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Reviews
True Detective (2014)
Blatant Netflix advert for Camel cigarettes
S3E6 40 minutes in.
'It's time to stop depriving myself' he smokes a cigarette,
Makes an obvious point of passing a pack of Camel cigarettes to his son, son takes one, lights it and smokes it.
All that was missing was a caption at the bottom saying 'Smoking, bringing families together, you know it makes sense'.
Just unbelievable, that's a cigarette advert right there in the middle of a TV programme. They are banned from showing cigarette adverts on TV but they are mysteriously appearing in more and more programmes, almost as if it is deliberate. Almost as if someone is getting paid for the product placement and the regulators are asleep.
OFCOM!!!!!!!!
3 Body Problem (2024)
Blatant cigarette advertising
It's a bit slow but I managed to hang on through the Chinese subtitles.
I then managed to hang on through the brutality and torture and then even through watching other people pretending to play a VR computer game for no real reason but then came what is becoming a regular cigarette smoking advert in Netflix productions - 'hey I'm going to have a smoke', (passes the packet of cigarettes) - 'why don't you have one too'. And they always do! It's like the 1970s again except the cigarette adverts are now in the programmes. We should be asking exactly what is going on here and where are the broadcasting watchdogs? Are they asleep?
Other reviewers have noticed this in 3BP and True Detective S3 for example and their reviews get disproportionately voted down. That's very interesting too. Almost as if something is going on.
The Beekeeper (2024)
Very satisfying scam interceptor
This is how it should be done!
It's Jason Statham playing Jason Statham in another Jason Statham revenge film so it's ok but this time he is going after Internet scammers so it's very satisfying to see them getting their comeuppance.
Scam Interceptors on the BBC should do it like this.
Tell me again how much you can save me off my monthly phone bill, BAM -Take That
or that $12m in the Bank of Africa account that you need me to help you get out of the country - KAPOW or how I missed my parcel delivery and it needs to be rescheduled for £1.30, you just need my card details- BAM, in your face! :-D.
Ghosts (2021)
UK vs US - it's very very close
I'm not normally a fan of English series refilmed in America but this is very good.
Sometimes a US version is ok (The Office), sometimes it really doesn't work and loses a lot in translation (Shameless) but sometimes it's almost? Better than the original.
I love both versions, it's a clever idea and often very funny with subtle jokes in there that can be easy to miss.
There are familiar characters in both versions but also slightly adapted characters for the change of location but it still works well, especially Thorfinn.
The two versions start off with almost the exact same story for each episode but soon diverge along their own storylines.
Early episodes of the UK version are slightly better in my opinion but later episodes of the US version are (slightly) better stories and the humour/humor is funnier. Don't tell anyone I said that.
I can't get enough of either of them.
Time (2021)
Series 1 very good, Series 2 Brilliant
Both stories were brilliant, brilliant acting making the story completely believable all the way to the end.
Series 1 in the men's prison and series 2 in the women's prison.
Sean Bean is excellent as always and takes us on a journey showing how easily any of us could end up in that situation.
I wasn't going to watch series 2 as any prison drama is going to be harrowing at times but I'm glad I did. There are grim moments but also heart warming moments.
I'm especially pleased that Jodie Wittaker gets to show what a brilliant actor she is again after being thrown under a bus by the writers of Doctor Who.
Bodies (2023)
Just awful
I barely made it to the end of the first episode. I scored it high at 2 stars because I'm sure there is some clever time jumping story in there somewhere.
Unfortunately, the acting is really bad even by some good and well known actors so I'm blaming the script.
The story improved slightly in episode 2 but then descended into something like an episode from the last series of Doctor Who.
Ah yes the script. No one in the UK will know what 'coniptions' are. It's an American word so this was written by Americans. That explains why English characters kept referring to 'cops' and a 'rap sheet' etc.
No one in 1941 London would say they were going on a 'date'. We didn't start saying that until the eighties.
They also spoke correct English so wouldn't have said e.g. He will 'likely' do something. The correct word is 'probably'. A script writer should have a basic understanding of adjectives and adverbs.
The well worn out practice of ramming the diversity agenda down the audience's throats is well past its sell by date and this effort looks like it was taken straight from a comic book.
Silo (2023)
So good I bought the books
I loved this. I liked the story, the cast and the acting.
Yes it's a bit Logan's Run but I liked that too. Some parts of the story were not explained as well as they could have been (the good tape vs the bad tape, no spoilers) but we got it in the end. The book explains it better.
Some think it was a bit slow but these days we are spoilt by special effects, super heroes, helicopter gunships and a murder a minute at the expense of much of a story. This story has a lot to it and requires the viewer to pay attention and think.
At the end I needed to know what happens next. Happily this series only covers the first half of the first book so I'm busy reading the second half to find out.
Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)
Lazy American writing
The storyline started off well but rapidly became ridiculous and unbelievable.
