Intermission: Sometimes all you want is a hug

Half way through my four-part dissection of the year's highlights and lowlights, and I've realised I need a fifth category. Sorry for those of you who have already devised a complicated wall chart based on my last couple of posts. I am hereby inserting a new category between my last post, 'meh', and my next one, 'quite good' and I have decided to call it 'reasonably entertaining'.

Things that are reasonably entertaining include films which just sort of passed the time and were fun to watch, but which didn't really inspire me with any lasting joy. They are the digestives of film: perfectly acceptable, and once in a while they might be exactly what you're in the mood for, but not what you'd give to Derren Brown if he came round to your house to help you hypnotise some troublesome ants into not stealing your bloody toast.

Films that were Reasonably Entertaining in 2010

Salt

Angelina Jolie is an agent! But then someone says she's a double agent! And then! Whoah! Maybe she is and maybe she isn't! There is lots of running, many things explode and a lot of people get shot and fall over looking sad. It's an effective post-Bourne thriller with a strangely retro Cold War feel and Jolie makes a good action hero - but we knew that. Once all the twisty turniness is done it's like having watched a series of 24 at several times normal speed and you are left feeling quite happy, until you notice something shiny and forget all about it.

The Town

Ben Affleck's directorial follow up to the brilliant Gone Baby Gone is nearly in the 'very good' category. It is an engaging tale, well told and with some properly thrilling set pieces. The central conceit - bank robber falls in love with hostage who could identify him and his gang - is simple and effective, and played well by the leads. I do like Ben Affleck, and I'm glad he's turning into such an interesting director.

The only real issue is that it feels a lot like Michael Mann's Heat. The basic plot, following the ethical and procedural similarities of opposing groups of cops and robbers, is very similar and there are a number of repeated dramatic beats. Which made me keep coming back to Jeremy's thoughts in Peep Show, when watching a play: 'This is as long as Heat. I could be watching Heat. I'm going to pretend I'm watching Heat!'

The A-Team

Now, I know that by doing this I am risking incurring the wrath of The Expendables, which may well come charging in from the last blog-post, shrieking in rage. "Why do you love her but not me?" it will scream, firing machine guns indiscriminately into the air. "She's an equally stupid throwback to the eighties with no real sense of characterisation or plot!" (Throws hand grenade through a window). "You're a hypocrite and she's a slag and why does no-one ever love the real me?" (Collapses in tears on stairs, eye make-up everywhere).

Well, quite. The A-Team isn't really much smarter than The Expendables, and doesn't have a particularly strong sense of what it is, beyond a nostalgic attempt at launching a franchise. But it's a funnier script, has better actors and, yes, draws heavily from the well of love that lies deep in the hearts of an entire generation. I'd like to see a sequel, please.

The Karate Kid

Another film which almost nudges its way into the higher categories. A surprisingly fresh and fun remake which does enough new things to make it a worthwhile exercise while more or less keeping the ethos of the original. Jaden Smith is a good actor already, and very likeable, and will probably be as big a star as his dad at some point. Jackie Chan is ace.

Red

What's this? A film about an older generation of movie stars geting back into their action groove? Surely not! Like the A-Team, this is a lot of fun and just spending time with the characters is reward enough. The plot is a little more coherent, though only just, and there are some fantastic images - not least being a suited John Malkovich handling the ammunition butler-style, while Helen Mirren operates the biggest machine gun you've ever seen. In a big dress.

Cyrus

Clever, funny comedy in which John C Reilly fancies Marissa Tomei, and tangles with her son Cyrus -  Jonah Hill - over the latter's oedipal tendencies. Small scale, well played and very funny.

Get Him to the Greek

Jonah Hill again, this time trying to stop rock god Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, channeling himself) from smoking/having sex with  everything he meets. Sporadically funny, though uneven, and entirely reliant upon Brand's personality for its effect.

I think that's everything. There's quite possibly other films I've forgotten, but on the whole these are films that, should you come across them on the TV, you should consider showing a bit of love.

Rob's Review of the Year Part 2. "Meh"

Last week I pontificated on the year gone by and shared with you, beloved, gorgeous, sexy reader, some of the things that, in 2010, had failed to please my all consuming, ever demanding self.

We move on, tonight, to the second of my four 'reviews of the year' - a consideration of  those things which, though not utterly rubbish, were a bit of a let down and left me feeling vaguely flat. I do not condemn them to a fiery pit of eternal doom, but nor do I embrace them lovingly to my tender breast, kissing them on the head and telling them that I truly, honestly love them. I suppose I just kind of turn away from them, pretending I have to answer an important text and that I'll be 'back in a minute'.

Anyway. Here are my votes for 'meh' things of 2010. If you see them coming, pretend to be out.

Things that made me go "Meh."

1. Scott Pilgrim Versus the World

Ask me what I think of Shaun of the Dead. Go on. Ask. I LOVE IT YOU FOOL. Can't believe you needed to ask. Now ask me how excited I was about the prospect of Edgar Wright directing Scott Pilgrim. Go on. No, really, I promise not to shout this time. I WAS VERY EXCITED.  It was Edgar Wright for goodness sake! And the trailer was really funny and the visual style was all 'Whoo!'

And then the film came out, and we all scampered to see it, like tiny children running towards a toyshop or away from a pervert. And then I sat there in the cinema for two hours, going... "Huh." Waves of explosive sound and kinetic vision washed over me, bathing me in all the colours the universe has to offer, and I simply sat, utterly unmoved.

It's possible that I'm too old or something. The people I was with, good friends whose judgement I trust and whose tastes I generally share, bounced around giggling the entire time like weebles on heroin.* Afterwards many of them declared it ten kinds of brilliant. And I was sad, because I just didn't plug into it in the same way.

