That's right Internet, forgive the shameless title but if you came across this post, after desperately Google-ing the same words as my blog title, you were probably hoping for a "Cor Blimey" list of Jakki this, Jodie what and Mel who?
Well, thanks for the hits Sid James, but this is written from the perspective of the Beta Male- and the better man.
I am Back In Blog, for three reasons;
1. I am still too much of a wimp to try stand-up comedy (I got a great bit about condoms if it ever happens).
2. The culture iron is hot at the moment, I need to discuss it somewhere.
3. I am freshly single after a long term relationship. Not from my choosing either. So its that kind of single that just turns life really sour; the kind of sour that makes the bottom of a beer glass look awesome (but not half as good as the next one does), makes every sad song sound remarkably poignant (when its probably actually about heroin or something), but most importantly you realize what you have lost and what you have learned from the person you were with (forgive me, I have been watching a lot of Sex and The City recently).
My ex-girlfriend was wonderfully fashionable, and had an incredible eye for clothing. If you are into that kind of thing, her blog is called Katie's Creative and you should check it out, it is like a free Wigan based Elle!
But one thing I learned from being with her is to appreciate people who are stunningly cool, in the most low key and non-ostentatious ways. This is a tribute to her, as she was kind of one of them.
So this is it, the Comeback Special, the Return Of The Mack, The Second Coming. Diving back into the cannon of culture, by way of the Most Quietly Lovely Faces According To Me.
And once again, if you came looking for tits Sid, fuck off, you won't find any here.
1. Emma Stone in Easy A
When I watched this film for the first time, I just thought it was really wonderful to have a romantic comedy made nowadays, that held all the loveliness of the old John Hughes movies. An 80's romance movie, made in 2010. The key to the films loveliness, however, is the beautifully dorky redhead in the lead, who has since become a very famous blonde. The scene in which she loudly pretends to have sex with her gay friend to help him placate the cruelties of college homophobia, is one of the most charmingly funny sequences of recent years, well up there in the sweetness stakes with the Sleeping Bags Hug sequence from Superbad, also starring Stone: there is a pattern emerging here...Mix this with her voice that would make a newscast about genocide sound pleasant, and you have an actress destined to be mentioned in this here blog.Jim Carrey went a bit weird over Emma Stone a few years ago on Youtube.
There was some method to the madness.
2. Alesha Dixon on Britain's Got Talent 2013
I found myself going all Bruno, most weeks of the last series of Britain's Got Talent; each week Alesha Dixon made whatever outfit she had on look absolutely awesome. My personal favorite was a combination of curly hair and a playsuit that changed my mind on that type of clothing completely. It seemed incredibly subtle too which just made it all the nicer, as playing something like this down would obviously be a difficult task.Obviously though, Simon Cowell is back on TV this week with the return of his other show, The X Factor.
What makes me so frustrated by The X Factor is its absolute terrible inability to create anything new, music wise. It is purely there to fill ratings, because it really is a Field Of Dreams scenario of "If you show it, they will watch". And what is so aggravating about this is despite continually vowing never to watch it again, I always do.Yet why? Each week we see nearly 3 hours of mind numbing footage, of semi good singers, get bombarded with superlatives from a panel of phoney judges, who know it has all been done before, but they keep talking shit because they know fat dullard bastards like me, will end up watching anyway.
My hatred and disgust for this show awake when i recently visited London. While walking through an Underground Station, most likely Leicester Square, I heard The Best Busker Ever. An older man, with what I could best describe as a smart rockabilly hairstyle and outfit, with a low slung guitar, playing a version of You're The One That I Want from Grease with the vocal style and guitar sound of Paul Simon's Graceland.
A hint of his song will be embedded in my mind forever, it was so sublime. I find it agonizing I will not hear that song again, and it generates this intolerance for The X Factor: there is outstanding music out there; yet this is the bollocks that makes it. There are X Factor 10th place runner ups you can hear entire albums from no problem, but there is true quality out there that is lost in a moment. Its a flagship of shitty music, and I wish it would stop.
I bare no grudge against people who watch The X Factor, so I offer a group pact to anyone who knows they are like me: if you think you are about to watch The X Factor, act like James Franco did in 127
Hours to free himself;
To save yourself from watching The X Factor, remove your eyes. That is what I swear to do to myself if I so much as watch a results show. Top Of The Lake on BBC2 on Saturdays shown that the nights TV can actually be awesome, but I think it would be grossly unfair to impose a New Zealand drama about abduction, rape and domestic violence on everyone. I understand on a Saturday night, that dross can be just what you want, but new dross please, not the same old shit we have now watched for 10 years. The remote is in your hands...
