Real Just Got Shit

This isn’t so much a moan about naturalism as a comedic tool, more the trend in recent years that any single camera sitcom with no laugh track, semi-improvised dialogue and preferably some swearing, seems to get an automatic critical pass and is deemed somehow more worthy. Spot these Bafta baiting atrocities by playing Critic Bingo and scouring your average broadsheet review for words and phrases like ‘dark’, ‘brave’, ‘realistic‘, ‘beautifully observed’ and ‘dead clever’.

So when did this all begin? Well the Year Zero as far as most reviewers seem to be concerned would be the advent of The Office. Sure, the mockumentary format was already a bit old hat by this point -  having been used in The Pool sketches in The Day Today, People Like Us and so on – and The Royle Family had already proven that longueurs were no barrier to mainstream success, but The Office was probably the one that has pretty much become the template for this is how it’s done. Now I’m not here to argue that those two aren’t classic shows – I’ve not gone totally wang-waving mental – but what seems to have got lost in subsequent years is that it wasn’t the form that made these shows funny, but the writing. What primarily made The Office so good was its brilliant execution – grafting dramatic, almost soapy storylines onto a sitcom format and making the whole damn thing work. Its stylistic quirks were just the icing rather than the cake.

The most noticeable trend in the last decade, particularly in UK sitcoms, has been the slow death of the laugh track (be it canned or studio). I won’t be dancing on its grave like some – in a few cases, such as It’s Garry Shandling’s Show or even Seinfeld, it really adds to the energy of the performances – but in general it’s a fairly inessential addition to a show. Having said that, a rerun of Father Ted or I’m Alan Partridge is in no way ruined for me by its presence, and I don’t see its absence as a signifier of some higher artistic worth. But you know who begs to differ? Sam Wollaston of course – a man for whom words fall from Macbook Air like shit from arse (c. Spartacus: Gods of the Arena).  Here he is on the execrable Roger And Val Have Just Got In: ‘I began by appreciating the lack of canned laughter.’ Oh brilliant. So now you’re sat there enjoying what isn’t in the show. What else did you enjoy not being there? A car chase? An uplifting Glee-style song and dance number? FFS. Griping about the presence of a laugh track seems to have become lazy reviewer shorthand for having a refined comic palate.

So, when I start my bi-weekly moan on this topic and the pub immediately empties or Friend X is no longer online, the show that inevitably crops up is The Trip. It’s a show which I thought had its moments, but its numerous self-indulgences signify for me where realism ends and onanism begins. The US show you’ll most commonly see cited by UK comedians is the undeniably great Curb Your Enthusiasm. The thing that most people seem to take away from Curb is that it’s semi-improvised, to the point where script has almost become a dirty word. Well yes, Curb is semi-improvised. It also has a cast comprised of some of the best improvisational comics in the US – plus Cheryl ‘why would you do that Larry?’ Hines – and storylines that are tighter than a gnat’s chuff. A Curb show outline will have around five liberally annotated pages but that’s solid plot, and takes can go into the thirties with LD suggesting key lines as jumping off points for the scene.

Compare this to The Trip which often played out more like Lost In Translation meets Groundhog Day, the cycle being starter, impression-off, repeat. And the pauses weren’t so much as pregnant as birthed, went through an awkward goth phase and then buggered off to university before the joke was eventually delivered. Yeah, that might be naturalistic, but entertaining? Debatable. As for the show staking a claim to realism, Coogan’s problems are real alright: ennui-laden multimillionaire comic ears-deep in muff can’t find true love, Hollywood acclaim or a really good crème brulee; but the general yearning for something better aside, I didn’t find these problems particularly gripping or relatable. Apparently the comedy had ‘real edge’ and it took ‘a lot of guts’ for them to make it. Personally I found as far as being realistic goes, ‘Steve Coogan’ was a far more sanitised, sympathetic creation than the coke snorting fuckmonkey of tabloid lore. Tommy Saxondale was a much more interesting, nuanced character.

However, the show that really pisses on my porridge, the one that’s taken the very worst that comedy vérité has to offer and combined it in one moribund Gagasaki of a half hour, is Him & Her. The premise of the show, if you’re lucky enough to have avoided it, is that the most tedious, unlikeable unemployed couple in the world hang around in their flat and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Seinfeld ain’t got nothing on this shit. Of course the critics spaffed all over it saying that it’s yep, beautifully observed, to which my response is ‘oh that makes it good, does it?’ For a long time the last great taboo in television has been seeing characters on the can – well Him & Her breaks down the fourth (toilet) wall on this one when one of them opines ‘Can you make me some toast? I just done a wee. I fink I done a poo as well.’

Now I’ve had mornings on the mercy seat packed with more tension than a Hitchcock drama and parked my breakfast in many a meaningful way, but I’ve never thought it would add a deeper level of understanding to a character – to see man, trousers down, vulnerable and de-clenched, is to see the true essence of what it is to be human. Also, in line with so much realistic dialogue, nobody would actually say this. Even somebody with the most spastic of colons is pretty certain whether they’ve dropped the brown shark or not. But Him & Her really plays the full deck: mumbled, dramatically inert dialogue, quizzical rise and fall intonation, and interminable silences. We’re getting dangerously close to ‘comedy is like jazz’ territory here – it isn’t so much about the jokes as the space between the jokes. I wouldn’t want to spend thirty minutes with these enervating DSS fucks, so why would I want them beamed into my living room either?

A lot of these shows are often labelled as ambitious, but I think in many cases the reliance on naturalistic tropes belies exactly the opposite – celebrating rough cut amateurism for its own sake. The Observer’s recent review of the distinctly middling Fresh Meat – a show dubbed comedy drama, in that much like a nut allergy warning label, it contains only traces of either – warns that it ‘risks becoming as sparkling as 30 Rock.’ A long-running, successful, consistently funny gag a minute sitcom? How awful. Of course there are plenty of examples of this kind of thing being done well, like Marion & Geoff and even Peep Show in the UK to the cruelly cancelled Party Down in the US, but it’s the snobbery and unthinking blanket approval that really grates.

There are many more shows on my shitlist – Pulling, Lizzie and Sarah – shows where people behaving universally appallingly is somehow more real and therefore funnier, as if the recognition and laughter reflexes have the same trigger. But ultimately it should come down to this: when assessing a sitcom’s worth, funny should come before form. Realism is just another form of stylistic technique.

Cash And Carrie

So to the third and final of my extraneous whinges on T Lee’s blog. My trilogy, if you will, one that people are already calling ‘probably more appropriately hosted elsewhere.’

I thought I’d turn to a big question that vexes many. How did Sex And The City become so thunderingly culturally obnoxious?

The title’s become a shorthand for untrammelled cinematic shit-blasts, but worse, a certain type of hen night/Here Come The Girls advertising-friendly Tampax Pearl version of femininity. The ladies who use brand names as nouns and peddle a kind of fluffy-cute that many of our betitted number would rather do a Chaz Bono than sign up to.

(‘Squeeeee SATC! LOVE. IT. DOT. COM. Which one are you?’ Sorry, my brain function exceeds that recognised by the Glasgow Coma Scale, we can converse no further. Goodnight, dear imbecile.)

Plenty of people say, simple: it was always terrible. I disagree. In its earlier incarnation, it was a sharply written, funny drama. Stylistically, very much a Marmite flavour, sure, but not the festival of over-priced shoes and dung-minded giggling its detractors imagine.

I say imagine because often they object to an impression of it, rather than having seen it.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t try to win any converts, there was plenty to dislike if it wasn’t your thing. Such as the trite Carrie philosophical puzzler of the episode. (‘I had to wonder: do we obsess over appalling bags or are we obsessive appalling bags?’) Kim Cattrall’s fairly grotesque ‘cougar’ cartoon. (That’s not sexism, she struck a blow for equality by proving rapey libidos are universally off-putting. If Samantha was writ as an older man with a permanent stalk-on for young tail, we’d all be going YEUGH GROSS and douching with Domestos.)

