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Square Eyes articles Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Going to the Life LaundryDIY and interior design shows purport to improve your life by improving your environment - but do any of them actually work? You can get the Homefront team to do your kitchen for you, or call for DIY SOS when you’ve made a hames of things yourself. The Changing Rooms posse will let your neighbours loose in your living room, and The Property Ladder shows you how to turn a profit from getting your hands dirty. Interior desecrating is everywhere, but when the film crew has left, are you really better off? Thursday, November 21, 2002
Wolf it Down - Brotherhood of the Wolf reviewedSo you’re waiting for The Two Towers to open, and you’re looking for some action and spectacle. Potter and Bond have arrived in cinemas promising to deliver, but don’t be fooled - forget those franchised phoneys and stay at home with The Brotherhood of the Wolf. The new blockbusters represent the triumph of craft over talent. The Chamber of Secrets and Die Another Day are reliably diverting and well put together. They do exactly what it says on the tin, reassuring the consumer that even though they’ve not seen this particular film, they already know what to expect. Monday, October 21, 2002
The Rules of ComedySo you want to write a radical situation comedy? It’s got to be ground-breaking and edgy with new settings and scenarios, unlike anything seen before. Father Ted, Seinfeld and Will and Grace all rolled into one. In that case, you just have to follow the rules. You might think comedy is rebellious, but literary critics will tell you that it’s inherently conservative - it seems like normal customs will be overturned, but at the end of the piece, everything is resolved and things go back to the way they were before. TV sitcoms show this in their episodic structure - compare them to drama series and see how little actually happens in the long-term plots on the comedies. It’s taken seven seasons for two of the Friends characters to get married. Wednesday, October 09, 2002
Papa’s got a brand new blag - Britain’s Favourite Hoaxer reviewed‘Do you think there’s something wrong with us, doing this, like?’ asks Tommy, just before he and his mates blag their way onto the podium at the British Grand Prix, for a spot of Riverdancing. Nothing wrong at all. They’re just living a low-budget heartwarming British movie - The Full Monty for the new century. Channel 4’s documentary, Britain’s Favourite Hoaxer, showed the effort behind Tommy and his mate Karl ‘Fat Neck’ Power’s sporting stunts, from crashing the team photo at Manchester United’s Champions’ League quarter-final last year, to playing tennis on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Monday, September 30, 2002
Losing the Ryder CupSpare a thought for Steve Ryder, the journeyman sports broadcaster for the BBC. He’s just spent the last three days covering the Ryder Cup (no relation), without being able to bring us any live coverage, because the Sky Sports schemers had the rights. Monday, September 02, 2002
Real Drama - reality vs. fictionChannels here and in the US are fighting to outdo themselves with variants of the reality TV idea. At first unknown people were made famous just by showing them on TV doing their jobs - Hotel, Airport, that one about the cruise ship. Then it became much more entertaining to get the unknowns to earn their celebrity a little - Survivor, Big Brother, that one on the Scottish island. We’ve also had the historical variant - The Trench, The 1940s House, and now The Ship, which purports to be about James Cook’s voyages, but is really Survivor at Sea meets Simon Schama. Wednesday, August 14, 2002
All Grown Up - Minority Report reviewed‘What happened to our sense of wonder?’ mumbles Van Morrison in his song ‘On Hyndford Street’, and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report answers that question with a degree of pain and pessimism we’ve not seen from him before. Spielberg was famously the Peter Pan of Hollywood, his films warmed by the sense that life could be wonderful if we just held on to our child-like innocence and enthusiasm. From ET to Jurassic Park, the grown-ups were responsible for all the bad things, but the kids were all right. And that gave us hope. Monday, July 22, 2002
