My Life At The Movies

[alexsarll]

"Mayor supports conference to examine improving access for women to drug and alcohol", says the email, and I start spitting blood about the discrimination and the grammar. But once I click it open and the title de-bolds, it's "drug and alcohol treatment". Phew!

Tesco do a very passable claret for less than the price of most London pints. Sometimes economising can be fun.

Caught a few more minutes of According to Bex. The tragedy is that with a minor script edit, a decent director and slightly better filming, this could be funny. As is, it's just upsetting. Bob Mortimer's new quiz show is probably dire (Have I Got News For You were it based on Heat rather than the papers) but with Stephen Fry as a guest, this episode can't fail. Especially when he correctly guesses that Rachel Stevens has webbed feet without even knowing who she is, before claiming to have bummed Charlie Eyebrows and two of McFly. Once the panel start imitating the noises Professor Robert Winston might make at the moment of climax, I realise: this is LJTV.

I'm sure I've already raved about the brilliance of Dodgeball on here, but as one would expect from the Ben Stiller set, who always seem devoted to detail, it's even better on DVD. It has the best spoof commentary track I've ever hear - at least, I hope it's a spoof. The deleted and extended scenes are delightful; even the featurettes are unusually watchable. There are two alternate endings, about which I shall say little, except that I think part of me prefers the original, part the extended, and none the 'actual' ending.

Toy with the idea of heading out to see Alexander, but instead opt to spend an evening in with the demise of his legacy: Cleopatra. I believe that, adjusted for inflation, this is still one of the most expensive films ever made. But bloody hell, you can see where the money went. Essentially, they rebuilt the great cities of antiquity, and paid actors then-ludicrous sums to resurrect the inhabitants. Even though it forms part of the Burton/Taylor saga, one never sees Burton and Taylor, only Antony and Cleopatra. And somehow, even though they're covering ground Shakespeare covered without benefit of his lines, even his ghost doesn't overshadow proceedings. At four hours or so, it's ought to sag, but while one does need a break, it never grows tedious. I'd love to see it as the two three-hour installments Mankiewicz intended. A truly great film.

Team America: World Police is easily enjoyed as a big stupid parody of big stupid action films. However, most of the critics seem to have missed the point, as critics will for after all, they are not me. Several reviews have suggested that the absence of a Dubya puppet represents some failure of nerve; but frankly, do we need to see another bumbling spoof Dubya? He's already a joke. Put him in the film and it would overbalance; far funnier to mock the gung-ho tactics of his less obviously risible supporters. As for the accusation that the film wastes its value as satire by attacking *everyone* - did these people not listen to the speech about d1cks, pussies and assholes? All three categories deserve to be mocked. The terrorists, the pacifists and the neo-cons are three different flavours of fool; a film which came down in favour of any of them would just be another polemic. Terrifyingly, that speech is the best assessment I've yet seen of the current political landscape.
And I was glad that I wasn't just imagining the statue blinking.

Comments

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

I want to see Alexander this week, if only for the Dublin accents.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think this week is pretty much Last Chance To See, anyway.

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

Dammit, there are so many films I wanna see this week!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Are the others likely to hang around longer, though?

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

Well yes, but ideally I don't want to go further than Wood Green. Fortunately, I have two cinemas to choose from. I'll watch Alexander this week, maybe see TA:WP and can see Ray next week. Wouldn't mind seeing Sideways at some point, and then Meet the Fockers is out, although it looks average at best.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, TA:WP should have at least another week and Ray will be around for ages.

[my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com]

i only saw a big of life according to bex, and was disappointed by it.
chewing gum for the eyes, as a character in a much better sitcom said.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It's tragic, an attempt to turn Daisy into a new Bridget Jones. The thing is, Jessica S *can* act other parts - she was great as the evil fag hag in Bob and Rose - but here all they're doing is turning her best-known part mainstream, and thereby removing its whole point.

Take two

[thermaland.livejournal.com]

I've never missed a point.

I've let some get away out of humanity.

[wardytron.livejournal.com]

Tesco do a very good Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon for a scandalously inexpensive £2.99. My nearest Tesco is in Hove, a good 10-15 minutes walk away, but I sometimes put the time to good use by composing livejournal entries. I suppose if it was a bit closer everyone would be better off.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Really I think Brighton should have campaigned for Tesco status before city status.

