Pithyoneliner

A return to form for Peter Kay, and I was pleasantly surprised by his costar Sian Gibson who held her own.

Car Share rates as the best new British Comedy of 2015, building into an unlikely romance - two ordinary Co-op (?) employees finding each other on the daily commute.

Filled with subtle throw-away gags, many hidden in the scenery or soundtrack and the occasional surreal daydream the whole effect is adorable and heartwarming!

Can't wait for the US remake with some better looking stars - Ashton Kutcher & Jennifer Anniston perhaps?

Perhaps leave this one to the Lancastrians...

I was excited about this one, truly excited. The greatest zombie story ever written coming to the big screen? The sheer scale of it, Max Brook's globe trotting masterpiece, written in the best traditions of the genre, equal parts good old fashioned gore fest and social commentary of it's age.

Then there were the set pieces, Yonkers, Hope, the great battles never before envisaged in a zombie movie, and I read with glee, this movie was going to have the budget to meet expectations.

Then it was announced Brad was going to star, that was the first warning sign. Could such an A-List star take the back seat? The book had no central protagonist... OK maybe they would keep the overall theme but give Gerry Lane a role in a few of the chapters as well as the interviewer role. Then came rumours of delays, in fighting and walk outs.

By the time the movie was released the press was so bad I could almost not bring myself to watch it. But I had too, I had to see it. So I went to the theater to find... NONE of it, he took nothing other than the name of the movie and a couple of the characters? Why? Why Brad? Why?

Why did you buy up the rights to this, preventing others from using the source material to produce this generic focus-group scripted garbage? If you liked it so little that you changed everything about it, why buy the rights? Rumour had it that Di Caprio had been outbid on the rights.

I don't know if our merry strolling friend Leo would have done a better job - but he couldn't have done worse.

Also - that ending? You frikkin' what?

As a fan of the original it was with some trepidation that I watched my first episode of the US remake, hell we haven't forgiven you for what you did to 'Life on Mars' and the US 'IT Crowd'? It's worth tracking down that still born pilot, just to see how badly a reinterpretation can murder every joke... Then you have the US Office and Being Human, which were, passable, OK if you haven't seen the originals they were OK shows.

But... Shameless is the first UK show I have seen where the US interpretation is, possibly, better than the original. It sticks pretty close to the UK script so it's not detracting from the original creative vision, but the production values,acting etc. are all first rate, and plus it doesn't try to dumb it down or sanitise it too much (all though it does a little).

All in all whether you are a fan of the original and want to check out a decent re-imagining - it's worth a look, or for our stateside cousins, if you've never seen the original then check it out - it doesn't f**k it up, and for most remakes... That's high praise!

(remembers Life on Mars, shudders)