ITT an open and frank discussion about the journalist, critic and polemecist Charlie Brooker

Pretty sure the new series is crap though.

Hermione Eyre and Willie Donaldson did the Brooker ambiguity thing with so much more humour and point in The Dictionary Of National Celebrity.

Dom otm, but you can't do the schtick Brooker goes for and have a successful career that's free from hypocrisy, you'll always say "oh well actually I kinda like crap zombie flicks" or "well actually I need money to eat". Hence the inherent stupidity of defining his entire persona by what he doesn't like. What could be more vapid than that? Legions of fans who are like "YES! I compose rants with someone's armpit in my face on the tube too! it's like he's known me all my life!"

I'm not really sure why hypocrisy is a problem when you're writing frivolous bollocks about TV.

He is bestest buddies with Aisleyne off last year's Big Brother (or was it the year before that) so seems fairly able to distinguish between BB contestants as being "people you watch on telly and hate yourself for doing so" and just "people", depending on the arena in which they are currently on display to him. I like Screenwipe/Screenburn anyway, as telly criticism goes, and as far as angry ranting about stuff goes, he does it quite well.

Hence the inherent stupidity of defining his entire persona by what he doesn't like.

Haha you do realise who you're addressing here right?

AA Gill?

I agree with what he says/writes too often not to like him. Look fwd to a new Screen Wipe series.

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Britain: A Nation of Twats Who Are Angry About Everything

Brooker's pretty lame when he writes about something he likes. Set him loose on 24 or Heroes or Doctor Who and it just sends me to sleep.

(much like the programmes themselves)

he tends to be all "check it out, I actually like something! I'm being really sincere and enthusiastic! Me! The curmudgeon!"

The problem I have with Screenwipe is that every episode contains exactly one good bit that's both informative and vaguely elucidatory. The problem is that it's exactly one bit and no more, because the rest of it is filled up with him belming at the camera or making blindingly obvious 'revelations' about How Television Works (e.g. that bit he did about the editing of reality television programmes).

Also, when he likes things he tends to go somewhat overboard, as if he's trying to compensate for his big sweary slaggings by proving that actually he can be a really nice humanoid, no, srsly. It's worryingly bipolar in nature.

That said, it was seeing The Wire featured on Screenwipe that encouraged me to get the first season on DVD, and that worked out alright. Plus he's the only mainstream media type that's repping the Consolevania boys (i.e. giving them any telly time outside of Scotland)...

Plus he's the only mainstream media type that's repping the Consolevania boys (i.e. giving them any telly time outside of Scotland)...

― William Bloody Swygart, Wednesday, 29 October 2008 15:12 (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

They had an article about them in Games TM once!

I still can't believe he got to do a television special on why he likes The Wire so much.

William some of the "how television works" on Screenwipe may be blindingly obvious to you but I bet a lot of people genuinely don't realize this stuff. It's valuable - even empowering - to open up the mechanism and show people how it works.

Alternately it's a way of extending what's fundamentally a ten minute programme into half an hour.

People hate on Brooker because he gets paid to do all this stuff in the mainstream media whereas most people have to make do with doing exactly the same thing on internet message boards.

^^^new Godwin's Law, keep up

People hate on Brooker because he gets paid to do all this stuff in the mainstream media whereas most people have to make do with doing exactly the same thing on internet message boards.

no people hate on him cos they're sick of fucking reading it on message boards. cos whinging about reality tv or popstars or celebrity culture is the most played out boring message imaginable and one of the most common.

"rants" should be saved for messageboards.

A lot of television is about creating characters that people want to spend time with, like imaginary friends, basically. I think it's obvious the character Brooker plays when he's on television is successful in this way so why not make it half an hour? What's it to you, anyway?

Screenwipe was not long enough

thread just reads like Critics doing what they do best to Critic for doing what he does best tho

I can't stand TV characters who want to be "imaginary friends." I want more gods.

c-post the language of criticism is easier to employ than the language of praise, the language of bilious ranting is easiest of all, it rolls off the tongue. Personally I see it as a natural duty for a writer to fight this and balanace it with positivity but maybe that's just me.

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Bilious ranting is very easy to badly and very hard do well, like acoustic guitar ballads or something.

As long as they can do it well (xxxp). Even Bangs was usually below par when writing about his heroes as opposed to sticking the boot in.

he's the guy that likes running blacks over, yeah?

xpost...?

Favourite Music: great fan of pendulum and dj fresh ( drum n bass) dont like all that mc'ing crap any more, love the verve, oasis, kaiser chiefs, the kooks, razorlight, blur, arctic monkeys, babyshambles and all that kinda stuff partial to bit of house and techno but not very often mind.....
Favourite TV Programmes:silent witness is great oh and al murray whenever he is on he the best english comedian who loves ENGLAND....well im ashamed to admit it but i do like eastenders and corrie too....
Favourite Films:roots, schinders list, over 50's, pretty much anything really

Bilious ranting is very easy to badly and very hard do well, like acoustic guitar ballads or something.

it's easy to do well! especially if you travel by tube every day. seriously if Britain got rid of the tube the entire audience for Brooker and similar would evaporate.

al murray whenever he is on he the best english comedian who loves ENGLAND...

