I Need A Clone To Do My Blogging For Me

I was going to blog something.

And then the post man delivered our copy of Lego Star Wars 3 The Clone Wars.

There should be a modern saying about good intentions and video games for children.

Ah well. Time to get back to throwing lightsabres and blowing stuff up.

(PS: I love the muzak when characters are in the lift when moving between levels in the central hub)

There will be normal blogging again. Eventually.

Book: Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg

Simon Pegg is one third of the creative team (along with Jessica Hynes nee Stevenson and Edgar Wright) of Spaced, my favourite sitcom. He's the same age as me, we attended the same university at the same time (I was a scientist, however, and so our paths would never have crossed), and he's a self-confessed geek – a big fan of Star Wars and comics and films. All this makes me happy for his success, but even I was surprised that he was writing an autobiography.

Pegg has always come across as quite guarded about his personal life in interviews, something that makes a lot of sense as a celebrity who has to promote his projects. He even makes a point of it in the book, before going on to talk about various important parts of his youth. He talks quite openly about growing up in Gloucester, about his parents splitting up when he was young (he channelled the feelings about his relationship with his stepfather into Shaun Of The Dead; he also does a deft analysis of the other relationships in the rest of the film), about first encounters with girls. He doesn't go into excessive details (his relationship with the girl he calls Eggy Helen is talked about, but I guess that using it as the basis for Sarah in Spaced, which was taken from his stand-up material that channelled the break-up of the relationship, was probably enough), but he's honest about his other famous friendships, such as with Nick Frost and even Chris Martin from Coldplay.

He uses the book to talk about his love of geeky things, with Star Wars being the most famous example. He gives us an overview of his thesis called 'Base and Supersucker: A Marxist Overview of Consent in Star Wars and Related Works' and his film studies-influenced views on the cultural impact behind Star Wars and its effect on America. Rather highbrow but very interesting and he keeps it light and readable. He also includes his thoughts on the Star Wars prequels, although Spaced fans know how he feels about them already. There are other things: watching Star Trek on BBC2 as a child (he was Scotty in the update), Raiders Of The Lost Ark (he's working on Tintin with Steven Spielberg), The Young Ones (he would later appear with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson in Guest House Paradiso), and the various zombie films that led to Shaun Of The Dead, and An American Werewolf In London (he was in Burke And Hare directed by John Landis). Basically, it amounts to 'these are things I loved growing up and I got to work with all the people involved' but you don't hold it against him.

The important aspect that I learned was the amount of amateur dramatics was involved in his formative years. His mother was very involved in the local dramatic society and brought Simon along to everything, which led to him acting at an early stage and is present throughout his youth. Unlike a lot of his contemporaries, who seem to have got into comedy acting via other routes (stand-up as a means of expression), Pegg has always been into acting, which led to his studying drama at university. The photographs included in the book show him as an expressive child who wasn't afraid of his acting side – I never realised that about him. The other, perhaps related, reveal is the intensity of the passions he felt – he seems to fall in love with the object of desire in very dramatic fashion, as if he felt everything with an exquisite amount of emotion. I don't know how he survived growing up if he was that expressive in life.

Pegg makes a strange inclusion in the book: in between chapters, he writes the adventures of Simon Pegg the superhero and his faithful robot Canterbury. It's a tongue-in-cheek affair about trying to write his autobiography, and it's a bit silly and indulgent (although, as he says, where else to be self-indulgent but an autobiography?), but it works better in comic book form (I believe there's an app you can buy), so I guess I'll let him off.

This is an enjoyable book: Pegg is a good writer and he has some interesting ideas, such as his theory about 'quantum attraction', and it's clearly about how lucky he feels to have got where he has (there are lots of photos of him with the famous people he's met). There is some weird stuff, such as an entire large chapter on his love of The Shepherds pub (I don't drink so don't understand the attraction of pubs), and he seems to rush through the various television shows he worked on in the build-up to Spaced, but he seems more interested in the formative years than the years in which the rest of the world got to know him. It's his autobiography; he can do what he wants.

How To Make Me Buy A New Comic Book Series: Get The Perfect Writer

Not having a lot of money at the moment to buy new monthly series, I have to be overwhelmed by the prospect of a new book to make me add it to my list. The vast majority of books from the Big Two have to go well out of their way to persuade me to try something (especially because they tend to end up as trade paperbacks). Apart from having my favourite creators working on a title, the best way to guarantee that I can overcome my huge reticence to buy a new series is to have the perfect writer working on the appropriate character.

