space Shuttle. · It’s like what Heston Blumenthal’s trying to do to food, but a lot more fun! · The director get’s to indulge in videographic opulence, as he throws about every artistic visual trick in presenting the actual car reviews, resulting in stylish and atmospheric li...

It’s not often I stick my oar into football related matters. But today I’m going to ponder on the upcoming England verses Germany match this coming Sunday. Now the England V Germany rivalry is something written into national football folklore in this country, and it’s a subject many English fans love to bathe in nostalgia about. Like there was the time we beat West Germany and won the world cup in 1966, and of course when we beat the Germans 5 -1 in 2001, and err… that’s about it – although we still try to brag for some reason, despite nearly always losing to Germany. Sadly the rest of the dewey-eyed nostalgia is made up of xenophobia, which tends to link into to old World War Two jingoism such as: the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ and ‘the Blitz,’ like everyone has suddenly forgotten 1945 was sixty-five years ago and not last week. Well, that is when we aren’t resorting to sillier stereotypes like referring to the Germans in terms of sausages, lederhosen, and sauerkraut; something I can actua...

Being an unemployed drain on the state as I am at the moment; I have found myself watching more and more daytime TV. It’s not a fact I’m proud of, but they say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Anyway, the sudden re-exposure to midday television has made me aware that there are rather a lot of online bingo adverts on during this time. Bingo in general is a game that confuses and infuriates me. Firstly the name conjures up unpleasant illusions of ‘bingo wings’ (the fatty rolls you get under your upper arms due to age or, more likely, being too fat) or annoying songs about illiterate dog owners . As for the game itself that just makes me think of a group of cackling, demented elderly women, sitting in a tacky dilapidated hall, staring blankly at their game cards whilst a fat bald man in a sparkly suit jacket reads off numbers in an annoying rhyming slang. As you can tell I’m not a big fan of the game. But now the old images of shabby old halls and overweight...

I guess it’s indicative of the fact that I am a bitter, twisted little man with a blackened soul, but I don’t like Glee. Yes true, it is the latest big thing on TV and is sweeping across the public consciousness like a cancer, but it’s something I just don’t get. I just see it as another sign that I’m a cynical bastard unable to appreciate things which are happy and joyous, but then that’s what working in media will do for you. Glee from what I can tell is an all singing, all dancing version of High School Musical, but is in episodic format. It’s the epitome of comfort food television, as it indulges people who watch it with sickly sweet kids, simple villains, and pop songs galore to bludgeon them into twee oblivion. The only thing worse would be if Taylor Swift and N*sync formed an alliance. I have never made it through an entire episode, mainly because the precocious bastards keep singing all the time. “You’ve missed the point!” you may cry, but that is the biggest flaw in the...

In recognition of the opening of the world cup this week the TV planners have been doing their utmost to schedule shows that would build anticipation. The zenith of which was a special Come Dine with Me, everyone’s favourite voyeur and fine dining miss-match which this week put on a footballer’s special where four ex-England players cooked for each other. The players chosen for this fusion of football and food were Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock (who was stretching the criteria somewhat considering he had only two international caps), John ‘Awooga’ Fashanu, Frank Worthington and Carlton Palmer. It was an eclectic bunch: considering we had the disgusting in Ruddock (who answered the door for some reason wearing nothing but an apron), the old in Worthington, the condescending in Fash (who seemed to think of himself as a street philosopher) and the stupid in Carlton Palmer (who masterfully deduced that a banoffee pie was a kind of pie). The concept at first did could conjur up some weird ideas:...

I found myself wondering recently why there has been such a fad for real life adaptations of cartoon series. The Flintstones, Dragonball, Garfield and the Chipmunks - they’ve all been done before; not to mention there are real-life remakes of The Smurfs and Avatar: The Last Airbender also in the pipeline. The one thing most of these remakes hold in common is that they are disappointing, if not mind bendingly awful. They only seem to exist as an answer to a vague “what if this cartoon character was real” thought occasionally pondered upon by people, and picked up by a film exec sensing a profit making answer. Unfortunately that never ever translates to a film with substance although It’s a fair question to ask though. We all wonder what it would be like if the Simpson or Family guy were real, hence the increasing number of adverts I see on YouTube offering just that possibility – although most of these look like they were created from the nightmare case files of patients in the psychi...

Now I love a good food show. More often than not it’s just a case of me staring longingly at a recipe being made, before getting realistic and realising I can’t be bothered to go out and buy the normally very extravagant ingredients. It’s true to say that most of the time these shows just tempt us with what we can’t have, but that doesn’t stop us from getting hooked. So today I’m going to have a look at few recent foodie outings. Heston Blumenthal: The foodie’s equivalent of a mad scientist, Heston is more of a chemist than a chef. This is the reason I’ve found him gradually start to grate on my nerves as his food; whilst being wonderfully creative, is ultimately a complete pipe dream for anyone not possessing a laboratory. I for example, make use of a relatively cramped kitchen, with an electric oven that has a broken hob panel. Where do you think I’m going to fit in a centrifuge machine Heston? Also, what’s up with the idea of snail porridge? I think I’ll stick to pasta. ...

