Lockout (2012, James Mather & Stephen St Leger / St Leger, Mather & Luc Besson)

Awesome stuff.

Strictly B-grade and fuckin' proud of it.

Guy Pearce is GOD.

Watch it.

Harry (TV3, 2012)

Harry's a new cop show on the block.

Another fucking cop show.

I feel the stirrings of a drinking game:  a skull for every time there's - a poo or wee joke, or Neill gives the fingers, or Kightley grinning like a fucking monkey.

Better fucking be good.

Modern Family - Season 2

None of you bastards have asked why I've relegated Modern Family to the second tier "Oh I'll suppose I'll try another season" category.

It's because the second season was patchy, contrived and slow, whereas its maiden season was propulsive comedy viewing, character driven drama and snappy.

Happy now, bitches?

Mad Men S05E13

Ain't shit I can say that this guy ain't said better.

The Samaritan (2012, David Weaver / Weaver & Elan Mastai)

I was going to say I'd watch anything that had Samuel L Motherfucking Jackson in it until I remembered I haven't seen Black Snake Moan yet.  Or Snakes on a Plane.  To be honest, neither of them really pique me.  Well, Christina Ricci in Moan kind of does something for me.

Moving on.

Propelled by an approving Roger Ebert review, I got this one and was... mildly entertained.  Feels a lot like a first-time director with it's expository dialogue and not-quite-lingering-but-more-padding shots - but director Weaver's been doing it since 1993.

It was nice to see Jackson underplaying a character with none of his eye-balling and shouting.  Don't care for the location or for the other actors.  Tom Wilkinson's presence feels a lot like an Alec Guiness cameo in Mute Witness.  It's reasonably tight and entertaining.

Recommended for noir fans.

Mad Men S05E12

No no no NO NOOOO.

Now is not a good time to do a clean-up of characters, Mr Weiner.  Matter of fact, after the heartbreak of Sal's departure, I forbid you.

... Seriously, though:  this - this - kind of television drama is so goddamned transcendent, I am just in its fucking thrall.  Can't believe the season closer is around the corner already.

Game of Thrones - Season 2 (HBO)

I'm the least likely person in my world to like a swords-and-sandals-type show but Game of Thrones is the fucking shiz.

Get the Gringo (2012, Adrian Grunberg / Mel Gibson, Grunberg, Stacy Perskie)

What a gleeful little romp.

What nice Lethal Weapon flutters it gave me.

Mr Gibson may be a racist pig fuck out in the world, but in the fantasy land of cinema, he's still got some bad ass in him.

Don't think I'll be watching The Beaver any time soon.

Red Tails (2012, Anthony Hemingway / John Ridley and Aaron McGruder)

Dear Mr Lucas

Please stop making films.

All the best,


Tor

NYC-22 S01E01 (CBS, 2012)

Best described by Stark Sands' character mid-ep:  This is going down.

The Killing - Season 2

I was tempted for a few seconds until I saw that the killer will be revealed at the end of the second season.

Twentysix fucking eps to closure.

What's that saying: Trick me once, shame on you. Trick me twice....

Missing S01E01 (ABC, 2012)

I've never been an Ashley Judd fan. There's Julia Roberts tits-and-teeth-from-another-planet, and there's Sandra Bullock girl-next-door, and then there's Judd. Spunky, I suppose is the word. I've liked her work: ... all I can remember is Heat. Oh there were those movies with Morgan Freeman. Okay: the one movie with Freeman. All of which has shit to do with Missing, a low brow approach to girl-power as lion-mother-in-search-of-offspring kind of action-thriller-espionage-adventure that was brought low by its dum as nuts execution. I got twelve minutes into it. Where's Cliff? I cried to the hills. I'm only really watching this shit for Cliff Curtis! There was no answer from the hills. After the thirteenth minute, I cried uncle.

Awake S01E01-02 (NBC, 2012)

I used to get Jason Isaacs mixed up with Timothy Dalton heaps back in the day. Smartypants out there might point out that it was Isaacs who did a lot of villain roles before transitioning to goodie-goods, while it was the reverse for Dalton. Whatever.

All of which has very little to do with Awake, a tidy police procedural that tries to meld the cool stuff from Memento and Matrix (without the sci fi garble), all in a post-Life on Mars (UK) zeitgeisty capture-lightning-in-a-bottle (and hope you don't fry) kind of way. Unfortunately, the show fails terribly - not miserably, just terribly - through adhering to a mystery-of-the-week ethos that constrains suffocates the dreams and possibilities of the show into a 45-minute slog of bullshit TV-cop-show blah, admirably accurate TV psychology talk, and too-fucking-convenient-to-fucking-swallow detective work.

Maybe it's just my anti-Americanism, but the celebration of consequence-free I-want-my-cake-and-eat-it-too just sticks in my craw.

Love your work, Jas' - let's have some more of that Case Histories soon, eh?

Hung - Season 3 (HBO, 2009-)

I bought this -, no:  there was a 'buy two DVDs and get the third one FREE' deal at JB Hifi late last year, and maybe someone had recommended it, or maybe I'd read a good write-up, or maybe I was using The Force, but I got the first season of this sight unseen, and boy was it a refreshing poke in the eye.

The second season continued its journey of a Well-Hung Hero Who Was Yet to Grow Up - but by the last quarter of that season, the interactions between his Pimp-of-Frustratingly-Inconsistent-Behaviour and her nemesis, A-Most-Convenient-Cunt, were getting a bit, well, stupid.

The third season is/was... a write-off.  Where's the character-driven plot that made me uncross my legs in the first place?  Where's the character-motivated humour that made me choke on my food?

Now it's all slapstick and dick jokes.

What the fuck, people?

Maybe you peaked early.

Kidnap & Ransom - Season 2

Well serve me fucking right for watching this through to the end.

What's the best thing I could say about this turd?  It did not disappoint.

Justified S03E01-07

Ooohh-eee, this puppy's just like The Shield in it's ass-kickin', shit-, piss- and asshole-laden days.

Oooohheee!

WTF?

Hey what happened to the anonymity of torrentshill.blogspot.com?

I could've been anywhere.

But now THEY KNOW WHERE I RESIDE.

Sheeeit.

Mad Dogs S02E01 (Sky1, 2012)

Ah, the boys are back.

But things haven't progressed really.  They've survived one thing but writer Cris Cole can see all sorts of potential in having them continue to make the stupidest of mistakes under the guise of they're just ordinary blokes, like.  And we're only ten minutes in.  Except it felt twice, no, four times as long as the plot ground along.

In my experience, ordinary blokes tend to learn shit.  They tend to think a bit more.

And - Jesus H Fucking Christ - it's been renewed for a third motherfucking season.

Kidnap & Ransom S02E01 (ITV, 2012)

If one ever needed proof that mediocrity is no barrier to television longevity*, look no further than this vanity vehicle.

Season One was a hamfisted concoction of cliches which I thought I'd seen the last of at the end of its season finale.  No such luck.

This season opener, with Trevor Eve looking ever so dashing and smart and fit and Tom Cruise-like behind his sunglasses, didn't disappoint those who wanted more of the shit-sandwich that they loved so much in the first season.

And I'm only fifteen minutes in.

I may do an update at some point, if I can be bothered to finish this ep.

*  Longevity is relative, of course:  a show that gets into a second season is, in my books, at near-veteran status.

Homeland S01 - Debrief

Sooo... he mighta been, but he wasn't, then he was.

All the while, our Heroine becomes less and less palatable.

And in the end, an old walnut holds true: The Black Guy always dies.