Case in point: the news that Greg Rucka will be writing the new series of The Punisher in the Marvel universe. Goddamn you, Marvel!

Greg Rucka is a fantastic writer: his novels (both the Atticus Kodiak series and the Queen & Country accompanying novels) are great, and his creator-owned comic books are really good (the aforementioned Queen & Country and Stumptown). His work-for-hire has been best when working for DC: two runs on Detective Comics with Batman and recently Batwoman, Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood, a great run on Wonder Woman (treating it as a superhero version of The West Wing), the excellent Checkmate and the brilliant Gotham Central (with Ed Brubaker); his superhero and Marvel work hasn't been has strong (by his own admission, superheroes are not his strong point), but that can all change with his decision to take on the Punisher.

A street-level character is the perfect choice for Rucka to write: he gets that world and his writing has the perfect sensibility for a man with no powers fighting an unceasing war against criminals, but without the gadgetry or years of detective and martial arts training. If he can find the balance needed to make Frank Castle work in the Marvel universe, especially after Garth Ennis' run on the character in the MAX universe (and by all accounts, Jason Aaron has been proving that the character works best outside of the world of superheroes), then I have no choice but to buy the new Punisher series, especially because the art looks good as well.

Marvel has been announcing a lot of similarly hard-to-resist creative teams: Mark Waid will be writing the new Daredevil series with art from the excellent Marcos Martin; Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev will be the creative team behind the new Moon Knight series (although they have something to prove after cutting out on Spider-Woman after only seven issues). Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen will be on Fear Itself, the next company-wide crossover. It makes sense: get the best people on new titles and the readers won't be able to resist; also, the readers win out because Marvel ensure that the books will be really good.

Now, if only I had enough money to buy all those comics ...

Book From A Library: Peter & Max (A Fables Novel)

Written by Bill Willingham, with illustrations by Steve Leialoha

Fables has been a great comic book since the first issue, so I was looking forward to Willingham's prose story set in the Fables universe. It concerns characters we haven't seen in the comic book: Bo Peep and Peter Piper, and Peter's older brother Max. Willingham sets out the universe of Fables in the first chapter for those readers who haven't read the comics, but it also provides little extra nuances for those of us who have been there since the beginning. The story concerns the arrival of Max into this world, something that sets Peter on an adventure within this world, while the 'origin' story of Peter, Max and Bo is told in flashback in between the current sections.

The story is a wonderful mix of adventure and fairy tale, told with that same balance Willingham has found in the comic book. He has a lovely prose style, which echoes the same feeling as a good fairy tale, so you don't think about that fact that it's not in comic book form. The black and white illustrations from Leialoha make up for the lack of normal visuals, and they are utterly charming and perfectly suited in style to the novel (he does ink regular penciller Mark Buckingham, so he has been part of the Fables team for a long time), and they add a lovely touch to the book. He also draws a small comic book story written by Willingham included at the end of the book, in case you were missing the usual Fables experience.

I was utterly gripped by the tale, which mixes the story of Hamelin and the pied piper with extra 'facts' about what happened to Peter when he was in Hamelin, and what happened to Bo after she lost her sheep because of the armies of the Adversary. It's a real page-turner, but it also has the lyrical quality and atmosphere of a fairy tale, especially the ending, and it makes for a great addition to the Fables mythology.

The only minor qualm I had about this nicely packaged hardback book was the number of typesetting areas. Double spaces, extra space at the start of the line, extra indents at the start of paragraphs, missing quotation marks in dialogue – it's not a big deal, but it occasionally distracted me while reading. It seems a shame that a book that has had such care and attention to its design should be slightly spoiled by this.

But I'm being picky: this is a wonderful story, and I hope that Willingham writes more Fables novels, as long as he keeps providing us with excellent Fables comics as well.

Some Thoughts On Comic Book Casting

I know that my choice of blog reading skews the perspective, but it seems that a lot of sites talk about comic book casting as big news. When Elizabeth Hurley was cast as the villain in the new Wonder Woman television pilot, it was all over the place (the fact that I think that this a bad thing, and that Hurley is neither a good actress or the right person for the role, is beside the point). This was nothing, of course, compared with the first photograph of the new Wonder Woman in the new costume (it reminded me more of one of those costumes you can hire or buy from online shops for your girlfriend to dress up to satiate a specific sexual fantasy).

It has even come to the stage that it's news when someone wants to be cast in a comic book project: Katie Sackhoff wants to play Detective Deena Pilgrim in the television pilot for Powers, based on the comic book by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Avon Oeming. This would be perfect casting – Sackhoff looks the same as Pilgrim in the comic and has the sass, attitude and vulnerability to play the role – but it goes to show how things have changed.

