John
Lydon:
Rotten TV - Episode 2
VH1
review by Scott
M, July 2000 (First published F&F 13)
© 2000 Fodderstompf.com
/ F&F Publishing
It's
looking like RTV will be a very occasional show. In the space of six
months we've only had two episodes. I reckon it'll take about
two years to get through the whole seven!! I know John's not one
for rushing things (!), and he only wants to do a show when he has
something interesting planned, but as I said last time, it's going to be
hard for the show to pick up momentum if they aren't broadcast
regularly. Unlike Episode One which was very much a mish-mash of different
ideas, Episode Two centres on John's trip to the Sundance Festival
in January to promote The Filth and the Fury. In Episode One
John linked the show together on a Battlefield, in this show it's
even more bizarre! It's basically a head shot of John holding a
Lemon and an Orange on metal spikes, a sort of bizarre twist on the
famous Charlie Chaplin routine – very strange! Also worth mentioning,
like the first show, there is a great selection PiL/Lydon music featured
(including; 'Annalisa', 'Socialist', 'This
is Not a Love Song', 'Public Image','Dog'),
but there are also remixes of 'Psycho's Path' material
I've never heard before, and even some of instrumental tracks I
don't recognise at all...
The first part
of the show centres on the promotional work, Steve, John & Julien
did at Sundance. There's footage of interviews, footage from the
premiere screening, clips of the film etc. Some of it is very good,
loads of stuff you wont have saw on the TV snippets. You can tell they're
getting more and more bored as the day goes on. At the premiere Steve
totally cracks the audience up when he says, "I'm bored with
all this bollocks", but he's deadly serious, you can tell
by the look on his face. You get to see John's whole range of interview
styles, funny, appreciative, rude, baffling, obnoxious, show-off. He's
got it down to a fine art, no one knows which one they're going
to get. However, as always Steve steals the show. One of the funniest
clips has to be when, after revealing he's not wearing any underpants,
he grabs his balls then quite politely shakes the hand of one of the
media liggers! There's also some great footage of John being refused
entry into a party for the film, and the manager threatening to phone
the police if he doesn't leave! There's even footage of John
and Nora dancing at some nightclub thrown in there!
Part 2 is when the real media circus begins. John turns from interviewee
to interviewer. There's footage of him racing round Sundance interviewing
(or at least trying to) the likes of James Woods, Neve Campbell, Heather
Graham, Cindy Lauper, Christopher Walken, Dean Cain (Superman), The
Coen Brothers (John's a fan). A lot of them honestly have no idea
who he is, I think Christopher Walken reckons he's an escaped nutter,
and blanks him accordingly! Upcoming starlet Casey Affleck looks thoroughly
unimpressed and doesn't believe half of what JL says, even when
he is telling the truth! James Woods and Lydon get on like a
house on fire, he seems a cool guy, and it turns out he's a Pistols
fan. There's lots of other footage from the event all spliced together
very quickly, with the occasional editorial from John, but it takes
a couple of viewings to take it all in.
Part 3 is probably the best segment of the lot. A hilarious one-on-one
interview with John and Danny De Vito. They obviously know each other
because of De Vito's involvement with The Filth and the Fury,
and a lot of it is definitely tongue in cheek, but it's a great
sparring match with them both trying to catch each other out and take
the piss. De Vito: "I was a Pistols fan from afar",
Lydon:
"Forgive me, I laugh at that 'cos I can't take compliments.
De Vito: "Well, I didn't say I was a fan of yours".
I think John may actually have met his match. In fact, I reckon De
Vito shades it! The show is different to the normal 'celebrity specials'
you get on TV, but not radically different. I think I had kind of
expected a 'Dennis Pennis' type show (Pennis really did base himself
on John after all) but on the whole, John is pleasant enough to most
of his interviewee's. You could download some unused footage via
the www.rottentv.com web site but I still reckon there is no way 30
minutes is long enough for the show. All in all, this episode is very
enjoyable, some of it is weird, some of it is embarrassing, and most
of it is fucking hilarious. Very John Lydon!
Steve Jones & John Lydon at Sundance 2000 to promote 'The Filth and the Fury' © unknown