I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Are you watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm"? A friend recently brought these over, and they are a regular LAFF RIOT! Highly reccommended! I've heard good things about "The Office"...
Won't the ones from the UK be PAL instead of NTSC?
my dvd player handles it fine. only $40 from amazon.
norcet dp300
A friend recommended it to me on the grounds that I'm a huge fan of the Larry Sanders Show.
If it's indeed anything like LS, I'll have to check it out.
IDEA:
Let's make this thread a collection of our favorite quotes from The Office.
Atrios, dammit, get Rickie Lee Jones new album! "The Evening Of My Best Day" is fucking fantastic.
"Oh yeah, they're sad little men. He's thrown a kettle over a pub. What have you ever done?" -Gareth Keenan
Humble suggestion, Atrios, for DVD enjoyment: Sports Night.
Especially if you like commenting on the news business.
Only show about a newsroom (albeit a sports newsroom) that ever got it RIGHT: the insanity, the serious crises, the trivial bullshit, the times when you're deep and committed and in love with your job and the times when you're in it for the money and fuck everybody who disagrees with you ... plus, Felicity Huffman, pretty smokin' hot.
A.
Dana, stop sacking Dave.
CYE is way overrated. Saw it a couple of times, didn't catch my interest.
What is the single most important thing for a company? Is it the building? Is it the stock? Is it the turnover? It’s the people, investment in people. My proudest moment here wasn’t when I increased profits by 17%, or cut expenditure without losing a single member of staff. No. It was a young Greek guy, first job in the country, hardly spoke a word of English, but he came to me and he went ‘Mr Brent, will you be the Godfather to my child?’.
Didn’t happen in the end. We had to let him go, he was rubbish.
There was a Canadian show about a called The Newsroom which was very good. Very much like Larry Sanders, but set in a TV news production instead of a talk show. The main character was neurotic and narcissistic just like Larry.
There was an Australian show a few years back called Frontline, a parody (very very close to life though) of the commercial channels' daily current affairs programs.
Both shows were very smart and very funny.
"You don't punish women, Dutch or otherwise, for having big breasts..."
-David Brent, a.k.a. Sir David of Brent
The Office is good TV, Curb Your Enthusiasm is great TV.
Just my opinion.
"If anything, you reward them..."
- Gareth Keenan
Newsroom was great.
But then again, I love CYE!
This is way OT but seems as good a place as any. HELP!
Last week someone posted a link to a photo of the long-haired, bearded Saddam Hussein, except that Bush's face had been expertly Photoshopped into the beard and hair. I've been combing through old threads but I can't find it. If someone knows the link, could you please post it here, or if you saved the picture to your computer please e-mail it to me. My mom wants to see it.
Gee, they both run on BBC America for free.
Speaking of Canadian shows, there's one called "Made in Canada" about a TV production company that's one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. Worth looking for if you live far enough north to get CBC on cable.
The Office often seems more painful than funny.
AbFab is outright funny, Coupling is funny.
But the Office has just so many embarassing moments it is painful to watch.
Strangers with Candy is out in a box set. Coupling as well.
Coupling is one of the few comedies I can watch repeatedly.
Probably because I can never remember the full rant.
"The Office" made my teeth hurt. How
old are you, anyway?
"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is one of the few things I miss after switching to Basic Cable. The Christmas episode from a while back was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
As to 'Far From Heaven', I have to say I was disappointed, being that I'm a huge Todd Haynes fan and an admirer of Douglas Sirk. It seemed to me it walked a line between parody and tribute which left me feeling mostly detached. Great visuals, though. In my view, Haynes has yet to best 'Safe', which is a masterpiece.
The Office is *supposed* to make your teeth hurt, and be embarrassing to watch. Like Hank Kingsley, the character who really made the Larry Sanders Show.
