TV, Film, Media; The Idiot Box Reviews

Honey 2, from the director of Honey.

2011-06-07T03:03:00.000-07:00

“Dancing is how I say the things I wanna say”

What? No it isn’t, fuck off. What are you, illiterate? Who consumes this fucking garbage. Honey 2?…who comissioned a second one!?

Anyway, apparently it’s the “dance movie event of the year” - that’s pretty specific. That’s like a hot-dog vendor saying to a guy today, “this is the 7th of June hot dog event of the day, for this street only, before 3pm”.

‘Dance movie’ is not a genre.

And the 7-1-8? What are they, like the Jets? Is this West Side Story?

What are Snoop Dog and A.C.Slater doing in this?

It’s tough out there, if you want to make it as a dancer. You probably have to bring it, on a daily basis.

Anyway, none of that is important now…because, “when the battle begins…go every step of the way” - yeah, every step of the way, right out of the cinema, haaaaaa

Aaand, scene.

The Football League Show

2011-04-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

Gary Lineker: "But before we look at the rest of todays games, let's just get a word from Maneesh"

And so we leave the polish and professionalism of Match of the Day and are whisked off to the world of the Football League Show, not Robin to Match of the Day's Batman, but in fact Premier Inn to Match of the Day's Ritz.

First off, does anyone watch The Football League Show, at all. Are Yeovil fans and Stockport County fans dedicated enough to stay up until 2am to watch their team draw two all with Rochdale? If they are, then kudos.

When the BBC decided to make The Football League show, why didn't they use the Match of the Day template. Here's an established, veteran show, with great analysis of the game, good chemistry between the presenters and on at a good time in the evening. With such a strong example of what to do, right there in front of them, why did they go:

(a) "Yeah, yeah, I like that - but how about we do something, sort of similar, but much worse"
(b) "Well what do you mean?"
(a) "Let's see, how can I explain this? Have you ever eaten a good burger?"
(b) "Well yeah, sure"
(a) "Ok, great. Now you see this?"
(b) "Yeah, it's a burger"
(a) "Well sure, technically - it's a burger, just like the one you ate. However, closer inspection and even a taste...."
(b) "URGH; what's wrong with is?"
(a) "This, my friend, is a microwavable Rustler's burger, the shittest food known to man. Now, in it's design, the fact that it's a piece of beef inbetween two buns, sure - it's a burger. But when you actually bite into it, you find that none of those ingredients are actually there"
(b) "Thanks for this appauling burger analogy"
(a) "No problem. I have others..?"
(b) "It's fine"

Wasn't that a treat? But honestly, you can't watch Match of the Day without catching a little bit of The Football League Show. Here's what happens.

An opening with zero style, where a series of total berks do keepy ups on the street, alongside their favourite team mascots, made up of owls and lions and monsters. During this "We All Love Vindaloo" affair, a backing track plays. It has none of the agelessness of Match of the Day's classic theme tune, but sounds like drunk village band coming home from the pub after winning battle of the bands...also held in the pub. So far, this seems like the BBC is saying "Hey football league fans! Sheffield Wednesday? Pretty funny right? Haha, yeah I know. We're not taking this seriously anyway, because it's not really proper football. Well, see ya".

Once we get through the garish opening titles, we're confronted by a confused studio set that looks like Crimewatch and CNN were recently kicked out of it to make way for some uncharismatic presenters who also brought a panel of "brick wall" each with them. These are positioned awkwardly around the set so as to give the impression that the BBC ran out of money for a real wall and thought "ah, well, two metres of wall, spread out, is much better than no wall".
All this is set off nicely by needless computer screens and a breakfast bar, where the presenters sit.

The Football League Show then starts skimming through about five games at a time. Usually four games in the progamme's total are quite interesting, the rest are things like Badger Nose United vs. Chip Shop FC and have all of two people in the crowd. NO ONE, CARES. If you care, then you were probably at the game, because there are not Oxford United fans up in Liverpool lamenting the fact that they didn't get to watch the game against Swindon today.

And because they show the highlights of about five games at a time, the analysis is minimal. Steve Claridge, who...SOMEhow has managed to get on TV...has chance to give ten seconds of meangingless analysis. Manish, the Football League Shows annoying presenter who has the personality of a bookmark, asks:

"So, Steve Claridge, what did you think of Sheffield United's performance today?"
"Well Manish, Sheffield United are a football team"
"Great stuff. Now we're going to have a look at all the games in the Panda Pop 6th Division, where the powerhouse of Dover take on the titans of Bromley"

And why has The Football League Show tried to embrace new technologies. Match of the Day hasn't bothered, but The Football League Show is like someone's nan who keeps on telling everyone how they sent a text on a mobile phone once before returning it. They are constantly peddling their modes of communication; twitter, call, text, fax, carrier pigeon, morse code...this allows us to swoosh around on the unnerving FLS camera up into the rafters of the studio, or in the corner of the room, or to somewhere hidden under a box - where ever it is, it's an awkward angle and who's lurking there? A horrible, posh little wanker of a presenter who's desperately trying to sound interesting and so comes off like a Blue Peter/Newsround presenter as they announce the tweets that have just come in:

"I've got an email here from John, who says that Brighton play in blue and white stripes, but what do YOU think?"

Fuck off. I'm not interested in anyone else's idiotic opinions when I watch football highlights on TV. I'll go an internet forum for that.

The calls & texts are symptomatic of the shows whole problem. It's just so soft. The whole thing is so soft and meek and lacks conviction. Appauling presenters, a boring audience, even worse matches...the Football League Show is just a gigantic waste of time, a waste of a perfectly good graveyard slot. If you want to follow these small teams, then just get up off your arse and go to the game.

What's For Friday Night Dinner Mum? Oh, Wackiness Again.

2011-02-25T13:20:00.000-08:00

Simon Bird has received a great deal of praise as a young comedian - although I was surprised to discover recently that he's actually 26 - and in the new Channel 4 show in which he stars, it was always going to be important that he distance himself from The Inbetweeners, especially since he's a comedian and would do well to display how versatile he is.

He doesn't do this and what we have on our hands is a new Channel 4 sitcom that comes off as the alternative existence of one of the Inbetweeners. Friday Night Dinner even begins in the same way, a garish opening sequence that seems to have been the joint effort of a graphic-arts student and NME magazine.
There are two main jokes that seem to be the inspiration for this series initially. The first is this: YOUNG PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT FROM OLD PEOPLE! Lol. Old people don't get young people. "Muuuum"..."Daaaad" - how humiliating! If only they were more in touch with youth culture. They should watch The Inbetweeners.
The other joke, is that everyone is an eccentric. It's like salt is also a crazy powder that everyone on their street takes. I refer to salt by the way, because it was one of three recurring jokes that took place in the first episode. This was very neatly done and tied together very precisely. It wasn't particularly witty though.

Indeed, little of the programme was actually funny. It didn't make me laugh, or I have to admit, even titter really. Yet there are much worse programmes that have made me laugh, at some point. All this was, was observant. Mildly observant. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it was painstakingly observant. It seemed as if great pains had been taken to get the typical, "banter" of the modern family, accurately down. And look, man, I know it's tough to get it just right...and it could have seem so stilted I suppose...but I mean...Friday Night Dinner has really gone all out to create a "natural" family dynamic - the mother watches masterchef, the father is is deadicated to his hobbies, the boys trick each other, the neighbour is a nutjob...it's all so tiresome, I'm sorry, it is.

And it would also be nice to have a comedy that isnt full of awkwardness, that isn't trying to be something. Friday Night Dinner would be better if it was Gavin & Stacey, but it's not.

My arguments might well so opposite. On the one hand, I don't like this regularl, uninspiring family dynamic. On the other, this programmes main problem was that it was too damn wacky. It was always trying to be slightly ridiculous - there are more ridiculous programmes out there, but they dont all work on a purposely regular premise (by which I mean it's whole point is that it's based on a regular domestic situation) - its supposed to be a regular, mundane, friday night dinner with the fam - BUT ITS ANYTHING BUT MUNDANE! Grandmas House worked (it did, you're wrong) because Simon Amstell's character stood as an observer - Friday Night Dinner needs a lynchpin, a protagonist who's own regular normality anchors the rest of the show, and makes sure that we're thinking "yes, this is a bit odd for a friday night dinner" instead of "this doesn't happen on friday night, this isn't very real" - a main character would give this a more believable foundation, but instead what we
have is a series of mild eccentrics trying to have dinner, but people keep coming round to use the bathroom and dealing with death and drinking salt - it's not MENTAL, I appreciate and it's fine for one episode...but are we going to see a couple of wacky situations every week? That's the bit I'm not sure I'm looking forward to.

And once Casiokids kicked in at the end, I knew it was too late - this show sure was crazy and the guy who could have been but probably wasn't Garth Merenghi, bursts out the house going "YOU'RE ALL NUTS!" and that signals the end. It would be even better if this was Fawlty Towers. Which it sort of is. Only not as good. At all. Fawlty Towers also features relatively regular, domestic disturbances, but featured one MAD eccentric in Basil Fawlty and was anchored by Cybil [not sure how to spell that one].

It's a mild, tiresome show. But who knows, it's early days and it could well improve. But I won't be rushing back to watch it particularly. I mean, once you've watched The Trip, you're kind of hoping other comedies will try and do something different too.

Adverts That Need to be Stabbed in The Eyes

2011-02-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

Adverts today have become a big fucking load. Of what? The worst things. Shit probably. But they're just awful, they've gotten worse, louder and, yes, more insulting to us, the viewer. Thank God for the BBC - even if the show is terrible, there are no moronic adverts trying to manipulate our brains. Here is a very imporant list of the all the very worst adverts on TV at the moment:-

Confused.Com:

I always, always mute the Confused.com advert. It used to be a pretty cheap, relatively unoffensive man or woman on a white background who used to explain how confused they were about insurance. Fair enough.
Suddenly it seems that the Confused.com mascot has come to life and that the mascot was, despite its initial appearance, a woman. And...going by this hair, possibly a burn victim:

This loud-mouthed, burn victim is currently in an advert I can't bare, where she launches meaningfully into a rendition, (or should that be murder), of "Somebody To Love" by Queen. A bunch of other other big smiley wankers start appearing behind her too and I think what really pissed me off, is the song, combined with all these characters looking really fucking happy about comparing their insurance. It makes me angry. It's everything wrong with the world, where "Somebody to Love" can be used for something as shallow as sales, marketing and insurance. Go fuck yourself Confused.com.

Vodaphone Bees:

Bees don't use telephones. There, that's already a great point. So what are we to you Vodaphone? Nothing but industrious little bees working for your hive of a phone empire. Yes, we are now officially insects to all the big corporations.
Look at the posters around right now and you'll notice that the bees are always on the phone, sure, phone company, got it - but sometimes, the bees have TWO phones, because they have FOUR arms. FOUR ARMS, does not equal, TWO PHONES, you could have TEN arms and still only need ONE phone. But no, we're supposed to buy more phones.

Ok, second, and what I hate most is that the bees are always leading these aspirational lives that we're supposed to somehow relate to or be able to achieve, if only we would get on the Vodaphone network. Observe properly and you'll notice that they're always carrying bags and bags of shopping or living a a nice middle-class, sub-urban lifestyle; "I watch the match on Saturdays, because as well as being a bee, I'm a graphic desinger with disposal income!". They say that bees are dying out - no, they're just better than us now.
And all this hatred is quite apart from the FUCKING BEE PUNS WE GET IN EVERY FUCKING ADVERT...ahem...also, it's actually VodaFone. I don't care.

The Ladders:

What is it? Oh you don't know. You will have seen it but it probably washed right over you. Here's the scene. Two posh wankers are playing tennis. Then, suddenly, to the 'protagonists' horror, the great, unwashed, masses come swarming down onto the court, all shirtless and stupid. And then a smug voice comes on over the top of it all.

"If you think about...this is a lot like looking for a 50K plus job!"

NO it isn't, FUCK off. It's nothing like that, because we don't all play fucking tennis at the weekends, you rich, middle-class fuck heads. Its a well known fact that if you earn 50k, you're too busy on your iPad to even be watching tv anyway. And it's called TheLadders.co.uk - indicating upward mobility I suppose. Oh good job lads, but I think you'll find that the common ladder is also a symbol of a manual labour job - did you know that their salary comes by the hour...I know, I know, you're right, someone should start a charity. Good luck in your application anyway, cunt.

The Animated Andrex Puppy:

Who the fuck does that newly animated puppy think he is? He's not cute anymore, he's just frightening...

HOW ARE YOU HOLDING THAT THING WITHOUT THUMBS YOU FREAKISH ABOMINATION!?

...and I don't get it...it looks like they live in a human world...I mean it doesn't seem to have been designed by dogs, it looks exactly like "our world" - yet somehow, thanks to Andrex apparently, dogs have clearly become the dominant species in this universe. I always thought they'd need thumbs to do that; turns out that all they needed was quilted toilet paper.
What I hate about this one is all the things this dog does. It's too, fucking, cute - like, over the top cute that then passes the line and goes into creepy. Everything falls on his head, everything gets nudged gently into place - and his fucking bitch (haha) of a girlfriend - she's so fucking kooky, pulling faces at the puppy/school-children on her way home. The whole thing is just sickening. And I just don't get it - how does it advertise toilet paper at all!? We get this horrible Twilight Zone episode where dogs rule the planet, but where young, money rich couples with town houses are still totally aspirational and that all boils down to toilet paper?
The only way I see it working is that the advert was supposed to make me vomit everywhere and then I think, "God I wish I had some thick toilet paper to clean this up".

ALSO - animating babies or animals is symptomatic of humanities arrogance. No, shut up, it is. Right, because we think we're so fucking smart now, that we're so advanced, that we can animate things so well now, that our animations are good enough to pass close enough to being the real thing on TV...but they're not...we're not...it looks shit ok? Fuck off Andrex. What happened to that real puppy when it was put out of work by the animated one eh? That's right; it, got, shot.

The 10 O'Clock Dive

2011-02-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

The 10 O'Clock Live sits in the corner looking drastic, smoking and curling it's unkempt hair; it's in therapy.
"I just don't know who I am doc...sometimes I have this real desire to squeeze out these heavily scripted jokes...you know, satirical stuff, a little un-PC in places...but other times *it takes a drag of its cigarette* other times I think it's time to buck up my ideas and start interviewing politicians and talking about...you know, issues...not with any real depth or interest, but I do it in a sort of tokenistic sort of way....oh Doctor, it's all a facade *it grabs the doctors collar* tell me Doctor, WHO AM I!?"

"Who Am I" - the scream echoes up and down the halls of TV land. Other programmes look up in horror. No one wants to be that guy; the show that falls in between two stalls...hard.

On paper, this show looked absolutely fan-bloody-tastic. To the extent that I almost cancelled my trip to America so that I didn't miss the debut. Charlie Brooker, David Mitchel, Jimmy Carr, Lauren Lav..ergne? Yeah. What a line-up! Glasto eat your heart out, We've got insight, intelligence, wit AND someone that's down with the kids, all in one politically charged show.
The problems began though, right there. Politically charged show? I only say that from watching the damn thing. It marketed itself as a sort satirical take on the news, a send up of news reporting in general. Instead when I came to watch it, what I got was Newsround for the Hollyoaks generation.

Remember, us late 80s children, my generation, are the ones who set out with Newsround, right? They've realised that we have grown up and now they're back at it and cramming THE-WORLD-AROUND-YOU-FOR-DUMMIES down our throat again. Please, no, I can't breath, gaaargh *gorp, choke, dead*.
Seeing the four presenters sit round a table and discuss "issues" of government policing, or budget cuts, etc, is upsetting. I like these tv personalities, but they are being forced to act like all the active wankers at university that I wanted to stab in the eyes, the ones at Uni who take up real life issues that only they care about. It doesn't effect you, but they so adamantly pursue juuuusstiiiice that you want to become an anarchist and burn down the senate building just to spite them. Equally, I want to burn down the channel four executives who felt that they were hip and in touch enough to have found the legendary, hidden path to "appealing television for the fabled 20-25 year olds"

FAIL. EPIC. FUCKING. FAIL. You can't make a flying monkey just by stapling a pigeon to its back and you can't put in a couple of comedians and have them try and talk politics, whilst also try and be funny. The result is like water and oil, a heavily, heavily scripted production whose comedic and political sections sit very awkwardly next to each other over the course of a very long, disjointed hour.
The result is that no one quite enjoys the programme enough to really want to tune in again.

