February 2020 – Page 2 – 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

What have you been watching? Including For Life and Star Trek: Picard

26 February 2020 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

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

Previously on TMINE

It’s been a quietish week for new TV this week. I never did manage to find a way to watch Tribal (Canada: APTN) and I never did find the time to watch Gentefied (Netflix), but I did at least give you the Boxset Tuesday treat of Amazon’s Hunters. Meanwhile, for our weekly look at the silver screen, Orange Thursday previewed Greed (2020) and reviewed Gemini Man (2019).

Al Pacino in Amazon's Hunters — Al Pacino in Amazon’s Hunters

Next on TMINE

We’re coming up to a busy fortnight for TMINE, as it’s providing paternity cover for someone for the next two weeks. How modern, hey? I’m hoping to still bring you whatever reviews I can fit in, but take the following schedule with a pinch of salt, particularly since some extra work just came in for me today. Sigh.

In movies, tomorrow’s Orange Thursday will be reviewing 1917 (2019) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

I hope to preview the forthcoming War of the Worlds some time in the next couple of days or Monday – probably Monday as it doesn’t start until March 5 on Fox.

Season two of Altered Carbon is available on Netflix from tomorrow, so I’ll definitely be watching as much of that as I can (unless it turns out to be rubbish). Fingers crossed for Boxset Tuesday there.

I Am Not Okay With This (Netflix) came out today, but it’s probably too teen for me, but Sunday’s Dispatches From Elsewhere (US/UK: AMC) might be worth a whirl, even though its an anthology show. And fingers especially crossed for Stateless (Australia: ABC; UK: Netflix), which also starts on Sunday.

The regulars

The list of regulars is expanding again: joining The Outsider, Star Trek: Picard and Stumptown are Locke & Key and For Life, although I haven’t managed to watch last night’s episode. All of those after the jump.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including For Life and Star Trek: Picard”

The Adventures of Young Voltaire; Seven Australia pauses all dramas; + more

26 February 2020 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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

Internet TV

Trailer for Netflix’s Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker

Australian TV

Seven yellow lights: all dramas

French TV

Lauréna Thellier joins TG1’s Une affaire française (A French Affair)
France 3 green lights: self-explanatory mini-series Les aventures du jeune Voltaire (The Adventures of Young Voltaire), with Valérie Bonneton et al

US TV show casting

Ryan Michelle Bathe to recur on CBS’s All Rise
Kelsey Grammer to recur on CBS’s Carol’s Second Act

New US TV shows

Hulu developing: adaptation of Judy Blume’s Summer Sisters
Peacock developing: freedom fighter and fan comedy Fan Girl

New US TV show casting

Liza Lapira joins CBS’s Equalizer
Amanda Warren joins CBS’s Ways and Means
Stella Baker to star in The CW’s Republic of Sarah
Coolio joins HBO Max’s Vegas High
Molly Shannon to co-star in Showtime’s Big Deal
Michael Rooker joins Showtime’s The President is Missing
Mekai Curtis to star in Starz’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan
Sarah Gadon to co-star in USA’s Evel

Boxset Tuesday: Hunters (season one) (Amazon)

25 February 2020 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In the UK: Available on Amazon

On the whole, you don’t get a lot of Jewish TV. You certainly get Jews on TV. Israel, of course, is currently sending us plenty of fine programmes it’s made itself, too. But there’s not really a lot of Jewish TV – TV’s that’s concerned purely with Jewish concerns, that’s packed almost exclusively with Jewish heroes and that’s self-conscious and explicit about that, without apology. That in and of itself makes Amazon’s Hunters almost unique.

You also don’t get a lot of Quentin Tarantino TV. Sure, he has been known to cross the movie/TV divide to work on the occasional episode of CSI, and there is the occasional imitator. However, there’s not much of both categories that really captures Tarantino’s love of pulp fiction, elaborate dialogue and genre-transformation. And again, that in and of itself makes Amazon’s Hunters almost unique.

Because Hunters is probably the closest you’ll ever get – short of Quentin Tarantino himself developing a TV spin-off of Inglourious Basterds – to a Jewish Quentin Tarantino TV series. Set in 1970s New York, it sees Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson) playing a stupidly bright Jewish boy who lives with his grandmother (or ‘safta’ in Hewbrew). Harvard and MIT have offered him places, but he wants to stay with his safta and look after her.

However, one night, in what seems like an ordinary burglary, his safta – who survived the Holocaust no less – is murdered, setting Lerman on the path of vengeance. But it’s not long until no lesser person than Al Pacino turns up and reveals that his safta was actually killed by Nazis. Because they are among us – and they want to start a Fourth Reich.

So why doesn’t Lerman join his top squad of elite Nazi hunters and stop them before they succeed?

Continue reading “Boxset Tuesday: Hunters (season one) (Amazon)”

Atypical, This Way Up renewed; Stateless acquired; + more

25 February 2020 Rob Buckley Post a comment