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Moriarty Gets An Early Listen To THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW SERIES 5 And Gets An Early Look At GHOST TOWN!
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
If you’re a Ricky Gervais fan, you’re about to get very, very serviced. The next year or so should be a pretty continuous slow drip of new Ricky, and I think we’re getting the good stuff now with the great stuff later, which means we’ve got a lot to look forward to.
I didn’t realize that he was getting together with Stephen Merchant and Karl “Head Like A Fucking Orange” Pilkington (Cunt) to do a final series of podcasts. If you read that last sentence and wondered, “What the hell did this Karl Pilkington ever do to Moriarty?” then I’m going to assume you haven’t heard any of the earlier seasons of THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW, which basically consisted of these three guys in a studio talking, and Gervais and Merchant gasping in horror and laughter as they listen to Pilkington spout the most insane, bizarre prattle you’ve ever heard. He really is tuned to a different radio station than everyone else. Wait’ll you hear his take on Anne Frank. It’s a stunner.
There’s really no spine to the shows, no throughline, no general theme. It’s just the three of them fucking about. And that’s sort of the beauty of it. This final season of the podcast is four episodes long, each one a half hour, and I played them all back-to-back-to-back-to-back as soon as I got them. They’ll be available on iTunes on September 16th, and if you are a fan of the earlier seasons, the only bad thing I’m going to tell you about this season is that it’s waaaaaay too short. I would have been content with this as one show. But a whole season? It’s just a taste, and the most beautiful thing about Pilkington is that he’s unchanging. There’s no danger of show business spoiling the majesty of Karl Pilkington. He’s as cooked as he’s ever gonna get. He’s not going to come in and suddenly be this canny, careful, studied comic performer. He is who he is, and that’s what is funny. Ricky always approaches him like you approach something you caught and put in a jar. He’s intrigued by Karl, and he’s a little grossed out by him, but he’s going to feed him and poke him and see what he does. And most of the time, Ricky’s either shrieking with laughter or barking with outrage. I think he’s genuinely aghast at what comes out of Karl in some of these episodes, and yet he can’t... stop... looking...
I also recently had a chance to see GHOST TOWN, David Koepp’s film that is having its first public screenings at the Toronto Film Festival right now. I hope it does well for Paramount. It’s probably Koepp’s most complete film as a director. I’m still not crazy about him, and I don’t think this is a great film by any means, but there are things in it that are pretty damn good, and I’ll give him credit for indulging some of the best of his instincts. There is David Koepp work that I really admire, like his script for DEATH BECOMES HER, a grossly underrated black comedy cartoon haunted house, and I think he shows some restraint and taste in how he tells the overly familiar tale of a dentist named Bertram Pincus (Gervais) who dies for seven minutes on the operating table during a routine colonoscopy. When he recovers, he learns he is able to see ghosts, and they all want him to help them settle their unfinished business so they can move on. The main ghost in the film is Frank Herlihy, played by Greg Kinnear. It’s his death that opens the film, and it’s his wife Gwen (Tea Leoni) with whom he has the unfinished business. By coincidence, she lives in Bertram’s apartment building, and so Frank harasses the people-hating dentist into helping him save his wife from her impending marriage to a new guy played by Bill Campbell. There are some other familiar faces as ghosts, including Alan Ruck and Judith Ivey, and Gervais wants nothing to do with any of them.
You know what this is? It’s W.C. Fields in TOPPER. Gervais is believable as someone who has little or no tolerance for other people, a man who is near agoraphobic in his desire to get into his apartment, away from everyone, so he can just be quiet and calm and enjoy the absolute lack of everyone else. He’s a great misanthropic curmudgeon, and I suspect much of his dialogue was tweaked by him onset. Too much of his delivery and his phrasing and his word choices... it’s too distinctly his. Either this role was absolutely written for him, or he had a hand in the reshaping of his dialogue. Either way, he is often very funny in the film, even if some of the comic set-ups are predictable or less than provocative. He and Kinnear have some genuine chemistry, and many of their scenes are quite good. Leoni also does very easy, warm, approachable work, a real about-face from the sort of thing she played in SPANGLISH. It’s easy to imagine Gervais becoming smitten with her. It’s one of the most appealing performances she’s ever given.