Speaking of embarrassing to watch, I only caught three or four episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm (which I enjoyed very much): in one, the main guy had taken his wife to a snotty restaurant by limo, and he tried sneaking out their leftovers, then cutlery, to the waiting limo driver, and got caught. I had to hide behind my couch and peek over the top to keep watching. Kind of like watching Bush trying to wing it unscripted.
Each year I try to see the Academy Award nominated films in the top eight or nine categories before Oscar night.
Last year was the first I'd ever succeeded. "Far From Heaven" and "Talk to Her" were the two movies I got to see knowing absolutely nothing about them except that they'd been nominated. And I correctly suspected that "Talk to Her" was subtitled.
I thought "Far From Heaven" was really terrific. But I won't spoil your chance to see it the way I did.....
("Talk to Her" is worth the eyeball time, too.)
I will check it out, although tough to beat simple title "Heaven" from 2002, with Cate Blanchett & Giovani Ribisi-
Viewed Gus's Gerry two nites ago, very much like watching paint dry, made worse by the last few scenes which were somewhat akin to the best orgasm of your life, gone horribly bad-
satiRic air tanK:
I think I saw it on Bartcop...
Try humping thru his site archives by changing the htm file ptr, working backwards...
Example using current page up:
http://www.bartcop.com/1227.htm
Have fun...
Atrios, I bought the Norcent on your recommendation, and got the all-region code. I didn't do it to watch DVD's from Britain a month or so early before their US release, but to watch DVD's that I might never otherwise see--and the first one I watched, that justified the cost and trouble in the first five minutes, was "A Canterbury Tale". Not available in US format, it may be the Archers' strangest and most beautiful film.
Anyway, if you haven't found www.amazon.co.uk, get started.
Parody? What parody,Ignatz? Far From Heaven is as heartfelt as it gets.
It all came about when Todd broke up with James Lyons -- his boyfriend since the Crimean Wars. James is his long-time editor, and is also an actor (he played Billy Name in I Shot Andy Warhol). He even gets a script credit on Far From Heaven as he was wrking on it with Todd when the break-up came.
Todd told me "I went to Hawaii, finished Proust, and then wrote the script." Because of the pain of the break-up it just poured right out of him.
Currently he's taking his time writing the screenplay for a movie about Bob Dylan in which episodes from Dylan's life are enacted by a wide variety of people, including a small black boy and a woman. He says it will comprise "a secret history of the 60's." Dylan has given Todd permission to use any of his songs that he wants.
Todd lives in Portland now. As Gus does too, Portland has become the epicenter of the gay filmmaking universe.
If you like politics--and who here doesn't?--I *highly* recommend "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister", both available on DVD. Important to watch episodes in order as they sometimes build on previous episode. Wonderful cynical look at political processes.
I like chicks with dicks films.
If david Brent is Bush, who is Gareth? I think Finchy is Cheney.
Dennis, Gareth is the Dem party. Loathed by the rest of the office, he sucks up to Brent, tries to be like him, and fails at that lowly task.
I got that Norcent DVD player from Amazon that was plugged here a few months ago.
the thing is frickin' great.
Dennis, Gareth is the Dem party. Loathed by the rest of the office, he sucks up to Brent, tries to be like him, and fails at that lowly task.
Magnum
I never thought of that. Augie could be Kerry.
So Tim would kind of be McCain? Loyal to the point of paralysis and ineffectiveness.
That would also make David's new boss Dean.
Parody? What parody,Ignatz? Far From Heaven is as heartfelt as it gets.
I'm sort of guessing at why it didn't hit me right. In terms of parody, there was certainly nothing overt. But I think there can be an unintended smirk factor built in to updating Sirk. There was a lot of variation in the notes the different actors struck, some very nuanced and round while others seemed more like 50s caricatures.
I found the more clinical Safe much more powerful. I don't know what was happening in Haynes life when he made that, but I found it the more genuinely heartbreaking of the two.
