Well I've not been posting quite as much recently because I've been getting inundated with old tv I'm catching up on after finding (or in some cases re-finding) sites that have TV series online. In fact while I was planning to write about some tv stuff and then do the four films I've seen inbetween everything there's probably enough for a post on each so I'll just whip through the tv here then do the films later. I go through phases and for the past few weeks I've been firmly in a tv-mood.
I've been looking back over my blog for mentions and it seems to stem from the beginning of last month when More4 showed John Adams, which has just finished. Now the Americans do tend to have a rather overwhelming sense of self-importance vis-a-vis their tv miniseries (what is the plural of miniseries, miniseries? miniserieses? miniserii? 
) and I do think there's more than a touch of that with this one. It's a good piece of work with a very fine cast but stylistically it leaves a lot to be desired. The director Tom Hooper continually throws in jaunty angles and scenes out of the blue in handheld which are at odds with the rest of the film and take you out of the moment, making you very aware you're watching a tv programme rather than getting lost in the story. Paul Giamatti suits the part nicely but at times he's too theatrical and rather alarmingly in the final episode his accent is all over the place. Laura Linney and Stephen Dillane give nice understated support but are rarely stretched, the shining light of the whole series being the memory of Zeljko Ivanek's nobly empassioned articulation of opposing independence, which struck its chord perfectly and is indicative of how good the subject could be dramatically when simply putting the characters in their circumstances and watching them interact.
Okay that last paragraph just proved to me I need separate posts for today, haha, okay, moving on 
. I've caught up completely to where we are in the UK with The Closer and am debating in myself whether to bypass it or not, I think I'll finish the current series as shown on More4 then watch Series 4 online. Sedgwick is exceptional, there are a couple of times each series where you the audience can get ahead of her and guess what's happening but she alone always makes it watchable. Like The X-Files though there are certain episodes in each series which are basically comedies and these are always the highlights.
I've also done a Weeds retrospective (I caught a couple of episodes on Sky before Branson took it away from me) and this is one of the few comedies that treats itself like a drama series - there are no stand alone episodes you can watch with no knowledge of the characters or the plot (which to be fair even The Sopranos had like College in Series 1 or Pine Barrens in Series 3), it's so refreshing in comparison to all the other formulaic shows. Mary-Louise Parker is phenomenal in the first two seasons (she, along with the whole show takes a big downhill slide in the 3rd series though), she has a ridiculous range of natural smiles and she can portray multiple complex and contradictory emotions brilliantly. There will be more on her later because I watched a couple of her films this week finding them by chance. The show is making me a fan of Justin Kirk (who unlike Parker, who was marvellous, I didn't care for in Angels in America) but I hope it gets back to how superb it was early on because given the recent (in my terms) addition of Mary-Kate Olsen I'm considering ditching the 3rd series and going straight to season 4 - I'll give it another episode or two.
Right, bloody hell this is getting mammoth, what else have I seen? I tried to give 24 a go because I wanted to see it but missed the first few episodes when it was originally on and I wanted to see it completely. Sadly I won't be doing that because after 8 "hours" I called time on it, they just kept using the same dramatic tricks and it started to become really samey and predictable. Kiefer does well but he doesn't do enough to keep me watching for him and certain storylines are far less interesting than others so ... meh. I gave Damages more than a fair chance as well (despite my hatred and contempt for Glenn Close as an actress) - I gave it 4/13 episodes then watched 11 and 13 because they were Ivanek and Rose Byrne's Emmy-submitted episodes and it turns out I barely missed anything. It was alright but I don't like the people involved or the characters enough to fill in the blanks from this series or watch any future ones. That it was in awards contention at all outside of Ivanek I find quite puzzling, it wasn't good.
Lastly I saw most of the Jodie Whittaker-fest that was October on British tv (Tess... I've talked about already) - Wired was quite good, the people doing the adverts for it were better at selling the film than the directors were at delivering but it was very watchable. Ditto The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall on Channel 4 which boasted a more than able ensemble (Stephen Dillane, Kerry Fox, Jodie, etc.) and a relevant, interesting subject. It was well made but I don't think the script allowed the leads to fulfill the dramatic potential the story could have afforded but it was a very solid piece of filmmaking. Only other stuff is ongoing plus I'm halfway through Band of Brothers so I'm sure I'll have something to say about that within the next week. Phew, I'll do the films later, this took much more than I thought 
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