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bookgazing) wrote2011-02-28 08:07 am
bookgazing) wrote2011-02-28 08:07 am
TV - Where Your Strangest Friends Live
Welcome to another instalment of Jodie rambles on about television and film, refusing to learn the name of many actors or actresses. As before I’ll be referring to many people by their previous roles in unrelated programs and being affectionately snide. I like you visual media, but sometimes you do stupid things:
‘Never Let Me Go’ – I am not a fan of Keira Knightley’s work generally, but to be fair I’d have to say she’s miscast so often that it’s not always her fault she can’t pull off a performance (if I had to cast her in a Jane Austen adaptation I’d pick her for Marianne Dahswood). I think she was perfect for Ruth and wonder, after this performance, why she doesn’t have more roles as villains, or at least heroines with a harder edge, on her cv. In ‘Never Let Me Go’ she projects her small, but potent, sly expressions to the viewer so that it is easy to see that her insecure jealousy is the reason why she aims so much barbed sweetness at Cathy. I thought it was a really artful performance. I felt just enough sympathy and dislike for Ruth throughout this film that the final hospital scenes produced a mixture of disturbed emotions in me that forged a real connection between me and the real tragedy of this film.
Carey Mulligan is of course just right to play Cathy’s sad, capable, romantic character. One thing: I remember that reading the book I found Cathy’s interest in Ruth and Tommy’s relationship a little bit more sinister, so I would have liked to see bit more of an edge from her as she rubbed up against Ruth.
‘The Fighter’ – It’s true that Christian Bale steals the entire film despite ‘The Fighter’ being a story that focuses on the real life sporting rise of Mark Whalberg’s character. Whalberg is not a character actor. He does a good job at what he’s set out to do, which is to be able to act like a boxer, to make the viewer believe in his journey as a fighter and to use his body to explain his connection with the other characters in the story. He’s never really outside his own skin for the film, which considering the interviews I’ve seen where he explains his own connection to the story is probably not surprising. Nothing he does feels like a mannerism he wouldn’t equally bring to another role, but perhaps that’s a fault in Whalberg’s acting on other projects rather than this one. He’s really called on to act natural and look like a boxer, both of which he manages and I suppose the fact that I felt so comfortable watching him do those things shows he fit into the role the way he was supposed to.
Bale is a totally different person from the character we see in ‘The Prestige’, or ‘Batman’. Although you never quite forget that it is Christian Bale you’re watching (I do think it was easy to forget Bale’s celebrity when I watched ‘The Prestige’) it still seems like he drops so much of his own ego to play this role in order to let the equally dominant, but destructive ego of Dicky’s written character enter his body. I know that I’m more likely to see Bale, Whalberg and the brilliant Amy Adams in future films now. She’s doing the same thing as Bale, just in a smaller, less extravagant role. I know I’ve never seen anything before that suggested she would have the ability to be so inhabited by someone else without trying to keep some of her public image (sweet, classy, a bit quirky) in the role. The brilliant thing was that both she and Bale were totally committed to letting the audience feel the way the characters actions should make them feel, so there are times when I didn’t like either character and I felt like even after the redemptive ending I was free to feel that little bit of wariness towards their characters (although that idea mostly applies to Dicky’s character) .
The one thing I’m unsure how to talk about is the depiction of the Ward women in this film, specifically Micky and Dicky’s sisters. The real life brothers were involved with the making of this film, so the way that Micky’s largely female family is presented must have some truth to it right? How do we critique a drama that is created with help from people who were involved in the real life events and (as far as we know) want a sympathetic, but truthful account of their family produced? I mean how do we separate out realistic presentations of real, flawed women, from archetypes?
To be honest I’m not sure how to go about that, so instead I’ll just state what I see and try to draw judgements from that. Feel free to complicate them usefully in the comments as always. I think what troubles me is the way that the sisters are set up as characters the audience should be laughing at and the humour of their characters centres around things like their dress sense, which despite all their teasing and short skirts still lack links to traditional femininity. Femininity always includes a certain amount of sanctioned, mainstream society taste to be approved as femininity even when a woman shows clear female signals through her sense of dress. so although the sisters still clearly work on their sartorial presentation as feminine women their definition of femininity clashes with ideas about femininity that have established types of authority behind them and essentially loses its definition as femininity in the eyes of wider society.
