True Blood: I Got a Right to Sing the Blues

"Well, that sucks. Not in a good way."

Interesting; the King is nearly 3,000 years old, old enough to learn contempt for blind tradition but not as wise as the much younger Godric. I wonder which civilisation he comes from, and if he can even remember?

But there's little scope for such reflection as Sookie and Bill are utterly betrayed by Eric. Bill is sent to the slave quarters to be tortuously executed- by Lorena of all people. Cue various scenes of TV-friendly torture and, on her part, much emo.

Meanwhile Lafayette and Jesus are still a sweet couple; there's a contrasting spikiness between Jason and the decidedly non-kinky Crystal. After sex, though, she vanished, telling Jason that she won't see him again. This being a television drama, of course, we know she will.

Edgington, in a chat with Eric, reveals his motives; much as he despises werewolves he works with them in the grounds that demihumans must unite against humans, who are despoiling the Earth. He has a point, although I wonder whether vampires would truly be willing to forgo their carbon-guzzling gizmos.

Alas, Lafayette's sweet relationship with Jesus is seemingly ended by the revelation that he does drugs. A less sweet relationship also begins as Russell forcibly proposes to the cash-strapped Queen of Louisiana, presumably meaning his annexation of the state. More satisfying is Tara's escape, as she violently kills the loathsome rapist Franklin in highly satisfying scenes.

Jason's reunion with Crystal after tracking her down doesn't go as hoped; not only does she deny having met him but she has a thuggish fiancé, Felton. What's going on here? And what's the secret with Sam's birth family? All this has to wait over the mid-season break. Naturally we get a big cliffhanger as an escaped Sookie and Tara are attacked by Lorena as a dying Bill lies helpless..

It's all good stuff. But given the ending I'm grateful for box sets...

True Blood: Trouble

"The only power he has over us is the power we give him."

The Machiavellian King continues with his complex skulduggery, playing chess with the lives of people and vampires. His solution to the various claims and counter claims on who was or was not dealing V is simply to get rid of the Magister, on open defiance of the vampire tradition to which he surely owes his own position. Can he really keep all these plates spinning? Television drama tends not to be forgiving of hubris.

In other plot threads, Jason continues in his increasingly farcical attempts to get Andy to employ him as a cop, while Franklin's abuse of Tara becomes more and more distressing as he expects her to "love" him.

It's happier news for Lafayette as his mum'snurse, Jesus, asks him out, and the two of them begin a rather sweet romance, and Jason is attracted to Crystal, a mysterious girl from the wrong side of town. Secrets are hinted at, naturally. Eric, meanwhile, finds his father's crown among Edgington's stuff, meaning that it was he who killed Eric's family...

But the episode is focused on the true horror of Tara's situation, with her captor proposing to "turn" her, making her his for eternity. This is very, very dark stuff. 

We end with Sookie, backed into a corner, once more using her light powers, in an episode about secrets, revelations and, yes, male violence against women. It all very good, if very dark.

True Blood: 9 Crimes

"Well, maybe the man you love only ever existed inside your head?"

This is the episode where, after some odd behaviour by Bill, his and a distraught Sookie's relationship goes Deep South. At first she disbelieves the fact that he's apparently dumped her by phone, but things look grim. Especially as Sookie and Alcide seem to have chemistry; he looks suspiciously like a sudden new love interest. His relationship situation- an ex gone bad- even parallels hers. Oh, and he's a werewolf.

Meanwhile, Sam's useless and now homeless family continues to sponge off him, but as now we have little clue as to where this is going. And we see an erotic dream about Sookie and Eric... but it's his dream, not hers.

Most chilling, though, is Franklin and his pursuit and kidnapping of Tara; he's aren't ooh example of an abusive man in how he talks and acts and she's completely at his mercy. The fact that he's a vampire is an obvious metaphor here; someone who seemed, at first, to be kind and concerned, is in fact disturbingly and casually controlling, with a breathtaking but completely unexamined sense of male entitlement. He's far more terrifying than anything we've seen before.

Elsewhere, Jason realises he's getting older, a fed up Bud retires formally as sheriff in favour of Andy(!) and Bill rats on the Queen (and Eric) to Russell Edgington as V-dealers. It seems that Sophie-Ann needs the money. This leads to a raid on Fangtasia by the Magister and Pam being held prisoner after V is found. Eric has 24 hours to find Bill, his scapegoat, or she dies. There's a lot of intense vampire politics all of a sudden, with power games and little proxy wars.

 Eric deepens his interest in Lafayette as an employee. Jason decides he wants to be a cop. And Edgington is still consorting with werewolves- what's he up to? 

We end with Sookie running from a load of male werewolves in a thematic episode about male violence to women- even Bill bites the girl he "procures" for the King, but worst of all is Tara's kidnapping and multiple rape, which makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing.

Poltergeist (2015)

"Well, it's not like it was an ancient tribal burial ground.."

Meh. It's not that this film is badly made- it looks slick, is stylish and is well acted in a naturalistic style that Sam Rockwell excels at in particular. It just doesn't work as a horror film. At all.

As I've said many times before, I dislike sequels. And, as my wife pointed out during our viewing of this film, it's true that the slick look of so many modern horror films destroys all atmosphere and suspense in favour of a kind of music video arty cleverness; even the clown isn't scary.

The film goes through the plot motions of the original films but, while nothing is bad, and there's a genuinely brilliant scene involving a drill, well, Zelda Rubinstein has been replaced by Jared Harris as a reality TV ghost hunter and the directorial style, while slick, lacks the emotional manipulative was of Spoelberg which, while often annoying, makes the proper version of Poltergeist work.

This is a pointless remake. A shame; if they'd just made an original film about poltergeists they'd have saved themselves the awkward comparison.

True Blood: It Hurts Me Too

"I got your rug all wet!"

The King is still very curious about Bill and Sookie; why has he not turned her, as he did with Talbot centuries ago? It's that old chestnut again. Elsewhere, Sookie and Eric both realise they need to go to Jackson, Mississippi to find Bill.

Elsewhere, Tara has what she is determined to be a one night stand with vampire Franklin, while Jason finds his obsession for this season; he wants to be a cop. Oh dear. It's not good for Arlene, either: her baby can't possibly be Terry's and must be Rene's. Again, oh dear.

Nobody has a particularly good time; Tara sits tearfully through Eggs' sparse funeral as Bill has an unhappy flashback from 1868 which explains why he could never again see his family, Sam's birth family start to sponge off him and Bud quits as sheriff after one murder too many.

Bill's flashback seems thematically related to his acceptance of service to the King; has he dumped Sookie in doing so? This is paralleled (a device this series uses a lot) as Eric underlines Lafayette's status as his V-dealing employee with a gift of a swampy car. More ominously, Franklin visits Tara and glamours her. And Sookie meets the mysterious Alcide.

Again, so much going on. But it's all good stuff and I'm intrigued where this very unpredictable season is headed...

True Blood: Beautifully Broken

"You drank from my guest!"

It seems the werewolves are all underlings of the mysterious and charismatic Russell Edgington, the King of Mississippi- do all fifty states have a vampire monarch, and are all of them as odd as the two we've seen? The King has an agenda, a fractious relationship with his boyfriend Russell and a troubling willingness to consort with werewolves, which is Simply Not Done among aristocratic vampires. On the other hand, I'd imagine that owning a bed once possessed by Elizabeth Bathory is de rigeur.

Sookie sets off a flashback to Augsburg during the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 when she tells Eric of the werewolf connection, where he and Godric are looking for werewolves.

Tara is utterly distraught at the death of her one true love but Lafayette, a wise and good person beneath it all, is wonderful in looking after her. Poor Jessica wants Hoyt back but "it's too late". Sam learns that his "real" family are poor, feckless and not much to write home about. Not many people are happy, but at least Sookie's there to do an impression of Bill and cheer us all up. (Btw, a thought- both Bill and Angel from Angel- Liam- are called William. A little nod?)

The King wants Bill's secrets, and won't let him leave. That's unfortunate, as he had Lorena with him. Tara meets a vampire played by the familiar James Frain, and Sookie and Eric, like Bill before, are attacked by werewolves...

This is the episode where everything shifts into new areas. It isn't clear where things are going yet, but True Blood is as great as ever.

True Blood: Bad Blood

"Pam, I'm in no mood for lesbian weirdness!"

Again we continue straight on from the dramatic season finale, with Bill missing, Eggs just having been shot dead by Jason and Sam looking for his birth family. Not much is resolved, per se, but much is set up and, as it leaves you wanting more, this is a bloody good season opener.

