Movie Review - The Dictator

On exiting Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator, I decided to play a little Generation Game memory test, recalling as many of the broken taboos that had trundled past me during the previous hour and a half on this Conveyor Belt of Wrong...

Terrorism
Murder
Rape
Suicide Bombing
Torture
Childbirth
Racism
Sexism
Capitalism
Communism
Liberalism
Feminism
Homophobia
Disability
Masturbation
Blow Jobs
Defecation
Urination
Nuclear War
Megan Fox
Death*

Truly, there are no sacred cows in Sacha Baron Cohen's world: any subject is a suitable target for either satire or flat-out farce. Of course, Cohen and director Larry Charles would no doubt argue they're not making jokes about any of the sensitive issues above... they're making jokes about people's attitudes to them. Which is a very fine line to tread.

But none of that's for me to argue. The only question that mattered to me was this: Is it funny?

And, yes, I found The Dictator a very funny film.

Your own mileage may vary.



(*It occurs to me that this list may have a wonderful effect on my SEO rankings. But I guess that just goes to show the world's as screwed as Sacha Baron Cohen thinks it is... and if so, what else have we got left but to laugh?)

Book Review: Q, A Love Story by Evan Mandery

What is the point of this story?
What information pertains?
The thought that life could be better
Is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains

Evan Mandery won me over immediately by opening his latest novel with the above quote from Paul Simon's 'Train In The Distance'. It's one of my favourite lyrics, one that I've often heard rattling around my brain even when I've not listened to the song in ages. It pretty much sums up the human condition - if the human condition is a general dissatisfaction with one's lot.

The high concept of Q is pretty much unbeatable. The novel begins when the unnamed narrator meets Q (Quentina Elizabeth Deveril), the love of his life. They both fall head over heels and marriage seems inevitable... until our hero is visited by a future version of himself with a grim prophecy: marry Q and both your lives will be marred by unspeakable tragedy. Initially reluctant to accept this warning, the narrator is eventually convinced that breaking off their relationship will be best for them both. And so his life continues without Q... until he's visited by a different future version of himself with a new piece of life-changing advice. Each time he follows his future self's instructions, it's not long before another one pops up to set him off in a different direction entirely.

It's an excellent premise filled with comic possibility, and the final third of the book delivers upon this premise with both humour and heartache. Unfortunately, the first half does tend to ramble as the author goes off on the occasional entirely unnecessary tangent. You may want to skip the chapters taken from the hero's attempt to write an alternate history of Sigmund Freud's life: they do follow the book's overall theme but add nothing to the story itself and reek a little too much of vanity project. Some of the meandering comedy was also a little too faux-Woody Allen for my tastes: there were times I wanted to scream at Mandery to stop trying so bloody hard to be funny. But writing humour is the trickiest of talents to master and you may find these sections hilarious. It's a very subjective business, being funny.

All that said, I'd still hugely recommend Q for it's ingenious plot and the breathtaking drive of its final hundred pages. If you're a time travel buff like me, you'll want to know how it ends.

Movie Review: The Muppets

If, like me, you grew up with The Muppet Show, these little fuzzy felt characters will always hold a place in your heart. And if that's the case, the new Muppets movie gives you everything you could possibly want. A heartwarming backstory, perfectly pitched so that innocence overrules sentimentality thanks to the performances of Number One Muppet fan (and co-screenwriter) Jason Segel and Amy Adams and the songwriting talents of FotC star Bret McKenzie. Well-chosen celebrity guests (including Alan Arkin, Kristen Schaal and Jack Black - giving his best performance in years). A sneering villain with a maniacal laugh (Chris Cooper - he raps too). A Muppets tribute act featuring Dave Grohl filling in for Animal. And most of all... the gang themselves, doing what they always did best: putting on a show.

So we get Kermit fighting to maintain a brave face while everything falls apart around his little green ears. Miss Piggy being a stuck-up sow (in Paris, naturellement). Fozzie being hugely unfunny. The Swedish Chef going 'durstyburstywursty'. The chickens singing Cee-Lo Green. Gonzo jumping off a roof. (Actually, I could have done with more Gonzo.) Stadler & Waldorf being sarcastic old grumps. Beaker going 'mee-mee'... in a barbershop quartet rendition of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. In short, everything we laughed at till we weed 30 years ago... updated slightly with contemporary references, but not a jot of contemporary cynicism.

If you love the Muppets, you'll feel like a child again. If you don't love the Muppets... can I suggest medical help?

Book Review: I, Patridge by Alan Partridge

There were sections of Alan Patridge's autobiography (ghost-written by Rob & Neil Gibbons, Steve Coogan and Armanda Iannucci) which I found heartbreakingly sad. The foreword, for example, is little more than a bland employer's reference which describes our hero as "honest and trustworthy... a relatively good ambassador for the station... with an average of 1.5 sick days taken per year of employment". The joke, of course, is that for all Alan's supposed celebrity pals (Bill Oddie and Sue Cook among them), the best he can get anyone to write about the chronicle of his life is "I would have no hesitation in recommending him". That's funny, yes, but I also find it terribly pathetic (in all possible definitions of that word), and it's that pathos which makes the character of Alan Patridge more than just an egomaniac media monster. It makes him tragically real. Especially for someone who's worked in the awful industry of local radio where Alan has spent the majority of his career since he "shot a man through the heart with a gun" on the final episode of his ill-fated BBC TV chat show.

