Sunday 15 July 2012

TV

Parents
1x01 Episode One
Well that was... mediocre.

Starlings
1x01 Episode One
Or, as the title card would have it, "STarLINGS". Or perhaps "sTarLINGs", who can say. It's kind of like Stella, but not quite as good.

Superstar
1x03 Mallorca
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Yes, Prime Minister
2x02 Official Secrets

Films

Batman Forever (1995)
[4th or so watch]

Three observations I personally hadn't made before:

1) everyone goes on about how the pre-Begins Batman films dealt with the villains and ignored Bruce Wayne. That's true of Burton's pair, but this one spends a ton of time with Bruce (a lot of that's about Robin, but it's about Robin in relation to Bruce). The one who's hard done by is Harvey Dent/Two-Face, who gets relatively little screen time and most of it is spent as a cackling halfwit sidekick to the Riddler. Not befitting the character at all.

But 2) talking of Two-Face, wow does Tommy Lee Jones over-act furiously! Perhaps that's not news, but crikey it's so unlike anything else I've ever seen him in.

And 3) I swear Elliot Goldenthal's score referenced the music of the '60s Adam West series on several occasions. Which, considering the overall tone of the film, feels entirely possible. (I watched the featurette on the BD about the music but they didn't mention it, sadly.)

this week on 100 Films

I didn't get round to writing and posting either Green Lantern or Cowboys & Aliens (both of which have premiered on Sky Movies recently, and I've seen 'n' everything), so it's just one new review again this week...

Devil (2010)
Devil launched a series of films dubbed “The Night Chronicles”... as I recall the idea is they were a series of low-key/low-budget horror-thrillers conceived by M. Night Shyamalan (he has a Story and Producer credit here) but helmed by others... Funny thing is, this is better than anything Shyamalan has done in a long time.
Read more on my new blog.

Also, because of problems with my old blog, I've decided not to continue posting full reviews there, at least for the time being. Just in case you wondered where those links had gone.

More next Sunday.