A thread for 'The Thick Of It' (and 'In The Loop' as well)

yeah i find myself contrarily glad i never got to see this in theatres

ianucci's grasp of american speech patterns seemed a bit off - not wrong, but like his idea of it was a different level of stylisation away from the way the british ppl speak

this poster upthread otm:

"I like how it was a sort of logical extension of the Thick of It, ie here's what happens when this kind of petty venal politics is applied to something really life or death, and not a government injoke ministry of no obvious purpose"

― EMPIRE STATE HYMEN (MPx4A), Thursday, April 23, 2009 11:13 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark

but i don't think the ending quite nails what they're going for: i guess the general's last argument with the washington woman doesn't quite stand enough as a capstone on the pettiness of the last scenes with the brits. (like haha maybe his reasons for not resigning aren't shitty - the script seems ultimately uncomfortable with the character, with the whole zone of "i've been there" military anti-war rhetoric.)

Americans: it will be available to watch on IFC On Demand this month.

NYT interviews Iannucci and others.

be nice to our movie, america

Anyone been watching 'Getting On' with Jo Brand etc? Has a similar feel, not as lolsome but pretty well observed and all that. Has a couple of Thick of It people including Capaldi.

PS: Since 'In the Loop' came out I am incapable of referring to 'The Thick of It' by anything other than '*In* the Thick of It'. ?!

Saw Getting On tonight. Capaldi directs them! But it feels like they've gone "right, TTOI had lots of swearing, and was depressing, and everyone loved it. So let's do more sweary depressing stuff". And it ends up just being hard to watch, without being very funny at all.

Really loved 'Getting On', can't belive it's only 3 episodes long. Dr Pippa Moore is a genius character. Her polite, middle class niceness barely hiding a venal, careerist snob. The scene with the hamper basket was just jaw dropping in her brass neck. It is depressing but I still lol'd several times through the series.

None of what's in this will be any news to the UK crew but this Slate piece on Iannucci is actually the best mass-media piece I've seen over here on him and most everything he's done over the years.

Literally downloading it (the show, not the movie) right now. Just joined the box dot bz primarily for this show, pretty much impossible to find otherwise (in the US, at least).

Good articles, Ned. Happy to learn the word paraprosdokian.

Also: interview with Iannucci on the AV Club.

finally got around to watching all of these after nrq recommended a while back--fuckin hilarious

i understand maybe 40% btw capaldis accent and the britishisms but what i do get is rofl

"i'm going to take your ipod from its tiny nano-sheath and shove it up your cock"

"Everytime I hear a song I hate, WHICH WILL BE ALL OF THEM, I'll skip ahead BY PUNCHING YOU IN THE BOLLOCK"

it's PUNCHING YOUR BALLS iirc (well I saw it last week, and roffled at great length)

there's a line about the kind of strong cheese malcolm wants, from one of the specials, i wish i could remember what it was

multixpost

Great interview with Capaldi on AV Club too

The only film so far this year I've been compelled to see twice.

I'm not a very good client for comedies in general, but this one made me laugh out very loudly and very frequently. I'm going to start the 'Thick of it' tonight.

Thick of It is a rip-off on iTunes -- it's down as two separate series, with three episodes each

"you ever take the piss outta Jolson again and I will remove your Ipod from its tiny nano-sheath and push it straight up your cock. And then I'll put onto shuffle with my fucking fist. A-and then, whenever something comes on that I don't like - which will be every time something comes on - I'll skip to the next track by crushing YOUR BALLS" fwiw

the explanation that the taskforce story being leaked by a disgruntled civil servant was itself a story that was leaked by a disgruntled civil servant is the most Armando Iannucci thing imaginable, you can hear him saying it in your head

i almost cheered when jamie came on while watching in the cinema. i still think RISE OF THE NUTTERS made for a better one-off special. perhaps because there was a sympathetic central charcter in it. a tory too oddly.

Do you mean Rise of the Nutters would've been better as a theatrical release, rather than this? I could see that.

it's just a better 'one off long episode' type thing than the actual film.

i think the whole thing with characters that look the same as in the show, act the same as in the show, are going out with each other/ have the same relationships with each other as in the show but are NOT 'the same character' was just pointless. a total head scratch.

Do you mean Rise of the Nutters would've been better as a theatrical release, rather than this? I could see that.

No American selling point, so no go there. "Rise of the Nutters" was much better, of course.

"in the loop" really does reward another watch - which makes me think they didn't quite slow down enough in order for people to actually get the jokes the first time around

i think the whole thing with characters that look the same as in the show, act the same as in the show, are going out with each other/ have the same relationships with each other as in the show but are NOT 'the same character' was just pointless. a total head scratch.

But it's a totally different department, so if they wanted to use the same ensemble it just wouldn't have made sense to move them all en-masse. This didn't really bother me tbh.

yeah, they're types more than fully realized characters in the classic sense - i don't particularly care about malcolm's backstory for instance

although a montage of simon foster campaign clips as a dvd extra would be pretty irresistible - i'd love to see some of the idealism, pre- grim reality

That Capaldi interview is great. Looking forward to another series but still not seen the film.

Rebecca Front as an MP is a really good idea.

They should just call her Rebecca Front.

The Popular Front

I *really* liked the 2-part special but no lying, the film made me laugh even more and was the crowning achievement imo

Watched episode 3 of Getting On last night - it's really quite good, isn't it? Possibly better than early Thick Of It, actually, though that's partly because the dynamic is fairly massively different, by which I think I mean it's a lot easier to keep up with. Slower pace, smaller cast and such. Performances are all really pretty excellent too, especially Brand and Scanlan - I don't think I've ever seen Jo Brand better than in the conflict resolution meeting. Glad to see it's getting more episodes next year.

this was v. funny - look forward to watching to catch what i missed. pleased to learn there's a series behind it!

DVD of this is good, loads of deleted scenes with psycho Jamie and Chad vs Liza stuff.

"I mean I don't smoke weed, but I'm not in fight club. I'm in like neutral club. The first rule of neutral club is...let's find out what all the other rules are"

Gina McKee is like wo

apparently she's 45

don't remember seeing this

http://topazbean.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/no-you-fucking-cant.jpg

http://twitter.com/AIannucci

end of oct.

Gina McKee is like wo

apparently she's 45

i know right? seriously.

end of oct.

Wicked.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/i/512xn/400f50c532a3f35781a73ad7d2af43c64ee49ca3.jpg

A to-do list that's longer than a fucking Leonard Cohen song.

israel

This is still the funniest thing on TV.

"Knife addled rape sheds" = lololol

I find this so unfunny. I think I must be old or something.

liked the whole set up with the name Liam Bentley and idea of Tucker setting it up, and Murray calling Glenn a 'batty man'

has Capaldi actually got that much greyer himself since The Rise Of The Nutters (the difference between him now and in that is striking) ??

i didn't notice that. love the idea of somebody being able to go tow to toe with malcolm and this new gal might have what it takes. when she fucked with malcolm about her eldest daughter the look on his face was priceless.

toE.

No laughs here, either - actually unwatchable. Just an angry man act and no direction whatsoever.

I do want to see the earlier episodes (just happened to come across it randomly last week). I suspect this was much funnier when there was such a thing as a *New Labour* project.

Lots of laughs, highly watchable.