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.
Summer’s approaching fast now – although judging by the weather, not in the UK – but it’s not here yet, which means the only new show I’ve had the option of reviewing has been Your Family Or Mine. I might have to start watching some UK TV again. Oh dear.
It also means that after the jump, I’ll be looking at another season finale, as well as the last few remaining episodes of a whole bunch of shows. So brace yourself for my thoughts on the latest instalments of American Crime, American Odyssey, Arrow, The Blacklist, Community, The Flash, Forever, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and Silicon Valley. One of those is for the chop from my viewing list, one of those has had the chop from its network’s viewing list, one of them’s still on the bubble and the rest look set to return for another season at least. I’ll leave you to work out which is which.
But I’ll also have a look over another episode of Wayward Pines. I know you’re looking forward to that, too.
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.
It’s May Day weekend here in the UK this week, so given the usual Bank Holiday weather, I imagine lots of you have some TV binging to do.
Would Sir or Madam care for some recommendations? I’ve already reviewed Avengers: Age of Ultron elsewhere and after the jump, I’ll be looking at my regular TV viewing: American Crime,American Odyssey,Arrow, The Blacklist, Community,The Flash,Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and Silicon Valley.
But first, a newbie.
8MMM Aboriginal Radio (Australia: ABC)
8MMM is an Aboriginal-owned radio station in the middle of nowhere that needs a vital influx of training, so a bunch of white people turn up to pass on the benefit of their wisdom to the existing Aboriginal and white staff. Some of the white people are a bit racist, some of them are very earnest and trying very hard not to be racist, some of them want to have sex with Aboriginal people and some of them actually want to be Aboriginal. The Aboriginal people? Well, what a bunch of stereotype-busters they are.
A lot of this is going to be impenetrable to anyone who isn’t well versed in Australian culture – as well as references to Bogans, lots of other bits of Australian slang and disparaging graffiti about Canberra, the warning at the beginning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples that the show contains images and videos of dead people is also standard enough that I wasn’t sure if 8MMM was taking the piss out of it, given it’s supposed to be a comedy, it’s fictional and there aren’t any dead people in it, or it was supposed to be a genuine warning. Or both.
If it was a joke, it was about the funniest part of the show, though, which was a relatively lifeless affair redeemed only by a diverse cast (most of whom, unfortunately, can’t act) and the occasional bit of comedy, such as a cursed chair in the radio station and a joke about the ’stolen generations’, that poked fun at the show’s own earnest attempts to prove its credentials.
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.
Well, despite all that planning, I kind of forgot I was going out pretty much every night this week, so I haven’t managed to watch everything I planned to. That means I’ll do a full, three-episode verdict of The Comedians on Monday, once I’ve binge-watched it this weekend. Maybe I’ll do that Daredevil season review at the same time…
The fact I didn’t look hard enough at the Australian TV schedules for this week didn’t help, either, otherwise I’d have realised that Deadline Gallipoli was a two-parter that was going to air over consecutive nights, rather than weekly – fingers crossed, I’ll be posting a review of that later tonight, after I’ve gone to see Avengers: Age of Ultron.
After the jump, tele: American Crime,American Odyssey,Arrow, The Blacklist, Community,The Flash, Forever, and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. I’ll also be looking at the season finales of The American and Vikings.
But first, just in case you think I don’t listen to your recommendations, a movie review!
John Wick (2014)
Keanu is a recently widowed former hitman for the Russian Mob who turns his almost supernaturally violent talents to revenge, after Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones) kills his… dog. No, really. His dog. If that sounds a bit silly, that’s because it is, and even the film acknowledges it. But it sits in a knowing intersection between Banshee and Wanted, with considerable visual and tonal nods to the nihilistic yet surreal Point Blank, with Keanu’s mission explicitly arbitrary and meaningless.
Once you’ve got over that tonal decision, there’s a lot to like about the movie. It has a surprisingly slow, thoughtful and emotional beginning; it’s packed full of great character actors you’ll recognise from The Wire, Daredevil and other shows and movies, including Ian McShane, Adrianne Palicki, Willem Dafoe, Dean Winters, Michael Nyqvist, Bridget Moynahan, John Leguizamo, Bridget Regan, Lane Reddick and Clarke Peters; there are some interesting fights, including some semi-decent jiu jitsu; it can be pretty funny at times; and there are some decently smart villains for a change.
Some bits are a little too silly for their own words, including a neutral ground hotel for hitmen and women, and Lance Reddick’s accent. But a decently enjoyable action thriller that sets things up well for a sequel that could be potentially different. However, I’m not sure I needed to see it in IMAX – Empire Leicester Square setting me back an eye-watering £18 a seat.
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.
It’s time for me to be all agile again and move “What have you been watching?” to Fridays – there’s now almost nothing on Thursdays to watch, other than Vikings and The Blacklist (which isn’t long for this world), and given there’s now Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley and American Odyssey (well…) in the US, and Deadline Gallipoli over in Australia on a Sunday, I think one must follow the advice of Miyamoto Musashi in the second of The Book of Five Rings and be like water, flowing round the obstacle of the TV schedules, rather than trying to oppose them.
That means there’ll be another one of these on Friday. But for now, I’ve already reviewed and previewed The Messengers and Wayward Pines elsewhere, and as I mysteriously managed to overlook The Comedians until now, won’t be able to review the first two episodes of that until later in the week. I’m also planning on doing a full season review of Daredevil at some point this week, too, having binge-watched it last week.
So that means that after the jump, it’s just the regulars: American Crime,American Odyssey,The Americans, Arrow, Community,The Flash, Game of Thrones, iZombie, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Silicon Valley and Vikings. One’s for the chop, BTW. And isn’t that a lot of Americans? Reminds me of Dodgeball…
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?
