Cloverfield

I had a few preconceptions going into this: I knew it was going to be handheld but had though that meant zero budget, bad acting and mainly people waiting around in the dark for some unseen horror to strike for 80% of the movie. Boy was I wrong.

First things first, Cloverfield is brilliant. It might not have much to say about the human condition, but as an action/horror it’s at the top of its game. Exhilarating, terrifying, funny, and with a great ending to boot, it just shows what can happen when Hollywood allows creative people to be, you know, creative.

Now the monster rampage (and especially the mini-monsters) might be swiped straight from Godzilla (gee, I wonder why the lead was going to Japan…) but here it’s used to devastating effect, no doubt aided by our new conditioned reaction to seeing tall buildings fall in clouds of white dust. Each moment has clearly been carefully planned by the director and writer, yet when watching seems like a natural progression into a situation spiralling increasingly out of control, as the characters stumble from one set piece into another.

I won’t list all the highlights, but the subway attack and crossing between the skyscrapers particularly floored me (though that may have something to be with my aversion to heights and the dark). Quite how they’ll make the sequel without ruining the original I don’t know, so make sure you check it out now, before the follow ups and spin offs and pale imitations start turning up in their droves.

Ashes to Ashes to Ashes

So, after almost a year of waiting, the follow up to the excellent Life on Mars has arrived. Now I loved Life on Mars, and whilst I was sad to see it end, they were right to stop while they were ahead. The question was, could a reboot of the series concept work, transposing Gene Hunt and his team to 80s London? Could it work: yes. Did it work: spectacularly no.

Now I’ve been hearing that things pick up in episode two and it’s only because of that, and the genius of Life on Mars, that I’m going to keep watching. The first episode really was that bad. There are many reasons why LoM was brilliant, but I’d say part of it was making a modern cop show but with characters that behaved like they would have back in the Sweeny. In Ashes to Ashes, they decided to put 80s characters in an 80s show: everything big, loud and over the top. Forget engaging storylines, forget logic, forget art direction that enhances the drama rather than engulfs it: welcome back to the overblown nonsense of the A-team, Airwolf and Knight Rider. Now those shows had a few things going for them: they were American, which somehow gave them licence to exaggerate real life, and the characters were funny and interesting and, important this bit, likeable. Without that, they’d have just been a string of ridiculous explosions and set pieces (and yes, I know many will say that’s all they were, but think about how fondly these shows are still remembered).

Ashes to Ashes made the fatal mistake of putting a neurotic, unbelievable and, worst of all, irritating character in the centre of the story. D.I. Alex Drake is that unforgivable creation: a character devised by committee in a reality vacuum. Yes she may sound interesting on paper, but stick her in a cop show and she’s like Godzilla in New York (destroys everything and make for a dire movie). To be fair to the writers it might not be entirely their fault. At least some of the blame has to be carried by the awful direction and the (I’m running out of superlatives here) utterly appalling performance of Keeley Hawes.

I’m truly hoping thing pick up next week and will save any more comment until then. Let’s just hope they don’t destroy the legacy of such an, original fantastic first show.

Dexter and Dirt

Finally caught up with these US imports the other night.

Dirt was okay: the plot was predictable, Pee-Wee Herman felt out of place and the ongoing B-plot was hard to pick up. On the other hand, Ian Hart as Don Konkey was great in what little screen time he was given, and the show managed to tread the fine line between glorifying the tabloids and showing the muck underneath the glossy surface. Will give it another shot as I keep hearing fantastic things about Ian Hart, but it felt like the show hadn’t really found it’s feet: that it was holding back.

Holding back is certainly not something you could accuse Dexter of: death, drugs and dismemberment all rolled into one Miami sun-baked package. What makes this different from other cop shows (like CSI: Miami) is that instead of having a lead who spends the whole show posturing (like CSI:Miami) or being smug (like CSI:Miami) or wearing shades even at night (like CSI… oh you get the idea), the lead in Dexter is a charming, confident team player who works in the police lab by day whilst murdering killers the police can’t nail at night. Oh, and it’s a black comedy. Jet black. The opening sequence of Dexter getting up in the morning makes this abundantly clear as blood oranges are squeezed, steaks are stabbed and floss wire is pulled tight. A wonderful, dark, warped and gripping show that I wished I’d seen from the beginning.

