BBC Breakfast Watch! Pierced Bits, Baby Hookers, and Wu-Tang Clan

I had a lovely couple of days not watching BBC Breakfast this week, meaning my IQ managed to crawl back up a couple of points like a bead of mercury in a thermometer. Sadly, that was undone this morning with a number of, "Why do the children have their own culture, and how will it kill them?" pieces that shattered my brain thermometer and froze the IQ mercury solid. Thanks, Charlie Stayt and Susanna Reid! The first piece involved a report on a British Medical Journal survey into piercings and the number of people who end up seeking medical help after part of their face turns green and purple like Harvey Dent, during which Susanna and resident skittish doctor Rosemary Leonard reacted to the presence of a pierced youngster as if a farting Predator was sitting between them, so strong was their incomprehension and revulsion.


The kid, Toby Caldecott, acquitted himself easily as well as previous guest Lucy Van Amerongen, treating the trio of hyper-concerned adults with mild disdain as they misunderstood the nature of what they were talking about, and eloquently defending the salon he worked at. That was of course not good enough for the hosts, who were trying to make out, as usual, that kids were running around with enough metal in their faces to weigh their heads down. My favourite moment was the wince of disgust that passed across Leonard's face as she revealed that, ZOMG!, some people have piercings ::gulp:: in the genital area. Whatever will they think of a long time ago next?

The whole silly piece ended with the following exchange:

Susanna: And... and... Why? Why do you do it? Why do you get so many piercings?
Toby: Me personally, because I like the way they look. There's nothing else to it than that really.
Susanna: Simple as that? Well, they certainly look striking.

I think she expected him to respond, "Well, I have piercings because secretly I hate myself and society, and use this as a way to flagellate myself and terrify passers-by. Later on today I plan on sacrificing a virgin! That'll be fun." To be honest, the piece was not the worst. For a start, there was a serious point to be made about amateurs botching it and getting infected, and Leonard did seem to give the kid a break. Our presenters, though, struggled (as ever) to figure out how to treat the subject, obviously uncomfortable at the thought of getting a piercing anywhere other than in the earlobe, and coming across as secretly annoyed at their guest for daring to do it. When the subject of only giving piercings to over-18s came up, Charlie asked Toby if he checks their IDs. No, you fucking cretin, he just guesses using tea-leaves! Unbelievable.

As I say, it wasn't too bad, but it seemed worse as it sat alongside other stupid pieces filled with fretting about that Hypothetical Idiot that gets wheeled out to prove their points. Yesterday there was a little feature about Lenore Skenazy, the mother who threw her son to the wolves of New York like he was young Leonidas in 300, and the verdict there seemed to be "BURN THE WITCH!" with the odd sop to, "Well, we do cosset our kids, but the world is terrifying, I know because I read the Mail and watch BBC Breakfast BURN THE WITCH!". Today had an even more peculiar item, about a US firm making high heels for babies. It's all becoming very "Barbara Wintergreen" on BBC Breakfast.



While the invention of these shoes is worth railing against (because hell's bells, it's tacky), the report featured another appearance by Reverend Tim Jones, who was dragged on a while back after having a hissy fit in a shop about Playboy stationery aimed at children. He was the epitome of indignant rage then, but was muted this time, admitting that silly decorative high heels for babies wasn't the end of the world (something he would know about, obviously), but that it was still bad to have children thinking of themselves in terms of "sexy adulthood". Perhaps when they're old enough to recognise gender stereotypes and perhaps misunderstand the power of sexuality, but we're talking about children who are so young they are still learning how to differentiate between object and subject. I don't think a baby wearing stupid joke high heels is going to turn into a pre-toddler Carrie Bradshaw. That point was made by Susanna, bless her, but it barely deterred Reverend Tim Jones, who is on a crusade mission to save childhood from mutation.

There's a toss-up as to what was the stupidest part of the piece. Elaine Griffiths (editor of Prima Baby Magazine) said she objected to the shoes, changed her mind when she saw the black satin ones, and then changed it back to outrage when she saw the leopard-print and hot pink ones? Yes, yes, I get that her point it that those designs are more readily linked to sexuality, and she had some interesting points to make about the fashion industry preying on that childhood urge to mimic adults, but her disapproving tones made it sound like she was going to point out that hot pink and leopard-print were soooo last season. Even worse, Reverend Tim Jones (that's how he is constantly referred to by Susanna) excelled himself with this exchange:

Susanna: [responding to a point by Elaine that they are just a silly joke] Actually, Reverend Tim Jones, isn't that the point, that they are just a bit of fun, that babies between 0-6 months don't develop a view of themselves and their sexuality. They are just going to be dressed in these little shoes, just as they would be in little mini-trainers, they're never going to be seen, really, outside of the family or friends with them, and it's, it's just a joke...
Reverend Tim Jones: Well maybe, I don't know actually, I've been to California, they probably are going to be seen outside the family. Yeah, I'm quite sure that intended as a joke, but it's the kind of joke where somebody says, you know, "wouldn't it be funny if we dressed up our children like Julia Roberts out of Pretty Woman", and that would be a joke to say, "wouldn't it be funny if...", but then, we go and do it, and we actually do dress our children up like Julia Roberts out of Pretty Woman, and you know, her character was a prostitute, and, why on earth are we dressing up our children like prostitutes, what does that say?

