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Non-Review Review: Red Riding – The Year of Our Lord 1974

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Darren

This is the North. We do what we want.

– Craven explains how things work to Eddie

Red Riding is certainly an ambitious effort. David Peace wrote four books exploring violence and corruption in Yorkshire, centring around the morbid history of brutality in the North. Occupying a strange ethereal realm between fact and fiction, sometimes those crimes are fictionalised, but sometimes real murders and murderers intersect. The child murders of this first instalment, Red Riding: 1974, evoke the infamous Moors murders in Manchester during the sixties, while the arrest of an innocent party calls to mind the case of Stefan Kiszko. Adapting the series of four books into a trilogy of films, Red Ridingmakes for a fascinating – if gloomy – exploration of the darker pages in the region’s cultural history.

He’s gone far (Gar)field…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bob Fraser, conspiracy theory, crime, David Peace, Death squad, Eddie, Garfield, Garfield James Abram, George Orwell, history, Jack Ryder, Jesse Ventura, Jorge Rafael Videla, Julian Jarrold, Labour, Little Red Riding Hood, Morrissey, Northern Ireland, Peter Sutcliffe, Polack, Police, Presidents, rebecca hall, Red Riding, Ronald Reagan, Sean Harris, the amazing spider-man, Tory, United States, vietnam, Yorkshire Post | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (Review)

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Darren

You know when Amy and I first got married and we went travelling…

To Thailand?

More the entirety of space and time… in that Police Box.

– Rory and Brian Williams share some truths

There is a strange listlessness to the seventh season, despite its position on the cusp of the big anniversary year. In many ways, the seventh season feels awkwardly positioned between the “timey wimey” ambitiousness of the sixth season and the “new beginning” aesthetic of the eighth season. The fact that the seventh season is split in half doesn’t help matters; it feels like an epilogue to the story of Amy and Rory, and a prologue to the story of Clara. It feels very much like a “light” year, which is a strange way to head into a big anniversary celebration.

There is a curious sense of idleness to all this. There is, for example, no clear story that links both halves of the season – Jenna-Louise Coleman’s role in Asylum of the Daleks notwithstanding. The seventh season has no real purpose beyond clearing out the ensemble and building towards the anniversary. As a result, it can feel more than a little rudderless and indulgent. Steven Moffat has described the “blockbuster” aesthetic of the year, and long stretches of the season feel like the show is just doing stuff because it can.

Gone to the birds?

Give Amy and Rory a five-episode coda? Sure, why not! Actually shoot a western in a country that could pass for the United States? Go for it! It’s been a while since we’ve seen the Ice Warriors, hasn’t it? Throw them in there! Neil Gaiman wants to write a Cyberman episode? Ah, go on! Develop those quirky supporting characters from A Good Man Goes to War into a part of the show’s ensemble in Victorian London? It just makes sense! Richard E. Grant as a villain from two Second Doctor stories? We’d be crazy not to!

There is a sense that the seventh season is a victory lap for the show and many involved in the production. Deservedly so. What is the point of an anniversary year if you can’t go a little wild? That is the kind of thinking that leads to Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, a simple “because we can!” story. After all, one of the stock cringe-inducing Doctor Who images is the dinosaur special effects from Invasion of the Dinosaurs. What’s the point in turning the show into a hit if you can’t take an episode to prove how far your dinosaur effects have come in four decades?

Locking horns…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: amy, amy pond, bbc, Brian Williams, Chris Chibnall, Dalek, David Bradley, doctor, doctor who, harry potter, league of extraordinary gentlemen, Nefertiti, Police, Pond, Riddell, rory, rory williams, Rupert Graves, Thailand | 1 Comment »

Gotham Central – On the Freak Beat & Corrigan (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, July is “Batman month” here at the m0vie blog. Check back daily for comics, movies and television reviews and discussion of the Caped Crusader.

If you ask me, Gotham Central is the highest quality Batman title that has been published in quite some time – if not the most consistent Batman comic book ever published. These final two volumes contain the second half of Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka’s celebrated forty-issue exploration of life within the Gotham City Police Department, providing one of the freshest and most compelling comic book stories ever told in either of the two major comic book publishers. Essentially the story of the ordinary men and women stuck in the superhero world of Batman, it’s a genuine comic book classic.