The Cutprice Guignol

April 30, 2013

The Glee Project: Nope.

So, as some of you know, I’m in an abusive relationship with Glee. I want to leave- dear God, after the school shooting episode followed shortly by the molestation special I want to leave more than I want to have already finished flat-hunting. And since last season, we’ve had regular croppings-up of the wheat harvested from the hours of chaff that make up The Glee Project.

The premise is piss-simple- twelve talented youngsters compete for a guest-star role on Glee, taking part in singing, dancing and music video challenges, whearapon a group of judges, including series co-creator Ryan Murphy, eliminate one human. Thing is, that there are only about two or three actual personalities for each series- and they are, without exception, bastards. Of course, we had the “personalities”-the sort of people who could be summed up by a single, medium-volume klaxon noise.”EEEEEEEEEEEHHHHH”. Often, this translates into “OMG I’M SO QUIRKY/FLIRTY/CRAY-CRAY” (delete as appropriate) but is no less irritating, generic or shite.

But the only people who stand out in my mind are the people who were genuinely awful. I understand that editing makes villains of us all, but some are truly indefensible. Take Lindsay Pierce-unbelievably beautiful, voice like a filthy angel, the sheer charisma and draw that consistently drags my eye back to her- who certainly did herself no favours, ever, at any point. Yet what pisses me off about the whole affair is that the winners have consistently been the least offensive participant-yeah, Damian Mcthingy, Samuel Boredom and Blake Jenner-ally-nobody-cares are all supremely talented and I don’t begrudge them winning at all, but they were also the contestants who made nil impression apart from both seeming like really sound blokes. Glee is about huge personalities and dramatic personae, but this isn’t reflected in The Glee Projected Growth of Income. Personally, I felt the really fantastic performers were made out to be dicks and chucked out come round six or so. Grumble, grumble.

Can I interrupt myself to point out the only person from The Glee Project who didn’t feel like an unsubtle bolstering of the show was Ali Stroker, who had a single cameo in one episode? All the other characters have been ruined. RUINED. Dragged back and forth through the shit-heap of romantic couplings, unlikely backstories and scattergun sexuality, it’s no wonder I came to the show with a big thumbs-down over the actors that they were helpless to prevent.

You see Ryan Murphy? Don’t like him. I mean, let’s not get me wrong here- I LOVE his television. American Horror Story, Nip/Tuck, a lot of Glee-it works for me. But as a human being, he really pisses me off, and I don’t know why. I want to like him, want him to be a reflection of his brilliant, wry television, but he comes across as a humourless, actively dislikeable borderline-bastard. Nul Points. I like to think that when the show began he was a charming casanova, but Glee has driven him to this hypercritical, beaten-down souleater that we see before us. I know that’s what it’s done to me.

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April 27, 2013

Doctor Who: Tedium and Really Dark Industrial Scenes

Doctor Who this week continues a theme from early last season; the exploration, both physical, emotional and borderline sexual (I’m sorry, but there are far too many protuberant knobs and far too many lonely nights) of the Tardis. In this episode, Clara ends up trundling around lost inside the Tardis with the Doctor pretty much impotent (let’s call it a “usefulness semi”) to help her after yet another crash landing. AND this episode comes from the heaven-blessed quill of Sherlock scribe Stephen Thompson.

Without a doubt, the stellar circular plot was stronger than last weeks, but, sadly, the periphery characters-a three-brother salvage team in space-didn’t prove as likeable as Dougray and Jessica. Though the introduction of a straight-up android was pretty cool, I couldn’t get the image of Kryten of Red Dwarf out of my head. Luckily, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman (looking very fetching in a dress I decided relatively quickly I couldn’t pull off) just get better and better as the series goes on, especially Coleman who has to carry the brunt of her scenes alone. And the slightly abrupt advancement of the Clara/Doctor plot was actually pretty decent, Matt Smith gratefully flexing his dark-Doctor muscles once again. The episode was gorgeously filmed, too-lots of balletic cameras up corridors and off-kilter shots creating that sense of the vastness and history of the Tardis that we’ve never really been physically privy to before.

