Review of the year: Very Good

 
It is officially Christmas. Once the 1st of December arrives it is, as far as I'm concerned, time to fill the house with sparkly lights, pour a huge glass of Baileys and break out the Billy Idol Christmas album ("Hilarious": imockery.com). This year it even snowed like a mental thing, so I am feeling well and truly festive.

And so we trudge through the snow towards the shining glory that is Rob's list-of-things 2010. We are nearly at the top, where the most wonderful experiences drift about in ethereal snowstorms of brilliance. But before that, let's look at some of the things that happened this year that were very, very good.

Things that were very, very good.


Kick Ass

Now then, Iron Man, take a look at this. A fun, fresh take on the superhero genre, juggling conventions as if they were bewildered kittens. If you missed the film, or know little about it except that a little girl says a bad word, here's what happens: A young geeky boy dons a costume and fights evil-doers in contemporary America. He learns many lessons about responsibility. And a young girl says a bad word.

"Hang on!" you cry, spitting toast everywhere (you were eating toast), "That sounds quite a lot like Spiderman.  How is that new? Apart from the bit about the girl?" Well, toast-face, this guy doesn't have any special powers bestowed upon him from radioactive spiders or anything; he's just a normal guy trying to make a difference, and getting beat up a lot. He soon becomes entwined in a maelstrom of freakish events and characters, all massively enjoyable.

I liked this film a lot. Here are some reasons:

1. Although based on a comic strip, it is not a slave to it. Instead it takes the basic premise and bangs it into a shape more suitable for two hours at the cinema. Unlike some films, Red, for example, it definitely does not do this to secure a lower rating and thus more money. It does it because it knows that comic books and films are very different. Other adaptations take note.

2. None of the major studios wanted to finance it, so Matthew Vaughn got it privately finaced at a dinner party, and made it anyway. Then, of course, all the studios came scampering back, going 'Ooh - sorry, we've just realised it looks rather good...' I love it when this happens. I like to fantasise that all these corporate pillocks, whenever they get things like this wrong, sit down afterwards and say 'Boy, are we bad at spotting which ideas are good and worthy of our support! Let's stop basing our decisions on our own stupid, blinkered idea of what consitutes interesting, innovative art and listen instead to creative people with a track record of bringing fascinating ideas to the screen. And let's bring Caprica and Firefly back while we're at it.'

But they never do.

3. A young girl swears a lot and slices people to pieces. Guess which one of these antagonised the moral guardians of our society most? That's right - if Hit Girl had had the good manners to eviscerate her opponents while calling them 'melon-farmers' or 'nasty bad men', all would have been just fine. I particularly enjoyed Christopher Tookey's piece in the Mail, where his condemnation of Hit Girl as 'obviously meant to be sexy' led a lot of people to look at him and go "Errr... that  might just be you mate..."

Cemetery Junction

Ricky Gervais in subtle, restrained movie shocker. This film touches on a lot of the Brit-film narrative beats that we've all been familiar with since Robert Carlisle danced to Hot Stuff at Jobseekers, but does so delicately, and with its emphasis on the characters. Time and place are evoked with the right mixture of nostalgia and real understanding, while the plights of the main characters really feel like they matter. This is a story of growing up in a small town, trapped by expectation, tradition and you own lack of self belief. And, somehow, it's also really funny.

Top marks go to Emily Watson, who plays her character's heartbreak beautifully, and to Gervais, who stays out of the way for the most part, allowing his brilliant script to speak for him and letting the excellent ensemble cast do their thing.

The Social Network

I liked this a lot. A lot a lot. It's masterfully written, by  Aaron 'I wrote the bloody West Wing' Sorkin, features some great performances from the leads (especially Andrew Garfield) and has an interestingly weird soundtrack. It also marks the return to form of director David Fincher, after the extended CGI masturbation party that was Benjamin Arsing Button. If The Social Network and Benjamin Button had a fight, this film wouldn't even throw a punch. It would just look into the mid distance, a half-smile/half frown on its face, say something enigmatic and clever, and then walk away, leaving Button jumping up and down shouting 'Who da man?' to an empty room.

This is England

I've written about this series and its brilliance here, so I won't go on about it again. Suffice to say, it was brilliant television, and it firmly deserves its place in the 'very, very good' part of my mind.

