Meryl Streep is Delightful

Here she is, being interviewed by Stephen Colbert. Julie and Julia isn't at the top of my must-see list, but this interview is both hilarious and adorable.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Meryl Streep
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Idol is as Nasty as Radio (Part One)

Australian Idol resumed for another year on Sunday, and while taking a quick break from Deadwood I accidentally caught a bit of it. Deadwood contains more foul language than was once thought to exist, murder, torture, thievery, and backstabbing, and yet Idol is the nastier show. While this post relates to Australian Idol, with a few name changes, it would work for any of the shows in the franchise.

The first few weeks of the show are the "open" auditions. The judges travel from one major city to the next, sitting at a table while a line of would-be singers perform unaccompanied (unless they bring a guitar with them, which seems uncommon) their own covers of already bad pop songs. The judges are Marcia Hines, a singer, Ian Dickson, a record executive, and Kyle Sandilands, a radio personality, and 2009's most satisfying claimed scalp, even if he doesn't quite deserve it. More on that in Part Two.

So, number one, only one of the three judges has any form of musical talent. Okay, they seemed to be joined by Brian McFadden of Westlife this week, but Westlife doesn't classify as music. Marcia also is "the nice one", so her comments to those the judges reject are limited to apologies. Dicko and Kyle both play the part of "the pricks". Dicko is "the slightly wittier prick", perhaps, but they're still pricks. They tend to judge people immediately: God forbid you enter the room as a fatty. When an attractive person reveals themselves as having an awful voice, that's more of a disappointment. "You're a lovely looking girl, but..." If you're unattractive, and can't sing? Better be wearing a raincoat, or your clothes will reek of bile after walking away from the panel.

But these people hope one day to be singing professionals, right? It's clear they won't make it. They're just getting a wake-up call! Besides, it's funny! How did they really think they could get a record contract and national exposure?

Because Idol's producers said they could.

Dicko, Marcia and Kyle aren't the first that the hopefuls audition in front of. Off camera, they perform in front of vocal coaches, and the producers. The producers decide who actually gets to the judges, and who makes it to TV.

Who do you think the producers send through? The good ones, of course. The ones with musical talent, and the ones who can do that Maria Carey pitch-shift thing which Idol suggests is a sign of talent. Just seeing those guys be judged would be boring, though, so they send through the freakshows as well. Many of these guys would be in on it; never thinking they'd make it, but hey, being on TV for a couple of minutes would be cool. Then there are the innocent ones, who have been sent through by producers and therefore given the idea that, hey, maybe they'll make it. Maybe this is their year.

It's not, of course. The people spat upon by the judges don't deserve music careers, as much as they don't deserve to be humiliated. Even Marcia's nice girl act rings false, since she knows that those auditioning have been given false hope by her own producers. Because this is what the dwindling audience of the show is watching for.

So, these people come in. They sing badly. Sometimes even in ways you never thought people would ever sing. They get called worthless. Then they leave the room. Then they cry.

Now that's entertainment.

(to be continued)

Drag Me to Bruno

The Nine Network have just launched a new drama series. It's called Rescue: Special Ops. I haven't caught it, and won't seek it out, but it's just great that it has such a thrilling title. Rescue: Special Ops. So out there! A team of writers must have come up with that one! I'm going to pitch the network a police drama now, called Cops Arresting People.

Movie reviews!!!

Bruno

Bruno, Larry Charles and Sasha Baron Cohen's follow up to Borat, is a film with many issues. Should these issues matter when the end product is hilarious? Well, kind of.

Yes, the film is very funny. Cohen's Bruno is a gay, Austrian fashion-obsessed TV host who heads to America after being shamed at a Milan catwalk event. His reasons for going to the US are to discover fame, which is where the first of the film's big two themes comes into play. The obsession with celebrity, and people's desire to be celebrities (or for their children to be), are mocked without mercy. There is also a brief trip to the middle east: Bruno decides he will achieve fame by solving Palestine/Israeli crisis. The second target arrives when Bruno heads to middle America: homophobia. Here, Bruno meets army cadets,a macho karate instructor, small-minded hunters and preachers who "cure" homosexuality. Cohen makes it his mission allow these people to tie there own nooses by playing to their worst, cliche-ridden fears.