Ray Mears - Practical visionaryRay Mears is that rare and perfect combination - a practical visionary. When he’s talking you through the challenges of surviving in the world’s wildernesses, you trust his judgement and expertise, but you also warm to his more philosophical side. I’ve always been disappointed they make astronauts out of fighter pilots and not writers. Sure, you need someone who’s good under pressure and will do as they’re told, but if you’re sending a spaceship off the planet, shouldn’t you have someone on the trip who can explain what it’s like to be doing such an amazing thing? ‘Houston, we have a problem,’ might get the job done, but it’s not exactly deathless prose. It’s like asking footballers how they scored a breathtaking goal - ‘Well, Smodger knocked it over and I just hit it - it either goes into the stands or it goes in.’ Being good at some jobs means being bad at talking about them. Thursday, May 23, 2002
Attack of the Clones - One of our heroes is missingIt’s difficult to garner much sympathy when everyone knows you’re Darth Vader. Especially when you’re a snot-nosed teenager in a sulk. George Lucas has been watching Harry Enfield - in Attack of the Clones, Annakin Skywalker is the teenager Kevin. With a light sabre. The film is much better than The Phantom Menace, but the ass-backwards order of the two trilogies doesn’t help any. The Jedi are protecting the Republic - yay! The leader of the Republic is the Emperor Palpatine - boo! Yay for defeating the army of the droids! Boo that it’s done with clones that will grow up to be stormtroopers. Sunday, April 28, 2002
24-hour plot people - 24 reviewedIt?s 8am in 24, and we?re a third of the way through the day. How?s it working out for you? On the plus side, the plot?s gripping and has more twists and turns than Robert Pires on the dodgems. And there?s some good use of technology to drive the story along - closed circuilt cameras, mobile phones and a large number of beautifully lit Macintosh computers. Some of the set pieces have been good too - we?ve had lesbian assasins escaping from exploding aircraft, spook pseudo-dads murdering their offspring and surprised slackers getting shot in the head. Tuesday, April 02, 2002
Oscar War - What should really happen at awards ceremoniesIn our playground there were simple rules of engagement. Three boys would link arms and stride around the playground chanting ?Who wants a game of War??, or if we were feeling cheeky, ?Who wants a game of Kiss Chase??. Soon others would join in, and then the teams would be divided along certain agreed lines. Most of the time, the captains would alternately choose one person, until the only one left would be the new kid with the patch over his NHS specs to correct his lazy eye. But on occasion, we?d divide the teams up in a different way - for example, Mrs Bowring?s class stick the rest. While watching the dreary Oscars last week, it dawned on me that the ceremony would be much more exciting if it was a team event. Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Walking Tall - The secret of small actorsThe movie?s reaching its climax - a man is being led through a filthy jail to see his friend who’s been incarcerated for two years; our hero is about to volunteer to serve his own sentence to save his friend’s life - and the only question in my mind is how tall is Vince Vaughn? This clearly wasn’t the sentiment the makers of Return to Paradise wanted to evoke in the audience, but soon I was away on a height jag. If Vaughn’s about 6’2”, then Anne Heche must be pocket sized, because she’s clearly a foot shorter than he is. And that means Joaquin Phoenix is tiny as well. Monday, February 18, 2002
Snow Business - How good is Channel 4 News?The world is going to hell in a handcart, and you’re just sitting there watching. But at least if it’s Channel 4 News you’re watching, you know there’s some hope for us. Captain Jon Snow and his able lieutenants, Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Kirsty Lang, sail the seas of the early evening schedules in the UK in their nippy destroyer, giving us attitude and accuracy in equal measure. Friday, February 01, 2002
Vote with your remote - the loss of EurosportRecently I was talking to an old college friend of mine, who’s now wearing butcher-stripe shirts and working as a trader in the City of London. He gets to work at 6:30am every morning, several hours before the markets open. I asked him why he was so previous, and he fixed me with a steely glare and said, ‘Because money never sleeps, pal.’ I was struck by the same thought when I switched channels at 12:05am on Thursday night to be greeted by CNBC’s market wrap from New York. If I’d stuck around, I could watch as they seamlessly moved to their Asian centre to cover the opening of the Hang Seng. Money never sleeps. Tuesday, January 22, 2002
Black Hawk Down - TGFThere was a moment in the middle of Black Hawk Down when it dawned on me what I was watching - it was a TGF. Those of you unfamiliar with US military slang will have to take my word for this, but it wasn’t that Friday feeling I was getting as I watched this grim depiction what it’s like to be stranded in a city where everyone’s got a gun and they all want to kill you. |
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