Well, it says you think women who wear leopard-print high heels are all prostitutes. It also says that I really should be making costumes for babies based on movies. Fancy dress costumes for babies! Hey parents, wouldn't it be funny if your child looked like various movie characters? Well, now they can! How about Johnny Depp portraying Hunter S. Thompson in Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, complete with hat, cigarette holder, and jar of ether? Or Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada, with bizarre stylings by Patricia Field and recordings of deferential staff being terrified of imminent firings? Or you could signal your love for The Matrix by dressing your baby as Neo, complete with monk-style black coat, teeny tiny shades, kung-fu training, and a need to rebel against the distortion of our perception of reality by our evil robot overlords? Fun for all the family! Warning, possible psychological warping of baby's mind may occur.


That quote of course features the contentious statement that California is a state made up entirely of Hypothetical Idiots (Californians reading this blog, could this be true?), but even that doesn't match his later response to the question from Charlie, who, upon finding out the Reverend Tim Jones has two daughters, asked what he would do if the eldest announced that she wanted to wear miniskirts, to which he replied, "Well, it depends if she's thirty-five or eight, I suppose." That's right, women in your teens, twenties, or early thirties, it's Burkas for all of you! Only when you get your Adulthood Licence can you show any flesh.

I could be generous and say it was a stupid joke that didn't come off, but the Reverend seemed very sincere when he said it, and it's not like the tone of the feature was one of understanding, choosing instead to be based around the fear of what your child is up to, which is their default position, of course. I'm amazed these parents let their children out of the house. Still, it wasn't all Think Of The Children! agonising. My favourite moment this morning came during an inept feature about festival attendance, with our heroes interviewing R1 DJ Huw Stephens and Rough Guide editor James Smart talking about what kit to take to Glastonbury (wellies, sun cream, etc.). Charlie asked if beards were essential (and I'm not sure he was joking), and Susanna seemed to think that the idea of getting dirty was the worst thing that could happen to a person, reacting with horror at the thought of not washing for a couple of days. Her revulsion was almost endearing, though it reinforces my suspicion that she would be happiest married to the fearsome Don Draper from Mad Men, though without the existential ennui, bird-murdering, and easily-cured shaky hands.


James suggested going to All Tomorrow's Parties, where she could stay in a chalet, which she thought was a wonderful idea. Me too. Having had a look at this year's line-up, the thought of the prim and proper Susanna, whose record collection probably contains nothing but Eva Cassidy and Norah Jones albums, standing in perplexed confusion while Animal Collective, Adem, Silver Jews, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Raekwon the Chef and Ghostface Killah went about their excellent business fills me with utter joy.


Someone get that woman lifetime subscriptions to Wire and Vibe, stat!

ETA: I notice that, considering how Susanna's presenting style and line of questioning is just the sort of thing the Daily Mail should approve of, they were pretty leering and mean about her presenting at the Oscars earlier this year. I now have to support her against those evil woman-hating Mail bastards, I suppose.

End Of Season Review - Ugly Betty

Ironically, Ugly Betty, a show about fashion, appears to have been deemed by the hipster douchebag massive to be utterly unfashionable. No longer attracting the torrent of column inches it once did, nor as many articles about how groundbreaking it is to have a major primetime network show have a Hispanic female lead, the show has had to contend with that most galling of fates for a show that was once the hottest thing around; being taken for granted. In the UK, it's gotten so bad that C4 have delayed its return just so it can show hour after hour of horrible, tacky, stupid displays of unappealing bad behaviour, featuring a cast of blithering fuckwits, hopping from bed to bed, making fools of themselves and only getting a tarnished reputation into the bargain (I know, I said I wouldn't go on about Dirty Sexy Money again, but I'm seriously pissed about Betty's shunning).


After being accepted by the mainstream in its first season, winning awards and magazine covers and the love of even the most fashion-averse person in the world (i.e., me), the second season had the same air of early tiredness that The O.C. had after it made waves with its freshman year, though that might be a consequence of becoming part of the cultural landscape with such speed and success. Just to clarify, I don't mean that to be the insult that many others seem to. While some cultural commentators have written The O.C. off after its first season finale, we loved almost all of the second season and pretty much all of the fourth season, which was wonderfully unhinged. So Ugly Betty, after its excellent first season, had a sporadically highly entertaining second, with the odd mini-run of mediocrity, and a couple of patches of outright horror. Despite that, it was good enough to keep our interest, but we pray it doesn't have a third season to match The O.C.


Of all the shows that returned after the strike hiatus, this was the one that seemed most damaged. While pre-strike Betty had been mostly a lot of fun, when it came back it didn't seem to remember what had made the show fun in the first place. For a show that often feels like a half-spoof/half-homage to both the telenovela format it was adapted from and the endless churning plotlines of US daytime soaps, the second half of the season was disappointingly humdrum. The death of Bradford Meade (yet another onscreen heart attack for Alan Dale, matching the ones he had in The O.C. and Neighbours) triggered one last bonkers plot development, as Wilhelmina (the always excellent Vanessa Williams) extracted his sperm post-mortem, and convinced Christina to carry her and Bradford's child.

While this was pleasingly melodramatic, it regrettably gave the dreary mugging of Ashley Jensen more screentime, something that had been missing in the first half of the season. Seriously, what with her in this and Lucy Davis stinking up Reaper with her expanding bag of tics and incomprehensible line readings, there seems to be a war between the Gervais graduates to become Most Annoying UK Woman On US TV. Ladies, please call it a draw and come home. There are characters in The Bill going uncast right as we speak.


Other than that, only the relationship between Daniel and Wilhelmina's bipolar sister, Renee (played with sadly wasted gusto by Gabrielle Union), came close to generating that crazy frisson the show once had, but even that fell flat. It was transparently a contrived way to keep Wilhelmina in the same plot orbit as Daniel and the rest of the Mode staff after Bradford's widow and children finally found a reason to remove her from the magazine. This was all necessary; once Bradford had died, and Wilhelmina's duplicity had been revealed, there was no way to realistically keep her on staff before the announcement of her imminent child/heir to the Meade fortune, so she had to be removed.

