Viewpoint: Bauer stations drop the Top 40, so Global sulks.

So Radio Today are reporting that Bauer stations are dropping the Vodafone Big Top 40 show at the end of the year, and Global as a result have decided to stop offering the show to the rest of the industry as a result.

I mean that in itself is slightly weird.  It doesn't have sound like Global sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the industry, so that only their clique can play with it.

But, for me, this is absolutely a good thing.  Global now have stations just about everywhere in the UK, they are the biggest radio group in the UK.  So, if they were going to stop offering the chart show to other stations at some point, maybe they were just waiting for a convenient excuse.

Many smaller stations across the country have not been taking the chart show.  The likes of Radio Plymouth, Radio Exe, The Breeze, and others have managed to work just fine without the show, and other than for just heritage reasons, there was sometimes little reason for a station to be still taking the show, such as Pirate FM has been since 2012, when Heart Cornwall replaced Atlantic FM, which had not been airing the Big Top 40, and started airing it, meaning both commercial radio stations in Cornwall were simulcasting the programme between 4pm and 7pm on a Sunday.

Bauer just provided the necessary excuse for Global, but it still sounds like they're sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the network in response.

Viewpoint: The End of the BBC Local Radio Evening Show?

So, it seems that we've got the beginning of the end of the BBC Local Radio evening show.  BBC Radio London dropped the show some months ago, and next Monday, BBC Radio Cornwall also drops the show, with Tiffany Truscott taking on the Evening Show slot.  BBC WM are also dropping their remaining airings of the show on Mondays & Thursdays, to replace it with local evening shows on those days, whilst Tuesday, Wendesday and Friday evenings are dedicated to local sport.

Other stations that have already dropped the show, include BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, BBC Radio Humberside, BBC Radio Kent, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Newcastle, BBC Radio Sheffield, whilst BBC Radio Stoke have just one hour of the show on a Friday evening.  Other stations have hours of the Local Radio Evening Show substituted for sports coverage and BBC Introducing, amongst other things.

This is a very piecemeal way of dropping the show.  Individual stations are deciding when they are dropping it, rather than having a confirmed cut-off date, where the show officially ends.  Where I live, I can pick up both BBC Radio Devon and BBC Radio Cornwall, and whilst Cornwall is starting their own evening programme next week, Devon is sticking with the show, except for some Tuesday sports coverage.  Also, it seems that each individual station is now doing it's own thing in the evening slot, rather than the regional arrangements we've had before.  Some stations are including BBC Introducing shows in the evening schedule, and specialist music and content shows, others are just doing one long evening slot.  This is the first time ever, outside of sports coverage, that BBC Radio Cornwall has gone its own separate way for the evening slot.

In the Mid 80's BBC Radio Bristol supplied evening programming between 6pm and 8pm with Al Read presenting, but that disappeared shortly before Late Night Sou'West laucnhed in 1987 with Chris Langmore hosting from 10pm.  Then BBC Radio Bristol supplied the evening output with Chris Mills between 7pm and 10pm.  Later, Devon, Cornwall, Guernsey and Jersey would split away from Bristol, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and have their own evening show, then later on all the stations came back together for a while where all post 7pm output, including the late night show, was shared between all those stations. then later Duncan Warren hosted an evening programme on Devon, Cornwall, Guernsey and Jersey, with somebody else hosting the late night slot.

Now, you'll have Tiffany Truscott hosting just for Cornwall, and the only shared output, will be David Shepherd's Late Show.  Very much not what I expected, I was expecting to see more regional output between 7pm and 10pm, but more local is good.  Maybe it will help remind commercial radio that they should be more local than network.  

WrestlePod: WOS Wrestling Episode 1 Review

Ian Beaumont reviews the first episode of World Of Sport Wrestling, talks Impact Wrestling Slammiversary 2018, and WWE Evolution on this episode of WrestlePod.

Viewpoint: UKTV vs Virgin Media: Who do they think they're hurting?

So multichannel broadcaster UKTV is in the midle of a spat with platform provider Virgin Media over... something, something that ultimately doesn't really matter.  I believe it might have to do in part with the fact that UKTV VOD (Video  On Demand) is on Netflix and Amazon Prime, but not Virgin Media.  I also hear that it might be in part due to the amount that UKTV charge Virgin Media for their channels, including ones that are available free to air on Freeview and Freesat.

