Celebrity Juice isn’t funny. A statement I’m sure most sane people will agree with. Generally ITV don’t do comedy, any form of wit is considered too high brow for their audience and as a result their output is limited to soaps and reality shows. They’re the Iceland of television, punting a buffet of cheap party food right into your face.
Amidst the peculiar host of eccentric characters ITV houses lies Keith Lemon (yes I know it‘s Leigh Francis), who by a process of elimination has become their go to funny man. Basically a parody of Paddy McGuinness, Keith Lemon is a misogynist dick, whose parodiable value is redundant as most of his fans are misogynist dicks, just as Al Murray’s fans are racists.
Keith Lemon first appeared as a character in Bo’Selecta, and displayed the comedy stylings that ITV loves. With “love cheat” Vernon Kay, and Paddy McGuiness (a man with the personality of a serial rapist) presenting most third rate “entertainment” programmes on channel 3, Keith Lemon appears to be the perfect ITV presenter, and that’s how we have Celebrity Juice.
A panel show like no other, Celebrity Juice sees Keith Lemon ask questions about celebrities to celebrities. Every panel show has two hilarious team captains, and none are more hilarious than BFF’s Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby. For two bestest buds they have all the chemistry of helium and argon, they are to put it simply, inert. It might all be lovely and stuff but this is supposed to be a funny panel show, not a lovely panel show.
Perhaps aware of this, comedian Rufus Hound has been enlisted as a regular guest, and I’ve seen him be funny and formulate coherent sentences, but on Celebrity Juice it just looks like he’s chaperoning a children’s party, and has to concede in joining in on the madness.
At one time Keith Lemon was amusing, but five minutes later the repetitiveness was so grating that he was nothing less than fucking irritating. He’s a perpetual Vic Reeves thigh rub, relentless in demonstrating that the notion of misogyny is the pinnacle of comedy. When you hear people on the street shouting out his catchphrases with no irony whatsoever, the character of Keith Lemon ceases to be ironic. I’m not after Have I Got News For You or Q.I, but I don’t want to hear the following on a constant loop:
“I’d smash your back doors in”
“Bang tidy”
“Holly Willybooby”
“Fearne Cotton has big nostrils”
“Potato!”
“I’d smash your back doors in”
“Bang tidy”
“Holly Willybooby”
“Fearne Cotton has big nostrils”
“Potato!”
“I’d smash your back doors in”
It goes on and on and on. I’m sure Leigh Francis is an intelligent man, it would be great to see some evidence of that, but ITV is not the platform to showcase intellect or comedy. Any decent television they might produce gets lost in the shit storm of shows such as Britan’s Got Talent, Look it’s Peter Andre meandering, The only way is Essex, Look it’s Jordan meandering, and of course Celebrity Juice.
Lucky for me I’ve never seen Sing if you can. Oh wait, I have. A PRIME TIME Saturday night programme hosted by Keith Lemon and Stacey Solomon, sees “celebrities” singing while stuff happens to them. The proceeds go to charity but it must be causing far more problems than it’s solving. Yeah, get your family round the TV, watch Chesney Hawkes sing while he’s set on fire, and watch your kids grow up to be morons just like you, and when you’re dead your epitaph will read “Bang Tidy”.
Saturday 28 May 2011
Wednesday 18 May 2011
Lego!
Everyone loves lego, yeah, it’s a bad man toy you get me? Of course you do. While too old to play with real lego my only enjoyment has come from lego games such as Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, and Lego Batman. Each game adapts their respective franchise into lego form, and while aimed at kids, they prove to be immensely enjoyable for just about anyone who plays them. Recently the series has somewhat stumbled, running out of franchises to “legofy”, they have resorted to releasing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, play as all your favourite characters from all your favourite movies! Distraught from playing the demo, I have come up with a list of franchises that should be “legofied”.
Lego Die Hard
With a fifth film in the works a lego game would be a perfect tie in, and who wouldn’t want to play as a lego John McClane? Or a lego Hans Gruber? Ok, it might be a little too violent for kids, and even with five films there wouldn’t be much source material, but an epic showdown in the Nakatomi Plaza would be…epic.
Lego The Notebook
One for the chicks. You would play as lego Ryan Gosling, and you’d do stuff that happened in the film…I haven’t seen it.
Lego The Wire
Or Lego Gritty Drama as they might call it. There would certainly be a variety of characters to play as, and a lego Baltimore would look impressive, but it may be too depressing for kids.
