Friday, January 25, 2008

The Spice is Right

GIRL POWER! Spice World: The Movie, BBC Four, 8.30pm

There are those, such as F Dunkin Wedd, recipient of this week's Letter of the Week in the Radio Times, who think that BBC Four is descending into some kind of populist hell of late, and will probably view its decision to screen Spice World: The Movieas part of its pop music season as a sign of the apocalypse, but we'd like to stand up and applaud such a decision, because in our humble opinion, there is always a need for a channel that's as willing to screen a silly but brilliant pop movie as it is to screen Victoria Coren's History of Corners (even if the latter was just a BBC Four spoof included in Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, but let's be honest, it was completely on the nose as spoofs go). It shows a very healthy open mind and lack of pretension, to our way of thinking. Also, the fact that they're choosing to screen such a movie on lowculture's fifth birthday cannot be a coincidence - it's obviously some kind of loving tribute to us, which we wholeheartedly appreciate.

It's easy to poke fun at this film, of course, but there's also much in it that's worthy of approval: Victoria Beckham emerging as a surprise comic talent, the girls' willingness to send up absolutely everything about themselves, Torchwood's Naoko Mori in a random bit-part as their heavily-pregnant friend, and of course some brilliant pop music piped in at regular intervals. It's hardly Citizen Kane, of course, but then it was never meant to be, and we do have to ask who the bigger fool is here: the person who goes to see Spice World expecting to some harmless fun, or the person who goes to see Spice World to point out the many reasons why it will never win an Academy Award for Best Picture. (We once spoke to someone who grouched that the scene where the girls are attempting to jump over Tower Bridge in the Spice bus, only for the shot to be changed to a deliberately crude and childish model shot made out of loo rolls with the toy bus being pulled on a piece of string, was "obviously cheap and fake", thereby missing the entire point. And seriously: if you're too dumb to understand this film, what's to become of you?)

Besides, it's easy enough to paint this as a cinematic masterpiece if you want to. It was a brave directorial decision to cast such obviously unskilled actors in the main roles. The wanton jettisoning of all known conventions of plot, storylining and continuity are extremely bold and daring. And the final concert scene at the Royal Albert Hall is a masterful flight of fancy. But we don't need to be ironic about it, because we know this movie is great, and the fact that it's being screened on a "clever channel" like BBC Four, on our birthday, no less, is obviously a complete validation of our viewpoint. Hooray!

Labels: BBC4, Spice Girls, TV

By Steve :: Post link :: ::  
0 pop-up comments :: Discuss on messageboard

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Ring out the old, bring in the new

ANOTHER YEAR OVER! New Year's Eve telly

So, 2007, then. The year that brought us two Big Brother race rows, Any Dream Will Do, Harry Potter film 5 and book 7, floods, an actually good remake in the form of Hairspray, a new Prime Minister, Heroes, LOLyoaks, McDean, Ugly Betty, Martha Jones, Steven Beale, data loss by the government, High School Musical 2, David Platt, the LC chatroom, the rise of misplaced apostrophes, Facebook for the masses, John Simm as The Master, X, Gavin and Stacey (and also Max and Stacey... ewww), Britney's shaved head, Tangled Up, King Biggins, Umbrella, Enchanted, Same Difference, Big Evva, Sarah Jane Adventures, Stardust and THAT Indy article.

So, how are our TV schedulers sending this year out? Well, five is basically not bothering, with only the film version of Oliver! at 4:20pm of any note - and with their recent mini-series and the upcoming I'd Do Anything, the Beeb has missed a trick by not getting this one. They don't have any show whatsoever to mark midnight. Channel Four are doing little better. They also fail to have anything happening over midnight, although they have a Monty Python evening beginning at 8. However, they do up the ante somewhat with a new series of LC fave Come Dine With Me at the ridiculous hour of 4:55pm, so you best start remembering to set those videos/PVRs/Sky+'s when you go back to work...

ITV1 also has little on offer, although there is a double bill of Coronation Street at 7:30 and 8:30pm, where we see if Liz McDonald will marry Tricky Dicky off of EastEnders. The channel sees the new year in with a Take That and Friends at the O2 Arena at 11:15pm, which is a bit odd, but hey. They then try and grab Channel 4's audience with Monty Python's The Meaning of Life at 12:45 am, and you can cleanse your mind of images of Hollyoaks' Rubbish Tranny in fishnets with a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at 2:40am.

