WATCHING, READING, LISTENING TO

Over the Christmas holidays, everyone watches more, reads more and listens to more than normal because we've got spare time to fill, so here's our SPECIAL BUMPER EDITION of Watching, Reading, Listening To...

THE WRITER

WATCHING: As with every Christmas, my free time this year was spent slouching in front of the TV watching so many films it's probably easiest just to list what I watched one by one and then give a pithy remark. So, here goes:

Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Night: An hour and a half of dreadful Christmas animation that, on the one hand, appealed to Sandler's usual dead-headed fans, but on the other, tried to capture the family Christmas market. Deservedly, it ended up attracting neither.

Ella Enchanted: Anne Hathaway is a charming, likeable actress, but this postmodern fairy tale is way beneath her talents. For a better 'little girls' princess' film go watch Enchanted.

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events: Liked it when it was out at the cinema, like it now. Brad Silberling is an underrated little director (check out the wonderful drama Moonlight Mile for more evidence) and this pleasingly dark kids' film shows why you really should check out more of his work.

Princess Diaries 2: See Ella Enchanted.

A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens' most famous story has been made so many times that you only really watch each one to see what each actor brings to it. Sadly, despite this 1999 effort's commendable loyalty to the source and a great turn from Richard E Grant as Bob Crachit, Patrick Stewart's performance as Scrooge is so surprisingly hammy it could have been served up at Christmas dinner.

The Polar Express: Watching Robert Zemeckis's Christmas film on the small screen really shows how much motion capture needs 3D IMAX technology to make it fly. Sure, the story's all Christmassy and warm, but the script's stretched beyond recognition and it's actually quite boring at times without a REALLY BIG SCREEN to make it all fancy.

Doctor Who - Voyage Of The Damned: Good stuff, but the weakest of the three Christmas specials for two reasons. Firstly, Kylie, as good as she was, was just playing Rose and Martha by another name. Secondly, it was too long. 70 minutes seems great, but it's a bit of a no man's land, giving enough scope to create character arcs and subplots, but not quite enough time to develop them satisfactorily, thus making some parts of Voyage of the Damned seem like filler.

Moonraker: The Editor and I have had many a long talk about the merits of Roger Moore's run as James Bond. I hate his tenure, The Editor doesn't. So, as the open-minded type, I sat down and watched the three Moore Bonds on this Christmas to see if I was wrong. I was not. Moonraker is utter garbage from start to finish, taking one of Ian Fleming's best novels and turning it into a structureless excuse to cash in on the Star Wars phenemonon.

For Your Eyes Only: I was assured that this was a slightly edgier effort from the Moore era after Moonraker was poorly received. It's certainly got its feet on the ground in comparison with its predecessor, but it's still aimless tosh in which the 104-year-old Rog flirts with women not even half his age.

Octopussy: Sir Rog, now 136 years of age, goes to more exotic locations, beds more women and even finds time to dress up as a clown. How apt.

Garfield: You know who'd make an interesting Bond? Bill Murray. Well, he certainly does a good job as Garfield in this seriously underratted cinematic debut for the lardy cat. It's certainly no masterpiece, but I dug this entertaining little kids film, which managed to blend decent, semi-subversive jokes, with a reasonably sweet love story between Breckin Myer and Jennifer Love-Hewitt.

The Terminal: Silly romantic comedy or subervise satire on the death of the American dream at the hands of commerce and capitalism. I think the latter, the Editor goes for the far less interesting choice of the former. Either way, The Terminal is one of Spielberg's most underrated recent efforts.

The Simpsons Movie: And speaking of underrated, I'm not quite sure why The Simpsons Movie has been so harshly written off. Watching it a second time on DVD, the jokes still fly, the characters still have heart and the structure is still sound. This is certainly not just an overextended single episode.

Ice Princess: Look, I watched Ella Enchanted, so why not this? Young girl wants to be an ice skater, but she's a geek played by Michelle Trachtenberg. Guess what happens next. Entirely predictable, but notable for creating a bizarre dystopian nightmare in which Kim Cattrell's bitchy skating coach wins out over Joan Cusack's sweet and intelligent mother character. Truly frightening.

The Spy Who Loved Me: The Bond continues. This is one of only two Moore efforts I enjoy (Live And Let Die being the second) and, despite the fact it doesn't really add up to anything more than the sum of its parts, it's very watchable.

Goldeneye: Pierce Brosnan. Great Bond, bad films. Goldeneye is, by some distance, the best flick of his tenure, blending a rich story, interesting characters and some cracking action set pieces.

Diamonds Are Forever: Why is everyone so down on DAF? Okay, it's not great and Shir Shean looks a few years too old (and a few pounds overweight), but it's a decent little thriller and features a great fight between Bond and a diamond smuggler in a lift.


READING: Everyone must fink I'm dead clever like, cos I got loads of books this Christmas, so again, I'll just list 'em with a quick comment:

Complete Bond Box-Set: A friend bought me a boxset including all fourteen Fleming Bonds, so now I can discover exactly how many great stories were ruined by Sir Rog's arching brow. First up, having already read the first four is book five: From Russia With Love. Best Bond film. Best Bond book? Hopefully.

