Filmography
May. 2nd, 2010 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyDoc Martin, series 1
This is old television, ladies and gents. It's the first thing I ever remember seeing Martin Cloones in after Men Behaving Badly (of which I was not a fan); I saw a couple of episodes when it first aired, and thought I'd give it a go now. The plot follows an eminent surgeon,Dr. Martin Ellingham, who discovers a sudden phobia of blood and thus has to relocate at speed to the tiny Cornish village of Portwenn to practice as their GP. Hilarity, as you might guess, ensues. Well, sort of ensues. There is a fair amount of hilarity, which comes from the clash between the Cornish way of doing things and the London way of doing things; not to mention Ellingham's own rather sardonic and brusque manner, which compares very unfavourably with memories of the previous village doctor.
The series is mostly concerned with questions of fitting in, identity, that sort of thing, plus there's a very slow-burning romantic angle which Ellingham manages to sink in the final episode by being too involved with his medical responsibilities... but overall, it's quite good fun for some light silly television, and I'm glad I went back to it. It's a good vehicle for Clunes, who enjoys the abrasive personality of Ellingham but manages to keep his humanity in there. Also, for a medical drama, it is surprisingly un-gorey. Apart from the last episode, where there is a scene of Medical Daring Do that had my hands in front of my eyes. Four stars.
Little Annie Roonie
I went to watch this in Manhattan last week because someone I know was playing the piano music for it. This is a silent film made in 1925, starring Mary Pickford, one of the great silent film actresses; she was about 33 when this film was made, and yet she plays a character not meant to be about fifteen with amazing believability. Apparently her audiences really liked seeing her play child roles, and lo, she wanted to please her audience.
The plot of Little Annie Roonie is pretty simple; set in an immigrant neighbourhood of a big city, Annie Roonie is the head of a children's gang at war with another children's gang, tomboy in chief. Her father is in the police, and is killed at a dance; his murderer tries to put Annie's brother off the scent with a false accusation, but the plucky street urchins work out the truth, collaborate with their rivals, and bring the guilty man to justice. Meanwhile, Annie's brother has shot the man he was told had committed the murder, and Annie offers to give the innocent man (upon whom she has a not-very-secret crush) a blood transfusion - all the while assuming it means she will die instead. So, fairly standard plot arc, but actually with fairly good acting and a reasonable script. I quite like this kind of thing, but this was a gem - there was real character development, some good humour, and just overall a satisfying sense of closure at the end. Oh, and there was some amusing business with a horse. I'm giving it four stars, but that's just because I like this sort of thing.
Doctor Who: The Next Doctor & Planet of the Dead
I'm doing these two transitional special episodes of New Who next to each other because we watched them back to back, and because (as G noted) together they make up Russell T. Davis' love letter to English culture. The word that best described what G felt while watching them was Heimatslieb, a love for a sense of what home should be. (Incidentally, Heimat is an incredibly useful German word.)
The Next Doctor jumps into this by setting the Christmas special episode in a Dickensian London which basically gave the writers a chance to do steampunk and also parody Oliver Twist (a Cyberman factory powered by urchins from the workhouses? Come on). But there's something so very British about the concept, and indeed the main non-David Tennantt protagonist, a man who believes he is the Doctor (although it transpires, naturally, that he isn't). There's even something British about the fact that once the Doctor has saved London from a great big clunking monster robot thingummie, the grateful Londoners applaud him and shout 'bravo!'.
Let's not mention the problematic role of women in this particular episode, particularly not of Mercy Hartigan, who wears Harlot Red and generally gets to be eeeeeeeeeeevil and bosomy. Because obviously women who want a bit of respect and acknowledgement are all about the bringing death to the world through metal robots. Grrrr.
As for Planet of the Dead - G spotted (way before I did) that it was a very Zeitgeisty piece about the banking crisis; the characters are transported from nice comfortable London, on an iconic London bus, to a planet that has been reduced to wasteland by strange shark-like creatures which devour everything in their path. Um. Plus there's the reference to the new almost-Companion figure's father having lost everything in the Icelandic banks, which nobody will get in twenty years time, but made the allegory totally clear. (Incidentally, MAJOR class issues here, because obviously it's alright for our upper classes to steal things from major museums and then get away scot free in flying buses afterwards, so long as they are plucky gals with decent figures! Honestly!)
ANYWAY. There's a great scene at the start of the episode where the Doctor quells panic on the bus by asking everyone what they are going home to, and the answers are so British - to chops! It's his turn to cook, and I do the washing up! We do the lottery twice a week! It's all alright in the end, by the way, because if you are a plucky young lad who has lost his job, then the Doctor will get you a job with UNIT!
ANYWAY again. These are interesting episodes that are so concerned with identity and creating a sense of comfort that it will all be alright in the end that I don't quite know what else to do with them. So I'm not going to try.