As is usually the case with big occasions, BBC1 has it all in the bag tonight, with a new series of Celebrity Mastermind at 6:30pm, followed by Spice Girls: Giving You Everything at 7, in which all five give interviews about their rise, their break-up, their fame and their reunion. Oh, and Geri cries. The 8pm episode of EastEnders ensures that Kevin Wicks (and thus half of Walford) will not be having a very happy new year, then at 8:35 we have The Vicar of Dibley Story which is basically a talking-heads/clip show thing and we think it was on last year, but what the hey.

As for the big 'see in the new year' shows, we have The Big Finish at 9:40, where Graham Norton and a bunch of celebs go over the year's events in much the same way Clive James always used to do, presumably in the format of the Bigger Picture which we were the only people who liked. Then you should turn over to BBC2 at 11:10 for Jools' Annual Hootenanny with Paul McCartney, Kate Nash, Kaiser Chiefs and KYLIE MINOGUE OBE. Yes, that's KYLIE. KYLIE HOO(TENANNY). BBC1 is also doing some actual rubbishy see-in-the-new-year thing at 11:10. Myleene Klass, naturally, will be there. No word on the Barrowman yet, but fear not, you can always watch this if you want to see out 2007 in the presence of its two most omnipresent personalities:





So long, 2007! And to show we still love our Scottish friends despite Leon, let's all join hands and sing: 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot....'

Anyway, enough of that, we have a whole new year to be getting on with, and our dear telly schedulers are heralding this new era with... well, loads of very old movies, in fact, the same ones that they show on every New Year's Day, although they are all packed with LC icons: Bedknobs and Broomsticks, 12:20pm, BBC1, Mary Poppins, 4:05pm, ITV1, Singin' in the Rain, 3:10p, Channel 5, and, ummm, Sister Act 2, 3:25pm, BBC1. BBC1 also sneaks in a repeat of Kylie Who at 2:15pm.
Pink Name. There is are two newish films on today - BBC2 premieres Finding Neverland at 5:30pm, and Channel 4 premieres Fantastic Four at 8:10pm, and we never got round to seeing these at the pictures, so that will be nice.

But there are three main events tonight, two of which clash, so make sure you are armed with Channel 4+1, 4OD or BBC iPlayer to avoid heartache. The first big offering of the evening is Sense and Sensibility on BBC1 at 9:10pm. You may think you have seen versions of this before, and you'd be right, but, like Dickens, it seems you can never have too many versions of Austen on the telly. This is followed by the first episode in the new series of Jam and Jerusalem. Now, this series divided people first time round, and we must admit, it took us a few episodes to get into it, but we soon grew to love the characters (played by the best ensemble of British female talent until, and since, Cranford, with David Mitchell and one or two other men cropping up) and the setting. Think of it less as a full-on sitcom and more as a gently funny drama and you'll love it, we promise. Well, you might, anyway. Oh, and just to warn you, episode two is this Friday. We will remind you of this at the time.

The other big hitter, which Paul gave you a teaser of a few weeks ago, is the opener of series 5 of Shameless. Now, series four was pretty below-par, but we hold out higher hopes for this one, with the promises of Lilian's knocking shop, Ian bumming Carl's teacher, Mimi having weight issues, and, er, a beach. In tonight's episode, Frank is told he only has days to live, and presumably hilarious high jinks ensue. Unfortunately Monica is still around, but fortunately, so is Norma. And who knows, maybe Monica will decide to bugger off again soon. We can hope.

Here are the first fruits of 2008, then. We'll be with you for the rest of it: Mistresses, Big Brother, Dancing on Ice, Torchwood, Doctor Who, Rubbish Tranny getting his comeuppance (we can hope), Strictly Come Dancing, The X Factor, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2008, and maybe even The Olympics if we get really over-excited.

Happy New Year, lowculture!

Labels: 2007, 2008, come dine with me, Coronation Street, EastEnders, films, jam and jerusalem, new year, sense and sensibility, Shameless, Spice Girls

By Rad :: Post link :: ::  
3 pop-up comments :: Discuss on messageboard

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Trial and error

ZIG-A-ZIG-AH! The Spice Girls on Trial, Five, 9.00pm

Swing it, shake it, move it, make it - indeed, just who do you think you are, eh? You cannot have failed to notice that the Spice Girls are back and attempting to conquer the world all over again, minor setbacks involving this year's official Children in Need single notwithstanding. Sadly, the comeback appears to be inescapable for all the wrong reasons - not because the populace is standing with open arms waiting to welcome our glorious leaders once more, but because a lot of people seem to want to be the one to shout first and loudest about what a terrible idea it is, what horrible people they are for even considering it. And that strikes us as unfair, frankly - not to mention a tad misogynistic. (We realise lowculture is not generally one's destination of choice for angry feminist polemic, but we're taking a leaf out of Jamie Oliver's book and trying something new today.)

