5 TV shows you should watch. Now.

I am unemployed. Fact. I watch a lot of TV. Fact. So here, for your benefit, there are 5 hidden gems of television that you have not seen, are not watching, and you definitely should watch. Trust me; these shows are solid gold, magnificent in their execution, and world class. They blow every mainstream TV I can think of out the water… and that includes all of your Family Guys, Simpsons, Top Gears, IT Crowds and the like. The only thing I can think of that comes close is The Inbetweeners, and that’s only because I too am knee deep in clunge, so I feel Jays pain.

1.       It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The sort of life that you’re glad you don’t lead, but the sort of activities that you can only dream of doing. Four drunks own a bar, and argue constantly on every issue under the sun, from racism, homosexuality, prostitution, and how close to rape you can get before it’s okay. If you take nothing else from this, take Danny Devito’s bullet-proof way of pulling women. Simply walk up to them with a wallet filled with cash, and drop a magnum sized condom in front of them. When bending down to pick it up, make sure to display the wallet in the targets direction. Simple.

Trust me on this, this is everything How I met your Mother is scared to be, and is infinitely funnier for it.

2.       Archer

Archer is James Bond. Except he has the world’s biggest Oedipus complex, drinks more, invented the use of the turtleneck as a tactical garment, calls fat people manatees, and is so awesome he’s retarded. Oh yeah, and he’s animated.  There is nothing as funny as this on TV. Fact.

3.       Blue Mountain State

If John Belushi was still alive, this is the TV programme he’d be in. BMS is like Animal House on rabies, and all the more awesome for it. Just think, booze, drugs, American Football, and the greatest TV character of all time, Thad Castle. He may just be the ultimate lad; aggressive, camp, obsessed with winning, camp, can drink like a fish, camp, and once took on six police and won.  Abhorrent, but impossible not to love.

The quality of this show should be measured in the fact that you can watch any episode and still get hooked. Perfect viewing for late night boozers, or those nostalgic uni sports players just dreaming of the good old days.

Ps, this is who John Belushi is…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIC0T4fWQLc&feature=related

4.       Eastbound and Down

Think Ron Burgundy levels of arrogance and delusion, except trapped in a once great baseball player now living in small town America. Every word is quotable.

What a neat summary.

5.       Firefly

What’s this, a western, but set in space? Like a light hearted, more realistic, more comedic Star Wars? Never. Well, it’s true, and this happened. Cancelled, for some unheard of reason, the DVD sales of the 16 episodes funded the film Serenity, which itself is like one long episode. Written by the dude who did Buffy, it’s well worth getting into. Unlike most normal shows, it’s not limited by having a location, so it never gets repetitive, but there is a progressive plot, so start from the beginning. Or, if you can’t be arsed with that, watch Serenity instead. Seriously.

Special mentions should go to Robson Green’s Extreme Fishing, because he has the life I want, Dr Who for being world class in inventiveness without ever resorting to traditional gimmicks, and Arrested Development, which is just really, really, funny.

Sharks. Terrible Terrible Sharks.

I write this article not in defence of sharks, or even to attack them, but in the vain hope that any sort of TV controller will put a stop the mad, bad, and frankly frustrating tendency of all nature documentary film makers to produce films that 'dispel with the myth that sharks are mindless killing machines, but actually wonders of nature, refined and intelligent'.

Basil Fawlty once demanded an award for stating the bleedin' obvious, and I demand it awarded here. I cannot believe that there is a single person in the World that is still under the impression that Sharks are nasty bastards, if only because the media insists on the contrary every time they pop up.

JAWS came out in the SEVENTIES! Stop telling me how nice sharks are! I already know! National Geographic have a show on the subject once a day, BBC once a month, and channel five about once every twenty seconds. Last I saw even him off men behaving badly was in on the act. 

The only logical explanation that I can come up with is that a million new kids are born every day that need educating on sharks. If this is true of course, maybe my rant is directed at the wrong person. Perhaps an open letter to Stevey Spielberg is more appropriate. 

Dear Steven,

Congratulations on your efforts to bring about shark awareness worldwide.

I am writing to implore you to do two things for the good of humanity. Firstly, take yo head out yo arse and learn how to make a good film again. 

Secondly, please make a genre defining, summer dominating blockbuster, like jaws, expect where the villain is... contraception. Then maybe TV will spend the next 40 years telling everyone how awesome it actually is, and I will have to spend less time learning about how nice sharks are.

Kind Regards,

Henry  

Funny Fish Number 13

One very simple reason why I never give money to charities supporting financially poor africans.

They have more money than me. I have an overdraft and several loans. They don't even have bank accounts. Ergo, they have ZERO, whilst I have minus money.

Simple.

They owe ME.

5 Delicious looking animals

Now now, here me out. Do you have any idea what this would taste like? Me neither. But I can make you three promises. One: you would not need to season it. AT ALL. Two: Variation is the spice of life. And three: It would be DELICIOUS.