I think Far from Heaven was a bit misleading in that time period that the movie was set in - no one would dare come out to the closet to say "I'm gay" with job like Dennis had for big corp. Dennis Quaid had a very nice paying job that would have gone south at the very mention of “I’m gay” behavior.
And it seems to me that George W Bush is living the same story line that Dennis Quaid plays in the movie.
It’s why the French
President Jacque Chirac was kissing Laurie Bush's hand so much right after it became public knowledge that George W. Bush, in his one on one interviews with Brit Hume, made the statement that he (Bush) met no disrespect but thought that Brit Hume had a "very nice voice and everything."
Jacque Chirac was making fun of Laura Bush, but she was to stupid at the time to know what Chirac was doing.
It's not just that I didn't like Far From Heaven. I don't like a lot of popular films, so whatever. It's just that I found FFH so perverse, so seemingly *intentionally* bad that I am truly unable to understand how it is that other people liked it. So it recreates that fifties melodrama look and feel. Who cares? The fact that you're aware that you're wallowing in cliche does not, to my mind, make said cliche any less banal.
"Far from Heaven" IMO is an infinitely better film than Best Picture Oscar-winner "Chicago," IMO, although "Far from Heaven" wasn't even nominated.
It's just that I found FFH so perverse, so seemingly *intentionally* bad
I want to apoligize for having started an anti-Far From Heaven thread that has, in two short posts, reached ludicrous extremes.
That was me apoloqizing. Forgot to fill in the name field.
The damn *film* reaches ludicrous extremes. I'm not joking at all here. i was giggling through the most allegedly hearfelt moments, they were so heavy-handed.
Cheryl --
This George-Bush-Is-Really-Gay thing is very silly.
First of all, there's no evidence. Second, even if it were true, being hypocritical on this particular matter would be the very least of his crimes.
By the way, the just-aired two The Office Christmas episodes are available via bittorrent. These are alledged to be the last two episodes of the entire series.
There was a lot of variation in the notes the different actors struck, some very nuanced and round while others seemed more like 50s caricatures.
That's because he's not a realistic filmmaker. Far From Heaven is as stylized as Superstar. In face Julianne Moore plays Cathy as a Barbie doll come to life.
I found the more clinical Safe much more powerful. I don't know what was happening in Haynes life when he made that, but I found it the more genuinely heartbreaking of the two.
What was happening in his life? Ever heard of ACT-UP?
Safe is an AIDS film.
Far From Heaven left me cold. But then, by this point I've OD'ed on tragic romances. I did think it was very pretty and wanted Julianne Moore's outfits.
Chicago bored the crap out of me. The Hours, on the other hand, was brilliant.
A.
love Oscar season
The Hours bored the crap out of me.
But not as much as Cold Mountain did!
I thought there were black people in North Carolina during the civil war. I didn't see any in Cold Mtn.
They must have been next door on Warm Mountain.
Yes, we have just had 2 episodes of The Office Xmas shows here in Britain, and yes they are the last ones.
In the shows, Brent has left the OFFICE, and is a travelling salesman. He has also spent his redundancy package on making a record and video. They show the video of him, priceless!! He is also trying to get a girl friend fron a dating agency.
I would very much recommend 'YES MINISTER' and then 'YES PRIME MINISTER.' They were made over 20 years ago, but are timeless classics in their depiction of politics. One of the funniest episodes is about a hospital that has no patients or doctors because they can't afford to open it, yet has over 500 administration staff.
I could catch a monkey.
The Hours bored the crap out of me.
But not as much as Cold Mountain did!
Anthony Minghella never met a third-rate pedantic sappy script he didn't love.
I had an idea for an alternate ending to Far From Heaven. She boards the train with the gardner, and the words "The End" are superimposed over her kids waiting in the backseat of her car looking rather concerned. I thought that would be hysterical.
That's because he's not a realistic filmmaker.
None of my favorite filmmakers are what you'd call 'realistic.' But I do expect a certain consistency. Clarkson and Quaid, for instance, were playing it a lot straighter than Moore (who as you said was like a big doll), and I found that disparity a weakness in the film and one of the reasons for my tepid response to the narrative.
