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...

Grimm: A Reptile Dysfunction

"You still think you're talking to Juliette?"

The story of the week here is solid: a Loch Ness style tourist attraction hires a Wesen to be a real life monster and it all goes horribly wrong- although that bloke who stupidly took a gun while boating on a lake gets no sympathy from me. On this level it's a good episode. But there's far more going on than that. 

The gang now all know about HW, about Eve, that Trubel works for HW, so what to do? All agree, as Rosalee suggests, that they should all decide together. But that's all: Rosalie continues to ignore letters from her past that are clearly leading up to something, and all sorts of current events in places like Syria and Pakistan are actually just caused by Wesen, just like Nazi Germany. Hmm. Not sure I like this: it pushes a dangerous apoliticalism. Current affairs are complicated and we should resist simple explanations, even in fiction.

Still, it's a gripping storyline. And Eve is awesome. Both the arc stuff and the story impress, with subtle references to both Jaws and The Creature from the  Black Lagoon. Yet another extra-judicial ending, though...

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

"What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back."

A superb film, this, with a surprisingly subtle starring role from Russell Crowe as schizophrenic genius mathematician John Nash, whom we see from his brilliant if asocial youth, through the barbaric horrors of asylums and insulin shock therapy, to respected old age where, through sheer force of reason, Nash is able to accept that the delusions he still sees are false, and ignore them.

It's a deeply affecting film, although Nash's mental instability is rather cleverly demonstrated through some clever twists that I shall not spoil. Some are obvious from Ron Howard's obvious "dream sequence" directing; one in particular I didn't see coming. But this is a deeply affecting portrait of an incredible man, supported through everything by his loving wife Alicia right through to recognition by the Swedish Academy and his status, until recently, as the world's most famous living mathematician.

Sadly, John and Alicia Nash both died last year in a car crash, both in their eighties, but it seems their lives were well lived. 

Octopussy (1983)

"You must be joking! 007 on an island populated exclusively by women? We won't see him till dawn...!"

Now that's more like it. Exotic locations, high stakes, great set pieces... the Bond franchise has got its mojo back. Well, unless you happen to be a coulrophobe, that is. Then you'd have problems.

It's the early '80s, the Raj is all the rage and Bond hasn't done India yet, so Octopussy gets a fantastic setting with Delhi, the Taj Mahal, and even a massive hunt riding elephants during which Bond meets a tiger. For a baddie we have Kamal Khan, an exiled Afghan prince who, for some reason, is working with the Soviets, his natural enemies or so one would have thought, but it makes for a good film. The real baddie has a Cold War flavour for once in the shape of Steven Berkoff's nuke-happy Russian general, Orlov, although our old friend Gogol is around to stop things going too far. 1983 is a somewhat appropriate year to raise the spectre of nuclear annihilation, of course...

Roger Moore is 55 and looks it, but he just about gets away with it: his charisma and acting chops are as impressive as ever. Maud Adams is an ok Bond hgirl too, although for once the set pieces tend to outshine both the sex and the baddies.

This film is absolutely the least like the source material of any so far (the Fleming short story is actually about an octopus), but how can you dislike a film where Q turns up in a hot air balloon? After two duds, Bond is back on track.

Forbidden Planet (1956)

"Sorry, Miss. I was giving myself an oil job."

Wow. After all the '50s sci-fi B movies I've seen so recently this is a revelation. It's a fiercely intelligent updating of The Tempest that looks superb and actually makes you think. This isn't what I was expecting at all. I was so surprised that it took me embarrassingly long to work out which one was Leslie Nielsen.

Every aspect of the design is sheer class, right down to the lettering in the opening titles, and this film defines the look of American TV science fiction for years to come or, in the case of Lost in Space, gets shamelessly ripped off. It's also worth mentioning how, in 1956, it was still quite unusual for films to depict humans exploring other planets.

