Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe: hilarious critic screams abuse at his telly
Charlie Brooker -- the curmudgeonly comic TV critic genius who gave us TV Go Home and Screen Burn (Americans: think "Lester Bangs for television") -- has a
Charlie Brooker -- the curmudgeonly comic TV critic genius who gave us TV Go Home and Screen Burn (Americans: think "Lester Bangs for television") -- has a
the latest
latest episodes
Screen Wipe isn't new; we're in the middle of the third series. The first episode was broadcast in the spring of 2006.
We're not in the middle of the third series, the fourth series finished a few weeks ago on BBC Four.
It is fantastic though, as was TV Go Home which spawned Nathan Barley - which went by the hilarious name of C*NT in TVGH.
Much of what Brooker uses in the series is from his two similarly funny Guardian columns - see http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Archive/0,,-2102,00.html and http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/brooker/0,14946,1280131,00.html for the archives. Enjoy!
ooh hoo hoo, aren't we so f*cking superior that we're already familiar with something on boingboing... ooh yes it's not the third season you wanker, we're already up to the fourth... you twats, what hairstyle do you wear when you're jerking off in front of the mirror, eh?
(sorry sebflyte & morris, no offence intended, just wanted to try getting into the Brooker spirit myself there ;)
Screenwipe is much more than Charlie swearing at adverts, in this compelling clip he discusses the nature of aspirational TV...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59OJ17raqWw
...which contains my new favourite expression "low self-esteem engine".
I love the "rolling news" clip, though it is very different in style to most of the show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RRmE0_n0K4.
This is actually a pretty well-thought out (and genuinely rather than comically angry) examination of the absurdity and hypocrisy of 24-hour news.
there was a nice piece in the most recent series outlining what to expect from your career in TV. Upbeat it was not.
required viewing for media studies fools it certainly was.
aha,
produced an earnest student documentary about a homeless man named Billy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIyg2a72uV4
they're all on youtube - http://uk.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=xthemusic
The one about Reality TV is particularly goodl
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI
about how you can manipulate the editing to tell basically any story you like about the characters
I believe Charlie was also one of the writers on the incredibly infamous 'paedophilia' episode of the spoof tv show Brass Eye. Screenwipe is, indeed, utterly unmissable.
Almost forgot ... there was mention of Nathan Barley. It's easily one of the best British comedies of the past several years, and is indeed co-written by Charlie. It's about exactly the kind of people you'll see (media types, basically) in some of the youtube clips of Screenwipe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4mpJumHU-w
@ Garygibson: Nathan Barley - agreed. Bestest. Brooker also has an RSSable column in the Guardian sporadically, too.
YES! I lived in the UK for a couple of years, and Charlie Brooker's "Screen Burn" column was unmissable, one of the first things I'd read. If you have the chance, pick up a physical copy of a Saturday Guardian newspaper (comparable to a Sunday paper in the US), that's where he used to have his weekly columns, in the "Guide" pull-out. I hadn't thought about him since I left, and this show might have been around for however many seasons now, but I hadn't seen it, so huge thanks for the link.
Dear god, this is excellent!
Doing some more looking around YouTube finds this from the same show...
...oh crap, someone else already posted it. Well no matter, this looks to be nearly a Daily Show level of awesomeness.