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seymour_sp
Reviews
Inside Man (2022)
US story good; UK story utterly preposterous
And I say that as a Brit, so it's nothing to do with bias.
Given the writer and the cast I had high hopes, but they were largely dashed. I must say that there were great acting performances throughout, but honestly: the UK half of the story was ludicrous almost from the outset, and I very nearly stopped watching during the first Holly Wells/David Tennant thumb drive scene, so aggravated was I by the way things escalated in such a totally unrealistic way.
Then, almost every ridiculous decision made and every far-fetched event that transpired thereafter just added to my irritation; but I felt I had to see it through because it was certainly a compelling story despite the artifice.
Long before the end, though, it had reached the point were I was almost shouting at the screen to tell them to stop doing such stupid things. (And without giving too much away: a certain important feature was supposed to be totally soundproof and impervious to harm - with a hammer, for instance - come what may?!)
I know that it was all about panicked people doing irrational things and seeing events get rapidly out of hand, but there were far too many holes to allow me to suspend disbelief - and there was much that required suspension!
The Stanley Tucci stuff, on the other hand: all very cool and classy. I only wish that could have been married to a far more believable companion story.
Make sure you stay through the credits, though: there's a fun twist!
Ready or Not (2019)
An absolute hoot!
Yes, there's a lot of violence and gore, as others have said, but much of it is so Grand Guignol that it's almost as funny as it is messy.
The film doesn't take itself too seriously and, at a trim 95 minutes, it moves along at a cracking pace, with Samara Weaving putting in a great performance as the bride who is at once horrified, contemptuous and grimly determined to survive whatever horrors are thrown her way.
And the climax is a real treat!
The Lost Symbol: Murmuration (2021)
Identikit 'Murkan "thriller" with the obligatory Feds
The Freemason element almost feels like a McGuffin to allow yet another bunch of bland American actors to say lots of hackneyed American things, run around speaking in urgent half-whispers, and generally take themselves far too seriously. Heavy on the CIA involvement, light on the symbology - ugh. I'm giving up half way through Episode 3.
Pity. I enjoyed the films, silly though they were, and I had high hopes for the excellent Eddie Izzard's involvement - but, surprise surprise, in this cookie-cutter drama he's woefully underemployed.
I'd like to think that it gets less formulaic and more interesting, but I for one won't be hanging around to find out.
Jonathan Creek: The Three Gamblers (2000)
The End of Maddy Magellan - Hurrah!
I think I've always liked this show more in principle than in practice - far too many weak and overly convenient plot points and too-far-fetched "reveals", the likes of which a real-life Jonathan would never countenance - but far and away my biggest bugbear has always been the obnoxious Maddy Magellan character.
The writers could surely have made far more effort to produce a more sympathetic and likeable character who was still flawed and a bit rough around the edges; but the only thing they ever did to mitigate her awfulness - and then barely perceptibly - was the sketchy bit of backstory they gave her that related to her "traumatic childhood" in The Scented Room episode. I can only imagine that her "feistiness" played well with the focus groups, assuming there were any.
I'm going through all episodes again now, and much of it up to this point has been with gritted teeth during almost every scene involving the appalling Ms Magellan. Now I can relax and enjoy the continued silliness with no further intrusions! (There's still plenty of, uh, feistiness yet to come, I know; but at least there'll be no more teeth-gritting.)
Red Dwarf: Backwards (1989)
One gigantic continuity error - but plus-points for Kryten
Huge fan of Red Dwarf though I've always been since it first appeared on British TV back in the 80s, I've never been able to enjoy this episode much, going all the way back to the very first time I watched it on "live" TV back in 9891 (and there's a hint right there).
It's basically just one gigantic continuity error. Nothing, but nothing, hangs together - just like Philip K Dick's book Counter-Clock World, which I'd read some years earlier (or did I un-read it some years later?). I've always been a huge fan of his, too, but the book drove me mad for all the same reasons this episode does.
