The Surprisingly Thorough Considering How Quickly I Dashed It Off Monthly Review of May 2019

Posted on June 1, 2019 by badblokebob

Hello, fine readers! I’m going to have to make this quick, because I’m actually right in the middle of a house move. The palaver around that has led to regular tail-offs in posting over the past few months, and during May in particular, though it hasn’t had too much effect on my actual viewing, as you’ll soon see (June may be another story, but that’s next month’s discussion).

That’s also why there isn’t my usual header image for this post — they take a disproportionality long time to put together (whereas the post itself is still fairly lengthy because, as the famous adage alludes, it’s easier to write something long than something short). Hopefully I’ll have time to retroactively create the header next week. (In case you were wondering, the chap in the current image isn’t me — it’s some fella off YouTube. I just found it on Google Images.)

#71 Godzilla (1954), aka Gojira
#72 Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
#73 The Secret Life of Pets 3D (2016)
#74 The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018)
#75 Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
#76 Jaws 2 (1978)
#77 The Meg 3D (2018)
#78 Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
#79 Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)
#80 Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival (1970), aka Zatôichi abare himatsuri
#81 Zombieland (2009)
#82 Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)
#83 Bumblebee (2018)
#84 The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
#85 Cleopatra (1970), aka Kureopatora
#86 BlacKkKlansman (2018)
#87 Dracula (1931)
#88 Widows (2018)
#89 Cosmopolis (2012)
#90 The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)
#91 The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
#92 The Saint (2017)
#93 Devil’s Cargo (1948)
#94 Hairspray (1988)

So, I watched 24 new feature films in May.
That makes it the best month of 2019 so far, passing the average for the year to date (previously 17.5, now 18.8).
It’s a good all-timer too, in the top 5% of all months. It’s still not the best May ever — that was last year’s, which is also my best month ever. Therefore it brings the rolling average of the last 12 months down (from 20.1 to 19.25), even though it beats it.
It’s my 60th consecutive month with a tally of 10+. With all that’s going on right now, June may yet be the month to break that streak.
I can’t remember when I last discussed this (so apologies for the lack of link to the full background), but I’ve been tracking the days of the year on which I’ve ‘never’ seen a film, and I only have three left to tick off. One of those was May 23rd… and still is, because I missed it again. Darn.
This month’s WDYMYHS film is also this year’s Stanley Kubrick film (I’ve been working my way through his oeuvre at the rate of one per year, initially by coincidence but now semi-deliberately), Eyes Wide Shut.
This month’s Blindspot film: classic Universal horror Dracula.
From last month’s “failures” I watched Bad Times at the El Royale, Everybody Wants Some!!, and Widows.

The 48th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Plenty of worthy films to pick this month, whether they be critically-acclaimed awards-winners or critically-acclaimed films that were snubbed for awards, and most of those are more likely to make my year-end favourites list than what I’m going to pick now. It’s certainly not the ‘best’ film here, so maybe it’s just my current stresses making me wish for simpler entertainment, but I did have a lot of fun watching The Meg.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
When the rumour broke that Robert Pattinson was going to be the next Batman, some people on social media joked that he’d already done a great Bruce Wayne movie. Or maybe they weren’t joking, I don’t know. Anyway, the movie in question was Cosmopolis, which I’d been meaning to get round to, so I did, and I hated it. My Letterboxd comments are here.

Most Destructive Giant Monster of the Month
My May was incidentally filled with monsters of all different types: sharks from the sea, giant prehistoric sharks from the sea, giant prehistoric radioactively-enhanced dinosaur-like creatures from the sea… Also vampires, zombies, and alien robots… But worst of all was definitely the KKK in BlacKkKlansman.

Most Vivid Reminder of Stuff I Watched Years Ago of the Month
A few years back I reviewed the RKO film series starring the crime-solving character The Saint, which I continued by reviewing RKO’s follow-on series about The Falcon, and later covered the similarly-toned Thin Man series. So #91 to #93 this month brought back memories: The Kennel Club Murders stars The Thin Man’s William Powell as another murder-solving layman accompanied by his trusty dog (though neither had as much character as in the better-known series); The Saint was an attempt to reboot the character for a 2010s TV audience, later expanded into a feature-length film (and it’s as ropey as a rejected-pilot-turned-movie sounds); and Devil’s Cargo was an attempt to continue the Falcon series after a few years off, with a brand-new leading man and no continuity… but while it has a pretty poor rep, I actually thought it was a solid addition to the series.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
In terms of site views, May 2019 is far and away my biggest month ever — it individually surpassed the totals for the entirety of 2012 (the first year for which I have these stats), 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. The driver of that was my reviews of Game of Thrones. What I said about the finale provoked lots of comments, and the number of hits it’s received in the past 10 days would normally mean it’d not just be the month’s top post, but already a lock for the most visited post of the year. But the TV post before that, which included my thoughts on Thrones episodes three and four, had an additional 13 days to rack up visitors during a time when it seemed like everyone was talking about the series. So it’s no real surprise that The Past Month on TV #46 is this month’s victor, as well as a likely candidate for the most-visited post of the year. In fact, it received enough hits in its first week to get into, not just my top posts of the week, or month, or even year, but my all-time top ten! (It’s wound up as 4th all-time for now.)

I finally gave the directors page header image its annual update this month (it was due in January but I kept just not getting round to it). For those who don’t know, it displays the 20 directors with the most number of films I’ve reviewed.

What were this year’s changes? Woody Allen is gone, for the first time since I started the page, and Tarantino’s out too. But I had seven directors tied for the last three slots. So, David Lynch went as well, because I often like an “all change” approach; John Carpenter and Tony Scott have been on the banner before, so I ruled them out for similar reasons; and also the Coen brothers, because I wasn’t entirely sure how to fit them both in. That meant the new additions were: Stanley Kubrick (those “one per year”s finally built up!), Richard Linklater, and M. Night Shyamalan. I also changed a couple of the other photos, just to give it a bit of a refresh (specifically: Ron Howard, Christopher Nolan, and Robert Zemeckis).

BlacKkKlansman	Bumblebee
Die Hard with a Vengeance	The Hitman’s Bodyguard
Holmes & Watson	Knocked Up
The Matrix Reloaded	The Matrix Revolutions
The Meg	Snowpiercer
Upgrade

The Past Fortnight on TV #46	The Past Fortnight on TV #47

This has continued apace too…

#17 The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
#18 Ghostbusters II (1989)
#19 John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
#20 Hairspray (2007)

I rewatched each of the Matrix movies a month apart, which would be kinda neat if I’d actually planned to do that. More thoughts at the above link. I’ll save what I thought of Ghostbusters II for when I give it the same “guide to” treatment.

I rewatched John Wick 2 ready for the third, then haven’t had a chance to see it. For some reason I felt no desire to rewatch the original as well, which is weird because, while they’re pretty equal in quality, I’d say the first one is slightly better on balance.

Finally, that’s my fourth viewing of Hairspray, which probably makes it one of my most regularly rewatched films now — it’s been four years since I last saw it, and before that the gaps between viewings were three years each time, and that’s pretty often and repeatedly by my standards!

No time for trips to the cinema again this month, so I missed the likes of John Wick: Chapter 3, the live-action remake of Aladdin, and just-released Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Maybe next week.

