November 14, 2005
NEWS UPDATE 14th NOVEMBER 2005
GETTING IN TOUCH
A few people have been using the info button on this site to get in touch. I’ve been responding via my brother whenever possible but he keeps saying “why don’t you just grow up and have a normal message board so you can post responses on the site.†The thing is, and this may sound a little pathetic so forgive me, I really like the idea of not having to read the random hate messages that inevitably creep into any site on the net. There’s something about the ease of tapping in a message at your computer than makes some people say unpleasant, unconstructive shit when given the opportunity and call me vain and thin skinned, but it brings me down. Actually can you not call me vain and thin skinned either, cos that brings me down too. For the moment I’m sticking with Dave (my brother) as my filtering service, but he may grow tired of that soon. Anyway, sorry to be a weed but there it is. I must keep the creeps out of my ivory tower!
But to the non-creeps out there, thanks for checking out the site and for sending me your stuff and your enquiries, support, constructive criticism etc. I will continue to respond when I can. A reminder that the details for posted communications are on the intro page of this site.
NEWS
KEN KORDA ON THE LAST WORD, THURDAY NIGHTS, MORE 4
I’m going to try and put these little movie review segments on this site so you can check them out if you missed them (and I would imagine most of you had if you had any sense).
I don’t know how many more of these I’m going to do but for the time being they’re fun, if a tad repetitive. Fuck me, there’s a lot of boring films out there though. They do however tend to be the most fun to review. After bleating about not wanting to read any negative comments on my site I suppose it would be good if I was a little more positive about other people’s stuff. OK, here’s a few things I’ve been digging recently…
I’VE BEEN RECENTLY DIGGING OR INTEND TO DIG:
PEEP SHOW
Most people visiting this site will already be familiar with this Channel 4 sitcom but if you’ve missed it I urge you to give it a go. The second series is on DVD and I’d recommend that as a starting point. It’s funny stuff. Odd and spiky but with a human heart. Hey, Ricky Gervais likes it so it’s got to be good, right?
CLINTON, HIS STRUGGLE WITH DIRT
Armando Iannucci sent me this programme he made back in 1998. I don’t know if it’s downloadable or not but if you can track it down you should. It’s a spoof documentary set in the future about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal with future versions of all the protagonists talking about the sordid goings on in a demented American NADSAT (I think that was the lingo in Clockwork Orange?) Armando gave it to me as a reference for the vague area we might be working in for this new show I’m doing with him. It made me laugh a lot.
STEWART LEE: STAND UP COMEDIAN
I really didn’t expect to like this DVD as much as I did. I always had a curious relationship with Stewart Lee. I felt quite threatened by Fist Of Fun when we were making The Adam & Joe Show. I thought ’shit they’re doing a more successful, more intelligent version of what we’re doing. I have to hate them.’ Then I felt bad because we stole from Fist Of Fun the idea of having flash frames of information as an extra element in our first series. They wouldn’t have claimed a monopoly on that device but still I thought ‘in the battle of ideas we have become the dirty rotters’. I don’t think I’ve ever consciously nicked something off anyone since though, honest!*
Added to all this was the fact that I never really liked the little bits of his stand up stuff that I used to se on TV from time to time. In fact some of those appearances from 1997 are included on the DVD and I’m reminded why I didn’t enjoy them. There’s a vanity in the sexy straggles of hair that fall over his face that sits badly with his sneery arrogance (I’ve just noticed that he himself acknowledges this in the sleeve notes). Plus too wordy. Too ornate.
In 2005 after a four year break for Jerry Springer The Opera he’s transformed. It’s as if he’s just decided to stop being self-conscious and suddenly he’s got real charisma. His stuff is very funny too and nearly all the pretty ambitious intellectual and comic exercises he takes you through are completely successful. There’s one amazing section where he’s explaining to the Glasgow audience why William Wallace (“your national hero†he keeps saying with just the right level of accusation) was not the hero Mel Gibson portrayed in Braveheart. That may sound a little obvious but the dance he does around people’s prejudices and notions of patriotism is so light footed and properly funny I was left thinking ‘wow, what more could you want!’ And a lot of Scottish people don’t really find Wallace bashing that funny either so there’s quite an atmosphere in the club while he’s doing this bit. Anyway, give it a go, I give it the maximum 5 smiley faces in my never to be repeated comedy ratings system.
*the word ‘consciously’ is important here.
STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH
OK, I didn’t dig this in the least but like many others, in spite of all good sense I really wanted to so having missed it at the cinema I invested in the bloody DVD. All the hours and hours of hard work and talent and love and imagination that must have gone into this film and for what? A disgraceful mess. Technology has lured Lucas into a world where anything can happen, a world with absolutely no rules and my god it’s boring. From moment to moment you yearn for just one logical human thing to happen and instead you get a never-ending series of mad, over-the-top set pieces, all conspiring to numb you into a bored stupor. Yoda was the only twat I could relate to in the whole nightmare, shuffling from one loony digital environment to the next, shaking his head and looking sorry. I felt so depressed after watching the thing I had to get drunk. Fuck Star Wars. Maybe it’ll age well.
HANG ON A SECOND
I’ve fallen into the same trap of a million other jerks on the internet and become just another jerky amateur reviewer, chucking around my ill thought through opinions as if I was any kind of genius myself. Of course I could just not post this, but I will and it can serve as a reminder to myself: avoid being unpleasant about other people’s hard work. Revenge Of The Sith was so fucking shit though! When R2D2 does an oily wee over some naughty droids then reveals that he has rocket boosters which allow him to hover and ignite the wee to foil the droids?! Bob Geldof should stop putting on shit concerts and just lobby George Lucas to simply donate the millions of dollars he plans to spend on his awful movies to help the world’s poor. Everybody wins!
I’m going now byee!!!
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14/11/05