This is a proper madman-with-a-box episode -the Doctor goes all kamikaze in his quest to recover Clara, ostensibly setting the Tardis to self-destruct and then hurtling around scolding the angsty Chuckle Triplets for the rest of the episode. My tone may belay my disappointment here, and I won’t apologize for it- yeah, the interior of the Tardis lived up to expectations spectacularly and the Silent-Hill-esque monsters were really cool, but there was lots of “OOOOOOH the Tardis has FEEEEEELINGS” and “OOOOOOH don’t annoy the TARDIIIIIS” which we knew already. Gives us some motivation-why? What drove her to it? And, by the way, “The Timelords were clever” won’t do. Maybe they’re setting it up for an even longer plot strand later in the series, but this was a prime bloody episode to advance it and they just kept it as-really- a perfectly serviceable adventure romp. It’s my own fault for expecting something more, but-hang on- a rift in space and time? Sounds familiar. I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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April 26, 2013

A Dinner Party with Rob Zombie

I have a long-standing and constantly evolving list of fantasy dinner party guests. There are the obvious ones-Stephen Fry, Sandi Toksvig, Sue Perkins-and there are the pretty ones-Leigh Whannel, Shiloh Fernandez, Christopher Ecclestone (swoon)-and then there are the ones whose brains I’d take great pleasure in picking. These vary from day-to-day (the only constant is Stephen King) but one definite introduction to the table is Rob Zombie.

I know shag all about his music-don’t care, don’t want to-but his films are a different kettle of giblets. He directed the pointless but very good Halloween remake, as well as the House of 1000 Corpses/The Devil’s Rejects duo and his recent release Lords of Salem. Now, House of 1000 Corpses is a film which I can understand issue with-hardcore mega-schlock bordering on jet-black humour is a difficult one to sell, but I loved it (for anyone who has seen it-“BEHOLD! FISH-BOY!”). The balls-to-the-wall energy of Sheri-Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, and Sid Haig sold it as the Chainsaw-Massacre-y Firefly family, and the greasy, sweaty aesthetic makes your toes curl. Then The Devil’s Rejects happened.

The Devil’s Rejects is one of my all-time top ten movies. It’s a gleeful subscription to every eighties exploitation flick you’ve ever seen and then some, carrying on the story of the brutal Firefly clan and their escape from the enroaching cops. It’s part road movie, part superviolent slasher, part police procedural, part revenge movie, with dialogue so sharp you could hunt deer with it and the sort of visuals Tarantino would piss himself for. The ending, too- no spoilers here, but suffice to say the ending flips the whole damn thing on it’s head and remains to this day one of the most kick-arse shootouts in movie history. Not for the faint-hearted but for those with sturdier cardiovascular systems it’s a riot.

I really loved Lords of Salem too, though I won’t say too much about it here-a much weightier role for the deliciously husky Sheri-Moon Zombie (Rob’s wife, by the way) but retaining the feeling of having dirt under your fingernails for the whole running time. I have watched every bloody, horrendous, twisted horror movie under the sun (well, the moon) and I can safely say that some scenes in Lords really got under my skin, and so I’d recommend it if only for that.

But what I adore about him most is that he represents a resurgence of dedicated horror film directors. No, not like Eli Roth, who desperately grabs at whatever bandwagon may be trundling by, or James Wan, who (Saw excluded) grabs at whatever bandwagon was trundling by in 1982, but people like Darren Lynn Bousman who nudge the boundaries of horror to test what we can do with the genre. We had a spate of them in the 70s and 80s- John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Sean S. Cunningham- and that set the tone for decades of slashers to come. Zombie is, along with a few other directors, making the films he wants to see, and the audience can either get on board or fuck the hell off. Will he start a horror revolution? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a damn good time of it keeping up with him while he tries.

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April 23, 2013

Not Being a Dick: Broadchurch

Well, sorry for anyone who came here for the jokes or the endless pessimism or the bastarding, relentless cynicism. For once, I’ve found something I can’t fault. I’m not planning to be a little bitch and nitpick; no, no, this is straight-up adulation.

