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.
Arrow and The Flash have been building up quite a roster of superheroes (and supervillains) over their runs – to the extent that a spin-off featuring a whole bevy of those characters is already in the works. Now, as a promo for both series, the producers of the show have put together a sort of ‘What if’ Fight Club featuring most of them. So brace yourself to see what would happen if Arrow, Black Canary, Arsenal, The Flash, Atom, Ra’s Al Ghul, the Dark Archer, Reverse Flash, Firestorm, Captain Cold and Heat Wave all ended up in a fight. I’m not convinced by some of the results, but hey, it’s only make-believe, right?
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. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
I’ve been away for a fortnight, so that means there’s a fair bit to cover this time round, including (gasp!) some new shows. But first, movies.
The Raid 2 (2014) (Netflix)
Sequel to the brilliantly kinetic The Raid, in which the cream of Indonesian martial arts talent kicked arse in a variety of amazingly choreographed scenes, photographed beautifully by Welsh director Gareth Evans. This time, hero Rama, rather than fight his way up a building, instead has to go undercover with a crime family, first in prison, then in Indonesia at large, as the young son tries to take over the empire from his dad by stirring up trouble with his Japanese rivals.
Unfortunately, compared to the brilliant original, The Raid 2 is a somewhat dull affair for most of the first half, as Evans makes the mistake of trying to give us story and acting, rather than fists and kicks to the head. Everything starts to crank up nicely towards the end, though, with Evans giving us some beautifully shot scenes and the various martial artists do some death-defying tricks. However, everyone’s ability to survive multiple machete strikes starts to get more than a tad improbable at times.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012) (Netflix)
Kathryn Bigelow’s dramatisation of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, with Jessica Chastain the driven CIA analyst on a decade-long quest to catch the al Qaeda head. Again, a slow starter with years going by with nothing much happening. It’s only once Chastain makes the right connections that things begin to crank up, with Bigelow lending Seal Team Six her Oscar-winning action skills at the end. The movie is thankfully jingoism- and hyperbole-free, giving us a thoughtful CIA trying to do its best against near impossible odds, with no sci-fi weapons to help out. But weirdly, in retrospect, the movie feels more like a trial run for later Marvel movies, with Seal Team Six seemingly recruiting largely from SHIELD (Callan Mulvey, Frank Grillo) and Guardians of the Galaxy (Chris Pratt). There’s also the mysterious cameo by The Barrowman himself.
After the jump, tele, including first tries of American Odyssey, Olympus, Thunderbirds are Go! and Daredevil, as well as look at the regulars: 12 Monkeys, The Americans, American Crime, Arrow, The Blacklist, Community,The Doctor Blake Mysteries,The Flash, Forever, Fortitude, House of Cards, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, One Big Happy, The Returned and Vikings. I’m giving up on not one, not two but three of those – which do you reckon they’ll be?
And no, I haven’t watched last night’s Game of Thrones yet, so no spoilers.
Fresh from my recent Lisbon posting about what’s hot on TV in Portugal, I’ve just spent a few days in Athens. So what’s hot on TV in Greece, judging from the advertising in Athens?
Well, purely from the advertising in the centre of Athens, you’d think nothing at all. There is none. Ewan McGregor, however, is everywhere and it turns out he speaks remarkably good Greek. He’s in the airport.
Ewan here is saying: “Our name is changing. The values, however, remain exactly the same.”
He’s also all over bus stops and the Metro.
Look carefully and you’ll spot two Ewans on the other side of the tracks.
Here, Ewan is revealing that insurance group ING is now becoming NN: “New name, same vision,” Ewan there doing a nice bit of wordplay on “όναμα” (‘onama’ or name) and “‘οραμα” (‘orama’ or vision).
But TV? Nothing in the centre of Athens. However, head off towards the port of Piraeus, about 10-15 minutes down the road, and we start to head into more media-friendly territory, albeit radio. Pretty much every bus stop here is dedicated to 90.1FM.
In case you can’t read that: “ΝΕΟ ΠΡΟΓΡΑΜΜΑ, ΝΕΑ ΠΡΟΣΟΠΑ” (‘neo programma, nea prosopa’ aka ‘new schedule, new faces’). Basically, the entire station is (re)launching with new programmes and a whole new bunch of hosts, usually of the “schlubby older man, hot younger woman” variety. But sometimes two schlubby older men for a bit of variety.
Still no TV, though. But along said road to Piraeus (the unimaginatively titled “Athens-Piraeus main road”), you’ll find every side lined with adverts for the new channel Epsilon TV, “the new channel for young people”.
As the logo, the “ΠΕΡΙΟΔΙΚΟ” (‘periodiko’ or ‘magazine’) tag and the fact that EPSILON TV is spelt out in English suggest, Epsilon is somewhat akin to the US/UK E! channel. However, there is some scripted programming, too, including Σουλεϊμαν Ο Μεγαλοπρεπης (Suleiman the Magnificent), which is described as “A series set in the 16th century and depicting the powerful love/erotic story of Alexandra, who is captured by the Turks and ends up in the harem of Suleiman the Magnificent”.
However, this is actually a 2011-2014 Turkish TV show, Muhteşem Yüzyıl (Magnificent Century).
