So I took my time to see the film yesterday, and while it had a lot of the great moments and music I remembered from seeing it in Rome this summer, it’s further proof that a director shouldn’t be allowed to re-edit a film except to make a “director’s cut” DVD.

Again, for the most part, the film remained the same. One reason the film was pushed back to a November release in the United States was due to complaints about its length, something Curtis wanted to fix by re-editing it. However, the edits for the American release do the film a disservice. Little things, like Angus playing The Seekers twice in a row weren’t terribly missed, but some of the more comedic scenes were just gone. First, you have a great scene with Chris O’Dowd (The IT Crowd), who plays DJ Simple Simon Swafford, who deals with the pain of his marriage ending with a hilarious lip-sync to “Stay with Me Baby.” Second, before his marriage, the film completely replaced the wild pub-crawl stag party (set to The Small Faces) with much less funny collage of a party held on the boat.

Also, they cut out a scene where Jack Davenport’s character, Ministry underling Mr. Twat (I kid you not), sneaks on board with fans and is caught by Quintin (Nighy), meanwhile, ladies’ man DJ Mark corrals about half of the female fans into his room, where Quintin finds them all undressed. This scene (in the trailer with all the ladies clothed) helps the film towards the end when Mark is asked how he gets so many women to sleep with him.

Further, certain songs and scenes were moved around in a way that didn’t make as much sense. Our protagonist Carl (not Philip Seymour Hoffman as American trailers imply) meets and falls in love with a girl named Marianne (Miss Evangelista from Doctor Who), who promptly sleeps with Nick Frost instead. In the original version, AFTER Parliament passes an act banning pirate radio stations, Radio Rock defies the ban and plays on to Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together.” Marianne then comes back to apologize to Carl and finally sleeps with him, cementing their relationship and her return at the end of the film.

In the American re-edit, her return to Carl occurs before the act’s passage, and doesn’t make as much sense, whereas before she was choosing to be with him despite the fact police may storm the boat and arrest everyone. Also, the song changes to “My Generation” by the Who, still appropriate, but the DJs’ dancing to it makes less sense with regard to the songs’ different tempos. The song at the end of the film too changes from David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” to The Kinks “All Day and All of the Night.” Again, doesn’t make as much sense where we see all the main characters dancing to the music.

So, aside from all these complaints, it’s still a great film, Hoffman, Nighy, Frost, O’Dowd, Rhys Ifans, and everyone else generate great performances that make their characters truly memorable. Great scenes left in unaltered include Simon’s wedding, Frost helping to make a man out of Carl, Emma Thompson’s cameo as Carl’s mum, Ifans’ character returning to the station, Hoffman and Ifans’ big ego showdown (set to music from Sergio Leone westerns), and various bits from the DJs. A great amount of 60s rock is left in as well, and should be welcome to those whose advanced years enable them to recall when they first heard such great music. Branagh also turns out a fantastic performance as the villainous Sir Alistair, who shows no redeeming qualities whatsoever throughout the film, he’s about as bland, stuck-up, and square as you could expect an old school Tory to be.

All-in-all, I give the original version 5 stars, and the American version gets 4. I certainly hope when the American DVD release occurs, they include the original with it.

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First off, the last “Doctor Who” for David Tennant before his regeneration saga begins. It’s supposed to be the scariest ever. I used to have people who would watch the show before me to warn me if the show was particularly freaky that week, but my people have been laid off due to the economy. I’ve gotta toughen up before John Simm comes back anyway.

Secondly, AMC’s attempt to do an American remake of “The Prisoner” debuts. Reviews are very radically mixed on it. Personally, I think that any show starring Sir Ian McKellen should get an automatic 12-episode pickups, but what do I know? And if anyone could do a proper remake of a British show, it would probably be AMC, because, well, watch “Mad Men”. But it’s also one of those shows where you wonder if it could ever improve up0n the original and also know the original’s only a trip from Netflix away.

If neither of those options is for you, fancy a horrible recut of “The Boat That Rocked” in the cinema? Also, there’s a lot of time to be spent analyzing why John and Edward are still on “The X Factor.” But the thing I’m personally excited about because it’s the first weekend of the 9th series of “I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!” And somehow it’s still succeeding where “Big Brother” has now failed to stay revved up for top ratings and a great time slot.

I actually love this show enough to do a semi-daily recap. But I know that love of celebrity reality shows in the US is much different. We like to see a VH1 show once or twice a week instead of almost every single night for three weeks. Plus Ant and Dec might put up a TRO on me just for talking about them too much.

So here’s the list of contestants, and what they’ve done that you might remember if you watch anything British (and really great if you stream it live and thus actually watching things like the soaps and snooker because they seem to be kinda unavoidable.