Broadchurch finished last night. Me and my viewing companion were literally sitting on the ITVplayer page at five past ten, refreshing hysterically and with disturbing constancy, because we HAD TO KNOW. I watched the whole series begrudgingly on Saturday and declared it to be one of the best things I’ve ever seen. It follows the story of the murder of eleven-year-old Danny Latimer in the small coastal town of Broadchurch, tailing both the emotional drama and the police investigation.

Just reading that back, it never sounds like something I’d enjoy this side of middle age. But, without a shadow of a whisper of a doubt, I loved it. The final episode (no spoilers, fear not) was a glorious bit of television; emotionally harrowing doesn’t do it justice. But there was no sense of cleavering a reaction out of you-the series slowly built to a heart-shattering crescendo that genuinely had me in tears. It earned every second of the drama with patience and unpatronising charectirisation.

And, mother of balls, was that some acting. Olivia Coleman less hit it out of the park than out of the stratosphere with a fucking astonishing, completely heartbreaking performance that just screamed “Bafta” as one of the police investigating the case, and partenered with a gruff but sympathetic David Tennant finally throwing any residual memories of the Doctor into the sun, the pair just killed it. But that goes for so many of the cast; mad-good Andrew Buchan (remember 24 Hour Party People? Aye, nothing like that, and better for it), doe-eyed Arthur Darvill, Jodie Whittaker verging on going all Chenobyl for the whole series, Pauline Quirke vaulting the line of good acting and transcending into utter brilliance…

I’m really trying hard not to bitch on too long (though there’s more Broadchurch-fellatio if you want it): I can only say bloody watch it. Even if it’s not something you think you’d enjoy, you will. Then we can start speculating about series 2. Oh, and as for guessing who killed Danny Latimer? NAILED it.

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April 20, 2013

Doctor Who: Timeholes and Romantic Developments Involving Spirits

I love ghost stories. Oh, I bloody love ’em. I have never been as scared as I was reading Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad, the masterclass in tension by MR James. Something about ghosts freaks the bollocks off of me, and this week Doctor Who offered up its first proper ghost story in yonks in the form of Hide. And it was top.

Right off the bat, the episode set itself up as a classic, haunted-house story-the muted colour pallette, whirly-crackly ghosthunting equipment, the constantly flickering candlelight- a media student’s wet dream in terms of production. There’s a lot to be said for an ever-expanding Doctor Whoniverse, but if you are going to fall back on an old faithful, at least make it a good one. One that does not involve the Ood and instead involves a ghostbusting duo made up of a charmingly awkward Dougray Scott, a ballsily vulnerable Jessica Raine and a shoveload of crackling chemistry, for example. Chuck in a nice little reference to The Haunting of Hill House, and I’ve got a massive Who-on.

First and foremost, there’s a thumpingly good plot at the heart of this episode-the Doctor and Clara arrive at a creepy old mansion to aid a couple of supernatrual investigators in sorting out their witch problem (no, don’t worry, they haven’t brought back River Song). Of course there’s more of a sci-fi spin on it, but screw that: HAUNTED HOUSE!

But there’s a lot more going on; including a brilliant speech from Clara about the nature of the assistant in the show, the deeply enjoyable humanizing of the Tardis like a big, blue HAL, and the continuing questioning of the Doctor as the be-all, end-all hero. In the last few series, there have been various hints at the Doctor’s fallibility; it’s a brave choice for such an iconic leading man, but it’s one I like very much.

A few solid performances from guestars Scott and Raines cement and sell the story-did anyone else finally feel like they were looking at all the Doctor Who ships for the next four months every moment they shared the screen?- and a kick-arsingly creepy monster turns into teatime television at it’s best. Hide was a very, very good episode; advancing a few themes without letting it get in the way of the plot having a rollicking good time of it. Oooh, and you see next week? I got me the tingles I did.

But don’t think I didn’t notice how obviously you’re setting up Clara and the Doctor for a bit o’ romance later in the series, though-I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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April 18, 2013

A Meaninglessly Mawkish Meander Through Must-See Movies

I like movies, lots. If I didn’t have things to do, I would just laze around marathoning David Fincher movies and drinking beer. And I’d love it. Here I have compiled a list of movies I think everyone’s life would be improved by seeing. Like every movie list ever made, it’s essentially pointless; a vile, opinionated snobfest of epic proportions that everyone else will violently disagree with. Long live film criticism.