Fat is flavour, and what this is is one very very very fat chicken fish. And that, my friends, is a faultless culinary conception.

Don't pretend for one minute that if these animals breed like rabbits, and were as stupid as rabbits, that we wouldn't all eat them all the time. Look at it!!! Look how supple and smooth and tasty it looks! Plus, considering that it has a diet of mostly fish, its saltly taste would be just PUUURRRFECT. Thank you very much, i'll order the dolphin tail with extra crackling. Probably served with mushrooms and cabbage.

So delicious people eat you raw just to get you on the plate quicker? Wow. Get me some of that.

Would I eat you, King of Birds? Yes. Would I enjoy it? Yes.

An animal that feasts on already tasty things, it could only be improved by the sense that you're eating royalty, which in turn makes you some sort of Demi-God.

Power is addictive after all.

You know I'm right.

Funny Fish No. 12

Avatar:The offensively terrible film

I'm posting this simply because I saw the most offesnively irresponsible piece of journalism listed on Total Films website today. Check this out... they had the audacity to suggest that it was one of the 100 greatest films of all time. That it would make the top 5000 is offensive, so this I see as a travesty of justice, and thus have resolved to right a wrong, and explain why this is a terrible film.


This is not a rant by the way, but a perfectly reasoned argument, and as such it is split into consituent parts.

The first concerns the requirements for greatness, or at leats the conditions that I think reasonably should be met for a film to be make it onto any top 100 list. (Obviously for all you pedants out there, this does not includes lists that are thematically similiar to 'the top one hundred films that are like avatar' or any such shite.)

Anyway, it seems to me that greta films have great dialouge, great story telling, and great charcter development. Avatar had none of these. Point me to a scene stealing piece of dialogue, and i'll note that you were either high on talking about the wrong film. In short, this film, at a little over three hours, had a basic plot, a dialogue that was written on the back of a napkin, at a bar, at two, whilst on a special needs trip, and charcters so one dimensional that the seemed like the subject of some sort of philosophical debate. (there's a prize for the reference i'm making there. Big bang theory fans should get there first)

Anyway, the point is, avatar was liked because it was good at the things it sold itself on. Action, and Graphics. As an addedum, the 3D thing was shit. Really it added nothing. Look me in th eye and disagree with me, I dare you.


I wont deny that the setting, the visual realsim, and the coneptualisation for a new world were all awesome, and that the action was incredible, but in return I do expect everyone to acknowledge how obviously terrible the script was.

An example: "Don't shoot at that thing, bullets wont pierce the skin"
2 hours later "oh no, everything we try and fight with gets shot and dies"
the a further 10 minutes
"yay, the spirit tree has sent animals that can't get shot. What. A. Surprise"


See. Shockingly bad.

But this in itself does not make Avatar offensive. What is offensive is that shocking ignorance it betrays in reference to the heritage of cinema.

Check this.

If Cameron knew anything but at all about the heritage of his medium, he would know that early cinema, as in really early cinema, was termed 'the cinema of attractions'. The point of this was to showcase brand new technology demonstrate things taht audiences had never seen before. Whilst it had its upsides, in essence it was a cheap parlour trick, wowing audiences with new technology and demanding money for priviledge.

Sound familiar? Coming up with something brand new, launching a shock and awe campaign of advertising, basically in an effort to get rich. Yep, thought so.

Trouble was, this industry had no future. The lumiere brothers, widely considered the grandfathers of the industry, openly admited they saw no future beyond the showcaisng of their technology (at the time it was simply the capture of the moving image), whilst their greatest rival, who tried to intergrated plot and special effects, was destroyed comemrically by his much less daring rivals.

Point is, back then, cinema based soley on a party trick had no future, and the same is true today. Unless people like cameron up their game on a multitude of fronts, cinema will become, ulitamtley shit.

History teaches us this also. The spawn of early cinema was merely a series of terrible adaptations of literature, or formulaic romances, with an appeal to the masses but no intellectual depth whatsoever. It took basically till the 50's to change this, and even then, that was only thanks to a series of (admittedly douchey) French intellectuals being really snobby for a really long time.

The simple fact is... cinema isn't excellent by accident. It take sreal effort by all the people involved to make it good. And, and here's the rub, excellence DOES NOT mean success. just cause people loved it doens't make it good, and in fcat its success could be the most damning death toll of all, because people wiuth imitate it without questioning the implications.

Its offensive because Cameron basically reset the switch. In making the future of cinema, he actually went all the way back to the start, but didn't learn any of the lessons of history. Thew industry isn't based on technology, but on intellect, and the sooner he understands that, the better we'll all be.

Ps, it would help if everyone stopped sucking his dick so much.

Remember JS Mill? me niether, but he siad its better to be clever and unhappy than stupdi and happy, and i'm inclined to agree.


So cuk it up, and banish avatar to the basement bin.

FANKS