Catch-22. I forgot all about this when it came out, and am pleased I have now remembered it.
With a wonderful cast, including an excellent martinet Major Scheisskopf in Clooney, Christopher Abbott as Yossarian, Kyle Chandler as the horrendous Colonel Cathcart, there’s a good variety of faces that fit their roles, and as a big fan of the book, I found myself increasingly pleased as things went on. It obviously doesn’t have the density of absurdity the book has, which would be impossible to implement conventionally, but it includes much of the important stuff. Line delivery and editing needed to be sharp and it is, a lot of dialogue comes straight from the book which is great, and it looks good into the bargain.
The Old Man.
It’s nice to see Bridges and Lithgow, but this series isn’t quite as deep as it thinks it is, it doesn’t have the hard edge it pretends to have (notable in a pretty blatant cheat of a scene which was otherwise good), and the dialogue isn’t quite there. There’s an awful bit of lore delivery, and there are too many cliches that the show has apparently no intention of subverting. E. J. Bonilla has about as much presence as my last cheese sandwich. They’re doing the gross older man/younger woman thing but because Bridges is so fucking old they have to do it with Amy Brenneman who is
fifty-eight. I like Alia Shawkat, she’s not in it much.
Harley Quinn.
All the time in the world for this, a series with a former sidekick finding her own feet, developing her own relationships, and best of all, a broken Jim Gordon whose life is a nuclear disaster zone. The series does a wonderful job mocking established characters, in a way that’s only possible when you know them well. Clayface, Dr. Psycho, and King Shark’s interactions are very funny.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
I am unhappy about this.
Stranger Things. There’s some good stuff here, but some of it is mediocre, too much is essentially a repeat of previous seasons, and a lot of it is unoriginal to the point I have to call it plagiarism. I’m displeased with a show that has one foot in the world of children and one foot in the world of adults, yet can’t cope with adult consequences for people taking adult actions (a series in which you cannot manage to kill any of your main characters despite numerous episodes and far too much danger simply undermines any sense of tension or suspense or even belief in the first place) and I’ve become increasingly dismayed by the amount of ‘homages’ that look more and more like ripping ideas off shamelessly (let me just point to one scene where a character reveals their origin story via narration intercut with flashbacks, using the exact same music as a certain scene from Watchmen, where a certain character does something identical). I am more and more disappointed, not because the series is bad, but because it’s a let-down, and I am sure everyone who made this, who didn’t spend their time stealing ideas from every film they ever watched, deserves better.
The Bear.
Just watching this makes me angry. It’s a well studied depiction of the kitchen side of a small restaurant, and it shows the hectic nature of the work and the resulting personality clashes, and the plethora of problems that go hand in hand with running a business, especially a family business. Excellent acting.
See.
I’m not sure this is good. The premise is quite silly (plague devastates human population, surviving generations are all blind), I’m really not sure they’ve thought it through, and needless to say the combat scenes are completely ridiculous, but it does have some good ideas and compelling scenes. Mildly enjoyable, some really clunky dialogue.
Solos.
Fairly impressed with this, a series all about (almost) lone performances.
Resident Evil.
Apart from completing my ‘Lance Reddick as Blade’ fantasies, this is a messy, convoluted series tracking a pair of sisters, in the past, and a zombie-apocalypse-current. It has a trendy soundtrack, a stark visual style (albeit a very limited budget), and one or two interesting performances. Other than that, it’s a confused jumble which sort-of uses past events from the games but doesn’t commit, eschews any established characters, and is largely a spin-off effort. I don’t know what’s kept me watching beyond dogged desperation that one day they’ll see the light, and we’ll get a series set in zombie-infested Raccoon City from the makers of Black Summer.
Black Bird.
The cast for this is good on paper and better in practice, apart from Greg Kinnear, who I have an irrational dislike for. He’s trying to McConaughey his way out of career death, and best of luck to him, because he’s the worst actor in this, even though he’s not bad. Taron Egerton nails the main role, he has the walk of a still-proud sporty type and everything, to such an extent I forgot he was British, Sepideh Moafi is great as a stern FBI agent, and Paul Walter Hauser is perfect as the reedy-voiced suspect. Ray Liotta in his last role is still absolutely solid. A quietly impressive series.