1. Saw

This film has slowly worked it’s way into my life to the extent that I get physical withdrawal symptoms unless a watch it at least twice a month. I think it’s a perfect movie; it’s put together beautifully, a considered, dark, unsettling piece which is not even close to being the torture porn it’s often sold as. Hostel it ain’t; it’s far more like Se7en in that it’s as much a meditation on what it actually means to be “living” and what separates a good person from a bad one as it is a film about the machinations of an evil genius and his ever-widening collection of hilariously horrifying “traps”. Okay, it’s not for the totally feeble, but it’s a damn good film, with superb performances from Cary Ewles and Leigh Whannel. And just a brilliant soundtrack which you should use to spice up your day-to-day events against the clock.

2. Muppet Treasure Island

I distinctly remember, as a po-faced child, my Dad taking me to see this and having to take him aside and have a serious discussion about him definitely not being allowed to sing along to any of the songs in the cinema. Now, I’m the one being taken aside and told the same thing. For pure, total, unpretentious fun, there is simply nothing better than this rollicking voyage of tunes, treachery and treasure, featuring a disconcertingly handsome Tim Curry as Long John Silver. And it features some properly pumping choons, including the insanely good When You’re A Professorial Pirate, which I like to rewrite as an anthem for male prostitutes. Listen to it now and replace “pirate” with “rentboy”. It works. Also, this.

3. The Skin I Live In

Yes, I’m a hipster so massive I’m on the brink of turning into a self-aware black hole. But fuck it, I love me a bit of Pedro Almodovar (a very little bit-pretty much only four of his films are worth seeing, but how), and this bizarre body-horror-cum-soap-opera-drama is a mad, disturbing and brilliant little gem. Featuring a properly sinister Antonio Banderas and perhaps the grimmest rape scene of all time ever, it’s still peppered with spots of humour and Almodovar’s penchant for picking up on great female characters. It’s not a perfect film, but damn, you’ll see nothing like it this year and you’ll be haunted by the image of a man in a tiger suit having sex for weeks afterwards. Eurgh.

4. Little Miss Sunshine

Oh YES oh YES oh YES. This teeny little indie comedy follows a family as their daughter competes in the beauty pageant of the title. But it’s not about that; it’s about the failings and faults of every family member, from the hyper-sexed, heroin snorting grandfather portrayed by Alan Arkin to the gay, suicidal Proust scholar played by a superbly reserved Steve Carell. I love the clinky-clanky music, the way it elicits emotions without having to fire a nail gun of schmaltz into you, and the fact that’s it’s abso-bloody-loutly hilarious. Shout out to a baby-faced Paul Dano completely destroying the role of a voluntarily mute disengaged teenager, and also for being pretty.

5. Brick

I only saw it this year to get my Brownie badge for watching indie films, but hotdamn, I enjoyed it. Featuring an outrageously handsome Joseph Gordon-Levitt (whose name I always mispronounce as Goseph Jordon, which sounds like a prairie animal to me), this neo-noir teen crime sort-of romance thrillery thing is a strange little offering, but an interesting one. It transplants Dashiell Hammet into a high school, giving an aneamic Lucas Haas the role of the bizarely appealing villain and a collection of wonderfully suave femme fatales and mob thugs. Do it. Do it for me.

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April 14, 2013

Doctor Who: Tension And Rubbish Skaldak In Submarine

So I was wrong. And I was gutted. I wanted the Sea Devils so much that it cast a shadow over an otherwise very decent episode. Ice Warriors? Pfffffffft. I-sorry-iors more like.

Spewed forth from the genius pen of Mark Gatiss (incidentally, for anyone who hasn’t seen League of Gentlemen and incidentally has a very strong stomach for very dark comedy, I’d recommend it heartily), this episode was set against the wonderfully claustrophobic of a nuclear submarine-think Das Boot meets The Thing but in British teatime television format. It was, with no doubt, the weakest episode of the series so far-a complete damn cop-out of a third act saw to that-but that’s not to say Cold War didn’t have it’s warmer moments.

