Movie review – “The Invention of Lying” (2009) **1/2

A funny idea – Ricky Gervais lives in a world without lies and discovers how to lie. But it doesn’t quite last the full distance. It changes gears in act three, pulling punches with the religion satire and becoming more of a film about how you should be nice to fat people. (Which is kind of hypocritical because the love interest is pretty Jennifer Garner.) The endless cameos get irritating after a while although Jennifer Garner is very pleasant – she joins a long noble line of leading ladies required to fall in love with unattractive stars.

TV review – “Office – Christmas Special” (2003) *****

Wonderful end to an excellent series – of course the regular characters are all funny but what sets this apart is the Dawn-Tim romance. This is strong enough for a feature and is one of the sweetest romantic comedies in the past ten years. David Brent’s character is softened a little, a forerunner of the character Ricky Gervais would play in Extras.