This is the best bit.

by Britain I mean erm...London and other tubed areas!

i don't use the tube

Rather unfortunate metaphor there (xxxxp).

I'm trying to find the article on the BBC News website bemoaning the lack of video games programming on television that made no mention of Videogaiden, despite the fact that, at the time of publication, BBC Scotland was midway through airing series two...

TH - to be fair, that was a television special on FX, which I think was prior to the network screening season five (I only saw it off torrent last weekend, so I don't know the precise date, but it did seem to be talking about season four in the past tense). It was the bit he did about it in one of the Screenwipe episodes that I was referring to.

My problem with the editing thing was that it didn't seem to say anything other than "Reality TV programmes are edited". It didn't have much of a point, and it wasted rather too much time in the making of it. I got the same feeling off last night's episode of Dead Set, oddly - no much happened, and the way in which it happened wasn't particularly interesting (to be fair, I also got the feeling that was due to it being a one-hour episode that had got lopped in two).

On the other hand, I found his bit in (I think) episode one of Screenwipe about the costs involved in making a shot of him falling off a log quite enlightening. The researchers (I presume) on the programme are also extremely handy at digging up obscure footage - the song about students from a 70s episode of "That's Life!", for instance, or the bits from Sky News where they announced that Harold Pinter was dead, then corrected themselves upon realising that he wasn't dead but had instead received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Brooker's got the air of a man who reckons he's been promoted above his station and seems rather in fear of losing his position. He's not entirely sure how to handle his reputation - unless, of course, he's just trying to project an air of vulnerability to allow him to get away with it - or how to balance his serious and funny personae. I do watch Screenwipe regularly, and quite enjoy it, but it feels like it never goes as far as it should, like there's always something being held back.

I'm not writing very good sentences here, I do apologise.

His rant about the incessant cynical MADDIE news coverage/rolling news was good. who cares if this stuff is "obvious" anyway? it's not happening anywhere else on TV and the visual aspect almost always helps. Archive footage always good. Of course it could do more but couldn't we all.

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lol single issue voters who think they should be allowed to do robberies because there are paedos about

I don't read his Guardian stuff much these days so only read the 'hypocritical' (yeah probably, but all the examples brought up e.g. Sezer were not recent) piece last night, along with his self-indulgent (how could it not be?) Road Trip article which at least really made me want to do a similar journey.

i like charlie brooker, but i sometimes think that the thing he loves most about the wire is getting to vicariously enjoy the adventures of someone who looks like a chiseled version of himself:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/contributor/2007/09/28/charlie_brooker_140x140.jpg

http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/mcnulty.jpg

xp i think the argument that it's obvious, or too rant based, is non-brooker-specific. it's depressing that there are paid cynics, and there's that lapse into all the 'is everything shit' books, but it's not like there isn't enough shit around to write two columns a week on it.

I'm quite enjoying Dead Set but only because I love end-of-the-world zombie bollocks and will willingly lap up anything thrown at me. As satirical document it is way, way, way below Dawn Of The Dead. Davina as zombie IS amusing though. That he's nicked the aesthetic 100% from 28 Days Later shows his lack of actual original thought, I think (as does it not actually being very satirical). It's real point-and-laugh stuff, not at all hahaha-oh-fuck-what-no-surely-not like Chris Morris was at his best.

Morris jumped the shark when the Jam sketch about bereaved parents taking tiny coffins for walks aired, in my mind. Brooker, in picking up Morris' baton, started way past the shark anyway. He can't see the shark, it's behind him. I don't think he's particularly interesting at all.

I'm not sure there are any fictional British TV shows currently on that are more interesting than Dead Set but would like to hear people's suggestions+reasoning

Also his birth name's not Charles but Charlton = wtf, no wonder he's angry.

"Interesting" is an... interesting qualifier to use. The only fictional TV program I watch with any regularity is Hollyoaks.

I'm not sure there are any fictional British TV shows currently on that are more interesting than Dead Set but would like to hear people's suggestions+reasoning

wouldn't know, I don't watch much TV!

me neither

but xpost yeah i didn't mean to confuse Brooker's 'interestingness' as a critic/TV personality (where he remains at least distinctive despite the running into the ground of the schtick) with the interestingness of the show (more interesting conceptually and contextually than in practice perhaps)

who cares if this stuff is "obvious" anyway? it's not happening anywhere else on TV and the visual aspect almost always helps.

It's just not enough, though, but BBC Four's treatment of it acts like it is, and it feels like it could be a lot more than it is, cos a lot of the programme does feel like filler. Brooker's need to keep dropping his zings gets in the way of stuff and takes up a lot of room (I'm aware that I'm oh-so-slightly prone to that myself, mind).

i think the argument that it's obvious, or too rant based, is non-brooker-specific. it's depressing that there are paid cynics, and there's that lapse into all the 'is everything shit' books, but it's not like there isn't enough shit around to write two columns a week on it.

I agree with schlump's view that Brooker's an instance of a mentality more than anything - see, for example, the way the other panellists on Mock The Week regard Frankie Boyle.

