Ambitiously Bad. Ambitiously bad. So , so bad, that it doesnt become good in some sort of ,ironic, cool way. It just stays bad.
Basically the idea of a 'time portal' has been introduced to what is essentially a blue peter christmas special where they try and act and the like. This 'portal' can come from any 'time' but for some reason is always from 'pimeval' times. get it? get it?!
So this literary device allows all manner of creatures and characters to enter the story lines no? No.
Apparently the only creatures around in 'primeval' times were essentialy what we have now but bigger. Spiders but big. Centepieds but big. So yeh, correction, the only creartures in primeval times were inscects that we have now, but big.
For me, a portal in a story is something id walk through. Not these guys. They are content to stare at it, as the various 'big' inscets that come throught it. Theres some story about this androdginous peter pan type character ( I think she was in s club 7 (I know she was in s club seven (S club seven was better than this)))
Next weeks trailer shows a diversification in the story writing technique and plot lines. Theres this crocodile right, but its like, fucking big! I mean, like a crocodile that we have now, but like, just fucking big you know?
The main 'hook' , if you can call it that, is the intraduction of a 'mystery'. This programme basically works by simulating excting , interesting televison, without actually having to dabble with any exciting, interesting material. A character stares into a portal and says " oh ellen, where are you, and what do you want?"
These are questions we as an audience are meant to ask. Testement to the series that its so weak we have to be told what it is that we are meant to be asking, and why it is we would ever spend actual seconds of life watching this programme again.
But shit ellen, where are you? And what do you want?
rating:
1 quite big spider out of 5 quite big spiders
Sunday, 18 February 2007
TV Review: Football Focus
First (and I mean 'First', there is no such thing as firstly, only secondly) I need to tell you I like football. My sporting shortfalls have not lead me to bitterly dislike all sport on the basis that i'm rubbish at most. I love football infact. The sport which I am least rubbish at. This isnt even an attack on an activity that I wish I could partake in, but for my pre-stated 'rubbishness'.
Football focus has title bars or idents that make make 'noise'. This is what we are dealing with here. A CGI 'block' bearing a name or place swooshes as it enters the field of vision. What the fuck? CGI doesnt make noise, it doesnt swoosh through air as it has no air to 'swoosh' through. I has nothing at all. It is nothing. I dont need a swoosh noise to understand a title. If anything it confuses the point. I feel I am being convinced that this is real. A real yellow block, name carved in, swooshed into shot, levitated beneath a 'pundit'. Oh shit, now I understand. Oh Shit.
The lack of actual information is ambitious. Take this wordy extract of an actual exchange between human beings on Football focus.
Stubby- So Lee, Learoy Lita is playing quite well isnt he? He has a lot of confidence and is getting a few goals too.
Sharpy (lee)- Yeh, Hes getting some goals, and hes got a lot of confidence too.
Rewind that overwhelming flurry of facts. Insight so deep it appears shallow. This is some post-modern analysis shit. I watched Derren Brown and he did this amazing thing through the programme. He had a whole audience in, full of celebrities and the like. He did a number of impressive 'mind control' tricks through a 45 minute performace. At the end he said "After this show finishes you wont remember anything that happened in it at all". True to say, after said show, a celebrity vox pop revealed none of them remebmered anything of what they had seen, some didn't even know where they were, but none could remeber a single event from the programme.
Derren Brown aint got shit on Football Focus.
Football focus has title bars or idents that make make 'noise'. This is what we are dealing with here. A CGI 'block' bearing a name or place swooshes as it enters the field of vision. What the fuck? CGI doesnt make noise, it doesnt swoosh through air as it has no air to 'swoosh' through. I has nothing at all. It is nothing. I dont need a swoosh noise to understand a title. If anything it confuses the point. I feel I am being convinced that this is real. A real yellow block, name carved in, swooshed into shot, levitated beneath a 'pundit'. Oh shit, now I understand. Oh Shit.
The lack of actual information is ambitious. Take this wordy extract of an actual exchange between human beings on Football focus.
Stubby- So Lee, Learoy Lita is playing quite well isnt he? He has a lot of confidence and is getting a few goals too.
Sharpy (lee)- Yeh, Hes getting some goals, and hes got a lot of confidence too.
Rewind that overwhelming flurry of facts. Insight so deep it appears shallow. This is some post-modern analysis shit. I watched Derren Brown and he did this amazing thing through the programme. He had a whole audience in, full of celebrities and the like. He did a number of impressive 'mind control' tricks through a 45 minute performace. At the end he said "After this show finishes you wont remember anything that happened in it at all". True to say, after said show, a celebrity vox pop revealed none of them remebmered anything of what they had seen, some didn't even know where they were, but none could remeber a single event from the programme.
Derren Brown aint got shit on Football Focus.
TV Review : The News
Hello you,
Seen that bit at the end of the late night news? That bit the late night newsreader strolls around giant newspapers which show the future. Oh yes friends, the future.
The guy gets up and walks in front of huge images of tomorrows newspapers and says 'lets have look at tomorrows newspapers'. Now, heres the important bit. He actually looks at them. He stares, right at where hes looking, looks at the letters towering above him, a finger point at a giant letter E perhaps. This is very important:
If the guy didnt point and turn himself to look at the massive floating manifestation of the newspaper from the future, we may confuse them for merely being the work of 'Blue screen' or 'Green screen' technology if you will. You know, where a guy stands in front of a giant empty blue area and images are digitally added to his environment on screen. He can't see them of course (of course!) and thats why its important that, on the bit at the end of the late night news, the guy points and actually looks at the giant papers, indicating that they are of course real, conjured from the future in jumbo size during the ad break.