And for a programme essentially about dating, the love interests tended to be undeveloped.  The Hunky One Who Chops Wood. The Writer Who Says Rude Stuff. Ze Nasty Forrin Russian. And of course, Mr Right – The Smug One Who’s Rich. Reader, I merged with him in a mutually advantageous piece of corporate synergy.

But as a way to while away an hour in your decline into the eternal dark void of ex-existence, it passed muster as sparky distraction.

It wasn’t anti-feminism, either. I hesitate to say it was ‘ground-breaking’ for fear of winning the Mark Lawson prize in media blather bingo, but pre-SATC, show me the show that had female leads who were a) over 30 b) not housewives, mums or district attorneys determined to get to the truth and c) able to have sex without it being about looking for love.

And SATC even cast a woman who was not a conventionally pretty ten-out-of-hard-ten in the central role. Some men are still struggling to process this flagrant insult to penises in an HBO series they wouldn’t have watched anyway. Our gender got James Gandolfini, Edward James Olmos and Lovejoy with a Brylcreemed fanny-parting, you’d think we’d give something back.

If these are pitifully small steps, well, yes. Exactly. This is where we be. And maybe progress doesn’t always come in the packages we’d wish them to.

Somehow, when the SATC TV team got the film deal and gathered for that doughnuts meeting, they managed to lose all the wit and occasional acuity about modern lives in their creation, find its worst or most irrelevant facets, then blow them up to big-screen size. They even added some new ones for luck. ‘Cultural imperialism, perhaps a little racism? We never did that before, bar the dubious Ruski, throw it in. Are these custard centres or jam?’

As a result, there’s so much to go at here, especially in SATC 2, that you could have an all-night pub Top Trumps game of their low points. I’m picking one aspect that offended me: the rampant materialism.

On TV, the fact Carrie mostly looked like a streetwalker who’d grabbed what she could before the tags set the alarms off was one of the loveable quirks. Yes, she mentioned the now-dreaded Manolos but the fashion was mainly just there in the way New York was just there, there weren’t endless scenes set in ateliers, discussing Vuitton. In the films, the fact these women SHOP and HAVE STUFF became all-defining. As if that’s what fans of the series wanted to see, not familiar characters being glamorous and witty and seeing some action, no – retail therapy.

You’ve got to hand the big hairy bollocks trophy to the writers here, the first film came out in 2008’s recession, when we were all picking the weevils out of tear-soaked Hovis biscuits. Somehow, a quartet of gaudy trinket-whores, perving on designer eye-sores with all the functioning perspective of Gollum, was supposed to inspire and delight.

Things hit the buffers with the extraordinarily misjudged Carrie Strop Gate of film 2, when she threw a fit about her husband anniversary gifting her an expensive telly instead of expensive jewellery. Her ‘journey’ continues with her realisation that perhaps one bit of premium Manhattan real estate is enough, thanks to a heart-to-heart with her economic migrant servant in her luxury freebie Abu Dhabi hotel quarters.

I’m not making this shit up. But someone did. It’s a worry.

Here SATC: The Films are demeaning and trivialising the womenfolk they’re supposed to cater for. It was trying to play off the ‘telly versus jewellery’ fundamentally as a what do you do when he stops making the effort to be romantic quandary. Done 100% differently, it could’ve worked. But the example they chose was from Planet Park Avenue. Marrying someone with obscene wealth and then waiting for him to drop dollar on you in inventive ways to prove his tender feelings resonates as a problem with precisely no-one bar Candace Bushnell.

‘It’s aspirational! You need cheering up, you tramps!’ they cry. I don’t think anyone walked in expecting a Mike Leigh. We’re fine watching people with glossy lives and nice things, when you make pursuit and possession of nice things the point, stomachs start to turn. Questions start to be asked. Shits start not to be given.

Back in TV show land, when Carrie fretted that her boyfriend didn’t get along with her friends, that friends with kids disdained her lifestyle, that she was growing too old for the kind of parties she found herself at – relatable.

Getting angry about top-quality consumer durables? Getting the squits at five star resorts? Samantha chucking condoms around bellowing about her foof in an Arabic marketplace? Donning burkas for a proper lol? Not relatable. Gruesome.

I could get further exercised here about the peculiar misogyny that parachuted in from nowhere in the films (how exactly was it Miranda’s fault her husband had an affair? And how exactly could she give up her job and still run that aspirational domesticity?) but we all have lives to be getting on with.

‘It’s not FOR you, obviously, if you dislike it so much, is it? Why complain! Tchuh!’ – voices off.

But it was for me, on TV. I’m no physics major, as they say. I have a major boner for Big Apple glitz. I’ve accidentally picked up whole box-sets of Gossip Girl and accidentally paid for them and accidentally put them on and tripped up, fallen onto the sofa and watched them all.

Fun need not be so evil, or reduce the spectrum of womanhood to a cluster of depressing, shallow, acquisitive stereotypes doing brunch. Who aren’t funny. God, at least the TV alter egos could crack a joke. What in the hell happened here?

Yet, seems in the face of overwhelming critical derision and making lots of money, SATC 3 is incoming. Gird loins for the tightly-plotted peril of Carrie’s baby (spoiler)dropping (spoiler) a Tiffany sterling silver teething rattle. (spoilt little turd.)

Sample dialogue:

Charlotte: (moron child-woman voice) Carrreeeee! I can’t believe your baby dropped a TIFFANY rattle.

Miranda: (worldly-wise lawyer voice) Kid drops a rattle, it’s gotta be the one you got from TIFFANY’S.

Carrie: (voice of the everywoman) Oh no, Big already didn’t maybe probably want this baby and now it’s dropped a TIFFANY rattle he’ll think it’s a sign. He’s already having difficulties with fatherhood, what with being a one-dimensional avatar for a notion of Wall Street alpha maledom.

Samantha: (Marlon Brando growl voice) I fucked someone in TIFFANY’S once and he stuck the rattle up my bum.

Charlotte: (moron child-woman crossed-eyes of confusion) Ewww, Samantha! What if it was the same one?!

Samantha: Oh no. I left it up there. It’s there right now. You girls should try it. And TIFFANY’S. Because their contract states 17 explicit mentions.

SATC 3 = Empire State Of Mind + PG-13 QVC.

Fringe Benefits

[TV show] New Girl

Zooey and I have been through a lot together over the years. I’ve watched The Village. Twice. I sat through (500) Days Of Summer. Seemingly in real-time. That film where she runs a hipster cereal bar? Flipped the bird at the Feds and downloaded it due to the inexplicable lack of a UK release. Seriously, that shit had Bafturd written all over it.

