Reviews

Dreadful. Absolutely, irredeemably dreadful. Series 11 was awful but, based on this, Series 12 is even worse. Some of the worst characters I've ever seen on a TV series wandering around a boring, senseless plot. Poor directing that looks like it was filmed on someone's phone, but the acting and writing is the real problem. I've never been so bored by Doctor Who.

If you're not a fan of David Lynch then you're not going to like this show. End of story. Unless you've watched and loved Lynch's movies like Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, then you're not going to like The Return. This is hardcore Lynch, challenging for even his biggest fans. I wouldn't call The Return a sequel to the original Twin Peaks. It's more a sequel to Fire Walk With Me than anything else, with a few elements of Twin Peaks sprinkled in. So, if you're just a fan of the original Twin Peaks and you're not familiar with Lynch's work, then The Return is not for you. You're not going to like it, I can assure you of that.

This is ARTHOUSE TV. It's not a murder mystery like the original. It's a hardcore surrealist midnight movie style psychological horror. And while I love it because of that, I can see why some people hate it.

From the twisted mind of David Lynch comes BLUE VELVET, a movie that was immediately controversial on release in 1986 with many critics (including Roger Ebert) calling it nothing more than a sick joke intended to shock and disturb, with an excess of gore, foul language and sexual violence. Over time, however, Blue Velvet has come to be remembered as one of the greatest movies of the 1980s and a nightmarish classic from the renowned director. Blue Velvet is a dark psychosexual horror movie about a teenage voyeur who finds himself drawn into an underbelly of crime, drugs and sex in his small town. As with Lynch movie, the true meaning of the film is up to each individual audience member to decide, but we can all agree this movie is beautifully directed, acted and composed, and is a stylish trip into the the depths of the human subconscious.

The Romanoffs hasn't exactly been a success, but there have been glimmers of good storytelling among this season. I think both this episode and last week's episode were really good, and they seemed to finally capture what Matthew Weiner intended for with this show.

What can possibly be said about the ending of Mad Men that hasn't already be said? This episode is absolutely perfect and it's the beautiful and bittersweet ending this incredible series deserves. "Person to Person" is true to the series that preceded it, paying respect to the previous 91 episodes, while also being as unpredictable and subversive as Mad Men always has been.

"Person to Person" is an ending that understands everything that made Mad Men great. The structure of this episode is similar to The Sopranos finale (a series that Matthew Weiner wrote on), focusing on the characters beginning a new chapter in their lives and ending with an ambiguous final scene that leaves it to the audience to decide exactly what happened. And while I thought The Sopranos finale was very good, Mad Men perfects this formula and this episode is amazing.

"Person to Person" is one of the greatest series finales of all time, and it's only fitting that it belongs to one of the greatest TV series of all time.

Mad Men is a masterful period drama which explores the world of advertising in New York City in the 1960s. Over seven seasons, it is a slow-moving yet effective character study lovingly recreates a decade of intense social change and, thorough its nuanced characters, reflects the true nature of the human condition. Deeply psychological, madly funny, strongly emotional and compulsively entertaining all at the same time, Mad Men is both an artfully crafted series and an emotional examination into the insecurities that bind us all together.

I've got say, this is a lot better than I was expecting. For long-time fans like myself, this is a great reintroduction to the world of Doctor Who, with just as much fun and adventure as there's always been. For new fans, this is a great starter for everything this show represents. The characters - especially the companions - are great and really well-written, I realised I liked them all pretty early into the episode. The actors are great too. Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor is decent but I'm not entirely sold on her performance yet. She has potential and I like what she's doing with the character, but I feel like her best work is yet to come. I should also note that the visual style of this episode is amazing - it looked like a movie. No more of the wobbly sets that us fans are used to. New showrunner Chris Chibnall and director Jamie Childs really hit the ground running on this episode, and I'm impressed with their work.

I should note, there seemed to be a lot of talk on the Internet about fans fearing that this episode would be overly political and try to shove feminist themes towards the viewer. I shared some of these concerns. People who also worried about these can relax - this episode was focused on the story and the characters, the politics were barely present. Chibnall & co have proven that they are committed to good storytelling here.

Overall, this was a very impressive episode and a great start to a new era. I'm excited for what's to come.

This episode was a bit of a step-down from the pilot. One of the problems I had with the pilot was that it was a little too overstuffed and didn't have enough emotional weight. This episode doesn't really improve on that and in many ways is actually a bit of a mess. It's difficult to determine what any of this is supposed to mean.

This series still has potential and I like a lot of the ideas, but I hope they start capitalising on the better ideas sooner rather than later.

After hearing a lot of good stuff about this show, I decided to finally start watching it. I haven't read the novel it's based on, but I am a fan of co-creator Damon Lindelof's previous series "Lost". I didn't quite know what to expect from this pilot episode, but after watching it I was suitably impressed and definitely interested in continuing with this show.

Unlike "Lost", which had an explosive first episode that really hit the ground running and left the audience gasping for more, "The Leftovers" is very different. This first episode is deliberately paced and meditative, with far more focus going to the characters rather than the story. The focus on character was always my favourite part of "Lost", so it's pleasing to see that Lindelof is giving an even stronger focus to character in this show.

