Roundcat

There's no jokes. She just talks about how she hopes anyone born in the 70s would die soon and how she is failing to cope with the real world. All the audience worship her as she talks about herself in the third person. It's embarrassingly lacking of talent and the bigotry is right at the fore. Really disappointing.

There is much that is good about this film. The opening sequences are shocking and stark then the serenity and boredom of Harry Brown is shown with a series of still locked off shots.

The story is age old and better told in Falling Down, but the problem is the characters; not the characterisations, but the actual scripted characters.

The female detective is all 'feelings' and 'youth' as if she spots a little of her father in Harry. Her henchman is a bitter old school cop who doesn't care and the superintendent is someone who blindly storms through his role more concerned with public image than his expert officers feeding him valuable information which he ignores. Seen it all before? Yup, me too.

The other issues with the film is that it seems to point a finger at young people as being the core problem when it comes to crime on the London estates. It's not. Families and situations feed the crime and it is a little neglectful of the film-makers to paint this 'all estate kids are bad' scenario.

As Morse once said - "...if they are bad, then they were made bad." It would of been much better if the complexities of these peoples situations were illustrated - 'The Wire' achieved it why can't 'Harry Brown'?

The problem with this is its shot on the cheap and it doesn't do what it says on the tin. If you were to see the poster campaign which accompanied it you'd think Gervais and Merchant were actually in it but they, alas, are not. Why? Probably because it's not very good. It is easy to send someone around the world to hate things, but an Idiot Abroad just goes to show how far off the mark both Gervais and Merchant are outside of The Office and Extras: Gervais disappeared off to America to be famous and make poor films with his Hollywood 'Extras' mates leaving Merchant behind failing to be a stand up in the UK. An Idiot Abroad is some ignorant unwitty bloke making snippingly stupid remarks through a car window at a passing vista of places most of us will never get the time-off/cash to ever see. Forget it.

My issues with this film are many fold. The plot, and MANY of the gags, is/are predictable. I expected 'Bobby' to be a transsexual as soon has he walked on camera and - guess what? The story 'has a go' at the shallow lust we have to achieve celebrity or notoriety or success but at the same time embraces it by its very existence. This trait, of 'slagging off' the industry - in much the same way 'Tropic Thunder' did, just comes across as sour grapes - anyone of an ounce of intelligence would simply suggest - "if you don't like it make something better! - don't moan about it".

Peg is too much of a TV actor. His expressions are too large for the big screen and he doesn't sit well next to Dunst at all - who seems, throughout, to be embarrassed to be in the film at all - some of her lines are just rubbish - which is a shame as she is an infinitely better actor than Pegg.

My main gripes are technical and social.

The film is cut as well as it could be - but is shot badly. I know the director is a TV director, but frankly I don't care. Just as in TV, takes are inter cut within the same scene too much, and although this might make for better performance - it certainly doesn't help the continuity. Watch the scene when Pegg sits down with Dunst at the opening of the garden party. Eyelines are everywhere, as are hands and its really poor work.

The UK stuff is lit AWFULLY. I suspect it will be claimed to be deliberate to make the UK seem duller than it is - but the truth is UK light fluctuates and makes it very difficult to film with lights - where as anywhere in LA is a dream come true with a high sun and low shadows during the day. Anyway - all of these are excuses - there are ways round it and the people making the decisions made BIG mistakes which have affected the quality.

Finally - my biggest gripe. Thanks to Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, this idea of juxtaposing TV people with big Hollywood legends is ever growing. Likewise the use of British comic talent in the US (Ricky Gervais, Simon Pegg, Steve Coogan, The little Britain chaps, Russell Brand etc) is excruciatingly annoying for some UK viewers to watch. Why on Earth they are happy to present UK people as bumbling English buffoons is beyond me. Simon Pegg's character is VERY unlikeable through out and he never really wins us over - even when we find out his mum has died.

Britain has a wealth of talent full of irony, sardonicism and clout and to sell yourselves down the river as some Union jack wearing geek does no one in the Uk any favours. It does their career and their bank balance a favour, but that is about it.

There are actors in this whom are great! But what's the point in mentioning them? There is no point in giving a great performance if essentially the script is a sinking ship...you will go down with it on this one. Take the cash and forget about it asap.

This will go/has gone straight to DVD - pass it up. It's pants.

I won't harp on too much but the scripting needs a lot of work to make this stand the tests of time. There are annoying sequences where a DEADLY boss "who will kill them all" talks at length at gun point...when, really, our hero should of just of pulled the trigger and been done with him. What this does is contradict the premise of the show - that these are a group of hotshot experts catching monsters and that they know how to deal with them. US obsession with the English accent also does this no favours as it makes it a little to much of a production island, when we in the UK for example just see it as bland US air-filler.

