Tuesday 18 August 2009

I'll never get those two hours back

Very few films constitute a total waste of my time, but I genuinely grieve over the time I have lost watching:-
1. Blade Trinity
2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
3. Rancid Aluminium
4. Hitman
5. Charlie's Angels
6. Grease 2

Top Twenty Films

This always changes, but for the moment:-
1. Casablanca
2. Schindlers List
3. The Godfather
4. Raging Bull
5. The Lord of the Rings (all three)
6. Chinatown
7. The Big Sleep
8. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
9. Die Hard
10. Seven
11. The Usual Suspects
12. Fight Club
13. Aliens
14. The Terminator
15. The Godfather Part II
16. His Girl Friday
17. Memento
18. The Dark Knight
19. Platoon
20. The Incredibles

Also rans/Honourable mentions - Heat, Taxi Driver, Spider-man 2, Superman, Minority Report, Airplane!, Some Like it Hot, The Empire Strikes Back, The Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead, The Silence of the Lambs, JFK, To Kill a Mockingbird, Night of the Hunter, Jaws, A Better Tomorrow, Terminator 2, Predator, On the Waterfront, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Gladiator, Spartacus, The Insider, Goodfellas, Vertigo, Rear Window, Psycho, North by Northwest, Black Hawk Down (yes, really), The Maltese Falcon, Twelve Angry Men.

The Wire

I know that it is often bleak, hard-breaking stuff, but honestly, is there any better a programme on television? It is chilling how casually lives are snuffed out, how savagely people are beaten, how cheap life is considered to be. Yet for so many characters, their lives have been so vividly portrayed, so well written and acted that it brings a tear to the eye when they finally reach their end. It has been described as a grand epic, a film told across five seasons and that must be right. A programme like 24 has, obviously, plenty of through storyline and momentum, even from one season to the next, but it never engages you like the Wire does. 24 adrenalises and thrills like no other show, but you do not care about as many of the characters as you do with The Wire. The West Wing is as well written as any show you could name, but sometimes it revels in how clever it is. The Wire just feels like a window on a world you would not wish on your worst enemy and yet you cannot take your eyes off it. We are coming to the end of season 4 on BBC2 and season 5 kicks off on Thursday. When that has run its course I will grieve.

Big Brother

I get so frustrated with BB. Everyone seems so determined to be unkind to each other. I recognise that "why can't we all just get along" is hackneyed and life teaches us that we can't if it teaches us anything, but crikey. Everyone keeps winding each other up, making fun, criticising, bitching, back-biting and bullying. It gets to be so tiresome. I am sure that alcohol-fuelled tiredness and boredom is relished by the producers as a recipe for fireworks, but why do we encourage it by watching. We frown on bear-baiting, cock-fighting and fox-hunting - why do we see this any differently?
Get this nonsense off our televisions, the sooner the better.