It even took me longer than the 10 seconds listening strictly necessary to determine that She & Him were a bucket of tepid folk wank; the aural equivalent of drowning in a ball pool full of kittens. That is to say, I thought it was time to move on – the cycle of abuse had to end. I even started perving over other birds with fringes. *Logs on to fuckyeahgirlswithbangs.tumblr.com*

So it was purely in the spirit of inquiry, on behalf of you, dear reader(s) that I decided to give her new sitcom New Girl a chance. Any actor will tell you that all the best writing in Hollywood at the moment is on television, especially those who need another hit like Pete Doherty, so it’s no real surprise to see Zooey turn up in Fox’s ‘adorkable’ (yup, that’s how they’re promoting it. Jesus) latest offering. But before you crank up the CRAP KLAXON it should be noted that the series is created by Elizabeth Meriwether, whose previous credits include Childrens Hospital. Less promisingly, she also wrote No Strings Attached. *Fire up the klaxon*

The premise is as slight as one of the floaty summer dresses I picture the winsome Ms Deschanel wearing as she gambols through a meadow towards me in my dreams. But hey, this isn’t Zooey slash fiction I’m writing here – if it was it would consist mainly of us shopping in the stores she wants to shop in, to a vegan café for soya lattes all round, then maybe some light sex afterwards if we’re not too tuckered out. *Cough* Sorry to digress. In it she plays Jess, a geeky teacher who’s just been ditched by her boyfriend and, in almost a shot-for-shot remake of those Mars Planets ads, ends up moving into an improbably swish loft with three regular guys. Beamed into their apartment like Mawk from Ork, they’re not so keen at first due to her admission that she watches Dirty Dancing six times a day and sings to herself. A lot. But the discovery that all her friends are models mean that she’s on the washing up rota quicker than you can say ‘six month shorthold agreement.’

Okay, so the show may have been custom-tooled to make bedwetting fringe-blind fucks like myself lose all use of our critical faculties – its métier being less ‘set up, joke’ and more ‘set up, mope’ – but you know what? It ain’t half bad. Things don’t get off to a great start when, with grim predictability, Zooey sings the theme tune like the schmindie Anthropologie wearing Dennis Waterman she so clearly is. Christ, her uniquely mellifluous atonal honk could RIP even the most resolute hipster boners from the other side of a vinyl fair. On the plus side, at least it didn’t have any fucking ukulele on it. But if you can get over that the writing is pretty sharp and the twee tart is genuinely funny and charming in it (translation: I totally would. But she really is quite good). The opening scene where Jess outlines to a friend how she’s going to seduce her (soon to be ex) boyfriend is a case in point:

Jess: He says he has a fantasy where I’m a stripper and I have a heart of gold and he’s helping me through college.

Hannah: He didn’t say the college part did he?

Jess: No. I wanted to create a three dimensional sex character.

Hannah: So what’s your stripper name?

Jess: Rebecca Johnson. No, Boobies Johnson. Two Boobs Johnson.

Look, it’s all in the delivery, okay. Also, she was wearing a trench coat and horn rims when she said it. But as strong as Deschanel’s performance is, the supporting cast are pretty weak. Her trifecta of turd roommates consists of Nick, a recently dumped, ennui-laden barman who will obviously at some point realise he can look beyond Jess’s dungarees and Lord of the Rings references to see her inner beauty; Schmidt, an allegedly loveable douche; and Coach, a stereotypical emotionally repressed black guy. None of these J Crew models really adds too much to the show and in the long run it’s debatable whether Jess’s story arc – socially inept geek can’t get a date – is really going to sustain over any length of time.

She’s okay in small doses, and has plenty of funny lines, such as when she triumphantly announces she’s been asked out on a date: ‘Dinner. With food’ (remember, delivery) but she’s essentially 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon minus the self-awareness, snark or kick-ass job. And without a Jack Donaghy to bounce off it’s difficult to see where the character can go. Her supporting cast here mostly absorb, digest and then excrete most of the jokes lobbed their way. The majority of the comedy supposedly stems from the guys’ increasing exasperation at Jess’s relentless girly kookiness – they’re like chalk and cheese! And boy, is there a lot of cheese – even more than you’d find in Alex James’s Cotswolds farmhouse kitchen.

But, for all these reservations, there’s the germ of a decent show here with a chick who rocks a mean up ‘do at its heart. And for that reason, I’m prepared to give it another shot. Which is big of me.

I thought I was out. But she pulled me back in.

Update, 6th January 2012. The show is now going to shit. In one episode she taught bell ringing to troubled teens. FFS. But episode 8 – Bad In Bed – is a total keeper.

Trolly Madly Deeply

[Film] Troll Hunter

This post is probably the closest to trolling you’ll ever see on mine, the most apolitical of blogs, centring as it does around the latest film to come out of Norway’s increasingly fertile film-making scene: Troll Hunter.

Based on that hoariest of current cinematic tropes, the ‘found footage’ documentary, this film soon establishes itself as a cut above other shaky-cam atrocities such as The Meh Witch Project, Paranormal (lack of) Activity, and, most recently, Apoollo 18.

The story is a simple one. A group of college students are making a documentary about a mysterious loan ‘poacher’, Hans, who patrols the mountains and fjords of Norway alone. Hans reluctantly agrees to let the trio of pepsters follow him around the country, and they are soon drawn into a world of mythical creatures, saliva baths, and shady government cover-ups.

The trolls, it seems, are the most unwelcome thing to be found lurking under the bridge since Anthony Kiedis scribbling gibberish lyrics in his moleskine, and the TSS (Troll Security Service) employ former naval commander Hans to keep the trolls in their territory and kill any who escape, in order to protect the populous. The reason soon becomes clear as these trolls aren’t the leprechaun-like figures of folklore, but 50ft high foreign tourist-gobbling monsters, and the TSS – basically like the militant wing of the Norwegian Tourist Board - want to keep that shit on the downlow as the Norwegian economy can’t survive on staycationing and Fair Isle knits alone.

Despite occasionally playing out like a Norse version of Scooby Doo (Scooby Dü?), there are nonetheless some genuinely scary moments. The most effective of these are early in the film when the monsters have yet to be seen and their presence is signified by the foreboding stomping of feet and juddering Norse pines. The opening chase in particular is heart-poundingly tense. The trolls, when they do finally appear are a surprisingly realistically (if that isn’t too oxymoronic in this context) rendered, wonderfully varied bunch, although some of them do look suspiciously like ‘roided-up Fraggles.

What sets this film apart from those mentioned above is that the naturalistic form is only secondary to the dramatic function. Proving that realism and entertainment  needn’t always be mutually exclusive, it’s tightly plotted, has well-rounded characters and a compelling narrative arc. Played with deadpan brilliance by Otto Jespersen, Hans is an initially stoic presence, but during the course of events we get to learn more about him, the folklore with which his life has become entwined, and the reasons he’s become so disenfranchised with his solitary occupation. The mock-doc theatrics never get in the way of the story unfolding and the nausey camerawork was kept to a bare minimum, though the running commentary was only really a device for establishing quickly and simply what the hell was going on, and quite frankly, the film would have been served just as well without it.

Undoubtedly the strongest parts of the film – along with the breathtaking Norwegian landscape – were the confrontations with the trolls and the performance of Jespersen. A charmingly shambolic figure in his beat-up Land Rover (I know, you’d think he’d drive a Fjord), armed with only lo-fi UV weaponry, his face-offs with his nemeses are brilliantly played and executed, ending with them either being turned to stone or an explosion of entrails. They’re a proper irascible lot, and they loathe being exposed to sunlight even more than a Belle And Sebastian fan on the beach at All Tomorrow’s Parties.

And although the plot was a fairly bog-standard monster hunt, this was far from a point and run affair; if you look hard enough there are actually hidden depths. Read into it however much you want, but through the stories Hans tells of the origins of the TSS the film can easily be read as an allegory for the perils of segregation in society (yeah, I just got totally Shami Chakrabati on yer ass). Equally, it seems to be suggested that the reason the mountain trolls are so pissed off is because of a lack of access to adequate healthcare provision. *Paging Michael Moore*

As is often the case with these types of film, the only thing that really did suffer was the dialogue. ‘Naturalistic’ needn’t necessarily be a synonym for ‘dull’ or ‘meandering’ but this did fall into that trap at times. There was some amusing interplay between the characters and Hans had a few brooding monologues, but in general the script could be described as functional. But hey, this isn’t my post on the curse of naturalistic drama and how ‘real just got shit’ – I’ll save that for another time. And there were enough laughs present for any LOL Hunters out there, mostly at the expense of bumbling government officials, credulous members of the public, and the mundane everyday bureaucracy that even a Troll Hunter has to endure.