It doesn't sound hilarious, but if you know Cohen, you'd be aware it often it is. The laughs come from Cohen's outrageous caricature as well as his victim's often unbelievable reactions, such as stage parents agreeing to let dangerous things happen to their babies for a photo shoot, or the gay converter's blank response to being told he has "amazing blowjob lips". It's also often shocking and upsetting; the audience reaction in the final wrestling match is downright scary. And while the majority of the real people embarrassed and vilified in the film do deserve it, you can't help but think perhaps a few aren't reacting to Bruno's sexuality, rather the cameras filming him and making it clear to them they are being pranked. This is a minor quibble; a bigger issue is the constant question of who is in on the joke. What is on screen tends to be funny either way, but thinking about what's real and what isn't takes you out of the movie.

It's very funny, and worth seeing, even if it is too similar to Borat, following to the letter the exact same plot arc, to the extent that Bruno is even left by his assistant character halfway through the film, to be reunited for the climax. And with the reliance on shock humour, it is difficult to imagine it being as good on any subsequent viewings. It's a good enough film, but just the once.

7/10

I'm quite weirded out by some reactions to the film. People have been disgusted by it. I understand that it's not to all tastes. I wouldn't send my mother out to see it. But people who have bought their tickets... did they not know? Did they not see the rating, or any of the endless publicity before the film's release? It's hard to imagine they didn't know what they were getting into. Were they expecting a Merchant Ivory production?

One woman at the end of my screening said to her friend "That was so shit it was funny!" She had been laughing all the way through, but it seems that she thought that the film wasn't in on the joke of itself, as if Bruno was a serious character and the audience was enjoying it the same was as a Uwe Boll film.

People are strange.

Drag Me to Hell

After Spider-man 3, Sam Raimi could have tackled another big-budget film, or a smaller, more restrained effort akin to his work before that trilogy such as The Gift or A Simple Plan. Instead, he traveled back even further into his past to bring Drag Me to Hell, a callback to his glorious Evil Dead days, hinted at by the surgery scene in Spider-man 2. While it copped a PG-13 rating - the same as the Spider-man trilogy - it's almost as much fun as his early work: over-the-top, violent, gross, and ruthless. In other words, it's great.

Alison Lohman plays Christine Brown, a former country girl now angling for a promotion at the bank where she works, while dating a well-bred college professor, Clay Dalton (Justin Long) whose parents disapprove of her. In an effort to seem tougher for her boss (David Paymer), Christine refuses a mortgage extension to an old gypsy woman, Mrs Ganesh (Lorna Raver). Ganesh promptly attacks Christine in her car, gums her chin (!) and curses her to three days of torment before being taken to hell, for eternity.

There's not a lot below the surface of this film. There's no subtext; it's not a metaphor for anything. The plot is just an excuse for a series of horror sequences which tend to be frightening, stomach-churning and hilarious in equal measure. Lohman does fine work treading the admittedly predictable path from meek to badass, while showing a gift for comedy: see her reaction to the question "you mean you have a cat... right?" Lorna Raver is hysterical as Mrs Ganesh, and Dileep Rao is amusing as the psychic Rham Jas who tries his best to help Christine.

There's a lot less blood, and stop-motion has been replaced by CG, but the spirit of the Evil Dead series has returned to Raimi, and it's something to celebrate.

9/10

Then yesterday I watched Evil Dead 2 again. It's still amazing. Now I just need to get my a sexy, feature-packed import of Army of Darkness.

Finally, I highly recommend reading the source novel A Simple Plan. The movie is very good, but the book is amazing, and has ten times the tension.

Coens!!!