Jimmy Carr can do a bit of one-liner stand-up, sure, but contributes very little to the political discussions. Charlie Brooker looks like he wrote the damn thing and is having to watch everyone ruin his work. David Mitchell is a witty, commentator and referee but isn't quite a stand-up and suits other things more than a channel four youth-fest with fellow tv personalities. And Lauren Lavergne, sure, has youth-appeal and is a fine presenter, but when handed the detailed script of a section of..aha...satirical stand-up, she recited it like an auto-cue. In fact, in fairness, they all did. None of them can read from an auto-cue without adopting a sort of lazy eye.

In the end, I got bored. This is a greedy programme by Channel 4. Though broadly they are going for youth (just look at the hideous, vomit-worthy crowad of gel haired, shirt wearing, toss-faces in the crowd, all guffawing at crude jokes and booing & applauding as predictably as an X-Factor audience) overall this show is reaching for too broad of a demographic. As such, it's hard for them to keep anyones interest. I was geared up for entertainment when I sat down to watch this and I enjoyed the alternative election night, because then it has relevance...because there was an election...now it feels like GCSE-Bitesize came along to tell me about small businessman who aren't able to wear comfortable shoes in the Middle-East...by which I mean it feels irrelevant and dumb and as such it lost my interest very quickly.

Part of my annoyance about that is because on paper it should be a fantastic show. But it's not. It's the same reason Man City won't win the premiership. On paper it looks great, but it just doesn't gel. With all that money and talent, putting it together by selecting all the best players was just lazy and inorganic and the results showed that.

I'll probably still watch it though. There's not much else on afterall! DAMN THE TELEVISION TO HELL!

Harry Potter and the Magical Mystery Tour of Britain!

2010-11-20T16:43:00.000-08:00

Six hours later I emerged from screen 8, blinking in the light. That's six hours I spent looking around a cinema to see if anyone else looked as unimpressed as I did. I was, of course, sitting in the new Harry Potter film, entitled, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1', or as I like to call it 'Harry Potter and the Magical Mystery Tour of Britain'.

Unfortunately this was only part one of the final film, so I am now obligated to see the second. Kudos JK, have some more money. Harry Potter part one seems to be an advertisement for the British Tourist Board and National Heritage. Off they'd go, woosh, another area of outstanding national beauty, woosh, oh and another. I've never seen these places! I notice that they never once thought to hide in Margate.
Oh and that fucking tent. I was sick of the site of the fucking thing. A good hour and a half of the new HP film is not needed, because it features Harry and Hermione dragging the same bloody MAGIC tent around from place to place and going, "phew, aren't times difficult" - but hey, we have a magic tent and a magic bag with literally everything in it. At one point Hermione suggested that she and Harry stay out in the wilderness, with the tent, with the bag, and grow old together. I almost screamed at the suggestion, partly because I could physically feel myself getting older as the film went on, partly because it didn't seem beyond the film that we would have to watch that happen. Still, that tent was one prop worth its weight in gold. It was a sound investment and the prop man on Harry Potter should be praised.

So apart from these sweeping views of British landscapes, a cinematic technique that was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to ripping off Lord of the Rings, there were a few other moments in the film...though, predictably, they were stupid. The film began well but lost momentum after ten minutes. After seeing the scene with Death Eaters & Snape and the scene where everyone turns into Harry, it became rubbish.

For a start, the film is lacking in detail: "Oh, hi, we're back. Hm? Oh yeah, that's right, I'll tell everyone - guys, just to let you know Mad Eye Moody has died so I wouldn't bother to look out for h...what? Mad Eye...Mad Eye Moody. Squiggly eye with...oh nevermind, but, let's just all be aware; he's dead. He died, off camera so. Don't expect to see him again, that's all". The HP films are notorious for glazing over such details, but here it's abysmal.
Hey wait, don't the kids still go to school? I swear a school was involved once. Something about witchcraft and wizardry? Yep. Ok, let's see it. Uuum. OH HEY, LOOK, A TRAIN! Why would there be a train if there wasn't a school? That PROVES it, those students must be going somewhere! Yes, but I wouldn't mind seeing a potions lesson, or a Quidditch match or - ["LOOK; ok? The train means that they're going to school, and the school is out there somewhere, but that's not what it's about anymore, it's waaaaay bigger and more important than that now! No Hogwarts for you"!]

Hogwarts. Remember Hogwarts? That's good, because Harry Potter doesn't. Not a mention of the bloody place. It's not fun anymore! There, I said it. I mentioned Quidditch. I'd have killed for a game of Quidditch in this film. Or even a cauldron blowing up in Ron's face or something, ANYTHING that suggested I was in the world of Harry Potter and not, instead, a childrens second-rate good vs. evil Lord of the Rings rip off.
What happened everyone? Remember when it used to be enjoyable watching a Harry Potter film? Remember when you used to crack a smile while you watched it? There'd be some mild peril, they break some rules, Harry steps up to a challenge, he and his friends defeat the threat...and then they'd all sit down to a big feast and Dumbledore (god rest his soul) would go "FIFTY points to Gryfindor!" and everyone would cheer and they'd all lift up the house cup, and go yeeeah!
Here instead we have Harry weeping into the face of a bloodied up house-elf with parkinsons and digging a shallow grave for him in Cornwall; Jesus. Wingardium leviosa!

The thing that really let's this rubbish down though is simple and it's hardly the films fault really. J.K.Rowling...how are you even published? This is why I stopped reading your books. I read Bukowski now man.
While the film can be held responsible for the ridiculously uninformed, poorly crafted scenes that are always meant to mean a lot more (romance with Ginny spanning many, many pages - yeah he zips up a dress and...we'll just take it as given that there's some sort of romance there, good, that's been alluded to, moving on...) Ahem, anyway, the director can not be held to ransom for Rowling's blatant cheating.

Yes, cheating. It's quite clear that she never, ever planned on writing these awful epic titles later in the series. The really huge books where it all becomes a serious battle between good and evil. Welcome to Harry Potter, where everything is something! We're going to take a look back at all the things you used to enjoy and we're going to tell you what they really were!
Harry's invisibility cloak was a seemingly innocent, inventive magical device for sneaking around school. OH-HO, not so fast, in fact Harry's cloak was a powerful, world-ending artifact the whole time! And look at this, Harry's glasses are a horcrux into another dimension where Dumbledore is alive as a phoenix and gives Harry the legendary fez of invulnerability which he must use to defeat Voldermort's postman, thus cutting the dark lord off from bills and magazine subscriptions of everykind kinds! Have at you brute! Or, whatever is convenient to J.K.Rowling's story at the time. Honestly, it's as bad as Sabrina the Teenage Witch! Sorry, that's not fair really. Sabrina was pretty good.
Douglas Adams did a lot of mad stuff with Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy but he obeyed the logical laws of the universe he created. The babel fish is convenient, but was explained and operated within an established world of Adam's creation. Rowling set up some rules in about three books, became a too powerful author, refused her book to be edited, and started blowing apart her own world, twisting it into some half-baked epic of two-part film sized proportions. Secret codes, mystical swords, old legends, one ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them...oh, sorry...I get those two mixed up sometimes because one of them ripped off the other one. Dementor? More like Black Riders mate.

ALSO, how the fucking hell do Harry, Ron and Hermione get caught by a man impersonating Johnny Depp but then manage to defeat several powerful dark wizards at a leisurely stroll? It's ridiculous! I couldn't believe people were buying it. Another thing; "Shit, how do we get out of here"! said Ron. "Don't worry", said J.K.Rowling, who suddenly decided that she could draw on some old forgotten character, say, Dobby the house-elf, and decide that he could teleport everyone out of the impenetrable fortress. Good stuff. Good, good stuff.

Still, as ever, the Harry Potter franchise gave us another nice example of British actors...although there are so many of them now that they each get 5 minutes screen time at most before another lot come in. There were more cameos here than an E4 film countdown. Did you see the guy from Gavin & Stacey? That was cool.

So, in short, Harry Potter has lost the magic. And with that magic, it has lost its charm. No longer does anyone slip into the magical world via a telephone box, no longer do we get to see clever uses for post-boxes and things, oh no, now we get an intense ride of poor decisions and a poorly crafted plot that makes the DaVinci Code look plausible.

Meanwhile, this year at Hogwarts, one of the girls in Ravenclaw found a magic shoe that released a dragon into the Quidditch cup final, but it was defeated through some clever magic and dynamic broom flying and she won 50 points for Ravenclaw and they won the house cup. Ah, much better.

A distinct 5.5/10
Still...it was better than Inception.

Passing the Torch; Film 2010

2010-11-08T06:16:00.000-08:00

Claudia Winkleman was handed the hefty mantle of continuing Jonathan Ross' legacy on Film 2010 and made her debut a month ago now. I've watched about three of the four now aired and...look, it was always going to be hard to follow in the steps of Jonathan Ross...but first, let's take a look at the new structure of the show.

Film 2010 (or whatever year was featured in the title) was always a very well balanced programme. It was both easy to watch and informative, it made incisive and intelligent points without being inaccessible (like, say, The Culture Show might be to certain people). It was a BBC big hitter, by which I mean it had a wide audience, appealing to a variety of people types. And, naturally, rather than try and replicate the show exactly, some changes have been made to the format of the show - but importantly the show's target demographic seems to have shifted, or at least that's the only explanation I can think of that explains the awful new tone of what used to be a fairly regular event in my week.

Apparently , rather than giving a fair, detailed and broad review of new films, Film 2010 has opted for a more select audience it seems. The word 'broad' is fairly key here. So often used as a fairly negative word, 'broad' is usually used alongside undeserved bedfellows like 'dumbing down', 'mass appeal' and plain 'stupid. Broad doesn't necessarily have to mean X-Factor. I'm mentioning this because it seems that Film 2010 has chosen to make itself less broad and to develop a somewhat different dynamic to itself.

For me, and fuck off I'm usually right about this stuff, Film 2010 has degenerated into a pretentious, indie hipster, film student, overly opinionated, nightmare [with due respect to reading film students].
The beginning of every review seems to begin with a flurry of name dropping, old 'classic' film references and the mention of technicalities, just so that none of us are in any doubt that Claudia Winkleman and her sidekick Dobby [name unknown] know what they are fucking talking about - "let's get one thing straight here guys, I've seen this film, this film and this film, one of them was in black and white and I know the work of this direcotr who made a film that not many people have seen but I have because I fucking know film" - thanks Claudia, we get it, but I presumed you knew about film by virtue of your hosting this programme so let's skip the pretentious bullshit from now on eh? It's exhausting.
Winkleman can't help but proceed everything with "For me" and "I've always" and "His early work" - the sorts of phrases that tell you that your order of the big pile of crap is on its way in just a sentence time. This isn't so bad you say, but she literally barks all of these comments at this bloke Dobby [name unknown], who is just as bad as her really and returns her service with some film opinions that are equally high art, high literature and so richly full of themselves that to consume one as food would be to give yourself diabetes of the idiot gland. Shut up, it's a real condition.

My point is, this show is for everyone. It's on BBC 1 for fuck sake. But it's like they go out of their way to prove what an exclusive club it is. At the beginning it ought to play the piano music, the title should come up with Film 2010 and then Claudia Winkleman's head should pop up and go "keep up if you can stupid" at which point her brain should explode, revealing an excess of film tape. GOD SHE KNOWS SO MUCH ABOUT FILM!!

There are strong overtones of hipster-ness in the show, which is probably why I'm reacting so furiously towards it. Anything trying to be anything and it's not for me. I mean, FOR ME Film2010 would be better with Jonathan Ross, I'VE ALWAYS liked Film2010's EARLIER WORK. Oh look at that, I'm a wanker as well. But then I haven't ruined a perfectly good platform for film review by rendering it some pompous excuse for these two presenters to vomit up their conceited yet mysteriously repetitive views, not on the film itself, but on film as a medium, man. It's the way Winkleman and Dobby both talk to each other in argumentative way, fully believing that their opinions on film define their very being. And that's just pathetic.
Come back Jonathan Ross, you gave a well rounded, accurate opinion on film and didn't have to roll out the obscure references and pro-subtitle stance to prove just how much passion you had for film. As such, I found you both likeable and believable. Film 2010 and Claudia Winkleman are neither of those things.

Whatchyou Talkin' About Andrew Neil?

2010-10-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

The less you have to do, the more unemployed or studenty you are, the more you will encounter Andrew Neil on television. There is a positive correlation between the two. The veteran presenter features on both The Daily Politics and The Week, usually positioned cautiously into a sort of velvet, purple background.

Andrew Neil is frequently a perceptive and intelligent political commentator and interviewer; a professor of television, who seems an authority to us, the masses who don't understand a bloody thing about politics we don't.

Unfortunately, Professor Neil frequently lets himself down with his eccentricities. During his broadcasts he can launch himself from one piece of particularly strong journalism, before throwing himself violently into a surreal commentary of his own design, like, "but can you deny the cuts hit the poorest hardest? Anyway, moving on, and the monkey pheasant doesn't wear a hat in the morning, am I right?" *smirk smirk smirk*...a lot of people don't understand politics as it is, ok, and so they're going to be pretty fucking puzzled by all this I can tell you.

But he doesn't deliver it with the required volume of a red nosed eccentric, but does it with a creepy intimacy.
"There now, that's ALL the politics done. Come in close. A little closer now, come on, don't be shy! Have you ever wondered, WHY GEORGE Osborne, looks into the little nutshell house, that paint's the eyes of the moose God yellow - I know you do, yes, you and I are well aware of the candy land that exists on the moon [he whispers quietly to you the viewer, until you snap back into reality] - NOW WE GO, to Westminster, where I understand Mr. Clegg is ready to address the cabinet...and, as we all know, pearls make the girl" *smirk smirk smirk, I've just made a joke he says*

...which apparently is all a big wink and a nudge to us the viewer, but we literally have no idea why, because he is the only one involved in this weird in-joke between presenter and viewer. Watching Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics leaves you reeling; brocolli creates anarchy in March? Really? I thought we were talking about budget cuts, how curious, still, he is a venerated authority on political broadcasting. I guess politics is just too complex for our mere human minds.

He's not senile yet, but the problem is that when Andrew Neil does finally descend into lunacy over the next few years, no one is going to notice until it's too late and he's up on the sofa wearing little red pants and thrusting his groin into the faces of some of his bewildered guests, who even now are forced to bend to his whims and play ridiculous politics games with like...coloured balls and...soft parody that act as hideous innacurate satirical questionnaires on public opinion...God it's awful. I'm going to watch cartoons now, it makes so much more sense.

ASK RHOD GILBERT (if you can shout loud enough)

2010-10-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

HELLO AND WELCOME TO ASK RHOD GILBERT, THIS NEXT ONE IS FROM CHARLES MEYRICK AND HE ASKS:

“Rhod Gilbert, is there any point in the show, or indeed your life, when you are not furiously shouting?”

NO CHARLIE, THERE ISN’T, he would reply, although this would all suggest that ‘Ask Rhod Gilbert’ on BBC1 actually began at any point during it’s half hour slot. It does, of course, eventually kick-off, but only after literally ten minutes. Whilst a panel show traditionally begins with neat introductions and a concise joke, Rhod Gilbert first launches into a bit on 'menus' – a bit where he predictably shouts and repeats the joke five times, using the word lasagne no less than twelve times. Count it. I dare you. It's well observed, but impossibly beaten to death. Then revived. Then killed.

