TV worth watching

[Dom D]

A little bit of tv not worth watching: Paper Girls. This is being pushed as the tv program to scratch your Stranger Things itch while we endure the couple year wait for season 5. The critics are all giving it the thumbs up and it sits at a healthy 89% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I do not compute.

This is zero budget tosh with people wandering around in silly spacesuits and a group of teenage protagonists who only communicate by yelling at one another. This seems to be very specifically aimed at the 10-15 year old market. Plays exactly one of the YA books I read to my brother. When I was 12 years old I imagine I would have thought this was good telly but things have moved on and I have no idea why this is somehow considered viewing for adults.

Anyway putting a bunch of kids on bikes and turning the sky a funny colour does not a Stranger Things make.

[Dom D]

Knocked over the rest of the ILM doco today. That was really good. Best bits are the pioneer days and then the inevitable fractious transformation into a digital studio. All of a sudden all those incredible matte painters and model makers get told to learn to code or fuck off. The model making days looked a hell of a lot more fun.

Saddest story goes to Phil Tippett who was creating the original plan to do the animations for Jurrassic Park in stop motion. He built amazing models and rigs and his work was looking brilliant. A couple the boys in the digital division are feeling put out that they weren't called in to run the show and over months, in the back rooms, build a CGi TRex. Bye bye Phil.

George Lucas is an interesting figure in this. He's not building anything himself so, you know, he's just lurking in the background while leading from the front. I definitely have a new respect for him. You can't question his visionary status as he's driving everyone, for better or worse, to an digital future even as his model makers rule the industry. The foresight is quite extroidinary. Above Steve Jobs type extraordinary.

Because of that I kind want to just write him off as just a tech visionary. So much of what he did was so empty. THX1138 and the non original Star Wars trilogy suck in a very profound way. But then he did make Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Those are myth making movie which is what is sorely lacking in Hollywood these days. I've been loving that in the Indian blockbusters I've been watching recently where they are so ready to create new myths. Reminds you of what you're missing from Hollywood where your hero is your hero because he got bit by a radio active spider. Yawn. Anyway fairly amazing guy.

[Dom D]

Big thumbs up for Light & Magic on Disney+. It's a doco on the early days of ILM. Looks at first like you're standard puff piece. We've all seen a ton from behind the scenes on Star Wars over the years after all. But, after starting out in puff piece fashion it does get interesting. Gets into some of the personalities and the dramas behind the scenes. I'm 3 episodes in which gets it to halfway through Strikes Back and it's a damned good watch if you're into this sort of thing.

[Newt Cox]

Been loving Sventoonie. Every week after Svengooolie on METV is Sventoonie. A Tuna Puppet version of Sven that shows way edited down films and is just a goofy mish mash of stuff.

Got on an episode from a few weeks back and this week's film is Carnival Of Souls. So far Sventoonie has only shown PD stuff. But him and the rest of the cast,including a zombie video store clerk and a blob fish,add enough to each film that I don't mind seeing the movies for the 100th time.

[Alison Jane]

Will have to see if this is available to us. I love Martin Freeman.

Seemingly, it is not. Rats.

[Alison Jane]

The Responder Martin Freeman as a burnt out cop in Liverpool (Everyone sounds retarded when they speak). A bit of the same old cop show cliches, but still above par for the genre. Mostly cause of Freemans acting and some tweaks to the standard formula.

Will have to see if this is available to us. I love Martin Freeman.

[The Silly Swede]

Gaslit a somewhat in depth look at the figures in the Watergate scandal. Pretty good. My kind of humour, as it is played straight faced but obviously as a very very subtle comedy. Only 8 episodes and some good acting. Even superdouche Sean Penn delivers.

[Mark Tolch]

Although I thought the season as a whole was a bit uninvolving, the S3 finale of BARRY was stunning. Bill Hader (who also directed the episode) said he wanted it to "feel like a panic attack". One scene in particular is easily the scariest I've seen all year.

I was really impressed at the direction they've taken this show. What was easily capable of being Dexter Part III with more fluff has really become a thing of it's own. The finale was insane.

[Matt H.]

Although I thought the season as a whole was a bit uninvolving, the S3 finale of BARRY was stunning. Bill Hader (who also directed the episode) said he wanted it to "feel like a panic attack". One scene in particular is easily the scariest I've seen all year.

[Randy G]

We Own this City - The folks behind The Wire return to Baltimore to tell the recent true life story of a special unit of very corrupt cops involved in framing innocent people, stealing money and drugs for resale, etc.

Very good cast with Jon Bernthal as the ringleader cop, this gets a bit heavy handed with speeches about the drug war in a few scenes but otherwise let's the story speak for itself and has a lot more humour in it than you may at first expect.

[agent999]

Martin Freeman as a burnt out cop in Liverpool (Everyone sounds retarded when they speak).

This made me laugh. Crueller people than myself (if that's at all possible) often refer to them as bin dippers. I can't condone such a slight myself...

[The Silly Swede]

The Responder Martin Freeman as a burnt out cop in Liverpool (Everyone sounds retarded when they speak). A bit of the same old cop show cliches, but still above par for the genre. Mostly cause of Freemans acting and some tweaks to the standard formula.

[Dom D]

FROM: the makers of LOST. And boy are you going to know that after a couple episodes. Our ragtag bag of heroes are LOST in a weird small town. You drive out one end and you somehow come straight back in at the other. It's all a mystery about what this place is, how they get out etc. So LOST. Except, and it's a big EXCEPT, they get killed and eaten on a regular basis by monsters. For me that makes all the difference.

This is the kind of telly that would have been appoint viewing in the early 2000s. Now it is very definitely Tier 2 (or even 3) television. Still by the last couple episodes it gets pretty tense and there's a few decent scares in there. Plus you can watch secure in the knowledge that it has already been renewed for Season 2. Which it needed to be. There's no resolution here, the last episode just leading to more mysteries ala LOST.

[The Silly Swede]

Oldman was so great in this. My favourite character in a little while.

He was. Good to see he still has got it, since he has been haming it up in shitty b-movies recently.

[Dom D]

Slow horses I took a weeks free trial on apple tv+ just to watch this. Almost worth its hype. The first 3 episodes are absolute top notch, but sadly they get to focused on solving the rather uninteresting plot during the last 3 episodes instead of focusing on the characters that made the first parts so fun.

Still great, and one of the few of these new hyped Tv-series that is actually somewhat worthy of its hype.

Oldman was so great in this. My favourite character in a little while.