Super Intelligent man and the tale of extravagence

I don't quite know where this update is going to go so bear with me. (Also that rhymed and it's important that we accept as a society that anything that rhymes is instantly true).

Anywho, last night I wanted to watch Skins on E4 except we can't get E4 at Nerdhouse (our aerial is old and corroded by Hull sea air) . You see this article was going to be a review of Skins but now it can't be as I didn't see it.

I think Skins must be one of the most over hyped/pushed shows I've ever (not) seen. Usually when it comes to advertising I just let the whole process wash over me (granted I don't go and try out every product I see but I don't really have a problem with the whole consumerism process). This time however even I was starting to get a bit pissed off. The little adverts for the show (not sure the word Ident is applicable here) have been on since before Christmas and have featured in between pretty much every channel 4 show it's getting exceedingly annoying.

Plus it's showing all the smelly signs of being absolutely terrible (not just a bit rubbish, I'm talking full on Wesley Snipes money grabbing awful):
1. It's only on E4 which is still a bit of a test the waters dumping ground.
2. It's about Teenagers going to excess - which is not new or really that entertaining.
3. The Channel 4 announcer person was all like "Watch this it's brilliant!" Which stinks of desperation.
4. It's got the grown up kid from About a Boy in it. Now this guy gets a special section on this blog. This bloke is apparently a bit of a Teenage heart throb/dreamboat but if you actually look he has the hideous face of a Gnome, yes that's right a gnome. And I saw him on T4 the other day and he wasn't witty or compelling.
To illustrate my point June Sarpong was interviewing the Gnomey freak when she tried her hand at some subtlety (which was like watching someone with no arms trying to juggle- sad, ridiculous pointless but at least they tried) in one of the interview questions. I can't remember the exact question but she was trying to ask the boy genius if he would be romantically interested in one of the other female presenters. Captain Clever drops the dialogue ball at this point by not really understanding the meaning of it all and ends up sitting on the sofa with the quizzical look of a simpleton - idiot.
She's trying to be subtle you fool and coming off as obvious - please use your brain it's ever so important.

Gnome Face

5. The show has its own Myspace with each character in the show having their own separate Myspace which let's face it is an internet travesty.

As a final note to this Russell Brand said something really sarcastic and funny about this show when he had to plug it for E4. The exact words aren't important, it was the sentiment that he thought it was appauling and ridiculous. That man's really growing on me like some kind of back combed London fungus.

Three things you'll want to know (but don't know it yet)

Hello again,
It's been a mild while since an update was done but I'm here to rectify that situation with some general facts I think you should know:

1. Remember I did that update about the ITV game show the mint? Amusingly ITV Play have been told by one of the Tv governing bodies (Ofcom I think) that the answers to some of their games have been too obscure. The example given was in the quiz "What would you find in a ladies handbag?" the top 2 answers were Rawl plugs and a balaclava. Well I found it funny even if you didn't.


Kat Shoob from the Mint

2. One of my housemate's has setup a web cam in our living room that takes pictures of our sofa (and possibly us) at 15 second intervals. I don't know if you want to see our house or possibly how we live our lives (playing Wii and shouting at the neighbour's dog - which has been making some odd noises in the past couple of days) but now you have the option. The website is http://helpineedsleep.net/nerdhousecam.php or click here. Oh and I'll point out now that the camera may not always be on so sometimes you won't a surreal story unfolding before your eyes, but then again sometimes you will.

3. My Internet Explorer 7 won't work. Don't update it as it's rubbish.

The things I liked during 2006

So many magazines and websites have done a countdown of things in 2006 so I'm jumping on the bandwagon. The difference being we're a week passed New year so I have the gift of hindsight.
Many said this year was the worst year for music, tv, film and videogames. I'm pretty sure the same people say that every year so here is what I enjoyed (in no particular order).

People Came Back
Nelly Furtardo and Take That returned, you probably didn't care, I didn't to start with but then Take That turned out to be funny (that show they hosted on ITV is the key example here). And Nelly Furtardo released a poptabulous album with two good opening singles, plenty of funky bass hooks and synths that sounded like Mega Drive sound effects.

The Xmen
The 3rd film was enjoyable (too many characters but good nonetheless) but the really great Xmen stuff lay in the comic book Astonishing Xmen. Well written, funny and interesting. Yes this was the year a comic actually took my money (instead of just borrowing it from the library).

