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Lunatics (New Chris Lilley show) April 19th

Started by Malcy, April 11, 2019, 02:11:31 AM

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Malcy

Chris Lilley's new show is coming to Netflix on the 19th. Trailer here.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iCUv4hhzWWM

I haven't watched it as I want to go in blind but really looking forward to a new show from him.


Trying not to judge this too harshly from the trailer, as it can only tell you so much, but I'm not that impressed with the characters where the humour seems to come mostly from an exaggerated physical characteristic. And the other characters didn't seem interesting enough to make up for that.

Swoz_MK

Fuck's sake, Remember that S*Mouse lad.
A Greg Gregson series would be preferable.

up_the_hampipe

Chris Lilley is Aussie Gervais. Summer Heights High was his Office, Angry Boys was his Extras mixed with Life's Too Short, the Ja'mie and Jonah spin-offs were his David Brent: Life On The Road. This could be his Derek.

Oh, forgot about We Can Be Heroes. I guess that was his early XFM days.

BritishHobo

I really want to like it but it just looks like even more arseholes being arseholes to people in really flat, boring ways. Just saying horrible things without any of the creativity of Always Sunny. And like ComedyUnitInsider, the two or three characters with stupid massive bottoms just look awful.

Twed

To me (somebody who doesn't know anything about Chris Lilley) this looks like the absolute pits.

I watched half the trailer and there were two jokes about the hilarious comedy idea of somebody touching their penis.

BritishHobo

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on April 11, 2019, 09:36:23 AM
Chris Lilley is Aussie Gervais. Summer Heights High was his Office, Angry Boys was his Extras mixed with Life's Too Short, the Ja'mie and Jonah spin-offs were his David Brent: Life On The Road. This could be his Derek.

Oh, forgot about We Can Be Heroes. I guess that was his early XFM days.

I stand by this more and more, although a little different. I think The Office and We Can Be Heroes had a genuine emotion there and care for the characters,  really polished works with a great story. Extras and Summer Heights High lacked that, but made up for it by being much funnier. Angry Boys and Life's Too Short were shit, confused, and started to feel like the ironic nastiness was just genuine nastiness.
Everything after that, fucking car-crash bollocks. I'd put Ja'mie (and maybe Jonah, but I didn't watch it) as Derek, because they're weird, self-indulgent things where the creator plays a ridiculous character who's actually an arsehole but for some reason we're meant to love them, full of just obnoxious 'ironic' bigotry, and all the humour and emotion is ramped up to stupid levels.

You've also got both of them weathering scandals - Gervais with monggate, and Lilley with the backlash over him playing a Polynesian character in 'brownface'.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: BritishHobo on April 11, 2019, 12:58:34 PM
I stand by this more and more, although a little different. I think The Office and We Can Be Heroes had a genuine emotion there and care for the characters,  really polished works with a great story. Extras and Summer Heights High lacked that, but made up for it by being much funnier. Angry Boys and Life's Too Short were shit, confused, and started to feel like the ironic nastiness was just genuine nastiness.
Everything after that, fucking car-crash bollocks. I'd put Ja'mie (and maybe Jonah, but I didn't watch it) as Derek, because they're weird, self-indulgent things where the creator plays a ridiculous character who's actually an arsehole but for some reason we're meant to love them, full of just obnoxious 'ironic' bigotry, and all the humour and emotion is ramped up to stupid levels.

Might be right on that, only put Ja'mie and Jonah as Life On The Road because they were diminishing returns of old favourites. I remember finding some genuine emotion in Angry Boys, and some amusement, but it was jumbled up with the ugliness that would dominate his later work. SHH was his most popular and beloved work, I think the scene where Jonah's teacher snaps at him is the most powerful thing he ever did, so that's his "please don't make me redundant" moment.

BritishHobo

I suppose Life on the Road is a good comparison, you have sold me there. Reheating popular characters. Especially with Ja'mie, you've got a horrible nasty character who goes around saying horrible things to people, and then at the end we're inexplicably meant to cheer them on.

up_the_hampipe

It's been surprising and worrying to find that many consider Ja'mie and Jonah quite relatable characters, especially Ja'mie. I mean, they are brilliantly captured characters that should remind you of the worst cunts from school, but to see yourself in them, yikes!