I’m sure Netflix have added some stuff that ought to be on my watchlist but I also haven’t had time for. And naturally my Blu-ray collection has grown (when doesn’t it?), but right now I can’t actually remember what with (normally I’d have a pile somewhere nearby, but that’s all packed).

Also on the way out is my V+ box. For the past couple of months I’ve been listing some of what’s recorded on it that I haven’t got round to, and so here’s the final batch of that: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Camelot, Chef, Colombiana, The Counsellor, Dead of Night, The Dressmaker, Elizabeth, The Ghoul, The Innocents, Joy, The Love Witch, Only Yesterday, Rare Exports, Ruby Sparks, The Servant, Straight Outta Compton, and Supercop. Whew!

With all that’s going on in my life right now, will June be the first month since May 2014 where I watch fewer than ten new films? I need at least six to make it to #100…

The Past Fortnight on TV #47

Posted on May 22, 2019 by badblokebob

This fortnight: mad queens, burning cities, and melting chairs on Game of Thrones; disembodied little girls, controlling space captains, and time travelling dreamers on The Twilight Zone; and a couple of other bits & bobs at the end, too.

Game of Thrones Season 8 Episodes 5-6
These episodes have been hella controversial, so I’m going to stake my position right away: the penultimate episode isn’t perfect but is very good; the finale was fantastic. If you’re one of those people who rated it 1 on IMDb, you’re an idiot. Yeah, sure, opinions differ, and if you didn’t think it was as superb as I did then you may have some valid arguments… but 1 out of 10? No. Those people are morons.

To call these two episodes “the climax” of Game of Thrones feels slightly disingenuous, because really the whole season has been the climax (to wit, my review of episodes one and two is here, and episodes three and four here). As I think I discussed before, I feel this is where some people’s maladjusted complaints about it stem from — a misunderstanding of the pace the story’s being told at. This isn’t a show that is plot, plot, plot until a conclusion wraps everything up within the final episode. There’s far too much going on for that to be possible. No, the whole season is the conclusion. How they paced that conclusion across the final few episodes is another matter, because I agree that sometimes the story has moved too fast this season, and The Bells is (at times) another case in point. I completely buy Dany’s turn to the dark side: it’s been building since almost the start of the series (mistaken by many for her being powerful and just) and the events of the past few episodes have really pushed her to the edge — and, of course, over it.

So, I think the groundwork is there to explain her ‘sudden’ turn, but the speed those events were relayed to the audience didn’t give people enough time to process where it was leading her. The distrust of the very people she came to liberate when she arrives in the North; their lack of explicit gratitude after the Battle of Winterfell; the deaths of her closest friends and allies, Ser Jorah and Missandei; not only the grief of that, but losing their cool-headed advice; distrusting the advisors she does have left — Varys betraying her, Tyrion seeming to constantly let her down, Jon rejecting her romantic advances; not to mention that he represents a very real threat to her life-long goal; and, despite his protestations that he doesn’t want it, he went against her wishes and told his family, which means others now know… All of that underpins her ‘sudden’ desire to burn King’s Landing and all its people. But when that’s been conveyed across just a couple of episodes, along with a whole load of other stuff that’s been going on, I don’t think people had time to process it. In my review of Last of the Starks I argued that it should’ve been extended and split in two, and I think the same is probably true of The Bells: everything up to the attack on King’s Landing actually happening is one episode; the extended action sequence(s) that follow is another. That kind of extension would not only bring obvious screen time advantages — literally, more and/or longer scenes to play out what’s happening — but it also adds time between episodes (a whole week) for viewers to mull over and discuss what they’re seeing, rather than pelting headlong into more events.

Conversely, I thought the finale, The Iron Throne, was excellently handled in virtually every respect, including the pace. Well, mostly. I mean, I think it’s only during their conversation in front of the Iron Throne that Jon realises what he has to do to Daenerys, so that he then immediately carries it out is a little abrupt — should he have gone away, to steel himself for the task, and done it later? Maybe. Equally, why wait? And the scene needs to occur there for the powerful events that follow with Drogon’s grief and melting the throne. Some would also say the time jump to the Dragonpit court is a case of rushing the story, but do we need to see the Unsullied taking Jon Snow prisoner? Do we need to see the armies arrive at the gates of King’s Landing? You could draw the story out by putting all of that on screen, but what you actually need to know for the narrative is conveyed in the dialogue. Mind you, here I am wondering if it should’ve been slower when some of those petition-signing halfwits reckon “nothing happened” this episode. After weeks moaning about the pace being too fast, they think this was so slow that “nothing happened”! There’s no helping some people…

As for the final stretch, where the episode laid out where everyone ends up, I liked that part most of all. There’s a fitting fate for everyone — not necessarily what’s just or fair, but then when has Game of Thrones ever been about delivering that? I would’ve liked to see Grey Worm punished for the heinous war crimes he committed, but sometimes bad people get away with bad things. Poor Tyrion is stuck as Hand of the King, though it’s a job he remains suited to, perhaps especially because he’s not sure he deserves it. Bran is an odd choice for king, perhaps, but Tyrion sold me on the notion in the same way he did the assembled lords; and I don’t think Bran wanted it, but I think that, as the all-seeing Three-Eyed Raven who has always acted to protect humanity, he can see it’s the right course.

The rest of the Starks get fates that suit them entirely. Arya has talked about wanting to sail west before, in season six; personally, I’ve wondered if that was her destiny even before she voiced it — it fits her nature, to explore the unknown. Sansa is Queen in the North, a role she has earned in so many ways — her arc, from naive little princess to powerful political leader, is arguably the greatest in the entire series. Jon is sent back to the Night’s Watch — as explicitly stated, it’s just as a punishment, but there’s a political motive too: if he can father no heirs then there will never be any offspring to grow up believing they have a true claim to the throne. But it’s not a real punishment, of course, because it means he can venture north of the Wall, where his heart really belongs. I suspect Bran knew that when he sentenced him.

To cap it all off, both episodes were incredibly well made. That’s par for the course on this mega-expensive show, but it still merits observing. Okay, perhaps The Bells had a few too many scenes of King’s Landing’s destruction (a point on pacing again), but it was all spectacularly realised, keeping us mostly in the streets with the people who were really suffering. For striking moments, however, the finale was the place to be: that shot of Dany with Drogon’s wings (the subject of its own mini Twitter controversy, for yet more dumbass reasons); her speech to her assembled forces in the ruins, the staging and design evoking the the Nazis or Stalin’s Russia; the melting throne; the final montage, with the matching shots of Sansa, Arya and Jon embracing their destinies; and the very final scene, a mirror image of the opening scene of the very first episode. What a way to end; even with a green root poking through the snow north of the Wall — a dream of spring.

The Twilight Zone ‘Best Of’
As regular readers will know by now, for the past couple of months I’ve been reviewing the best episodes of the original 1959-64 iteration of The Twilight Zone, according to IMDb voters and an article I happened across on ScreenCrush. So far I’ve mostly stuck to episodes that are in the lists’ top tens (the exception is one I reviewed last fortnight, Nick of Time, which is #12 on ScreenCrush and #25 on IMDb), and in this fourth selection I’ll be finishing off those top tens.