But even more extraordinary is the soundtrack, which is brilliant and adds so much to the atmosphere. The sound effects are outstanding and the music- an eerie, alienating, theremin-infused score that evokes Stockhausen and other contemporary composers- is incredible.

The plot is, of course, basically The Tempest with a bit of Freud thrown in, but the way it's told is riveting, based as it is on characters with actual traits and personalities, a rarity in '50s sci-fi.

Yes, I know it's the planet of the matte paintings, there's some misogyny directed at Alta, the crew are all disturbingly white, and I rolled my eyes a bit at the characters boasting about their IQ's, but there's not much to complain about in this extraordinary film. I can't believe I waited so long to see it.

(As a Doctor Who fan it's clear to me just how influential this story has been. It clearly inspired all of Planet of Evil, right down to the costumes, and it's now obvious where the invisible beasts attacking the perimeter came from in Face of Evil.)

Marvel's Agent Carter: Smoke & Mirrors

"You can be whatever you want."

At last we have an episode which is directly, rather than implicitly, about the misogyny and glass ceilings present in 1947 and, let us not be complacent, today. It does this by means of a structural parallel between young Peggy (Margaret Elizabeth Carter!) and young Whitney Frost (Aggie) as they grow up as girls and young women in a man's world.

Peggy never was "ladylike" as a girl but learns to confirm, turning down the chance of a really cool job with the SOE to marry a dull bloke, be a housewife, be boring. It's her brother (Edward Seymour from The Tudors) who convinces her otherwise, albeit in large part by getting shot, and she never looks back.

Aggie grew up in much more humble circumstances, her genius-level intellect irrelevant as her mother shagged a creepy bloke ("Uncle Bud") in order to keep above watt. The harsh lesson she learns is that no one cares about women's' brains, just their looks, and she exploits this to become a Hollywood star.

Meanwhile, Sousa, Peggy and Jarvis discover that the whole conspiracy extends deep into the establishment, deep enough to (officially) stymie their investigation. Now it's just the three of them, although Sousa is justly annoyed at not being included from the start.

The attraction between Peggy and Wilkes continues to grow ("Still, it must be very... frustrating!") as the script acknowledges, without explaining, the mystery of how he can survive without food. He feel tired, drawn to give up and be taken to... where? Meanwhile, Whitney reveals to Calvin exactly what has happened to her. This season just gets better and better.

Watchmen (2009)

"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.

Never have I been so favourably surprised by a film. Yes, Alan Moore refused to be associated with it for the usual (understandable) reasons and yes, Watchmen is as much about its form as its content, and form doesn't translate to other media. But that doesn't make it unfilmable, and I'd say this is the best possible cinematic version of Watchmen. The characters, the plot, the aesthetic- barring a major departure for the ending of the film it's an extremely faithful adaptation.

The cast, none of whom are huge stars, are perfect with the exception of Matthew  Goode, whose American accent is deeply unconvincing- and I'm a Brit. Jackie Earle Haley, so rubbish as Freddy Krueger in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, is a revelation as Rorschach, seemingly born to play the role.

I won't comment on the plot other than to urge people to read the original, but the film made me ponder the contrast between the Comedian and Rorschach, both dangerous Far Right borderline Nazis but very different. Not only is the Comedian a completely amoral bastard but we're further alienated from him by the fact that his place in the narrative is to be seen and understood through other characters, not on his own terms: we see his exterior actions, and subjective versions at that. It's quite a contrast from the way we are made privy, through the device of the diary, to Rirschach's interior monologue. Both are psychopaths but we are made privy to Rorschach's poor and unpleasant upbringing, while his misogyny and distrust of sex strongly imply that he is, definitely unlike Edward Blake, a virgin. And yet... both are equally reactionary and equally psychopathic. So why does Moore allow us to, if not like Rorschach, feel empathy for him, and accept him in the narrative space of the hero? I suspect it's because of the gulf in terms of social class and status between the two.