I remember when the casting of a movie or television series for a comic book adaptation was a fun diversion for comic book fans – you never expected it to happen, so why not indulge in some ideal fantasy cast? However, that was the old days; now it's a genuine prospect. And famous people want to be in comic book films. There was the recent free-for-all with the casting of Catwoman in the new Christopher Nolan Batman film: practically every famous actress who was available and suitable was thrown into the mix.

If you take the start of the modern film adaptations of comic books as Superman in 1978, you can see that the only way to attract stars was money: Marlon Brando for Superman, Faye Dunaway for Supergirl (how much did they pay for Peter O'Toole?), Jack Nicholson got a particularly sweet payout for Batman (a large salary and a percentage of the profits, netting him about $50 million by most accounts). After the success of Batman, everyone else hoped they could get some of that comic book money, but Sylvester Stallone still needed $15 million to star in Judge Dredd (he should have been made to return some of that money), and the quality of films in the 1990s suffered.

However, since The X-Men in 2000, the quality of the films has been improving and the quality of the actors attracted to roles has increased. The parlour game of comic book casting has to led to realities, some good, some awful, and some that didn't sound right initially but turned out to be perfect.

In the positive column, we got Chris Evans as the Human Torch, but in the negative column we got Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman. We got the perfect casting of Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, and the now-can't-imagine-them-as-anyone-else casting of Ian McKellen as Magneto and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Who knew Robert Downey Jr would be the perfect Iron Man? Who knew Heath Ledger would be so amazing as the Joker?

Some casting seems to ideally match the source material: Bruce Willis looks like his character from the comic of Red; Alfred Molina could have been a model for Doctor Octopus; Jackie Earl Haley could have been a model for Rorschach; JK Simmons is exactly like J Jonah Jameson; Sam Elliot (and his moustache) made for the perfect General 'Thunderbolt' Ross; Kelsey Grammer (and his voice) was perfect under the make up for Henry 'Beast' McCoy. Some times there is cheating: the Ultimates version of Nick Fury was drawn to look like Samuel L Jackson before Iron Man was greenlit for production, although this didn't work when Mark Millar asked JG Jones to draw the lead character to look like Eminem or The Fox to look like Halle Berry.

Which brings up the bad casting: Halle Berry in Catwoman, Keanu Reeves as John Constantine (who was formerly blond and British), Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze, Vinnie Jones as the Juggernaut – the list could go on and on, but I won't. You have to take the rough with the smooth, in a world where comic book movies are a staple part of the blockbuster season. We can take comfort in the fact that actors like Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, William Hurt, Christian Bale, Gary Oldman and Tilda Swinton have been in films adapted from comic books. Anthony Hopkins is in Thor, for goodness sake. So, unfortunately, we get Elizabeth Hurley in Wonder Woman, but if Katie Sackhoff wants to be Deena Pilgrim, then it might balance out.

In Response To Mark Kermode's Thoughts On Film Piracy

Mark Kermode recently captured his thoughts on film piracy in his Uncut blog, which boiled down to his view that piracy will stopped by simultaneous distribution (releasing a film in cinemas, streaming online and on DVD on the same date). I think that Kermode is coming from a naïve and cinema-obsessed point of view that won't tackle piracy.

Movie piracy is a very complicated issue and Kermode doesn't take this into consideration in his solution. A generation of people are used to the free illegal downloading of films, which is a price barrier that can't be beaten by the fee for streaming online on the day of release. There are various reasons for downloading for free – some might think they are sticking it to The Man, who is making too much money already, or because everyone else is doing it – but the cost is an important factor. A family wishing to see a film in the local multiplex will need to spend nearly £100 (including food and travel, etc.); why do that when they could download the film for free, or buy a pirate DVD for a couple of quid from the car boot sale?

Not everyone who downloads for free is taking money from the film industry, no matter what the scary estimates might suggest, but the majority don't care that the act of downloading is not affecting the studios and corporations but the people who help to make the films: the writers, the technical people, the artists. They should care – if creative people can't make any money in the industry, then there will be no more creative films and then nobody will want to download them anyway. Should Hollywood be partially blamed for creating a culture of demand for its product through blanket marketing? Or is the blame for the pricing of its product for the average consumer, who will be confused when they hear the reports of films making hundreds of millions of dollars around the world? The films that are illegally downloaded the most are the Hollywood blockbusters – don't they see the correlation?

