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Doctor Who: Boom (2024)
A stunner of an episode
At the time of writing, this episode has around forty people voting it as 10/10 and roughly a similar number voting it 1/10 and almost nothing in between and I'm going to be honest, this makes me really angry.
It's a great episode. A nine and a half. I'm giving it a ten because so many people are trying to drag its ratings down because it has a non-white gay actor in the lead. And let's not pretend it's any other reason, because there is no world in which this isn't a stormer of an episode
Set on an alien planet in the middle of a war, the doctor finds himself standing on a land mine as all hell breaks loose around him. How will he save himself, how will he save the people around him, how will he keep his companion safe. That's what we're here to find out over the course of fifty minutes.
It feels like a bottle episode. There aren't many sets. It's all on a soundstage. There aren't many characters. And I'll be honest some of the effects are a bit shonky. But like so many other bottle episodes in Doctor Who, it's extraordinary. Questions of loss, faith, justification for war, exploitation by profiteers, the limits of AI, the ethics of expediency, lost love, found love, the importance of family. It's all here and it's so gripping.
It might not be for the youngest kids. I'd keep this one for maybe 12+c particularly if they're sensitive. It's a proper scary, intimidating, epic one. But for everyone else it's amazing. So far in this season we've had the full range of Who aeathetics - from silly, to operatic, from comedy to darkest wars. This show never stops blowing the bloody doors off what a sci fi show should be and going way way out there in every damn direction. Loved it. Amazing.
Doctor Who: The Devil's Chord (2024)
Just a wonderful optimistic blast of fun event TV
I'm going to be blunt. If you didn't like Russell T Davies Doctor Who last time you're not going to like this. It's spectacular, silly, camp, ridiculous and also engaging, dark and spectacularly weird.
But if you were there for it last time, it's now turned up to eleven and frankly I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT.
Absolutely loved this episode on first viewing. Jinkx Monsoon was brilliant fun and deeply creepy. There's a glimpse of the world if they win and it's scary and weird. The mystery continues. The music is fun. Are the Beatles convincing? No. Is it a shame there are no Beatles' songs in it? Yup! Was it a totally rollicking adventure that kept me glued through the whole thing. One hundred percent.
My favorite Doctor Who period is season five, Matt Smith and Stephen Moffat. Davies can often be a bit broad for me. But when he switches on the seriousness and builds towards events there is no one better. Two episodes in I'm loving this series. It feels like proper bizarre event TV again. I can't help but think if they maintain this energy this season will be a classic. Loved it. Can't stop gushing.
All of Us Strangers (2023)
I have questions and concerns and yet it's the most moving movie I've seen in years.
I'm a gay man who was a teenager in the 1980s - a period of massive homophobia, because of HIV/AIDS and Reagan and Thatcher and ... all kinds of other reasons, I guess. I don't know.
It was hard. I think I - like many many other gay teens of the period - assumed if I came out I'd be ostracized by my family, end up homeless, uneducated, with no future. I think I thought if I told anyone I was gay, they'd beat the hell out of me. I thought if I came out as an adult, I'd be ostracized by everyone who knew me. And if I had sex with anyone I'd get AIDS and die.
I knew I was gay when I was thirteen. I didn't tell another soul until I was eighteen. I didn't tell my parents until I was 21.
I'm now fifty one, and I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever really got over it. I've had relationships, but there's still shame there. They're still fear here. I've had anxiety of various kinds all my life. I've never really felt supported by my parents. I've done fine in my career, but I'm not quick to trust. It's held me back. When I'm feeling strong, then I'm fine. When I'm not feeling strong, it feels like it's ruined my life or that I was supposed to find a way out of those experiences and I've somehow just never managed to do so.
At one level, this is what this film is about. And it is hard as hell to watch, and yet somehow still doesn't do the feeling justice. At another level it's about loss and bereavement and loneliness. And sometimes it feels like it didn't need to be about some of those things, that there was enough there. And sometimes it feels like it's over-egged, or cruel or just too sad, and yet it's affecting and ... honestly I'm having trouble articulating what I think about it.
Adam, our hero, is living alone, and then strikes up a relationship with a neighbor while he tries to write about his parents who died in an accident. He travels back to his childhood home and discovers without shock that his parents are living there exactly as they were before they died. They invite him in. They talk. And he starts to visit them regularly and talk to them about his experiences.
