6 posts tagged “football”

The opening scene in last week’s La chica de ayer is hilarious, even if your Spanish is as bad as mine.

   It is very loosely based on the fifth episode of the first series, though with numerous twists, namely a plot featuring the kidnapping of young Samuel. As Samuel’s father is more present through the La chica de ayer stories than he was in the original Life on Mars (or, for that matter, the US remake), the tension the two men have begins much earlier. To solve the crime, Samuel must piece together childhood memories about where he was taken.
   Humorous scenes include Cristóbal trying to use a personal computer (even though this is set later than the original Life on Mars, it is still too new) and Sam talking to Quin about Maradona and football. The episodes are shorter, now 70 minutes long.
   The episode this week was the birthday one, a remake of the eighth UK one.

This Ali G interview for Red Nose Day with David and Victoria Beckham is a laugh—and in many cases, very clever. I keep thinking this was the funniest—especially as the Beckhams know what he’s like, unlike many of his other subjects.
   As many of you know, wankster Ali G is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, and was far more famous than his other characters, Borat Sagdiyev and Bruno, on his old TV show.

[Cross-posted from Lucire] Renault has launched a campaign for the Laguna 3 with former Manchester United football player Eric Cantona, using humour and targeting the internet as well as conventional media.
   Called Le rencontre (The Encounter), the commercial is irreverent but manages to show the Laguna in a quality light. (Continued at Lucire.)

Not a bad American Life on Mars, but I was wrong about which episode served as the inspiration last week. While there were elements of other episodes, it was similar to series 1, episode 5 in the UK, but instead of a Manchester United football fan being killed, the story was changed to a Vietnam veteran. As the show develops, the Sam–Gene relationship is very different here: Gene Hunt acts more as a father figure. When it is discovered that the victim was homosexual, there was no ‘fruit-picking sodomite’ crack; in fact, Ray is berated by Gene for his homophobic attitude.
   The Windy character does seem slightly mythical, sort of a combination of the original Nelson and the Test Card Girl. And she seems to know that Sam is from specifically 2008.

   Football is replaced by basketball and the scene at the end of episode 5 in the UK, where Sam sees his younger self, with his hand held by his Dad, is repeated here. Instead of going to a United game, they are going to a Knicks’ game. (Apparently, this scene was not favoured in the original series by co-creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah, but was insisted upon by the third co-creator, Tony Jordan.)
   Much of this episode was original, written by Tracy McMillan, who had worked on Journeyman. As with last week’s episode, the ‘Written by’ credit is deserved. McMillan wrote ‘The Hanged Man’ in Journeyman—the one where Dan dropped his digital camera in the 1980s.
   The social commentary is present, as is the humour; if I had to be picky, it is the Sam–Gene relationship that the remake has changed. It’s no real surprise, since Harvey Keitel is older than Philip Glenister. And some Americans have written on the ’net that this is still their favourite series of the new season; based on what I have seen, it is still very, very good. There were plot holes in the original, and we are kidding ourselves if we thought it was perfect. And thank goodness the remake isn’t a continuation of the horrid Kelley pilot.

I’ve only seen a little about this in the MSM, but Anita McNaught’s report for the Murdoch Press on post-soccer win Iraq is significant. The comment toward the end of the segment from one Iraqi fan, that the soccer team has done more to unite the country than the Iraqi politicians, sounds right to me.

   Like I said, unity is the will of the Iraqi people. Like all people, they want a chance to achieve their dreams. What a pity that certain institutions and terrorists prevent that.

I’m glad the Iraqi football team won the Asian Cup against three-time champions Saudi Arabia—a team filled with Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. It’s made the news positively on al-Jazeera where they’ve painted a picture of celebration. This victory is sweet, because these days Uday Hussein isn’t running the team, so the players played without threat of torture or death.
   It’s a sign of what everyday people—not politicians, not the US Government, not the terrorists, not the media—want in Iraq. And that’s to live their lives and pursue their dreams, and be happy for their own country. Respect to the Iraqi people.