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    #51
    Current Watching

    Skins. Imaginative, unpredictable, full of terrific jokes, sexy but above all really heartfelt. Even to point out that it doesn't patronise its audience would be a bit patronising. The best UK drama of recent years.
    I've never disagreed more with anyone on TV, ever. I watched this last night for the first time in ages and it was just as shit as it was when I was first attracted to it by the C4 hype machine. Unrealistic toss.

    Last night I watched episodes of My Name is Earl and Arrested Development. I was disappointed that he'd been banged up, but the execution was great. I do wonder if it can be sustained over a whole series though. Speaking of the latter though, surely it's the most underrated comedy of the last decade? Absolutely fantastic performances from pretty much everyone, particularly The Fonz.

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      #52
      Current Watching

      I've never disagreed more with anyone on TV, ever. I watched this last night for the first time in ages and it was just as shit as it was when I was first attracted to it by the C4 hype machine. Unrealistic toss.
      Well, steady on. But I have to admit that last night's Skins was the worst of the series so far. What's usually so great about it is that it's innovative and fantastical - it takes place in a heightened, dreamy parallel universe - and, at the same time, it's emotionally very serious and convincing. It's real without being realistic, if you will. Last night's - which was written by a 23-year-old rookie, rather than 45-year-old showrunner Bryan Elsley - had several scenes that really were bad, and none that were breathtakingly good. Skins is usually stuffed with the latter. I would say watch it again next week - next week's plays it very straight - but, well, if someone told me to watch another episode of something I hated, I wouldn't, so fair enough if you don't. But "the C4 hype machine" has never done Skins any favours - particularly when it started, the trailers and ads for it were wildly misleading, making it seem smutty and cheap, which it isn't. A lot of people criticise it for being smutty and cheap, which just makes me think they've only seen the trailers and ads. (Not you, Liq, obviously. You just saw a duff episode.)

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        #53
        Current Watching

        I just find it very cartoony, which isn't a quality I'm a fan of. There's just something really smug, north London and dare I say it, very Guardian. It grates on me, particularly as I can't see any relation between their adolescent years and mine or anyone else's I know. It's almost as though the writers are transplanting all their adolescent longings and missed opportunities on screen.

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          #54
          Current Watching

          Ah, see, yeah it is cartoony, but I think underlying that are universal truths. Fundamentally it's about people who are nominally young adults but have no idea how to function as grown-ups, which is pretty much yer all-encompassing teen emotion. All the characters are lost souls fighting big problems they're not equipped to deal with, so I don't think it's smug at all - its total lack of smugness is what I like. I don't understand why it's Guardian-ish at all.

          Yeah, crazy stuff happens, but apart from that being fine because, y'know, it's fiction, you have to look beyond that. To take a small example: the kids often go to clubs, raves and house parties, which are much bigger, much druggier and much more frequent than they were for me and my teen friends - but without exception these events are wild, scary things where someone always gets the fear and someone else suffers some kind of emotional catastrophe. That resonates with me. Another cartoonish thing is the way all the mums and dads are hammily played by famous comedians - but that's done to emphasise that the parents are, to the kids, distant, alien figures. All the cartoony stuff has a point above and beyond being funny, which it usually is.

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            #55
            Current Watching

            Just seen that Liverpool supporter sketch on M&W...spot on!

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              #56
              Current Watching

              .

              I rolled in from the local bar tonight and sat down to do a bit of zapping. Just starting was 'The Golden Child', 'starring' Eddie Murphy. So I began watching, and as I'd feared, it was painfully inept - the only saving grace perhaps the little boy of the title, who had a certain calm grace.

              I did a scriptwriting course once where the teacher said that we should watch everything, good and bad, the latter to see how it's not done. I stoutly followed her advice this time, but there came a point, about an hour in and possibly coinciding with yet another of those trademark Murphy chortles that he and his directors think so endearing, when I could stand it no more.

              Suffice it to say that cleaning the cat-boxes suddenly became a much more attractive proposition.

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                #57
                Current Watching

                Goodbye Lenin is indeed a fine movie. The recreation of the DDR news, "Aktuelle Kamera", was spot-on satire.

                I also would recommend Bella Martha, which was recently remade in the US with, I think Catherine Zeta-wotsit and the dude from Thank You For Smoking.

                Another German film which I rather enjoyed, despite its flaws, was Kopf Gegen Die Wand.

