The Velvet Onion

As we reported in January, Richard Ayoade directed an episode of the American hit TV-show Community. Last night that very episode premièred!

Community is an American television comedy series on NBC. It’s about a group of students at a community college in Colorado and its cast includes Chevy Chase, Donald Glover and Joel McHale (whom Ayoade starred alongside in the failed pilot for the American version of The IT Crowd).

Ayoade’s episode is entitled Critical Film Studies and has been promoted as the Pulp Fiction episode. However, the episode also pays tribute to the classic movie My Dinner With Andre.

There have been a few reviews of last night’s episode. The A.V. Club described it as “one of the more serious, darker episodes of Community” but also as “one of the most humane things the show has ever done”. Punchline Magazine chose to focus on the Pulp Fiction aspect. Meanwhile, The NY Mag Vulture commented on “the presence of Brit-comedy godhead Richard Ayoade behind the camera” and said that the episode made an impression.

Watch the episode at NBC’s website and make sure you don’t miss the behind-the-scenes video, complete with an Ayoade interview!

Did you catch Community last night? Do you agree or disagree with the reviews?

Editor’s Note: Thanks to DuckandRoll on Tumblr for the screengrab.

Submarine is nearly one week into its official UK release, and the media furore around the film and its director doesn’t appear to be letting up just yet! Here’s a round-up of the press coverage that we’ve spotted this week:

© Dan Burn-Forti

Firstly, The Guardian’s film blog pointed out that Submarine has only narrowly missed making it into the UK Top 10 for the week based on box office takings.  The film can claim first place in the overall screen-average prize, however, thanks to a gross of £244,000 from 60 screens. That figure, which includes previews of £24,000, gives an average of £4,075 per screen.  Not bad for an indie flick by a first-time director!

The stream of interviews with director Richard Ayoade continues apace, thankfully with more focus on his creative work than the earlier ones.  In Metro you can read about his willingness to torture the actors in Submarine (had the need arisen!), and his plan to get Bob Dylan to tap dance; on the Little White Lies site he talks about some of the themes in the book and the film; then in The Independent you can read an interview with Ayoade and his musical collaborator on the film, Alex Turner. Ayoade says of Turner’s contribution, “It was just like getting good stuff for free. I did nothing and it (his music) made my film a million times better.”

Finally, there’s a filmed interview on Empire’s website and an amusing write-up of the film by Submarine author Joe Dunthorne on Penguin Books’ blog.  He describes the first time he saw it as “A ninety-minute anaphylactic shock…only as the credits rolled was I filled with a wave of relief and pride — much like the feeling of being injected in the glutes with an Epipen full of adrenaline.”

So far Submarine has got a big oniony thumbs up from those of us at TVO who have seen it.  So if you get the chance to see it, we thoroughly recommend you do!

© BBC 6music

We at The Velvet Onion may not have been quick enough to pick up on this one peelers, but this little chat that Richard Ayoade had with 6music’s Shaun Keaveny this morning is still avaliable for you to hear for the next 7 days.

It’s not too late to have a listen (if you haven’t already – or if you want to listen again!) over on iPlayer so hover your mouses over here to hear Richard talking about his debut feature Submarine.

Ayoade enters the studio at around 2 hours 13 minutes into the show.