Everyone likes the Coen brothers! Even the people I've met with a strange, seething hatred of No Country for Old Men dug on Fargo. Here's the trailer for their latest, A Serious Man.

It's weird.



Any ideas what it's about? And yet, it looks amazing. An ad for a film which sets up a tone but gives away almost nothing. Amazing!

Here's hoping copyright claims don't get this one removed, like what happened with the Saw goddamn VI trailer I put up. I understand a studio wanting to protect their property - even though copyright laws need big overhauls to fit in with the digital age - but taking down a fucking advertisment? For your film? It's a fucking ad! Ordering its removal means less publicity! You know, the thing the ad was designed to create? Why not bad people from saying the film's title for fear it might breach your intellectual property rights? See how that goes down.

Meanwhile I was going to write about Channel 10's new show The 7pm Project, which is a comedy panel show where the brave decision was made to load the cast with mostly non-comedians, but it was too easy a target even for me, and I felt bad.

That said, I would advise checking out the video page to check out the interview of Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols. It's the worst-shot interview, possibly, ever. It looks like the camera operator was white water rafting while filming.

Back soon with Bruno and Drag Me to Hell reviews!

So That's the Problem...

Right now, on late night TV, there's an extended ad for some range of exercise DVDs or something like that; some weight loss scheme involving ridiculous dance.

The voiceover guy says it's so incredible because you're moving your body in three dimensions.

There you go, fatties! You've been staying in 2D too much! Silly fatties.

Now Vivaca A. Fox is talking about her "booty going up a level". Time for bed!

Harper's Island Was Sort of Fucking Ridiculous

Heavy, ruinous spoilers follow, but it doesn't matter. There's no need to seek this one out.

Harper's Island, the thirteen episode long slasher television show which has just finished its run, was terrible. There's no question. It's a terrible show which my sixteen year old self would have loved, but he wasn't the brightest. It's not even so bad it's good; there's a sprinkling of campy trash throughout the series, but not enough to make it watching for that reason. Sure, there are some stupid tropes: a little girl who does double duty as being creepy and in need of rescue; a lead character with a tragic past; a strange man with a scarred face. But those things are laughable without being actually funny.

So then, I have no idea why I watched it to the end, and, more than that, really wanted to know what happened.

The show was about Abby Mills (Elaine Cassidy, a young Parker Posey but not funny), who goes to the island she grew up on for the wedding of her best friend Henry (Christopher Gorham). It's a week long celebration culminating in the ceremony, but plans change when the a copycat of the serial killer who murdered Abby's mother starts killing the guests. Promos promised, sort of awesomely, that at least one person will be killed each episode. Sometimes more! If this isn't a tipoff of the quality, how about that every episode's title was an onomatopoeia of the sound of that episodes big murder? Episode one was called "Whap". Episode eight? "Gurgle". It's amazing. It's just a shame there wasn't an episode called "Spurt, Spurt". Or "Ungh!". There was a "Ka-Blam", though.


Also there's a death caused by a dude accidentally shooting himself in the leg and then keeling over immediately; then his friend buries him without telling anyone else, and then later, that dude gets thrown into a furnace. It's brilliant.

Look beyond that it's a network TV show, thus staples of the slasher genre - nudity, gore, swearing - got downgraded to bikinis, offscreen violence and splash of blood, and a couple of "hells" and "damns". More important is that slasher movies tend to be short. More than one hundred minutes is stretching it. Without ads, Harper's ran at five hundred and forty minutes. So, you know those stupid bits between death scenes in bad slasher films where plot and characterisation are attempted? There's a lot of that. Subplots with exes, flirtations, adultery, and even a big bag o' money. Not even a HBO-sponsored truckload of skin, graphic violence and enough foul language to make Al Swearengen blush could make that into good TV.