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                  #58
                  Current Watching

                  Pan Tau wrote:
                  Another German film which I rather enjoyed, despite its flaws, was Kopf Gegen Die Wand.
                  Have you seen Akin's new one? I haven't (for political reasons to do with the cinema industry in London, not cos I don't want to, I will have to wait for a DVD).

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                    #59
                    Current Watching

                    On a whim, I downloaded "Belleville Rendez-Vous" this afternoon - I had a quick look at it and it looks visually stunning.

                    Also, I downloaded "A Boy Named Charlie Brown". Not sure why I did this.

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                      #60
                      Current Watching

                      No I haven't, lyra. What political reasons?

                      I watched a couple of episodes of a 1973 German TV series called Der Bastian yesterday. It's lightweight prime-time fodder I care about only for reasons of nostalgia. But watching old TV shows is also an enjoyable exercise in social anthropology.

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                        #61
                        Current Watching

                        According to wiki, there are three films called Sehnsucht, two of which are extant. Which do you mean: the 1990 one or the 2006 one?

                        (There are also two albums with that name, it turns out: one by Rammstein and one by Schiller. The former is very good.)

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                          #62
                          Current Watching

                          Oh the most recent one, 2006. I didn't know of the other - I will check it out.

                          PT - just rubbish to do with bookers and stuff

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                            #63
                            Current Watching

                            Jon wrote:
                            However, one small favour - could you possibly make 2 seperate threads in the Film and TV section - ie 'Current Watching - TV', and 'Current Watching - Film.' Lumping them both together makes it all rather unwieldy.
                            (on the Current Listening thread)

                            Unless anyone objects I don't see why not. This one could stay as Film and then I could make a TV one. And films on DVD could stay here and TV shows on DVD could go there. Does anyone object?

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                              #64
                              Current Watching

                              Two of the least appetizingly titled programmes to have ever been scheduled on British TV were running concurrently last night - BBC1 had 'Casualty 1904' whilst ITV treated us to 'He Kills Coppers'.

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                                #65
                                Current Watching

                                Casualty 1904? Really? Fuck. I've just lost a bet (but on the plus side, as it was a bet with myself, I've also won a bet) that the next Casualty/Holby spin-off would be fire brigade based.

                                I never saw going back in time as an option. That's why these BBC imagineers get paid so much, I guess. Intuitive, original thinking is at a premium, and these fuckers are pushing the envelope as far as it will possibly go.

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                                  #66
                                  Current Watching

                                  Fire brigade? And look like a cut-price London's Burning? Nah, I'm waiting for Casualty 2204.

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                                    #67
                                    Current Watching

                                    It'll be that, CSI: Holby or Casualty, P.I.

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                                      #68
                                      Current Watching

                                      Holby She Wrote.

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                                        #69
                                        Current Watching

                                        I saw a trailer for that "Casualty 1904" show and the concept just seemed like comedy gold.

                                        "Get me 20ccs of chloroform, stat!"

                                        "I'm a doctor, man, not a butcher. Bring me my leeches!"

                                        Presumably the Beeb will be rolling out a series of shows apparently modelled on Marvel 1608.

                                        Top Gear 1904: Hammond crashes a horse drawn cart, while Clarkson tests one of these new fangled motor vehicles.

                                        Other suggestions welcomed.

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                                          #70
                                          Current Watching

                                          News at 8pm

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                                            #71
                                            Current Watching

                                            Oh and I really can't get enough Pimp my Ride.

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                                              #72
                                              Current Watching

                                              Tonight's Skins (E4) is terrific: it completely puts paid to those unrealistic/cartoony/titillating criticisms.

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                                                #73
                                                Current Watching

                                                Todd Solondz's Storytelling which has been on the shelf for about 6 years waiting to be watched. It is of course really good. It reminds you of how poor a lot of US output in the 'indie' kind of category is nowadays; Solondz always seems to me to have something genuine, which is lacking in a lot of films these days; I need to think a bit more about how exactly to define it, though.

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                                                  #74
                                                  Current Watching

                                                  I can't believe how crap the TV viewing has been over the past 2 weeks or so. I can't get Freeview at present, so am stuck with the 4 basic channels (no Channel 5 and S4C rather than Channel 4). Because I hate reality/celebrity shows, the choice is absoloutley diabolical. It's been mostly youtube videos that have passed my time.

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                                                    #75
                                                    Current Watching

                                                    I've decided to watch the films of Almovodar from Pepi, Luci, Bom onwards starting from last night. Some memorable characters and scenes and very enjoyable film. I assume there was a deeper significance to the lax attitude to rape and beatings.

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