Game of Thrones alumni Liam Cunningham really got his ‘tache around the role of a u-boat captain with a deadly cargo. Another one of those real thesps who just seem to fall into roles in Doctor Who, the part isn’t particularly subtle or nuanced, but doesn’t need to be- he’s got the appropriate gravitas and urgency for the role, and that’s fine. Matt Smith continues the performance in a slightly darker vein- I couldn’t help but notice the lighting this week, often casting him half in shadow, half in light- I am a media student bastard so I desperately want this to mean something, but it probably doesn’t. Whatever, Smith did himself proud against the adversity of the questionable script, and Clara-facing her first real alien- also continued her streak of being both rather good and especially pretty.

Gatiss is a passionate horror fan, and this is palpable throughout his forty minutes-the whole John Carpenter fellatio aside, this episode had a lot of genuinely tense moments. The choice not to show the Ice Warrior (Skaldak, by the way) till the third act was a good one, especially considering it looked like a scaly turd with teeth and it was a whole lot less scary once you’d clapped eyes on it. Seriously. They must have blown all their special effects and prosthetic budget last week, and it bloody well showed.

But then-BAM!-the third act turned the whole thing on it’s head, just when it was reaching a wonderful emotional crescendo. This isn’t League of Gentlemen, Gatiss; you can’t just have outsiders turn up and make everything better. That said, I can’t wait-and I mean, can’t wait- for next week. No sea devils, but definitely ghosts. Hurrah! On a side note, the way the Tardis in the opening credits opened up onto the first scene was fucking awful. I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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April 11, 2013

The Great British Television Revival

Britain, eh? Just sitting there, in the middle of the sea, getting the craic. My home and native land. What may not strike you about this teeny little craggy island drifting about like a philosophy student is that it’s television has suddenly become….well, very British.

You can’t click on anything on BBC iPlayer just now without being faced with some gurning “quintessentially British” personality or other fronting another show prefixed with “THE GREAT BRITISH” *insert seemingly arbitary activity here*. The Great British Bake-Off. Great British Railway Journeys. The Great British Sewing Bee, for Christ’s sake. Victoria Wood, grandmother of all British female comedians, can currently be found peering coyly out from the front page of iPlayer presenting a show about tea. The final of The Great British Bake-Off last season was watched by 6,743,000 people-just to put that in perspective, more people tuned in to watch Paul Hollywood make accidental double entendres about buns than live in the country of my birth. That’s mad, but also kind of understandable; I’d rather watch people baking than live in Orkney. It’s not just over here, either- Doctor Who, the gleaming jewel in the crown of the BBC’s schedule that’s celebrating it’s fiftieth anniversary this year, has been regularly broadcast in 48 countries-that’s means pretty much one in four countries in the entire world enjoying the exploits of a space cowboy with a light-up dildo.

So what’s brought this on? Well, we’ve got the obvious patriotic nonsense that’s we’ve been fish-slapped with over the last year-the Olympics, the Jubilee, the impending birth of a royal sprog. The whole year has been spent trying really, really hard not to talk about the Good Old Days-Christ, I’m surprised the Spice Girls weren’t strapped to a taxi emblazoned with “THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE GREAT BRITISH EMPIRE”. As a nation, the BBC wants to think that we’re shakily saluting the flag with our eyes glistening with tears, and it’s reflected in their dredging up of every British insitution-cookery, industry, Stephen Fry- while we still care. And you know what? I’m alright with it.

Bloody hell. Anyway, next time: lols.

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April 9, 2013

Doctor Who: Terrifying Aliens Reasonably Discuss Infant Sacrifice

Several things have filled me with joy in recent days. Picking flowers after lectures like a bollocks Jane Austen character, wearing my hipster-vacumn-inducing pinstriped trousers that make me feel like a Sultan in public, eating crisps in bed. But none have filled me with more joy than Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who.

As I mentioned previously, these first few episodes are about establishing the role of the assistant. Rose was the Doctor’s moral compass, Donna was his mother figure, Amy was the girl who waited (to start acting), and Martha was….well, moderately attractive, I guess. And in The Rings of Unspellable, Clara set herself up as all of the above and more; Jenna Louise-Coleman (who I find myself falling further and further in love with every time she’s on screen) power-acted her way through being charmingly guileless, kick-arsingly ballsy, tenderly maternal and bloody gorgeous within the space of forty minutes. I am sold on her, and I like it.