If I had to say why I didn't get it, I'd say the whole film felt like it was trying too hard, and it didn't seem to establish a level of 'reality' that made me care about the characters. There were plenty of funny bits and the editing was super clever, but it was, as Shakespeare would have said, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and not as good as Spaced.

*I know, I know. Heroin probably doesn't make you giggle and I probably should have said poppers or something. But I conducted a wide range of rigorous scientific tests and came to the conclusion that 'weebles on heroin' was by far the most amusing of all the phrases on offer.


2. Crowded House's album Intriguer

Like most bands, Crowded House split up the moment I started to like them. I'm not sure why I have this effect on bands, but it does seem to happen too often for it to be a mere co-incidence, so I will have to assume I am some kind of universal nexus of incedible significance, whose life is more important than everyone else's. I should probably have some kind of special crown made so everyone knows to worship me.

Anyway, having split up for a bit, Crowded House decided to do what lots of bands do next, which was to get back together again. Normally this is a terrible idea, and results in albums that sound exhausted and lost, cheapening the legacy that made the band beloved in the first place. Not so for Time on Earth, CH's brilliant 2007 comeback, which was better than it had any right to be and is one of my favourite albums ever.

2010's Intriguer sounds more like the album I expected back in 07. It's not awful. It isn't anything much - it just drifts along for a bit and then stops. There are some nice melodies, clearly - I'm not sure Neil Finn can help writing lovely tunes - but despite playing it many, many times, it failed to get its hooks in. A shame.

3.  The Expendables

I'll be honest and say I did quite enjoy this when I watched it, but I have no real desire to ever see it again. It was like a drunken old man singing in a bar at Christmas - quite amusing for a while, but before too long it becomes tedious and you get worried he might start hurling glasses at your head. The plot was pointless and often contradictory: the whole situation the Expendables are sent to defuse would have sorted itself out much better if they'd just not gone in the first place. As I recall, they deal with corrupt CIA intervention in a Central American state by shooting everyone they meet until there's no-one left to be unhappy.

4. The revamped Castle Pub.

I like pubs. I like open fires, the smell of beer and the sight of dozens of bottles of wine waiting to be plucked down and guggled into a glass. I like comfy seats and people bringing me things to eat, and conversation with friends and the sense that time has drifted off to play with a kitten and won't be back for ages.

I liked the Castle, on Barnsley Road, a lot. It was quietish, sold a reasonable selection of wines and had food that I praised with such enthusiasm that I suspect the waitresses thought I was being sarcastic. It didn't have the hallmark of the truly great pub - a big sleepy dog lying in front of an open fire - but it was a home from home for a while; a big living room where I could happily spend my days, and often did.

This Summer, someone looked at my lovely Castle and decided it wasn't posh enough. They closed it for a month (a bloody month) and refurbished it so it now resembles a sort of stone temple. Don't get me wrong - it's very pretty, and there's all sorts of nice design features and the staff are still lovely. But I don't quite feel like I fit there any more. It's gone a bit dining-out-y. The prices have straightened themselves out and stretched a little higher, so now you can't really just pop in for tea, you have to consult Microsoft Excel first to check it won't compromise your credit rating.

Like I say, it's very nice there. It's just not... quite... me.

Me.

So there we go. Things that are 'meh' are a bit harder to think of. By definition, they drift out of the mind. My greatest fear is that I'll stop noticing that things are mediocre and accept them as good enough. Like that time I listened to 'No Line on the Horizon' and decided that some of the songs were OK after a few listens. No! They weren't! It was just that I'd got used to the banality of the whole album, and my standards had slipped. A few seconds of Nick Cave's 'Dig Lazarus! Dig!' put paid to that.

See you soon. for better and more enjoyable things.

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.

Star Wars Trivia - we're up to L

More important things about Star Wars that you simply need to know.

L

Lobot

Shiny headed, friend of Lando Calrissian and pioneer of the wraparound i-pod. His actual job was mysterious and vague, but I suspect he organised Lando’s exotic sex parties. In his spare time I imagine him singing four part harmony with three similarly bald men in Cloud City nightclubs. I’m not saying he was gay. I’m saying he was open to new ideas.

Lando Calrissian

Lovely moustache
And a cool swirling cape
Not to be trusted, though
Didn’t mention Vader’s presence on Cloud City.
Ought to have, really

Clearly fancied Leia
Although she didn’t look too impressed and
Later considered killing him for making her boyfriend all
Rigid
In Return of the Jedi he
Seemed to redeem himself at the
Sarlacc Pit
Into which he tossed
A wide variety of
No good villains

 
M
 

Mos Eisley



Most wretched hive
Of
Scum and villainy

Except it looks quite friendly for the most part
If you can cope with aliens with googly eyes
Stop in at the Cantina for a weirdly coloured drink or to
Lose an arm to an irate Jedi
Everyone’s welcome, except droids
You probably wouldn’t want to live there, unless you really , really like sand

Mon Mothma


Also known as ‘the other girl in the trilogy (if we don’t include the dancer girl who gets her norks out in the rancor pit)’. Quite why the original trilogy was so scared of female characters is hard to fathom. Except, as already discussed, we have many psychological representations of them throughout, what with all the pits and stuff. Oh, and I suppose there’s Aunt Beru. But she’s not exactly a looker, is she? Except when younger, in Clones. Owen must have been gutted that she turned out so mumsy. He still retained a kind of rugged charm in his older years, whilst I suspect that Beru smelt of milk.



It may become apparent by now that I don’t have much to say about Mon Mothma. She’s clearly in charge, as is Leia. Maybe the rebels all miss this mums, and just want someone to tell them what to do. Come to think of it, the Imperials don’t have any girls at all! No wonder they’re so cross.