Once this is taken care of and the viewer has had time to turn the televisions volume down to 1, in order to compensate for his twelve-packs-a-day lion roar, there is then time to introduce the entirely annonymous, completely unrecognisable panel. A regular is “Greg Davies”. Who the hell is that? Don’t worry, it’s the headmaster from the Inbetweeners, a seemingly funny guy but who actually, when you get down to it, is not without a good script in his hands. There’s also Lloyd. Presumably he is also a comedian, but opts for the role of bookend on this panel of four...there are no teams, it’s just a panel of four...that’s too many surely for one team? Dear Rhod Gilbert, am I watching Family Fortunes?
The other two are just people you really will not have heard of...'joining Greg & Lloyd today is Romanian bronze medallist Ezra Labondt and south east todays transport correspondant Paul Siegert – geezuz. H. Crisps, is this the recession in it’s full effect? I’ll just watch old QI repeats on Dave thank you very much.

The guests aren’t done there. Then we get a two minute introduction on another celebrity. Probably a chef or something. He gets a little computer to 'answer' Rhod's questions, but otherwise has a com-pletely irrelevant role in the...game? Is this a game? There’s no competitive element because there are no teams and in fact, literally no point to the programme whatsoever, unless consuming time counts as a purpose now; if it does, this programme is the equivalent to Job Centre Plus (hiii-ooh!).

Rhod delivers a number of tame yet volumess jokes which receive a luke-warm response from the studio audience...a studio...audience...these are the same sort of people who actually take the time out to go and see X-factor. The colour yellow probably makes them laugh. The same audience get to ‘Ask Rhod’ a question. They’re not great at generating comedy, as any improv comedian probably knows, and they come up with desperately surreal things about guacamole and swimming pools. In defence, this is because they have no brief in this painfully aimless show – the whole thing is like a hospital patient who has escaped onto the Yorkshire downs with concussion. It’s a living nightmare.

This whole thing really belongs on Five. It screeeams Five. No one contributes anything, its just starts off as being loud and garish and finally ends with mild disappointment. It's probably what supporting Manchester City feels like.
This was half an hour of boring people, sitting around a boring dinner table and exchanging dull stories over a store bought lasagne. I don’t want to watch that. I can live that if I want to.

Towards the end there was a 'you’ve been framed-esque' video of a dog jumping into a wall...in response, we receive a story about waking up in a tent. Finally the poor celebrity chef charged with a computer of information comes in with some Wikipedia information and a buzzer goes off. Is that the end? I don't know. The word "answer" comes up but I don't seem to have any.

But the show doesn’t end. Dear government...if you’re making cuts, please start with this piece of television and everyone responsible for comissioning it. It’s just not necessary, the show has no point except to slowly sap your energy, like a hideous, talentless poision or a feminist.

OH, and it all ends with a sketch. Well, I say sketch, it’s like the end bit of Shooting Stars meets I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here; not a winning combination. In the episode that I observed, a guy had to eat a chille and then got yoghurt shoved in his mouth with a spoon, messily. Then some ice-cream. Then water was thrown at him. Then he got an ice machine in his face. It was like Looney Toons, only with none of the intellect. Or Fun House, without the...sexy twins? In fact, any comparison would give the show too much credit.

Finally Rhod ends the show by saying “I’M RHOD GILBERT AND YOU CAN ASK ME, LITERALLY, ANYTHING...”. Dear Rhod Gilbert, will you please, never do anything again, ever. Thanks.

Inception the Cinema Infection

2010-08-14T19:07:00.001-07:00

Inception is a film that is much cleverer than it really is. This was the only thing I could relate to in the entire four billion hours it felt like I spent watching the fucking thing.

Alright, yes, Leo Didlidi Caprio is a good actor - for example he can do intense...and...also...intense...and sometimes he also plays really intense characters and, er, oh..

I'm not even going to say spoiler alert at any point in this interview because if you can't see how obvious the film is when you innevitably go along to watch it then you are stupid.

Several times over it tries to make you think something else, but it is essentially equivalent to watching Dick Dastardly turn road signs around in Wacky Races - every times its painfully obvious what dream they're jumping into or who exactly is asleep or whatever. And the stale old trick of putting the end of the film at the beginning didn't sodding fool anyone (or rather it did, but shouldn't have). Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did the same thing. It was obvious from the start too!
Oh and then Inception, in what is a really very desperate attempt to bloody mistify the audience, ends with a stupid little spinning doo-hickey that Leo uses to see if he is in a dream or not, BUT, aaah, aaah, oooh, AAAH - DARGH, oh no, the film has cut to credits and I'll literally NEVER know if it stopped spinning or not! So many questions! Was he out of the dream? Was he ever in a dream? WAS HE EVER OUT OF THE DREAM? If only I cared enough, because Inception is a long fucking film and my bladder has exploded all over the aisle.

Inception is like the pseudo-intellectual bastards you get at university who like to name drop all sorts of bloody novelists and sound all enthusiastic about them, without ever knowing anything important about them or having any real opinion about anything - those people are Inception - it seems impressive on the surface, but it becomes quickly obvious that this person has little of worth to say. Inception doesn't raise any philosophical questions or make me question my own reality or anything like that at all, and that would be fine, only it REALLY thinks that it DOES make you question those things. This would be Inception when it was at univeristy:

"Hm, that Hemmingway reference I made really struck a chord with every tonight at the cheese and wine social - I must be sure to always mention how much I love Hemmingway, they thought I was the bomb after I used the name Hemmingway...GOD, I JUST HOPE THEY DON'T ACTUALLY ASK ME ANYTHING ABOUT HIS BOOKS"

Except Inception wouldn't have that level of self-awareness.

Look, the Matrix worked because it immersed you into its world, slowly. Plus it was true to itself, it made no qualms about the fact that it was asking the audience to believe that we could go inside computers or that this world isn't real, blah, blah, blah - but it took the time to build this all up and we all said "this is new, THIS is good"...Inception on the other hand gets far too excited about its 'ideas' and shoots them all off in your face. As a caveman, Inception would have invented something like...cheese toasties...before inventing fire...cheese toasties are ok, but without fire (or heat or whatever) it's not a cheese toastie, now is it Inception.

"Noowh.. I guess not"

Darn tooting. So we the poor, saps of an audience have to be all like "What? Yeah, no, I totally instantly buy Leo didlidi Caprio being a 'dream agent' of sorts and launching himself around the place and yes I also believe that all these characters would take to his ideas straightaway and I also buy these instant-noodle rules that exist in the dream world, sure, why not" - here's why not, BECAUSE INCEPTION HAS NOT EARNT OUR BELIEF. It all just gets flung at us like a load of diving gear and then we're expected to jump into the reef...good greef*

*sorry.

And just, I have to give mention, to the dickhead from 100 Days of Summer, he's in the film being a stupid faced stupid and that stupid girl from Juno is also in the film, being a stupid faced stupid. Boy, those indie films of yours sure were ready made contrived crap guys - but at least you stayed true to your indie roots by featuring in this GIGANTIC PLACEBO BLOCKBUSTER.

So, in conclusion, if you see one film this year, don't, because it could all be a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream - or not, whatever, who can say, but I bet you're totally questionning reality now.

p.s. Toy Story 3 is incredible, go and see that and see how a film should be made. I experience every emotion going. Top notch stuff.

No More Shit Please Sherlock

2010-08-14T18:39:00.001-07:00

The usually reliable Guardian managed to cram this little gem onto the cover of its G2 supplement the other week: "SHERLOCK: It keeps getting better!". Hmm. DOES it though Guardian? Does it ACTUALLY keep getting better, really, or has it maintained and even dropped its standards as it has gone on? LET, me stop you from answering; I already know the answer.

A lot of people seemed to have bought into this programme and I have given it a fair run of three full episodes. Now, the reason you think it's great (but, let's keep in mind that it's not) is because you probably like Dr. Who. What the BBC have cunningly done is identified that the reason 10% of the public don't like Dr. Who is because they dislike sci fi. So they wrangled up "Sherlock" - not Sherlock Holmes you understand, I mean, you're not stupid are you, one word should tell you all you need to know. Oh, and plus, ITS AS EDGY AS FUCK TO USE ONE WORD AS THE TITLE OF A PROGRAMME. Anyway, the actor who plays Sherlock Holmes was indeed up for the roll of the new Doctor (Matt Smith, now) and I also understand the the lead writer of Dr. Who has a hand in writing Sherlock...HAVE YOU ENJOYED SWALLOWING A SECOND RATE, RECYCLED DR. WHO EVERYONE? Watching Sherlock Holmes is like eating a nice meal, eating the resultant shit and then commenting on how nice the shit tasted; somehow familiar...somehow different.

So, edge and lack of creativity established, we can see that Sherlock is very much an Emperor's New Clothes situation. To the show itself then...

Basically, Sherlock doesn't quite get society - dooowh. But he sure does get crime! Yeeeah! You know what he needs is a - oh Martin Freeman what are you doing here, sit down - I was just explaining how Sherlock needs a foyle who gets reinvigorated by him but who also offers him a human connection with a society who he otherwise feels isolated from...and it goes without saying of course that the actor playing this role, this Dr. Watson, would have to be a recognisable and highly likeable British actor. What? YOU? DONT MAKE ME LAUGH. This contrived relationship is ridiculous to the extreme, down to the fact that Sherlock has a souless modern armchair to sit in when the pair are at home, whilst Watson has a comfy, soft chair; mmm - British!

"Urgh - Sherlock - why is this a human head in the fridge?"
"Yes, why?"
"People don't usually keep human heads in the fridge"
"Most people aren't doing important research"

Ooooh, SHEEER-LOCK - dear oh dear, what is he like eh? And it goes on like this! They're the original odd couple. Good old imaginative writing there.

When these engaging, three dimensional characters aren't bantering away like Punch & Judy, they're solving crimes. Sherlock does this by watching words, in the style of a text message usually, appear before his very eyes all over a victims face or a crime scenes walls. No one else can see this and it is of course actually for the audiences benefit. Boy do I feel immersed! As a young person, I felt alienated by a character who I always felt was a little antiquated for modern crime fighting, but your texting-come-deducting has hooked me right in. Plus I saw the movie of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr, so I'm, like, well into all that shit now. Excuse a moment, I have to pull this face:

¬_¬

The storyline of "Sherlock" is not that hard to swallow due only to the fact that any pill holding this level of shoddy plotting would surely come as a suppository. A big suppository. That you then accidentally swallowed. Are we seriously to believe that a man of no employment would be permitted to mosey around the police force and various crime scenes, casually talking in riddles and being eccentric. Note to anyone else raping the literary nuance of Sherlock Holmes...this is you too Hollywood...Sherlock Holmes is not:

(a) An action hero
(b) A Topman model

Sherlock Holmes is:

(c) A detective

This BBC show asks a great deal of its audience and at first I said, ok, fine, take me on your ride I'll allow this to slide...and this...and this...and this...until eventually it was just taking the piss when it turns out that Moriarty is a gay guy that Sherlock had met briefly in the episode for a single minute. Oh, and we find this out at the local swimming pool. Which he easily breaks into (apparently)...and Dr. Watson has a bomb tied to him...and about twenty snipers are concealed somewhere around the swimming pool. I mean, by this logic, it will probably turn out that the whole thing was a dream and that Sherlock himself was actually a pot plant all along. It would make for better conversations in the show. A real detective could use Sherlock to spruce up his office.

There are a billion more things wrong with this programme, but it essentially it just takes the fucking piss out of the audience watching it. If you are one of many idiots having a whale of a time with the whole thing and if you're defending it right now with phrases like "it's a bit of fun" or with words like "romp", then next time you're sitting at home watching it, imagine the BBCs big gorping face, pointing out from the screen and laughing at you. HA-HA-HA.

The New Intro on MotD

2010-08-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

I just have to ask the BBC who designed the new intro sequence on Match of the Day...I really do...hang on...ok I've asked them.

Instead of being greeted properly by actual footballers what I got was some floppy disk rip-off computer generated nightmare that tried to cram too many presents into my eyes. It was like the entire history of football had puked up on the screen and then wiped it all around a bit with it's hands, sat back and in it's furious drunken smuginess gone "weeeroah - yeah man - jawesome".

Putting up all the past players of the Premiership doesn't instill Match of the Day with some semblance of heritage, instead, it highlighted how much extra cash they must be sitting on, that they can piss all of it away on some bloody brainiac to clip art a few dead footballers in alongside Eric Cantona. Ooo it makes me mad.

ALSO, everytime something is analysed in a match now some new futuristic analysis logo+noise comes into play, as if Match of the Day is still trying to convince me that I am living in the future. Dear BBC; I am not living in the future. If I were you'd be charging me for oxygen as your strangle hold on the media reaches an all time high and humanity crummbles in your hands like the Channel Five of today, but until then, keep all your bleeding special effects for Dr. Fucking Who and let me watch the football in peace.

Thanks! Sincerely, Charles Meyrick

The National Movie Awards - ITV out do themselves again.

2010-05-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

The National Movie Awards 2010!

After the BAFTAS, The European Film Awards, The Cannes International Film Prize, The Golden Globe Awards, The Sundance Film Prize, The Oscars and of course, The Kids Choice Awards, NO trophy event is more anticipated than ITVs National Movie Awards! Pinch yourself, because it's FINALLY here, the most important and anticpated event of the entire summer! What do you mean World Cup? Never heard of it. Is it a kind of fish?

If the National Movie Awards sound like someone made them up, there is actually a very good reason for that. It's because, apparrently, someone made them up. ITV, who nowadays seem to quiz their brain-dead audience on most everything they broadcast, (TEXT NOW IF YOU HAVE AN IQ GREATER THAN THE NUMBERS ON YOUR PHONE) have managed to get behind a film award ceremony that takes into account the precious public opinion; boy, do I feel important? I feel like one of them film critics darlin'.

One would have had to have ventured onto the ITV website in order to vote for the awards months ago - that means that the people making these decisions are the kind of people who browse the internet long enough to make it onto the ITV website without looking at pornography or youtube. What kind of cold husk of a human being could do that? Why does ITV so highly value public opinion (I mean, apart from all the money they get from the text messaging and phone calls, obviously). But honestly, is ITV run by an indecisive neurotic? And no, I haven't found work yet. Is their head of programming sitting in a leather chair everyday sweating excessively over what to so put on television, who to send through to the next round, who to give a precious MOVIE AWARD to?

-"Mr.ITV we need a decision; do we send through this troop of break-dancers or do we send through this singing dog"
-"Er, er, deserves it most?"
-"They both have sob stories sir"
-"Oh God.."
-"We need a decision sir"
-"Er, argh - um - OH! I know what we could do again"
-"Sigh; sir?"
-"We could ask the public to decide again"
-"Ok sir, but this is the last time, soon we're going to have start paying them a wage"
-"Nah, they love it, makes 'em feel part of the show"
-"We can only be grateful than no one has anything better to do"

ANYWAY (ahem), the point is, a good film needs to be judged by people who watch lots of films and who know about film. Not fucking Joe Public who spends most of his time in 'Bet Fred' and wouldn't know a kebab from a...bloody...montage. Haha; surreal.

Here are my ITV Movie Award predictions, 2010:

-Action/Adventure: AVATAR [it had special effects and shit]
-Superhero: IRON MAN 2 [it had special effects and shit]
-Musical: CHIPMUNK [they'll only realise that it's not a movie afterwards]
-Comedy: HOT TUB TIME MACHINE [it has everything, a hot tub AND a time machine...no laughs though, not many of them]
-Family: ALICE IN WONDERLAND [I don't fucking know, these aren't funny, they're just terrible films that will win awards]
-Performance (Male): DAVID CAMERON
-Performance (Female): NICK CLEGG
-Special Recognition: ITV

There's genuinely a category called "Superhero". That's not a film type or a bloody genre, that's a passing fad that will be gone in less than a decade. OH, I know, why don't we have a category called "BEST TELEVISION PROGRAMME ADAPTED INTO A FILM!". Oh, because it's ridiculous, I see.

I mean for fuck sake, they called them the fucking MOVIE AWARDS. How gloriously generic, seriously, these people have the imagination of a pistachio...a utilitarian pistachio. Anyway, 2010 is it's third outting so we can expect it to have a long, cheesy life, as many of ITVs shows do - break out the production values ITV, because one day a prestigious MOVIE AWARD might be just as valuable as the Metro Manila Film Festival Awards; they're held in the Philippines! Exotic!

