Daves media roundup

'Date My Mum'

a guy dates 3 mothers in order to gauge which daughter must be the hottest, and then he dates her.

I didn't make that up, it's a genuine program. I was just indulging in my daily routine of flicking through the dozens of digital TV stations broadcasting depthless drivel for the desperately unintelligent, shaking my head and lamenting at the state of popular culture, when the intro for Date My Mum presented itself. It was at this point I felt a passionate loathing for my species and a growing urge to die, so I turned off the box to be safe. After all, the next station might have been showing that 'celebrity' hairdresser rubbish or some other total waste of time featuring oxygen-wasting, talentless fuckwits with saggy careers. And at that point I'm quite sure something would have snapped inside me.

On Saturday I bought a 12" by Ricardo Villalobos, the German glitch-house afficionardo with the 7 syllable name. It's called Fitzheuer Zieheuer and it's 40 minutes long. The full mix, apparently, hits the hour mark. It's kind of a house remix of the Chillian national anthem, or at least it features excerpts throughout its duration. All Eastern European-sounding horns oozing with pomp and grandieur. It's amazing, at least for about 15 or 20 minutes. The rest takes some dedication to get through, but Villalobos certainly explores every nook and cranny of the sounds he's using and every conceivable variation of the 4 to the floor beat. I can't help thinking he's getting a tad pretentious in his old age - I don't think I've heard a tune of his come in at below the 15 minute mark for some time, and most of them are techy, noodly and quite ugly. Still, there is something quite addictive about the Chilean national anthem tune, and boy does the groove get in your head. But then anything would after 40 minutes of repetition I suppose!

Went to see Pan's Labyrinthe at the weekend, the posters having led me to believe it was a nice fairy tale fantasy. Wrong! That'll teach me for avoiding promotional material and reviews once I've decided to see a film! Essentially it's a truly horrible war film - very graphic, utterly joyless and quite numbing. A good film no doubt, but one that is woefully mis-advertised and quite horrific. The fantasy element, while stunningly visualised, seems to be saying "forget it people, dreaming is bollocks - life is pain". I was totally unprepared. It was like being promised something delicious and sweet and then having your face caved in with a broken bottle infront of your father (borrowed imagery from the film there, folks!) I suppose it did it's job - it prompted a very emotional reaction in me and I tell you, I've never wanted a baddie to suffer so much as the one in this film. I actually cheered when he was injured!

So, if you like a good, harrowing reminder of just how disgusting human beings are, go and see it. Me, I wonder why so few people make nice films. And if the answer to that is 'people won't go and see them', I wonder why people are so obsessed with misery, suffering, death and horror and feel that cynical 'we're all fucked' mindset coming on again.