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CTerry1985
Reviews
Sherlock: Undercover Dog (1994)
Absolutely indefensibly terrible in the best possible way
Sherlock Bones is the heartwarming tale of a small boy, his potentially dangerous father, his veterinarian love interest (who wears a lab coat in the one scene of her working, for the next three scenes, and then never again in the entire movie), her incredibly badly acted miscreant child, a talking dog, and an entire cast and crew of people who make a series of misjudged decisions after another.
Sherlock Bones is bad. Very, very bad. It is not the sort of bad of the Pearl Harbor breed of terribleness however, where one is left spinning in an ocean of the terrible wondering when the sheer horror will end. No, Sherlock Bones is the kind of hilarious bad that provokes the kind of laughter that physically stops you breathing at the inane stupidity of what you are watching. It is a special thing when two children and their talking dog buddy need to chase down someone, so the dog somehow transports itself into the driver's seat from where it declares, apparently without irony, "Get in! I'll drive!". The hilarity of this particular moment is only increased by the dog's neckerchief and eyepatch (yes, really) and 'Scottish' accent. When told he cannot drive the dog simply responds that he is forty-seven. The hilarity of this scene was so much that we repeatedly had to rewind it to soak in the sheer brilliance of this scene as tears streamed down my face.
In short: DO watch this movie IF you and a few friends want to watch a truly terrible movie in order to riff on an artifact of 1990s horror the likes of which has never been seen. DON'T watch this movie if you expect to in anyone enjoy it on an unironic level. ESPECIALLY DON'T show this movie to your kids if you don't want them to grow up to hate you.
Nobody's Watching (2006)
Some time to develop and a possible cult classic.
I'm a big fan of Scrubs. I find its brand of surreal humour mixed with real heart is, in my opinion, one of the better, more original things on modern TV, so when I heard about 'Nobody's Watching' I ran off to see it. Basically in April of 2005 Bill Lawrence, creator type fella of Scrubs, teamed up with two writers from family guy and created this here pilot. The pilot was rejected by the WB ,however in June of 2006 the pilot was leaked onto youtube, and on the basis of the positive reaction NBC has commissioned it as a series.
First the basic concept. Nobody's Watching follows two fellas who have been best friends since they were six, uptight Derrick and free-wheeling fatherless Will. They send in a video to network execs the country over bemoaning the lack of quality of recent sitcoms. As such they are invited by two WB execs slick-as-an-oil-spill Jeff and quiet Roy to create a sitcom of their own, with a catch. They are being filmed while they create it. They are part of a (fake) reality TV show. This is taken to the point of having them live on a sitcom set, with a bedroom set, an office set, a lounge set, and most jarringly, a live studio audience. They quickly hire an assistant, motivated and pushy Jill, and after a short while hire clichéd blonde bombshell with a heart, Mandy. Of course there's a catch. Wily Jeff is up to no good to boost the ratings of the reality show.
The first show this reminded me of was Scrubs. This is perhaps hardly surprising considering the main brain behind both is Bill Lawrence. Firstly Roy is played by Scrub's semi-recurring character Dr. Zeltzer, and Roy is obviously designed exactly for the same actor, Roy is practically a clone of Zeltzer. Not that is a bad thing, Zeltzer (and Roy) are both very amusing, especially when paired off, as in this case, with an arrogant moral vacuum. The relationship between Will and Derrick also reminded me of Scrubs, two best friends who are that close is something Bill Lawrence has wrote and handled very well in Scrubs, especially when one is far more ready to express his emotions than the other.
The second show this reminded me of was the Office, with Nobody's Watching filmed in a same mockumentary style with characters who acknowledge, speak to, and look at the camera based on the premise of a reality show, but Nobody's Watching is somewhat out of the box even in these relatively new realms. It is day one and the show is already self-referential and postmodern with characters who actually acknowledge their own studio audience. The show pulls in a slew of sitcom references, and a spat of cameos (I count four in the pilot) adding in the pop culture references so beloved by Scrubs and Family Guy alike. At the same time the show manages to be both a tribute and a mockery of the traditional sitcom format, in the same way that Futurama both praises and mocks Science-Fiction.