If I was being well nitpicky (which of course I am) the pace dragged a bit in the middle and the ending felt a bit hurried and unsatisfactory. But overall this was a deliriously entertaining romp with plenty of show-stopping set pieces and a great central performance at its heart. Compared to some of the damp action farts emanating from Hollywood that I’ve had to hold my nose at of late, this was a real breath of fresh air. I could even say that Scandinavian cinema is really on a troll, but I would never be so cheap.

All in all I’ve decided to give naturalistic cinema another chance – Cinema Verity can move her shit back in. For now.

Mad WOMEN* *wordplay

I had an urge to stick one to the patriarchy today and then I realised: how better to achieve this than squat on T Lee’s blog, saying my thoughts for a SECOND time? Boom. I hear Hugh Hefner shit himself. But that’s probably because he’s 102.

So. When I was at university, back in… let’s not be vulgar with specific dates. Let’s just say it was a time when everyone thought Gomez were a great band with an interesting career ahead of them. If you’re thinking ‘who the fuck are Gomez?’ then I envy you twice over.

A tutor asked if the women in the group considered themselves feminists. I thought this was an easy starter for ten, like when Chris Tarrant revs up with ‘Your question for the train fare here: sirloin, rump and fillet are all types of what?’

I was the only one who said yes. Most of them mumbled, one girl said no. ‘If you were doing the same job as a male colleague, would you expect equal pay and rights?’ the tutor asked her. ‘Yes, of course.’ ‘So you want the benefits of feminism but not the title?’

Girl looked stumped. I didn’t inquire, because it would’ve meant getting to know her more, but I suspect she said she wasn’t a feminist because her depth of understanding of the term was that it meant scowling and not depilating. Ugh, of course I’m not one of them. I’m attractive and reasonable and not all het up and cross, and I don’t have side-burns.

A few years have elapsed since the unwelcome discovery that many intelligent birds at universities still thought the ‘f’ word was a dirty one with all sorts of erroneous connotations.

At least this girl wasn’t sharing her dimly lit world-view with others. When famous women do it it fair riles me up. Kirstie Allsopp and Davina McCall, for example, have both described how hubby is the boss at home and it makes for total harmony. Handing over the reins and deferring to him is a ‘recipe for success.’ Never contradicting him or arguing a point is key.

But, back up. If playing Betty Draper part-time is the solution, what exactly is the implied problem with the rest of us here? Is treating each other as equals therefore a recipe for failure? Is a feminist partner inevitably a proper naggy emasculating drag for a man? And why are no famous men keen to tell us all how they had a much nicer life once they accepted their wives should be in sole charge?

The ‘I let him run the show’ simper club is part of a kind of self-serving selective feminism. It sticks two fingers up to the cause and pretends it doesn’t matter – worse, that it’s responsible for much modern misery and confusion – as soon as its members fancy some 1950s roleplay. Nipped waists and supplication are such a great look on you.

Spot this mindset by use of phrases like: ‘I believe in equality but… I like a man to hold a door open for me.’

When I encounter a Door Wanker I confront them with my own complex take on this fraught issue. I too like a man to hold a door open for me. I also like a woman to hold a door open for me. Wait, it gets wilder: in turn, I hold doors open for men and women. Surprise! It’s called manners, dickbag! And it’s not sex-parts specific.

‘I believe in equality but… I like a man to pay for dinner. I’m old-fashioned like that.’ Riiiight. I like anyone paying for my dinner. But next time you’re asking why your male colleague does the same for a larger salary, remember, it’s a) the old-fashioned way and b) the subsidy for all those dinners. You could of course cut out the middleman, get paid the same, go Dutch. This way you’re effectively letting him dictate your food spend, and personally I don’t want no motherfucker asking why I need a side of chips when my salad has potatoes in it.

Oddly, although Mad Men is a stern, melancholy warning to the fairer sex of Some Of The Shit We Once Took, people seem to confuse how heart-achingly beautiful Don and Betty look while going about their bizness with the ugly nature of it. If you hanker after any part of these lives beyond the wardrobes and the furniture, you’ve really missed the point.

Never mind Joan being raped by her husband, look at her badonkadonk in tomato-red wool! Never mind Betty’s in therapy, look at the psychiatrist’s G Plan sofa! I’m not saying the aesthetics aren’t appealing. You can sigh over the circle petticoats and fancy being oppressed by Jon Hamm against the Sterling Cooper photocopier all you want, but really. Perspective please. Being treated as a second-class citizen is a package deal, with all kinds of inclusive perks.

‘I believe in equality but… I like to be sexually harassed and derided in the office. I just think it works better that way. You know, the sexes, we’re not the same.’

‘I believe in equality but… I like to have my abortions botched back-street with a knitting needle and a fatal dose of septicaemia. I’m kind of traditional I guess.’ Girlish giggle

Oh. You don’t get those ones so much.

Coming away from Mad Men thinking Betty’s marriage shows playing the surrendered powerless trophy role works a treat is like saying that Grizzly Man teaches us that if you love bears enough eventually they will cuddle you back.

Anyway. As a feminist, I’m refining my own etiquette.

I’ll hold a door open for anyone except women who say they like men to hold doors open for them.

Eat Slay Love

[Film] Conan the Barbarian

Helmed by serial turd polisher Marcus Nispel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th), Conan the Barbarian is the latest reanimated corpse of a film franchise to be found lurching dead-eyed through the corridors of your local fleapit. Sure, this kind of unreconstructed sword and sandals nonsense might have been acceptable in the 80s, but what about now?

A reboot rather than a remake of the 1982 original, the plot, such as it is, traces Cimmerian warrior Conan’s origins right back to being ‘born on the battlefield’ – quite literally as it turns out, the onrushing hoards considerately taking a five minute timeout so Conan’s mum can drop a sprog mid-battle. Unfortunately a lack of hot towels in the vicinity and prospective father Ron Perlman’s questionable midwifery skillz mean she’s soon Hovis.

Flash forward a few years and the teenage Conan is proving his mettle at Li’l Bastards Warrior Camp, beheading three intruders en route to taking victory in a primitive egg and spoon race. Rarely has a father radiated such pride. But before they can bro-down any further the village is attacked by Khala Zym (Stephen Lang) and his minions. Zym is in search of a mask which will help him resurrect his dead wife and rule the world for all eternity or something – seriously dude, move on and find somebody new, it’s what she’d want – and said mask happens to be lying around in a drawer underneath a copy of Cimmerian Norks in Ron’s workshop. Obviously he won’t let it go that easily, and Conan sees his father meet his maker by having a vat of molten steel poured over him. From this day forth Conan vows vengeance on his father’s killers under the ancient motto ‘he who smelt it dealt it.’

Forward again and the now adult Conan (Jason Momoa) is freelancing in barbarism: wandering the globe, fighting, carousing, sexing (no onan for Conan) and generally smirking his kohl-eyed way from one seemingly pointless fight to the next, until he rescues a Celtic slave lovely and then tries to stop Zym and his daughter Marique (Rose McGowan) staging a good old fashioned necromancing. And that’s pretty much it.

