Day 3 - Gollum and I

Keep still Master Frodo, I think there's a Nazgul behind us.

Other kids had other unhealthy desperations, but I loved Middle Earth. Not only did I work my way through the Silmarillion, I read the Unfinished Tales, the Lost Tales, the Lays of Beleriand (no, don't ask) including all of Christopher I-love-my-dad-a-little-bit-too-much Tolkien's footnotes. Masturbation, an Atari ST, Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - I was a simple boy with simple pleasures.

The Lord of the Rings movies came several years too late for me, as did Jurassic Park, the Arctic Monkeys and blowjobs, and when they did, the movies did not measure up to my childhood visions, faithful though they were. But Gollum was brilliant - a conflicted character of Shakespearean power, riven with shame, addiction and guilt. Far more interesting than Frodo, portrayed by Peter Jackson merely as a repressed homosexual (I couldn't remember this from the books.) The scenes in which treacherous Gollum bullies loyal Gollum were easily the most instantly dramatic, darkly powerful and psychologically persuasive. Except maybe for the bit with the battle elephants. But then I'm a sucker for an armoured pachyderm.

And here he is! Andy Serkis himself, promoting another astounding performance as British punk/reggae legend Ian Dury, in the great movie Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. Serkis does it astutely, balancing the theatrical and the vulnerable. The original Blockheads also play all the backing music. If only someone outside the UK had heard of Ian Dury (who coined the titular phrase), we'd be onto a winner.