Saving Mr Banks (2013; John Lee Hancock / Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith)

Who here remembers Sunday evenings in front of the box for an hour with Disney and friends? Who here has watched Mary Poppins ad nauseum in this lifetime? Who here is a fan of Emma Thompson, Paul Giamatti, and Colin Farrell?

I don’t think I did too shabbily with two out of the above three, and I don't think not having watched Mary Poppins in its entirety detracted at all from my enjoyment of this film.

Great writing that shines all the more with perfect casting and deft direction, Saving Mr Banks was a stellar watch in the closing daylight hours of a Christmas Day.

Ho ho ho.

Grupo 7 (2012; Alberto Rodriguez / Rafael Cobos)

Satisfying police procedurals in both film and television have been pretty thin on the ground since Law & Order and The Wire. Rephrase: “satisfying English–language police procedurals”. After the edge–of–your–seat one–two–combination of the Brazilian Tropa de Elite films comes this Spanish feature that reminds me of La Scorta with a streak of The Shield.

Very nice. Very nice indeed.

Gravity (2013; Alfonso Cuaron / Cuaron & Jonas Cuaron)

I’ve been a fan of Cuaron since Children of Men. Call me easily–wowed but I find his visual storytelling style mesmerising (okay, not mesmerising and wow–inducing enough for me to seek out Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban or try Y Tu Mama Tambien again). Throw in George Clooney, a sci–fi environment, and a kick–arse trailer — I had to see this puppy on the big screen.

What a ride. I might even try The Blind Side now.

Heckuva movie.

What Remains (BBC, 2013)

Should I have taken note of the reviews that listed all the cliches this series had? A retiring detective. A now-dessicated corpse. Said retiring detective unwilling/unable to let go of said corpse's case.

Lead David Threlfall certainly held the attention - a great Brit TV face, a nice thoughtful stillness to him that communicates intelligence and steel. The supporting cast - a who's who of Brit TV including Russell Tovey, David Bamber, Indira Varma and Jessica Gunning - do a sterling job despite having roles that seemed to come straight out of Cluedo.

And the series in toto? Starts off as a kinda interesting spin on the reluctantly-retiring-detective trope that slides into two eps of He killed her - no, wait, she did it -, NO WAIT!, finished off by a a jaw-dropping final-quarter-hour climax that leaves you thinking, Where the fuck did that come from? (and not in a good way, either).

Fail.

Life of Crime (ITV, 2013)

Hayley Atwell, who made an impression as Peggy the indomitable English sidekick in Captain America and followed it up nicely as a dashing WW2 agent provocateur in Restless, carries this mini-series admirably over three eps and three (story) decades.

While writers Oliver Frampton and Declan Croghan's narrative is intriguing and suspenseful for the first two eps, a rushed resolution in the final ep leaves the audience with a "Was that all?" kind of feeling.

Oh what coulda bin.

Run (Channel 4, 2013)

Olivia Colman, Lennie James, Benedict Wong - familiar faces from Brit TV were here aplenty with some fresh ones, in this satisfying four-part series which pissed all over The Street of however many years ago.

A big-arse thank you to writers Daniel Fajemisin-Duncan and Marlon Smith - they wrote true, they wrote without punking out - and directors Charles Martin and Jonathan Pearson - for not doing slo-mo, close-focus, Tony-motherfuckin'-Scott director shit all over the goddamned place.

Watch it, yo.

Longmire S02

What the fuck happened to the sustained and consistent narrative momentum of season one?

The first three-quarters of this season was Mediocre with a capital 'm':  nine eps of blah-corpse-blah-detecting-blah-solved case-of-the-week bullshit and then, it was like the crew realised, Shit!  We need something to help us get greenlit for another season! and they brought out the aftermath of the aftermath of Longmire's wife's violent death that was one of the great things about the first season.

What the fuck, people?  My watching buddy turned off out of boredom five eps in while I
hung in there like grim fucking Death.  You remembered your season/series arc nine eps in?

And now, having watched the season finale with its own mini version of Shit!  We need something to leave people hanging out for season three! I'm like --

-- Vaya con Dios, motherfuckers (goddamn waste my motherfucking time with your amateur-hour bullshit).

