The Sweeney: Thin Ice

 "I merely strangled the hound with my bare hands..."

This is the best episode yet. Oh, the plot is clever and entertaining, and we're getting to know Regan, Carter and the rest of the Flying Squad, but more than anything else this is just bloody good writing.

This episode is basically ten dimensional chess between three parties. Bishop (Alfred Marks is a splendid presence) is a criminal  mastermind on the run to France, and there's a rivalry between Regan and one Superintendent Pringle (a perfectly cast Peter Jeffrey) on how to deal with him, and how. It's fun to see how things play out, with Regan ultimately outsmaring both his adversaries.

Yet it's more than that. It's dialogue that is witty but also very real. People talk at cross purposes, there's wordplay, there's perfectly played cynicism. These characters feel real, despite us not knowing them much, purely because of the deftness of the words and the performances. Little things, like the unfriendliness of the local constabularty or the dark hints of domestic abuse at the end.

Yes, this is certainly the quintessential showabout maverick '70s cops who cut corners to get results. But damn, it's clever.

The Pit (1962)

 "Morte!"

This is a fascinating litle curiosity, a short, thirty minute film made for the British Film Institute as an artistic experiment, one which leads me to wonder whether much else like this may exist from the period. It is, of course, an adamptation of Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum. And, while short, it is perhaps the finest I've seen. Roger Corman this is not.

Aside from the wonderfully darker ending, this is actually a pretty faithful adaptation of the short story. The film abounds with disturbing sounds and screams, but dialogue is almost non-existent. Monochrome, textured, the extraordinary setting shot with great atmosphere from such brilliant angles, with wonderful use of light... we really feel the prisoner's terror, as every night he sleeps in his cell to await to further fear and peril, knowing that, ultimately, he's just being cruelly toyed with. Ultimately, he is doomed. Brian Peck conveys his understated sheer terror to perfection.

The visuals are superb, the inquisitors utterly, existentially terrifying, and those horrible bells are still tolling in my mind. Short this may be, but it's well worth a look. this is the perfect encapsulation of why short films need to exist. Who has time for too much plot when you can have sheer, atmospheric terror?

Schalken the Painter (1979 TV Film)

 "The darkness is unsafe..."

This is an intrertestying little curiosity, a one-off Christmas ghost story broadcast on the BBC in late December 1979, on the surface feeling very much like the many M.R. James ghost story adaptations that were made at the same time. But, in reality, this is very different.

It's a ghost story, yes, this time from a short story by Sheridan Le Fau, and a rather chilling and atmospheric on, with a deathly, ghostly suitor that a man give his ward's hand in marriager to him in what we would, today, call a forced marriage... and there are terrifying hints that this many may be something undead or unholy, and that the poor girl is perhaps damned forever because "She is your property. She will become mine...".

The main character, Gottfried Schalken, is a very real, albeit relatively minor, Dutch painter from the late 17th century, and the period is shown perfectly in terms of cinematograpjhy, texture and direction. The actors are shot superbly,in an age where blocking was still a thing.

And yet, it's more than that. The slow, langorous pace, unthinkable nowadays, is essential to the creation of atmosphere. And the useof light echoes Schalken's paintings themselves, everything liyt by candlelight, strangely loveless, with something perhaps lurking in the darkness...

This is quite a wonderful little gem

Better Call Saul: Winner

 "I mean, four or six nipples. That's interesting..."

This is, of course, a truly astonishing finale, based around two shocking moments. The long pre-titles gives us some very bad karaoke and a flashback reminding us of the dynamic between Jimmy and Chuck, with Jimmy, even back then, as shallow and self-centred as ever. But then we get to the two contrasting narratives that define this finale.

Werner is going to die. We know this from the start. He's been too indiscreet, and attracted the attention of Lalo. The final scene between him and Mike is as inevitable as it is harrowing. The scene is utterly masterful, with Werner slowly realising wjhat has to happen, and accepting his fate with calm resignation. Yet the shot itself is not the worst part. It's that Werner, sothat his wife may live, has to phone her one last time and break her heart.

Throughout it all, we see Mike's pragmatic efficiency. He lies well, yes, but not like Jimmy- for him it's a job. And he has his ethics. He goes as far as he can in trying to persuade Gus to show mercy... but Gus's face is chilling. Giancarlo Espososito is a true master of facial acting.

