People who make me laugh. People who DON'T make me laugh

I know I'm not a comedian, but this is from a grumpy's perspective, with too much time on his hands....

People who I find particularly funny:

• Sean Lock
• Dylan Moran
• Robert Popper (writer of Friday Night Dinner, brilliant - but the "Mr Morris" episode really annoyed me - the old shit should have been mauled by Wilson, the German Shepherd)
• Simon Amstell
• Shaun Micallef
• Dave O'Neil (warm, wry, Melbourne, my generation)
• Kitty Flanagan
• Paul O'Grady (Scouse gold, wrote a ripper autobiography)
• Chelsea Handler
• Seth MacFarlane
• Sarah Millican
• Miranda Hart
• Jo Brand
• Lee Mack
• Eric Morecombe  R.I.P.

People who I find unfunny:

• Chris Lilley
• Steve Carell movies (but he is funny live or on chat shows)
• Jimmy Fallon
• Jim Carrey
• Cheech & Chong (yes, I know this is very '80s)
• Will Ferrell (same as Mr Carell, charming when on live TV)
• Keith Lemon
• anyone on "The Footy Show"
• anyone remotely connected to Two and a Half Men

"The Mimic" TV series, Episode 1, Channel 4, review

I know this is The Brady Bunch, but I got lazy.

My wife and I watched  a sweet little comedy last night.When you aren't expecting much, television can surprise you. Blending poignancy, gentle humour and excellent voice impersonations, this show works. Terry Mynott spouts Terry Wogan, Gok Wan, Owen Wilson, Al Pacino, Allan Carr and in a delightful final scene, Sir David Attenborough.The impersonations support the storyline, rather than detract from it.

Best 'dramedy' since Coogan and Brydon's "The Trip". Looking forward to next week's episode.

John Irving's "In One Person" book review

Copyright Simon & Schuster, Garp Enterprises 2012

Opening up a new John Irving novel is like re-establishing contact with an old friend. You pick up where you left off. You know what you are going to talk about already. This book has many common themes with "The World According To Garp" published back in 1978 - boarding school, weird families, wrestling, sexuality, cross dressing, fame and story telling. The bears theme even reappears but this is Irving's little joke - we ain't talking about brown, black or grizzlies either.
I love Mr Irving's writing style - personal, leisurely, self-deprecating, witty, but also confronting and at times raunchy. He peoples his novels with rich, quirky characters. You won't forget in a hurry Bill's cross dressing grandfather or the crusty old wrestling coach Herm Hoyt. This book is written in first person - the life of a Bill Abbott, a bisexual writer, stretching from the late 50's in New England (surprise, surprise) to New York City in the middle of the 1980's AIDS crisis through to present day.  It contains more dialogue than I remember in other Irving books.  I have read only read 6 of his 13 novels: "The World According to Garp", "The Hotel New Hampshire", "Last Night in Twisted River", "A Widow for One Year" and "The Fourth Hand".  The last two on my list are my favourites - full of haunting descriptions and rich prose.

Mr Irving has the ability to blend tragedy with wild humour. His plea for tolerance of diversity and respect for individuality is done with style, rather than beating the reader over the head with it. It's also a page-turner, taking the reader to San Francisco, New York, rural Vermont, Vienna and Madrid. You want to find out the fate of Bill's friends and family. This is a passionate and intensely moral book. Life is complicated. People are complicated - so show compassion.

Movie studio turkeys - a list of crappy blockbusters 1956-1982

"The Conqueror" 1956 The behind the scenes story is more interesting than the film. Blame Howard Hughes.

"Pepe" 1960  Poopy is more like it. Watch the stellar cast look uncomfortable for over 3 hours!

"Casino Royale" 1967  a royal stuff up, even Woody Allen's antics and Burt Bacharach's music can't save this multi-million dollar dud.

"A Countess From Hong Kong" 1967 Charles Chaplin wank fest, good cast wasted, his last movie, thank God.

"Doctor Dolittle" 1967 Is there a doctor in the house, this movie has no pulse. Another way of blackmail your sprogs to be good.

"Boom" 1968 (Bomb, methinks)  Elizabeth Taylor,Richard Burton, Noel Coward, Joseph Losey directing. What could go wrong? Everything.

"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" 1968 If your kids are misbehaving, threaten to hire this, they will be angels. 145 minutes of steaming faeces

"Skidoo"  1968 Otto Preminger made this unfunny comedy one year after the lame "Hurry Sundown"

"Darling Lili"  1970  Blake Edwards directed his then-wife Julie Andrews in this overproduced mess. Glossy but sooooo long. Scriptwriter Blatty went on to write "The Exorcist" (ka-ching, he would have been set for life)
"Man of La Mancha"  1972  One of the reasons Hollywood stopped making so many musicals.

"Lost Horizon" 1973  Peter Finch sings to Liv Ullmann in Shangri-La. Hope your sphincter holds out.

"Airport 1975" 1974 Camp value only - part inspiration for "Airplane!" piss take

"Rosebud" 1975  No connection to Citizen Kane. Unwatchable Otto Preminger dross.


"Exorcist II:The Heretic" 1977, so much talent wasted in this crap sequel - John Boorman, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, James Earl Jones

"The Swarm" 1978 Michael Caine and killer bees - a B movie - unintentionally funny disaster flick.

"Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band" 1978 Mr Stigwood, more is less,okay?  Worst mash up since "Casino Royale" 1967. Blame all the coke available at the time.

"The Wiz"  1978  Yes, Sidney Lumet directed this. Oh dear.

