2019 – Page 75 – The Medium is Not Enough

News

[ 22 December 2021 ] The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent: The most Nicolas Cage movie ever?
[ 22 November 2021 ] Unexpectedly, there’s a Russian Film Festival and no one told me
[ 22 October 2021 ] December 2021 at the BFI, including Jack Clayton and Dirk Bogarde at 100
[ 5 October 2021 ] BFI Japan comes to big screens UK-wide this Autumn

Review: What We Do In The Shadows 1×1 (US: FX; UK: BBC Two)

28 March 2019 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

In the US: Wednesdays, 10pm, FX
In the UK: Sundays, BBC Two. Starts May 19

As a rule, TV versions of films aren’t usually that much cop. Sure, there are exceptions (eg Hannibal, La Femme Nikita), but largely you watch a movie, tune in to see the TV series and are disappointed that either it doesn’t capture the strengths of the original or it’s just the movie again and doesn’t do anything new. FX (US)’s adaptation of What We Do In The Shadows is therefore a rarity, as it both embodies many of the movie’s best qualities and transcends them to become its own, even better beast.

I wasn’t hugely impressed when I recently watched 2014’s What We Do In The Shadows in preparation for this FX adaptation. Three vampires flat-sharing in New Zealand? You could predict most of the jokes just from that description. Lots of jokes about whose turn it is to clean up after the latest round of blood-sucking, house meetings, that sort of thing.

Perhaps what you might not have predicted is just how many darker vampiric horror tropes the movie would incorporate, but given it was by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok), I was expecting something a whole lot funnier.

Directed by Waititi and written by Clement, the first episode at least of What We Do In The Shadows seems to be an attempt to get the formula right this time.

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Sex and the City follow-up; Crime dans le Lubéron sequel; John Simm joins Game of Thrones prequel; + more

28 March 2019 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Every weekday, TMINE brings you the latest TV news from around the world

European TV

Rai 1 (Italy) green lights: coma drama Mentro ero via (While I Was Away)
France Televisions/ZDF/Rai green light: adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days
France 3 green lights: sequel to Crime dans le Lubéron, Crime dans l’Hérault, with Florence Pernal, Guillaume Cramoisan, Lola Dewaere et al [in French]

UK TV

BBC One green lights: other people’s lives drama LIFE
Netflix/E4 green light: addict comedian comedy Mae and George

US TV

Trailer for season 2 of BBC America’s Killing Eve
Trailer for season 4 of TNT’s Animal Kingdom

New US TV shows

Lifetime green lights: Salt-N-Pepa mini-series biopic Salt-N-Pepa
History developing: 1900s dirty New York cop drama The Tenderloin
Paramount developing: adaptation of Candace Bushnell’s Is There Still Sex in the City?

New US TV show casting

Max Willems to star in CBS’s The Emperor of Malibu
Adhir Kalyan replaces Raymond Ablack on CBS’s To Whom It May Concern
Ashley Nicole Williams joins Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem
John Simm, Richard McCabe, John Heffernan et al join HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel
Lily Rabe and Edgar Ramirez join HBO’s The Undoing
Rowan Blanchard joins TNT’s Snowpiercer

Competition time: win a copy of Babylon Berlin on DVD

27 March 2019 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

It’s been a little while, I know, since the previous TMINE competition. But look at this! Here’s a chance to win series one and two of Babylon Berlin on DVD and there’ll be a chance to win Deutschland ’86 in a few weeks, too.

Babylon Berlin, of course, was one of TMINE’s Top 14 Shows of 2017. But in case you don’t know about it, here’s the Spiel (did you see what I did there?)

THE CRITICALLY acclaimed, multi award winning hit German period drama Babylon Berlin follows a young police inspector uncovering a tangled web of corruption amongst the political, social and sexual extremes of the Weimar Republic. Making waves at home and internationally after its run on Sky Atlantic, and with its third series due later this year, Babylon Berlin Series One & Two Box Set is set to arrive on DVD courtesy of Acorn Media International.
The lavish, $40m series is Germany’s most expensive drama to date, and explores a metropolis in turmoil: growing poverty stands in stark contrast to the excesses and indulgence of the night life in 1929 Berlin.
Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), an ex-soldier from Cologne, is transferred to Berlin to investigate one of Berlin’s biggest pornography rings, together with stenotypist Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries) and his partner Bruno Wolter (Peter Kurth). Rath is forced into an existential conflict, torn between loyalty and uncovering the truth as an even greater conspiracy unfolds: Soviet rebels confronting the rise of National Socialism. Berlin’s police headquarters increasingly become the melting pot of a democracy whose days are numbered.
The social climate and political factors that coalesce into a growth in power of the populist far-right has striking political relevance even now, 90 years after the show is set. With a rare 100% critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, Babylon Berlin is perfect for your next box set binge.
Babylon Berlin Series One & Two will be available digitally to download and keep from iTunes, Amazon Prime Video and Google Play on 1 March 2019 and arrives on DVD as a four-disc box set on 1 April 2019.

Continue reading “Competition time: win a copy of Babylon Berlin on DVD”

What have you been watching? Including The Murders

27 March 2019 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

This week’s reviews

‘Tis the lull before the Easter storm, as there’s a plethora of new and returning shows about to hit the world’s airwaves. Indeed, WHYBW is momentarily shifting to Wednesday and maybe to Tuesday next week to take account of the fact that not only is Wednesday now the busiest TV night of the week (incumbents: The Magicians, Whiskey Cavalier, The Good Fight), a load of shows are joining them tonight (Happy!, What We Do In The Shadows) , so I won’t have time to watch them all tomorrow. I do need to do some work.

This week, however, I was able to review:

The OA – Part II (Netflix)
Hudson & Rex (Canada: CityTV)

Orange Wednesday is taking a break this week, too, since

I haven’t watched any movies yet this week
I can’t do both WHYBW and Orange Wednesday on a Wednesday

Fingers crossed for next week, though, assuming WHYBW moves to Tuesday, which it probably will.

New shows

After the jump, I’ll be looking at The Murders (Canada: CityTV; UK: Universal). Last week, I did mention Hulu’s The Act; however, I belatedly realise that’s not just an anthology show but a dramatised true crime anthology show, so that’s now off the menu.

Coming our way tonight is FX (US)’s What We Do In The Shadows and later on in the week there’s NBC (US)’s Abby’s, so I’ll definitely be reviewing them. But I suspect there’ll be more shows for me to look at than that.

Friday, for example, should be bringing us Netflix’s French sci-fi original Osmosis and despite last week’s claim to the contrary, Amazon’s Hanna will also be hitting our screens on Friday, so either one of those is likely to be next week’s Boxset Monday.

The regulars

Since we’re a day early, I’ve not had time to watch any more episodes of Il Miracolo (The Miracle) and lovely wife hasn’t yet felt the urge to watch the latest Star Trek: Discovery, so they’ll both have to wait until next time.

But Magnum P.I. and The Orville are both back. Can you guess which episode of Star Trek they knocked off this week in The Orville? All will be revealed after the jump.

Joining them are Doom Patrol and The Good Fight. See you in a mo!

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Murders”

Better Things renewed; Serbian-Croatian Bridge; CinéFrance’s Proust search; + more

27 March 2019 Rob Buckley Post a comment