For much of the movie, it's unclear what's going on. Is it a dramatic conceit illustrating him thinking through his memories? Is it a psychotic break as he loses contact with reality? Or is it a supernatural film about ghosts? Which one of those you want it to be will probably affect how you feel about the ending, where one of those scenarios is very definitely chosen over the others.
Meanwhile there's his relationship with Harry, a younger man, clearly dealing with some of his own crap, who comes reaching out to Adam drunkenly one evening. He's damaged, attractive, drunk, kind, open and patient. He helps Adam work through his fears. He tries to understand what's going on with Adam and his parents.
Their relationship is lovely. Healing. Affirming. Important. Challenging. Flawed. And it seems like maybe Adam will be healed by the experience of meeting his parents and able to reengage with life and his relationship. For a while it seems like there's something positive about the whole experience and it will move them all forward. It feels like it has hope. Hope, I guess I needed. Hope that you can move past pain and find love and that all of this horror would actually mean something or be worth something.
But then there's the ending.
You'll want to stop now if you haven't seen it. Last chance.
Just as our hero finds peace with his parents, he goes to see Harry, only to discover - sixth sense style - that Harry probably killed himself, but certainly died - immediately after their first meeting. Since then Adam has been having a relationship with his ghost. He helps Harry feel loved in this moment and the two of them disappear into the distance consoling each other, and it's so desperately sad, and it's sort of beautiful, it was weirdly truthful (a happy ending could seem too trite), but also too hard and harsh and cruel - he didn't get past his pain, he just had more pain to follow. He didn't get to move on. He was stuck still at the end.
I struggle with this so much. It's so, so very painful to watch. It hasn't given me hope. It's given me pain. And sadness. And I don't know how to deal with it. It's made the world feel more cruel, more awful, more distressing. And ... it may be true, but it hasn't ... helped.
This is the struggle I have with it. Much of it felt right. Much of it felt true. Much of it felt hard. But is that enough? What if I watch it and come away feeling more lacking in hope or faith or a sense of the future? Is its truth enough? Is seeing the truth of gay pain enough? I don't know if it is. I think I need gay hope. I think I need gay acceptance. I need to feel like the future is better.
And the death of the parents gave this opportunity to have Adam talk to his parents about his pain and get acceptance. And that was amazing. But bizarrely, telling that story of loss got in the way of telling the story of gay loneliness. And minimized it. And I struggled with that.
I have issues with it. But I think to some extent it's because I identified with it too strongly. It meant too much. And I feel like maybe that level of identification might not be possible for a straight person who didn't experience this period and time. I sometimes wonder if straight people are able to find a story of gay people experiencing awful pain somehow beautiful (like Brokeback Mountain) when all I see is the pain. When all I feel is the rawness. This felt like it was all about the rawness.
But the rawness and the pain is real too, I guess. Much as I wish it wasn't. And I've never seen a film that connected with me quite as directly as this one, or made me feel the pain quite as much. And here I am hours later obsessively writing about it.
And that's why it's getting such a high rating. How could I not? It spoke to me like no film ever has. But I can't give it a ten out of ten, because there's a shard of ice buried in my chest and a rawness to my eyes and a darkness to my future and this movie made me aware of them, but didn't take the pain away.
Sex Education: Episode 8 (2023)
Odd final season but honestly it still worked for me
I have loved this show, and without question the delay between seasons and the cast shift in the final season have changed things up a lot and not all to the good. A lot of people find the move to the right on school a bit much, and the fact that the cast actually became truly diverse may stretch some credulity and clearly has pissed off some people who thought a socially progressive show went a bit too far.
But honestly, while much of it was wonky and strange and off kilter and a little broken in places, the ending still worked for me. All the little endings worked out well. The strange and painful conclusions that weren't perfectly cheerful, but were emotionally tricky and flawed. All worked. I got a bit teary eyed in places.
Was it perfect? No. Did I have issues? Yes. Did some of it make my eyes roll a little? Yup. Did it stick the landing? Well not in plot, no. But emotionally yeah it did. For me anyway.
Foundation: The Last Empress (2023)
Possibly the first truly great episode
This has been an odd show. It is not super faithful to the original books. It seems to dramatize the tension between Hari's predictions of great movements of people and the effects of the outliers - individuals who act in chaotic ways whose actions can't be predicted and actually *may* be forming history - in a way that I think is almost directly in opposition to the first few books of Asimov's series.
Often it doesn't seem to work very well - the tension isn't so much dramatized as it is just an unclear mess on the screen. But every so often, episodes rise through the disorganized world-building and give you a sense of something organized and interesting.