As a result of this, all the UKTV channels, including the free ones, have been pulled from Virgin Media in both the UK & Ireland.  If you go to where the channels are meant to be on the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide), you'll find different channels in their place, many of which do not offer similar programming to the channels they replaced.

One side effect of this is that in the UK, Premier Sports has been added to the XL pack, alongside the existing BT Sport and EuroSport channels, and the recently added FreeSports, which means for Virgin Media customers there is more live sport available without having to add the premium Sky Sports.  If you include all the HD variants, there's 19 channels of sport available from around the world, including At The Races, Sky Sports Mix and Sky Sports News.

Neither side in this debacle looks good.  Virgin Media have basically replaced a lot of channels that provided high quality programming, with a few channels that provide high quality programming and others that are not so high quality.  And UKTV looks greedy for asking for probably more money than they should, for a product that whilst it is high quality, is far from a premium product.  UKTV is mostly shows that have already been shown elsewhere, with a small sprinkling of original content.

Both sides are trying to hurt each other, but in doing so, the reality is they are only really hurting their loyal viewers, who are now unable to watch the channels on cable, and will now have to either subscribe to Sky for the UKTV channels, or will have to make do with the free channels on either Freeview, or ,if they're particularly sneaky like yours truly, on Freesat.

Not that I am particularly interested in watching anything that UKTV does currently.  About the only thing I was remotely interested in was repeats of new Doctor Who from the 2005 series onwards.  Oh, and the occassional live sport that was on Dave, and I can still get that on Freeview and Freesat, when they get the rights to show such events, but ITV4 gets more live sport than Dave does.

Overall, I am much happier that I now get Premier Sports as part of my subscription, which now means I have more accesss to live sport than ever before, which I think is an amazing bonus.  This will probably end when UKTV finally agree a deal, but for now, I'm taking advantage of the situation, and enjoying the extra sports.

WrestlePod: WWE UK Championship Tournament & ROH Best In The World

Ian Beaumont reviews the 2018 WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament, and Ring Of Honor's Best In The World pay-per-view, in this edition of WrestlePod.

Viewpoint: The James Bond Actors: From Worst to Best.

In the past couple of weeks, we've had news that Danny Boyle, who directed Daniel Craig's short appearance in the London 2012 Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games as James Bond in 'Happy & Glorious', is to direct "Bond 25", the currently unnamed 25th official adventure for James Bond, and Daniel Craig's 5th outing as the famous superspy.

It's incredible to think that since James Bond's first on-screen appearance, only 7 actors have portrayed him on screen.  Doctor Who has been around almost as long and 22 actors have at one time or another regenerated into the Doctor's body and shoes.  With only a couple of exceptions, every version of James Bond has been memorable for great reasons, and this list is going to explain my own personal ranking of the James Bond actors going from worst to best.

Some James Bond fans might have quirked at my statement of only 7 actors having played the part and say, "Wait a minute, you're forgetting Barry Nelson who played the role in the 1954 CBS TV adaptation of Casino Royale in the anthology series "Climax!"", to which I say, No, I'm not forgetting about him, he is disqualified from this list, because he isn't playing James Bond of the British Secret Service, Barry Nelson played Jimmy Bond of America's 'Combined Intelligence Agency'.  It may well be the first appearance of the character that Ian Fleming wrote, but in all honesty, Barry Nelson's performance was about as far away from James Bond as it was possible to get, so even if I count him, he's at the bottom of the list, but because it's not James Bond of the British Secret Service, it doesn't count.

So with all that pre-amble out of the way, let's get into the list proper, and bring you the full list of the James Bond Actors, from Worst to Best.

7: David Niven

If I were just judging this list on quality of performance alone, David Niven would be much higher on the list than this.  But it isn't judged solely on quality of performance, so David Niven ends up here .  But why?

There's no question that David Niven gives a great performance as Sir James Bond in the 1967 parody film, Casino Royale.  A film that by the way, scores a 5.2 on IMDB, whilst Rotten Tomatoes score it much lower, with the critics score or tomatometer being only 28%, whilst the audience score is a little better at 35%.

Yes, Casino Royale 1967 (as I refer to it to differentiate it from both the 1954 TV show and the 2006 official entry into the James Bond movie universe), is not a great film.  Sure there are some great moments there, and the production design is amazing, and the cast is something approaching insane in terms of star power, but the convuluted plot and the messiness of changing looks and plots and directors, just drags it down painfully, and as such also drags down David Niven's wonderful performance, which is unquestionably one of the better things in the whole movie, along with Woody Allen's performance.

