The last movie you saw...

[maxpayne2409]

i couldnt've said it better myself myk

[dinky]

yes. well...it's a love it or hate it kinda show. I do actually enjoy most of his comedy sets too though.

hey jynks, are you saying they actually remade red dwarf? I always thought it was a bastardized "re-edit" or something. I think I watched one scene of it at a "dinner table" where this retard (I think it was the guy in spud's old av) was rolling his eyes and there was some floating spoon or something. it was not entertaining. although a lot of that was that the set reminded me of the original star trek.

[Jynks]

There are two US versions. One is the English show with new special effects.. mainly replacing all the cool models with gay cg ones. The other is a full US remake,

ed2k: Red.Dwarf.-.S01E00.-.Unaired.Us.Pilot.avi  [205.33 Mb] [Stats]

[MyK]

I think you're describing Arnold J. Rimmer's gazpacho soup incident Dinky but I'm not sure cuz I never watched US versions. I sneak peaked at one ep (the one Jynks posted link I think) but changed my mind soon after it started not to spoil perfectly good memories with a crap cake and rather reviewed the original series from the start. Anyway, my point was there's prolly not many of originally UK series that were at least decently remade for US market. I can't think of a single one to be honest

Jynks you still watching that "Bionic Woman" series? Got any better or you gave up on it?

UK comedy sitcoms to be remade for US market

British newspaper The Guardian has reported that a number of British comedy shows are to be remade for US audiences.

According to the report, UK comedies such as Steve Coogan's Saxondale, Nighty Night and Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt's The Mighty Boosh are apparently being rewritten and recast for American television companies such as NBC and Showtime.

British comedy programs have not always worked when transported across the Atlantic. Although some have won a cult following, such as Are You Being Served?, the US remake never even made it past the pilot. Various versions of John Cleese's Basil Fawlty character also failed to make an impression in the US with remakes of Fawlty Towers.

However, some remakes of British comedy classics have fared somewhat better. Most notably the remake of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's The Office, eventually became a major hit, despite an initial slow start.

Warren Mitchell's, Alf Garnett, became Archie Bunker in All In the Family and the rag and bone men comedy sitcom Steptoe and Son was rewritten for the US TV comedy market as Sanford and Son.

There is much debate about the reasons why some comedies and sitcoms survive the journey from the UK to the US and visa versa, whilst other don't. Some people claim that the less that is done to change the original comedy show the better.

Perhaps assuming that local audiences have to have everything 'translated' for them is one of the biggest mistakes.

Well is it really? It's like adding "The best ever Champagne" sticker to the sparkly cider and think it'll sell IMO. You simply can't remake something that's brilliant, witty and intelligent for ignorant masses and keep its quality intact. Period.

[dinky]

iunno. I think there's a good reason for translation/adaptation - especially in comedy. it's not as universal across cultures as more serious fare. and it depends a lot more on local factors. but for some reason, anything monty python seems to work over here without "translation."

watched bionic woman, life, and the first half of star wars. life is really interesting. I'm surprised that I'm into it. it's something of a monk knockoff in that there's this detective who was sent to jail for life for a crime he was later exonerated of so he won this huge millionaire settlement but decided to rejoin the LAPD. and of course, he got really quirky in jail by going all zen/buddhist. so now he's this off the wall detective who's secretly investigating his own police force to capture whoever set him up. we'll see how long it lasts, but I'm definitely digging it so far.

[MyK]

It is and you are right as far as I'm concerned. I was actually making that exact same point (or was at least getting there) in one of my prev posts when I said why I'll rather stick with younger generation of stand up comedians. There is loads of references to local events and people in UK comedy and one can't expect other cultures to be familiar with all of them. What I meant with that remark earlier was there seems to be a general misconceived (or perhaps even ill conceived) thought that watering UK comedy down and making it less demanding for an average US viewer to understand will somehow make it more successful. They (whoever is doing that) thoroughly neglect the fact that societies are driven by at most 10% (I'm being generous here) of the population that would prolly be able to understand if it was more demanding. They would then be able to enjoy it even more and spread good word for it. What is mostly actually done is they water it down and expect people that have no opinion of their own (or are afraid to express), and are the target population, that they will somehow write good reviews, spread good word, and invite others of the same "kind" to join them for freedom fries dinner and watching the show they think might be good but don't know anyone on whom opinion they normally rely on to encourage such behaviour. That's just stupid.

... I'd explain more but have to run... read you later

[spudthedestroyer]

RE: James Cameron , When was the last time he made something even half decent?

I have no faith in his abilities to direct any more.

RE: animation vs actors I'm waiting on a big budget animation flick where you can't tell what 3d app they used to make it let alone if you can tell its real

RE: Seinfeld LOL! We've had this argument before; its a shit show.

RE: Red Dwarf There were two attempts at remaking red dwarf, both were remakes and neither were in the slightest bit funny.

As for dinky's feeble memory, i believe he's referring to Series Six (iirc episode 3), "Legion" where Rimmer gets his hard light drive, and it stars this fella:

There's a scene where they are trying to impress Legion with the 'anti-matter chopsticks'.


RE: English Sitcoms The utter superiority of British comedy can be attributed to two key things that american shows are incapable of presenting:
1) Former glory
Britain has history, America does not. Its a sad fact for historians but North American history is pretty lame. Britain is now a little island rather than a little island that once ruled the world.

This allows for truely pathetic characters like Rimmer, Del Boy, Basil Fawlty, etc.

This all ties into:
2) class structure
We have a monarchy, we have lords, real class society and divisions and the concept of leadership, imperialistic past, etc.

This is why shows like Bottom, Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf, etc. work


That covers the main body of work, there's obvious exceptions but that's usually attributed to artistic genious and/or pure inspiration.

