Film reviews

An archive of The Medium is Not Enough’s film reviews

What have you been watching? Including Cara Fi, The Comeback, Neville’s Island, Robocop (2014), Constantine and The Fall

21 November 2014 Rob Buckley 3 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. 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.

First, I’ll apologise in advance for the typos: I’m just heading out the door to watch The Imitation Game.

Anwyay, we’re nearing Thanksgiving and the Christmas season (aka ‘December’) which means that viewing options are starting to drop off, new shows are few and far between, and old shows are giving us their mid-season finales. But I have watched a couple of new things, including State of Affairs, which I’ve reviewed elsewhere.

Cara Fi (UK: S4C)
A dying Welsh village puts the faces of its single men on the sides of milk cartons to attract women there. Starring Dave Coaches (Steffan Rhodri) from Gavin & Stacey, it’s pretty gentle, not especially romantic comedy with a sad basis in reality. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but it’s a different change of pace from the usual fare and it clips along decently enough.

The Comeback (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Lisa Kudrow plays a fading, once semi-famous actress, trying to use reality TV to make a comeback, only to discover that she might get a second chance, playing a thinly veiled pastiche version of herself in a sitcom. Technically the show’s second season, it’s first season airing in 2005, and since then, most of its young stars (Kellan Lutz, Malin Akerman) have gone on to better things, although Akerman makes a cameo in the first episode, Lutz lined up for a later appearance. However, as with the first season, this is such an insider TV show that even though I’ve been writing about TV and US TV for the best part of two decades, even I found it a bit niche. More damningly, I didn’t laugh once. Fans says the show’s simply ahead of the curve, in which case I’ll probably find it funny in 10 years’ time, but seeing as most of it is cringe comedy and laughing at people who’ve fallen on hard times, maybe not.

I’ve also watched a movie:

Robocop (2014)
Remake of the 1980s ‘classic’, this hits neither the original’s lows nor its highs, loses virtually all the satire, and ditches Nancy Allen’s tough female partner for Omar from The Wire. Nevertheless, the story of a murdered cop turned into a cybernetic police officer for a privatised police force does actually do some interesting and different things, looking at the concepts of free will, the nature of perception, media manipulation, the disabled, prosthetics, and the tensions between altruistic science and those funding it. It’s certainly not memorable and will probably be forgotten about soon enough, but it’s nevertheless a pretty decent film that would probably be a lot more noticeable and notable were it not for the original.

And I’ve been to the theatre, too.

Neville’s Island (Duke of York’s)
Four Northern middle managers (Neil Morrissey, Adrian Edmondson, Miles Jupp, Robert Webb) go the wrong way on an outward bounds course and end up stuck on an island in the Lake District. How will they get on together? Will they escape? And will any of them go mad and attack the others? I’m not saying, but it’s a fun play which ultimately doesn’t say a whole lot, but is entertaining nevertheless, with some good performances. It also features one of the best sets I’ve ever seen – or smelt. Seriously, that’s some moist piney goodness they’ve got going on there.

After the jump, I’ll be running through: Arrow, Constantine, Elementary, The Fall, The Flash, Forever, Gotham, Gracepoint, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, The Newsroom and Scorpion.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Cara Fi, The Comeback, Neville’s Island, Robocop (2014), Constantine and The Fall”

What have you been watching? Including Interstellar, Arrow, Gotham, Elementary and Plebs

7 November 2014 Rob Buckley 3 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. 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.

Despite the fact a couple of shows in the US have decided to take a wee break this week, the moving of “What have you been watching?” to a Friday hasn’t quite solved my backlog issues. So I haven’t yet watched this week’s The Affair or Jane The Virgin – which might be telling me something, or might not be. Otherwise, I’m up to date.

Elsewhere, I reviewed The McCarthys and I managed to watch a movie this evening:

Interstellar (2014)
Christopher Nolan’s latest. Christopher Nolan is, of course, a genius and Interstellar is another convention-defying, mainstream movie industry-defying blockbuster with little busting or indeed action. Three of its biggest stars are only revealed halfway through and the whole thing is set in some dystopian near future where the Earth is dying and our only hope is for Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway to travel through a wormhole to a distant galaxy and try to find a new planet. An odd combination of 2001, 2010, Silent Running, Planet of the Apes and, erm, Signs, it’s thoughtful, tries its best with science – it’s one of the few movies to even attempt to have the repercussions of relativity as a main plot point, let alone worry about whether a black hole is spinning or not in order for its singularity to be of the right kind, or try to simulate five dimensions with just two – and has some lovely outer space bits filmed in Iceland.