It was understandable plot mechanics, but it was little fun to watch, mostly because it committed the cardinal sin of separating Marc and Amanda, whose friendship and bitchiness are our favourite thing about the show. There was a stretch of episodes where they didn't interact at all, with Marc nothing more than Wilhelmina's foil (also fun, but not in the same league as his screentime with Amanda), and Amanda chasing her real father, who for a time seemed to be Gene Simmons.


That was another problem with the latter half of the season. Although I don't have anything against stunt casting, and think it's often brilliant when done well (e.g., James Carville on 30 Rock and Carl Weathers on Arrested Development), it can also go very wrong or be totally pointless. While Simmons and Betty White worked out quite well, I'm still having nightmares about Eliza Dushku's abominable "comedic" performance, and appearances by Posh Spice (gak!), Larry King, Lindsay Lohan, and Naomi Campbell were wasted (though it was a pleasant surprise to see her appear, the jokes about Campbell's violent streak were disappointingly predictable). I guess that's the price you pay once a show you like becomes popular. All the "cool kids" want to hang out with it.

With the garish soap theatrics kept to a minimum, the show relied on the relationship dramas to keep it afloat. We'd grown to like the characters, so it seemed like a good idea, but, sadly, it was often a mistake. Hilda's flirting with Justin's high school gym teacher was meet-bland, Daniel's fling with Wilhelmina's sister served only to keep the plate containing his irresponsible libido spinning, and Marc's boyfriend Cliff mysteriously disappeared from sight as soon as they were seen trying to hire pr0n together. Come back, Cliff! Your relationship with Marc was the only one we ended up caring about!


Of course, the main relationship drama was provided by the Betty-Henry-Gio-Charlie square, a plot I had enjoyed at the start of the season. However, by the time the season finale rolled around, I was utterly bored with it. In the first season we had dreaded the onscreen arrival of Betty's first boyfriend Walter in every episode (for all time he will be known as the Ugly Betty Gupta), while at the same time hoping Henry would return to make nerdy love eyes at Betty.

This season, every appearance of Henry served to piss us off, as we saw that he was actually not good enough for Betty either. As she grows as a person, and moves towards becoming a good writer (though probably never a great one; a lovely and realistic touch in a show that often skirts the edges of absurdity), it's obvious she's holding herself back to embark on a doomed love affair with someone whose chivalrous need to do the right thing by his new child will always get in the way of their love, if it even is love by that point. We grew ever more frustrated to see Henry's vacillation and crossed priorities get in the way of Betty's happiness, at first because we felt bad for her, and eventually because we felt bad for ourselves, as the same plot returned over and over.


That said, even if we found the arc dull, we thought it featured some of the cleverest writing, directing, and acting of the whole season. At first steadfastly Team Henry, I reacted strongly and negatively to the introduction of Gio, played by Freddy Rodriguez, this time sans rubber arm. Having loved Six Feet Under, we are steadfast fans of Rodriguez, but Gio royally pissed me off with his cockiness and bravado (Canyon was more forgiving). However, with Henry's need to do the right thing often being indistinguishable from lack of backbone, by the end of the season we had washed our hands of him, thrown out our Team Henry badges, and put on Team Gio t-shirts. When, in the penultimate episode, he says to Betty, "I don't wanna be the rebound guy. I wanna be the guy," I went nuts. OMG Betty you have to marry Gio immediately!


Of course, the problem with the rise of Gio is that the battle between him and Henry was only even for about an episode, as Gio's rise mirrored Henry's fall. By the time Henry turned up at Betty's doorstep to ask him to move to Tucson, we just got mad. Gio won! Get over it! (Though it does appear prescient now.) With Charlie (Jayma Mays) turned into a hissable cartoon villain (another misstep for the show; her character worked much better when she was even vaguely sympathetic, making Henry's need for Betty even more uncomfortable and dramatic), there was no way his plan could work -- not to mention that it would wreck the show. The final shot hinted that Betty got on a plane, but to travel to Tucson with Henry, or on holiday to Rome with Gio? Or to New York, where the show will be filmed next season thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger and tax incentives.


If you've made it this far, you'll note that I have little good to say about the show. Some of the characters became neutered (Judith Light's awesome Claire Meade went from semi-unhinged bitch to kindly fairy godmother) or too unpleasant (Alexis became a humourless bully). Some plotlines disappeared entirely (Marc and Cliff's relationship, Ignatio's past crimes), or started off well and dribbled to an inconclusive stop (Justin's grief over his father's death, which had been one of the more compelling arcs of the season). As before, a lot of this could be attributed to the effects of the strike, but whereas the first season had a shockingly high quality level, some of the episodes from the second season are the worst ever. Some weeks I even wondered why I bothered watching it.


If this were any other show that means I would stop, but Ugly Betty still has flashes of brilliance, and remains one of the most consistently well directed shows on TV. Though the clunky episodes were as empty and uninspiring as the most tired examples of the genre it mocks, and even though there were some appalling promotional gaffes here and there (the blatant shout-outs to Wicked and 27 Dresses were just awful), it still held our attention to the end, and still managed to surprise and delight us often enough to make us forgive it its shortcomings. In part that's down to the great cast, with America Ferrera, Vanessa Williams, comedy genius Becki Newton and her equally brilliant BFF Michael Urie, Mark Indelicato, and (when he has something to do) Tony Plana taking most of the honours. I'd watch the show just to see them all at work, no matter how crappy things get.

