Endnotes: The Call of the Weird

Louis Theroux’s first and so far only book, published in 2005, is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long, long time. We’re talking out-loud laughs. The kind of laughs that make you not want to read it on the Tube because other people will think you’re crazy and stare at you but you can’t put it down and end up looking mental anyway.

It’s great. Really great.

Theroux goes back to the US to catch up with people that he’d interviewed in his Weird Weekends series and stand-alone documentaries, calling it a “reunion tour”.

Each fairly short, breezy chapter covers one person or group — UFO nuts, American Nazis, Ike Turner, gangsta rappers, prostitutes, and more. Each is brilliant and “just one more page” quickly becomes “just one more story”.

Half of that is the writing — done in a very similar way to Theroux’s voice-over bits in his films. It feels very human, very honest — reinforced by him being upfront about parts of his “reunion tour” that aren’t going as he’d hoped.

That’s one of the best things about the book, that he’s very open, and has changed my view of Theroux in a subtle but substantial way. He always came across as smart but also that he was putting on a persona for interviews, and behind it was sort of a cold calculation of how to get the most out of people.

But The Call of the Weird makes it clear that what you see in the documentaries is him, that he’s being genuine with his interviewees. Rather than naive-sounding questions being asked in an attempt to squeeze people for shocking or funny responses, he asks the simple questions because often they’re the best ones you can ask.

‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,’ I interrupted. ‘Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.’

Even though there are ten chapters, I blazed through the book in about a week and couldn’t bear finishing it — I just wanted more stories. Highly recommended.

Netflix Roulette

Netflix launched in Britain a week ago and I was really excited to sign up and check it out, after years of hearing how great the US service is.

Put simply, it’s a disappointment. On a technical level it’s great but that’s ruined by the gaps in its content library.

A few probing searches to see how bare its cupboard is turned into what I call Netflix Roulette — you keep searching until you get a match.

That sounds harsh, but I think the list below — my searches, but re-ordered alphabetically — shows the problem quite clearly. (There’s no particular logic behind what I searched for.)

1. 28 Days Later? No.
2. Ali? No
3. Alien? No.
4. Apocalypse Now? No.
5. Batman Begins? No.
6. Blade Runner? No.
7. Boogie Nights? No.
8. The Bourne Identity? No.
9. Brick? No.
10. Burn Notice? No.
11. Casablanca? No.
12. Citizen Kane? No.
13. Collateral? No.
14. Cry-Baby? No.
15. CSI? No.
16. The Dark Knight? No.
17. Dawn of the Dead? No.
18. Deadwood? No.
19. The Deer Hunter? No.
20. Die Hard? No.
21. Dirty Harry? No.
22. Double Indemnity? No.
23. Dr Strangelove? No.
24. ER? No.
25. The Exorcist? No.
26. Friends? No.
27. The Godfather? No.
28. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish one)? No.
29. Good Will Hunting? No.
30. Hairspray? No.
31. Heat? No.
32. Hill Street Blues? No.
33. Hitch? No.
34. Hot Fuzz? No.
35. Independence Day? No.
36. Juno? No.
37. Jurassic Park? No.
38. Kingdom of Heaven? No.
39. LA Confidential? No.
40. Law & Order? No.
41. Layer Cake? No.
42. Magnolia? No.
43. Miller’s Crossing? No.
44. Mission Impossible? No.
45. NYPD Blue? No.
46. Ocean’s Eleven? No.
47. The Passion of the Christ? No.
48. The Prestige? No.
49. Psycho? No.
50. Pulp Fiction? No.
51. Raising Arizona? No.
52. Rambo? No.
53. Rocky? No.
54. Shaun of the Dead? No.
55. The Shawshank Redemption? No.
56. The Shield? No.
57. The Shining? No.
58. The Silence of the Lambs? No.
59. Six Feet Under? No.
60. Sliding Doors? No.
61. The Sopranos? No.
62. Southland? No.
63. State of Play (TV series or film)? No.
64. Third Watch? No.
65. Toy Story? No.
66. True Blood? No.
67. Vanilla Sky? No.
68. The Wire? No.

The one that finally ended it was Along Came Polly, which, er, was on Five last night.

The lack of titles is so bad that if you search for anything with “the” in the name then the odds are pretty good that The Office (US) or The Inbetweeners will be in the top results. Searching for The Shawshank Redemption returns — in this order — The Office (US), Saw: The Final Chapter, and The Inbetweeners. Not good for such a popular and well-regarded film.

Nor is the lack of classics such as Casablanca, which came out 70 years ago. Or how about Citizen Kane — 71 years old and still often called the “greatest film of all time”.

As much as I want to like Netflix, I can’t justify subscribing when it’s missing so much. I’m not sure many people could, even at just £6 a month.

A handful of decent films, plenty of crap ones, some ITV dramas and lots of kids’ programmes aren’t a great sales pitch.

Resolutions

2560×1440! Hahaha. Aha. Ha. Hm.

Yeah that joke’s been made before.

I’m really bad at making and sticking to New Year’s resolutions. Incredibly bad. Of my original three I’ve managed to break all of them. And it’s only January 2nd.

With that in mind, there’s very little reason to believe that I’ll stick to anyone of the ones listed below but I’m going to try anyway.

• Take my camera (almost) everywhere. I’m not going to aim for a photo a day — because it becomes a chore and I get really anxious about not doing it — but something close would be nice.
• Run more. I haven’t been for a run since August. The guilt, the shame.
• Play Psychonauts. My mate Jim’s been banging on about this for six years and I still haven’t got round to it.
• Blog more. With this I’m already halway there!
• Drink less. Woo! Sobriety!
• Use The Beast for something more than playing games in Windows.
• Read more. I have so many unread books it would take me most of a decade to read them all at my current rate. Who am I, Gatsby? “Frontin’ wit’ all dem books”?

Sir Moanalot: Oblivion

Since Skyrim just came out, I thought I’d grab the previous game, Oblivion, from Steam and see if I unfairly brushed it off when I first played it a couple of years ago.

After just over 12 hours of play, I’ve put it down again. I was actually ready to uninstall it in frustration.

Maybe the problem is that I’d only put 12 hours into it. It’s meant to be this huge, epic game with countless things to do. And in 12 hours I hadn’t done that much. Explored a bit. A couple of dungeons. A bit of the main quest.

But that’s still twelve hours. In 12 hours I hadn’t managed to find the fun. Just a lot of walking, a bit of boring fighting, a bit of boring quest dialogue, and a bit of riding on a horse admiring the scenery.

No fun. In twelve hours.

The combat’s not fun (man hits you, you block, you hit man, he falls over).

The dungeons aren’t fun (you go in, kill everything and everyone for no reason, and get inferior boots as a reward).

The story’s not fun (“light the Dragonfires in the Temple of the One in the Imperial City with the Amulet of Kings else the realms of Oblivion swallow us whole”).

Even levelling up isn’t fun. Because of its complex combination of attributes and skills you can very easily end up with a weak character. And that means you’ll struggle at higher levels because, in a decision seemingly designed to undercut any feeling of being a Mighty Adventurer, all the enemies level with you.

Yep. Those bandits, highwaymen, wolves, rats and mudcrabs are going to be roughly the same difficulty at level 25 as they were at level 1.

When I play an RPG I want to feel the time and effort I’m spending is making my character stronger, better, more capable. But in Oblivion you feel weak.

I’ve pumped 12 hours into this character and yet I’m still Guybrush Inferiorboots — a distinctly unmighty pirate.

I’m going to play something fun.