"YOU WERE MY LAST PATIENT" I just put up a handful of new book reviews with more to follow. I'll also be updating the movie stuff this weekend. Speaking of movies - I just saw The Sum of All Fears. Its not out in the UK for a while but its been a big hit in the States. It's the new Jack Ryan movie - remember Patriot Games and Clear and present Danger with harrison Ford? Ford took over the Ryan role from Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October) and now the new Ryan is played by Ben Affleck.Nothing wrong in keeping a franchise alive by putting in new blood I suppose - fuck - look at Bond and I even have a soft spot for the author of the books Tom Clancy but (you knew there was a 'but' coming huh?) The Sum of All Fears is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, its also one of the stupidest. Its hard who to blame for it really, Affleck does what he normally does in that he can't really act but he's got this playful 'mugging fro the camera' thing that he does instead, the writing is typically big budget Hollywood crap so you expect it to be dumb. But the movie is also very arrogant and lazy - the Russians are all shown to be old school cold war morons while the real bad guys are nazis - its always a safe bet to have nazi villians because you're not going to get a large group of pro-nazi demonstrators boycotting cinemas. In the original book the bad guys were Islamic extremists - no fucker in Hollywood wants to touch that particular topic at the moment. It's depressing that this movie was so successful in the States - it features a nuclear explosion going off in Baltimore and lots of big budget carnage... its as if the film-makers are saying 'hey, sure September 11th was bad but we can still imagine the worse and unlike the real world the bad guys are nazis and we have a good looking CIA agent to round them up in 90 minutes or so. Fuck. There's a laughable scene where the US President decided that action must be taken against Russia and then it cuts to the news that NATO froces are on their way in. Its hard to work out whether the script-writers are being satirical in saying that NATO is just a lapdog for the US or whether they actually belive that the rest of the world should simply do as its told when America is wearing its 'peacekeeping' hat. Laughable. I'm guessing it'll be a big hit here too but then again most shit is. Its also sad to see Morgan Freeman playing his older mentor figure yet again - does the guy love being typecasted? Anyway, go see it if you must. I'm going to watch the Scooby-Doo movie this afternoon and I'm trying to keep an open mind... but Rowan Atkinson? For fucks sake... Still on the topic of cinema... I'm popping into the Clapham Picture House this afternoon for a chat about a weekend job. I hadn't really considered working in a cinema until Daisy told me how much fun it could be - she works in one in central London. So I'll go along and see what the score is and fill you guys in later. I've been watching E.R. since it started and i still think its one of the best pieces of popular entertainment I've ever seen. We saw Mark's last day on the job last night and I was fucking gutted. I know he's back for his Hawaiian swan song in a few weeks but it's going to be a different show without him. A lot of crap was said about it changing when Clooney left but for my money Anthony Edwards was always the best thing about the programme... pretty pissed to see him go. Check out the original cast: And then there was one... Let's hope Carter doesn't quit anytime soon. By the way - does anyone remember Miracle Mile? It was the best thing that Anthony Edwards did outside of ER... what are the odds that he goes back to cool stuff like that? Sheesh - enough with the talk about American TV already... Mike is blogging to: The Rollins Band - Get some Go Again