American Pie: Reunion

From previous posts, you may know that I dislike it when people bleed a franchise for everything it's worth, and the American Pie franchise has seen it's fair of bleeding. Namely Band Camp, Naked Mile, Beta House and Book of Love (Shame on you Eugene Levy, even though he apparently did the DVD ones on the cheap).

So excuse me if I was a little blasé when it came to American Reunion, or the 65 other slight variations on that title. It looked generally more of the same as the first 3 (and maybe the DVD ones, I haven't seen anything bar the first), same characters, same setting etc, could work, may not... It was also billed as the 4th in the series, excommunicating the straight to DVD stuff. Ha!

But it looked worth watching, purely for an element of nostalgia, and the wife wanted to see it too so bingo, we're off.

                  

Some of it felt tired (hmm I wonder if Jim'll end up in an awkward situation... oh yeah, there he goes) and to be fair the film was exactly what you'd expect, almost frame for frame. Some of it felt... wrong (no spoilers). However that isn't necessarily an entire negative, as it was easy and familiar to watch and enjoyable throughout. But please don't make any more.

Oh and why was Oz not mentioned in the 3rd film at all, not even a breath, he vaguely mentions it here but still...

Oh and there were tits, of course there were tits it's american pie. Oh and Jason Biggs cock (or stunt plastic variation). No pie though... but well worth seeing.

Battle: Los Angeles and How To Lose Friends & Alienate People

Over the last couple of nights I've been flexing my blu-ray muscles and have rented a couple of films I quite wanted to see ion the cinema but me 'n' the wife (got used to saying that now, it just kinda rolls off!) never got round too it.

Thanks to a few (rapidly expiring) blockbuster vouchers we have from when we bought the player we went down and picked up, Battle: Los Angeles and How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, two slightly different films no doubt.

Well first up was Battle: Los Angeles.

I quite like my alien invasion sci-fi films (shocking I know), Independence Day is overly cheesy but remains a favourite to this day, I even quite liked the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds... sorry. I was expecting a cliché ridden, over the top, 'Go America!' film, with minimal character development and stuff blowing up all over the place, ending with a initial victory for mankind but looked like it would result in overall glory.

Got what I was expecting.

It's by no means a bad film, the predictable plot and the flag waving patriotism are hallmarks of a bad film no doubt, but I didn't go in thinking it was going to get many screenwriters guild nominations. After a bit of a slow start, which set up many of the clichés from the outset (1 guy close to retiring, 1 guy's wife having a baby so fighting to protect it etc) it is action packed, the constant action to action movement with the narrative done in the lulls was very video game in it's style, shame then the game of the film, as with so many film tie ins, sucked ass.

The acting was very standard for the genre, I'm pretty sure Aaron Eckhart's jaw has never been so square for so long ever before, and (unless there's a sequel of course) wont be ever again. But overall I think the film worked on most of the levels it went after, stuff blew up, mankind started to win, a good time was had by all. I've made it sound like a very by-the-numbers 3 star film, and yes I think that's fair enough and sometimes that's all you want from a film.

Second, and on the following night, was a British film, ropey territory for a start, set in America How To Lose Friends & Alienate People.

For which I didn't really know what my expectations were. I'd wanted to see it purely as Simon Pegg was the lead and he's usually pretty good, but had never got round to it. From the box office (quite a heavy loss) I wasn't the only one.

Turn out this film was pretty good. I wasn't aware of the support cast, but to be fair once they were on screen they were mostly good, Megan Fox (who was awful, but it suited this part), Kirstin Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson, Danny Huston, Bill Patterson, even 2 of the 3 leads from the IT Crowd, Miriam Margoyle and James Cordon were in it.

It was mildly funny where necessary, I didn't think all the slapstick was really required, but it kept the film moving along. It got quite predictable towards the end when it was always easy to see who would end up as the love interest, but it was a good watch. Pegg was very good, Dunst was good as she tends to be in a more supporting role (E.g. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Bridges was a little subdued but was funny on a number of occasions.

Bonus - no game to slate, it'd be awful anyway, just assume.

Battle: Los Angeles took better advantage of the blu-ray looking better, but then it's an sci-fi slash action film not a comedy, it would!

Of the two, it's hard to compare, but if it came down to watching one or the other again, I'd go for How to Lose Friends. It just worked better as a story, as it actually had a concrete not 100% predictable one. Go watch, if enough people do, it may one day break even!

Dara O'Briain

...or at least I think that's how you spell it!

I've got a very odd sense of humour, and as a result of this, there are very very many mainstream type comics that do nothing for me. MacIntyre? Annoying. Brigstoke? Blah. Addison? Meh? Djalli? Murray? Sorry, not for me, etc.

However, I do like a rather odd selection of 'funnymen', Jasper Carrott has always made me laugh, Daniel Kitson was the funniest Stand up show I've ever seen and of late Dara O'Briain has become quite popular!

I've always known Dara from stuff like Mock the Week, QI, Have I got News for You, all programs that can be very hit and miss but generally are worth the effort of watching. He's always come across as funny, quite intelligent and generally quite interesting. Something vital on these type of panel shows as unless you stand out, whether acting as presenter or panel show member, you do tend to just blend in and end up leaving no real impression (Unless you're Ian Hislop, then I just think you're a cock).

He was one of the first people I 'followed' (not a fan of the phrase...) on twitter and generally on there he's equally as witty and interesting, all boded well!

