Archives for "Television"
Notes on a scoundrel
In case you’ve been living under a rock, America’s ABC network has remade Outrageous Fortune and called it Scoundrels. It’s more or less exactly the same and apparently barely deviates from the original screenplay (at least the first episode anyway).
I’ve watched all the promo trailers on the ABC site and realised that it’s impossible to truly know what I think of the remake.
As a huge OF fan (true fans abbreviate), it’s so jarring and awful seeing it in a new context, that it’s impossible to know how I’d feel about it if it had been an ABC original.
It reminded me of when I watched the first episode of the American ‘Office’. I couldn’t watch more than one episode, I hated it so much. I missed Brent. It annoyed me.
Which isn’t to say it wasn’t a great remake. Just that attachment is such a powerful thing.
Nowadays if I catch a US episode of The Office I don’t mind so much, I’ve gotten used to it. It’s so divorced from the Brit version it is really an unrelated show in my mind (especially since it has essentially become its own show due to the demands of a much longer life span).
Back to Scoundrels. I loved Virginia Madsen in Sideways, and I think I’ve seen her since a couple of times. She’s undeniably a great actor and an inspired pick for Cheryl.
Wolfgang and Wayne Judd’s equivalent seem a bit cookie-cutter and all American but again that’s just a natural reaction to a different context.
Calvin West’s dumb and dumber haircut initially annoyed me but I’m beginning to think it might just be inspired.
Pascalle West (now Heather) seems dull and lifeless and Loretta (now Hope) only slightly less so.
But again all of these are unfair comparisons. I wish the show all the best and hope as many people as possible get to see it, it’s been such a joy for me.
Fresh Up Ad – Thirst is Creepy
While I’m on the subject of great ads, here’s videos of the excellent ‘Thirst is Creepy’ ad series from Fresh Up.
It’s the creepy mouth noises that make it perfect.
As I recall, the men’s tailor one came out first:
Followed by the massage one:
Instant Kiwi Ad – Believe it or not
It’s about time to post some great ads again.
And the folk at the DDB New Zealand agency have done it again with another sensational Instant Kiwi ad for the ‘all new instant kiwi’ campaign.
This must be the most perfect ad of all time, great dancing by an awkward praying mantis of a man, and the sublime moment when the elderly lawn bowlers become human fireworks – it makes me want to jump up and clap and fist pump and shout all at the same time, amazing.
If Simon Pegg and Nick Frost made an ad, this would be it.
The dancing reminds me of another great white man dance of recent times, here’s the Napoleon Dynamite Dance Scene. Oh man I’d forgotten how much I love this film:
Put something on the end of it!
I’m slightly obsessed with Jeremy Kyle. It’s mainly out of jealously.
He’s the luckiest man in the world, getting paid crazy money to yell at chavs all day.
That must be so therapeutic.
His favourite thing to yell is “you should’ve put something on the end of it!”
So I made a public health poster for safe sex (for chavs).
I realise it’s a bit convoluted and technical – I’ll keep working on it.
Also, would chavs understand the word ‘condom’? Perhaps they’ve persisted with ‘rubber johnny’ or summit?
I’m so bored…
The artist who inhaled his own sculpture
With a walrus like that (allegedly insured at one time for £200,000) I would buy shitty drapes from big Merv Hughes in a heartbeat.
Our local TV station, CTV, exists solely and shamefully as a vehicle for local business owners with walrus moustaches and body odour to peddle tile reductions and ranch slider discounts.
I’m sure you know plenty of comparable local stations, stubbornly the last great bastions against taste and relevance.
On CTV, any footage of Christchurch city, regardless of when it was taken and all the advances in video quality, is still somehow green-tinged and suicide-inducing.
The number of times I’ve fallen asleep in front of CTV (this has never actually happened) to later wake in a flickering fever sweat thinking that I have been teleported to 1950s Christchurch and Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker are crouched in my bathroom with brick stockings, their tandem lesbian bicycle parked outside under my carport.
Tragically, there is a limit to the number of local shopping shows so CTV has to pad out its line up with strangely inappropriate shows from overseas.
Unavoidably, these foreign shows are far more interesting and professional than the local content, undermining the station’s credibility with savvy, unemployed 20 and 30-somethings watching from under their unwashed duvets at 11:30 in the morning.
Of the foreign content, by far the finest show is the Arts show (Arts.21) from Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (German and European news, analysis, opinion and breaking news).
Arts.21 mainly features artists from former Soviet shitholes struggling to come to terms with past wounds and their emerging identities by writing dull books about geese.
‘Oh snap, if only we hadn’t all chucked out our VCRs, today there’s a riveting piece about a struggling Slovenian web designer who has to supplement his income by carving giant cocks out of ice for his local brothel’s orgy night Wednesday.’
