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Saturday, 31 July 2021

The Boys: Get Some

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 "Hughie, you just arse-bombed America's sweetheart..." An awful lot seems to happen in every episode so far, and this is no e...
Friday, 30 July 2021

The Boys: Cherry

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 "You're not the hero of this story..." The second episode is, if anything, even better than the first as both Hughie aStarlig...
Thursday, 29 July 2021

Captain America: Episodes 6 and 7

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    Episode 6: Vault of Vengeance "Now the homicidal maniac will plan a counter-attack!" There's actually a rather good cliffh...
Tuesday, 27 July 2021

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Sixth

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 "I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe..." And so it ends, with a twist that was much more powe...
Monday, 26 July 2021

Captain America: Episodes 4 & 5

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  Episode 4: Preview of Murder "The robot truck is on the way..." We dispose of the fiery cliffhanger, somehow, by a few shots of ...
Sunday, 25 July 2021

Breaking Bad: Seven Thirty-Seven

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 "I'd say these two know their chemistry..." This is exactly how to open a second series. It carries on smoothly from the end ...
Saturday, 24 July 2021

The Boys: The Name of the Game

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 "What do I look like?" "Like you're starring in the porn version of The Matrix ." This is something Mrs Llamastrang...
Friday, 23 July 2021

Breaking Bad: A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal

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 "Why was it so damn good?" "Because it was illegal." This is a bloody good, bloody clever season finale that ends thing...
Thursday, 22 July 2021

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Fifth

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 " The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years...
Wednesday, 21 July 2021

Captain America: Episodes 2 and 3

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 Episode 2: Mechanical Executioner "All the wealth and art treasures of the world will be mine!" So, er, Cap jumps out of the coll...
Tuesday, 20 July 2021

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Fourth

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 "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" This episode is, of course, where the novel ends: it is also, if I re...
Monday, 19 July 2021

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: One World, One People

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 "I'm Captain America!" In the end, I think this series has been good but not great. The concept works well, bt the chracteris...
Sunday, 18 July 2021

Breaking Bad: Crazy Handful of Nothin'

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 "The faster they undergo change, the more violent the explosion." Damn, this episode is clever. I mean, there are all sorts of to...

The Doors (1991)

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"Does death turn you on?" This is, I believe, the first film helmed by Oliver Stone that I've ever blogged, and I believe it...
Saturday, 17 July 2021

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)

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 "Is there anywhere a man who simply takes?" This is an unorthodox adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella- with the ac...
Thursday, 15 July 2021

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Third

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 "Is there any tea on this spaceship?" Tonight was going to be the finale of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , but Disney Plus i...

Captain America: Episode 1

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 The Purple Death  "You'll never get away with this!" This is easily the first Marvel screen action of any sort, from a time l...
Wednesday, 14 July 2021

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the Second

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 "Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it." You can tell a superior sitcom (if, indeed, that is what this is, with its ev...
Tuesday, 13 July 2021

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Truth

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 "There will never be a Black man be Captain America." So far this series has been consistently good, but has never reached greatn...
Monday, 12 July 2021

Breaking Bad: Grey Matter

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 "I have the talking pillow". This is yet another first class bit of telly from Breaking Bad . It has a very good reputation, but ...
Sunday, 11 July 2021

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

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 "The Beast? Wait, there's a beast?"  This was, until tonight, the only Star Wars film I hadn’t seen. And it was very far fr...
Thursday, 8 July 2021

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Fit the First

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 "They hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't..." Before I start, two things. One: I don't blog sitcoms...
Wednesday, 7 July 2021

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: The Whole World Is Watching

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 "Being Cap is the first time I've had the chance to do something that actually feels right." This is still no WandaVision , b...
Tuesday, 6 July 2021

Breaking Bad: Cancer Man

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 "I'm thinking Albuqerque may have a new kingpin..." The above line from Hank, near the beginning, is immediatley juxtaposed w...
Monday, 5 July 2021

Breaking Bad: ...And the Bag's in the River

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 "I've got lung cancer. I'll go make you another sandwich." Yes, well I suspect I'll have to find endless ways of prai...
Sunday, 4 July 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 4

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 "This place is nowhere. And it's forever." Well, it's fair to say I wasn't expecting that. A magnificent ending to Sa...

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

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 “There’s a maniac trying to kill us!” “Welcome to New York.” I know this film is supposed to be where it all goes wrong for good after the ...
Wednesday, 30 June 2021

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Power Broker

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 "I can't run in these heels!" I have to admire the way this episode is constructed. On the face of it the plot is a load of f...
Saturday, 26 June 2021

The Producers (1967)

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 "Deutschland is happy and gay...." I haven't blogged much in recent days because I'm cramming for a big interview on Wedn...
Thursday, 24 June 2021

Update

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 I’m being interviewed for a possible promotion at work on Wednesday next week so I won’t be blogging at the usual pace while I’m preparing ...
Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 3

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 "I mean,the future could have been a lot of fun. Provided the price of a pint hasn't changed." This is an unusual third episo...
Monday, 21 June 2021

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: The Star-Spangled Man

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 "Time to go to work..." An impressive, and very different, second episode here in which Sam and Bucky finally meet up again and i...
Sunday, 20 June 2021

Breaking Bad: Cat's in the Bag...

