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HUMANS – series one, episode one
In the alternate present depicted in AMC/Channel 4’s Humans, the world’s almost indistinguishable from our own, with one key difference: despite technology being roughly on par with reality, mankind’s developed lifelike android helpers known as “synths”. These synths look like real people, but are programmable and unthinking; acting as docile servants and housekeepers. The heart of…
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TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE (1990)
Anthology TV series are currently enjoying a minor resurgence, with the success of Channel 4’s Black Mirror, BBC2’s Inside No.9 and, in a looser sense, FX’s American Horror Story and HBO’s True Detective. But we’re still a far cry from the genre’s heyday (the 1950s to late-’80s), when shows like The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Outer…
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HANNIBAL, 3.2 – ‘Primavera’
While “Primavera” isn’t as strong as last week’s season premiere, it deserves special notice for offering one of the freakiest images so far, in a show that gets freaky on a regular basis. Hannibal’s valentine to Will Graham (Hugh Dancy)—the body of his last victim gruesomely and meticulously contorted into an origami-like “topiary”—is grotesque enough,…
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Trailer: THE MARTIAN
What’s it about? Based on the best-selling novel by American author Andy Weir (which he self-published in 2011, before it was re-released in 2014), this is the eagerly-anticipated film adaptation. It concerns astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist who becomes stranded on Mars after an accident his crewmates believe he died in. Faced with living on…
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KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE (2014)
The second Matthew Vaughn film about a group of youngsters taught to develop their skills and harness their potential (after X-Men: First Class), Kingsman: The Secret Service finds the Kick-Ass director adapting another Mark Millar comic—as foundation for a ‘Bond on acid’ adventure that makes Moonraker look like The 39 Steps. Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is “Galahad”, a gentleman spy belonging to…
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JURASSIC PARK Saga (1993, 1997, 2001)
To celebrate this weekend’s release of Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World (22 years after Steven Spielberg’s monster hit cinemas), below are retrospective reviews for the original trio of action-adventure films; directed by Steven Spielberg and Joe Johnston, released between 1993 and 2001… Jurassic Park (1993) It’s easy to exaggerate the impact of Jurassic Park back in 1993, but I…
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EX MACHINA (2015)
The helicopter blades whirling over greenery in the opening of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina are eerily, deliberately reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. The parallels between the two films don’t end there, with Garland’s sleek sci-fi three-hander predominantly concerned with identical themes of Spielberg’s adventure classic: humanity’s desire to create life that’s not meant to exist; the…
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MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)
It won’t win plaudits for storytelling complexity or depth, but George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is a stuntman’s fever-dream come to engine-roaring life. A reboot of the Australian director original trilogy (that introduced the world to Mel Gibson), it feels like Miller’s spent the past thirty years dreaming up crazy ideas to feed into Fury Road. And now…
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Why Bunk Moreland’s the true hero of THE WIRE
When The Wire first arrived on our screens all the way back in 2002, it was obvious who the hero was. It was that charming devil, Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), with his cavalier disregard for police rules, his obsession with catching the bad guys, and his desire to see justice done regardless of method. Television…
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HANNIBAL, 3.1 – ‘Antipasto’
“Let it be a fairy tale, then. Once upon a time…” And with that, we’re thrust back into the strange, gruesome, often beautiful world of Hannibal. What seemed on the surface to be a bad, desperate idea—a prequel series to a film franchise that had run out of steam—has proven to be the most surprising, thrilling…