Slasher movies have to decide if they want their characters aware of any threat. If they aren't, it gives more room for them to banter and less time for crying over lost loved ones, which is kind of a buzzkill. We're watching for the violence, not the mourning! If they are aware, it's usually more believable, but characters running around scared gets repetitive after a while. Harper's goes both ways; for the first half of the series, characters get knocked off while the rest of them go about happily planning their wedding and having little dramas. It got increasingly entertaining to think about just how long these people were going without stopping to ask "Hang on, where did she go?" Halfway through, the father of the bride cops a spade to the head that splits his skull in half in the middle of the wedding rehearsal; this tips the rest of the characters off. Then the show becomes a series of increasingly more unlikely reasons for characters to split up and move around the island.

The show presents itself as a mystery; episode ten the revelation comes: the man responsible for the murders seven years earlier - Leoben from Battlestar Galactica, apparently taking time off from being creepy with Starbuck - is alive and back to his old, stab-happy ways. This feels like a cop out until it's hinted that there is a second killer. Cop out number two comes when we find out that Henry, the groom, is the other killer (and Leoben's son - Cylons can spawn!) which was obvious for one reason: not once in the series run had we had a close up of the guy underscored by ominous music. The show had never once hinted that he was the killer, so of course, it had to be him.

The brilliant part of the reveal, however, was his motive:

He was sad because he was adopted. So his friends and family and the friends and family of his wife to be, they had to die.

Take that, adopted kids!


Okay, it was a little more complicated than that; he wanted to start a life alone with his best friend (and, it seems, half-sister). Which is still quite a weak motive, and not as funny as the adopted thing is on its own.

The moral of the story is Harper's Island is lame, but had an audacity that was almost admirable. Its premise seemed interesting, but never would have worked; you can't really ask people to tune in for an hour each week to be scared by a continuing story; horror shows work much better as anthologies or procedurals, not serials. Don't take that as a recommendation of Supernatural, that shit still stinks. But to try something that would never work, in the name of making a super-sized slasher film? Almost makes you proud. Not enough to make it worth a recommendation. Or to refrain from telling people that it sucks. But enough not to wish death on its creators. Good work, Harper's!

Swears!

I've just started watching Deadwood. I should have started a lot sooner.

It's very good.

Deal or No Deal Still Exists; Humanity Weeps

Deal or No Deal, despite all reason, and the Geneva Convention, still exists. It is a show of breathtaking stupidity. For those unaware, the way a contestant plays on this game show is by holding a briefcase.

That's about it.

Okay, there's more, but if you don't know, I could not be bothered explaining it to you. There's no skill involved, unless willingness to take risks is counted as a skill. (It's not.) In Australia the show is hosted by Andrew O'Keefe, who is the Antifunny.

The show had been scrubbed from my mind, but I inadvertently caught a bit of it today, and... it's grown stupider. If the show used to be as smart as, say, Paris Hilton, it's now as smart as Paris Hilton were she hit by a bus but survived, unable to communicate save for a few gurgling noises as she tries to say "don't you have any pink hospital gowns?"

First of all, it's the special Dancing With the Stars* week, where the celebrities** from that show play the game for home viewers. Today, it was Rob Mills, known for his time on Australian Idol and a brief fling with Paris Hilton, before her tragic bus accident. He's on a game show to promote the reality show he's on due to his fame from being of a reality show. If that circle of inanity wasn't enough, the show itself has increased its audience participation tenfold. Picture a game show audience. Picture the people who take time out of their lives to go to a studio and watch people open cases. Now picture them holding their arms in front of them in the shape of an X, collectively yelling "NO DEAL!". Picture them holding both arms up, on either side of their heads, rubbing their fingers together with glee, yelling "DEAL!" The contestant makes those gestures back at them, giving them validation, like the participant in the middle of a bukkake circle saying "thanks" at the end of it.

Never validate an idiot. No good will come of it.

*They're not really stars. There's a blind guy and the host of Today Tonight, and that's it.
**Really, they're not.

Hacked to the Rafters

Oh yes. The puns keep on coming.

