GLEE!

I know. I've come late to this party. My other half watched the first episode, without me, ages ago and reported back that it was rubbish. Loyally I ignored all information and anecdotes to the contrary until I found I was unable to even talk to someone or read my Twitter feed without the word "Glee" appearing somewhere.

So I watched the first episode. Then the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. I'm totally hooked! Sure, it's absolutely and totally wish fulfilment. What self respecting human being wouldn't wish to live in a musical high school, in which gay guys can be the saviour of the football team and footballers can be the saviour of the choir???

But it's also funny, clever and entertaining. I feel so bad for not getting into this earlier... but I shall make up for it!

Dinoshark

Eric Balfour - The Only Good Thing About This Movie

You see something titled "Dinoshark" and you hope for a truly awesome B-movie. You're thinking Jaws meets Jurassic Park, and you get overly excited at the prospect.

Alas. I have very low standards. I love B-movies! LOVE 'EM. I accept a certain level of bad special effects and terrible acting.

But... Dinoshark mixes the very worst special effects money can't buy and awful acting little seen since "Leeches"  and comes up with diddly squat. There's no tension, no suspense, nothing. If it had simply straight copied the scenes from Jaws it would have been better. Instead we get simple attack after uneventful attack. Boring

Eric Balfour is the only good thing in this movie, but that makes it even worse... when you have someone actually acting talking to someone trying desperately to act it only shows the flaws up even more clearly.

 Lesson learnt: SyFy (don't you hate their rebranding??) TV movies are just never going to get any better.

Eurovision Song Contest 2010 - Oslo, Norway

On my main blog it is a yearly tradition that I maintain a Eurovision post in the months leading up to the Final. It is kept updated as and when new selections are made and news comes out. Now that tradition moves here, where it truly belongs... 

Location

The Telenor Arena, Greater Oslo, Norway.  

Presenters

Erik Solbakken 

Haddy Jatou N'jie

Nadia Hasnaoui

What's Different

This year the 2 Semi Final shows will introduce the same voting system as used, with quite some success, in the 2009 final. This means the votes shall be split 50/50 between a phone vote and jury vote. For more see Wikipedia

Countries, Singers and Songs 

Albania - Juliana Pasha "Nuk mundam pa ty"
Armenia - Eva Rivas "Apricot Stone"
Azerbaijan - Safura Alizadeh "Drip Drop"
Belarus - 3 + 2 "Butterflies"
Belgium - Tom Dice "Me And My Guitar"
Bosnia and Herzegovina - Vukašin Brajić "Munja i grom"
Bulgaria - Miro "Angel si ti"
Croatia - Feminnem "Lako je sve" 
Cyprus -   Jon Lilygreen and The Islanders "Life Looks Better in Spring"
Denmark - Chanée & N'evergreen "In a Moment Like This"
Estonia - Malcolm Lincoln "Siren"
Finland - Kuunkuiskaajat "Työlki ellää"
France - Jessy Matador "Allez Ola"
Georgia - Sopho Nizharadze "Shine"
Germany - Lena Meyer-Landrut "Satellite" 
Greece - Giorgos Alkeos and Friends "OPA" 
Iceland - Hera Björk "Je ne sais quoi"
Ireland - Niamh Kavanagh "It's For You" 
Israel - Harel Skaat "Milim"
Latvia - Aisha "What For?"
Lithuania - InCulto "East European Funk"
Macedonia - Gjoko Taneski "Jas ja imam silata"
Malta - Thea Garrett "My Dream"
Moldova - SunStroke Project and Olio Tira "Run Away"
Netherlands - Sieneke "Ik ben verliefd, Shalalie"
Norway - Didrik Solli-Tangen "My Heart Is Yours"
Poland -  Marcin Mrozinski "Legenda" 
Portugal - Filipa Azevedo "Ha dias assim"
Romania - Paula Seling and Ovi "Playing with Fire"
Russia - Peter Nalitch Band "Lost and Forgotten" 
Serbia - Milan Stankovic "Ovo je Balkan" 
Slovakia - Kristina "Horehronie"
Slovenia - Ansambel Roka Žlindre and Kalamari "Narodnozabavni rock"
Spain - Daniel Diges "Algo pequeñito"
Sweden - Anna Bergendahl "This Is My Life"
Switzerland - Michael von der Heide "Il pleut de l'or"
Turkey - maNga "We Could Be The Same"
Ukraine - 
United Kingdom - Josh Dubovie "That Sounds Good To Me" 

Eurovision Selections: Two Very Different Shows

This weekend has seen two national selection contests for Eurovision (alright there has been more but I only watched two!). One was Your Country Needs You, which selects the UK entry. The other was Melodifestivalen, which selects Sweden's entry. They were very different entities... 

So this year we went back to the old "all on one day" format of Your Country Needs You. Last year's format of having 6 contestants who were gradually voted off by the public and the judge (Andrew Lloyd Webber) was great especially as Webber hadn't written the song until he saw who was in the final and who might be able to carry it off best. 

This year Pete Waterman was in charge of the song, and after some truly abysmal performances of Waterman classics and then a final 3 set of performances of the "winning song", we ended up with Josh Dubovie, 19 from Essex as our performer singing "That Sounds Good To Me". I can't say I'm inspired by the song. Given Waterman's record it is actually pretty awful. Couldn't we just have sent Steps??? 





Anyway, if you wish to hear the winning entry a video is here. I just wish we had an open competition in which actual artists could compete with their own songs and allow the best one to win. Alas... we must leave that for: 

Melodifestivalen is less a televisual event than it is a Swedish religion. Weeks of musical shenanigans in a large arena resulted in last night's final in which ten songs competed for the glory of Eurovision stardom. Not only were the songs and singers all of a higher calibre than our lacklustre one's. but the voting was done on a semi international basis with foreign juries and Swedish public votes all leading to the final result. That left them with the far better "This Is My Life" by Anna Bergendahl

Although I have to say I really enjoyed Eric Saade's Manboy:

Roll on Eurovision! 

Eurovision: Your Country Needs You!

We knew Pete Waterman would be taking the place of Andrew Lloyd-Webber as songwriter and producer this year. But now the acts who will be competing to take his song to Europe have been revealed as Your Country Needs You! is less than a week away.

Alexis Gerrard, aged 20. 

Esma Akkilic, aged 17

Josh Dubovie, aged 19

Karen Harding, aged 18 

Miss Fitz 

Uni5

A very young crowd, with no one older than their mid 20s. A good looking bunch, it'll be interesting to see how well they can sing and who is ultimately chosen to fight our corner in May!

For some reason the show is on a Friday this year, so this coming Friday you'll find me crossing my fingers and hoping for gold! 

Alien Prequel Vs Predators

With Predators due to be released later this year and Ridley Scott's return to the Alien franchise almost a given, it's time to start getting excited!

Below are the first on set pictures from the production of Predators, a film I trust will see us put the AvP franchise to bed and return us to firmer movie ground.

And if the rumours are to be believed we might even get a brief cameo by his most sexiness himself...

And an Alien prequel would be very, very exciting. With the mess made by Alien3 and Alien Resurrection, it's probably good to return to a time when the Xenomorphs were terrifying. Most exciting stuff indeed!