First, two episodes from season three. The Shelter is one of just four episodes in the entire series with no sci-fi or fantasy element (according to its IMDb trivia page). When the warning sirens go off that missiles, presumably nuclear, may be on their way to destroy the United States, a foresightful doctor and his family are able to retreat to their bomb shelter, but his less prepared neighbours want in too. It’s another of Rod Serling’s morality tales about the truth of human nature, and a particularly potent one because it’s very easy to relate to almost everyone’s position — there are no heroes or villains here (well, except for maybe one racist guy), just people who want to survive. The titular room is made for three people, not the dozen or so who try to break in to share it, which suggests perhaps the episode’s most universally applicable lesson: in panic, logic goes out the window.

Little Girl Lost merits 8th on ScreenCrush’s list, but only places 39th on IMDb. I side closer to the former. Another episode by the great Richard Matheson, this one is about parents whose little girl goes missing in the middle of the night — they can hear her calling somewhere in the house, but she’s nowhere to be seen. The setup has some contrivances (I mean, it’s the middle of the night, your six-year-old daughter is calling out for you, but she’s not in her bed, nor under it, so your next step is to… phone your friend who’s a physicist? O…kay…), but it just expedites where the story is going to go anyway. That said, it doesn’t always make the best use of the rest of its time (a trippy sequence in another dimension goes on longer than necessary). It’s not as unnerving as it might’ve been (the horror of your child being you-don’t-know-where, plus a disembodied little girl’s voice coming from somewhere and nowhere within the house? Sounds like a recipe for a horror movie to me), but it’s more minded to its edge-of-science explanation than a disquieting atmosphere. Ultimately, it’s using a relatable situation to explore a notion at the limits of scientific understanding, which is very fitting for this show. Plus it has a cute dog who’s instrumental in saving the day, which is always a significant bonus in my estimation.

For its fourth season, Twilight Zone was scheduled as a replacement for another series, meaning it had to expand to hour-long episodes to fill the given time slot. This is largely regarded as being to the series’ detriment, and I can see why — I mean, some of the 25-minute episodes feel padded, so doubling the length…! Consequently, season four has very few episodes at the top of either list. The exception is On Thursday We Leave for Home, which is the highest-ranked season four episode on both: it comes 10th at ScreenCrush, but still only 24th on IMDb. This one is outright sci-fi from the off: it’s set on mankind’s first off-world colony, which has been a disaster, and after three decades a spaceship is finally arriving to take them back to Earth. What unfolds is another tale of man’s hubris and delusion with a self-wrought tragic ending — in other words, an episode of The Twilight Zone. But it has a unique angle and commentary on the corrupting influence of power; about how being in charge of the colonists has become Captain Benteen’s very reason to exist, to the point where he not only can’t imagine life any other way, but he can’t imagine his ‘subjects’ would want it any other way either. He’s thoroughly deluded.

It’s significant, I think, that Benteen views ‘his people’ as children who are unable to make their own decision, but he was only 15-years-old when they arrived there, and at the end he hides away, like a small child who doesn’t want to go home, until it’s too late and the ride has left; except rather than a parent playing a trick to get the child to change their mind, the ride is really gone, and Benteen discovers too late that he’s doomed himself. The episode makes strong use of the double-length format to let this unravel itself, establishing how tough life has been on the colony, then the relief and euphoria of their “rescue” arriving, before the truth of Benteen’s mind is revealed. Sure, you’d tell the same story faster today, but for the era it doesn’t feel drawn out (there are 25-minute episodes that are worse for that). So, it’s not just “the best of a bad bunch”, but a great little sci-fi parable in its own right. You could probably remake it as a feature…

Finally for now, season one’s A Stop at Willoughby, which doesn’t quite make either list’s top ten (it’s 12th on IMDb, 17th on ScreenCrush), but I keep hearing it mentioned elsewhere as a favourite episode or referenced in other ways (as with Eye of the Beholder last time, it factors into Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!). It’s about a harried ad exec in ’60s New York, whose boss’ motto of “push, push, push” pretty well tells how he’s feeling. On the train to his suburban home (there’s no real correlation here, but there are definite shades of Mad Men across this setup!) he falls asleep and wakes when the train stops at the village of Willoughby… in the year 1888. It’s an idyllic place on a warm summer day, with people enjoying leisurely strolls in the park — a simpler, calmer time. But then he really wakes up: he didn’t travel in time, Willoughby was just a dream; but it’s a dream of a place and time where he’d rather be — can he get back there? If Walking Distance was an ultimately uplifting story about how you can’t go home again, A Stop at Willoughby is its dark mirror image. Suffice to say, the town of Willoughby is most definitely located in the Twilight Zone.

Also watched…

Eurovision Tel Aviv 2019 — Normally I give Eurovision a full review, but I was a bit underwhelmed by it this year. Even by its own standards the music was mediocre, and there was little memorable in the actual performances either (with the exception of Australia’s pole stuff). Oh well.

Thronecast Series 8 Episodes 5-7 — I applaud the final episodes of Sky Atlantic’s tie-in show for not ignoring that there’d been some displeasure online, but deservedly praising the episodes anyway, especially the finale.

Things to Catch Up On
This fortnight I have mostly been missing Years and Years, the new drama from the pen of Russell T Davies that spans the next couple of decades to look at, presumably, how much worse things are going to get even than they are now. I’ve long been a big fan of Davies’ writing, though must confess I’ve missed most of what he’s done post-Doctor Who — I’ve been meaning to get round to A Very English Scandal ever since it aired, which was a whole year ago now. Hopefully I won’t take so long to get to this new one.

Next month… what can possibly follow Game of Thrones?! No, I don’t know either.

Upgrade (2018)

Posted on May 18, 2019 by badblokebob

Leigh Whannell is best known for co-creating the Saw and Insidious franchises, so he steps outside of his horror stomping ground to write and direct this cyberpunk action-thriller. It’s set in the kind of near future where we have self-driving cars (and similar tech), but there are still people who prefer the old ways, like mechanic Grey (Logan Marshall-Green), who makes his living restoring classic cars for people like tech genius and entrepreneur Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson). After an incident leaves Grey paralysed, Eron offers to help by implanting him with a cutting-edge top-secret chip he’s developed called STEM. It works even better than expected, and Grey begins to use his newfound abilities to hunt for the men who did this to him.

On one level, Upgrade is a straightforward sci-fi action-thriller, following Grey’s investigation as it leads him to some shady figures who have near-future tech of their own, and then they fight. While that may seem simplistic, it’s full of neat little touches, particular in the action’s choreography — it almost begs a rewatch just to see everything that’s going on in the frantic fight scenes. I don’t mean “frantic” in the over-cut, can’t-see-shit sense of so many action sequences in the last couple of decades — in fact, Whannell often uses wide shots and long-ish takes — but there’s so much going on, with the characters making decisions at such speed (boosted by that body-modifying tech), that parts do become a bit of a blur.

On another level, the film has something to say about the technology that drives its storyline. Okay, maybe it doesn’t have a lot to say, and if you’re well-versed in sci-fi they’re not necessarily original comments either, but it poses questions and makes you think about what could be just around the corner, and what value it might have, or what danger it might pose. Plus it pushes the story into some interesting places; places a low-budget Australian-produced movie can go that other mainstream-minded sci-fi/action flicks wouldn’t dare. If you’ve ever seen a Saw film then you can guess that Whannell likes twists, especially of the “sting in the tail” variety, and Upgrade has more than its fair share of last-minute switcheroos. How many you see coming is up to you — one seemed glaringly obvious to me, but anticipating that ‘reveal’ blinded me to some more that came after.

