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Ricky Gervais - After Life [split topic]

Started by ramsobot, February 22, 2019, 05:39:11 PM

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Bennett Brauer

Quote from: Bryan Cocks on March 18, 2019, 06:28:49 AM
I've read the start of the review before it's cut off by the paywall, and kudos to Camilla Long for managing to squeeze in maximum viscousness before she fades to white.

I was waiting for her review seeing as she hated Life on the Road when she was the ST's film critic. She does admit to a handful of laughs, but it's damning with faint praise. (I'll post the film review as well if anyone asks.)

Quote from: Camilla LongThere's nothing quite like a new Ricky Gervais to curdle the soul. How clenchingly high on the sphincterometer can his comic neediness drive us now? And there's the fans, his blind little army of chaffering sycophants who will still call it "awesome" and "genius", his best work yet, better, even, than Extras — the Godfather II of his oeuvre. His timeline on Twitter is full of positive retweets. I stopped counting at 52. Tragic.

Last time, even they were silenced. His two-star film featuring David Brent, now a tampon salesman, was 90 minutes of disability jokes and ego w*** (can't imagine which bitter old critic said that). David Brent: Life on the Road revealed, yet again, the bald, unfunny truth about Gervais: that he spends so much time thinking about himself, he barely thinks about anything else — the script, set, props, production, even basic coherence.

To watch a Gervais show is to watch the self-anointed king of comedy strut onto a set that's been tirelessly assembled by other people since 6am, as if he's no more invested in what's about to happen than he would be in turning up for a gig. Whereupon he is fed all the best jokes by some of the finest actors and comedians in the land, and the whole rictus nightmare is repeated until they've got six episodes. He's comedy's Prince Charles, a spoilt, sanctimonious speechifier who is stunned if every room he enters doesn't smell of fresh paint.

So you can imagine my disappointment that his new series, After Life, isn't... too bad. It is set in the fictional town of Tambury, where Gervais plays a reporter on the local gazette. God, I wish I worked on that paper, a place where the whole office dutifully falls silent when its chief reporter — Gervais — so much as opens his mouth. Where even its laziest writer — also Gervais — earns enough to live in a rambling Victorian villa, stuffed with gorgeous furniture, at the edge of mouthwatering parkland.

Here is an improbable, poorly conceived Doctor Foster-style dreamscape comprised of American-tourist market squares (I counted at least three) and, extraordinarily, beaches. Not a single cent has been spared in creating this paradisiacal backdrop — exclusively for Gervais. Obviously. Step into anyone else's house and life is dark and drab, filled with rubbish or terrible naff furnishings. Odd.

Some of the pond life Gervais encounters in pursuit of his job is extremely funny. There's a man who thinks a stain on his wall looks like Kenneth Branagh — "Any stain looks like Kenneth Branagh," Gervais says — and a woman who does unspeakable things with her vaginal yeast. This is comedy not of anger or offence, but, as in The Office, of sadness and the smallness of human life. It is a series of absurd front pages in the dying regional press.

The afterlife of the title refers, aside from Gervais's petulant rants about atheism, to the life his character is living after the death of his wife, a woman he describes as... well, he doesn't describe her at all. All he does is talk about how the whole thing has affected him: we don't even find out which cancer she suffered from until... is it episode three or four? Even in death she is there, from the first episode, to help him wash up, do the bins, laugh at his offensive practical jokes.

She is also a mute vessel for his bottomless sentimentality, an unashamed tide of throat-catching monologues and tender graveside moments. I couldn't care less about the misogyny, it's the chronic lack of character development that irks.

Sometimes a good laugh flashes through: it's funny — ish — to watch him drinking cereal, made with water, out of a glass. As are lines like: "Any plans for the weekend?" "I'm going to rape myself to death." But there are three laughs an episode at the most.

Actually, three laughs is epic in the current landscape. When did we get to the point that comedy has ceased to challenge anything in our lives? Where is the comedy that really mocks, the cutting anger, the savage wit? How have comedians stopped being the most dangerous and subversive people in the room and become the blandest and most predictable?

neveragain

I did like the "rape myself to death" line.

olliebean

Quote from: BlodwynPig on March 18, 2019, 07:34:09 PM
Because its a show by Ricky Gervais who can only ever show kindness through violence and horrible pranks.

FTFY.

Bronzy

Quote from: Cuellar on March 18, 2019, 03:26:51 PM
I was younger and more impulsive then, so I woke with a start and shouted 'YOU s*****c LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE'.


Twit 2

See, even that CL review has the odd positive. I want reviews that piss blood. I want a broadsheet take down that reveals the author had to see a doctor about it.