Plus, even at its worst it kept its good-hearted tone, which counts in its favour. Though many of the characters are snide, the show itself totally sincere in its klaxon-loud appeals to good nature and honesty, a trait I find myself continually happified by, even though I'm the archetypal grouch. A disappointment, then, but by no means a failure. I do hope next season heralds a real return to form, though that shooting relocation does make one wonder whether the tone of the show will change. One thing is for certain. Unless it suddenly became implausibly awesome as soon as I stopped watching it, Dirty Sexy Money will always be in its shadow, a poor imitation of glossy, soapy entertainment, empty and lunk-headed and mechanical. It's not fit to lick Betty's unattractive shoes.

Another TV Channel Is Added To Our List Of Shame

A week or so ago I railed against Turner Classic Movies for chopping up Philip Kaufman's glorious The Right Stuff, forcing me to boycott the channel (a sacrifice that irked me a few days later when they showed Bad Day At Black Rock, a movie I have yet to see). I wouldn't have thought it possible, but our list of boycotted channels just doubled, as Diva TV, which until today was pretty much a permanent fixture in our house, has made the grave error of cutting back broadcasts of Late Show With David Letterman, filling its weeknight slot with a repeat of Oprah that had been aired earlier in the day, and just cherrypicking "the best" of that week's shows and airing them on Saturday and Sunday in much the same way that Late Night With Conan O'Brien is shown on MSNBC. That show had been aired daily once upon a time, but obviously extra editions of Business Daily Featuring Suit-Clad Pro-Market Cyborg #71253 are more popular than broadcasts of a show featuring a man once described with a straight face by the Sky+ EPG as a "flame-haired mad man", a description that gave us much amusement.

You'll note that I put The Quote Marks Of Derision around "the best", as according to a message sent to a commenter on the lovely Late Show UK blog, the show has been sidelined due to its focus on guests that are not familiar to UK audiences, thus redefining "the best" as "the most likely to soothe the confused mind of the random UK viewer, who we assume to be perplexed by new experiences". While I will admit any UK viewer stumbling across a typically unfunny appearance by Chris Elliott and Gerard Mulligan would probably be so alienated by the experience that he or she would block Diva TV forever, it's patronising to think that just because Dave is interviewing one guest who is unknown to a UK audience, that they won't stick around.


Perhaps his show is being compared to UK chatshows within the Diva TV boardroom, and I understand that Late Show is completely different to our shows, such as Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and The Graham Norton Show, in that it relies on wit, charisma, and imagination to carry the day, instead of "cheeky smut" (i.e. unimaginative manipulation of English prudery to garner an "edgy" reputation), stilted banter, and obnoxious celeb chumminess. Having been exposed to the wonderfully peculiar Late Show sensibility during several trips to the US (and on occasion on UK TV when odd episodes were shown on C4 back in the '80s), having to settle for Jonathan Ross' brand of hectic, empty gobshite is a depressing prospect. Considering how he reveres Letterman, it's sad he cannot be bothered to emulate his intelligence, preferring instead to fall back on "risqué" banter instead of trying to work with his guests to try to create a unique interview experience two or three times a night.

For the record, I'm not averse to dick jokes, but if that's all you've got, then you don't deserve a show, or the adoration of fawning media types with their large collars and cocaine habits. I can only imagine Letterman is considered anathema to UK audiences because his "slick, glossy, American" shtick might be thought of as unappealing to our cynical selves, but his show is more odd than its professionalism suggests. Letterman himself might seem like an empty joke machine like Leno on first glance, but his onscreen persona is half spoof/half homage to the Johnny Carson school of presenting, taking Carson's style and giving it a post-modern twist. At times the show is practically dadaesque; recent running jokes like Old Turkey Buzzard and Len Easton, California Highway Patrol would not be out of place on Vic and Bob's insane Shooting Stars. We're pretty sure the show would have caught on eventually, but I guess we'll never know, as the show gets sidelined once more.

It's become part of our daily routine to such an extent that Canyon had a total flameout earlier, complete with profanity, and I back her 100% in that judgement. So, somehow we're going to have to find some other way to watch our hero Dave, not to mention Alan Kalter's Celebrity Interviews, Great Moments In Presidential Speeches, Fun Facts, Will It Float?, etc. etc. etc. Perhaps we'll use magic! It's worth a try. Diva TV may still be showing it, but if they're going to ignore some of the more US-slanted nights in favour of nonsense like the recent embarrassing interview with that excruciating foppish twerp Russell Brand fidgeting in his seat like a greasy tube of electrified Goth hair, we'll avoid, thanks, partially as a fuck you, and partially because it will be nice not to have to put up with the insipid and overplayed Diva TV jingle, which haunts our dreams. Even the cats meow it to us, it's on so much.

It's off our Favourites list, and as we now have a gap, I guess we can add something. It's going to be either Anime Central, FX (until it gives up on The Colbert Report and renders itself utterly useless), or Supreme Master TV. My love of whales and not dying because of the end of the world means I might plump for the latter. While I ponder my options, here is Dave interviewing his "nemesis" Richard Simmons, an interview that wouldn't fit Diva TV's criteria and would therefore not be broadcast.



Stupid TV channel.

