Follicular Spectacular
Whichever way you slice it, four middle aged men singing anything with ‘sex’ in the title, while thrusting at the audience is never less than embarrassing.
Holy Extended Metaphor, Batman!
I tuned in for the curiosity value of seeing Mandy Patinkin of The Princess Bride, a cheery song-and-dance man by trade, as a brooding, softly spoken intellectual. We know he’s not your average plod, as he looks like a rumpled secondary school English teacher and quotes Samuel Beckett. Thus, Jason Gideon: a man for whom...
They Are The Soldiers of Fortune
Returning to our Rich-People-Are-Bad theme, (it’s a theme! More than one mention makes it a theme, okay?), and Simon Baker brings me to short-lived US legal drama The Guardian. He has nice hair and looks good in a suit. I’m biased. So, there. It seems someone at Britain’s Channel Five suffers from a similar fixation,...
Gutting the Gekko
It had to happen. Here’s a terribly topical Bankers-Are-Bad piece from acclaimed writer-director Dominic Savage, swiftly followed as I go to press by yet another (a glossier, more playful take in The Last Days of Lehmann Brothers). As such, I’d expect a piece like this to date badly at best, at worst sacrifice decent writing,...
The Process, The Process: Part 1
An occasional series on writers and writing on screen. Subjects for review and inappropriate metaphors gratefully received by message in a bottle, or pigeon-post.
Invading Iraq is Not a Euphemism
As a self-confessed coward, I’ve long held that war dramas fall into two camps. The first being the stirring, gung-ho King-and-Country, or indeed Uncle Sam flag-wavers, the second being ponderous Isn’t-War-Just-Awful finger-wagging, leavened by the occasional satire, and Tropic Thunder. Lacking stomach for either, I almost avoided the BBC’s superlative Occupation, a coruscating three-part series...
What? No Vampires?
It’s a fine tradition of this island nation that the late summer terrestrial television schedules will always be dire. For the most part the tradition continues apace this year. The Ashes and Big Brother 10674 or whatever notwithstanding, Psychoville provided a glint of hope. I’ve never been one for rhapsodising on the good old days...
The Danger of a Little Learning
Among the joys of possessing a modicum of education is some entitlement to the occasional smug glow. By long and devoted watching of ER and House, and paying a little attention in lectures along the way, I came to some grasp of what ‘v-tach!’ and ‘asystole!’ actually mean. Where I come from, terms seldom including...
Fax, Fairylights, Videotape!
As my very brief stint some years ago revealed, office work is neither glamorous, nor exciting. Filing categorically does not give rise to amorous trysts with the handsome executive. I didn’t even get to experience that sitcom staple, the boozy office party with bad karaoke and ill-advised photocopying. Not that you’d know it by noting...
Who Needs Napalm When You’ve Got Charlie?
When watching films about real events, recent enough to find people alive and in full possession of their faculties who were there, I find it best to maintain my carefully cultivated ignorance. For any insight makes it nigh on impossible to assess the film on its own merit. Or so I would have you believe....
Grown Up. Writer. Outlaw?
Remember that dappled, romantic notion of writerly living we discussed? Garrets, apples, dust motes, vellum, inkwells, and such. I’m struggling at present, feeling altogether too practical. The real world has a nasty habit of intruding at the most inopportune moments, as countless true-crime features can attest. My less convenient attacks of pragmatism often hit when...
Blond, Beautiful, Multiple
Despite the distinct lack of coalfaces, it’s a tough life being TV-land’s Mr. Handsome. There comes a point when it leaves the burdened actor with two possible routes. The Patrick Dempsey – as demonstrated by L’Oreal’s current barnet-for-hire and likely eternal bland romantic hero until the moisturiser stops working and botox beckons. Or, The George...
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