Surely not watching much TV kind of takes away a fair amount of interest in Brooker's schtick?

I was referring to his column mainly, it's not about TV all the time, and when it is usually about something pretty well known. I can't remember much of his TV shows really.

it's not like there isn't enough shit around to write two columns a week on it.

but these columns are part of the shit!

it's honestly reached a point where I'd be more interested in someone writing a column criticising the amount of "everything is shit" rhetoric around, apart from the fact that it'd be even more parasitic and worthless.

that's gotta be trolling

xp

Really enjoyed his completely spiteful tone towards kids in that ep of his most recent about-tv tv show

odd, thought that darraghmac hated women.

(s'been a while since we made darraghmac-that chump darragh mcmanus jokes.)

who is daragh mcmanus doofus?

who is THIS daragh mcmanus doofus?

just some doofus who does terrible stuff for the guardian's blogs on the regular.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/1/25/1327493307587/Charlie-Brooker-in-Austra-007.jpg

Charlie Brooker and his wife Konnie Huq relax on the beach after jumping a shark.

never once did i think the only person in the world to like adelaide would be charlie brooker

lol wait seriously he's married to konnie huq?

Yes.

Funny, by chance I saw her first TV appearance over the weekend, on ChallengeTV's "Blockbusters" 'tribute' to Bob Holness (basically, all old Blockbusters episodes from 09:00 to 21:00)

She was in a team of two, lost both games, and exited without being able to discuss her Music College much. she looked about 14 (probably really 17 or so)

Ah, I just looked it up, she'd already been on Blue Peter as a member of the youth choir (sang a song), and she actually was 14.

touching cloth is pretty good!

that kind of ZAZ humour is going to be pretty hit and miss by its nature (especially if you're not Zucker, Abrahams or Zucker) but yeah, i quite enjoyed it all in all. Favourite line was "eat your orange juice" for some reason

haha yeah

very hit and miss - i feel like it can't decide if it wants to be Airplane! or something slyer. a lot of the lines probably looked funnier in the script than they ended up sounding out loud, but that'll improve after the first ep i'd imagine? (haven't seen the second one yet)

the forensic guy trying to turn off the phonograph with a remote control was probably my favorite part - not referred to, just there for a few seconds in the corner of the screen

"any prints?"

"just purple rain and lovesexy by the looks of it"

"constant craving" ringtone killed me

i think it was meant to be Police Squad meets Cracker or something, and I thought it was great - very high joke-to-squib ratio.

A few people told me about Black Mirror, a show created by Brooker, saying it was great etc. Having watched it, I can't really say that I agree with those people but I'd be curious to know if people here have seen it ? Also, if anyone knows anything about the houses they show in "The entire histoy of you", I'm all ears.

I thought the first two were basically extended one-liners, albeit well-executed, about how shit TV is and how stupid people are but I liked The Entire History of You.

I thought the first two were basically extended one-liners, albeit well-executed

Only saw the pig fucking one, and I would agree with this.

i didn't like the third one but probably more because it felt horrible watching that guy obsessing about the other guy and how it led to him doing ruining his life.

whole thing, neat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oUyjl7N1_Y

^^^ was pretty great tbh

yeah there are some quality lolz. hadn't seen that Costa coffee ad before but my immediate thought was that scene in Caligula, and there it was!

CB seems very much on auto-cynic recently. TBF, I don't know if it's really him who's become more lazy with his pop culture truth-bombing, or whether I'm just bored of his "working-class people will believe anything" schtick.

Caught some of screen-wipe on a random last night...don't care for this in particular (his whole I hate sports when he loves video games then makinng the mistake of making shit TV (the zombie big brother thing) while reviewing other tv isn't a great look), but Doug Stanhope's 'America is great' routine was a thing. At first its a 'oh why are you here then?'/'brits are dur sorts huh' lameness but he then becomes pro-Adolf in a roundabout way that is p/funny.

Slept and then was remembering this morning so..

'dour' sorts, one spelling mistake corrected.

Found it p tiresome, some lolz. He's v bad at liking things.

touch of cloth 3 is winning me over with its relentless commitment to appalling puns tbh

keep forgetting to watch those but they're the only thing by this chump I've actually wanted to watch since idk

It was alright, actually

I thought I was done with this kind of thing but Cunk on Shakespeare was excellent. Diane Morgan is so funny, I love her voice and her sublime way of swearing.. I read an interview with her and Philomena was supposed to be a posh dimwit but she auditioned for the part and Cunk is now Diane Morgan, a northern dimwit.

So did anybody watch the “Death to 2020” special on Netflix? It’s kinda disappointing. It’s like Netflix paid them to do a Screenwipe for an American audience with a higher production value and lots more celebrities, but the writing is only like 40-60% of where it needs to be.

It’s not the worst transatlantic adaption, but it isn’t what it should be. The “Antiviral Wipe” ep they put out in May is far stronger.

Sucked.

Major example of TV getting lost in translation.

Why get sam Jackson to try and sound like brooker? It just didn't come off.

Beyond that though, the main prob it has was how lacking in teeth the material was. Just a very MOR satire.