The Death of Cookery

2010-04-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

"ITS BLAND AND UNENTERTAINING, IT LACKS PERSONALITY AND QUITE FRANKLY IM NOT IMPRESSED. I WOULDN'T WATCH THIS ON TELEVISION MATE, I REALLY WOULDN'T".

That was for anyone that had ever wondered what it would be like if the hosts of Master Chef reviewed their own show. They are big shouty nightmares, with all the charisma of wet lettuce, a fact that the pair of them make up for with big collars and swearing at sandwiches. I mean they don't actually swear but you can see they want to. They're so bold and brash, cookery shows are an almost theraputic observation of cooking, a visual enjoyment of food that makes me think "yeah, I'm gonna make that, I'm hungry".

Instead, Master Chef has two presenters bereft of any class or style and a female narrator who talks like people do when they suddenly touch something cold. She describes the food about as passionately as filling in a tax return, opting instead for a hollow and clinical description of exactly what the food contains, in what must be a misguided aim at 'food with status' e.g. Damian has constructed a futon of spinach for his north-atlantic lemon drizzled oxford educated salmon. It's all just crap.

And then of course Idiot 1 & Idiot 2 shout at the "contestant" and at the each other...I mean, contestant cookery shows shouldn't have contestants, cooking isn't competitive, it's an art!
Gordon Ramsey shouts, be it just seems less like a character defect; he is aware that he is shouting. The presenters on Master Chef seem like the kind of guys you would want to punch in the face at a bus stop. "WHERE'S THE BLOODY BUS, I HAVE A BIG APPOINTMENT WITH THE QUEEN" one of them explodes at no one at all. They are both incredibly detestable and this is not what cookery shows should be - but it gets worse.

Iron Chef is on it's way to England. Its presenter is a wine expert that you may have seen on Saturday Kitchen and he is something of an eccentric, a blow-hard with a taste for big words and pulling big faces. "AHA, to our main contestants who stand, poised and ready to fight in a battle of cooking prowess, titans of the kitchen, who will emerge victorious, etc, etc"...so, as if this farcical presenter for Iron Chef UK wasn't enough, here is the show itself.
Iron Chef is quintessentially American. They took your common cookery show and turned it into a Die Hard film. It has a samurai or ninja guy or something who adds a lot of tacky pseudo asian pazzazz to the affair. Then, in front of a huge studio audience, contestants cook UNDER A TIME LIMIT (oh because that's what cooking should be like) intensley and competitively. Then, and this is the worst bit, hundreds and thousands of graphics, explosions, sound-effects, literally slow-mo action replays of chopping vegetables, are all thrown into the mix and left to simmer; less a stew, more a stewpid.

Why Channel 4 thought this was a good idea is beyond me, but the British public won't go for this, unless I have under-estimated them. Come Dine With me is more our style. Like Master Chef, Iron Chef Uk is and will be a completely charmless stab at what producers think people want as they desperately try and find somewhere else to go in the world of television. Unnecessary fanfare and shouting are not it - that's why we don't all love the Go Compare Advert...we really fucking hate it and we mute it or turn it off. What next, strapping fireworks to the letters and attaching the clock to a huge time-bomb in Countdown? Please.

Although Countdown could do with a younger, hipper demographic. It needs to appeal to todays younger, more blood-thirsty word puzzlers. Oh and can we get Jeff Stelling to ride a skateboard? Get my pyrotechnic guy on the phone, let's a put a rocket up this mother! WOOSH!

Bye Honey, I'm Off to my TV Book Club.

2010-03-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

"WHO AM I!?" cries The TV Book Club, the hideous schizophrenic monster show as it wearily drags itself up the Channel 4 satellite building.

The TV Book Club is a stupid persons clever show and has therefore found something like a home on More Four. More Four of course only shows television programmes that no one wants to watch. It's like Channel 4 saying, "I don't entirely have faith in you".

It's another show that really does it's best to get to know you and crawl into your home as part of your daily routine - like a nectar card. The TV Book Club thinks it's a nectar card. Because no one seems capable of actually ever meeting or speaking to each other in person in our modern society, The TV Book Club caters for people who don't know anyone and must therefore discuss their books with celebrities, instead of anyone they can actually touch, or smell.

So, if I wanted advice on a good book, I would ask a writer or a really keen reader. I would not at any point ask Gok Wan. If I want to know what colour pumps I should be wearing this summer, then boy howdy, he'd better be by the phone. In the meantime, he can keep his book opinions to himself.

The TV Book Club is too cliquey, I don't feel part of the gang. A specially selected elite of celebrities, two horribly unfunny comedians (Dave Spikey & Jo Brand, with her disgusting black & white glasses that make her look like she has a permanently raised eye-brow which, ironically, I also have when I watch The TV Book Club). There's Gok, and then a man and a woman that no one has ever seen before, but might have read some news or written a newspaper article before or something. Out of all these..."CELEBRITIES"...it is hard to work out which one is the presenter. Is it Jo Brand with her gentle, gentle humour? Is is the unknown bloke with the gi-GAN-tic face? Or is it Spikey with his...northern accent?
I can only hope that this ill-matched group of people solve mysteries in their spare time, because to watch them discuss books with a put-on sincerity and pretend interest in what they are doing is more than I can bare. Some mad scientist/market researcher obviously worked out how to appeal to the entirity of society by choosing a group of..."CELEBRITIES"...that can draw in every demographic around. Oh, apart from that key demographic, PEOPLE WHO CAN READ FOR THEMSELVES.

The TV Book Club is a pompous, fart of a show! It's full of hyperbole and hot air and emotionally manipulating musical renactments of the content of the books and it's just awful. It's like reading one of my English essays. The background is bland and they all sit round on a big DFS sponsored chair and it supposed to make me think "OO, now there's something that would enhance my lifestyle, I'm going to get a bottle of wine and invite my friends to start a book club with me" - on second thoughts, I'm going to drink a a beer and read something good. All they fucking do is review..."REVIEW"...books involving child abuse, or murder or painful personal growth. Yuck. Nobody wants to read that, they really don't, unless they're the most dull people I've ever met and I bet they are the wankers.

Of the show, Gok says: "I think the idea of a book club is to recommend a book or not, and I think I would recommend this book"

I say: "A good TV Show is one that doesn't make you want to throw books at the television in the hopes that one of them smashes the screen, and I think that The TV Book Club does quite the opposite of that"

And then the show ends with some ill-chosen dramatic violin nightmare. As I said, it's just awful.

Why The Simpsons Will Always Be Great.

2010-01-17T11:19:00.001-08:00

As has been well documented, and exploited by Sky1, The Simpsons has recently turned 20. But at this presumably late stage in its life (I imagine that television shows age like dogs, or in the case of Gavin & Stacey, like hamsters) why do so many people end up criticising The Simpsons instead of venerating? I'm aware that a lot of people in the media have "celebrated" The Simpsons because of it's 20th year, but these are frequently the same people who condemn it on a regular basis for not being funny anymore and these nostalgic reviews of 'Televisions First Family' always contain something along the lines of "The Simpsons peaked many years ago".

I'm certainly not going to argue that the most recent series is as funny as series eight, that is, the series where Homer becomes the Beer Baron and where he has to deal with Frank Grimes - no, I am not going to suggest that the episodes of 2009/10 are as classic as that. But given the sheer brilliance of those old episodes, what I will demand from literally everyone is a little faith in The Simpsons.

Surely Matt Groening and co have earnt that haven't they? There is literally no television show in history that is as quotable or as memorable as The Simpsons. If you asked a room of twenty people what their favourtie episode was, ninteen of them would come up with a different one each. The twentieth one would be somebodies Mum, who never liked the Simpsons because they used the word 'butt' too much when you were an impressionable eight year old.

The Simpsons has frequently hit every single level of humour, it can be both high brow and low brow and also middle brow and mono-brow. Many people see Family Guy as its successor, but come on, well into its eighth season, it is obvious that Family Guy is already running out of steam. Why? Because it is far less dynamic than The Simpsons. Family Guy has one brand of comedy, it grows only one crop in its humour field, whilst The Simpsons ensures its longevity with the intelligence and variety in its scripts. Family Guy is clearly very easy to write, whereas The Simpsons is multi-layered, a forest gateaux to Family Guys pancake.

Comedy moves in trends, and Family Guy has very much surfed upon that trend (btw, I am a big Family Guy fan, and I am using it only as a singular example). The Simpsons has fallen by the wayside a little in modern times because it does not entirely follow the in-fashion comedy at the moment, that is, the surreal and the nonsensical. Comedy today is much more Adult Swim than...the...well, The Simpsons. Where The Simpsons slips down in modern times is when it tries to adhere to what people want, and you get odd random moments that just don't suit the show. You can see the same mistakes much more obviously in the new series of Futurama, which, if I may say so, was fucking terrible.

What I'm saying is, if you hear ANYONE saying that The Simpsons isn't funny, slap them in the face. Really hard. Because The Simpsons is the greatest television show ever made. Its cast of characters is huge and each one is brilliant, like your favourite episode, everyone has their own favourite character (one of mine is Moe, obviously - and you can't go wrong with a bit of Lenny).

The Simpsons is the most quotable show ever made and I given how much pure goodness they have dispensed our way for the past 20 years, I think a show of faith that they can go on recapturing what people believe to be the best work, is very little to ask. If you can find me any other show that will be able to traverse the dangerous waters of two decades-worth of television, then I will call you a liar, because you can't. Don't just celebrate 20 years of The Simpsons nostalgically, believe in it delivering quality comedy for years to come.

p.s. The Simpsons Movie WAS funny, those who say it wasn't ought to be thrown into a briefcase and drowned.

Shutting the Fuck up About How Good Your iPhone is; is there an app for that too?

2010-01-04T16:19:00.001-08:00

This was written some time ago, but is still relevant today:

Honestly. What sickens me most is how fucking DOWN with the kids iPhone thinks it is. "Boy" thought Apples hideously slimey marketing department one day "Aren't these kids the darnedest things" and all the suits nod so it continues "I mean just the other day I hear this one young fella, AFLUENT AS HELL, using a youthful colloquialism - I'm talking words that aren't real here. But he was the toast of the party, with his compatriots nodding in agreement and such" and then the marketing department guy walks up to the window and looks outside "And I think to myself - why can't we whore out that kind of lyrical genius huh? I mean, why not make up words like 'funnest' to describe our products - hell, they can relate to it!"

And so, a year later, I feel infuriated in an arm chair when I see that the new iSomething-or-other is being described as the "funnest" iPod ever. Brilliant.
Has anyone, EVER, thought to themselves while they were using their iPhone, "This is great and all, what with the device performing its function and all, but what I'd really like to do is move this glorified mP3 player and steer a rollercoaster, at the same time...*sigh* but I know that's just a pipe-dream, a crazy, crazy pipe-dream". WELL WISH NO MORE GUY, BECAUSE IF YOU CAN COUGH UP THE EXPLETIVE WORTHY SIMOLIANS TO BUY SUCH A FANCIFUL ITEM THEN YOU REALLY CAN STEER A ROLLERCOASTER! I'd buy one myself but I purchased a coca-cola last week and I'm a little strapped for cash.

What I hate about Apple is how bloody convenient they are trying to be. Life isn't convenient (ok?) and so the result is the advert equivalent of one of those waiters that keeps coming up to you to ask if everything is ok; everything ok sir, everything ok sir, everything o-fucking-k sir? NO!? Well no worries baby! Trousers on fire? Cleft palet? Lost the will to live? There's an app for that too! If it was me I'd tell him to fuck off and let me finish my soup in peace. BUT WHY EAT SOUP WHEN I CAN HAVE ALL THE NUTRIENTS FROM SOUP TELEPORTED DIRECTLY IN MY BLOODSTREAM, he'd say, IT'LL LEAVE YOU TIME TO DO ALL THOSE AFLUENT LEISURE ACTIVITIES YOU NEVER HAVE TIME FOR! *que me, snowboarding*

As ever Apples most recent advertising campaign features a song picked out by NME specialists so that it all sounds cool enough and unthreatening enough to convey a real easy-going, hip piece of technology, sorry, not technology, I mean, this hip-piece of life-support. I want my technology shiney and laden with golden buttons thankyou very much, not moseying up to my place at about half 2 in some low slung jeans and with a general shrug of it's casual shoulders "hey man, wanna latte, I know a place" - no, piss off, I'm throwing balls of paper into a bin in just my pants.

I mean for goodness sake, I am a human-being! I'm supposed to demand things of technology, not the other way round! Why am I suddenly "bumping fists" with somebody to exchange a phone address with someone, explain that to me! It's the equivalent of a cowboy-iPhone with a gun making me dance by shooting bullets at my feet, "weeeell, looky here fellas, he's a dancing, he's aaaa daaancing - now bump fists bitch".

I mean seriously you are going to look like a right prick with an iPhone clenched in your clamby mits, BUMPING FISTS with some other equally impressionable iPhone owner, every, single, time you want to exchange information. Call me old fashioned, but I still have:

(a) the use of my voice, and
(b) the use of my brain.

If I utilise both these items, a rare thing occurs. For you see, I can send the details incredibly easily to a person that has an iPhone or that doesn't AND, they can be anywhere in the world; they don't have to be sitting across from me in Starbucks, or in an unoffensive white limbo, where everyone where's one colour and dances to trendy remixes.

People don't know what the hell they're doing on an iPhone, they're fingers zip around on invisible roller blades not knowing where the fuck they are going until eventually they've ordered 600 copies of Ghostbusters II on DVD and have booked themselves in for a haircut at 8, 9 and 10pm for the following day. "DO YOUR SHOPPING ON THE BUS!" NO, I say again, I DEFY YOU iPHONE! People, do it yourself! Feel your wrist, find your pulse? You're alive aren't you? Perhaps try putting your iPhone away for once and embrace that, stupid.

Something Smells Stupid

2009-12-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

Christmas time! You know what that means don't you? You and everyone around you stinks! Don't worry, someone is on it.

Like so much snow, December means a flurry of perfume adverts. We are now in the midsts of the storm and witnessing that extraordinary moment that comes but once a year, that is, the moment when every single bloody perfume company tries 'to out-pretentious' and 'out-celebrity' one another. Here is the conversation that must occur in board rooms across the globe as they prepare to market their fragrance:

A: So, Christmas is in a few months time; what have we got?
B: Well sir, we have this fragrance - it smells like cats!
A: Cats?
B: Persian cats.
A: Ah.
B: Exotic!
A: Right! What's the name?
B: Bane.
A: Bane?
B: Like woflsbane sir - it makes people think it has a heritage - wolfsbane is old-timee.
A: But wolfsbane...bane...it smells like cats, I don't get it.
B: We could pronounce it differently...
A: How so?
B: We could say 'Ba' - the new fragance.
A: What is that, French?
B: It could be French. The important thing is that it's foreign.
A: Ah, of course. Spray some on me.
B: Here.
A: GARGH, IT SMELLS LIKE...CATS!
B: Yeah.
A: WELL - I MEAN - MY CAT DOESN'T EVEN SMELL LIKE THIS? HOW THE HELL CAN WE SELL THIS STUFF! URGH, IT'S BURNING A HOLE IN MY FACE.
B: Hmm. That could be a hard sell I guess.
A: HARD SELL, MY EYEBROW'S MISSING!!
B: Well look, I have an idea - how about in the build up to its realease we make people think that they'll die without this perfume?
A:...go on.
B: We don't spend much...quick shots, flashing lights.
A: Cheap, yes, I like it, go on...
B: We show er...images...like...balloons...and statues...
A: Think more glamorous...
B: Red carpets...cars...landscapes!
A: Now you're cooking.
B: We show all those things, really quickly, in black and white.
A: We'll blur a few of the shots as well.
B: Right, as long as no one knows what the hell is going on. Then we get a celebrity-
A: What!? A good one?
B: It's not really important.
A: Well who do we get?
B: We'll draw them from this hat.
A: Ah, ok.
B: Look, I got Ewan McGregor!
A: Primo!
B: And then we get them to say a little something about the perfume!
A: Problem.
B: What?
A: We can't really afford to pay them to say anything.
B: Well that's fine. Look, let's say it's...100 dollars a word...
A: Right...
B: We get them to say about three words, maybe four...
A: Woah now...
B: Ok, three words...good words though, long ones...
A: We want our moneys worth afterall.
B: Exactly; three long words, arty words...and then the name of the perfume.
A: Wolfsbane.
B: Ba.
A: Oh yes, right.
B: And hey presto, we have a hit fragrance this Christmas.
A: The money comes rolling in!
B: Exactly.
A: Just one thing...
B: What is it?
A: Well what if another company does this? I've heard rummblings of a very effective marketing campaign building up over at Pacco.
B: Huh! You mean like this bad boy? I don't think so. Relax baby-bel! Soon as people see our ad they'll feel like they're in touch with something...they'll see it and go...'yeah - that meant something to me'.
A: What?
B: Well it doesn't matter what, it doesn't mean anything; it's just supposed to make them feel like they can only be important if they buy the fragrance.
A: So what we're saying is..."Buy this fragrance..."
B: Buy this fragrance, otherwise you're a soulless monster with no ability to recognise art...
A: Plus, if you don't buy it...
B: Then you're also not a celebrity.
A: Bingo.
B: Those sweet simolians are ours - now all we need is a bottle shaped like something you can't practically store.