Lego Curb your Enthusiasm
You play as a lego Larry David, your objective is to talk your way into embarrassing and humiliating situations, and pick up the (lego) pieces in the process.
Lego Firefly
This game would be amazing, there would be a ton of characters with different skills, loads of action, levels in space, but it would get cancelled and you’d never finish the game.
Lego This Morning
Cooking, domestic violence, horoscopes, paedophilia, books, necrophilia, your task as lego Schofield is to provide links for impossibly unrelated segments. Would be the most challenging game ever.
Lego Dawson’s Creek
Every lego game requires you to spend hours collecting things, in lego Dawson’s Creek you would collect things like Spielberg posters, Pacey’s punch lines, Jen’s ex-boyfriends, and Joey’s inexplicable bad moods.
Lego Die Hard
With a fifth film in the works a lego game would be a perfect tie in, and who wouldn’t want to play as a lego John McClane? Or a lego Hans Gruber? Ok, it might be a little too violent for kids, and even with five films there wouldn’t be much source material, but an epic showdown in the Nakatomi Plaza would be…epic.
Lego The Notebook
One for the chicks. You would play as lego Ryan Gosling, and you’d do stuff that happened in the film…I haven’t seen it.
Lego The Wire
Or Lego Gritty Drama as they might call it. There would certainly be a variety of characters to play as, and a lego Baltimore would look impressive, but it may be too depressing for kids.
Lego Curb your Enthusiasm
You play as a lego Larry David, your objective is to talk your way into embarrassing and humiliating situations, and pick up the (lego) pieces in the process.
Lego Firefly
This game would be amazing, there would be a ton of characters with different skills, loads of action, levels in space, but it would get cancelled and you’d never finish the game.
Lego This Morning
Cooking, domestic violence, horoscopes, paedophilia, books, necrophilia, your task as lego Schofield is to provide links for impossibly unrelated segments. Would be the most challenging game ever.
Lego Dawson’s Creek
Every lego game requires you to spend hours collecting things, in lego Dawson’s Creek you would collect things like Spielberg posters, Pacey’s punch lines, Jen’s ex-boyfriends, and Joey’s inexplicable bad moods.
Thursday 5 May 2011
Thor Blimey!
Who’s your favourite super hero? Batman? Superman? Spider-Man? Iron Man? Thor? Chances are you didn’t say Thor, no one really likes Thor, he’s boring, he dresses funny and talks like a dick. Marvel are running out of characters to put in their movies and subsequently they’ve had to make Thor.
Marvel like to think of themselves as mavericks when casting directors, and Kenneth Branagh initially appeared to be a strange choice, but a classical sort of hero needs a classical sort of director. Much of the film’s plot is to an extent Shakespearian and it’s here where Branagh succeeds, the lust for power that Thor and his brother Loki both share is the most gripping element of the story, and it’s a shame Thor ever sets foot on Earth.
When he does fall to Earth, he is met by Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard, and Kat Dennings, and the inauguration of this gang makes for a strange pacing. The film constantly shifts between two settings, the plot is driven forward in Asgard only to be slowed down with Thor’s Earthbound coming of age. Shit is happening in Asgard and on Earth Stellan Skarsgard is helping a troubled young man like he’s still in Good Will Hunting.
There’s no doubt that Kat Dennings was cast to provide a little humour, but the comedy comes from the mere act of Thor speaking all olden days in modern America, and while this is far from high brow, I still ashamedly laughed. When Kat Denning’s INSANE dialogue about shit like a stolen ipod doesn’t make you laugh there really is no point of her being in the film at all. In fact the funniest part of the film, like all other Marvel films, is Stan Lee’s cameo.
It’s strange that between the two settings, Asgard looks the most realistic. We are sold this fantastic looking in-depth world, and then it’s juxtaposed with a tiny American desert town, which seems to have a pet shop and nothing else. When Thor’s mates turn up in their Asgardian clobber it looks ridiculous, and at this point Thor becomes very silly. To make matters worse when Thor inevitably comes of age, Natalie Portman utters the phrase “Oh…my…god” (do you get it? Because he’s a god LOLZ) in such a cheesy manner that she should give her Oscar back.
Perhaps the writers were getting bored because by the final scene, there were barely sentences between Thor and his daddy Odin, “You will make a wise king”, “you were a wise father”, “As will you be”, “yes”, “hmm”. By now I’ve become prepared to sit through ten minutes of credits to see a 30 second scene starring Samuel L. Jackson, but I’m starting to think it’s not worth it, no one else did, they all fucked off.