Mind you, if there's a person in the universe worse than RG it's CL - I'm still picking up broken glass and vomit from my floor since I last saw her on the Beeb's Film 201X.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Twit 2 on March 18, 2019, 11:54:11 PM
See, even that CL review has the odd positive. I want reviews that piss blood. I want a broadsheet take down that reveals the author had to see a doctor about it.

Mind you, if there's a person in the universe worse than RG it's CL - I'm still picking up broken glass and vomit from my floor since I last saw her on the Beeb's Film 201X.

TOGETHER WE CAN DESTROY RG COMPLETELY!!!!

Jumblegraws

Quote from: Twit 2 on March 18, 2019, 11:54:11 PM
Mind you, if there's a person in the universe worse than RG it's CL - I'm still picking up broken glass and vomit from my floor since I last saw her on the Beeb's Film 201X.
Yeah, this is like a shitty sequel to Clarkson vs Morgan.

McFlymo

Did one episode.

Quote from: MY DRUNKEN NOTESEwwww Ricky showering...

Ewww he clearly can't act very well and you can see him acknowledge that he's being filmed as he gets undressed

Ewwwwww the total lack of depth or nuance to all of his acting and performance "good girl" - awkwardly pats dog.

"Fait hairy cock sucker".... yes please!!

"I'm not a postman" .... sigh

Yeah, "Paedo" is something kids shout out at people from the school yard.

Ok. We've established bleakness and no nuance whatsoever...

Where next?

So you're gonna be working with my brother-in-law he's a terrible cunt. Good luck...
"right... ok" ....

HA HA HA ...

Therapist: You're not the only mental case..

HA HA HA ... He's really shit and inappropriate

"I just saw you wash in a puddle from a drain" ........... #relatable

Tony gets mugged........... THE MUGGING SCENE!!
THE MUGGING!!!! ... HAHAHAHA....
In a lovely little country town ... The sombre low note, foreshadowing THE MUGGING...
... Oh my god.... THE MUGGING...

He probably just needs to move out of that odd little town, where you have people washing themselves in puddles, random muggings and kids shouting "paedo" at passersby. And don't even start me with the constant fat shaming.

Improved by the hope that Ricky Gervais will actually live stream his suicide.

paruses

Anyone know where it's filmed? There's a bit that looks like it's where the restaurant in Pie in the Sky (also the name of the restaurant in Pie in the Sky) is. I liked that because I then watched a handful of episodes on Drama. It's really comforting and Richard Griffiths was great. A really funny actor.

But this isn't. Ricky Gervais is out of his depth in this. He's rubbish in this...turn it off, Mum – I don't want to watch it.


paruses

On the location choice - is it really clever (no) or tone deaf (more likely) where it's set: this semi-idyllic palce near the sea with a vast sandy beach but also like the Cotswolds with a local newspaper that has kept going with full time staff, good restaurants, boutique shops, and leafy Victorian villas to live in? This would contrast sharply with Tony's mental state (if he were depressed rather than just self-obsessed).

I was surprised at the level of inner city crime in this place and also its Tardis-like sizing. Coming from a small community, having lived a long time in large cities, and now back in a small rural town I know that drug problems are common everywhere now but motorbike hammer attackers?

Also - why isn't the local paper having that as its front page?

Cuellar

Quote from: paruses on March 19, 2019, 10:52:33 AM
On the location choice - is it really clever (no) or tone deaf (more likely) where it's set: this semi-idyllic palce near the sea with a vast sandy beach but also like the Cotswolds with a local newspaper that has kept going with full time staff, good restaurants, boutique shops, and leafy Victorian villas to live in? This would contrast sharply with Tony's mental state (if he were depressed rather than just self-obsessed).

I was surprised at the level of inner city crime in this place and also its Tardis-like sizing. Coming from a small community, having lived a long time in large cities, and now back in a small rural town I know that drug problems are common everywhere now but motorbike hammer attackers?

Also - why isn't the local paper having that as its front page?

Because Tony would be forced to answer some pretty tricky questions about why he stole a piece of evidence from the muggers and used it to traumatise a child.

Jockice

"So you can imagine my disappointment that his new series, After Life, isn't... too bad. It is set in the fictional town of Tambury, where Gervais plays a reporter on the local gazette. God, I wish I worked on that paper, a place where the whole office dutifully falls silent when its chief reporter — Gervais — so much as opens his mouth. Where even its laziest writer — also Gervais — earns enough to live in a rambling Victorian villa, stuffed with gorgeous furniture, at the edge of mouthwatering parkland.

Here is an improbable, poorly conceived Doctor Foster-style dreamscape comprised of American-tourist market squares (I counted at least three) and, extraordinarily, beaches. Not a single cent has been spared in creating this paradisiacal backdrop — exclusively for Gervais. Obviously. Step into anyone else's house and life is dark and drab, filled with rubbish or terrible naff furnishings. Odd.

