Where in the buggery fuck have I been?!?!?!

...is the question you've probably not been saying to yourself. My last post was a Scott Pilgrim review. Seriously. LAST YEAR. Ah, I've gone and gotten myself a nice little jobby since then, but work/life balance ya know? I'll never make it to Time magazine hauling boxes to unimpressed big city banker wankers. Anyways....

Look below and you may notice I said I'd be back to tear the Expendables a new arsehole. I'll do the quick version now considering that film was SOOOO LONG AGO: It's boring, predictable, worst action movie I've ever seen, what the hell was Jet Li doing, don't watch it. There, promise fulfilled. On to more topical affairs...

First, the Doctor. Is back. Yey. As of writing, we've had the first two thirds of Matt Smith's second year as the eponymous Time Lord and so far it has been glorious. Richard Nixon, alien conspiracies, pirates, NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN, 'Biting, it's like kissing only there's a winner!' (thanks Neil,) freaky clone people, AMY IS PREGGERS AND NOT ACTUALLY REALLY AMY, The Doctor can seemingly call up an army any time he wants and finally...River Song is Amy's daughter. When Moffat wrote for Song in the Tennant episode The Silence In The Library, he can't have known it was going to get this twisty turny did he? It's nice that he's doing it with a character that I don't mind turning up frequently, yes, River Song is the new Captain Jack. Barring character death, if she doesn't up and join Torchwood at the end of this story arc, I'll munch my own beard. Oh, and she's totally the girl in the alley too, making her part Time Lord. I think Eye Patch Lady (Mistress someorother whose name I foget that I totally thought was The Rani. And may still be. Who knows.) misplaced her and the flesh baby Amy was tricked into taking was to distract from the fact that NOBODY knows where she is. Time Lady on the loose with powers she cannot control? Makes you think she'll spend her childhood getting Time Lady lessons and learning how to fly the TARDIS...So, more predictions? Well the next ep is Moffat penned and it's called Let's Kill Hitler. I don't think, judging just by the title, that Who has attempted anything quite so brazen before. Historical figures, yes, mass murderers, only fictional ones. I suppose we'll see if it can walk the fine line between intrigue and horrible shark-jumping.

On the cinematic front? Good news, both Thor and X-Men: First Class are fucking awesome. Thor is good in a superhero movie, thank-god-they-haven't-screwed-the-run-up-to-the-Avengers-movie kinda way, but X-Men, wow, in a different league. Props to both Matthew Vaughn and Bryan Singer for approaching the franchise in a manner which with which it hasn't been treated before. By not going down the old 'superpowers/responsibility' route, something different is invested in each of the characters. Magneto has to find a way to control his rage before he can master his powers and Xavier himself may have mastery over his own telepathic abilities, but he has to learn to not be so goddamn smug and empathise with people. Giving this flaw to a man who is supposed to be a telepath is a master stroke: he can read minds but when it comes to human emotions, he is as clueless as the rest of us, maybe more so. Plus, Magneto as a totally awesome Nazi hunter does a good film make. I expect more from the new reboot. Oh, and it also erases two shitty films from existance (Read: X-Men 3 and Wolverine) So double points, Vaughn and Singer!

Back to the realm of television and yours truly as been watching the rather awesome Game Of Thrones. The sheer level of beheadings, gore, same sex/incestous/casual shagging and out and out violence happening should make it awesome alone, but ground that with deep characters and a twisting hooking narrative and we're on to a winner. Expect television studios to be scooping up book rights to option into T.V. shows left, right and centre after this one wins umpteen awards and get proclaimed the best thing to happen to fantasy since the Lord Of The Rings movies. And rightly so. Also, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister is a FUCKING REVELATION. Kudos to you my man for breaking out of the 'dwarf actor' category he seemed to have been previously lumped in alongside that guy who played Mini-Me. The irony there being, the role demanded a dwarf actor, but fuck it. He is easily the best thing about the show, regardless of height.

So, I'll try and keep this up to date with both the Doctor and Game Of Thrones from now on, plus the new Torchwood whenever that decides it wants to start and any films I happen to cough up the money to go see.

Signing off,

Cap'n Mark

;)