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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.

 

Flags of our Fathers

Flags of our Fathers

Cast: Ryan Philippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Jamie Bell, Paul Walker, Robert Patrick.

Directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Paul Haggis, William Broyles Jr, James Bradley and Ron Powers.

Story: The story behind the soldiers who raised the flag at Iwo Jima.

Running Time: 2hrs 12 minutes.

UK Certificate 15.

 

Flags of our Fathers is a war movie, much like many others before it and, depressingly, many yet to come. Yawn.

Ryan Philippe and Jesse Bradford dream of fresher stories. Why moviemakers continue to be obsessed with recreating the horrors that the human virus inflicts on itself, I'll never know. Why people pay to watch it is an even greater mystery to me. Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers is just as painful to watch as any other semi-realistic war movie and if, like me, you don't like being depressed by movies, go and see Happy Feet instead.

Flags fills in the back story behind the soldiers famously depicted in the iconic flag-raising photo, taken at the battle of Iwo Jima in the second world war. Flown home in order to raise money so the killing can continue, their new fame is interspersed with flashbacks of the carnage that led to that photo. As we've become accustomed to expect, the war scenes are pretty grisly and not at all easy to watch. So don't take the kids.

The boys claim a pile of rotting human remains, which was later sold to England to make Slough. It's very hard for me to be objective about this. If you're into these realistic depictions of war, you'll love Flags, even though it's aimed at a more transatlantic audience. The performances are all solid and apart from it being very difficult to tell the actors apart on the battlefield, there's nothing I can put my finger on to criticise. Paul Haggis, a busy man at the moment with a hand in Casino Royale and The Last Kiss, contributes to the screenplay, but his influence is not as obvious here as with the others. There are moments of poignance, such as when a soldier falls overboard on the way to the island and is left to drown, but aside from that, I can see nothing here to recommend over the countless other equally unpleasant war movies that have infected our viewing lives.

Flags of our Fathers is just another war movie. If you like that, good for you, you'll like this as much as you liked the others, because there's nothing really wrong with it. I, however, wish they'd stop making them. Clint's making a sequel early next year, told from the Japanese perspective - I only hope there's something new in that one.

I enjoyed this film: 1/5

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

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 2/5 - adults only, just because of all the realistic maiming. It's not pleasant.

To enjoy this film you should: like war films.

 

Flags of our Fathers was released in the UK on 22nd December.