how to talk about films and tv with and without sounding like a nob

Find out here, where you will discover definitve examples of both.

First Bill Wyman goes on about 9/11, drops a few stock journalisty truisms, happens to mention what cool parties he used to go to, gets all mystical and generally writes badly in the course of bigging up films everyone likes and has seen anyway with sentences such as

In each of these signal works, a sense of humanity, of the great worth of every life—and a shuddering appreciation of the apocalypse that accompanies every individual death—is palpable.

and

These movies haunt my own personal and inadequate understanding of the events of that day. Our understanding of the movies, too, is inadequate...

Next, our hero Phil Nugent arrives to segue from this boringness to retrospect amazingly on 'basic cable's big attempt to come to terms with' 9/11, the mediocre TV fireman drama Rescue Me. It is seriously good to read, and a great introduction to the Phil Nugent Experience, full of his trademark long sentences and descriptions which begin matter of factly but before you notice blossom into hilarious sardonic putdowns of someone you didn't think was being talked about.

It's rare to get a direct opportunity to compare someone who knows how to write about film/TV with someone who doesn't, so when you're done reading, humour me while I talk about out two things that I think contribute to the difference.

First, there's a really telling contrast in the way the two writers use references. Wyman's lame ones, ie

 like more than one of the characters in the movies I've been talking about, they were already dead.

and

Each features a shock, a wrenching sideways, whether from that plane engine falling on a suburban house to the revelation that something is very, very wrong with poor Betty.

are selfish: if you have seen the films already, they give you very little that you don't already have . Maybe if you are the kind of person who likes to know that your opinions about films are official - 'the bit where the main character turned out to have been dead all along, I knew that was the important bit' - you might have gotten something. If you hadn't seen the films before, then you are even worse off as you probably won't get anything at all out of the whole article. I suppose you at least gain the knowledge that Wyman thought they were good, but in the course of gaining it you have at least two of the stories ruined! Clearly the references (and really the whole thing) are not there for the reader's benefit, but for him to show off.

Phil Nugent's references, on the other hand, are there to serve. I've no idea how Bette Davis went to Louis B. Mayer's funeral, but now I kind of want to look up the story and find out. I know the general kind of thing to look for - some kind of cynical satisfaction I guess - but it will doubtless be fun to learn more. Phil Nugent gave me an Easter egg, basically. Even if I had known what was being talked about, I think I would have gained: the image sounds one that you smile when you are reminded of it. Who smiles when they think about the engine bit in Donnie Darko? Not me! The reference that I did get - the twist at the end, had precisely the right effect, not to mention being a genius piece of twistery.

The second thing is also about selfishness: the two passages differ massively in the information that they give you. Granted, he had more space, but thanks to Phil Nugent I now know pretty much all I'll ever need to about Rescue Me. In fact I found out more about it from the review than I would have done if I'd watched the series! On the other hand, Bill Wyman told me almost nothing: Donnie Darko and Mulholland drive are dark and contain shocks, almost like... 9/11! The thing about artistic antennae picking up the general zeitgeist or doing some Newcomb's problem thing (see what I did there?) so that films made before 9/11 could still kind of be about it is cool in a way, but I think I've heard it before, and it is also total bollocks.

So, when writing always namedrop unselfishly and tell people stuff that makes them smile.

Anyway make sure to read Phil Nugent's other stuff. His profiles of various Republican politicians and presidential candidates are similarly wonderful to his reviews of crap TV programmes, and he has done more reading and viewing than you can possibly imagine.

Ehts pess! Ahm cuvaired en pess!

watch this bit

If you are at a loose end tonight at 10:35 and didn't catch it the first time round in May, make sure to watch the second episode of the gritty drama Field of Blood. Episode one is still available here.

It's an adaptation of a novel about an aspiring journalist called Paddy on the trail of a child murderer in 1980s Glasgow. Through luck and hard work she discovers that the main suspect is a young relative, presenting her with a stark choice between alienating her  catholic family if she writes about it and missing a career-kindling scoop if she doesn't. On top of this dilemma, Paddy also has to deal with her sexist, sharp-elbowed colleagues, charming but doubtless up to no good strangers and everyone's low expectations. Fortunately she manages to do so brilliantly by being tough, sensitive and daring. This exchange with the suspiciously 'Life on Mars'-ish unreconstructed-but-good-at-heart northern editor is typical (stopping at 'no it's not alright' will prevent story-spoilage).

Everything happens at a good pace, the script is fantastic and the characters are believable. Paddy is a brilliant character, acted really well by Jayd Johnson. I liked it more than the Hour as it is way more realistic, not to mention that it has voices that come from the right time and place and a female lead who deals with the baddies by flushing their heads down the toilet rather than by feeling sorry for herself in her office waiting for Freddy to sort everything out.

My only gripe was with the music that Paddy atmospherically listens to on her tower-block surrounded commute. It felt a bit too much like what a middle aged producer might selectively remember - the Talking Heads, Gang of Four and Paul Weller songs that you still read about in the guardian - than what someone would actually have had on. It's not that they aren't good, and there is something kind of cool and Greek chorusy about having 'she said she was ambitious so she accepts the process' on when that is like the plot, but more realism would have been even cooler I think. Anyway in the global economy of British TV dramas that is definitely a first-world problem.

An incredible start to a flim

The rest is awesome as well. Basically Richard Burton and friends being sad angry bastards and saying wise things, along with a healthily large amount of Humphrey Lyttletonish jazz. I think part of it made me cry when I was drunk once, and in my currently sober state I still find myself wanting to wear corduroys flannels and socks with diamonds on them.

I, Claudius, the TV series: it's good!

If you have 648 minutes to kill and £15 to burn then I suggest you buy I Claudius because it's really good. It's got incredible acting along with large amounts of rich dialogue, sex, double-crossing, violence and bizarrity. Best of all, it is long enough to do justice to its epicness but still taut and suspenseful, which is quite unusual.

The general idea is that Rome has just stopped being a republic and started being ruled by a rumbunctious Imperial family of RSC actors. While most of them busy themselves with debauchery, enunciation and murder, Claudius keeps his head down and acts the fool, quietly observing and judging and duly winding up sort of having the last laugh.

Highlights include John Hurt dancing, Brian Blessed raging and Patrick Stewart having hair.

One of the characters - Tiberius - is identical to Gordon Brown in his appearance, personality and story, being a dour dark-haired clunker ( 'his drills are bloodless battles and his battles bloody drills'), who seethes and plots in the background for most of his political life before becoming a paranoid emperor who lets himself be manipulated too easily. The only differences are accidents of history: as a pre New Labour Roman, Tiberius expresses his hate and insecurity through murder and sexual perversion rather than through negative press briefings.

Also, I Claudius is apparently massive in Bulgaria, so you get a bonus culture to learn about on top of the Roman and 1970s thespian ones.