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Reviews
Columbo: Murder by the Book (1971)
Afternoon escapism
To me Columbo is early afternoon weekday TV. In other words, ultra-formulaic drama written for retirees on the edge of dementia who want easily digestible dialogue, plots and characters as clockwork as their medication. Mind, that's not to say it isn't also suitable for college graduates. The trouble is, Columbo is predicated on a series of things that don't add up and in wooden TV land nothing really adds up, including the characters themselves. This episode begins with horribly unsubtle exposition and a brief portrait of a close working relationship gone sour that contains zero chemistry of any kind. That aside, the story is neatly if unspectacularly plotted, the directing Spielbergesque and the villain well cast enough to hold our attention.
But what really saves this for me is the second victim subplot which adds a bit of spice in the form of an American Frances de la Tour fatally infatuated with her Mr Rigsby. Rising Damp will never look the same.
The Lost Century: And How to Reclaim It (2023)
One of the most important documentaries I've ever watched
I'm 47 and I've been down a lot of rabbit holes. Naturally, at some point I came across Dr. Greer munching a carrot and whilst I broadly agreed with his contention that ET is in town I had some lingering doubts about his overall schtick and moved on. However, Dr Greer was just getting started.
Revisiting Greer on a podcast in 2023 he hit me with an avalanche of intriguing facts that made me re-assess my impression of him as a somewhat vain and naive ET evangelist. I duly purchased this documentary, available for only £3.49 on Microsoft's Film & TV app.
What can I say? I don't think Dr Greer's utopia will happen but I do believe this film should be watched by all sorts of people who probably never will watch it. Just Stop Oil protesters, for instance. It's one of the most important rabbit holes I've ever been down.
Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)
Classic 80s film
I am somewhat aghast at the mediocre rating this film has got. It is head and shoulders above most films in terms of realism and attention to detail and though it feels a little stagey at times it makes excellent use of location and is a wonderfully evocative snapshot of the era it was filmed in.
Everybody that grew up in or near this time will recognise something in the film that rings true and it may even be fair to say that the film is less constrained than it would be today.
The film blends tragedy and comedy seamlessly so that you get the sense that you shouldn't rush to judge. Events are what they are.
I highly recommend.
The Professor and the Madman (2019)
A compelling and unusual film
I watched this completely unaware of the controversy surrounding it and came away very impressed. Now being aware of the circumstances under which this was made it may explain the style of this film, but it actually felt like slick and innovative editing to me as I watched it rather than a dog's breakfast. Whilst it's true that some threads in the story are not as well realised as they might be I feel that's mainly because this is really a mini-series shoe horned into a film. For all that, it is still a fulfilling watch with a plethora of interesting characters and feels quite distinct from other films. It's understandable but in a way a shame Penn and Gibson threw their toys out the pram because even as a compromise it's a minor masterpiece.
Last Train to Christmas (2021)
A good story in search of a decent script
As I review Last Train to Christmas it's rated at 6.1 stars and that seems about right. An engaging concept that blends Sliding Doors, Back to the Future and Groundhog Day with a bit of Russian Doll is nonetheless let down by a frustratingly poor script, characterisation and direction.
Just as you can tell bad writing in the first paragraph of a novel or short story the first scene sets the tone. In strolls Tony Towers offering Champers to the carriage and it's all a bit of a mess from the way a surely curious boy in the foreground suddenly disappears, to the way the passengers turn round in sync and say yes far too quickly (where is the English reserve, is he talking to me?, not wishing to seem greedy etc) to the way Tony hands flowers to someone sat down and asks her to put them on the shelf when he is much nearer. I'm not saying that people don't take the piss but it just doesn't ring true. A more likely self-entitlement scenario is Tony handing the bouquet to someone who is stood nearer the shelf than him and being a shade less polite than strangers normally are. "Put that on the shelf, will you, ta," and turning away as if it's a given.
This sloppiness continues through out. One time Tony walks past his aunt. She conveniently looks up from her magazine on cue and only seeing him from behind immediately says, "Anthony." Not impossible, but nudging the implausible. In real life, we get up and say, "I thought it was you," once we've checked discreetly.
And what about when he first walks into a carriage? Notwithstanding that he doesn't notice he's dressed differently, the change in the carriage and surely feels a decade worse for wear when he finally sees his completely altered appearance reflected in the window his response is simply not commensurate with the shock, which he gets over very quickly.
Speaking of which, Michael Sheen never convinces as a nightclub owner. His accent wavers all over the place without ever seeming to alight in Nottingham and if he's a Nottingham nightclub owner I'm a Brussel sprout. He comes across as a middle-class luvvie with a scarily poor veneer of working class man on the make.