Combining those two levels renders Upgrade a strong mix of straight-up action thrills and thought-provoking near-future sci-fi. A definite must-see for genre fans.

Upgrade is available on Sky Cinema from today.

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Posted on May 17, 2019 by badblokebob

2019 Academy Awards
6 nominations — 1 win

Won: Best Adapted Screenplay.
Nominated: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Adam Driver), Best Editing, Best Original Score.

“A black man infiltrates the KKK.” Sounds like the setup for a joke, doesn’t it? Or possibly some outrageous blaxploitation movie. But it’s something that actually happened, and here co-writer/director Spike Lee tells the story of the guy who did it.

Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is the first black officer in the Colorado Springs police department. After seeing a small advert in the local paper for information on the Ku Klux Klan, Ron phones the number and pretends to be an angry white racist. The ruse works and he’s invited to meet them, which obviously he can’t, so the department agrees to send intelligence officer Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) in his place. So begins an undercover operation where Zimmerman pretends to be Ron in person, and Ron pretends to be white on the phone.

Although the premise sounds comical, the fact it’s a true story concerning an organisation as inhumane and pernicious as the KKK made me worried the film would be serious, grim, and heavy-going. In actuality, it’s lively, funny, and fast-paced. Humour is woven throughout the story in a way that is neither incongruous nor forced, and it doesn’t undermine the stakes when things get serious. And there remain parts that remind you of the true horrors of racism in America, in particular a sequence that intercuts a Klan initiation with an old black man remembering the stomach-churning details of a lynching he witnessed in his youth. It’s horrific; it’s sad; it’s enraging.

The same could be said of the film’s final few minutes, which powerfully connect these events from decades ago to what’s going on in the US right now. The effect is hair-raising. Some have accused this finale of being exploitative or disconnected to the rest of the movie, but I don’t hold with that. On a literal level, a certain real-life figure turns up in the news footage to provide a very concrete link to the film’s main narrative. Even without that, the whole content of the film is incredibly timely, which is depressing and terrifying, really. It doesn’t have to bash you round the head with echoes of the present state of things in the US, because those parallels are unavoidably there.

If I have a criticism, it’d be that there’s inadequate follow-up on the internal conflict of Driver’s character. Lee made him Jewish to raise the stakes (the real-life guy wasn’t Jewish; and, if you didn’t know, the Klan hates Jews too), and so we get a beginning and middle for his personal narrative: at first he’s just doing his job, and he doesn’t care about his heritage because it wasn’t part of his upbringing; but then, in one of the film’s most memorable lines, he says he never used to think about being Jewish but now he thinks about it all the time. It feels like some kind of reconciliation of that internal conflict is needed later on, but it doesn’t come. A counter argument is that that’s the point — that he’s been subsumed as just a “White American”, but he is a Jew, and having to handle that dichotomy is something he’s never grappled with before. Still, if that’s the point where his character arc was intended to end, maybe reaching it halfway through the film wasn’t the best idea.

I’d still say it’s a relatively minor concern in a film that does so much else right as to render it more or less trivial. The film’s real triumph lies in how it tackles a very serious, concerning, and timely issue: luring you in with a “too good to be true” premise, engaging you with the entertaining way it’s told, thrilling you with some tense undercover-cop sequences, and finally delivering some gut punches of truth. You’ll have a good time, but also leave incensed at the state of the world — or, perhaps, of one particular country. Not many filmmakers could naturally pull off both of those opposing emotional states within the same movie, but Lee’s cracked it.

BlacKkKlansman is available on Sky Cinema from today.

It placed 8th on my list of The 15 Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2019.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Posted on May 15, 2019 by badblokebob

The 100 Films Guide to…

Everything that has a beginning
has an end.

Country: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 129 minutes
BBFC: 15
MPAA: R

Original Release: 5th November 2003 (60 countries, including the UK and USA)
Budget: $150 million
Worldwide Gross: $427.3 million

Stars
Keanu Reeves (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, 47 Ronin)
Laurence Fishburne (Boyz n the Hood, Mystic River)
Carrie-Anne Moss (Chocolat, Disturbia)
Hugo Weaving (Captain America: The First Avenger, Mortal Engines)

Directors
The Wachowskis (Bound, Jupiter Ascending)

Screenwriters
The Wachowskis (The Matrix, Speed Racer)

The Story
With Neo having rejected the destiny prescribed for him, but discovering his power is greater than previously thought possible, he sets out on a long-shot mission to save humanity, even as the machines prepare to destroy mankind’s last city.

Our Heroes
The trilogy centres on the actions of Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus, but in many respects they’re just part of an ensemble in this finale, with many other characters getting to be in command of screen time, including the likes of ace pilot Niobe, Neo-idoliser the Kid, and a whole bunch of citizens of Zion during the big battle.

Our Villains
The machines threaten the surviving humans, while in the Matrix the increasingly dominant Agent Smith threatens Neo’s chances to save them all.

Best Supporting Character
Amongst the many humans fighting to save Zion, perhaps the most noteworthy is the captain of the Armoured Personal Unit corps, Mifune, who’s as much of a badass as the guy he’s obviously named after.

Memorable Quote
“Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming, I see the darkness spreading. I see death.” — The Oracle

Memorable Scene
Before Reloaded there was much hype about the “Burly Brawl”, in which Neo fights dozens of Agent Smiths. Unfortunately the final result was marred by some iffy CGI and overshadowed by the freeway chase. Here, we get the sequel: the so-called “Super Burly Brawl”, in which Neo fights just one super-powered Agent Smith in what remains of the Matrix, and it’s a much more exciting, visually extraordinary climax.

Memorable Music
Don Davis’ score for the trilogy has always used a mix of electronic-y rock and more traditional orchestral music, but the epic final battle adds choral voices to the mix in a very effective way. Thankfully rejecting the idea that they sing just “oohs and aahs” or, even worse, “this is the one, see what he can do” in plain English, Davis instead had the choir sing the Pavamana Mantra, so it’s not just nice texture in the soundtrack but meaningful too.

Truly Special Effect
There’s nothing as obviously groundbreaking or original as in the other two films, but a lot of the effects still hold up exceptionally well 15 years down the line. It’s difficult to imagine how the battle of Zion (created through a mixture of live-action, miniatures, and CGI) could be achieved any better today.

Letting the Side Down
The untimely death of actress Gloria Foster, who played the Oracle in the first two films, necessitated her recasting for this final instalment. Unfortunately, her replacement just isn’t as good, seeming to struggle with her portentous dialogue.

Making of
Christopher Nolan gets a lot of credit for bringing regular films into the IMAX market (or vice versa, depending how you look at it) with actually shooting on the format for The Dark Knight (a notion copied since, obviously), but Revolutions was actually the first live-action feature film to be released in IMAX at the same time as its regular theatrical release.

Previously on…
The story began in The Matrix and continued in The Matrix Reloaded, while spin-off anime shorts The Animatrix and video game Enter the Matrix filled in some of the blanks.

Next time…
The story continued in MMORPG The Matrix Online, which ran from 2004 to 2009. Rumours of some kind of reboot or continuation flare up now and then.

