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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1945
So encouraged by the abundant good reviews and the fact that it appeared somewhere or another on lists of films to see I download Serenity, Firefly. Which apparently is movie spinoff of a series I've never seen, for good reason as it turns out.
Think "Cowboys VS Zombies in outer Space", add to that a cast of mostly good looking people who can't act, old-style western shotguns and revolvers, people overacting and speaking with ridiculous accents, preposterous dialogue, a ridiculous plot and lots and lots of spaceships and you get the idea. Bad, bad, bad. I just saved you 2 hours of your life. Take my word for it.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1980
And so I've downloaded "Force Majeure", Eddie Izzard, which I believe to be a Danish film about a relationship that goes bad when the wife discovers proof of her husbands cowardice.
It opens in English, over-the-top graphics, a comedian on stage in London, Wembley Arena, charismatic, talking on stage to an overly amused audience. And I watch it for 10 minutes, it's not funny, the jokes, "intelligent", but not, obvious, peculiar, and I keep waiting for it to cut to the drama, the Avalanche, but it's not happening, and after 20 minutes I finally fast-forward through the rest of it to discover that in fact there is a real comedian by the name of Eddie Izzard and as over-the-top as I found the opening this is apparently a real video that people watch to be amused.
Perhaps it was the fact that I was expecting something else, something - well, brighter, with a little more depth, but I'm amazed that this passes for entertainment, that people buy into this, attend the shows, laugh, buy the DVD, I'm missing something, and while he's definitely not my cup of tea I learned something new, mainly, what other people like, and I wouldn't have believed it if you told me...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2035
And following Breaking Bad I'm short of entertainment, never responsibility, but I'm using this to hide from it. Breaking Bad, amazing, the ending not entirely unexpected, but true to the characters and not as cruel as the writers could have made it. 5 Stars, and for a moment, a couple of moments, I'm bereft, back to the European Art House, but memory's a tricky thing, and eventually it comes to me how this all got started - the trailers for "Better Call Saul" - and I watch the first season. There's only one season, this saves me from myself. And, written by Vince Gilligan as well, it's predictably great, introducing the character of Saul Goodman (AKA James McGill, AKA Slippin' Jimmy), as well as fleshing out some of the characters from Breaking Bad - the sociopathic Tuco and Mike, the "protection man". Season 1, 5 stars, now to get some work done...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2296
Now it's been a while since I dipped my toes in the Pop Culture pond - remember Ricky Gervais's "The Office", "Arrested Development"? The last TV serials I subscribed to, I won't count the X-Files as really, that's a bit old.
So, a toss up between "Game of Thrones" & "Breaking Bad" - given my tastes, an easy choice, I'm familiar with the character arc of Walter White, have enjoyed the trailers for "Better Call Saul", and given the plethora of outstanding reviews decide to give it a try. Spoilers abound on the net, and I suspected it would be good, but it's better than that, outstanding, visceral, the combination of dark humour and circumstance, subplots and character, 3 episodes in and I'm already addicted.
And odd, given that it has the general 'feel goodness' of the day after a Crystal Meth binge. But you know, you've probably seen it and it hardly needs my recommendation.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2296
Monday night off and there isn't a bar in the city worth attending. But there was this:
What We Do In The Shadows - a brilliant New Zealand mockumentary playing at Eau Claire, only cinema in town, and it's definitely a 5 star piece. Written by and starring Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) it provides a hilarious and unconventional (yet oddly still conventional) take on the maladapted vampires of Wellington, New Zealand.
5/5 Stars, view the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv568AzZ-i8