Verbatim Winkleman Transcription

This weekend saw the book launch of Verbatim Winkleman Transcription: The Collected Film Criticism of Claudia Winkleman hot on the heals of "The Winker"'s appointment to head-talking-head on Film 20whatevertheyear. Winkleman's unorthodox brand of film criticism has earned her widespread noticed. The lengthy book gathers together verbatim transcriptions of Winkelman's Film reviews from her television show along with low resolution phone-camera images of food, pictures of her throughout her life and drawings of people she has met.

"When I made the book, it's made of paper and... some of it isn't just paper, what's cardboard? Is that just lots of paper squashed together?  I've always had books in my house but I don't... I don't... what do you think of the book? I love it." said Winkleman whilst rubbing the book rapidly and shaking hair out of her face. "I love that I have it and you can have it too."

Coinciding with the launch of the book is an iPhone App, iWinkleman giving users the opportunity to check short, pithy reviews of movies on the go. Example reviews include the following...

Drive Angry 3D: When I go to the cinema I drive there in a car sometimes but I'm rarely angry because I love the cinema but this film is not why I love the cinema. It is because of other films. Like Tarkovsky.

Howl: I've read many poems so I already knew.

The King's Speech: I don't know what I think.

Never Let Me Go: We have the same hair. But I've had it longer.

Brighton Rock: I feel like I've seen this before but everyone looked different.

The Green Hornet: What I thought was, look, when I was a child my family and I used to play a game and when we went to see a great piece of art or theater or read a work of great literature we used to have to describe it in one word but the only problem with this film is I don't know how to spell 'meh'

[The last review actually makes more sense written down than it did on screen where she didn't need to spell 'meh' because it was television and not a written review. This counts as bonus material.]

Winkles' review style has caused much debate in Critical Circles, a bar where critics go to criticise each others criticism. While some viewers revel in Winkleman's long digressions about family holidays and favourite types of cloud, others find her stream of consciousness reviews to be distracting and sometimes infuriating. Said Alan Cliffe; "Winkles seems to have watched the films in question, and even understood them in the most part, but then it all falls apart when it comes to expressing what she thought about them in actual words. I'm all for digressions, I once bought a boat called "Salty Gambit" just of the coast of Jersey, but you need to come back to your point eventually rather than just talking and talking until a thin man with a side-parting cuts you off."

It's clear on reading Verbatim Winkleman Transcription that Winkleman approaches films in a different manner to Cosmo Landesman. Winkleman's reviews are far more subjective; for instance during a review of The Bourne Vasectomy, Winky-dinks spends the last four paragraphs essentially reviewing her own face noting that "It's really, really,eh  really hard to see anything when I'm... squinting, squinting through all of this dark eye make-up and my fringe, on my head,  makes it virtually impossible to get a good look at anything in the top quarter of the screen... eph!"

Already, rumours from disgruntled cinema staff suggest that Winkleman may not be taking her duties as seriously as she should. Clifford Allen from the Vue cinema in Harrow recounts one particular incident "As she came to the counter clutching her ticket, she fixed me with a curious stare and said 'If I can keep my eyes closed all the way through, will you give me a tub of Haaaaagen Daaaaaz for nothing?', that's how she said it as well; Haaaaagen Daaaaz. I said yes because I didn't think she'd do it, True Grit  is quite long, she didn't manage it in the end but she almost did. I sat with a torch shining in her face right until the end when she opened her eyes and said Buggers."

Eph!

Whatever the thoughts of these popcorn shovels, it seems Winkleman is here to stay, Verbatim Winkleman Transcription has already sold more copies than any book ever made and a sequel is in the works.

Verbatim Winkelman Transcription is available at all good book stores for £17.99.9

TV Week: Podium Masterpiece Theatre

"You smell that? Do you smell that?"