Bill, it seems, has been kidnapped by a bunch of blokes who want to feed on his blood. Tara is distraught, and in no mood for Arlene's horribly racist comments- but I suppose a character like her, a working class white woman in the Deep South, would hold all sorts of horrible views. At least Eric is duty-bound as to help look for Bill; the police were distinctly unhelpful. Crime against vampires, it seems, is taken as seriously as black-on-black crime.

Sam, meanwhile, is up in Arkansas following up leads and, er, having awkwardly erotic dreams about Bill after ingesting his blood. Arlene is pregnant! And the Magister is getting suspicious about Eric and Queen Sophie-Anne dealing V. The Queen, in particular, is so cool that she gets her own directorial flourishes.

Sookie's on the case, but over in Mississippi Bill has werewolf trouble- are they the season's big bad? And what's with their tatto, the same one seen in Seadon 5 of Grimm? There's so much going on. I love it.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

"A few little tiny murders and everyone just freaks out!"

Yes, I know there are more comedy slasher films out there than you can shake a stick at, but this one has a particularly good twist: Tucker and Dale may look like psychopathic hillbilly killers who are out to slaughter the college kids visiting their patch of West Virginia one by one, but they're only trying to help. It's just that the kids keep randomly dying in increasingly bizarre ways.

Not only is it a good idea, but it works. It needs the precise plotting of an excellent farce combined with a load of slasher tropes to work well, and that's just what we get. We also get a mostly unknown but excellent cast, led by Alan Tudyk of Firefly and Dollhouse fame. There are so many memorable set pieces, not least where Tucker and Dale try to explain things to a sheriff before his random and unexpected demise, but for once I'll avoid spoilers as the film is obscure.

This is a brilliant film and well worth watching. It's on Netflix at the moment on the UK.

True Blood: Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

"Was there no god?"

And so we have this truly thrilling finale. Maryann's death is fitting and, interestingly, seems to have an atheistic subtext, albeit one based on disbelief in an Ancient Greek god so as to avoid offending anyone. Again, too, the season finale points forward to next season as Sam sets off to discover his real parents. Shockingly, too, we end with the sudden death of Eggs, the result of a horrible moral dilemma for Sookie and proof that Tara is the most unfortunate person ever.

We learn here that Sam is truly brave (and allowed, here, to be the hero), Bill is a clever tactician, that Eric doesn't like Yahtzee any more than I do and (this is truly horrific) Queen Sophie-Anne plays it to five million. That's just evil. 

It's good to see Hoyt finally rejecting and leaving his abusive mother, and Andy getting his badge back as a reward. Yet Jessica isn't responding to Hoyt's advances, and is biting some other bloke. And Eggs' death is... well. Poor Tara.

If that isn't enough drama, we have Bill proposing to Sookie in a restaurant (where does he get the money for those plane tickets? Does he have any income?)... and her hesitating. Worse, when she returns from the ladies', about to say yes, he's gone, and seemingly by force....

Making people wait for this to be resolved is pure evil. Fortunately I have it all on box set, though, and after a brief cinematic interlude I'll be moving on to Season Theee...

True Blood: Frenzy

"Tiny, tiny souls. Or penises. Or both."

I love the Queen of Louisiana- mad as a brush, delightfully polysexual and keen on Yahtzee- a rather boring game to us sane people but let us not be prejudiced. Anyway, she provides some much-needed exposition on how a Maenad may be killed- apparently she needs to be persuaded that her God is ravishing and sacrificing her, and she will die in joyful agony. Perhaps. We'll see. 

There's another big revelation too- it was Tara who summoned Maryann through that silly exorcism. Even quack ceremonies have power, which is a scary concept. There's a surprising amount of exposition and explanation for such an action-filled episode. Indeed, it's so action-filled that there's surprisingly little to write about.

There's a bit of intrigue, too, as Bill threatens to tell the queen about Eric selling V-juice, Hoyt hears devastating things about his past and Jason and Andy bond over both being thick. But it's all hands to the final showdown now as we prepare to end a superb season...

True Blood: New World in My View

"Jesus and me agreed to see other people. Don't mean we don't talk from time to time."

The episode starts, interestingly, with Sookie having an erotic dream about Eric, an obvious consequence of last episode, but the episode is about her, Jason's and Bill's return to Bon Temps and the true decadence they find there. There's nothing like an outsider's perspective and, after all this time in Dallas, that's what they have.

Things in Bon Temps are not going well; Maryann is still planning the ritual sacrifice of Sam as Sookie and Jason arrive back to be filled in by Hoyt on what's been happening as he and Jessica deal with his possessed mother. Sam and Andy are on the run, and Tara is going through cold turkey with Lafayette and her highly unreliable mother. 

It's interesting how fascinated Maryann is with Dookie and her mysterious powers, helping to foreground this ongoing mystery as we learn that it was Maryann who attacked her in the woods. Maryann's doings are bittersweet, though: the controlled Terry is not a damaged person but a highly competent soldier. 

Fortunately, Dookie brings Tara back from Maryann's clutches. Unfortunately, Tata still escapes as a result of her mother's stupidity, and heads off looking for Eggs. But we end with a double cliffhanger as a starving Jessica bites Hoyt's mum and Bill goes for help from a vampire queen...

True Blood: I Will Rise Up

"You've killed a man."

"That was for self-defence, not for lunch!"

The Brotherhood of the Sun subplot is all wrapped up... and suddenly one of them (Luke, whom we've come to know) turns out to be a suicide bomber and blows up most of the cast. That's quite an opening.

Fortunately, Sookie survives because of Eric(!( taking the full force of the blast for her, seemingly selflessly. And yet... he uses his own need for healing as a pretext to "own" Sookie as Bill does, being able to sense her in the same way. And, as Bill warns her, she's likely to experience feelings of attraction towards him. But... are we really supposed to be ok with the implication that Bill did this to her too? I suppose he saved her life, but it feels a bit queasily rapey.

Speaking of Bill, he ruthlessly kills all Soldiers of the Sun present, wisely allowing one to live and tell the tale. Elsewhere, Jessica and Hoyr continue to be the sweetest couple ever and Tara and Eggs are increasingly uneasy about Maryann- but are completely under her control, in spite of Lafayette's managing to take Tara away. Maryann's influence has led to half the town being locked up for lewd behaviour; Bon Temps is an increasingly weird place.

Hoyt arranges for Jessica to meet his horrible, controlling mother and ends up having the chat he's needed to have with her for a long time. Good for him. There's a heartwarming chat between Sookie and Jason, and Sookie has a disturbingly erotic dream about Eric...!

The imprisoned townsfolk are all freed by an increasingly confident and increasingly powerful Maryann; the season is clearly gearing up for a big conclusion as an increasingly strange Bon Temps awaits Sookie. It's a masterful build-up.

The most extraordinary part is the end, though, as the old, wise, tired and Christlike Godric chooses to embrace death by sunrise after his twenty long centuries, with only Sookie beside him. He wants to burn, dying happy, serene and surprised at this sight of a human shedding tears for him. It's an utterly beautiful scene.

Henry VI, Part 1 (Dominic Cooke, 2016)

"A day will come when York shall claim his own..."

It's been four years, but the BBC have finally got around to doing Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses plays under their The Hollow Crown imprint. Strictly speaking this isn't Henry VI, Part 1: we end the much-truncated production about halfway through Part 2. But it's a welcome attempt at some rarely-filmed plays and the cast, including those listed below, includes Philip Glenister, David Troughton and Michael Gambon.

Like its Hollow Crown predecessors, this is a straightforward retelling with 15th century costume and no directorial flourishes. That means it's all reliant on the acting, and the acting is superb. This is a play from a very young Shakespeare- one of his early hits- and isn't well known, also being somewhat lacking in famous lines, much as Shakespeare's dialogue is never less than sublime, even in his youth. There aren't, as far as I'm aware, any film versions to compare this to, so in spite of being good rather than great it's sort of the best by default.

We begin with huge vistas of Dover's white cliffs; this tries to be as visual as possible, in the Hollow Crown house style. But it's all about the performances. I haven't seen this play before, truncated or not, but I much enjoyed it, raising perhaps an eyebrow at just how wet the King is, how women are just chattels in this world, the very derogatory portrayal of Joan of Arc, but most of all, as ever with Shakespeare, getting drunk in the language.

The production is merely good; the play (or play and a half) is sublime.

True Blood: Timebomb

"I reckon I've already been to Heaven. It was inside your wife."

This episode focuses on Godric; that he's Really Important is signalled by the reverent behaviour of Eric, until now a huge authority figure. And then there's his Christlike bearing and behaviour, far more "Christian" than anyone in Steve Newlin's ridiculous cult, defusing the whole situation (and ending the sub-plot so that Maryann can take centre stage) with enormous grace and dignity. It's tempting to see this 2,000 year old vampire as an older and wiser version of Bill, which has obvious implications. Huge themes of sin, redemption and the wisdom of religious ethics as opposed to actual belief are at work here.

