Annoyingly due to the vagaries of the iPad I lost today's blog, which I think was good, but am loathe to attempt to recreate and I will take it as a sign that you were not meant to hear about my COBNOB (but if anyone can work out exactly what it is I will give them a prize - you won't guess so don't bother trying). I believe everything happens for a reason and whatever force is controlling the Universe decided I should write that blog, but that it would never be seen by another person. For some reason. To teach me a lesson. The lesson being to turn off the wireless on my iPad when I am writing a blog so that I can post in 3G and not get connected to a network with a log in page. It's a strange way to teach me the lesson. I would have preferred this force that has everything planned out to send me an email explaining that instead. But the force works in mysterious ways.
It comforts me to think that everything happens for a reason and I don't think it is at all arrogant and self-centred of me to believe that every single thing that happens to me has been conceived in advance by some supernatural force. Even when I am doing a wee or a poo or wanking off over some depraved item of pornography. That has happened for a reason. Planned in advance. All I can say is that whoever is in charge of planning that all out is a pervert.
So let's go elsewhere and do another blog so as not to anger the force. Although I am clearly just doing whatever it wants and this was its decision.
I spent most of today watching stuff on telly. I saw a couple of episodes of “Studio 60â€Â, trying to decide why it nearly, but doesn’t quite work. It already seems dated and maybe a little mawkish and is nowhere near as effective as “30 Rock†which came out at the same time. I still enjoy “Studio 60†as I do with anything Aaron Sorkin writes, but maybe because it’s about the world I work in it doesn’t quite ring true. I think the main mistake they made was to ever show anything from the comedy show that everyone is busy working on. Mainly because the comedy in it is much too weak and somewhat undermines the effectiveness of the supposed genius of the writers and cast. In “30 Rock†the sketches in the show within the show are deliberately awful and the people working on the show are less worthy and more venal. I guess this is why it works.
I like to think that by watching other people’s programmes I am both working and learning about my craft, and I certainly do think a lot about the creative process of everything I see, but if I am honest I am probably just wasting time. Which is a big part of my job. To prove this I then watched “Space Balls†which I have never seen before and which is even more crap than I imagined it would be. I am a big fan of Mel Brooks’ early stuff, but this was awful. Why? My guess is that he was trying to emulate the success of Airplane. Which is a shame because he misses the point (Airplane's gags are much more sophisticated and rich) and his own brand of parody in his earlier films was much better than this. The jokes in Spaceballs are too corny and too laboured and very much route one. Let's give the Darth Vader character a helmet that is much too big and... no thinking about it that will be all we need. Was Brooks pushed in this direction or was it his own decision? Is it another case of someone losing it as they have got older? Or was he just better at pastiching older films, which he would maybe have had a better understanding of. Looking up the dates this film came an incredible ten years after Star Wars (if it had come out immediately its paucity might have been forgivable) and eight years after Airplane, which also surprises me.
Not everything can be a hit (and apparently Spaceballs was a success on video), but I find it a little bit fascinating when someone who has shown that they can cut the mustard loses their mojo. Probably because I fear it happening to me - or worse that it might have already happened.
Oh whatever. My other blog was miles better than this. So what's the reason that happened supernatural force? To make me look much more shit than I actually am. Thanks a lot. Maybe the same happened to the original Spaceballs script.
