It’s Thursday so it’s time to go to the movies with TMINE. This week, we’re both pretty modern and completely superhero-free as we’re going to be looking at:
John Wick: Chapter Three – Parabellum (2019): Third instalment in the Keanu Reeves, unstoppable martial arts hitman franchise
The Favourite (2018): Yorgos Lanthimos’ typically surreal take on the court of Queen Anne, featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Olivia Colman.
CBC renews: Diggstown, When Calls The Heart and Workin’ Moms, green lights Vietnam-era spy drama Fortunate Son, relationship thriller The Sounds and adaptation of Eden Robinson’s Son of a Trickster books The Trickster…
And last week’s Orange Thursday reviewed Glass (2019) and Snowpiercer (2014).
Otherwise, that was it. Sorry about that. To make up for it, though, I’ll be reviewing both Five Bedrooms (Australia: Ten) and Blood and Treasure (US: CBS) after the jump.
Lifetime (US)’s American Princess
What’s coming this week
Tomorrow’s Orange Thursday will look at John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) and The Favourite (2018). Good Omens is available on Amazon from Friday, so we’ll definitely be catching that for Boxset Monday. DC Universe’s Swamp Thing is also starting on Friday, so that’ll probably be Tuesday’s review (although maybe swap the order on those two). And on Sunday, American Princess starts on Lifetime (US), so I might give that a crack as well at some point.
I’ve still not watched Catch-22, but I will. At some point. What/If, though, which was cloaked in mystery before its launch but is now available for all to see on Netflix, sounds like it’s terrible, so I still might not catch so much as a frame of it. Still.
Doom Patrol
The regulars
As usual, I’ll be talking about the latest episodes of Harrow, Mr Black, The Twilight Zone, Warrior and What We Do In the Shadows. Inconveniently, The Hot Zone has been airing two episodes a night this week, but I’ve managed to catch both of last night’s and I’ll be reviewing them, too. And we’ll also be having a chat about the season final of Doom Patrol.
Screen Australia to fund development of: supernatural drama Secret Threads, crime dramedy Partners in Crime, adaptation of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, musical comedy High Rotation, and prostitution comedy drama Rough
Canadian TV
Jann Arden and Sean Beak to guest, Laura Vandervoot, Colin Ferguson and Lucas Bryant to return to Global’s Private Eyes
Long-time readers of TMINE will know I’m a sucker for a killer virus show. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was exposure at an early age to The Andromeda Strain and The Satan Bug, or maybe the titles of Survivorsscared me silly.
Whatever it was, I’ve always eagerly awaited the arrival of whatever new killer virus show has come our way, whether it be that Andromeda Strainremake, Helix, Outbreak or The Burning Zone.
The Hot Zone
The Burning Zone is of note because it was a clear reference to the definitive non-fiction killer virus book of the 90s: Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone, one of the 100 ‘books that shaped a century of science’, which naturally I devoured when it came out. It was a three-pronged medical history, looking at the emergence of the Ebola virus and Marburg in Zaire, other related ‘filoviruses‘, and the arrival in the US of a strain of Ebola in 1989 and how the US army responded.
The Burning Zone was nonsense. And initially terrible. Nevertheless, it was both clearly inspired by The Hot Zone and clearly different enough that it wouldn’t infringe Preston’s copyright. Outbreak, too, was very obviously an adaptation of The Hot Zone but a sufficiently loose one that no lawsuit could have touched it.
Now, just a couple of decades later, one TV show dares to obtain the copyright clearances that others failed to acquire. It’s The Hot Zone and it’s a little bit silly, but nevertheless still very frightening.