I, Partridge is a hilarious pastiche of the kind of woeful celebrity memoir that clogs the bestseller lists around Christmas, and like many such books it's most successful in the earlier chapters (revealing insight's into Alan's childhood) and the mid-section (the material already immortalised in Alan's various TV outings). The gags-per-page ratio drops towards the end as Alan's career slumps further into obscurity as mid-morning present on North Norfolk Digital (North Norfolk's Best Music Mix), but there are some very funny moments along the way and plenty of hideously overwitten prose. My favourite bit was the blackly comic role call of young Alan's first radio comrades, including...

Brian Golding. 'Bonkers' Bri combined a wacky sense of humour with a genuine mental illness and went on to co-host Drive Time on Signal Radio before killing himself in 1991.

There's something to Alan's pompous, self-important tone that makes me cringe for myself too. Reading his book comes a little too close to reading a really bad blog (say, for example, this one). He's even included his own playlist, to be enjoyed during specific chapters, featuring all the usual suspects (Midge Ure, Fleetwood Mac, Classix Nouveau, and, of course, Abba) having long since reached "a startling but unshakeable conclusion: no genuinely good music has been created since 1988". It almost me want to chuck in blogging and go find something less embarrassing to do with my time. Maybe we've all got a little bit of Alan in us...

Movie Review - The Guard

One of my favourite movies of recent years was In Bruges, in which Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play two feckless Irish hitmen laying low in Belgium after a job gone wrong. I haven't laughed so much at the cinema since the Dude and Walter went bowling. So I was excited by the prospect of The Guard which sees Gleeson back on familiar territory (and back in his Irish homeland) in a story from the same stable: writer / director John Michael McDonagh is the brother of Martin, who performed those same duties on In Bruges.

Gleeson plays an Irish Garda (police man) with a cynical, anti-establishment attitude and no time whatsoever for the American FBI Agent (a wonderfully deadpan Don Cheadle) invading his patch to investigate a billion dollar drug-smuggling operation. Gleeson is the sort of cop who steals drugs from the pockets of dead joyriders and books prostitutes for the weekend, while also caring for a terminally ill mother (a wry, sly, bone-dry Fionnula Flanagan). It's a tremendous, multi-layered performance and Gleeson gets all the best lines (unlike In Bruges, where Colin Farrell stole the show). Sometimes the western Irish accents were a little too thick for my cloth ears to catch every joke, but there's more than enough to go round and entertaining support from Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot and Mark Strong (who you might imagine would be too big for this sort of villainous bit-part nowadays - but I'm glad he's not).

It's a shame The Guard will suffer in comparison to In Bruges because set against any other recent comedy, it'd come out on top. It's good to see that the first McDonagh brother didn't nab all the movie-making talent... I'll be following them both from now on. Excellent use of John Denver in the closing credits too.

Movie Review - The Inbetweeners

A lot of movie comedies leave me cold. I find I enjoy the performances but wish the script could be sharper to match. The worst offender is often big screen adaptations of successful TV sitcoms. What works well in tight 30 minute slices often feels stretched and bloated to fill 2 hours. So I went into The Inbetweeners movie expecting the chuckles to be as sparse as the sexual conquests. Thankfully, the lads blew my expectations. This is one funny film... as long as The Inbetweeners is your kind of funny.

Like the TV show that spawned it, The Inbetweeners is immature, indecent, icky and idiotic. Much has been written about why the adventures of four sexist and sexually inept Sixth Formers should have captured the nation's heart so, but the reasons are obvious. We all knew lads like this at school - hell, many of us were lads like this at school... and probably still wish we could be. There's the pedantic geek (guilty), the lovestruck sap, the inveterate bullshitter and the big dumb oaf with a heart of gold. We all love a loser - because that's how most of us felt in high school. But by the time we hit the Sixth Form, we'd usually found our niche - and mates who'd stay with us forever.

Much of the Inbetweeners humour is near-the-knuckle or downright crude, but it's rarely cruel. It kicks political correctness in the goolies yet never feels offensive. Largely that's because our four straight white male heroes are buffoons, so we're laughing at their attitudes and opinions as much as their antics. And for all their gross-out sex-talk and objectification of women, the girls they encounter are usually smarter, sassier and cooler than any of the Inbetweeners could ever hope to be.

I never went on an 18-30 holiday with my mates, but this film is exactly how I'd imagine such an experience. (People I know who did say it's spot on.) It's hideous... yet also heartwarming. These are the very best of times, and the worst, and The Inbetweeners movie captures that sense of joyful camaraderie you'll either fondly recall from your schooldays... or wish wholeheartedly you could have experienced. Sprinkle liberally with graphic jokes about masturbation, deviation, regurgitation and defecation - plus lashings of humiliation - and it's an experience you'll remember for the rest of your life.