Despite having a high-concept premise (the sudden disappearance of 2% of the world's population), the premise doesn't drive this episode. The premise forces the characters into action, and it's the characters who make this episode so intriguing and it's the characters who I'm most interested to learn more about, not the mystery.

Overall, "The Leftovers" begins with a solid pilot episode that has a lot of potential and drew me enough to make me want to keep watching this show. That's what a pilot episode is meant to do. Unlike "Lost", this show doesn't hit its stride in the first episode, so I imagine it will take a few more episodes for me to decide if this show is as good as many people claim. But, on the basis of the first episode, I'm intrigued in what this show has to offer.

Pretty much all action movies are the same. This is pretty much the same movie as Rampage (which also had Dwayne Johnson in it) and that only came out a couple of months ago. Is this a good movie? Not really, but it's fairly entertaining. It's exactly what you expect to be. High-octane, action-packed, funny and actually pretty enjoyable for the most part. I wouldn't go out of your to see it, but you won't be disappointed either, as long as you check your expectations first. It's not art, but it's not trash either.

This is honestly the worst movie I've seen in a very long time. The whole "spy plot" is lazy and derivative and feels like it's been plucked wholesale from some 80s Cold War thriller...hence why this movie makes no sense. They've essentially made a Cold War thriller but set it in the modern day, without updating anything, meaning that the conflict is outdated and the movie is incredibly unrealistic. You could credit this movie by saying that they don't make movies like this anymore, but there's a reason they don't. How anyone under 30 is supposed to make sense of any of this is beyond me. It almost feels like they forget the time period at times though, seeing as this movie expects me to believe that the CIA is doing file transfers by floppy disk in 2018. The only area where this movie is putting any effort in at all is how the violence and nudity, which is excessive to the point of being repulsive. I get that a Cold War thriller needs violence, but I don't think any cinema goer anywhere can profess to wanting to see graphic and bloody depictions of a woman breaking her leg, of torture by skin grafting or a man struggle to get an erection in front a competently naked woman (am I watching an actual movie or is it porn?). It feels almost like the point of the movie was to be provocatively gratuitous and to make it's audience feel sick. When violence or sex aids the story, then by all means. But in a movie with a plot as piss-weak as this, it almost feels as though this movie exists to be graphic and extreme - and honestly, it's disgusting.

But apart from that main issue, another problem is that this movie is just plain mediocre in every other regard. It's directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games) and across all his films he has demonstrated some very bland and undistinctive filming. The cinematography is nothing special, the style is nothing special, the music is OK but certainly not James Newton Howard's best work. And there's the acting...oh boy. OK, in fairness Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons, Mary Louise Parker and Joely Richardson are all pretty good...if somewhat unremarkable. Joel Edgerton as the stupidly named character Nate Nash is flat out terrible, and the low point of the movie. Jennifer Lawrence is also not doing her best work her. I think she's an overrated actress, but she can be OK in the right movie. The issue is she frequently chooses the wrong movies (Passengers, say) and in this movie she's distracted from her acting by trying to keep up the terribly uneven Russian accent she's doing. The romance between Lawrence and Edgerton's characters - which mind, is central to the movie - is unbelievable, lacks chemistry and is plain boring to watch. Francis Lawrence and Jennifer Lawrence had the exact same problem on The Hunger Games movies. I've been blaming Josh Hutcherson for years, but maybe it's these two that are to blame.

Ultimately, in different circumstances Red Sparrow could have been passable. Had the studio put its foot down, the casting had been better and Francis Lawrence (who is a hack who should never make a movie again) had not been involved, it could have been alright. I don't think it was ever destined to be great, but it wouldn't have been this either. As it stands, this movie is plain terrible as it lets its mediocre elements be dragged down by the excessive obsession with violence and sex, making it a down right nasty movie to watch, that I can't imagine would bring pleasure to anyone. If the plot had been more clever or original, or the tone had been more campy and fun, it might have been OK. But what we have is a mean spirited, dour and plain boring execution of a script packed with dumb ideas. I cannot recommend this movie at all.

Just a final comment: this movie may well prove how TV is overtaking movies as the dominant medium. Answer me this: why would anyone pay $20 to go the cinema and see this when they can stay home and watch the TV show The Americans, which is a fantastic execution of a similar idea? The Americans is amazing, Red Sparrow is a waste of time.

No matter how divisive the Internet community, there is one thing that everyone seems to agree on: "The Shawshank Redemption" is the greatest movie of all time. What Writer/Director Frank Darabont achieved was commendable: he took a very good short story by Stephen King and turned it into an even better film masterpiece. The fact that this was Darabont's debut as a director makes it all the more impressive.

What is there there say about this movie that hasn't already been said?

The screenplay to this movie is pure genius, featuring some of the best character development of all time. Most movies have the hero and the villain be complete opposites of eachother, this movie does something different. In this movie, the most interesting character dynamic is between the two heroes, who are both equally inspiring but diametrically opposed. The fact that Darabont managed to pull off this difficult character arc is amazing. The acting too is incredible and adds weight to the genius of what Darabont wrote. This is the movie that made Morgan Freeman famous for narration and rightfully so. Pretty much all of this is done to perfection: the music, the cinematography, the production design...it's all incredible.

It's difficult to imagine if there's anyone who hasn't seen this movie. It is often considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time, and I wholeheartedly share this opinion. It's an amazing cinematic experience.