Crossing Lines S01E01

This was the expression on my face after 45 minutes of this ep.

Sorry, Billy.  I tried.  But it hurt too much.

Crossing Lines S01E01 (NBC, 2013-)

What is it about Continental-flavoured television drama that I'll swallow rats like:

1. an opening scene with a woman chased through the woods?
2. dialogue that goes clumpity-clumpity-clump?
3. and a cast that is straight out of a wannabe-Luc Besson production?

I have no idea.

Don't know the rap sheet on the creators of this House meets Criminal Intent meets Star Trek mini-series but I've been a closet fan of William Fichtner since Strange Days so I'm going to hang in for a bit.

Mad Dogs S03

Gah fuck.

Parker (2013; Taylor Hackford / John J McLaughlin)

This has all the ingredients of a shit movie - well, let's be honest, it is a shit movie - but yet I found this kept my interest much more than I expected.

It's got nothing on the very entertaining Safe, it's got more money than The Mechanic, and it has a story and character that was sorely lacking from The Killer Elite.

Is it that Jason Statham is watchable, terrible accents and all?  Is it that I've missed Jennifer Lopez so much since Out of Sight, that I was forgiving as heck?  I dunno.  I'm an hour in and my brain hasn't gone Please make it fucking stop like it did with a couple of other titles I've tried to watch recently.

Good story is where you find it, perhaps?

Top of the Lake (Sundance Channel, 2013)

In between eps of a weekly, live, local turd, Jane Campion's Top of the Lake got under the skin of this junkie and seven hours later over a mere two nights, faith has been restored in watching New Zealand-made police drama.

Sure it was funded totes overseas.  It's director hasn't worked in her birth country for two decades.  Its leads were Americans and Australians and a Scotsman.  But its Queenstown setting and cast of supporting characters were recognisably and unselfconsciously Kiwi.

This was good television.  A believable, vulnerable, spiky heroine in Elizabeth Moss, no matter her Oz accent drifting in and out.  A credible Kiwi bloke of a cop - something not quite right somewhere in that head of his - in David Wenham.  And Peter Mullan evincing a migrant with a serious and ruthless sense of entitlement.  The child actors were convincing.  Holly Hunter stole every scene she was in.

And then there was the writing:  where - not unlike The Good Wife - unfinished plot strands were left for the audience to pick up and finish in their heads.  This mini-series was about character, framed in a missing girl procedural, no matter that its plot elements are familiar - execution by directors Campion and Gareth Davis was flawless.

A damned fine show.

Postscript:  just two things that stuck out for this viewer and his Other Half -

1. a child in police custody is never returned to their home when there is suspicion of abuse - and the possibility of further abuse; and
2. Oz cops may bear arms in Oz but if they're on secondment in New Zealand, I doubt very much they'd be allowed to carry a firearm whilst working here. 

Hannibal S01E06-07

This show is just so fucking delicious.

• Watching Jack Crawford (the excellently cast Laurence Fishburne) struggle with his guilt of using female FBI trainee Miriam Lass (a cheekily cast Anna Chlumsky - see below) in the search for the Chesapeake Ripper and losing her - and knowing he will do it again with the emergence of Buffalo Bill is just a wonderful character set up and connection with the canon.

• Seeing showrunner Bryan Fuller and friends take the now grown-up protagonist of My Girl (Chlumsky) and... urgh.  Oh dear.  Who said Americans can't do black humour?

• The more I see of Mad Mikkelsen's Hannibal Lecter, the less I see of Anthony Hopkins Oscar-winning turn (particularly his time with Ridley Scott) - and the closer and more faithful Lecter is to author Thomas Harris' original creation.

• Six eps worth of accumulated Cooking With Hannibal scenes - and knowing where the meat comes from - somehow resulted in me salivating during the seventh ep's meal preparation finale.  Thanks Mr Fuller!

• And Gillian Anderson has joined the show as Hannibal's supervisor.

Hannibal is just goddamned awesome.  And it's been renewed for a second season.