Awards
1 Razzie nomination (Worst Director)
3 Saturn Award nominations (Science Fiction Film, Costumes, Special Effects)

Verdict

I used to think Revolutions was better than Reloaded, mainly because at least it brought everything to an end and didn’t have that confusing stuff with the Architect. But reflecting on the sequels now, I have to agree with the consensus that this isn’t as good — there’s nothing that matches the highway sequence for entertainment value, and, actually, the lack of overt philosophising is almost to its detriment. It does have its moments (see: Memorable Scene), and I do think it ultimately comes to powerful resolutions, but the journey to them doesn’t have the same spark.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Posted on May 15, 2019 by badblokebob

The 100 Films Guide to…

Free Your Mind.

Country: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 138 minutes
BBFC: 15
MPAA: R

Original Release: 15th May 2003 (US & others)
UK Release: 21st May 2003
Budget: $150 million
Worldwide Gross: $742.1 million

Stars
Keanu Reeves (Point Break, Man of Tai Chi)
Laurence Fishburne (What’s Love Got to Do With It, Contagion)
Carrie-Anne Moss (Red Planet, Unthinkable)
Hugo Weaving (Babe, Transformers)

Directors
The Wachowskis (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas)

Screenwriters
The Wachowskis (Assassins, Sense8)

The Story
With just 72 hours until the machines arrive to destroy mankind’s last city, all ships are ordered to return home for its defence. But Morpheus still believes the answer to their salvation lies in the Matrix itself and what Neo is meant to do there.

Our Heroes
Neo is just a man, but within the Matrix has abilities and power beyond any other. As he journeys deeper in the fake-world’s workings, can he free mankind? Will his love for fellow freedom fighter Trinity get in his way? Is their captain, Morpheus, misguided in his belief that Neo is The One?

Our Villains
As hordes of machines drill down to the human city of Zion, a more pressing threat is Agent Smith, who has found a way to multiply himself and is on the warpath within the Matrix, with his sights set on Neo.

Best Supporting Character
The Merovingian is a snobby Frenchman (is there any other kind, ho ho) who holds prisoner a key program our heroes need access to. First, they’ll have to endure his philosophising; after, they’ll have to fend off the men he sends to kill them.

Memorable Quote
“Now consider the alternative. What if I am right? What if the prophecy is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over? Isn’t that worth fighting for? Isn’t that worth dying for?” — Morpheus

Memorable Scene
The freeway chase. It’s so long it almost doesn’t count as just one scene, but it’s spectacular quarter-of-an-hour long action sequence packed to bursting with impressive stunts and effects.

Technical Wizardry
See above. The logistics of filming the sequence are mind-boggling. Now they’d just throw it all together in a computer with a bit of green screen for the actors, but back in the early ’00s they built a massive stretch of freeway and filmed most of the practical stunts for real — and it’s all the better for it, of course.

Truly Special Effect
Some of the CGI is a little ropey 15 years on (though the digital body doubles looked just as bad at the time as they do now, to be honest), but all of the real-world stuff with Zion and its ships still looks fantastic.

Letting the Side Down
Depending on your point of view, the climax is either philosophically engaging or impenetrably incomprehensible. I feel like repeat viewings and time have made it more understandable, but it’s still suffused with more big ideas than people expect to find in their blockbuster movies.

Making of
“The Matrix Reloaded” is a funny title when you think about it. I mean, it’s very much “from our perspective” — in the film’s world the Matrix has never stopped running, so it’s not being reloaded; it’s an allusion to computer-y stuff and the fact this is a sequel, nothing to do with the actual content of the film. Though I guess it’s not really any weirder than just sticking “2” on the end or whatever, so…

Previously on…
In 1999, sci-fi actioner The Matrix blew everyone’s minds. In the run-up to this sequel there was also The Animatrix, a series of anime short films that explained some of the backstory to the films’ world and detailed certain events that occurred between the first film and its sequels.

Next time…
The video game Enter the Matrix occurs alongside Reloaded, featuring characters and situations from the film in a parallel storyline. It included around 45 minutes of live-action scenes shot by the Wachowskis, which has since been made available on the film’s DVD/Blu-ray/etc releases. Later the same year, The Matrix Revolutions concluded the trilogy, while MMORPG The Matrix Online continued the story. There have also been other video games and some comic books, but for a modern media franchise it’s been quite tightly controlled beyond that.

Awards
1 Razzie nomination (Worst Director)
1 World Stunt Award (Best Overall Stunt by a Stunt Woman (for motorcycle work in the freeway chase))
3 World Stunt Awards nominations (Best Fight (for the chateau hallway), Best Stunt Coordination Feature Film, Best Overall Stunt by a Woman (for a car stunt in the freeway chase))

Verdict

The Matrix sequels are generally viewed as a big disappointment, which isn’t wholly accurate or fair (for one thing, this first sequel actually has pretty solid ratings online, from both critics and viewers). It was always a big ask to follow-up a movie as original, groundbreaking, and straight-up entertaining as the first Matrix, and that the Wachowskis chose to do so by doubling down on the mythology and underpinning ideas obviously wasn’t successful with too many people. So perhaps making the plot 50% a straightforward quest-against-time narrative and 50% impenetrable philosophy lectures wasn’t the best idea, but the action sequences are still absolutely stunning. And, actually, if you bother to engage with the film on its own level, there’s some interesting stuff here.

Bumblebee (2018)

Posted on May 13, 2019 by badblokebob

The live-action Transformers movies, eh? Seemingly hated by everyone, critics and fans alike, and yet combined the first five grossed almost $4.4 billion at the global box office. Nonetheless, with the fifth one being the lowest grossing so far, and Michael Bay finally making good on his oft-repeated desire to leave the series’ director’s chair, someone clearly felt it was time for a change. That brings us to Bumblebee, a spin-off (it’s focused around the de facto second-in-command Transformer) cum prequel (it’s set in the ’80s, explaining some events that occurred before the 2007 movie) cum soft reboot (with redesigned characters and nothing that explicitly ties it to the Bay films, this could be the start of a whole new continuity). Did fans finally get what they want? Well, maybe, but it obviously didn’t work for the wider audience: the film took $468 million worldwide, which is good in itself but still represents almost a $140 million drop from the previous film. And it didn’t work for me, either: Bumblebee isn’t necessarily any better than the best of the Bay-era films, it’s just middling in different ways.

The film begins much like Man of Steel: launching us into a conflict between aliens on a distant planet. I criticised that film for throwing us into the deep end with a bunch of hard-sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, and I find similar fault here. I guess the point is to get an Epic Action Sequence up front (unlike Man of Steel, where it’s political arguing, here it’s a full-blown battle) and to show off the new-look old-style Transformers, which have been modelled more on their appearance in the ’80s cartoon series. But it does nothing to dispel the notion that this is nothing like the Bay films — it’s just another frenzy of metal-on-metal and garbled mythology. Then Bumblebee, who’s mainly identifiable as “the yellow Transformer”, gets sent off to Earth, where he accidentally winds up in a scrap with some military types. More action, but with a slight change of pace.