All in all I liked Nobody's Watching, with a couple of caveats. Firstly the studio audience seemed to encroach on the show somewhat at some points. In the same way as early Scrubs was originally chock a block of cartoonish sound effects I hope that they will be dialled down a bit too, on repeated viewings I noticed them less and less. Secondly I found that the characters were perhaps not quirky enough, in that while Scrubs characters each come with a slew of running gags these characters only have wisecracks. That said these things take time to develop and the Scrubs characters were pretty bland at first as well. They need to be allowed to develop.
Lost (2004)
Sometimes shows really do live up to the hype.
We Brits being the unlucky fellas we are only just got the 1st season of Lost. Unlike our American buddies across the pond we've been without Lost for quite some time, but on Wednesday it hit our screens. Few Brits probably failed to notice Lost. Channel 4, on which the show is airing, has demonstrated an ability of marketing beyond which I've never seen. Marketing for Lost was a feat in itself. As well as the mandatory blanket television coverage, there were newspaper ads, and I even had to explain to my sister what it was after she saw it advertised in the cinema (she'd thought it was some kind of movie) I have to say I don't normally go in for hype, but I was anticipating Lost. I'm of a belief that seems to be somewhat lacking in many circles, that television is going through a sort of renaissance, in particular American television. Recently we have been treated to the joys of Six Feet Under, the Sopranos, Nip/Tuck, Scrubs, and more. The US television market is positively heaving with creative, well written television. Lost seemed noteworthy, not least because it comes from the writer of Alias. I was never a huge Alias fan (my sister is) in my hectic life I never seem to have the time to get into a show like Alias, by the time I was interested in it, it was several seasons in, and with a serialised show like Alias you really need to watch from the start. Here was my redemption from Alias.
Channel 4 aired the first two episodes of Lost on Wednesday, followed by the third on E4 (its sister channel) later that night. I must say, I am genuinely impressed. I had heard that Lost's first episode was the most expensive pilot ever made. I am not surprised. The show looks amazing. The first sequence greets us with all the glory of the aftermath of the plane crash which has stranded 48 people on an island. An incredible display of pyrotechnics happens as a man stands in front of a jet engine and then WOOSH is shot right up into it, causing it to explode. Later on Our Heroes(TM) search for the cockpit, where they think they can get the transceiver and call for help. The set for the cockpit itself is incredibly impressive.
Lost is a show that does not waste itself on background details either. There are 48 passengers and while each and every one obviously can't be a star there is a genuine feeling that each and every one has a story to tell. The characters are fully fleshed out from the get go. Flawed, well rounded individuals, as is the mark of post-millennium American TV. Personally I think my favourite will turn out to be Sayid, an ex-member of the Iraqi Republican Guard. There's a wonderful duality to this character, and it will be interesting to see what becomes of him.
But the Swiss Family Robinson this ain't, while Lost does get down to the business of the aftereffects of the crash there is a Big Bad Menace(TM) on this particular island, who apparently can move trees, pull men out of cockpits and throw them across large distances. There's also a polar bear, which has apparently decided to take a summer holiday to a nice warm climate in the South Pacific. Lost is mysterious, you get the feeling that this is going to be like the X-Files. Every mystery unveiled will unleash new mysteries, digging deeper and deeper. However the X-Files had a vital flaw. The X-Files never provided any real payoff. Even at the finale the X-Files was still mysterious, much not explained. I found this somewhat... irritating. It was almost as if mystery was being held for the purposes of mystery rather than as a part of some grand master plan. Alias does have a bit of a grand master plan feel to it, as does Lost, even when you're only 3 episodes in. Teasers of future plot lines dot the landscape tantalising yet difficult to figure out.
There is a dark side however. I mentioned a renaissance in TV earlier, but those shows that have come from the US and shown real promise, Scrubs, Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck, hell even Buffy, have all had one thing in common. None of them are 100% grounded in reality. Well no show is 100% grounded in reality. Reality is boring and needs to be made exciting by a team of scriptwriters, but there's a certain unworldly appeal to all of them. This is escapism, great escapism, but escapism nonetheless. Lost is just another show, disconnected from real life in a sea of disconnected shows.
Scrubs (2001)
Just Sublime Surrealism
Being a Brit I've always had a disdain for American comedy. It seems to the British role in life, to look down on American television. I've enjoyed American comedies in the past. Frasier, the Simpsons, Futurama, but while funny they never seemed to reach the heights of Monty Python, Men Behaving Badly or more recently the Office. American comedy seemed to consist almost entirely of either sitcoms which were all pretty much the same (usually to some degree cloning the latest hit- Friends, or Cheers or whatever) or, more recently MTV programs which consist of people hurting themselves repeatedly, which is funny for all of 5 seconds in my experience.