What keeps Last Train going is that in spite of it being so badly done in so many ways is it's actually a rather good story and a good production. I eagerly looked forward to each scene change to see how Tony had changed and a couple of the ideas in particular were quite cute. A Mike Read style DJ doing an ATP advert fit the bill nicely. As did the funeral goers and the morbid change in his aunt.
And when Tony decides to do the right thing and gently let the young woman he loves down, knowing what is best for her the story reaches its most mature moment.
As for flirting with his daughter, that may be a nod to Back to the Future but it is a welcome homage.
Ultimately, Last Train is a Christmas turkey but it hints so well at something so much better it deserves to be made again. Could Hollywood sort this mess out?
A View to a Kill (1985)
So bad it's good
The Roger Moore era really hit its stride with his third film, The Spy Who Loved Me, and for me he made three more excellent films looking as trim as ever in the last of these, Octopussy, released in 1983. Then something odd happens. I think someone put it very well when they said that in A View to a Kill Moore is like an old man who thinks he's a secret agent. It certainly gets perilously close to feeling like a James Bond parody a la Johnny English.
Suddenly, Moore's age has caught up with him and I'm sure it isn't helped by plastic surgery, which gives his eyes a comedic look of permanent startlement. The surgery gone wrong suddenly changes the tone of the franchise and the film makers seem to go with it.
On the one hand, the segueway into a Beach Boys song in the opening sequence hints at the lighter tone this film will often take. On the other, there is a fairly hopeless attempt to cover up the stunt men doing Roger's stunts. On a 70 inch TV you can clearly see a stunt man jump on top of the cable car and you see him in the sawn in half Renault three times as clear as day. Then when a dummy drops through the boat you get the sense that there is a sort of meta commentary on the absurdity of casting Moore in this role going on.
In spite of all that, I really do have a soft spot for this film and I'm glad Moore outstayed his welcome for one last movie. The lens I see it through is it's Bond's last mission and the baddie, Zorin, can barely contain his glee when he sees that he's been trailed by an old aged pensioner. But this is James Bond and he still knows a thing or two.
The thing is, Moore gave us a Bond with heart, humour and sophistication and that is very much in evidence in this film where these traits are even further emphasised to make up for his frailty. After all, this is Bond who cooks his lover dinner.
On top of that gone are the romantic theme tunes, in comes a Duran Duran disco song, out goes the old foreign baddie, in comes Christopher Walken and Grace Jones. It's still Bond and in many ways it's business as usual but there is something stylish and just a bit alternate universe-y about A View To A Kill which makes it an entertaining watch despite being a bit of a turkey. And despite what others say I think Moore has great chemistry with his love interest.
Hotel Paranormal: Soul Hunters (2021)
A solid seven
Although I've seen and am reviewing Soul Hunters this is a fairly consistent series and my remarks apply to episodes generally.
Hotel Paranormal is an engaging television show that fuses witness testimony with talking head commentary and staged reconstructions.
Having watched quite a few of these I get the sense that the reconstructions are a little over-egged so that the ghosts look like extras in Michael Jackson's thriller video and the filming generally owes a lot to Hollywood horror. This makes for effective watching but there is clearly a formula that is repeated over and over and you have to take the artistic licence for what it is.
In Soul Hunters a nurse in a rocking chair is made up to look as if she is a zombie and we never hear the witness actually say she looked like that. Did she? Possibly, but the makers of the programme seem to favour that look.
That said, Hotel Paranormal does seem to veer towards the darker side of the ghost world and so it does make sense that if they are selecting demonic and negative experiences the make up department is going to get to work on their actors.
Besides the horror film vibe what also detracts from the series is when North American actors are used to do British characters and can't do the accent. Interiors of hotels don't always look authentic, either.
Hotel Paranormal also lacks the participation of hotel owners themselves and often there is just one witness describing events.
There is a vastly superior series called Ghost Hunters narrated by William Woollard and for me this is still the gold standard. It can be obtained second hand as a DVD boxset although annoyingly the DVD programmes were slightly abridged. Alternatively, I think Amazon Prime may still have it and they show the full episodes.
However, though Hotel Paranormal isn't the best thing since sliced bread it's still good TV and I recommend it.
The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
I didn't want it to end
The release of Get Back is fast proving to be a seminal moment in Beatle history. As a fan I'd always been well aware that the sessions embodied a mind boggling treasure trove of tracks but the footage has proven to be a revelation.
Get Back, like its distant cousin Magical Mystery Tour, is a half-baked concept but in the madness there is method as drama and entertainment emerge from that. Had they been better organised I've no doubt we would have got something very good but what we get in the midst of chaos is something very special.