A few years of consistent merriment and I decided to acquire his DVD, This is the Show, after all who doesn't love Tits. I can't say I paid for it, it was Christmas time and the always lovely wife (almost!) provided me a copy in shiny wrapping paper, we watched it and I was impressed by both his levels of geek (also very present on twitter) and of course the routine. It remains one of my favourite comedy DVDs to this day (that's not a particularly huge thing, I've only had if for like 6 or 7 months... but it's still good)

Although I had realised I liked the guy, I didn't really consider myself a fan still, even though I was. I was in some kind of Dara denial. It only came into sharp focus when I was on my way to Tenerife for my mates stag do a few weeks ago. I popped into the WH Smith in Bristol airport to get some reading material for the plane and the clearly relaxing(!) weekend which was to follow, I'd been hankering for Nerd Do Well by Simon Pegg for some time, after all he's nerd royalty and he's motherfunking Scotty! Now the paperback had been issued, I marched in with my £7.99 in my (metaphorical) hand.

I picked it up and noticed the book was in a buy 1 get 1 half price offer.... ooooh the possibilities. I scanned round and noticed Tickling the English, a book I was unaware of the existence of before. So I got it and easyjet whipped me 4 hours to the Moroccan coast. I intended on reading the Pegg book, with the expectation I had for it and in the unlikely event I finished it, Dara would step in.

I looked at both and found myself drawn to the Dara book. I then proceeded to read his book over the holiday and finished it when I got back, not giving a second thought to the Pegg book. The book was excellent, I think there would have been something extra too it if I had been English (I'm Welsh...) as there would have been more to relate too etc, but it was good from the perspective of watching one Celt dissect the next door neighbours, of whom I do of course have my own thoughts, hates, preconceptions, for the pleasure of another.

After this I am fully converted! The final piece is to see the guy on tour, so I'm sat waiting patiently for some dates.... anytime your ready Dara... and play Cardiff or Swansea or both, can't be arsed trekking to Bristol thank you very much.

But he does have an excessively large head...

The I.T. Crowd

There's not massive amounts of TV programs that I like these days. We frequently see schedules cramped up with endless streams of reality bullshit, hopeless celebrity programs and talent shows. In fact I'm pretty sure I may have mumped on about this before.

However, there is good TV out there! Yesterday, using the last of my free trial from Amazon Prime (cracking service... not paying £50 a month to use it infrequently) 2 items dropped through my door. The first item was the 3 disc Anchorman/Wake up Ron Burgundy set (£3.99 when I ordered it, bargain and a true classic Will Ferrell film + extras!) and the second was The I.T. Crowd 4.0, which nicely supplements my versions 1-3 boxset!

The writer of this little slice of comedy gold for Channel 4 is a man by the name of Graham Linehan who also has such things as Father Ted and Black Books on his CV, he seems to be pretty good on the whole! However, the undoubted star of the show is Richard Ayoade who is an absolute delight as Moss and apparently, based on his first film, a pretty decent prospect as a director.

The show particularly appeals to 'the likes of' (to use someone elses phrasing) me as it uses quite allot of geeky humour and references but also has enough of general and observational humour to reach past that and appeal to a wider audience (e.g. Cerys likes it too).

The news that a 5th series will be complete and on screens this year is an undoubted bonus and will make my £8-£10 lighter in the pocket as soon as it's available. Even though I was a bit late on this one...

If I had to compare it.. it would be difficult, maybe somewhere in between The Big Bang Theory and The Guild but even that doesn't sit quite right.

Much recommended, but you probably guessed that by now.

Should humour have boundaries?

I was reading posts on facebook (yes I know...) yesterday on a Newsarse article about footballers and their slightly extreme history of being implied in rape cases. The latest of course being Sunderland superstar Titus Bramble, but the article was an older repost and not directly about him (although one followed).

Some of the comments on the post were quite offended about the nature of the humour, insisting there is nothing funny about rape, which of course is very true. The defence of the site was firstly, and indeed accurately, the article wasn't poking fun at the act, which is a terrible thing, but highlighting the footballers continued connection with it. But also it was mentioned, should anything really be off limits to humour?

For a start I believe humour is a skill, a talent which some people will never be capable of (see some of my previous efforts if you want evidence of that) and some topics should be handled very carefully. But is it true, for comedy, is it all on, or not on. By picking and choosing topics people can be light hearted about isn't that making the taboo topics seem worse again? Giving them a status that may add stigma to them?

I immediately thought of Brass Eye (as was mentioned in the topic also) and the paedophilia episode. A horrible horrible topic (speaking as a father), but comedy was able to address it thanks to some near perfect writing, and if that's the case surely it can be done for other topics too.

Generally the standard of writing on satirical sites such as newsarse it quite high, but it needs to be, there's a risk of offence with most things approached in satire.

There are cases where the humour is badly intended, by no means is all humour acceptable. Frankie Boyle and the Downs Syndrome parent is an example. Frankie was going for a cheap laugh, as he usually does and it got the stick it deserved. But I feel that's the difference, someone using a situation for a cheap laugh, making light of the situation, could almost feel like they are degrading it, that's bad. While, if someone respects the seriousness of a scenario, like Brass Eye did, I think that's not a bad thing at all. But lets face it how many of us are as clever as Chris Morris, not me for one.

Look at me sounding all serious!