The Wahlberg Awards - Michael Clayton

Ostensibly a run-of-the-mill corporate thriller, with the morality of beat-down corporate lackeys compromised by fealty to the faceless shareholder and terrible things done to the environment in the name of profit, Michael Clayton is lifted above the other movies in this sub-genre not only by the excellent performances of everyone involved (especially Gorgeous George, Tilda Swinton, the much-missed Sydney Pollack, and Tom Wilkinson), but by Tony Gilroy's beautiful script, concentrating more on the motivations and fears of the players in the game than on the game itself. Even if it's a story we've seen told before, Gilroy's attention to character detail transforms the movie into something more than its parts, allowing us to use our knowledge of the sub-genre's ins and outs as a subconscious baseline while layers of emotional meaning are piled on top. Plus, we get a great WTF expression from Gorgeous George Clooney, and as a result wins a Wahlberg Award for Best Response To Having Your Car Blown Up By Inept Assassins Hired By An Academy Award Winning Superlady Who Should Win Awards On A Regular Basis.










I loved how Clayton is kicked about through the whole movie to such an extent that at the end he does the right thing not because it is the right thing to do, but because he's so pissed off he wants to make someone pay, and the fact that the person who ordered the hit on him is also a total craven weakling he can push around makes it even better (at least, that's one reading of his motivation; the film invites multiple different interpretations). There's barely any nobility in the entire movie (for example, Tom Wilkinson's character only does the right thing because he's off his meds and fancies the girl who was in Studio 60), and yet it's still satisfying at the end when he gets his (wo)man. The final shot, of Clayton in the back of a cab, just pondering his life, is one of my favourite final shots of recent years.

Man, when I saw this I just kinda liked it, but the more I think about it, the more I love it. Canyon is cleverly using my fascination with Tony Gilroy to lobby for a Chez Canyonneck screening of The Cutting Edge, a film I've avoided not because it's about a subject I have no interest in, but because it was directed by Starsky, and the only other film by him I've seen (The Running Man, obviously) didn't exactly light my fire. Plus, Moira Kelly is lemon juice on a split lip. Figuratively speaking.

Ironically, Gilroy's next directorial venture, Duplicity, stars Julia Roberts, who makes Canyon's brain pulsate with intense dislike, so there's a good chance she will duplicate my Gilroy-project apathy. It sounds mighty good to me, though, featuring as it does Hunky Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti (a Shoot 'Em Up reunion!), Billy Bob Thornton, and Tom Wilkinson, now happily back in our good graces following his terrific performance in HBO's Recount, which made us momentarily forget the debacle that was his disastrous appearance in Cassandra's Dream. Sadly, no role for Tilda, though. The Tilda Swinton Fanclub is very angry about this turn of events!

This Post Is Going To Be All Over The Place

Among the many trivial frustrations I endured yesterday, which included the horrifying endirtying of a load of washing due to catastrophic clothesline malfunction, and watching the worst two-parter of Justice League I've seen to date (some sympathy, please!) the most exasperating was spending four hours reading the responses to Joan Walsh's article about the psychic debt Barack Obama owes Hillary Clinton for the behaviour of other people. The article itself irked me enough to ruin any chance of a good mood, but the letters took over my day, from the well-reasoned arguments against Hillary's determination to stay in the race, to the occasional trolls who insulted her followers, to the vows of her supporters to vote McCain in November to punish the young women who had "turned their back on feminism" by not automatically siding with the female candidate.

It was a series of monologues, screeching at Joan Walsh, Obamaniacs (or Obama Boys / Obamabots, as the Clintonites would have it*), women, men, African-Americans, Geraldine Ferraro, Keith Olbermann, and anyone else who has dared to disagree with someone else. Racist!!! Sexist!!! Troll!!! Robot!!! Ageist!!! Elitist!!! I'll vote McCain! You fucking idiot! It's not over! Stupid emotional women! He'd better kiss our asses if he expects us to vote for him! You're going to sell us all out and ruin our country just because you're a bit peeved! The horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deep one last time! Fell deeds awake! Now for Wrath, now for Ruin, and a Red Dawn!


After the third hour of my stupefied click-scroll marathon, eyes dried open, brain pummelled like William Forsyth at the end of Steven Seagal's best film (Out For Justice), I was just as punchy as everyone else on there, and seriously wanted to join the fray, but as I tend to think of the world in popular culture parameters, I would have just ended up derailing the whole anarchic mess by sniping at Battlestar Galactica fans who dare to suggest it is better than Lost, or accusing all those who refused to see Speed Racer of being fun-averse assholes who obviously despise love.

I've said before that I'm wary of talking about things I know little about for fear of being turned into so much Blogger Puree in the comments section, but even in a passive sense, surfing the net can have its hazards. It struck me that that's one of the worst thing about the internet, that you can often find a multitude of different viewpoints, many of them vile, most of them just different from yours, and end up thinking that you have to modulate your viewpoint until it resembles theirs because no one seems to be thinking the way you are. I'm lucky that though I read some pretty annoying talkbacks (including the often horrific Ain't It Cool discussions), a lot of them are frequented by interesting people who I may not agree with all the time, but are willing to express themselves like intelligent people do, instead of being troll assholes.

That's not me saying, "Waaauuuugh! Why are the people being so mean to me?!??!?" It's more that I just like to learn things, and reasonable, calm, non-histrionic people are great accidental teachers, even when I don't always agree with them. It also inspires me to be as calm and collected as them, and to think that once I have that part sorted, I can be as bold as I like with my opinions, and not worry about whether it is contrary to the norm, or perceived by the small-minded as being borne of some idiotic impulse simply because they see the world in terms of Manichean conflict between their opinion and everyone else's. That the more rabid followers of both Clinton and Obama (or Battlestar Galactica and Lost, or Speed Racer fans and the rest of the world) move further and further apart because of some weird need to get into a fight is their problem. Mine is becoming more confident in stating my feelings, having a solid rationale behind it, and then sticking to it until I am proven wrong. I shouldn't need validation, and I shouldn't think that every comment made by others that disagrees with me is probably automatically right, as I have little faith in my own reasoning abilities. I should just, "man up", as they say nowadays.