And then we have Jimmy's hearing to be readmitted as a lawyer, an operation planned with the same military precision as the hunt for Werner. Jimmy's cynicism is a sight to behold. Visiting his own brother's grave only to be seen, performing as the good and dutiful man. His performance, in the end, is extraordinary... but it is just that: a performance. There are, perhaps, signs at the very end that Kim may be beginning to understand what Jimmy really is.

And the final lines, that Jimmy is not going to be practising under his on name and "Good, man"... oh my.

And yet... none of this is the most revealing thing about Jimmy.It's how strongly he identifies with a former shoplifter who is fated never to be accepted because of one mistake in her youth, how much he projects himself on to her, his own demons, how his rant supposedly in support of her is... not a good thing. Even in empathy, Jimmy is a selfish monster, one of the most fascinating characters of all television drama.

Doctor Who: The Devil's Chord

 "I thought that was non-diegetic".

The above quote says it all, and the song at the end even more so: this episode has a delightful relationship with the fourth wall. Some will hate this. Personally I love it.This episode is wonderful, witty, crammed with ideas, far more than a mere "celebrity historical" about the Beatles would have been.

The pre-titles is wonderful, establishing the Maestro as a terrible, Godlike figure who emerges out of piano lids and seems beyong the laws of reality. This is a nicely written scene, establishing the awful alternate history that we see.And the Devil's Chord... ah, Black Sabbath.

Ruby is excited to see the Beatles recording Please Please Me in her first tripminto human history... and it's hugely amusing, as well as cleverly avoiding copyright issues, to see the Beatles performing songs that are... rubbish. As has been all music since 1925, causing all sorts of consequences, hence Khruschev threatening Finland, which didn't happen in our timeline. A world without music, the highest art form, inevitably ends in the coldness of nuclear winter.

One may quibble over the mechanics of alternate history. If all good music ended in 1925, that creates many ripples. 1962 is decades later. The world should, perhaps, be different. The Beatles may never have met, or theor parents never met, meaning they would not be born. But... let us not quibble, for alternate histories traditionally fail to consider such things, and the scene where Ruby sees a devastated London in 2023, redolent of Pyramids of Mars, is chillingly effective.

But there's also time to reflect on the fact that the Doctor, in an earlier incarnation, is also here. We get a mention of Susan, the Doctor's grandaugher, to Ruby's amazement... and, heartbreakingly, we learn that she may have died in the "genocide". This is how to use continuity: this is a powerful character moment, not a random bit of fanwank.

And new mythology is being created. Maestro is the Toymaker's child and, like their father, one of the "Pantheon", a series of capricious beings, reminding me of the old Indo-European gods of Olympus or Asgard. I suspect more is to be revealed, but there is an "Oldest One" present at Ruby's birth, and "The One Who Waits" is coming. This, I suspect, is a season arc.

Overall, this episode is a joy. Playful, creative, respectful of the programme's past while looking ahead to its future. And that future appears to be in safe hands.

Doctor Who: Space Babies

 "Is vthat, like, a matter transporter, like in Star Trek?"

Here we are, at last, at the start of a proper full run of episodes with RTD at the helm and Ncuti Gatwa's new Doctor. So we begin, with the iconography of the new era in the shape of the Whoniverse logo and a nice little reprise for the new viewers.

This shows just how bloody good RTD is at the nuts and bolts of storytelling. After all, this is Ruby's introduction to the TARDIS and what it does, so why not use this as a pretext for a bit of exposition for viewers jumping on right here? So we get a nice, concise little precis of the premise of the show, but framed in a fascinating way: the Doctor, like Ruby, is a foundling, adopted by "posh people" on a fancy planet that is now gone because of "a genocide"- surely not an accidental choice of words to be spoken by an actor of Rwandan birth. There are non-diegetic hostorical echoes here.

The Timeless Child stuff is reframed here. It's not presented as a puzzle, but as part of the Doctor's background andhis depth of a character: he's alone, yet free, far more than just a Time Lord, and Gatwa plays the depth of the character superbly. I love the way he does comedy, too. Only RTD can give us a hugely expensive scene with CGI dinosaurs (thanks for the budget, Disney) just to make a fourth wall-brreaking little joke about the butterfly effect, but both actors play it superbly. And the joke is a statement of intent: that isn't how time travel works in Doctor Who. 

