Latest News

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 Oscars 2009 - Sunday 25th February

Just a bit of fun - my tips for the Oscars and who I'd have voted for if I could. I promise I won't change my predictions after the winners are announced! I must admit I haven't been following things as closely as usual this year so they might be all wrong ... don't go betting on my predictions! And if you do, don't use Betfair. Betfair recently gave away 9 grand of my winnings to someone pretending to be me and they claim they have no liability - they are even refusing to provide details of the crime to the police! They are a bunch of crooks and your money is not safe in their hands.

Previous years' tips: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.

Best Picture

Nominees:
  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
  Frost/Nixon,
  Milk,
  The Reader,
  Slumdog Millionaire.

My prediction: Slumdog Millionaire.

My opinion: Kung Fu Panda, with second place going to In Bruges.

Was I right? Yay!

Best Leading Actor

Nominees:
  Richard Jenkins (for The Visitor),
  Frank Langella (for Frost/Nixon),
  Sean Penn (for Milk),
  Brad Pitt (for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button),
  Mickey Rourke (for The Wrestler).

My prediction: Oh lawks, I'm having trouble with this one. The bookies think Mickey Rourke but I'm plumping for Sean Penn.

My opinion: Not sure. Maybe Tom Wilkinson for RocknRolla.

Was I right? Yes! Beat the bookies on that one.

Best Leading Actress

Nominees:
  Anne Hathaway (for Rachel Getting Married),
  Angelina Jolie (for Changeling),
  Melissa Leo (for Frozen River),
  Meryl Streep (for Doubt),
  Kate Winslet (for The Reader).

My prediction: A two-horse race between Streep and Winslet and hard to pick a winner - I'll plump for Kate Winslet.

My opinion: Meryl Streep.

Was I right? Yes!

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees:
  Josh Brolin (for Milk),
  Robert Downey Jr (for Tropic Thunder),
  Philip Seymour Hoffman (for Doubt),
  Heath Ledger (for The Dark Knight),
  Michael Shannon (for Revolutionary Road).

My prediction: This is the Helen Mirren of the year - it can't go anywhere but Heath Ledger, sadly.

My opinion: Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading.

Was I right? Yep, but that one was easy.

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees:
  Amy Adams (for Doubt),
  Penelope Cruz (for Vicky Cristina Barcelona),
  Viola Davis (for Doubt),
  Taraji P Henson (for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button),
  Marisa Tomei (for The Wrestler).

My prediction: Well, I've got a hunch on Viola Davis, but I'm going to ignore it and plump for Penelope Cruz.

My opinion: Amy Adams.

Was I right? Yes

Best Director

Nominees:
  David Fincher (for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button),
  Ron Howard (for Frost/Nixon),
  Gus Van Sant (for Milk),
  Stephen Daldry (for The Reader),
  Danny Boyle (for Slumdog Millionaire).

My prediction: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire.

My opinion: David Fincher.

Was I right? Yes again.

Best Animated Feature

Nominees:
  Bolt,
  Kung Fu Panda,
  Wall-E.

My prediction: Wall-E.

My opinion: Kung Fu Panda.

Was I right? Yes

Best Original Screenplay

Nominees:
  Frozen River,
  Happy-Go-Lucky,
  In Bruges,
  Milk,
  Wall-E.

My prediction: Milk.

My opinion: In Bruges.

Was I right? Yes!

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominees:
  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
  Doubt,
  Frost/Nixon,
  The Reader,
  Slumdog Millionaire.

My prediction: It's the wrong winner, but I reckon it'll go to Slumdog Millionaire.

My opinion: Benjamin Button.

Was I right? Yes, sadly. Slumdog's a really good movie, but the screenplay was very much a weak link.

Best Cinematography

Nominees:
  Changeling,
  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
  The Dark Knight,
  The Reader,
  Slumdog Millionaire.

My prediction: Slumdog Millionaire.

My opinion: I agree, Slumdog.

Was I right? Yes

Best Art Direction

Nominees:
  Changeling,
  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
  The Dark Knight,
  The Duchess,
  Revolutionary Road.

My prediction: Benjamin Button.

My opinion: The Spirit. I'm quite surprised that Slumdog Millionaire wasn't nominated in this category.

Was I right? Yes

Best Special Effects

Nominees:
  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,
  The Dark Knight,
  Iron Man.

My prediction: Benjamin Button.

My opinion: All three of these deserve to win, but the originality gives the edge to Benjamin Button. I think I would've kicked The Dark Knight off the list and replaced it with Hancock.

Was I right? Yes, that makes me feel slightly better about The Golden Compass shockingly "winning" this award last year.

Overall results

Twelve right from twelve predictions! Not quite sure how that happened, but I got them all right! Annoyingly, it's the only year I haven't been able to bet on them, because of the Betfair fiasco ... bugger!

The Bernard Matthews Award

What was 2008's Turkey of the Year? Well, I haven't seen a lot of bad movies this year - nothing got below a 2 all year, which is a first. Quantum of Solace wasn't totally awful, but deserves a mention here as it fell so far below expectations, as did Street Kings. I'm sure there were worse movies, but I'm going to give the turkey trophy to Twilight for achieving the impossible and making a vampire movie boring. But if you want to see a truly horrible movie, see if you can find a copy of Auto Recovery - that movie was so impossibly bad that I couldn't face sitting through it to review it.

Highlights of the Year

The movie industry continues to churn out quality stuff. Surprise of the year was probably Death Race - that movie had no right to be as good as it was. The same goes for You Don't Mess With the Zohan, which proved Adam Sandler is still learning and getting better. The Liam Neeson thriller Taken was undoubtedly the sleeper hit of the year - I must get around to reviewing it...

Other movies that tickled my viewing pleasure-muscles this year and deserve your attention are Son of Rambow, RocknRolla, Burn After Reading, The Orphanage, Hancock and The Incredible Hulk. And if you haven't seen Tropic Thunder yet, go and rent it just so you can laugh heartily at Tom Cruise as a lardy baldy-man. Priceless.

Coming up in 2009

The movie highlight of 2009 has to be the new Star Trek movie. Simon Pegg as Scotty - surely it can't go wrong... can it? With the unfortunate news of Spy Hunter hitting more problems, at least we have Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to look forward to - that'll be an effects-fest if nothing else - then there's Watchmen, which is surely going to be brilliant, the Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons, then the year rounds off with Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, featuring both Robert Downey Jr and my current favourite Mark Strong. I can't wait.