Bill escapes, interrupting Jessica and Hoyt in coitus to get them to flee to Bon Temps. Sam is framed for Daphne's death, joining an awful lot of licentious locals in jail. Daphne was missing a heart...

The grossest bit is, of course, Maryann serving Daphne's raw heart to Tara and Eggs in a pie, but this spectacle is narratively necessary to ficus us on her as the proper big bad of the season, now that the Reverend Mr. Newlin's little sideshow is over. The most tragic bit is that Jessica's hymen has grown back as it always will; for her, sex will always come with the pain of her first time. That's awful.

It's a rich, powerful episode even before we get to the ultimate cliffhanger: Luke as a suicide bomber...

True Blood: Release Me

"I'm gonna kick your ass so hard you'll be shitting boots."

The cliffhanger, and Sam's certain death, gets resolved by... the arrival of a rat-arsed and confused Andy Bellefleur. Only in True Blood! 

Otherwise, things are not going well as Sookie and Hugo are rumbled and caught by Steve Newlin and his nutters. Bill is unable to help because of Lorena holding him captive, leaving to an intriguing flashback from 1935, where he finally leaves her and resolves to stop killing people; stating that he could never love her.

It seems Hugo, jealous at not being "turned" is the traitor, not that it does him much good. He reveals all- not good news for Jason, now brother to a spy. At last his somewhat over-baked plot line is coming to an end.

An angry Sam confronts Daphne but finally gets done answers; Maryann is an immortal, ancient Maenad, presumably from Classical Greece, a worshipper of Dionysus. That explains the Bacchanalian rituals but is a genuine surprise. So is the fact that Daphne is killed by an increasingly evil-seeming Maryann. Yep. She's the big bad.

We also get a lovely series of scenes where Kessica and Hoyt pop their cherries with each other, and quite a cliffhanger in which Sookie finally meets the mysterious Godric...

True Blood: Hard-Hearted Hannah

"Did you know that there was an actual vampire pope back in the Middle Ages?"

Sookie's undercover mission into the cult is going to be assisted by Hugo, also a human love of a vampire, in his case Isabel. After Barry, Sookie finds yet another parallel to herself in Dallas.

Before the mission, though, a flashback from 1926 ("Fuck Prohibition" indeed) introduces us Lorena, Bill's maker and former lover; for us Buffyverse fans, his Darla. And yet... he never loved her, and when he realises this he stops killing humans. I'm sure this relationship has a long way to go; she certainly still loves him.

Sam and Daphne, both shapechangers, are really connecting, and by all rules of drama they therefore cannot last. She encourages Sam to be more open about what she is, and reveals she was attacked by the beast that went for Sookie, and survived.

Sookie and Hugo have an interesting chat: she won't "turn" him, and he feels unwanted for this; will she still want him when he's old? This is an awkward question that Sookie and Bill will have to face.

Maryann is coming across more and more like a child, but Tara finds evidence of what has been happening during one of Eggs' increasingly prevalent blackouts- a clearing, the site of what looks like an orgy and, perhaps, human sacrifice, although both of them hide from the inplication. By now, for the viewer, there's no doubt that Maryann is the big bad of the season.

Meanwhile, Lafayette suffers a panic attack. It's devastatingly powerful to see someone so confident and witty so vulnerable and afraid. Strangely, Eric wants him to deal in V again.

Meanwhile, Jason gets further indoctrinated and has more sex with Sarah, Hoyt and Jessica continue to be the sweetest couple ever, and we end with a shock; Daphne was leading Sam into a trap all along. She's working for Maryann, and it seems he's to be sacrificed...

Brilliant. Again.

Marvel's Agent Carter: The Atomic Job

"I like pie. Pie is good."

This could be the best episode yet. The decision to up the comedy quotient for themselves season is really paying dividends, and it's mostly down to both the superb scripting and the excellent comedy acting from all involved.

We begin with the suggestion that possessing Jane Scott's body could help make him tangible and, given that we end with him less tangible than ever, I suspect that's where the next episode is headed.

This episode, though, begins with a rather sweet scene in which Sousa proposes to Violet- and she says yes. Which makes things rather bittersweet when she realises, at the end, that he moved to LA to get away from his feelings for Peggy. What will they do now?

But the episode, mostly, is a brilliantly designed and executed farce where Team Whitney and Team Peggy both race to get to some nukes, with the stakes being somewhat high. Along the way we get a nice bit of feminism from Peggy, showing that Rose, being fully trained, is better used in the field than as a receptionist. And the rather amusing trope of lab scientists with chips on shoulders continues. The best scene, though, involves Peggy, a memory inhibitor and a creepy old lecher.

The development of Whitney is interesting too; the dramatic showdown between her and Peggy makes clear that she doesn't want to be "cured", and her bullying of Cal begins to tip over into domestic abuse. Here we have an increasingly violent reaction against the tyranny of patriarchy. The themes add an extra level to an extraordinary series.

True Blood: Never Let Me Go

"I would no more allow you to feed on that young man than watch pornography on television!"

Sam has a shock; Daphne knows what he is, being a shifter herself. At last he's not alone, and has a lover he can really feel close to. Nothing bad will come of this, right? This is narratively paralleled with Sookie finding another telepath in the unwilling Barry and, embarrassingly, Sam and Daphne also find Arlene and Terry arriving for their own woodland sexual adventures. This series is plotted with the precision of a farce. I love it.

Meanwhile, we discover why Eric is so keen to rescue Godric; he's Eric's maker, as we establish with an unexpected flashback set in (roughly) Beowulf-era Sweden. The fact we've seen nothing like this before makes it extraordinary to watch, and our first sight of Godric is in this context, an interesting choice.

We also have Maryann and her tribe moving into Sookie's, after a little manipulation of Tara, and Jason's continuing experiences woth his religious cult. This plot strand still feels a little dragged out, but ends rather interestingly as Sarah visits Jason for rather unpuritanical reasons. That Jason...

True Blood: Shake and Fingerpop

"I am a vampire- I'm supposed to be tormented."

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the character of Bill works quite well, intentionally or not, as a deconstruction of Angel from, er, Angel; he's tormented, yes, but he's not stupidly guilty about it. He's mature, realistic and, best of all, not treated over-seriously by the script as this big romantic Byronic hero. After all, it's a trope that practically invites mockery.

Anyway, Sookie is off to Dallas with Bill, Jessica is prevented from popping her cherry with Hoyt (those two are sweet), and Jason is continuing to be rather crudely indoctrinated by the Fellowship of the Sun in a storyline which, while both amusing and serving to get us to know the organisation, feels as though it's being dragged out somewhat.

Meanwhile, that monster in the woods has another victim, and Tara has the first nice birthday of her entire life, poor girl, but the disturbing presence of Maryann hangs over everything. She seems wise, in a way, but also immature and hedonistic. I'm still not sure what she's about.

Andy continues his downward spiral, handing in his badge. Lafayette, now Eric's bitch, gets healed with his 1,000 year old blood and watched The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, sensible chap. Sookie and Bill arrive in Dallas to intrigue; there's clearly a traitor about. 

Godric, the missing sheriff vampire, is over 2,000 years old, twice Eric's age. I suggest this storyline is going to lead to some epic revelations. Oh, and Barry is a mind reader- Sookie isn't the only one?

In other storylines, Daphne knows what Sam is. And Maryann's party tonight is huge and mad. Again. There's so much going on at the moment. I love this season.

True Blood: Scratches

"It's always a pleasure doing business with you, Dr. Ludwig."

"Fuck off!"

We begin, after last week's unpleasantness, with a blazing row between Sookie and Bill leading to her running off into the woods... and being attacked and nearly killed by some mysterious creature that's clearly going to loom large this season. She can only be saved by the intervention of Eric; Sookie and Bill now owe him an awful lot, much to Bill's annoyance.

Eric, incidentally, is more than 1,000 years old, and therefore a Viking. He's Swedish, mind, so he can't be in America because of Vinland... what's his background, I wonder?

Maryann, meanwhile, continues to disturb- Sam warns Tara against her, and Karl seems simply to be a slave. She and all around her seem to smoke an awful lot of weed, too. 

Jason is still being steadily indoctrinated by this Fellowship of the Sun cult in spite of his doubts; he's so easy to manipulate, especially by the flirty and attractive Sarah. She also seems more intelligent than her husband; is it she, rather than Steve, who is in charge? 