Some of the pond life Gervais encounters in pursuit of his job is extremely funny. There's a man who thinks a stain on his wall looks like Kenneth Branagh — "Any stain looks like Kenneth Branagh," Gervais says — and a woman who does unspeakable things with her vaginal yeast. This is comedy not of anger or offence, but, as in The Office, of sadness and the smallness of human life. It is a series of absurd front pages in the dying regional press."


It's a common misconception among the public that journalists earn a fortune, even at a local level. It's nearly as common as the one about us being able to print lies without worrying about it. Maybe the higher you get both things are possible but I never got anywhere near those levels. I'm not even sure if I ever made the average national salary.

But you do get weirdos turning up at the office on a regular basis, so that is extremely accurate. I once got sent down the the main entrance to see a woman who apparently had a story for us. Which turned out to be that she had come back from the dead. Allegedly of course. Er, hold the front page.

Jockice

Quote from: paruses on March 19, 2019, 10:52:33 AM
On the location choice - is it really clever (no) or tone deaf (more likely) where it's set: this semi-idyllic palce near the sea with a vast sandy beach but also like the Cotswolds with a local newspaper that has kept going with full time staff, good restaurants, boutique shops, and leafy Victorian villas to live in? This would contrast sharply with Tony's mental state (if he were depressed rather than just self-obsessed).

I was surprised at the level of inner city crime in this place and also its Tardis-like sizing. Coming from a small community, having lived a long time in large cities, and now back in a small rural town I know that drug problems are common everywhere now but motorbike hammer attackers?

Also - why isn't the local paper having that as its front page?

Maybe it's near Midsomer. Rife with crime that place is.

paruses

Quote from: Cuellar on March 19, 2019, 10:54:05 AM
Because Tony would be forced to answer some pretty tricky questions about why he stole a piece of evidence from the muggers and used it to traumatise a child.

But he did then give the child what's probably a very rare and hard to find 80s bicycle (probably unserviced and lethal) with a cryptic note on it.

Had this happened an episode earlier there was much more scope for Tony to be accused of grooming and to be confronted by a group like Dark Justice outside the newspaper offices ("why are you hiding your face Tony? What's your wife going to say Tony? Oh, she's dead? Sorry. We'll reassess our own motivations now. You're a lovely bloke").

VaginaSimpson

Okay can I just interrupt the intelligent comedy chat to say the guy playing Matt in After Life (Tom Basden says Wiki) is so fucking hot I don't know what to do with myself. I usually hate when the male equivalents of me post about how hot a woman is and I think "why can't you just fucking like her for what she can do not what she looks like you neanderthal?" but... Tom Basden. Can they make another one and bring him to me?

Cuellar

Ah, that's what his character's name was. I've found it much easier just to call them by the actors' real names, the characters are so forgettable. But yeah I suppose he's pretty fit.

Crabwalk

He's very good in the show, I think. Almost like a recognisable human being.

One of the worst things about 'Tony' is that he never recognises how much pain and grief Matt would also be going through at having lost his sister. That can be just as traumatic, if not more, than losing your spouse.

Tony never even acknowledges that in the final episode. Cunt.


Ferris

Tom Basden look like a far less attractive version of me. I'd say he's about 10% of the attractiveness that I possess. Lucky I live so far away.

Cuellar

Odd that Basden has fallen into the orbit of Gervais, whereas erstwhile Coward-mate and collaborator Key has landed on his feet with Coogan.

Maybe not odd. Interesting.


Bennett Brauer

Quote from: VaginaSimpson on March 19, 2019, 02:32:33 PM
Okay can I just interrupt the intelligent comedy chat to say the guy playing Matt in After Life (Tom Basden says Wiki) is so fucking hot I don't know what to do with myself. I usually hate when the male equivalents of me post about how hot a woman is and I think "why can't you just fucking like her for what she can do not what she looks like you neanderthal?" but... Tom Basden. Can they make another one and bring him to me?


BlodwynPig

Quote from: paruses on March 19, 2019, 10:46:32 AM
Anyone know where it's filmed? There's a bit that looks like it's where the restaurant in Pie in the Sky (also the name of the restaurant in Pie in the Sky) is. I liked that because I then watched a handful of episodes on Drama. It's really comforting and Richard Griffiths was great. A really funny actor.

But this isn't. Ricky Gervais is out of his depth in this. He's rubbish in this...turn it off, Mum – I don't want to watch it.

I'm currently doing a Pie in the Sky rewatch - No "the aching melancholy of Pie in the Sky" thread though yet.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on March 19, 2019, 02:59:15 PM
Tom Basden look like a far less attractive version of me. I'd say he's about 10% of the attractiveness that I possess. Lucky I live so far away.