A major plus is that Kryten makes his first regular appearance, played by the excellent and ever-likeable Robert Llewellyn. Interesting to be reminded that the character just reappeared one whole series later with no explanation whatsoever - I like that! Saves bothering with a back story when it's a thorougly silly and quite surreal show in the first place, even allowing for its basic premise.
But you still need to be able to suspend disbeilef for silly and surreal! This one is just silly for all the wrong reasons.
Waking the Dead: Double Bind: Part 1 (2007)
Zero sympathy for Boyd
Excellent though this show is, I've often had real trouble watching it thanks to the utterly obnoxious behaviour of the Trevor Eve character.
I know we're all very well used to TV police having one "issue" or another, but surely the idea is to make them that much more human and sympathetic so we care about their "journey". Boyd has been written as downright dislikeable from the start - and if anything has only become worse - and as a result I have no interest in his problems or how he plans to remedy them.
Grace finally gave him a very long overdue earful at the start of this episode, but will he see the light at last and improve in the long term? I somehow doubt it.
I'd been watching the superb Unforgotten kind of alongside this show - what a contrast! Yes, the main protagonist, DCI Cassie Stuart, has the usual slew of problems, but there's barely so much as a raised voice in the entire series - and you care about her.
8 for the episode, zero for Boyd.
Thriller: Once the Killing Starts (1974)
Coulda Been a Columbo
It's interesting that Patrick O'Neal appeared twice in Columbo because much of the script for this episode could almost literally have been taken straight from that legendary series. We know the killer almost from the outset; he rigs up some of the technology of the day to produce a convincing "time of death" and an apparently cast iron alibi; a slightly eccentric detective (who's trying to stop smoking) appears in a beige raincoat; the murdering continues in a desperate effort to cover the killer's tracks, he hopes. Sound familiar?
About the only serious departure was that the detective, although clearly highly suspicious later on, wasn't heavily involved. The denouement fell back into more familiar Thriller territory: an interesting enough twist, although I'd pretty much guessed it by then.
I've been finding this series quite patchy - much of it screams early 70s for all the wrong reasons such as editing, script and video quality (never mind the set designs, clothes, hairstyles and some of the acting!) - but I think this is my favourite to date, probably because I'm such a big Columbo fan! Surely this was a homage?
Columbo: Last Salute to the Commodore (1976)
McGoohan - No!
I've been working my way through Columbo again, it being probably one of my favourite shows ever. That hasn't stopped me skipping two or three episodes, though, because I remembered that I didn't really like them enough to bother re-watching. Dear me, how I wish I'd remembered this one better!
As it happens I've also re-watched 'The Prisoner' very recently too; and, while I still love much of it, the over-the-top quintessential Sixties stuff, courtesy of its lead actor, writer, producer and director, has aged very badly, to the point of positively curling the toes at times.
A while into watching this episode again I thought: Hang on, this was made in the mid-70s and not the mid-60s, wasn't it? Then, before checking, and knowing Patrick McGoohan's history with the show, I thought: Hmm, totally out of character Columbo, self-conscious, cringeworthy "'wackiness' - by any chance did a certain Patrick McGoohan direct this one? Imagine my surprise when I found that he had.
I hate to give a Columbo a 4, but this is pretty awful. That's actually a kind of backhanded compliment to the entire Columbo ouevre because it would have been just fine(ish) as a one-off featuring a previously unknown detective - but it an't no Columbo.
Doctor Who: The Timeless Children (2020)
Get a life
I read these outraged fanboys (and I'm sure they're all male) saying they've been watching "since Troughton" and so on, and crying that this is the worst thing that's happened in the entire history of the universe. Well, I've been watching since Hartnell, and have seen every episode ever.
I'm not entirely convinced by the current line-up or all of the storylines either, but take it from one who knows: there have been quite substantial periods when Doctor Who was pretty much utter garbage. (Sylvester McCoy, anyone?) I even thought that foppish, waspish John Pertwee, with his gimmicky car and the very low-budget earthbound storylines, was pretty awful. The whole thing needed to be put out of its misery before it was rebooted, brilliantly, years later beginning with Christopher Ecclestone.
