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Latest News

13 / 05 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
The results from the fifth F1 race at Barcelona are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Monaco in two weeks on 27th May - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 25th.

30 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Results from Rally Argentina are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Greece and starts on 25th May. Cutoff for edits is midnight GMT on Thursday 24th May.

23 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Jari-Matti Latvala has been injured, so he is being replaced by Dani Sordo for Rally Argentina. If you have Latvala on your team, you'll automatically score for Sordo instead. Cutoff for edits for this weekend's rally is midnight GMT on Thursday 26th April.

22 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
The results from the fourth F1 race at Bahrain are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Barcelona in three weeks on 13th May - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 11th.

15 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
Now we have a few races under our belt, the weightings have been changed to reflect the early season performances - see the the league page to see what changed.

15 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
The results from the third F1 race at China are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is (probably) Bahrain next weekend on 22nd April - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 20th.

02 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
The results have been updated to reflect Mikko Hirvonen's exclusion from Rally Portugal.

01 / 04 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Results from Rally Portugal are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Argentina and starts on 27th April. Cutoff for edits is midnight GMT on Thursday 26th April.

28 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Last call to pick a WRC Academy driver! Teams will be locked from midnight GMT on Thursday night - if you haven't picked one by then, you'll get Christopher Duplessis by default.

25 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
The results from the second F1 race at Malaysia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is China in 3 weeks on 15th April - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT on Friday 13th.

18 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
The results from the first F1 race at Australia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Malaysia this coming weekend - cutoff for team edits is midnight GMT Friday.

15 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
LAST DAY! Teams entered after midnight GMT tonight won't count for Melbourne - this is your last chance!

13 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Results from Rally Mexico are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Portugal and starts on 29th March. Remember to pick your Academy driver before then! Anyone who doesn't pick an Academy driver will by default get the first guy on the list - Christopher Duplessis.

05 / 03 / 2012
Fantasy F1:
It's here! The 2012 Fantasy F1 championship is open for entries! Read the rules or dive straight in and Pick your team. You can change your mind as often as you like until midnight GMT on Thursday 15th March when teams will be frozen for the first race.

23 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
The Mexico entry list has arrived and is available on the rally page.

14 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Due to Mini's recent hoo-ha, if you have Mini as your WRC team, you will score for the Mini Portugal team instead (currently Araujo/Nobre) from Mexico onwards.

13 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Teams are open for editing again, though the entry list for Mexico isn't yet available.

12 / 02 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Results from Rally Sweden are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The next rally is in Mexico and starts on 8th March. Teams will reopen for editing on Monday.

23 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Teams are now open for editing again. Ogier and Mikkelsen are entered into Sweden in S2000 cars, but they're not eligible for the SWRC championship. You can choose them as WRC drivers for Sweden if you want.

22 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Results from the Monte are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. The second rally is in Sweden and starts on 9th Feb. Teams will be frozen at midnight GMT on the night of Thursday 9th Feb.

18 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
Rally teams are now frozen for the Monte. You can still pick a team and it will start scoring from Sweden on 9th Feb.

11 / 01 / 2012
Fantasy Rally:
The 2012 Fantasy Rally season is now open for entries! Read the rules or dive straight in and pick a team. You can change your team as often as you like so you may as well create one now in case you forget later. Cutoff for the first race in Monte Carlo is midnight GMT on the night of TUESDAY 17th January.

27 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy F1:
The results from the final F1 race at Brazil are in and the championship has been decided! Check the results or see how your team did. First race of 2012 is Australia on 18th March. Entries for the new season will open a week or two before that date.

14 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy Rally:
Shock rally drama! Martin Semerad was excluded from the PWRC, so our results change too, which gives us a new champion! Check the results or see how your team did.

13 / 11 / 2011
Fantasy Rally:
The results from Rally GB are in and the season is over! Check the results or see how your team did. The 2012 season will be open for entries in early 2012 in time for Monte Carlo on 17th January.

 

Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain

Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini.

Directed by Ang Lee, from the short story by E Annie Proulx.

Story: Gay cowboys.