Malcy

Have to disagree on comparing Angry Boys to Life's Too Short in terms of quality. I thought it was superb and the hours and hours of extras on the DVD really added to it. I'm always torn to what my favourite of his is. Each one has it's own merits. I'd say the weakest was Jonah but it still had it's moments.

Mr G is a great character and the reaction on the kids faces in this scene are priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjiM8Z0sxyo

Chollis

Mr G was great wasn't he.

"Anabeeeeeellle....you're a slut."

up_the_hampipe

Mr G was his funniest character. There were rumours of a spin-off for a while, but I'm glad he left him alone.

wooders1978

We could be heroes is one of my comedy series of all time, this looks shockingly bad though

Bazooka

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on April 11, 2019, 09:36:23 AM
Chris Lilley is Aussie Gervais. Summer Heights High was his Office, Angry Boys was his Extras mixed with Life's Too Short, the Ja'mie and Jonah spin-offs were his David Brent: Life On The Road. This could be his Derek.

Oh, forgot about We Can Be Heroes. I guess that was his early XFM days.

I have to agree, you have summed it perfectly. It doesn't take away from Lilley being a brilliant comedy character actor, I can't think of anyone who can play the opposite sex, and teenagers as well as he does, the bloke is good. Regardless of J'maie and Jonah spinoffs, something is missing from his new material, and I wish he could find it. I personally found S.Mouse to be the best character in Angry Boys. I will give this a shot, but nill laughed from the trailer.

BritishHobo

Quote from: Malcy on April 11, 2019, 01:16:29 PM
Have to disagree on comparing Angry Boys to Life's Too Short in terms of quality. I thought it was superb and the hours and hours of extras on the DVD really added to it. I'm always torn to what my favourite of his is. Each one has it's own merits. I'd say the weakest was Jonah but it still had it's moments.

Mr G is a great character and the reaction on the kids faces in this scene are priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjiM8Z0sxyo

I just can't get on with it. At first I thought maybe it was just how much I hyped my expectations up after loving WCBH and SHH so much, but I tried rewatching it several times over the years on DVD and it just does nothing for me. It feels so long but so empty. Twelve episodes and so fucking little happens. The surfer character might as well not be in it, and the shit Japanese mum barely makes more of an impact. Apart from that all I remember is about five hours of Daniel running around shouting 'NATHAN, YA FAG!'.

Mobius

Looks really really awful. Keeps doing the same type of show over and over and they get worse and worse

MrsWarboysLover

He's reached the point where you can really clearly hear and see a big overlap with the new characters and his old ones, same voices and mannerisms.

Mr. G has always been great though, I'd love another series about him.

QuoteI have to agree, you have summed it perfectly. It doesn't take away from Lilley being a brilliant comedy character actor, I can't think of anyone who can play the opposite sex, and teenagers as well as he does, the bloke is good.

Have to agree with that, I rewatched we can be heroes not too long ago, he's totally believable as every character in there, he just completely inhabits them gets all the little mannerisms of each type of character down perfectly.

zomgmouse

I'm not sure why they keep letting him on air but either it's blackmail (allegedly) or enough people really do like the look, sound, smell, taste and consistency of sharts to give it continued ratings successes.

Whoever compared him to Gervais is pretty on the money except it's more like if Gervais regularly did blackface or any other characters that aren't just thinly-veiled versions of himself who occasionally wear beards.

I should probably point out I've never seen anything by Chris Lilley but he was very often quoted by people I didn't like in high school so I decided he was bad and 15 years later I'm not changing my mind.

Sin Agog

Still really do like Summer Heights High, but he just feels like an antediluvian Antipodean washed up onto the sands of a very different time.  It was watching his other stuff and coming across the massive stumbling block that is his Asian characters that did it for me.  In a way it's sort of naive and childlike, but in another, more practical way it does not fly at all, not one bit.  And considering he doesn't seem to have very many other characters in him, that's his career fucked, really, which is a shame as he was great at doing teens (will reword this later).