On a more prosaic note, the shifting patterns on Rorschach's face look amazing. As does the whole film, brilliantly realising Dave Gibbon's visual aesthetic. It doesn't quite have the depth of the original- that would be unfair to expect-but there's still so much to say about authoritarianism, about misogyny, about nuclear weapons, about poverty, about how superheroes in real life would be Nietzchean Supermen, not a liberal wish fulfilment figure dreamed up by two Jewish creators in the year of Kristallnacht, sadly.

This is easily the best superhero film I've ever seen, but then, the source material is sublime.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

"That's putting it mildly, 007."

This is very odd for a Bond film. There's nothing awful about it but it's oddly small scale and unambiguous, lacking in glamour, wit and oomph while remaining competent. Still, I suppose it's a natural and predictable reaction to the excesses of Moonraker.

The opening titles are perhaps the oddest thing- it's nice to see Tracy hasn't been forgotten as Bond leaves flowers at her grave, but Blofeld is bizarrely back in a very silly sequence that rather undermines the character.

(Oh, and Tracy's gravestone makes it explicit that she died in 1969, the year she died on screen. Stating this nakedly may be increasingly wise as the years go on!)

The ending is awkward, too. After two films that end with Bond and the Bond girl in question being seen shagging on screen and a gloriously terrible sex-related pun, this time we get a ridiculous skit with a parrot and Margaret Thatcher. There's a distinct lack of polish to this script. Even the set pieces are less dramatic than usual, although I liked the extended riff on the Winter Onympics.

Still, the Greek locations are good, as is Julian Glover as the bizarrely small scale baddie. It's off to see Charles Dance in such a tiny part, though. And it's the '89s now- Moonraker was just two years ago, but the cars and the fashions make that seem a long time ago. This is a decade that suits Bond aesthetically so much more.

One nice touch is the refusal yet to recast the part of M after Bernard Lee's demise shortly before filming his scripted scenes. But overall this is a film which makes no huge missteps but is strangely lacking in ambition. It may not be the worst Bond film but it's certainly the most forgettable so far.

The Night Manager: Episode 4

"To the victor... and to the blind man who can’t see the human bloody hand grenade in front of his bloody eyes,”

This is where things really heat up. Jonathan and Jed finally shag, and about time, too- by this point your practically shouting at them to just get a room. Jonathan finds himself at the very centre of Roper's web and closely implicated in his dealings of not quite fully trusted. He's the coming man, at Corky's expense- and Corky is dangerous, knowing as he does that Jonathan is sleeping with Jed. He's playing a dangerous game.

And it gets more dangerous as Jonathan refuses to abort the mission in spite of the very real risk of being found out, even pointing out to Roper that they're being watched by "cops". All this plus Angela discovers that Roper is supported by corrupt elements within M16.

But the emotional centrepiece of the episode, with an extraordinary performance by Olivia Colman, sees Angela recounting a school sports day in Iran where the children were horribly killed by chemical weapons- and that Roper, psychopath that he is, responded to this by adding said chemical weapons to his stock for sale. For him, this atrocity was just business.

Things are getting serious. Not only is Roper playing with fire by getting involved with Jed but corrupt elements in M16 are getting dangerously close to discovering that there's a mole in Roper's organisation. This is gripping telly and Hugh Laurie continues to be amazing.

Marvel's Agent Carter: Better Angels

"Have you quite finished fannying about?"

So Dr. Jason Wilkes isn't dead after all. Oops. He merely lacks physical substance, which is concerning. How can he eat? Does he need to? Does he get hungry or thirsty? Does he get horny? He and Peggy are certainly getting on well these days, not good news for the very married Jarvis, who holds a torch for Peggy with his employer's blessing.

Ah yes, the magnificent Mr. Howard Stark, who turns up like a hurricane and immediately takes charge. Wit, ladies' man and scientific genius, he oozes charisma and coolness, effortlessly dispelling all by himself the trope that scientist are nerds. He is, in effect, exactly like his son but in the 1940s. He's also pleasingly non-racist, bonding very quickly with Jason.