But I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a genius, too, because virtually all the twists and turns the movie runs through seemed blindingly obvious to me. I saw them all coming and was mildly disappointed when the movie did exactly what I expected it to do, particularly in one particularly bonkers bit towards the end. YMMV, but I’m off to watch Gravity and Inception again after this, both of which do aspects of Interstellar much much better. Still, it is a Christopher Nolan movie so automatically in the top 10% of all movies this year, despite a run time of three hours and nine minutes, and it does handles emotions and the people side of things much better than previous Nolan movies have, while still being very smart.

After the jump, I’ll be running through: Arrow, The Blacklist, Elementary, Gotham, Gracepoint, Homeland, Muianey, Plebs, Selfie and Scorpion.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Interstellar, Arrow, Gotham, Elementary and Plebs”

What have you been watching? Including The Anomaly, Constantine, Chef and Doctor Who

3 November 2014 Rob Buckley 13 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. 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.

Sunday’s overload of TV, as well as a generally busy weekend, means that I’m very slightly behind on my viewing. That means that still in the viewing queue are the latest episodes of The Affair, Homeland, Mulaney and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. I’ve also got the first episode of The McCarthys to watch as well. As a result, I think “What have you been watching?” should shift to Friday again for the next few weeks, to deal with the latest schedule fun.

I did give The Knick (US: Cinemax; UK: Sky Atlantic) a brief try. This is Steven Soderburgh’s little project, starring Clive Owen, which aired in the Summer while I was away on holiday. Set in a turn of the 20th century American hospital, it appears to exist mainly to allow Soderburgh to play around with a brilliant surgeon who’s a racist drug addict and for Owen to try out an American accent that doesn’t fit him very well. It didn’t inspire me to watch any more of it anyway.

Before I get on to the regulars, though, I’ll briefly mention a few films I watched this week.

Chef (2014)
Jon Favreau is a cook who ends up having a fight with a restaurant critic (Oliver Platt) and getting fired. He decides to go back to basics by driving around the US in a van, but thanks to the fight going viral – and his son tagging along for the ride helps out a lot there – he soon becomes incredibly popular. Largely, the movie exists as a metaphor for Favreau’s experiences of going from independent movie making to big franchise movies (eg Iron Man) and back to indie movies again, and he’s got a lot of acting pals along with him to help (eg Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr). But it feels very self-satisfied, not least to the effect the portly Favreau has on women, and ultimately very predictable.

How Do You Know (2010)
Reese Witherspoon is a baseball player who hooks up with fellow athlete and ‘playa’ Owen Wilson. But should she really be with lawyer Paul Rudd, who’s a little bit too ready to commit. How will she know? Why should you care? You shouldn’t and won’t. A fabulous cast that also includes Jack Nicholson, and directed by TV comedy super-director James L Brooks, but the funny bits are all in the trailer.

The Anomaly (2014)
A strange futuristic little movie, in which Noel Clarke from Doctor Who is a soldier who keeps waking up to find himself in all kinds of strange situations, only for him to lose consciousness again after 10 minutes. Cue the next strange situation. Over time, he begins to piece together what’s going on – at least, when he’s not being punched a lot by Ian Somerhalder (Lost, The Vampire Diaries) – and it could change the world. Directed by Clarke and also featuring Alexis Knapp (Pitch Perfect, Ground Floor), it looks surprisingly good for a low budget indie movie and has some good ideas: in its own way, it’s the Megaville of this decade. But it’s somewhat sabotaged by some well choreographed but poorly shot, impactless fight scenes, a decision that all the female characters should be topless/naked at some point or other, and by leaving Brian Cox to almost literally hang around with nothing to do. Blink and you’ll miss Freema Agyeman as Clarke’s wife.

That’s it for new new shows, though, but after the jump, I’ll be running through: Arrow, The Blacklist, Constantine, Doctor Who, Elementary, Forever, Gotham, Gracepoint, Homeland, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Muianey, Plebs and Scorpion. Will I be dropping any this week?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Anomaly, Constantine, Chef and Doctor Who”

What have you been watching? Including The Edge of Tomorrow, A To Z, black-ish, Homeland, Manhattan Love Story and Arrow

13 October 2014 Rob Buckley 11 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. 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 was away last week, as you hopefully noticed, and while I had high ambitions of watching lots of German TV and telling you all about it, I didn’t turn on my TV even once the whole time I was there. It’s almost like I have a life or something.

I also didn’t watch much of the usual shows while I was away – except on plane flights and Germany ain’t that far away – which given how many new shows have been starting up or airing their second or third episodes, has meant a weekend of catch-up TV. But I’m nearly there, bar the latest episode of Homeland.

Of last week’s outright new shows on the main US networks, I’ve already reviewed The Flash, and I’ll be reviewing The Affair and Cristela either tomorrow or on Thursday. I might review Starz basketball comedy Survivor’s Remorse and the Audience Network’s manly-men MMA drama Kingdom, but they’re possibly a bit sporty for me, so we’ll see. I might also turn my eye to Canada’s women-western Strange Empire, and Australian political drama Party Tricks, too, towards the end of the week.

But that’s it for new new shows, so after the jump, I’ll be running through: A to Z, Arrow, Bad Judge, black-ish, The Blacklist, The Code, Doctor Who, Forever, Gotham, Gracepoint, Homeland, How To Get Away With Murder, Legends, Madam Secretary, Manhattan Love Story, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Plebs, Scorpion and Selfie. Which ones will I keep watching and which ones will I be dropping? Keep reading to find out.

But before that, strangely enough, despite the epic backlog, I did manage to watch a movie this week.

The Edge of Tomorrow (2013)
Cowardly Tom Cruise enters video game Groundhog Day when he kills an alien during a D-Day style military campaign and inherits its ability to put time into a loop. Emily Blunt then trains Cruise in how to be a proper soldier, so he can win the war, thoughtfully killing him each day to reset the time loop. A cross between a first-person shooter and the Allied invasion of Normandy, the film benefits a lot from Doug Liman’s more thoughtful approach to direction and Cruise does well at first as a snivelling PR guy who has to learn to become a more conventional Cruise hero. Ultimately not making a lot of sense, it nevertheless is an engrossing and above-average piece of science-fiction with some scary-arsed aliens and that probably would have done a whole lot better under its original title of All You Need Is Kill.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Edge of Tomorrow, A To Z, black-ish, Homeland, Manhattan Love Story and Arrow”

What have you been watching? Including Scotland in a Day, Red Oaks, Doctor Who and The Amazing Spider-Man 2

22 September 2014 Rob Buckley 5 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. 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.

The deluge is about to begin, with a whole slew of new US shows going to kick off this week, more the following week. Fortunately, I’m braced and prepared, and have got right up to date with all my tele. Elsewhere, I’ve reviewed the first episodes of a few shows that have begun to air:

Also starting this week, but which I’ve miraculously already reviewed is Forever (US: ABC; UK: Sky1), which premieres tonight. But that’s it so far.

I have also watched a couple of other one-offs.

Scotland in a Day (UK: Channel 4)
Timed nicely to coincide with the referendum, Scottish comedian Jack Docherty – you may remember he had Channel 5’s first late night chat show – shows us various famous Scottish actors (e.g. John Hannah, Dougie Henshall) and various famous not-Scottish actors (e.g. Doon MacKichan, Isy Suttie) pretending to be real people in an attempt to be funny that largely falls flat on its face. It’s one saving grace is that Docherty resurrects the marvellous McGlashan from Absolutely for the piece.

Red Oaks (Amazon Prime)
Yet another attempt to do 80s nostalgia (cf The Americans, The Goldbergs), this time giving us a young Jewish guy at college trying to work out what he wants to do in life, so becomes an assistant tennis pro at the Jewish country club where his girlfriend works as an aerobics instructor. Were it not for the occasional Walkman and old car, you’d never know this was set in the 80s, and were it not for the fact it says so on the description, you’d never know this was a comedy either. There’s plenty of Jewish jokes (“A C is a Jewish F”) and bonus points for casting Paul Reiser and Jennifer Grey, but the lack of fun, insight and decent female roles make this a considerable waste of time, and Craig Roberts is incredibly miscast.

Even more excitingly, I watched a couple of movies:

The Amazing Spider-man 2 (2013)
If there was one thing that made The Amazing Spider-Man any good, it was the chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield. Naturally enough, Sony wanted to make the most of this so created a 2h20m film that separates them for most of it, filling that run time with not one, not two but three classic Spider-Man villains, all of whom get perfunctory characterisation and storylines. And then right at the end, it stupidly repeats the ending of the first movie. I’m slightly at a loss for how so many elements can have been so badly misused, whether it’s Jamie Foxx as Electro, Paul Giamatti as Rhino (yes, they got one of America’s finest actors to play a Russian in a rhino suit) or both Stone and Garfield. It does look very good, I’ll admit, with some excellent use of bullet time to illustrate Spider-man super agility, but they really needed to spend a lot more time on the script (while simultaneously spending a lot less time on it, if you see what I mean).

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2013)
My sister had really raved about this, as had Mark Kermode on Radio 5, the trailer seemed really funny and the cast seemed epic (Ralph Fiennes, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Ed Norton, F Murray Abraham, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe, Jude Law, Saoirse Ronan, Tom Wilkinson, et al), so I was really looking forward to Wes Anderson’s latest. All those plus points were even enough to convince my wife to watch it. However, she fell asleep halfway through and I was seriously bored. While it looked and felt beautiful, and there were some great individual lines, the big laughs were almost all confined to moments shown in the trailer, and were few and far between in the movie itself. Disappointing, with the exception of Ralph Fiennes who turns out to be a superb comic actor.

After the jump, the regulars: Legends, Doctor Who and You’re The Worst.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Scotland in a Day, Red Oaks, Doctor Who and The Amazing Spider-Man 2”