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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.

 

Lady in the Water

Lady in the Water

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, M Night Shyamalan, Jeffrey Wright, Freddy Rodriguez, Bob Balaban, Sarita Choudhury, Cindy Cheung.

Written and directed by M Night Shyamalan.

Story: A girl from another world turns up in the pool.

Running Time: 1hr 50 minutes.

UK Certificate PG.

 

Lady in the Water is an M Night Shyamalan movie - that means it has to live up to The Sixth Sense and all his other cracking movies. It doesn't quite manage it, but still merits your attention.

Paul Giamatti fails to see the humour of being pushed in the pool. I've enjoyed every single one of Shyamalan's movies, from the wonderful Unbreakable, through the seriously scary Signs to the more down-to-earth The Village. Shyamalan takes Bryce Dallas Howard from the latter and places her in his ethereal title role as the mysterious girl who appears in Paul Giamatti's swimming pool. She capitalises on her slightly detached demeanour, though is in danger of stereotyping herself by playing all her roles to date with an intense starey nature that does nothing to raise her stature in the acting world. Paul Giamatti, however, is brilliant. Last year's Cinderella Man and the previous year's Sideways amply demonstrated his talent and this performance comfortably cements it. He's a joy to watch and has a lovely silky tone to his voice that works perfectly on the screen. In Lady in the Water, his character Cleveland Heep is afflicted by a stutter, something that I suffer from myself, and it's most uplifting to see an actor who has clearly researched the subject. He hasn't got it 100% right, but he's up there with the best so far - Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda - and runs rings around all other portrayals, so he gets the thumbs up from me. Shyamalan himself is pretty good too - he extends his usual cameo to a fully-fledged character and he does very well. He certainly acts better than he writes...

Bryce Dallas Howard could really use 50p for a cuppa. Ah yes, the writing - this is where things start to come apart. This is the first movie that Shyamalan has written himself, and it plainly doesn't hang together as well as his others. For a start, Cleveland Heep immediately buys the girl's story about being from another world, there's never a moment of doubt. I can't really share any more of the daft points without giving away the story, but believe me, there are dozens of them. Apparently Shyamalan has developed this story over a number of years, with multiple rewrites along the way - if that's the case then the original draft must have been kindergarten material. Still, it's boosted by many comedic moments along the way, many provided by the sweet deadpan of Bob Balaban, but they don't work quite as well as they could, because the atmosphere doesn't support them. This is actually quite a funny movie, but nobody in the cinema laughed. Even some of the serious moments seemed to me to be deliberately comic, but still not a titter from the audience, possibly because we weren't expecting this to be anything other than a straight-down-the-line drama.

Lady in the Water is a tough one to rate. It is clearly a good and typically original movie, but I really can't see it gripping anyone in the same way as Shyamalan's previous work. Watch it a second time and it will grow on you, but for a random evening's movie diversion, it suffers by comparison with any one of his prior successes. Come to it new, though, and you may enjoy a refreshingly new self-deprecating approach to storytelling.

I enjoyed this film: 4/5

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

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 0/5 - Bryce Dallas Howard is naked for much of the movie, but we don't see anything. Check out Manderlay if that's your motivation.

To enjoy this film you should: not know who M Night Shyamalan is.

 

Lady in the Water was released in the UK on 11th August.