Monday, February 18, 2008

Smell My Chin! - or - All the Songs in Daisyland are Called 'Cheese'.

"Rats! Rats! Rats!"

The above is a slightly toned down version of what I just said - very loudly - while punching the computer - because I had just completed this great long Blog entry - when Firefox crashed and took the fucker with it. Bye bye blog entry.

Most of it was about my ramblingly unstructured TV watching. I don't watch a lot of TV these days. I just can't get into any rhythm with it. Time was I used to make dates withall sorts of shows. There were 'Must Watch' moments every week. Not any more. The last time I remember this happening to me was with the new Dr Who a few years back with Mr Eccleston. Even that didn't last beyond the first series.

Mostly my brain-dead, zomb-in-front-of-flickering-images time is spent in the company of badly dubbed Italians from Outer-Space or American teenagers fighting Astro-Zombies but occasionally I get too pooped even to go and choose a DVD from the avalanche of crud over in the corner of the room so I channel hop around the Free To Air channels that come in through the Sky dish.

The other night I came across: - wait for it...

Celebrity Near-Death Experiences.

Woohoo! The bottom of the whole Car-Crash / Reality / Celeb culture mashup Barrel!* This is the IT!. The Nadir of TV! Fortunately for my sanity it was on one of those channels which we, as principled cheapskates who refuse to give any more money to Rupert Murdoch that we have to, can't get.

Given that the show's IMDb page doesn't actually list the 'Celebs' involved, I think it would be a safe bet to say they were probably the kind of celebrity no one has ever heard of.

Scrolling down a bit more I came to my usual resting place when i'm in this kind of mood. The Free to Air Movie Channels: Film Four, Zone Horror, Zone Thriller, True Movies, Movies4Men, and Movies4Men2 (weirdly the latter two, despite their hunky, UberButch names, carry endless commercials for very girly things like Dove beauty products, fabric conditioners, and 'Lite' mayonnaise.)

About the only one of them I don't watch is the True Move Channel. The others sometimes have things of interest** (despite themselves I suspect) but the True Move Channel? Naaaaa!. It's full of the sort of thing that used to fill up Wednesday afternoon schedules when there was no sport on. Disease of the Week movies. 'One Woman's Courageous Fight Against all the odds to get Justice for her Daughter's... insert cause here... and keep her family together'. The sort of thing that starred Lindsey Wagner, and people who used to be in L A Law a lot, and usually ended with a wide shot of happy homecoming on a suburban lawn and a caption reading:
"Slimecreep Peabody was sentenced to 127 years in a maximum security prison. Three years later the Alabama State Legislature passed 'Patty-Anne JoBeth's Law' which made it Illegal to Murder People on Tuesdays with a fish."
Anyway, (the original post that Firefox ate was a lot funnier and structured than this, sorry) The True Movie channel was showing The Day After - a 1983 'graphic, disturbing film about the effects of a devastating nuclear holocaust on small-town residents of eastern Kansas'.

Did I miss something?





*Next WeeK: Celebrities' Pets Near-Death Experiences.
** '
Interest' being a word that covers a multitude of sins, including watching Joan Collins running around a Florida swamp being menaced by giant, radio-active ants.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahem, you should check out the Celebrity Rehab Reality Show.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm with you... never watch True Movies. Seems all a bit mummy, bland and safe. It's all based on real events - no escapism.

I do watch Movies4Men. Has a lot of obscure and cult weirdness. Some really nice kung fu and spaghetti westerns like Fearless Dragons and Django Kill.

White Comanche with William Shatner in dual twin brother rolls - love it! Total cheese. Nothing you'd ever get on True Movies for sure.

Brian

Junk Monkey said...

Shatner in a cheesy movie? Never...

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