Sadly, as great as the performance is, there is very little about it that is identifiably James Bond, even in a parody sense.  Not in the physicality, not in the characterisation, not in any way at all.  And that is really what marks him down, and drops him to the bottom of the list.

It feels a little harsh to be putting such a great performance so low on the list, but the reasons why are sound, and honestly, it's more important to embody the character, or at least, give me something that feels like James Bond, rather than this, which is basically, David Niven playing David Niven once again.

You see, this is one of the things that some actors can get away with, is just playing themselves time and again, and David Niven, as wonderful as he was to watch, was one of those actors who always played himself.

He basically played himself in The Pink Panther film in 1963, when he was cast as Sir Charles Lytton, or as I prefer to call him, Sir Charles Phantom, the notorious Lytton.  He basically played himself in the 1950 film The Elusive Pimpernel, when he was cast as Sir Percy Blakeney, also known as The Scarlet Pimpernel.  He basically played himself in the 1956 film Around The World in 80 Days, when he was cast as Phineas Fogg.  And he basically played himself in the 1978 film Death On The Nile, where he was cast as Colonel Race.

He did the same thing in Casino Royale, but in that film, as in all the ones I previously mentioned, David Niven's performance ranged between great and outstanding, and it didn't actually matter to your enjoyment of the film, that David Niven just played David Niven for the umpteenth time.

So, ultimately, that is why David Niven comes in at the bottom of the list.


6: George Lazenby

George Lazenby only played James Bond once, in the 1969 film 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', and whilst that film is excellent in so many ways, the film scores 6.8 on IMDB, whilst the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer sits at 82%, and the audience score is 64%, one of things that does drag it down, not the only thing, but one of them, is unfortunately George Lazenby as James Bond.

For almost the entirity of the film, George Lazenby is completely wooden as James Bond, there's little sense of personality, very little in the way of actual performance there, it is painful to watch him here as 007.

The only thing that really saves him here is his physicality in the various fight scenes and action scenes.  He puts a very creditable physical performance into the fights, though they are not helped by some god awful dubbing that was done to make the fight scenes sound almost comically bad, yet mute the sound, and purely looking at his physical work, it's very good in the action sequences, and it rescues him from the bottom of the list, but only just.

He does do one scene very well, which is the last scene where he is cradling a dead Tracy whilst talking to a policeman on a motorcycle, and he really pulls that off, but everything else just feels painful to watch, and because of that, George Lazenby ends up just off the bottom of the list.

In fact George Lazenby's best performance as James Bond isn't even in a James Bond film, and he isn't credited as James Bond, because legally they couldn't.  He was credited as J.B.  But he was driving an Aston Martin DB5, with the same box of tricks, the licence plate was a simple J B and there were plenty of references to James Bond films and lines, such as On Her Majesty's Secret Service and shaken, but not stirred dropped into this car chase sequence, just to hammer home the fact that it was James Bond.

The cameo was in the 1983 TV movie, Return Of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair and was designed to play up the fact that Ian Fleming, James Bond's creator, had initially been an uncredited consultant on the original TV series in the very early days of the show, in the creation process, and Napoleon Solo was very much based on the James Bond character.  It just goes to show that with some time, and experience, George Lazenby might have become a better James Bond.


5: Roger Moore

A lot of Bond purists will point to the fact that Roger Moore's performances as Bond are almost as far away from the book version of the character as it is possible to get, and whilst there is some truth to that, there is a lot about Roger Moore's version that does feel right for Bond, even if a lot of his performance isn't very Bondian.

There are very powerful moments that Roger Moore delivered that were very much James Bond, such as in The Man With The Golden Gun when he meets Lazar for the first time, and his entire interaction with him, very much feels like James Bond.  The same can be said for most of Roger Moore's performance from For Your Eyes Only, which I feel is a very underrated Bond film.  The film scores 6.8 on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer scores it 72% whilst the audience score is 64%.  My score for the movie though is above 80%, because even though Moore reportedly hated the darker tone, he pulled it off so well that it may well be one of his best performances ever anywhere.