There was a lot to recommend this episode- the wonderful prosthetics, the song that the plot hinged on, the special effects good enough wiping every memory of the Tardis pulling what was essentially a poo vaguely shaped like the Titanic through space- and all this was enough to negate the rather flimsy plot. But Matt Smit out acted- well, everyone on television, I’d wager. His climatic scene-facing off against a God who feasted on stories-featured one of the most jaw-droppingly audacious and powerful scenes I’ve scene on Doctor Who in years. It could easily have been cheesy or cheap or childish, but Matt Smith nailed it- and I mean, he nailed it. We’re so used to him being the kiddy, slapstick Doctor, but here he transformed completely, lines on his face standing out, replacing his mid-twenties charm with year upon year of bitterness and loss and betrayal. Backed by the breathtaking climax of the Murray Gold score, it really was a joy to behold.

Most excitingly, though-and this is purely speculation, but I’m calling it now- it looks like the Sea Devils might possibly be back next week. The fucking sea devils! Do you know how long I’ve waited? Those vaguely flatulent aquatic footsteps have haunted my nightmares for years. For years. Please, PLEASE. Either way, the twisted mind of the delicious Mark Gatiss spewed forth next week’s offerings, so I’ll be there with bells-and rings-on.

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April 2, 2013

A Wanker’s Literary Reaction: Skins

I finally watched Skins yesterday. Apparently a sublime comment on the yoof culture of drugs, sex, tits and booze, the series spanned from 2007 till…well, now, really, with a three-part special due for release later this year. Written by a father-son writing team for E4, it kick-started the careers of Nicholas Hoult and no-one else and remains to this day one of the more popular teenage shows Channel 4 has scattergunned into existence.

Nicholas Hoult is actually really rather good as Tony Stonem, mainly because I find him so monstrously attractive (those eyes. THOSE EY-), but the entire first generation was undermined by the inclusion of Cassie. Now, I have to make it bloody clear that I have nothing against people with any kind of mental health disorder. My issue with Cassie is the utterly awful performance (sorry, Hannah Murray, you seem quite lovely) and the fact she’s been written to seemingly test my nerves as much as possible. She often reaches a rolling rhythm of breathy”wow”s in one sentence, so I suggest forcing a piece of glass into your foot when you here the first one. Your screams of agony will be preferable to this, trust me. The second generation was tighter, across the board; in particular, JJ, played with awkward charm by Olli Barbieri, was superb. Although I don’t really get the attraction to Cook-he’s played to perfection by a carnivorous Jack O’Connell, supposedly some sort of roguish charm not dissimilar to Tony Stonem, but he comes off as a massive wanker with only his own interests and cock at heart. Believe me, I know the signs.

I thought the adult cast were unprecendently and undeservingly good-particularly Danny Dyer, who was actually excellent as a dense-but-well-meaning trophy boyfriend. Mackenzie Crook was sort of great as an imposing gangster, once I got the image of Gareth from The Office reciting ways to kill a man out of my head, and Bill Bailey is pleasantly sweary in an affable, beardy kind of way. They bounce of the younger cast and often make them look a hell of a lot better.

Fuck me, though-I expected a merry cavalcade of sexual experimentation, rampant drug abuse and pretty faces. Little did I know the damn thing’s about as good-natured as dental surgery by a drunken Ian McShane. I didn’t even get onto series 5, so utterly depressed was I by the viscous murder by fucking baseball bat at the end of series 4. When they did the whole death-of-a-lead-character thing in series 2, at least they killed off a character with some background for it, having put the poor boy through the mincer in every emotional, financial and physical sense anyway. Finish him off and put him out of his misery, I say.

Another thing that depressed me about the show was how little it resembled my life or the lives of pretty much anyone I had known that well. For the lucky few, I suppose this kind of debauchery just happens and you all prance around flashing your boobs at people with a joint hanging out of the corner of your mouth. For the rest of us, life’s not dissimilar to a celebrity autobiography at the back of a charity shop- quiet, irrelevant and occasionally getting fingered by ugly mouth-breathers. Hurrah for youth.

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