Current Watching

[Gerontophile]

Current Watching

Welcome Sir Fabio.

Tonight I watched Marco's Feast and I thought his menu choices were brilliant. The Gulls egg mayonnaise looked stunning.

However, he is a bit of a twat. He didnt want to be seen on camera slagging off the people who had been in the previous clip (eels) and had the resounding hump about it all.

Last week he served up venison tartare, and much as I am not a fan of raw meat, I would have given my left bollock to have a taste of that.

He did fish and chips tonight, and I was sat on the couch with the partner, screaming, 'Fuck! Thats how I make the batter! Thats how I (double) cook my chips! This Michelin star shit is a piece of piss, innit'

To which, my mate replied, 'Yes, but he doesnt fuck up gravy like you do. More chuffing lumps than Jordan and her triplet sisters'

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

Sergei Bodrov's Mongol was a substantial slice above my expectations. The first film I've seen in ages that uses David Lean/John Ford style panoramas with anything approaching their skill, or battle scenes with minimal CGI. Most of all I liked the way the story retained oral storytelling forms: chronological but episodic, with big chunks of exposition omitted. Watch for the kid who plays the young Genghis Khan — I was scared of him — and the actor who plays Borte, his wife, is excellent. She is every bit as heroic as the Great Khan himself (possibly more so) and the film is very much "their" story not his. I'm bouncing up and down in anticipation of the next part of the trilogy.

[Guest]

Current Watching

Lust, Caution which was very good. Not quite up there with say, In The Mood For Love, as I think despite the complex emotional situations of the plot, Lee's film lacked the extraordinary degrees of subtlety that Wong can acheive when he's at his best; nevertheless it was lovely to look at (it almost feels like cheating, making a period piece set in Shanghai and Hong Kong - how could it not look amazing?) and the performances were great. And I have to love a film in which they play mahjong constantly. A concealed kong of Red Dragons! That's pretty nice to have in your hand and probably symbolised something that I'm a bit too dim to grasp.

also The Edge of Love which was a bit pointless really - disappointing from John Maybury. Keira Knightley was OK, with her comedy Welsh accent and her grown up problems; Sienna Miller was ridiculous, I thought Caitlin Thomas was Irish but her accent veered from London posh through a kind of imitation of Keira's 'Welsh' and everything in between. And the story didn't have any kind of resonance as far as I was concerned. I think it's possible it was trying to say something about the artistic process (cf Love Is The Devil) but that just translated to Dylan Thomas being a bit if a childish twit and then reading some poems out at appropriate times. and I so cannot be doing with the 'female friendship' theme in films that think it should be handled as a mixture of jealousy, resentment, and closeted lesbianism.
Cillian Murphy was really great, though, seemed to live at a different emotional register to the rest of them.

[Mumpo]

Current Watching

Grundy's Northern Pride

In which writer, historian, broadcaster and all-round Northern bloke John Grundy traverses the breadth of Northern England looking at examples of great Northern architecture, with the emphasis firmly, in case you hadn't realised, on the North. This has become a don't-miss fixture recently, not least because it's a decently-made bit of regional programming that provides an agreeable and informative alternative to the slew of soaps on the other channels. And also, it's on when no-one else is in the house, so I can sink into an armchair and watch it in peace.

Currently showing, in Granada at least, on Thursday evenings.

[Guest]

Current Watching

I'm watching Tropic Thunder. It's fucking hilarious so far I have to admit.

[Commodore]

Current Watching

Found myself watching On The Buses this morning - I couldn't stop chuckling whenever Arthur put down Olive, no matter that it was predictable every time.

It is a truly terrible programme though, but like a car crash or a drunken argument I feel drawn to it. I'm like Harry the mosquito heading towards the luminous bug zapper in A Bug's Life;

"No Harry. Stay away fron the shite,"
"I can't help it, it's so awful..."

[Gerontophile]

Current Watching

New Tricks again, and

********SPOILER************
I didnt realise how good James Bolam is in it, until he came back.

********SPOILER UNDONE*****

The other 3 are absolutely great, but James Bolam is acting their socks off. I am a huge fan of Alun Armstrong, and I think he is possibly giving way due to the storyline. Superb stuff (although the storylines are starting to look a wee bit jaded)

Top Gear the other night, was brilliant, again. I am so pleased about Jay Kay (although he was smashed out of his knickers on the show)

[ian.64]

Current Watching

Not current, but I had a gander at that Martin Clunes vehicle, Doc Martin last week, if only for the sight of Felicity Montagu divested of all the frumpy trappings of Alan Partridge's mousey assistant, Lynn, looking svelte, slim and convincingly washed out as the coastal town's resident alcoholic. Which is a pointer to how damn good she was in Coogan's masterpiece. Blimey, she even looked a bit...erm..foxy at times.