The Trip

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon wander around the North of England eating lovely meals and doing impressions to each other. Doesn't necessarily sound like ground breaking television, but this six part TV series, directed by prolific film maker Michael Winterbottom, has totally won my heart.

I have spent much of this year slowly falling in love with Rob Brydon. I've always liked him, but his turn as Uncle Bryn in Gavin and Stacey made me laugh until I hurt my leg, and I've been addicted to his Welsh ways ever since. I've enjoyed Steve Coogan in a variety of things, from Alan Partridge (nach) to his peculiar self deprecating turns in films like Coffee and Cigarettes, 24 Hours Party People and A Cock and Bull Story. This last film, also directed by Winterbottom, is closest in spirit to The Trip, as both Coogan and Brydon adopt variations of their own characters and have fun with the idea of fame and perceptions of the self.

The series is really funny, but also, in places, very sad. Coogan is eaten up by his own dissatisfaction with the ageing process, and the weight around his neck that is the early - and never equalled - success of Alan Partridge. The six episodes chart a comic path, but also provide a meditation on getting older, and trying to understand what it means to be happy. I loved it.

That's it for very, very good things. See you soon for things that were, without doubt, absolutely amazing and great and fab. Don't slip on the ice. x

Rob's Review of the Year - Part One

The futuristic wonders of 2010 are fast approaching their end, and soon we will be plunged into the frankly unbelievable post-apocalypse of 2011. To mark the end of this, the most peculiar of years, I shall be doing a series of little reviews.

Many of us, trapped in conversation with someone - perhaps whilst being held hostage in a skyscraper or such - will find ourselves at a loss as to how to describe the highs and lows of our cultural lives. Well, worry no more. Over the next few weeks you will know exactly what to think about everything that matters. Opinion be damned, these are facts, and people who disagree and simply wrong. And sexually deviant.

I have devised a simple rating system for All Things. Everything we come across fits into one of four categories: 'rubbish', 'meh', 'quite good' or 'awesome'. Today we will deal with the first, and worst, of these.

Things that were Rubbish in 2010.

Overall, 2010 has been a pretty positive experience for me. I have had significant joy a number of occasions, and on the whole had a pretty good time, apart from that black cloud of all consuming angst in early Spring. There were some things, however, that got on my nerves.


1. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Yes, you are pretty and colourful and ever so whimsical. But are you any good? No. You are not. You are a smug, self satisfied film that relies entirely upon overt quirkiness at the expense of plot, character development and tension.

I like Tim Burton a lot, and count many of his films among my favourites ever. Edward Scissorhands is a masterpiece, Ed Wood is insightful and clever, Mars Attacks is enjoyably bonkers. Burton has the ability to suffuse whole films with his idiosynchratic sensibilites, wrestling the unwieldy apparatus of movie-making into submission and making it obey his peculiar whims. He stands with Terry Gilliam and David Lynch as a director who is somehow able to express his dreams and nightmares through sound and pictures.

Here, though, he has produced something unforgiveably dull. There is no engagement with the story - no sense of what is at stake, or why anything matters. When people are captured, or threatened, there is no sense of real peril or consequence.

There are a number of reasons why the film fails. I think the biggest one is technology. CGI and 3D are fine tools as far as they go, but here they seem to have dominated the storytelling process to its detriment, everything acting in service of the next set piece or special effect. Another problem, for me, is Johhny Depp, who seems to have slipped into an incredibly lazy groove of 'Tim-Burton-film-crazy-schtick'. Compare his idiot WillyWonka/Mad Hatter pratting about with his wonderfully subtle performances as  Edwards Wood and Scissorhands. Bleh.

The film also suffers from post Lord of the Rings syndrome. Someone somewhere looked at those films and went "Ah! Success at the box office = big battle scenes. I am a genius and will be made King of Hollywood". And so now every film with the vague whiff of fantasy has to end with a huge battle between opposing armies, no matter how irrelevant.

Boo to you Tim Burton. Stop remaking things and get back to your own vision. I, Rob Reed, command it.