Without the pressure of setting up The Avengers, Thor might have been very different, what we got was a great film merged with a very silly one, and while it’s not a disappointment, it missed the opportunity to be the best Marvel film yet. There is only Captain America left to come before The Avengers graces our screens, and then it’s finally over…Apart from Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, and whatever the fuck they do with the Hulk.
Marvel like to think of themselves as mavericks when casting directors, and Kenneth Branagh initially appeared to be a strange choice, but a classical sort of hero needs a classical sort of director. Much of the film’s plot is to an extent Shakespearian and it’s here where Branagh succeeds, the lust for power that Thor and his brother Loki both share is the most gripping element of the story, and it’s a shame Thor ever sets foot on Earth.
When he does fall to Earth, he is met by Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard, and Kat Dennings, and the inauguration of this gang makes for a strange pacing. The film constantly shifts between two settings, the plot is driven forward in Asgard only to be slowed down with Thor’s Earthbound coming of age. Shit is happening in Asgard and on Earth Stellan Skarsgard is helping a troubled young man like he’s still in Good Will Hunting.
There’s no doubt that Kat Dennings was cast to provide a little humour, but the comedy comes from the mere act of Thor speaking all olden days in modern America, and while this is far from high brow, I still ashamedly laughed. When Kat Denning’s INSANE dialogue about shit like a stolen ipod doesn’t make you laugh there really is no point of her being in the film at all. In fact the funniest part of the film, like all other Marvel films, is Stan Lee’s cameo.
It’s strange that between the two settings, Asgard looks the most realistic. We are sold this fantastic looking in-depth world, and then it’s juxtaposed with a tiny American desert town, which seems to have a pet shop and nothing else. When Thor’s mates turn up in their Asgardian clobber it looks ridiculous, and at this point Thor becomes very silly. To make matters worse when Thor inevitably comes of age, Natalie Portman utters the phrase “Oh…my…god” (do you get it? Because he’s a god LOLZ) in such a cheesy manner that she should give her Oscar back.
Perhaps the writers were getting bored because by the final scene, there were barely sentences between Thor and his daddy Odin, “You will make a wise king”, “you were a wise father”, “As will you be”, “yes”, “hmm”. By now I’ve become prepared to sit through ten minutes of credits to see a 30 second scene starring Samuel L. Jackson, but I’m starting to think it’s not worth it, no one else did, they all fucked off.
Without the pressure of setting up The Avengers, Thor might have been very different, what we got was a great film merged with a very silly one, and while it’s not a disappointment, it missed the opportunity to be the best Marvel film yet. There is only Captain America left to come before The Avengers graces our screens, and then it’s finally over…Apart from Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, and whatever the fuck they do with the Hulk.
Wednesday 4 May 2011
Some Like It Hoth
Star Wars is a bit shit isn’t it? As it’s May the fourth I feel pressured into watching the movies today like millions of others are, but instead of embracing the pun in today’s date, I’d rather just watch something else. I love Star Wars, there’s no denying it, I’ve known that Luke is Vader’s son longer than I’ve known Jesus is God’s son, but when you’re confronted by its critics it’s difficult to defend it and you have to agree that really, it is a bit shit.
It’s clichéd to blame George Lucas for ruining it for everyone but the sad truth is it’s entirely his fault. The original films didn’t need any special effects added to them, and the prequels never needed to be made. Part of the charm of Star Wars was imagining what made Anakin Skywalker turn to the dark side, how were Luke and Leia separated at birth? What exactly have R2-D2 and C-3PO been through? And what the fuck is the force? Questions that as a child let your imagination run wild, and this is what made it magic, not midi bastard chlorians (yes, I know I could have read the books).
I remember being insanely excited about seeing The Phantom Menace, I was twelve, too young to really judge the credentials of any film and as a result I thought it was pretty good. Nothing can truly annoy a twelve year old, not even Jar Jar Binks. Watching it on video a year later just wasn’t the same, Darth Maul still looked badass but it was boring, very boring, and it wasn’t Jar Jar I found most annoying, it was Anakin, if I was Obi Wan I would have drowned the fucker and saved everyone the hassle.
Episode II came out long after I had discovered masturbation and as a result I think I’ve only ever seen it once, I clearly had other things to be doing.
So, moving on to Episode III, where the shit just got real. While clearly the best of the prequels, Revenge of the Sith still had its problems, mainly the younglings, and that ending. Lucas had three opportunities to improve his franchise or at the very least to supplement it with a decent back story. What he did was make three very average films and ruin the reputation of the first trilogy.
