TV.com

person: Meryl Streep

The Bottom Line: "Perfect"

The Queen of Acting and Accents. Meryl Streep has the ability to take a role, turn it upside down... and produce brilliance. She's better than Hepburn in so many ways and her thirteen Oscar nominations don't give the slightest credit to her acting brilliance. Watching her, you struggle to find anything bad about her performance. For example, in the Devil Wears Prada, she gave her character so much more depth and humanity than was portrayed in the book. True brilliance.

show: The Vicar of Dibley

The Bottom Line: "Good"

Perhaps one of my favourite shows of all of Dawn French's acting work it was trually a comedy of greatness.
Alongside Emma Chambers, Dawn and her great facial exspressions helped make this show laugh-out-loud work, but at times it was <i>too</i> Dawn French, playing on her weight and her huge hand gestures. Richard Curtis created it and he clearly had Geraldine Granger in his mind as Dawn French, which led him to write her in a style she is good at but repeats too often. I always thought Liz Smith's performance as Miss. Cropley was the best going at the time and the stortyline of her death was sad. Helped along by Roger-Lloyd Pack the show was heavily character based, which was good at times but led to many characters repeating the same thing over and over, for example Jim's stutter was funny for the first two or so episodes, but later it just became a nuisance and annoyance to the show.
I was one of the many who thought the show got better as it went on and the pinnacle trually was the Christmas specials, and I was sad when Dawn announced that no more series were in the works, but on a happy note specials are planned.

show: Absolutely Fabulous

The Bottom Line: "Superb"

In a way Absolutely Faboulous or "Ab Fab" revolutionised British comedy. It was one of the first shows that allowed comedy to be funny, but not dumbless. Even though, on the surface, it appeared, as was intended, a simple and typical Jennifer Saunders comedy that made fun out of everything and anything, it addressed a lot of serious issues, albeit addressing them comically, such as homosexuality, teenage social issues, child neglect and abuse (by both Edina and Patsy's mom) and body image. The biggest one of these was body image, Edina's unhealthy obssesion with it. The show was the first to portray the new stick thin and looking great obsession, mainly by Edina and Patsy. But the show's problem was losing it's comic effect as it grew older, because simply Edina and Patsy were too typical. By 2003 a majority of people were as fashion-crazed and body-obssesed as Edina and "Pats" that they no longer found it funny, because it simply portrayed the world as it was; a cesspool of mainly dumb, image driven people.
The show was good for it's time and I remeber literally rolling on the floor in laughter and crying; but when I watch it now I fell like crying for all the wrong reasons. Too many people are like Edina today that instead of being faced with Saunders style comedy we are being presented with a not-so-funny take on the world today.
Good for it's time but watching repeats and buying Box Sets will not entertain you.

person: Dalai Lama

The Bottom Line: "Superb"

The Dalai Lama. Most people think he is just 1 man. But there has been 14 Dalai Lamas. Tenzin Gyasto is a particularly special one.
Tenzin has brought Buddhism to more people than Buddha himself could have imagined. He has shown the world the plight of his beloved country, Tibet. He has made his religion the only major one to bridge gaps with science.
He is the travelling Dalai Lama, having visited all 6 inhabitable continents. A truly great man who allows his religion to meet issues half-way. For example, abortion. Other religions such as Christianity and Muslim condemn it yet he is willing to be neutral about it, not condoning nor condeming. On homosexuality he dosen't call it b;asphemous. Again he meets it half-way and says that a loving relationship between two men or two woman is, a loving relationship one it's not sexual.
Overall an inspirational man and if the world was more like him, peace would be riot.