While there are certainly some genres that Americans do better (British sci-fi is pretty much confined exclusively to Doctor Who and Red Dwarf, which is more a sitcom) and the emerging genre of 'Dramedy', straight comedy didn't seem to be one of them. I have now eaten my hat.
Scrubs is beautiful, sublime, comedy. The show itself is basically one long mickey-take of pop culture. Pop culture is lampooned at every available opportunity, from an episode where Erasure's 'A Little Respect' gets into everybody's head ("That song is like a virus!" says Turk) to JD imagining he's The Fonz when he wants to magically heal a patient, to Ted the Lawyer's band: 'The Worthless Peons' who cover various theme tunes (my personal favourite being the cover of the 'Six Billion Dollar Man' theme tune) Not only does Scrubs lampoon, it lampoons Simpson-like in a variety of ways. There's slapstick (JD is pretty much guaranteed to get hurt in some fashion every few episodes) there are Dr. Cox's long rants on life, the universe and everything, or JD's ever surreal, splendid and overall hilarious dream sequences.
Scrubs is a bizarre and often highly surreal program. Yet it is also often very realistic. My mum works in a hospital, albeit as a receptionist, but ER it ain't. Scrubs is highly realistic in that almost all the patients are elderly for example. The program also happens to be based on a friend of the Producer's called 'John Doris' so that several of the sequences are real (for example hiding in a closet in the pilot) The characters are all beautifully crafted. All interesting in there own way with their own particular quirks that make them worthy of laughter, from JDs nerdiness, Turk's dances, Todd's double entendres, Carla's bossiness, Dr. Cox's rants, or the absolute evil of Doctor Kelso.
The actors portray their characters wonderfully, and the large supporting cast (with a couple appearing so often they're practically fully fledged cast members) is amazing.
The writing is incredible too, and it's a real tribute to the actors and the writers that it is often difficult to tell what is scripted and what is improvised.
Yet this program has heart too. I'll be the first to say that sometimes the 'moral of the week' is basically rammed down your throat, but the show does have a genuine heart, and I was not surprised to hear it won a Humanitas award.
In conclusion, a fantastic show. I just lent my mate my first season box-set today, and I am already in withdrawal. I've just pre-ordered Season 2.
Six Feet Under (2001)
The Greatest Thing since Super Nintendo, or whatever the modern equivalent of sliced bread is.
Six Feet Under is my favourite show by a long way.
The show can roughly be cut into three pieces- Season 1 and 2, Season 3, and Season 4.
Running through all 3 pieces is a common thread. That of death. The first two seasons play on this especially, the Fishers are a grieving family still in these seasons. Every death serves as a reminder of what they've lost, the only father they'll ever have. But death is also a metaphor, a metaphor for change, for rebirth, and the show steeps us in these too. Characters are essentially flawed but heart warming. The show is bleak, and yet raises our hopes about death. It is quirky, funny, and yet insightful. Characters are put through the full gamete of human emotions, with no details shared. At the start of the fourth season Nate and David pick up Nate's dead wife's body. They place the body in the back of their funeral car and suddenly it hits them- the smell from her decayed remains. They hurriedly draw down their windows to get some fresh air. Here we have SFU at its best. Little details, that show the true grittiness and realism of the scene.
