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Joey is already a loss before the opening moments of the first episode simply because its a spin-off from the biggest live-action sitcom on the planet. The pressure the creators and writers must have felt when handed this behemoth must have been extra-ordinary, since the network will have been looking for something to fill a very big hole. Unless Joey was sitting in a New York apartment with five other people called Chandler, Pheobe, Ross, Rachel and Monica this was never going to happen for them.

The obvious unfair comparison would be the pilot episode of Friends which for me is a perfect 22 minutes of comedy which somehow manages to define all the characters, set up their relationships and still manage to be barn stormily hilarious. Joey's pilot isn't like that -- it's more of a slow burn. It simply doesn't fly in the same way. The funnier moments for example happened when references were made to the previous series, which is either lazy or provides continuity depending on your point of view.

Which is why curiously, it isn't totally awful. The scripts are fairly well constructed and the jokes are pleasingly character based; none of your Chandleresque pop culture references hanging around looking for a punchline. There is some good chemistry between Matt LeBlanc and his co-stars. Drea de Matteo (who I believe was in something called The Sopranos) as his sister Gina has a real aptitude for comedy -- to a degree there is a feeling that some of the slapstick has shifted from the Joey character in her direction. Paulo Costanzo is welcome and again bashes away excellently at the banter. Having a Rocket Scientist in the ensemble is a good choice although they may have difficulties if they don't vary the idiot/genius dynamic between Joey/Michael which could become tiresome.

Which is just one of the question marks. Some of the funnier moments in the mothership were at the time when we'd cut back to Joey and he'd be doing something funny. Then they were used to counterpoint another more tragicomic scene. Here they are just sort of there and after a while it could become repetitious. Also I'm not entirely convinced by Andrea Anders character Alex, who seems a little blank to me. Perhaps they're hedging for not waiting to see what works or doesn't but that's dangerous as in this situation the viewer needs something to hold onto pretty quickly. So she's married, and a lawyer and .... ? But I'm willing to give it a chance, if only for nostalgic reasons. This doesn't feel like the simply cash-in it could have been, with Janice turning up in episode two and Gunther passing by in four. There is a good feeling of treating this as a different show, with a different sensibility. It's quite pleasing that they are taking the time to set up the characters and relationships over a constant stream of empty laughs. But they can't leave it too long before giving us that killer episode which will keep us around. The first two episodes were pleasant but a whole season like this?

Tonight's film course film was The Legend of the Suram Fortress and during its 87 minute running time it managed to quickly jump into my top five most difficult films of all time. That's difficult to watch; films so different to everything else that you're seeing something totally alien. A brief synopsis would be: a group of Georgians are trying to build a fortress to defend themselves from invaders, but every time they are about to put on the finishing touches, for no readily apparent reasons it collapses. So they go and see a fortune teller who advises them that if they want to get the fortress to stay standing, they need to find a youth, a tall blonde blue eyed boy to be buried into one of the walls during the construction and his presence will ensure that the construction job will be completed smoothly. And sure enough in those closing moments there he is gladly being smeared in cement and eggs, giggling as he's buried alive, with only his mother to grieve.

It actually a fairly simple story. But the director, Sergo Paradjanov, working in Soviet Georgia in 1984, not too long after leaving a fifteen year jail term, doesn't follow any of the film making rules we are used to. There are very few close ups. Very often the action we need to be following is hidden in the bottom left hand corner of a landscape shot, extra-ordinarily easy to miss. There are very few close ups and at times its hard to tell whose doing what to whom and why. Every now and then the film goes off on digressions which have no relevance to the main plot and generally serve to confuse the viewer. The music is utterly mad, with found sounds, on screen instruments and church organ dropped in seemingly at random. At times when nothing seems to be happening, someone will break into a jig, almost playing time until the next scene comes along. But infuriatingly there is an obvious cinematic voice behind it all so you're compelled to try and understand the message whatever it is. One of those times when your eyes are glued to the screen simply because you can't believe what you're seeing.