Spartacus: Vengeance, Season 2 (2012)

 

Having slaughtered their former master, Spartacus (now played by Liam McIntyre, following the unfortunate passing of Andy Whitfield) and his band of gladiators and house slaves have become a feared menace to the Roman citizens of Capua. In fact, given the rebels' lack of arms and armour, the public fear of the group much exceeds the amount of immediate threat they present.

Spartacus, however, intends to see their actual threat increase to match the one that Capua's citizens perceive.  His goal is to gather more weapons and more trained warriors, expanding and equipping his force until it is genuinely able to challenge Roman troops in the field.  His rallying cry for this is one of fighting for freedom, but also once of vengeance.  Every man and woman in his group has been enslaved and mistreated by the Romans.

But for Spartacus the quest for vengeance is even more personal than that.  For the commander the Roman Senate has sent to catch him is none other than Claudius Glaber, the very man who enslaved both Spartacus and his wife, and who has also made several attempts to have Spartacus killed.

I should note that this personal enmity between Spartacus and Glaber is a creation of the show's writers, not historical fact.  Of course, Spartacus-the-show has never been especially worried about historical accuracy when it got in the way of sex or violence.  

This seems a good time to mention that lashings of profanity, nudity and CGI gore very much remain a core part of the show, in this, its second or third season (depending how you count the prequel series, Gods of the Arena).  Your tolerance/appetite for such things will probably significantly impact your enjoyment of the program.  If you're at least okay with such things, though, then I think it is worth taking a look at the show.  It's got plenty of action and drama, and some delightfully hateable villains.

Dr No (1962)

When their operative in Jamaica is murdered, along with his secretary, the British intelligence service MI7 dispatches elite agent James Bond, codename 007, to investigate.  Once he arrives in the Caribbean, Bond will have to discover the reason for the assassination while also contending with several inventive attempts to add him to the list of the deceased.  And as soon becomes clear, the closer Bond gets to the truth, the more the danger rises.

This is the very first James Bond film, launching both the film franchise and the big screen career of one Thomas "Sean" Connery.  Though it must be said that transitioning out of the role and into other projects was tougher than Connery might have liked!

It should also be noted that as the first in the movie series, Dr No is somewhat different in tone and technique than the Bond franchise as a whole; at least until the Daniel Craig films (or so I hear: I stopped watching after Casino Royale).  Bond here feels a bit less bullet-proof than in the majority of Connery and Moore movies, and the Q Branch 'gadgets' for which the series would become known are basically non-existent.

That said, this is pretty decent spy film, though by modern standards the action sequences are laughably limited and unconvincing.  As the Kill James Bond podcast notes, Bond basically only has two fighting moves in the whole film.  You will of course also need to deal with 1960s attitudes to gender.  Women exist in the film to look pretty and have sex with Bond, basically.

For me, the most interesting question about Dr No was "why was this the first book they filmed?".  It was the sixth Bond novel, and not even a particularly well-received one.  Once commonly stated reason is "because there were complications with the rights to Thunderball" ... but that was the ninth novel, which also seems an odd choice to start with!

I get why they didn't start with the first novel (Casino Royale) as there was a rights issue, but why were Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever and From Russia with Love all skipped at this time and adapted (with varying levels of fidelity) later?  I'd love to know!

Lupin, Season 1 (2021)

NB: This Netflix France series was released in two separate 'parts' of five episodes each, but the ten episodes together form a single story and I am considering them all to be one season for the purposes of this review.

Arsene Lupin is a fictitious 'gentleman criminal' created by French author Maurice Leblanc, appearing in over two books between 1905 and 1935.  He used disguises, guile and misdirection to pull off daring heists and always stay one step ahead of the police.

Assane Diop, meanwhile, is a modern day criminal who has consciously modelled his style on Lupin.  His latest scheme is to steal a necklace the same father was imprisoned for stealing, some twenty five years before.

