Streaming TV

Marvel’s Moon Knight looks interesting, although what’s up with Oscar Isaac’s accent?

20 January 2022 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Moon Knight. You’ve heard of that particular superhero, haven’t you? No, I hadn’t either until Marvel decided to make a TV show about him. Thankfully, Wikipedia is our friend here:

The son of a rabbi, Marc Spector was a former Marine and CIA operative who became a mercenary, despite his conflicted feelings about violence and morality. During a job in Sudan, he was appalled by ruthless fellow mercenary Raoul Bushman, who then attacked and killed archeologist Dr. Alraune. After saving the archeologist’s daughter and colleague, Marlene Alraune, Spector was then mortally wounded by Bushman before finding himself drawn to a recently unearthed tomb for shelter and placed before a statue of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Spector dies, but is then suddenly revived, fully healed. He claims Khonshu wants him to be the “moon’s knight”, redeeming his life of violence by now protecting and avenging the innocent. While early stories imply Spector is merely insane, it is later revealed Khonshu is real, one of several entities from the Othervoid (a dimension outside normal time and space) who were worshipped as gods by ancient Earth people.

I’ve never read it, but from what my Marvel comic-reading friends tell me, hopefully we’ll be lining up scenes like this:

The show is now heading to Disney+ in March and stars Oscar Isaac – who apparently wasn’t totally scarred by the superhero business when he made the terrible X-Men: Apocalypse – and here’s the first trailer:

So clearly not what I read on Wikipedia. It’s set in London and there’s obvious bits of the British Museum on display, for starters. Plus there’s Oscar Isaac’s accent. Hmm. He’s getting stick on social media for that, because it does have a touch of the Orphan Blacks about it (interestingly, of course, the star of Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany, is going to be playing She-Hulk in another Marvel TV show soon).

However, to be fair, the character does have dissociative identity disorder so that might not be his real accent – Wikipedia does say the character is American – merely one of his other identity’s accents (he’s Stevie, not Marc at this point), so that could actually be part of the plot. Which does happen.

Anyway, I enjoyed the creepiness of the whole thing and him being bonkers (or maybe not), so the more I watch the trailer, the more I want to watch the show, so it’s done its job, at least.

Film reviews

The TMINE multiplex: Good on Paper (2021), Doctor Liza (2020), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) and Incident by a Bank (2010)

18 January 2022 Natalia Romanova 6 Comments

In which Nat talks briefly about the movies she’s been watching this week for no particular reason and that probably don’t warrant proper reviews, but hey? Wouldn’t it be nice if we all chatted about them anyway?

Heya! How have you all been this week? Get up to anything nice at the weekend? I didn’t manage to make it to the cinema, unfortunately, because honestly, none of the films really interested me.

I’d have quite liked to have seen The 355 (2022) – lots of famous older actresses, including Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger and Lupita Nyong’o get to be international spies, plus I’m always partial to Sebastian Stan – but my local preferred indie didn’t have it, which would have meant a trip to the (literal) depths of the Vue. Blurgh!

So I didn’t. Fortunately, the goddesses – bless them all – invented pubs and restaurants for a reason, which made my weekend pass very nicely indeed all the same!

Wine Grapes GIFfrom Wine GIFs

But I have watched a whole bunch of movies, at least. More or less one for each of my supposedly regular screens.

In Screen 1, we have a Netflix original, Good on Paper (2021), which is written by and stars my favourite stand-up Iliza Shlesinger, and is based on both a real-life event and one of her sets.

In Screen 2, it’s Russian cinema time with Доктор Лиза (Doctor Liza) (2020), a biopic of sorts about real-life heroine Елизаве́та Петро́вна Гли́нка.

In Screen 3, it’s time to rewatch a ‘classic’: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), despite it being the bane of redheads everywhere for more than three decades now.

Jessica Rabbit Carrot Cake GIFfrom Jessica Rabbit GIFs

And finally, because I didn’t manage to watch Boiling Point (2022) as I wanted, I decided to take in another single-shot movie for our short-movie screen, Screen 4: Händelse vid bank (Incident by a Bank) (2010).