I thought the shocking new development was thrilling, and if it's in there it's now 'canon'. The Doctor had been fed false memories and had large chunks erased - OK, fine. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
If the fanboys are concerned with inconsistencies and plot holes, they should spend some time trying to justify all the absurd time travel anomalies that have built up almost on a weekly basis since the very beginning.
10 to balance those ridiculous '1' ratings.
McDonald & Dodds (2020)
Decent Sunday Fare
It does make me chortle when people talk about theoretical BBC licence fee refunds on the basis of a single programme or series, as if entire corporations are supposed to cater to the tastes and prejudices of remarkably arrogant and entitled individuals. And for what it's worth, I barely noticed the so-called wokeness - because that's what modern Britain is actually like, and all the better for it.
As for the programme content: very pretty, and just about challenging enough - although, without giving anything specific away, I have to say that the denouement challenged credibility somewhat!
McDonald was shown to be human and vulnerable beneath that tough exterior, and Dodds was a brilliantly insightful detective who comes across superficially as a plodder, in the mould of Columbo as others have mentioned. Definitely worth a watch if you're not an intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic Little Englander who doesn't like having his or her prejudices challenged.
What on Earth? (2015)
The usual manufactured mystery
In theory I love programmes like this. In practice, however, they're almost always deeply disappointing, not to mention downright insulting to the intelligence. You know the kind: Ancient Aliens, NASA's Unexplained Files, and the rest.
I thought I'd finally give this one a try and, sure enough, it's more of the same: fodder for credulous saps with scant knowledge and no critical faculties.
"Mystery" is breathlessly conjured from thin air, with "experts" Looking Serious and Saying Serious Things, asking loaded rhetorical questions that mean absolutely nothing because there's no follow-up - or, as in S07E01, they say something simultaneously obvious and pointless like "Looking at that image you know there's something shrouded in secrecy going on beneath that dome."
Well, yeah, quite possibly. It's a dome on a military base, shown from above in one single satellite image (which is seemingly sufficient to determine that it's not a boring old radar dome) - but in a location (Maryland) that's not at all remote or hard to "spot", as the clever satellite apparently did.
Was there anything other than pure speculation about its apparently mysterious purpose? There was not. We were even given an official use for the dome that sounded perfectly feasible, but that might not have been the truth. Oh? You don't say.
If those people really do have all the hifalutin job titles that the captions claim, they ought to be ashamed of themselves for associating themselves with such lazy and exploitative programming.
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
By the end I was an emotional wreck
I'm going to have to try very hard not to give too much away here, for reasons that will be clear to anyone who has already watched and loved this film, a wonderful and extremely timely satire on a dark, dark time in human history.
Inevitably events took an ever more sinister turn as the story progressed, until the battle scene towards the end which, knowing how closely it echoed the real historical event, brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye.
And then... quite possibly the most emotionally gut-wrenching final minute of a film that I've ever witnessed. The moment, and the song, for so many multi-layered reasons that echo through the decades, just broke me - and I say that as someone who hardly ever sheds a tear over books, TV shows or films.
Please watch this film. You'll be the better for it, and maybe the world will be a little bit better too.
Mr. Robot: 410 Gone (2019)
Great show - but this episode...?
Last-minute airport will-they-won't-they dramas used to work just fine before the advent of mobile phones - but come on!
I'm not going to mark the episode down too severely but the ending didn't leave me sad so much as really, really annoyed at the weakness of the notion that Dom would somehow not think to call Darlene about her dramatic change of heart - even when she was sitting on the plane, well before take-off, next to an empty seat, for crying out loud!
Gaaaah!
The War of the Worlds: Revolution (2019)
SF or period/costume/posh soap?
It appears that in making this the BBC had more than half an eye on the worldwide "posh old-time Brits doing posh old-time Brit stuff" market, because that's what about half of the episode consisted of.