Kermode doesn't think about how cinemas will survive his model – the price of going to the cinema will increase towards the price of seeing a play in a theatre in the West End, but without the unique experience of seeing a live performance that can't be repeated. The price of legal downloads or streaming would be set at a high price to make up for the loss of revenue – DVDs used to account for about half of the income of a film but that is no longer the case – which will only make 'free', albeit illegal, sound even more appealing.

Do I have a solution? No, of course not. Do I think there is something in the multiple-platform release strategy? Yes, but not for all films and not right now, because it is going to change how films are produced, financed and made. The only thing I hope for is that the movie industry won't destroy the internet in its misguided attempts to maintain an out-of-date business model.

Notes On A Film: The Adjustment Bureau

How to describe The Adjustment Bureau: a romantic science-fiction thriller? Whatever it is, George Nolfi has created something unusual, entertaining, intriguing and fun. Nolfi, who makes his directorial debut (after writing The Bourne Ultimatum, The Sentinel, Ocean's Twelve) with this loose adaptation of a Philip K Dick short story, which he also wrote and produced.

Matt Damon is David Norris, a charismatic politician running for the Senate; on election night, after a story from his past ruined his chances, he fleetingly meets Elise (Emily Blunt) by chance in the men's bathroom, which causes him to make a completely different speech that allows his political life to be salvaged. Some time later, he meets Elise by chance again on a bus, and the spark is reignited. However, when he gets to his office, he finds strange men who have frozen his new colleagues in time and who are adjusting their memories. These men are from the Adjustment Bureau, who work for 'The Chairmen' to keep 'The Plan' on track, and they are ensuring that Norris keeps to The Plan by never seeing Elise again. But Norris doesn't want to be told what to do, especially when it comes to Elise …

There are lots of good things about this film. The first things are the two leads: Damon and Blunt are a great romantic couple: you believe in them as two people who have connected and should be together beyond the normal Hollywood suspension of disbelief. Apart from Blunt's inconsistent accent – I think it starts out as American but ends up reverting to her native British accent – you feel for them and the problem they face as their relationship is being prevented. The second thing is the concept: it is never stated that the men in suits and hats are angels (they prefer to call themselves 'case workers'), or that the Chairman is God, so it's left to the viewers to choose their own interpretation. There are lots of nice touches, such as the case workers' notebooks with moving visuals and their ability to move from place to place through doors (a touch that reminded me of both Monsters, Inc. and the Matrix sequel, but was different from both), but only as long as they wear their hats. The important ingredient is the tone which Nolfi maintains throughout so that you can believe in romance and the sci-fi concept at the same time. It's a difficult job to maintain the correct atmosphere for a film, so it's impressive that a first timer got it right.

It's not a perfect film – there are a few plot holes – but you don't mind because you are enjoying the ride and want to see the characters win through. The marketing of the film has confused things – the poster resonates with the story of the couple being chased by the 'angels' but Blunt doesn't wear that red dress in the film, and the main quote on the posters of 'Bourne meets Inception' is so wrong it's as if they either missed the point, or the PR people were playing a game where they picked film titles out of a hat to come up with the phrase. However, if you can ignore these red herrings, The Adjustment Bureau is an exciting and romantic film with a unique selling point, plus it will get you thinking about fate versus free will and the illusion of free will. Not bad for a Hollywood film.

P.S. Why does Jennifer Ehle appear in two scenes as a background character with two lines? I had to check it on IMDb because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A BAFTA-award winning actress with a career in the theatre (and a couple of Tony awards) and was recently in The King's Speech does not appear as a minor supporting character in a film like this.

Rating: DAVE

[Explanation of my updated film rating system]

My Personal Favourite Comics of 2010

Disclaimer: I don't buy anywhere near enough comic books to be able to post a 'Best Comics of 2010' list. I don't buy anywhere near enough comic books in floppy format on a weekly basis, and I tend to buy a lot more trade paperbacks. This means I haven't read many of the books that end up on these sorts of list (although I would recommend Greg Burgas' list of his best comics of 2010 for a good and realistic selection), and there are some of those books that I will be reading in trade form some time in the future. For example, I'll definitely be buying Jason Aaron's PunisherMAX, Ed Brubaker's Secret Avengers, Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force, Fred Van Lente's Taskmaster and Brian Michael Bendis' Scarlet, which means I can't talk about them yet. The other disclaimer is that these are my favourite books that I read in 2010, either in comic or trade form, which means that I include things I bought in that year even if it was published earlier. Finally, this is not in any order of preference; just the ten books that stood out over the course of the year.

