In the US: Sundays, 9pm/8c, AMC
In the UK: Acquired by BBC4

It used to be that you could rely on AMC for one thing: movies. That's what AMC used to stand for - American Movie Classics. But after it changed its name to AMC in 2003, before you knew it, it could be relied on for another thing: re-runs of The Sopranos.

Mad Men changed all that. Suddenly, AMC was in the business of making TV drama. Excellent TV drama. Slow, excellent TV drama that takes a long time to develop and in which not much happens for a long time.

Then came Breaking Bad, a slow, excellent TV drama that took a long time to develop and in which not much happened for a long time, and The Prisoner, a slow bad TV drama that took a long time to develop and in which not much happened for a long time.

Rubicon, AMC's latest TV drama, is a conspiracy theory show set in the world of American spies that echoes movies like Three Days of the Condor, Parallax View and The Conversation. It stars James Badge Dale (24, The Pacific) as an analyst who begins to see crossword clues take on greater significance - and Miranda Richardson, whose husband commits suicide after he receives a four-leafed clover.

Anyone want to guess what it's like? I'll give you a clue - you'll have to wait until episode five before you're even going to get a hint at what's going on… and it gets good.

Here's a trailer.

Continue reading "Review: Rubicon - 1x1-1x6"

Read other posts about: 24, Mad Men

In case you're wondering where "Random Acts" was over August, well Ali Larter wasn't acting randomly. She just wasn't. What? You thought this was merely a thinly veiled excuse to publish pictures of Ali Larter every week and I was just on holiday? Wow. How wrong were you?

I mean if that's what it was all about, right about now, I'd have a picture of her running in the rain for no good reason, now wouldn't I?

Oh.

All the same, now it's September, she's being all random again.

For starters, she's got two actual movies out this month, one online, one in cinemas in 3D – yes, 3D. Did I mention it's in 3D? The first is Lemon Drop in which she randomly saves kittens. That's out on Tuesday. But she's also got Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D, which is out next Friday.

Here's a featurette with her talking all about it being in 3D and kicking a really tall guy in 3D.

But now she's randomly gone to Japan for the Resident Evil: Afterlife premiere. She's there right now. She is. Look – here's a live stream.

And she's having her picture taken with random people.

Good to see the randomness back, Ali.

Have you seen Ali Larter acting randomly? If so, let us know and we'll tell everyone about it in "Random Acts of Ali Larter"

Just because.

Time for our regular look at what TV the BFI is showing on the South Bank in London in October. But first, a little late addition to September's BFI programme. On the 8th of this month (that's next Wednesday), the BFI (and HBO) are presenting a preview of The Special Relationship, which stars Michael Sheen as Tony Blair and Dennis Quaid as Bill Clinton. There are still a few seats available, so get in there quickly if you can.

Now for October. It's mostly going to be the Film Festival this month, but there's also Michael Parkinson in conversation, a preview of thorne: sleepyhead that includes a Q&A with David Morrissey, as well as a season of plays directed by James Cellan Jones.

Continue reading "(More) September and October 2010 at the BFI"

If you haven't been watching Modern Family on ABC/Sky1, you really should have been because it's one of the funniest shows around -- which is also why it won a whole cluster of Emmys on Sunday.

During said Emmys, there was this 'ere skit, in which a TV exec decides to tinker with the Modern Family format. You might spot a crossover with Family Guy as well as a guest appearance from a certain major movie star.

Read other posts about: Modern Family

Even though it's Wednesday, seeing as The Guardian loved it so much, let's start September with the Big Train sketch of the week.

This week, Simon Pegg tries to teach his son how to ride a bike. If you don't like cruelty to children, don't watch it. If you do, hit play now.

You can, incidentally, get the whole of Big Train on DVD.

Read other posts about: Big Train

This is going to be the last entry on the blog for most of (if not all of) August, so it's going to be an open-ended thread for y'all to chat about what you've been watching on TV this month – assuming you want to, of course. I've a few things in my queue that I'm going to be watching on planes, including Rubicon, ep 2 of Mad Men (which is already looking better than ep 1) and the first two eps of the new Tricia Helfer-enhanced Dark Blue (I'm unsure if this is a good thing or not, but I remain open-minded).

But this week, I've been watching:

• Burn Notice: Reasonably fun, but in the scheme of things, a throwaway ep, bookended with a couple of interesting character scenes.
• Covert Affairs: The first really good ep of the series, with Oded Fehr as a Mossad agent. It had a real Bourne Identity feel to it, and the activities back at Langley seemed to be more coherent. Fingers crossed the rest of the season will be like this.
• The Gates: Vampire fun! A good ep, but when will Nick find out about the rest of the Gates's secrets?
• The IT Crowd: Nice cameo by that bloke off The Mighty Boosh and as funny as always.
• Persons Unknown: Silly. But could it all be in their heads?
• Rev: A nice way to end this series. Not many belly laughs since the first ep, but surprisingly deep with a knowing humour. Fingers crossed for a second series.
• Royal Pains: Slightly interesting playing around with time and Fringe-esque graphics. Some decent character moments, but I'm missing Hank-Jill and the general edge the show had in season one, even if it's nice to have Anastasia Griffith around.
• Scoundrels: Moderately amusing at best, but it does seem to be settling down and working out a vibe for itself.
• Top Gear: A so-so season over all. It's definitely losing its appeal now it's trying to be more serious.

As always, no spoilers unless you're going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you've reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).

Read other posts about: Burn Notice, Royal Pains, The IT Crowd, Top Gear