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AMERICAN GODS, 1.6 – ‘A Murder Of Gods’
American Gods is a very strange show. Its strangeness is something that makes it hard to define, and often something making it hard to love. It can feel like it’s holding its audience at a distance, and that makes it much more difficult to root for or understand the characters. You can also almost never…
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BETTER CALL SAUL, 3.8 — ‘Slip’
This was a deceptively clever episode, helping connect some dots between the present-day Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and his Slippin’ Jimmy days back in Chicago, pulling cons with his best-friend Marco (Mel Rodriguez). The cold open was a flashback to a time when Jimmy and Marco recovered some old coins from his father’s abandoned store,…
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THE LEFTOVERS, 3.8 — ‘The Book of Nora’
This wasn’t what I imagined the series finale of The Leftovers would be, but that’s a compliment. Considering showrunner Damon Lindelof’s repeated quote that viewers shouldn’t expect answers to the show’s key question (where did 2% of the population vanish to?), I was pleased we did get an answer to that — well, perhaps — while avoiding the trickier…
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10 Cannes Films to See in 2017
The 70th Cannes Film Festival concluded on 28 May with a glittering awards ceremony. The films picked by Cannes will inevitably land on many people’s must-watch lists, so here are 10 movies from Cannes 2017 to keep on your radar…
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DOCTOR WHO, 10.8 – ‘The Lie of the Land’
There’s a line in this week’s Doctor Who, “The Lie of the Land”, that made me smile. It was a smile in recognition that the series, in its 1970s heyday, was equally unafraid to slip in subtexts about the politics of the times. “The Monks have got him on one of the old prison boats.…
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WONDER WOMAN (2017)
When a pilot crashes offshore a mythical island of female warriors, telling of a Great War in the ‘world of man’, an Amazon warrior leaves this paradise to discover her true calling…
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AMERICAN GODS, 1.5 – ‘Lemon Scented You’
All the various and previously disconnected strands of American Gods’ core narrative are beginning to come together. Unlike last week’s excellent but unusual episode, ‘Lemon Scented You’ isn’t a massive departure from what the show’s been doing so far. It’s just a more focused version of a typical episode, using characters we’ve already met to…
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TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN – ‘Part 4’
After the surreal absurdities of “Part 3”, “Part 4” of Twin Peaks: The Return is much more accessible. It’s not without its bizarre set-pieces, but as a narrative it’s less informed by ambiguous symbolism and abstraction and is more a return to Twin Peaks’ domestic environment and its own undercurrent of waking dreams and dark…
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SPLIT (2016)
Three girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.
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JACKIE (2016)
Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband’s historic legacy.