Problems? Where to begin? A simplistic or even nonsensical plot needn’t be an issue in an unashamedly lunk-headed actioner such as this, as long as it’s grafted onto some entertaining action sequences, engaging characters and a decent script. None of these things are present. A lot of water has passed under the cinematic bridge since the 80s, be it the kinetic fight sequences of The Matrix (the Wachowskis were attached to this project at one point), the visceral thrills of the Bourne franchise or the beautifully choreographed swordplay of 13 Assassins. The lumpen, repetitive slugfests on offer here really don’t cut it anymore, and no amount of jump-cutting or slo-mo shots of Momoa’s admittedly excellently conditioned hair swisssshing its way through battle can disguise the deeply uninventive fare on display. Yes, there was plenty of gore, but compared to the joyously innovative dismemberments seen in something like Spartacus: Blood and Sand, this was pretty thin gruel. It didn’t exactly help that the turgid colour palette - and the fact the film was seemingly shot during a solar eclipse – meant you had to squint like a Catholic schoolmaster in the boys’ changing room to tell what the hell was going on. Not that you’d much care.

The script. Hoo boy. To call the dialogue perfunctory would be to unduly credit the writers with the gift of conciseness. Apparently it took four of the fucks to script this, but I can only assume they spent most of their time taking it in turns to snort coke off Momoa’s ample bosom on the Lionsgate dollar. I accept that the character is a man of few words, but those that did fall from his mouth were completely unmemorable, as were those of the supporting cast. “I live, I love, I slay, I am content” was about as good as it got. I longed for some of the poetic put-downs heard in that other Momoa vehicle, Game of Thrones, but this was way down the dramatic food chain. And it was left to a laughably solemn voiceover from Morethan Freeman to fill in the plot holes and do the expository leg-work a more skilled director can handle (although on another boring technical note, the crappy sound editing meant a lot of the dialogue was drowned out. A blessing really).

As a leading man the Momoa sure has physical presence, but his wet-look hair and glistening torso meant he’d look more at home on stage with the Dreamboys than on a sound stage. And the jury remains out on his acting chops, most of his limited dialogue either being hurriedly barked or unintelligibly mumbled. But then none of the performers really had much chance to shine, with only McGowan making much impression at all, and all she really did was turd around like an extra in a Marilyn Manson video. It’s the role she was born to play.

And this isn’t just some blow-hard moan about how it doesn’t live up to the original. I’m no real fan, but at least that film had its own camp charm, and guilty LOLS aplenty at the expense of Arnie looking as confused by his own utterances as a cat looking at its own reflection in the mirror. But what it also had is a quotable script and at least some semblance of a story arc. Its modern day cousin was just a blizzard of unconnected fight sequences in search of a cohesive storyline. Poorly made, lazy and at worst cynical, it assumes that nostalgia alone is enough to get people to cinema in their droves. In stark contrast to Conan’s brutally efficient kills, the whole thing was extremely poorly executed.

CONAN MAKE T LEE ANGRY.

One Day

Is One Day Sexist? No. It’s Bullshit For Other Reasons, These Ones

Apologies in advance for a rant. Having seen this film, I need to say my righteous opinions into some faces and I thought rather than repeat myself to four different people on separate occasions, I’d squat on Tim’s blog here and say them to fourteen people at once instead. Haha. (Sorry Tim. Joking. Also, can we have a nice picture of Jim Sturgess? Cheers).

So, this is not going to be a wobbly about how One Day the film does not live up to the appeal of the book. This has been expressed almost everywhere, and let’s face it, the TURDED UP KLAXON sounded as soon as we heard Anne Hathaway had been cast as the book’s heroine. (Also, as diatribe rather than review, please note there will be spoilers.)

No, what has confused me is the criticism that One Day is a ‘toxic romance’. Regressive, diminishing, Stone Age in its sexual politics, teaching us a woman has to hot up to be worthy of a prick. There’s one word of truth in this analysis: prick. The problem with One Day as a meeting of two minds and groins is: Dexter is very much a prick. Worse, he doesn’t really improve, life just lobs him a few low balls. His ‘journey’ is essentially POSH PRICK ->  BOOZEPRICK -> CHASTENED PRICK -> SAD PRICK. He’s a love interest in dire need of a redemptive quality or moment.

When down-on-his-luck Dexter reappears in Emma’s new life as an author in Paris, ready at last to be a couple, you can hear the howl of many a female reader: Noooo! Give that piece of Gallic jazz player ass a chance! And in the film, will they cast Olivier Martinez? (Spoiler: no.) But, this is firmly a failure of characterisation. It’s not the latest round of artillery fire in the gender war. Let’s not forget, Emma not being gorgeous enough for Dex is not the stumbling block to their getting together. True, she’s not flintily confident or overtly-showy glamorous in his initial immature estimation, but as for basic carnal attraction, he makes it clear he’d hit that in 1988 and every year from then on. He fancies Emma, his problem is, in his own words, that he fancies everyone.

Imagine for a moment that the author David Nicholls had made the opposite dramatic choice. Dexter walks out on stellar TV career and trophy wife at the point where Emma is a lank-haired hopeless junkie. Through the transformative powers of Dex’s big posh love, Emma recovers and gets a book deal, pixie crop, yada yah. It’d certainly improve general opinion of Dexter. Would the same critics of its supposed message be happy? No. They would say, ‘This teaches us we need a man to rescue us.’

One Day’s narrative is simply showing fluctuating fortunes over the passage of time. Emma gradually blossoms, Dexter gradually withers. As much as the timing of his moment of epiphany reflects badly on him, it in turn underlines the fact that Emma wants Dexter, she doesn’t need him. You might well say whyforfuckssake. I did. But the fact her shit is together and shiny in her 30s is not the problem. To be proper nitpicky, this take is even factually inaccurate: on page and screen, Emma is dressy and pretty by the 1990s, when Dex passes her over in his cokey self-absorption. When he finally comes to his senses, it’s Emma’s career prospects that have spectacularly improved, not her looks. If the message is therefore, ‘Get a great job, girls, and then he might notice you’, and I don’t think it is, it’s hardly the worst subliminal crime to foist on a generation reading Stephenie Meyer; of more later. If he sods off, you’ve still got a great job.

One critic got severely unwound that the older Dexter, who wins Emma, has fallen so far he resembles a ‘sex offender’. We’re on subjective ground here, but all I can say is, if you think Jim Sturgess is rendered disgusting by salt-and-pepper hair and a trench coat, thems some seriously high standards. Also, we must not be looking at the same mugshots, the pervs I see usually look like a hobo Obadia Stane. And One Day is off to a racing start in the ‘not being sexist’ stakes in that Emma Morley is the book’s crowning achievement. Intelligent, witty, self-doubting, sardonic, she feels like a real person: constantly charming and rootable-for without being remotely cutesy. Hathaway’s movie Emma is a paler shadow of course, but she still gets a brain, a perspective, a life beyond Dexter and funny lines. Contrast with the godawful joy-suck vortex of the Twilight Saga’s Bella Swan, a surly single-issue emo nause who’s defined entirely by her dubious relationships with men, whose idea of taking control of her destiny is either to self-harm or try to kill herself. Fist pump for feminism there.

There’s a reflexive sneer tendency with romances that irks me. It was in evidence amid all the much-earned praise for the very funny Bridesmaids. It often starts ‘I just wish….’ And finishes with things like: ‘…that it didn’t have to end with the girl getting the guy’ or ‘that there didn’t have to be a wedding’ or similar. This reminds me of a bit in Pride & Prejudice, when the dim-pretentious sister Mary says balls (the 19th century sort) would be more rational if everyone read books instead of danced. They would, her father points out, but also much less like balls.

A romance where the courtship and union or otherwise of two main characters isn’t given much importance isn’t much like a romance. Love often leads to weddings, weddings are milestones in many peoples’ lives. They’re also useful plot devices, crucibles that reveal character. If you represent all women as tulle-obsessed ninnies, sure, that’s arseholery. The inclusion of a wedding doesn’t make this a foregone conclusion. I know sensible women who simply don’t like romances. Fair play, it’s perfectly valid. No need to hand in your badge, gun and ovaries. But slamming a piece of genre for what it is as opposed to what it does makes no sense to me. You want a story where the woman’s plot isn’t principally about falling in love? Shop elsewhere. You wouldn’t walk into Hotel Chocolat and says its products are crap because you can’t get your five a day. And look at the targeted-at-males equivalent, the action film. You never hear a Late Review panellist sigh: ‘I just wish for once…it didn’t involve a lone superman laying bloody waste to his enemies against improbable odds.’