The first two seasons are about death, about family and about living with deaths consequences. I personally feel that the first season is one of the greatest seasons of television ever produced. Season 2 does not quite stay up to Season Ones standard, but, nonetheless it remains the best thing on television. Season 3 was, I felt, sublime. Season 3 is much more complex, much more bleak, and much slower paced. Many fans see Season 3 as the start of a SFU down-slide in quality. I disagree, Season 3 is about change, I believe in change. Expecting SFU to remain the exact same show throughout is essentially silly. Having SFU remain friends like, in a sort of stasis field of the status quo for 10 years (lets be practical! How much on Friends ever actually changed?) is unrealistic and impractical. Its a big change however, and I do not blame those who dislike it. Season 3 encapsulates Six Feet Under, and yet changes it massively. Nothing is quite the same, and yet it is. I believe one of the producers said of this season "The more things change, the more they stay the same" I loved Season 3. /Season 4 on the other hand. Season 4 is considered to be the ultimate stagnation of SFU. I disagree, I do not however believe Season 4 is in the same league as the first three seasons. Claire's new friends are irritating, and Russell, even more so, which is a shame because I genuinely liked Russell before hand. I did like Edie, but that's it, and I did feel the whole 'Claire's never had an orgasm' thing was a teeny bit silly, considering how much sex she's had in the series (though I did note that it was all with adolescent inexperienced men, so I suppose it's not too much of a stretch) but the Edie attraction was done well, with genuine chemistry between the actresses involved I felt. Nate was irritating too. For a man who's just lost a wife we certainly didn't hear much about her. I was glad to see him and Brenda back together and all, but the way they did it was irritating I felt, and Brenda's character is almost a shadow of her former self. I know she's supposed to be atoning and all but it would be nice to see some of the old fun loving Brenda back (I have hopes that in Season 5 Brenda will go a bit wild again). That said, those parts that deal with his grief over Lisa were fantastic. Especially that part of the finale. David and Keith were alright. David's attack was probably the best part of the fourth season. 'That's my Dog!' was easily the best episode of Season 4. The rest of it was.... alright. Nothing too inspiring, nothing too irritating. And Ruth, well I personally found her marriage to George somehow anti-climatic, it took too long to get anywhere IMO.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (2005)
Why I love the BBC
Recently I've been wondering if the BBC was losing its knack for well-acted, insightful drama. Watching this show has re-affirmed my trust that my license fee is being spelt well.
The mini-series follows three people in the Midnight Bell pub in the 1930s (not the 1940s as another person said. The Book was published in 1935) Bob, a waiter, Ella, a barmaid, and Jenny, a customer.
The first episode follows Bob, Jenny is followed in the second, and Ella is followed in the final piece, following Patrick Hamilton's trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels of which this is based upon.
In this modern age of fast paced, snappy action this mini-series may seem slow and bogged down by dialogue, but it takes not too long to realise the immense gravitas being drawn from all three of the actors involved.
30s London is recreated fantastically. It is a land of mundane routine and dull working class blandness, where people go about their lives wishing they could be more but never achieving it.
I found it very fascinating that Patrick Hamilton himself was infatuated with a prostitute at one stage, and therefore Bob is a mirror of him, and Jenny of her, because of this the series takes on a gritty, realistic edge. The dialogue is blunt, yet with the manner of the 1930s. There is an excellent scene in the first episode where Jenny and her friend Violet talk about proper manners, hardly what you'd expect from a pair of prostitutes.
Jenny is extremely flawed, and during the first episode you even get the feeling that she's simply not a nice person. Of course in real life, and in the book things simply aren't that simple, and the second episode exemplifies this, demonstrating exceptionally well why Jenny is the way she is.
In summary this is a fantastic piece of drama, and I will certainly be watching more of BBC 4 in the future.
Top Gun (1986)
Missing Something
When I first saw Top Gun my first reaction was "Hmm... that was missing something" it took my 5 seconds to realise that what this film is missing is a plot. You may think I'm exaggerating here, but in my opinion this is one of the most overrated piles of garbage ever filmed. This film has one saving grace- the plane sequences. Honestly, buy a DVD player, a big screen TV, some really nice surround sound and then skip all the scenes featuring any attempts at plot, because in all honesty they don't try very hard. The acting is just bad. Wooden, and without any emotion whatsoever. There is absolutely no chemistry in the romance, and the plot is, in short, rubbish. Honestly, there is no virtue in it whatsoever.
In short don't see this movie if you can any sense of acting or plot writing.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Laugh out Loud Funny
Dodgeball is immature, Dodgeball is stupid, Dodgeball is childish, Dodgeball has all the plot and character of a movie so bad that it should have been made by the folks that did Charlies Angels 2.
Yet Dodgeball is a great movie. Why? Its just non-stop funny. Its not insightful, its not clever, it just kept me laughing constantly. And as its a comedy thats pretty much what I want. The characters are just hilarious, whether its Patches O'Hollahan (or however you spell it) or Steve the Pirate they all made me laugh as soon as they spoke. The only weak link for me was Dwight, but he hardly appears in the movie so meh.
If you don't want anything taxing, but want something utterly hilarious start to finish. See this movie.