Taking Back Sunday
I don't care what you previously thought of TBS their 3rd album Louder Now is worth a listen. It's been in my CD player a helleva lot and it's not so emo this time round it's a little bit heavier. Basically one of my chums who didn't like their previous stuff loves it, so check it out perhaps.

The Prestiege
As previously stated I don't like magicians I think they're tricksy. Anyway this film is about two magicians in Victorian with a vendetta against each other. The performances and direction are exceedingly watchable, the story is intriguing and there is a love it or hate it plot twist. It's a movie I think about often and I want you to see it.

Edinburgh Festival
It's fun, it's different, the locals probably hate it, people keep telling me they're meaning to go. So go there.

Wii
When I started this blog I wanted to keep the videogames mentioning down to a minimum. But the Wii deserves a special mention. Having a house full of people on launch day eating tins of celebrations, playing with motion sensitive controllers then ordering a massive chinese is a memory I will keep for a long time. Every person who has played it loves it and laughs along with it. Family members, girlfriends, people who have "retired" from videogames. I think it genuinely will be loved by the entire world. If you haven't played Wii Sports Tennis go find someone with one and play it. Oh and to my friends in London who I spent New Year with and didn't bring my Wii with me - I'm genuinely sorry, I'll bring it next time.

Bands you don't remember and that I thought were dead.

I'm having to write this on an exceedingly slow computer so if the article suddenly ends without any conclusion it's because I got fed up with the slowness of this machine and I published the article as it was when I had enough with it.

So, bands.
The other day last month a conversation in my house led to us dredging up the past. Basically we were discusing bands we remember from back in the day and wondering where the hell they are now.

The bands in question were:

Kinesis
Serafin
Hepburn
Thunderbugs

So without further ado I'm going to go over who these bands were and what happened to them.

Kinesis
Who on Earth were they: From what I recall a bunch of 6th formers who supported Hundred Reasons and The Lostprophets on tour. Lots of people who I knew thought they were great, I on the other hand was less bothered about them. For a while it looked like they could be the next "Big Thing".
Where are they now: Following the split, three of the members returned to education. Tom Marshall is studying International Relations at Toronto University, Canada. Neil Chow is studying Graphic Design at the University of Plymouth, based at the Exeter campus. Conor McGloin is due to begin a degree in PPE at Oxford University in Autumn 2006, whilst Michael Bromley is currently working as a website designer and is a member of the Church of Scientology. (Yes I stole that paragraph word for word from Wikipedia).


Oh and you might want to know Captain's of industry have made their 2nd album available for download for free from their website.

Serafin
Who were they: Some band around the same time as Kinesis they had this one song that was pretty popular and quite good, although I can't remember what it was called.
Where are they now: Members have come and gone but they are technically still together touring and playing around the London area. They have only released one album (No Push Collide (2003)) but another one exists it just hasn't been released.



Hepburn
Who were they: Before Girls Aloud made all girl groups cool again the music industry in all its wisdom believed the way forward for (in the year 2000 at least) pop music was for all girl bands to play their own instruments, so that it what Hepburn did. The most famous single was called "I quit" and was on the Buffy season 1 soundtrack. Also once they played at my secondary school.
Where are they now: I don't know. Although I'd guess somewhere very far away from pop music.


Thunderbugs
Who were they: A year before Hepburn exisited Thunderbugs tried the same trick. Eg. A girl band who played their own instruments. Their 1st single Friends Forever reached #3 their second single It's About Time You Were Mine reached #43. So they got dropped by their record label.
Where are they now: Again with the I don't know. They fell into obscurity even quicker than Hepburn.

Post No.75

I just thought I'd apologise for the lack of updates. (These last couple of weeks have been exceedingly busy). So apologies.

I don't have time to write anything substantial at this moment in time but I'll try to write an "article" in the next couple of days.

Anyway I'll leave you with a message of Merry Christmas and try to be kind to your fellow man. (If you don't celebrate Christmas then happy generic inoffensive religious festival A and that be kind to your fellow man thing still applies).

3 albums and 13 top ten singles and a knowledge of how to get kids to vote? It can only be Girls aloud.

Things just seem to get weirder these days with Girls Aloud voicing their opinions on politics and actually making some sick kind of sense.