It's not really Foundation as such, but when it happens it's suddenly really quite good.
It happens in this episode with some big reveals, big plot points, some clockwork ticking into place and some fun scenes and engaging characters. But it also benefits from some *great* direction from Roxann Dawson, with the pacing, characters, form, shape and drama all operating at top form.
Genuinely this *may* come to be seen as a great show. It's definitely not a great one yet. But this may be a so-far mediocre show's first truly great episode. And who knows, that may bode very well for any seasons to come.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Just spectacular
Went to see it by myself after going to the dentist to cheer myself up. I was running late so had no time for snack or drinks. Eight people in the cinema.
It took about five minutes to realize it was going to be spectacular, but genuinely I had no idea *how* spectacular. At the end there was a second's silence and all eight of us started cheering and clapping. We all stuck around and said how much we'd enjoyed it to each other too. Never happens. Was just great.
The animation is even better than before. The art direction is extraordinary. Every one has a distinct style. All the characters are amazing. It has a bunch of interesting and witty cameos. The plot's reveal is disorienting and shocking. The action sequences are just beyond comparison and the ending - albeit a 'to be continued' hit so damn hard.
If i *had* to quibble I'd say it got a little shapeless in the last third - you couldn't quite tell if it was five minutes from the end or twenty five, and there were a few moments I thought it was about to end for it to keep going, but the final ending was just perfect and impactful and interesting and I cannot WAIT to see it again and for the final part.
Absolutely stunning. Work of art.
Sisu (2022)
Terminator vs. Nazis
The ostensible premise of this film is that there's a retired commando in Finland who is gold mining, he gets a strike, starts to take it to the bank, runs into Nazis who take his gold and then he goes after them.
But let's be honest, this is basically a Terminator movie where the Terminator is going after Nazis and you're on his side.
For the budget it's insanely well realized, very stylish and interesting with some amazing set pieces. It's also wildly influences by Tarantino, with about 10% Guy Ritchie and a chunk of body horror ultraviolence in it too.
It never stops being fun but it does ... strain credibility ... a few times. It's a bit hard to work out what register to set your brain at - is this entertaining schlock or gritty realism or stylized samurai action. At various points it seems to be more one than the other, and when it hops its rails and goes in a different position for a bit you may lose your place on the emotional spectrum. Darkly real moments are jammed next to wildly absurd set pieces in a way that makes you laugh not 100% with joy but sort of 30% with incredulity. He did WHAT?!
Only near the end does the small budget really show through and limit a few of the scenes, which end up looking a bit like the After Effects projects of incredibly precocious nineteen year olds. Otherwise the film is fun, gory, horrifying, funny and invigorating viewing.
It's pure, driven and clear in its mission, and an enjoyable watch. Knocked off a few points for being derivative in style, gory as hell and the final shaky special effects.
The Last of Us: Left Behind (2023)
Great but almost painfully tense
Watching these two kids discover bits of the old world and try to talk about their feelings was oddly lovely.
From almost the first moment though you know what's going to happen and the entire episode is about building the tension in the background. Almost unbearably at times.
Nice world-building. Good character development too. And honestly it looked absolutely ridiculously good. This is the HBO budget in action.
And it adds a little moral complexity to everything as well. You see FEDRA having different perspectives, same with the fireflies. And it's all elegantly played out between the two main characters.
It's a simpler episode than some of them but it's wildly effective.
Ms. Marvel (2022)
Really enjoyable and great for kids
This isn't the most adult of shows, but it is incredibly sweet, fun and it's great to see a Pakistani family represented. Thoroughly enjoyed the first episode and hoping the rest maintains the same fun. It's really lovely to see Marvel manage to do a range of shows for different audiences and age ranges and still have it feel consistent. Lovely feel; rich in color, witty, funny and adorable.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
A mostly pleasing mess of a movie
I'm not going to lie - this movie has great images, scary bits, quite a lot of cool drama, a lot of fan service and all kinds of stuffs to get excited about. BUT, it is incredibly messy-particularly in its first half-where things just sort of happen at a ridiculously breakneck pace without much in the way of structure or shape.
It feels *very* much like the first third in particular of the movie is missing a dozen scenes to fill in the gaps and rehandle the pacing. Wanda's first appearance and her big reveal are barely sketched out, the CGI on the first fight with the tentacled creature has extremely dubious bits, and there are big chunks which just don't really seem to connect. There are bits of foreshadowing that are just missing. It seems chopped around and apart.