Behind all this... the Fellowship may be evangelical fanatics full of all sorts of bigotries but, while there are exceptions, the evidence we've seen so far indicates that most vampires are indeed evil. Yes, that's in spite of Bill's big speech about everyone, human and vampire, having agency. Vampires are still, on average, evil.

Sookie and Bill are off to Dallas for Eric, in return for Lafayette's freedom; this is intriguing, and no doubt will show us much more vampire lore in due course. Who is this mysterious, missing Godric?

Jessica and Hoyt getting together is, of course, the sweetest thing ever, and I hope the start of something beautiful. Less nice is Tara's situation with Maryann and her tribe; she's beginning to notice, and be disgusted by, what look to be Bacchanalian excesses.

Meanwhile, Sam and Daphne seem to be getting on well during a midnight swim... but those scratches look awfully like Sookie's. Curiouser and curiouser.

This is already an extraordinarily complex and compelling season, full of contrasts and questions. I suspect, behind it, there are themes; it's going to be a fascinating ride.

True Blood: Keep This Party Going

"This isn't a fight."

"Yes it is!"

Ooh, intriguing- Lafayette is about to become a vampire, and loyal to Eric?

We also hear about a missing vampire, very old, in the Dallas area; this is a plot thread if there ever was one, and Eric will shortly be involving Sookie, whether Bill likes it or not. We get crucial scenes establishing the togetherness of Sookie and Bill, all loved up; something is therefore going to go pear-shaped for them very soon.

We see Jason's experiences at the absurd and transparently pointless "leadership conference". He's a fool, and everyone knows this; others have to wait years to get on the course, years of abstinence from sex and alcohol, two things that I for one could not live without. No wonder we begin to see signs of resentment. I wonder also if Sarah, a himbo on the surface, may really be the manipulating hand behind it all.

We see more about Maryann, ensconced in Sam's bar for several hours. She eats a huge amount of food; whatever she does- and everyone seems to be in high spirits- must clearly take a lot of energy.all very curious. Apparently she's from Cape Cod but, when Sookie reads her mind, she hears a language other than English. And she's powerful enough, and cruel enough, to turn poor Sam into a dog at will.  Curiouser and curiouser. Still, at least she's brought Tara and Eggs together- quite clearly on purpose.

This isn't a good episode for Sookie; she falls for Jessica's transparent plea to look at her family from afar; it's obvious, at least to the viewer, that she means to kill her abusive dad. Bill arrives to save the day, but he's not best pleased with the gullible Sookie. At all.

There's a lot going on this season; this is absolutely fascinating.

True Blood: Nothing But the Blood

"My ass is magnetic now!"

Season Two, then- but we continue straight on. There's even a reprise. The body isn't Lafayette: it's that fraudulent "exorcist", which is a relief. Not for Andy, though: Bud isn't impressed with his behaviour and, arguably, he could even be a suspect. His career, post-Rene, seems to be going quickly downhill.

Tara's mother doesn't take the news well, but then she's a bitch. And it's glorious to see the bollocking she gets from Maryann. Less glorious is the position of Lafayette, being kept as a prisoner by Eric and in far from luxurious circumstances, quite a contrast with his cousin.

Sookie isn't pleased to find out about Jessica; Bill had two weeks to tell her. It's a bloody good job for him that he earned all those brownie points in the season finale. Sookie doesn't like secrets. I suspect they're going to clash later about other secrets still to be revealed.

We find more of Maryann- Sam burgled her, aged 17, and stole a huge wodge of cash with which, presumably, he proceeded to set up in business. I'm not sure, at this stage, whether the big bad if the season is going to be her or religious cult leader Steve Newlin, who has the gullible Jason in his clutches for an expensive "leadership course" which he can suddenly afford after the death of his and Sookie's paedo uncle.

Maryann is fascinating, supplying her guests with both pot and good conversation yet treating her British underling like shit. And she clearly isn't human. What is clear, though, is that Tara and Eggs are getting on very well. I hope Tara doesn't get her heart broken.

A lots being set up for the new season and it could go in any direction.whatever, this is still bloody good telly.

True Blood: You'll Be the Death of Me

"So... collecting stray black people, that some kind of hobby of hers?"

This is the exciting finale we were all expecting- we know it's Rene from the start, so what we get is a thriller where he tries to kill Sookie before he catches her, a showdown in a cemetery where Sam shows himself to be brave and resourceful and Bill nearly suffers death by sunlight in his desperate attempt to save Sookie, therefore earning himself enough brownie points to set against a number of sins. He'll need them.

Tara's life seems to be looking up- her new surroundings with Maryann are rather pleasant, and she seems to get on rather well with Eggs, a young man whom Maryann has also taken in. But who is Maryann? And how does she know Sam? Questions are artfully posed for the following season.

Andy Bellefleur, having gone after Jason so strongly, may have buggered up his career. What a pity; it's disturbing that someone like him managed to become a detective in the first place. No wonder he turns to the bottle. But Jason's time in prison seems to have brought him disturbingly under the wing of the anti-vampire- and fundamentalist- Fellowship of the Sun. This probably won't end well.

We end with Bill experiencing the problems of "fatherhood" and the discovery of a body on a car... could it be the recently attacked Lafayette? Fortunately, those of us with box sets don't have long to wait.

True Blood: To Love Is to Bury

"You are the worst maker ever!"

The penultimate episode, and (SPOILERS)... the last shot confirms it's Rene who's the killer. I wasn't exactly sure it was him, but he was heading up my suspect list by this point. 

But so much else also happens this episode. The increasingly disturbing relationship between Jason and Amy continues up until it's violent and unexpected end, but she was always a wrong 'un; there's a very clever moment when Amy states that "What we have- it's beautiful" as the camera lingers on the bloody mess that is what's left of poor Eddie.

Tara seems to reach rock bottom here, arrested for drink driving. Sookie, meanwhile, is distracted from Bill's seemingly permanent absence by investigating all the murders and using Sam as her Watson, something which she finds oddly and endearingly enjoyable. It's a very interesting love triangle, and one with three very well-developed corners.

Lafayette gets a moment of awesomeness as he gets to skewer the state senator he's been sleeping with for his crude homophobic and anti-vampire electioneering- but it's interesting how the series seems to simultaneously show that the normal state of affairs for vampires is to be evil, yet to oppose them is to be prejudiced and socially conservative. I'm not sure that this binary opposition quite works.

Jessica turns out to be unexpectedly awesome; far from the appalled, Christian, innocent little girl she seems to be, she's overjoyed at being a vampire and the prospect of glorious revenge for her life of abuse. Go Jessica.

The worst thing to happen in this most eventful of episodes, though, is Lettie Mae. Never mind the number of times her daughter has bailed her out, she refuses to do the same for her daughter out of sheer arrogant hypocrisy, all as part of her performance at being a devout Christian- and performance it is. I hope she gets her comeuppance. She's the worst person in this series. Poor Tara. She's homeless and abandoned... but, when all seems lost, she's saved and taken in by the mysterioysMaryann. Who is she? What does she want? This is nicely done: as one season ends, the seeds of the next are sewn.

Things return to the status quo by the end, as Bill returns and Jadon is attested yet again. But only we are privy to the killwr's identity. Will he strike again? This is the best and most masterfully crafted chapter yet. Season finale here we come...

True Blood: I Don't Wanna Know

I'm "I used to scratch your butt in the parking lot at the bar!!!"

A theory: are all the episode titles the names of songs we hear during the episode?

Anyway, we begin with what could be described as an awkward conversation between Sam and Sookie. He's a "shape-shifter", apparently. Werewolves exist too. They're bad. He's really sorry for not telling her sooner etc. And, of course, Tara doesn't know. Awkward.

Meanwhile Tara goes through her expensive and horrible, horrible exorcism and Amy explains to Jason that her psychopathic tendencies towards vampires are perfectly fine because "I am an organic vegan, and my carbon footprint is minuscule. So that's all right then.

Things get worse for Tara: she discovers that, yep, the "exorcism" was indeed all a scam, but the placebo effect appears to be working for her mother. What to do? It's a realistic reaction from a multi-layered and very relatable character. I love Tara.

Bill's "sentence", it now seems, is to kill and turn a teenage girl called Jessica- and she's played by none other than Deborah Ann Woll, she who plays Karen Page in Daredevil. Another superb instalment.

True Blood: Plaisir d'Amour

"There's vampire in your cleavage..."

Apparently Bill is in trouble with Eric, "sheriff of area 5", for killing Longshadow while saving Sookie, which means he has to go on trial and stuff. This is dodgy. Why are vampires on the cusp of legality and civil rights of they presume to operate an entirely parallel legal system? If I were Sookie then I would simply tell Eric that, if he has a problem, he should simply call the police- and, if he doesn't, call them herself. Simples.

