Archaic

I'm currently having some problems keeping up with popular opinion. Despite everyone raving over them, I have recently hated the following:

Brokeback Mountain The main characters were terribly two dimensional and unlikeable (particularly the Heath Leger character). I didn't really believe in their relationship, and they were so unpleasant to their families, with apparently no compunction about it, that by about half way through the film I didn't care what happened to them.

Why is everybody making such a fuss about it? It's like the world at large has suddenly wakened up to the idea that gay people have feelings too, and have suffered a lot of difficulties and prejudice over the years. This is obviously a good thing, but it's been addressed in films before this, and much better films too.

The I.T. Crowd The new sitcom from the writer of 'Father Ted' and 'Black Books', both of which I love. However, this is absolute mince. It's just a bunch of cliches strung together without any jokes (I.T. people are really dim and socially inept, and no women understand computers at all, but are just there to be pretty and wear tight skirts and high heels). Apparently he decided to write for a 'family audience'; this appears to have been a mistake.

The most glaring indication of this is that, while Michael and I were surprised to read in an article on 'Black Books' that it had been recorded in front of an audience and therefore had a laugh track (presumably we were too busy laughing to notice), the laugh track on this is glaringly obvious. Probably because it's diffcult to imagine what the audience are finding to laugh at. I suspect they're actually showing them a video of 'Father Ted'.

The Arctic Monkeys They sound blurry and their singer has a really annoying voice.

So there. I'm away back to the sixteenth century.