That said, my distress over delving into the, "You're racist!" "You're sexist!" morass, and seemingly getting lost in there for a few hours, was relieved when I read Warren Ellis' take on it, who not only voices my feelings far better than I ever could due to his Awesome Powers Of The Brain (not self-pity; he did write Transmetropolitan, after all), but is impervious to criticism and more than willing to unleash Arse Eels if he feels his supremacy is being challenged. I mean, that's bound to make you feel bold and strong. What do I have? Chim Chim Cookies? It's grim, but it's not the same thing.


Since then I've found other articles that have talked about the contest while avoiding the obvious namecalling, which is a huge relief for one as insecure as myself. The Economist had an interesting one about the mistakes Hillary and Bill made, and even Salon managed to get Joe Conason to write something that was fatalistic and optimistic at the same time, but at least didn't demand anything of Obama, instead asking the Obamaniacs and Clintonites to shut the fuck up for a bit. What with vicious slime like Joe Lieberman working against his own party like an enormous Judas, it's not a good time to be making threats in order to win concessions when there are people out there who want to ruin the party to settle a score and are so unwilling to make a deal that they must only be crushed with extreme prejudice.


It's silly to get so riled by all of that, and I know that, especially as these things are way more ephemeral than it seems at the time, which is why the thousands of pissy letters written to Salon and Huffington Post end up meaning nothing as they change no one's minds, only occasionally contain any useful information, and are forgotten about a couple of days later. Anyway, I appreciate that politics can bring out the best in people in the real world, and the worst in people when separated by a screen and keyboard (and vice versa). Which is why, even though I am actively interested in politics (especially American politics, partially due to previous studies and partially because I intend to live in America and need to know something about it), and unless I'm really really annoyed by something such as a mean-spirited decision to act like a child over an incontrovertible loss (and seriously Clintonites, it really was), I tend to keep my blog posts and thoughts on a pop culture track, because until I feel more confident about talking about politics, when talking about films or TV shows, no matter how angry the conversations get, and no matter how entrenched the different opinion-factions get, it's only films or TV shows, and it's not ever really about anything that important.

Oh for fuck's sake!

* I'm very disappointed that the Clintonistas couldn't see that a far more entertaining insult would have been Obamatrons.

More On That Heartbreaking Pitch Rejection

I just spent an educational moment watching CNN, which is going on about this whole Democratic nomination business, with this handsome chap Barack Obama winning a chance to go up against the unstoppable Firefly/Pilager team that I seem to have been alone in pimping on the blogosphere. Why can no one see their brilliance? Their vision? Their anarchic free spirit? It baffles me. Just after watching the Democratic nominee make an entire room lose its shit just by turning up, Rufus T. Firefly was busy reacting to Obama's win with a song, penned by his ace speechwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby:

These are the laws of my administration
No one's allowed to smoke
Or tell a dirty joke
And whistling is forbidden...
If chewing gum is chewed
The chewer is pursued.
And in the hoosegow hidden...
If any form of pleasure is exhibited
Report to me and it will be prohibited.
I'll put my foot down, so shall it be.
This is the land of the free.
The last man nearly ruined this place
He didn't know what to do with it
If you think this country's bad off now
Just wait 'til I get through with it
The country's taxes must be fixed
And I know what to do with it
If you think you're paying too much now
Just wait 'til I get through with it...

After Firefly and his mumbling and incomprehensible enigmatic running mate Dickie Pilager had left the stage, they showed footage of Hillary Clinton. She was backed up against a wall, her flashing blade repelling wave after wave of pirate attack. Or I sat on the remote and ended up rewatching Captain Blood on Sky Movies Classics. I have this weird thing where Hillary Clinton and Errol Flynn look the same. It's like colour blindness or something.

Anyway, while watching that blade endlessly whirring through the air, I realised I only told half the story of my pitch rejection. I can't leave out the next chapter, even though I again come out the loser. A year or so after being thrown out of Viewlane Pictures with my first draft sitting unread in a large cardboard box that I was having trouble carrying, I got another idea about the deadly Divider and his zombie politician brother. Still determined to get this twosome team-up of terrifying treachery and torture onscreen, I called Trip Dorfner III and Zack Wackman with a new proposal. Heeding their advice that having a horror movie in which the hero of the tale fends off a deadly attacker for ten or eleven hours might scupper its box office hopes, I realised that they were onto something, and that the movie needed a proper ending instead of the freeform open ending I had envisioned (with Laurie and The Divider battling against each other in the post-apocalyptic 24th century). Zack and Trip were glad to hear it, and thought there was room for renegotiation.

Heartened by their interest, I told them all about the final act. After a few hours of evisceration and explosions, Laurie finally stops and screams at her nemeses, "Why won't you stop? Please God, why won't you stop?!!?" Finally, putting down his razor-sharp copy of The Great Gatsby, from under the blood-soaked Groucho Marx mustache The Divider speaks, his voice shrill and annoying. "We just want to hang out with you! Stop trying to kill us, and we can just go get some ribs. That's all. It's not just a pretext to kill you later. We really will stop if we can just be BFFs." And then he gives out a terrifying cackle.

Trip's response was a bit more visceral this time. What would happen, he said, if Freddy Krueger just wanted to team up with Nancy Thompson, and they danced gaily through other people's dreams eating ice cream and playing hopskotch? What if Sally Hardesty formed a cheerleading team with Leatherface? Or Laurie Strode turned out to be related to Michael Myers? Did I really think people would forget the previous carnage? No one would buy that the Laurie in my movie could be friends with someone (or something) that had spent so long trying to destroy her. That's not an ending either. How long until The Divider stabs our hero in the back? Or The Immortal Politician? That kind of ending is just as open and unsatisfying as the other one.