[dinky]

north american history is indeed unimpressive and lacks the grandeur of europe or the middle east or the far east or northern africa.

my aunt is a retired american history teacher, and she can't get enough of museums and shit. I just can't relate to getting excited over a colonial period village exhibit or native american stuff. classical maya, inca and aztecs are moderately interesting in mesoamerica and s. america.

[Jynks]

yea the 3d just isn't good enough yet.. 1/2 the time in beowolf they looks like they were bind people talking to walls and stuff.

[MyK]

Finished with QI up to and including season 4 and watching 8 Out of 10 Cats now. I really like QI and am looking forward to later eps and 8/10 is good too only there are two reasons why I think it could be even better. 1) It's slotted just before Big Brother and they actually invite ppl from there to the show. IUNNO if that's a good idea cuz all the Big Brother contenders are either an offspring of extremely lactophobic parents or they repeatedly (and prolly on purpose) smashed their head in in their toddler years. 2) Even tho it's 30 mins programming it is substantially shorter than QI (prolly for commercial breaks ) and too tightly packed with different tasks that each team has to complete. I think they realised that shortly into the first season and changed a few things tho. 3) I really don't like that NHL type introduction and the man that's introducing the team members has once introduced Sean Lock as "John Lock", poor sod

[spudthedestroyer]

I watched the 30 days of night TC. it was quite good, there were some excellent shots in it, like the crane cam shots of the early days when the vampires are massacring people.

Nice and gorey too

Didn't like the end one bit though.

[maxpayne2409]

i just didn't like the general idea of 30 days of night at all so will skip it

myk isn't john lock one of the characters in lost? or as i like to call it, a bunch of stereotypes stranded on a cliche

[dinky]

Didn't like the end one bit though.

yeah. you know it's prolly not a good sign when you're ripping off Underworld, which I liked but mostly for its slick style (and that's not where 30 days of night "shines"). fortunately, the ending didn't ruin the movie for me, but it did somewhat painfully remind me that this was a comic book</i> adaptation.

I'm thinking about trying to get into a preview screening of the golden compass later tonight. but I don't think the theater reserves tix or sells them over the phone, and I don't wanna go downtown twice. also a little bit of snow on the ground with more expected. I do want to see the movie, though. iunno. might just as well read the book first. lots of reviews are saying it's tough to follow if you don't know the book.

[MyK]

myk isn't john lock one of the characters in lost? or as i like to call it, a bunch of stereotypes stranded on a cliche

I know I don't have to agree with everything you write but that is oh so true. John Lock is one of the characters there (the one that thinks is some sort of alpha male of the pack) tho I don't think that's how it's written... I think it's Locke ... as Jimmy Carr would put it: "well, whatever"

[spudthedestroyer]

Didn't like the end one bit though.

yeah. you know it's prolly not a good sign when you're ripping off Underworld, which I liked but mostly for its slick style (and that's not where 30 days of night "shines"). fortunately, the ending didn't ruin the movie for me, but it did somewhat painfully remind me that this was a comic book</i> adaptation.

I think its a bit of a disservice comparing it to underworld. It was better than underworld, even if it didn't have an ending.

There was more style in a single crane shot of 30 Days of Night than the entire matrix ripoff that *yawn* was blunderworld. Tried not to yawn

I think they should have done a bit more ripping off of The Thing though

[Jynks]

it also didn't have anything about a war between monsters. This new scifi.. jumper is more like underworld... 2 types of super humans battling though time in secret.

30 days was just rubbish from start to end. Oh lets keep our secret vampireness secret for centuries "to make them think we are a myth"... and oh hey lest eat and entire freakn town. Then BLOW IT UP.. like that will some how make it unknown wat happends.. nvr mind every body was decapitated.... billions of spent ammo shells.. yadda yadda yadda. And it also had the problem i have with a lot of zombi movies.. everythign is cool and awesome then they run into a freakn house and sit there untill one charicter "gose nutz" and dose something cool. But in 30 days The run into house after house and sit there.. and they sit tehr with no food for 10 days at a time Also the ghosts of mars screaming while cool at start got on my nerves after a while. Oh just remebered... PUCHING HIM THOUGH THE HEAD WTF... and then all the other vamps just go "nice shot bro" and fade off into the background

One thing i did like about it is that i have been waiting for a long time for a vampire movie where the vampires are monsters not anne rice fags poncing around in fancy dress. I long to see a vampire movie that is more like a warwolf (well old GOOD warewolf) movies... when the being a vamp is a terrible CURSE.. something to be very very bad to happen to you...

watched stardust.. was kinda cool my wife and kids loved it... a little soapy at the end .... still i love fantasy movies like this... muchousan is a good example.

[maxpayne2409]

is it last ep of heroes next week?, i remember last week the voice over the credits said "the heroes only have 2 more episodes to choose a side and save the world", and according to websites etc there is no episode after next week

[spudthedestroyer]

WGA strike has messed it up... well actually the studio has messed it up by not making the episodes upfront.

I think the next one is the last, but there was something about reshooting an ending for the season?

[maxpayne2409]

oh, so basically they are rushing to a conclusion? or jsut hoping it's sorted by after the christmas holiday that all shows take?

[spudthedestroyer]

[quote="SamysPersians"][quote]There seems to be little doubt that the writers' strike will result in a shorter TV season, but just how short are we talking? Well, as you might've guessed, it varies from show to show. Those programs that are either highly efficient (Friday Night Lights) or have entered the season with a backlog of episodes (Men in Trees, Law & Order: SVU) will be in originals well into the new year. But series with tighter production schedules (i.e., nearly every half-hour comedy) will go dark almost immediately. Of course, figuring out how many episodes remain in your favorite shows' arsenals requires a lot of numbers crunching �?