The Bourne Legacy (2012; Tony Gilroy)

I'd read the reviews so expectations were low but - wow, what a loser of a film.

I've loved your earlier work, Mr Gilroy but this one - pssht, let's pretend another Tony Gilroy cobbled this together.

The Sweeney (2012; Nick Love / Love & John Hodge)

Ahh what a load of 1970s throwback bollocks.  A great cast with Ray Winstone, Hayley Atwell, Damian Lewis and Steven Mackintosh, though.  But seriously:  have the filmmakers not seen any film and/or television crime stories in the last thirty fuckin' years?  What do they take the viewing audiences for?

Morons?

Fuckin' hell.

Vegas S01E06-07

This show is beginning to spin off into moral territories that very few broadcast shows like to go.  Broadcast shows are that:  broad.  As in without nuance, as in lowest common denominator.

Creators Nicholas Pileggi and Greg Walker have been devious sons-a-bitches in giving us a McCloud knock-off in this post-Longmire and -Justified procedural telly landscape and sneaking in some moral fucking ambiguity.

Seriously, bitches:  WTF?

Yes, I teared up at the end of the last ep because for all of Savino's (Chiklis) hustle and bluff, he loves his wife.  And was it the previous ep or the one before where that was that unsubtle reveal of why Lamb (Quaid) just won't let his brother cut down a tree on the ranch - he loves his wife, too, the old coot.

Vegas is the shizz.

Last Resort Cancelled

Oh fuck.

The Walking Dead S03E06-07

If this show suffers from too much of a good thing, it's pacing:  ep x, we'll learn this-little-piggy-went-to-market; in ep y, we'll blow some nasty-ass TV CGI up and we'll learn that this-little-piggy-stayed-home; and so on.  It's so fucking measured.

Maybe it's just a part of the whole zombie canon:  seemingly interminable suspension, consistent ignorance/idiocy as to the lethality of the plague, action that is driven not by logic - or a love for life - but by the next ad break or upcoming ep.  What the comic does so well is that - tragic lapses of attention aside - our heroes learn shit.  I hear that's fucking called character development or some shit.

I suspect a lot of my bitching and whining in this post is informed by another motherfucking AMC mid-season break - after next week's ep, it's who-the-fuck-knows how long until we get to the end of this - let's be honest, pedestrian - zombie show.

And bitch and whine as I will, I'll still waste precious bandwidth on this fucking show.  Why?  Because it's diverting a little from the comic.  Although, seriously, I could do without the goddamned grief.

The Hour S02E01 (BBC, 2011-)

The gang's all back.

A bit slow to begin with.  It's been so long - so it seems - since its maiden season that I'd completely forgotten what happened in the previous season.  The ep only really seemed to pick up with the return of crusading investigative journalist Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw) after his big O.E.

I should've written this sooner after watching the ep so I can only offer the following thoughts:

• Was news producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) such a weak sister last season?
• I kept waiting for new Head of News Randall Brown (The Thick of It's Peter Capaldi) to say colourfully offensive and bawdy dialogue (alas, shit out of luck in this ep);
• And the ep seemed a bit filled up, if you know what I mean - flaccid and unhurried.

Still.  Nice to have a classy sub-Mad Men show to watch until Dick Whitman and friends return in the new year.

The Walking Dead S03E05

Two thoughts watching this ep.

I spent the first half of this ep screaming Ditch the fucking bitch! at the groan-inducing leave/don't-leave bullshit between Andrea and Michonne.  I'm like, Save this shit for Revolution or TRON Uprising, for pete's sake.

Second thought is during the baby-formula-run and Maggie sneaks into a daycare centre, scans the room she's entered, then goes straight into a cupboard.  I mean, FUCKING EXCUSE ME but after however long of surviving in this godforsaken fictional world, wouldn't SECURING THE FUCKING BUILDING be a logical first step in an unfamiliar environment?

FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Vegas S01E05

Took four eps under the belt - and possibly the appearance of Dewey Crowe - for this series to goddamned sing.  Almost made me want to revisit Casino but I don't think my heart (and/or stomach) could take it again.

It's a bit constrained by its procedural element but Dennis Quaid's stubborn cussedness and Michael Chiklis best-intentioned two-facedness are proving a great hook.

Carrie Ann Moss - who turned up more in this ep - still needs something to do.  Writer dudes?  Hello?

Roll on the rest of season 1.

The Walking Dead S03E01-03

Season 2 was a steaming pile of shit.  It was boring.  It dragged.  It didn't have Frank Darabont at the helm.  I watched the first few eps with a growing sense of dissatisfaction.  I can't remember which ep I pressed 'Stop' part way through.  I jumped to the end of the season, in time for the farm break-out and I was like, Yeah, whatever.

Watching season 3 was motivated largely by the comic - the prison saga, in comic form at least, is fucking awesome - and so, like a dog going back to its vomit, I'm three eps and it... shows promise.

Nothing like the first season.  But it... has potential.  To be entertaining.

Arrow S01E04

This ep wins the prize for most awkwardly written and delivered dialogue so far.

Was there a writers room prize for biggest wordcount?

And was the legal consultant in Tahiti or something?

But like a crack whore, I'm gonna get the next ep.  Either to make sure the slide has begun finally/already or to be there when it gets back on track.

Vegas S01E04

I must be getting soft.

I'm beginning to like this.

