Filmography
May. 7th, 2011 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyI'm mainly watching television series-es at the moment, as my brain can't cope with anything more sustained than an hour's worth of narrative. Which I'm OK with.
Pillars of the Earth
Apparently this is originally one of those massive bricks of an airport novel? Which I had managed to completely miss? Anyway, this is the 2010 television version, in eight parts, which premiered on Starz. Which is the same network that did Gladiator: Blood and Sand, which probably explains why the splattery 3D blood effects look similar.
Anyway, the plot revolves around the Anarchy, namely the conflict between Stephen and Maud about which of them should rule England, the same period in which Cadfael is set - clearly there's something about this period and monks for historical writers, since the plot revolves around whether the abbey at Kingsbridge is ever going to get its cathedral built. The good abbot Phillip (Matthew Macfadyen) and his master builder, Tom Builder (Rufus Sewell) face the evil opposition of the Bishop Waleran (the excellently creepy Ian McShane) and the Hamleigh family. The Hamleighs, in return for Dark Wicked Doings, want Waleran to give them promotion and prestige, which he eventually does, but of course nothing is simple and there are general Wicked Plots and so forth. It all, naturally, ends up being a love story between Tom Builder's sort-of-adopted son Jack Jackson (Eddie Redmayne) and the deposed lady of Shiring Castle, Aliena (Hayley Atwell). There's quite a bit of SA in there, most of it committed by the simply dreadful William Hamleigh (David Oakes, who I notice is reprising his role of Wicked Historical Period Son in the new television series The Borgias, this time with Jeremy Irons as his father), who is Not In At All A Queer Relationship with his henchman Walter (Götz Otto).
Anyway. The first few episodes are tight, the last few are tight, but the middle sags - after the death of a key character, the plot tempo really lags, and it feels a lot as if there are narrative curve balls thrown in simply to make the plot more complicated than it needs to be. There also feels like there's a lot of trimming down that's been done, and it doesn't feel like a fully-realised world in the same way that The Tudors or Downton Abbey does. Let's put it this way - when Bishop Waleran says to Phillip that he's the only possible candidate to be his dean of chapel (or whatever) and there really is no one else, my response was to shout at the television screen 'that is because it appears that Kingsbridge is the only abbey in your bishopric, and you are the only bishop in England!' Still, never mind. It's entertaining enough television, and has some juicy acting, so we'll give it three and a half stars.
Angel, Season 3
I fell off the wagon with this mid-season, not for any particular reason beyond energy loss, so it look a while to pick back up. I'm glad I did, although the show felt as if it had gone to a bit of a dark place - which would be why, mid-finishing-submitting-thesis, I needed something rather less emotionally heavy. You know, with kittens. Anyway.
This is the season that coincides with Buffy's death over in Sunnydale, which leads to a mid-season exodus by Angel - I have to say that I'm quite glad they decided not to show us the reunion/discussion/whatever, that was definitely smart television. It's also the season when Darla turns up pregnant via Various Wiles, and this results in Baby Connor being born. However, also appearing is a nightmare from Angel's part, the vampire hunter Holtz, who ends up taking the baby off into a demon dimension, where he grows up and then returns at the end of the series for Dramatic Cliffhanger. Oh, and Cordelia gets the Grusalag back just as she's about to admit she quite fancies Angel and vice versa, and also becomes part demon to cope with her visions. Oh, and Fred almost reacclimatises to being in this dimension and gets together with Gunn in a weird triangle thing with Wesley. And Wesley gets all intense and dark. And Lila continues to develop a more nuanced character, which is good since Lindsey got that treatment last season to good effect, and while it's the same treatment, it's taking her in very different directions with equally good results. Oh, and Lorne. Poor Lorne. His bar is never going to be financially viable while he hangs around with these people.
It's all - I have to say, it's a bit more grown-up than Buffy, it feels it, it can afford to feel it and that's OK. I also suddenly realised somewhere in the last half a dozen episodes how much emotionally heavy material they were dealing with - and that they were dealing with it well, in a way that didn't make it feel as if it was too much hard work to watch, and that kept a good dose of dramatic tension going. It feels a lot like some of the stuff in Buffy Season 5 - that sense of getting a good grounding, and now we can work with it properly. There are still light-hearted moments, but the coping with the drama is so good that you don't notice the light-hearted bits slipping away.