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 "The hell is a MILF?" This second episode is just as good as the first but, fascinatingly, very different. Walter has got his han...
Thursday, 17 June 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 2

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 "We happen to be running away, that's all." The second episode of the final story, like the first, consists of further intrig...
Wednesday, 16 June 2021

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: New World Order

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 "Every time something gets better for one group, it gets bad for another." This may not be as high concept as Wandaision and, I...
Monday, 14 June 2021

WandaVision: The Series Finale

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 "Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. It is your destiny to destroy the world." Now that's how you do a series fi...
Saturday, 12 June 2021

Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986)

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 "I you can fly a Sopwith Camel... you can fly anything..." This is, let us make no bones about it, a B movie with inexplicably hi...
Thursday, 10 June 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 1

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 "I suppose it's how the future would feel..." It's back to P.J. Hammond for the final four parter of Sapphire & Steel...
Wednesday, 9 June 2021

WandaVision: Previously On...

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 "The only way forward is back..." This penultimate episode is, in its metatextual way, a flashback episode, and thus full of expo...
Monday, 7 June 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 6

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 "Would you have me be the man who destroyed the human race?" A fitting ending, then, to probably the finest serial so far- and ye...
Sunday, 6 June 2021

Breaking Bad: Pilot

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 "Actually, it's just basic chemistry, Jesse. But thank you." Fear not: my existing series will continue to be blogged as norm...
Thursday, 3 June 2021

WandaVision: Breaking the Fourth Wall

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 "Agatha all along..." This episode, like all the rest, is enormous fun. This time the sitcom fun comes from The Office -type moc...
Tuesday, 1 June 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 5

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 "Are those cultures...?" It's rare for a fifth episode of a six parter to be interesting in its own right, or for it to intro...
Monday, 31 May 2021

WandaVision: All-New Halloween Spooktacular

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 "Don't go past Ellis Avenue!" It's clear by now that this is a phenomenal series, based around a superb central concept a...
Sunday, 30 May 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 4

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 "You can't depend on servants at all these days..." We get another fascinating episode in which the murder mystery plot is de...
Friday, 28 May 2021

Vampyr (1932)

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 "She must die..." This is an odd film. It was made in 1932, some years into the sound era. It has music and sound effects, and ev...
Thursday, 27 May 2021

WandaVision: On a Very Special Episode...

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 "Just make her stop!" Just when it seems WandaVision has peaked, it becomes clear it hasn't. After last episode departed from...
Wednesday, 26 May 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 3

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 "And then there were nine..." And, with the third episide, things get even better. I'm loving the conscious Agatha Chrustie s...
Tuesday, 25 May 2021

WandaVision: We Interrupt This Programme

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"So you're saying the universe created a sitcom starring two Avengers?"  Wow. Three episodes of teasingly and ingeniously biza...
Monday, 24 May 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 2

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 "I think his Lordship's taking this joke a bit too far, Greville, don't you think?" In a departure from Sapphire & St...
Sunday, 23 May 2021

WandaVision: Now in Colour

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 "Think you may have taken the hedge trimming too far there, old buddy!" This is, on the one level, yet another episode of a retro...

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

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 "Stupidity has saved many a mind from going mad." This is certainly a contender for the finest film I've ever seen and althou...
Saturday, 22 May 2021

The Vampire Bat (1933)

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 “You give me apple. Herman give you nice soft bat." These '30s horror films, by no means all of them Universal, are certainly some...
Thursday, 20 May 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 1

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 "Why did it choose this house?" The penultimate assignment begins: there's only so much left of Sapphire & Steel . On fir...
Tuesday, 18 May 2021

WandaVision: Don't Touch That Dial

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 "Are you using your night vision, Vision?" For a second wek in a row we get a genuinely funny piece of retro comedy... bt it'...
Monday, 17 May 2021

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Four- The Man without a Face, Part 4

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 "A few cheap tricks to impress the ladies!" "Well, at least he bothered to impress them..." And so the serial ends; the...
Sunday, 16 May 2021

WandaVision: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience

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 "Oh, what kind of housewife would I be if I didn't have a gourmet meal for four just lying about the place?" Yes, I know: I h...

TRON: Legacy (2010)

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 "Life has a way of moving you past wants and hopes. TRON is not, on its merits, a particularly good film. It just benefits from the ea...
Saturday, 15 May 2021

Friday the 13th: The New Blood (1988)

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  "OK, you big hunk of a man. Come and get me!" I've reached the seventh film on eight years. The pace at which I'm watch...