There’s also this scene where all the women pile into a car to go beat up Amy Adam’s character Charlene, where I feel a kind of ‘isn’t it hilarious when poorer woman start being violent, because their attempts at it are so laughable (in comparison to a man’s) and so out of character for ‘proper’ members of their gender’ vibe going on. I can’t decide if what makes me uncomfortable is how the humour relates to their lack of traditional femininity, or if it’s how the humour is based on their lack of class and the way that intersects with their lack of traditional femininity. I just know that something made me feel weird after I came out of the cinema, having laughed along quite happily when I was in the middle of the film.
Viewers laugh at Dicky, in a way that connects with his lack of class, or lower socio- economic status, but they also gain access to something deeper about him (the tragedy of his situation as a crack addict, as a boxing prodigy destroyed by pressure, as in some ways a victim of his circumstances). However, this film is so focused on the brothers struggle (rightly, this is Micky and Dicky’s story and to make it otherwise would destroy the focus of the film, but even so there are consequences of this focus for the sisters). There isn’t a chance to access that same level of humanity when it comes to the sisters (because of the films focus) and so when we laugh at them for their hugely teased hair, overly aggressive attitudes, or biased, nonsensical opinions, we’re not going to go on to understand the hugely complicated picture of them as human beings partly created by their circumstances. By the end of the film we feel more kindly towards Dicky, having has access to the circumstances that made him and having travelled with him through a life changing journey. However over the top, or odd he might still appear to us, we understand what he’s been through and how human he is. We don’t get that for his sisters, they’re just uncomplicated traditional caricatures.
There are some nice, moments in this film that show the humanity of Mickey and Dicky’s sisters (making them more human than if just their flaws were shown). The scene where they arrive at the gym to welcome Dicky home, but have to try and pack up his surprise welcome is touching, even though it’s such a small part of that scene. But these are small moments, tiny in the scheme of the film. There’s also the problem of their portrayal as almost a homogenous mass of women. Individual personalities that go beyond distinctions of dress and appearance are missing for these women.
While I do think the Ward sisters are mocked for their lower socio-economic status the great thing about this film (and remember this is based on a true story so it does indeed give me all sorts of crazy, happy inspirational feelings – I will go back to being cynical in a minute OK?) is the way it so clearly shows that you don’t have to ‘beat’ your neighbourhood, or your family circumstances to succeed in life. Dicky has to ‘beat’ crack and remove himself from his crack addict friends to get on in life, but crack isn’t all there is to the neighbourhood. A successful solution for the characters doesn’t require them to escape from their background, they just need to remove themselves from its harmful aspects and to build bigger dreams within it (Micky’s new apartment which means he can have his daughter stay overnight). Success in this film does rely on the Wards increasing their financial stability, but I think that marker of success can be separated out from escaping their entire background (I guess I am saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water here).
Micky’s family is totally cracked and he has to disassociate himself from them for a while to progress in his career. However, in the end, it’s his brother who helps him win his big fights. His brother who screwed him over at the beginning of the film, who is this off the wall, flawed crack addict trying to come good is proved to not only still be a person who Micky needs and wants in his life, but also a person who can change so that he is really healthily helpful to Micky. Micky could take Dicky’s advice to fight ‘head, body, head’ without keeping Dicky in his life, but once Dicky returns from jail there’s something stronger than brotherly advice, that means that Micky wants his brother around. I mean who isn’t touched by Micky’s speech about how he wants his family around him, now that they’ve changed, no matter how harmful they were to him before. It might sound like a child’s unrealistic wish, or it might sound like a powerful lesson about the simplicity of deserved forgiveness. The potential for forgiveness, love and change gives me hope, especially in a film which has a devastatingly simple reveal that made me suddenly take on board the full seriousness of Dicky’s crack addiction.
‘The King’s Speech’ – I agree with all the good things people have been saying. Overall I think my favourite thing about it was how beautifully shot it was, which is the most pretentious thing you’ll ever hear me say about a film I promise. Well deserved Oscars, BAFTAs, all and a book full of facts about George VI seems to have crept into my mum’s shopping bag, so perhaps soon I will have factual things to wow you with ;)
‘Coraline’ – A great animated world and a film I’d watch over and over just for the pretty creepiness. How does it compare to the book Gaiman fans?
‘Tangled’ – I laughed all the way through, so funny and smart, but with quite an old fashioned story telling feel to it in places (the opening monologue by the off screen hero was an odd detail in a film with such an active princess). I refer you to this fantastic review at Gossamer Obsessions. It's also thought provoking to look at this post at Punkadiddle that asks why the film is so white. I genuinely didn’t even really think about this aspect until I was in the cinema, but you just can’t not notice it. It’s like Disney added up how many multi-cultural princesses they have now and decided they needed to redress some sort of unfair balance.