------------------------------------------------------

Aaaaand it goes on like this. My point being, every advert for perfume at this time of year is exactly the same. Short bursts of pictures and sounds that give you the consumer the impression that it's so much more! That if you can cough up the cash, if you can buy this fragrance then you too can have all of this great stuff laid before you! BUY IT, BECAUSE THEY HAVE BOTTLED UP PERSONALITY AND CHARISMA ALL FOR YOU TO SUCK DOWN YOUR GOB-HOLE. ITS MAGIC, THIS IS LIQUID SEX, THIS IS LIQUID SUCCESS, YOU HAVE TO BUY IT.

Afterall, at a billion pounds a pop, it doesn't seem as flash if you don't do all that crap does it, right?

Show them you care this Christmas; buy them "Smell-In-A-Jar", the new musk from Mr. Muscle.

p.s. sorry about the dialogue, I got carried away as usual.

We Were Warned

2009-11-15T12:03:00.000-08:00

If I may I would like to briefly sum this film up before exploring the details further. A huge fecking disaster hits the entire globe like it never did before. Think about something really big...done that? Well it's even bigger than that, this is the kind of global disaster that demands a rich tapestry of CGI particulars that eventually illustrate destruction on an epic, awe inspiring scale. Can one man and his family survive? Indeed, will mankind survive? Let’s find out.

The special effects are good. Incredibly good, to date I don’t believe that I have seen much better. I couldn't quite enjoy the spectacle though because of the three trailers that came before the actual film. It seems that in 2010 we’re in for a myriad of HUGE, WHOPPING GREAT CGI films that are intent on melting our eyeballs. Which is a shame because not only do I like my eyeballs, I like depth and story. The opening trailers were more crammed with special effects than my blog is of profanities, which is no mean feat. By the time 2012 rocked up I was bloody worn out.
The scale of the collapsing Earth in 2012 is mightily impressive and fully immersed me in the global catastrophe. I might even call it terrifying, due to its relevance in a green-aware world and possibility that we could really suffer from such natural disasters in the future. Unfortunately, my point on the opening trailers exhausting me is that 2012’s greatest strength is clearly in its CGI artistry. However, when so many current and upcoming films are seemingly capable of such imagery, can they still be called special effects? If they can’t, then a film like 2012 can’t hope to succeed merely on its appearance. And, regrettably, it pretty much does.

There was too much icing on the cake that is 2012, which meant in the end it started to taste a lot like eating plain icing and if you do that you quickly grow tired of eating icing and you're sick everywhere. The guys who toiled on this were clearly talented and well funded, but it soon became like watching a child build something out of Lego, just so he could smash it on the ground. The rest of the film is embarrassingly predictable.
The focus is on one family but as in all disaster films it's a broken family, one that can only be repaired by the part of the Earth’s crust being shifted around, which says a lot to me about the impracticality of marriage in the 21st Century. As well as this core family, 2012 also dabbles in a 'Love Actually-esque' view of some other narratives, and eventually they all sort of criss-cross. Unfortunately the film seems to lose interest in this plot device and quickly puts them all together like it's picked up something smelly and wants to put it all away quickly because it didn't realise how smelly all the different plotlines were. So the other plotlines never really get the same level of attention given to the core one - it's unbalanced, considering that these strands are all supposed to converge at the same spot at the end of the film.

They might have dodged a bullet though. Never one to do things in halves, 2012 wants to equal its epic special effects only in the pathos it builds for the main character, John Cusack...who from here on in will be called ‘High Fidelity’. Not a typical action hero you might think, but nowadays the real movie heroes are those that we least expect - which is why he's always the failed husband and father now, or the jerk who won’t grow up and realise his responsibilities. The dinosaurs of yesterdays action films are now Californian senators or wheeling themselves out in films called 'Explosions VII; Revenge of the Box Office'; ‘High Fidelity’ is our hero now. Sure he was never an attentive enough husband or father, but damn it (and they probably had this very argument once) if there was ever a world crisis where the entire globe collapsed in on itself and humanities very existence was threatened, he'd bloody well come through, OK? He was probably really kicking himself then when it actually happened.

As ever an unlikely amount of luck seems to influence his and his family’s survival. He outruns earthquakes in limos and dodges volcanoes in planes. It’s all good, baby. In fact, 2012, being the a-typical disaster monolith it is, reminds us of that key-code of conduct that one must obey if one wants to live to the end of an apocalypse film; BE GOOD.
2012 reminds us that in films like these, anyone guilty of a slight moral infraction comes to an unlikely death. If only life were so fair! And equally anyone that has always tried to do the right thing comes to an unlikely survival. 2012 is so blindingly generic in this way that I could almost see the grim puppet-master of film morality bouncing the figures around going "woohoo, you're going to die, liiike...this; ha-ha!" Honestly, there was no grey area here, no serious moral questions about humanity or society, which is what the film needed to make any of these people worth saving and, subsequently, to get the audience to care about the outcome. Such films have no room for uncertainty, you are either going to live, or you are going to die. Oh, and if you are making the final resolution awkward or even 'heroes' final happiness in the status quo a little difficult, it’s likely that you too will die as a result of being inconvenient. That's basic. This is basic film maths people, page 1 of your text books. 2012 follows it religiously.

And it is because it is so rigid that 2012 was not a great movie. It was frequently on its high horse. “Oh, look at this guy making a sacrifice. Look at this guy not making a sacrifice! I’ll settle their hash”. It suddenly started to feel a lot like that ungodly 'Crash' film. Crash ought to be buried in a lead bunker, because to go near it is to be contaminated. By the end, the only thing rivalling 2012’s moral high ground was the height of the waves. I think I was supposed to have learnt something about...being good to each other? And sacrifice? The American family wins through once the loving new husband has been churned up in the gears of a machine? Was this film about class conflict? Racism? I simply don’t know. I'm just glad that at the end of the film everyone gets to sail off into the sunset; literally. Can you believe that? I almost wanted the words "THE END" to appear in beautiful script at the top of the screen while a Disney-style chorus sang them off. Instead we got a space eye view of the African continent...was that supposed to be political? Again, my tiny intellect prevents me from answering.
Put simply, it was hard to take any of the films messages seriously when they had all been made before - what's new 2012? Do you still pay attention anymore when your mum tells you to eat all of your vegetables? No, of course you don't, you've started to come to those decisions on your own now. Equally, having seen my fair share of films over the past twenty years, I don't need 2012 telling me that human life is precious. Thanks. Is it? Good.

Let me set your minds at ease if you have your tickets already booked - I don't think this is what I would call a bad film. I just wouldn't venture to call it good either. 2012 is essentially a film trying to make up for having a small penis (its human relationships) by giving off a lot of bravado. If you like bravado, you'll like this film. But if you want a film that develops believably human relationships, please don’t give 2012 the time of day.
Ultimately, whatever your opinion it is impossible to truly complain about this film. Afterall, we were warned! Hyuck-hyuck.

X MARKS THE SHIT, or rather, Why It's Important to Watch X-Factor.

2009-11-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

Ah, my old nemesis, X-Factor, we meet again, FOR THE LAST TIME.

The pantomime shit storm that is X-Factor continues to charge along like a mediocre laden juggernaut on its way to tacky television station, population, several million British plebeians.

Introducing the general public, a gaudy Reebok clad swarm of robots capable of performing two functions that make you believe that they are real life sentient beings! These actions of course are:

(1) Applauding
(2) Booing

And these clever party tricks are employed whenever anyone expresses an opinion that is:

(1) Matching to their opinion
(2) Contrary to their opinion

So, let the futility commense. The general populace of this country, who I lose more and more respect for everyday, get to put an emotional stake in a hollow husk of a contestant, just so that when that talentless figure is used as the vessel to churn out a souless studio album of solo mediocrity they can say, YES, I always liked him, and that was my guy! This is less their one-time solo success, more my own personal victory at guessing what twit the general public are willing to subject themselves to.

Louis Walsh is a judge on X-Factor and, get this, has been quoted as calling X-Factor “a talent show”. Dogs spinning plates on their noses is a talent. X-Factor is a talent show exactly the same way WHSmith is a book shop. It sort of is because it has some books in it, but that’s not reeeally what it is or what it’s there for.

X-Factor is some nightmarish cylinder of pain which people need to plug into to refill their ‘stupid fuel’. This stupid fuel is vital, because stupid fuel helps drive round the empty cogs in peoples heads. It means that they can drive along their desperate desire for an emotional engagement, it lets them driiiive forward towards something that they really, really care about, because unfortunately, the viewers lives are so shallow and pointless that they just don’t have anything better to dedicate themselves to. X-Factor is your packaged, makeshift meaning of existence; for all the family!

Whilst the judges continue to exchange worthless platitudes (which ironically sum up all too accurately the quality of every performers lyrical razor blade to my brain), the contestants get to play their set roles. I wonder if they get the scripts beforehand...”You know, Simon, I’m in it to win and I don’t care what you say and I’m gonna come back here, next week, even bigger, better and stronger” *cue rampant stinking applause*

However, here is my summary of the contestants. But Charlie, how on earth can you form an opinion, you don’t watch it. I’ve seen it, everyone I know watches it, and it tells me a lot about their IQ and their social and media awareness. Despite this, there is genuine reason that you, and I, need to know the following, a reason I will explain at the end. Here we go then:

Daryl: A man of unknown race and with a mouth the size of the sun, this bisexual teacher is a generic tight jeaned solo singer. He gets teary eyed over nothing. Saying that, some people "hate him more than Hitler" apparently. At least the Nazi party didn't sing though. Get Nick Griffin on X-Factor, that ought to even it out a bit! "When you're the BNPeeeee, nobody takes ya seriouslyyyyyy".

Joe McElderry: A personalityless face, he looks about twelve and like he is missing a boy band.

Lloyd Daniels: Somehow Lloyd managed to escape the set of Home and Away and cram himself onto X-Factor, much to everyones disgust. Another person who seems about twelve years old, he is another empty husk of a solo singer (see above) who would struggle to look more typically marketable if he tried. Surfs up "Lloyd", if that is your real name.

Lucie Jones: A voice that sounds like a cat under a bus (flat) I can't even tell if Lucie is pretty or not, because she has one of those faces that looks pretty from some angles and then square and obtuse the next. Plus, do we really need yet another female solo singer coming out of the crap factory that is the 'music industry'? I don't think so. You go girl...go away.

Stacie Solomon: Is she perhaps the stupidest person in the history of mankind? That's impossible to measure, but is she pretty then? Well, let me just say this, a horse is a horse of course of course. I can't bare Stacie Solomon, she has a voice that sounds like hot air quickly escaping out of a kettle, hahahahahaHA uuuuurgh.

John and Edward: Having narrowly missed out on a part in The Shining these scary twins are perhaps the least choreographed and in tune pair of people I have ever, ever seen in my entire life, and I'm including your average man on the street in this, they literally have no talents whatsoever between them, let alone in performing. I bet they don't dress up at halloween, they just tell people to deliver sweets to them or they'll come round and just stand in peoples living room *shudder*

Olly Murs: Next time you look at Olly Murs, think of this - "You have a face like a loaf of bread". Press down on his head and go "ah, Kingsmill" or something. Just because you were probably rejected from Westlife Olly, doesn't mean you can start wearing braces and crooked hats all of a sudden, this isn't Chicago, you're boring, horrifically clean-cut, and I hate you. Do one.

Jamie Archer: What is this bohemian nightmare. The afro says soul, but the voice, persona and overall being says 'pretend hippy'. I bet Jamie loves the environment but likes to leave his lights on and hates to recycle. Anyway, he can't sing, and thrusting your hips around and pretending to 'ROCK OUT' is no substitute for a good voice.

[NONE OF THESE PEOPLE HAVE ANY ORIGINALITY OR PERSONALITY OR CREATIVITY; oh, I'm sorry, how silly, that's not what music is about. Oh, my mistake again, of course, it is. "But Charlie, Sinatra never wrote his own songs", no, he didn't and he sucked. Besides, at least he had style and an original singing voice that still stands out today as clearly being his]. Anyway.

Here’s why you needed to know all that tripe and about all that tripe; because, THE RESULT OF X-FACTOR WILL EFFECT YOU. I know, and I’m sorry, I really am. But you and I (presumably sharp reader) have to take an interest in X-Factor nowadays, because it’s such a foul cultural cancer that whoever wins this travesty of a jumped up, record label, puppet show, we the public will have to see them more often, fact.

Whoever emerges “victorious” (although the whole thing is about as convincing as wrestling) will be turned into sausages via the chart music machine – that means a vomit worthy single, splurging posters, blindly fanatical radio time and a predictably average album deal. We have to know who we’re dealing with, get our heads down, maybe take refuge in a war bunker of some description and emerge only in the distant future when everyone is bored of whatever no-talent boob that X-Factor spawns out. In the meantime, they will be everywhere, so we might as well make sure that it's the least annoying idiot we can.

Who do I want to win?
Well, if you're asking, I'd have to say John and Edward. Their horrifying appearance and abundantly obvious lack of talent aside, I would like them to win the X-Factor, because I'm an ironic bugger, and then at least no one will like them, not just me.

If my soul is ice-cream, X-Factor, and with that ITV (those bastards) are the ice-cream scoop, they carve out my very being from my bodily husk. The horrific level of interest in X-Factor genuinely rattles my weak faith in society. Is this Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Have the friends and family I love and once respected succumbed to alien invaders, aliens who replaced them all with swill consuming creatures bent on watching shit “reality” television “competitions”? I hope that the answer is yes. I’m embarrassed to say that I was present when my Mother and Uncle were discussing, with loud vigour, the events in X-Factor...alongside me...in a service station...bottom of the barrel.

And do you know what, side-not: FUCK the people who 'pretend' to like X-Factor. I hate the people who when talking about X-Factor begin their sentence with: "Oh, well I only watch it because-", STOP; the key word there is 'watch'. You still watch it, stop pretending to do it ironically you dick, you clearly enjoy it because you're there watching it every bloody week, not just when the 'funny rubbish people' are in it at the beginning, stop lying to yourself, you have a problem! The people who do that are much worse than the ones who actually admit to enjoying it.

Of course that’s fantasy, and I condemn absolutely anyone idiot enough to view the X-Factor. You are a brainless human of the highest calibre. I insist that we all start thinking about what we watch on television. Still, as long as you’re happy I suppose. I hope those scary Shining twins win, and that they bring about the apocalypse.

Posh Isn't Funny

2009-10-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

You might think that this is a petty, meaningless blog, but it's not, and you're wrong. If you think that then you're exactly like those people in the past who used to go "fuck the environment, there's plenty of it left" until one day there wasn't. Well I'm not going to let that happen, I'm shooting this berk down before he can destroy my viewing environment, free as it is, of wankers.