The annoying daughter character is hard to care about, some of the monsters are just silly and there are weak computer graphics throughout - especially on the mermaid. This is a pass - Im afraid. Duff Buffy meets medicine woman.

This show would of been a lot lot better if it didn't have Wayne Brady showing off at every opportunity. I don't mean this spitefully - but he actually 'blocks' the other players a lot. For example - if they are all playing the dating game and Brady is No.1, Mocherie No.2 and Styles No.3 - Brady does his usual over the top (and very loud) 'I love myself routine' and then when it is the turn of No.2 - he will inevitably encroach his 'talent' into their slot and steal the laugh. I genuinely thinks he is more self motivated than team motivated and it spoilt the series. Steve Frost did similar blocking in the UK version (often Steve Frost didn't listen to what his teammates were saying/doing instead he just blurted out things he thought were funny).

The other thing is the self appointed shows' host Drew Cary. Oddly enough he likes to leave his desk and take part in the improvisation near the end of every show - which he clearly has no talent for. When ever he is involved in something he giggles and drops his comic professionalism and comes out with the lamest lines. His humour seems to revolve around sex all the time and innuendo - which is fine occasionally but 'all the time' is just cheap. I really do not see any justification for this guy being in comedy at all to be honest I cannot remember the last time he did anything funny.

Ignoring these two people - the show was always worth a look in for Styles & Mocheries very funny professionalism...thanks to hard drive recorders you can easily skip the Brady and Cary stuff --- its just a shame they take up so much of the show.

I should point out that there is plenty enjoyable about this series, but not if you are someone who deeply cares about Star Trek. I have decided to focus on reasons NOT to watch it.

When you begin watching the series Star Trek Enterprise you are immediately distracted by the way the show panders to trend and especially demands from the studio. Roddenberry has died by this time and this show is the beginning of Star Trek being turned into a space soap now that they are pretty much free to do as they please… with the exception of Roddenberry's widow who has elements of control.

The main issues with this series are these:

1) Most episodes end up with characters hiding behind barrels and firing lasers at each other, which gets very tedious. 2) The captain of enterprise is very unconvincing as he tortures a prisoner, kills a sentient life for its body parts and rams his smirk down everyone's throats (whom isn't human) then boasts to new aliens how humans have moved beyond prejudice. 3) Totally unnecessary shots in the 'decontamination' area where actors rub cream on themselves and each other with sensual close up etc. Embarrassing to watch. 4) The Vulcan on board gets upset often, cracks jokes and for some reason wears cat suits on the Enterprise but big flowing Vulcan things on land. 5) The pilot and the Com's characters get 'token' story lines that make you think – so what. Probably contractual. 6) The music is extremely irritating often drowning out the action. Its overly dramatic and makes you turn the TV down. 7) The theme song – well you will skip it on the DVD guaranteed. 8) The Star Trek canon is disrespected with introductions to Ferengi, Borg & Klingons which hadn't happened yet. 9) The matter transporter is use because the studio insisted. 10) Captain Archer is always leaving the ship to save everyone – and is in fact endangering everyone on board by risking his life when he has trained security people to do that.

Although this is a very interesting, if exceptionally simple short documentary - it seems geared to mutual promotion rather than being a 'scoop' for Channel 4 as another commentator has written.

HBO were joint funding or distributing (they were certainly broadcasting) Gervais's series "Extras" (Gervais even points out a huge advert for it on his way to the interview) at the time and Channel 4 were broadcasting Curb Your Enthuisiasm - so it must of seemed a natural step to make a quick documentary with both leads exchanging notes. Gervais seems a little fawning and awkward next to David and rightfully so as Extras was essentially a tipping of the hat to Curb and had 'borrowed' many of it's techniques (using celebrities, awkward situations, the other side of TV making etc). It seems logical that HBO's backing helped Gervais acquire so many big Hollywood names to its fold - Ben Stiller (as himself) contributed to Curb and Extras.

An interesting insight into Larry David's real life but not nearly as interesting as Curb You Enthusiasm and no real depth is explored.

A morbid fascination for the last few days of the Third Reich is the driving force in making this such a gripping film. The actors are astonishingly magnificent and the grit of life in the bunker as Hitlers army collapses around him is so desperately baron that you cannot help but feel truly hollow by the end of the film - which supports its realism.

The movie is claustaphobic and at times painful to watch, but it is always fascinating. The subtext and the lines that aren't spoken, instead communicated with a look or expression from the actors make this in my mind an incredibly brave film, a well shot and scripted film and a must see for any film enthusiast. It is quite simply, the best film I have ever seen.