I think there are still moments when it slips into brooding just that tiny bit too easily. I also think that there was some really good character development. I'm looking forward to season four - but I do hope that we get back some of the silly and the lighthearted, because otherwise I can see this tipping way too much into the dark zone for me. The presence of Lorne brought a certain Rat-Pack/karaoke lightness to proceedings, and I worry that his absence will unbalance things. But we'll see. Four stars.
Slings and Arrows, series 1
Oh, we enjoyed this. It turned up on Netflix, we'd never heard of it, but it's brilliant. Plot in short - New Burbage, a famous Canadian theatre, is putting on various things, directed by Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette). Oliver perishes on the opening night of A Midsummer Night's Dream. His estranged colleague Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross), last seen at the New Burbage when he had a mental breakdown whilst playing Hamlet and ended up in psychiatric care, ends up being his replacement as artistic director. The company is scheduled to do a new Hamlet; the replacement director is frankly weird and unpleasant, and Geoffrey gets so frustrated that he, in the end, takes over the production himself. Erm, after a rapier duel. Will the stress of producing the play that drove him mad drive him mad again? Will he be able to get a good performance out of the young American film star Jack Crew (Luke Kirby)? Will he resolve his relationship with the woman who played his Ophelia, now playing Gertrude, Ellen Fanshaw (Martha Burns), despite her continuing antagonism towards him? Will he overcome the machinations of the theatre manager, Richard Smith-Jones (Mark McKinney) and the corporate sponsor of the theatre, Holly Day (Jennifer Irwin), who want to turn the whole affair over to musical theatre? Oh, and will he cope with the occasional appearances of Oliver's ghost, or is he really going psychotic again?
Well, if the mention of the duel wasn't enough to get you going, I don't know what will be. It's a gently-paced series, it gives its characters space to develop, it has some hysterical lines, and we loved it. Five stars.
Pillars of the Earth
Apparently this is originally one of those massive bricks of an airport novel? Which I had managed to completely miss? Anyway, this is the 2010 television version, in eight parts, which premiered on Starz. Which is the same network that did Gladiator: Blood and Sand, which probably explains why the splattery 3D blood effects look similar.
Anyway, the plot revolves around the Anarchy, namely the conflict between Stephen and Maud about which of them should rule England, the same period in which Cadfael is set - clearly there's something about this period and monks for historical writers, since the plot revolves around whether the abbey at Kingsbridge is ever going to get its cathedral built. The good abbot Phillip (Matthew Macfadyen) and his master builder, Tom Builder (Rufus Sewell) face the evil opposition of the Bishop Waleran (the excellently creepy Ian McShane) and the Hamleigh family. The Hamleighs, in return for Dark Wicked Doings, want Waleran to give them promotion and prestige, which he eventually does, but of course nothing is simple and there are general Wicked Plots and so forth. It all, naturally, ends up being a love story between Tom Builder's sort-of-adopted son Jack Jackson (Eddie Redmayne) and the deposed lady of Shiring Castle, Aliena (Hayley Atwell). There's quite a bit of SA in there, most of it committed by the simply dreadful William Hamleigh (David Oakes, who I notice is reprising his role of Wicked Historical Period Son in the new television series The Borgias, this time with Jeremy Irons as his father), who is Not In At All A Queer Relationship with his henchman Walter (Götz Otto).
Anyway. The first few episodes are tight, the last few are tight, but the middle sags - after the death of a key character, the plot tempo really lags, and it feels a lot as if there are narrative curve balls thrown in simply to make the plot more complicated than it needs to be. There also feels like there's a lot of trimming down that's been done, and it doesn't feel like a fully-realised world in the same way that The Tudors or Downton Abbey does. Let's put it this way - when Bishop Waleran says to Phillip that he's the only possible candidate to be his dean of chapel (or whatever) and there really is no one else, my response was to shout at the television screen 'that is because it appears that Kingsbridge is the only abbey in your bishopric, and you are the only bishop in England!' Still, never mind. It's entertaining enough television, and has some juicy acting, so we'll give it three and a half stars.
