Wednesday

First, to reviews.

Now, I had some really high hopes for Fantastic Mr. Fox. Visually, it looked glorious. And any film that invites me to nod off to the smooth tones of George Clooney and the lilting whisper of Meryl Streep is absolutely welcome to. There's no need to completely rehash Wes Anderson's back catalogue here; suffice to say The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic were both interesting, quirky, and at once dramatic and humorous.

Unfortunately, even from the outset, I found the film quite alienating. Fox-ified, hippy Meryl announcing her pregnancy to a strangely unanimated George. Odd. A bizarre lack of any real through line of action for the plot. Which was really strange seeing as there really is a lot going on. A number of bizarre writing choices: why on Earth did Mr. Fox make a toast again and again? What the bejesus was with Mr. Fox addressing a wolf near the end? The animation of the wolf seemed as if it was from a completely different film. Why did Mrs. Fox and the kid keep waving their arms and talking about strangeness? I half expected there to be a gay subplot with the kid. Instead, it came to nothing.

And that was the trouble. The whole film really came to nothing. It wasn't particularly gripping or funny. It wasn't a cuddly kid's film or a tongue in cheek child-adult hybrid. Which is a shame, as I really wanted to like this film.

Oh, and this was the first film I've ever seen where it feels like Meryl Streep phones in her performance. I mean, I know they recorded her dialogue from France, where she was filming Julie and Julia, so she literally did phone it in, but still - the greatest actor of her generation sounded bored with this role. Not a good sign.

So, on to Medium. Episode 4 of the 6th season, and another strong episode - though probably my least favourite of the season so far. I liked the fact that, once again, the procedural drama was linked into the development of her recovery from her stroke last season. Same with Pain Killer, where Allison began to dream about her friend in the hospital who she suspected was murdered by the same Doc that saved her life.

My favourite episode of the four so far was Who's That Girl? Medium has always addressed the children's burgeoning psychic powers, and one of the highlights of last season was an increasing number of interesting sub-plots for Ariel. They beefed up the drama of the show and kept it from feeling as repetitive as it started to feel by season three. Hence, this episode felt like something of a coming out party for Sophia Vassilieva. She had a wide range of emotions to communicate with not one, but two characters to play with. I think the result was spectacular. Hurrah. Episode five tonight...

True Blood tonight also. This show is so much fun. I'm not a big vampire/zombie/horror/sci-fi person. But this has some cracking characters and brilliant dialogue. Oh, and the sex. There's some hotties on this show. Brilliant.

I thought it was too bloody good to be true when the Daily Fail showed such solidarity in its outrage of Nick Griffin's dick-headery on Question Time. Alas, this was not to last. Apparently they are now spear-heading the hate campaign against the BBC for alleged tampering with the show. It's strangely comforting that some things never change. At least not with the mail anyway. We must keep fighting the fight. We must.

Continue to have doubts my friends. Such doubts.

Peace x