So the Christmas season is in full swing. I am off from work and trying to wonder how to fill my time. Well Christmas came early, in the form of a present from the BBC on Friday night. Of course I was unable to watch the interview then (see previous post) so had to wait until the small hours of this morning to see Richard Hammond’s first interview since his horrific crash. Everyone knows I’m a big fan of cars and motor sport in general and a regular viewer of Top Gear, so was devastated when I heard the news. You can imagine what it was like to see him back on television again, all “fixed”. I searched You Tube on Saturday morning, thinking someone would have uploaded the interview, but no one had. There is no-one as super efficient as Teg, which is why I have superhero status (but we will get that point a bit later). So I have done the public service of uploading the interview in two parts to the video sharing web site. Is this proof that a man can become indestructible?

Seen a couple of movies I have been waiting to see for a long time. (Let me qualify long time into a couple of years, for one I saw on terrestrial television on Friday night and the other on Sky Movies this afternoon). Let me start with the movie I saw on Friday night. The movie stars one of the leading actresses from the hit television series 24. This however is completely wasted on me, as I am still to see a single second of the award winning action packed show starting one of my 1980s heroes, Kiefer Sutherland (wow, Wikipedia is amazing, I never knew the Canadian actor was born in London, England). The movie has been screened on Sky several times and although I have been able to catch the opening few moments, never have I been able to sit down and watch the film completely to the end credits. Friday night was my chase, even though the man upstairs did intervene and try to stop me from getting home in the first place. In any case, I had heard so many things about this movie that I thought I should finally sit down, forget about the problems of the day and relax. Perhaps the most annoying think about the movie for me, was the male lead, Matt (played admirably cool by Emile Davenport Hirsch, well with a name like that, he was made for Hollywood) closely resembles (not just in looks but mannerisms too) one of my old friends I used to work with over two years ago in the City. It was difficult to get over this throughout but perhaps it helped. Typical teen comedy with bucket loads of titillation but good fun nevertheless. Although I am scared I am getting too old to be watching these tired genre. It was great fun, even if completely unbelievable on all levels. Some of the characters were absolutely ace and the ending was much better than I expected. You know the movie has made it to the mainstream when Paris Hilton (of all people) parodies the whole plot in her music video for her song Nothing In This World. Completely outrageous, rude and in places complete distasteful, it was everything I expected and much much more. In particular the amazing “what if” scenarios that played out on the screen (like flashbacks) which had our main player wondering what may or may not happen. Well you know me by now, I love happy endings, I love the hero getting the girl and turning the disastrous situation around. Even for a teen comedy, it did pull on the heartstrings (just a little) towards the end.

I am a big big fan of super heroes. I even consider myself a superhero to a certain extent, with a league of my own (Breezy and Mighty Mouse) but mere mortals have to cope with movies from Hollywood and reading up about my adventures on here this blog. I saw the trailer for Sky High when I was at the cinema sometime last year. I cannot recall exactly when, but it may been when I went to see Fantastic Four back in July. It was one of those movies that I would rather rent out on DVD, watch once and then never really come back to. Well that is what I thought from the initial trailer. The idea was great and the idea to send up the whole comic book genre was clever. Perhaps we have had to one to many of these movies for our appetites in the recent years? I would say you can never have enough super heroes! The whole premise of Sky High is the idea that there is a school that kids of super heroes go to for “guidance” and training in order to fore fill their adult roles. However there is a catch. Depending on your power you get categories as Hero or Sidekick. Quite an ingenious notion, don’t you think? Rather than spoil the whole movie for you, I will just say there are some major twist and turns and for a Disney children’s movie was very entertaining. Plus there are some cameos and other interesting more subtle send ups which only the most die hard fans of super heroes will appreciate. It was good heart warming fun and just what the Doctor ordered to set me up for the next few days.