My only real complaint was that we didn't get more of Head of Sixth Form Mr. Gilbert. Greg Davies' opening speech must echo the unspoken thoughts of teachers across the land with its frank "I never liked any of you" message. Fortunately this isn't the very last we see of Mr. Gilbert... but maybe he could get his own spin off show now?

My Personal Apology To Bill Hicks (and you)

By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself.


No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.


Seriously though, if you are, do.


Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.

That's Bill Hicks there. In case you didn't know. And I do agree with him. Which is the worst kind of irony.

I've worked in advertising for over 15 years now, but that's the day job. I've always tried to draw a line between that and my private creative work. But I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, Bill... I'm weakening...

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."


Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!


"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing."


Goddammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!


"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that."

You may remember this post from a few weeks back wherein I got all self-righteous about not selling out, refusing to run advertising on this blog or suck the corporate teet.

Yeah, well, that was before the car ended up costing me £420 for a new flux capacitor. And there's a holiday coming up. And I haven't bought any new clothes since winkle pickers were in. Principles are one thing... holes in your shoes are another thing entirely. And it's not as though my creative side is reaping fortunes... so until it does...

Consider this post an apology. An apology to Bill Hicks, and an apology to you. Because you may notice a few subtle advertisingy things cropping up here from time to time over the next few weeks. Because I really need the money. Feel free to ignore them and just go on about your business. And try not to hate me too much...

How Not To Grow Up

Since I've already reviewed Stewart Lee's incisive dissection of stand up comedy, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, it seems only fair to take a look at what his former partner in crime, Richard Herring, is up to these days.

How Not To Grow Up (both titles begin with the word 'How' - obviously in tribute to Fred Dinenage) is a far more personal affair than Stewart Lee's book, but that's entirely what you'd expect if you're familiar with the former Fist Of Funners' work. While Lee was always the cool, detached one, Herring has made a career out of exposing his every foible to the spotlight. This then is the warts and all story of him turning 40 and the mid-life crisis that follows...

I couldn't be nearly 40, I still felt like I was 20... unless I was walking up some stairs. I couldn't be that old. My calendar must be malfunctioning. Surely it was just a couple of months ago that I left university to start my journey into the adult world. I felt like one of those unfortunate people who fall into a coma as a teenager and wake up to find that while they feel the same they have missed two decades of their life, their bodies have aged and the world has moved on without them. Except I hadn't fallen into a coma. I'd been awake for at least six hours a day, every day, for the last two decades. How hadn't I noticed the sands of time swirling away? Or that Margaret Thatcher was no longer Prime Minister?

I turn 39 this year, so the above doesn't just hit a nerve, it repeatedly pummels that nerve with a huge comedy mallet until it's begging for mercy. Much of this book echoes my own ongoing midlife crisis, and though painful and embarrassing for the writer, it is hugely cathartic for the reader. Herring is unflinching in his depiction of the cavalier, self-centred, responsibility-free life he leads - excessive drinking, casual sex, his desperate quest for a threesome, sitting on the sofa in his pants masturbating to internet porn at 3 in the afternoon (!) - but also bears his soul about the fact that this isn't the life he really wants. Somehow he manages to turn things around, and his journey will have you cheering... though by far the more interesting and amusing sections of the book are those featuring an unhappy narrator. When things finally start to go right for him in the last few chapters... well, who wants to read about somebody getting everything they want out of life? That's just bleedin' depressing...

How I Escaped My Certain Fate

The Sun calls Stewart Lee: "The worst comedian in Britain, as funny as bubonic plague."

If you needed any further reason to love him, consider also that one critic described my favourite comedian's act as being aimed exclusively at "atheist, comic book reading, Morrissey fan nerds."

Now I resent that remark. I'm not an atheist. I'm an agnostic. There's a big difference.

How I Escaped My Certain Fate is a book that may only be of interest to the group described above, but deserves to break out of that ghetto and take over the world. It consists largely of heavily annotated transcripts from the three big comeback shows Lee toured extensively in the latter part of the noughties, leading to his TV return on Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. I've seen all three shows live, and on DVD, so I know the material pretty well by now. And seeing it written down obviously loses much of the humour that comes from the Lee's desert-dry delivery. He even admits, "the text of a stand-up set should be so dependent on performance and tone that it can't really work on the page, otherwise it's just funny writing". And yet, I loved this book. Not so much for the jokes, but for the fascinating peek behind the jokes - the insights into how comedians build sets, where jokes come from, and how performers struggle to hold an audience's attention, or even sometimes willingly sacrifice that attention in order to make winning it back more of a challenge.

It also reads like a detailed and opinionated history of what was once called "alternative comedy" in the UK, from the late 80s to the present day, touching on both famous names and lesser known influences. And if you've ever wondered how and why certain comedians end up big TV stars while others keep plodding away in the clubs, Lee's book also lifts the lid on the hilarious inconsistencies of the commissioning process. In fact, if you're at all interested in comedy, you really ought to read this book... unless you agree with the Sun, in which case I believe Michael McIntyre has a new "bestseller" out with big writing and lots of pictures for you to colour in with your wax crayons and stuff.