Wednesday, May 03, 2006
What is it with late night American chat shows? Roars and applause for saying 'Wasn't it a lovely day in New York?' Twenty minutes of rubbish topical gags. About ten minutes of one decent guest plugging a show or movie. Fifteen of a lousy guest unknown outside of the US (on the Late Night With Letterman show being shown in the UK tonight it's media trainwreck Tom Cruise and Cheeky Cockerney Cook Jamie Oliver - actually, make that two lousy guests).And worst of all, sidekicks. Paul Shaffer on Letterman has to be the worst, an unctious little bandleader who strokes the host's ego. He's like the little kid at school who wanted to be your best pal and follows you everywhere, just repeating what you say. How can such a throwback exist after all those years of Hank Kingsley on Larry Sanders? I wouldn't care, but he's obviously a talented musician, and probably a lot wittier off-screen. But on air he's just soooo irritating. What's the point of him?
It's funny, when I was a kid, and Letterman appeared in one of my favourite comic books - Marvel's The Avengers, above - I assumed this was some kind of great show. Looking back, that issue of Avengers was terrible too.
I enjoyed last night's entertainment far more - Antonio Banderas in Take the Lead. That's the one in which an inspirational teacher takes a bunch of angry inner city kids and helps them find a passion for dance. Yup, it's terribly cliched, there's not an original scene in there, but it's so very well done - a likeable cast, great dance sequences, a script that hits all the right notes, good directing and editing. I loved it to bit. And so I shall think of its familiarity in terms of ritual, not cliche. When's the DVD out?
# posted by Krypto @ 3:27 PM 