This is really a documentary that revels in every detail so you can see the unscripted Beatles and their associates as never before. It's almost as if Lindsay-Hogg knew the film would not be seen for 50 years and wisely chose to document as much as he possibly could but really he was just doing what any decent documentarian would.
The result is you don't feel that usual sense of tunnel vision. It's a documentary that generously lets you have a nose around and be here, there and everywhere.
At the centre of this is John's humour, Paul's boundless creativity, George's struggle to be heard and an ensemble cast who make a fascinating contribution in their own right, not least the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. At the centre is a love story and a story of heart break.
And about all this talk of the film being too long. A film you don't want to end is surely a shoo-in for 10/10 even if it's not perfect. And Get Back is not perfect, not because it's too long, but because it's way too short.
Disney wanted two and a half hours tops and compromised on six and Jackson got away with nearly eight without asking anyone for permission. I feel sorry for him. It's television, after all, and deserves long form. What we get is a compromise that won't try the patience of the casual fan or lead to an out right no from the Disney execs and gives the hardcore fan a fair amount to chew but...
I know, having seen Let It Be, that some good bits have been left out. I know just by doing the maths. There is obviously an argument for an extended cut but so far Disney have no appetite for one.
Murdertown (2018)
Overlooks police incompetence
I watch a lot of UK crime television and a lot of Murder Town because, bizarrely, it's nice escapism. I'm mostly impressed by the dedication of the police. However, what also becomes clear on watching this sort of thing is that human error is often at play in the search for a murderer and usually glossed over.
As I watch these programmes I usually begin trying to solve the disappearance/murder in my own mind. As soon as I started watching this I thought, 'Well she can't have gone far if the prime suspect was on shift and no witnesses saw them together.' In other words, make sure you check the bushes behind Tesco properly, boys.
Yes, it's all too easy to say with hindsight -given that they didn't even know if they had a murder on their hands- but so often in murder and disappearance cases early thoroughness is key before evidence slips away.
The security guard is dodgy with and he was on shift, she was never seen after she left Tesco...What springs to mind? To my mind, the logistics of the matter immediately suggest a guilty security guard and a murder most likely in close proximity. It's a hunch that could be wrong but you surely cross your most probable theory off the list first.
Of course, the police did check the undergrowth, but not extensively. If you can explain what the point in checking undergrowth in a half-hearted manner is, let me know. If your missing person is in the undergrowth then you're already (correctly) assuming she may be have been murdered. Ergo, she may be well concealed and you have to search thoroughly.
What the police try to do in the episode is save face by saying they always suspected the security guard and they 'shocked' him into a confession, which, to their credit they did. But I think they know they ballsed this one up.
Mayday: Fatal Distraction (2008)
Well done Air Crash Investigation for mentioning the paranormal angle
I lost interest in Air Crash Investigation after it white washed the true cause of TWA 800's demise but this excellent show is back in my good books. Air Crash Investigation is a resolutely scientific television show so well done them for moving out of their comfort zone and mentioning an a true story, even if just in passing. The fact is, Flight 401 was not just a ground breaking (no pun intended) crash that had significant ramifications in pilot training and air traffic control, it became associated with multiple witness sightings of the dead crew, who were seemingly desperate to ensure the crash never happened again. Whilst the Airline Company did their utmost to poor scorn on the stories, they scrambled to fix the problem and managed to do so by recalling all the recycled parts of the stricken plane which had found their way into other planes. Of course, in true Wikipedia fashion Wikipedia tries to cast doubt on the story by suggesting the book is made up but neglects to mention that the author had an inside source, a flight attendant he married and would go on to write her own book about the phenomenon.
Deutschland 86 (2018)
Eight episodes too short
Deutschland 83 was nostalgic and compelling television but ended perhaps a little too abruptly. Fast forward three years and I've been waiting for Channel 4 to upload episode 11 of Deutschland 86 because for the past two or three weeks I've been convinced I'm in the midst of the series. Then, sadly, the penny dropped. Episode 10 *was* the last episode and there will be no further development of this gripping instalment. Needless to say, I've thoroughly enjoyed. It gets better and better as it goes along and manages to outclass its very classy predecessor. There's been very little talk about it in the media and I don't understand why because for my money it's one of the best things on TV. Give me this over Game of Thrones any day. The reviewer who couldn't get past episode 2 should have tried because the first two episodes are probably the worst. In many senses it's children's television for adults. It's comic book simple but it's poignant and smart and I really like the lens - metaphorically speaking- that the program maker's use to gaze at the 80s. Of course, a somewhat stylized 80s that makes it look much tidier than it was and naturally can't help but be looking at now but all the same authentic enough to give you some idea. A must watch for lovers of alternative TV but may also appeal to those who like Bourne Supremacy and James Bond.