2. Iron Man 2

Iron Man was fun, and mostly because of the inspired casting of Robert Downey Junior. It felt fresh and different, and I liked it. The sequel is fat, lazy and not-very-good. It has a couple of good set pieces, and some decent performaces, but it takes audiences love for granted and doesn't bother to make its story engaging. Shame.

3. The Prisoner remake

To be fair, this was never really going to work. And to be even fairer, I didn't get through the whole series, so maybe it turned out wonderful at the end. But I think a show needs to hook its viewers farily quickly, and this didn't.

I'm not sure how it could have worked. The original 60s series is unique, and very much of its time. A straight remake would have been pointless, and irrelevant. A recontextualisation of the ideas, which is what this remake seems to be trying to do, risks not really being the Prisoner at all. Calling it a different name might have helped. Casting someone interesting in the lead role certainly would have. Cavaziel may give a good Jesus, but he's no McGoohan.

Either way, this left me cold. And I hate being cold.

4. Caprica being cancelled.

Oy! I was watching that!

Few things make me as cross as the timid, limited souls of American TV executives. It's as if the industry is run by idiot children. "Oh no - this series, which has been on for about a week, is not instantly, massively successful! Quick - cancel it and replace it with another show about murders and the police."

Things need time to bed in, you dicks. Many really successful and enduring shows have performed relatively poorly at first. Don't you study the business you are involved in? Don't you realise that DVD sales and timeshifting  have fundamentally changed the way TV audiences operate? Did you get your job in a bloody raffle? If you want to sell beans, go do that, and let someone who cares do the job.

Pricks!

5. Politics in general

Has there ever been a year it which the democratic process in the UK felt less relevant? No-one voted for the government we got, yet they're acting like we all said 'I'd really like a bunch of bastards to come and piss in my face'. We didn't. Did we? Maybe we did and we forgot.

6. Solicitors in particular

I always knew solicitors were expensive. What I didn't expect was that they would also be absolutely bloody useless. I'm sure their legal knowledge is good and fine and that they passed all their solicitor exams, but my experiences of one Wakefield solicitor this year have show me that they:

* can't do sums
* can't spell (including, wonderfully, the word 'solicitor' on their own header)
* don't read your instructions, preferring to make up their own
* forget to pass stuff on, sometimes for six weeks
* sulk profusely when the above are pointed out to them


I have since changed solicitors, to one that does not so closely resemble my own name.

I think that's enough bile for now. These are my biggest losers of the year. No doubt I will think of others later but, like I said, it's been a pretty good year overall. Coming soon: things that made me go 'Meh.'

...which was awesome

A busy couple of weeks for your humble narrator, and so sparse pickings for those of you anxious to follow my magnificent and complex thought processes. For this, I am truly sorry, and hope that you found other ways to pleasure yourself in this time of neglect. Some of you, I imagine, will have wandered away in search of alternative 'weblogs', hoping to sustain yourself on the witterings of lesser minds. Others of you, I know, formed a small theatre company and toured Eastern Europe with a production of Twelve Angry Men. John, from Suffolk, made a perfectly splendid hat.

But cease, now, with these frivolous activities, for I return, like Jesus, Gandalf and Noel Edmunds before me. And, like them, I bring life changing ideas and thoughts, and a game about boxes.

Possibly.

Anyway, I know what you're saying. You're saying 'Rob, this is a brilliant blog, and one that will probably be compiled into some kind of religious text to lead humanity to enlightment, but sometimes, Rob, you say stuff and then just wander off onto the next topic, never to return. If we didn't know better, we'd say you got distracted very easily and bored even more quickly than that.'

Well, you couldn't be more wrong, you hypothetical abstraction, you. I hereby declare this post to be a comprehensive update on the exciting events that have made this month such a life changing experience. Then we'll see who's "a waste of my bloody time you stupid child".*


*Mr Wright, PE Teacher, 1981


Update 1 - the (Not so) naked face.

At the beginning of the month I joined many others in the heroic act of not-shaving-for-a-bit, to support the fight against testicular cancer (or 'Scrotum Wars' as it should be called but isn't). Three weeks later I have a rambling mass of spiky hair on my face, and five men have been cured as a direct result.* Here is what my face looks like now. Please forgive the furious expression. Operating even the simplest of devices causes me to lose all composure and sense of perspective.