‘Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day’ – Modern builders were engaged to build an entire Roman villa at Wroxeter using only tools with a Roman equivalent and Roman building techniques. Modern contract builders and historical building should have resulted in awful reality tv, with male builders, trying to sneak in modern building materials, struggling with male historians for building site domination. There’s a bit of that as the site manager clashes with workers and the professor who designed the villa project fights with the builders about the use of wheelbarrows (no Roman equivalent existed, interesting right?). Dai Morgan, the professor, was the ultimate antidote to the ‘trying to look cool’ history presenters that the BBC favours and at times he appeared stuffy. Then came the moment when he saw the villas frame raised. The emotion he expressed at seeing his project taking shape was so genuine you’d have to be a right cynic not to feel a little heartstring tug. The builders also went on some wonderful personal learning journeys, as they learnt just how advanced the Romans were in terms of building knowledge. There is a little bit of awe that comes over you watching someone learn that history produced valuable things, not just stepping stones for modern times to build on. Still, what possessed the producers to say ‘Yes Kev, it’s fine to wear your range of ‘humourous’ t-shirts on tv’?
‘Madagascar’ – Not the animated film, but David Attenborough’s most recent nature documentary. Madagascan wildlife is so weird and of course to a natural world girl like me that means it is so very cool. It is also full of lemurs. I don’t...I don’t understand how anyone could not like a program which is approximately 40% different kinds of lemurs. Reed lemurs are the cutest thing. I concur with Kaitlin Moran who after watching Human Planet (which she said loves itself and I avoided watching because it looked like an opportunity for lots of annoying voyeurism of ‘the other’) asked that David Attenborough not die. Nature has never had such a great tv champion.
‘Episodes’ – A British comedy where Matt LeBlanc plays himself and satirises his career, while proving that he can play a nasty, self-centred guy convincingly. Oh and he looks hot with grey hair. I thought this program went up and down, so that some episodes (the one where drunk Matt has to be picked up from a bar, the episode where Bev gets stoned with the network executive) were really funny, some were duds and some pitched up and down between the two states. If I was placing it in some kind of ranking of projects Tamsin Grieg (everyone should be adoring her right now) has been involved in I’d put it below ‘Black Books’, but well above most of series two of ‘Love Soup’.
‘Outcasts’ – Oh! So awful! So, so awful. Imagine if ‘Lost’ had given away 3 seasons of plotlines, by over explaining the whole plane crashed on an island situation and killed one of its most promising characters in the first episode. ‘Lost’ and similar series are all about allusion and secrecy, which draws the viewer in and has them practically screaming 'What is in that damn hole, damn you? You and your damn secrets!' while continuing to happily mainline dvd series and chomp on popcorn. They usually contain characters who turn up looking a little bit shifty for a few episodes, then just when you’re about to say you don’t even care what their secret is they do something so mind blowingly out of the box that you’re hooked again. There’s probably even a further twist to do with what they’ve just done coming later that is going to cause you to make that special strangled noise only cats can hear. It's an aspect of drama that the big American fanatsy and sci-fi series have got down (and sure it could be argued that sometimes they use this technique rather too much) but it seems the creators of ‘Outcasts’ were smoking behind the bike sheds the day their college lecturers explained how to pace a story. They were also missing during the 'Writing dialogue' and 'Subtlety’ modules of Drama for Beginners.
At the same time it's all that's on at a time in the day when all I want to do is collapse in front of the tv. I entered the series with high hopes, which were disappointed, hoped it would get MUCH better in episode two (was hugely disappointed) and am now in that odd state where I'm hooked on watching some of my favourite actors hang out together rather than watching characters in a story.
There is usually something about such a terrible show that is still appealing (aside from watching used to be Lizzie Siddal, Roz, ’I’m almost always secretly an evil character man’ and ‘I had totally forgotten you were in Hustle man’ trip around together). In ‘Outcasts’ I’m kind of hooked on finding out exactly what Julius Berger’s evil plan is and how it will involve religious control. I’m convinced he does have an awesome evil plan, mostly because he has a secret evil look of young Lex Luther proportions. Tipper also has so much interesting potential. All his sisters died on Earth and it causes him serious psychological issues that he was saved because of his superior mathematical ability. He has to visit Carpathia’s psychiatrist. Come on there is character potential there! In fact there are quite a few interesting sci-fi ideas in this series (deep brain imaging, the artificially created AC humans) and the plot line about whether humans have lived on Carpathia before that is trying to sustain some kind of suspense. I do want to see if Cass and Fleur get together and if she is attracted to Roody, or Jack (I suspect Cass is destined for her as he is the sweet best friend/colleague character and she seems to forgive his betrayal far too easily). Mostly I just want to see more Fleur as after Tipper she seems to be the most human, interesting character around (maybe Lily is up there).