But when it gets going it's really good fun. From about halfway through until the end it zooms along, and you mostly forget the problematic bits. It's a scarier movie and a more horror feeling movie than any of the others, but it's very enjoyable.
If you loved No Way Home, as I did, then this is simply nowhere near as masterly or beautifully assembled. That movie's like a perfect timepiece of construction. This is that movie if they cut forty minutes from the first half and it didn't entirely make sense.
An entertaining piece of Marvel, with some really interesting risks taken, but all in all, it was a bit of a mid-grade outing.
Swiss Army Man (2016)
A bit hard to parse, but I think I liked it
There is no disputing that this is a strange film or that it contains a lot of scatalogical and biological bits of magical realism and terrible jokes and very odd set-ups that you can choose to go with or you can get hung up on.
I don't think it's a spoiler to say that this is a story of a suicidal young man who befriends a washed-up corpse and then they talk about the meaning of existence while going through some adventures.
What I think *is* more of a spoiler is that a lot about this film is situated on how you respond to the conclusion. To me it seems pretty clear that in retrospect you realize that Hank is an abused and severely repressed young man with some pretty significant mental health problems who has pretty significantly lost his grasp on reality.
That recasts quite a lot of what's happened before as the fantasies and confusion of a young man trying to make sense of his existence and his problems, who has actually been living a very disturbing and sad life with an actual corpse just on the edge of civilization.
The film pops into focus once you start thinking about what you've seen now as it probably was in the cold light of day. That he's not been far from the house of the woman he's obsessed with. That he's attempted to make friends with a corpse and set up a camp. That he's not travelled for hundreds of miles, but the entire plot takes place in a couple of miles from her house. That the stories he's told are of his abuse, shyness, obsession and increasing detachment from reality. And that his final escape is - almost like in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - to disengage from reality completely.
If you read the film this way, then it's a tragedy. A story of someone disintegrating and self-dramatizing their trauma on the way in a whimsical and fun way. If you take it at face value in any way (which is hard, but weirdly not hard enough) then it just seems like a disorienting high concept buddy romp with some childish and disturbing humor. I think a lot of people respond to it entirely on this level, and I don't think the reviews have generally helped.
For me this is Jacob's Ladder but with some teenage humor rather than horror masking the horrific truth behind the scenes. And as such it *mostly* worked for me. A far more imaginative film than I was expecting. Witty, clever and affecting but not quite as masterly as it needed to be to completely stick the landing and manage the tone.
Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils (2022)
Not that gripping, not that bad
Lots of people can't stand Chibnall and I have to admit, I'm not the biggest fan either, but it really wasn't that bad. It was just a bit forgettable.'
The plot is pretty simple - sea devils are woken up, need a McGuffin to destroy the world, some things happen, Doctor saves the day. There's not a lot of character development, not a lot of character generally, and some of the lines are presented pretty flatly. I also swear to God that if the Doctor says, "Unless...!" one more time, I will throw something at the TV...
But apart from that, it was fine! I mean, the CGI wasn't great but it was perfectly adequate. It mostly looked okay. The plot bounced along fairly cheerfully. It was pretty much straight down the line generic Who. It didn't blow my mind or anything, but I definitely didn't hate it.
Honestly I'd probably give it a six, but everyone's so damn negative I felt like I had to give it a bit of a bounce. It's basically a Shakespeare Code level episode which has a 7.6 on IMDB, and that's closer to what it deserves. Feels like a bunch of grumpy old men wagging their fingers at something that's just ... you know ... fine.
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
Plays with expectations every step of the way
This movie plays with your expectations absolutely perfectly all the way through the movie. I have never seen a movie that does it so elegantly and so completely convincingly. You think it's one thing, then you think it's another thing, then it lets you believe it's something else. Every step of the way you're led through the entire process, building your theories, thinking you're ahead of it, and every single time it's ahead of you and knows where you're going. And then there's the ending which *really* polarizes people. Some people hate it and think it's unearned. It isn't. If you rewatch the movie every single thing has been flagged and built out. Some people love it for the sheer wonderful insanity of the whole thing. I think I'm one of those. Is it a thriller? Is it a kidnapping? Is it an attack? What's going on? You won't know until the last few minutes and ... I guess I'm just saying that you need to let it take you there. I think it's a perfect bit of structure and plotting.