As a huge SF fan (although not a great devotee of TWotW itself) I felt - ahem - alienated by all the old-time posh Brit guff, and I can't help but think that many old-time posh Brit drama fans will be turned off by the fact that this is, in theory at least, a science fiction story. I may be wrong but I don't imagine that there's a great deal of overlap between the two markets!
The Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1963)
One of the very worst
Over the years I've watched all TZ episodes several times through. I'm a major fan although I've never been so obsessive as to defend all episodes equally, as if an attack on one is an assault on the entire oeuvre. Some of them are, frankly, just plain embarrassing, especially with over half a century of hindsight.
Where do I begin with this one? Never mind its age; it's just weak and awful as a story, and it has about as much to do with what I believe TZ to be all about as - hmm, I can't even trouble to come up with a simile, so poor is this episode.
How this came to be one of the most revered episodes ever is beyond my comprehension, and it leaves me wondering whether what I've always loved about TZ is completely different from what most other fans love.
As for the gremlin costume itself - even in the early-mid 1960s, just what *were* they thinking? Plushie?!
Breaking Barbi (2019)
Trashy Brilliance
What are the ultra-low score, "don't waste your time" reviewers thinking? What kind of film were they expecting when Barbi is a typically spoilt modern Valley Girl type, self(ie)-obsessed airhead "influencer" who lives and dies by social media, accidentally ends up alone in the wilderness in amusingly tragic circumstances, is turning the other way as a UFO shoots down a government plane, and then takes a huge dump in the bushes - all within the first ten minutes?
Her adventures only get crazier from there as she slowly discovers self-awareness, empathy and purpose during her wacky journey. It's an absolute hoot, not to mention a worthwhile modern satire with trippy hints of Alice in Wonderland thrown in for good measure. It's a shame that some other reviewers seem to have completely missed the point.
Full marks to Vera VanGuard, who not only stars as the useless but lovably ditzy hottie Barbi but also co-wrote the whole thing.
La casa de papel (2017)
Great show, shame about the American dubbing
I've watched quite a few subtitled films and TV shows lately so I decided to be lazy and watch the dubbed version of this. I'm currently on S1 E4 and it's an excellent TV drama - strong characters, great story, high tension.
OK, one expects American actors to do Netflix dubbing but, when it's all so obviously set in Spain, with several early references to euros as the currency to be stolen (*very* early - no spoiler there), do we really need to hear characters talking about "Homeland", "State", "the DA" and "bucks"? Are Americans really so insular that they need to be fed familiar references for fear that anything vaguely foreign may turn them off?
That's insulting to non-Americans and, I'd like to think, insulting to most Americans too.
Room 104: Voyeurs (2017)
Apparently they want to watch something non-mainstream...
...but when an episode is "different" in a way not to their liking their minds clamp tight shut and they show they're just conservatives after all, glibly throwing one-star reviews around. Maybe something like Transformers would be more up their street.
I'm no dance aficianado myself so I feel I lack the critical faculties to judge it in that context, but I found this a fascinating detour and an interesting interpretation of the story that played out.
Murder Mystery (2019)
Story 7; "humour" 1
In itself this film was potentially a cracking Euro crime romp - it had all the ingredients, and even a gratifyingly twisty plot - but oh, the so-called humour.
There's been plenty of great American humour on offer over the decades, in both film and on TV, so this is not meant to be anti-American; but I'd call this particular variant negative humour - it annoys me so much that I find it far less funny than something that's not even supposed to be funny.
It's that certain kind of dim-witted, self-absorbed, bumbling, motor-mouthing drivel that often entails two people spending half their time talking over each other or someone else, while showing only tangential interest in what's going on around them or what others are actually saying - even when their very lives are at risk, as in this case.
Not only is it extremely aggravating; it feels utterly phony and forced. Mercifully, never have I witnessed anyone behaving in real life in the way these two did. It only ever happens when certain kinds of writers get together with certain kinds of actors - truly a marriage made in hell, and, for me at least, the certain ruination of any film or TV show.