Here’s the thing... I’ve been to the set of Gervais’s next film, THIS SIDE OF THE TRUTH, and I am convinced that’s going to be something truly amazing. GHOST TOWN is the movie that has the difficult job of introducing him to mainstream movie-ticket-buying America, who don’t necessarily give a shit about “the guy who created the original British OFFICE.” Not yet. But they might. And something has to be first. There has to be some test. Can Gervais be a movie star here? Is there room for a W.C. Fields in today’s comedy landscape with audiences? Are they in the mood for that? I think GHOST TOWN is a strong attempt to make that introduction, and I think it could do well. Gervais is ultimately likeable here, and his transformation into someone who actually considers others is an effectively staged one. The film never quite tips into serious sap, but it flirts with it a bit. It’s a fine line, and Koepp ultimately stays on the right side of it.
You know how I mentioned the way BURN AFTER READING was shot so it looked like an espionage thriller and not a comedy? Well, GHOST TOWN is shot to look like a comedy. Mr. Beaks quipped to me as we walked to the car after the film, “If Ricky Gervais wasn’t in that, it would be HEART AND SOULS.” The fact that he remembers that film impressed me. The only reason I do is because I was a tour guide at Universal when it came out, and they screened it for us three times. It’s a terrible plastic movie full of big obnoxious ham-handed emotional grabs, and GHOST TOWN could have been that. I’m impressed how much it resists the urge, and although I don’t think it’s going to be a significant film creatively for Gervais overall, it could be an important one at the box-office.
Here’s hoping.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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onest
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Not only am I 1st on this talkback I am also a person who watched,loved and raved about the office the 1st time it was ever on bbc 2. Therefore I am better than you.
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karl dilkington has a head like a fucking orange.
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...are funny as fuck.
Highly recommended for bus travel, although people will be looking at your balking face as you belly-laugh-out-loud. -
where was the fourth one? this is annoying the fuck out of me. it's as if someone said, "What, you didn't know the Beatles made an album between Sgt. Pepper and The White Album? Well they did. And, sorry, but all traces of it have been erased from the culture."
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That's what I'm assuming. A half hour per show seems slack, but hey, it's free, right/ Oh wait, they're charging again? Piss off.
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just those random podcasts in between i guess?
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There was a short series of free podcasts keyed to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I'm not sure if they're available on iTunes or not. But the Ricky Gervais show is something I will literally never get tired of listening to. I could hear a new episode every day forever. I do have a suspicion that Karl is playing up his density a bit. In some of his early appearances (on the XFM radio series) he seems a little more with it.
By the way, if you want to hear the predecessor to the Ricky Gervais show podcasts, go to www.pilkipedia.co.uk, where you can download episodes of the radio show that the three hosted in England on XFM. It's like dozens of free new (old) podcasts! -
I went to the show he did for the Bowie concert series, but passed on the US tour because I thought the material would be the same: Swimming Elephant, Fat Jokes, etc. If anyone went to the show, I'd like to know.
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Yeah, Hearts n souls is a shouty 'LOOK THIS IS SAAAD, CRY, BITCHES' but it does have Lizzy Shue (sigh)...on the topic at hand, i've always been a Ricky fan and even though he doesn't like acting he is a great natural comic actor and should 'carefully' pick the right material and stay on our optic nerves for some time to come.
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Why are you acting like you're the only one who watched the original Office when it was first transmitted? Makes you look like a bit of a twat actually. I, too, watched it but I don't feel the need to behave like I 'discovered' Ricky Gervais and then told everyone else how good he was so they could watch it too.
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some of the material is taken from their old XFM show. It means they lack the spontaneous wit of their XFM days, and much of it sounds a little forced.
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Was the halloween, thanksgiving and Christmas specials. Not much of a series but they seem to label it as such none the less.
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I know I know, sorry, it is a really annoying habit I picked up once he got really big.I know I didn't discover him. I suppose it happens to everyone who was a fan of a little movie or band before they got really big,they feel a sense of ownership and get annoyed when newbies jump on board. Sad and pathetic really.
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i love Gervais, but I am in two minds about Ghost World. Not really that impressed by the trailer or clips i have seen.
www.battleroyalewithcheese.com -
He's a guy (a little dimwitted) who has been badly let down by the English education system, and the enormous amounts of crap fed to the poorly informed by modern media.
