Blogs

Tamara Drewe BBC2, directed by Stephen Frears, screenplay by Moiri Buffini. Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton) returns as a successful journalist to the small Dorset village she grew up in. Her one claim to fame is she had a nose-job, when she made it into the big time and she made that part of the story of her success. I don’t usually like flashbacks, but these were very funny. A young Tamara, for example, asking Andy, her old boyfriend, why he was...

The end of ‘The Killing 2’. The original Killing was a mammoth investement in time. The Killing 2 is about half that, or is it, I just can’t remember? Anyway, in both series somebody gets killed. I suppose that’s axiomatic, whatever that means. But in the Killing 2 people get killed more regularly. There is not the same depth and it wanders away from Denmark and out to Afghanistan, as if it’s run out of ideas and a trip abroad might just be the...

Film 4: Knowing (2009) directed by Alex Proyas and starting Nicolas as Nicolas Cage. Does he ever play anyone else? Well, sometimes he’s an astrophysicist, and why does he have to be an astrophysicist? Well, he needs to be a character that asks his students about why we’re all here, what’s it all about and say things like did you know if it was a few degrees higher or lower, or if the gravitational pull of the sun, blah, blah, and back to what’s...

The Slap BBC 4. Richie’s Story. (Blake Davis) I never knew Ritchie had a story. This is the last episode of the slap and it has probably been one of the best things on TV this year. It’s right up there with the trilogy of different Wallanders (obviously not any of the British efforts) and The Killing. Richie was a peripheral figure, on the outermost rim of the outmost rim of the pebble that was the original slap. The viewer knew that it was him...

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Channel 4 This comes from husband and wife Charlie Brooker and Kanak Huq, which one is the husband and which the wife I’m not sure. This reminded me a bit of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Not the 1935 book but the 1969 film with Jane Fonda. The first part of Black Mirror is the best, when the programme’s hi-tech credentials are established. Daniel Kaluuya and Jessica Brown Findlay are locked into a mirrored world that throws commercials at them...

Real Madrid 1 Barcelona 3 El Classico. There are not many games that could make me leave the pub on a Saturday night. There are lots of Celtic games that could drive me to the pub. The problem, of course, is I’m already there. El Classico has 500 million viewers and 80 000 fans in the stadium. As the commentator kept telling us these are the two best footballing teams in the world and they have the best players in the world. Messi, of course, in...

Street Kings Film 4. Screenplay by James Elroy and I’m taking it is based on a book by James Elroy. Keanu Reaves is the maverick cop, among a like minded group, for whom the rules of policing are what others use to avoid getting the job done. The pace is non-stop. In the first scene Keanu gets badly beaten trying to sell a machine gun to some Asians. They steal his car and the merchandise, but leave him with his life. Keanu doesn’t let that...

Without You ITV is the first episode based on a Nicci French thriller What Do We Do When Someone Dies?’ I like the name Nicci French. It sounds like a bit of a thriller and if it were I’d cast Anna Friel as Nicci French as Ellie Manning whose husband is killed, but she still talks to him as if he was there and, guess what, we see him, or at least her vision of him. I hate that. Anna Friel is pig beautiful enough to carry many a series, but not...

Cypher (2002) was written by Brian King and an amalgam of Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and the box office smash The Matrix. All you need to know, however, is it stars Lucy Liu. A general rule of thumb is if it stars Lucy Liu it’s a turkey. She was outacted by an animated baby in Ally McBeal. She was the ugliest angel that Charlie could have picked in a class that included the not overly pretty...