"Wholly Moses!" 1980 Dudley Moore....more is less. A cast full of top comedy actors being unfunny.

"Popeye"  1980 Only worth seeing for the Sweethaven built in Malta.

"Annie"  1982  Everything you loved about this great Broadway show, you will hate in this. John Huston's worst movie. The great songs are ruined.

50 movies that shaped the baby boomer generation - from "A Summer Place" to "Summer of '42"

I was born in 1956. Baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964 according to U.S. Census definition. Most of the films listed are Hollywood produced. During this period, movies reflected changing mores and social change.

This film listing is from 1959 to 1972

My coding is as follows:

B = Big Box Office popularity
G = Ground breaking movies, taboos broken - sex/violence/language on the screen
A = Art house, new trends, political/social comments


1959 "A Summer Place" G
"Some Like It Hot" B, G
"Pillow Talk" B
"Imitation of Life" B
"North By Northwest" B

1960 "Psycho" G
"The Magnificent Seven" B
"The Apartment" G
"Spartacus" B

1961 "West Side Story" G, B
"La Dolce Vita" A, G

1962 "The Manchurian Candidate" G
"Lolita" G
 "To Kill A Mockingbird" G
"Lawrence of Arabia" B

1963"The Great Escape" B
"Tom Jones" G
"Dr No" B
"8 1/2" A

1964 "Dr Strangelove, Or: How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" A
"A Hard Day's Night" G, B
"Goldfinger" B

1965 "For a Few Dollars More" G
1966 "A Man and a Woman" A

1967 "Bonnie and Clyde" G, A
"The Graduate" G, B
"Blow Up" G, A
"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" G
"In the Heat of the Night" G

1968 "Bullitt" G
"Rosemary's Baby" G
"Planet of the Apes" G
"2001: A Space Odyssey" G, A
"Midnight Cowboy" G
"The Producers" G
"Night of the Living Dead" G

1969 "The Wild Bunch" G
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" B
"Easy Rider" G
"Alice's Restaurant" A, G

1970 "Woodstock" G
"M*A*S*H"  G, B
"Five Easy Pieces" A

1971 "Dirty Harry" G
"The French Connection" G, B
"Shaft" G
"A Clockwork Orange" G, A
"The Last Picture Show" G
"Summer of '42"  B

1972 "The Godfather" B, G

Confessions of a 57 year old male

Well happy f**king birthday to me, I'm 57 today, so what have I learnt after 20 819 days? Not a lot.
So here are my top 7, gentle reader, make of them what you will:

1. Listen, wait and think before opening your mouth.
2. Whatever you think or say, someone has already thought it and said it a whole lot better than you. Nothing is new under the Sun, so move on...
3. More is less, in all situations, except Point 4
4. Read more, read widely.
5. Your wife chose you more than you chose her, otherwise you would not still be married, dumb ass.
6. Being negative achieves nothing.
7. Having 'the last word', never works (see Point 1).

A chance discovery - Nintendo in Kyoto

Wandering through Kyoto streets on a rainy afternoon we lucked upon this strange Art Deco building. Getting closer, we saw a small plaque by the door explaining that this is the Nintendo Card Company (established 1889). A larger sign sternly warns off trespassers, stating No Tourists. We quickly took this photo. Peering through the window, it looked like a small office/ museum with display cabinets.
Nintendo has a fascinating history starting with playing cards, then trading cards, toys, a taxi company, a love hotel, a television station, food products ('instant rice') before electronic games in the 1970's.

"The Following" Season 1, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10 review

Episode 7 
This was a good one, but I am getting a bit sick of the one step forward, ten steps back formula. Another follower pops up just in time to foil the FBI, SWAT, Ryan Hardy. Each episode seems to have a "Booo!" moment (Kevin Williamson  wrote Scream), the baddie jumping out from nowhere. By episodes 3 and 4 I was tiring of  the 'oh no, not another follower' format. But the last two eps have been solid. The Edgar Allan Poe gimmick is a good one. Hardy's team provide interesting subplots.
The last scene reminded me of the final scene in Rosemary's Baby, well sort of.
Season 1 pros (so far)
Kevin Bacon's rounded performance, James Purefoy doing Hannibal Lector meets Professor Higgins (villains need English accents, it seems), the elfin but evil Emma Hill character (Valorie Curry) hope she doesn't get written out for a while.
Episode 8
Okay, now I'm getting a touch frustrated. I'm sick of the psychos being one step ahead all the time. The goodies arriving too late and shooting at the escaping cars/helicopters. Too repetitive. We need to see some chinks in the followers' armour, some dire mistakes.The closest we got were the fake (?) gay  couple several episodes back. Where are they? Shawn Ashmore's character better recover quickly.
Going by the last few scenes in episode 8, the sexual shenanigans and fierce competition of the inner circle followers at Chateau Psycho could be their downfall.
Episode 9
Loads of fun. New psycho recruit scores Tarantino points with a nasty spear gun scene in a diner.
Episode 10
Yay, the return of Dexter's Angel Batista (Ryan's stalwart FBI buddy). David Zayas playing the nice guy again. A frustrating scene in the motel "safe haven". How many stuff-ups is the FBI allowed per episode? Why would an agent wait behind a door, knowing there are two Uzi toting assassins on the other side?
Liked the hidden website bit for recruiting 'followers'.The Jacob and Emma relationship is becoming more interesting each week. Jacob (now even nuttier than before) could become a thorn in Joe's side. Here's hoping....