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Reviews
Little Britain (2003)
Bizarre Caricatures
Matt Lucas, who is homosexual, and David Walliams both did Drama at Bristol University. The character Vicky Pollard has a Bristolian accent, which is just a short sonic-distance from sounding like the Zider-drinking Wurzels from Zomerzet.
I think the acting is quite good, especially David Walliams when he becomes Vicky Pollard's schoolteacher. The Two Ronnies had daft sketches, and sometimes repeated characters - the best was Ronnie Barker's attempt at being a Open University/Documentary lecturer, making a serious lecture of of something stupid. It didn't really poke fun at strange people, or socially disturbed people in very personal ways that LB does. The Fast Show was similar in having repeating sketches about the same characters. The Fast Show was better, and was often about social embarrassment. Think of Ted and Ralph. Some of their characters were difficult to get used to.
So the argument that it's the same set of sketches repeated over again can be applied to other comedy shows, which were successful.
LB has very crude humour, with visual jokes you won't find on many other networks. It is designed to provoke your sense of decency, and take your imagination to quite dark places. It looks at people's different fetishes and explores their logical conclusions.
The Incredibles (2004)
The Simpsons save the world.
If only Bart or Homer Simpson knew they had super powers, they could solve all problems instead of getting pushed from pillar to post.
There are some philosophical leanings in the film, but either you discover these or they slip past your still-evolving mind. It's not laid on too thick, heavy-handed-fashion like Finding Nemo. We are nudged in a direction by the Good Ship Disney. Admittedly, the action is so fast, you will miss many scene details, but I think it does rival Shrek 2 in inter-weaving pastiches of classic films to appeal to hardened sci-fi fans. Shrek 2 also embarked on a dabble in reworking nursery rhyme characters in bizarre situations. I think you noticed that.
Mr Incredible is like a character from the British comic 'The Dandy' who ate cow pies called Desperate Dan. To say he is chisel-jawed is like saying Shrek is green.
In the showing of the film, in the middle, someone a row or so behind was fast asleep and had started snoring for England.
The humour in the action sequences did remind a bit of Road Runner, and sometimes you expected a little diagram to pop up saying
'ACME Industries - Top Secret, Mk 5 Space Transporter'. Isn't the son Dash another form of Road Runner?
I think if you substituted 'Watching football down the pub' with Bob Parr's nightly eavesdropping of Police radio transmissions, many women would empathise.
The film is about women doing two things at once, under-achieving jobs that do not give you full rein for your talents, annoying kids, husbands who miss the importance of their family, and reaching your true potential. After leaving university, I did a soul-destroying job, and using your talents was a dirty word. Some bosses deliberately subdue their staff to make themselves appear more capable as human beings, when that is the precise opposite.
The animation is the canine's conkers. Superlative artwork. It has the advantage over live-action films in that it can play with the laws of physics much more. I saw the Thunderbirds film a few months ago, and it has similarities with The Incredibles, except that quality and storyline did a nose dive. The bird playing Lady Penelope was a bit of a heart throb, and worth one in the sack.
Pixar are the Rolls Royce of animation films. They understand quality like no one else.
The Dam Busters (1955)
Steady, Steady....... Bomb Gone!
I personally went to school in the town where the Raids were monitored from (Grantham) by Wallis and Harris. There is hardly any memorabilia recording this local fact, and no-one would ever know. I know of RAF Scampton too, which I believe has closed down some years ago. For Lincolnshire, the Dams Raid is remembered poignantly, as the 617 Squadron, who now fly Tornados
in Scotland, was formed and trained there. They practised on the Derwent Reservoir near Sheffield, and the Eyebrook Reservoir in Leicestershire.
Sir Barnes Wallis thought in innovative ways, and the fact that this 'far out' idea of bouncing bombs on a lake, actually breached two dams is an engineering marvel. To do so under heavy flak is beating the odds. Wallis and 617 Squadron collaborated again with the Tallboy and Grand Slam 'earthquake' bombs, which destroyed many important railway viaducts and tunnels, as well as sinking the Tirpitz.
Richard Todd, after the film, moved 3 miles from Grantham. Maybe the film was the reason for this.
The film is one of few about RAF Bomber Command, and is a good portrayal of the danger involved. 41% of crew were killed (55,000). After early 1944, the loss rate rapidly decreased, as the Luftwaffe had been destroyed, so from 1940-3 I would guess 60-70% of crew were killed, for the whole campaign. It may be higher. The RAF didn't even know the Germans had excellent radar until early 1942. The film is about team work and working under stress - your immediate future depended on 6 other people. Many things could go wrong along the way. It is also about strong resilience to new ideas. i.e. The RAF could have had jet planes before 1939 if they'd have developed Whittle's ideas in the 1930s, instead of foolishly waiting 10 whole years until 1941. Whittle was then humiliated after the war by forcing him to give all his designs to the Americans, who didn't waste any time in treating the idea as their own.
When I first saw the film, I thought the special effects were weak and I was astonished a bomb bounced in the first place. When older and seeing it again, you can empathise more with the RAF crews and the skill and daring they would need. It focuses on one story line, and does not have American accents mysteriously appearing from nowhere. I think at the time Guy Gibson was about 25. Imagine yourself having that responsibility at 25.
Many of the 'Upkeep' mines that were bounced, completely missed the targets. Certainly for the Eder dam, there was just one mine left, and was dropped in the right place and destroyed the dam in 'one go'. The film gives the impression many were exploded to breach the dam, but actually a single one did the 'job'.
The Germans are never shown, and I would love to have known what they thought seeing this strange sight of bombs skimming the water's surface. I think Spielberg would have enjoyed making this film, but half of it would have been about the Germans. If the dams had been breached six months earlier, when a water pumping system had not been installed, the Germans would have been seriously up the creek with no paddles. The Ruhr Industry would have been unable to function at all. Do not underestimate what hypothetical difference the dams breach could have made to the Germans in their biggest industrial area.
Do women enjoy the film too, or is all the technical wizardry just for the male audience?
Why did Pink Floyd use it in their film 'The Wall'? Carling Black Label used the lake scenes many times in notorious adverts.