American Vampire
I've only read the first collection of the creator-owned Vertigo book from Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque (with a back-up origin story from Stephen King) but it was very good. A novel take on the vampire mythos, an intriguing central character, a sense of history that allows for different time periods (the origin is set in cowboy times, and the first story is in the 1930s), and great art from Albuquerque.

Atlas
This is a special mention for the great comic books series from Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman that unfortunately ended this year. Always interesting, always well written and well drawn, Parker created some great stories from old characters (although he spent most of the year in crossover mini-series with more popular characters), and I'd hoped that the new series would be the one that would take them to the next level. However, Parker himself brought the series to an end himself, after realising that they weren't going to catch on with the comic-buying public, despite all the help that Marvel had provided. Much equally excellent The Incredible Hercules (which almost made this list but was slightly too fractured this year, and it at least still lives on with a new series for Hercules), it was a quality book that always had trouble finding an audience.

Chew
Even though I said I wasn't going to express a preference, I would have to say that this was my favourite book from 2010. John Layman and Rob Guillory have created something really special with their wonderfully oddball book about a cibopath (someone who can pick up psychic impressions from anything he eats) in a world where chicken is a banned substance. Funny, smart, unique, offbeat and with quirky art, it continued to charm beyond the unusualness of the central conceit. I enjoyed the two trades (the second and third collections) so much, I'm tempted to start buying the individual issues.

Fables
Despite the 100th issue costing as much as a trade paperback (it was a good comic but that's expensive), Fables was a consistently entertaining book. The Dark Man provided a much-needed focus for the characters to face, and Bill Willingham continues to have fun with fairy tales and the cast. Month in, month out, this was a book that was a pleasure to read and to keep reading, which is impressive for a title in its ninth year.

FreakAngels
I still haven't caught the bug of reading comics online – I read webcomics but the dimensions feel wrong and the ability to flick back and forth between pages in hard copy is a simple pleasure that I feel has been lost. I know that I might be a Luddite but I can't help the way I am. However, the entertainment value of Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's (mostly) weekly six pages of free online comics means that it earns a place on my list. Without the need for artificially created cliffhangers to keep the reader coming back, the story keeps up a constant flow of information, dialogue, action and interesting characters, helped by the consistent four-panel layout. Kudos to the creators and for doing it for free.

Grant Morrison's Batman comics
I didn't particularly take to the first books in Morrison's run on Batman, but he found his stride on the way, particularly with Batman and Robin. I know that these books found their way on to many end-of-year lists, but it did deserve it for finding something interesting and new to do with an old character, and Morrison had a lot of fun over the course of the year investigating Bruce Wayne in The Return Of Bruce Wayne and what Batman means in Batman and Robin, as well as the first issues of Batman Incorporated. An impressive achievement for such a big franchise character.

The Nightly News
This is a bit of a cheat because this book has been out for some years but I only finally bought and read the trade this year, but I had to include it because it was so good. Telling an interesting story in an interesting way (I hadn't seen that combination of design and information dispensing, with footnotes and text, done in that way anywhere else before), it was unlike anything I've seen and I can see why people were talking about it and why it got him writing for Marvel so quickly in his career. I had been reading Fantastic Four and Secret Warriors and SHIELD, which is what convinced me to buy the book, and it is even better than those admittedly very fine comics. I can't do The Nightly News justice because it requires something with more skill and understanding to explain its many excellent qualities, but I can highly recommend it (along with everyone else who has praised it).

Scalped
This year I have felt starved of Scalped because I read it in trade paperback, and this year saw the release of only one (book six, Gnawing) because the seventh collection, Rez Blues, collects so many issues and is coming out soon. Despite that, it earns a place on my list for that one trade because it was so good and because it is so consistently good. Jason Aaron is writing a brilliant story in Scalped and the five issues of Gnawing were such brutally brilliant comics that the wait for the next collection has been agony.

Stumptown
Although it started in 2009 and has only featured four issues so far, this series by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth earned a place on my list on merit alone. The book is about Dex Parios, a female private investigator in Portland, Oregon (Stumptown is the nickname for Portland), who has a gambling problem but also a knack for having simple cases turn into something more complicated and dangerous, in the grand tradition of fictional detectives. Rucka has created another interesting female protagonist, and Southworth provides the perfect art style to accompany the story. I can't wait for the next instalment.

Usagi Yojimbo
Every year this book is excellent and every year it amazes and slightly depresses me that it isn't more successful. Stan Sakai continues to create perfect comic books, which just happen to be about a rabbit ronin set in feudal Japan, and yet its consistent brilliance is ignored by the majority of the comic book audience. It sells less than 5,000 issues in individual issues, which is a crime, so it makes my list for the double reason of its excellence and because it needs to given the extra boost (not that I flatter myself by suggesting that I can have any effect). Usagi Yojimbo is a fantastic book and demands your attention.