[violentbec.livejournal.com]

man, i did really want to see the fillum but brokeness + fear of night busses + tiredness = stay at home and go to bed at 9:30.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't worry about it - last night aside, my own weekend was fairly reclusive. That's what January's for.

[666inmyheart.livejournal.com]

Bless, my Dad just put a little extra money in my bank account so I could buy a halfway decent bottle of wine, but with your money saving tips, I can buy a bottle of wine and a ready meal! Thank you barrysarll and wardytron!

xx

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

We're not just here for the nasty things in life!

[azureskies.livejournal.com]

You may be right, but I still think it's better as a gung-ho Hollywood satire. As I've said in numerous other places, the Montage song is absolutely superb. As is the Team America Theme.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

'Montage' was re-used from the skiing episode of South Park, but still ace, yes.
I think its beauty is that it's a satire on gung-ho Hollywood, liberal Hollywood and terrorists, *plus* lots of cheap sex&vom gags, all at once, without any of these angles getting in each other's way.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

sounds like a team expedition to see this fillum will be a necessary part of next weekend.

[innerbrat]

Pearl Harbor Sucks had us in stitches, as did the mopey wailey version of the theme.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

TA:WP mocks dicks less than it mocks pussies and assholes, that's my problem with it. Calling them "dicks" isn't really that savage a piece of criticism if you're also going to paint them as being broadly right. Which I think the film did, frankly.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Does it? Their actions "p1ss off the entire world". They blow up whole cities in order to 'save' them. Most of them talk deliberate cr@p throughout the film - "sometimes it's important just to believe". They're hardly role models. I think all three factions are presented as utterly unpalatable - which is about right.

[innerbrat]

It really depends if you think destroying the Eiffel Tower, l'Arc de Triumph and the Louvre within thirty seconds is broadly right, really.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

So Americans cause a bit of property damage while saving the world - it's better than letting the terrorists win, right?

No one in the team gets a slapped wrist for creating the amount of collateral damage they do, and to be brutally honest I don't think the average American gives two damns about the Louvre.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

And as such, the average American viewer is also one of the targets. Hell, I bet lots of them don't know who Kim Jong Il or Hans Blix are either. much less appreciate how accurate the puppet of Japan's premier is.

[thermaland.livejournal.com]

I suspect that Parker & Stone are a bit miffed because they made fun of Saddam throughout his wilderness years, and then Bush has actually gone and removed him so now they are trying to big up Kim. Mind you, the Onion did a similar feature a couple of years ago, where Kim is having a hissy fit because Bush just won't pay as much attention to him as to Irak "Hello? I actually HAVE WMDs and I am testing them openly. Can I be any clearer???" etc...

[innerbrat]

The kind of American who would recongnise satire if it hit them on the head with a dictionary and said "Hi, I'm Satire," does. It's the fucking Louvre, for chrissakes. If the Team got a 'slapped wrist', the overall message that 'America can get away with anything, no matter what the morality of it' is going to be lost.

The American who doesn't give two damns, isn't going to understand that being a dick is wrong if you paint it across his whitewashed fence in the blood of soldiers. This American isn't the target audience of the film, anyway. After all, he's the guy Matt and Trey are satirising.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that you seem so certain that the gung-ho American isn't the target audience of the film, and that people like you are. Imagine you are a gung-ho American, and you go to see TA: you're going to cheer as the cheese-eating surrender monkeys get their capital roundly trashed, you're going to break into spontaneous applause as all the bleeding heart Hollywood faggots get theirs. In short, you're going to believe that a sensitive lefty European isn't the target audience of the film: after all, he's the guy Matt and Trey are satirising.

Then again, if the alternative is a sanctimonious mess like Fahrenheit 9/11, maybe we're better off with equal-opportunity mockery after all...

[innerbrat]

Actually, although I saw a whole lot of sensitive lefty American satirisaton, I don't remember a sensitive lefty European being satirised, any more than I saw reasonable Americans getting the treatment.

And actually, I did break into appaluse when all the bleeding heart Hollywood publicity whores that don't understand a word of the shit they spew got theirs, but that's just me.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

No, that wasn't just you.

[moleintheground.livejournal.com]

It was a very silly film, which didn't really say anyone was right, and had puppets doing a 69.

The key thing here is very silly and also "Hans Brix? Aww no! Oh, herro. Great to see you again, Hans."

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't argue with any of this. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think the film's services to silliness are a lot greater than its services to satire, is all.