Misfits, Comedy Showcase & Miranda

So E4 have done the right thing and taken the only two good shows they've made (apart from The Inbetweeners) and made a new hybrid of sorts. Well loosely. The shows I refer to of course are Skins and Dead Set. The first being the best drama of the decade and the latter being in my top 5 zombie things of all time (In order: 1. Dawn Of The Dead 2. The Walking Dead 3. Shaun Of The Dead 4. Left 4 Dead 5. Dead Set (Dead)). Actually I'd probably swap it for 28 Days Later. But that doesn't have dead at the end. So Misfits is pretty much Skins meets Heroes. First episode introduces the raft of distinctly unlikeable characters. There's a chavy one (She's vulnerable though! Awww), the slutty one, the strong one, the quiet one and the chatty, jokey, pointlessly Irish and overly punchable one. While watching the show this morning (and slightly day-dreaming about the brutal deaths they could commit on the latter character) I pondered whether its about time some shit super powers were brought in to play. Like in The Lost Room, which I watched before, they had objects with pointless powers. This was a breath of fresh air. Surely if powers are given by chance (we obviously don't know yet in this show, there was big bits of hail in the murky storm) then someone should have the power to chat to squirrels, smell limestone or change the size and shape of their anus. I hope something like this is brought in to the show. I somehow doubt it though. Although no-one has been able to fly yet and they even referenced the cliché in the episode. This could be like a Skins in comparison to Grange Hill in terms of genre revitilization. I hope so, as its enjoyable, shot on that same lovely filter as Dead Set and is undoubtedly going to be full of sex, gore and swearing. Lovely.

Channel 4 have got a Comedy Showcase season again. Which is good, new comedy is always good isn't it. Isn't it? Well not always, but more about that later. Last week was Campus which was from the makers of/producers of/someone who once saw Green Wing. Which is a selling point for me. Like putting "From the producers of Superbad" on any comedy is a winner for idiots. Somehow though the program just didn't come together, it may have been because it was a pilot but it more felt like there was no-one really interesting in it. I don't know if its just me I found all the characters unlikeable and tiring. I'm fully aware that half the characters are made to be that but I still felt nothing for them. Empty. I'm sorry Campus, I just. I just can't do it. Its not you its me. Tonight I met (saw) Phoneshop instead. This show on paper looked terrible. In many ways it is as well. But it was quite enjoyable, some good jokes (best was probably the Ross Kemp one from the trailer) and some good characters. Should be more characters though. Five is not enough. Especially when two are made out to be pretty much the same. I'm looking forward to next weeks now. I hope its the one with Will Arnett in. We all love Will Arnett.

You can tell that the BBC is funded by the taxpayer. Else why would anyone choose to make shit sitcoms like Miranda unless you had to. Its got everything you hate about sitcoms. It looks cheap, filmed on around 3 sets, has those same actors you see in everything and worst of all, isn't written by Graham Lineham. Admittedly I liked that Lee Mack one they did. At least that was just him doing bad joke after bad joke. It felt like Friday night comedy, run down after a hard week, beer in hand, dog snoring on the floor, fire blazing. Happy memories. This though. This is made for people that like ITV and read the Daily Mail. Primairly everyone you could say. Poor old Miranda is reduced to making a show about her being lonely and fat as well. Its a shame because she was good in stuff like Hyperdrive. But I guess its in your contract if you're a comedic actor at the BBC. "Do at least one sketch show/sitcom of poor to average quality". In summary, its the worst sitcom I've seen all year. Well probably, I imagine I've blanked the rest out. Hopefully I will for this too.

Various Titbits

I'm not sure how but cinematically speaking I've squeezed a great deal into my life recently. That being probably explains why I haven't done an awful lot else. Regardless, in short, I've watched many films of which most I overly enjoyed. Drag Me To Hell is a horror film about gypsies. Something I haven't come across all to often. The premise I refer to of course, I've had many encounters with gypsies. None quite like the ones portrayed in the film. I've never had a toothless pensioner gnaw on my chin with their saliva coated gums. Or crashed a said characters funeral and then fell into the corpse which preceded to drench me in some kind of embalming fluid. Drag Me To Hell is pretty gross, but in a very endearing way. Like a kitten coughing up a fur-ball, you can't help but embrace the graphic nature of the scenes with a wide grin and a small titter of laughter. There a few jumps along the way but nothing that's really ground-breaking, but a very enjoyable yarn it is.