My Favourite Television of 2010

Disclaimer: this is not a 'Best Television of 2010' post – I don't subscribe to Sky and all their channels (other satellite/cable providers are available) and I don't download television illegally, so this discussion will not include a lot of quality shows from abroad that might be expected in this type of post. This is a summary of the best shows that I watched via Freeview over the course of 2010.

Before that, a few negative words about one particular show so I can get it out of my system. The updating of V: The Series, while not completely awful, was hugely disappointing. The original V wasn't brilliant, but nostalgia has meant that we have fond memories of the red jumpsuits and the notorious hamster-eating sequence; therefore, I was anticipating a more sophisticated approach in this new version. The Vs announce themselves to the world, but we discover that they have been on Earth for many years already as sleeper agents in important positions (the reveal of Alan Tudyk as a V was rather fun). However, the show then decided to be the most boring, slow and annoying programme possible. There wasn't a single character who wasn't irritating in some way, although the award for most irritating went to the teenage son – every time he was on the screen, I wanted to punch his ridiculous face until I passed out with exhaustion so I didn't have to watch it any more. The only thing that was a positive was Morena Baccarin, who was somehow even more beautiful with shorter hair. It almost makes me grateful that Channel One will no longer exist, and I won't be tempted to watch the second season.

Now that's out of the way, I can talk about the quality stuff. It was a good year for comedy. In the last part of the year, two shows at the opposite ends of the reality scale were on at the same time but were equally funny (and did episodes where the main characters were stuck in one location): the second series of Miranda and the seventh series of Peep Show. Peep Show continues to be funny and horrible in equal measures, while Miranda (the person) seems to have entered the general public consciousness as a funny woman, writing and performing in a delightfully old-fashioned but very funny sitcom that is all about her being very funny.

Another good show towards the end of the year was The Trip, the semi-improvised comedy about Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon supposedly reviewing fine restaurants in the north of England but basically allowing them to play exaggerations of themselves, much as they did in A Cock And Bull Story (both of which were directed by Michael Winterbottom). Listening to them doing their various impersonations and attempting to one-up each other on their drives and meals wasn't to everyone's taste (my girlfriend didn't enjoy them, particularly Brydon's neediness for laughs) but it constantly amused me.

Howard Overman provided two different but equally entertaining programmes in 2010: the excellent second season of Misfits (which he created), the fantastic BAFTA-award winning 'Asbo Heroes', and the adaptation of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently – Stephen Mangan was perfect as the detective who believed in the interconnectedness of everything, and I hope that it was a pilot for a full series.

Two shows that took old ideas and did something new were Rev and Nurse Jackie. Sitcoms about vicars shouldn't work any more, but Tom Hollander was great in the lead, about a vicar moving to an inner city parish, and it was genuinely moving as well as very funny. Sitcoms in hospitals shouldn't work any more either, but Edie Falco is fantastic as the pill-popping, smart-mouthed nurse who was shagging the pharmacist on the side for extra pills, before going home to her husband and children. It was smart and funny, but also dark and moving.

As I mentioned before, Channel One no longer exists, so some programmes won't be readily available, which is a shame in the case of Warehouse 13 – it wasn't a brilliant show, but it was enjoyable in an 'X-Files with humour and more sci-fi bias' kind of way. The stories were interesting, the two leads were nicely different and Saul Rubinek was a lot of fun as well; I'll shall have to find other ways to watch the second season. The other casualty of Channel One's demise was Leverage, a very entertaining and slick show about a team of criminals, led by a former insurance investigator (Timothy Hutton), who try to right injustices done to small people by big corporations. The main cast was a nice mixture, the various cons and heists were slickly performed in each episode, and there was an enjoyable atmosphere to the show – it left you with a good feeling at the end of the hour and a desire to see more. It was well put together, had a good soundtrack and a good cast, and I'll miss not having easy access to it.

Another US import that fortunately was shown on a Freeview channel that is still around (Fiver) was Justified. This was an excellent little modern police procedural but about a US Marshal called Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), who is a throwback to a cowboy in the old West. Based on an Elmore Leonard story, this had the marshal reassigned to his home area of Lexington, Kentucky, after he shot a Miami fugitive in the first scene of the first episode; he is not happy about the reassignment, especially as he has to deal with people he grew up with. The show has a great sensibility, a location that is not usually used, a great theme song, and a great lead in Olyphant, who shoots first when necessary but who also has a strong moral sense of justice. He also looks great in a cowboy hat, which is very hard to pull off in a modern setting. I really enjoyed it, so I'm glad it was renewed for a second season.

