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My daughter’s favourite TV show seems to change on a daily basis. She doesn’t like True and the Rainbow Kingdom any more (thank God) but is now obsessed with Paw Patrol (boooo). Phoebe had to come home early from nursery as she wasn’t feeling well, she was sluggish and lethargic, so we just watched Paw Patrol all afternoon. Maybe that was too much Paw Patrol for an adult man. Though she could have done another five hours if bed time hadn’t finally arrived.
I’d have more respect for Paw Patrol if it was made up of adult dogs. The idea that puppies would have this level of intelligence and skill is frankly ludicrous. And I’ve noticed that Paw Patrol is pretty sceptical about ghosts and monsters, less so about talking dogs flying helicopters.
But thank fuck for Paw Patrol because they saved me this afternoon, making looking after an ill kid and a baby considerably easier. They may have spent billions of pounds creating a base and vehicles adapted to be driven by dogs, but on a day like this it’s all worth it. But Ryder should be more careful about how he says, “Easter Egg Hunt"
My exhausted wife and I made the effort to have a date night in wonderful Stevenage Leisure Park. We’d booked tickets to the film we wanted to see, but not to the restaurant, assuming that we’d be able to walk in to any of the franchise places in this wonderful Hellhole. But our first two choices had a 30 minute. And as we weren’t seeing Star Wars there was actually no need to have booked cinema tickets (there were maybe a dozen people in to see The Disaster Artist), so we’d got everything arse about tit, whilst underestimating how much the people of Stevenage would use their leisure park on a Wednesday night. We ended up in an American style diner which was actually quite good fun and the film was a nice mixture of enjoyable whilst making me feel slightly awkward. Were we laughing at or with and was the film having its cake and eating it. But that’s sort of the secret of the success/failure of Tommy Wiseau. Or maybe the failure/success. Because that so bad it’s good thing works perhaps at its best, because we are able to recognise that something is laughably bad, but have the humanity to understand that we couldn’t do any better. And it’s amazing that the fact that The Room tries so hard to be serious and good, but comes out funny and bad, has led to the fame that the people behind it craved.
So it’s an interesting film of this mysterious figure, with money and self-belief, the petulant arrogance and fragile ego of a child and a questionable attitude towards his female co-stars. Tommy is like Trump in many ways. I am glad we saw this rather than Star Wars. There were many laugh out loud moments and much to think about and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it all. But how good to see a film that allows that kind of ambiguity and rolls with it.
Ultimately the fans love Wiseau, feeling simultaneously superior and in awe of him. You know the feeling right?
An illuminating chat with prankster Simon Brodkin on this week’s RHLSTP
On video here
vimeo
And there’s still a few hours to
be a founder member of Drip. We’ve topped 1000 backers and thus exceeded my expectations. It’s a big help in paying for RHLSTP but we need lots more on board to pay for all of it - and if we can get more money than we need for that we can use it for other projects
You can still join in after tomorrow, but you get a few bonus bits and bobs if you do it now. And remember one of the founder members will be winning my Lannister notebook with my notes, EQs and autographs of loads of my guests.