Only after all this has gone down do we finally get to the supposed point of the movie. We’re introduced to Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), a teenager in 1980s California who likes listening to 1980s music and wearing 1980s clothes and doing other 1980s things because this is set in the 1980s. She’s down on her luck for various reasons, but what she really wants is a car. She finds one in a boat scrapyard (totally logical), but that turns out to be Bumblebee in disguise, and suddenly she has a giant robot for a best friend. But Captain Military Man (John Cena — I have no idea what his character name was. I could look it up, but this was more amusing), who Bumblebee fought with in that second action sequence, is on the hunt for our big yellow friend, and so are some Decepticons (the bad robots).

The “a girl and her robot” angle is what the film was sold on, combined with the ’80s setting to suggest a throwback to movies of that era, like E.T. and so on. I quite like it as a concept — it’s certainly a change of pace from the increasingly overblown city-destroying world-saving antics of the earlier films — but it’s the execution that disappointed me. It takes too long to get it up and running. Even after the palaver I’ve already described, it spins its wheels on Charlie getting Bumblebee started, on comedic interludes with her family, on establishing a wannabe-love-interest for her (a guy who both works opposite her at a fairground and is her next door neighbour, yet apparently she’s never even noticed. Incidentally, I can’t remember his name either). There’s altogether too much time spent on the military and Decepticons hunting ‘Bee, too, especially considering it amounts to little that’s meaningful. I mean, specifically two Decepticons turn up on Earth, and they’re therefore the film’s primary villains, but I can’t remember their names either. Their personalities amount to “the one who plans” and “the one who just wants to shoot everything”.

A girl and her robot... which is disguised as a car

But after nearly an hour of this faff, the film gets good, with Charlie and Neighbour Boy getting up to some enjoyable ’80s kids’ movie-style antics with their friendly giant robot. But oh, then it’s time for the climax, so it’s back to explosions and indistinguishable chunks of metal hitting each other.

This is why it’s frustrating to me, because for a brief bit of time in the middle you see what I think this movie really wanted to be, and what I really wanted it to be, before it descends back into Bayhem-with-calmer-editing. Incoming director Travis Knight (whose only previous credit is the exceptional Kubo and the Two Strings) handles individual sequences well, suggesting he was a canny hire, but the film’s problem is bigger than that. The wonky pace and structure devotes time in the wrong places, leading to underdeveloped character beats (the big payoff for Charlie’s emotional subplot actually made me laugh out loud, which was not the intended effect) and taking too long to get to where it wants to be — just as it’s getting good, it has to dart off into a finale that doesn’t have enough impact, because we’re not really invested in the villains either.

Talking of what the movie “should’ve been”, a word on the certification. Bumblebee was originally given a 12A by the BBFC, just like every other modern blockbuster, but there was some kerfuffle in Australia that led to it being cut down under, and it seems that version was tamer enough to get a PG in the UK, so that’s the one that was released here (and, I think, everywhere outside the US). It loses about six seconds of injury and violence, apparently. There was a time earlier this century when anything below PG-13 was a bad thing, because they thought teens/adults would write the film off as being kids’ fare. Maybe that’s changed. Maybe it just doesn’t apply in the UK. Maybe they thought being a PG wouldn’t put grownups off (as an adult, who looks at the certificate, especially for the sixth movie in a well-established franchise?) but would allow more kids in. Who knows. It is what it is. I’m not sure it’s worth caring about.

Also, another thing about differing releases: I wish they’d put it out on 3D Blu-ray somewhere, so that I could’ve bought that version. As noted at the start, I watched the 4K UHD disc, and the (upscaled) picture was fine but not spectacular (aside from one or two bits, and the usual benefits of HDR), but there were whole chunks I feel would’ve benefited from 3D. The Bay movies certainly did. I know those of us who enjoy the format are more in the minority than ever, but it seems that interest remains in some markets (looking at other titles that didn’t get a 3D release in the US and UK but did elsewhere, countries like Germany, Italy, Japan, and India seem to be among the lucky ones), so I don’t know why this hasn’t turned up in any of them.

Anyway. If Bumblebee managed its structure and pace better it’d be a lot more fun. I feel like, even with just the material that made it to the final cut, you could do a radical re-edit and turn it into a much better movie — ditch the Cybertron crap, cut way back on the baddies hunting for ‘Bee, get the relationship between Charlie and ‘Bee up and running faster, then focus on their teenage hijinks. Instead, someone thought it would be neat to bookend the film’s heart with a bunch of Bay-esque whooshbangery, and it gets in the way.

Bumblebee is released on DVD and Blu-ray (regular and 4K UHD flavours) in the UK today.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017)

Posted on May 11, 2019 by badblokebob

With a daft-ish title and promotional campaign that definitely amped up the comedy, you might be surprised to learn that The Hitman’s Bodyguard started life as a drama. Yep, apparently so. Then, a few weeks prior to filming, the script underwent a “frantic” two-week rewrite to be remixed into a comedy. The end result is kind of a mixed bag, which, all things considered, makes sense.

The hitman of the title is Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson), who agrees to testify against a dictator (Gary Oldman, underused) in exchange for the release of his wife from prison. While being transported through (of all places) Coventry, Kincaid and his escort are ambushed. The one surviving agent calls in Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) to help. Bryce is a private bodyguard — formerly to elite clients, until Kincaid assassinated one of them. Suffice to say, the two don’t get along. Cue banter as the mismatched pair face more tribulations on their way to The Hague.

So, it’s a buddy action comedy, a well-worn genre, and The Hitman’s Bodyguard has nothing new to add to it. That said, while the antics may not be especially original, they’re not badly done. The film offers few big laughs, but there are one or two, and a couple of smiles. On the other hand, it’s a good 20 minutes too long (it needs to sacrifice some of the chatter, maybe some of the flashbacks, and definitely at least one action sequence) and some bits are inappropriately grim (random murder of parents? Photos of mass executions?) I guess those tonal inadequacies are the legacy of the last-minute rewrites, but, still, someone should’ve fixed that.

The action centrepiece is a rather good stunt-filled five-way chase between Jackson in a speedboat, Reynolds on a motorbike, Russian hit men, Interpol agents, and the Amsterdam police in cars. It’s not going to be challenging the John Wicks of this world for classic status, but it thrills enough. What seems like the climax is another pretty good one, as it intercuts a car chase with a hardware store fight that makes full use of the tools on hand. (I say “seems like” because it has another shoot-out after they finally make it to The Hague — like I said, it’s at least one action scene too long.)

Apparently The Hitman’s Bodyguard only cost $30 million, which is $5 million less than The Hurricane Heist (which I watched on the same evening, hence the comparison). But this film looks considerably more expensive than the other, and it has several considerably bigger-name stars too. I guess some people just know how to spend money better than others. This comparison is also relevant for my final score, because it again calls into question my non-use of half-stars on this blog. On Letterboxd I rated The Hurricane Heist as 2.5 and The Hitman’s Bodyguard as 3.5, a whole star different, but here they both get rounded to the same score. Well, no one said life was fair.

Ryan Reynold’s latest law enforcement-adjacent role is as the voice of the eponymous character in Detective Pikachu, in cinemas now.

The Meg (2018)

Posted on May 10, 2019 by badblokebob

Jason Statham vs. a giant prehistoric shark — what more do you need to know?

Okay, well, despite the obvious pulp-blockbuster nature of this premise, it’s actually based on a novel, which was originally published in 1997 and so I guess arrived in a wave of post-Jurassic Park interest in man vs. prehistoric creatures thrillers. Well, Jurassic Park and the other obvious comparison, Jaws, were also both adapted from novels, so perhaps it’s not so weird after all. I’d never heard of the book before, but apparently it has a dedicated fanbase (there are multiple sequels), who were disappointed with this film because it makes some radical changes to the source material. Clearly, I’m not the right person to make that comparison.