You can tell this was a Netflix effort. Many of the cast were given American English dialect lines to recite saying things that no-one over here would ever say.
Presumably all the English actors and BBC crew (and Dermot Crowley) kept quiet or were shouted down.
Allow me to translate the dialogue back into English from England.
Cell phone = mobile phone, or just phone would have done
Burner = Pay as you go phone
We can't raise the boss = we can't contact / get hold of the boss
We are a mile and a half out = We are a mile and a half away
Kerosene = paraffin
Conniptions !!! In 59 years of living in England I have never heard this word and had to look it up. No one this side of the Atlantic will know what it means and no English person would have used it.
And finally, Dover ferries go to France. They don't go to Norway. Same goes for the helicopter coming back. It would have had to leave Norway heading south, fly over Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France and then turn north to fly over the white cliffs into England!
The Eagle (2011)
It won me round
I was all set to hate this in 2011 but I changed my mind. I watched it again recently so I've left this review.
Firstly we have Romans with broad American accents instead of English accents except Romans obviously didn't speak English at all. We are just used to Hollywood casting English actors as Romans because it makes them sound Old World and we don't need subtitles.
I get the parallel with American soldiers in Afghanistan and I actually think it works well.
Secondly the use of Gaelic in films is often forced and unnatural and only included to make the film seem a bit more exotic. Jamie, Ned and Tahar actually had a good craic at it (see what I did there?) although there was a weird mix of modern Scots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic being spoken to each other. One minute it's An bhfuil(Irish), the next it's A bheil(Scots) and if I heard rightly they were jumping between chunnaic(Scots) and chonaic(Irish) and then using Ceard(Irish) from Tahar and freisin (Irish) from Ned.
But then who is to say that people with different dialects wouldn't have travelled and met each other.
In the end the only bit that made me uncomfortable was the corny final assembly of the remnants of the legion to regain their honour in the final battle.
Prodigal Son: The Job (2020)
Love the series but must point out the continuity error
One of my pet hates is the wrong noise from the wrong motorbike(s). You know, when they show a v twin Ducati but dub the sound of a screaming Kawasaki inline 4 cylinder over it.
This was so much worse. The noisy bikes riding into the shop were Zero SR/Fs which are electric! (They are great, I have one) So there is no engine and no exhaust pipe and definitely no sound of revving a petrol bike.
Still love the series though.
Doctor Who: The Tsuranga Conundrum (2018)
Diversity bingo!
I don't know what the BBC think they have done but the reviews on here are much more entertaining than the actual episodes.
So Doctor Who is now a woman (for the sake of equality), ok but she is a bit ditsy, scatterbrained, unsure of herself and panicky. What are the writers trying to tell us about women?
I was looking forward to seeing how Jodie Whittaker developed the character but it seems that her acting talent is to be sabotaged by appalling writing which swings from condescending moral lessons more suited to an old episode of Thundercats (hey kids it's ok if someone looks a bit different) to enforced 'positive discrimination' to tick as many boxes as possible, forgetting that 'positive' discrimination is still discrimination!
I now sit down of a Sunday evening to enjoy a nice game of Diversity Bingo. It's a bit like a warped 21st century version of Noah's Ark! "I need two of every type".
The usual team are the woman in charge, a black man, an asian woman and an old token white man.
All other white men are either inept, cowardly or evil. (Let that be a lesson to you, kids!).
In episode 1 the doctor tells us that only idiots carry knives but in episode 2 the empowered Northern Irish lesbian pulls out a knife to save the inept white man (yes, another one) by cutting the scarf monster that was suffocating him. I bet he was glad she was carrying that knife :-D
I've just watched Episode 5 - which adds a female Scottish asian (triple points) and another white man. I'm not sure that is still allowed but he is portrayed as inept so I suppose that is ok but then I notice he is also ginger so another diversity box ticked. I never worked out why he was pregnant, I don't have a box for that on my bingo card!
They still have a way to go though. I haven't seen any fat people on the programme yet but if I look outside there are lots of them. Fat people have a right to be on Doctor Who too. Selective diversity going on here I think.
For next week I'm hoping for a fat Israeli transgender buddhist.
It's hard to decide whether this is worse than giving Top Gear to Chris Evans and Matt Le Blanc but in both cases the writers have set up the performers for a fall.
The Royals (2015)
Actually quite funny but let down by English actors speaking American
I'm finding this quite amusing as a deliberately trashy spoof.
The actors play their characters well but are let down by screen writing giving them phrases they would never use. E.g. Queen: "Where were you raised" (brought up) Guy on motorbike: "Do you need a ride" (lift)
.... as well as a multitude of basic mistakes using lines we never use here.
It seems unlikely that the large cast of English actors didn't point these out but I suppose they were ignored.
It will be interesting to see if the characters start "reaching out" to each other, saying "like" every few words or go the whole hog and turn into Bill and Ted. Awesome Dudes!