Then he called me a limey jerkoff scumbag asshole motherfucker and told me to never call him ever again, and to go fuck myself for trying to ruin the horror genre. Hah! I had the last laugh then. Viewlane Pictures went on to make the costly horror/historical epic Alexander The Great Zombie, the much-derided Cannibal Holiday, the G-rated horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer And I'm Going To Tell Your Mom, and the vampire-laden remake of Manhattan, starring Woody Allen, Lance Henriksen, Norman Mailer, Liv Ullman, Gunnar Hansen, and Mia Farrow as the horrifying vampire Brood Mother, with a guest appearance by Scarlett Johansson as Woody's underage lover (a casting choice included in Woody's contract, apparently). Their company shut down three years ago, and Zack and Trip ended up in jail over unpaid parking tickets and money owed to Kensington Gore manufacturers. Somewhere in the background, inside a shadow taking up half of the screen, a sickening laugh rises up. The Divider shall never die!!!

The Day They Turned Down My Pitch

Something, I'm not sure what, compels me to tell our faithful readers about a dark day in my past; the day my idea for a horror franchise was turned down by a major motion picture producer. It's something I've never been able to discuss before, as the shame of that rejection has haunted me ever since, but perhaps I should get it off my chest here.

A few years back I got a chance to pitch my idea for a long running horror franchise featuring a ghoul of the night, known as The Divider, who hunts down nubile co-eds and murders them in various gruesome ways. Nothing too original, but as this was pre-Final Destination I hoped that the inventive deaths would give me the edge on all the other franchise wannabees out there. The Friday the 13th films were becoming ever more gimmicky and self-referential, Freddy had died and come back only to disappear up his own post-modern pre-Scream arse, and Chucky was getting ready to settle down. Perhaps The Divider would be the key to my future success.

I took a trip to Hollywood and met with the head of Viewlane Pictures, Trip Dorfner III, as well as his hit maker, producer Zack Wackman, who was responsible for such slasher classics as I Wear Your Blood, I'm Hiding In That Conspicuous Shadow Behind You, and Sometimes A Knife Is Just A Knife And Not A Phallic Representation Of The Violent Undertones Of The Patriarchal Paradigm. Trip's office was covered with posters for those movies, some of them signed by directors and stars. It was a hell of a thrill for someone who grew up watching these movies, though I didn't tell them I would much rather have watched cheap Star Wars knockoffs when I was at an impressionable age. No need to antagonise them, I thought.

Not wanting to waste any time with chit chat, I began my pitch for The Divider, setting the scene. It was to be filmed in a quiet, urban yet leafy area, like the Georgetown I had seen in The Exorcist, a place where the locals felt safe to walk the streets, but the audience would get chills from looking at. Lots of shadowy places for evildoers to leap out of. Our main characters were to be four female co-eds, Regan, Nancy, Sally, and our hero Laurie. They all go to the same school and are fast friends, but are rivals for the manly men in the school football team. Except for Laurie. She's a virgin, and gets lots of flack from the other girls (and some of the men at the school) for being "inexperienced". They keep banging on about that, especially when it seems she is smarter, and prettier, and more inspirational than the other girls. They're jealous, and even though they're outwardly very chummy, inwardly they see her as a threat.

On the night of a big slumber party they have been planning (at which they hope to see some of the sexy boys they have been lustily pining for), they see a news story about an escapee from the local asylum, the brother of a local politician who had gone insane several years earlier. The politician's family was your typical dynastic deal; rich parents, children getting elected into civic positions, etc. Unfortunately, the brother, who had been groomed for great political success, had gone crazy one night, and had killed one of his aides with a chainsaw, leading to his commital in a local institution for the dangerously crazy. The politician had tried to help his nutzo brother out, but in the process ruined his own political career, and sullied the family name for good with his increasingly deranged efforts to bring his brother back into public life, prior to killing himself in disgrace.

And now the brother, hereby known as The Divider (as he had divided his family due to his crazy and deadly escapades), was free, and on the loose again. And where was the party being held? In the house that had once belonged to the dynasty, and now belonged to Laurie's family! Oh teh noes! (I accidentally said that at the pitch meeting; I really should have copyrighted it). While bickering about boys and making snide comments about Laurie's inexperience (because they really don't have anything else to say against her), Regan goes down to the basement of the house to see if she can find anything to humiliate her supposed friend further, and while she looks around, in the shadows behind her we see the ghostly mask of The Divider, in the form of a pair of Groucho Marx glasses/mustache combo! Just at the last second Regan spins around, as The Divider pulls an razor-sharp egg beater from his pocket, and whisks the poor defenseless co-ed to death, her screams ignored by the girls upstairs, who are busy ragging on Laurie.

At this point in the story I was pleased to see that Trip and Zack were very excited. The pastiche I had created, echoing so many other great slasher movies of the recent past, was just the sort of plagiaristic carbon copy nonsense they had traded in for years. This was what I had been banking on. So I moved into the next stage of my pitch with greater confidence. One of the boys turns up early, and, as he has a thing for Nancy, drags her upstairs for some hanky-panky, much to Laurie's disgust. There then follows a long preamble to a sex scene (which mostly occurs off camera, with only a bit of nudity thrown in to titillate), crosscutting with shots of the shadowy figure of The Divider approaching the room. Once the sex is over, and the couple are sitting back and talking about Laurie's terrible inexperience, The Divider leaps out at them, and kills them with a razor sharp Slinky! It is gory and nasty and goes on forever. By now Trip and Zack were counting money in their heads.