But OK, perhaps it was my own fault: what exactly was I expecting from Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston - Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn?
(At least one of those stars is for the scenery.)
Ghosts: Gorilla War (2019)
A lot of fun, except for hubby
It's a pity that they made Mike such an irritating, dim-witted "bloke". I know he's supposed to be the ignorant yet well-meaning foil/fool, but after two episodes I'm already finding him a significant distraction.
Avoiding possible spoilers, maybe if he eventually gets to "see more" himself he may turn out to be of more comedic value in the long run. There was some hope at the end of Episode 2, at least, when he started to come round to the whole idea.
Otherwise, there's a great deal of fun to be had in the excellent ensemble cast of disparate spooks from varying backgrounds and historical periods. I'll definitely stick with it - a keeeepurr, as Goldmember would say!
The Twilight Zone: A Traveler (2019)
"The most powerful of myths"
Honestly, I don't know why people watch shows like TZ if they can't take the merest hint of a mental challenge for fear that it may shake their fondly-held beliefs. Isn't that a significant part of the point and appeal of the show?
It makes one wonder how staunch those beliefs are in the first place when someone finds "beyond offensive" the notion that Christmas may be a myth, doesn't it? I don't know - so many snowflakes at Christmas!
I think there was a lack of sophistication in the ending - all a bit obvious - but that's true of more than a few of the original TZ episodes, too. I'm a huge fan of the original TZ but let's be honest: some of them were pretty poor when viewed through a modern prism. I had that feeling watching the end of this one - what might have worked in the 50s/60s all seems a bit old hat now.
The Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 30,000 Feet (2019)
So much better than I'd feared
My heart sank when I saw the title, imagining it to be another rehash of the original 20,000 Feet episode, which I've always felt to be one of the weakest and silliest of all TZ episodes, the anthology film then adding insult to injury by including it - inexplicably to me, as there were dozens of far better episodes that could have been chosen.
Anyway, yes, this was fun, with its grim sense of impending doom and inevitability. Not so sure about the credibility of the ending, but what the heck.
One final point: did anyone else feel that the island shown right at the end as the camera panned out looked uncannily like the original Myst island before Atrus started doing his writing thing with the cogs and the tower and the boat and the rest?
Death in Paradise: Murder Most Animal (2019)
Oh dear...
Sadly I must agree with other reviewers about this new Ruby character. No reflection on Shyko Amos - she's just playing the part - but oh my gahhd, Ruby is a monumental pain.
I've always really enjoyed DiP, even with its often far-fetched murder "solutions" (like this one) but unless this character seriously tones it down I'm going to have real problems watching from now on. Unfortunately I suspect that, with Dwayne's departure, the makers see her as some kind of equivalent comic relief (she's nothing of the sort) so my hopes are not high.
Halloween Horror Tales (2018)
Possibly a work of genius
On its surface this film is hilariously amateurish, as if a group of friends had got together to produce a fun five-minute film and just kept going.
As soon becomes apparent, though, it's actually amateurishly hilarious, and with its zero production values, all-round oddness and, um, unsophisticated acting performances, it reminded me somewhat of a John Waters film.
8/10 for having the sheer chutzpah to get it out there, and for putting a big grin on my face - it's one of the worst films I've ever had the good fortune to see :-)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Sees a Sunset! (2016)
To redress the balance
As soon as I read stratus_phere's gratuitous ad hominem attack on Tina Fey, making no attempt to review the actual episode, I smelt a rat. Sure enough, a brief perusal of 'phere's other reviews betrays his/her true agenda.
My view is that Tina Fey, while clearly too "liberal" for some, is a comic genius who regularly makes important and worthwhile comments on the inanity and ghastliness of much of the modern world and how these are all too often reflected in and perpetuated by popular media such as TV - and, indeed, in some heads of state who are at once partial cause, symptom and personification of such inanity and ghastliness.
To single-agenda "reviewers" I would say: If you have nothing worthwhile to contribute, maybe try practising abstinence.