President Tate’s character would be interesting if I didn't get an icky vibe that the show wants me to sympathise with him, rather than all out question his rule (because that would align me with the evil Julius) but his behavior is SO awful I find it very hard to sympathise with his personal tragedy. He built people and then ordered their execution because they might be carrying a disease that killed children, maybe. I get the logic, but he is still a pretty awful guy. Maybe I have just seen too many programs where the clones are the good guys to get his point of view. Morbidly I am waiting to see if he will die and who might replace him if he does.
Despite ‘Outcasts’ being the most explainey show ever, there’s a convenient lack of explanation when it suits them. So, when Tate doesn't really explain why he's concerned about Carpathians finding religion it is a huge hole that begs the viewer to ask distracting questions about why religion in general is considered so awful by a secular man (setting up a typical divisive religion vs secularism debate) instead of story focused questions. A discussion from the characters about why Julius Berger might not be the one you want in control of religion, might lead to more complex discussion than Tate’s clear, unexplained distrust of all religion.
‘South Riding’ – Even though I haven’t read the book I already feel sure that this mini-drama will not end well. We all saw the horse die in the first episode right? Look, who doesn’t love David Morrison (do not disillusion me!) especially when he is being brooding. Who wouldn’t happily listen to him read classic novels all day long...
...sorry, drifted away there.
There’s a solid British cast, a team who know how to write proper dialogue and the good old BBC costume department behind this drama. There’s filmic representations of social progression and a female teacher trying to be inspirational. It would be hard to dislike the first episode of this drama, but I expect that the cheeriness that infects it, is a smokescreen and I’ll be interested to see how affectionate I feel towards this series when it starts ripping the characters hearts out. A horse has died, there are already two unwanted pregnancies and Morrison’s wife is in an asylum (love that the camera tricks you into thinking you’ll be going around the door before it is slammed in your face, nice touch).
‘The Good Wife’ – I started off thinking this legal drama wasn’t really anything exceptional, but now I’m three discs in and close to the obsessive ‘just one more episode’ state of watching that means a program is under my skin. I still think the format is very typical for a legal drama (case comes up that will somehow turn out to be related to the issue that the main character is struggling with in this episode, complications arise to make us understand that the good guys aren’t always clean as snow) but I also think this program has an unusually balanced and interesting social representation element that makes it different. There are a lot of women in this program and they talk about things other than men. Alicia is effectively a single mother at the moment, returning to work after a long time away with two children and she’s coping well with her situation. The cases aren’t all based around a white = rich, black = poor dynamic (although it’s not like we’ve seen the firm represent any rich people who aren’t white yet).
I do find it interesting that the program has found a way to make not just an individual highly paid lawyer look like they’re on the side of the underdog instead of the establishment, but has managed to maintain a consistent, realistic frame for why a whole firm of financially preoccupied, predominantly white, male lawyers might care about working from a more liberal angle. I mean yes it’s a manipulative frame that keeps the viewer sympathizing with a corporate legal organisation (who like all companies takes social responsibility only as far as they can without affecting their profits), but I think the program keeps an eye on how money influences the laws sympathies, reminding the viewer of the realities that the frame seeks to mitigate in order to allow the viewer to sympathise with its characters. Clever and responsible, it consciously tries to show more reality than the ‘lawyer as crusader of good’ archetype and also attempts to reshape the idea of the establishment firm as a force of pure evil, without straying too far from ideas of financial reality (although that attempt at an absolute approach to real justice is obviously what Alicia brings to the firm, so the show doesn’t stray too far away from other shows of this type). What I really like about their whole attempt to frame the firm as an agent for good is the way they keep reminding us that this particular firm is losing money. I mean that’s some clever manipulation there, the giant firm as relative underdog – smart!
I don’t really care about the romance in this show. I like seeing a collection of men who were busy being hot in other shows and I like Peter, because, well he’s Big and he’s another beautiful voiced brooder. Do I care just what crimes he’s guilty of? Nope, he slept with a whole bunch of prostitutes and hurt his whole family. He’s already kind of a bad guy. Am I interested in whether he and Alicia can find a way to trust again? Kind of, it’s just that I’m not especially bothered about romance popping up in this program. I’m more interested in finding out how Alicia is going to deal with each new law case and if she’s ever going to secure a case with a female defendant that doesn’t begin with someone saying ‘I thought you’d understand, because of what you’ve been through’. The lady, the law, that’s the interesting bit of this program, despite the title.