Ok, perhaps realistically that wouldn't help now, I grant you, but the State simply can't tolerate this in the long term.

Meanwhile, Amy and her himbo bitch Jason are keeping Eddie in the basement, milking him for blood like a cow while they have trippy hippy sex. Tara is being treated little better, beating charged $800 for some deeply unpleasant quack "exorcism". Oh, and someone has killed Sookie's cat when she gets home. So, you know, all sweetness and light.

But, as the series is nearing its end, things inevitably get worse. Tara dumps Sam out of nothing but self-loathing. Eddie tells Jason his life story, and it's a tragic one: it's clear that vampires, as a minority, can be a metaphor for sexual orientation rather than race and, tragically, Eddie stillhasn't embraced his true self as a vampire. And now it's too late.

We end with a big reveal- that dog that's been hanging around the bar is in fact Sam. Wow. Wasn't expecting that. This sublime series has such a capacity to shock and surprise.

True Blood: The Fourth Man in the Fire

"I don't think my boyfriend likes silver!"

Yeah, this is another good episode, let's just say that straight up. A lot of it consists of Amy's and Jason's trippy relationship, full of good sex, good drugs and bad vibes, especially when Amy gets Jason to help her kidnap Eddie, the rather docile vampiric source of Lafayett's supply, so they can presumably use him as a V-Juice cow until he dies. Lovely.

Bill isn't dead. Quelle surprise. And he makes quite an entrance. Cue lots of sex and a happy Sookie. Poor Tara isn't so happy, with her mother having swapped hardcore addiction to drink with a hardcore addition to religion, which she is pushing on to her daughter with appalling aggression. Poor Tara isn't having an easy time of it, and manages to mess up her ambiguously sexual relationship with Sam. Poor Tara.

We end with Sookie being summoned to (groan) "Fangtasia by the mysterious boss-man Eric, "sheriff of Area Five", who uses her to find out who's been embezzling money off him. She finds out who, but only at the cost of a perilous cliffhanger...

Oh, and a prediction: one of either Arlene or Rene will die before the wedding.

True Blood: Burning House of Love

"I don't know how to be with somebody."

An episode about relationships here as, in an interesting contrast with Buffy losing her virginity to Angel, Sookie's post-deflowering relationship with Bill continues to develop realistically and nicely, to Sam's increasing annoyance. Well, until Bill's apparent death, that is. Meanwhile, Jason gets together with the superficially nice and hippyish Amy, whose tendency to quote Crowley and desire for a good-looking but thick partner she can manipulate set alarm bells ringing.

Sookie spends much of the episode on Cloud Nine until Bill's apparent death (much as we, the viewers, know damn well he's not really dead), so much so that she's happy for him to, we, feed on her every day. There's a dark side to this, though; Bill has no qualms in simply killing Sookie's paedo uncle. It's clear that vampires have no respect for established legal structures.

The exorcism is weird, creepy and, if not being carried out by a black person, would constitute a vaguely racist mockery of West African Animist customs. But I suppose that's the point; the descendants of slaves are so alienated from their own Bantu cultural heritage that vaguely racist stereotypes are all they have. Poor Tara has to foot the bill for this nonsense and you just feel more and more sorry for her. And then the quack in question starts aiming a particularly nasty hard sell at Tara, whose wise scepticism is sadly undercut by her lack of self-esteem. Poor Tara.

There are only so many ways of saying, episode after episode, that this is brilliant television. But it is.

True Blood: Cold Ground

"You is a stupid bitch, Jason Stackhouse."

This extraordinary episode is, at its core, an examination of how a murder is so deeply wounding both to a family and to an entire community. All sorts of things are horribly uprooted and Sookie, being telepathic, is overwhelmingly bombarded with people's horrible, casually bigoted, indecently nosy thoughts. The fact that such a determined non-sweater drops the f-bomb at a funeral speech is a dramatic example of this, doubly effective coming from her. Bereavement is both deeply alienating- how can other people understand, and how can we tolerate the sheer absurdity of trying to express our complex feelings via platitudes? The performance of how we're "supposed" to feel is deeply, appallingly, overwhelmingly onerous, and only with Bill- her relationship with whom has caused so many harsh judgements) does she find solace.

Jason finds out in the worst possible way, and an awful rift develops between the siblings. Tara is a true friend but, as other people always do, has problems of her own, not least her awful, abusive mother trying to blame her alcoholism on a "demon" and get Tara to pay for an expensive exorcism.

On a more prosaic note, is Bill right to suggest the murderer is going after the lovers of vampires? Was Sookie the intended victim? Jason dives deeper into addiction to V-Juice in spite of his experiences. It seems fitting, though, that as Jason blahs his way through reverse cowgirl with some randomer, Sookie is gently and meaningfully deflowered by Bill, her true soulmate. And he bites her...

This is the most extraordinary episode yet. Wow.

True Blood: Sparks Fly Out

"Excuse me, who ordered the hamburger with AIDS?"

Bill has weird musical tastes, which makes sense. The older you get, the more open-minded you become, and the less tolerant of MOR chart fodder crap. I like him more and more. The highlight of another excellent episode, however, is Jason demonstrating to Lafayette exactly what happened to his penis without anaesthetic by means of a sausage. Er, nice. At least, for balance, Lafayette gets a scene later on where he deals magnificently with a homophobe.

This episode focuses on the talk given by Bill, a former Confederate soldiers, to a disturbingly large number of people who seem to think that supporting said cause is in some way not blatantly racist. No wonder Tara feels so uncomfortable. And no, I still don't understand why Americans don't treat people like this as traitors but, well, it's their country, not mine. Bill gives a good speech, anyway.

Interesting to see some myths dispelled, too: vampires can enter churches, touch crosses, appear in mirrors- this is a much stripped down and secularised take on the vampire myth. But the bigger revelation is how Bill was turned into a vampire, against his will and because of the very integrity that drives him today. His tale is truly tragic: his forced separation from his wife and children is simply unimaginable.

Poor Tara continues to suffer from her unfortunate crush on Jason, an absolute slut who, V-Juice or not, inevitably betrays her with the first girl he comes across. Tara is a deeply sympathetic character, but so are so many others. 

A brilliant episode. But, just when it seems the stakes can't get any higher, Sookie suddenly finds her frandmother's viokentky murdered corpse...

True Blood: Escape from Dragon House

"I got gout of the dick!"

Dawn being dead isn't good for Jason: it seems that the last two women he's slept with have been murdered. Oops. Understandably the local constabulary are raising the odd eyebrow and there is much gossip in Bon Temps, particularly from a rather unpleasantly nosey aunt. Worse, Jason has to swallow all the V-Juice in the back of the police car for fear of being caught with it, and much of the rest of the episode consists of the delightful details of what this does to his cock. Still, at least he and the lovely Tara get to bond a little over his intense genital  pain. Still wouldn't want to be him though, although for the first time in my life I have to praise some wanking acting.

Still, Sookie and Bill are having "fun" at the vampire bar Fangtasia (groan), where we first meet the old any mysterious boss's vampire Eric and his strangely sexy underlying, Pam. There's also an interesting chat between Sookie and Sam which makes explicit the thematic parallels between vampires and black people on this, the Deep South. Race is foregrounded as a theme as Sookie points out that Sam is supporting "separate but equal". Meanwhile, Bill is pulled over in his car by a cop because of his race. We've got plenty of time to see if this theme develops much. We have vampires, black and white characters, the complex legacy of the 1861-65 War of Secession and so many apologists for the slaveholders, like Sookie's grandmother.

We also get flashbacks to Tara's childhood and her abusive, alcoholic mother. Poor Tara. It's a compliment to all involved that I'm getting so attached to these characters.

This is one addictive series; I'm actually on episode nine as I write...

True Blood: Mine

"If we can't kill people, what's the point of being a vampire?"

We begin to meet more vampires, and it's definitely seeming as though Bill is the exception in not being evil and highly menacing: is this what we're intended to think? So far it's far from clear cut that vampires should indeed be treated as a minority deserving of rights, but we'll see how things progress. Bill explains that vampires become evil from living in nests, but that hardly lets them off the hook.

We're told of Hepatitis D, a vampire disease which weakens them and which, by the law of Raymond Chandler's revolver, will eventually threaten Bill's life, I strongly suspect. Sam and Tara (I love her) chat about their respective unattainables, Sookie and Jason and, in a refreshingly honest and unpuritanical scene, end up having some no-strings sex to deal with their mutual drought. Good.

