Hello again, dear readers! This is not an attempt at procrastination - I completed NaNoWriMo yesterday with 12 days to spare so can now resume blogging about miscellanea and start to get into the swing of the impending Oscar movie glut. I've been too exhausted to blog this month since writing 50,000 words in 18 days understandably took up all my writing abilities, but I did indulge in a lot of pop culture distractions during those 18 days to keep me sane, so you can expect a steady stream of posts about some of the books, movies, TV, and music I discovered.
To kick things off, I have to bring your attention to Life's Too Short, the latest TV offering from the dream team of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the men responsible for giving us The Office and Extras. I just watched the first episode today, and it is just as brilliant and inventive as any of their previous work. The show is centered around Warwick Davis, the dwarf actor who I know best from his roles as Professor Flitwick and Griphook the Gringotts goblin in the Harry Potter movies, but who started his career playing an Ewok in Return of the Jedi. Faced with a dearth of acting roles and in the process of getting a divorce from his wife, he decides to join the legions of minor celebrities who allow their every move to be filmed, in a hope that a documentary about his life will garner him greater exposure and get the phone ringing again. Warwick also runs an agency called "Dwarves for Hire," where he represents a multitude of dwarf actors. In the first episode, he decides to go to Ricky and Stephen, who once cast him in an episode of Extras, hoping that they might consider casting him in another series or movie. They clearly find him to be a nuisance but can't seem to get him off their back.
This is the first Gervais & Merchant show that doesn't have Ricky playing the central character. Instead, the spotlight is completely on the amazing Davis, who plays a stereotypical smug, egotistical celebrity, with the added inconvenience of being only 3 foot 6. The show combines the mockumentary style of The Office, with the behind-the-scenes look at the ridiculousness of the film industry that was featured in Extras. Like Extras, the show promises to be rife with celebrity cameos, and these are a real highlight of the show. This is an opinion that is based solely on Liam Neeson's fantastic five-minute cameo in the first episode. He barges into Ricky and Stephen's office while they are in conference with Warwick and tries to get some advice about doing more work in comedy. He wants to create a stand-up act, a fact that is met with polite incredulity by everyone present in the room. He decides to engage Ricky in an improv sketch and the situation quickly becomes fraught with that characteristic blend of awful awkwardness and humor that made The Office and Extras so memorable. Later episodes will feature people like Johnny Depp and Sienna Miller, and I dearly hope they fully embrace the self-parodying perfection that Neeson has introduced.
Warwick Davis is a commanding presence on screen, and I am really looking forward to seeing what heights he scales and what depths he sinks to as the series progresses. Mainstream shows never seem to prominently feature dwarf actors (notable exception being Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones) and their stories are rarely told without a heavy serving of "little person" stereotype, so it is refreshing to see a series that is centered around a dwarf actor who is every bit as narcissistic and insane as the celebrities featured in Extras. Only, he faces slightly different challenges when seeking film roles, and I dare you not to laugh when you hear Warwick talking on the phone to someone who wants to hire some people from his acting agency. Upon hearing that this person wants to hire seven actors to play leprechauns, Warwick interjects, "Seven makes people think of dwarves, if they're supposed to be leprechauns I'd tend to go with either six or eight." With lines like that, you can't help but feel that Gervais and Merchant have yet another hit on their hands.
Haha when I got this post as an email, I forgot this was your blog and thought it was a bizarre NaNoWriMo pep talk!
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