I mean sure I don't agree with everything they say:
"They need people like us to go into the schools and help spread the word," says Cole. "Our fans would definitely listen to us. They'd think, well, if Kimberley and Cheryl and Nicola are interested in it, then I want to know about it".

I'm not so sure that'd work for 6th formers or Year 11 but generally they're talking some sense.
The full article is here and I suggest you read it as it's mildly interesting.

So my main point is maybe I'm wrong perhaps Girls Aloud could provide me with the female dinner conversation I've been looking for.

Oh and of course the obligatory picture of them -




And to think that mate of mine Dave was trying to convince me certain sectors of society shouldn't be aloud(pun) to vote - the elitist git.

Social Issue #4,355,988C

How to solve the Iraq situation:



Sorted!

See it's not difficult to write a political blog Rob Cheesewright: http://www.robcheesewright.blogspot.com/

Sound of the Underground

OK everyone I'm afraid this post is going to be a bit of an advert for a band that I like. I'll do a "real" update in a few days - I promise.

So this evening I was taken to a gig by one of my housemates. The headliners of the gig were called The Ghost of a Thousand and he knows them because he went to secondary school with one of the guitarists and is good mates with them. (That's just a bit of irrelevant information for you).

The point is T-GOAT (as they're known or something) played an absolutely amazing live set and were freakin awesome. They jumped about a lot and made a bit of a scene which is what live rock music is all about. In the next few months they have an album out and they'll be touring or about near you. Go see them if you get the chance as they are superb. Also they are in this month's RockSound magazine.

Information you need if you want to find out more.
Myspace: www.myspace.com/theghostofathousand
Website: Doesn't seem to be working
Album title: This is Where the Fight Begins
Album release date: 19/02/2007

Oh and they were with a support band called The Mirimar Disaster they were good too.

Tune in next time for an "article" that hopefully won't be a glorified advert.

Take That an institution for 30 something women

In these last two days I have been genuinely amazed by Take That.
Yes, that's right, you have read that previous sentence correctly - Take That have genuinely amazed me - and not in some kind of teenager post ironic way.

Anyway the start of this realisation took place yesterday when I ended up watching a documentary about Take That from their conception to their eventual splitting up. What was so brilliant about said documentary was that every member told the truth about the situation within the band and this "truth" was infact the same as the stereotypes that exist about them.
I've just realised I've written a horrible sentence there, so to put it more clearly: Take That were living up to their own stereotype.

(Just to point out this isn't my own 15 minute internet psycho-analysis they pretty much said this themselves)

Robbie Williams: He drank a lot and got a bit messed up. He has the strongest individual career of all of them but he would trade it all for the family stability Gary has. Robbie still has beef with "The Barlow".

Gary Barlow: Writes and produces successfully for other people and has a loving family and lives in a big expensive house. But he still desires the career Robbie has.

Howard Donald: Howard doesn't even get to release his album. But he does work as a house DJ - maybe he mixes his unreleased album as part of his set. His daughter is the reason he goes on.

Jason Orange: He didn't know what to with himself after the breaking up of the band so he goes travelling and then back to college. He also acts in the play "Gob".

Mark Owen: Releases a few albums of varying success over the years. The singles that come from these albums have varying successes too. Oh and he wins celebrity big brother in 2002.

So like I said I found that documentary pretty awesome.
Then today they performed on an audience with Take That Live.
Not only did they do some mildly amusing banter with the crowd, and have enough attractive background dancers to make it interesting.

But they also performed proper old school boyband style. None of this standing around a piano new school Backstreet boys style or sitting on chairs Westlife style. They got up and had proper ridiculous dance routines, and they did it well.
(Also just to point out most of the talking was done by Howard or Jason who must've been trying to prove they weren't just the other 2 in Take That - there's some good advice for everyone - speak up today otherwise you'll be regretting not saying anything for the next 10 years).

So I salute you sirs may you carry on doing what you do best - living up to your stereotypes and dancing like maniacs.

Whatever happened to the Power Rangers?

Was in trouble with the law last thing I heard. Came back to Power Rangers as the Gold Ranger.


Died on September3rd 2001



Sells crack to children - Actually he salsa dances and was 1st in 2004 Mayan International Salsa Championship.



A "serious actress" and released a couple of albums the debut of which was titled "The Trans-American Treatment".



