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Dreadful Scathe

wot i watch at the weekend

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Saturday night. Went to the pictures - as they say in Scotland. Went to see "Fame" in fact. For those of you too young to know, its been done before as a TV series and Film. Its about students enrolling into the New York School of performing arts. They dance, sing, act, play musical instruments and have lives outside school. All of it was fine, except the last bit. The "lives outside achool" were mostly pointless/unresolved/lame/cheap plot threads - so story wise I'd give it 2 out of 10. Performance wise? sometimes as high as 8 out of 10. Alas, a collage of cool bits does not a film make. Perhaps its akin to a truly wonderful 10 course meal where every even numbered course is cold beans on toast - and you don't like the toast. Oh and if you don't like dancing or singing at all, then going to the dentists will be preferable to this film.


Over the weekend, i was also watching TV. Bizarre thing to do I know, but bear with me.

X-Factor - [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8289547.stm] is now finished with the line up for live shows [/url].

Well, I suppose the changes they make every year are aimed at keeping things fresh and mostly it does seem slightly fresher. The interesting thing about the show is of course the people taking part. There are some really good singers this year and there did seem to be less of the awful acts presented to appeal to the publics general love of freak shows. Or perhaps that was because I recorded all x-factors and fast forwarded through most of it.

In general, X-Factory (sic), and other reality/competition shows are mostly filler. Like fantastic looking cakes with a hollow inside. If the X-factor format was used in a novel, you would want to strangle the author after just one chapter. Characters to appear are announced several times, given a sad back story (if they are any good), or are presented in a humourous way (if they are particularly awful), you are cruelly manipulated. Its the knowledge that eventually we will get to stage where most of the people left are entertaining that keeps us going and allows us to put up with the Dan Brownesque mind probes. But first we need to go through the judges pick of the best 3 in their catagory. Here it hasn't changed much - the bulk of the selections are exactly what we expected and a few are either "you must be joking" or "not what i would have picked buuuuut it can almost be justified". X-Factor would be nothing without such forced controversy. (Give it a few weeks, its probably Cheryls turn to have a public media strop about something in order to raise the shows profile.)

So those selections :

Danni Minogues selection was pretty much what, i assume, most people with working ears would have went for. Louie's was more or less what you would expect...with the glaring exception being the inclusion of most annoying something-about-mary hairstyled twins to ever walk the face of the earth. I'm hoping the girl band that was made up from the, otherwise not accepted, solo auditionees keeps it up - tuneful singing, good harmonies and rapping in Spanish! respect. much respect.

Simon? The grey t-shirted one inexplicably left out the young black female who gave a perfect audition and went for the man with the biggest hairstyle on TV. Don't get me wrong, he is very good - a great rock and roll voice, and I'll look forward to his performances. Just not as much. Olly and Daniel though? Could be fantastic. Time will tell.

Then there was Cheryl and her usual "oh this is so hard" flubbering...it was "so hard" that she did this...

[quote=bbc article]While speaking to Manchester hopeful Daniel Fox, she paused, then walked off the film set, saying: "It doesn't feel right". [/quote]

Film Set? Oooooh, get you. Its a TV programme. No talented actors were hurt during the making of it.

Anyway, I found myself not caring that "it doesn't feel right". This was singer number 4 out of 6 and 2 places in her final 3 had gone, so we knew for a fact that he was going home; there was only one place left and that would be reserved for the face off between the 2 remaining singers. This whole sequence was simply pointless filler and a montage of Cheryl Cole facial expressions. Ho Hum. And not only were we sure he was going home, most of us who were paying attention knew that the local lad - Newcastle born and bred, just like Cheryl - was going to need to choke big time to not go through, and we already knew he didn't. He sang fine. Top three sorted for Cheryl. Where's the fast forward button? Strangely, the best voice in my opinion, Ethans, was one that Cheryl said was not so good and she gave that reason to send him home. I'm clearly not hearing the same thing. My ears must be painted on.

Still - there is some decent talent there and the live shows should be as entertaining as they are every year. Which, if described by the Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy, would be "mostly".

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  1. Lory's Avatar
    Brilliant summing up and you've expressed some of my thoughts exactly!
    Lory x