Poor man's Curb, innit.

CYE on the list of cultural phenomena that have passed me by.

QUOTE:

It's more or less the same show, isn't it? Which is fine by me

It is in essence, but it obviously feels a lot less busy due to the office-or-home setting and the lack of beatings, nightclub scenes, multitudinous cousins stuffing their pottymouths with food etc. It focusses a bit more explicitly on the female characters and gender roles too, I think.

It's does the same job in a strikingly understated way, dunnit. I still have the same reaction to Pete as I did whatsisname, the horrible blonde one in The Sopranos.

So I watched the Ed Wood Bride of the Monster yesterday. It was pretty cool. Bela Lugosi makes any film watchable I reckon. It was both terribly incompetent and completely charming all at once, like most of his stuff. Comforting.

Supersizers is excellent. I must admit to having a bit of a thing for Sue Perkins. Wasn't there a thread a few weeks ago about people you fancy, but you probably shouldn't?

Another programme that is absolutely superb is Magnetic North with Jonathon Meades(BBC2, Thursday nights).

After watching both series of Gavin & Stacey on holiday, the missus and I are now working our way through Peep Show, we finished series one last night. Due to our Virgin TV package there are 4 series to view at no additional cost.

Tv on Demand is aces.

I saw Bride of the Monster as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and even then Bela Lugosi's struggle with the giant octopus looked fishy, as if he were encouraging it instead of fighting it off. Seeing the movie Ed Wood explained that, even if some of the things in Ed Wood weren't exactly accurate.

Ed Wood, what a great movie.

Cassandra's Dream
Oh it wasn't that bad. I got quite absorbed by the middle section, incompetencies notwithstanding. Is anyone else going to bother?

California Dreamin'
Overly long, this was. It was OK. Only OK, really, although it was absorbing enough to watch (partly because Jamie Elman is gorgeous) but yeah, pretty forgettable. The sort of film that sets up something massively thematic and allegorical and then kind of forgets to do anything with it (ironically, one of those things is an unexploded bomb).

I also forgot to write about The Love Guru. I sort of enjoyed this despite not really caring for Mike Myers or his Peter Sellers obsession. Basically though all it really is is a string of knob jokes, and some of them are amusing enough.

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Just watched The Swimmer, with Burt Lancaster (1968). I remember seeing this reviewed positively at the time, but never got round to seeing it. Brilliant, brilliant film.

(*** possible spoilers ***)

If anyone doesn't know it, an upper-middle-class guy resolves to make his way home over the valley by swimming ... in a chain of swimming pools belonging to friends and acquaintances. The choice of project is a hint to the man's state of mind, which gets increasingly rocky as the film progresses.

I was never a BIG fan of Burt Lancaster, but here he's absolutely magnificent - his deterioration from beaming cockiness to a floppy rag of a man in a single day is in turn spellbinding and excrutiating.

The only minus, maybe, is the strident, string-based score ... could have been something more laid back, jazzy, like for example Point Blank, perhaps.

But I was knocked out by it. And it ticked loads of boxes for me on the way.

Highly recommended.


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My flatmate has just got the first series of Dexter, since we're running out of FYC dvds. What should I expect?

Dexter is all right, it's watchable enough. I had to watch both series in about 3 days each at work so I might have had too concentrated an experience of it. It's got a nice level of blood and gore, bit of humour, and David from Six Feet Under and Darla both do pretty good jobs with their characers. But it's a bit samey, and you wouldn't want to watch it if you need things to have any level of plausibility. It's good but not great, maybe.

FYC? Fine Young Cannibals?

erwin, Burt Lancaster was an excellent actor who suffered considerably from being typecast and hamstrung by the Hollywood system. If you liked The Swimmer (which I agree is excellent), you should be sure to see Atlantic City (if you haven't done so already).

Lancaster also has a bit part in Bertolucci's 1900.

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Yes, ursus - I've seen Atlantic City but it was a long time ago. Worth a re-see, I reckon ... if only for Susan Sarandon and the lemons.


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