Missing Presumed Dead... or more accurately TV producing. He was in all 4 seasons of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the 1st season of Power Rangers:Zeo and for that he should be commended.



Worked on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Zeo/Turbo/Wild Force and Dino Thunder. He was also inducted into the World Karate Union Hall of Fame as Master of the Year "American Karate". He has his own karate style "Toso Kune Do" and it's between him and Jason Statham to win my award "the new Steven Segal".

Guildford's top attraction

Let's start at the beginning.
Beards...
I have a beard, you have a beard all women have honourary beards (you can read that how you will).
The point is I like a good beard. And there is no better beard than that owned by the bearded woman of Guildford.
I had actually completely forgotten "it" existed but thanks to facebook.com and myspace.com I've been reminded about of "its" existence.

Anyway the myspace address is this, should you want it:
http://www.myspace.com/guildfordbeardedlady

But for all those of you who can't be bothered to frequent it here are the key photographs:

I don't know that man but she is going to kill him. I've seen that look before.

The caption below this photograph on Facebook.com "Bearded lady at one of her favourite habitats, outside burger king, no problem if she's hungry, plenty of children about. As you can see from the photograph bearded lady carries the standard issue bearded lady shopping bags and leopard skin jacket. In this particular scene bearded lady can be seen scouting out potential babies or young children approaching White Lion Walk or 'The Killing Grounds' as we newspapers have begun to call it."

Oh how I laughed.

The media have done a lot of these - so it's my turn.

The new Bond movie is just around the corner and no one will shut up about it.
So here is my contribution:

Best Bond: Sean Connery (he slaps women about just like Bond does in the books).
(I'm joking)
Best Bond Girl: Sophie Marceau (From the World is not Enough) - All you Denise Richard's fans are fools, she is but a girl. Sophie Marceau is a "real woman" (the kind who steals all your personal possesions when you are asleep) - now that's when you know you've had an experience.
Best Bond movie: Not Moonraker
Worst Bond Movie: All the Roger Moore ones.
Best Bond bad guy: the studio head who had Pierce Brosnan "removed" (from the franchise not murdered).
Best Bond gadget: The Goldeneye N64 game engine.
Most underrated Bond: Timothy Dalton
Best Bond action scene: The entirety of Goldeneye on the N64.
Best Bond song: View to kill by Duran Duran
A Bond film that needs mentioning just because I don't like it: Tomorrow Never Dies.

Oh and here is the video for a View to Kill because it funnied me up:

I'm about to write about my own blog - Does that make me self involved?

I think advertising has gone too far.
Guess what pushed me over the edge -

Well it wasn't a McDonalds advert

or a Cilit bang advert

or that annoying Frosties advert with the kid who sings the song and is now involved in a shit load of internet urban legends.

Nope it was this - posted as a comment on my blog:
"Hi, i was looking over your blog and didn't
quite find what I was looking for. I'm looking for
different ways to earn money... I did find this though...
a place where you can make some nice extra cash secret shopping.
I made over $900 last month having fun!"

Then there was a link to some kind of "scam" website. (Or at least what I interpreted as a scam).
So be warned even "innocent" internet blogs have become a hot bed for weird advertising. It's a disgrace I say.

Quick note to whoever wrote that comment -
A)Thanks for reading my blog
B)Thanks for leaving a comment
C)I apologise if that was some sort of crazy joke I was too stupid to get. Please be clearer next time.

If selection C does not apply please see selection D.


D)I don't apologise you're a twat and no I don't want to give money to any Nigerian Princes.

Facts of the week: Cocaine and Fish

This post may seem a bit random but -

According to the vice President of Columbia Kate Moss is responsible for the countries civil war.
Well kind of...

He actually said that the cocaine industry is funding the countries civil war. He singled out Kate Moss and said;
"When she appeared to snort a line of cocaine, she put land mines in Colombia, she killed people in Colombia, she displaced people in Colombia, she helped finance kidnapping."

Sounds to me like she is almost some kind of super villian.

Well if the World survives the tyranny of a model/super villian from Croydon we have bigger problems as by the year 2050 we'll have run out of resources and will need to colonise another planet.

Or so I read...

This, however pales in comparison to the fact:

"By the year 2050 we'll have over fished the seas so much we'll have no fish to eat."

To break it down for you I have read two completely separate articles one telling me we'll have no "resources" (which I took to mean fossil fuels) and another telling me we'll have no fish.

