Wonderful Movie

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Gervais can be annoying. Despite this, I am a fan of almost everything he's done.The Office was outstanding and Extras wasn't bad either.I kept seeing a few negative reviews about this and for some reason it passed me by.Recently, I got the chance to see the series. I wasn't expecting much.Boy, was I wrong! There are so many laugh out loud moments in this series. Soooooo many. At the end of the day, that's what comedy is for...no? Warwick Davis is brilliant in this and shows what a fine actor he really is. He essentially plays a David Brent character in a mockumentary..but really, really well.Some have criticized the show for being offensive towards smaller people. They just don't get it.The fact that the main character is little becomes fairly irrelevant. He's just an odious toad! The dumb secretary and the manic depressive accountant are also hilarious characters.The cringe factor of Gervais' work is always high but this series has a cringe factor through the roof. It can be uncomfortable to watch at times, but you can't take your eyes off it.I loved it.A measly 7.7 on here is probably almost as funny as the show.Watch it and love it.

First of all I never watched Extras and I always have a hard time watching comedy based on deliberatively awful characters. (Though I loved It's Always Sunny in Philedelphia) So this show wasn't really my thing and couldn't even fully watched the last 2 episodes and skipped a couple of scenes. But on the other hand it was an original show and really funny in some of its moments. I guess I didn't like the somewhat downfall of Warwick Davis throughout the show and at the end of it the show started to get a little depressing for me. Still I recommend it, because you can't really anticipate what will happen next and most of the acts will just hit you in the face.

I have to admit when I first started watching coming attractions of this show I wasn't sure what to make of it but after four episodes I am now convinced this is the funniest show on television. I was out one night with a group of friends and we had gone out for a fun time and we all came back at about 2:00am and we decided to watch something on "HBO on demand." We decided to check out "Life's Too Short." We watched one episode after another after another. I have never laughed so hard in my life! We were all dying!! It turned out to be the best night of the weekend. Warwick Davis (star of Willow, Leprechaun, and Ray) turned out to be a great comic actor. I couldn't believe how funny the show was and the situations Davis had got himself into. His secretary is equally funny. His secretary talks very slowly and in an episode after she (his secretary) explained something to him, Davis replied, "Well that took longer than an episode of Columbo." ROFL! Ricky Gervais is a comic genius as he makes fun of dwarfs, the mentally challenged, and just about everyone else in this TV series! It isn't in some people's taste but it really is all in good fun. I give the series ten stars out of ten. It is the best thing on television. Thank you Ricky Gervais!

I would tend to agree with criticism that Gervais and Merchant seemed to have written and directed this "on automatic pilot". There is little evidence of any real effort.First of all, there is the issue of originality; I am mainly referring to cloned characters, an unfortunate decision on the part of Gervais/Merchant. While LTS may seem original at first glance, what with a dwarf actor playing himself as the main character, it isn't. The show is basically an amalgamation of "The Office" and "Extras", totally derivative hence quite predictable.Warwick, playing an egocentric attention-seeking head of a small company, is – give-or-take a few things – essentially a dwarf version of David Brent; he is always focused on what the camera is doing i.e. on how he will look to the viewers later, he gives the camera those awkward looks of embarrassment, he gets into the same kind of cringe-worthy situations as Brent, etc. His ditsy secretary, whose stupidity constantly puts him on the spot in front of other people, is basically the Scottish gal from "Extras". The running joke in "Extras" was Ashley revealing secret/embarrassing information about Gervais at the worst possible moments: the secretary does the exact same thing to Warwick, and stupidly enough he never even admonishes her for it, let alone fires her. Warwick's accountant is almost a replica of Merchant's incompetent agent from "Extras"; totally useless, lazy, and unmotivated, but quick to put the blame on Warwick. It's all quite familiar, in fact far too familiar.As a result, LTS keeps bringing up the same sort of situations we've already seen dozens of times in the two previous Gervais/Merchant sitcoms. Unlike these two, however, you will very rarely find a laugh-out-loud moment in LTS. In the defense of the show, though, the episodes are usually interesting throughout, if nothing else, and Gervais's appearances save the series from sinking into total mediocrity.Which brings me to another problem. Warwick is vaguely likable, but he isn't a good enough comedian by a long shot to carry a whole series, which is why every appearance by Gervais comes as much-needed comic relief. During those scenes, LTS's quality level rises – but the moment Gervais exists, it drops again.There are other reasons LTS doesn't work that well. For one thing, the whole mockumentary genre has been almost bled dry by now. Christopher Guest ("Spinal Tap", "Waiting For Guffman", "For Your Consideration" etc.) and Gervais/Merchant had already done this, not to mention a plethora of "The Office" spin-offs around the world, and many other lesser comedies that were made in this fashion, diluting the mockumentary format in the process and making it decreasingly appealing. When "This Is Spinal Tap" came out, back in 1982, it was a totally new type of comedy, very fresh and hilarious. 30 years later, and I don't get particularly excited about anything new mockumentary-wise.But this aspect isn't as detrimental to the series as this flawed conception: both Warwick's character and the situations in LTS are too exaggerated. Less is more when it comes to mockumentaries, I would have thought Gervais would at least know this. You can't have broad-comedy situations within a "reserved" mockumentary setting. For example, Warwick's speech at the wedding; it is so over-the-top absurd that it belongs more in some idiotic, buffoonerish Stiller/Owen/Ferrell comedy than in a mockumentary which is supposed to be more low-key, subtle rather than ape-ish, clever rather than in-your-face. Warwick delivers a speech so extreme that it loses all credibility in the way it relates to the real world – and a mockumentary simply doesn't work unless its events and characters remain plausible, firmly grounded in reality. It is the mockumentary's strong connection to reality that makes the goings-on in it funny. Once that element of credibility is lost, the gags too are as good as lost.The series hits its absolute low point in episode 6. Almost nothing works. That whole party segment contains all of the problems I'd mentioned above: the situations are predictable, the characters unrealistic, Gervais isn't present, the gags are too exaggerated, Warwick makes decisions that are out-and-out retarded hence unfunny. Even worse is the fight between Warwick and his accountant, earlier on in the same episode, when the two face Warwick's ex-wife and her solicitor. This scene was embarrassing to watch; moronic and unfunny to the core. The accountant's infantile behaviour made absolutely zero sense. If Warwick had sneaked him out of a psyche ward a day earlier, then perhaps it would have worked. Nearly all the highlights are with Gervais and Merchant. The scene with Steve Carrell is a rare stand-out. One of the few highlights with Warwick is his visit to the Scientologists. I commend the writers for having the balls to make fun of this "church", because most (comedy) writers wouldn't have had the guts to even entertain such a thought. The only other funny scenes with Warwick are when he trips over a banana peel and when he falls out of the car. (Telling.) I would also commend the team for the casting of Warwick's moronic secretary; this girl can't act to save her life (the daughter of a successful fashion designer, i.e. yet another nepotist) but her appearance and dumb lobotomized facial expression are unique.The celebrity appearances are problematic. This shtick usually didn't work in "Extras", and works even less frequently in LTS. Helena Bonham Carter, the nepotistic funny-looking little gnome, is a vastly overrated actress, let alone a comedienne; no wonder that episode didn't work. She was just as bad as Daniel Radcliffe (yet another nepotist; yes, it's an epidemic) was in "Extras". Stick an unfunny person in a poorly written part, and the results are nothing less than atrocious."The Making Of" is funnier and more entertaining. That's a warning right there.Sophie Ellis-Bextor, if you lose one more kilo, your face will start looking perfectly square-shaped. Another warning.