But equally, his films did a lot of stuff that really wasn't very Bondian.  The infamous gondola sequence in Moonraker is a sequence that really doesn't feel very Bondian, and isn't very good on many other levels as well.  Also, the infamous sequence in Octopussy where Bond is being hunted by Kamal Khan, and he tells a tiger to "sit!" ala Barbara Woodhouse, and do a Tarzan yell while swinging through the trees, again just emphasises how un-Bond-like he could be.

Rather like David Niven, you rarely got character work from Roger Moore, it was mostly Roger just playing himself, although there are some notable exceptions, such as in For Your Eyes Only.  But again his performances were often so enjoyable, it made up for things that just weren't that good, except for the gondola sequence, nothing could save that from infamy...

Sorry for inflicting that on you, but it is god awful.

Roger's performances were often light hearted, and the humour felt wrong for Bond, and that is one of the reasons why Roger Moore comes in at this level.

4: Daniel Craig

If I'd done this list back in 2011, Daniel Craig would have been number 5 and Roger Moore would be in this spot, but the two most recent films for Daniel Craig have elevated him into the number 4 spot and for good reason.

His performances in both Skyfall and Spectre were so much better than his first two attempts in Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace.

In Casino Royale 2006, his performance was somewhat one note, in the sense that he did dark, mean and moody well and everything else just didn't come off very well.  In Quantum Of Solace, his performance was literally one-note.  He literally only did dark, mean and moody in that film, nothing else, and his performance was awful.

Thankfully, in 2012's Skyfall, Sam Mendes managed to direct a great performance out of Daniel Craig.  His performance was diverse, multi-faceted, and very good, and then Spectre was almost as good in terms of his performance, and much more like classic Bond, and it saw him rise up in my standings to take the number 4 slot away from Roger Moore.

However, if Bond 25 is a dud, he could slip down the rankings once again.


3: Sean Connery

Oh, I bet a lot of people are gonna hate me for this, but yes, Sean Connery comes in at number 3, not number 1.  But it's not as though there's a massive gap between number 3 and number 1, in fact, there's very little seperating number 1 from number 5.  It's only George Lazenby and David Niven who are really significantly worse than the others.

Sean Connery had some amazing performances in his first 4 films as James Bond.  It's generally accepted that his best performance is Goldfinger, even though James Bond is imprisoned for almost half the film.  He does more in Thunderball, From Russia With Love and Doctor No.

It's with You Only Live Twice that his performances slipped.  He seemed to be just going through the motions on that film, and not really putting much effort in.  When he was brought back in Diamonds Are Forever, the performance was better, but still not up to the standard of those first 4 films.  There were moments though in that film where he was obviously just going through the motions, but he did have some better moments in that film.

However, his worst performance was in the unofficial film, Never Say Never Again in 1983.  It was clear that he had absolutely no chemistry with both his Bond Girl, Domino Petachi, played by Kim Basinger, nor with the villian of the piece, Maximillian Largo, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer.  He did give some great moments, especially with Felix Leiter, played here by Bernie Casey, but so much about that performance was off-key and off-kilter, that a few good moments couldn't rescue it from the bottom of the pile as far as Sean Connery's performances go.

But overall, Sean Connery set the standard for James Bond in those first four films, and he's only been bettered by two other actors in my view, so it's a high number 3 for Sean Connery.


2: Pierce Brosnan

Now I can hear what you're saying now, how can you put Pierce Brosnan above Sean Connery?  Sure, Brosnan was excellent, but he had one really awful film in Die Another Day.  To which I would say that Brosnan's performances, even in Die Another Day, were consistently high quality.  Yes, his best film may have been his first, with two mediocre films before a truly awful one, but Brosnan's own performances in all those films were remarkably consistent, and amazingly good.

His performance in Goldeneye set the new standard for Bond in 1995.  He damn near perfectly embodied the darkness that existed in Bond from the very first film, yet he managed to seem both damaged and the embodiment of coolness, at the same time.

His performances in both Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough managed to bring in some appropriate humour responses, and bring in aspects of Roger Moore's Bond, without making it feel out of place, or indeed inappropriate.

Even in Die Another Day, he kept up the same quality of performance, it was just a shame that the material he was given was weaker than tea that has been made by a single quick dip of a teabag into a mug of hot water.

 He sold himself as Bond in Goldeneye's pre-title sequence, and you never doubted him all the way through his films.  He was Bond.  It's just that one other actor, managed to embody the character of James Bond, just a little bit better.