Sounds to me like something weird is going on. The same year we run out of fossil fuels is the same year we run out of fish. What is the link? Is it that fish are employed to mine for oil? Or something more sinister.
I theorise that the fish swimming causes the planet to rotate on its axis, so that when all the fish die out the Earth will stop turning causing the temperature to rise (it was the turning keeping it cool - making a small breeze (like a windmill)).

So the lack of fish will finally finish this planet off. An increased temperature will melt the ice caps and raise the sea levels. This seems somewhat ironic as the only animals to truly gain from this are the fish, which are now dead.

So it would seem (assuming my theory is correct) that over fishing destroys the planet, don't think Al Gore saw that coming.

Frances Amey keeping it real since 1996

I was eating dinner the other night (the other night about 3 weeks ago) when one of my chums asked me who played Dinah Glass in the BBC adaptation of the Demon Headmaster.
This seemed odd as no one was talking about anything to do with the Demon Headmaster, infact I don't think I've thought of the Demon headmaster in about 10 years.
Anyway my reply was "I don't know". And left it at that.

Time passed.... (several hours)

And suddenly I realised I desperatley needed to know who played Dinah Glass in the Demon Headmaster.
I'm not going to go into how I found out who she was (paid a private detective, who found a computer hacker, who hacked into the government files, which gave me blackmail information on the Triads who were harrassing a chinese laundry, which I then saved whoose customers happened to be the mother and father of the work experience tea boy, who worked on the set of the Demon Headmaster and was a pen friend of the girl who played Dinah Glass).

Actually none of that I just used Tv.com.

The girl's name is Frances Amey and I was exceedingly intrigued as to what she does these days. So I did another search (this time cutting out the middle men and going straight for Google).
It turns out she does a dental degree at Newcastle University and is part of the drama society. This is their latest play:

"'Out of the Corset' is a seductive lesbian romance set amidst the sordid underworld of Victorian London. Follow the journey of Nan Astley as she begins her life as an innocent oyster girl who is slowly led astray by a series of intense and passionate relationships with some very colourful women. Will Nan's tour of debauchery through the tantalizing realms of theatre, prostitution and sex slavery make or destroy her?".

I think it sounds like good stuff.

The theatre group were at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival so I could've seen them, but I didn't.

Cheap Update 2

I was always going to do another one of these I just had to wait for the resources to become available.
Anyway here is some more footage of the subtley sublime Mitchell and Webb. Basically I just really like these sketches.
Enjoy:

As far as I know this could be common knowledge

Yesterday on Teletext I read that a Pelican ate a pigeon.
Then later on the news I saw the footage of the Pelican eating the pigeon (this supposedly freak occurence happened in St James' Park in London).
Anyway now I present to you some footage of the pelican swallowing the pigeon.



I don't mean to be a "negative nancy" but I think this might be the start of the end of days - having watched Ghostbusters recently I can safely say this would be the type of thing that could be a sign of the Apocalypse.

5 Disney movies that make me cry

God damn it has taken me an absolute age (11 days ish) to formulate my answer to the question I set myself (What are the 5 worst Disney films?).
Basically it was a stupid question to ask and thus I'm never asking myself anything again (excluding What would I like to eat? Or what's zero/zero).

Well as stupid as the question is I will attempt to answer it and explain why it took me ages to find the answer.

So without further ado - Worst 5 Disney Films.

Actually no, I'll announce them in a bit. I'll explain myself first, the reason it took me so long to decide on the worst 5 Disney movies is due to the scientific terms of "Disney's shit period(s)" or "The Madness of Disney".
Disney started off by making some excellent movies (Snow white not so much - but it was only the first one so doesn't count) then seemingly went mad between the 60s and 80s making appalling films concentrating and obsessing on anthropomorphism. Then they produced superb films in the 90s (this period ended with Mulan) then caught the madness again and this period has seemingly not ended.

I'll point out now this is a bit of a generalisation there are exceptions - (The Black Cauldron in the 80s was good and Pocahontas in the 90s was really poor).
So in conclusion it took me a while to get 5 truly bad Disney films because a lot of their movies are either bad or indifferent.