Long Way Down: Slightly disappointed by the TV series, which seemed a little too well-planned to have the same sense of danger as Long Way Round, so I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into the book which has started reasonably well.

Charlie Brooker's Dawn Of The Dumb: Knowing I'm a grumpy old man who enjoys the writing of fellow grumpies, The Editor bought me The Guardian columist's second book. It's basically a compilation of his work from 2004 onwards, but when that includes gems as good as "David Cameron's like a big hollow Easter egg with all the sweets taken out" what more do you need?

The Marvel Museum: It's a history of Marvel comics! In a big book! With a load of replica memorbilia! What more could a geek want? Well, complete control over their headquarters so I can stop them buggering up Spider-Man wouldn't be bad. But this comes a close second. Now I own an invitation for Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's wedding. Hurrah!

Directed By Steven Spielberg: Bought this for myself before Christmas because I wanted to read a serious examination of Spielberg's directorial style. Only read the first page, but it was a good one, so let's hope it continues...


LISTENING TO: Not being a huge music fan, I've only been listening to two things over Christmas. First, Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood, which is a unique piece of work every bit as magnificent as I hope the film will be. Secondly, the fancy-dan discbox thing of Radiohead's In Rainbows. Obviously, it's still awesome, but now it's even awseomer, because it comes with an extra disc. True to form, In Rainbows CD 2 has two curious instrumentals (MK 1 & 2), but they work well in the dreamy context of the album, extras, bonus disc...thing. Down Is The New Up is a cracking little slice of funk every bit deserving of the hype it has received, while Last Flowers and Four Minute Warning are slow, ethereal ballads right up their with the likes of Motion Picture Soundtrack and Street Spirit. Bangers and Mash is slightly dissapointing, but only because it lacks the venom of its live performances, and it's more than made up for by the two remaining tracks (Go Slowly and Up on the Ladder) and the beauty of the discbox's presentation. To be honest, I hope this is how Radiohead release all their albums. Disbox aside, the songs on CD 2 deserve better than B-side status and the cutting room floor and this is the way to save them from that fate.



THE EDITOR

WATCHING: Unlike The Writer, I didn't watch many films on TV this Christmas, and judging by the stuff he watched I think I chose the right option. Here's what I saw:

The Wire Series 1: Rented it from LoveFilm as I'd heard a lot about how good it is, and as The Sopranos finished last year and there's not much else that I like on TV. It takes a lot of concentration to get into the intricate and expansive tale of life in Baltimore for police and drug dealers alike, but it's richly rewarding and awesome stuff. I haven't seen the whole first series yet and I'm already looking forward to the second one and beyond. God bless HBO.

Six Feet Under Series 1: Speaking of HBO, my fiancee bought me the complete SFU box-set for my birthday before Christmas and I've watched the first series so far. I've seen it twice before and it's still just as funny, moving and powerful as the first time, perhaps even more as it's the first time I've watched it since the show ended.

Transformers: Another DVD, this time a Christmas present. I saw it at the cinema and really enjoyed it then, and I still liked it on the smaller screen. Having grown up with Transformers, obviously some of the characterisation was a bit off, but you can't take it that seriously as it doesn't take itself very seriously. It's a good laugh and there's lots of fun to be had from it.

The Stingiest Man In Town: A Rankin/Bass animated remake of a musical version of A Christmas Carol, with Tom Bosley as 'The Christmas Humbug' (the narrator basically) and Walter Mathau as Scrooge. It's something that I've had on tape since I was young and I loved it then and now. It might not be that good really and it's a bit sentimental at times, but that's Christmas for you and I love the songs.

The Muppet Christmas Carol: I'd never seen this before and I was a bit disappointed really. There's some good jokes as you'd expect from the Muppets, but I thought Michael Caine was very flat as Scrooge and that stopped it from ever really taking off.

First Daughter: One of the few films I saw on TV, this was my fiancee's choice rather than mine and it wasn't great, despite being directed by Forest Whittaker. Katie Holmes plays the President's daughter, going off to uni and falling in love, etc, etc. It's like a schmaltzy version of a storyline from The West Wing and doesn't really go anywhere.

Stephen King's Rose Red; Another birthday present, this DVD was part of a Stephen King box-set and it lasts about four hours, so provided plenty of viewing. Like most King adaptations it's a bit cheesy at times and packed with the kind of cliches that get edited out of the better ones, but it's a pretty spooky haunted house tale and was good fun.


READING: Didn't really have much time for reading over Christmas, so the only thing I really flicked through was a book about The Sopranos that The Writer got me for my birthday. It's a really good book with all the background info and stories from the making of my favourite TV show of all time, so I'm sure I'll enjoy dipping in and out of it. I got given a lot of books for Christmas and bought some more with book tokens, etc, so i should get a move on with the two I'm currently reading...

LISTENING TO: Unusually, I didn't listen to much music over Christmas, mainly because I watched so many DVDs. Apart from Xmas music, I listened to Sia's new album (reviewed on the main site), the Transformers The Movie soundtrack (a present), some Timi Yuro and albums that I bought with iTunes vouchers. Two of them were inspired by hearing songs on Six Feet Under (The Amboy Dukes and Craig Armstrong) and the rest were classic Aretha Franklin albums that I'd never got around to buying before. All good stuff.