Why does no one make funny sitcoms anymore? What's that...?

The UK used to be awash with amusing situation comedies. From the mainstream like Only Fools and Horses to the alternative like The Young Ones.

Then they all went away and all we got was shit like The Vicar of Dibley and Goodnight Sweetheart. The BBC have seen fit to cancel Top of the Pops and laid Doctor Who to rest for 16 years, but they still haven't saved us from Last of the Summer Wine.

Thanks must be expressed for The IT Crowd from the creator of Father Ted. Well cast and well written, the sillier the situation the funnier the comedy. Looks simple but it isnt. If it's not renewed after its current 3rd seson it will probably be another decade before anything decent comes along.

P.S. Will somebody tell Ade Edmondson to stop writing sitcoms without Rik Mayall. AS part of that doubleact, ade is a comedy God. Without him he is a skinhead Sampson and no one is laughing except Delilah...

Stupid Monkey - The Return of Robot Chicken!!!

I thought it was cancelled. MTV's 10 minute comedy gem was never to return after it's 3rd season ended earlier this year. It was either a poor decision or a crap gag, but that chice has changed an Robot Chicken is back!!!

Much like the UK's Adam & Joe show in the 90's, this uses traditional stop motion animated toys to perform sketches, which frequently riff of of pop culture.

Their two Star Wars Specials are highly recommended, easily funnier than the mighty Family Guy's Star Wars spoof from last year. It does what all good satire should do...subvert the original person/film/event so that it never seems the same again. Their Boba Fett is a perfect combination of Ego and Flamboyance, who now infects the Holy Trilogy with his character.

Season 4 kicks off with self-voiced cameos from Ron Moore, Joss Whedon and Seth McFarelane as well as an insight into the construction of the Aztec traps at the beginning of Raiders.

Genius

Greetings! Do you want to play a game?

Whatever happened to director John Badham, eh? Master of the 80's dumb-but-fun techno thriller, he disappeared in the 90's, buried under the weight of middling action-pap like The Assassin and Drop Zone.

War Games (1983), despite its primitive computer code and phone modem depiction of cutting edge home computing, remains enjoyable, thrilling and tense stuff.

Of course the plot holes are huge; guided public tours around NORAD...leaving a known terror suspect alone in a secure office with computer... Plus it doesn't measure up to the mighty Dr Strangelove or Lumet's Failsafe.

But when naive super-computer Joshua asks Matthew Brodderick, " Do you want to play a game?"... you know thats real shit in your pants...

Tony Scott's Eagle Eye & I'll tell thee why...

The best art, whether it's movies or otherwise, is done by creative folk who do their own thing rather than replicate the work of others.

With Eagle Eye we have something that wants to be a Tony Scott directed, Jerry Bruckheimer produced movie soooo much..... but just can't quite capture the snappy scripting or imaginative helming those colaborations frequently produce (be it Crimson Tide, Enemy Of The State or Deja Vu).

Wannabe inclinations aside, it is a fast, well plotted romp that starts off as a contemporary techno thriller and then drifts into hard sci-fi territory. Where some critics couldn't accept this change of focus that occurs half way through, I simply found it derivative of movies from both the 60's and 80's.

An indifferent fan of Big Stan

The star of Big Stan, rob schneider, clearly had an adjenda. This was...
1/ I want to direct a movie. AND star in it goddamn it!
2/ I want to make a prison movie
3/ I want to make a martial arts movie, where I play Neo (er, the hero, I mean...)

And so it came to pass that the mildly amusing creation came to be. No great...but still lightyears better than the stillborn deviant that is Adam Sandler's Longest Yard.

Holding Out For Heroes

After an impressive first season and a inconsistant second, it was with great relief that Heroes returned to our screens with gory cranial screw-top surgury for its third season.

However I have grown weary of the last few weeks. Much of it seems repetative of previous seasons...which is surprising (as its openly mimiking comic books...things that rarely run out of imagination). But the main reason is it's story, spread between tons of independent characters, is moving too fast. It's like Brett Ratner's X-men 3: The Last Stand...lots of interesting thing happening to characters who seem not to be in the remotest bit effected by events. The speed of events also means the events, deaths, deceptions, changes of alleigences etc have little dramatic impact. One minute bad guy Sylar has turned good...two episodes later he's bad again. One minute hero Peter has aquired Godlike powers, the nexy its taken away from him...and in the process a seasons worth of dramatic possibilities disappears too.

It also been difficult to keep track of who's who and who's doing what due to the number of regulars in play, combined with warp 10 plot speed.

Thank god for episode 8, which allowed some much needed breathing space as well as some backstory clarification. This seems to have been the mid season reset the series needed.
So instead of tuning out, as I have been in danger of doing, I'm back, hoping that the story threads begins to merge and focus as the season progresses.

It must also be noted that the casting of Robert Forster as the big bad is a masterstroke. He was in Delta Force and The Black Hole, don't you know...

Things That Reaaly Grind My Gears: Xmas Tunes

Year after year, around October Time, the cable TV music channels clog up with those much loved(!) Christmas classics. Every store, every elevator and every corporate answer-phone is playying the same bloody tunes. Then, of course, work caves in and they start getting played in the office. No escape; no sanity.

Thank Satan then for this new compilation, "We Wish You A Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year". It might be the same old shite, but at least it rocks.

Particularly impressive is the Black Metal version of Silent Night. Now to find some lovely Christian folk to enjoy it with...