Culture Cuts 001 -Featuring Disco Elysium / Joker / Stewart Lee / Documentary Now

Louie Hullett
Nov 1 · 9 min read

If your familiar with my work with Culture Cuts (www.mixcloud.com/culturecuts) you’ll know I tend to only discuss culture that I adore and I don’t do a lot of critiquing. I’ll leave that to the professionals who spend their entire lives studying a particular field of culture. I aim to give review cuts, splicing out the bad parts and hyper focusing on my favourite elements. When you recommend a TV show or an album to a friend, I think most people tend to do the same for the most part. If you want someone to like something, you highlight the good parts no?

Documentary Now — Parody masterclass

Documentary Now is mockumentary anthology TV series created by the mischievously erratic duo of Bill Harder and Fred Armisen. It’s evident from the outset that this is a labour of love for the creators. Their passion for documentary filmmaking shines through with their meticulous dedication to recreating the cinegraphic feel of the films they are parodying. Even the few episodes where I was less familiar with the source material were still hugely entertaining, largely in part to Harder’s uncanny character acting skills and Armisen’s hilariously surreal nature that jumps out of every role.

If you’ve watched enough Documentaries, there are plenty of generalised troupes that will keep you massively amused by the mocking-with-love style that persists throughout the series. The artistic obsession of documentary filmmakers is cleverly manipulated and it becomes a meta parody of itself. For instance the episode “DRONEZ: The hunt for El Chingon”, is a melodramatic pastiche of the testosterone drenched films of Vice that’s comedic focus is on the wana-be gonzo journalists making the film, rather than drug lord title character.

Alongside Harder and Armisen we are also blessed with guest performances from respected actors such as Jack Black, Owen Wilson and Micheal Keaton. We are even treated to a performance artist character played by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett that sees her lapping milk like a cat, repetitively shreeching “I am not human!”. That scene alone is worth watching the entire series for.

Anderson Paak — Ventura — Provoking more man-lust than Prince

Ventura came out in April of this year, a mere 5 months after his previous DR Dre Produced album Oxnard. Drifting away from the heavy g-funk rap style, Ventura has much more melodic soulful flavour than its predecessor. This new direction allows Anderson Paak’s feminine, Prince-like sexy persona to flourish. The radiant and brazen nature of his voice soars to new heights, without ever compromising its coolness. New, lavish sweet soul sounds extract more vibrancy from his trademark organic instrumentation. Paak himself is a drummer, with his performances reviving the live band elements of Hip Hop acts like the Roots. This album lets the guitar, drums and piano come into their own on that funky motown tip (There is even a track with backing vocals from the legendary Smokey Robbinson).

Subtly implanted political messages bubble up here and there. Defiant and impassioned reactions to current affairs surrounding african americans, inflaming yet still conveyed with a beaming positivity.

“What we’ve built here is godly / They can’t gentrify the heart of kings.”

Paak often lays his influences on the table, paying homage, yet simultaneously adding fresh modern ingredients. The album concludes on a duet with the late Nate Dogg. The two performers voices blend so perfectly, it’s hard to believe that Paak is jamming with recording made by a man who died eight years ago.

Stewart Lee — Embrace Pretension

It would be nearly impossible for me to critique Stewart Lee’s recent work in progress performance. Not only is he in my top 5 comedians of all time, but I was drunker than I should of been when I attended the show. Once you’ve spent the best part of 10 years following and laughing with a comedian, you begin to find their simple presence amusing, despite how dry their delivery may be. My own personal philosophical and spiritual beliefs are all heavily influenced by absurdism; so masters of the absurd like Lee shape more than just my sense of humor. To say I’m biased would be an understatement. So I’m going to speak very broadly about Lee’s work and why I love pretentiousness in general.

Stewart Lee is the master of deconstructing humor, a trait that has become a lot more common since his renaissance (Lee quit stand up for a brief period in the early 2000’s). Often referred to as “the comedian’s comedian”, his slow pacing and left field style are not for everyone.