See you after the jump! But first, can I see your tickets, please? Sorry, is the app not working? Yeah, the WiFi down here is really bad, isn’t it? Soz. If you swipe… yes and then… is it not in your wallet app? Maybe your email? You know what, just go in, hey?

Continue reading “The TMINE multiplex: Good on Paper (2021), Doctor Liza (2020), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) and Incident by a Bank (2010)”
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Peacemaker, Pivoting, The Kings of Napa and Naomi

17 January 2022 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

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

New Year, new shows. Hoorah! Life is good, even if the TV isn’t always quite so good. But I’ve tried almost everything out there, just to see if the lockdown has been incubating some good shows, ready finally to emerge onto our screens.

First, some regulars. Last week, we were down to The Book of Boba Fett, since we’ve pushed the pause button on Cobra Kai. This week’s BBF I actually liked more than the previous week, perhaps because there was less backstory and fan service than the previous week. The Wookie fight was fun and gosh, Danny Trejo showed up! Not so sure about the new gang’s Quadrophenia vibe, but it made for some amusing visuals at least.

More promising and more welcome was the return of Superman & Lois (US: The CW), the first season of which is now on BBC One and the iPlayer in the UK. We’ve moved a bit further along and we’re starting to look at some more interesting, more adult themes than we usually get from the CW’s superhero shows.

Sure, we still have the two sons and their dull romances; we also now have their ‘sister from another universe’ to deal with. But underlying all of that, we have Superman having to deal with the stresses on his marriage of both his sons and Lois’ issues, something prompting him to drink lots of wine with Lana Lang. We also have a more interesting relationship with the US government, with Supes being asked to swear his allegiance to America and being forced to decide if that’s something he’d like to do. By the end of it, if you’re not wanting Superman to be your dad, there’s something wrong with you – or you just have a very nice dad, already.

Usual quibble, though: for a show that’s a spin-off from Supergirl, which used to mention Superman more or less every episode nevertheless, how is that not only does she never get mentioned, there’s not even the implication that she exists? People act like Supes is the only Kryptonian in town. Nothing weird happened in the series finale of Supergirl, did it?

Thoroughly enjoyable and really, the effects on this are just superb for a TV show.

New shows after the jump: join me there to hear if Peacemaker (US: HBO Max), The Kings of Napa (US: OWN), Pivoting (US: Fox) and Naomi (US: The CW) are any good.

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Film

There’s another Russian film festival no one told me about – Soviet 60s: A Turning Point in Cinema

13 January 2022 Natalia Romanova 8 Comments
Black Widow Scarlett Johansson GIFfrom Black Widow GIFs

Am I doing something wrong? Probably. I’m usually doing something wrong.

But at the moment, all I’m trying to do is promote film, particularly Russian film, yet no one wants to tell me about their lovely new Russian film festivals until it’s almost too late. Guys! I can help! I really can! Just let me know that you’re doing a Russian film festival and I’ll tell everyone else! I might even buy tickets and turn up!

The BFI was the previous “let’s not tell the Russian film girl about our Russian film festival” culprit, just before Christmas. Now it’s the Institut Français who’ve taken against me. To be honest, scanning their web site, they don’t seem to want to publicise it very much at all, so maybe it’s not personal — I actually found out about it through Russian Art & Culture. Maybe I’m being just a little bit paranoid? What do you think?

Anyway, I’ve got you intrigued now, haven’t I? Want to know more about it? I do hope so.

Soviet 60s: A Turning Point in Cinema

This will be a monthly film series at the Ciné Lumière (in association with Russian language film charity Kino Klassika) that runs from 18 January to 30 June and that spotlights “a selection of films from the decade that changed both cinema and the world: from beloved Soviet comedies to rarely-screened New Wave classics”.

Here’s the programme

After the jump, I’ll give you full details of all the films, as well as trailers and even a short TV programme about one of them. As you can probably guess, the trailers are all in Russian (and there’s an even an Armenian one!) so you might have to turn auto subtitles on.