Samantha Fox: Like the Pet Shop Boys, I actually discovered her via American pop radio circa 1990. I had absolutely had no idea why naughty girls need love too, but that song’s on a mixtape somewhere.
Stuart Manning of Hollyoaks, and before that the winner of “Hero of the Year” at the British Soap Awards. He just left Hollyoaks. Not hard to look at.
Lucy Benjamin formerly of EastEnders. And if you’ve ever watched much EastEnders in the past few years, you’ve seen her. If nothing else, remember Who Shot Phil? However, this show’s a bit of a step down in reputation from Kingdom, RIP. Seeing all these soap stars makes me think they’re hoping for some soapy drama. Anything’s better than WAG’s
Sabrina Washington, formerly of Mis-Teeq, the Brit version of Destiny’s Child. Anyone who made it through a few years with Alesha Dixon has to have some good stories. But a question mark as far as show potential (i.e. why they stay in the jungle after the WAG’s started leaving.)
Gino D’Acampo, who has hosted a ton of British cooking shows. A bit controversial because he claims to cook vegan whilst using parmesan in dishes. I’m sure that they’re hoping that he’ll get into a war of wills with Kim Woodburn over household stuff. REALLY easy on the eyes. He has the potential to actually make the rice and beans the celebs live off of sound tasty.
Justin Ryan and Colin McAllister, interior designers and Scottish reality TV presenters in Canada. Oh, and married for 22 years. Basically Prop 8’s nightmare. I really haven’t seen them before, but on paper they sound a lot like John Barrowman, who would totally do this show if he didn’t want to ever be on “Doctor Who” again.
George Hamilton, and if you don’t know who he is, you really need to watch more “I Love The ’70’s” reruns. Will have the best tan no matter what else happens. Also connected with enough drama queens (Alana Stewart) to have juicy gossip.
Kim Woodburn of How Clean Is Your House? Basically, whomever is on her team is in for a world of hurt. She will try to clean the Aussie jungle.
Camilla Dallerup, professional dancer formerly on “Strictly Come Dancing.” Also formerly engaged to Brendan Cole, who has probably become the most famous of the SCD enterouge. A big question mark.
Jimmy White, HUGE  snooker star and an MBE. I’m a darts girl, but he’s easily the biggest British star to more generations than any other contestant. In his Wikipedia entry. it says he’s had branded video games all the way from the Atari ST to XBox, so he’s kinda a snooker Madden, of sorts.

Although no one else will, I will continue to reserve some hope that Katie Price won’t actually be dropped into camp during the first week. And until six months ago, I liked Katie and Peter. The only way I’d be happy with this is if Kerry Katona were going too. At this point they’d approach Spencer and Heidi levels of annoyance and would get booted from camp in two nights.

I have to give the producers of “I’m A Celebrity…” some credit here. After Speidi (and thank you for not importing THEM, ITV) were so ridiculously bad that people watched just to see how low they could go, there would be a temptation to go for all-Jordan’s. Last year’s version was much more of a name-dropper year with Martina Navratilova and George Takei. This year looks a little more like the year before, with Christopher Biggens, Cerys Matthews and Janice Dickinson. Some of them have fan bases like Jimmy White and George Hamilton will, and they were fun. And no David Van Day. It was a good year and genuine fun.

That was also a really good year for Ant and Dec. It would be pretty hard to watch this show if you’re and AnD hater, because they completely hog the show and that’s half of its charm.

Anyway, I’ll probably be Tweeting about the show a lot at @danadoestv a lot for the next few weeks. Sadly, probably not in real time unless I got a job on the West Coast in the next 48 hours and worked the night shift. If you have a home business or could set your own hours just to watch a live feed at 3 pm every afternoon, you are so lucky. This is a show that you can’t TiVo and read the British press at the same time.

Also, the companion show, “I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here Now!” is going to be tracking Tweets for all of the contestants and their mentions in Tweets, which is a really great idea. Keep up with it here.

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So just who is this Robbie Williams?

At age 16, Williams joined Take That in 1990. Inspired by our New Kids on the Block, Take That  sold 25 million records, dominating the UK charts for the first part of the 90s, before Brit Pop took off.  Here in America, Take That are considered to be one hit wonders. Their song Back For Good was a smash, reaching number one is 31 countries and was in the top 10 in the States.

Angels is William’s greatest commercial success, being certified Double Platinum in the United Kingdom and selling 2 million copies worldwide. The song won Best British Single at the 1998 Brit Awards. In June 2005, it was voted by the British public as the best song in the past twenty-five years of British music. Not bad for a song that only reached #4 on the chart! (I always thought it was a #1…guess not.)

From there, Robbie hit number one with Millennium, inspired by the music in James Bond films thus the sample of You Only Live Twice. This lead to a number one album and string of hits. By late 1998, Robbie was on the top of the charts, selling out massive tours around the UK and Europe.

American audiences, and yours truly, were introduced to Mr. Williams when he signed with Capitol Records in 1999 and the release of The Ego Has Landed. This album was a collection of his hit singles and selected tracks from his albums. Because of this, in my opinion, this is a really strong pop album. I was head over heels for Robbie; I even had his photo taped to my locker door in high school. Unfortunately, the album wasn’t a massive hit and Williams never conquered America…just my heart.

Throughout the past decade, Williams released four albums, including Swing When Your Winning a big band album. Things did start to unravel with the release of Rubebox in 2006. The electro-pop album received very mixed reviews. While it did reach number one, it was overshadowed by the newly reunited without him Take That who were greatly outselling his album.