1: Timothy Dalton

Okay, I know some people are going to question me putting Dalton up here when I put Daniel Craig down at number 4, but in both of his films, Timothy Dalton was James Bond, without question.  In fact, he was the book version of James Bond, perfectly brought to the screen.

He was sold to me as Bond in that pre-title sequence in The Living Daylights, and his performance during the rest of that film was perfect.  Every mannerism felt like it had weight behind it, and meaning.  Even something as simple as blowing cigarette smoke out during the debrief scene with General Koskov, had meaning behind it that played into the character beautifully.

In Licence To Kill, Dalton's prescence and charisma was mixed with Bond's darkness in his quest for vengeance on Sanchez, creating a memorable and stunning performance that just oozed cool and yet never lost the edge to the darkness that was needed for this film.  Bond was brutal here, but unlike in Casino Royale 2006, the brutality was not gratuitous and that just elevated Dalton to the number 1 spot.


So yes, Timothy Dalton is my number one James Bond actor.  Do you agree with me?  I'm pretty sure most Bond fans won't agree with Dalton at number 1 but what is your best James Bond actor?  I look forward to finding out.

Video version from the Ian Beaumont Live & Direct YouTube channel.

WrestlePod: Best Things TNA Did

In this episode, I talk about the best things TNA/Impact Wrestling ever did in their long and tumoultous history as a wrestling promotion.

WrestlePod: Problems with Backlash and WWE

Viewpoint: Sound Digital gets an expansion... finally!

So, we finally have an announcement that the second national digital radio multiplex, Sound Digital, is expanding its transmitter network to include the main areas that are currently lacking coverage, including Devon & Cornwall, adding a potential 4 million extra available listeners to the stations on the multiplex.

Hoo-bloody-ray!  Finally!

Sometimes, the process of getting things to happen is slow and laborious, but finally, I'm glad they've taken notice of people like me on Twitter, and Jan Davies, who started a petition when Planet Rock left D1 for Sound Digital complaining about the loss of the station in her area.

Not every station that's on D2 is something I want to listen to, but there are plenty of good stations there that I know will enhance my listening pleasure, such as Mellow Magic, Jazz FM, Absolute 80s, TalkSport 2, Virgin Radio and Talk Radio, which I can hear online, just like all the other D2 stations, but can't take with me on my portable radio, and soon I will be able to listen to those stations on the go, and I will be very happy to have those stations to choose from alongside Pirate FM, Absolute Radio, Classic FM, BBC World Service, Smooth Extra, Gold, Radio Plymouth and many others on DAB, DAB+, and FM.

You know when sometimes, you scan around and just can't quite find the right station to suit your mood?  Well, there's a better chance of finding that station with this news.

We don't as yet have confirmed names of transmitters to be equipped, or a confirmed start date.  However, we do know that 19 transmitters overall will be equipped, and I suspect that at least in Cornwall and Devon, the transmitters that will be equipped will be...

Caradon Hill
Redruth
Plympton
Huntshaw Cross
Beacon Hill
Exeter St Thomas

That covers most of the around 1.5 million people in Devon & Cornwall who currently can't receive Sound Digital transmissions.

Also, on Twitter, Arqiva were asked about the time scale of the expansion...

Expected to launch towards the end of the year.

— Arqiva (@arqiva) May 15, 2018

So I hope to be soon advising you that the multiplex has launched, and expect me to be very happy when it finally does launch.

WrestlePod Live Reactions: WWE Backlash

WrestlePod: WWE Network Specials & Fantasy Booking

Ian Beaumont chooses his preferred WWE Network specials and does some fantasy booking in this episode of WrestlePod.

WrestlePod: Backlash Predictions

Ian Beaumont makes his predictions for WWE Backlash in this episode of WrestlePod.

WrestlePod: Impact & WOS News

Ian Beaumont looks at two stories that broke this week in UK wrestling, involving Impact Wrestling and World Of Sport Wrestling in this week's episode of WrestlePod.

WrestlePod pays tribute to Bruno Sammartino

It's a sad day in the world of professional wrestling.

WrestlePod books the Superstar Shakeup

This week on WrestlePod, with the Superstar Shakeup around the corner on this week's Raw and SmackDown, Ian Beaumont books his own Superstar Shakeup.

WrestlePod: Best Wrestlemania Matches

Ian Beaumont prepares for Wrestlemania 34 by reviewing the Top 10 best matches in Wrestlemania history in this edition of WrestlePod.

