What I've Been Watching, May 2015

[major_clanger]

Recently Seen

Mad Max: Fury Road. As visually (and aurally) amazing as everyone says, but a superb film for far more reasons than that. I've heard it said that it's thin on plot, but it's not: it has a very spare and efficient plot, which it advances with ruthless narrative drive save for the couple of interludes when a pause works just as well in terms of developing the characters. Everyone seems to try to come up with their elevator pitch for the movie: mine would be "If Games Workshop combined Battlecars with Warhammer 40K and had the result orchestrated by Rammstein."

(I actually have a copy of Battlecars, a relic of the fabled times when GW were more than All Warhammer All The Time.)

Daredevil. The Netflix TV series, not the movie. Only seen a couple of episodes so far, but impressed by them. It's evidently trying to be the Torchwood of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, more violent and adult than the continuity it sprang from but dropping enough references to it that we know it comes from the same roots.

Penny Dreadful, S2. Victorian gothic melodrama to the max! Interested to see where this goes, with one of the S1 background characters seemingly promoted to / revealed as the Big Bad. I hear that Fox is planning a TV version of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I would have thought will run into the problem that Penny Dreadful pretty much is that already.

The Game. It would be a bit harsh to describe this as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with the serial numbers filed off and with Birmingham doubling for London – harsh, but not entirely unfair. Inevitably this means that attimes_bracing and I are playing 'spot the location' but it's standing up pretty well as a drama in its own right, although the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy the plot is growing episode by episode.

The Catacombs at Warstone Lane Cemetery - our new house is about 100m from here!



Cornwall Street Chambers is just out of shot to the right here:



... and a few metres up the road to the left of the further car here:



Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Need to catch up on this, as I've only seen the first episode so far, but it certainly looked and felt right. Alas, lack of time has precluded my re-reading the book in advance.

Comments

[rmc28]

I've got three episodes into Daredevil and am enjoying it so far, though I do have to look away / cover the screen at times when it is especially gory.

I was struck by the fight choreography at the end of the second episode, where they really show how *tired* and beaten up he is, leaning on walls while kicking ass, etc.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Are there many spies working in Birmingham?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I would imagine there are, seeing as how it's (a) the UK's second-biggest city, and (b) it has rather acquired a reputation lately as a hotbed of Islamic extremism, not helped by the recent scandal about fundamentalist influence in schools.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the poiner to Penny Dreadful. I'd missed that last year and it sounds just my sort of thing.

Be sure to pay lose attention to the "corridor fight" sequence in Daredevil when you get to it - you'll know what it is. They did it in one take.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, seen that bit. A very, very well-executed scene, and much more realistic-looking than most of that type.

Penny Dreadful is far, far better than its concept might have you expect, with a superb cast that gives 110% (Eva Green in particular).

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

This daredevil seems to be to take the "reality of superheroes" a step further beyond "Batman Begins", which was my previous high water mark for reality in superheroes. The only thing that's missing is that he should be using a gum shield. There's a reason anyone serious about any contact sport that involves possible blows to the faces uses one of these. Our teeth are designed to cut, tear and rend flesh. The inside of our mouths are tender flesh. Repeated blows to the face drives our flesh against our teeth. Without a gum shield the inside of his mouth should be shredded and he should be unable to talk for days.
Actually, I thought the premise of Penny Dreadful sounded fine. It all depends on execution, but it's exactly the kind of thing I like in books (well, one of them).