Packed to the Rafters, the Australian dramedy, was one of my favourite punching bags of last year. Largely because, despite being labelled as such, it contained neither dram, nor edy. Worst of all, however: it's called Packed to the Rafters. To the uninitiated, this might seem inoffensive enough. A bit of a cliche, perhaps, but a title's a title.

It's about a family named Rafter. A family with grown children who all at once move back home, or near enough to it, making the home... Packed to the Rafters. Get it? Get it? Far be it for me to complain when I myself use puns as post titles (including this one) but this Goddamned show has not a hint of irony to it. It's soaked through with saccharine and Australian viewers lap it up like the last drops of water in the desert. Bad punning is an artform, but the producers aren't going for that. They were aiming for clever, and thought they hit a bullseye. Alas, they hit the bullseye of the next target over. Further, the characters were named for the purpose of the terrible title. It would be more forgivable (although not much more) had the characters been named Rafter already, they were searching for a title, and somebody's cartoon lightbulb went off, but that's not the case. It's so constructed that it needs a sledgehammer taken to it.

The twist is: I hadn't watched an episode of the show. The title was enough to put me off watching it, not to mention the advertisements. I had only seen clips. Snippets of episodes. It was enough.

An example from last year:

The father character, played by Erik Thompson, has some wacky suburban cricket rivalry with another player. There's a big scene on the field, which culminates with Thompson's opponent getting a cricket ball to the groin. Kooky music ensues. Oh! Those Rafters!

The very next scene has Rebecca Gibney's mother character talking to her daughter, played by Jessica Marais. It's a sad scene; you can tell, because Gibney looks sad. Her daughter has left a long term relationship, and her former partner, she reveals... is on ice. This makes sense, because ice addiction is very common in middle-class suburban Sydney.

Then, Gibney asks:

"Are you addicted to ice, too?"

So we have a comedy scene, as broad as they get, followed by over-the-top sad family melodramatics. Shows such as Six Feet Under have mastered the tone-shift, but the Rafters are not the Fishers, nor will they ever be. This juxtaposition is as jarring as a rape scene in the middle of a Disney movie.

Tonight, however, I watched a full episode. It was unfair of me to judge the show without sitting through an entire one. Also, I was waiting for the lottery results, which were delayed to trick even more people into watching this tripe.

I didn't win, in more ways than one. Here are some highlights:

• A psychic. They've brought in a psychic, who has made predictions for what's to come. If it wasn't enough to add a stupid supernatural element to proceedings, the show's audience also needs things telegraphed, because just watching stories unfold is too damn hard!
• The daughter character - having curbed her ice addiction, it seems - has a high school reunion. Not wanting to be embarrassed for being - sacre bleu! - single, she makes up a boyfriend. Jesus Christ; I'm surprised she didn't name him George Glass.
• At the reunion, the man she has roped into pretending to be her boyfriend, a dopey friend of her brother, threatens to humiliate her further by being a dumb fuck. Happily, some music starts, and he dances; the daughter dances with him, they both look silly, and she realises it doesn't matter what people thing of you. A nice moral! What have we all learned today, children?
• Gibney's forty-something character is pregnant. Not only does this pass for a plot twist, but name a single show that hasn't been ruined by the addition of a baby.
• A character bags out Juno. Be a better show before you start pulling that shit, Rafters.
• The music. Dear God. If you've ever had trouble with the music in Gilmore Girls, don't watch this show within arm's reach of sharp objects. It's so happy and goofy it makes The Wiggles sound like Norwegian death metal.
  
• There's a voiceover. A narration. Why? Because there's a voiceover in every single episode, by a different character. Not used creatively. Not used ironically, or to be funny. Just. Fucking. There. In case thinking about the things that happen in the show are too taxing without a bit of help.

The saving grace here is: I can now trash the show without fear. It's a kind of freedom. But please, Packed to the Rafters, could you at least tone it down a little? You make it difficult to defend Australian cinema and television.

I'm going to go watch some Frontline.

Have some clips!