Now, some may say a lot of rom-coms are honk-ass dreck, hence the lack of respect. I concede that. I have to. I still have post-traumautic stress flashbacks over The Ugly Truth. If I ever met Gerard Butler there’s a fair chance I would kick him in the cock. But, when films as good as Bridesmaids are getting hit with the same hammer as the bad ones, I wonder if the category rather than the content is the objection.

It apparently needs saying: a heterosexual romance is not an inherently sexist or stupid thing to write about.

Despite this, One Day is not very good. I would, however, like to pay special tribute to the incredible work of Jim Sturgess, who struggles manfully to make Dexter likeable and sympathetic. Perhaps a boff scene where we see him being really especially good at it would’ve helped. But, to my great dismay, no-one asked me to do a punch-up of the script. It’s art’s loss.

(Tim, don’t cut this last bit out ‘for space.’ It’s well sexist if you do.)

Pilgrim’s Regress

[Film] Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

The most buzzed about film of the year, Edgar Wright’s Hollywood debut finally arrives to a near universal fanfare of acclaim from the Comic Con brigade and broadsheets alike. An adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s six volume graphic novel, the story can be summarised pretty quickly. And frankly, Wright didn’t bother expanding on it much, so I won’t either.

Toronto resident Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is your typical twentysomething indie mope. A symphony of bootcut denim, slogan tees and studiously unkempt hair; he’s essentially a hipster extra from a Doritos advert. Except not as well characterised. Spending most of his days chugging soya lattes, jamming with his derivative garage rock three piece and romancing his seventeen year old jailbait girlfriend, Knives Chau, his world is (indie) rocked when he spaffs himself dreaming of an unknown piece of grunge clunge, who is later revealed to be former New Yorker and Amazon delivery girl Ramoaner Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winsome). After shooting her a look at the library which leaves her in no doubt there’s a lovingly crafted C90 with her name on it, he indulges in some non-threatening mumblecore stalkerisation until she inexplicably relents to his moist-eyed mooning, and a romantic union of sorts is assured. It’s then that the shit really hits the fanboy as her seven evil exes get all Super Nintendo on his ass, and he has to defeat them all, in order to secure her heart and entry into her Emily Strange knickers. CONTINUE? I wished I hadn’t.

Seemingly custom-tooled to appeal to every balding thirtysomething in an Atari T-shirt (myself included) all the choppy editing, comic book visuals and witty gaming references in the world (Pee bar! LOL!) couldn’t compensate for the two things that were missing: an engaging story and a decent script.  Most of the characters were little more than avatars – a clever riff on its gaming origins? Yeah, right. Cera was a rebel with a nause; all meercat grins, whiny, quizzical intonation and so ineffectual, it was hard to believe he could summon the energy to post a snarky comment about the new Arcade Fire album on the Drowned In Sound messageboard, never mind defeat seven foes to win the girl of his dreams. Winsome had a certain laconic charm, but was given little chance to shine; her ever-changing hair colour being lazy shorthand for her flighty nature and ever-changing moods. And Kieran Culkin as Pilgrim’s gay flatmate Wallace was little more than an Apatow creation – catty, gossipy, promiscuous and constantly trying to ‘turn’ every other piece of tail in the film. Other reviews would have you believe he’s the star attraction, but that gives more of an indication of the dullness of the rest of the characters than anything else. In essence he was funny because he was gay. Like Will & Grace. The only character I engaged with on any level was Alison Pill as sullen ginge drummer Kim Pine, and that was only really because she seemed to have the same disdain for the schmindie fucks surrounding her as I did.

Having said that, all of the above were let down by the biggest flaw: the gag-light script. The writers seemed to believe that ideas alone are funny, and numerous times potential avenues for comedy were left unexplored and jokes left hanging. For example, when Pilgrim announces to his friends that he’s dating a seventeen year old Chinese girl, the maximum level of zing they can muster is to essentially repeat that fact about three times. Imagaine how funny that scene might have been if say, the writers of The Inbetweeners had got hold of it. In general, the dialogue was perfunctory at best, mostly with vaguely uninterested, hipstery, rise-and-fall delivery in place of a punchline. And when the jokes did appear they were more telegraphed than one of Pilgrim’s leaping punches – “I used to be bi-curious, but now I’m bi-furious.” Oh ROFL. Some of the zingers were even downright confusing, like when somebody enquires why Matthew Patel is dressed like a pirate, when in fact his wardrobe is more akin to the yacht club chic of Vampy Weekend.

More problematic still was the pacing of the film in general. The episodic nature of the source was always liable to prove troublesome and with not much else to distract you, only two fights down in the first hour meant it really dragged. Of course this could have been resolved if you were having fun getting to know the characters in depth, but I sure as hell wasn’t. The relationship between Pilgrim and Flowers was never explained in more detail than “I normally date dicks, and you seem quite nice.” Most of the dialogue just seemed to be killing time until the next set-piece. The fights, when they did arrive were a mixed bag, stylishly enough shot and choreographed and suitably frenetic. If nothing else they provided blessed relief from the laughter graveyard that was the rest of the film. Chris Evans as Lucas Lee and, in particular, Brandon Routh as Todd Ingram – a hot vegan powered by his own pomposity – provided the only real laugh out loud moments. But even these weren’t particularly heart-pounding, the videogame physics meaning that the hits didn’t hurt and there was no real sense of danger. The books allude to the fact that these fights may be taking place in Pilgrim’s caramel machiatto-addled mind, because he can’t deal with emotional issues in reality, but this ambiguity doesn’t really come out onscreen.

Ultimately I found the whole project to be underwritten and somewhat lazy, never really seeking to appeal to those outside its core fanbase, and even treating those within that narrow spectrum with contempt. Just because I’ve clicked the same Facebook ‘likes’ as the director doesn’t mean I’m merely satisfied with seeing them projected back at me on a cinema screen. It’s somewhat ironic that in the final scene Pilgrim mocks Jason Schwartzman’s evil record label boss for corporatising indie culture and selling it back to the, erm… kidults, when in fact this is the very thing the film is doing. Whilst undoubtedly strong visually, it was too in love with itself stylistically to ever bother telling a story properly. No matter how fantastical the premise and inventive the visuals, the central romance still has to be in some way credible, and here it just wasn’t. It’s a half-arsed comparison to make, but everyone else is doing it so I will too: Kick-Ass had memorable scenes, lines, genuine threat and interesting characters with a backstory. Pilgrim had none of that. GAME OVER.

A Blaffair to Rememblack

[Book] I Am the New Black by Tracy Morgan (abridged version)

Every story starts at the very beginning, because like that white lady said in The Sound Of Music, it’s a very good place to start. In the 1950s America decided it was a good idea to try and fight Communism in tropical jungles on the other side of the world. The Russians were supposed to be some kind of new Hitler, and if we didn’t get that Communism out of ‘Nam, we’d be eating Kremlin Nuggets in McDonald’s. They had their ideals, and Lenin and Marx were like their Biggie and Tupac. When my dad got on the army transporter headed to Vietnam he sat next to an Irish guy named Tracy and they spent 24 hours talking. A day later and Tracy was dead – stepped on a landmine. And that’s how I got my name. I was sad to hear that story but glad too. Because let’s face it – Tracy Morgan? That’s an Irish female’s name. With a name like that I should have red hair, blue eyes and big titties. I should be in a green bikini on a float every March.

