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Showing posts from April, 2022

TILL DEATH DO US PART? (KILLING EVE, SEASON 4)

Few TV shows have regressed as dramatically as 'Killing Eve'. What began in 2018 as a smart, mischievous, funny and stylishly violent Phoebe Waller Bridge adaptation of Luke Jennings' 'Villanelle' novels , soon grew stale in the next series - even with Emerald Fennell taking on the role of showrunner. When Susanne Heathcote took over the reins for series three,  the thrill had gone. Each series just saw the bar getting lower. As a result, the hype that should have accompanied Jodie Comer's Villanelle and Sandra Oh's Eve's final outing seemed lacklustre. With another BBC franchise  'Peaky Blinders'  also bowing out this month with a huge fanfare, there just didn't seem to be the same noise. Rather than a trumpet blast, it sounded more like a kazoo. Series four finds Laura Neale leading a team of writers who include Kayleigh Llewellyn, Georgia Lester and Sarah Simmonds. The challenge facing them is huge. Can they bring the sparkle back to a sho

MYSTERY TRAIN (RUSSIAN DOLL, SEASON TWO)

Some series like 'Cracker' or 'Killing Eve' start with a bang but they bow out with a whimper. Others like 'Breaking Bad' get off to a decent start and then build until they really start to soar. With a second season under its belt, Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler's 'Russian Doll' may well be about to fall into the latter category. When its first season landed on Netflix in February 2019, Lyonne, Headland and Poehler's ' Groundhog Day ' tale was an amusing and sweary New York time loop tale built around Lyonne's risk taking, drug consuming games designer Nadia Vulvokov. Forced to relive a 36th birthday party to the sound of Harry Nilsson's ' Gotta Get Up ', she died a variety of ways - getting knocked down when chasing a cat called Oatmeal, falling down the stairs or into a pub cellar, getting shot or caught in an explosion. Nadia spent eight episodes trying to figure out why she kept reliving this night a

A TOXIC MARRIAGE (DEEP WATER)

It's been 20 years since Adrian Lyne last made a feature film. The Englishman made his name in the 1980s and 90s as a director of mainstream erotic movies from '9 1/2 Weeks' to 'Fatal Attraction' and 'Indecent Proposal' to 'Unfaithful'. Like Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson, Ridley and Tony Scott, he cut his teeth directing commercials - with one of his ads even prompting a query from Stanley Kubrick about a filter he used for one particular shot. A fan of French New Wave cinema, Lyne's big break came in 1980 after making short films, directing Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Sally Kellerman and Randy Quaid in the well received coming of age drama 'Foxes'. His next film 'Flashdance' - a dance drama with Jennifer Beals - in 1983 really put him on Hollywood's radar, grossing over $200 million worldwide and becoming the third most popular movie that year. A lot has happened in the movie industry since his thriller 'Unfaithful' with an

DIRTY ROTTEN SCANDALS (HOUSE OF MAXWELL)

Fifty years of scandal. Few families have dragged their own reputation through the mud quite like the family of media tycoon Robert Maxwell. Daniel Vernon's three part BBC2 docuseries 'House of Maxwell' traces the rise and fall of Robert Maxwell to the rise and recent fall of his daughter Ghislaine. Narrated by Shaun Dooley, it should be a gripping and illuminating watch. However the way it sets about telling what should be a compelling story is deeply frustrating. Episode one jumps between the mysterious death of Robert Maxwell on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine off Spain's Canary Islands and the story of his meteoric rise and fall as a newspaper publisher. The next episode deals with the mess his death left behind for employees of the Daily Mirror, for his sons Ian and Kevin and the rise of their sister Ghislaine as a New York socialite. The final episode tackles the exposure of Ghislaine and the financier Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring and grooming of under