Derren Wilson, has some funny entries about possible headlines on British newspapers.

Something quite unsual happened in the Champions League final between Juventus and AC Milan tonight.

Of 10 penalty-kicks taken during the penalty shoot-out at the end of the match, half of them were saved.

Not missed – saved.

Under normal circumstances, I don’t normally support the taking of penalties to decide the outcome of a football match – especially a really important one – mainly because the statistics tend to show that most penalties are scored.

However, the two keepers for both sides performed incredibly well, although both were often clearly off their line before some of the kicks were taken – which is against the rules.

Despite this, Juve lost out in the end, and it’s not exactly a fair representation of the match in terms of team effort, simply to lose out because of missed opportunities at an individual level.

Perhaps it’s time that the end-of-match-type penalty was modified slightly, just to even up the odds a little more – maybe by putting the penalty spot further back, or reducing the width of the goals?

Have you ever had a dream, that you were so sure was real?

What if you were unable to wake from that dream?

How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

Something ocurred to me today when I was discussing The Matrix Reloaded with one of my work colleagues.

It seems to be no secret that Andy and Larry Wachowski literally ripped-off the plot for their original Matrix movie from a variety of comic-book sources, not least of all Grant Morrison’s Invisibles and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.

But I’m now beginning to wonder about the heavy criticism The Matrix Reloaded has come under, and I’m starting to think that maybe Andy and Larry have been found out.

The comic-book creators who watched in disbelief as their ideas and characters were plagiarised in The Matrix were quite vocal about how they felt at the treatment their work was given, and it seems entirely possible that a few choice words were shared at a legal level in the offices of Warner Brothers to fire warning shots at the movie producer Joel Silver, encouraging him to ensure that the Wachowski brothers didn’t steal any more comic-book material for their next movie.

(For those not aware, Warner Brothers own DC Comics, who own the VERTIGO imprint where Invisibles and Sandman were published).

Many reviewers have noticed the absence of key elements of the first movie and certainly, Reloaded seems to sharply depart from the high-concept plot of the original, only to follow a more ‘spiritual’ path.

Series Two of the genius BBC Scotland comedy Still Game ended tonight, and Friday nights won’t be the same without it.

Ford Keirnan and Greg Hemphill’s brilliantly crafted characters Jack and Victor, who were born of the sketch show Chewin’ The Fat, compare only to Victor and Margaret Meldrew from One Foot in The Grave.

We can only hope another series is in the offing, with more laughs from Winston, Navid, Tam, Isa and the rest of the Still Game gang.

First his metatarsals, now his scaphiod.

Let’s hope his neck is next, then maybe we’ll all get a break from this drivel.

Very rarely in the movie business does a sequel better the original, and usually it only happens when there was more story to tell in the first place.

The Godfather, Terminator and Star Wars are such examples.

All too often, the audience expects too much, and the movie-makers expend most of their effort trying to emulate or supercede the things they achieved the first time around and end up delivering a bloated version of the original.

Whilst The Matrix Reloaded doesn’t quite match the original in terms of the unexpected, it’s still a fantastic movie, with some great moments – and I’m sure it’ll stand up better when viewed alongside the third installment, The Matrix Revolutions, due out in November.

When Reloaded was released in the USA last week, it was criticised by many as being a little wide of the mark, and I was somewhat apprehensive when I went to watch it today.

Some reviewers even suggested that the ground-breaking ‘burly brawl’ fight sequence was too cartoonish, and others panned elements of the story as having been deliberately contrived for the purposes of selling the videogame Enter The Matrix.

Who cares?

The sight of hundreds of Agent Smiths frenetically fighting Neo in a little courtyard certainly impressed me, and only in the briefest of moments did any of the major sequences betray their computer-generated origins (people seem to forget that the whole point of The Matrix is that it’s supposed to be set in a computer-generated environment anyway).

Certainly, the freeway action sequence has to be seen to be believed – and whilst a collection of great stunts doesn’t necessarily make a great movie, there was just about enough plot to fill in the gaps – especially the scenes involving The Oracle and The Keymaker.

Add to this the introduction of two new interesting characters called The Merovingian and Persephone, plus another surprise character near the end, and I find myself anticipating the final segment, which should complete the whole story to a satisfactory conclusion.

Broadly speaking, movies fall in to three main categories; movies you don’t want to see, movies you definitely want to see, and movies you want to see again.

I definitely want to see The Matrix Reloaded again.

Oh, and if you go to see it at the cinema, wait until the credits are over – there’s a trailer for Revolutions at the end.

I made two good DVD purchases recently:

Memento and Signs.

Memento is worth it alone for the special feature where the entire movie can be viewed in the correct chronological sequence, as opposed to Leonard Shelby’s anterograde amnesia-driven narrative that fuels the twisted plot.

Signs is simply another brilliantly crafted M. Night Shyamalan classic, featuring the usual deleted scenes and making-of featurettes.