Monday, February 14, 2011

Why are there still bad things in the world?

Did anyone watch the BAFTAs last night? They served as a reminder once again of the most extraordinarily glaring quandary in human existence: WHY ARE THERE STILL BAD THINGS IN THE WORLD?

The BAFTAS are a celebration of the superlatives of the film world. Many will argue that such awards are spurious; an unattractive display of cinematic daisy-chaining which ends with everyone knelt in front of Colin Firth and Tom Hooper as they bust their mighty art-load into our collective faces. Many sniff and decry these awards ceremonies as redundant for 'overlooking the truly astonishing performance of Hamman Zemouni, who was a child prostitute soldier before becoming an actor and delivering a blistering swipe at western pop culture as the protagonist in the 9-hour long Tunisian arthouse film Tunis Salad'.

I don't care about any of that. I like awards ceremonies for three reasons:

1) Watching sexy young actors and actresses deliver terrible jokes with appalling timing and die on their arses as they present awards. Or should I say try to present awards?! Right Jessica?










Yes.





(TUMBLEWEED. SHOT OF MERYL STREEP LOOKING BORED/FAINTLY IRRITATED)

2) I like seeing cool old people getting their awards for lifetime achievement and generally being more charming and funny about it than the sexy young sorts. It gives them something to aim towards. Just think Rosamund Pike! With luck you too shall have liver spots, puffy eyes and a walking stick.

3) I am genuinely always moved by the "who died this year" montage. A few rippers in the BAFTAS one last night. Leslie Neilsen in particular a very great favourite of mine.

Awards ceremonies always allow you to think back over the films you've seen that year that you've loved and bask in the warm glow of remembering how awesome How To Train Your Dragon really was.

HOWEVER

You also remember how many crap movies you saw and, in this instance, how many terrible opening numbers to awards shows and things you've seen. The dance around from the start of the BAFTAs was so incongruous and lame it hurt. It just smacks of someone going:

"They did it great at the Oscars with Hugh Jackman. It was like a classy throwback to the days of Fred and Ginger! Let's do that but funkier!"

"Funkier?"

"Cheaper".

This was the awards show equivalent of painting Nylon seams on the back of our legs with gravy so the Yanks would want to take us to the bop. It was demeaning and we ended up smelling of beef dripping.

The question is: Why do people get away with doing crap stuff like this? There must be so many people who had an opportunity to go, "that looks a bit naff". I find myself thinking about this a lot. There are so many occasions when one is struck by the sheer, blinding obviousness of the stupidity that has led to a, for example, ITV1 Miss Marple. The books are brilliant. The casts are always excellent. There is plenty of money. They are all witless, charmless guff. When people are perfectly capable of executing these sorts of things perfectly, why aren't these people?

It seems mad to me that as Humanity continues to advance through history that we are not slowly eradicating the errors that hold us back from taking our rightful place at the top table of galactic diplomacy.
(I'm saying that bad ITV1 drama is stopping aliens from making contact and letting us become important players in the federation)
Do people learn nothing from history? Look at Rome. Look at Great Britain. Look at the first episode of the series. Learn from these things.

There is so much accumulated knowledge about how and why various films, tv shows and awards shows have sucked, and why others have been briliant that one feels there should be no excuse for not being excellent.

I expect however that that's life isn't it? As a result, we can all confidently say that it's the executive's fault.

I'm not sure I've made any real point here, but I am an angry and capricious god. AMUSE ME!

In other news:

You simply must invest in the SyFy channel on Sky or cable or whatever. Last night I watched an astonishingly bad film. Genuinely the best of all the so bad it's good-ers I've ever seen.
It was called Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's: Sherlock Holmes. It made absolutely no sense, was chock full of continuity and anachronism errors, nobody's costume fitted and it messed around with the Holmes canon no end. It was about Thorpe Holmes, Sherlock's brother, a former police inspector who was presumed dead after being accidentally shot by his partner, a young Inspector Lestrade, but was actually alive and making a giant steam-powered dragon to kill Queen Victoria.

I know, it sounds AMAZING. It was, but for all the wrong reasons. Check it out.

2 comments:

  1. I shall break my rule of never commenting on blogs to say 'ha' and also 'yes' to this. I am having to restrain myself from a full scale rant about the 'interviews' on the red carpet...ah, see how the hate floodgates of the 'comment' box have opened...

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  2. indeed a brilliant piece...you should write for a living, you're really rather good at it you know!

    the film sounds amazing...I may download it...sounds like a Victorian how to train your dragon...

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