Showing posts with label rick gervais. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rick gervais. Show all posts
Monday, June 8, 2015
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Making A Fight For Survival (More Than A Show Again)
Yes, of course - for me - that was it. That made it all better:
The jingle they play over The Ricky Gervais Show's closing credits is one of the most whimsical little things I've heard in a long time. Not quite magical, but definitely great - especially for kids.
I still wonder why parents let their kids listen to adult music, or garbage. Actually, no I don't. I flashed on Frank Zappa just now - a pretty successful parent by any standard - he told 'em:
So intellectually lazy, they can't search out more compelling art than "Sugar Walls" themselves, the hysterical mob (Frank referred to them as a possible "cult") always blames, and then tries to control, artistic output simply for the sin of making it.
But truth tellers still tell it, and it ain't always nothing nice.
Oh, we do nice. I woke up to Gospel this morning, sitting bolt upright, with a pain in my chest (the ulcer) but a three-day depression lifted.
It was sweet.
The chest pains became stomach cramps after I whirled out of bed - snatching the sheets with me for the laundry - before hitting three days of dishes so I have nothing but a few errands, and then music, for the rest of the day.
I'm talking sharp, organized, knowing exactly what I have to do - even what order to do it in - after depression's forced march through God's blessed "Valley of Death" again.
Dragging my ass through a world that barely registered as a distraction. "Babylon" meaning more like "babble on". I looked for distractions, which is how I found the Ricky Gervais song.
Since I expect intelligence to be insulted, that soundtrack became one tiny dark vacation.
And now - in technicolor - it's all coming back.
And so am I - in *ahem* mind and body - it's a good feeling.
Nothing about Jesus' (or Himmler's) beloved "spirit" about it:
I'm their primitive man, alright - the both of 'em - but in The Age Of Wonder:
And heading straight back to the future,...
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Good Guys
Atheist comedian Ricky Gervais has written an Easter message about why he's a better Christian than most Christians. I won't quote it, but I will say that I, too, seem to be giving believers a run for their money - even from behind a Blogger firewall. I mean, let's face it, most believers are like our recently divorced belly-dancing Reiki Master (who now claims she was only "posing") cutting corners on the truth, and their behavior, where they see fit, so it's really not difficult to think beliefs lead to lying or something. What's hard is trying to figure out why, in 2011, anybody still "believes" anything.
What do you know?
Monday, January 17, 2011
He Said He'd Tell It Like It Is (And That He Did)
It seems it also takes an atheist to speak truth to power in Hollywood:Ricky Gervais may have scripted his own Hollywood downfall at last night's Golden Globes as the host tore into celebrity targets at the annual awards do - and divided opinion with his cringe-worthy performance.Awww, did Ricky make the millionaire stars uncomfortable? Puh-leaze. If a dig at Tom Cruise and John Travolta's "religion" (and sexuality) is all he got into with that nest of NewAge vipers - and their awful movies - they got off waaay too easy. And isn't it weird that honesty is frowned upon, when they shove such garbage at us every other day of the week? They shame America.
But it seems that his trademark acerbic humour may have crossed the line, as the U.S., media rounded on The Office comic dubbing his performance 'uncomfortable', 'corrosive' and 'abusive'.
The Hollywood Reporter predicted it would 'undoubtedly be his last hosting gig for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (and, who knows, maybe any Stateside awards)'.
Invited back for a second year, the British funnyman warned he planned to ensure he would not be asked again - and it seems he may well have fulfilled his destiny as he made the A-list audience gasp at jokes about Brad and Angelina, Charlie Sheen and Robert Downey Junior.
He also left the crowd reeling as he made a thinly veiled jibe about 'famous gay Scientologist actors.'
While referring to films that had not made the cut this year, one of those was the Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor film I Love You, Phillip Morris, featuring, as he put it, 'two heterosexual actors pretending to be gay. '
Gervais then added: 'Sort of the complete opposite of some famous Scientologists then'.
'Oooooooo,' went the audience, before Gervais added: 'My lawyers helped me with the wording of that joke.'