Having established the importance of this article, the man that I direct you to is none other than Jack Whitehall.. exactly, who the fuck is he?
Well, in the last few months he has been on You Have Been Watching and just tonight (October 22nd) has hosted Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Technically he is a stand-up comedian, but only in the same way that I am a published novelist.
This article is necessary because I fear that the stupid television brains controlling anything are going to soon be injecting more of this jumped up little twit onto our screens because he is young, good looking and all squeaky-bum-market-research-appeal to the right demographic-clean.

In actual fact, he is a posh prick. He seems fresh out of uni and if he didn't take a drama course I will eat my hat because he is a classic drama student idiot. Every line he delivers is with the same posh tone emphasis at the end of the word or sentence, and everything he says is unoriginal, unimaginative and just uninspiring. I worry this is what I'd be like on television, but look, I'm not on television. Because I bet what he said used to sound pretty funny down at the student union and he thought:

"Yowser, when I get back to mummy and daddy in Kensington I'm telling them that I want to be a super duper comedy personality - perhaps I'll get a grant for being posh!"

And he did, I bet, probably. I've seen his stand-up material and it's weaker than a milky tea, and I hate milky tea baby-bel. I'm not sure where the jokes are coming from with this guy, I don't see the appeal, I've seen him on television a total of three times and it both upsets and inspires me because he is a no-talent toff with an empty clone of a personality; he should be in politics, not in comedy!
Newsflash Jack my boy, POSH doesn't equal FUNNY, ok, unless it's done ironically. Everything you say is not funny simply by virtue of your saying it, you have to think of something witty. Self-satisfaction doesn't make you a wit, trust me, I know. You dick. Get off of my television set you after dinner mint of a light-weight flop sweat "comedian".
The fact that he's on television inspires me, because it must be easy.

That's it, that's all. This was me railing against an oaf and I apologise, but seriously, the guys an arse and you'd be well advised to avoid him.

A Sarcastic Round of Applause for Richard Dawkins.

2009-10-11T12:41:00.001-07:00

Oh well done, oh well, well done Richard Dawkins, PROFESSOR Richard Dawkins, you mighty Zeus of a man! Oh I'm sorry, Zeus is a mythological Roman God isn't he, no more credible than Christian God. Let me rephrase then lest I suffer your frightening rath in the same way religion has...er...Richard Dawkins you...mighty ape descended survivor you! Let me just say, if it is all about survival of the fittest with Richard then there's been an error in his gene pool somewhere along the line, because he seems to have been born with the kind of face that you want to repeatedly punch; huh.

Richard Dawkins, champion of atheism likes to spit in the face of God; HA, yeah, fuck you God. I'm not religious and I do consider some aspects of religion mad and laughable...you know, those evangelical American types and the antiquated naiviety that some religious folk walk around with...but I mean seriously Richard, seriously? You really want to kick the shit out of Christianity for no reason but to satisfy your own sense of self worth. Ok, let's dance baby-bel, because I'm British and I like the underdog to win.

Dawkins may seem all balls and tits, but it must be easy to draw Gods wrath under a different name than your own. He gallavants around the place, bitch-slapping religion, who hasn't done anything wrong recently, under guise of some modern day Charles Darwin; Richard, you're not Charles Darwin, and throwing his name around all the time doesn't suddenly give you some authorative clout with which to debunk something that is fundamentally spiritual in nature! Yeah alright, there's no Adam and Eve and you're truly an enlightened man to notice that, but you're saying that spirituality and a peaceful inner-psyche aren't important to the most sentient beings on the planet? Oh right, cool, brilliant.
It probably doesn't even stop at his brash theories either, I bet Richard Dawkins gets table reservations like that as well.

-"I'm sorry sir, there really aren't any tables left, I'm afraid you'll have to try another restaurant"
-"Ah...perhaps if my friend Chaaaarles Darwin was joining us this evening?"
-"OH WELL SIR, that's different, he discovered evolution and debunked that whole God thing we were all wasting our time with!"
-"I know; so we'll say, 6 o'clock?"
-"Wonderful sir, and how many is the table for"
-"I'm an ubearable bastard I'm afraid so I will, in fact, be dining alone this evening"
-"Just you and the lord eh sir?"

And so on in that manner.

Why is Richard Dawkins so eager to disprove religion? Religion has a very corrupt image that I think is left over from you know like...monarchy olden day times...and yes the religious world can be a bunch of pricks, just look at gay marriage. But I mean what is it? Intelligent people use religion intelligently and find solice in it. Some people like to drink coffee, it relaxes them. Shall we lay into them too Richard, you and me? They're not harming anyone sure, but what say you and me go down to Starbucks and start kicking over tables in the name of science eh? FUCK YOU COFFEE DRINKERS, YOU SHOULD BE DRINKING TEA BECAUSE IT'S PROVEN TO BE BETTER FOR YOU THAN COFFEE! GAAARGH! Isn't it insulting that Richard Dawkins is going on television and telling you and I that in fact, and guys, if you're reading this, keep it under your hat, but...a lot of the stuff written in the Bible...it's not true.
No, seriously, it's not. I saw it on this programme by a guy calle Richard Dawkins, he told me there was this thing called evolution and that actually thats where we all come from! Fuck me, did we really need a four or five part television series to have something so plainly fundamental explained to us? WE KNOW THANKS RICHARD, what have you got lined up for the Autumn, a whole television series explaining the dangers of drinking anti-freeze to me? Well, until that gets aired, I'm downing this next one, wheeeey! Prick.

And do you know what, FUCK YOU. I personally have about as much proof of evolution as I do for what the bible says. Whatever way you look it at it, unless you are a scientist or a priest you are getting the facts delivered through some sort of second-party medium. I don't have the fossils that show evolution, I wasn't there observing the millenia long process of leg growth and beak extension, nor was I around when God stuck together some bits and bobs and gave us all the gift of human shame. I have wikipedia, and that's it.

Another thing; it's Professor Richard Dawkins isn't it? Forgive me (please!) if I'm wrong, but aren't you guys supposed to carry out impartial tests? You know, like in fair, scientific conditions?
So reeeally, when doing a programme designed to shove all religious belief firmly in the bin, shouldn't there be a priest present as well to represent the other side of the argument? Surely he'd have a thing or two to say while you're in South Africa putting your hand against that of chimpanzees to show the similarity. Perhaps The Bishop of Canterbury could take us round some graves and show us the people who find some comfort in believing in heaven. And then they could release Dawkins from a nearby cage or something and he could find a greiving person and take a huge dump on the grave they were at; HA HA HA! Tally one to science!
Just having Richard Dawkins on that show, with all his stuffy upper-class snobbery renders the ENTIRE programme as scientific propoganda. I don't care how accurate it all is, the last person I ever want my facts from is Richard Dawkins, I'd rather have evolution explained to me on the back of a cereal box.

As I said, I'm not religious, but I am fairly...you know...moral. And essentially, as it's core, religion tries to preach good I think. And yes, in these hurly burly modern times where we (as in, other people) are making scientific breakthroughs all the time, it's hard for religion to find any real meaning. Next to an iPod, who the hell needs God; I'll take 'Keyboard Cat' thank you very much.
So just leave religion alone ok Richard? And that goes for all of you. If it's not long for this world anyway, why do something that any single one of us could have done, you pretentious toss-pot; seriously.

In conclusion, a well done and a slow, sarcastic round of applause are in line for Richard Dawkins. Let me address him directly; "You brave man you! You really lampooned religion there, what a kick in the nuts for God YOU are sir! I mean for fuck sake, why not just go and beat up some children, at least that'd be more challenging than completely laying into relgion you prick. I think I might just refuse to believe in evolution because I hate you so much". For a man so determindely stuck in science, he sure does like to preach.

Nothing Up His Sleeves.. Nothing Up His Trousers..

2009-10-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

Much to the relief of everyone that isn't a gullible moron, Derren Brown's fantastic new show has ended. Oo the mystery. Oo the intrigue. How does he do it!?

He doesn't, case closed. Anyone can go on national television and claim to do anything, and that's all Derren Brown does. He goes on, clasps his hands together and starts trying to undress the viewing audience with his eyes, slowly charming us into a full sense of stupidity.

"TONIGHT" he declares with all the slimey pomp of a cartoon devil "I will do the impossible!" - and you're thinking, shit, how, that's like...impossible. Not if you possess the magical and psycho-suggestive powers of lying like Derren Brown does! A man who smiles sideways so much cannot be trusted. Well everyone, TONIGHT, I, CHARLES MEYRICK, WILL ANSWER A QUESTION THAT HAS PLAGUED MAN KIND SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME, SINCE THEY FIRST LOOKED UP AT THE STARS ALL THOSE AEONS AGO; just WHY, do people buy into Derren Browns bullshit?

So here are the things he claimed to do:

1. How to Win the Lottery:
Derren's system was a cunning one. Oh sure, he almost had me going there for a second. Except he didn't because I'm not a total boob. His theory was that if he got some people in a room to randomly guess some numbers then they would all average out as the national lottery results. It didn't. But I was distracted by the uplifting comradery of the 'contestants', or 'players' or whatever they were, so much so that I completely forgot what Derren was trying to do, until he told me he'd done it, in which case I believed him. He must have. There was simply no other explanation. Apart from the one he offered himself. No, I'm sorry, even admitting to your lies and failure doesn't save you here Browny boy, because you just marketed a programme for weeks, on the fact that you could do it. No you can't.
I've actually got a show coming out soon where I jump over a pit of crocodiles and through rings of fire on a motorbike; you won't see it happen, but you'll see me standing by a motorbike 'afterwards' saying that I've done it, so logically, I probably have. In fact, I just did it. Just then, you missed it because I used a Darren Brown mind trick on you and it activated the gullibility gland in your brain. You may feel a stinging sensation.

2.How To Control The Nation:
Yes I will. I did. The only thing keeping people in their seats for this enlightening installment of Derren Brown was Peep Show; thank goodness we don't have to put up with that happening anymore.

3. How to be a Psychic Spy:
Oh yes, all that bollocks with the drawing! Woooo! I can't believed paid extras and members of the public could have come up with the same place like that! It's truly a feat of mind for Derren to be able communicate psychically with the whole, bloody nation! Yowser.
I noticed that the people who text in "live" were clearly pikies. The number of people who text in was very few, but put it this way. You believe you have just been psychically linked with the entire nation for a few moments - you're amazed, you're flabagasted, you've simple never been so painfully wide-eyed to all the possibilities that the world has to offer; so to express all this you send a text message into a television show that ends in "lolz". I can quite clearly tell that this person is a gormless idiot, minus any psychic powers whatsoever. Smug old Derren Brown does it again! This man has two tricks, roping in suggestive, brain-dead goonbags, and the other is convincing Channel 4 to keep allowing him on television.

Why do 'actual' psychics get so visibly debunked, yet we are quite happy to allow someone in a smarmy suit to tell us that what he's going to do before obviously failing? At least 'actual' psychics are so ridiculous that we can laugh at them, but Derren Brown just stands there, zooming around in pseudo excitement with this smug look on his face. I'd be fucking smug too if I could fool as many dullards as he does on a Friday night.

4. How to Beat the Casino:
What with the success of his previous money squandering gambit where he convinced a nation in economic turmoil to buy tens and tens of lottery tickets, this time Derren thought he'd send us all packing off to the money grabbing casinos. I mean does this guy have some deal going with wankers that like to take our money? Is he being financed by Bet360 or something? Does he get 10% everytime he sends a gullible dickhead their way?
Did Derren Brown beat the casino then? No. It went terribly and the guy lost all his money. Oh sadness. He ought to have lost his home for even going near Derren Brown, it's literally like making a deal with the devil. Say his name three times and he'll appear in your room, rub his hands together, look smug, and then fail miserably. Don't even bother giving him chores to do or anything either, because an hour later he'd tell you he was done, that the leaky tap you gave him was fine now and that he'd be on his way. Minutes later water from the tap would burst forth, and you'd realise that once again, Derren Brown had lied. He mislead you. He said he'd done something, and he hadn't done it to nearly a satisfactory level.

Ladies and gentleman, Derren Brown, is a psychic builder. I wouldn't be surprised if he came round to inspect your brain and then told you that you had a faulty Idiot Valve and that he had to fix it for thrice as much because he had to order the parts out from Channel 4's 'Moron Division'. Idiot.

So there you have it. It's all over. The arrogantly named 'EVENTS' has come to an end. And if you missed the EVENTS, watch them on 4OD, as in, 4, OH DEAR this is shit. Derren Brown for all intents and purposes is the ultimate magician. Nothing up his sleeves, nothing up his trousers and in fact little substance in the things he does anywhere at all. I crown him a King amongst tossers.

Why BBC, why Strictly Come Dancing?

2009-09-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

The BBC continues to pretend that it's not as cheap and horrible as ITV with a reality show which is about as good as X-Factor but dressese better and talks more proper don't it?

Bruce Forsyth, animated through black magic and clever puppetry, presents the series once again with Tess Daly, a woman whose choice of dress resembles my ideal choice of potato storage; sturdy sacks.
So we have once more embarked on the C-List Celebrity adventure that is ball room dancing. Boring couples who have been with each other for 25+ years can rekindle their love for each other now through a mutual love of televised dancing. Unfortunately though, it doesn't take much to realised that this is soft, pre-watershed porn for elderly couples. The old mans ticker takes a beating when he gets to see a bit of frolicking leg or breast, and the woman get to shuffle around at the idea of a mans bulging package beign thrust against her. With Srictly Come Dancing, everyone is very much winner.

Apart from those whose brain hasn't already dribbled down the side of their head of course. They won't really win here.

Like The X-Factor, a gormless team of brain cells have been clustered together to woop and clap whenever their electric collars are activated. The most hateable thing about shows like Strictly Come Dancing is the brain dead day in which the most meagre of achievements receive raptuous applause. It's disgustingly cheap sentiment, searing hot emotion, that gets poured into the seared eyes of the brain dead viewers. I will admit that sometimes the struggle that the celebs face in learning all those difficult dances really does tug at my heart strings, but that's usually just from my trying to tear it out, so that I can fucking die as quickly as possible and never have to see the BBC so shamelessly bend to public demand for shit-in-a-bucket television again.

Ask any of your friend's parents, and they will have a favourite contestant. They can connect with them. "Oh, isn't it great that he's doing that after the time he's had of it recently? Oh didn't you hear? His ex-wife had an affair with his ex-wife and now his ex-wife is his ex-wife"; brilliant. Marriage counsellors the world over take note, your clients need ballroom dancing. Especially if it makes their public image a bit softer and easier to swallow. Strictly Come Dancing is publicity honey for contestants who look a lot like crap sandwiches - but after this, they can expect a cushy career as week old milk presenting a holiday segment on GMTV; primo! The whole show is like watching a copy of Heat magazine melted down and injected into my veins before it's too late for me to notice and do anything about it.

When did the BBC start selling out so bad? I've always naively relyed on them for television that I respect. But as was well doucmented a few weeks ago on 'You Have Been Watching', programmes like 'The Romantics' are just shoddy soft porn (again) nightmares to appease the sad old tossers left watching the television at 7:30pm every night.

Oh. Wait. That's what I'm doing. Well, I have my whole life ahead of me and I'm not actually watching it, I can hear it in the lounge. But that's my point, for all these greying middle-aged couples, Strictly Come Dancing is a grim substitute for the nights they used to have out! A ready-meal, Radio 2 and the news at ten suddenly gets magically transformed into a wonderful night out, with dinner, and live music and dancing! Oh what a night, what a gala! What a mockery. The BBC are laughing at you.

So it seems we are all going to have to get used to the BBC peddling out this cheap old holiday camp television, where we all have a jolly good time, and we can all go "Oowh, don't she look nice in 'er dress?". No, she doesn't, she's a contrived product of clever, exploitative marketing, which has produced a television program that makes ketomine look like a very weak seditive with which to address headaches. I hope they all fail.

My final score... ZERO - dun dun! Strictly will never win the contest now!