It appeared that Take That’s careers were climbing as quickly as Robbie’s was declining. For the next few years, Williams didn’t release anything, but instead moved to Los Angeles, went to rebab (again) and made a documentary about UFOs (causing some to question his sanity).

Earlier this fall, Williams came back to the music scene with the release of the single Bodies from the new album Reality Killed the Radio Star. He returned to the stage on the X Factor and kicked off this season of the BBC Electric Proms. Released this past week, it appears Williams has earned his ninth #1 album. Well done! Having heard the new album, I think it is one of his strongest efforts. The first single is a bit of a grower, but the second single “You Know Me” is the best song on the album.

At this point in his career, Williams has sold more albums in the UK than any other British solo artist. He has won 10 BRIT Awards, more than any other artist to date. He has sold more than 55 million albums worldwide. In 2004, he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame as the Greatest Artist of the 1990s. He appears in the all-time Top 100 biggest selling albums in the UK six times.

There is even talk now of Robbie reuniting with Take That, whether it be on an album or tour. Things look like they’ve come full circle for Mr. Robbie Williams.

Now, if Robbie would tour the States, I’d be one happy gal…

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To mark it – he’s made a lovely youtube video of himself reading the first chapter in his book – A Yank Back To England.

After watching this – I can safely say that I can’t wait to read his book!

Back to Dagenham, England

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I am unfortunately aware that we have successfully exported chef Gordon Ramsay to you.  My sincere apologies.

Obviously, the man can cook (and play football) – I wouldn’t want to imply that he can’t.  in fact I truly admire his culinary skill.  But as an ambassador for the English language, he’s not really the best, is he?

It is a somewhat depressing fact of life that language on the streets of this fair isle is deteriorating most alarmingly.  And the “f” word is not the worst one I’ve come across whilst shopping in town with my impressionable toddler daughter (who can now repeat any word after just one hearing).

And yet, when I think about it, I only hear this language on the streets or on TV.  My friends, family and work colleagues are all much more ‘traditional English’ swearers.  So I thought it’s about time we re-introduced the art of using charmingly ‘inoffensive’ expletives to the streets of Blighty; maybe you’d like to join us?

So …

1. If something goes wrong and you need a handy profanity, try “oh blast it!”, “fiddlesticks”, or “bloody hell” instead of the predictable.
2. Mild vexation could call for “oh botheration”,  “bloomin’ heck”, “bottoms”, “pants” or “chuffing heck!”.
3. Stupid or annoying people become ‘nitwits’ or ‘nincompoops’ instead of a**holes.
4. If someone says something that’s bulls**t, then why not try the quaint English terms “codswallop” or “cobblers” instead?
5. If you are drunk, you are “tipsy”, “sloshed”, have had “one over the eight”, are “chateau’d” or “tired and emotional”.
6. If you screw something up, you have made a ‘hash’ of it, or a “right pig’s ear”.
7. If surprised, instead of “Jesus!”, try “Bloody Nora”, “Cor blimey” or “well, blow me” (yep, we really do say this, but you’ll be reassured to know it’s a short form of ‘blow me down’, similar to ‘you could knock me down with a feather’).
8. If you are pi**ed, you are “narked” and if you choose to verbally vent your spleen, you are said to be “throwing a wobbly”.
9. If the sh*t is about to hit the fan and you are tempted to say you are f***ed, then try a posh English accent with the words “gosh, we’re in a bit of a tight spot here” or a Scottish accent and “we’re doomed…dooooomed, I tell ye”.
10. And if words fail you and you are tempted to flick ‘the finger’, why not try the English version and use two fingers (like a “V” for victory, but with your palm towards yourself).  Preferably, this should be accompanied by the smug comment “Agincourt!” as you raise the fingers in the air.

So if Gordon Ramsay has left you believing there is only one profanity in the English language, take heart; even Shakespeare would be proud of our rich and varied selection of expletives.

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They’ve also got some great package deals that include hotel.

They’re taking booking for trips until May 23rd 2009 – so now is a good time to grab a good airfare for a pre-summer trip.

You have until November 19th, 2009 to book.

Check out the sale information here.

Happy Travels!

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Kevin Spacey – one of the more famous admitted Anglophiles out there has considered taking up a scarlett British Passport – but has to figure out the tax implications first.

From the Telegraph yesterday:

Gordon Brown’s onerous new 50 per cent tax rate for top earners would appear to have dampened his ardour. “I think you have to live here for 10 years,” the actor said when the issue was raised at a gathering of the Association of American Correspondents in London. “I am not near that.”

One of his guests corrected him, saying: “Actually it’s just five – you’re there.” A little flustered, the star of American Beauty responded: “I would need to find out the tax implications first. I haven’t done this.” In June, he said: “I love living in London. I can say with all sincerity that London is my home. This is my seventh year living in London, fifth season at the Old Vic. I was in New York before. It is a great city, but my focus for the next six years will be in Britain.

“I will never renounce being American but there is a part of me that is British now. I may go for dual citizenship – who knows?” In better times, Spacey once attended the Labour Party conference.

Well, he’s certainly been there long enough! Do it! Good luck Kevin!

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