Judged as a film in its own right, then, I thought it was a ton of fun. You know what you’re getting into with that pitch, and doubly so if you’ve watched the trailer. This isn’t some thought-provoking docu-drama about “what if we really discovered a prehistoric creature still lived?” This isn’t even Jaws, a relatively grounded adventure movie about normal people defeating a larger-than-average killer shark. This is a movie about a super-high-tech underwater research facility that accidentally unleashes a prehistoric monster and then all the scientists and submariners and whatnot on board have to track it down and stop it. This is a move about Jason Statham fighting a giant shark.

All of that said, some people have criticised the movie for not being quite as daft or out there as they wanted from a B-movie-inspired effects spectacular. I guess that’s a real “your mileage will vary” situation. Personally, I had a lot of fun with it. It keeps things more grounded than the utter batshit craziness of, say, Sharknado, but it’s clearly still allowing itself to have fun with the situations and concepts. It also doesn’t feel too samey, which considering there are only so many ways to interact with a giant shark is some kind of achievement.

Other criticisms I’ve read include that it’s too slow to get going, focusing on undersea rescues rather than getting straight to Stath-on-shark action. Again, this was something I actually liked about the film — that it allowed at least some time to build the Meg up as a mysterious unseen force (and, in the grand scheme of things, not that much time — this isn’t Jaws). It also gave the film a certain scope and scale. It’s not like this shark rocks up and they defeat it in an afternoon — the plot spread out over a couple of days, at least. I don’t know, there’s just something I like about that pacing.

Also, the film is a Chinese co-production, and so features many major and minor Chinese characters, and the climax is set in the vicinity of a Chinese beach. I’ve seen people criticise this aspect of the film because… um… Yeah, not liking that aspect smacks of racism, let’s be honest. I’m not saying everyone who dislikes The Meg is a racist — that would be stupid — but some reviews I’ve seen come with this slightly weird sense that part of the reason they dislike it is because it’s 50% (if that) a Chinese blockbuster.

At the end of the day, I come back to what I said at the start: it’s a movie about a giant prehistoric shark being unleashed and attacking humans, and Jason Statham has to fight it. That’s all. It delivered on that in spades for me and I had a great time with it. And I guess tied to that pulpiness, if you have the option and enjoy the effect, I thought it looked fantastic in 3D.

The Meg is available on Sky Cinema from today.

The Past Fortnight on TV #46

Posted on May 9, 2019 by badblokebob

I’m throwing off the usual monthly format of these TV reviews to keep up with coverage of Game of Thrones. This time: the Battle of Winterfell and its aftermath. Next time: the series finale!

Also this fortnight: new BBC fantasy sitcom Ghosts, the first (sort of) episode of Columbo, the latest editions of Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema and Thronecast, and more of the best tales from The Twilight Zone.

Game of Thrones Season 8 Episodes 3-4
Almost two years ago, just hours after Game of Thrones’ seventh season finale aired, I tweeted the following:

“Crazy(?) Game of Thrones s8 prediction: army of the dead defeated in ep2 or 3; humans return to bickering amongst themselves for 3 or 4 eps.”

Well, reader, I’ve been feeling a bit smug for the past couple of weeks, I must admit. It was quite widely known that the big battle between the living and the dead at Winterfell was coming in episode three, but it seemed like a lot of people expected it to be a victory for the Night King, with a retreat to King’s Landing in order for the final battle to happen later. I suspected differently, and I was right. That a lot of people didn’t suspect that and were consequently outraged that the Night King and his army could be defeated so ‘early’… ugh, let’s not get into that. Other than to say: this has always been a show (a) more concerned with the politicking of humans than supernatural threats, and (b) that zigs when you expect it to zag (or does neither, if your name’s Rickon). And further to that, we’re only three episodes from the end of a 73-episode story — in percentage terms, these final few episodes are kinda the epilogue; they’re about what happens after The Great War is over.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Long Night itself was… well, it was an interesting choice of episode title, firstly, considering the Long Night is already an event in Westeros’ history and is rumoured to be the title of the in-production spin-off series. (It also sent Wikipedia editors into a tizzy, but what else is new?) More pertinent controversy was found in the way the episode was shot, i.e. very dark. Too dark for a lot of people to see, in fact. Many blamed the cinematographer, but it seems to me it was more likely HBO’s compression wiping out detail in the blacks — many other viewers who watched the episode from higher-quality sources (including myself) found no problem seeing it on correctly-calibrated televisions. And, when watching a decent copy in good viewing conditions, much of it actually looked spectacular — the darkness was effective for conveying the scariness of the events being witnessed, and it was punctuated with some beautiful moments from firelight or moonlight.

Content-wise, the episode was one long battle — the longest ever in film or TV history, apparently. More isn’t always more, mind. While I didn’t find it boring or drawn-out, it also wasn’t perfect. The battle tactics left a lot to be desired, something spotted by lay-viewers, never mind the “how it should’ve been done” articles by professional military tacticians that followed the broadcast. And the way things played out, a lot more deaths were warranted. Quite a few key characters did fall, and even more faceless masses, but the way it was staged made it a miracle that so many people escaped unscathed. There are three episodes left — you need characters to fuel the story, and major characters left to be sacrificed later too — but that doesn’t mean you have to stage it so everyone effects an improbable escape. There’s a balance to be found between “it looks like they’re all about to die” and “it seems literally impossible everyone would’ve survived those last-minute odds”. But hey, this isn’t the first time the show has succumbed to this, and there was a lot else to like: lots of effective individual sequences within the battle, great callbacks to previous lines and events, some heroic sacrifices, and a perfect ending. (I’m really not going to talk about some dickheads’ reaction to that.)

So, with the presumed Big Bad defeated with three feature-length episodes still to go, next week’s The Last of the Starks was tasked with both showing the aftermath of the battle and charting a course into the series’ endgame. As it turned out, it was much more than that, with major events all of its own. This is where the reduced episode count rears its ugly head for me because, much like in season seven, I feel like they’re rushing certain events just for the sake of getting the series finished, not because it merits a picking up of the pace. There were things in episode four that felt glossed over or skipped past; things which merited a bit more time and focus. If anything, this felt like two episodes glued together — and out of the three 80-minute episodes the show has now done (the other being the season seven finale), I’ve felt that way about two of them. Why not add another 15 to 20 minutes of scenes and split this episode in two? It wouldn’t be unnecessary padding because, as I said, there was a load of stuff just raced past. I wanted to see Arya and Sansa’s immediate reaction to the news about Jon; and Tyrion’s, for that matter. I felt like there was a lot more to be done with Missandei’s storyline this episode — in my imagined two-part version, she would’ve been captured at the end of the first episode and there’d be scenes between her and Cersei before her ending. And, yeah, I wouldn’t’ve minded seeing Jon say goodbye to Ghost properly (a massive topic of discussion on social media this week).

