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AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL – ‘Room 33’
With Jessica Lange having left the repertory cast of American Horror Story, the show has taken a more ensemble-driven approach this season than ever before, with varying degrees of success. Not that the cast itself have suffered—the show has never lacked for strong actors, and judging by the loyalty Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have inspired in the…
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YOU, ME & THE APOCALYPSE – ‘Episode Seven’
Watching You, Me & The Apocalypse this week it occurred to me that what I love about this show is its humanity. It’s a drama suffused with a desperate yearning for human connection; stuffed full of characters who are all in some way lonely and desperately trying to reach out. That’s the reason its premise works…
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SPY (2015)
When she was a kid, Susan Cooper’s (Melissa McCarthy) mother used to leave a note in her lunchbox each day that read: “Give up on your dreams.” This formative experience, and others, have led to Susan, now a CIA agent who has never been out in the field, lacking confidence. Instead, from the safety of…
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THE LEFTOVERS, 2.6 – ‘Lens’
There were a lot of revelations in the mid-season “Lens”. Personal secrets were revealed, and some of the oddness about ‘Jardenian’ culture and its people was rationalised. The Leftovers still loves teasing us with the prospect of its cornerstone mystery being explained—one day, somehow—but even if it never happens I’m enjoying the crackpot theories the…
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DOCTOR WHO, 9.8 – ‘The Zygon Inversion’
As many have commented, the opening scenes of this week’s Doctor Who uncomfortably mirror the suspected terrorist bombing of Russian passenger Metrojet 9268, which crashed in the Sinai peninsula. No doubt there are viewers who felt this was too close to the bone. What it demonstrates, I suppose, is how fiction and reality become so intertwined when…
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THE KNICK, 2.4 – ‘Wonderful Surprises’
The Knick season two has had a reliably strong start, but “Wonderful Surprises” sees the pace drop ever so slightly, and highlights an issue that’s almost unavoidable in a series with as much ambition as this one. Namely: are we spending enough time at The Knick? The series has always had one eye on the…
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AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL – ‘Room Service’
It’s not an accident I haven’t written much about Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare), the barkeep at the Hotel Cortez, so far in my reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel. The show has mostly kept Liz on the periphery of its many storylines, and I’ve been dreading what the show might have in store for a transgender…
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YOU, ME & THE APOCALYPSE – ‘Episode Six’
Well, excuse me while I get my breath back because that was quite an episode of You, Me & The Apocalypse! Everything kicked off this week as the revelations fell thick and fast. Fathers revealed themselves, grandmothers were unveiled, and there were strange hints at hidden links between many of our supposedly disparate bunch. In…
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BRAZIL (1985)
Bureaucracy on film is a subject that, for obvious reasons, has always been best approached by filmmakers working under authoritarian governments, specifically in Eastern European countries in the middle of the last century. But with 1985’s Brazil, Terry Gilliam reminded us that bureaucracy is as commonplace in the democratic West as it is anywhere else.…
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THE LEFTOVERS, 2.5 – ‘No Room at the Inn’
It’s time for Reverend Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston) to have his turn in the limelight, and my expectations were high because a favourite episode last season was the Matt-focused “Two Boats and a Helicopter”, which singlehandedly made me stick with The Leftovers in those early days when its gloomy vibe was proving a tough sell.…
