It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you each week what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently and your chance to recommend anything you’ve been watching. Anything good?
Summer’s nearly here. Ignore the sunshine that may (or may not) be outside your window, because the true signs of summer are new TV shows arriving on our screens. Things should be hotting up by the end of the month, but already this week I’ve covered Will (US: TNT) and Snowfall (US: FX) and passed a third-episode verdict on Riviera(UK: Sky Atlantic).
But we’re not quite there yet, so although I’ll be looking at the usual regulars after the jump, I’ve been filling my empty days with some more catch-up TV. So follow me after the jump where not only will we be talking about the latest episodes of GLOW, Ronny Chieng – International Student and Twin Peaks, I’ll also be chatting about the tail end of You Are Wanted. See you in a mo…
Boyz N The Hood was one of those great movies of the early 90s that announced a new talent and a new voice in cinema – in this case, John Singleton’s. Originally entitled Summer of 84, it’s a blistering movie about his experiences of growing up in the-then South Central LA.
So when you see that he’s making a TV series on a similar theme to his magnum opus, you’re going to want to take note, aren’t you? Snowfall is set in the summer of 1983 and is almost a “the path not taken” rebuke to Boyz n the Hood. It sees Damson Idris playing a young drug dealer. Idris is smart, smart enough to go to college, but he resents being treated as ‘a mascot’ at predominantly white colleges and can’t leave his family to go to a black college on the east coast. So minor league drug-dealing and mopping floors it is for him. But then he comes across a big-time drug dealer at his home and sees an opportunity to finally start making real money.
But Snowfall is all about the crack epidemic of early 80s LA and what it did to the city, and to tell that story, Singleton goes Crash, giving us multiple seemingly unconnected stories that are all set to converge later on. We have Carter Hudson playing a disgraced CIA agent who finally sees an opportunity to make some good money to fund his operations – by selling cocaine. There’s also a Mexican lucador (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) who takes enforcement projects on the side, but who may have burgled the wrong house at the wrong time. And there’s a Nicaraguan ‘freedom fighter’ (Juan Javier Cardenas) who needs his war funded, too.
The show has saving graces. Idris’ character is indeed smart and gets great dialogue, too. The direction (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s, not Singleton’s) is lovely, too. The CIA plot is fascinating in the same way Narcos was, thanks to the air of historicity and Idris’ mission to sell drugs is tense and you do root for him. Watching how all the characters come together is going to be intriguing, too.
So I’ve sat up and taken note. But I’ve not been very intrigued. Sure, the story of what drugs did in the 80s specifically to the West Coast isn’t something that’s been explored much. But unless you’re from LA, I’m not sure how interested you are in drilling down.
The female characters are all pretty terribly handled, too, although things perk up a bit at the end. Peris-Mencheta’s doesn’t have any explanation for existing yet and with so many plots to handle, everything advances slowly.
Snowfall is good enough that I’ll tune in for another episode. But it’s not a show that captures the interest straight away and it doesn’t yet feel like something that has anything new to say. I’ll give it a chance, though.
When Sky Atlantic started out making drama, it seemed like little more than an advert for the virtues of HD TV. While plots have improved since then, Riviera still feels like one of those early Sky Atlantic shows – all glossy locations, famous actors and glorious colours designed to show off what an improved Sky subscription package has to offer.
Since its first episode, Riviera has at least improved from merely giving us the likes of Julia Stiles, Lena Olin, Adrian Lester and Anthony LaPaglia marching from rich, plush location full of rich, plush people to another, with Amr Waked running around a lot and the occasional bit of sexy fun time thrown in for good measure. Episode two managed to up the IQ quotient a bit while adding the slightly less glamorous Phil Davis to the cast as an Interpol officer investigating financial dodginess in the family Stiles.
However, despite having a psychotic drowned prostitute going around murdering everyone she comes across, episode three has been light on thrills, intelligence or much else, preferring instead to have Stiles walking around gibbering to everyone she comes across while pointing a gun at them, whether they’re genuine crims, slightly poncy sculptors or innocent deer, which feels a bit of a cheap way to bring in even more excitement. Most scenes involve one or both of Stiles’ step-sons (Iwan Rheon and Dimitri Leonidas – the only cast member Greek enough to be a ‘Clios’) being mean or nice to either Stiles or the other brother, or Stiles and Lester snapping at each other. And Davis only serves to make everything seem artificial and fake, rather than highlighting the differences between the very rich and the rest of us mere mortals.
There are precious few thrills in this thriller, but if you want to know how pretty HD can be or if Rheon can actually be anything other than a bit slimey, then Riviera is at least a break in watching Blue Planet on continual loop.
Barrometer rating: ‘4 or about as good as John Barrowman’s appearance in Shark Attack 3‘