Anyway now without further, further ado - Worst 5 Disney films

5. The Aristocats

Set in France a mad old woman plans to leave all her family money to her cats instead of the butler who has lovingly cared for her all these years. The butler is understandably pissed off and tries to abandon the cats on a farm. They come back, and end up posting the butler in a box to Africa. What's so bad about this film? I'll tell you - Human cruelty (butler posted), anthropomorphism, a weird party with animals and swing music at the end and a moral that says "no matter how hard you work, the aristocracy (in any form) will steal your hard earned money". Also the animation is rubbish.

4. Basil the Great Mouse Detective

"I know let's make a film about Sherlock Holmes but instead, right, get this, instead of a man he's a mouse and he has to fight Ratigan the World's biggest rat." Wrong, wrong, wrong no more anthropomorphism and no shitty detective stories with mice. Have you learned nothing from the Rescuers? (1977) (The Rescuers isn't in here based entirely on the fact the "bad guy" Madame Medusa says "Bottles" in a really funny voice). In defense to Disney it's based on a book (not Sherlock Holmes - idiot) so it's not entirely their fault. And apparently it has a large fanbase so I'm in the minority but I still preach to you that the Black Cauldron (year before this) is the better movie. So as far as I'm concerned this is almost the pinnacle of the Disney decline in the 80s but it's not because of:

3. Oliver and Company

This is the Everest of Disney being terrible in the 80s. It's Oliver Twist with Oliver as a Cat and Fagin as a hobo and his gang as dogs. It's absolute crap (dreadful characters, more awful anthropomorphism and it bad mouths 80s business men - yuppies were funny). It's made worse by the fact that when I was a kid we had a video with the trailer for the cinema release on it. I waited years to see it then we finally got it on video and it was so awful. Oliver and Company was a bitter pill from Disney that stole my youth and started me on this dark path of writing blogs.

2. Bambi

I don't feel I need to really go into detail of why this film is so bad. Disney sanitised a perfectly fine dark story and made it all cutesy with more damn anthropomorphism (you are allowed to animate animals in silence - look at Fantasia no words just the orchestra). If you're going to change your source material so much don't use the name of the book call it "Tragic the deer and the forest of forever."

1. The Fox and The Hound

"Two friends who didn't know they were supposed to be enemies" is how the tagline read. "A studio that didn't know it used to make excellent family films" would probably be a more accurate description. This film is so by the numbers the plot was probably knocked up on a post it note. Now I'm not saying that Disney films have the most developed plots of all but they usually contain something that makes them special, that's why they are loved so much. But his doesn't contain anything of the sort, it's an inferior production that's just so pff. Nothing really happens that's worth mentioning but there is an evil bear in it (you can tell he's evil he has red eyes).

Disney the man and machine

Hello there, gosh you're looking swell! I haven't seen you look that well in ages. So what's going on with you? Nothing? Do you want to know what I've been up to? You don't? And you think the only reason I'm being this nice to you is because I want to boast about something? Well that's bloody typical! I haven't seen you in time and you start acting like a complete prick on the first chance meeting we have in this season of Autumn. No don't apologise the damage is done. I'm seriously hurt.... ah I'm only joking don't worry about it, I have tougher skin than that you know. But could you please listen to what I was going to say I was hoping you would find it interesting....

The other day (on a complete whim) I looked up Walt Disney on wikipedia. There were two reasons for this, 1st I heard that when he died his head was frozen in cryostasis. 2nd I heard he was a big rascist. Well basically I was intrigued to see if this was true. Well what I found out was that nope neither of those things are true - he was cremated (yes even his head) and there was no mention of rascism so I assume that's just an urban legend.

There were a couple of other things in the article I found interesting (namely Snow white was known as Disney's folly because it was so expensive everyone thought it would bankrupt the Disney studio and Disney pumped out a load of propaganda films for WWII because they were conscripted to do so by the American army. ( Well I found that interesting even if you don't)). The point is I've realised that I've seen a lot of Disney movies in my lifetime and I've decided to give my list of the 5 best Disney movies and the 5 worst. The difference here is that instead of the obvious ones (ie Aladdin, Little Mermaid) I'm going for the slightly weird ones.

5 Best Disney Movies

5.Tron

The plot is a little complex but basically this dude gets sucked into a computer where programs are real life people and computer users (outside the computer) are given a role of God. It was the 1st ever film with computer generated graphics and it served to be my revision for an Electronics exam. Sure it's cheesy and dated but the plot is actually really neat when you work your way through the "tricky" metaphor. Either that or I like the idea of tiny people worshiping me inside of my computer.