Easily my all-time favourite feature was on a British sculptor (clearly running short on Eastern European artists), Willard Wigan.
Famously, his sculptures are so small that they are literally created in the eye of a needle or placed on the head of a pin. Apparently, as a kid, Wigan started down this path because he was comforted by the fact that art too small to even be seen could therefore not be criticised.
Clever.
During the interview, Wigan told a great anecdote in which he was making Alice in Wonderland at a whopping one-third of the size of a full stop in a newspaper.
Noticing that Alice had suddenly disappeared from under his microscope, he realised that he’d inhaled her.
Wigan then missed a great opportunity to analogise his windpipe and Alice’s rabbit hole.
Or perhaps he did but they had to edit it out for time? I’m going to go with this assumption, because I refuse to accept that he wouldn’t have gone there.
The Obama Family by Willard Wigan
Does Cheryl West die? Predictions for Outrageous Fortune Season 6
I just finished watching Outrageous Fortune Season 5 on dvd and it was brilliant!
Here’s a few quick predictions for Season 6 in 2010. What a delicious cliffhanger! Gerard clutching his severed throat and firing off 3 shots like such a cop. I feel a little sorry for him because every other character on the show has, at one time or another, done far more heinous things than him and yet he gets a bottle to the throat for his troubles.
3 possibilities for cliffhanger resolution
- Gerard misses both Cheryl and Pascalle. But at such close range it would mean he’s an even worse shot than Dick Cheney. Unlikely.
- He shoots Pascalle only, having just been spurned by her in favour of his arch enemy, Nicky Greegan. Unlikely, as she’s just such a sweetheart and I’m sure he’d be aiming for Cheryl, since she’s the one who brutally stabbed him, but might have hit Pascalle accidentally. Still, unlikely.
- He shoots Cheryl only. Fairly likely, although she’ll have to recover because Cheryl is Outrageous Fortune, in a sense, and just couldn’t die. But then Gerard would also have to recover (despite losing 17 litres of blood from his jugular vein) because if he died Cheryl would have to go away for a long time (or for as much as that’s ever worth on OF).
- He shoots both of them (Cheryl on purpose and Pascalle unintentionally). Then Cheryl and Gerard both recover because they have to and Pascalle either just survives or dies. Not very beautifully positive for her but that would be a fantastic bombshell.
- Pascalle and Cheryl are both saved as the bullets ricochet from their ubiquitous Westie silver jewellery. Fairly likely.
Right, now I’ve confused myself a little.
I think the writers might use Cheryl getting injured as a pretext for bringing Wolf back on the scene, which would be great as he’s the main thing I missed from Season 5, with the exception of the emotionally-devastating episode in which rum-induced Wolf appears. That one may have even surpassed the ‘death of Aurora’ episode in terms of ruining me. Knockout blow after knock out blow.
Actually, I think a more likely reason for Wolf to reemerge would be the sickness and death of Ted West. It’s an idea that’s come up at the end of Season 5, with Eric appearing hilariously in a dream to Ted to predict he would die in prison. It would make sense to at long last have the death of a main character, and would be the dramatic climax of all dramatic climaxes late in the season.
Safe predictions
- Aaron Spiller has his moment in the sun, finally emerging on top, if even for just a few short glorious minutes. The writers outdid themselves in Season 5 looking for increasingly more brutal and hilarious ways to put Spiller through physical punishment. But you just can’t break his little ginger spirit. Aaaah bless him. Particularly splendid was the nod to Chinatown as Spiller has both his nostrils split open with a paint scraper no less (sadistic, brilliant, hilarious writing). I need to go back and make a note of all the ways he’s been beat up on. God I love Aaron Spiller.
- Rochelle has more story action. Seriously, how good is Roz Turnbull? Totally deserves a bit more attention and I reckon she’ll get it too.
- Loretta and Hayden have more rocky split ups. A fairly safe prediction. Hayden has to have a relapse, he’s such a flake.
- Sheree Greegan comes back somehow and Pascalle gets sweet revenge (or at least all the other West’s take it on her behalf). The twins are tracked down, their actual paternity is cleared up, relieving Van of his burden.
- Angel gets more story action. Terrific new character in Season 5. Great potential for more shenanigans with Eric.
- There’s plenty more obvious stuff like Munter and Kasey having their baby (though obviously safe childbirth is no given on OF any more).
- Deleesha Judd gets in more trouble. She’s trouble that one.
Spliff Predictions
- Spiller’s moment in the sun is getting with Pascalle. He’s totally earned it, a lovely little creepy knight in shining chrome armour. A good old pity fuck maybe?
- Nicky Greegan gets out of prison. It’s Outrageous Fortune, of course he gets out.