We read an article the other day (our sense of class and decency prohibits us from saying where, but you can probably guess) which decried the Spice comeback as a failure, on the grounds that the single failed to crack the Top 10 and the tickets for UK tour dates were changing hands for a pittance on ebay. It compared the tour unfavourably to Take That's return, and suggested that Take That had gone about it the right way, while the Spice Girls had Done It Wrong, of course, being women with no grasp of anything beyond shoes and dresses. It conveniently overlooked the fact that the Spice Girls are returning with a world tour, and thus that their appeal extends beyond the usual staples of western Europe and Asia. It also didn't account for healthy sales of the Greatest Hits CD, or the way the news of the return was greeted with excitement on even the more cynical corners of the internet, or the fact that all five of the girls remained comfortably in the public eye during the band's hiatus, which suggests in turn that the appetite for Spice Girls news has never truly gone away. It felt like a particularly British kind of cynicism, where we can't be happy that one of our most successful pop exports have returned for a victory lap - we have to rain shit on it, just to make sure they don't go thinking they can get away with such things.

While the Take That reunion attracted some raised eyebrows and sarcastic comments, as did the respective returns of Five, Boyzone, All Saints, and Pepsi and Shirley (maybe not that last one), they were never asked to justify themselves in the way that the Spice Girls have had to - tonight's programme being a case in point. It claims to be revealing "what the world really thinks" about the reunion, presumably in the hope that they'll get enough people to respond "I'd rather they just all fucked off, to be honest", at which point, this poll obviously being final and legally binding, the Spice Girls will be banned from appearing together in public forever and everyone can stop being worried about the possibility of some women being successful and having a bit of money. Other questions intending to be answered include "were they the starting point for our inane obsession with celebrity culture?" (this from Five, you'll note - physician, heal thyself) and whether there was "any substance" to Girl Power.

There wasn't, to our recollection, quite such a clamour for Take That to defend their reasons for reuniting. There wasn't an entire TV show devoted to whether we really "need" them to come back - which is a ridiculous concept anyway. We didn't "need" the return of Cadbury's Wispa, but that didn't mean it wasn't exciting and pleasant. We don't "need" another X Factor winner, but we're getting one. And we certainly don't "need" an hour of primetime television amounting to a glorified show of hands that will ultimately prove to be of no purpose, but -- oh, look at that! Here it is all the same. And in much the same way that we can choose not to watch this show tonight, people can choose not to endorse or support the Spice Girls return in any way. That doesn't mean it's necessary to seek to find any possible excuse to suggest the wheels are about to fall off.

We don't pretend to be music critics, nor do we pretend to be qualified spokespeople on the subject of pop culture - we've not once been asked to be a talking head on I Love The Greatest Worst Years of the Most Hilariously Annoying 1990s, much to our chagrin - but we like to at least consider ourselves some kind of bastion of decency, and supporters of equal rights for everyone. Either reunion tours are acceptable, or they're not: let's have none of this hair-splitting on a case-by-case basis, depending on whether we think the act in question needs taking down a peg or two. Perhaps this programme thinks it's being clever or irreverent or zeitgeisty, but ultimately it's unlikely it will achieve anything when all's said and done. Which is, curiously enough, one accusation you definitely cannot level at the Spice Girls. Fancy that.

Rant over. Let's resume normal service and go back to staring at Gethin Jones groping Matt di Angelo, shall we?

Labels: Five, pop music, Spice Girls, TV

By Steve :: Post link :: ::  
4 pop-up comments :: Discuss on messageboard

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Grrrrr

You find lowculture in a very bad mood today, so don't expect us to be particularly nice about anything, OK?
Is there anything that can cheer us up? The announcement that Keith Barron is joining the cast of Corrie as an old charmer in the centre of a love triangle with Blanche and Rita, perhaps? The looming Spice Girls reunion? Or even the news that Parky is giving up his boring old chat show? No, no and no! It'll take a lot more than that lot to put a smile on our miseable chops today. Bah.

Labels: Blanche, Coronation Street, Keith Barron, Michael Parkinson, Rita, Spice Girls

By Paul :: Post link :: ::  
1 pop-up comments :: Discuss on messageboard