Curb your plagiarism Ricky
I was watching "Extras" last night and noticed, of course, how different the second series is to the second. It's as though Ricky Gervais had run out of jokes-about-film-and-television-extras, so he decided to throw in a little homebrew version of Curb Your Enthusiasm (or the Larry David show).
Firstly there are the supposedly "name" actors all "challenging" their fetid public personas with end-of-term shenanigans. Then there are those endless punchline-less conversations in which offensive things are said in a deadpan manner to suggest that the creators' nihilism is just part of their everday experience.
On last night's Extras the Ricky Gervais character moans about a noisy child in a restaurant and this is then transmogrified by the press into a physical attack on a boy with downs syndrome. The Ricky Gervais character is then left to clear up the mess which, surprise surprise, leads to more mess. Slapstick with pies of political correctness.
The problem is, it's difficult to drum up any kind of sympathy or identification with Ricky Gervais because he has such a lot of thick hair. Now a bald guy...that's funny. Just look at Seinfeld. Jerry = lots of hair, lots of jokes, but zero memorability. Kramer = lots of hair, lots of clowning, and equally bereft of killer moments. But George, he knows how to suffer. He takes his karma badly and baldly. That's the spirit.
So is it any good? I don't know. I only watched it between the football. So it wasn't that vital.
Larry David 3 Ricky Gervais 1 (half-time score).
Firstly there are the supposedly "name" actors all "challenging" their fetid public personas with end-of-term shenanigans. Then there are those endless punchline-less conversations in which offensive things are said in a deadpan manner to suggest that the creators' nihilism is just part of their everday experience.
On last night's Extras the Ricky Gervais character moans about a noisy child in a restaurant and this is then transmogrified by the press into a physical attack on a boy with downs syndrome. The Ricky Gervais character is then left to clear up the mess which, surprise surprise, leads to more mess. Slapstick with pies of political correctness.
The problem is, it's difficult to drum up any kind of sympathy or identification with Ricky Gervais because he has such a lot of thick hair. Now a bald guy...that's funny. Just look at Seinfeld. Jerry = lots of hair, lots of jokes, but zero memorability. Kramer = lots of hair, lots of clowning, and equally bereft of killer moments. But George, he knows how to suffer. He takes his karma badly and baldly. That's the spirit.
So is it any good? I don't know. I only watched it between the football. So it wasn't that vital.
Larry David 3 Ricky Gervais 1 (half-time score).
posted by familyhobgoblin at 10:31 AM
1 Comments:
injury time and ricky has had his goal confiscated and the score is now Larry David 11 Ricky Gervais 0
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