So thats how you know the difference between mere 'Blue Screen' and Real Magic. Those guys know your not stupid. Interestingly enough that is part the reason that magic is now used to generate ludicrously big versions of future broad sheets. It was found that audiences just dint understand 'computa graffiks' or whatever, and so the idea of blue screen was too hard to grasp without paying a guy to look into nowhere as if 'twer reality.
Great thinking guys, but this didnt catch on as it's just plain silly to have a guy patronising a nationwide audience by looking at blue nothingness, pretending its big papers. So in December 2005 they just thought 'fuck it', and introduced life giant massive huge, quite big newspapers into the studio for real by magic.
Word
Seen that bit at the end of the late night news? That bit the late night newsreader strolls around giant newspapers which show the future. Oh yes friends, the future.
The guy gets up and walks in front of huge images of tomorrows newspapers and says 'lets have look at tomorrows newspapers'. Now, heres the important bit. He actually looks at them. He stares, right at where hes looking, looks at the letters towering above him, a finger point at a giant letter E perhaps. This is very important:
If the guy didnt point and turn himself to look at the massive floating manifestation of the newspaper from the future, we may confuse them for merely being the work of 'Blue screen' or 'Green screen' technology if you will. You know, where a guy stands in front of a giant empty blue area and images are digitally added to his environment on screen. He can't see them of course (of course!) and thats why its important that, on the bit at the end of the late night news, the guy points and actually looks at the giant papers, indicating that they are of course real, conjured from the future in jumbo size during the ad break.
So thats how you know the difference between mere 'Blue Screen' and Real Magic. Those guys know your not stupid. Interestingly enough that is part the reason that magic is now used to generate ludicrously big versions of future broad sheets. It was found that audiences just dint understand 'computa graffiks' or whatever, and so the idea of blue screen was too hard to grasp without paying a guy to look into nowhere as if 'twer reality.
Great thinking guys, but this didnt catch on as it's just plain silly to have a guy patronising a nationwide audience by looking at blue nothingness, pretending its big papers. So in December 2005 they just thought 'fuck it', and introduced life giant massive huge, quite big newspapers into the studio for real by magic.
Word
Film Review: Dr Dolittle (circa 1967)
This is a 60s documentary about a Doctor that can talk to animals. In it, Dave Dolittle (who went on to star in a number of musicals about his life) lets cameras in on his unconventional daily routine.
It at first appears quite intrusive and emotionally intense, the opening minutes are awkward and you kinda feel your seeing things you shouldnt do. Daves a great guy but obviously has some issues he needs to work through.
There are great scenes in which Dave Dolittle and his chimp, Chimpy, show off the great rapport they have developed over the years that they have spent sharing an office for the national health service. Heres an extract to whet your appetite:
Dr Dave Dolittle: (speaking in impossibly upper class accent, so strong it is bordering on speech impediment)
Chimpy!, bring me a mug off cocoa
Chimpy : appears obvioulsly distressed pulling at uncomfortable red dungaress Dave has dressed him in.
Dr Dolittle : why Chimpy, I asked for a mug of cocoa, this is simply your own faeces, and its a glass not a mug?
Great times. The documentary mainly focuses of Dave Dolittles relationships with the animals he claims he can speak to. There is a great scene involving a high speed car chase through Paris where Dave is actually chased by Robert DeNiro but the real magic remains between Dr Dave and Chimpy:
Dr D : Chimpy! Bring me my favourite pipe and smoking jacket, I need to think!
Chimpy: looks vacant while chewing a desk lamp.
Dr D : Chimpy, do you see what youve done there? this is simply your own
faeces on a party plate?
I recommend you see this film. Despite dry patches like when Yoda sends Dolittle to protect Amidala and your left with another boring CGI fight scene in which , predictably, Chimpy saves the day using Mauls double light sabre, the rest of the film is endearing and teaches you a lot about the way Man and Animal can live alongside one another in undersized dungarees.
It at first appears quite intrusive and emotionally intense, the opening minutes are awkward and you kinda feel your seeing things you shouldnt do. Daves a great guy but obviously has some issues he needs to work through.
There are great scenes in which Dave Dolittle and his chimp, Chimpy, show off the great rapport they have developed over the years that they have spent sharing an office for the national health service. Heres an extract to whet your appetite:
Dr Dave Dolittle: (speaking in impossibly upper class accent, so strong it is bordering on speech impediment)
Chimpy!, bring me a mug off cocoa
Chimpy : appears obvioulsly distressed pulling at uncomfortable red dungaress Dave has dressed him in.
Dr Dolittle : why Chimpy, I asked for a mug of cocoa, this is simply your own faeces, and its a glass not a mug?
Great times. The documentary mainly focuses of Dave Dolittles relationships with the animals he claims he can speak to. There is a great scene involving a high speed car chase through Paris where Dave is actually chased by Robert DeNiro but the real magic remains between Dr Dave and Chimpy:
Dr D : Chimpy! Bring me my favourite pipe and smoking jacket, I need to think!
Chimpy: looks vacant while chewing a desk lamp.
Dr D : Chimpy, do you see what youve done there? this is simply your own
faeces on a party plate?
I recommend you see this film. Despite dry patches like when Yoda sends Dolittle to protect Amidala and your left with another boring CGI fight scene in which , predictably, Chimpy saves the day using Mauls double light sabre, the rest of the film is endearing and teaches you a lot about the way Man and Animal can live alongside one another in undersized dungarees.
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