Sookie is still yet to be deflowered, much as her libido is clearly getting intense by now, but she shags Bill only in her dreams. We learn more of Tara's mother issues- she now has to stay with Lafayette which, given the wine and ganja there, seems not to be a bad choice. The episode ends on a pop cultural note as Sam wishes for "Buffy or Blade" to come to Bon Temps. The gripping plot and characters continue to unwind in this already-excellent series.

We finish, again, on a cliffhanger: Sookie's found another body...

True Blood: The First Taste

"Do doctors know that V-Juice can do this?"

"No. We wanna keep it that way."

This series is addictive: I may only be blogging the second episode but I'm up to the fifth, much as I will spend the rest of this blog post behaving as though I hadn't. Suffice to say that it continues to be awesome. I appreciate the way that this is one continuing story; there may be themes for individual episodes but there are no stories of the week.

After the expected rescue, much of this episode consists of Sookie and Bill chatting and getting to know each other; he's just saved her life (so they're even) and given her some mildly superhuman abilities (including increased libido for this virgin!) in the process. We also get to realise just how, er, unintelligent Jazon is as it turns out he couldn't possibly have committed the mirder of which he's accused: it was that bald, tattooed vampire, right?

Bill later chats with Sookie, her Gran, Tara and Jason about how he fought, in the 1861-5 war of secession, for the rights of wealthy white people to "own" other people and, indeed, that his own parents owned slaves. Tara is, unsurprisingly, unimpressed. It's quite shocking to see, as a foreigner, how rural Louisiana can seem so racially integrated and yet so many seem invested in deeply unsavoury causes and symbols. And I can't understand why other Americans don't see this sort of thing as treason. Oh well.

We end with yet another cliffhanger and several huge incentives to keep watching this splendid series.

True Blood: Strange Love

"I know every man, whether straight, gay or George motherfucking Bush is terrified of the pussy."

I'm in the middle of several TV series, some in uncomfortable hiatuses (I will finish them all, but Agents of SHIELD and Grimm are delayed because of Sky Plus being crap- don't use Sky), so why not start another series? 81 episodes: how long can that take?

So far I'm impressed; first episodes are usually awkward and lacking because of how exposition-heavy they have to be and all the different jobs they have to do. This isn't. The premise- vampires going public and facing the prospect of citizenship following the Japanese invention of synthetic blood, while vampire blood is are relational narcotic for ne'er-do-wells - is nearly imparted via screens within the screen within the first few minutes, the Louisiana setting is gorgeous and atmospheric, and the characters are both well-written and hugely likeable, a huge credit to both the cast and the writing. So far I love Tara to bits and Lafayette is awesome too.

The characters are not just likeable but all well-rounded from the start, particularly Sookie and Tara. And then we have Sookie's brooding, Byronic vampire love interest Bill, Angel to her sort-of Buffy and hints of a dynamic which is an obvious influence on Twighlight, but pleasingly with much more sex and much less Mormonism; this is HBO, after all. Speaking of sex... yes, Jason. 

A cliffhanger ending, an atmospheric setting, great characters already, a fantastic theme tune... this promises to be good.

Little Nicky (2000)

"Remember you have to shove a pineapple up Hitler's ass at 4pm..."

Every so often I just have to blog an utterly crap film to provide balance and, well, this "comedy" is as awful as they come and completely unfunny. It stars Adam Sandler. Oh, wait... that's a tautology.

Literally the only funny joke in the entire film concerns the turning of Coke into Pepsi, and that was only worth a mild titter; how this ever got made with any serious expectations of at all being funny is utterly beyond me. And, even more incredibly, beyond the awful Sandler this turd of a script actually managed to attract a decent cast who would all, doubtless, have been more gainfully employed elsewhere. It's a shame, as the central conceit- a power struggle on Earth between the three sons of Satan- is a good one.

Reese Witherspoon deserves praise as Nicky's valley girl Angel mother, and Harvey Keitel is good even when phoning it in as he is here, and rightly so. But no amount of polishing can save this turd.

This is the worst film I've seen in 2016. Yes; worse even than The Black Knight.

The Doctor Who Pubcast

Here's Nick and myself with the latest instalment...

http://dwpubcast.podomatic.com/entry/2016-05-08T06_59_58-07_00

GoldenEye (1995)

"I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War."

I saw and enjoyed this film at the pictures back when I was an 18 year old student at Liverpool University, briefly: I ended up dropping out and getting my degree later. I must admit, though, that disappointed as I am on a second viewing I can't entirely blame this film.

So why did GoldenEye disappoint this time round? Well, to a large degree it's Pierce Brosnan. He really is shockingly rubbish, just phoning in his performance and displaying no charisma whatsoever, something which is not the case with his non-James Bond career.

But it's more than that: it's the script. It feels as though, after a six year gap, they've forgotten how to do James Bond. Only Desmond Llewelyn connects this to any previous film, and really does suddenly look so shockingly old. And the attempts to make ironic references to Bond's inevitable sexism- his combative relationship with the new female M and the new Moneypenny's flirtatious mention of "sexual harassment"- just aren't as clever as the film thinks they are.

Where are the glamorous locations? Yes, it's the '90s, and Russia is fleetingly friendly if also incredibly corrupt, but Siberia is no place to set a Bond film, and brief scenes in St Petersburg and Cuba don't make up for that. Xenia Onatopp is a genuinely brilliant and very Bond character- a female assassin who kills her victims by squeezing them with her legs and a delightfully Freudian nightmare for men- but there's not much else here that's brilliant.

It's hard not to compare this with the Austin Powers films- and unfavourably- given the conscious contrast between the social mores of the '60s and '90s, respectively. And you can tell it's the '90s when bond starts the film with a bungee jump. But this is a slow, ponderous film that takes ages to get going and just lacks oomph. Not their finest hour. In fact, I'm so underwhelmed that I'm going to press pause on watching the Bond films for a bit.

Oh, and we have the bizarre absence of the proper Bond theme tune at the very start. Legal reasons?

Licence to Kill (1989)

"There's more to this than just your personal vendetta!"

Meh. After a good Bond film we get a very late '80s action thriller, all very War On Drugs and macho, very Arnie or Sly or Bruce but not awful, if pretty average for its type- and then James Bond is crowbarred into this genre he doesn't suit, and it all gets rather awkward.

Essentially, Bond is the best man at Felix Leiter's wedding, a drug lord has Leiter's bride murdered and leaves Leiter for dead, and Bond spends the film out for revenge, in spite of the official disapproval but unofficial help from Q, and even an unofficial "good luck" from M. The whole thing feels utterly out of character, which is a shame because Timothy Dalton is outstanding here. But the whole thing stinks of '80s antihero vigilantism and the sort of depressingly uncritical view of the WR on Drugs that you would expect from 1989. Still, Robert Davi is superbly menacing as Sanchez.

This isn't a bad film, per se; as a film of its type it's perfectly decent if not great. But as a Bond film it adds nothing to the character or the franchise. Vigilantism bad; law and order good. That goes right back to Aeschylus and Bond really should know better.

Henry V (1989)

"I'm afeared there are few die well that die in battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument?"

This is the second screen adaptation of this play that I've seen and blogged after The Hollow Crown, albeit one made twenty-three years earlier, and the differences are stark from the opening scene, where Derek Jacobi's chorus awakens us by lighting a match. This introduces two themes: this production's constant okay with light and it's claustrophobic feeling, indoors and on small sets as much as possible and with the location scenes shot so as not to look expansive. Hal finds the crown as uneasy as did his father is the clear message, and his guilt over being an usurper's son, paralleled by his anxiety over the war being just (because sending people to their deaths and their bereaved dependants into penury because of who should be King is totally just, right?) is reflected in the visuals.

Kenneth Branagh is a suitably angsty Henry. Yes, the speeches are present and correct, but this is not a jingoistic Henry V but an anxious one.

The rest of the cast excellent too, including a surprisingly unshouty Brian Blessed, whose message to Charles VI reeks of a menace he hasn't exuded since he was Augustus in I, Clavdivs. And, on top of those mentioned in the tags, we didn't have room for Derek Jacobi, Robbie Coltrane as a splendid Falstaff in scenes nicked from the Henry IV's, Robert Stephens, Paul Scofield, Harold Innocent and a very young Christian Bale. I particularly enjoyed Ian Holm's Fluellen, discoursing on Pompey the Great- for Shakespeare, all Welshmen are in some way his old classics teacher!

This is a superbly visual production, superlatively acted and directed. The emphasis on sparse lighting, points of light in the darkness and claustrophobia gives us an individual version of the play from Kenneth Branagh that is highly effective. A fine film.

The Living Daylights (1987)

"We've nothing to declare!"

