Filmography
Doctor Who, Season Five
This is me catching up with New Who, although not in time to be able to watch the Christmas Special without spoilers (*sigh* - although I have just discovered LoveFilm have season 6 on DVD so there may be hope yet). This is the first of Matt Smith's seasons as the Doctor, and I have to say I think he actually does jolly well - he inhabits the part in his own way, but one that feels coherent within the rest of the Who pantheon, as it were. I particularly liked the episode in which the Doctor comes face to face with his own innermost self (Amy's Choice, with the Dreamlord played very nicely by Toby Jones). The episodes in which the Doctor has to engage with his nature as the Doctor are probably the strongest in the season, actually.
However, there is Amy. Poor Amy. Who has become a Companion apparently because of some Deep Cosmic Significance she has inherent within her, which is what is going to push the next season along, or so one presumes. It's a bit heavy-handed and overly architectural; G feels (and I rather agree) that they've got the stage with end of season finales where they're constantly trying to outdo themselves in ways they might destroy the world, and it's beginning to feel a bit tired. I like the build-up to getting there, but slavish obedience to the needs of the masterplot do get in the way.
C.f. Rory. Who I actually rather like, but who disappears and then reappears as a plastic Roman soldier, and it's all a bit... well. Well intentioned but I'm not sure it quite works, sadly.
Now, given how unimpressed I was with the David Tennant transition specials, actually this season works rather well. (It also has ROMANS in it, which makes me happy, although personally I feel they're chronically underused, but I would.) The Doctor gets to work out a new personality which isn't dreadful, the Companion is actually quite interesting, the Romantic Interest is dealt with in a quite interesting way (ultimately more about adventure vs. settledness, I think, rather than love A vs. love B, although some episodes do fall back on that tired dichotomy), and some interesting set pieces - Vampires of Venice was good, I liked The Beast Below, and Vincent and the Doctor was brilliantly BBC-edu-drama-esque and made me happy. But some of the tweaks around the edges for the macro-plot? Not so much. And this is before we even get into the enigmatic River Song, for whom I would kindly request no spoilers for the time being, but while I can see that they like the idea of her, I remain unconvinced as to whether she'll successfully play out in the next season.
Brazil
Sometimes referred to as Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, and do you know, I can see why. It's the sort of anarcho-capitalist nightmare combined with fly-away fantasy that his work has always been striving for - political comment with visual lushness and rich fantastical imagination. It works really very well. The film is set in a dreadful future where the world is run by machines, women essentially spend their lives getting face lifts, and people have no autonomy or indeed authentic emotion. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) discovers that a man has been accidentally killed by the government apparatus (due to a typo, as we discover at the start of the film, although I don't think the characters ever twig this), and has to work through the process of dealing with this. On the way, he runs into the woman who he has been dreaming about in fantastical scenarios, and his pursuit of her eventually leads him to put his own life at risk. This being Gilliam, the ending is unremittingly dire; there's no hope, no repentance, no optimism, but in a way, that's OK as the entire film has sort of been building up to that comment on the hopelessness of rebelling against the system anyway.
Essentially, it's a film about living within what seems like a mindless, meaningless and emotionless paperwork-filled system, where people don't seem to connect on a real level, and life is generally hugely disfunctional in many, many ways. Obviously very much involved with political critique, it makes its point effectively and rather memorably - not least because of the sets and images Gilliam's fertile brain creates. Very much enjoyed this, despite getting to the end and feeling the need for a stiff whisky.
41 and 41 - The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad & Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger - reviewed Elsewhere.
This is me catching up with New Who, although not in time to be able to watch the Christmas Special without spoilers (*sigh* - although I have just discovered LoveFilm have season 6 on DVD so there may be hope yet). This is the first of Matt Smith's seasons as the Doctor, and I have to say I think he actually does jolly well - he inhabits the part in his own way, but one that feels coherent within the rest of the Who pantheon, as it were. I particularly liked the episode in which the Doctor comes face to face with his own innermost self (Amy's Choice, with the Dreamlord played very nicely by Toby Jones). The episodes in which the Doctor has to engage with his nature as the Doctor are probably the strongest in the season, actually.
However, there is Amy. Poor Amy. Who has become a Companion apparently because of some Deep Cosmic Significance she has inherent within her, which is what is going to push the next season along, or so one presumes. It's a bit heavy-handed and overly architectural; G feels (and I rather agree) that they've got the stage with end of season finales where they're constantly trying to outdo themselves in ways they might destroy the world, and it's beginning to feel a bit tired. I like the build-up to getting there, but slavish obedience to the needs of the masterplot do get in the way.
C.f. Rory. Who I actually rather like, but who disappears and then reappears as a plastic Roman soldier, and it's all a bit... well. Well intentioned but I'm not sure it quite works, sadly.
Now, given how unimpressed I was with the David Tennant transition specials, actually this season works rather well. (It also has ROMANS in it, which makes me happy, although personally I feel they're chronically underused, but I would.) The Doctor gets to work out a new personality which isn't dreadful, the Companion is actually quite interesting, the Romantic Interest is dealt with in a quite interesting way (ultimately more about adventure vs. settledness, I think, rather than love A vs. love B, although some episodes do fall back on that tired dichotomy), and some interesting set pieces - Vampires of Venice was good, I liked The Beast Below, and Vincent and the Doctor was brilliantly BBC-edu-drama-esque and made me happy. But some of the tweaks around the edges for the macro-plot? Not so much. And this is before we even get into the enigmatic River Song, for whom I would kindly request no spoilers for the time being, but while I can see that they like the idea of her, I remain unconvinced as to whether she'll successfully play out in the next season.
Brazil
Sometimes referred to as Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, and do you know, I can see why. It's the sort of anarcho-capitalist nightmare combined with fly-away fantasy that his work has always been striving for - political comment with visual lushness and rich fantastical imagination. It works really very well. The film is set in a dreadful future where the world is run by machines, women essentially spend their lives getting face lifts, and people have no autonomy or indeed authentic emotion. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) discovers that a man has been accidentally killed by the government apparatus (due to a typo, as we discover at the start of the film, although I don't think the characters ever twig this), and has to work through the process of dealing with this. On the way, he runs into the woman who he has been dreaming about in fantastical scenarios, and his pursuit of her eventually leads him to put his own life at risk. This being Gilliam, the ending is unremittingly dire; there's no hope, no repentance, no optimism, but in a way, that's OK as the entire film has sort of been building up to that comment on the hopelessness of rebelling against the system anyway.
Essentially, it's a film about living within what seems like a mindless, meaningless and emotionless paperwork-filled system, where people don't seem to connect on a real level, and life is generally hugely disfunctional in many, many ways. Obviously very much involved with political critique, it makes its point effectively and rather memorably - not least because of the sets and images Gilliam's fertile brain creates. Very much enjoyed this, despite getting to the end and feeling the need for a stiff whisky.
41 and 41 - The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad & Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger - reviewed Elsewhere.