WrestlePod: NXT, ROH & WWE Predictions

Ian Beaumont predicts NXT Takeover New Orleans, ROH Supercard Of Honor 12, and WWE Wrestlemania 34 in the latest edition of WrestlePod.

WrestlePod: Top 10 Best Wrestlemanias

WrestlePod: 20 opponents I'd like Daniel Bryan to face in WWE

Ian Beaumont lists 20 wrestlers he'd like to see face Daniel Bryan.

WrestlePod BREAKING NEWS: Daniel Bryan medically cleared by WWE

Ian Beaumont has breaking news from WWE about Daniel Bryan.

WrestlePod: Top 10 Worst Wrestlemanias

We begin our road to Wrestlemania 34 here at Ian Beaumont Live & Direct with our first special edition of WrestlePod, counting down the Top 10 Worst Wrestlemanias.

Viewpoint: Cold War rhetoric during Russian Presidential Election

UK claims Russia used a nerve agent on it's former spy.  Russia claims they've destroyed all their chemical weapons and have an OPCW ceremony backing that.  And all this taking place just before a Russian Presidential Election.  Ian Beaumont smells a rat.

WrestlePod Live Reactions: WWE Fastlane 2018

Watch my reactions as I watch WWE Fastlane, Live as it happened.

WrestlePod: WWE Fastlane 2018 Predictions

Time for my predictions for WWE Fastlane.

Live & Direct Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Okay, so something unexpected happened.  I was invited to see a film, at the Plymouth Arts Centre.  The film was the multi-award winning film from Fox Searchlight Pictures and Film4, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, starring Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell. 

It's described on the Plymouth Arts Centre website as a "pitch-black comedic drama" and to be fair, that's not an overstatement.  The moments of comedy were very black, and in some cases, cringingly so.  Some of the dialogue sounded like it had been written by Fox News fanboys, and was a Republican's fantasy about how policing should be, but it had that sense of being real.  Real people in real situations and real places with real reactions.

The crazy thing about that though, is there is no place in Missouri called Ebbing, and not a single frame of the film was actually shot in Missouri.  In fact, the town that was the main location for the filming, is actually a small mountain town in western North Carolina, called Sylva.  A few other locations around North Carolina were used for various scenes, such as the Hospital, and the Gift Shop.  Weird, isn't it?  Well no, Vancouver for instance has often substituted for many an American city on TV and in movies.  In the 80s TV series Dynasty, most of the show was shot in California.  Only a few establishing shots made it actually look like they were in Denver.

This film had all the elements that can make great movies for me.  First, the characters.  Mildred was the main "protagonist" in the film.  I put that in quotes, because although she is the leading character, she definitely doesn't fit your standard idea of a protagonist, which is usually on the more heroic side of the spectrum.  But in a way, the very dirty grey nature, not just of her character, but indeed, most of the characters in this film, is what gives this film the blackness of its comedy.  This is not a morality play, there are no good guys and bad guys here.  Everyone's morality is at least somewhat questionable.  The morality of the main characters is extremely questionable.

But each character's motivations were genuine, and heartfelt, and often full of good intentions, but as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The second thing that was well done was the storyline.  Everything about that story from the beginning was well written.  From Mildred discovering those abandoned billboards at the beginning of the movie, all the way through to the end, the story was beautifully crafted, except that we never get the resolution we are looking for.  We never find out the guilty party in this, the person who raped and killed her daughter, Angela.  And that is the biggest black mark against this film.  As beautifully crafted as the story is, the lack of resolution at the end, feels like a major mis-step.  It's almost as though Writer and Director Martin McDonagh just runs out of story to tell, and has no way to finish it satisfactorily.  So, to his credit, he just decides not to rather than create something that would be contrived or feel fake or phony.  But still, I dislike the lack of adequate resolution.  We make absolutely no progress in the case between the start of the film, and the finish, and that felt wrong.

The third thing that was well done, was the pacing.  Too often a film will be too quick or too slow.  Major developments are usually not given enough time to sink in, or minor developments will be dealt with for far too long.  Here, that's not the case.  Everything is given the perfect amount of time to breathe before moving on.  Major moments are given the time to sink in.  Minor moments get their moment in the sun, before moving on.  In many ways, pacing relates to the story, but you can still have a wonderfully crafted story, but have the pacing off in some way.  Here, the story is well crafted, and the pacing is just right.