If I had to name one show this season that you're not watching and should be, it's Podium Masterpiece Theatre on CBS. Struggling in the tough Wednesday early-morning timeslot, and facing off against a killer double-bill of America's Next Top Next Top Show and The Shit Whisperer on NBC, its days may be numbered, but this critically-acclaimed show needs your attention. My advice? Don't wait for the DVD.

With blink-and-you'll-miss-it podium cameos from such diverse performers as former President Bill Clinton reading the DiC logo title card, and Susan Sarandon as Kanye, this is a show like no other. It's passing will be deeply regretted by those lucky few who tuned in.

Despite falling ratings, this season's PMT has still been improving week on week, decisively answering those critics who argued it had peaked last year with the Emmy Award-winning season finale "Michael Sheen reads excerpts from O Magazine".

The New Yorker lavished the show with praise, calling Sheen's performance "White... toothy, grin!" and urging its readership to give the desperate PMT a try. The resulting buzz may have granted a renewal this season and second chance to find an audience, but many insiders felt this was more of a stay of execution than a reprieve.

"What Oprah Knows For Sure"

But the show's producers have not rested on their laurels, and are determined to go out fighting. In an interview for Vanity Fair last month, showrunner Alan Cliffe was defiant.

"We've got some big names. Real talent. Hell, we've got titans. Last year we had Michael, Martin, Charlie. Hell, all the Sheens. You thought Emilio's rendition of It's Not Easy Being Green was a tour de force? This year, we're going even bigger."

When it was leaked last Summer that network execs wanted PMT to go mass market, fans outrage was palpable. Would Podium would dumb down in an attempt to reach a wider audience? Cliffe dismissed the claims with equal vigour.

"Man, don't go believing everything you read on Twitter. Yes, some guys at HQ said some things over coffee. Yes, meetings took place. And yes, we told them no. From day one, this was a show that was not going to be for everyone. Not everyone wants to see a naked Kevin James stand behind a podium and read the book of Genesis. We get that. The network gets that. PMT is for the fans. Always has been."

True to his word, the commitment of Cliffe, along with his team, to the ideals of Podium has been stronger than ever. As promised, acting heavyweights Ian McKellen and Lil' Kim joined the cast this year, and if their joint podium reading of Huckleberry Finn in episode 2 is any indication, if Podium Masterpiece Theatre is going down, it's going out with a bang.

Colin Farrell Once again Mistakes Himself for Colin Firth at Recent Awards Bash

Colin Firth being Henry VIII

In a scene that was cut from television footage of the ceremony, Colin Farrell committed another serious media boo-boo by bounding on stage at the Golden Globes to collect Colin Firth's award for feature length Tourist Information Centre promo The Kings Speech. "Both of our names are Colin" apologised Farrell  on stage "It's not a huge mistake to make."

It's not the first time Colin Farrell has managed to mistake himself for the Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason star. In 2008, Farrell turned up on the set of Michael Winterbottom's unremarkable Genova and insisted that he was there to play the part of Joe, even going so far as to introduce himself to a bemused cast and crew before Firth showed up to set things straight. "Both of our names are Colin and both of our surnames start with an F" Farrell continued after the awards ceremony. "We both have names that start very similarly. Also we are both actors so we move in the same circles so to speak"

Firth was mostly untroubled by the mix up but later commented "Farrell has two syllables and Firth has one, it's not a case of mishearing - they have microphones so it's not mishearing." Does Firth suspect that Farrell is doing this on purpose? "No"

Commentators await the Oscars to see whether Farrell will once again mistake himself for Firth or whether Firth will purposefully mistake himself for Farrell to even things out.

New Year's Fez-olutions 2011

Why? Because fezzes are cool.

That's Doctor Who, that is.

 Right, now that's got the attention of almost nobody, we may begin...

WELCOME TO

2011 TWO-IZZLE-OH-LIZ-EV-EN 2011

INTERNETS!

As is the custom for all blogs, everywhere, we humbly submit a list of self-promoting guff, taking the form of a blog-subject-matter-driven "New Year's Resolution" feature. As this blog's subject matter is generally a heady brew of bile, spite and dementia, readers should be warned that expectations of utility, or indeed legibility, are as unwise as they are unwarranted.