Michael Chiklis brings the animal charm that shone through The Shield to give us a mobster with A Dream, and a way to quietly root for him.

Dennis Quaid's impression of a stetson-wearing Easter Island statue was beginning to wear a little thin until we were shown just how sentimental a Harrison-Ford-channeling son-of-a-gun he is.

And The-Irish-Guy-from-the-US-remake-of-'Life-on-Mars' looks like he might have a nice subplot going with the Girl-with-Smarts-who's-also-the-Mob-Boss's-Daughter.

Meantime, Carrie Ann Moss is sorely, sorely missed.  C'mon, writer-dudes:  the woman can take down a room of cops as a warm up, or a foyer of cops and soldiers when properly motivated.

Last Resort S01E05

This kind of story-telling is what The Shield so freakin' good:  you put your characters between a rock and a hard place, and then you put them between another rock and a hard place.

The shenanigans on the island with our heroes Chaplin and Let's-Forgive-Him-for-'Underworld' squaring off against Cheney and Rice Curry and Black Republican Woman, intercut with I-Will-Overcome-Female-Lieutenant's dick-swinging with the COB (Chief of the Boat) whilst two-stepping with opposing subs and the Reluctant-Heroic-SEAL-Guy, made this ep a nail-biter.  Still don't care for the stuff Stateside but everything else is beginning to fucking sing, man.


... Yeah, I should know names by now but... I don't.

Damned good TV, this is.

Arrow S01E03

Yeah, okay.  Dialogue still barely registers at an entertaining level.  But plot things are happening:  the potential beginnings of Speedy; the resolution of phase x of the Oliver-Laurel-Merlin (what the FUCK kind of character name is Merlin, please?) triangle; and the beginning of the Green Arrow club with the induction, it would seem, of the fanboy-named Diggle.

Yeah, sure, I'll watch some more.

Hunted S01E01 (BBC/Cinemax, 2012)

Three questions popped into my head in the first five minutes:

1.  Why does the bad guy take our heroine all the way into his evil lair?  They were en route to dinner or something so... couldn't she have just waited in the car?

2.  Why does film and television insist on showing that snipers can shoot distant things without resting the rifle on something?

3.  If you're a henchman in your boss's evil lair and you see your meal-ticket - in this case, a presumed kidnap victim -  being accompanied by a strange woman walking in a hurry, wouldn't you just shoot first and ask questions later?

(It's possible that:  1. our heroine and bad guy have been in a relationship a while and either (a) she can be trusted to come into the evil lair or (b) she can't be trusted with the driver; 2. snipers who make headshots at impressive distances are all descended from Lee Harvey Oswald; and 3. see 1. (a) preceding.)

Let's see how bored I get with my other viewing.

Arrow S01E02

Each ep so far has had a moment where I've grinned like I actually like the fucking thing.

One goddamn moment.

It's not that the rest of the ep's 45-minute running time has been unbearable.  Aside from the action set-pieces where I go full-screen on the old lappie, the rest of the show has helpful dialogue that I can tune half an ear to while I surf or 'work'.

The second ep had two moments, actually.

This show could grow on me.  Like mould or something.

Arrow S01E01 (CW, 2012)

I'll be up front with you:  barring his cameo in Frank Miller & Klaus Janson's The Dark Knight Returns, Green Arrow has never really been a superhero I've taken seriously.  (Was it the missing arm that made him interesting?  Maybe.)  (Sorry for any spoilers.)

Watching this pilot with all the familiar supporting names - Diana Laurel Prince, Speedy - was marginally interesting for... the rapport between our hero and his family maid, and a not-bad-okay-that-was-pretty-good parkour-included chase half-way through the ep.

All the while though, the flawless skin, the lantern jaws, the ultra-sculpted musculature kept making me think I was watching the 90210 reboot.  And I fucking know I haven't watched that shit.

I think it's tone:  the premise is kinda dark, but the bodies are like an homage to The Karen Carpenter Story.

... Maybe.  Maybe I'll try another.

Vegas S01E02-03

Compared to Last Resort, this show isn't so fast on cycling through to the next backlogged ep.

The weekly storylines are quite cookie-cutter, the season (or - groan - series) storyline reminds me - again - too much of Crime Story, and, ever since it popped into my noggin, I just haven't been able to shake the idea that lead Dennis Quaid should play Harrison Ford's brother in a movie or something soon.  Honestly:  am I the only one thinking Quaid is channeling Ford?

The acting's solid.  Michael Chiklis is looking less and less like Vic Mackey and more like a transplanted East Coast hood.  I'm still waiting for Carrie Ann Moss to be given something meaningful to do by the writers.  And I'm so glad James Russo's character hasn't been killed off yet (though it's only a matter of time given his character's line of work, and Russo's casting history).

I'm an easy sentimentalist so I think I'll waste a bit more bandwidth on this.

Last Resort S01E02-03

I know I'm liking something when - and this is when I have a multi-ep backlog - I drive straight into the next ep.

Eps two and three reveal a show that is shaping up quite interestingly.  The acting is really variable.  The dialogue, too.  But the characters - and the execution of this is also variable in quality - have some intriguing backstories that promise much more than Lost meets Hunt for Red October.

Downton Abbey S03E05

WAAAUGH!

Monroe S02E01 (ITV, 2012)

Maudlin. Manipulative. Melodramatic. Marvellous. Magnificent. More, please.