“See, I can do jokes,”

“They say I can’t do jokes. I can do jokes, it’s just not something that interests me. Imagine writing jokes for a living…”

“’Ahhh, this sentence has ended differently to how it began.’

“Imagine doing that over and over. I mean, it would be awful, wouldn’t it? It would be like working in a factory. I’d kill myself if I had to write jokes.”

It’s hard for me to listen (read) that bit and try and imagine if its funny without knowing the on stage persona of Lee. I’d like to think it could be, for the right person at the right time. But I also know some of my closest friends who (for the most part) have a similar sense of humor to me, definitely wouldn’t laugh. Ironically as I’m writing this I’m realising I am in fact critiquing Stew, the thing I initially thought I was incapable of. As it turns out it’s impossible to describe him without highlighting why he is so divisive.

There is an air of pretentiousness to Stewart Lee (and most certainly the way I have been writing these review cuttings). Smugly taking the audience for repetitive detours that bounce between excruciatingly painful and hilariously satisfying. However I often argue that pretension is not necessarily a bad concept in relation to art. Here is a quote from Dan Fox’s book “Pretentiousness: Why it Matters” -

“Not every artist can make a masterpiece, yet it’s the experiments that quietly stumble forward that lead to them. There’s an altogether more generous view of pretentiousness that understands the gap between expectation and actuality as a productive necessity rather than a flaw. As Woody Allen put it, “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.” To understand the artistic process is to accept that pretentiousness is part of the creative condition, not an affliction.”

Dan Fox, Pretentiousness: Why It Matters

Stew’s most recent show consists of two 60min sets. “Tornado explorers his position in the comedy marketplace, after Netflix mistakenly lists his show as ‘reports of sharks falling from the skies are on the rise again. Nobody on the Eastern Seaboard is safe.’ Then Snowflake questions Stew’s worth in a society demolishing the liberal values he has been keen to espouse, in a fairy-tale landscape of winter wonder.” Arguably these two shows both lacked the show stopping, high energy-breakdown inducing crescendo that have been some of the highlights of his previous performances. However this was an early work in progress and we do have tickets to see the finished product in January, so I check in again then and let you know my final thoughts.

In case you were wondering the other 4 comedians in my top 5 of all time are, in no particular order:

Reggie Watts, Daniel Kitson, Tim Key and Doug Stanhope.

Joker — Why doesn’t everyone agree with me?

Moving on to cinema now. I said before the discussion surrounding Joker both on the streets and on the blogs have been extensive, so I only want to briefly talk about why I loved it.

I was subjected to the media’s over hype of controversy surrounding Joker before watching and was disappointed to see it’s score on metacritic go from the 90s down to its current rating of 59. However, interestingly a lot of Joker’s negative reviews don’t disregard the film for being mass shooter inspiring (I’m going for the most part to ignore the conservative notion that it is a dangerous film). The majority criticise Joker for not being daring or deep enough to warrant all the hype. It’s too similar to it’s 70’s inspirations they say (mainly Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy) and its themes such as mental illness and class are ambiguously and clumsily depicted.

For me however the film was a hyper focused character study, with a vivid political backdrop. Beautifully and emotionally depicting the breakdown of one of comics most mentally unstable villains (or anti-hero in this case), set in an equally unstable political city climate. Forgiveness and empathy are very different emotions. Joaquin Phoenix’s astonishingly submersive performance is so likeable, you’d have to be immensely cold hearted to not empathise. But you’d have to be as BAT-shit crazy as the Joker himself to agree with the critics who claim the films asks us to forgive his actions.

Perhaps the reason so many critics disliked Joker was a sort of anti-hype backfire. Perhaps its a conspiracy involving Marvel Comics bribing reviewers. Or perhaps subjectivity in art is just an impossible concept to fully understand… like when people say they don’t like Jurassic Park or they don’t find that Simpsons funny or James Brown doesn’t make them want to get down… or they are just not into chocolate (fucking Aliens).