Carry on.

[Guest]

Current Watching

Doc Martin is great. And yeah, Felicity Montagu is a fox. Quite fanciable in Nighty Night.

[Purves Grundy]

Current Watching

Top Gear the other night, was brilliant, again. I am so pleased about Jay Kay (although he was smashed out of his knickers on the show)

Yeah, he and Jeremy did come across as very excitable. They could barely sit still. And so talkative.

And it's always nice to see Sabine Schmidt swearing. Brings out my inner Max Mosley.

[Gerontophile]

Current Watching

gratuitous Felicity Montagu shot:



sumptuous, although she does have a touch of the 'Big Brother contestant' about her.

[Purves Grundy]

Current Watching

6 hours later and still no takers. That's what's wrong with otf, you've all gone soft. Time was there'd have been a queue of people lining up to put that one away.

[Jimmy Bignutz]

Current Watching

The last segment of Top Gear on Sunday - I mean, I really like Top Gear, usually despite/because of stuff like that, but... really?

I hope Robin Carmody didn't see it.

[Guest]

Current Watching

That's Carmen Electra in that picture.

[Guest]

Current Watching

I watched There Will Be Blood, well, I fell asleep for a couple of hours and when I woke up the same stuff seemed to be happening, and then I left the room for a bit and an hour or so later it was still the same and...Jesus wept, this is what all the frenzied hype was all about? Good Christ. One of the worst bits was the THX-trailer soundtrack.

and a really lovely film about Vashti Bunyan who is lovely anyway, it was about her horse and cart journey to Skye and it was gorgeous.

and that Channel 4 Boy A thing which was OK, predictable, good performances, blah blah etc blah

and an unbelievably awful, awful, gruesome Julian Temple thing that I am trying very hard to forget I ever knew about.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

Girding loins and wuss that I am, I braved Hostel Part 2 on cable, and found it so patently ridiculous and straining to shock - even parodic - that I needn't have been too worried. It was like French and Saunders Do TorturePorn (without F&S, obviously), heading towards spoof country at times in its eagerness to gross out.

Bleh.

[Guest]

Current Watching

I quite enjoyed both Hostel films. Oh dear. I know they're appalling and I know the message of the-US-screws-developing-economies-over is a bit heavy handed but... I quite liked them anyway. I found them surprisingly thoughtful.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

I don't know if they're that thoughtful, seeing that Roth's need to lay on the somewhat overdone 'horror' smothers any well, for lack of better word, subtlety or thought behind what he's doing.

There's a good, strong film to be made in the concept Roth presented, but - as Mark Kermode pointed out - his adolescent need to look with goggle-eyed excitement at all that sadism and gore spoils everything.

[Guest]

Current Watching

I just hope he isn't doing a Michael Haneke.

[Eggchaser]

Current Watching

Well, I watched the first part of The House of Saddam. Excellent stuff. Probably about as true to life as The Tudors, but who gives a shit when it's so good? And lovely how they were hammering home the bits about Saddam being "our monster" back in the day.

Also caught a repeat of Fantabulosa, which I'd not seen before. Very, very good and Michael Sheen was brilliant as Kenneth Williams.

[Guest]

Current Watching

I didn't know the Tudors was back on until it was on. What a lovely treat that was. I love it.

[Heliotrope]

Current Watching

I've been watching the heck out of Mad Men over the past week, catching up on last season's episodes via On Demand. I know it there were threads about it on the old board, but was there a discussion here? The new search function is pretty bad when it comes to a title like that.

[Guest]

Current Watching

There was a cursory discussion of it on pp7-9 of this thread. Feel free to reactivate it!

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

I spent the entire weekend watch the first series of Mad Men. So I'd be up for a thread about it.

[Heliotrope]

Current Watching

If someone wants to start a thread about it, I'd definitely chip in. I just never start threads myself, being crippled with nilophobia.