What are you lot watching, what am I missing and what should I be complaining I can’t see because American television refuses to let us backward Brits anywhere near their shiny?
‘Never Let Me Go’ – I am not a fan of Keira Knightley’s work generally, but to be fair I’d have to say she’s miscast so often that it’s not always her fault she can’t pull off a performance (if I had to cast her in a Jane Austen adaptation I’d pick her for Marianne Dahswood). I think she was perfect for Ruth and wonder, after this performance, why she doesn’t have more roles as villains, or at least heroines with a harder edge, on her cv. In ‘Never Let Me Go’ she projects her small, but potent, sly expressions to the viewer so that it is easy to see that her insecure jealousy is the reason why she aims so much barbed sweetness at Cathy. I thought it was a really artful performance. I felt just enough sympathy and dislike for Ruth throughout this film that the final hospital scenes produced a mixture of disturbed emotions in me that forged a real connection between me and the real tragedy of this film.
Carey Mulligan is of course just right to play Cathy’s sad, capable, romantic character. One thing: I remember that reading the book I found Cathy’s interest in Ruth and Tommy’s relationship a little bit more sinister, so I would have liked to see bit more of an edge from her as she rubbed up against Ruth.
‘The Fighter’ – It’s true that Christian Bale steals the entire film despite ‘The Fighter’ being a story that focuses on the real life sporting rise of Mark Whalberg’s character. Whalberg is not a character actor. He does a good job at what he’s set out to do, which is to be able to act like a boxer, to make the viewer believe in his journey as a fighter and to use his body to explain his connection with the other characters in the story. He’s never really outside his own skin for the film, which considering the interviews I’ve seen where he explains his own connection to the story is probably not surprising. Nothing he does feels like a mannerism he wouldn’t equally bring to another role, but perhaps that’s a fault in Whalberg’s acting on other projects rather than this one. He’s really called on to act natural and look like a boxer, both of which he manages and I suppose the fact that I felt so comfortable watching him do those things shows he fit into the role the way he was supposed to.
Bale is a totally different person from the character we see in ‘The Prestige’, or ‘Batman’. Although you never quite forget that it is Christian Bale you’re watching (I do think it was easy to forget Bale’s celebrity when I watched ‘The Prestige’) it still seems like he drops so much of his own ego to play this role in order to let the equally dominant, but destructive ego of Dicky’s written character enter his body. I know that I’m more likely to see Bale, Whalberg and the brilliant Amy Adams in future films now. She’s doing the same thing as Bale, just in a smaller, less extravagant role. I know I’ve never seen anything before that suggested she would have the ability to be so inhabited by someone else without trying to keep some of her public image (sweet, classy, a bit quirky) in the role. The brilliant thing was that both she and Bale were totally committed to letting the audience feel the way the characters actions should make them feel, so there are times when I didn’t like either character and I felt like even after the redemptive ending I was free to feel that little bit of wariness towards their characters (although that idea mostly applies to Dicky’s character) .
The one thing I’m unsure how to talk about is the depiction of the Ward women in this film, specifically Micky and Dicky’s sisters. The real life brothers were involved with the making of this film, so the way that Micky’s largely female family is presented must have some truth to it right? How do we critique a drama that is created with help from people who were involved in the real life events and (as far as we know) want a sympathetic, but truthful account of their family produced? I mean how do we separate out realistic presentations of real, flawed women, from archetypes?
To be honest I’m not sure how to go about that, so instead I’ll just state what I see and try to draw judgements from that. Feel free to complicate them usefully in the comments as always. I think what troubles me is the way that the sisters are set up as characters the audience should be laughing at and the humour of their characters centres around things like their dress sense, which despite all their teasing and short skirts still lack links to traditional femininity. Femininity always includes a certain amount of sanctioned, mainstream society taste to be approved as femininity even when a woman shows clear female signals through her sense of dress. so although the sisters still clearly work on their sartorial presentation as feminine women their definition of femininity clashes with ideas about femininity that have established types of authority behind them and essentially loses its definition as femininity in the eyes of wider society.
There’s also this scene where all the women pile into a car to go beat up Amy Adam’s character Charlene, where I feel a kind of ‘isn’t it hilarious when poorer woman start being violent, because their attempts at it are so laughable (in comparison to a man’s) and so out of character for ‘proper’ members of their gender’ vibe going on. I can’t decide if what makes me uncomfortable is how the humour relates to their lack of traditional femininity, or if it’s how the humour is based on their lack of class and the way that intersects with their lack of traditional femininity. I just know that something made me feel weird after I came out of the cinema, having laughed along quite happily when I was in the middle of the film.