Before I go on to praise this splendid film... I may get one last blog post out tomorrow on the train- we will see- but after that there won't be anything more until after my big exam on Tuesday 3rd May. It's a week of hardcore revision for me to look forward to. Still, expect a flurry of new blog posts in the couple of days after the exam, probably.

Anyway, I loved The Living Daylights even if it didn't feel much like a Bond film when watched in context. It's a strange thing to say for a series of spy films, but Bond hadn't done a proper Cold War thriller before and only now, in 1987, the very last opportunity there would ever be, do we get one. And yes, I know we have an American chief baddie as a fig leaf so they can deny that this is a straight ahead Cold War spy film with the Russians as the baddies so as not to offend the real world USSR but, well, they're fooling nobody.

And so we have a tale of defections, crappy police cars, secret police arresting pretty girls in the exotic surroundings of, er, Bratislava, and that classically Cold War locale that is Vienna and a Ferris Wheel that immediately evokes The Third Man. Mind you, nothing has dated quite as much as showing the Afghan Mujahideen as the good guys. I'm no useful idiot, far from it, but Najibullah (not a nice man but no one deserves to die like that) was much better for Afghanistan than what came after.

Timothy Dalton... let's actually mention him, shall we? He's obviously a fine actor, easily the best so far, far more technically competent and nuanced in his portrayal than Connery or Moore. I like him. And yet... he's genuinely charismatic, yes, but less so than either of the two aforementioned, both of whom oozed it, and for me he doesn't quite convince as a ladies' man- well, womaniser. He's too sensitive. Still, a promising debut. 

Maryam d'Abo makes a good, and refreshing Bon-bimboesque, Bond girl, and we get good performances from John Rhys-Davies, Art Malik and the ever-reliable Desmond Llewelyn, in a good film for the gadgets.

This is the best film of the '80s so far, let down only by a mildly disappointing theme song from a-Ha, even if it isn't as awful as Shirley Manson of Garbage notoriously said it is. After the problems of A View to a Kill we now have a younger Bond and a witty script, and as a result there's not a lot wrong.

9½ Weeks (1986)

"I almost waited too long."

Oh dear. I've blogged some bad films in my time but this is by far the worst, committing that most unforgivable of sins: dullness. Even the sex scenes are as slow and boring as the film itself.

For what it's worth, both Kim Basinger and a pre-plastic surgery Mickey Rourke actually bother, for some reason, to give interesting performances, but sadly this does not detract from the fact that nothing seems to happen over two whole hours. The conceit, which is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is, is a sexual attraction between two urban and alienated individuals who proceed to have various kinds of mildly interesting yet ultimately meaningless sex, yet ultimately fail to develop a proper relationship because of the lack of anything deeper to the relationship. That's it. Really. No need to watch the film now that you've read that. Even the sex scenes really are as slow and boring as everything else.

Part of the problem is the interminable pace, which is the director'a fault for the most part- so many slow scenes of people looking at each other across a room and doing nothing- and part of it is a total lack of charm or humour within the script: this doesn't exactly qualify as a "romantic comedy".

Having said all that, at least the wife and I were amused by the ending and its "walking away music", just like with Bill Bixby at the end of every episode of The Incredible Hulk...

Most Popular Posts...

Just for the hell of it, here are the ten most popular posts on this blog, a pleasingly random bunch... 

Blog

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Freshman

2. Nosferatu (1922)

3. Bride of Chucky (1998)

4. Seed of Chucky (2004)

5. Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks

6. Drop Dead Fred (1991)

7. Alice in Wonderland (1999 TV film)

8. Torchwood: Exit Wounds

9. The Simpsons Movie (2007)

10. Mary Poppins (1964)

Ted 2 (2015)

"Piss off- I don't want to get any jizz on me..."

Ted 2 is much like Ted, which is no bad thing. And that is to say that it feels like an extended episode of Family Guy right up to the point of reusing a skit about donated sperm. But, again, this is no bad thing. Seth MacFarlane may not be quite in the very first rank of comedy film-makers, but he can certainly be relied upon to be very funny indeed.

This time the plot is about Ted's legal crusade to legally prove that he's a person while much weed is smoked by all, but this is just an excuse for the one liners that we know and love, and the stand-up style observational comedy that we expect from MacFarlane. The pop culture references abound again: Sam Jones is back, while Michael Dorn's character goes to the New York Comicon dressed as Worf...!

Also, Sam is cool: an idealistic and very intelligent lawyer, an attractive female character whom we can actually respect for her brains and her principles... and she smokes a lot of weed. It seems that young Americans do a lot of that these days. 

This is a film that will surprise no one who knows the slightest thing about Serh MacFarlane, and I for one have no problem with that. I'm hoping for another sequel.

A View to a Kill (1985)

"Well my dear, I take it you spend quite a lot of time in the saddle."

"Yes, I love an early morning ride."

"Well, I'm an early riser myself."

Meh. This isn't quite the worst Bond film so far- that would be Thunderball- but it's certainly the very dampest of squibs. Roger Moore, at 57 and suddenly looking it, is by now absurdly too old to be convincing in the part, but ultimately the problem lies with the script. The plot is fine, but the dialogue is functional and lacking in wit, and as a result the film fails to come alive. That's a shame, as an actor like Christopher Walken deserves a much better villain to play. Still, he deserves much praise for triumphing over a crap script to give us a memorable Max Zorin regardless.

The film also suffers from that perennial problem of Bond films set largely in the United States: what is Bond doing there when the Americans have agencies of their own? Still, Duran Duran give us a decent theme tune and it's always good to see Patrick Macnee, even if his character does spend his final few hours alive being ordered about by Bond. Grace Jones is good as May Day but, again, wasted, as indeed area many of the set pieces which seem to be shot rather unimaginatively. Still, I enjoyed the finale with the airship on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Not a good swansong, then, for the suddenly much-aged Roger Moore: he should have left on a high with Octopussy. It's goodbye too, though, for Lois Maxwell, the only cast member who's been there since Dr No.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

"You're not my father!!!"

Harrison Ford has aged nineteen years since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so it's 1957. McCarthyism, rock 'n' roll, "I like Ike", flying saucers, Indy having the Fonz for a son. Yep, it's the '50s, all right. And it's a good and entertaining film with a nicely twisty-turny plot. Except... is it just me who thinks Cold War Russians just aren't the baddies that the Nazis were?

The film also suffers from the fact that Denholm Elliott is dead and Sean Connery has retired, leaving Ford and Karen Allen as the only characters from earlier film, although John Hurt and Ray Winstone ably fill the British-character-actor-shaped hole. Cate Blanchett is a good baddie, the locations and set pieces are great, and even Shia LaBeouf is mostly acceptable. It's nice to have a film in this series that deals with El Dorado and the mysterious cities of gold (a phrase that puts the theme tune to a certain '80s cartoon in my head!!!). And it's an enjoyable tour of '50s tropes, with the artifacts this time being alien in nature (Erich Von Daniken a decade and a half early) and even a nuclear test befitting the Atomic Age. It's a shame Indy will eventually get cancer.

But something stops this film from being great instead of just very good. Perhaps it's a lack of polish to the dialogue but I rather suspect it's the lack of Nazis..

Ask Father (1919)

I'll admit to not much liking the only Harold Lloyd short I've seen previously but this was genuinely funny and, like all silent comedy shorts, a huge and obvious influence on Warner Bros cartoon shorts and the like. Harold Lloyd has an amazing propensity for physical comedy and the conceit- Lloyd faces increasingly absurd obstacles in getting to see his intended's father to ask for her hand- is a good one. The ending is funny too- when his second choice for fiancée says that her father died many years ago he is overjoyed!

I suppose this is typical of a good silent comedy short, but what surprised me was a short sequence in which he scales a building from the outside, a harbinger of the much longer scene in Safety Last.

Like all films of this age it is pleasingly free of copyright and there to see on YouTube (other media are available). It's only thirteen minutes long. Why don't you watch it now?

The Night Manager: Episode 6

"You'd buy that girl for $300 million?"

Wow. I'll be honest: most final episodes of TV miniseries are mildly disappointing. This one is far from that- gripping, full of twist and turns, reversals of fortune and starring roles for everyone. Roper's comeuppance is perfect: yes, Angela and Jonathan get him bang to rights- but he will probably be released in days. But that brief moment of captivity makes him vulnerable and he is killed by a man he has offended with his racism and hubris. 

Hugh Laurie is great at the end and, indeed, throughout, but I have to admire the way the character of Roper has been written: it's a fine line between making him seem too gullible and allowing Pine to fulfil his plot function, a line that is straddled well. And Roper is made here to thoroughly deserve his comeuppance. His treatment of Jed is horrifying.