Next up is Star Trek, a film which I was mildly excited about when it was chugging it's way towards multiplexes. Although by the time of it's release I had forgot of its existence and missed it entirely, things like this are easy to do in the sleepy county of Cornwall. I'm now regretting that lack of retention as the film is pretty awesome and I mean that in a genuine way. The film feels very cinematic, it was made for wide screen, surround sound, popcorn munching epicness. The lack of recognisable faces in the major roles I feel helps that, apart from Sylar and that bloke from Doom and maybe Harold. Of course there's old school Spock and Simon Pegg but their roles are minor really and you're completely drawn in before their appearance occurs. I have one foible with the film though, it was raised to me by a friend long before I'd seen it. It concerns black holes. They don't cause time-travel. They compress matter to nothing or something like that. Again I'm not a physicist, although the person who originally explained it to me actually was. I again blame this upon retention. But apart from that small fact the film is fantastic and might actually go someway to make Star Trek seem slightly less crap when compared to Star Wars.

Alright, Push is a science-fiction film of a different nature. I would explain the plot but basically imagine Akira and mix in a bit of the Heroes TV show and that's it. In fact it pretty much massively rips off Akira. Also Dakota Fanning is in it. I remember her best in Man On Fire where Denzel goes mental and shoots loads of people up. Trying to find her. Or something. Anyway, it's bad. Truly awful. Chris Evans is the lead and he does his usual "cool guy with quips" shtick that makes most people of notable intelligence immediately groan and fidget in extreme boredom. The film is also in Hong Kong, for apparently no real reason. You see people can't hide in America anymore, they have to hide in Hong Kong. Everything about the film is bad really, kids might like it and some of the effects are quite nice. Apart from that you're better off clambering over your sofas with your arms extended making whooshing noises to have a more fun replication of super-powers.

There's more. Session 9 is a small budget horror film set in a run-down mental asylum somewhere in the U.S. I not really bothered enough to find out where but you get the feeling it's probably still there. The guy from CSI:Miami is in it. Although I did not realise this till I saw the credits. This lead me to watching 7 minutes of CSI one-liners. Great fun. Anyway, I found the film actually quite scary, watching it in the house alone, in the dark at around 2am probably helped that feeling though. You can feel the tension building throughout and the plot does keep you guessing somewhat, although the small cast limits it really. A great film for the budget it was made on, definitely one of the better horror films recently especially given the lack of gore.

Almost done. Dark City came out before The Matrix. This is something to take note of before watching it. Also Keifer Sutherland wasn't always Jack Bauer. He had a failing career before that. Once you understand these two points you can really enjoy Dark City, the very 50's dystopia has a certain Bioshock feel to it (although that is my go to reference for seemingly everything). Once the mystery sets in motion its very easy to enjoy the movie, although Keifer Sutherland is just plain annoying. Not his fault really, I'm assuming whoever could have played the mumbling scientist would have been equally frustrating. Definitely a cult classic anyway, although the Akira reference in this film's finale is certainly more obvious. It was also ripped off again in the last Matrix film. Now that's recycling for you.

Not quite there. On a continuing sci-fi binge I decided to go completely in the opposite direction and watch indie flick Primer. Which is about time-travel. I think. It was hard to understand the jargon. You have to concentrate to enjoy the movie, its quite a compact feature really, only 70 minutes long or so. I've had toilet visits longer than that. I want to say I enjoyed it but I struggle to utter such favourable tones. It was a bit too much for me and I got very lost at the end. I imagine if I watch it again I might be in a better place to understand it. But the film has pace that constantly increases and by the end the plot is practically running away from you while you're there puzzling over your memories of Science class to help your understanding of the dialogue. If you're a smart ass or someone who likes talking about films no-one has heard of you'll enjoy Primer. For me it was kind of somewhere inbetween.

Finally! Clerks 2 was a bit of a surprise to me. I watched the original Clerks and didn't really enjoy it untill the end. Maybe it was my youth, my lack of a sense of humour, my general mood that day. I don't know. But it just didn't grab me. Alot of the jokes I'd heard before or could guess the ending before they'd got anywhere near the punchline. I feel bad that I didn't enjoy it though, I wanted to. I thought it would be a film I'd fall for and whisper to myself about in the tiny moments of the night. The second one I watched on low expectations, which was the best way to into it. I actually really enjoyed it, it might have been the fact I was massively hung over, or the fact that I cooked up some turkey dinosaurs to eat during it but the film really struck a chord with me. Also, the sequence about Lord of The Rings arguement was amazing and the finale with Kinky Kelly was also fantastic. A real feel good, witty comedy that isn't "from the makers of Superbad". It's nice I finally have a cinematic reason to enjoy Kevin Smith for that isn't Dogma.