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.

Lord of War

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan, Ethan Hawke, Ian Holm, Eamonn Walker. Directed and written by Andrew Niccol. Story: The life and loves of an international gunrunner. Running Time: 2hrs 2 minutes. UK Certificate 15.

Who'd have thought that a Nicolas Cage film about gunrunning could be fun, compelling, weighty and largely apolitical at the same time? Not me, but I'm happy to say Lord of War has proved me wrong.

Nicolas Cage stars as Yuri Orlov, a Ukrainian born New Yorker who decides one day to become a gunrunner. Over the years, his empire builds with his brother Jared Leto and he pursues supermodel Bridget Moynahan (I, Robot, The Recruit) without letting on where his money's coming from. Along the way, we meet various warlords and rival trafficker Ian Holm, while cop Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Assault on Precinct 13) tries vainly to arrest him. The story wisely sidesteps any overt political machinations, settling for a terse societal warning at wrapping-up time by a bravely reticent Cage. In addition, the obvious ending is pleasingly eschewed in favour of a less crowd-pleasing one - although the route by which it arrives is a little clumsy, providing the only oh-god-here-we-go moment that is so common in most gun-related movies. In fact, there is very little action at all - despite being an easy scenario for crappy bullet-dodging scenes, there's only one notable action sequence, and I shan't spoil it by describing it. The pace is maintained with excellent direction and a worthy script, with a number of amusing moments within the concise, sharp and relevant dialogue.

Nicolas Cage is one of my least favourite leading men. Since Leaving Las Vegas, he's failed to convince me in anything from The Rock, through Matchstick Men and out the other side into the ludicrous National Treasure. Here he still looks like a drama school dropout to me, but he's good enough for us to buy into the character. Bridget Moynahan does the job and Jared Leto, who I can never recognise in any role for some reason, makes a humble little brother Vitaly. Eamonn Walker exudes supreme arrogance in everything he does, from Othello to Duma but here, as the Liberian president, his smugness fits the part. Ethan Hawke has been a reliable performer for years now and he cements his reputation here, but all pale into insignificance next to Ian Holm, whose appearance serves only to highlight the lack of brilliance in the rest of the cast, as the viewers' eyes are magnetically drawn to his black hole-like screen presence. It's not that the cast are bad, they simply fail to set the screen alight. Speaking of which, the opening sequence did just that - we follow the life of a bullet, from the bullet's eye view, from manufacture until eventual usage on the other side of the world, to the tune of Buffalo Springfield's perfectly appropriate line, "there's a man with a gun over there". I can't remember an opening sequence that got me into the groove of a movie so quickly. Don't turn up late!

Lord of War lives up to the promise - smart, well-presented and eminently watchable, even if you're not the gunslinging type. In fact, especially if you're not the gunslinging type - if you have a strong political pro- or anti-gun view, then you're likely to see opposing views in the movie (genuine or otherwise) that may damage your overall enjoyment. Accept it for what it is - the story of a man with an illegal and controversial profession, or as he puts it, "an equal-opportunities merchant of death", and you'll be rewarded with a most entertaining evening.

I enjoyed this film: 4/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 4/5

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 3/5 Lots of guns and shooting, swearing, some cocaine abuse, far too little skin from Bridget Moynahan.

To enjoy this film you should: try not to look for a political message.