4.The Black Cauldron

Made during Disney's shit period (more on that in the worst film section). It's a Disney cartoon based on a book and aimed at the Teenage fantasy market. There were no songs and the whole film has a darker overtone than usual. Also the bad guy (the Horned king) looked like the physical representation of death. Story wise this kid Taran ends up leaving his life as an assistant pig keeper to help a princess, a bard and some really annoying creature rescue an oracular pig captured by the Horned king. Taran goes on a quest to get a magic sword and sort out this black cauldron business (the Oracular pig was needed to find said cauldron).

3.Muppet Treasure Island

This film was technically made by Jim Henson's company but nevermind I still count it as a Disney film. It's a simple formula really Muppet's + songs + pirates = absurd edutainment. Also in it's favour it had Tim Curry as Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins was the comedian who played George Michael the other day in star stories (I'll write something about that soon). I'm not going to go over the plot of this as it's Treasure Island with Muppets. (If you really want a plot descrition go read the blurb of Treasure island off the back of the book in a Waterstone's then imagine it with Muppets).

2.The Reluctant Dragon

The actual cartoon's alright but the real reasons this is up here is because at home I had this version where this guy takes the book of the Reluctant Dragon to be made into a film. He then spends the next hour wandering round the Disney studio seeing how the animation is done and watching people record voices and also watching other animated shorts. It's like a making of within the film and it's great (well it was great, my youngest sister broke the tape and I remind her of it everytime I see her).

1.Return to Oz

I always felt the Wizard of Oz film sucked it had lost the darker overtones of the book and Over the rainbow is a painfully dated song that just reminds me the general public are idiots. This film was a Disney sequel (from the 80s) that was a lot darker then the original and to be honest it was a little bit mad (talking chicken and a woman who takes her head off anyone?). Dorothy Gale is depressed and keeps talking about Oz, so naturally her Aunt thinks she is a bit mental. She takes her to a local crazy doctor who plans to do tests involving hi- tech (it's the end of the 19th century) machines on Dorothy to find what's wrong with her. Dorothy stays in the hospital overnight - there's a storm and she ends up back in Oz. The Scarecrow isn't king, infact he's frozen as a statue and so are the Tinman and Lion. Basically Oz is a mess. So Dorothy has to find out what's gone on and put it right... trust me it's awesome. Also the film doesn't end with a shitty line like "and Scarecrow I'll miss you most of all." I always thought that was really harsh on the Lion and Tinman they must have really hated that Scarecrow for getting all the attention and he was made king of Oz - the git.

So that's my top 5, I'll do the bottom 5 later when I'm ready. I'm sure it'll be worth the wait.

They've just tried to remake Grease

Ok hands up if you've heard of High School Musical.
Well for all those who haven't I'll tell you about it.
A straight to TV movie made by the Disney channel it follows the exploits of the new girl at school and the captain of the basketball team auditioning for the leads in a musical at said High school.
In the States it's a massive thing with it scoring 9 singles in the top ten or twenty or something like that.
Basically I saw it this evening and it's a bit good. I mean it must be good containing lines such as:

Chad Danforth "You can't be in the muscial Troy your the basketball captain not a singer".
Troy Bolton "Dammit can't I be both?"

See amusing and dramatic and it's like that the whole way through. Infact it's almost as dramatic as the Top Gun 2 script I've got ideas for - one of these days.

Anyway here's a list of why it's good.
A) The beginning is a complete rip off of Grease.
B) The whole movie is quite a rip off of Grease.
C) They never actually make a musical (it's about the auditions).
D) The male lead (character name - Troy Bolton) looks like Mark Hamill
E) It is filled with Neighbours style acting (ie overly dramatic)
F) The director is listed as a Director/Choreographer - so he must know what he's doing.

Here is why it's bad
1) No big screen kiss at the end - all musicals should end with one it's tradition.
2) Post credits there is a really odd coda.

Well here is the end sequence.



Hopefully after seeing this you'll want to see the entire thing (it's being shown on the BBC over Christmas). Oh and this routine looks like it's stolen off of the opening of Bring it on.

Update: That last video has been removed from youtube by someone (probably Disney - though it is television so it should techinically be in the public domain). Anyway watch this fan made thing it is brilliant.