THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

I think you'll love it. Slow as fuck, nothing happens, the music is great.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

Wicked

I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that as a late middle-aged man, that perhaps, just perhaps, I should just stop constantly trying to be the coolest guy in the room. Give up listening to music that sounds like a washing machine on fast spin. Don’t watch Wings Of Desire twice in a week while The Current Mrs Gers rightfully adds “Are you watching that pretentious load of rubbish again?”. Stop buying clothes simply because it might say Westwood on the label.

We have a Christmas tradition chez Gers. Since the theater opened in MK, we always go to the panto’. This year the aforementioned Current Mrs Gers didn’t fancy it. “Let’s go to the cinema and see Wicked instead”. Fuck me! That’s going to be a shit evening I thought. I was wrong.

This is a fantastic film, and at almost three hours, I loved every minute of it. I genuinely thought that I’d spend the evening asleep, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was a blast from start to finish. I really liked Barbie, and although Wicked didn’t scale those heights, it comes a pretty close second.

The two leads are outstanding. I don’t really know anything about Ariana Grande, but boy oh boy can that girl sing. At some points she goes so high that only dogs could possibly hear her. Likewise Cynthia Erivo, whom I’ve never heard of. Both were perfectly cast, and they really played off one another. The supporting cast aren’t too shabby either. Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage, and a host of others. If we’re being picky, Goldblum, playing The Wizard Of Oz, was playing Jeff Goldblum. We’ve seen him doing his condescending message before, but I’m certainly nitpicking, it’s a great movie. Go and see it over the holidays. You’ll enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6COmYeLsz4c

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

I watched this for the first time yesterday. I know you will hate it but I thought it was terrible!

I have watched the series and half liked it. It seemed to have about twice as many episodes as required, and i didnt but how the jackal, an otherwise meticulous man would abandon all his rules and routines regarding his identity so readily. At first I thought the MI6 character was either badly written or badly acted and it may still be both of those but actually, I loathed the character so much that perhaps it was neither.

4/10 for the film
6/10 for the series

Carry-On

Sadly not a vehicle for Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey and Joan Sims, rather ‘would have gone straight to video ‘so-so action thriller if that was still a thing.

If he were still a viable option, then Bruce Willis would've had the old vest out as he battled the villainous baddie intent on mass murder. As old Bruce is, sadly, no longer available, Taron Egerton takes up the reins, complete with the dodgest American accent this side of Boston.

It’s the usual nonsense that this kind of mind-numbing rubbish always throws at you. Working man fights villains/terrorists and you know it’ll all end well for the good guys, and not so good for the bad guys.

Egerton just isn’t very good in this, and the supporting cast, Jason Bateman excepted, if anything are actually worse. Bateman is actually rather brilliant as the head villain. His taunting of Egerton via mobile is well executed, with the ‘phone screen superimposed over the action.

It wasn’t great, and if it weren't for Bateman I’d have turned it off. If mind-numbing nonsense on a Friday evening while you enjoy a large Talisker is your thing, then fill your boots. Find it on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS0XacjMmOc

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

The former Miss Alby once took me to Wicked in the West End. It was "my Xmas present" IE 'I wanna go and I'm paying for you to come with me'.

I was absolutely grateful, but not arsed at all. As an ex theatre student I'd heard nothing but drama kids singing the same songs over and over and never seen it, so I was over it before it began.

Then I watched it. And I loved it. And I want to see it again. Utterly brilliant stage show.

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I felt that way about Phantom - it's been around for ever, I've heard all the songs over and over, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a hack, it's a show for middle-aged mums. Then my missus made me go watch it in the West End a couple of years ago and, inevitably, it was brilliant.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

Better Man

Robbie Williams biopic. Reminded me of Rocketman, but with a chimpanzee instead of Elton in feathers. Watchable unless you can't stand RW - wonder if this will become a stage show as well ?

7.5/10

Section 31

I’m a massive Star Trek fan. In fact if I were to go on Mastermind my specialized subject would be the first series, 1966/1969. And in case you’re wondering, if I got through to subsequent rounds… The Velvet Underground, and for the final, The Archers. This however…

A spinoff, from a spinoff, from a spinoff, from a spinoff. I’m not going to bore you with the plot, basically because there wasn’t one, you either like Trek, or you’re an idiot, but this was pure unadulterated rubbish. I like Michelle Yeoh, whom I find extremely attractive, but in this you could only imagine her first line… “How big is the cheque?”.

If you’re interested in the plot, and in all honesty, why would you be? Set sometime before the Kirk era’, Section 31 is Starfleet’s black ops’ section, and old Michelle heads it. That’s it.

Don’t sully yourself with this. It’s rubbish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63k1Otp9qtM

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

Afire

I can name four folk I know that make their living as writers. One, an ex-girlfriend of mine, toils away knocking one chick-lit, WH Smith airport style novel out after another. And just as an aside, for every £5 her stuff makes, she earns somewhere in the region of 50p. Her online presence is full of tails of burning the midnight oil as one deadline after another looms. Another one is a titan of the London literary scene, an editor of the London Review of Books, and a regular on Radio 4 arts programmes. And yet another is so successful that he didn’t bat an eye paying a five grand bar bill at a friend's funeral, and lives in rural Buckinghamshire in a wonderful wood paneled house. The fourth, well the fourth, she role plays as an author. Leon, played with hangdog grumpiness by Thomas Schubert, firmly falls into the latter version.

With a deadline looming from his publisher, Leon and art student friend Felix head to Felix’s mother’s holiday home on the Baltic coast. When they arrive, amidst dire warnings of encroaching forest fires, they discover that they’re not alone as the place is already occupied by ice-cream stall worker Nadja and hunky lifeguard boyfriend Devid. Much comedic eye rolling angst ensues as Leon develops a massive crush on Nadja. However he’s so pretentious that he stands as much of a chance as a chocolate fireguard. “I can’t go swimming. My work won’t allow it”.

There's a nice little moment halfway through when Leon discovers, much to his horror, what Nadja’s background is, but overall it fell a bit short for me. Perhaps it was down to the fact that it’s in German, and the German’s famously have no sense of humour, because it couldn’t make it’s mind up if it wanted to be a comedy in the mould of Richard Curtis, or a meditation on the tortured artist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0jpO3txVQ

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

I enjoyed it more than you then

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.