That is the heart and soul of my story. It’s not a very good place to start. You hear me, Julie Andrews? I learned how to become a man from my father. And because of what life had done to him, my father picked up bad habits over the years, just like I picked up bad habits in show business. Show business is my Vietnam and life is the war that I’m fighting.

So I’m strolling with my dad one day and I’m waiting for him to drop some science. “I’m going to show you something,” he said as we walked onto the high school field. He stopped in front of a set of metal bleachers at the side of the field. “You see these, son? This is where I busted a nut inside your mother and made you. I had your mother doggy-style and I gave it to her good too.” Nine months later on November 10 1968, I came into the world.

From an early age I took my humour as far as it could go, and sometimes that took me too far. Like one summer at the public pool, somebody stole my Pumas. I didn’t know who stole them, but I knew that whoever did must love swimming, so the only thing that made sense to me was to shut that pool down. I swam to the middle and took a shit the size of a Milky Way. They shut that place down like the beach in Jaws. I had gotten my revenge, but something else happened that I hadn’t planned on. I liked the feeling of shitting in that pool. This became a problem for me. I started shitting everywhere there was water after that. If I saw an open fire hydrant, I’d shit there. I had no shame, if the water was flowing hard enough, I’d drop the brown shark. This continued for two years, but once I got my first taste of pussy, my focus changed.

At the age of eight, I experienced sex firsthand. My brother Jim was ten and we had a babysitter who gave us both a piece. She was fourteen and while she was in the bath she told my brother to get on top of her. I watched him put his ding-a-ling in her and after that I got on and did the same. I actually cried after that. I remember she gave me a stack of Oreos to keep me quiet. Damn. Memories. From the age of twelve, I always had a piece of pussy around.

My mother was an amazing woman. But by my early teens she had been broken by three men – her father, who was very strict; my father, who let her down and broke her heart with his drug addiction; and Sonny, who was a married man. Sonny wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, but he was the straw that sent it to the chiropractor. Mom just gave up after that point. That’s when I started fighting with her all the time. I moved in with my father and he was like a black General Patton. He made sure we were in the house early every night, and since I was playing sports, it was like I’d enrolled in his personal army. He had me lifting weights, running stairs, and when it came to my grades, he was even tougher on me.

I learned about life in the Bronx; it’s where I learned to get my mack on, how to get my comedy on. My friends and I would have these intense snapping sessions. We’d sit there in the lunchroom just snapping. If anything we were like battle rappers. Like 8 Mile. My comedy style was to elevate my insult by acting it out. It was some next level shit. In my stand-up I used to contour my body and bend it around like a crippled person because I grew up with a crippled person. But that wasn’t enough to make me laugh, so on top of that I’d act retarded. Then it was funny!

My father was diagnosed with AIDS in my senior year and his rapid decline in health altered my path. Once he was gone there was nobody to tell me what I was doing right and wrong. So I thought fuck it. In the end I quit school and I never looked back. After I dropped out, I learned a few lessons right away. The most important one was that in high school, pussy was free. That’s why they call lunch hour at a public school a box lunch. Out in the real world there was one thing that spelled P-U-S-S-Y and that was M-O-N-E-Y, so I turned to dealing drugs. There were parts of selling crack that I really liked. It was great for developing my comedy skills. I took to selling crack like it was an open mic night, and I was pretty good at it. After a year of standing on the corner I realised that I was following the herd – and if you follow the herd, you’re bound to step in shit. For me, the murder of my friend Spoon was a smack in the face.

A man can’t live without a woman. Any straight man will do what he needs to do to get himself some pussy. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the love of a woman. When a woman truly loves a man, he knows it. Pussy is just one part of it. Pussy and ass and titties are the frosting on that cake. A woman possesses the power to transform a man into something better that he would ever be on his own. When they do, that shit is magic.

I met Sabina when we were just kids. The last thing I wanted to do is settle down. Nineteen year old men are like farmers staring down a field of corn at harvest, and their dick is the tractor. Once I met Sabina everything changed. She put up a good fight, but no woman can resist me. Give me enough time and it’s a done deal, as long as she’s got ears, eyes and a pussy. She told me years later that the first time we did it, in a hotel, she’d been impressed that I washed out my drawers in the sink. Sabina made me wait three weeks before she gave me the good stuff. I wanted it so bad, I couldn’t even masturbate. I had three weeks of sperm backed up. And that’s where Tracy Junior came from – my big-ass nuts.

Right across the street from our apartment there was a chicken shop. It was open all night and out front I would get upward of thirty people standing around listening to me make fun of shit. I thought this could be my ticket out of the Bronx. I started rocking things at workshops, and within two weeks I was getting regular spots at clubs and killing there too. There was a hot scene and a guy from Fox decided to develop a show called Uptown Comedy Club. It launched a few careers, namely mine and Chris Tucker’s. I was kinda fat back then, so I used it in my act. Fuck sexy, I bought chubby back. It made me even cuter onstage than I already was. Today my stand-up material is based on observations, but back then I made bits up based on my daydreams, and came up with Fat Michael Jackson. I did all that “hee-hee!” stuff Michael did, and they loved it.

One night on Def Comedy Jam I met Martin Lawrence. He wasn’t my idol, but he was an inspiration to me. From the very first time I met him, I’ve always been able to make Martin laugh and I got a job playing Hustle Man on his sitcom, Martin. Whenever he came to New York, we’d hook up. I’d be the one to pick him up a couple of ravioli bags, if you know what I mean (I’m talking about weed.) After Martin, I went back to doing stand-up full-time, and got an audition for Saturday Night Live. For my audition tape I did some material about when I got arrested. This man my aunt Brenda was dating was beating on her, so I went and found him, and pointed an empty gun at his head. He called the cops and they took me away. I was scared to death, so once I was sitting in the squad car I just started farting. I blew that fucking car up with farts, because the night before I’d had pork and beans and franks. I was farting so much they had to roll the back windows down.

Landing a spot as a cast member on SNL was a gift from God, but staying there was something else altogether. When opportunity knocked, I pulled out the .44 Mag and said “Get in the fucking basement, bitch!” Opportunity’s still down there, ball-gagged and duct-taped up. If you listen hard, you can hear him whimper. I had my finger on the pulse of urban comedy, but when I brought Fat Michael Jackson to SNL, those motherfuckers couldn’t see a future for me. They were all a bunch of Ivy League faggots and I’d taken it to the street. All I have to say about that is where’s Chris Kattan now? That bitch can’t get arrested.

Doors had started to open for me thanks to SNL, but I was no Adam Sandler, so I developed the idea for The Tracy Morgan Show. The formula was perfect: it would be true-life funny, set against the backdrop of a low income family. In the end, the Tracy Morgan Show that aired wasn’t my show anymore. The producers took it out of my hands because they thought the original version would damage my career. They also reminded me they had more experience than I did. It was just like what the Republicans tried to do to Obama during the election.

My wife and my sons were my whole world for my entire adult life. That’s why, even when it was done between Sabina and me, I still didn’t really understand what I was losing. I had let alcohol rule my life and paid the price. I was the kind of drunk who was a completely different man to when he was sober. And the guy I turned into had a name: Chico Divine. Chico was the motherfucker who came out of the depths of my mind and took over my body after about three drinks. When Chico came out, somebody might get hurt and there was a chance somebody’s sister might get pregnant too. One time Chico threw up on the shoes of the lady who was the William Morris Agency’s publicity director.