Stark's cool cleverness allows Peggy to get very sneaky and cook inside a snooty and dodgy posh club, but her and Sousa's corrupted boss isn't having it. They're being taken off the case and Peggy summoned back to New York. Whitney isn't happy either: her infection is spreading and she's just killer her well-connected lover, Calvin. Oops. Another excellent episode.

Oh, and this episode's geekgasm is Kid Colt! All we need now is the Rawhide Kid and things will be perfect.

Moonraker (1979)

"I think he's attempting re-entry, Sir!"

Meh. This is Bond by numbers. It's just a collection of barely connected set pieces,  some of them admittedly rather good, leading up to a silly and implausible finale. Hugo Drax must have the resources of a G7 nation to build six space shuttles and a space station. The fact that Michael Lonsdale makes a dull and charisma-free Drax doesn't help either.

At least Roger Moore is on good form. He seemed a little old in The Spy Who Loved Me but he seems a little rejuvenated in his sixth decade. It's also good to see a bigger role for M in Bernard Lee's final film, with a suggestion that, deep down, he always had a high regard for Bond. The return of Jaws is a mixed bag; he gets some superb action sequences but the scenes of him falling in love at first sight are just silly. And he finally gets to utter four whole words!!! Still, I love the way hired him after Chang dies, the suggestion being that there's actually an employment market for henchmen!

But this is all very obviously influenced by Star Wars and very silly, at a time when peak human space travel had already given way to the age of the space shuttle and the Moon had given way to the brilliant Voyager spacecraft. And worse: it's very worrying to see a Bond film be quite as formulaic as this.

Marvel's Agent Carter: A View in the Dark

"Good Lord! Is that a mirror?"

Jason getting unexpectedly killed at the end here is uncomfortably close to the trope of "the black guy dies first" but the fact the writers seem to have felt they had to highlights another uncomfortable truth: people in 1947 LA would have been incredibly racist, and depicting that would make the characters unlikeable. On the other hand, failing to depict casual racism- and we have a little here, although there are like bed that are not crossed- would be unrealistic. So it often happens that black characters are marginalised in order to avoid either of these two pitfalls. But that isn't ok either. It's a difficult one.

Anyway, the plot thickens with "Zero Matter" (we all know it's Darkforce, right?) and Whitney Frost, and the characters sparkle. I love Jarvis's attempt to look hard, the awesomeness of Mrs Jarvis and the fact that Daniel Soysa's girlfriend is Princess Mary from The Tudors.

Also, there are parallels with Agents of SHIELD in the hints that Darkforce can open portals- is this what happened to Simmons? I rather suspect so. But we end with the intriguing revelation that Whitney is infected by it. Are we looking at the origin story for Madame Masque? It's hood, entertaining telly either way.

The Night Manager: Episode 3

"Becoming a man is realising it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness – that’s freedom."

This is where it really gets interesting. High Laurie's extraordinary and revelatory performance as psychopath Richard Roper continues to enthrall as Tom Hiddleston's Jonathan Pine cunningly inveigled his way into Roper's organisation at the expense of his rival Corky, whose fondness for the bottle and nubile (is that the right word?) young men is ruthlessly used against him.

Incidentally, Tom Hollander is also superb as Corky, by far the most quotable character and likeable in spite of both his cynical amorality and his right wing proclivities. But this episode is the best so far. Shockingly, it begins with the suicide of an apparently spoiled rich girl on her 16th birthday- raped by Roper?- but it builds into a fascinating game of cat and mouth in which Pine uncovers secrets of, yes, dastardly arms dealing, but also of secrets abounding. Jed and Roper are not getting on and, indeed, I suspect the two of them will grow closer in future episodes. Jed is a sympathetic character, not without a conscience and with a deepening realisation of what a monster her paramour has become: witness the hair that Jonathan finds in Roper's secret study.