Viewers laugh at Dicky, in a way that connects with his lack of class, or lower socio- economic status, but they also gain access to something deeper about him (the tragedy of his situation as a crack addict, as a boxing prodigy destroyed by pressure, as in some ways a victim of his circumstances). However, this film is so focused on the brothers struggle (rightly, this is Micky and Dicky’s story and to make it otherwise would destroy the focus of the film, but even so there are consequences of this focus for the sisters). There isn’t a chance to access that same level of humanity when it comes to the sisters (because of the films focus) and so when we laugh at them for their hugely teased hair, overly aggressive attitudes, or biased, nonsensical opinions, we’re not going to go on to understand the hugely complicated picture of them as human beings partly created by their circumstances. By the end of the film we feel more kindly towards Dicky, having has access to the circumstances that made him and having travelled with him through a life changing journey. However over the top, or odd he might still appear to us, we understand what he’s been through and how human he is. We don’t get that for his sisters, they’re just uncomplicated traditional caricatures.
There are some nice, moments in this film that show the humanity of Mickey and Dicky’s sisters (making them more human than if just their flaws were shown). The scene where they arrive at the gym to welcome Dicky home, but have to try and pack up his surprise welcome is touching, even though it’s such a small part of that scene. But these are small moments, tiny in the scheme of the film. There’s also the problem of their portrayal as almost a homogenous mass of women. Individual personalities that go beyond distinctions of dress and appearance are missing for these women.
While I do think the Ward sisters are mocked for their lower socio-economic status the great thing about this film (and remember this is based on a true story so it does indeed give me all sorts of crazy, happy inspirational feelings – I will go back to being cynical in a minute OK?) is the way it so clearly shows that you don’t have to ‘beat’ your neighbourhood, or your family circumstances to succeed in life. Dicky has to ‘beat’ crack and remove himself from his crack addict friends to get on in life, but crack isn’t all there is to the neighbourhood. A successful solution for the characters doesn’t require them to escape from their background, they just need to remove themselves from its harmful aspects and to build bigger dreams within it (Micky’s new apartment which means he can have his daughter stay overnight). Success in this film does rely on the Wards increasing their financial stability, but I think that marker of success can be separated out from escaping their entire background (I guess I am saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water here).
Micky’s family is totally cracked and he has to disassociate himself from them for a while to progress in his career. However, in the end, it’s his brother who helps him win his big fights. His brother who screwed him over at the beginning of the film, who is this off the wall, flawed crack addict trying to come good is proved to not only still be a person who Micky needs and wants in his life, but also a person who can change so that he is really healthily helpful to Micky. Micky could take Dicky’s advice to fight ‘head, body, head’ without keeping Dicky in his life, but once Dicky returns from jail there’s something stronger than brotherly advice, that means that Micky wants his brother around. I mean who isn’t touched by Micky’s speech about how he wants his family around him, now that they’ve changed, no matter how harmful they were to him before. It might sound like a child’s unrealistic wish, or it might sound like a powerful lesson about the simplicity of deserved forgiveness. The potential for forgiveness, love and change gives me hope, especially in a film which has a devastatingly simple reveal that made me suddenly take on board the full seriousness of Dicky’s crack addiction.
‘The King’s Speech’ – I agree with all the good things people have been saying. Overall I think my favourite thing about it was how beautifully shot it was, which is the most pretentious thing you’ll ever hear me say about a film I promise. Well deserved Oscars, BAFTAs, all and a book full of facts about George VI seems to have crept into my mum’s shopping bag, so perhaps soon I will have factual things to wow you with ;)
‘Coraline’ – A great animated world and a film I’d watch over and over just for the pretty creepiness. How does it compare to the book Gaiman fans?
‘Tangled’ – I laughed all the way through, so funny and smart, but with quite an old fashioned story telling feel to it in places (the opening monologue by the off screen hero was an odd detail in a film with such an active princess). I refer you to this fantastic review at Gossamer Obsessions. It's also thought provoking to look at this post at Punkadiddle that asks why the film is so white. I genuinely didn’t even really think about this aspect until I was in the cinema, but you just can’t not notice it. It’s like Disney added up how many multi-cultural princesses they have now and decided they needed to redress some sort of unfair balance.
