Well that was abysmal!
Ask an AI to write a blander, less original, less twist-filled and surprising plot, peopled with characters who aren’t so much characters as names pinned to pullovers, with the most witless and humour-free dialogue you’ve ever heard, and the AI would turn its nose up at you in scorn at you insulting its abilities.
Never have such capable actors been so wasted on so feeble an exercise. The premise might pass muster as an ITV early evening drama, though more effort might go into adapting it to make you want to return after the ad break. The notion that this lightweight twaddle merits a big budget movie, with no extra effort in the writing to make it in any way filmic, boggles the mind.
Worst of all, one would expect it to be funny. Richard Osman is, on telly and podcasts at least, one of the wittiest people there is. It was even adapted by a comedian, Katy Brand. And the director is the guy who made Home Alone, for chrissakes! But this misses every opportunity to be funny.
A good example is when Helen Mirren, whose character seems on the brink of being interesting a few times during the story before deciding against it, puts on a wax jacket, plaid skirt and headscarf and looks exactly like she did in The Queen. An amusing in joke, you’d think. Until Jonathan Pryce steps in with the leaden line: “What are you wearing? You look like The Queen”
Hopeless. Dull. Boring. Not even so bad it’s bad, just so feeble it’s inexplicable.
Don’t get me started on the accents.
To its credit Celia Imrie is quite good, and she gets to draw a cock and balls and say sweary words.
You will find yourself remembering other, better, things throughout. Your Better Than Thursday Murder Club Bingo Card will probably include Hot Fuzz, Knives Out, Acorn Antiques, Iron Man 3, and those James Bond films which you’ll want to watch again to see if Pierce Brosnan was ever actually any good.
Oops, it would seem my review of Thursday Murder Club was too strong for Google.
Here’s a fun one that we’ve just enjoyed: Cassandra. A contender for my Top TV of the Year (it’s in the top twenty, easy)
It is another example of how Netflix has become the new supporter of home grown TV. In recent months we’ve watched this, an all-German show, in German, for Germans, boosting the German TV industry, just funded and distributed by an international company. And we’ve done the same with all-Australian shows (Apple Cider Vinegar), Korean (Squid Game), British (Adolescence), as well as French and Spanish and more.
Has there ever been a time, or an organisation, that supported more international production of TV and film? It’s like in my childhood when they’d use the Golden Rose of Montreux to showcase European comedy shows. (At the same time we had Jeux Sans Frontieres, about which least said soonest mended). Unfortunately those Euro shows were always rubbish. Today it couldn’t be further from the case. Netflix is winning international TV, on the quality and the mission statement front.
Any other international shows you’d like to recommend?
Jolly good fun film, highly recommended, The Monkey. If you like smart dialogue and lots of extreme cartoon deaths, you’ll enjoy this.
As much fun, though, is googling writer and director Osgood Perkins afterwards. Now that is quite a family tree. Prepare yourself for:
- who his dad is
- how his mum died
- where his name comes from
- the famous astronomer
- the famous fashion designer
- the ancestors who came over on the Mayflower
About the most American a family tree can get, short of having any First Nation Americans in it (though I bet, if you look further, they’re in there somewhere)
Enjoy The Monkey. Way better than his previous film, the lamentable Long Legs.
An intriguing film, watched last night. One of the most intriguing things about it being them referring to it as a “film”.
Certainly the most televisual “movie” I’ve seen this year, it is in practice actually just a four-hander play that wouldn’t be hard to stage at the Royal Court or on the Fringe.
In fact it’s Play For Today, and I mean that in a good way. Much more about the ideas than the action, with the humour all there in the dialogue.
Dark, timely, and maybe laugh out loud, if you were in the right company, or mood. If you like The Thick of It and South Park, and don’t mind film length Play For Todays being a bit mislabelled, you might enjoy this.
Happiness is discovering a new podcast. And the latest discovery is Comics Boom.
Sadly they don’t mention my strips in particular but dammit I’m taking credit along with everyone else in Oink. And I recommend this podcast.