500 Days in a Cinema

2009-09-17T03:34:00.001-07:00

It must first be said that 500 Days of Summer is of the romantic comedy genre and as such cannot be taken too seriously, which renders any serious review somewhat obsolete. That being said, it is still vital for any film, of any genre, to do what it does well. 'Slumdog Millionaire', for example, had a very staged and theatre-like, performance feel (dancing at the end anyone?), but having asked the audience to make that leap and accept the format, it then executed the film within those boundaries to great dramatic effect, and quite effortlessly too. 500 Days of Summer, on the other hand, really needs to get over itself and stop trying so desperately hard to impress THE YOUTH.

Throughout the film 500 Days of Summer is absolutely desperate to point out how cool and artistic it is. Oh oh, he's all sad, LOOK, as we freeze frame and make all the world around him turn into a drawing! No, I'm sorry 500 Days.. but if you're asking me to SUDDENLY suspend my disbelief, you have failed. This doesn't happen.
The film contradicts itself. First of all it wants to make us believe that this is some really accurate account of male/female relationships in the 21st Century (which it sometimes does with some very acute observations) and then suddenly it wants to start doing pretty drawings, choreographed dances and strange montages all over the place! It needs to make up it's mind and take us, the audience, from there. It was bad enough that the film seemed to jump from the end of the relationship, to the beginning, to the middle, to about two-fifths of the way, then back up to near the end, then to one third through, then to blah blah blah. My fault really, I simply hadn't realised that I was watching 'Back to the Future IV, Revenge of the Empty Romance'.

I like to think of myself as a fair man (FUCK OFF, I AM) and so I will duly cut this film the slack it deserves. As I said, it does make some astute observations about modern day relationships, which I think the standard romantic comedy of the day might otherwise miss. While someone like Ben Stiller is falling into a plate of spaghetti or something, 500 Days of Summer is more keen on pointing out the nuances of how people interact these days. In addition to this, some bits genuinely were funny. Not laugh out loud funny of course, but there were amusing, clever and smirk-worthy moments, usually at the expense of the main guy, Heath Ledger's Double. In fact, I did laugh out VERY loudly at one point when Heath Ledger 2 was pissed off with Zooey Deschanel (I'll be coming back to her) and he was marching down the stairs really fast and angrily and then these two women just stood right in his way and he really sarcastically made an 'after-you' gesture that cracked me up; I could relate to it with every fibre of my being. Just that bit though. So, kudos to you then, Indie Film Factory (who I can only presume made this film).

This leads me conveniently on to, eeer, a few niggles that I have concerning this film. Small, hardly worth mentioning actually, just...you know...one or two problems that I have with the way the film, uuh...presents itself, yes. Go now and look at the trailer for this film, because it captures quite clearly what I hated about 500 Days of Summer. Go now and watch it, ok? Enjoy. Watch it, and then continue reading this.

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........
.........ok? Good. Here is my reaction

AAAAAARGH! AAAAAARGH! AAAAAARGH fucking, AAAAAARGH!

I fucking hate indie films [whatever they are] with so much passion nowadays, and this was no exception. 500 Days of Summer's trailer begins with kooky pretty person #1 saying "I love the Smiths", to which the reply from Heath Ledger 2 (a predictably geeky kinda cool, kooky guy), is "You love the Smiths?" - "Yeah I love the Smiths".....yes, yes, we all fucking LOVE the Smiths don't we, because it's old and not really very mainstream and isn't Morrisey a modern day poet and wouldn't it be great one day if he just came round and raped us to the tune of Charming Man? Ooh, ooh, you LOVE the Smiths? Well keep your opinions to your FUCKING self alright!? You're a fucking romantic comedy film alright, NOT SOME FASCIST MTV DICTATOR! "LISTEN TO THIS COOL MUSIC OR BE FORCED TO WORK IN THE MUSIC MINES FOR ALL ETERNITY, DIGGING FOR OBSCURE LPS! Bloody bastards.

Films like 500 Days of Summer are not in the school of keeping their opinions, their likes and dislikes, to themselves, are they? And apparently neither am I, but I don't have a trailer of myself, and I'm not hideously contrived. I don't need another fucking cunt of an indie film shoving it's needlessly obscure-but-not-obscure music taste down my throat! Have iTunes suddenly started making movies now, or is it just a coincidence that every time a film is trying to show a bit of character, it does so by cramming a playlist into your severed ear holes? In perhaps a twist of irony, 500 Days of Summer represents everything wrong with our generation, a big part of which is this empty need for all these people with bland personalities to define themselves through their music tastes? Are most people of my generation reeeally anything more than their likes and dislikes? No, most of them lack any personality whatsoever and are just hideous Frankenstein amalgamations of celebrities, objects, music, art and literature, force fed opinions through a tube leading straight to Market Research Central - hence, 500 Days of Summer - take your medicine dull members of the public... anyway, back to the film I went to see, as I said, the irony is that like the people who probably really enjoyed this film, 500 Days of Summer is a lot less than the sum of it's parts. Perhaps I am doing the film an injustice, because Heath Ledger 2 does observe during the movie that (basically, if I'm remembering correctly) all love is nowadays is a mash-up of what everyone sees on TV and hears in songs and things and that we all just get fed lines from soulless greeting cards...something like that...but maybe 500 Days of Summer is aware of how hideously kitsch it is, and that's why he says it.

But then, IN YET ANOTHER MAD FIT OF IRONY, our generation is the one that tries to be so ironic, that it's not. To quote the hipster olympics (), 500 Days of Summer is "so ironic it's not, so unironic, it is". Haha. Brilliant.
500 Days of Summer makes such a big point of 'not being a typical love story' (thank you contrived narrator voice) that it really is one. It was cliche central, quite on purpose, but to the extent where it was too much. Like when someone pretends to like The X-Factor ironically, but then they really do. It's a plain fact that too many cliches, make your film a cliche.

Also, do you recall in Will Smith's film 'I, Robot' that there were a hideous number of company products everywhere (Converse, Audi, etc) - well, in 500 Days of Summer, say hello to something which 'Juno' laid the foundations for, welcome to the world oooof:

"INDIE PRODUCT PLACEMENT". I have invented this term, and I copyright it.

Yes, if you like to be a cool-kid on the bleck, then you'll love this Joy Division T-Shirt, this Clash t-shirt (that's how we know what music Heath Ledger 2 likes, and THAT'S how we can relate to him, you see?) or perhaps you'd like to purchase this..aha..ironic piece of Ringo Starr memorabilia! EVERYTHING MUST GO! BUY IT NOW SO THAT EVERYONE HAS IT!
And what’s with all these kooky, sweet little acoustic numbers when some girl with a bad voice sings innocently. WHEN DID IT BECOME COOL NOT TO BE ABLE TO SING!? It doesn't matter that she can't sing, because she's genuine, and she sings about holding hands and 'when we used to go and play with sticks' or some unrealistic shit like that never happened because in reality you met the guy in a disgusting bar or somewhere corporate and you got too drunk and he never called you again you stupid bitch. I'm tired of all these specially tailored indie films that look like they have been constructed by a five year old with finger paints - HOW FUN AND ORIGINAL AND KOOKY, THIS CHARACTER GOT ALL THEIR CLOTHES FROM A CHARITY SHOP, yeeeeah, fuck corporations, boooooo! BLOODY BOOOOO, we're all sheep because we're not ourselves and we don't have giant headphones and record players and ornate furniture from your grandmas house and we don't sit and laugh at all the NORMS over our coffee and fucking, CUPCAKES.
The pretentious nature of this film is well illustrated by a guy who tries to chat up the main lady in the film at a bar, while Heath Ledger 2 is right there. Ok, he is clearly a gigantic moron, but the way the two main characters jump on their high horses (despite a punch later in the scene) gets me annoyed. It's such disgusting pandering to an audience that they know is going to be all hip and WAY TOO COOL AND ABOVE THIS MAINSTREAM MORONIC JOCK. It's like some Roman Theatre performance; this businessman jock is performed with SO much exaggeration that it's hard to really believe in this bit role - what we are of course seeing in reality is what US COOL INDIE KIDS think of everyone else that isn't in the know like we are. WHAT AN IDIOT THAT GUY IS...I bet he's never listened to the Smiths before, huh, what a tool.

Bastards. I almost prefer him. I bet he doesn't even HAVE an opinion on what Beatle is the best, because he doesn't care and why should he?

Anyway, for a film which inspired, so, so, so much resentment in me, there were one or two good moments. The final word must go to the two main characters.

Heath Ledger 2, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is ok. He has the most crooked stupid face I've ever seen. He's ok though and plays his role well, despite having some of the most implausible things to say in a film ever outside of sci-fi. His character Tom, we are encourage to sympathise with, and we do, but he's such a whiny twit, and he's always drawing, and he's neurotic and... erm...oh oh...

MOVING ON to...eeeeurgh...possibly the worst thing about the film. Why not just get a piece of wood and drawing pretty eyes on it instead of putting Zoooooooey Deschanel in a film? Gooey Zooey. Who the hell spells their name like that? Anyone who says it as 'Zoe' is a liar. It's a disgustingly 'pretty' name for someone who delivers all her lines as if she has much better things to do, and that's not her character, that's in every film I've seen her in (THREE!).
I know you're supposed to dislike her, but it's not hard to do that without seeing 500 Days of Summer. Zoooooooey is so conceited and fucking, WACKY, that it's hard to ever buy into the romance between her and Heath Ledger 2 because you hate her already straight off the bat. I hate her dress sense, her voice, her acting and most of all her name, which makes her sound like some slimey new fragrance. Don't worry though, she has indie appeal! Listen to her band (yes she 'has' one) I hate it as much as her.

All in all, you could do worst than see 500 Days of Summer, but only by watching Juno 600 times in a row, with to Zooooooey Deschanel. If I were you I would just stop watching all of these sorts of fucking films, because they have been churned out of a satanic chocolate factory somewhere in Hollywood.

Sexy Singles in Your Margin.

2009-09-04T17:48:00.000-07:00

I wish facebook would stop asking me if I need a girlfriend.. it KNOWS I do, that's why it keeps asking me. Every single time it puts up a little box in the margin of the screen, parades a girl with rocking tits around and then asks me if I would like a girlfriend. What, do I click yes and she just appears in my broom cupboard (not a euphemism)? No of course not. And this is all presuming that she's just as impossibly attractive as the girl in the picture. Of course if this even did work then it wouldn't be her. The whole thing is equivalent to some toss piece offering you a delicious apple pie (not a euphemism), your agreeing to having some and then him force feeding you a sock he found in the street...not a euphemism.

Essentially what we have here then is soft porn. It's always some young piece of ass posing in some alluring position. She's just a picture, sure, but you can see in her eyes that she is thinking "Go on - touch yourself" - I mean what is this? I can only presume that Facebook shares some monopoly in some porn website, and that it puts up the pictures to get the ball rolling (masturbation wise) for all those idiots stupid enough to have their relationship status set to single! Never satisfied, it throws in capital letters for good measure, as if it's shouting at you, and goes with the lines: 'Want a date TONIGHT? Meet girls like her on True.com and get a date. It's FREE!'. It's so desperate that it might as well be Mike Ashley trying to sell Newcastle up there (apologies to some Newcastle fans). And wow, fucking hell, TONIGHT? You mean, tonight, NIGHT? I'd better put on my going out hair!

I question whether the words and the pictures are even related. Perhaps the words "looking for a girlfriend" or "sexy singles in Canterbury" (God, it scares me whenever the computer knows where I am) are mere coincidence. It could be a completely innocent question, a service that facebook is offering me because I'm lonely. Which means the girls could actually be real life beautiful women, who are also infamous computer hackers! They've seen me around and like the cut of my jib (this is a euphemism) so they have hacked into my facebook account and are trying to seduce me every day with their very sexiest pictures - and here I am, ignoring them, and coming up with cynical, crackpot theories about facebook, and invasions of privacy and advertising - God I've been such a boob! Girls have boobs; and I have facebook. So in many ways, I have boobs. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship with myself. Thank the Lord for facebook and it's advertisements that have been specifically tailored to me using my information. WELL YOU LOSE AGAIN PROFESSOR. NETWORK, BECAUSE I HAVE SEEN THROUGH YOUR EVIL PLANS, AND HAVE EMERGED VICTORIOUS, AS A PERPETUALLY ALONE MALE, ha-HA!

Come Dine With Me (and this voice I can hear in my head).

2009-08-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

Come Dine With Me is on Channel 4 at 5:30pm and at other various intervals during the day...everyday...in fact, episodes of Come Dine With Me are about as regular as the number 59 bus; and let me tell you, that's a regular service. It's another of those simple channel 4 shows with low production values that gently eases us all into the Simpsons at 6 o'clock. It is fast becoming a hit amongst the Hollyoaks-watching student masses and seems to have inexplicably scraped together a cult following from nowhere, which is incredible, because like Deal or No Deal's lack of substance, this too has all the content of Victoria Beckham's stomach. And personality. And brain. Anyway, it has somehow managed to vomit up enough popularity to justify its being broadcast for two hours upon hours, everyday of the week. Thank God, because I just wasn't getting the closure I needed when they didn't show the entire contest in one day! After all, whoooo will win the tantalising £1000 prize? Probably one of the idiotic contestants. They're the kind of morons who use the phrase "absolutely gutted" excessively to explain how they feel.

The prize in itself is less of a prize and more of a reimbursement, since the contestants have already spent in excess of £1000 on chicken innards and quail eggs so as to win the bloody thing.
For those that have been watching television relevant to our time, let me tell you what Come Dine With Me is quickly (or, skip this paragraph, and I'll merely quote that it is a "roller coaster of dinner party emotions"). First, four average people are introduced, but we mean TV average people of course, so here, average people means people that have been specifically selected by a team of pickled brains in jars at Channel 4 to be juuust eccentric enough to be entertaining, without being too outlandish for five thirty in the afternoon. It goes without saying as well that this team of four have been specially selected not to get on - wait a minute Channel 4, they're supposed to be having a pleasant dinner party, why would you put this drag queen around the same table as this traditionalist blokey bloke!? It beggers belief! That's asking for trouble! Anyway, they take it in turns to host a dinner party with these complete strangers and at the end of every evening in the cab-drive home they rate the hosts evening out of ten. It's simple, it's easy, and even better it's not elephant.co.uk. Yes alright, that's an old reference, let's just get on with it shall we?

Come Dine With Me could have been fun and pleasant. Regrettably the makers of Come Dine With Me were simply not satisfied with their nice, neat little program. They had to put some claws on that kitten, baby.

Step forward, irritating narrator, affectionately known as 'That Wanker' to his friends, and by me.
Little do the contestants know that every single one of their inept moves are met with a.. teehee.. witty QUIP from That Wanker, an apparently omniscient voice with a bottomless biscuit barrel of clever remarks to make in regards to the contestants quirks and errors. Ha-ha! Tee Hee!
For Example...

*Alan is cleaning a glass*
That Wanker: "OOp, looks like you missed a spot Alan!" - Ah-Ha-Ha! Ah-Tee-Hee!

*Mary is cooking something, but it's staaarting to burn...wer oh oh!
That Wanker: "Er - I think they might be done Mary!" - Ah-Ha-Ha! Er-Ho-Ho! Ah-Tee-Hee!

*Andy puts together what he feels is a 'work of art'
That Wanker, all in one word under his breath: "yeah,aJacksonPollockmaybe"

or comments like, "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that" and "Yeah, don't worry, I don't know what she's talking about either!"

I think at this point it has become clear that I am not a fan of him and his commentary. Football Matches have commentary, but not meal times. If you were eating dinner with some friends and someone started going "oh and that's a lovely pass of the ketchup, really switching the play well there, OH, the custodians spilled the peas everywhere, he won't be happy with that", then you'd get pretty cheesed off. The contestants can't hear That Wanker and so they must get a real shock once it's aired. A shock that manifests itself as urge to punch.
The guys a sarcastic menace! Robert Webb can get away with this shit on Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum because he is a comedian of some wit. Sarcasm without wit or irony equals sarcasm, cold, cold sarcasm; it's the same difference between Jimmy Carr and Adolf Hitler. That Wanker (the narrator, not Jimmy Carr, not in this instance) thinks he is funny, but he comes off as one of those people's parents that you really secretly hate. You know, when you go round your friends house and you meet their Dad, and he works down the garage where all his mates think he's hilarious because of all his practical jokes. He thinks he's Eddie Izzard because he comes out with gems like "say it, don't spray it" at dinner time - yeah, feel free to use that one, he'll add. (My own sarcasm here is noted, thank you for pointing it out to me).