I haven't rated the programmes I've discussed above because it seems strange to distinguish between favourites by enforcing some arbitrary system to differentiate them. However, the final three warrant special distinction for the quality and the amount of entertainment they provided.

Doctor Who
The reinvention of Doctor Who by Russell T Davies has been one of the great success stories of late, so Steve Moffat was always going to have a difficult job taking over as show runner on such a popular programme (even if he did write some of the best individual episodes of the previous four seasons). He was also fighting stiff opposition to a new face taking over the lead role after David Tennant had become so popular as the latest incarnation of the Doctor. However, Matt Smith made the part his own in the first appearance on screen and Moffat stamped his identity on this version immediately. The level of writing was high, the 'fairy tale' nature of his approach was perfect (and I loved that death was now rare and has more meaning in this season compared with the way Davies used to have people dying and sacrificing themselves for the Doctor all the time). It was superb stuff and I'm really looking forward to more.

Sherlock
There is the belief that television programmes shown during summer are being 'dumped' because they aren't good. Sherlock certainly proves that idea wrong. Even though there were only three 90-minute episodes, and the second episode wasn't quite as good as the first and last episodes, this exploded onto our screens and into the collective consciousness with brilliantly written dramas and two great performances from Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, respectively. This update was concocted by Steve Moffat and Mark Gatiss (the latter also played Mycroft Holmes), writing the first and last episodes, respectively, and they did a fantastic job of modernising the concept without losing any of the aspects of what made the original stories so loved. With lots of delightful details, fun dialogue and beautiful references to the original stories (the shows mostly used original adventures as the basis for these new versions), Sherlock was so good that you were left aching for new adventures – three wasn't enough, and we'll have to wait ages for new episodes.

Community
I had first heard about this in The Guide (the Saturday supplement in The Guardian), talking about how good it was and how spot on the pop culture references were, so I was surprised that it ended up hidden away on the Freeview channel Viva. However, congratulations to Viva for acquiring this because it was simply one of the best seasons of a sitcom I have ever seen. A fantastic ensemble cast with great performances, brilliant writing that squeezed so many great jokes into such a small amount of time, and the most fantastic film and television references and homages ever. Modern Warfare (aka the paintball episode) was perfection. I haven't laughed so hard at a show since 30 Rock and Arrested Development. Unequivocally my favourite show of 2010.

My Ten Favourite Films Seen In The Cinema 2010

The Academy Awards have just passed, which means now is as good a time as any to document my favourite 10 films I watched on a cinema screen in 2010. These sorts of posts are usually found December (which always seems odd to me, because films might be released after this arbitrary cut-off date), but I'm nothing if a little different and very late.

Disclaimer: these films are the ones I thought were good and enjoyed the most last year. It is highly personal, obviously, and I haven't seen everything (because I'm not a professional film critic or anything). There were a few films that didn't make the cut – I almost did a Top 15 (but that sounded a bit silly) – so I just wanted to make special mention of the following films that almost made the list: Green Zone, which was an intelligent action film with a point; Up In The Air, which was timely and poignant and had a great turn from George Clooney; Buried, which was a great idea that was well executed and had a terrific turn from Ryan Reynolds; The Kids Are All Right, which was a smart and funny drama that happened to be about lesbian mothers; Whip It, which was a great directorial debut from Drew Barrymore and earns bonus points for being a film about women that doesn't pander to silly romantic notions or the Hollywood concept of 'sisterhood'; and Monsters (which I haven't written about yet), which was an amazing piece of cinema that is even more amazing when you realise that the special effects for this micro-budget film were done by the novice director on his home computer but look like a Hollywood blockbuster.

On to the list. In reverse order:
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
I told you this was personal. Despite the fact that it's not a complete film, I thought it was a great adaptation of the book, with a shadowy look and a perfect feel.

9. Winter's Bone
This film really stuck with me, with its amazing central performance from Jennifer Lawrence and capturing the reality of life in the Ozarks; I didn't expect it to but that's the power of this movie.

8. A Single Man
The role for which Colin Firth should have got his Oscar and a beautiful and emotional directorial debut by designer Tom Ford. Sublime.

7. The Town
A gripping tale of bank robbers in Boston starring and directed by Ben Affleck, who is shaping up to be a talented director. It's a good story, well told, with good performances and some Heat-inspired gun sequences.