In short, that’s more like it. A splendid reminder that The Addams Family is a dark comedy full of gothic and camp imagery and sharp satire. And funny throughout. You lose that and you have lost the point.
And, I assume, the viewers. I think we’re now seeing why Wednesday season two was delayed by two whole years. If the rest of it is as shark-jumpingly bad as episode three, that will be it for the franchise for another decade.
Anyway, Addams Family Values remains highly recommended
*****
Got an Only Connect question for you:
1) Paul from Jam x 3
2) Bond minus 7
3) A giveaway in Poker
4) Sheldon’s Gran
What connects them? (No spoilers. If you get it instantly, don’t give it away, just show that you know)
Another excellent film stumbled upon for last nights movie night: Sew Torn
Hadn’t heard of it before, and only took a chance because of its high rating on NowTV (aka Sky Movies). Once more this worked out.
Only criticism: the title. Sew Torn? Far better titles would have been The Seamstress or Threads. One can only assume they were taken.
The answer is: because the Little Englander protesters would have turned away Anne Frank.
Think of every refugee as Anne Frank. If that doesn’t soften your stance, you are a Nazi. Not over simplifying things am I?
Well that didn’t really work did it? Anyone else bother with an an episode of Destination X?
There’s also too much Rob Bryden, way too much over-explanation of the rules early on, and the disturbing claustrophobia of a tour bus with no windows. All of which adds up to a bit of a damp squib.
Better shows that this brought to mind: that one where they put old pop stars on a bus (what was that called?) and the Where Is Kazakhstan? round of House Of Games.
****
Aug 4: Superman is beating FF’s takings on the big screen, and you know why.
Whereas DC movies take forever to appear on streaming and, in the UK, you can’t be sure when or where they will. Plus they keep trying to get you to pay for longer. Joker just turned up on my Now TV last month, when they worked out there was no one left who would actually pay money to see it, but the actual popular ones like Wonder Woman, The Batman, and Shazam took ages to appear on the free page.
So that’s an extra mark to DC for marketing and another thing Disney may have problems with in the future. If making money from theatrical releases remains something they still want to do.
Aug 1: Things that you can’t imagine now: here in the UK we had to wait for seven months to get Star Wars.
We’d had poster mags, articles, that hit single by Meco, the soundtrack album, and even the Marvel comic adaptation long before anyone got to see the movie.
After that was the five year wait before anything could be shown on TV. And this was all before the invention of VHS. Try and tell the kids today.
The biggest irony must have been that the damn film was made in England in the first place.
Well that was shit. Watched the whole first episode of this thing, by the brothers who once wrote the brilliant The Missing, waiting for something original, surprising or un-cliched to happen, or perhaps for some dialogue that didn’t sound like it had been written by ChatGPT. I’m afraid it never happened.
Most basic TV drama of the month. Like someone had taken a leftover ITV drama script, given it too big a budget, but not a good rewrite. Poor.
Oh, it’s called The Assassin, and has Keeley Hawes in.
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
Richard The Third (Colour) | Doctors Who? Colouring | Socks Do Shakespeare | Kids Comics Annual 2026 |
 |  |  |  |
Richard The Third (bw) | Findlay Macbeth | Prince of Denmark Street | Midsummer Night's Dream Team |
 |  |  |  |
Shakespeare Omnibus | Comic Tales From The Bible | Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories | Space Elain |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
re: Star Wars delay in 77/78, you should remember that 20thCFox didn't know what to do with the film – they thought it wasn't going to amount to much, so it may not have even been on their radar for intinterntational release. In the US, 20thCFox had to essentially bribe theatres to take it – which isn't as unusual as it seems, in the form of you want the A film, then you must run this B (c,d,e..z) film. No one remembers the A film that 20thCFox was pushing (it was called "The Other Side of Midnight", but I had to look it up…) Since a lot of the film bookings are made in advance, UK cinemas probably didn't have room in their schedules until then. These days, with the gigaplexes, you can book the lower grade films into a small theatre, and the A in a large one and easily switch them based on attendance.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant detail Ken, I didn't know all that, thankyou.
ReplyDelete