Presenting:

Your Haiku 2011 New Year Resolution List Solution

1. Join more cults (both millenarian and celebrity, e.g. Church Of The Latter Day Kardashians)
2. Discover a lost Amazonian tribe who communicate solely through the language... of love.
3. Prove conclusively that hamsters, earthworms and glue can be jury rigged to make a Rat King (as depicted in that A-Team episode, you know the one)
4. Dance, dance, wherever you may be.
5. In alphabetical order, write a book about your favourite organs, starting with the appendix.
6. Meet your heroes, the cast of cancelled NBC show, Heroes.
7. Wear a fez.
8. Start a beautiful friendship.
9. Play it again, Sam.
10. Compete in the upcoming Musical Reality Show Contest, Britain's Next Top-ol
11. Topple a government, install a puppet ruler, help puppet ruler escape from inside a whale and become a real ruler.
    
12. Learn to read palms.
13. Learn to read.
14. With the aid of the Black Arts, re-form the Jackson Five.
15. Repeat ad infinitum.

We hope that you found this list useful - and who knows, it may have even triggered some thoughts for resolutions of your own! Just remember, everyone's resolutions must be unique. If there is evidence of any plagarism, we'll have to start the year all over again, with a maximum pass mark of 50%.

Happy New Year, you sons of motherless dogs!

How The $#!* Did This Get Made?

In today's How The $#!* Did This Get Made?, we take a look at BBC Three television programme How Not To Live Your Life.

How Not To Live Your Life then? If you are an aspiring writer/actor/director, exactly like this:

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1511)

 If you desire to be damned as devil-spawn, to be spurned by your fellow man, to be whipped and beaten and cast out like Connor MacLeod, then this effort, this turd-sodden quiche of a show, offers an unsurpassed guide as to how to live your life, both in content and execution.

How (Not) To Live Your Life:

1. Through witchcraft, dominate the minds of the BBC's team responsible for the commissioning of comedy.
2. Dip an ant's feet in ink, as per the BBC's submission guidelines.
3. Release said ant onto 90 gsm.
4. Send result to brainwashed team, with an offer to play the lead.

Ladies and gentlemen, today I bore witness to proof that the above method not only works, but results in recommissioning. There are now three whole series.

THREE. MIND-UNSPOOLING. SERIES.

Disclaimer: I could only watch for a few minutes, at which point the aneurysms became too frequent to continue. I apologise to all concerned if the remaining 5/6ths were 21st Century Shakespeare.

Around the 00:01:00 mark, I questioned what sins I had committed that would deserve such brain-fisting torment. Surely no God was this vengeful? And yet, Dante could not have envisioned Brutus in worse agony than that served upon me by the comedic stylings of one Dan Clark.

I'm not naturally a wrathful person, my philosophy being generally maim-and-let-maim, and let bygones be bygones; so it was an understandable shock to experience the work of a spirit so antagonistic to my own. How Not To Live Your Life is plainly the work of a vicious, brutal bully, who, desirous to strip the world of all fair-play, decency and Englishness, has, colubrine, blighted our souls with his crippling, festering comedy.

To fully grasp the monotonous violence of Mr Clark's crime, rendered hatefully in sound and moving pictures, consider a victim's response. One does not simply "not laugh" at the discrete events identified as jokes by interminable, SG1-esque reaction shots. No. One unlaughs.

What? Unlaughs, you say? Surely these are the Cromwellian fairies of a puritanical void, a grey, senseless realm of which few poets dared dream? Not the stuff of reality.

Sadly, I would that were true. No, I unlaughed until I could bear to watch no more, each joke stripping forever from me a happy memory, a childhood pratfall or game. Each joke left me less a man, and mankind less a dreamer. I fear to sleep now, lest this comedian's witticisms return in the night and claim the ruins of my soul.

