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Posted by FCS on 11/06/06 18:21
This post uses a rating system, thus:
1/5 - poor
2/5 - alright
3/5 - OK
4/5 - might rent for a family occasion where everyone gets to choose a
film and non-participation is frowned upon
5/5 - actually watched this and more than once without feeling I'd
rather be reading a book/playing backgammon/preparing tinned
salmon/extracting my own toenails with molegrips and cauterising the
wounds.
shaun of the dead - 2/5
Hi Simon,
I'm sure you'll consider I should feel I've missed out if you're still
riding your own ego bareback like you were. But you brought me no
samples of your work, and left me contact details, not even of an
agent. Otherwise, apart from the fact I have a strong urge to kick
their lying teeth down their throat, whoever sent you in my direction
quite clearly had no idea of my sense of humour or aspiration. I could
with knowing who that was as, albeit I can promise I've been a pacifist
since before "Spaced" aired, it may be I could do with getting them
into a courtroom.
Otherwise, having seen your work but, in it, little more than a glimmer
of reasonable competence and certainly no signs of brilliance or genius
I can only say: we would not get on.
This is not a matter of one of those abrasive relationships from which
truly great, precise, studied writing is born. Even if there'd been a
financial penalty I'd've probably walked out. I can only say I have the
same kinds of regrets at not jumping at the chance you thought you were
giving as I have at not being actively bisexual. If I believed all the
hype I might but the evidence my own eyes give me suggest it's really
neither here nor there.
Now despite various people having tried to get to get me to watch this
particular film in the kinds of atmosphere containing a veiled threat
of violence if I don't laugh with everyone else, and any non-amusement
signs showing triggering an explicit shot-by-shot recapitulation heavy
in pronouns, reinforcers and onomatopoeia, such as one finds in the
avergae primary playground when a film's on after half the kids'
bedtimes, I managed to put it off until a point in time when there
really was absolutely nothing else I could reasonably have been doing.
Once you've learnt to pack in the laughs slightly more densely than a
level-three Cantor dust across the duration of a film, you might be
alright. It kind of played like a few good rejected snippets from your
early days worked into a crochet-mat of turgid typecasting and which
you then tried to pass off as a tapestry.
Obviously I'm not a populist by any means. I find contemporary Britain
both ignorant and violent past any level I can reasonably laugh or
shrug off--which you quite clearly can. As such, I can only say that
whoever sent you my way in the first place was probably taking the piss
out of both of us.
If you left me no samples because you were afraid I'd rip off your
intellectual property we might both have a case for slander against
them.
In short, I dislike Clive Barker because Weaveworld is full of Catholic
imagery which makes no sense whatsoever to me; the Books of Blood were
OK. But I still found Hellraiser funnier than Shaun of the Dead.
I hadn't recognised you until after I'd watched it. All I can say is
that your attention was, is and will remain both unsolicited and
unwanted; so don't go spending the repeat fees for "Spaced" before
you've both consulted a lawyer and have some idea of just how unwelcome
bits of it were.
Otherwise I should really get back to your Playstation if I were you:
having, in the meantime, driven around London and its boroughs, which
is where I took "Shaun" to be set, I wouldn't use the same casting
agency again if I were you.
I agree it would be nice to get away from the kind of misty-eyed
romanticism that nods to the atrocities of Imperial Colonialism as an
apologia but doesn't given aught like a true picture of the
way some people carried on, but Shaun wasn't the way to go in my
opinion.
As I say, it should be quite clear I'm not a populist (and, after all,
who has the box office receipts to wave around at Chinawhites? Er, not
me) and I can also say there was no really no need to be offended by my
rejection of your advances. We would not get on. End of story.
It's not that it's you that co-wrote it; I don't want to give you that
idea. It's just if this is where you wanted to end up you weren't ever
going to get there working with me. I hope you're now grown-up enough
to accept that.
I just prefer material that doesn't rely on the audience having the
mnemonic capacity of a tiger barb and I'd be no good for the popular
culture side of it because I'm into cannabis rather than "drugs".
I get more laughs out of the teatime news than I had out of Shaun of
the Dead.
But, please, do enjoy your acclaim while it lasts.
Don't worry =) I didn't like Hitchikers Guide either: Arthur hadn't
enough teeth, Zaphod hadn't enough heads, Trillian hadn't enough
appeal, Slartibartfarst hadn't enough gravity and Marvin hadn't enough
despondency.
G Daeb
COPYRIGHT (C) 2006 SIPSTON
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