When I started on 30 Rock, my life on and off camera became strangely similar for a while. I was going out, partying all night and acting crazy, and then showing up to shoot 30 Rock and portray a guy who acted crazy all the time. But I don’t have to be drinking and partying to play somebody like that – it’s called acting. I’m a comedian – everything in my life is material. My comedy today isn’t based on my imagination – it’s all real. It’s like a giant turkey that I cook onstage, keeping it nice and moist by basting it in reality. My success on 30 Rock allowed me to go back and guest host SNL – the pinnacle of my career. There are only twenty-five of us who’ve done that in thirty-four years. I’m up there with the greats – Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Chevy Chase. And Damon Wayans.

One thing that comes with success is money. I’ve always liked exotic pets, and now I can afford to fill my luxury apartment with them. I’ve got a jellyfish tank, tarantulas, eels, snakes, piranhas and sharks. I’m like Michael Jackson! I once asked my wife why she thought Michael Jackson liked to walk around with a fucking diaper-wearing monkey. Know what she said? “Because he’s a genius.” Having a jellyfish makes me a genius.

This point in my life is like the end of the second act. It’s not the end, because I’m far from over. If my life was the Star Wars trilogy, which is really a sixology, we’d just be getting going. Right now, the Ewoks would be dancing.

Mission indecipherable

[Film] The Expendables

The latest in the unremitting stream of effluent that is Nostalgia Cinema, hack of all trades Sylvester Stallone’s latest seeks to wring out any remaining earning potential from its stars. The premise is simple: wouldn’t it be great if we got all the old action heroes back together? Then people could pay to sit and point at them and say how great it is that we’ve got all the old action heroes back together. And so it is that Sly has assembled not so much an ensemble cast, but more a butcher’s shop window.

To the high seas then, and after a brief delay caused by the Stathe receiving a text message (Sly knows what goes down in the modern world) the elite band of Expensionables take out a group of crudely drawn Somali pirates. But before they have a chance to smoke a celebratory cigar there’s a problem: Dolph Dungren’s gone rogue and intends to hang a pirate because, not unreasonably “I like hanging pirates.” Sure, they may whore themselves to the highest bidder, no questions asked, but these guys have a rigorous moral compass. And before you know it, Dolph has been smacked down and thrown off the team. Turns out he’s addicted to meth and the rest of the ‘roid casualties have no time for that kind of behaviour.

Now back at Micky Rourke’s workshop-cum-tattoo parlour for beer, enforced matey banter and inexplicable booming laughter, a call comes in with an offer of work. A meeting is arranged in a church with a nameless, smirking fixer (Bruce Willis). As a taster of the killer dialogue that litters the film Sly decides to call him Church because, y’know, they’re in a church. It’s when rival mercenary Arnie turns up that the zingers really start flying though. 30 Rock it ain’t:

Arnie: You’ve lost weight.

Sly: And it looks like you found it.

[long pause]

Bruce: Why don’t you guys just suck each other’s dick and get it over with?

[even longer pause, tumbleweed, followed by yet more inexplicable booming laughter]

The locals on Vilena (“an iiiisland in the Gooooolf” according to Arnie) are being brutalised by a ruthless, moustachioed, painting-mad dictator. Though in reality, he’s merely drug baron Eric Roberts’ puppet. The Expensionable’s mission is to shut that shit down, so Sly and Stathe (wearing an alarmingly snug pair of white jeans) head off to recce the island as undercover ornithologists. Of course it’s obvious they’re no Bill Oddies, but they’ve prepared a watertight alibi: “We’re doing a survey.” Then they get picked up by a mysterious dusky beauty and also enthusiastic painter (hmm, I wonder), who shows them to the outskirts of the presidential palace, though it’s what’s in her skirt that Sly’s more interested in, huh? Right? Stathe, on the other hand, has got his clunge blinkers on as he’s keeping (lack of) Charisma Carpenter warm at home, though some relationship issues mean he temporarily loses his knife-throwing mojo. Yeah, the film has an emotional heart too – this shiz is layered.

Once in sight of the palace it turns out that the natives, they no friendly, but they won’t harm dusky travel guide as it turns out she’s only the Generalissimo’s daughter! Of course twenty heavily armed men are no match for these two. Or that one, really – it’s mainly Stathe bringing the acting and fighting chops to the table, whereas Sly is just bringing the boiled ham. The guy looks sweatier than Winona Ryder walking past shop security. Now it’s time for them to make a swift escape with the Generalissimo’s daughter in tow, but she won’t leave because she’s as loyal as she is mixtape-worthy. So it’s left to Sly to run for the plane in slow motion. Oh, it’s not slow motion, that’s just him running. Anyway, he’ll be back. Aah, balls. Wrong actor.

It looks like this will be the Expensionable’s toughest battle yet, apart from arthritis and male bladder weakness, and they decide they want out. Except for Jet Li who’s all about the Benjamins. In an incredibly drawn-out subplot he harps on about needing more money for ‘my family’ more often than Robert Lindsay’s agent. But despite the lack of back-up Sly wants to go it alone. This is partly due to being enchanted by the Generalissimo’s daughter’s bravery as well as her bralessness, and partly because Mickey Rourke tells him a rambling anecdote about a girl he might have liked to have sex with who jumped off a bridge. It was one boring anecdote and frankly, I’d leap into the jaws of death rather than listen to any more. Unsurprisingly the rest of the Expensionables decide they want in after all and they head back to Vilena.

In the meantime, the Generalissimo has gone all Watercolour Challenge on everyone’s ass and this brings about a change of heart: he wants Roberts outta there. Roberts is distinctly non-plussed by this revelation and so kidnaps his daughter in retaliation. The suspiciously ostentatious gold pineapples on the Generalissimo’s epaulettes should have been the first clue he may not have the stomach for it, but one key piece of information later and the whole sorry jigsaw slots into place: “Your daughter paints too?! This is how it starts!!” Yep, never trust a painter. Anyway, now some serious shit is going to go down as the Generalissimo turns his men – now blacked-up and sporting Ziggy Stardust face flashes, just to reinforce the fact all forriners look the same - against the escaping Roberts and his crew, and also the encroaching Expensionables. This time it’s Sly and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin that get it on for some more balletic fight sequences and semi-incomprehensible, sub-Inbetweeners, trash talking.

Stone Cold: How many men did you bring?

Sly: Just your mum.

Stone Cold: Who sent you?

Sly: Your hairdresser.

Brilliant. Stone Cold suitably roasted, there’s just enough time to mete out some serious gunishment in the deafening finale, as the Explosionables raze the palace, and half the island, to the ground. They really taught those guys a lesson. Well actually there’s nobody left alive to learn that lesson. But if they were alive they’d have been totally learned. And the people they were trying to liberate have been left destitute and homeless. Prescient. But hey, fuck Sly’s legacy – he’s not Tony Blair. Sensibly the union between her and Sly is left unfulfilled as it’s evident that he’s so botoxed to buggery he can barely raise an eyebrow, never mind anything else. Then it’s back to the workshop for more manly carousing, and in Stathe’s case, a poetry battle. Really.

As guilty pleasures go, this proved to be more guilt than pleasure. Much like the more execrable instalments of the Ocean’s franchise it looks like everyone involved in making it had a helluva lot of fun, and assumed this would be reciprocated by the viewer. It wasn’t. All it really did was serve as a reminder as to why these kinds of films died out or went straight to DVD. I like one dimensional characters and mindless violence as much as anyone, but this had all the bombast and none of the charm of the classics of the genre. Lazy in both premise and execution, the novelty of spotting those familiar old leathery faces wasn’t enough to compensate for a turd of a script and some pretty leaden fight sequences. Most of the mumbling, shrivelled dicks on display here look more like Jackie Stallone than their former selves, and most of their dialogue is just as unintelligible. Hopefully Stathe’s (relatively) stellar performance will be enough to embarrass the rest of them into retirement, but early box office receipts suggest otherwise. Roll on Crank 3, and put the rest of these Expensionables in a home.