Angel, Season 3
I fell off the wagon with this mid-season, not for any particular reason beyond energy loss, so it look a while to pick back up. I'm glad I did, although the show felt as if it had gone to a bit of a dark place - which would be why, mid-finishing-submitting-thesis, I needed something rather less emotionally heavy. You know, with kittens. Anyway.
This is the season that coincides with Buffy's death over in Sunnydale, which leads to a mid-season exodus by Angel - I have to say that I'm quite glad they decided not to show us the reunion/discussion/whatever, that was definitely smart television. It's also the season when Darla turns up pregnant via Various Wiles, and this results in Baby Connor being born. However, also appearing is a nightmare from Angel's part, the vampire hunter Holtz, who ends up taking the baby off into a demon dimension, where he grows up and then returns at the end of the series for Dramatic Cliffhanger. Oh, and Cordelia gets the Grusalag back just as she's about to admit she quite fancies Angel and vice versa, and also becomes part demon to cope with her visions. Oh, and Fred almost reacclimatises to being in this dimension and gets together with Gunn in a weird triangle thing with Wesley. And Wesley gets all intense and dark. And Lila continues to develop a more nuanced character, which is good since Lindsey got that treatment last season to good effect, and while it's the same treatment, it's taking her in very different directions with equally good results. Oh, and Lorne. Poor Lorne. His bar is never going to be financially viable while he hangs around with these people.
It's all - I have to say, it's a bit more grown-up than Buffy, it feels it, it can afford to feel it and that's OK. I also suddenly realised somewhere in the last half a dozen episodes how much emotionally heavy material they were dealing with - and that they were dealing with it well, in a way that didn't make it feel as if it was too much hard work to watch, and that kept a good dose of dramatic tension going. It feels a lot like some of the stuff in Buffy Season 5 - that sense of getting a good grounding, and now we can work with it properly. There are still light-hearted moments, but the coping with the drama is so good that you don't notice the light-hearted bits slipping away.
I think there are still moments when it slips into brooding just that tiny bit too easily. I also think that there was some really good character development. I'm looking forward to season four - but I do hope that we get back some of the silly and the lighthearted, because otherwise I can see this tipping way too much into the dark zone for me. The presence of Lorne brought a certain Rat-Pack/karaoke lightness to proceedings, and I worry that his absence will unbalance things. But we'll see. Four stars.
Slings and Arrows, series 1
Oh, we enjoyed this. It turned up on Netflix, we'd never heard of it, but it's brilliant. Plot in short - New Burbage, a famous Canadian theatre, is putting on various things, directed by Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette). Oliver perishes on the opening night of A Midsummer Night's Dream. His estranged colleague Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross), last seen at the New Burbage when he had a mental breakdown whilst playing Hamlet and ended up in psychiatric care, ends up being his replacement as artistic director. The company is scheduled to do a new Hamlet; the replacement director is frankly weird and unpleasant, and Geoffrey gets so frustrated that he, in the end, takes over the production himself. Erm, after a rapier duel. Will the stress of producing the play that drove him mad drive him mad again? Will he be able to get a good performance out of the young American film star Jack Crew (Luke Kirby)? Will he resolve his relationship with the woman who played his Ophelia, now playing Gertrude, Ellen Fanshaw (Martha Burns), despite her continuing antagonism towards him? Will he overcome the machinations of the theatre manager, Richard Smith-Jones (Mark McKinney) and the corporate sponsor of the theatre, Holly Day (Jennifer Irwin), who want to turn the whole affair over to musical theatre? Oh, and will he cope with the occasional appearances of Oliver's ghost, or is he really going psychotic again?
Well, if the mention of the duel wasn't enough to get you going, I don't know what will be. It's a gently-paced series, it gives its characters space to develop, it has some hysterical lines, and we loved it. Five stars.
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Date: 2011-05-08 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-08 09:23 pm (UTC)