If you have not yet done so, please put a bit of your overflowing bank balance into fighting cancer. Even if it's not this kind of cancer. Spend it on breast cancer if you want. My theory is, if we can cure one type of cancer, it will send a message to the rest of the cancers to piss off and leave us alone.#


* May not be true.
# May not work.


Update 2 - That whole Aids/Jesus thing

Actually, I've not heard anything else about this. Everyone to whom I mentioned the story seemed to have a sane and rational response, rather disappointingly. If you can't get into an argument by saying how Jesus had HIV, what can you do? Back to baiting that guy at CAPALERT.



Update 3 - Steve Wright in your face

A couple of weeks back I had a go at Steve Wright, the festering rodent at the helm of Radio 2's afternoon 'Big Show'. This was a lot of fun, and I have a little bit of a follow up on this story.

To my astonishment, Steve actually mentioned my blog on his show. He didn't use my name, sadly, instead choosing to refer to me as 'This Davros guy'. Idiot. What if the real Davros was listening? That's slander, that is. Anyway, Steve read out some bits of my blog, in that jovial burble of a voice he's cursed with. At first he seemed to find the whole thing amusing, but as he went on his tone lost some of its levity and a real sadness crept into his voice. Finally, at the point where I called him the 'King of Nob', his voice cracked and for a couple of seconds, there was silence.

"Are you alright?" asked his producer. There was a long pause. Even the 'bed'  - the triumphant orchestral music that constantly underscores the whole show - faded away into nothing.

"Am I... a nob?" asked Steve, plaintively. He suddenly sounded so human; vulnerable and small. You could almost hear the tears springing up in his goblin eyes. There was a pause, as I imagine his producer considered how to deal with the situation.

"Yes Steve," said his producer, "I'm afraid you are."

"I thought people liked me?" pleaded Wright's voice.

"No, Steve. I'm afraid they all really, really hate you. This blogger - this Davros - has summed up the feelings of the nation more eloquently than anyone has ever managed before."

"Really?" choked Wright. "Even more than Elton John did when he sang 'Candle in the Wind' at Diana's funeral in 1997, changing some of the words so it was more about Diana and less about Marilyn Monroe?"

"I'm afraid so, Steve. Even more than that. And now it's been said, I have no option but to kill you, live -on air."

"But who will do the show? Who will do The Big Show?"

"We already have someone in mind" said the producer over the sound of a sword being unsheathed. "His name is Rob Reed, the writer of this very blog - the one which has ended your reign of terror. His words are truthful, and good, and one day will be complied into a religious text which will used to guide humanity to enlightenment."

There was a moment of silence, then the slick swish of a blade, followed by the unmistakable sound of an overweight head bouncing off a mixing desk.

A heavy pause followed. Then they played the new Manic Street Preachers song, which I don't really like. *



*May have been a dream.


Update 4 - Death to Robin Hood

The twitter joke trial continues, and the gloves are off. Brilliantly, Paul Chambers is fighting the (idiotic) decision to criminalise his desire to use ironic humour. An online campaign has already pledged £8,000 towards his £10,000 legal costs. And the Spartacus movement has forced the police to admit that they will not be attempting to arrest everyone who retweeted Chambers's initial post, begging the question, why not? Is it possibly because the mere utterance of a phrase is not in itself problematic? Hmm...

On a day where students across the country are marching against the education cuts, it gladdens my soul to see action in support of what is fundementally right. How good would it be to see stupid decisions overturned by the power of collective, non-violent action? To take those who act as if they alone understand the law and to force them to realise they can't just do what they want? To take people like Nick Clegg and Judge Jacqueline Davies and make them wear stupid hats on which are printed the phrase "I have let everyone down with my frankly idiotic choices"? And put them in front of the X-Factor audience and force them to apologise, constantly, to a baying crowd of idiots. Idiots with spears. And then, as Clegg and Davies frantically attempt to dodge the never-ending, deadly volley of missiles,  we would cover them in poo from above, shouting "This is what it is like not to be listened to by those who have power over you". And they have to eat the poo. And apologise for not eating it faster. And we will laugh, and have some more biscuits, and congratulate ourselves on the very fair way we are running things.*



*May be satire.