One fact about Joker is objectively true; its sparked more debate than any film in years. Debate is healthy and productive and there is one particular article that really made me think deeply about the privileged white male perspective I enjoyed the film from. Shout out to Maya Phillips from www.polygon.com for her brilliant article titled “Watchmen tackles the big issue Joker tried to avoid”. Maya says “Watchmen aims to reflect the world through the gaze of its characters, while Joker aims to relish in the gaze of its main character and let the rest of the world fall behind”. I highly recommend checking out both Joker and Maya’s article on polygon and having a good old debate in the comment section below. I’m even more excited for the new Watchmen series now, which started on HBO last week. I’m sure they’ll be plenty more to debate as the series progresses.

Disco Elysium — A masterpiece

The opening section of the staggeringly unique PC game Disco Elysium instantly sets a tone unlike any I’ve come across in a video game. It’s a taste of the brain malfunctioning internal dialog of the character you role play in this esoteric masterpiece. Brilliantly bizarre writing, a hilariously surreal nature and genuinely disturbing atmosphere.

Disco Elysium is an isometric noir mystery adventure RPG. Your detective character wakes up with an alcohol induced attack of amnesia, surrounded by his own filth in a scummy hotel room. Instead of the traditional murder solving tactics employed by games with similar themes (such as following forensic style clues), this game sees you following feelings and emotions that talk to you through complex dialog trees. These emotions are portrayed by your 24 different skill attributes that you employ with actual on screen dice rolls.

Create an intellect build that will allow your encyclopedic aspect of your brain to recollect helpful knowledge, or your conceptualisation, to see new helpful perspectives. Or you can specialise in your psyche branch of skills to allow your empathy skill to help you see deeper into what drives other characters, combined with your suggestion skill to manipulate or guide them to your will. Maybe you’d rather focus on the physique section and utilise endurance and pain thresholds to brute force your way through the game, or perhaps my favorite of this branch electrochemistry which essentially is your drinking and drug taking skills.

The way I’m describing this psychological avant garde pretentiousness is perfect for arty pompous people like myself. On paper it sounds way too high concept to be broadly appealing. However the writing is so brilliant I honestly think most fans of computer RPG’s, or even classic lucasarts point and click adventures, would get sucked into its amazing storytelling and world building. The art style creates a beautifully grimy, minimalist, isometric city for you to explore that is packed full of murky details. Extra personality is added to the living inhabitants of the world through expressionist style portraits that appear when you start a dialog with them.

The hypnagogic nature of the world is exemplified though is juxtapositioned cultural references. The year is referred to as simply 51’, but the main protagonist is a fan of disco music, sporting high heeled boots and flairs. There are old fashioned musket style pistols, but sci-fi style space suits of armour, all in the midst of a communist revolution.

The game is not afraid of exploring in depth many political and social ideas. There is an option of dialog during one interaction that reads “I can get down with racism”. If you select certain dialog options like this one, the game actually gives you the option to follow the line of thinking in your thought cabinet, your mental skill tree of ideologues. After a set amount of in game time passes you conjure a solution to the problem you selected for contemplation, giving you some clever skill adjustments. For instance the “rigorous self critique” thought makes you remember the time you masterbated in a changing room and was caught, lowering your morale but giving your pain threshold a worthy boost.

I’ve found myself utterly mesmerised by the copious amounts of charm oozing from the enticing, yet grimly hostile world of Disco Elysium. Other than the odd bit of cheap voice acting, that stands out like a turd in a fruit bowl, it’s hard to fault the game with my time playing thus far. Like nothing you’ll ever experience in any other game, it’s a fantastic thought provoking, emotionally moving and hilarious rollercoaster of an RPG.

Louie Hullett

Written by

Louie Snacks aka Louie G Dog — DJ and Entertainment Specialist; Music Maker, Comedy Creator and Video Game Gamer.

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