Reynolph Reviews

Shameless (2004–2013)

Reminds you how good TV can be

[10/10 · 14 January 2004]

Once in a while, there comes along a TV drama series that makes you glad the medium was invented. A series that makes you glad to be alive; a series that breaks your heart that you have to wait a whole week to see the next episode. Shameless is such a series.

The Gallagher family consists of dad Frank and his six children (their mum apparently abandoned them years ago). Frank spends most of his time out drinking, only returning to the family's council house on a run-down Manchester estate when he's dragged home comatose by the police in the early hours of the morning. The result is that the six kids more or less bring themselves up, with the eldest - 20-year-old Fiona - acting as the token mum.

From all this, it should make for depressing viewing. But the beauty of Paul Abbott's semi-autobiographical drama is that it's not even remotely depressing. The six Gallagher kids, their friends and neighbours form an extended family where everyone loves and supports everyone else; and the result is bawdy, rude, but above all uplifting, heartwarming and fun. The performances are uniformly excellent and to single anyone out would be unfair. The first episode does a wonderful job of introducing the large cast of characters - not just in a cursory way either, but in sufficient depth to make you care about this assortment of misfits enough to want to tune in next week to see what befalls them next.

This is what TV should be. Watch it.

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Funny, affectionate and uplifting

[7/10 · 26 November 2001]

Galaxy Quest successfully pulls off a pretty difficult trick. It first gets laughs out of the notion of a bunch of ageing has-been actors reduced to doing the promotional rounds of fan conventions for the cancelled SF series they once starred in. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, however, it also portrays them in sufficiently sympathetic detail that, when they then find themselves in genuine jeopardy and are forced to find depths of resourcefulness they never knew they had in order to survive, we actually care deeply about the outcome.

This feat requires the writing, direction and performances all to be top-notch. Fortunately, they are. There's a wonderful scene near the beginning of the film where Tim Allen, as washed-up actor Jason Nesmith, drinks himself into a stupor while watching his younger self saving the galaxy on TV. We cut between the hammy, Shatneresque heroics of Nesmith on screen, to Allen's beautifully played reaction in the here and now as he struggles to speak a few lines of dialogue in unison with his screen self before shutting his eyes in pain to block it out.

Repeated viewing reveals many wonderful gags and nuances that are easily missed first time around. Just one example: during the opening credits sequence where the cast are waiting backstage at a convention for Allen to show up, we see Fred Kwan (played by Tony Shalhoub) struggling unsuccessfully for several minutes to open a biscuit tin. Only later do we discover that Fred's character in the TV series is the ship's engineer.

Galaxy Quest has genuinely funny dialogue, and moments of enjoyable knockabout humour, blended with warm, likable characters. It has, ironically, better visual FX than The Phantom Menace (the hilarious sequence of the ship leaving space dock only works because the effects are flawless).

And it has moments of genuine poignancy. Recommended.

Bob & Rose (2001)

Warm, engaging comedy-drama

[26 September 2001]

Russell T. Davies, the creator and writer of Channel 4's hit gay drama "Queer as Folk" (1999) has come up trumps again with this warm, touching comedy about thirtysomething schoolteacher Bob who, having been happily gay all his adult life, has a chance meeting with feisty Rose and finds - to his amazement - that he fancies her.

Alan Davies (BBC1's Jonathan Creek) is perfectly cast as likeably diffident Bob, while Lesley Sharp is excellent as no-nonsense Rose. The supporting cast, too, give beautifully judged performances: Daniel Ryan is heartbreaking as Rose's boyfriend, Andy, as is Jessica Stevenson as Bob's colleague, Holly, who secretly carries a torch for him. Penelope Wilton puts in a hilarious turn as Bob's mother, who regularly embarrasses him in public by being a vociferous campaigner for gay rights.

As with Queer as Folk, the joy of Bob and Rose lies in the way it skilfully blends laugh-out-loud comedy and painfully recognisable human dilemmas. You find yourself rooting for this unlikely couple, yet wondering how a writer of Davies's calibre will resolve the situation happily without recourse to sentimental cliché.

Jaws (1975)

Better every time

[9/10 · 26 February 2001]

Jaws is one of a handful of films I can watch again and again, and it gets better every time. I queued round the block to see it the first time I was allowed to the cinema on my own back in 1975; the crowds were such that I missed the beginning, not getting inside the theatre until the bit where Roy Scheider comes out of the police station and walks down the street, giving a little skip-and-a-jump when he hears the band playing. (I still love that moment.) Two hours later, when the film had finished, I discovered I'd been so hypnotised by what was on the screen I still had my coat done up.