That said, there was one moment that wasn't ear-shaftingly awful - Nick Mohammed's line "On with the show, my rancid little puppets". I liked that. But just as a Nazi commandant is not absolved of his crimes by once choosing organic eggs the supermarket, no single gust of sweet-smelling, rose-petal comedy could redeem the scat pile that is How Not To Live Your Life.

In conclusion, I fully support and endorse any attempts made by those responsible for this thirty minute stain to Not Live Their Lives anymore - Thank you.

Matt Cardle invests £1.3m into scheme to ensure that Fame won't change Matt Cardle

I'll bite my tongue to avoid saying something not 'real'

Such is X-Factor winner Matt Cardle's desire to "keep it real" that he has gone to new and extraordinary lengths to maintain a level of "groundedness" that will endear him to the people; "the very fact that I used the word groundedness proves that my grasp of grammar hasn't changed since before the X-Factor, I am still the same, also I often swear"

Key to the lumbering iguana's grounding scheme is "realness advisor" Alan Cliffe, who Matt has hired to be on hand 24 hours a day, observing what Matt says and does and then, using a bespoke electronic realness-moderation system, Cliffe is then able to rate how real Matt is keeping it and upload the results to Matt's Realness Analytics Centre which will provide up to the minute stats on how well Matt is performing and offer tell-tale clues as to whether the big fucking meat neck has, in fact, been changed by fame. "Think of it as a sort of reality thermometer if you will" says Matt "... or a reality barometer... a barometer measures pressure... I'm under a lot of pressure lately" 

Matt will also be maintaining a level of real-ness by continuing to work as a painter decorator, thought he will not be decorating the houses of the public as he would be at risk of being recognised as the X-Factor winner and plummeting into an "ego canyon". Instead, Matt will be contracted to gradually work his way through a dilapidated 38 room mansion in the South West of England, decorating each room in turn, to the specifications of hired actors playing the role of unimpressed home-owners. Said Alan Cliffe; "once he's finished one room we just rip the wallpaper off, piss all over the skirting boards and wait for him to come round to it again. It is my belief that monotony is key to maintaining a link to your roots. That and ugly women." 

Actors will also be hired to fill a fake job centre, which is located underground in a secret location  for Matt to gain experience in trying to find work during these supposedly tough economic times. "Matt will be queueing, printing off job descriptions, talking to advisers and smoking outside with other job seekers. The fact that no one has thought of this before just goes to show how serious Matt Cardle is about remaining normal." 

And should Cardle fail to maintain grounded as the amounts roll in? "I will shoot him" says Cliffe, "I will not hesitate to put him down"

In other news, Matt Cardle has written a book. 

A Personal Personal Appeal Appeal

Please read this appeal from someone who actually has to use the Internet, and then leave me alone.

Easy.

When I first saw Jimmy Wales' stupid face mugging out at me from above whatever Wiki page I was reading (probably http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayce_and_the_Wheeled_Warriors), I recognised its potential for parody. His face was almost uncomfortably close, his eyes sociopathic. His was smile loaded with hipster pity, like a douchebag Mona Lisa.

The text was arrogant, sparse and begging to be 'shopped. I expected to see a tool similar to the Conservative Party parody poster generator by the end of the day.

The next time, he was walking alone, a lonely Garfunkel no doubt intended to take the edge off Jimmy's "I will kill you" eyes. The spoof-force was strong with this one.

Finally, "the horror" - Wales lurking in the darkness, his message now screaming out to the Internet "MOCK ME".

But I urge you to resist. If you value the Internet as a source of humour, "lolz", cats playing pianos etc, don't pick the lowest-hanging fruit, the easy score. A child could make fun of this.

If you consider yourself a humourist, try harder. Aim higher. Make us laugh not with sub-Seinfeld "What's the deal with the Wikipedia guy?" bits, or spoof "Jimmy watches you poop" banners, or ambiguously self-referential pictures of cats.

The next time you post, ask yourself "Am I a fry-cook or a chef?".

All the best,

Some Guy

User, Wikipedia