3. Paula Lane from Coronation Street
It all gets massively alternative here. Even under that chav costume design to play her Kylie Platt character, you can tell that Paula Lane is one of the most attractive women on British TV. I recently happened to see a picture of her walking about in real life and I just thought she looked awesome. Almost the embodiment of these low key lovelies I am constantly referring back to, I think the key here is beautifully applied make up and really nice skin too.I always thought she looked like Joan Jett in the music video for Crimson and Clover, probably for me the Sexiest Music Video Of All Time (don't bother yourself, Sid).
I have a lot of respect for Coronation Street, it is by far the best TV soap, and often perfectly balances funny banal story lines with the tragic and genuinely emotive heavy stuff. Its London counterpart Eastenders, just cannot do this. Eastenders is maudlin, depressing, boring and often irritating drivel, that often confuses gritty realism with pure wickedness and mistakes comic relief as getting a bunch of Savvern teenagers you cannot understand to blub and gurn at one another about "rehnt" and "collidge". It is desperately bad television, that is in the same category of Flog Myself For Watching It TV as The X Factor. People who enjoy watching Eastenders should watch my life from afar; you would like it: it is dull and boring and does not really go anywhere.
Coronation Street is really admirable though. When Chris Fountain recently lost his job as Corrie's Tommy Duckworth for his ludicrous exploits as masked rapper The Phantom ("Benchpress your house..."? Seriously, Chris?), he really did lose one of the finer jobs on TV. I am also sure he'll have left the lovely Paula Lane a post-it begging "Stay In Touch!!". 4.Zrinka Cvitesic as Girl in Once, Phoenix Theater, London West End
I went to see this this show over the summer and in all honesty was not majorly impressed. It is an incredibly modern production and probably a little too woolly for my taste. The songs are relatively samey, and unusual for me with West End shows, I had no hankering to play the lead character. Not in fiction that is.
Amidst all the chummy Irish backslapping, woozy romance (kind of struck a chord in someways), and acoustic soapbox drumming, I honestly felt genuinely warmed to Cvitesic's Girl. Probably down to her wonderfully defined cheekbones, dark almost sad eyes, and no doubt amped up yet never the less wonderfully sweet broken English accent. I am not one for put on accents, but after a glance in the program in the interval, realized that at least she is actually from the Czech Republic. By the end of a second half I had created a rather accurate sketch of What I Would Like My Wife To Be Like. Add this to her getting (albeit nicely) gibbed come the end of the show, now more than ever had I wanted to slap the lead "Guy", the lucky handsome bastard.5. Allison Williams as Marnie in Girls
The atmosphere kind of recalls some early Woody Allen films, like Annie Hall, the neuroses of all characters blending together to create uncomfortable yet endlessly watchable content. Throw in the mix comical performances from Andrew Rannells and Chris O'Dowd, you'd think you have your comedy capped and qualified. Enter the stunning Allison Williams as the frustratingly mixed up Marnie. From the start Marnie's incredibly awkward yet realistic relationship with Charlie, has been the lifeblood of the shows laughs, cringes and tears.
Her rendition of Kanye West's Stronger at Charlie's app launch party is probably the most simultaneously sad, funny, sexy and cringeworthy scene since they started writing stuff like that.She is a top notch actress too: her ferocious argument with Lena Dunham at the end of the first season, left me feeling completely rattled. Additionally her erratic and heart melting "I want to watch you die" speech at the end of the second series, is just the wonderfully barbed sibling to The Wedding Singer's "I Want To Grow Old With You" ending. Allison Williams perfect skin and teeth, not to mention wonderful style of clothing make her a really unique comedic actress akin to say Dianne Keaton, with a charming combination of knowing goofyness and the ability to light up the screen just by smiling. I look forward to the third season of Girls; the show is like nothing you have seen on TV before and I strongly recommend it.
So there it was, like it or lump it, the over baked slight return of Methods Of Modern. Join me soon for some slightly more focused blogs celebrating the greatest and shittest entertainment there is on offer.
And again, sorry about the blog title, that really was cheap.
WilliaZrinka CvitešićZrinka
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