Latest News

25 / 07 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the eleventh race in Germany are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Hungary next weekend on 1st August.

11 / 07 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Bulgaria are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is Finland on THURSDAY 29th July (a day earlier than usual!).

11 / 07 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the tenth race in Silverstone are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Hockenheim on 25th July.

27 / 06 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the ninth race in Valencia are in, including the penalties for the naughty boys driving too fast. Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Silverstone on 11th July.

13 / 06 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the eighth race in Canada are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Valencia on 27th June.

30 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Portugal are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is Bulgaria on 9th July.

30 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the exciting seventh race in Turkey are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Canada on 13th June.

16 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The Monaco scores have been updated to reflect Michael Schumacher's ridiculous penalty for daring to overtake a Ferrari. Check the updated results, see how your team did or enter a new team.

16 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the sixth race in Monaco are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Turkey on 30th May.

10 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the fifth race in Barcelona are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Monaco on 16th May.

10 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally New Zealand are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is Portugal on 28th May.

19 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Turkey are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is New Zealand on 7th May.

18 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the fourth race in China are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Barcelona on 9th May.

06 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The JWRC driver lineup has been released, so you can make your selection before teams are frozen for Turkey on the night of 15th April. If you don't pick anyone, you'll get Aaron Burkart by default.

05 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the third race in Malaysia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is China on 18th April.

03 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Jordan are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Turkey on 14th April.

29 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the second race in Melbourne are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Malaysia THIS WEEKEND on 4th April.

14 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the first race in Bahrain are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Australia on 28th March.

09 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1! Yes, there's a brand new Fantasy Formula One game! Check the rules or enter your team by Friday night to qualify for the first race in Bahrain!

08 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Mexico are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Jordan on 1st April.

17 / 02 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The points awarded for a win have changed in the real WRC, so we've reflected the changes in our scoring too. Check the rules to see the details. Next rally is Mexico on 5th March, teams will be frozen at midnight on the night of Thursday 4th March.

16 / 02 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Sweden are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team.

31 / 01 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The new rally season is upon us - 2010 Fantasy Rally is now open! Check the rules or pick a team ready for the start on 12th Feb.

25 / 10 / 2009
Fantasy Rally: All previous years' Fantasy Rally results are online - Check the 2009 season.

02 / 08 / 2009
Reviews: Sorry, there won't be any more movie reviews for the foreseeable future. Events have overtaken me. Catch up on reviews you may have missed.

18 / 08 / 2005
Sudoku! Have a go at the online Sudoku game.

The Black Dahlia

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Mia Kirshner, Jemima Rooper, Rose McGowan. Directed by Brian de Palma, adapted from James Ellroy's book. Story: Two 1940s LA cops investigate the murder of a young starlet. Running Time: 2hrs. UK Certificate 15.

The Black Dahlia tries so hard to be LA Confidential but doesn't even come close. Like a post-truck armadillo, it's curiously flat.

Brian de Palma has had a varied career, from classics such as Carrie, Scarface and The Untouchables, through the occasional crowd-pleaser such as Mission Impossible to the universally condemned Bonfire of the Vanities. After a four year break, he's back at the helm of this James Ellroy adaptation, and it completely fails to live up to Ellroy's previous seminal LA Confidential. It's hard to pinpoint quite why that is - both have intricate stories, star-studded casts and competent production values, yet Confidential was completely gripping from beginning to end, whereas The Black Dahlia just seems to go on and on, adding new twists when we're all packed up and ready to go home. Maybe it's the character development - because of the sheer amount of plot to get through, the characters are launched on us rather than introduced, meaning that we don't have the connection with them that Confidential succeeded in creating. Mind you, that story had masses of plot and still pulled it off, so there's no excuse there.

Watered down with a sepia look, the opening feels a lot like last year's vastly underrated Cinderella Man, but from there on it adapts a vaguely surreal posture. Voiced over like an old Sam Spade story and shot like a James Cagney movie, it tries to recapture those bygone classics, but teeters on the edge of unintentional Sin City-style pastiche. If you harbour nostalgia for these old movies then this could be your movie of the year, but for those of us too young to remember Humphrey Bogart the first time round, it just looks stilted and unrealistic. The dialogue, being so pushy and pointed, is rather difficult to listen to, especially from lead man Josh Hartnett. Aaron Eckhart who, I have to admit, I've been rather prejudiced against since the disastrously bad The Core, is far better here and is much more balanced than Hartnett. Scarlett Johansson seems to perch on top of the movie rather than joining in - not that it's a weak performance, it just doesn't assimilate with everyone else's. Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) and Jemima Rooper (Sinchronicity) look very similar in their 40s get-up - I confused them more than once - and yet curiously the script refers to Swank's resemblance to Mia Kirshner (from The L Word), who is completely different. Doh.

The Black Dahlia looks excellent on paper, but is merely average in practice. It's like a jumbo burger that contains all the food you really love, but piled on top of each other in a foot-high tower, it just doesn't work.

I enjoyed this film: 2/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 3/5

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 3/5 - guns, swearing, brief bappage from Mia Kirshner and Jemima Rooper, half of Hilary Swank's arse. Not much adult content.

To enjoy this film you should be: into old black and white cop movies.