Television | the m0vie blog

The Adventures of Tintin: The Broken Ear (Review)

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in the United States later this month, I’ll be taking a look at some of nineties animated television show. Check back daily!

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

I have to admit, I was curious about how the animated series would handle some of the more political material Hergé inserted into his work. I admired the way that Cigars of the Pharaoh handled international drug smuggling, but I suspected that broad political satire set in a banana republic might catch some viewers completely off guard. And, to be honest, there’s a lot of other stuff in Hergé’s The Broken Ear that makes it one of the tougher stories to adapt as a cartoon adventure. It’s very close to farce, and while the cartoon acknowledges that this business is a little sillier than usual, it never feels like the episode fully embraces the story it’s trying to tell, instead settling for a fairly generic run-around featuring characters and locales from the origin story.

Spotlight on the fetish...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Comics, general alcazar, Hergé, HG, review, South America, Television, the adventures of tintin, the adventures of tintin: the broken ear, the broken ear, tintin, tintin: the broken ear | 3 Comments »

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (BBC) (Review)

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Darren

Let’s not be melodramatic. Control would disapprove.

– Smiley sums it up

It’s odd coming to the BBC’s 1979 adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the opposite direction of most fans. I’ve never read la Carre’s original novel, and I saw Tomas Alfredson’s movie before watching the miniseries. So my perspective is slightly askew, as if I’m moving in the wrong direction. My viewing of the miniseries is informed more by the 2011 movie than by the book that inspired it. Still, it’s very hard not to be impressed by the television adaptation, which really seems like it pulled out all the stops in translating the story from page to screen, featuring an all-star cast, of which Sir Alec Guinness is only the front man.

Smiley fellow, eh?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Alec Guinness, bbc, gary oldman, George Smiley, John le Carré, Joss Ackland, Peter Guillam, review, Smiley, Television, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomas Alfredson | 1 Comment »

Doctor Who: Closing Time (Review)

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Darren

Look! They gave me a badge with my name on it, in case I forget it… Which is very thoughtful, because that does happen.

– The Doctor shows off his name badge

I have to admit, I liked Closing Time. It wasn’t quite as good as The Lodger, but it was an entertaining diversion at the end of what has been a pretty gloomy run of episodes for Doctor Who. And based on the previews for The Wedding of River Song, it isn’t going to get any lighter next week. I do have to admit, I kinda like the idea of Craig as an almost “stationary” companion – one whose life is constantly interrupted by the return of the Doctor to his relatively quiet existence, something that works quite well in contrast to the relationship between Amy and the Doctor.

It's all under (remote) control...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: amy pond, bbc, Closing time, Craig, cybermen, doctor, DoctorWho, Lodger, matt smith, Pandorica Opens, rory williams, russell t. davies, Shopping, steven moffat, Television, Time Lord | 6 Comments »

Doctor Who: The God Complex (Review)

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The God Complex originally aired in 2011.

It’s time we saw each other as we really are.

– The Doctor

It really is like the McCoy era all over again, isn’t it? The Impossible Astronaut gave us a scheming and manipulative Doctor. Night Terrors felt like it was drawn from the same cloth as Survival, with the faintest trace of Paradise Towers. Here, we get to revisit the ideas at the heart of The Curse of Fenric. Moffat’s second season has really been about the writer defining his own way of making Doctor Who, following a debut season that followed the same structure as the four years overseen by Russell T. Davies.

Here, Moffat is deconstructing the myth of the Doctor, in a way that draws on and contrasts with Davies’ “the Lonely God”, without going to the excess of “the Time Lord Victorious.” Indeed, with the whole dynamic between the Doctor and Amy drawing on one careless miscalculation the character made, changing a young girl’s life forever, one can’t help but wonder if there was more than a hint of truth in what the Doctor confessed to Amy to break her faith in him. “I took you with me because I was vain,” he tells her, “because I wanted to be adored.”

More than ever, it seems there’s a bit of truth in the Doctor’s admission that, “I’m not a hero.” Russell T. Davies has the Doctor follow a similar trajectory, albeit on a larger scale – episodes like Midnight and The Waters of Mars represented massive failings on the part of the Doctor. Moffat draws on the same sort of idea, but renders the Doctor’s failures much more intimate. It isn’t so much that the Eleventh Doctor fails to save the world or defeat the monster, it’s that he fails the people close to him so frequently and thoroughly.

You can check out any time you like, but you may never leave…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: amy, Amy's Choice (Doctor Who), bbc, doctor, Doctor (Doctor Who), doctor who, Doctor's Wife, DoctorWho, matt smith, Moffat, Paradise Towers, review, rory, russell t. davies, Sarah Jane Smith, tardis, Television, The God Complex, the God Complex (Doctor Who), Vampires of Venice | 5 Comments »

Doctor Who: Let’s Kill Hitler (Review)

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Darren

Let’s Kill Hitler originally aired in 2011.