Laurie grows concerned that Regan has gone missing, and ventures downstairs to see what is going on with her, to be greeted with a vision of whisked death that terrifies her. Her scream would split the eardrums of even the toughest slasher fan, as she sprints back upstairs to Sally. Too late! She gets there just as The Divider pops up from behind the TV, lunging at Sally with a large, razor sharp wooden spoon. Sally is killed right before Laurie's eyes, and she flees the room, heading for the kitchen where she can make a stand against her attacker. Zack and Trip were leaning forwards at this point. I think it was here that Zack said he thought we had the beginnings of a real franchisable hit on our hands. I was so excited I could have danced on the spot.

Laurie runs over to the knife stand, pulling out two of the largest blades there, and spins around, looking for her attacker. For several heartstopping seconds nothing happens, and we watch Laurie's terror-stricken, sweaty face as she waits for something to happen. And then, with a crashing bang, The Divider bursts out of the fridge, wielding a razor-sharp ice tray! No one could have seen this coming. With a cry of defiance, Laurie plunges one of the knives into The Divider's chest, and with a gurgle, the killer slumps to the floor, seemingly dead.

Shocked and horrified, Laurie stumbles from the kitchen, still clutching one of the knives. For a moment she steadies herself in a doorway, and just as the audience begins to relax, from behind her stands The Divider, not yet dead! We watch in horror as Laurie stands there, oblivious to her impending death. Just as The Divider is in range of her with a razor-sharp turkey baster, Laurie hears his movement, whirls around, and plunges the other knife into his chest! Again, he slumps to the floor, seemingly dead.

Zack and Trip were beside themselves. This is gonna be a huge hit! they said. We're gonna get teenage asses on seats from Oakland to Newark! It'll be the smash horror sensation of the year! I was thrilled, but I told them to hold onto their horses, because the best was yet to come. Laurie walks away from her quarry, covered with his blood but still beautiful and unbowed by his viciousness. She heads for the front door, and is just about to open it, when a bloodied hand grabs her shoulder. It's The Divider! He tries to pull her away from the door, but his hand is slippery, and she pulls loose, swinging the door towards her and catching the Divider on the side of his head. There is a sickening crack, and The Divider again hits the floor. Seemingly dead.

Again the producers shouted their praises, and again I told them to hold on. As Laurie passes through the door, a hand grabs her ankle, and tries to pull her back into the house. They struggle, and she manages to get out, with The Divider hanging on for grim death, his head now over the threshold. With a scream of fury, Laurie grabs the doorknob, yanks the door shut on The Divider's head, over and over and over again, until the hand falls limply from her leg. Once more she breathes a sigh of relief.

It was at this point that Zack and Trip started to seem a bit uncomfortable, but I barely noticed until later, as I was just getting into the swing of things. As she makes her way to the end of her driveway, a car pulls up, belonging to Tad, the one football player who isn't a jock, and who secretly pines for Laurie. She falls into his arms, sobbing, and he consoles her. Laurie is finally safe. But not Tad! With a gurgling cry he stiffens, blood coursing from his mouth, stumbling back to reveal the razor-sharp end of an umbrella poking out of his chest. Laurie watches in horror as a figure rears up from behind him; the brother of The Divider! Back from the dead, his maggoty face a visage of grisly terror!

Laurie's scream once more pierces the night, as she races past the walking corpse, dashing into Tad's car, slamming it into gear, pedal to the metal, barreling the car into the zombie, shattering his body in two. Gore flies everywhere. Convinced the former politician is now finished, Laurie gets out of the car and tries to walk down the main road to the local police station, but from behind her she hears a shuffling noise. Almost too terrified to look, she turns, and sees the hideous sight of The Divider staggering down the road, carrying the still moving torso and head of his undead brother. It is truly a scene that would have sent shivers down the spine of America.

At that point Trip stopped me, and asked if that was going to be the end of the movie. I was shocked. Of course not, I replied. We haven't gotten to the really good bits yet, where Laurie tries to repel the unstoppable duo of The Divider and The Immortal Politician with a sword, a large stone from a nearby wall, a gun she takes from an incapacitated policeman, a shotgun from a police car, an exploding gas canister triggered by said shotgun, acid, another car, a tank, a flamethrower, a trash compactor, a lion released from the local zoo, pushing them down the same flight of stairs where poor Father Karras met his match, stamping on their heads, drowning, dropping a building on them, and tricking them onto a test flight of an experimental rocket and firing them into the sun. This doesn't work either. Each time The Divider and the other member of his long-defunct political dynasty rises up in an attempt to kill Laurie.

Shaking his head in sorrow, Zack asked me how long I thought the movie would last, and I told him my first draft came in at about 490 pages, though I wasn't quite sure I had reached the end yet. Then he gave me some good advice. He said that if we made The Divider, at the start of the movie half the audience would be rooting for Laurie, and half the audience would be rooting for The Divider. If the movie ends after 90 minutes, the audience would be rooting for Laurie. After over eight hours of death blows and contrived resurrections performed at the expense of believability and audience patience, they wouldn't be rooting for anyone, even though Laurie is obviously the good guy. An obstinate horror movie villain can only be so obstinate for so long before he becomes annoying, and then your audience will end up going to see some other, inferior movie instead, probably a heartwarming tale about an old man who just wants to stop his daughter (and granddaughter, and great granddaughter, etc. etc.) from getting an abortion. Then he told me to get the fuck out of his office.

Don't know why I just remembered all that. Just thought I should share.