I'm two episodes from the end of Homecoming (on Amazon) which I'm really enjoying. It's made by Sam Esmail who did Mr Robot - and you can see a lot of stylistic similarities - but it seems more contained, and I'm hoping for some resolution at the end. Julia Roberts in it is fascinting - I've never seen her play a super-plain, slightly haggard Julia Roberts, and it's appealing, a really big change. It's only 10 half hour episodes, so it's an easy binge. For at least the first 6 or so episodes I wasn't really sure what I was watching but that was part of the fun, and with short episodes you don't feel like you're wasting too much if nothing comes of it.
Finally watched Roma on netflix last night. It’s beautifully filmed and reminded me of those old Italian neorealist movies. Probably deserves to be seen on the big screen. What I wasn’t so keen on was the chaotic noisy soundtrack assaulting my ears for much of the run-time. I suppose it was deliberate, but boy did it grate by the end.
Fans of feelgood popcorn tv would, I feel, not have been displeased by episode 1 of Flirty Dancing. Mrs HORN is counting down the hours until Thursday and episode 2.
As part of my plea bargain for getting out of going to an amdram panto tomorrow, I took my daughter to see Mary Poppins Returns this afternoon. It was way better than I'd feared. I would go so far as to say I prefer it to the tweeness of Mary Poppins (the birds can fucking starve and the old woman can die in the cold for all I care). The music hall number was surprisingly raunchy for a "U" rated film, too.
The plot was largely irrelevant, but then it's just a device to hang the musical set pieces off which is fine by me.
Deutschland 83 and Deutschland 86. Very good portrayal of how fucked up the Cold War was, especially for Germans. Lots of paranoia and people trying to leverage others’ misery to their own political advantage. Same as it ever was, I suppose.
It focuses on a young East German man who is recruited by his aunt to be spy, which gives him a perspective on both sides of the Cold War. He’s sort of the only sensible character in the whole thing.
It weaves through real 80’s history so it does create a lot of improbable coincidences where by the same six or seven people who all have personal connections manage to always be at the center of these globally significant events. I guess that’s ok, though. Otherwise the story would have 1,000 characters and be impossible to follow.
Just finished episode 5 of Bodyguard. I think the predictability was down to those plot advancement tricks that producers employ to get to the actual meat and potatoes.
We finished Bodyguard and would rate it a solid 7.5 or 8.
We tried to get through Flowers. After a hit and miss season 1 (6 episodes), we gave up after the second episode of season 2. Just no real laughs, but more mania and yelling purporting to be laughs.
Also tried the first episode of Mindhunter - about (it seems) the origins of profiling around serial killers. Lovely to look at (period-piece wise), but horrible writing and heavy-handed directing made it a misery to get through.
Ray Donovan had its final excellent episode of this excellent season. To recap...Ray Donovan....excellent.
Did you get the final episode last week? If so, was it the 12th or 13th episode? We're up to the 11th over here and my recollection was the previous seasons were 13 episodes long but we do seem to be all set up for a finale with the next one. I'm too worried about spoilers to google and check.
I watched the most recent four episodes over a couple of nights last week to catch up after the Xmas/NY break and they have really solidly convinced me about this season. After a slow start that initially didn't grab me causing doubt that the move from LA to NY was a wise one it's really come back to top form in the second half of the run. I can't help thinking this has coincided with dropping the terrible movie sub-plot (and the excruciatingly badly written and acted switch in Jai White's persona) as well as the ratcheting up of the tension & threat from the other main strands of the narrative.
My other great current mobster/Hollywood related US TV love, Get Shorty, has been picked up for a third season which I'm very happy about.
Bodyguard is a 4 at best, given (as I've said on here before) the entire second half of the series scores precisely nul points and is a waste of everyone's time.
I’m on Series 2 of The Bureau (French). I found Series 1 a bit of a slog at first, but now am really hooked.
It’s about the French Secret Service (mostly) and the CIA (a fair bit) and covers some of the same ground as Homeland. Lots of scenes and characters are in Algeria or the Middle East, and the IS dudes aren’t caricatures. Everyone in it is assumed to be intelligent and played accordingly. Some flashes of humour.
i have a small beef with the subtitles, as a French learner/improver, I wish translators would translate what is actually said rather than trying to find an equivalent. I think if you’ve no French at all, you might miss some of the subtleties. Nothing essential to the plot, though.
Did you get the final episode last week? If so, was it the 12th or 13th episode? We're up to the 11th over here and my recollection was the previous seasons were 13 episodes long but we do seem to be all set up for a finale with the next one. I'm too worried about spoilers to google and check.
I watched the most recent four episodes over a couple of nights last week to catch up after the Xmas/NY break and they have really solidly convinced me about this season. After a slow start that initially didn't grab me causing doubt that the move from LA to NY was a wise one it's really come back to top form in the second half of the run. I can't help thinking this has coincided with dropping the terrible movie sub-plot (and the excruciatingly badly written and acted switch in Jai White's persona) as well as the ratcheting up of the tension & threat from the other main strands of the narrative.
My other great current mobster/Hollywood related US TV love, Get Shorty, has been picked up for a third season which I'm very happy about.
Bodyguard is a 4 at best, given (as I've said on here before) the entire second half of the series scores precisely nul points and is a waste of everyone's time.
Last night's ep 12 was defo the finale. Very, very good all around. They weren't going to top the laughs of 11, though. Pretty much anything Sandy said or did was quotable. But a solid ending to a season that - like you - gave me doubts. New York...again? No...go back to L.A.
I finished The Bodyguard last night. I liked it better than RdG did, but I think it could have been improved a few hundred percent if it had been maybe 10 or 12 episodes instead of 6. Toward the end, it felt really rushed, like they were trying to squeeze another four episodes into the last one. I will give the second series a chance, but I hope the pacing is improved.
Gonna watch a dodgy stream of Threads at some point this weekend. Herself likes "gritty" post apocalypse dramas, gritty she's gonna get. If it terrifies me half as much as 30 years back I'll be the one all curled up foetal on the couch but while she's dipping into the leftover Celebrations.
Getting really into Rake, the Australian show about a brilliant but self-destructive Sydney barrister and the same six or seven people all sleeping with each other.
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