Viewed & Enjoyed Lately: TV Shows & Films
In a riff on my usual “read and enjoyed”, today I’m sharing a few of the films and TV shows I’ve viewed and enjoyed lately.
This is in no way an attempt to muscle in on Rebecca’s Big Worlds On Small Screens (with us again this Wednesday) — mainly because these are in no way detailed reviews! Just a once over lightly. 😉
Starting with the films — and the only SFF offering in the lineup — I finally got around to watching Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Concords) and Taika Waititi’s (Boy) What We Do In The Shadows and really enjoyed it. The premise, a “docu-drama” based around a vampire flat in Wellington, NZ may be more for Kiwi insiders but should also appeal to those outside out shores who heart (no pun intended!) Flight of the Concords.
I also finally — finally, after all these years! — got to watch The Hunt For Red October (yup, you guessed it—late night TV viewing) and thought it stood up pretty well to the test of time. It was kinda nice, too, to watch an action movie that was more about the ‘game’ and the who-outsmarts-whom than the kind of massive shoot ’em up/CGI fest that’s all we seem to get these days. And, oh my, so many well-known actors looking so young. 🙂
Moving on to the TV viewing, I’ve seen three new-to-me series recently. Two were detective-thrillers, both of which I thought were awesome. The third was Season One of Vikings, which I enjoyed well enough but which didn’t wow me overall. Partly it was because the history was kinda loose, but then again I generally expect that with TV and film. Also, it is based on a saga, which implies a certain amount of poetic license in the base material anyway. So I think mainly I failed to warm to it because I didn’t really care about the characters much. Which is conceivably my bad, rather than the shows, because the friends I was watching with seemed to enjoy it a lot more.
On to those police procedurals, both of which I loved. The first was Season One of the original Swedish-Danish-German series The Bridge (Broen/Bron). What can I say except that I was absorbed by both the story, particularly the way a number of subplots wove in and out of each other without the story seeming cluttered or clumsy, and I loved the characters, particularly the Swedish detective, Saga Norén. Although her reluctant Danish partner, Martin Rohde, is also great. (Word of warning, this original series comes with subtitles, which not everyone likes, but I’ve been told the US —i.e. in English—version is nowhere near as good. But the UK/French adaptation, The Tunnel, is supposed to be worth watching.)
Finally, the second police procedural was HBO’s True Detective, which again, I thought was awesome. Sure, I sighed over the ‘yet again’ opening featuring the gruesome murder of a woman (ditto The Bridge, btw), but the series quickly moved away from what initially seemed like standard TV fare (as did The Bridge.) I don’t think there was a weak acting performance in the entire series, but Woody Harrelson (Martin Hart) and Matthew McConaughey (Rust Cole) were outstanding. Some of the camera work was pretty durned amazing, too—and although my opine is that this is a show that is all about the characters, the story did not disappoint: think “psychological thriller” and you are on the right track. Highly recommended although I note that it comes with warnings re adult content.