‘Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day’ – Modern builders were engaged to build an entire Roman villa at Wroxeter using only tools with a Roman equivalent and Roman building techniques. Modern contract builders and historical building should have resulted in awful reality tv, with male builders, trying to sneak in modern building materials, struggling with male historians for building site domination. There’s a bit of that as the site manager clashes with workers and the professor who designed the villa project fights with the builders about the use of wheelbarrows (no Roman equivalent existed, interesting right?). Dai Morgan, the professor, was the ultimate antidote to the ‘trying to look cool’ history presenters that the BBC favours and at times he appeared stuffy. Then came the moment when he saw the villas frame raised. The emotion he expressed at seeing his project taking shape was so genuine you’d have to be a right cynic not to feel a little heartstring tug. The builders also went on some wonderful personal learning journeys, as they learnt just how advanced the Romans were in terms of building knowledge. There is a little bit of awe that comes over you watching someone learn that history produced valuable things, not just stepping stones for modern times to build on. Still, what possessed the producers to say ‘Yes Kev, it’s fine to wear your range of ‘humourous’ t-shirts on tv’?
‘Madagascar’ – Not the animated film, but David Attenborough’s most recent nature documentary. Madagascan wildlife is so weird and of course to a natural world girl like me that means it is so very cool. It is also full of lemurs. I don’t...I don’t understand how anyone could not like a program which is approximately 40% different kinds of lemurs. Reed lemurs are the cutest thing. I concur with Kaitlin Moran who after watching Human Planet (which she said loves itself and I avoided watching because it looked like an opportunity for lots of annoying voyeurism of ‘the other’) asked that David Attenborough not die. Nature has never had such a great tv champion.
‘Episodes’ – A British comedy where Matt LeBlanc plays himself and satirises his career, while proving that he can play a nasty, self-centred guy convincingly. Oh and he looks hot with grey hair. I thought this program went up and down, so that some episodes (the one where drunk Matt has to be picked up from a bar, the episode where Bev gets stoned with the network executive) were really funny, some were duds and some pitched up and down between the two states. If I was placing it in some kind of ranking of projects Tamsin Grieg (everyone should be adoring her right now) has been involved in I’d put it below ‘Black Books’, but well above most of series two of ‘Love Soup’.
‘Outcasts’ – Oh! So awful! So, so awful. Imagine if ‘Lost’ had given away 3 seasons of plotlines, by over explaining the whole plane crashed on an island situation and killed one of its most promising characters in the first episode. ‘Lost’ and similar series are all about allusion and secrecy, which draws the viewer in and has them practically screaming 'What is in that damn hole, damn you? You and your damn secrets!' while continuing to happily mainline dvd series and chomp on popcorn. They usually contain characters who turn up looking a little bit shifty for a few episodes, then just when you’re about to say you don’t even care what their secret is they do something so mind blowingly out of the box that you’re hooked again. There’s probably even a further twist to do with what they’ve just done coming later that is going to cause you to make that special strangled noise only cats can hear. It's an aspect of drama that the big American fanatsy and sci-fi series have got down (and sure it could be argued that sometimes they use this technique rather too much) but it seems the creators of ‘Outcasts’ were smoking behind the bike sheds the day their college lecturers explained how to pace a story. They were also missing during the 'Writing dialogue' and 'Subtlety’ modules of Drama for Beginners.
At the same time it's all that's on at a time in the day when all I want to do is collapse in front of the tv. I entered the series with high hopes, which were disappointed, hoped it would get MUCH better in episode two (was hugely disappointed) and am now in that odd state where I'm hooked on watching some of my favourite actors hang out together rather than watching characters in a story.
There is usually something about such a terrible show that is still appealing (aside from watching used to be Lizzie Siddal, Roz, ’I’m almost always secretly an evil character man’ and ‘I had totally forgotten you were in Hustle man’ trip around together). In ‘Outcasts’ I’m kind of hooked on finding out exactly what Julius Berger’s evil plan is and how it will involve religious control. I’m convinced he does have an awesome evil plan, mostly because he has a secret evil look of young Lex Luther proportions. Tipper also has so much interesting potential. All his sisters died on Earth and it causes him serious psychological issues that he was saved because of his superior mathematical ability. He has to visit Carpathia’s psychiatrist. Come on there is character potential there! In fact there are quite a few interesting sci-fi ideas in this series (deep brain imaging, the artificially created AC humans) and the plot line about whether humans have lived on Carpathia before that is trying to sustain some kind of suspense. I do want to see if Cass and Fleur get together and if she is attracted to Roody, or Jack (I suspect Cass is destined for her as he is the sweet best friend/colleague character and she seems to forgive his betrayal far too easily). Mostly I just want to see more Fleur as after Tipper she seems to be the most human, interesting character around (maybe Lily is up there).