Shaky

Jesussssssssss, just watched that new trailer and it really is shockingly bad.

13 schoolyards

Lilley's only ever had an extremely limited number of tricks up his sleeve, and after Summer Heights High was a huge hit that gave him worldwide exposure he's had zero incentive to try anything new. As the trailer for this makes painfully clear.

Perhaps if he worked with outside writers they might force him to expand his range, but ever since Summer Heights High he's gone out of his way to promote himself as a solo genius (and glossed over working with a co-writer on We Can Be Heroes and the early stages of SHH) so it seems pretty unlikely he'll ever go back to taking advice from anyone else.

Basically, he was a talented guy who became too successful too quickly and fucked any chance he had of creative growth. But so long as he can keep pulling in new audiences of 14 year olds, he'll keep at it.

Moribunderast

#22
I have a special loathing for Chris Lilley. I loved We Can Be Heroes, hated Summer Heights High and have hated whatever I've seen of his output since. The ultimate one-trick pony, every show the same as the last but worse. "Ironic" bigotry is 95% of the humour and the "pathos" is often Gervaisian in it's application. He's talented at playing characters and gets some notes brilliantly right in his performances but there's no meat beyond that. The fact that humour can only come from him in his shows and every other character simply exists to laugh with him or be mocked by him shows a vain and insecure streak I find nauseating.

Full disclosure: as a redhead, I had never been mocked or bullied for my hair colour until SHH came out - then I started getting it from strangers on the street, at pubs - and Lilley really leant into that one, asked if he feels bad about perpetuating and celebrating bullying and basically laughing it off. So I may be personally biased against him on those grounds but I do genuinely think, on the basis that every show he's made is exactly the fucking same, that the guy is a hack.

EDIT TO ADD: Never forget when he posted this video online after an aboriginal child was run down by a cunt driver. The clip itself is indefensible but putting it up in the context of when he re-posted it is insanely cunty at worst and unfathomably dumb if I'm being charitable. SQUASHED NIGGA LOL

13 schoolyards

Yeah, it was really unsettling the way he pushed the whole "ranga" thing. I'd never heard it before Summer Heights High but Lilley went around in interviews like he was making fun of an existing form of bullying rather than single-handedly making it cool to hang shit on redheads for laughs because picking on kids is hilarious.

He's always seemed like a theatre kid with no real interest in comedy beyond it being a way for him to play all the roles on-camera - his idea of what's funny really seems limited to a 12 year olds (which might explain his appeal to teens). Remember when he tried to make "sneaky nuts" a thing?

BritishHobo

That's such a good point that no-one else gets to be funny. I guess that's why the Ja'mie show stuck out so bad. At least in the other shows you had several different Lilley characters, but in Ja'mie it's just her. It started to feel like he just loved playing up as a teenager to all the other teens.

petril

looks complete shite, retread of the same shite but even more shite. won't even go near a hate watch in case that's what keeps causing him to get paid to make more, just let it lie in its own shiteness and get on with interesting things elsewhere.

We Can Be Heroes and SHH had plenty of good and maybe the odd uncomfortably shite bit, but he's not moved on since then.

Maybe Mr G wasn't the character, and that's what Chris Lilley is actually like.

Urinal Cake

Lilley does a good mimicry if people you might come across in life. I think it will be the usual case of two or three breakout catch phrases, two characters with pathos and one accusation of racism.


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Chris Lilley is a good actor who, left to his own devices, cannot write comedy. It's as if he doesn't actually understand what comedy is. He gets that it often involves exaggeration and absurdity, but his adolescent sense of humour and lack of imagination leads him towards creating characters with big protruding arses. That'll do, won't it? That's a bit daft?

Moribunderast

I always thought Chris Lilley had the talent and perfect look to play Elliott Smith in a biopic. The bonus being I'd get to see him die at the end.