You’ve got a time machine, I’ve got a gun. What the hell. Let’s kill Hitler.

– Mels drops a title

Well, Steven Moffat made it quite clear from the outset that he was going to play with the structure of his second season as executive producer. The show was split and broadcast in two blocks, straddling the summer. It opened with a rather epic two-part adventure that seemed to show us the end of the Doctor’s journey. Let’s Kill Hitler is positioned in a very strange way. It is simultaneously the light and quirky opening episode of the season’s second block, and also the hour devoted to resolving a lot of the lingering questions overshadowing the arc-driven sixth season of the revived Doctor Who.

It is, in short, a mess. It’s a confident and occasionally brilliant mess, but a mess nonetheless.

Crashing the Nazi Party…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: a good man goes to war, Adolf Hitler, bbc, BBC America, doctor, DoctorWho, Donna Noble, Eleventh Doctor, Good Man Goes to War, Jon Pertwee, Kill Hitler, let's kill hitler, Moffat, review, River Song, steven moffat, Television, time travel | 7 Comments »

The Borgias (Premiere Review)

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Darren

I have to admit, I expected The Borgias to be significantly trashier than it actually was. Instead, the show seems to be something of a more mature and considered big brother of The Tudors, instead of serving as an Italian twin. That’s an observation, and not praise or criticism – there’s something to be said for the energy that cheap blood and sex can instill into even the most flaccid television show, and attempting a slightly more restrained tale of political intrigue is a far more difficult matter. Still, The Borgias has two distinct advantages: Jeremy Irons, and Neil Jordan.

Oh, he just can't wait to be Pope...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Borgias, House of Borgia, Jeremy Irons, neil jordan, pope, Pope Alexander VI, review, rome, Television, the borgias, Tudor | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Ringu

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Darren

There are a handful of movies I will forever associate with a particular viewing experience – and some with the first time I had seen a given movie. I remember, for instance, seeing Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for the first time with my father in the local cinema during its nineties re-release. When I think of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I recall the time I had to sit in the hall while the grown-ups watched it. Anytime I see The Shining, I think back to watching it in the wee hours of the morning with gran and granddad. The Japanese cult horror Ringu is something of a similar experience.

All's well that ends well...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, film, Gore Verbinski, Horror film, John Carpenter, Movie, non-review review, review, ringu, Television, the ring, vhs, wes craven, Woody Allen | 10 Comments »

Luther: Series 2 (Review)

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Darren

I loved the first series of Luther. I genuinely adored it. It was a wonderful six-episode arc following the perils of DCI John Luther as he walked a thin line between, as Ripley remarks here, “being dirty and being willing to get your hands dirty”, all of which culminated in a rather fantastic final two episodes that explored the implications of that sort moral corruption in law enforcement. So the follow-up season had a lot to live up to, and – while it’s still well-written, well-acted and solidly entertaining – it can’t help but feel a little disappointing. While there are other considerations, the most damning one is this: two two-part episodes don’t given enough room for a season-long arc.

Putting it all together...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Alice, Alice Morgan, bbc, british television, dci john luther, Fawlty Towers, Idris Elba, john luther, luther, paul mcgann, police procedural, review, Ruth Wilson, Saskia Reeves, Television, United States | 2 Comments »

Luther: Series 1 (Review)

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Darren

You know, when I wonder why Irish television can’t produce quality drama, I am not looking across the pond towards our American cousins. I realise the sheer scale of the economy and the entertainment industry over there means that any possible point of comparison is just absurd. While the Great Britain is considerably larger, I look at the BBC and wonder why Irish television can’t even be nearly as good as that. After all, we have produced more than our fair share of Nobel laureates for literature, produce great artists, writers and actors in numbers quite disproportionate to our side. And I can’t point to a single Irish television show that is any way iconic – but perhaps that’s too much to expect.

Why can’t we even have something half as good as Luther?

I think he just copped it...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Criminal Minds, dci john luther, Great Britain, Idris Elba, Indira Varma, john luther, luther, luther (television show), luther (tv show), Neil Cross, paul mcgann, police procedural, review, Ruth Wilson, Saskia Reeves, serial killers, Television, television review, United States | 8 Comments »

Don’t Leave Us Hanging: Going Out on a Cliffhanger…

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Darren

So, I saw the final episode of V last night. Talk about disappointing. The series throws us a giant big cliffhanger and then… boom! It’s cancelled by the network in what has been referred to as a “bloodbath.” What makes it more frustrating, though, is the fact that the cancellation was quite probable even as early as last year, so it wasn’t as though the series was cut down in its prime without any warning. The cast and crew knewthat there was a fairly significant chance that this episode would be the last to see the light of day… and they ended on a whopping big cliffhanger anyway. I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed.