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”