So we reach the main story, with space babies, a nanny, capitalism causing child abandonment and, er, a literal bogeyman. There's lots of nice, subtle political commentary here, not least with the fact that refugees can claim asylum, but only if they can find a legal route in, which they can't, because none has been providefd, Catch-22 by design. Quite. Small boats, anyone?

It's a delightfully weird, awfull clever story and, although RTD was criticised of old for his plots not quite working, this is like clockwork. The chemistry between the Doctor and Ruby is joyous. There are echoes of the Ninth Doctor and Rose, of coiurse. Instead of farting bins we get a snot monster and a space station which is lierally powered to move across space by baby poo. And the Doctor rejigs Ruby's phone to call her mum... and says "Tell your mum not to slap me".

This is all just there as a jumping on point, to introduce the show to new viewers, which it does superbly. But there's a deep orphan vibe here. The Doctor, Ruby and the space babies are all orphans. This is certainly pointiong somewhere... aspecially as the Doctor warns Ruby that they can't visit the time of her birt and do a Back to the Future, Part II, lest they cause a paradox.

In short, quite wonderful. I expected no less.

Total Recall (1990)

 "Hey, I've got five kids to feed!"

Yes, I know. I'm exactly the age and demographic to have seen this film close to when it came out, but have somehow contrived not to have seen it until I'm tantalisingly close to forty-seven years old. Well, I've seen it now. And, well, it's fascinating.

I mean, obvioudsly, it's an Arnie film and does all the Arnie stuff, but it's also fascinatingly conceptual hard science fiction, based on a story by Philip K. Dick. Admittedly, the only novel of Dick's that I've actually read is The Man in the High Castle, but I've seen enough film adaptations to recognise his signature themes of memory, identity and reality in play here- and the film is conceptually fascinating.False memories of great experiences being marketed to the public; false memories of an eight year marriage; the sheer bloody cldeverness of the plot when revealed at the end; a sex worker with three breasts; the question of, if you have amnesia, would you lose your new identity if you had your old memories back?

Arnie is gloriously Arnie, Sharon Stone has a nicely subtle little role, and you can always rely on good old Ronny Cox to play a damn good baddy at this time. And the effects- not CGI but real effects- are a joy to behold. That thing with the eyes when people are exposed to the Martian surace, though... urgh.

The end may be a bit of a cop out- surely Quaid and Melina would have died long before Mars was fully terraformed by the alien magic button? And would the alien device really terraform the planet with the exact amount of oxygen needed by humans? But these things don't stop Total Recall from being an absolute joy.

Echo: Taloa

 "I suspect you've come to kill me. Again."

For the most part, Maya is likeable, despite how brurally direct she can be at times. She cares, and she tries tyo fdo the right thing. But... pouring good wine away? Outrageous.

This is a rather gripping episode the finest yet, a tale of three tense conversations. The first, between Maya and the Kingpin, is the best: Vincent D'Onofrio, as ever, is simply extraordinary The two of them debate, often bitterly, but Fisk has no ill will for his surrogate daughter and insists he still loves her in spite ogf the minor incident surrounding a certain eye. Indeed, he has a proposition. Joi  him, and they can rule the galaxy as father and daughter. Or words to that effect.

Yet the calm confrontatiin between Maya and Chula is gripping too. Yes, their meeting has blatantly been delayed for plot reasons as they mutually realise they've been having the same visions of their ancestors. But, truth to tell, Chula really was neglectful because she couldn't bear to look upon the grandaughter who reminded her of her dead child.

So then we have the final confrontation between Maya and Kingpin, wherre Kingpin pours out his own abusive past... and Maya can't bring herself to kill him. He thinks he's persuaded her but, in an extraordinary piece of acting, he erupts in rage when he hears she's not going to join him. He's a dangerous, volatile man. But he really does love her...

Good, suble, character stuff.

Peeping Tom (1960)

 "Whenever I photograph, I always lose..."

, a

This film, by Powell not Pressburger, was apparently considered so shocking back in 1960 that Michael Powell's reputation never really recovered, but in more recent decades it's been recognised as a superbly conceived and shot examination of the psyche of a murderous voyeur... and that it certainly is.

The direction is utterly superb from the start, full of tension and playfully, visually, using the concepts of cameras and points of view. I can think of no film for which the phrase "male gaze" is more apt. All the murders of the women are superb pieces of drama.