I’m not sure what the logic is? Whether it’s an attempt at shameless money-spinning behind the shield of charity, or a deluded belief that it will actually be good; despite how shocking it looks on paper? Whichever is the case, the fact remains that I have learned today that James Cordon and Dizzee Rascal are teaming up to record a World Cup song. Now I am more into the World Cup than any other football tournament, mainly as I actually feel I can get behind the England team - because I’m, you know, English. However, there is one thing that persistently bugs me when every tournament rears its head, and that is that the vendors are willing to flog us tacky crap featuring the three lions on it. Whether it’s official or unofficial, people lap it up with gusto, so long as it purports to serve our beloved ‘Ingerland.’ It is unsurprising that celebrity world cup songs come as part and parcel with this trend, and over the years we have seen many pitiful attempts, which share in common: the...

When I first heard that the Prince of Persia franchise was being adapted for the big screen, I have to say I was curious. I fondly remembered the old pixelated 1989 classic that had filled many hours and led to some quite frustrated outbursts. So I was naturally interested in seeing whether the movie would tap into this nostalgia. Well the short answer is no. Of course being a modern film - with backing from Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer no less – it’s a big swashbuckling adventure piece, much in the same vein as Pirate of the Caribbean or Aladdin. You get the same big action scenes and some flashy camera work, but less in the way of interesting plot. The story follows Destan (Jake Gyllenhaal), an orphan who was adopted by the King of Persia after showing courage in capital city’s market place. Years later Destan, who is now a Prince, leads an attack to a city that is believed to be producing weapons. However, evil is afoot as the King is murdered and Destan is blamed. As a result...

There is an uneasy feeling in the air. Something awful this way comes. The first signs of the coming apocalypse are drawing near. I am of course talking about the nearing release of every-man’s nightmare: Sex and the City 2. Or as I like to think of it: Carrie and her squawking bum-chums Strike Back. That’s right! The most apocalyptic movie event of the year is soon to touch down at a ground zero near you, and, as you can imagine, I will be hiding away in my concrete bunker until the storm has passed. Now having never seen either film I could be accused of judging the franchise too harshly, so let me just clear the air here. Firstly, I thought the series was watchable at times. Hell, I even found myself laughing at some of the jokes. The movies on the other hand look like pure torture for heterosexuals possessing a Y chromosome, and maybe the odd homosexual female. I’ve even heard fans of the series telling me the film is rubbish, so there is no good reason for me to see it. Second...

It’s been a real hack and slash kind-of week for the American networks, with NBC and ABC respectively canning a big name series each, those being: Heroes and Flash Forward. This is sad for differing reasons. Heroes was a show which showed such potential in its early days, being well written, well cast and engaging, but never lived up to its initial success in latter years and ended up driving frustrated fans away (myself included) with its grandiose plots which went nowhere, and for falling for the age old sci-fi habit of introducing way too many new super-powered characters no-one cared about. Now the old dog that was Heroes has been led out into the yard, by its master NBC, and been given a bullet in the back of the head, to put the once great superhero drama out of its misery (and so we never have to put up with Peter Petrelli's gurning look of surprise, or whiny super-cheerleader Claire, again). A cruel, but kind, punishment indeed, but the old boy was just too much to keep....

The first thing I thought when I saw this was, why? Why, why, why? Is this the next stage for reality TV: giving us sociopathic and insufferable teenagers instead of giving us insufferable or sociopathic adults? I know modern childhood comes under a lot of scrutiny these days. If we believed what we saw on the news or TV alone, we’d honestly believe every child was an overweight; ASBO holding; sweary; under-age-sexed; stabber-hoodie. Let’s face it, childhood innocence has been worn away by scare stories, so with that in mind, I assumed something like the Junior Apprentice would be the final nail in the coffin. Similarly to the adult equivalent the 16-17 year old contestants are set business style tasks – albeit horribly unrealistic, given the lack of time and resources available to them – by Lord high grand poobah (formerly Sralan) Sugar. Although this time, instead of winning a chance to have a job with the jowly scowler himself, the kiddlies can win £25,000, but unfortunately the...

High expectations rested on the shoulders of Jon Favereau and his team for this second outing in the Iron Man franchise. The first Iron Man movie was a box office and critical smash; anticipation for a second film was sky high. So it is good to see that Iron Man 2 does not suffer from disappointing second sequel syndrome. Most pleasing is the fact the familiar faces of Robert Downey Jr, Paul Bettany (voicing JARVIS, the computer) and Gwyneth Paltrow, are joined by several new ones, including: Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Don Cheadle (replacing the unavailable Terrence Howard in the role of Lt Col James Rhodes), and Scarlett Johansson. So there is very much the feeling that the gangs all (or at least mostly) here, and a few extra friends have been brought along for good measure. The film picks up almost exactly where the first left off, with Tony Stark (Downey Jr) announcing to the world that he is Iron Man, and since then has, in his own words: "privatized world peace."...

Since the uncertain outcome of the election last Thursday, we are faced with the befuddlement of the power makers thrashing out a deal to decide just who is in charge of us for the next five years or less. To be honest there's been a lot of posturing and indecisiveness, where for once, Nick Clegg the Lib Dem leader, is quite crucial to the next government. Some have even gone so far as to call him the 'kingmaker' of this hung parliament. However, I have likened the whole charade to dating. What we now are seeing is basically a play for Lib Dem's affections, with the two other parties making grand gestures to see off the other. First of all we have seen the frumpy librarian of the Lib Dem, remove her hair pins, glasses to reveal she is actually quite attractive, and none more-so than to the horny lads: Labour and Tory, who decide to vye for her attention. At first it seemed she was drawn to Tory and his foppish charms and wealth, including many estates and famous ...