Nobody was spared by his scatter-gun approach. He kicked proceedings in much the way he would continue, by lampooning Charlie Sheen.
The hugely paid Two And A Half Men star has had a tumultuous year, firstly splitting from Denise Richards and recently spending time holed up in Las Vegas with a porn star, Bree Olson.
'It's going to be a night of partying and heavy drinking,' Gervais began his monologue, sipping from a glass of what looked like beer.
'Or, as Charlie Sheen calls it, breakfast.'
Speaking to the Mail Online backstage, Gervais rather narrowed down the identity of his target, wisecracking: 'I hope people didn't work out who it was.'
He then made a jibe at the expense of nominated film The Tourist, starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.
'I feel bad about that joke,' he said after his first dig. 'I'm jumping on the bandwagon, because I haven't even seen The Tourist. Who has?'
He was just warming up. He went on to tell the audience that The Tourist had not been nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association just because its members wanted to hang out with the film's stars.
'Girls, we know how old you are. I saw one of you in an episode of Bonanza.'
'That is not the only reason,' Gervais insisted with a saucy smile. 'They also accepted bribes.'
Gervais then dug into the Hollywood Foreign Press, who were the evening's hosts, for nominating Burlesque after being bribed with tickets to a Cher concert.
He added that it wasn't a halfway decent bribe anyway because no one has wanted to go to a Cher concert since 1975.
Gervais also took a dig at the stars of Sex And The City 2 stars and said: 'I was sure the Golden Globe for special effects would go to the team that airbrushed [the Sex And The City 2] poster.
Let 'em squirm! Way to go, Ricky!
UPDATE: And a "Bravo!" from across the pond!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Don't Think Too Hard
"Much more than 'Liar, Liar' and other comedies about the hazards of telling the truth, 'The Invention of Lying' forces audiences to see how much lying permeates social life. In the movie's first scene, Mark shows up for a first date with Anna (Jennifer Garner), who tells him that she has no intention of ever going to bed with him. He reacts by announcing that he's about to get fired from his job and that he's not sure that the restaurant he's chosen is any good. And on and on. The audience laughs, recognizing that the outrageous things being said could easily form the undertone of any first date.When Mark soon develops the ability to lie, Gervais invites us to consider the kindly aspect of lying - of telling people what they want to hear. In its comic way, the movie demonstrates how lies feed the imaginations and in some cases make life bearable. At the same time, lies can be self-serving and dangerous. To see 'The Invention of Lying' is to think about the degree to which lies run the world.
Just that would have been enough to form the intellectual backdrop for a serious-minded comedy. But Gervais and co-writer and director Matthew Robinson are also interested in religion. Gervais, who has talked about his atheism in his other work as a comedian, sees religion as a kind of ultimate lie, one that has been used for good and ill."
-- Mick LaSalle, making me wonder if he's telling the truth - I'm lying - because, now'a'days, you never know what you'll get in The San Francisco Chronicle.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Play God's Game: Be An Agnostic
"What is it with the agnostics? They fall into the religious's game. I am what religious and agnostics would call an atheist, but "Atheism" has the same meaning to me as "unastrology". I just don't consider the reality of any gods in my life whatsoever. I only reject god because people are bringing him up all the time."
"Also and more importantly, the fact that we're not sure if there is no god ('cause I'm not 100% positively sure), doesn't mean either that the chances are 50-50. it is more like "very, very little" chance that there is a god, and "a big, huge" chance that there isn't. Every time in the history of science that a religious belief has been defeated by science and rationality, is a piece of evidence that the god thing was and is a lie. EVERY one of the things we know now in the 21st century that were thought something else by the religious is a piece of evidence, a testament to god being invented. Add to that that we don't even need god to explain anything anymore (besides probably what started the big bang, but even then there are speculations and hypotheses that are reasonable and natural).
Knowledge progresses, agnostics with a 50-50 mentality are just playing into the religious' hands."
- "Norm", making a comment on the One Good Move blog, regarding Atheism.
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