Yet the characterisation and performances are also on point. Karlheinz Bohn, despite his accent often slipping (he was German), is very good as Mark, our creepy protagonist. Yet Maxine Audley is also superb as Mrs Stephens, blind, depressed, self-medicating on whisky, who ironically almost sees through Mark. Yet the character of Mark is well-observed. We see just enough of the childhood abuse he endured, and some to understand this twisted and damaged individual.

This is also a film unusually filled with granular detail of everyday life in the UK in 1960, a fascinating little time capsule in that sense. Most of all, though, it's a real triumph both visually and conceptually.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

 "You will see me one more time, if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad..."

This is, of course, an interesting film to watch while I'm one season in to Twin Peaks. The directorial style, obviously, is very much going for the same thing, and I don't just mean that it's directed by David Lynch; the colurs, the lighting, it's all going for a riff on small town homeliness, but with something not quite right. This is very much a film about Los Angeles, of course, but this is perhaps appropriate as for much of the film we see the city through the wondering eyes of Betty from small town Ontario, who initially can't stop smiling.

The film constantly exists on the edge of realism. For most of its length there's a mystery plot that makes sense if you squint a bit, only for realism to break down at the end of the film as paradoxes abound. Artistically, it's quite wonderful, perhaps about what Hollywood ultimately does to people's dreams. They arrive hoping to make it... but the city is chaos, and nothing makes sense. The film looks like a dream, but perhaps the prospect of making it in Hollywood is no less so.

People don't quite behave realistically. It's 2001, but mobile phones don't exist; the film is and isn't quite set in the present. There are dreams, states of waking... it's very Lynch.

Regardless of meaning, though, the film is a joy to watch, with fascinatingly weird set pieces and visuals which, again, skirt the edges of realism. Is it my favourite David Lynch film that I've seen? Hard to say. But it's certainly an extraordinary piece of art.

Passport to Pimlico (1949)

 "Blimey! I'm a foreigner!"

It's ridiculous that I hadn't seen this iconic Ealing comedy until last night but, well, now I have. And it's brilliant, obviously. But it wasn't quite what I expected. And I'm not just talking about the scene with a pig in a parachute..

This is very visibly and very deliberately set in a post-war London of rationing and bomb sites. An unexploded bomb looms large. There are constant references to the privations the characters all went through a few years earlier. In the late 1940s, this is what it means to be British... and yet, the characters are all fun, quick-witted, likeable and enjoying life regardless. This is not the privately educated England of the stiff upper lip, but the real England of beer and belly laughs.

...Until it isn't. The central conceit is that, suddenly, this little street on Pimlicois in fact, legally, a random surviving remnant of the Duchy of Burgundy, with a descendant of Charles the Bold as its sovereign. The film plays, for laughs of course, all the difficulties ofva community finding itself as a microstate, with no pre-existing law, government, police, armed forces or foreign relations. Indeed, the film gets surprisingly abstract and philosophical as it humorously examines the very concept of nationhood. It's a nice touch that the microstate enjoys a massive heatwave while it's Burgundyy but, as soon as it's British again, the heavens open...

The cast is superb. Stanley Holloway is perfect, a strikingly young Charles Hawtrey has a memorable role, but for me it's Margaret Rutherford's eccentric professor who stealds the show. This is a fine little comedy but also quietly intelligent in its themes, and a fascinating little time capsule.

The Sweeney: Jackpot

"There's got to be a perfectly logical explanation for all this..."

Another excellent episode to follow-up the pilot, perhaps no surprise as it's scripted by Troy Kennedy Martin. Realistic characters, naturalistic dialogue- a very hard thing to do- naturalistic action and naturalistic, shaky camerawork, surely an even harder thing to do with the size of TV cameras in 1974.

The plot- a bag with £35,000 goes missing after some villains are apprehended after a robbery, and it's suspected that Regan or one of his men may have nicked it- is conceptually simple. But the resolution is quite clever, and the conceit works quite well in drawing out the characters and relationships between Regan's men. I wonder if we'll get a proper ensemble feel, looking ahead. And the main villin, a man universally despised and looking at a fourteen year stretch, looks a truly tragic figure by the end. That's good writing.

Again one has to raise an eyebrow at the casual attitude to warrants and waiting for the suspect's solicitor before interviewing him.. but this is the Dark Ages, before 1984. Waterman is superb, and so is Thaw... and that's his natural Mancunian accent, isn't it?

I'm already enjoying this a lot. It's much more serious than it's popular reputation so far. Let's see if this continues.