Bright Beginnings

Just in case you were worried that I'd gone all "peace and love" over here, don't worry, normal service is resumed.

It's amazing what you will watch in a foreign country if it's in English. There are two movie channels on the hotel telly, HBO and CineMax, and they seem to specialise - in the wee small hours at least - in showing movies that didn't even make it 'straight to video'. I reckon these went 'straight to the bin'!

I turned on the other night to catch Scary Spice herself - Mel B - in some god awful movie about a bunch of anti-vivisectionists who end up killing each other in some weird lab, somewhere in England. Mel was sporting the most dreadful white dreadlocks I have ever seen, and I can remember some of the creations that Antenna were knocking out in the early 80's! Luckily for her, she was killed by the mysterious virus about halfway through before she had time to shame herself any more.

The second atrocious waste of celluloid I saw starred Nick Moran, as a Scotsman - cue the worst accent since Dick Van Dyke's cockerney in Mary Poppins - who inherits a son he knew nothing about, and a dog who can play football. Don't ask me how it ended, I couldn't bear to watch more than the first 20 minutes, but I'll bet a year's wages it didn't pick up much!

Both films were just soooo bad, who gave them the green light? I have friends who have, over the years, written scripts, tried to get their own movies made, to no avail. How on earth does rubbish like this get the go ahead when some really good stuff sits in some movie wanker's in-tray?

What was most depressing about both films was that the 'stars' had had such auspicious starts to their careers. Love em or hate em The Spice Girls were a phenomenon, and even Scary's solo single with Missy Elliot wasn't too bad. Nick Moran was fantastic in Lock Stock...how did they both end up doing this kind of dross?

Guess the lesson is, don't burn too bright too soon.