Every Wednesday, TMINE reviews two movies and infringes a former mobile phone company’s trademarked marketing gimmick
Time prevented me from doing Orange Wednesday last week, so to make up for it, this week, TMINE will be reviewing not two, but three movies:
John Wick – Chapter 2 (2017): In which Keanu Reeves reprises his role as terrifying hitman John Wick and acts with Laurence Fishburne for the first time since The Matrix trilogy
Justice League vs The Fatal Five (2019): animated quasi-follow-up to the original Justice League Unlimited series that sees various members of the Justice League fighting villains from the future
Donkeyote (2017): documentary in which an old man from a southern Spanish village decides to trek across the US’s ‘Trail of Tears’, accompanied by two animal companions. Guess what at least one of them is.
France Televisions developing: adaptation of Émile Zola’s Germinal, Bonaparte series Josephine and Napoleon, science-fiction series and “female-powered Indiana Jones” series
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
FX (US)’s What We Do In The Shadows
This week’s reviews
It’s been a busy old week for TV, with a whole bunch of returning shows, as well as some new ones. However, despite my grandiose promises last week, I’ve not reviewed a huge amount. Elsewhere, TMINE has only looked at:
To be fair, that’s because all the shows I’d planned to review in depth weren’t as tempting as I’d hoped…
Netflix’s Osmosis
New shows
I did promise last time that for this week’s Boxset Monday, I’d review either Netflix’s Osmosis or Amazon’s Hanna. Unfortunately, one episode was about all I could take of Osmosis in a sitting, but I’ll be talking about that after the jump.
So then I tried episode two of Hanna, having already previewed episode one a while back. However, while that proved more appetising than the first, it had some other qualities that made me sigh a lot. And not make me want to watch any more episodes in hurry. We’ll talk about that after the jump, too.
Before next WHYBW, I’ll be previewing Jordan Peele’s new take on The Twilight Zone and maybe The CW’s In The Dark, Cinemax’s Warrior and Netflix’s Quicksand, as well as anything else that crops up. Orange Wednesday will be back tomorrow with reviews of John Wick – Chapter 2,Justice League vs The Fatal Five and Donkeyote.
Happy and Christopher Meloni in Syfy (US)’s Happy!
The regulars
As for the regulars, I’m all caught up now. The Orville is on yet another long break, so join me after the jump for a look at the latest episodes of Doom Patrol, The Good Fight, Il Miracolo (The Miracle), The Magicians,Star Trek: Discovery and Whiskey Cavalier. I’m going to be demoting one of them – can you guess which?
I’ll also be frowning at the return of Happy!, smiling thinly at the mid-season return of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and waving goodbye sadly to the first season of Magnum P.I.
There’s a certain irony that while Netflix is introducing the rest of the world to foreign TV shows made in their native languages and in their own styles, national broadcasters in Europe are still keen on “the international co-production”. These have been around for ages and basically involve two or more big broadcasters from different countries getting together to make a production. They pack the cast with their own native talent… then force them all to speak English. They then simultaneously water down the script for “international tastes” – in other words, strip it of anything that won’t translate easily into other languages or cultures.
Rai 1 (Italy) and Tele München Gruppe (Germany)’s Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose) may be an advance on that standard formula and a definite cut above the average co-production of yore, but it’s also something that feels like it’s been stripped of flavour to suit “international tastes”.
Every Tuesday, TMINE flags up what new TV events BAFTA is holding around the UK
And another new one for April, following on from last week’s addition to the timetable.
TV Preview: Mum
Wednesday, 24 April 2019 – 6:45pm Princess Anne Theatre, 195 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LN
A preview of the third series of the BAFTA-winning BBC comedy followed by a Q+A with the creative team.
In the final series of Mum, Cathy and her family decamp to the English countryside to celebrate Derek’s birthday. Each episode observes a different day of the week, from their arrival on the Monday to the party on Saturday, as Cathy takes a final step towards her future.
Written and directed by Stefan Golaszewski and starring Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan.