President Tate’s character would be interesting if I didn't get an icky vibe that the show wants me to sympathise with him, rather than all out question his rule (because that would align me with the evil Julius) but his behavior is SO awful I find it very hard to sympathise with his personal tragedy. He built people and then ordered their execution because they might be carrying a disease that killed children, maybe. I get the logic, but he is still a pretty awful guy. Maybe I have just seen too many programs where the clones are the good guys to get his point of view. Morbidly I am waiting to see if he will die and who might replace him if he does.
Despite ‘Outcasts’ being the most explainey show ever, there’s a convenient lack of explanation when it suits them. So, when Tate doesn't really explain why he's concerned about Carpathians finding religion it is a huge hole that begs the viewer to ask distracting questions about why religion in general is considered so awful by a secular man (setting up a typical divisive religion vs secularism debate) instead of story focused questions. A discussion from the characters about why Julius Berger might not be the one you want in control of religion, might lead to more complex discussion than Tate’s clear, unexplained distrust of all religion.
‘South Riding’ – Even though I haven’t read the book I already feel sure that this mini-drama will not end well. We all saw the horse die in the first episode right? Look, who doesn’t love David Morrison (do not disillusion me!) especially when he is being brooding. Who wouldn’t happily listen to him read classic novels all day long...
...sorry, drifted away there.
There’s a solid British cast, a team who know how to write proper dialogue and the good old BBC costume department behind this drama. There’s filmic representations of social progression and a female teacher trying to be inspirational. It would be hard to dislike the first episode of this drama, but I expect that the cheeriness that infects it, is a smokescreen and I’ll be interested to see how affectionate I feel towards this series when it starts ripping the characters hearts out. A horse has died, there are already two unwanted pregnancies and Morrison’s wife is in an asylum (love that the camera tricks you into thinking you’ll be going around the door before it is slammed in your face, nice touch).
‘The Good Wife’ – I started off thinking this legal drama wasn’t really anything exceptional, but now I’m three discs in and close to the obsessive ‘just one more episode’ state of watching that means a program is under my skin. I still think the format is very typical for a legal drama (case comes up that will somehow turn out to be related to the issue that the main character is struggling with in this episode, complications arise to make us understand that the good guys aren’t always clean as snow) but I also think this program has an unusually balanced and interesting social representation element that makes it different. There are a lot of women in this program and they talk about things other than men. Alicia is effectively a single mother at the moment, returning to work after a long time away with two children and she’s coping well with her situation. The cases aren’t all based around a white = rich, black = poor dynamic (although it’s not like we’ve seen the firm represent any rich people who aren’t white yet).
I do find it interesting that the program has found a way to make not just an individual highly paid lawyer look like they’re on the side of the underdog instead of the establishment, but has managed to maintain a consistent, realistic frame for why a whole firm of financially preoccupied, predominantly white, male lawyers might care about working from a more liberal angle. I mean yes it’s a manipulative frame that keeps the viewer sympathizing with a corporate legal organisation (who like all companies takes social responsibility only as far as they can without affecting their profits), but I think the program keeps an eye on how money influences the laws sympathies, reminding the viewer of the realities that the frame seeks to mitigate in order to allow the viewer to sympathise with its characters. Clever and responsible, it consciously tries to show more reality than the ‘lawyer as crusader of good’ archetype and also attempts to reshape the idea of the establishment firm as a force of pure evil, without straying too far from ideas of financial reality (although that attempt at an absolute approach to real justice is obviously what Alicia brings to the firm, so the show doesn’t stray too far away from other shows of this type). What I really like about their whole attempt to frame the firm as an agent for good is the way they keep reminding us that this particular firm is losing money. I mean that’s some clever manipulation there, the giant firm as relative underdog – smart!
I don’t really care about the romance in this show. I like seeing a collection of men who were busy being hot in other shows and I like Peter, because, well he’s Big and he’s another beautiful voiced brooder. Do I care just what crimes he’s guilty of? Nope, he slept with a whole bunch of prostitutes and hurt his whole family. He’s already kind of a bad guy. Am I interested in whether he and Alicia can find a way to trust again? Kind of, it’s just that I’m not especially bothered about romance popping up in this program. I’m more interested in finding out how Alicia is going to deal with each new law case and if she’s ever going to secure a case with a female defendant that doesn’t begin with someone saying ‘I thought you’d understand, because of what you’ve been through’. The lady, the law, that’s the interesting bit of this program, despite the title.
What are you lot watching, what am I missing and what should I be complaining I can’t see because American television refuses to let us backward Brits anywhere near their shiny?