Monday, December 26, 2011

TOP OF THE POPS: The Military Wives Choir, formed for a British reality series, crushed the UK X-Factor winners to claim this year's Christmas Number One Single with "Wherever You Are," with proceeds being donated to the Royal British Legion and the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association.

In third place, "Dominick the Donkey."  Below the fold, our perennial Christmas Number One:


6 comments:

  1. Joseph Finn5:40 PM

    We watched LA on ABC Family the other night, and it's...interesting to see just how good of a TV edit it is.  There were obviously alternate takes for a lot of things, but the most impressive bit of editing was how the entire plot thread of the stand ins for the softcore movie was excised.  I wouldn't recommend it as the actual movie but it was interesting to see what stayed in and not.<span> </span>

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  2. Lou W1:31 AM

    Having watch LA two nights ago, for about the sixth time, that was something I just noticed.  The 'stand-ins' plot doesn't interact with the other plots (not characters, plots) at all.  It's completely stand alone, and as such, while I enjoy it, I'm surprised it is in the movie.  As noted, it can be removed with no impact what-so-ever.

    Brief plot hole comments.  I've always been amazed at the brazenness with which they have the kid learn the drums in a week (how did he get the drummer job???), and that you can apparently become semi-fluent in Portugese (and English) in a week as well.  But I hadn't noticed before this viewing that Blue was outselling Billy Mack 5:1 with one week to go (after 3 weeks on sale), and yet in the last  week his victory was now expected.  What suddenly happened to make him move that many records?

    It's a much better movie after about the third viewing.  At that point you stop worrying about it making sense, and just enjoy the moments.  Off the top of my head, I'm' can't think of any other movie that's made that jump from 1.5 to 3.5 stars just because of repeated exposure to its charms.

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  3. Meghan10:03 AM

    The stand-ins know someone at the school play and/or airport.  Maybe the guy who's in love with Keira Knightley?  Somehow, they connect with someone.

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  4. Meghan10:08 AM

    And because I can't leave any question unanswered, John and Judy are stand-ins on the film where Tony (friend of Colin Frissell) is a production assistant.  They meet John and Colin at the airport as they head off on their honeymoon.  They do go to the school play, along with everyone else.

    Thank you, wikipedia!

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  5. On the Blue/Billy Mack question, my understanding is that it's "most sales in the week leading up to Christmas," so the previous weeks are suggestive but not in any way determinative of the ultimate outcome.

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  6. As my sister said before we started to watch it, time to suspend belief!  We watched it OnDemand and I had forgotten about a few of the scenes that are taken out of the clean version.

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