This is old television, ladies and gents. It's the first thing I ever remember seeing Martin Cloones in after Men Behaving Badly (of which I was not a fan); I saw a couple of episodes when it first aired, and thought I'd give it a go now. The plot follows an eminent surgeon,Dr. Martin Ellingham, who discovers a sudden phobia of blood and thus has to relocate at speed to the tiny Cornish village of Portwenn to practice as their GP. Hilarity, as you might guess, ensues. Well, sort of ensues. There is a fair amount of hilarity, which comes from the clash between the Cornish way of doing things and the London way of doing things; not to mention Ellingham's own rather sardonic and brusque manner, which compares very unfavourably with memories of the previous village doctor.
The series is mostly concerned with questions of fitting in, identity, that sort of thing, plus there's a very slow-burning romantic angle which Ellingham manages to sink in the final episode by being too involved with his medical responsibilities... but overall, it's quite good fun for some light silly television, and I'm glad I went back to it. It's a good vehicle for Clunes, who enjoys the abrasive personality of Ellingham but manages to keep his humanity in there. Also, for a medical drama, it is surprisingly un-gorey. Apart from the last episode, where there is a scene of Medical Daring Do that had my hands in front of my eyes. Four stars.
Little Annie Roonie
I went to watch this in Manhattan last week because someone I know was playing the piano music for it. This is a silent film made in 1925, starring Mary Pickford, one of the great silent film actresses; she was about 33 when this film was made, and yet she plays a character not meant to be about fifteen with amazing believability. Apparently her audiences really liked seeing her play child roles, and lo, she wanted to please her audience.
The plot of Little Annie Roonie is pretty simple; set in an immigrant neighbourhood of a big city, Annie Roonie is the head of a children's gang at war with another children's gang, tomboy in chief. Her father is in the police, and is killed at a dance; his murderer tries to put Annie's brother off the scent with a false accusation, but the plucky street urchins work out the truth, collaborate with their rivals, and bring the guilty man to justice. Meanwhile, Annie's brother has shot the man he was told had committed the murder, and Annie offers to give the innocent man (upon whom she has a not-very-secret crush) a blood transfusion - all the while assuming it means she will die instead. So, fairly standard plot arc, but actually with fairly good acting and a reasonable script. I quite like this kind of thing, but this was a gem - there was real character development, some good humour, and just overall a satisfying sense of closure at the end. Oh, and there was some amusing business with a horse. I'm giving it four stars, but that's just because I like this sort of thing.
Doctor Who: The Next Doctor & Planet of the Dead
I'm doing these two transitional special episodes of New Who next to each other because we watched them back to back, and because (as G noted) together they make up Russell T. Davis' love letter to English culture. The word that best described what G felt while watching them was Heimatslieb, a love for a sense of what home should be. (Incidentally, Heimat is an incredibly useful German word.)
The Next Doctor jumps into this by setting the Christmas special episode in a Dickensian London which basically gave the writers a chance to do steampunk and also parody Oliver Twist (a Cyberman factory powered by urchins from the workhouses? Come on). But there's something so very British about the concept, and indeed the main non-David Tennantt protagonist, a man who believes he is the Doctor (although it transpires, naturally, that he isn't). There's even something British about the fact that once the Doctor has saved London from a great big clunking monster robot thingummie, the grateful Londoners applaud him and shout 'bravo!'.
Let's not mention the problematic role of women in this particular episode, particularly not of Mercy Hartigan, who wears Harlot Red and generally gets to be eeeeeeeeeeevil and bosomy. Because obviously women who want a bit of respect and acknowledgement are all about the bringing death to the world through metal robots. Grrrr.
As for Planet of the Dead - G spotted (way before I did) that it was a very Zeitgeisty piece about the banking crisis; the characters are transported from nice comfortable London, on an iconic London bus, to a planet that has been reduced to wasteland by strange shark-like creatures which devour everything in their path. Um. Plus there's the reference to the new almost-Companion figure's father having lost everything in the Icelandic banks, which nobody will get in twenty years time, but made the allegory totally clear. (Incidentally, MAJOR class issues here, because obviously it's alright for our upper classes to steal things from major museums and then get away scot free in flying buses afterwards, so long as they are plucky gals with decent figures! Honestly!)
ANYWAY. There's a great scene at the start of the episode where the Doctor quells panic on the bus by asking everyone what they are going home to, and the answers are so British - to chops! It's his turn to cook, and I do the washing up! We do the lottery twice a week! It's all alright in the end, by the way, because if you are a plucky young lad who has lost his job, then the Doctor will get you a job with UNIT!
ANYWAY again. These are interesting episodes that are so concerned with identity and creating a sense of comfort that it will all be alright in the end that I don't quite know what else to do with them. So I'm not going to try.
