A cultural weekend.

First, the movie of the musical remake of the movie Hairspray: very good indeed.  This movie was everything that the execrable movie of Chicago, for example, was not – ie vibrant, well directed and choreographed (both roles performed by Adam Shankman) and very well sung, danced and acted.  John Travolta is no more convincing as a drag queen than Divine but attacks the role with some vigour; Michelle Pfeiffer (who, unlike Travolta, clearly hasn’t even been in the vague proximity of a pie this past decade) is delicious as a human Cruella De Ville.  And the kids are almost uniformly excellent.  Cheesier than the Cheshire Cheese Festival.

Secondly, the first episode of the much-anticipated-in-our-household Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.  While the pilot episode didn’t exactly blow our minds, it already seems sad that something that started so promisingly (and it was a most auspicious pilot) could have died on its arse within a couple of months and been cancelled after just 22 episodes.  One interesting morsel to emerge from the pre-publicity is that Studio 60 was the top rated show in the US last autumn for those using digital video recorders such as TiVo and its ilk and, therefore, was attractive to the higher-end demographic.  There seems no doubt that there is a market for intelligent drama on mainstream television but it’s clearly not a market that can be easily reached within the confines of the traditional content delivery model.  Another one for the DVD box set, I suspect.

Interesting, too, that it is the second Aaron Sorkin drama (after the massively underrated Sports Night) about the machinations of network television that has died at the hands of, er, network television executives.  Perhaps the truths are a little too close to home for the likes of ABC and NBC to tolerate.

The first episode is available for free streaming on 4OD for the next few days – if possible (and it won’t be for anyone running anything other than Windows XP on a PC…) watch the first few minutes because the exhilarating opening – the superbly-cast Judd Hirsch’s Peter Finch moment – is absolutely great:

This is not going to be a very good show tonight and I think you should change the channel. Change the channel - go ahead, right now. Better yet, turn off the TV, OK? Hell no, I know it seems like this is supposed to be funny but tomorrow you’re going to find out that it wasn’t, and by that time I’ll be fired. Now this, this is not sup… this is not a sketch.

This show used to be cutting-edge political and social satire. But it’s gotten lobotomized, by a candy-ass broadcast network hellbent on doing nothing that might challenge their audience. We were about to do a sketch that you’ve seen already about 500 times. Yeah, no one’s going to confuse George Bush with George Plimpton. Now, we get it.

We’re all being lobotomized by this country’s most influential industry, that’s just thrown in the towel on any effort to do anything that doesn’t include the courting of 12-year-old boys. Not even the smart 12-year-olds – the stupid ones, the idiots, of which there are plenty thanks in no small measure to this network. So why don’t you just change the channel? Turn off your TV? Do it right now. Go ahead.

They say there’s a struggle between art and commerce. Well, there’s always been a struggle between art and commerce and I’m telling you, art is getting its ass kicked. And it’s making us mean and it’s making us bitchy; it’s making us cheap punks. That’s not who we are. People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump?! We’re eating worms for money?! “Who Wants To Screw My Sister?” Guys are getting killed in a war that’s got theme music and a logo.

That remote in your hand is a crack pipe. Oh yeah, every once in a while we pretend to be appalled. It’s pornography, and it’s not even good pornography. They’re just this side of snuff films and friends, that’s what’s next ‘cos that’s all that’s left.

And the two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott. These are the people they’re afraid of. This prissy, feckless, off-the-charts ,greed-filled whorehouse of a network, I do believe, is thoroughly unpatriotic, mother— [show cuts to title screen]

Thirdly, I’m discovering The Wire, HBO’s lauded-to-the-skies cop show – three years later than the rest of the world, but better late than never, eh?  The FX Channel is repeating the entire series from the first episode.  So far (after one episode), so mediocre.  But sufficient people whose views I respect insist it’s the best thing ever to heat up a cathode ray tube that I will persevere for a while yet.

Finally, we also went to see The Simpsons Movie.  It’s good but not great.  If you like The Simpsons on the telly, you’ll like the movie – though the relegation of series regulars like Montgomery Burns and Apu to bit part players is a disappointment.  If you don’t like the TV series, then the movie is not going to convert you.

On the drive home from the cinema I looked in the rear view mirror to see a silver Audi being driven by a thirtysomething man, with a larger-than-lifesize inflatable Homer Simpson in the front passenger seat.

There are times you can’t help but wonder if universal suffrage is quite as good an idea as it’s cracked up to be.