Angela, too, is a magnificent character, and Olivia Colman a superb actress, finally getting into real danger while heavily pregnant, giving all, probably including her career, to get Roper. And Tom Hiddleston's principled Pine is the still point at the centre of it all, even in his worst moments, a true hero. 

This is an extraordinary finale to asserted that may not have been great from the beginning but certainly became so by its end.

The Night Manager: Episode 5

"They didn't watch the cups, you see."

This penultimate episode sets things up for a tense final episode, with Roper ascendant, Angela in disgrace after being outwitted into crying wolf, and Jonathan seemingly abandoned and trapped inside Roper's inner circle. All this, and they return to Cairo.

Still, Jonathan now has Jed on side after a full disclosure (Will they or won't they? There's a definite spark between them although, of course, there's no guarantee that both will survive.), and the tension between him and Corky has ended with the latter's death, which is a shame: Tom Hollander's performance was enormous fun. But, yet again, Hugh Laurie is extraordinary as the charismatic sociopath, Roper, who sees the chaos and suffering in Syria as a business opportunity.

Meanwhile, Angela gets told that Britain's collusion with Roper is all "in the national interest", and vital for maintaining Britain's place at the top table. I'm sure this will come to the fire in the final episode. The Night Manager has just got better and better after its underwhelm start.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)

"Why is everything so hard for me? Why can't I play the piano like I can breathe?"

I've been fascinated by the story of Kaspar Hauser since I was a child. Was he a fraud? Why was he brought up in such bleak captivity? Did he really subsist for twelve years on bread and water? It would be cool if he were indeed the rightful Duke of Baden as many say, much as I'm wary of conspiracy theories: I'm not one of those who think the Moon landings were faked or any of that silliness. But the 2002 DNA test results are interesting.

Anyway, Werner Herzog doesn't really dwell on the conspiracy theory angle: he's not Oliver Stone. Instead we get a meditation on innocence, beauty, a twisted kind of childhood and the strangeness of religion to one not indoctrinated, all anchored by Bruno S as Hauser who, bizarrely, was in his late thirties at the time. Even the English title is misleading: the German title translates as Every Man for Himself and God Against All.

This very Bavarian film is an utter triumph for Herzog, the world's most avowedly Bavarian filmmaker. From the classical soundtrack to the visuals to the poetic stories told by Hauser- his deathbed story is pregnant with meaning- this is an extraordinary film and a beautiful work of art. Just don't expect any real focus on the mystery.

Never Say Never Again (1983)

"Now you're on this, I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence."

And so we come to the second Bond film of 1983, and a very unofficial one. It has a sparkling Sean Connery who, though 53, is still younger than Roger Moore, and it also has the sole rights to Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Unfortunately it lacks the rights to an awful lot of things, including the rights to do anything other than a remake of Thunderball, the only Bond film up to this point that ice actively not enjoyed. So is it any good?

Well, actually, yes. It's certainly more humorous than any other Bond film but not, I think, to an excessive degree; it's a proper Bond film, not a spoof. Connery is on particularly fine form and the script has a lot of witty fun with what turns out to be a very loose remake.

The film takes advantage of having to recast roles, with Edward Fox giving us a grumpy new M while the new Q, "Algy", is a chirpy cockney whose department is much reduced. No fancy gadgets here. Kim Basinger makes a splendid Bond girl and it would have been quite, quite wrong if Max Von Sydow had never got to play Blofeld.

It's a very different Bond film and yes, the computer game sequence is dated and weird, but this is a perfectly fine Bond film.

The Story of O (1975)

"You're very lucky. They'll be more severe with you."

I've blogged a lot of geeky films lately: time for another subtitled foreign film, I think, and after blogging nearly 300 films it's about time I got round to a French one. So how about The Story of O? It's very continental, very controversial and banned in the UK for a decade and a half. So what's it like?

Well, er, very Seventies. I know it's sold as a French version of Fifty Shades of Grey, but this is 1975 and the source material is not, apparently, straightforwardly about what these days we would call BDSM but saying that women are naturally submissive to men, which is more than a little dodgy. Still, none of that is apparent from the film, and it's made explicit throughout everything that happens unambiguously consensual. More surprisingly, although a lot of fairly rough stuff happens, it happens largely off camera, and there's precious little sex either. This is soft porn to the extent that it's porn at all: indeed, the direction is somewhat arty, with a definite dreamlike effect which echoes the narration.

This being the Seventies, the clothes are bloody awful although, on the evidence of this film, the interior decor could be utterly gorgeous and not brown or orange at all, at least in Paris, while still being thoroughly if the decade. Bizarrely, though, all the cars seem to hail from about three decades earlier- was France going through a vintage motors phase at the time?

The film is utterly fascinating as, anchored by an appropriately impassive performance from Corinne Clery, it traces us into a world of submission, whippings, Seventies fashion photography, emotionally fraught polyamory, lesbianism and bad hair. From an opening reminiscent of the video to John Lennon's Imagine to its ambiguous ending its a compellingly weird feast for the senses. Still, one is left with the general question of why the more well-known films featuring bondage and submission always seem to show women in the submissive role and not vice versa.

The Lego Movie (2014)

"Wiping your bum with a hook for a hand is really hard.."

This is the perfect Lego movie. Not only does the all-Lego animation look great (even the water in Emmett's shower is Lego!) but the message is perfect and splendidly anti-conformist: don't just follow the instructions- build whatever the hell you like. But preferably spaceships.

This being a Warner Bros films we get cameos from Star Wars characters (the Millennium Falcon gets gobbled up by that asteroid beast from The Empire Strikes Back) and DC characters are available for a bit of mickey taking, especially Green Lantern whose film recently flopped.

The baddie, President Business, as well as being improperly linked to business for a politician (ooh, but of politics there), has a secret agenda to glue everyone together as per the instructions for all eternity, a fate worse than death. Against him are a random assortment of "master builders" including Batman(!), a very sensible spaceman who wants to build spaceships, quite sensibly, and whose family has the crack at the bottom that Lego spacemen always have.

There's also Vetruvius, half Gandalf and half Obi Wan Kenovi who, in the funniest scene, comes back as a ghost for some very serious advice for Emmett and then flies away with a "woo-oo"!

I loved this film, and I don't even like Will Ferrell. It's probably my favourite animated movie of recent years and definitely a must-see.

Grimm: Map of the Seven Knights

"You killed my uncle. You shouldn't have done that."

Yay for badass Monroe!

This is an exciting and pivotal episode, albeit a pivotal one. Monroe's previously unmentioned uncle, an antiquarian books expert in Leipzig, comes across a load of Grimm books which could entirely replace the contents of Nick's burned-to-oblivion trailer and wants $100,000 for them, but is killed by Occultam Libera before this can happen and thus the priceless artifacts are acquired by the gang. Amongst them is a third of the seven keys to the map, enough for Monroe to work out roughly where X seems to mark the spot. Everybody's off to the Black Forest...

There is character stuff, of course. We begin with the gang all seeing Nick's and Adalind's new fortress home for the first time, and Nick confesses to Monroe his complex feelings towards her.

In other news, Eve's awesomeness continues to be gradually revealed- what's this new levitating power? And her interrogations are.. nasty. Sean shows a similarly dark side as he and his lover persuade their Portland mayoral candidate, Andrew Dixon, to use dirty tricks against his opponent.

It's an exciting episode, though because of the big revelations rather than any inherent brilliance: the beats are predictable. There are also some historical howlers surrounding the 1204 Siefe of Constantinopke and, according to an HW computer screen, there is apparently still a country called "Czechoslovakia". Still, none of that detracts from the general awesomeness.

A New Episode of the Doctor Who Pubcast

Nick and I are back with more Pubcasty goodness...

http://dwpubcast.podomatic.com/entry/2016-04-01T10_49_52-07_00

Grimm: Star-Crossed

"These people are insane!"

This time the story of the week is a disgusting and apparently ancient Wesen ritual involving crucifixion, linked to Occultam Libera and all that, for the purposes of making it rain. It's all a bit by-the-numbers, based in a very Wikipedia view of history and the ending is rushed but it's entertaining enough, I suppose. Disturbingly, the mention of the Greek origins of the "Order of the Golden Dawn" reminds me of today's Greek Nazis.

In arc news HW continue to put pressure on Nick and the gang, while Sean is revealed to be sleeping with Andrew Dixon's campaign manager. And the bloke who's been writing to Rosalee- Tony- rings get this time before getting rebuffed. He'll be back.

Otherwise there's not a lot to say about this episode, filler that it is. It's obvious that big things are poised to happen, but not yet. I couldn't stop noticing, though, that the episode features a highly dangerous demagogue called Donald...