Continue reading “There’s another Russian film festival no one told me about – Soviet 60s: A Turning Point in Cinema”
Film

What Nat added to her streaming queues this week, including The Lost Daughter, The Blue Angel and Being the Ricardos

11 January 2022 Natalia Romanova 3 Comments

Time for my new feature. Ooh! Do I need a drum roll? Probably not.

So, the idea with this is that every week, new films come onto the streaming services. I try to review them all, I really do, but that’s way too hard now – there’s just so many! But rather than leave them unmentioned here, I thought I’d at least register them for your attention. Even if I don’t actually review them, at least you know they’re there and if I do review them, maybe you’ll have watched them, too, and be able to share your thoughts with us?

I do have a silly big list of subscription to streaming services, including BFI Player, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Marquee TV (more for the ballet and the Broadway classics than any movies, admittedly), Klassiki (“The only place in the world where you can stream and explore films from Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia”) and Apple TV+, and there’s all the free services, too (All 4, iPlayer, Pluto TV, My 5), so I’m bound to miss some, so please point them out if I do!

Anyway, here’s this week’s list of things I added to my streaming queues, hoping to watch them at some point. Some have been on the services for a while, but I’ve only just noticed them, so that counts, right?

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Netflix

  • The Lost Daughter (2021): A woman’s beach vacation takes a dark turn when she begins to confront the troubles of her past. Maggie Gyllenhaal directs (Trailer)
  • She’s the Man (2006): Teenage Viola tries to convince the students at her twin brother’s school that she’s actually him in this twist on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Vinnie Jones co-stars as a football coach! (Trailer)
  • Good on Paper (2021): After years of putting her career first, a stand-up comic meets a guy who seems perfect: smart, nice, successful… and possibly too good to be true. Written by and starring Iliza Schlesinger, based on a true story! (Trailer)
  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017): A surgeon’s carefully curated life edges toward disaster when a trouble teenage boy with mysterious motives begins to impose himself on his family. Yorgos Lanthimos does Ancient Greek myth in the modern day (Trailer)

Amazon Prime

  • The Good Boy (Хороший Мальчик) (2016): The life of a schoolboy Kolya changes when he falls in love with his teacher and someone burns down an outbuilding. And the principal’s daughter thinks that he is an arsonist and falls in love with him… (Trailer)
  • The Tender Bar (2022): From director George Clooney and based on the best-selling memoir, The Tender Bar follows an aspiring writer (Tye Sheridan) pursuing his romantic and professional dreams. From a stool in his uncle’s (Ben Affleck) bard, he learns what it means to grow up from a colourful group of local characters. (Trailer)
  • The Protégé (2021): As a child, Anna watched her family brutalised and murdered in Saigon. When the man that saved her from the killers and trained her as a soldier of fortune is murdered, Anna is determined to have her revenge. She uncovers a 40-year old case her mentor had been looking into, and in so doing becomes the hunted as well as the hunter of a very powerful force that wanted the past left alone. With Maggie Q, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Keaton. (Trailer)
  • Being the Ricardos (2021): During one production week of I Love Lucy – from Monday table read through Friday audience taping – Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) face a series of personal and professional crises that threaten their show, their careers and their marriage, in writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s behind-the-scenes drama. (Trailer)
The Love Witch (2016)

MUBI

  • Red Road (2008): This dramatic tale of city surveillance and a woman’s obsession with a man from her past was Andrea Arnold’s stunning debut after winning an Oscar for Best Short Film. (Trailer)
  • The Blue Angel (1930): Respected schoolteacher Rath learns of his pupils’ infatuation with postcards depicting a nightclub songstress. To investigate the source of indecency, Rath goes to the Blue Angel nightclub and is fatefully seduced by the smouldering Lola-Lola, triggering the downward spiral of his life and fortune. (Trailer)
  • The Love Witch (2016): At once a vibrant pastiche of 1960s horror and a contemporary corrective to the era’s – and the genre’s – sexual politics, The Love Witch is, at heart, a warm treatise on loneliness and love. Written, directed and scored by Anna Biller, this vivid ode to cult Technicolor treasures is simply magic. (Trailer)