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One of the funniest things I have ever seen is the "Taping Nigel" segment on the EXTRAS Season 2 DVD set. It's so wrong in so many ways. But I swear to Zeus, I thought I was going to die from laughter.
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To put a jellyfish in a trifle." -K. Dilkington... I could (and have) listened to that triumvirate of trite endlessly, until judgment day when Karl is finally revealed to be the second coming of Monkey-Christ. I think the XFM shows were far superior to the Bodcasts, but I aint wingin'
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...between Sgt. Pepper and the White Album. Two of them in fact. Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine.
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You've embarrassed yourself there, Hype.
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shall be fucking amazing.
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Magical Mystery Tour was a soundtrack E.P. originally that was turned into an album by Capitol for the US market (and subsequently the same was done in the UK) and Yellow Submarine was a soundtrack album with a few old/lesser/previously discarded songs by The Beatles on one side and some orchestral arrangements by George Martin on the other. They're not really Beatles albums, more like compilations. Plus The White Album came out before Yellow Submarine anyway.
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He was good...prolly up on Youtube. Definitely.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ricky+gervais+GTA&search_type=&aq=f -
nukethefridge, no worries. I used to do exactly the same thing as you, until I realised I was also acting like an utter twat. Took me a while to stop harping on about Spaced and how I'd been following Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson and Edgar Wright since Asylum on the Paramount Comedy Channel, along with Lucas & Walliams as Mash & Peas. Now I'm in my 30's, I realise it's just not important anymore...
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Damn You Michael Bay
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I went to his stand up here in NYC. Well done. You're right, his material is limited if you've seen his shows you won't necessarily get anything new. But I'll tell you what, I am a fan of stand up comics, and of seeing them develop and progress even with material I've heard before. So while I did get to here the anecdote/parable about the mice in winter time, I've never seen Gervais so 'on' then he was at the Wamu Theater at MSG. Plus, he was taping an HBO special, so, since it will be his first american special, it makes sense to introduce them to his act, taking the best stuff from Animals, Politics and Fame. So, while you may have skipped it because you didn't want to hear repeat bits, you sadly won't be able to say that you were at the taping of Gervais' HBO special. Whoops! Funny side note, Bon Jovi was playing the same night, only in the 'real' Madison Square Garden. And all the security guards were saying, 'Bon Jovi to your right; Comedian to your left.' It tickles me silly how Gervais is such an unknown to most of Americans, and yet his impact on Comedy in this decade, really, is unrivaled. I mean the Office reshaped the perception of television comedy...that it could be simultaneously funny and truly, truly dramatic, and not like MASH either. Arrested Development, 30 Rock and of course the American Office are all comedic derivatives of the show. Love it.
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I'll grant you that Yellow Submarine wasn't a true Beatles album. I know the Beatles didn't consider it such. I counted it because it did have a few previously unreleased songs (even though they had already been recorded). Apparently, I did have the wrong info on the release date though, so I'll admit my wrongness there. Magical Mystery Tour is a different story though. Yes it was an EP but to be fair it was a Double EP with six original songs composed specifically for the movie. The American LP release padded it with singles, but I still think it counts as a real Beatles album.
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You're wrong, Karl really is a cunt. Blaming the system for Karl being a cunt is like blaming the system for having a head like a fucking orange. Just accept it.
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Sep 08, 2008 6:17:10 AM CDT
I'm still kicking myself for that Yellow Submarine goof.
by mystery roach
I should really know better. I wasn't trying to be a dick, but I sure made myself look like one. This place just brings it out in me I guess. Apologies to HypeEndsHere and Beatles fans everywhere. Anyhow, I don't have much hope for this movie, but I love The Ricky Gervais Show so that is wonderful news. I do wish they would do more episodes at a time, but I'll take whatever I can get. One question... Any word on whether they will be released as an audiobook, or as free podcasts? I'm guessing we'll have to pay for these.
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Good to know that the shows were similar, and you have a point about the evolution of his act. I watched that clip of him from GTA4, and the whole obesity bit was exactly what I saw at his Wamu Bowie show. The nice thing about that show was when David Bowie came out quietly to introduce Gervais, opened his mouth, and said "Chubby little loser..." Brilliant.
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