BBC1 sci-fi drama Outcasts is being moved from 9pm to a Sunday late-night slot after disappointing ratings.Oh dear. However bad things get, British dramas very, very rarely get shunted around in the schedules. Still, that's what happens when you make a flat-out poor show.
Despite this extended version being 26% longer, I still found it hard to spot much of the additional material... to an extent, it’s “a longer version with more of the same”, but I found it more coherent too. While the major plot beats still occur at the same time and in fundamentally the same way, perhaps the myriad tweaks have made it clearer just what’s going on?
a lot of Benjamin’s story might just as well be imagined with a life that runs forwards. The fact that he’s ageing backwards colours events, certainly; it gives it the surface sheen of a more unusual story; it gives motivations for some of his actions... but if he was a regular orphaned boy, it wouldn’t take much extra creativity to see the same tale work.
the twist works. It makes sense. “Sense” in the sense that the characters are mentally ill and we’ve been let into their experience — quite literally, an unreliable Narrator — but that fits. Clues are littered throughout. You can argue they’re not fundamental to the story — most are lines or asides that hint at it — but I don’t think it’s a nonsensical turn of events.
I’d intended for this review to be a defence — I’ve always really liked it, but it tends to get lost amongst Fincher’s more provocative and, yes, better films. [But] after a couple of watches it becomes like a holiday photo album: a nice record and reminder of good times had, rather than ones experienced anew.
Panic Room stands out as (arguably) Fincher’s most atypical film. Whereas his others are all epic, in one way or another, this is the exact opposite. It’s very contained, virtually the entire running time spent on one night in one house, alleviated only by brief outside bookends and a guided tour of the house at the start. Fortunately, it’s still an outstanding little thriller.
Some claim that Se7en is no more than a standard murder thriller... In some respects they’re right, but in enough respects they’re wrong... It’s really the execution that makes it so much more. It’s in the performances, the way the characters are written, their subplots, the story’s pace, the cinematography, the music, individual sequences that rise not only to the top of the genre but to the top of the very medium itself.
What’s different? Very little. It’s not just because I haven’t watched it for so long that the changes passed by unnoticed: five minutes of new material comes mostly in 15-second-ish snippets of dialogue... this material wasn’t missed in the theatrical version, but it all brings something to the film, be that a spot of humour, a character beat or added clarity to the investigation.
Ofcom is to investigate whether Sky News broke broadcasting regulations governing editorial independence by giving "undue prominence" to the launch of the Sky Atlantic channel.Ha.
"In a competitive marketplace, you need strong brands that jump out of the EPG, and the rebranding of Fiver as 5*, combined with exciting new shows, provides us with a distinctive channel."From a half-decent pun on a recognisable phrase, to a name that makes viewers think "how do I say that?"? Oh yes, what superior rebranding. Whoever's in charge of this clearly isn't much cop at their job -- I mean, have you seen Channel 5's new logo? It's awful. (Never mind the fact that "Five" was a catchier name than "Channel 5" and seemed like sensible rebranding to me.) Old TV dramas/films did better fake logos than that, and they were always implausibly tackily cheap-looking.
probably the best Saw movie since the first... takes on a political dimension by tackling the thorny issue of American health insurance. It hardly presents a well-considered and in-depth debate, true, but the “evils of the insurance business” angle is a welcome motivation and adds something to both the plot and the denouement.
Most reviews, which are largely negative, focus on it being a poor conversion of the play [Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan]. I’ve never seen nor read the original and thought it slotted seamlessly into its new ’30s setting... It remains a very funny piece
It’s wrong to post a review of such a Christmassy film in the middle of January — though not as wrong as the original release date which, at the insistence of Fox’s head Darryl F. Zanuck, was in May (May!) with promotion that played down the Christmas setting. Which, considering the whole story is about a man who thinks he’s Santa Claus, and whether or not he really is, is an impressively underhand piece of marketing.
Surrogates exerts too much effort establishing its world. The opening montage covers 14 years of future history to take us from the world we know to the world of the story, but in the process is so crammed with improbabilities I wouldn't know where to begin listing them. The premise is dreadfully implausible; this just serves to highlight it.
The show sees three celebrities nominate their favourite things from Earth, such as landmarks, possessions, guilty pleasures or humans. Webb will consider whether the things deserve to be preserved and will choose whether or not to put them on a spaceship to keep them safe.So, essentially, it's the exact opposite of Room 101. How has it taken someone 17 years to come up with this idea?