In the intervening years, I've read Carl Gottlieb's book about the making of the film countless times, and in 1998 finally made a pilgrimage to Martha's Vineyard to see the location of the fictional Amity Island for myself. (Travellers' tip: they don't like you mentioning sharks there.) I walked in Roy Scheider's footsteps down that same street in Edgartown, I crossed to Chappaquiddick on the ferry where Murray Hamilton first puts the screws on him, I cycled over the bridge across the entry to "the pond", I sat on *that* beach.

My VHS copy was worn pretty thin when the marvellous DVD release came to my rescue, along with the excellent behind-the-scenes documentary. Of course, since missing that terrifying opening scene as a teenager, I've made up for it since - and it's probably the one scene that I still find difficult to watch, for Susan Backlinie's panic and agony as Chrissy always sound so painfully real.

If I had to pick a favourite scene, I'd be hard pushed to choose between two. One is, of course, Robert Shaw's classic USS Indianapolis speech. The other is one of the most masterfully subtle pieces of directing Spielberg - or anyone else - ever pulled off. It's the scene where Brody, having been publicly humiliated by the grieving Mrs Kintner, sits that evening at the dinner table, unaware that his toddler son is mimicking his every facial expression. But this isn't quite the tension-releasing moment it appears to be. Listen to John Williams' haunting, nursery-chime-like music at this point. It's undermined by a slowly repeated, discordant bass note, reflecting Brody's mood. Then we hear Brody's wife Ellen letting in Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), who seems to be the only person on the island who knows what's on Brody's mind. "Is your husband at home? I'd really like to talk to him," he says, proffering a gift of wine. "Er, yes, so would I," responds Ellen tautly, showing him in. He sits and everyone looks at each other for a moment. Then Hooper asks, "So: how was your day?" And Brody relaxes, and grins, and says, "Swell...."

I still get emotional every time I watch that scene. And it's partly to do with the situation and the performances, sure; but it's also because the absolute perfection with which it's constructed leaves me breathless.

And, of course, we're still a long way off seeing the shark at that point. :-)

Risky Business (1983)

Wonderful satire of Reagan/Thatcher era

[8/10 · 11 February 2001]

Risky Business is, at first sight, nothing more than a slick coming-of-age comedy. But it is much more. The values that are being pounded into Joel as a "Future Enterpriser" (whereby he and his schoolmates have to make and ruthlessly market a product that people will want to buy) are exactly those that he uses so successfully to turn his parents' home into a bordello for one night, grossing $8000 in the process. His actions may be seen as seedy and reprehensible, but they mirror precisely the economic values of the period - it's no coincidence that Paul Brickman made this remarkable film at a time when Reagan/Thatcher policies were leading to financial fortune for some at the expense of destitution for many. The film is a parody of 1980s business ethics - hence the title.

Oh, and it's also funny (Bronson Pinchot is marvellous as Joel's geeky friend Barry), erotic (the scene on the train especially so, which is remarkable as you don't see any flesh) and with a great soundtrack (witness Joel taking his Dad's Porsche out for a spin to the pounding accompaniment of Jeff Beck's "The Pump", or the instant classic status accorded to the scene where Joel dances in his underpants to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll").

Men in Black (1997)

A treat for both eyes and brain

[8/10 · 9 January 2001]

MIB is a rare thing: a Hollywood action comedy that actually has brains as well as laughs. Even rarer, the laughs are frequently unforced and underplayed (especially by Tommy Lee Jones) - which of course is much funnier. Script, direction and performances are all sharp, funny and intelligent. Special mention to Vincent D'Onofrio, whose physical performance (as a dead man's skin inhabited by a giant cockroach!) must have been extremely uncomfortable to sustain.

The greatest compliment I can pay to the FX teams is to point out that the alien characters frequently switch from being Rick Baker's animatronic creations to CGI and back again within a single scene - and the two are generally indistinguishable. Great stunt work too, particularly by Keith Campbell in a stunning shot filmed on the roof of the Guggenheim Museum.

Lesser directors/producers would probably have been tempted to add pointless additional action sequences that didn't serve the story, just to pad it out to the expected blockbuster length of two hours plus. Full marks to Sonnenfeld, Spielberg et al for knowing just when to end this movie and leaving the audience wanting more.