Television | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On How “The Last of Us” Finds a Fresh Angle on Familiar Clichés…

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of The Last of Us at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Sunday evening while the show is on, looking at the video game adaptation as the show progresses. This week, the show’s penultimate episode.

The Last of Us belongs to a genre that has been well-explored over the past few years, the post-apocalyptic horror. It’s a narrative template that has been thorough excavated and interrogated across a wealth of media. Audiences are familiar with the language and the logic of these kinds of stories, and there are perhaps only so many variations upon the archetypal theme. This what makes the season’s penultimate episode so compelling. The Last of Us wades into a familiar post-apocalyptic set-up, but finds a way to explore it that plays uniquely to the show’s strengths.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: belief, cannibalism, ellie, Food, joel, post-apocalyptic, religion, review, Television, the escapist, the last of us | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Pre-Packaged Cult Appeal of “Cocaine Bear”…

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Darren

We’re launching a new column at The Escapist, called Out of Focus. It will publish every Wednesday, and the plan is to use it to look at some film and television that would maybe fall outside the remit of In the Frame, more marginal titles or objects of cult interest. This week, we took a look at the release of Cocaine Bear, which is an obvious attempt to manufacture a cult hit.

On one level, it seems like a fool’s errand to try to build a movie with the express purpose of making a cult hit. After all, cult hits only grow organically, often over years and through home media or television. However, changes to the industry – including the collapse of home media and the decline of linear television – make it very difficult for movies to find that sort of niche. Cocaine Bear feels like a movie designed with that understanding in mind, a film very consciously pitched towards streaming virality as much as theatrical box office.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cocaine bear, cult, cult hit, cult movie, film, home media, Movie, rental, streaming, Television, universal, video stores | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! “The Last of Us” is Solid, Sturdy Worldbuilding…

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Darren

The third episode of The Last of Us was a highlight of contemporary television, one of the best episodes of television produced in recent memory. The fourth episode is nowhere near as transcendent, but suggests that the show has found something resembling a groove. The fourth episode is a lot of what might be described as “shoe leather.” It’s largely dedicated to set-up and world-building. However, it also feels much more assured and comfortable in its own skin.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Manifest Destiny, masculinity, please hold to my hand, push westward, road movie, serialisation, Television, the last of us, themes, Travel, western, worldbuilding | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Netflix’s Password-Sharing Clampdown…

Posted on February 8, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this week. This week saw some controversy with Netflix announcing – and then swiftly walking back – plans to cut down on password-sharing among users.

This gets at something fascinating about the challenges facing the company going forward in an attempt to maximise profitability. The urge to monetise shared accounts makes sense, but it also risks alienating users at a time when the company is trying to transition into a more traditional ad-supported model. Cutting off access to Netflix for users – especially the younger users disporportionate affected by such a clampdown – would be a very risky move for the company.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: advertising revenue, clients, films, netflix, password sharing, passwords, subscribers, Television, userbase, users | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On Why Television is Perhaps the Perfect Mode of Adaptation for Video Games…

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Darren

We’re thrilled to be launching a fortnightly video companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch every second Monday, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel. And the video will typically be separate from the written content. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This week, with The Last of Us continuing on television, we took a look at the show as one of the most successful video game adaptations to date. In particular, after decades of trying and failing to translate video games to the big screen, does The Last of Us suggest that the smaller screen is the perfect place for them?

Filed under: Television | Tagged: films, in the frame, Movies, Television, the escapist, the last of us, video games | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On Why That Episode of “The Last of Us” Wasn’t Filler…

Posted on February 3, 2023 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. This week saw the broadcast of Long Long Time, a spectacular episode of The Last of Us. While the episode was almost universally praise, there was some criticism that it was “filler.”

This is an interesting argument, in what it reveals about modern pop culture and what it misses about the art of storytelling. Long Long Time is thematically essential to The Last of Us. It’s an episode that establishes the actual meaningful stakes of the story, beyond the plot mechanics that spur the narrative forward. It’s easy to miss in an era where spoilers are considered a huge issue, where media is designed to be consumed at multiples of its intended speed, and where recap culture has reduced storytelling to lists of plot points. Nevertheless, it’s important.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: filler, in the frame, long long time, media literacy, storytelling, Television, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Poker Face” as an Argument for Episodic Television…

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist during the week. With the recent release of the first four episodes of Poker Face on Peacock, it seemed like a good opportunity to consider the show as a rare example of high-profile and prestigious episodic television.

For decades, episodic storytelling was the default model for American television. Around the millennium, mainstream shows started to shift toward serialisation, a trend accelerated by the arrival of streaming. Most modern prestige shows are heavily serialised, effectively telling a single narrative over the course of an entire season. Poker Face rejects this structure, embracing a “case of the week” format. However, the show is more than just an example of the potential of episodic storytelling. It’s very much an affirmative case for it.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: adventure, arcs, curiosity, exploration, natasha lyonne, poker face, serialisation, storytelling, Television, the escapist | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “Poker Face” as Must-See Mystery Television…

Posted on January 26, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this week. With the release of Poker Face on Peacock this week, I got to review the first six episodes of the show.

From director Rian Johnson and actor Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face is a love letter to seventies television. It’s obviously indebted to shows like Columbo or The Rockford Files, but it owes just as much to classic wandering hero narratives like Kung Fu and The Incredible Hulk. It’s a glorious and thrilling piece of television, that is both a love letter and an update to the medium’s rich history.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: america, columbo, history, natasha lyonne, poker face, Rian Johnson, Television, the rockford files | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Last of Us” as a Character-Driven Apocalyptic Narrative…

Posted on January 11, 2023 by Darren

Although it takes a little while to get going, with its first two episodes largely given over to exposition and worldbuilding, The Last of Us is an incredible accomplishment from HBO. The show is clearly the result of a great deal of care and attention, and a substantial investment from the service. It’s a show that benefits from the best possible talent and from the freedom afforded to that talent, to find a distinct angle on the end of the world. It’s a charming, emotional and deeply moving character study at the end of the world.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: adaptation, bella ramsay, escapist, hbo, last of us, pedro pascal, Television, the escapist, the last of us, Video game | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Witcher: Blood Origin”, “The Rings of Power”, and the Limits of Fidelity…

Posted on January 5, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this week. With the recent release of The Witcher: Blood Origin on Netflix and the ongoing arguments about the perceived “faithfulness” around The Rings of Power, it seemed like a good time to explore how the quality of a work relates to its alleged faithfulness.

To put it simply, quality and fidelity are completely different metrics. It is entirely possible for a fiathful adaptation of source material to be terrible, for example the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. It’s also possible for an adaptation that has nothing to do with even the tone and genre of the original property, such as 21 Jump Street, to be brilliant. Ultimately, The Witcher: Blood Origin and The Rings of Power are adaptations that fail on their own measure.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.