The last thing I want to talk about is what I tend to refer to as the technicalities, though they are not mere technicalities.  Things like the stunt work, the cinematography, the music, the editing etc.  The music was excellent, I'd not heard of Carter Burwell, before this, but I can understand why he was nominated 5 times during this past award season, including at the Oscars, the Golden Globes, and at the British Independent Film Awards, where he won the Best Music category.  The editing was pretty damn near perfect too, and again, unsurprising that Editor Jon Gregory recieved 6 nominations in this award season, including at the Oscars, the BAFTAs, and the British Independent Film Awards, where he also won for Best Editing.

So, what let it down for me?  Well, I've already talked about the lack of resolution to the story, which I felt was a big mistake.  But more than that, was the reliance on just having a gritty tone to the piece, which is something I feel that our film industry is very good at, but also tends to over-rely upon.  I like my stories to have some degree of reality but also some degree of fantasy, and for me, this was too real, it was too gritty, the dark humour, whilst not overdone, could have really done with just one or two touches of more light hearted humour, just so it wouldn't feel so intensely gritty.

The other thing that let this down for me, is the appearances of some characters in the film, who are there for one or two scenes, and really serve no purpose other than to have a few lines in those scenes.  Father Montgomery appears in one small sequence of the film relatively early on, and he's not seen again afterwards.  This other character, who introduces himself by smashing a $7 pottery rabbit trinket, has no name, and his only purpose is to be a complete red herring, but we don't see him first until about an hour in, and we only find out he's a complete red herring, near the end of the film, in the last few minutes.  He was introduced too late in the film, and really, for all the beautiful story crafting, maybe it was a case of telling too much of the story at certain points, rather than crafting a good ending that would have been satisfactory.

On IMDB currently, the movie gets an 8.3/10.  On Rotten Tomatoes, the Tomato Meter is at 92% whilst the Audience Score is 87%.  For me, the great character work, storyline and pacing, were somewhat but not completely undone, by the lack of satisfactory resolution, the over-reliance on grittiness, and a few characters who really had little business being in this film.  I can only give this a 6 out of 10 score at best.  It was good, but not that good.  The lack of resolution cost this film 2.5 points.  The over-reliance on grittiness cost it half a point, and the characters who didn't belong in the film, lost it one whole point.  As a 15 rated film, it did have moments that I couldn't watch, but thankfully, it had more moments that were compelling and actually funny too.  But overall for me, it's not a bad film, but it lacked too much of substance to be a great film.

WrestlePod: WWE Elimination Chamber Review & Roman Reigns' RAW Promo

Ian Beaumont looks back at WWE's Elimination Chamber pay-per-view and also comments on Roman Reigns and his infamous promo on RAW against a no-showing Brock Lesnar in this week's edition of WrestlePod

WrestlePod: WWE Elimination Chamber Predictions

The latest edition of WrestlePod features Ian Beaumont making his predictions for WWE Elimination Chamber.

WrestlePod: Jeff Jarrett to be inducted into WWE Hall Of Fame

Viewpoint: Now even Farage wants another referendum.

Okay, this is a genuine surprise, as I wasn't expecting this at all.

Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.

Let me say that again.  Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.

I never thought I'd see the day.

Admittedly he thinks that a second referendum would kill off the "remoaner" campaign to undermine Brexit, and certainly if a referendum happened, and it went 55-45 or greater in favour of Brexit, then certainly it would kill off any further campaign to remain, but the evidence at the moment suggests otherwise.

The most recent poll, done by ICM in December actually gives Remain a 3% lead, 46 to 43.  ORB International's Brexit tracker, puts disapproval of the Prime Minister's handling of Brexit at 63%.  Neither of these are great indicators that a second referendum would deliver what Nigel Farage is looking for.

Of course, he does have the radical extremist right wing press on his side, which he thinks can deliver him the vote he's looking for.  But the influence of the press continues to diminish and as their losses mount up, they try to get louder and louder to encourage people to take notice of them, which is in fact having the opposite effect.  Plus, campaigns like Stop Funding Hate are having an impact on these company's bottom lines, by persuading advertisers not to advertise with these brands that have decided to align themselves with hateful messages.

I'd actually quite like a second referendum to happen, but I don't expect it to.  Theresa May already bungled one major gamble with last year's general election, and I don't see her going for another big gamble in a second referendum, but I've been wrong before.