I’m not that much of a moron to not understand that this is science fiction, but some of the shit is just ludicrous. A nine year old living in a desert has built a robot, a fucking robot who is fluent in over six millions forms of communication! Maybe he picked some of those up in his gap year. Anakin can build a robot but he can’t make a decent bit of breathing equipment over a decade later? This guy is supposed to be a genius yet he didn’t even think of Heelys or a Segway as a faster way of getting round the Death Star, what about strapping mouse droids to the bottom of his feet? Luke and Leia are separated at birth so Anakin can’t find them, Luke takes the Skywalker name and moves to his home planet and he still can‘t find him! He can’t build a robot, he’s a fucking idiot.
The franchise is ever expanding, TV shows, books and video games are constantly adding to its canon in every direction and there are no signs of it slowing down. Lucas says he’ll never film the last three episodes but the threat is still there, if there’s semen to be squeezed out of its shrivelled penis then it will be squeezed and when they’ve run out of Clone Wars and Old Republics we’ll see Episodes VII-IX. A blu-ray release of all six films is due later this year, and if the end of the world doesn’t kill you in 2012, The Phantom Menace in 3D just might.
Only Lucas knows what he’s going to tinker with next, perhaps Jar Jar Binks will be 30% more annoying, or Hayden Christensen’s face will be superimposed over the young Anakin, but whatever he does won’t make it a better film. It’s a pride and stubbornness that raped Indiana Jones, and has made it incredibly difficult to enjoy some of my favourite films. So on May the fourth, I say this to George Lucas, fuck you!
It’s clichéd to blame George Lucas for ruining it for everyone but the sad truth is it’s entirely his fault. The original films didn’t need any special effects added to them, and the prequels never needed to be made. Part of the charm of Star Wars was imagining what made Anakin Skywalker turn to the dark side, how were Luke and Leia separated at birth? What exactly have R2-D2 and C-3PO been through? And what the fuck is the force? Questions that as a child let your imagination run wild, and this is what made it magic, not midi bastard chlorians (yes, I know I could have read the books).
I remember being insanely excited about seeing The Phantom Menace, I was twelve, too young to really judge the credentials of any film and as a result I thought it was pretty good. Nothing can truly annoy a twelve year old, not even Jar Jar Binks. Watching it on video a year later just wasn’t the same, Darth Maul still looked badass but it was boring, very boring, and it wasn’t Jar Jar I found most annoying, it was Anakin, if I was Obi Wan I would have drowned the fucker and saved everyone the hassle.
Episode II came out long after I had discovered masturbation and as a result I think I’ve only ever seen it once, I clearly had other things to be doing.
So, moving on to Episode III, where the shit just got real. While clearly the best of the prequels, Revenge of the Sith still had its problems, mainly the younglings, and that ending. Lucas had three opportunities to improve his franchise or at the very least to supplement it with a decent back story. What he did was make three very average films and ruin the reputation of the first trilogy.
I’m not that much of a moron to not understand that this is science fiction, but some of the shit is just ludicrous. A nine year old living in a desert has built a robot, a fucking robot who is fluent in over six millions forms of communication! Maybe he picked some of those up in his gap year. Anakin can build a robot but he can’t make a decent bit of breathing equipment over a decade later? This guy is supposed to be a genius yet he didn’t even think of Heelys or a Segway as a faster way of getting round the Death Star, what about strapping mouse droids to the bottom of his feet? Luke and Leia are separated at birth so Anakin can’t find them, Luke takes the Skywalker name and moves to his home planet and he still can‘t find him! He can’t build a robot, he’s a fucking idiot.
The franchise is ever expanding, TV shows, books and video games are constantly adding to its canon in every direction and there are no signs of it slowing down. Lucas says he’ll never film the last three episodes but the threat is still there, if there’s semen to be squeezed out of its shrivelled penis then it will be squeezed and when they’ve run out of Clone Wars and Old Republics we’ll see Episodes VII-IX. A blu-ray release of all six films is due later this year, and if the end of the world doesn’t kill you in 2012, The Phantom Menace in 3D just might.
Only Lucas knows what he’s going to tinker with next, perhaps Jar Jar Binks will be 30% more annoying, or Hayden Christensen’s face will be superimposed over the young Anakin, but whatever he does won’t make it a better film. It’s a pride and stubbornness that raped Indiana Jones, and has made it incredibly difficult to enjoy some of my favourite films. So on May the fourth, I say this to George Lucas, fuck you!
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