Running Time: 2hrs 14 minutes.

UK Certificate 15.

 

Brokeback Mountain is one of those movies that you've heard way too much about before you see it. Knowing a movie has already won awards makes it very difficult to judge objectively. In the case of Brokeback Mountain, it's a powerful story, but not without its faults.

They're lumberjacks and they're OK, they shag all night and they work all day. Homosexuality is like eating snails to me. If someone wants to eat snails, they should go right ahead and eat snails, but I'd really prefer it if they didn't do it while I'm around, much less make a movie out of it. It's fair to say that there's no way I'd have seen this movie if I didn't do this web site - but having watched it carefully and winced at the appropriate moments (just in case anyone was watching and got the wrong idea - you know how up-tight us straight folks are), I'm glad I did. To be honest, the gay thing isn't really the driving factor here - although director Ang Lee would probably disagree in a bid to sell more tickets - it's simply a story of forbidden love that could have happened between anyone. The fact that the couple is made up of two cowboys actually detracts from the story, as they manage to overcome their indoctrinated upbringings with virtually no effort at all - they go over to The Brown Side far too readily for my liking, as if they're cosmopolitan students rather than repressed macho figures.

Jake Gyllenhaal pretends it was Anne Hathaway who made the pole in his pants. Heath Ledger has had a cracking year, with two superb performances in The Brothers Grimm and Lords of Dogtown and he makes it a worthy hat-trick, comprehensively acting Jake (Jarhead) Gyllenhaal off the screen with another inventive characterisation. The two of them do have some mano-on-mano action, but it's relievingly ungraphic and almost unnecessary. It's the bond between the two characters that makes the atmosphere, so much so that the sex scenes could have been dispensed with completely without losing any of the dramatic impact. It would have lost most of the viewers though, and definitely wouldn't have been winning awards. Yes, call me cynical, but I genuinely believe awards are given on criteria like this, even if it's not entirely a conscious decision. In today's diverse society we're supposed to embrace homosexuality, but we still have trouble with it, even if we can't admit it in public. Just look at the cinema ratings: It's a 15 certificate over here, a 16 in Ireland and R rated in the USA (meaning if you're under 17 you must be accompanied by a parent or guardian). In Sweden you can see it when you're SEVEN and in France it's a U. I can't think of any heterosexual love story with such a spread of ratings.

Michelle Williams was always more relaxed when Heath Ledger steered with his willy. But I digress. As well as the gay headliner, both characters are also married - Gyllenhaal to Anne Hathaway and Ledger to Michelle Williams. Anne Hathaway has gone out of her way to lose the squeaky clean image she garnered from teen hits The Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted. Havoc nearly did that for her, but no-one saw that, so she's had to strip off here as well to get noticed. Probably a wise move, as her oppo Michelle Williams, a Dawson's Creek alumnus along with Katie Holmes, is far more convincing - though to be fair she does have a meatier role. A Best Supporting Actress award would not be out of the question, though you have to be a little disappointed with the rumour that she needed the boys to get it on out of shot in order for her to do the Oh-my-god-my-husband's-bent expression properly. If that's true then I'd prefer the award went to someone else. Call me picky.

Brokeback Mountain is indeed a thoroughly recommendable movie. The Wyoming scenery is beautiful and the love story is compelling too. I just can't get past the feeling that it's only hailed as fantastic because two straight Hollywood A-list hunks put their tongues down each other's throats. It isn't fantastic - it's just good - but I suspect it makes no difference what I say. You already knew before you read this whether you were going to go and see it or not, and I daresay the expectation you have, whatever it is, will be fulfilled.

I enjoyed this film: 4/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 5/5 - not that I think it's a 5/5 movie, I just think that the people who want to watch it will see it that way.

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 2/5 - look the other way during the single-sex encounters and wait patiently for the boobs of both Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams (click the links for a preview). The gay scenes aren't very graphic, though Heath Ledger does spit on his hand to ease his passage - so to speak.

To enjoy this film you should be: keen to see it.

 

Brokeback Mountain is on general release in the UK now.