- Hayden Peters or Wayne Judd are murdered (along with Ted dying). Outrageous.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is inspirational
The greatest pecs of our generation
I caught an episode of The Apprentice last night in which the winning team’s prize was to meet Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Immediately The Apprentice became a hundred times better, and it’s already a pretty solid show, at least as far as reality TV goes anyway.
The meeting is temporarily hijacked by a brown-nosing team member (James I think) who compares Arnie’s immigrant experience to his own, and even drops words like ‘American Dream’.
What an insufferable twat.
But all is well as Arnie takes control and brings it home in the end with an amazing story to inspire the troops…
He’s the Governor of California, and it’s time to tell a motivational story from his own life to inspire courage of leadership and perseverence under fire.
But not a word about coming out on top in the cut-throat world of politics and electioneering. Rather, a story from the shoot of Conan the Barbarian.
That is why I love America.
The way he talks about the sacrifices he made to get Conan in the can, you’d think he was making Citizen Kane (I am more than a little annoyed at myself for not having seen Conan). And the way Nicole seems genuinely inspired by Arnie is just great.
Also, the team members laughing awkwardly at Arnie’s jokes like nervous Dr Evil henchmen is priceless.
The Riches
"We have weird names."
There’s a promo on C4 for a new show called The Riches.
It looks incredible, but that could be entirely due to Bob Dylan’s Shelter From the Storm playing over the top. It stars Minnie Driver (forever great after her character in Good Will Hunting wins over the lads with that nasty joke) and Eddie Izzard (so talented in so many quite different ways it’s just unfair).
The Riches looks amazing. This could mean that:
a) It is amazing, or
b) The trailer is amazing, the show is merely good.
Either way I’m happy. Often there is nothing better than a trailer so outrageously gorgeous and stirring that it removes any need to see the actual show.
The trailer has Izzard’s character (the dad presumably) saying something like ‘the American Dream… we’re going to steal it’. This line alone means I will be watching the show… so, nice editing Mr Editor-pants.
Fingers crossed.
The real youth of England
"Piss off oldy"
I have really enjoyed watching series 3 of Skins on C4. Tonight is the grand final and I’m as excited as a school girl.
Last week they finally wrapped up the Emily/Naomi lesbian subplot which was a relief – it had been dragging on through the whole series and really just needed resolution to make way for the primary Freddie/Effy/Cook love-triangle subplot to take centre-stage.
I must admit, watching Skins does feel like a guilty pleasure, like secretly buying a Basshunter album.
If it wasn’t such a quality show I think I’d be too embarrassed to tell anyone. In my late 20s, I feel like a big voyeur, that at any moment one of the characters will break the fourth wall, look straight at me and scream ‘you’re old…OOOOOLD!! Just fuck off you OLD creep and stop watching us.’
In the world of Skins young people are constantly taking drugs, having sex, and generally enjoying neverending dance parties. In fact, according to the Urban Dictionary, to have a ‘skins party’ is to have a “huge party in someone’s house where nearly everything is broke, lots of people are having sex and almost everyone is either drunk or drugged up.”
I guess this isn’t too unlike reality, but with one major difference: In Skins the kids are fantastically attractive, witty, eloquent, charismatic and charming. In a nutshell, they all have a certain je ne sais quoi about them: A gritty urban despair, a haunting melancholy before their time.
If my cursory studies of the real youth of England are true, it’s clear this romantic vision couldn’t be further from the truth. Continue Reading
Telethon; so what’s on at the pub then?
The bastards who tugged the nostalgic heart-strings
Bringing back Telethon was a bigger mistake than that made by the animal rights activists who released the rage-infected monkey at the beginning of 28 Days Later.
It surely equals the decision to introduce the cane toad to Australia, the wrong turn taken by Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s driver, and the decision of the Titanic’s radio operators to not relay “non-essential” ice messages to the bridge.
We should have left Telethon dead and buried in the 80s. And I can pinpoint the exact moment that this suddenly dawned on all involved, like a creeping collective discovery of subcutaneous parasites: It was mid-Sunday morning, right between items by the Pakuranga Book Club & Embroiders Choir and the Hokitika Trout Whistlers.
They all suddenly thought, in a hive-mind moment, ‘Oh yeah, that’s why we stopped doing them 16 years ago. This has to be the worst thing I’ve ever seen with my two eyes. Just keep smiling, just for 12 more hours, shit shit shit…’
Great cause – obviously I’m not having a go at that, bravo in fact. But I just think there are better ways to make money for charity. For example, NZers could have been given the opportunity to review Telethon’s of the past and then pay to have it kept off our screens. I’m sure that would have obliterated the $1,944,225 raised.
Personally, I would have taken donations to eat an old horse’s cock just to avoid another Telethon, sans tomato sauce.