Amazon.co.uk: Brass Eye - Series And Special [1997]: Chris Morris, Michael Cumming: DVD

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Brass Eye - Series And Special [1997]

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Amazon.co.uk Review
Chris Morris' Brass Eye is a brilliantly funny spoof on current affairs media that carries on where his previous The Day Today left off. The show ran for one single, contentious series in 1997, to be followed by an even more controversial one-off in 2001. While these episodes might cause offence to those not versed in Morris' satirical methods, and while one occasionally suspects his work is informed by a dark seam of malice and loathing rather than a desire to educate, Brass Eye remains vital satire, magnificently hilarious and, in its own way, fiercely moral viewing.

Brass Eye satirises a media far too interested in generating dramatic heat and urgency for its own sake than in shedding light on serious issues. Morris mimics perfectly the house style of programmes such as Newsnight and Crimewatch, with their spurious props and love of gimmickry. Meanwhile his presenter--an uncanny composite of Jeremy Paxman, Michael Buerk and Richard Madeley among others--delivers absurd items about man-fighting weasels in the East End and Lear-esque lines such as "the twisted brain wrong of a one-off man mental" with preposterously solemn authority. Much as the media itself is wont to do, each programme works itself up into a ridiculous fever of moral panic. Most telling is the "drugs" episode, in which, as ever, real-life celebrities, including Jimmy Greaves and Sir Bernard Ingham, are persuaded to lend their name to a campaign against a new drug from Eastern Europe entitled Cake. The satirist's aim here isn't to trivialise concern about drugs but to point up the media's lack of attention to content.

A response to the ill-conceived News of the World witch-hunt, in the wake of the Sarah Payne affair, the 2001 "paedophilia" special was the most supremely controversial of the series. It followed the usual formula--duping celebs such as Phil Collins into endorsing a campaign entitled "Nonce Sense", urging parents to send their children to football stadiums for the night for their own safety and mooting the possibility of "roboplegic" paedophiles--and prompted the sort of hysterical and predictable Pavlovian response from the media that Brass Eye lampoons so tellingly.

On the DVD: Brass Eye on DVD includes brief outtakes, such as "David Jatt" interviewing celebrities about breeding hippos for domestic purposes, an hilarious exchange with Jeffrey Archer's PA ("He's a very wicked little man") as well as trailers for the paedophilia special.--David Stubbs

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Region 2
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

Keep watching to find out what to think, 15 Jan 2004

By	Touring Mars (London, UK) - See all my reviews

Brass Eye is more than just one of the funniest comedy series around, but also the defining moment in history when someone finally challenged the way in which many a serious news programme chooses to report the world. Poking fun at everyone from the tabloid press, 24-hour news channels like Sky and CNN, and even involving a variety of unsuspecting celebrity individuals including MP's, Chris Morris' brand of cutting satire is as accurate as it is bitingly funny.

This is definitely not for the faint-hearted or especially the easily offended.. but that said, alot of the most 'offensive' stuff is deliberately so, and way over the top... the best example of this is the hugely controversial (but also Bafta award winning) Paedophilia episode. Outrageous from start to finish, the 'shock value' throughout is purely intentional, and is part of the satire. Some people argue that this sort of thing is 'off-limits' for comedy, because it is somehow making a mockery of what is in reality a terribly serious issue. But I beg to differ. The take-home message from this particular show is as stark and terrifying as your typical Daily Mail rant on the same subject...the message being "Be afraid and be irrational". But by lampooning this sort of sensationalist reporting that would have you believing that the world is awash with paedophiles, Brass Eye actually makes a genuinely useful and good point... don't believe all the rubbish you read or see on TV, and don't let your sense of good judgement be fooled... as Morris' Paxman-like presenter says during one episode, "Keep watching to find out what to think!".. I think this, above all else, summarises nicely what Brass Eye is all about.

The other episodes deal with such controversial subjects as Animal Rights, Drugs, Sex, Crime, (Urban) Decline and Science. Each episode contains its handful of 'offensive' and outrageous moments, but is consistently hilarious throughout. I can't recommend this DVD to everyone, but to true fans of black comedy, I can't recommend it highly enough.

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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

The greatest spoof ever, 11 Jun 2003

By	"brasshande" - See all my reviews

Chris Morris’ bitingly cynical spoof of current affairs news programs comes to DVD, and I’d recommend it to anyone with a sense of humour. Featuring the entire series, as well as the infamous ‘Paedophilia’ special that provoked such tabloid uproar (exactly as Morris planned), any fans of the series should buy this without a second thought. If you’ve never seen or heard of the program, then where have you been? As long as you’re amused by a mixture of the surreal and the satirical, and want to see well-know celebrities being stitched up something rotten and made to look stupid without realising it, you’ll be in your element.
If you’re easily offended, you may possibly want to look somewhere for your laughs, as some parts of Brass Eye are deliberately calculated to cause the maximum amount of offence to the greatest number of people. The ‘Paedophilia’ special, for example; whilst for me it is absolutely hilarious, mocking the witch-hunt atmosphere of the time, it did receive massive amounts of complaints to the ITC. Just make sure you know what you are seeing before you watch it, as some people may consider that it goes too far. For those with a more open mind, though, sit back and enjoy one of the most off the wall and funny spoofs ever seen on British TV, possibly even outdoing The Office in terms of laugh out loud moments, which is no mean feat in itself.

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

The twisted brain-wrong of a one-off man mental, 10 Feb 2003

By	G. King "gk100" (York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brass Eye [1997] (VHS Tape)

So goes the lead-in line on one of Brass Eye's reports, and it could equally sum up this brilliant series, which is surreal and vicious in almost equal measure.

It is shocking in places, aiming to prick the humbug Morris sees in modern broadcast journalism. He was a practitioner himself once, and would have made a very good journo in another universe, but you get the feeling that he hates most of them now, or certainly the ones who resort to the same tired techniques and lazy cliches.

Nonetheless, this series is very funny. Unlike many other reviewers, I'd cite the programme "Animals" as my favourite - the d