Ever heard of ACT-UP?
Actually, yeah. I was a member of a local chapter.
Safe is an AIDS film.
Well, being a friend of Haynes, you would know more about its inspiration than I, though I don't think an artist is always the best interpreter of his/her work. Taking the film alone without background notes, I don't think an AIDS theme is at all obvious. It's never clear, for instance, whether Moore's sensitivity to her environment is real or imagined. It seems to me a film about AIDS would be more explicit on that score.
I saw it more as a disturbing rumination on modern life generally and a very sharp critique of New Age-ism. I would like to see it again, though, taking your remarks into account.
"It's never clear, for instance, whether Moore's sensitivity to her environment is real or imagined. It seems to me a film about AIDS would be more explicit on that score."
Not at all. It's AIDS As Metaphor in a way that Susan Sontag never imagined. The film, in effect, wants you to "get AIDS."
On reflection, I can certainly see how involvement in AIDS could bring about the negative view of New Age therapies (in relation to disease and suffering) at work in the film. I can recall a lot of heated discussion about Louise Hay at the time. Even enlightend straight folks are probably not as sensitive as politicized queers to the reactionary politics of New Age-ism.
However, I don't see Moore as a cipher for a person with AIDS. Her empty, consumerist existence is also being satirized. So, it's informed by AIDS, I guess, but it's about more than that.
David --
I think we just posted at the same time. I hadn't read yours before my last post, not that it really matters.
I certainly hope, if nothing else, our discussion here inspires people to see Safe which, despite my deficiencies in getting it 
is one of my all time favorite films. Also really loved Poison.
Certainly how you regard Moore's illness has a lot to do with how you interpret it. Definitely the more seriously you take her condition, the stronger is the critique of a certain social response to disease and by extension of the response to AIDS.
Not at all. It's AIDS As Metaphor in a way that Susan Sontag never imagined. The film, in effect, wants you to "get AIDS."
Are you saying that Moore's condition IS clear, or are you saying that the ambiguity fits with the film's aims in regard to AIDS? If the latter, then how?
The first time I saw Safe I was bored. Then I spoke to some people about it and some absolutely loved it and others hated it - a sign to me that a movie runs deep and hides the punch so to speak (see the movie Spanish Prisoner by David Mamet about a dozen times and you'll know what I mean.) So I gave it another try. The movie can be whatever you want it to be. To me it's about fear and how it can devour a person. Most of us have no fear of the things we come into contact with daily that are slowly killing us - Julliane Moore whether consciously or unconsciously was aware of these things and her body reacted in kind. The Aids perspective is interesting, the next time I watch it I'll keep it in mind.
As far as the Office is concerned, count me as yet another fan. As someone who's worked in an office half his life they really nail down the quiet desperation of office life- yet that's the English way isn't it?
I'd like to add 3 more hysterical DVD's to check out: Mr. Show Season 1&2, Mr. Show Season 3 and Tenacious D - The Masterworks. These are the two funniest comedy teams to grace the American stage.
If these two make you laugh you can also pick up the David Cross cd "Shut up you fuckin baby" Some great political comedy.
"Are you saying that Moore's condition IS clear, or are you saying that the ambiguity fits with the film's aims in regard to AIDS? If the latter, then how?"
It's a combination of what the epidemic was like the first few years in (something I wrote about recently for the L.A. Weekly) and the Louise Hay fraud.
BTW, here's a pic of one of the stars of Safe, James LeGros, with Gus' ex-boyfriend, D.J.
(James was also featured in Drugstore Cowboy -- talk about Gay Synergy!)
RF,
Thanks for the tip. I couldn't find the picture (and for some reason I can't go back more than 7 days) but I really enjoyed Bartcop's site.
just checked my e-mail... Thank you very much to the 2 people who e-mailed me the BushSaddam photos. People here are so nice
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