That was England

I've been a huge fan of Shane Meadows's brilliant films since late Summer, 2007. I found myself laid up for a couple of weeks after having a huge lump removed from my right leg. To help me cope with the pain, and to assuage the dissappontment of not being able to take the lump home, I bought myself a big box set of his films - the highly recommended This is Shane Meadows. 

I'd already seen the intense and masterful Dead Man's Shoes when my brother screened it for me and my horrified then-girlfriend after a drunken night out in 2005. As the film ended, I knew I had found a new favourite director. So I was very excited at the prospect of three brand new (to me) films to watch at my leisure. There was no girlfriend in the picture at this time, so I was free to watch whatever I wanted without having to excuse all the violence and nudity with pretend film theory:

'No, really dear, she has to be naked, because of... er... the semiotics of... auteur theory. Yes. Which you don't know about and I do. And I have to watch this bit in slow motion because of the frame... rate... dissonance. Why don't you go and make me some tea?'

Watching Meadows's films was a joy. 24/7, his first full length feature, is funny and bleak, often at the same time - a juxtaposition that was to inform much of his work. A Room for Romeo Brass introduces the incredible Paddy Considine, an actor who Can Do No Wrong, as troubled child-man Morell.

Best of all, though, and still my joint favourite with Dead Man's Shoes, is This is England. Chances are, if you know me, I have spent the last several years ramming the film down your intellectual throat, shouting 'You must watch this' and reacting with fresh incredulity every time I learn you still haven't. Well, that's because it's wonderful, and funny, and sweet, and upsetting, and smart, and unique, and... ooh... everything.

I'm not going to go into the plot here because a) you should have watched it by now and b) I'm going to talk about This is England '86, so if you haven't seen it, you may as well go and do something else. Perhaps you could sort out that pile of books next to your bed. Really - you can't be reading them all. Or, better still, go and watch This is England '86 on 4 on Demand. (I still think they should have called it FourPlay. That would have been better.)

Anyway. I have mixed feelings about TIE'86. It has been and gone, and I have loved it, but I remain... well, mixed.

Let there be no doubt, I thought it was magnificent. Really, really powerful television that dealt with important stuff without generally feeling like it was trying to be 'important.' The characters were well played and developed in believable ways through naturalistic dialogue. The film-making was well crafted without being showy and affected. The tone - which some reviewers have criticised as uneven - wove comedy, tragedy, drama and farce together in the way that drama seldom manages, but real life always does.

It was great. I loved it. If I see images from it, or think of moments, a little shiver goes through me. So why am I mixed?

Partly, I guess, because that is the intention. It is not a programme that leaves one with a definable sense of what it was 'about'. Soetimes TV and film can do this in a very unsatisfying way, where the final credits leave you wondering what on earth the point was. TIE'86 is more like tasting a variety of conflicting flavours and having them wander around in your mouth, bouncing off each other, making no sense together, making new sense together. Like chasing bitter stilton with velvety wine, or having a banana straight after a Twix.

But also, I think, I am mixed up because I don't know what it will be like, now, to revisit the original film. So many of the characters I know and love, and have got to know in the context of the film over the years, now have new dimensions, new back-stories. Hannah Walters, for example, was credited as 'Shoe Shop Lady' in the original film. A brilliant little vignette, funny and believable, feeling like a real character who would continue to exist beyond the confines of her little scene.

Now, having returned for the series, we learn that she was always called Trudy. She had an affair with Meggsy. And a son. Next time I watch that scene, it will have changed. Not for the worse, I think, but it will have become a subtly different scene. And it will be the same for any scenes with Milky and Lol, or Combo, or  Mr. Sandhu, or even Harvey - a bit part bully in the film who now always had an abusive dad and thus might be better understood.

Aesthetically I like all this. It is not like George Lucas's rampage through the pre-history of Star Wars, whereby every mythic reference was rendered depressingly mundane through pedestrian visualisation. The characters of Meadows's world have grown, and become more interesting and complex. This is just a personal thing. This is England, the film I watched in 2007, is gone. Next time I watch it, I will be a different viewer, with a different understanding, and so watching a different film.

This is, I think, a good thing, as well as a sad thing. Thank you again, Shane Meadows, for refusing to let me lie in my assumptions.