But what's this? Dastardly dealings at MI6? Again, a brilliant piece of television.

The Black Knight (1954)

"I know I'm not a knight, but is it impossible to become one?"

I only sat through this film because it had Patrick Troughton, Peter Cushing and Andre Morell in it. I wish I hadn't. I can honestly say that this is the worst film I've blogged thus far. Even Teenagers from Outer Space was better than this.

The historical inaccuracies... where to begin? Obviously you accept a certain amount of artistic licence for the Arthurian genre, with the early sixth century setting typically being depicted as the High Middle Ages, but here we have Patrick Troughton as King Mark of Cornwall, leading an anti-Christian alliance of pagan Vikings and druids(!) with "Saracens" who apparently prefer associating with pagans than people of the book. Hmmm. One of these "Saracens" is Knight of the Round Table Sir Parmenides, who has his own castle in the English countryside. 

But that's not all. The centrepiece of the film sees our very silly alliance of baddies perform a comedy pagan ceremony of sacrifice at a matte painting of Stonehenge. After their defeat Arthur orders the monument to be trashed, a bit like Daesh in Palmyra. This is appropriate, I suppose, as Arthur spends the entire film behaving like a twat. Oh, and he's depicted as a King of "England"  the very country that any real life Arthur would have devoted his life to strangling at birth. Arthur didn't like immigrants much, a lot like most Britons today. This Arthur seems positively encouraging of diversity, notwithstanding his twattishness.

Even disregarding these frighteningly ignorant depictions of history- children actually watched this film!- the plot is annoying and relies on Arthur being stupid and thick-heatedly disbelieving for the plot to work.

Patrick Troughton gives us some top class moustache twirling but Alan Ladd phones it in as heroic blacksmith John. Then again, with a script as hopeless as this, why wouldn't he? A film not worth bothering with.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

"Just keeping the British end up, Sir..."

Ah, 1977. The year of my birth. No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones. The two sevens clash. And any number of punk allusions you'd care to make. It's also the absolute nadir of men's fashions: every single bloke in this film looks absolutely awful. It's difficult to understand why men bothered to wear suits at all in 1977 because they all, without exception, look shit. You can see how punk was so very necessary, for fashion as much as music.

Still, The Spy Who Loved Me is another triumph. I'm a little puzzled as to why The Man with the Golden Gun was so no pulse with both critics and public- I rather liked it- but I'll not argue with the consensus here. The taut plot, the awesome action sequences, the wittiest script yet, all of this makes for one of the finest Bond films yet, even if Roger Moore is perhaps, in only his third film, beginning to look just a little too old for the part.

Neither Moore nor Barbara Bach )Mrs. Ringi Starr!) will ever win any Oscars, but they somehow work perfectly together. Curd Jurgens, taking a break from playing 75% of all Nazi officers in the history of cinema, is the finest Bond villain yet. He has it all; the underwater lair, the hare-brained scheme to bike the world so humanity can start a new life under the sea(!); and the sharks beneath a trapdoor to eat treacherous underlings. 

Meanwhile Caroline Munro is there to look sexy, and Richard Kiel is a splendid if mute presence as Jaws, suspiciously soon after a film after the same name, also featuring a shark. Hmm. There's also a staggering number of British characters on display- George Baker, Edward de Souza, Vernon Dobtcheff, Nadim Sawalha and Cyril Chaps. The American submarine commander is played, inevitably, by Shane Rimmer. It could never have been otherwise.

The film is full of brilliant, stylish action sequences from the opening ski chase (love the parachute) to Bond's best car yet. By this point we know all the tropes and the film can have real fun with them.

The double entendres ("Well, tell him to pull out immediately") are superb. There's even a moment of wit for the incidental music: the familiar refrain from Lawrence of Arabia is heard as Bond and Anya traverse the desert.

The locations- Cairo, the pyramids and Karnak- are the best possible. Carly Simon's theme tune is the best yet and surely unsurpassable. Can this be the best Bond yet?