It’s frustrating because I liked the tone of the episode overall — as I said, the return to human conflict and schemes; also a lot of the individual scenes between characters and so on. But it needs more room to breathe. It’s especially galling after the exceptionally spacious first two episodes this season, which did exactly that. They’ve said these last two seasons have fewer episodes because of the time and money needed to film the massive battle sequences, but that’s a thin excuse. It’s clear HBO would’ve given them however much money they asked for, and allow them however much time they needed — we’ve had to wait almost two years for this final season, remember. So it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to think that this episode (and, as I said, last season’s finale) could’ve had another chunk of scenes added (which would’ve ‘just’ been characters talking, really) and been split in two. I don’t care about raising the overall episode count (though that doesn’t hurt), I just care about giving these characters and storylines their due.

Well, I guess it is what is now, but it’s a shame. Hopefully the final two episodes can bring things to a good conclusion — not necessarily a joyous one, because this is Game of Thrones after all, but one that feels suitable and satisfying. Based on the show’s current track record, I’m worried I’ll approve of where it ends up but think it was too hurried getting there. It feels like there should be more than a mere two episodes left to wrap all this up.

Ghosts Series 1 Episodes 1-3
This new sitcom from the writing and performing troupe behind the original TV iteration of Horrible Histories and the Sky One fantasy comedy Yonderland is pitched as a more adult-focused series, but it’s not exactly 18-rated stuff, just a little cheekier than they might’ve done before. Anyway, it’s about a young couple who inherit a crumbling old mansion, which is home to the ghosts of various people who’ve died there down the centuries. As the couple attempt to make a life for themselves and restore the place on a budget of nothing, the ghosts cause various issues, while also having problems of their own — turns out being dead isn’t the end of your emotional woes. I wouldn’t say Ghosts is the most hilarious sitcom you’ve ever seen, but it has a definite charm. It also surprises with genuine emotion, particularly in the third episode, where we learn about the death and family of one of the more recent ghosts.

Columbo Murder by the Book
I’ve never seen Columbo before, and despite this being the first episode (er, kind of — I believe it was preceded by two other pilots) this isn’t the start of me watching it regularly. No, I watched this for one simple reason: the director was a certain Mr Steven Spielberg, in his pre-movie days when he directed a handful of TV episodes. Unsurprisingly, such an early work contains little about its style that screams “Spielberg”, but it’s still a classily staged production, with a lot more going for its visuals than the point-and-shoot style we associate with old TV. The story’s not a bad one either, about a crime novelist who murders his co-writer following the methodology from an unused plot. He thinks he’s a clever bugger who’s got away with it easily, but Columbo seems to see through him right from the start. Well, I’m not sure dumping the corpse on your own front lawn is the best way to go about claiming “it wasn’t me.”

The Twilight Zone ‘Best Of’
With still no sign of the new Twilight Zone making its way to a UK platform, here’s another selection of some of the best episodes of the original 1959-64 series, as determined by cross-referencing the opinions of IMDb voters and an article I happened to stumble across on Screen Crush. (My previous such overviews can be found here and here.)

First up, season one’s The Hitch-Hiker is another Twilight Zone tale where we can’t be sure if the protagonist is experiencing paranoia or the supernatural — undoubtedly a recurring theme for the series, almost to the point where it’s less a “theme” more just a fact of its format. Anyway, this particular reiteration is effectively unnerving, with a scenario that’s relatable — you can just imagine how it would feel if you kept seeing the same hitchhiker by the side of the road, always somehow ahead of you, always staring at you with a despondent look… it gives me chills just thinking about it. Director Alvin Ganzer gets good mileage out of that element too, creating some effective shocks. Aside from that the execution isn’t top notch though, with Rod Serling seeming to have taken too much inspiration from the original radio play (by Lucille Fletcher) in his inclusion of some over-explanatory narration. The trademark twist ending is both altogether guessable for the savvy viewer, but also doesn’t really explain a whole lot.

Two from season two next, including another of the series’ most famous episodes, Eye of the Beholder (spookily, it’s referenced in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!, which I happened to watch last night). It’s an episode with a message, but that feels a long while coming because most of the episode clues you in to where the twist is coming from thanks to how it’s shot. Anyway, it’s a commentary on appearances and the segregation of otherness; that the enforcement of “normality”, of conformity, isn’t good. Here it’s being enacted by some totalitarian state, but that’s just a firm example for the sake of analogy — society does it anyway in our real world. The twist ending underscores this point by adding that normality, or beauty, or whatever you want to call it, is all relative anyway. It’s a worthwhile message, but even at a short 25 minutes parts of the episode felt padded.

I was more taken with Nick of Time, written by the reliably superb Richard Matheson. Starring William Shatner as a superstitious honeymooner, it’s a neat little tale about a cheap fortune telling machine that might actually predict the future. As well as a genre tale about the perils such a machine might pose, it’s really about superstition and belief in fate vs. self determination — a strong moral life lesson bundled in a quirky supernatural fable. That’s Twilight Zone at its best, really. Similarly, season five’s Living Doll is another of the series’ most genuinely unnerving episodes. Telly Savalas stars as a man whose own insecurities make him paranoid and abusive towards his wife and stepdaughter. When the kid gets a new talking doll, it begins to taunt and threaten him, but only when no one else is around to hear. Again, it’s very creepy, but has a point to make beyond that.

Finally for now, it’s back to season two for The Obsolete Man. As I mentioned at the start, I’ve been using two different “best of” lists to guide my Twilight Zone viewing, and this is the biggest disagreement between them thus far (though there are 18 other episodes with bigger differences, so it’s all relative). Whereas IMDb’s consensus-voted opinion says this is the 10th best of all 156 episodes, Screen Crush only ranks it in the middle of the list, at 68th. It’s an initially simple story about the evil and cowardice of totalitarianism: in the opening scene, a man is sentenced to death for being of no use to a fascist regime. However, he has a cunning little plan up his sleeve. As a drama it’s clearly born of an era that was still directly reacting to Hitler and Stalin, but it’s all the more pertinent today as Western societies tip dangerously towards the kind of horrendous ideologies we used to fight, blithely ignorant of the lessons of history. Many Twilight Zone episodes have aged in the sense that the narratives can seem straightforward and guessable to the modern viewer (thanks to endless imitation and our exposure to more stories of this type), but the moral lessons remain depressingly relevant over half a century later.

Also watched…

Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema Disaster Movies — Another one-off edition for this excellent series, a Bank Holiday special about that old staple of Bank Holiday TV schedules. Kermode (plus co-writer Kim Newman) is as insightful as ever about the similarities and connections between these movies across the decades. I hope we get another full series, but if it’s set to continue only as occasional specials, well, that’s good too.

Thronecast Series 8 Episodes 3-4 — I don’t know if the booker got better or just got lucky, but this picked up considerably with some improved guests. Not that I disliked the people on the first two episodes, but the ones here seemed more knowledgeable and chattier. Episode 4 was particularly good. Fingers crossed the final two editions are equally worthwhile post-episode viewing.

Things to Catch Up On
This fortnight, I have mostly been missing the fourth season of Lucifer, which just returned as a Netflix exclusive. I’ve not watched season three yet, though, so that’ll be a little while off. I’ve also successfully managed to avoid any spoilers about Line of Duty’s recently-concluded series (touch wood). I’ve got a plan to binge it in a few weeks’ time (so, not in my next TV roundup, but should be the one after) — hopefully nothing will blow its secrets between now and then!

Next fortnight… at the end of Game of Thrones, you win or you die.

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