6. Four Lions
I never thought I would see a film about suicide bombers that (a) I would actually want to see and (b) would be hilarious, but Christopher Morris doesn't pay attention to rules and created a really good film with another directorial debut.

5. Kick-Ass
Despite my dislike for Mark Millar's output of late, this was so joyously over the top and yet maintained a perfect tone for its ultraviolence and costumed vigilantism that I couldn't help but enjoy it.

4. Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
The best comic book adaptation of the year went to this film: Edgar Wright did an amazing job of turning the source material into something was exactly like the book but was a film in its own right. It was the only film I saw in the cinema twice this year, just to ensure I saw everything (because there are so many things happening on screen at the same time).

3. The Social Network
When I heard that Aaron Sorkin would be writing and David Fincher would be directing the film about Facebook, I was disappointed that they would be wasting their talents. I was glad to be proved wrong: this was an incredible cinematic interpretation of recent world-changing events that was also entertaining and full of brilliant dialogue.

2. Toy Story 3
The three Toy Story films are all five-star genuine classics – how did Pixar do it? This was another film that I wasn't particularly looking forward to because I thought it was a cash-in sequel, and another film where I was so wrong. It is absolutely perfect and, no, I didn't cry but that didn't stop my enjoyment.

1. Inception
The best movie of 2010 was also my favourite movie of 2010. Stunning, dazzling, brilliant, amazing, enthralling, smart, entertaining – the list of hyperbolic adjectives could continue. Christopher Nolan wrote and directed the most original, most absorbing, most rewarding action blockbuster I have ever seen, and it's a crime that he wasn't even nominated for best director at the Academy Awards.

Notes On A Film: Paul

There is a maxim about comic book story writing that states that if you could replace the central superhero with a different superhero without it affecting the plot, then the story is not about that specific superhero and it won't work to the strengths of the character. This came to mind after I watched Paul: there is no specific reason for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to be British in this film, and the film could easily work without them or their unique on-screen chemistry. Fortunately, the central character of the CGI alien voiced by Seth Rogen is such an enjoyable creation that it carries the film and you don't really mind.

Pegg and Frost are Graeme and Clive, two British geeks in the US for San Diego Comic-Con, who then go on a road trip in a rented RV around the famous UFO hotspots along the Extraterrestrial Highway. On the way, they pick up Paul and agree to help him get back home. All the while, they are being chased by various men in black, mainly in the form of Jason Bateman, who are eager to get him back.

The character of Paul is a riot – he enjoys strong weed, relaxing, swearing and popular culture – and the CGI is great, creating a tangible presence on screen that can channel the exuberance of Rogen overcoming his occasional annoyance factor. His vitality is needed because Graeme and Clive are fairly bland – they are amiable blokes but with no real personality, as if the story is sufficient to overcome this shortfall. Pegg and Frost co-wrote the script, so it's a strange choice; they also feel slightly too old for the type of characters they are playing (not helped by Pegg's rather silly hair), adding to the discrepancy.

One possible reason why the central characters are lacking in spark is that the film is aimed squarely at the mainstream, despite all the swearing: the film is packed with known comedy faces (Kristen Wiig as the love interest for Graeme, plus smaller roles for Jane Lynch, David Koechner, Bill Hader and Jeffrey Tambor, as well as a big name cameo that works really well), the direction from Greg Mottola is characterless compared with the sharpness of Edgar Wright, and the fact that the film is a geek wish fulfilment version of E.T. with a side helping of love letter to Steven Spielberg (the opening scene and the finale in particular are tributes to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and there is a lovely voice cameo in the middle). The film lacks the edge of Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, which can be seen from the rather flat scenes at Comic-Con and some flimsy 'we're not gay' jokes. There is also the soft attitude to the most interesting human character – Wiig plays a Christian whose worldview is overturned by the evidence of an extraterrestrial, which is a fantastic concept to play with, but it's mostly ignored for humorous novelty swearing as she uses all the words she's denied herself.

On the other hand, the film can be funny in its use of movie in-jokes, as would be expected from Pegg and Frost (I liked the Star Wars jokes, such as the country and western band in a bar playing a version of the cantina song, and the post-credit gag that uses some dialogue from Return of the Jedi), although the name of Bateman's character, Agent Zoil, provides the cheapest and most cringe-worthy film-related gag in the entire film. The knowingness provides a relaxed humour, with occasional flashes of the Pegg/Frost interaction, meaning that the film is enjoyable and will reward future viewings. It's just that it's not as good as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, which is admittedly a high standard to maintain, but means that anything less is noticeable.

Rating: DVD

[Explanation of my updated film rating system]