Happy 60th anniversary to Batman ‘66. Thanks for the laughs and adventures.
12 Likes
60 years? Wow. The cultural influence is still felt today. Infinitely rewatchable, quotable, entertaining and true to the comics of the time. It captures the heart and soul of Bruce Wayne the best in my opinion. A man who believes in rehabilitation and mentoring the next generation.
5 Likes
It: Welcome to Derry
Again, everything looks impressive, the standard of filmmaking is really high these days. But after the disgusting gore scene in the car only a few minutes in I turned it off.
Why spend my time with something which surely is well made but just blackening my soul?
Besides, I don’t need a prequel. The novel told me everything I needed to know.
Pluribus
I love Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
But after the first two episodes of Vince Gilligan‘s new sci fi-show my initial excitement went downhill fast.
Gilligan‘s style is the extreme slow burn, but despite all the fascinating implications of this fable about individualism being killed off the pacing feels unnecessarily drawn out, as if Gilligan chose to tell his story in the least engaging way.
3 Likes
Reilly: Ace of Spies
On one of those new-fangled DVD thingies. My abacus told me that the purchase was within budget.
Very entertaining so far and I can see why that Mr Neill was a potential contender for The Top Job.
8 Likes
Slow Horses series 5/London Rules (Apple TV)
A treat as always - albeit series 5 has the thankless task of following the adaptation of one of the strongest books with adapting a weaker one. Like the previous ones, this season keeps the story’s beats with a few tweaks to keep things interesting within the change from page to screen. It’s not yet clear how much of the Slow Horses novellas or the prequels the series will include. However, this time we get one interesting glimpse the books so far didn’t offer, splendid.
Otherwise, it’s a fast watch, a mere six episodes that don’t spread out the story longer than necessary; a rare relief in a streaming environment increasingly pressed to blow up the most inconsequential piffle into content, no, Content. Since Apple keeps the show lean one finishes a series already looking forward to the next one. As it should be.
6 Likes
It’s a shame that Lucasfilm and Disney didn’t let this happen.
3 Likes
Have to say I’d have been sceptical initially. But after watching Blue Eye Samurai recently on Netflix I can imagine an animated Indy series being a huge treat.
4 Likes
After the abysmal run of Disney Star Wars shows and milked to death Marvel shows, I’m okay with this. An Indy show could be fun, but currently I have no faith in Disney to adapt it well.
3 Likes
I’m completely okay with Indiana Jones being left alone in live action. The strength of that franchise rests with the first three films, much like the original Star Wars trilogy. My love for both of those can last a lifetime, and most continuation content is just riding off nostalgia and callbacks. Everything doesn’t have to be a forever franchise.
8 Likes
Post of the week 
4 Likes
The fact that it is a prequel cheapens the original story. It’s less impactful when you know what has happened in the previous cycle(s).
2 Likes
Most of Disney Star Wars has been better reviewed than what Lucas did but no-one hates what they “love” like a Star Wars fan.
Try and remember actually who it’s for.
3 Likes
I’ve been watching The Pitt and it has me completely engrossed. I don’t normally go in for medical shows (or any tv these days, really) but this is pretty special.
3 Likes
Started „The Pitt“, too, and my wife and I are absolutely mesmerized by it.
3 Likes
The Night Manager - season 2
It claims its inspired by Le Carre. Im mostly getting that this lot REALLY wanted to make a Bond movie. Not compaining, in fact if Amazon are watching it theyll see Indira Varma would make a great M, but Tom just admit you want to be Bond.
I did scream at episode 3’s ending.
7 Likes
The Bridge/Bron/Broen (season one/2011)
I came to this via the Austro-German adaptation Der Pass which I quite enjoyed. I always wanted to watch the original but for years didn’t get past the first episode. Finally it landed on Netflix (again?) and I was able to watch it in the original with subtitles.
The Bridge owes a lot to the impossibly organised, impossibly capable serial killer cliché, as most of these shows do to some extent. The Bridge (and its regional iterations) pits a team of disparate investigators, one from each country, against an uncanny murder when a body is found right on the border. In the course of the investigation, a number of weird connections turn up and the detectives themselves become involved and pay a price to solve the crime.
Nothing in this concept is necessarily innovative, The Bridge just puts the genre elements in a washed-out ‘ScandiNoir’ look, adds the odd design classic and lets its fine cast take care of the rest. Critics have been raving about this - but after watching the first season I’m not sure it’s really more than a very solid, engaging contemporary crime show. Probably at least two episodes too drawn out and not doing much with the actual setting.
Yes, there is some vaguely socio-critical element addressed in some episodes. But it’s just as fast forgotten again. Hints on deeper issues - social justice, police brutality and esprit de corps so on - are only present to define the protagonists and their position within the context of the show. We’re really watching for the characters of Saga Norén and Martin Rohde, not because the crime was so fascinating or the action so fantastic.
That said, while I enjoyed the first season I feel no urge to return to this setting. I may change my mind down the line, but at the moment I think I’ve seen what’s interesting about these characters.
2 Likes
Dark Winds season one (Netflix/AMC)
This show is one of the hidden gems on Netflix, the rare exceptional productions the logarithm far too often buries deep inside the menu. I came across this as a tip from the BBC essential newsletter and I’m glad they pointed me to it.
Dark Winds is a tv adaptation of the popular Leaphorn/Chee series of police procedurals set in the Navajo nation. Tony Hillerman wrote them for 36 years and they are probably the archetype of the modern WesternDetectiveCrime thrillers that made Longmire, Joe Pickett, Justified and Yellowstone possible in the first place.
The setting is early 1970s in the Navajo Tribal Police and the cast is largely Native American, the dialogue frequently in Diné. The effect is extraordinarily immersive, a story so nuanced and with so many angles it feels like a vast canvas we only gradually explore. That said, none of it just stands there for the sake of it, even the personal facets serve a purpose in the story.
I cannot vouch for the faithfulness of the show to the source material; what we find on Wikipedia suggests the show adapts books primarily along their elements and takes some liberties with the characters themselves. However, the show seems to capture the general atmosphere the books aimed for apparently faithful enough.
Altogether a suspenseful six episodes with a fine cast in a beautifully filmed setting. A winner.
5 Likes
Touching Evil (1997-1999 ITV series starring Robson Green and Nicola Walker, whom we also loved in Unforgotten): We watched the first season on PBS back in the late 1990s and were enthralled. That first season was remarkable. I remember being less impressed by the second and third seasons, which fell victim to the usual “we must make it personal” dramatic trap.
It’s strange to rewatch Season 1 now on Plex. The commercial interruptions are annoying, because they really interrupt the flow. (But hey, it’s free.) Yet the things I loved the first time around are still there. Wonderful acting, pacing and tension from a police procedural that defied many of the conventions of its time.
5 Likes
It was made for ITV in the UK which is also ad based, would have thought they would have written scripts to accomadate for the ad breaks.
3 Likes
The ad interruptions aren’t jarring, in terms of where they’re placed. It’s just that, when we originally watched Touching Evil on PBS (as part of its Masterpiece Mystery series), there were no ad breaks … and it really benefited from that. Pretty much any television programming does, really. It’s only natural that ads will disrupt the narrative flow, even if the program was designed to accommodate them.
Touching Evil has an eerie, haunting quality that has become standard practice in police procedurals since then, but it really stood out to me at the time it was made. Having that atmosphere broken up by ads detracts a bit, in my opinion.
4 Likes