The narrator ruins this whole thing. He talks to you with too much familiarity, like you're two gossiping old women in a tea room that know the contestants personally and who you've both heard something about - that means he's contaminating us whenever he makes one of his annoying little quips. Every single bloody time he says something about somebodies cooking it's like another little nudge in the ribs from a pudgy little fat man going "oop, looks like Liam's on the war path again!" You, the viewer, sicken me. The narrator provides some company for you! The poor wee viewer all alone, friendless and cold, but somehow attends an interactive dinner party - well, well done to you, I'll give you an 8 for sheer effort and self-ambiance.

Let's be honest though, the reason I that I really don't like That Wanker is because he does my job for me. He makes remarks at the television, annoying comments on the program while everyone else is trying to watch it. He's me. I'm That Wanker.

Murder She Comitted

2009-08-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

As a student there comes a time when your brain abandons all hope, miss-spells his name as Brian and moves to the Andes - at which point you find yourself suddenly enjoying daytime television.

Murder She Wrote has been on the air for many a year, as evidenced by the grainy quality of the filming and the near 80s style of filming, where if someone is in a building, an establishing shot of, say, the hospital will be taken, and then just to make sure we know what room our characters are in, a mad, head-first zoom towards that room will deliver us to where we need to be. Friends uses this as well, which is why it has always seem so disgustingly dated.

Every episode follows much the same pattern. Mrs. Fletcher (our elderly protagnist whose keen wit defies her age, as does her smart dress sense) turns up in another exotic location or holiday locale alongside just a handful of what must be a world network of friends. The characters, whatever their names are, follow much the same pattern. There is inevitably a lovely young lady in the group playing the role of 'the real victim in all this', who was just so darn naive she didn't know the new man she was about to marry was such a pig. Said pig, played by a strapping young gent, is usually our first suspect, but despite his being an undebatable pig, it just wasn't him in the end. He has no scruples, but he plays the role of 'well I may have done [blank], but I AIN'T the murderer, lady'. This role can also be played by some harlet or money-grabbing wife, but she ain't the murderer either, lady. Of course there's the decent crime solving man of experience. Needless to say he's not the murderer, but could sure do with some guidance from Mrs. Fletcher. In fact in all this Mrs. Fletcher either guides those who need her help or comforts those affected by the murders. Thank God that she turns up at these hot spots to help everyone out, I mean, what would they do if she weren't there!?

Well, in my opinion, they would live.

Doesn't it seem a LIT-tle too convenient that every time someone dies, Mrs. Fletcher just happens to be there, and then thanks to her 'CRIME SOLVING' (crime committing) and 'CLUE FINDING' (clue planting) some other poor sucker (usually some fat guy playing the role of 'I could have had a million bucks thanks to this deed to the old mine, if it hadn't been for you, lady') goes straight to jail. All the loose ends are tied up, and Mrs. Fletcher gets into a cab, goes to the airport and flies to some other exotic location (given the time frame it's usually an eighties status spot like Alpen or Haiwii) and goes on to commit, sorry, solve another murder, which she wasn't expecting, and neither was anyone else.
And isn't it just a little bit suspicious that she writes ingenius murder mysteries for a living? Yes, alright, that might make her the ideal person to solve a murder, but doesn't it also make her the ideal candidate to commit a murder as well? I mean, who would have managed to think of all the funny, weird tiny details that she spots, her, or the brutish park keeper, or the snooty banker, the dullard peroxide blonde wife? Line them up, and the others pale in comparison.
And she does SO, MUCH, GUESS WORK. She jumps to conclusions from nowhere! She simply approaches the supposed villain, says something like "oooh, but you were there Jim - because I noticed that Amanda's left shoe lace had been untied the moment she got off that bus, and the steleto that you murdered her with didn't have laces, and it was red. And I'll bet that if you check that brand of gum you're using, it's spearmint, not sugar free like her bodyguard was using. You almost had me fooled along with everyone else, until I had a hunch that Amanda's scuba-diving instructor had been a Romanian, and I recalled seeing that you had a Romanian dictionary in your glove compartment that day we went to see the variety show..." - and so on in that fashion, until the poor sap just gives up. Who'd argue with such an authorative yet gentle old woman? No one, and that's why she always gets away with it. Murder she wrote? More like murder she fucking committed.

------------------------

The simple reason I love this program though is because of the end music. I'm very happy to sit calmly for an hour watching all of the characters operate in the heated fall-out of a violent murder (which we of course never see, because it's 2 in the afternoon and I'm having my lunch). Emotions never seem to run very high in Murder She Wrote, despite a person having recently died. It's almost like watching an episode of Cluedo, only no one really wants to play and instead they'd rather be watching The Wire, which knows how to murder people properly. Anyway, at the end of the hour long show, the characters, the victims and the audience get a sense of closure on the gruesome and horrible chainsaw murder that befell an elderly man - WHICH IS MET WITH A LAUGHING FREEZE FRAME AND A CHEERY LITTLE TINKLE ON THE PIANO! Ye-ah-cha-cha-, ye-ah-cha-cha, a man's dead but plinky-plonk-on-the-piano, cha cha cha! How fun! It makes murder a child's play thing. Murdering people's SO light hearted and fun, we should do this every week! And so they did. It's on everyday on BBC1 at 2:15pm.

Where There's Crime, There's Television.

2009-08-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

There's scraping the barrel, and then there's ITV. Not content with whoring out our nations lack of talent (not to mention our celebrities lack of celebrity), for the past few years, it now seems to be investing all of its energies into an old favourite at ITV; CRIME.

There has been a noticeable increase in the amount of genuine crud that ITV has shown in recent years, and never has this been more evident than on a Tuesday evening, where it's sole activity is to follow around, and surely hinder, every single aspect of crime fighting that their can possibly be in this country.

Send In The Dogs - yes, all you wanted to know about how dogs are used in crime fighting. Surely all that anyone has ever wanted to know about this grim angle of our police force could be contained on the back of a match box? But no, ITV sees it as pedigree television. Predigree is a word often associated with dogs by the way, but I haven't quite used it in that way, thus creating a pun.

Not content with analysing every molecule of dog-doo in the police force, ITV charge ahead with CAR CRIME UK, a title so brash that it ought to be shouted about eight times at the viewer before the program actually commences, just to frighten them into a full sense of close attention. This of course is the very worst of Americas influence on British television and the show contains more than it's fair share of grainy car chases, serious voice overs (always with a witty retort such as "it looks a life of crime has really taken it's - toll - on this criminal", just as he plummets to a hault at the Dartford Crossing. It's a dirty, smudgy, nightmare of flashing lights. Watching it makes you want to scrape the filth from your eyes, it's like eating gravel. These programmes swallow up your minds-eye view of your community and make you think that you are living underneath a canopy of traffic cones, police brutality and people with blurred out faces wearing trainers.

It is of course, more voyeurism for the avid viewers. Something for the old, stodgy folks of this world to shake a stick and go "fyyeaurgh, yeeeah, gertchya - see love, I told you so din I, din I tell you? This country is going to the fucking dogs". These men probably drive cabs, or distribute beer.

Never fear though, it's not all that bleak! Aware that this kind of line-up might lack some of it's traditionally tacky Hollywood-come-Majorca glamour, ITV jazzes up the proceedings with that age old film-making phrase, "Police, Camera, Action!". If you haven't had enough by this point in the evening then...well, actually, you're a disgusting human being. But, due to the cruel laws of this world, you're in luck, because it seems there is more of the same! At first, this third crime themed programmed appears to be different, presenting us with a cleverly twisted view of our own society, a dystopia where illegal car parts have become the most important things in people's lives and big-brother camera watches with cold sepia vision as the last resonants of humanity duck for cover from their equally dim pursuers known only as, THE POLICE - it's at this point you realise that it's not a dystopia at all, and is of course our own society. Upon this realisation, I would strongly advice cutting your head open and whisking your brain to a soft pulp, so as to better absorb the misery.

And don't try and weasel out of this on the BBC; they're actually just as bad, they've got Crimewatch on the Streets and Neighbourhood Watch. What a fantastically relentless night of televison! Mother's lock up your daughters! And all your precious belongings.

Unfriendly Fires

2009-08-04T16:40:00.000-07:00

Bastard little indie bands or for that matter any genre of band can whine loooong and hard about the public downloading music until the cows come home...look, here they are now...but even Daisy here will concur, that most new bands of any description are total cunts. Moo. See. That's yes in cow speak.

The reason? Wer-ho, you know the reason as well as I do. Every time a vaguely new band springs into life, like a relentless daisy of pain, the gormless members of the consuming public (such as myself) are given a choice, a choice which is two-fold:

(a) NEW BAND - DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM AND SEE IF IT'S ANY GOOD!!!

or

(b) Listen to their first two singles legitimately. If you think they're good, buy the album.

Wise people will of course take option A, to the intense rage of music peoples the world over. But they can, again, of course, FUCK RIGHT OFF.

I have a rather hardy and justice laden policy of, if I like five or more of a band's songs (having illegally downloaded them) I will then legitimately purchase their CD. If, however, they suck balls, I will not buy it, safe in the knowledge that I have once more avoided buying a shoddy album. This is a very safe method, and even if you follow it with three songs or five songs, it is a good and fair way of consuming music. The errors occur if you suddenly become consumed with an attack of zombie like naivety. Like what follows..

I, like a common Frenchman, my head full of romance and soft cheese, purchased the Friendly Fires album on a whim. I was going to Glastonbury. They were playing. I might as well listen to the rest of their songs, on top of their three I had. I'd seen them live in DC. They were very good.
Yet...YET, their album was a fucking nightmare. It was as if the Arnold Schwarzeneger of Terminator had been sent back in time purely to rape the 80s. Then it was as if the offspring of this tragic affair had been forced into a grotesque, corporate mating program with a CasioClub M-100 electronic keyboard. The bastard of this experiment was the Friendly Fires album.

My point being that it was a horrific album. My point being that, for my part, it was an error of a purchase that I afforded little replay value.

WHEN SUDDENLY, like a dynamo out of the night sky, came "Kiss of Life", by Friendly Fires! A great song to my ears, that I liked, and I thought, holla motherbitch, I like it, I'll whip that right up on the album I purchased!!
If only that were possible. A song like that only appears if it's the last option. It's the mechanical lung for an album which is rapidly circling the drain, and so early in life too. Song like 'Kiss of Life' are only released if a band is so initially crud that they must re-release new and better songs to promote sales of will eventually be their 'new and improved album' (which, as is well documented here, was originally crud). I mean what a cunt.

It's like a man with a history of spousal abuse coming back to a woman and saying "baby, I can change" for the fifth fucking time, before blowing her brains out with another mediocre album. Shut up, that's exactly what it's like.

Friendly Fires aren't the only ones. MGMT, Summer 08's precious golden child and official Doors look -a-like winners, are another fine example of this bastard-like tomfoolery and did the same fucking thing. I'm very glad that I never bought their album. Pretty much all of their competent or good songs were thoroughly absent from their album. Why? There's honestly no reason. Oh, except that anyone vaguely involved with the music industry is a cunt.

So fucking download every single piece of music that you can for free! Because if you don't your good-will will only get raped by injustice; and injustice has a big fucking cock, alright.

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack

2009-08-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

In a mad twist of irony the first entry that I cannot possibly keep in a thoroughly positive review on a cartoon, a medium that I am a great advocate of. It's called 'The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack'.

What a fantastic cartoon. It's a cartoon that captures that pure essence of imagination that we disgusting young adults - well, we don't even dream of it, such is our lack of imagination nowadays. But this show is just unashamed pure enjoyment and invites you back into that realm with a crooked, well-illustrated finger. It makes me so happy.

It features two main characters, Captain Knuckles and Flapjack, a cynical, lazy sailor and a happy-go-lucky idealistic young lad. They live in Storm-Along Docks, where the main currency seems to be candy. The relationship is classic, Flapjack being young, naive and idealistic, always hungry for adventure, alongside a Knuckles, who is jaded, manipulative and something of a fraud. But, of course, Flapjack idealises him! Boy, they really are the original odd couple! Well, not quite. But it's a classic set-up with an original 'by-the-sea' back-drop bordering on simple genius. I don't want to build it up too much, judge for yourself.

Their adventures feature such wonders as 'mechanical genie island', self amused jokes like 'what say we let the cats...out...of the bag' (where cats are of course literally let out of a bag) which is followed by excessive laughter. This is a cartoon that is allowed to be a cartoon.

Flapjack could be annoying, but he is embarrassingly lovable. His plasticine features are not unlike Spongbob Square Pant's, except he is a human and not a sponge, giving him less excuse for flexing his face in such an awful manner, which makes it all the better. This cartoon couldn't exist without Spongebob Square Pants. The nautical themes, the main character bordering on irritating and loveable at the same time, etc. This is much better though, the cartoon lovers of this world would be wise to migrate from Bikini Bottom to Storm-Along.

-------------------------------------

Quotes (which are possibly slightly wrong as typed here) and that you won't understand until you watch an episode but that I can't resist recounting:

-Flapjack: "Baa little lamb; the lamb says baa"
-Flapjack: "THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD!? - I would very much like to go there someday" "THE STORY TELLERS CLUB!? - I would very much like to hear tales there someday"
-Flapjack: "Iiii'm...think-ing of a number...it's a number you know..." Knuckles: "Eurgh - One?...three?...twenty?...nine?...fourteen?...eight?...five?...six?" Flapjack:"PHHFFFT...nooo...ITS TWO!"
-Knuckles: "Here it is Flapjack, the Storm-Along Wishing Well" Flapjack: "Well well well well well well well, neyarghahahahahaha"
-VOICE OVER: "cats are attracted to fiiiish!"

aaand, so on in that manner...

There is a a fantastic dark element to this cartoon as well. It has some of the grotesque elements and close-ups that one might associate with 'Ren & Stimpy', 'Argh Real Monsters', or even more recently. 'The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy'. Exploitation and sudden moments of a detailed, sketched drawing of a certain character and loud scream will suddenly burst onto your screen and leave your eye-brows hanging from your hairline out of pure, surprised, enjoyment. In one episode they harvest Flapjack's love, he becomes sick, and they turn out to be disgusting gnats shaped like hearts. In another episode, they get trapped for eternity by a giant baby. It's ALL, GOOD.

The very darkest character who I'm afraid I have to mention in this sickeningly long and positive rant is Dr. Barber, who's gums show when he speaks and who laughs under his breath and always says in between sentences "mmmyes, mmmmyes" like a disgusting pedofile.

All in all, it's the first thing in years that has made me really happy and that can dig me out of a mood. It's a glorious programme that I have not given full justice right now because it's midnight and I'm very tipsy, but at least there's quantity, if not quality, that should indicate how good it is. Seriously, give it a genuine go, it's on weekdays on Cartoon Network & Cartoon Network Too. You'd do yourself a favour by watching it.
And to get you in the mood (it's all on youtube) copy and past the link below. It's the first one I watched. I've run it past my sister and she found it funny, so that's endorsement enough if you think you're too cool for me or something:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3sbVZ8HwCY

Introduction to The Idiot Box Reviews

2009-08-02T18:59:00.001-07:00

Oh, hahaha, this is just like something Charlie Brooker would write, just fuck off alright. I write, and television frequently enrages me, it's all very independent and self-serving. In a mad fit of metaphoric marriage and rampant similie honey-moon sex, this blog was spawned. Hello.

Television, particularly adverts, but also many of its shows, suck beans. Sour, sour, beans. By putting all of them in their place in this limited space - oh, that rhymed - ahem, but by writing about them in this blog, I will satisfy my deep rooted need to put the world of media to rights. Pointless, pointless, rights.

And Charlie Brooker? He's like, 50 years older than me (pretty much) and he's going to die eventually, and then you'll have no one left but me. ME. ME. ME. So get to used to it, get reading, and bookmark this blog.

Regards, Danger.