Year: 2010

US TV

Review: Spartacus – Blood and Sand 1×1

27 January 2010 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Spartacus

In the US: Fridays, 10pm ET/PT, Starz
In the UK: Summer 2010

Every so often, someone will come along and claim of a British TV programme, “Of course, you wouldn’t see that on US TV. It’s too gritty/grimy/explicit [delete as appropriate].” These kind of people have never seen US cable TV.

HBO is the obvious standout when it comes to risk-taking, but Showtime and AMC are now pushing the envelope as well. But the latest arrival to decent, risk-taking TV programming in the US is Starz. As well as the likes of Crash and Party Down, Starz has just added Spartacus to its roster of edgy shows.

Imagine the violence and look of 300 coupled with the language of The Wire and the soft core porn of Caligula and you have Spartacus. Oh, yes – it has a subtitle: Blood and Sand. That’s kind of a clue.

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Wednesday’s “hello to Jason Isaacs” news

27 January 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film

  • Guy Ritchie pulling out of Lobo for Sherlock Holmes 2?

British TV

US TV

Competitions

District 9 competition – win the DVD

26 January 2010 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

District 9

I was going to review this before Christmas, but the DVD arrived too late and I’ve had zero time to watch it as well as everything else in my TV backlog, so the whole plan’s had to go on hold.

So instead, it’s competition time! Woo hoo. Just leave a comment below and using the mighty power of the Internet random generator, this time next week I’ll pick one of you lucky people to get my pristine, unwatched copy of District 9 on DVD (currently available from Amazon.co.uk for £7.88). What is District 9?

From producer Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) and director Neill Blomkamp comes a startlingly original science fiction thriller that “soars on the imagination of its creators” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone). With stunning special effects and gritty realism, the film plunges us into a world where the aliens have landed… only to be exiled to a slum on the fringes of Johannesburg. Now, one lone human discovers the mysterious secret of the extraterrestrial weapon technology. Hunted and hounded through the bizarre back alleys of an alien shantytown, he will discover what it means to be the ultimate outsider on your own planet.

DVD special features include:

  • Filmmaker’s Commentary
  • Deleted Scenes
  • The Alien Agenda: A Filmmaker’s Log – Three-Part Documentary

It’s a region 12 DVD so is only designed to play on European DVD players, but entries are welcome from anyone who thinks he or she can play it.

US TV

Review: Life Unexpected 1×1

26 January 2010 Rob Buckley 18 Comments

Life Unexpected 1x1

In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, The CW

I know, I know. I’m about a week late on this one and episode two has already aired. But we watched episode one last night, so what the hell.

Anyway, this was a relatively pleasant surprise. I say pleasant but we’re talking about a show in which a a 15-year-old girl called Lux tracks down the birth parents she’s never met so they can sign away their parental rights – apparently, the seventh foster home she’s in wasn’t any more up to scratch than the previous ones, so she’d quite like to live by herself.

Bleak, huh? But, given this is The CW, the home of programmes for teenage girls/young women/family audiences, you can bet it doesn’t turn out too horrible.

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US TV

Review: The Deep End 1×1

26 January 2010 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

The Deep End

In the US: Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC

Oh look: another show about lawyers. Gosh, is there actually anything new that can be said or hasn’t be done with lawyers already? I mean, here we have a whole bunch of novice lawyers (Raising the Bar), being trained by their cut-throat mentors (Shark), having lots of jolly whacky fun together (Boston Legal), getting worried about their relationships (Ally McBeal) and worrying about the little guy and doing good (Eli Stone).

All done before.

So like cop shows, if you’re going to have a new lawyer show, it’s largely about the mix and the vibe it gives out, rather than because you’re expecting anything truly original.

The Deep End is a curious mix. It’s about one part fun and decent characters and actors to five parts toenail-curlingly poorly written dialogue and situations. Still, it does have two very big things going for it: Billy Zane and Clancy Brown.

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