Libelled Lady

A fun film from the thirties staring Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, and most importantly: William Powell and Myrna Loy. If those names don’t mean anything to you, don’t watch the film yet. Instead, get the Thin Man collection and watch them all. Half my wife’s and my enjoyment came from recognising the cast from the Thin Man and seeing them play off each other in a different situation. The film could almost be a prequel, showing how Nick and Nora got together.

The plot is lightweight and Tracy and Harlow are more annoying than comic, but Powell and Loy bring the screen to life. Tracy’s newspaper publishes a story about Loy that turns out to be untrue. Loy intends to sue for 5 million, so Tracey hires Powell to save the paper by faking a scandal about Loy using Harlow (Tracy’s betrothed) as Powell’s wife, but Powell falls for Loy. Which leads to lots of comic sparing, a touching romance and the best worst trout fishing you’ll ever see.

Shelves

Spent the Bank Holiday weekend picking, buying, carrying, opening, returning, assembling, moving and stacking shelves. I never want to build another shelf again. Some important things I’ve learnt about them:

-As soon as you buy one shelf, it will become impossible to buy any more in the same line, forcing you to have mismatched shelves or to start all over again.
-The only free walls in the house will have electrical, gas, water or all three running behind them.
-If the shelf parts were made level, your floor wasn’t.
-Stores clearly use an equation to convert from storing CDs to DVDs instead of actually counting them as shelves never hold the DVDs they claim.
-Shelves are extremely heavy, but can just fit on the No. 28 bus.
-You always need one more shelf than you bought.

Pilots, Pilots Everywhere

It’s the start of the Edinburgh International Television Festival today, and most of the channels are cancelling vast swaths of their existing shows (goodbye Celebrity Big Brother, we’ll not miss you!) to make way for a range of exciting and innovative home grown programming. In other words, the old popular shows are costing us too much so lets ditch them for something cheaper. Now in general I approve, but it really depends on what they replace the timeslots with. Channel 4 is going to spend more with small indies (ones with less than 2 million turn over) to help support growth in the sector, or do they want companies that are a little more… eager for work and willing to get paid a little less? I’m sure it’s not that. Then there’s the big furore about trust in broadcasters (cue Paxman, exit pursued by an angry controller). That’s going to eat up the training budget and cause the less-then-body-builder-physiqued producers the more than occasional hernia when they try to carry the new editorial standards guidelines into meetings.

There’s also been a few interesting general trends in commissioning lately. Both BBC3 and Channel 4 have upcoming series of one off pilots. BBC3 has 6 dramas coming later this year:
Six For Three
and Channel 4 has ‘Coming Up’, a series of 8 original half hour dramas:
Coming Up

It’s nothing new, and has worked very well in the past (Seven of One led to Porridge, Open All Hours and the less successful The Magnificent Evans) but this feels like a way to test the waters before commissioning a full series, rather than intentionally constructing a series of short dramas. Why does that make a difference? Well, for one thing I’d be interested to know what budgets these got, and for writers, creating a one off drama so that it can also be turned into a series can lead to a confused mess of open ended plot points and sudden resolutions. Hopefully these won’t fall victim to these problems, but the fact that most of the BBC3 shows feature “a group of teenagers in [insert location/situation here]” isn’t a good sign. On the other hand, one of them features a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf flat sharing, so it’s not all predictable.

Four Films

The Bourne Ultimatum

Go. See. This. Film. It's worth rewatching The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy first as there's lots of shout outs to the previous installments. The film's cracking and Paul Greengrass is a stunning director. Oh, and in case your wondering, no the title doesn't make any sense.

Transformers

Bad acting. Bad dialogue. No plot. Shakey cam. But it's *Transformers*! If that doesn't mean anything to you, you either skipped the film or thought it was a waste of time. And it is. But it's *Transformers*! (Oh, and Shia LaBeouf is great. Looking forward to him in Indi 4)

The Simpsons Movie

Really enjoyed this. I know a lot of people say it isn't as funny as the series but a) the series hasn't been funny for years, b) the original series didn't have to sustain a 90 min plot and c) spider pig. Can he swing from a web? Course he can't, he's a pig.

Hairspray

Wasn't looking forward to this for one reason: John Travolta. In drag and in a fat suit. And he very nearly ruined the film for me. But the rest of the cast were wonderful, Christopher Walken dances, and the whole thing is so fun and uplifting it's hard not to leave with a big grin on your face.