Articles by Rob Buckley

About Rob Buckley
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
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USA’s upfronts 2016-7 – a rundown and clips from the new shows – Shooter and Falling Water

17 May 2016 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

It’s that time of year again – the ‘upfronts’. It’s when all the US networks reveal to advertisers the new shows that are going to be hitting the TV screens sometime from September 2016 through to nowish 2017. However, this isn’t the same as the international screenings, where buyers from TV networks around the world turn up to see what they’d like to acquire, so we won’t know what will be heading our way for quite some time.

First up, because it only has two shows and I’m lazy, is the USA Network. That’s no different from last year, where USA only gave us Mr Robot and Complications; what is different is that we’ll actually have to wait a few months to watch the new shows this year, rather than one month, since these will be airing at some mysterious undisclosed point in the 2016-2017 cycle. Or even later than that, since Complications was actually first shown in the 2014 Upfronts – it took a whole year to emerge.

This year, in keeping with USA’s return to dark and moody in the past couple of years, we’ve got Shooter and Falling Water. Shooter is an adaptation of the Mark Wahlberg movie that stars the slightly more implausible Ryan Phillippe (Secrets and Lies) as an an expert marksman living in exile who is coaxed back into action after learning of a plot to kill the president. I quite liked the movie, although it didn’t exactly push the IQometer, and it doesn’t look like they’ve changed the plot much, beyond adding Omar Epps (House, Resurrection) to the mix as the Fugitive-esque FBI agent who’s chasing after Phillippe, but presumably begins to believe he’s innocent.

Falling Water, meanwhile, looks a bit more interesting, with three unrelated people (David Ajala, Will Yun Lee and Lizzie Brocheré) slowly realising that they are dreaming separate parts of a single common dream. Each of them is on a personal quest – one is searching for his missing girlfriend, one is searching for a lost child, one is looking to cure his catatonic mother – and the clues in their collective dream come to guide them. However, the visions found in their dream might also hold the key to the fate of the world. Hmm.

Visually, while there’s a hint of Inception in there, as well as (oddly enough) Jacob’s Ladder, the most obvious similarities are with Dreamscape. Either way, hopefully it’ll be more like those than like Sense8.

What have you been watching? Including Wolf Creek, Banshee, The Tunnel and Game of Thrones

16 May 2016 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. 

It’s been another quiet week for new TV, as the various networks around the world let their older shows run their course, so they can leave the field clear for the newbies to wow us in just a week or two. That doesn’t mean a few shows haven’t tried to jump the gun and show us what they’ve got ahead of the others. I’ve already reviewed Raising Expectations (Canada: Family), but over in the US, there’s also been Submission on Showtime (so inevitably will be coming to Sky Atlantic at some point). Why haven’t I reviewed it yet? Well, here’s the plot synopsis:

Beautiful but unfulfilled Ashley has her eyes opened to the tantalizing possibilities of BDSM when she discovers the popular erotic novel SLAVE by Nolan Keats. But her fascination with the mysterious Mr. Keats leads her into a sexy but dangerous love triangle, and tests the boundaries of her own sexual limitations. Part romantic drama, part mystery, this tale of seduction, obsession and sexual power from acclaimed adult writer/director Jacky St. James will leave you breathless and begging for more.

Yep, it’s lady porn. You can rely on Showtime, can’t you?

But I have watched one other new show:

Wolf Creek (Australia: Stan)
Based on hit Australian horror franchise of the same name and with John Jarratt reprising his role as outback serial killer Mick Taylor, Wolf Creek is a pretty effective but overly gory thriller in which the poorly accented Lucy Fry (11.22.63) plays an American teenager on holiday with her family in Australia, who are trying to help her get over her drug addiction. Unfortunately, pre-credits they bump into Jarratt, who slaughters everyone except Fry, who then goes on a quest to bring Jarratt to justice, helped and hindered along the way by cop Dustin Clare (Spartacus).

Never having watched the movies and not being a huge fan of horror, I don’t know how much the series has in common with the originals. For the most part, it plays like a standard crime drama and it’s nice to have the reversal of the ‘last girl’ becoming the one doing the chasing. But whenever Jarratt shows up, it becomes something else almost comedic at times, part mockery of the Crocodile Dundee stereotype that people hold of Australians and Outback denizens in particular, part embracing of that stereotype, almost in the style of Ronnie Johns’ Chopper impression, with Jarratt hacking to death anyone who needs to harden the fuck up, particularly anyone who does yoga. 

Horror ain’t my scene and the first five minutes of chainsaw and machete misery almost made me want to switch off. But when the action is focused on Fry and her quest, it’s actually pretty good. Not for me, might be for you.

After the jump, the dwindling regulars: 12 Monkeys, The Americans, Arrow, Banshee, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley and The Tunnel (Tunnel). When will something new be along to join them, I wonder?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Wolf Creek, Banshee, The Tunnel and Game of Thrones”

News: more US cancellations, renewals and pick-ups; Wallander press pack; + more

16 May 2016 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Internet TV

  • Hulu developing: adaptation of Brazil’s racy comedy anthology As Canlhas as Bitches

UK TV

US TV

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

US TV

Paul Rudd in the longest running late night TV show gag

13 May 2016 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Paul Rudd is, of course, immortal. Here he is in Clueless in 1995:

And here he is now:

Paul Rudd in 2016

Basically the same after 21 years. Naturally, someone who is immortal is more patient than the average person, which is why Rudd has been playing the same gag on Conan O’Brien for the past 11 years. It all started during the promotional tour for The 40 Year Old Virgin in 2005. Asked to furnish a clip for O’Brien’s talk show, Rudd obliged. However, it wasn’t from The 40 Year Old Virgin – it was from Mac and Me. 

In case you don’t know, Mac and Me is possibly the worst movie in history. A rip off of ET, it sees an alien come to Earth and help a disabled boy, which in itself would be egregious enough as a plot, but with profit-sharing and product-placement deals in place, let’s just say a lot of help also comes from eating burgers and even from Ronald McDonald himself.

Rudd wasn’t actually in Mac and Me, so what he provided was perhaps the worst scene in an already terrible movie.

And since then, every time Rudd has appeared on any of Conan O’Brien’s shows to promote any of his new movies or even plays, he’s provided exactly the same clip for O’Brien.

Actually, that’s not quite true. Although O’Brien quickly rumbled what was going on and soon was in on the gag, movie studios started trying to get Rudd to provide genuine clips. But that doesn’t mean the immortal Rudd need do as they say. Not exactly, anyway.

PS Rudd’s Captain America: Civil War co-star Chris Evans didn’t know about this. Here’s Rudd explaining it all to him (after this interview)