Harry S01E01-04 (TV3, 2013)

After a heads-up last year, Harry turned up without much notice (or so it seemed to me) and has so far progressed with all the speed of a turd.

It feels faintly unpatriotic or something to describe the show that way but, really, no matter the colourful gritty portrayal of South Auckland and the employment of a large swathe of Maori and Pasifika actors in such a high profile production, the finished product is a very big disappointment.

Take the somnabulent direction (yeah it's pretty and flashy but the pacing is so slooow), the clumsy dialogue (miss something earlier in the show? it's okay, someone will tell us what happened), and a story strung out over six - fucking SIX! - eps that would take any other even half-interesting procedural show one, maybe even two, eps to tell.

Take this week's ep where hero detective Harry (Oscar Kightley) gave some meth cook a cellphone, and how that phone led to the cook's demise.  With scripted policing like this - one of the writers is a former officer - recent events like the Urewera occupation and the Kim Dotcom fiasco would seem to indicate that this show is merely art imitating life.

Whoa, this show has sure got me riled up, bringing in recent events and shit into a review (and my longest post for some time).  It's the lost opportunity that pains me the most:  a Kiwi cop show with a brown lead and a whole lot of New Zealand On Air swag, considered edgy and gritty by mainstream media, but for this blogger undone by an absence of imagination in the writing (the dialogue particularly) and execution.

Yeah, I'll watch this to the fucking end.  'Cause I'm like that, bitches.

Vegas Cancelled

Ah crapola.

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013; John Moore / Skip Woods)

 A fifteen minute chase scene that is less interesting than the most boring car chase in Rising Sun.

B-, no, E-grade dialogue in case you're goddamned blind.

Proof that one can progress from Behind Enemy Lines to a so-so franchise.

Oh, Bruce.  Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce.

Endeavour S01E01-02 (ITV, 2013-)

Those with fond memories of John Thaw grumping about Oxford will be pleasantly surprised by this prequel.

The first ep - have only realised there was a proper pilot last year which I'm tracking down - was a nice return to the look, feel and sound of the original Morse series, with just enough modern touches to keep a 21st century interested.  Shaun Evans makes a nice gangling and awkward young Morse who, in the words of his mentor, is "a brilliant detective but a poor policeman."  Roger Allam as said mentor is pitch perfect as a period plod with a brain and heart - and an obvious soft spot for his protege.  The rest of the cast - along with the week's guest stars - provide nice period colour - something that seemed sorely lacking from a random ep of Martin Shaw's George Gently.

The first ep's direction is solid and the writing is spot-on, a very comforting experience, while the second ep's Se7en and Silence of the Lambs influences clang a little heavily, and are forgiven only by the consistent characterisations.

The Better Half certainly likes the show.  It's Comfort TV, especially in these coming cold months.

The Last Stand (2013; Jee-woon Kim / Andrew Knauer)

Where the awful Olympus Has Fallen sucked ass with everything, The Last Stand succeeds with low expectations, minimal story and animal charisma aplenty.

The Eighties and Nineties might be a distant and hazy memory but it's nice to have Arnold back.

Olympus Has Fallen (2013; Antoine Fuqua / Creighton Rothenberger & Katrin Benedikt)

Antoine - bro!  Cuz!

Seriously:  WHAT THE FUCKETY FUCKINGLY FUCK, bro?

A flat-out Die Hard in the White House movie?  And now I see why Gerard Butler get so much stick.  He's about as much fun as a felching session with a parent-in-law.

Hey, the trailer was shit but I admire your work, bro, and I thought, The finished film can not be as bad as this shitty trailer.  And then I saw the finished film and I'm like, WTF?

Christ All-fucking-mighty.

Hannibal S01E01 (NBC, 2013-)

Only one name made me sit down and watch this show:  Bryan Fuller.  The man whose shows Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me were tragically cut short.  Those shows weren't my cuppa tea, I tell you, but they were watchable - more than watchable:  entertaining television.

The pilot is good.  Mr Fuller and friends seem to have taken into account all of the Hannibal material rather than committee cherry-picked from the films.  This is promising.

Think I'll have to watch it again with the Better Half at my side.