I can vouch for this. You should get some sleep though - those hormones are ramping up.

sevendaughters

it's filmed in Beaconsfield mainly, which was described by the Guardian as 'Mayfair in the Chilterns'. It's meant to be a fantasy Britain for tourists and thus obviate the depression/pathos of a Slough/Wigan.

phes

Gary Lineker is gushing. World's gone mad.

Whatever next. The poignant story of abuse victim Rose West culminating in her buying everyone Cadburies Roses and going to Thorpe Park.

I work in cancer. Relative to nurses and other allied health professionals we get treated like fucking heroes. It doesn't take a genius


Rolf Lundgren

Quote from: BritishHobo on March 17, 2019, 09:12:01 AM
It's only just occurred to me really what's so odd about this show - the vast majority of 'awful' things Tony does are totally designed for Gervais fans to love and laugh at. Sneering at fat people, bollocking power-tripping minimum wage staff, taking the piss out of Diane Morgan for being Christian, and thick, and Christian, and boring, bullying his little mate for being daft and weird-looking. You're not really watching a descent, are you, because you're meant to laugh and cheer at all the things he's doing. All he's doing is saying the things Ricky Gervais already says. At the end there's no clear way to differentiate why he was wrong to say those things but Gervais isn't.

This is a great point and it sums up something that's been bugging me about this and 'Humanity'. Gervais' character in this and his stand-up are both say-what-they-think types and a lot of his image on real-life Twitter is based around that too. However he ends this series by saying that it's a horrible way to be, essentially damning that character, but you are definitely meant to laugh and cheer with the things that he's done throughout. There's no doubt he wants you to be on Tony's side because after all he is such a lovely bloke (can't remember if that's mentioned) and he's dealing with boring jobsworths.

I wonder if it's an Alf Garnett type situation where this character he portrays is celebrated and Gervais isn't fussed about having a handle on it because he enjoys the adulation.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on March 19, 2019, 08:35:57 PM
I wonder if it's an Alf Garnett type situation where this character he portrays is celebrated and Gervais isn't fussed about having a handle on it because he enjoys the adulation.

I don't think that's fair to Warren Mitchell and Johnny Speight, both of whom always went out of their way to remind people that Alf wasn't someone to be admired. It upset them when actual bigots missed the satirical point of the character. Or do you mean that Gervais isn't arsed about being misrepresented in the way that Mitchell and Speight were? Sorry, I'm probably being a bit dense here.

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on March 19, 2019, 08:35:57 PM
This is a great point and it sums up something that's been bugging me about this and 'Humanity'. Gervais' character in this and his stand-up are both say-what-they-think types and a lot of his image on real-life Twitter is based around that too. However he ends this series by saying that it's a horrible way to be, essentially damning that character, but you are definitely meant to laugh and cheer with the things that he's done throughout. There's no doubt he wants you to be on Tony's side because after all he is such a lovely bloke (can't remember if that's mentioned) and he's dealing with boring jobsworths.

I agree with all of this. It's almost as if Gervais is a clueless mass of contradictions.

Rolf Lundgren

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on March 19, 2019, 08:44:36 PM
I don't think that's fair to Warren Mitchell and Johnny Speight, both of whom always went out of their way to remind people that Alf wasn't someone to be admired. It upset them when actual bigots missed the satirical point of the character. Or do you mean that Gervais isn't arsed about being misrepresented in the way that Mitchell and Speight were? Sorry, I'm probably being a bit dense here.

The latter, yeah. I think a lot of his audience take his stand-up at face value and he's quite happy about that. I don't know if it's because he thinks they get he's doing a bit but so many of his responses on Twitter are people treating him as an anti-PC hero.

I remember Al Murray responding to criticism that he was making fun of the working classes with his pub landlord character that it's arrogant to assume why an audience find a comedian funny and I'm guilty of the same here but to me there isn't much nuance in how people react to Gervais and he himself just likes the fact they like him.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on March 19, 2019, 09:04:20 PM
The latter, yeah.

Thought so. I realised that while typing up my reply, but carried on regardless.

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on March 19, 2019, 09:04:20 PM
I remember Al Murray responding to criticism that he was making fun of the working classes with his pub landlord character that it's arrogant to assume why an audience find a comedian funny and I'm guilty of the same here but to me there isn't much nuance in how people react to Gervais and he himself just likes the fact they like him.

It is a bit arrogant, yeah, but I don't feel guilty about that in this particular case. Gervais' Twitter fans tend to come across as unpleasant, easily-led sycophants who will happily pile onto anyone who dares to question their leader (who actively encourages them to do so). Al Murray doesn't do that, nor does he feel the need to explain the self-evident point of his Pub Landlord character.

Also, Pub Landlord live shows are joyously inclusive affairs. He may be making fun of little Englander idiocy, but he's such a charismatic and charming performer his comedy never comes across as cruel. Murray assumes that everyone is in on the joke. If they aren't? Well, there's nothing he can do about that.