What Assane doesn't know is that this particular theft will uncover long-hidden secrets about the his father and the crime for which he was convicted.  Secrets that powerful men will go to extreme lengths to conceal.  After stirring up this particular hornet's nest, Assane is going to need every bit of Lupin's ingenuity to keep himself and his loved ones safe.

Lupin is a well constructed mystery adventure story with a charismatic leading man and an engaging storyline.  It admittedly relies quite heavily on said leading man being extremely, cinematically brilliant - that is after all the central conceit of the whole Lupin character - but it does so without sabotaging his adversaries or making them seem ineffectual.  They are capable and dangerous.

Good stuff.  As long as you can deal with subtitles or dubbing (I strongly recommend the former) then I suggest you check it out.

Eega (2012)

 
Nani is a fireworks maker who harbours an abiding crush on his neighbour Bindu. Honestly, he's a bit of a pest about the whole thing, but eventually Bindu starts to find herself warming to his attentions.

However, Bindu has another suitor, the successful (and criminal) businessman Sudeep. Sudeep does not deal well with rejection, and when it is clear that Bindu prefers the impoverished Nani, he decides to remove the competition with lethal efficiency.

Unfortunately for Sudeep's seduction plans, Nani is a hard man to keep down.  Reincarnated as a common housefly, but still aware of who he is and what has happened, Nani sets out to protect Bindu and wreak revenge on Sindu.  At first glance that seem might seem a comically uneven battle, but it's hard to keep a good fly down, and Sudeep soon finds his life in uproar ...

As you can tell from that synopsis, Eega ("The Fly") is a rather off the wall film.  It's a fun, madcap comedy with a strong romance element.  I deliberately don't call it a 'romantic comedy' though, since while Nani and Bindu's relationship is key to the film, the script does not at all follow your typical romantic comedy story beats.  There is, after all, a fairly strict limit to the degree of romance a human and a fly can have.  The film in fact has to rely quite heavily on Sudeep (who is played by the mononymous actor of the same name) to carry much of the humour and action.  Fortunately, he is more than up to the task.

I had a ball with this wacky escapade of a film, and as long as you are willing to fire up the subtitles, you might too.

Snowpiercer, Season 1 (2020)

After decades of being denied and ignored by global elites, global warming threatens the end of human civilisation. Desperate measures are taken to cool the planet, but the cure proves worse than the disease: the entire globe is plunged into an ice age, with layers of snow carpeting the ground worldwide.

Implausibly, the only successful effort to survive in this frozen wasteland is a massive locomotive, "one thousand and one cars long" that now perpetually races around the planet, using its own speed to power itself. Aboard it, in four categories of privilege - first class, second class, third class and "tailies" - are the final remnants of humanity (as far as they know).

"Tailies" are stowaways who forced their way onto the train just before it began its 'eternal' journey. Quarantined in the final few carriages, they are fed only these strange, glutinous black blocks. The only way out is to be invited, which almost never happens.

But of course, as the show begins, one such rare invitation is extended. There has been a murder in the upper classes and the only trained detective on the train is a tailie. He agrees to help solve the crime, hoping to use the time he spends 'up train' to gather intelligence that the tailies can use to break out of their prison. Of course, the people up train have many more secrets and agendas than just this one murder, and his investigation may stir up forces none of them can control ...

Okay, so first of all to watch Snowpiercer you will obviously need to handwave a huge amount of improbability in the premise of this show.  The train is clearly utterly implausible on a dozen different counts.  I find it easiest to ignore this by telling myself that it's actually a spaceship, not a locomotive.  Essentially that's the same outcome - closed environment, limited resources, utterly hostile external environment - without raising obvious questions like "who is maintaining these thousands of miles of tracks?".

The real question, then, is "if you do handwave that stuff away, is the show any good?".  And the answer to that is a qualified yes.  It's certainly well-acted - the cast is great - and the plot took some fairly satisfying turns along the way.  On the other hand, it's determinedly grim and unpleasant and a bit wearying at times because of it.  You definitely have to be okay with a pretty nihilistic journey if you want to get on board the Snowpiercer.

It's definitely way better than the movie, though.

Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Having been defeated for the sixth time, the now undead Jason Vorhees lies on the bottom of Crystal Lake.  Alas for the teenagers of the local community, and for the people who watch this film, an errant boat anchor drags a live electrical cable onto Jason's body, and the machete wielding maniac is soon scrounging up a new hockey mask and back to his usual serial murdering shenanigans.  The movie's alleged selling point: this time he does it on a boat cruise and (when the movie is two-thirds over) ends up in New York.

When I reviewed the deeply ordinary Friday the 13th, Part VI back in November last year, I took comfort from the thought that it would be a whole nine months until I had to sit down and watch this even bigger turkey.  But alas, the time has come.

Because here, in Part VIII, the Friday franchise hits its nadir.  Now, some people might try to tell you 2001's Jason X is worse, but those people are wrong.  Jason X is merely very, very bad.  This film can't even keep Jason's motivations straight, and we're talking about a character who only has one motivation: killing folks.  And then there's the ending, involving the nightly release of toxic waste into the NYC sewer system.  Which, even if that was actually a thing, begs the question of why toxic waste can stop Jason when being literally dead cannot.

Awful, and not even in a so-awful-it-is-funny way.

Archer, Season 7 (2016)

After being cut loose by the CIA, the former staff of the defunct spy agency ISIS are re-inventing themselves yet again. This time as private investigators in Hollywood, though it turns out that only their accountant, Cyril, is actually qualified to be a P.I. To the disgust of former field agents Archer, Lana and Gillette, this means that it's Cyril's name on the agency, and the rest of them can work only as his associates.

In practice, of course, Archer and Lana are going to handle most of the actual casework, because their dysfunctional relationship has always been at the heart of the show, even before they had a daughter together.  But when the agency becomes embroiled in cases of blackmail and fraud involving long time Hollywood star Veronica Deane, it isn't just the survival of their relationship that's at stake, but of Archer and Lana themselves.

Archer has always been about throwing a group of deeply messed up people into twisted scenarios and letting them bounce off each other and the situation in the most inappropriate of ways.  Season 7 is no different in that regard, as the former ISIS gang deal with murderous clowns, cuckold fetishists, and the harrowing process of getting your child into LA's best Pre-Pre-Kindergarten.  The Private Investigator angle does vary up the formula a little though, especially as the creators take the opportunity to update the show's 60s aesthetic to more of a 70s style.

Ultimately, if you're an Archer fan, this should hit the target for you.

The Inglorious Bastards (1974)

France, 1944.  A group of American soldiers are being shipped to prison for the various crimes they have committed.  Among them is an officer, Lieutenant Yeager, who is not a thief or deserter like the others with him: his crime was to refuse an order to kill women and children.  Principles are a dangerous thing to have on the battlefield.

Principled or not, Yeager doesn't fancy his fate in prison.  When a Luftwaffe fighter strafes the convoy he's in, he leads some of the other prisoners in an impromptu insurrection.  Seizing control of some weapons and a still functional truck, the men make for the Swiss border, and freedom from the war.

Of course, the journey to the border isn't going to be a simple or easy one.  There are plenty of German troops around who won't take kindly to American troops, even if they are effectively deserters.  And ... well, maybe something will happen that'll give Yeager another case of those nasty principles, eh?

So first of all, I should be clear that this is not Inglourious Basterds.  Instead, this is the 1974 Italian film from which Tarantino got the name for his movie.  It can also be found under the moniker G.I. Bro, which was a re-release to capitalise on the blaxploitation craze.  That version was re-cut to make Fred Williamson's character (the only African American in the cast) into the lead role rather than Bo Svenson's Yeager.

The Inglorious Bastards is not technically a very good film, with some ropey acting and effects.  Also, and the debt the script owes to The Dirty Dozen is clear.  Despite all that, though, it is blessed with an air of enthusiastic bombast that for me did much to excuse its flaws.  I found it to have an awkward charm and it kept me well entertained.  It might turn out the same for you.

The IT Crowd, Season 2 (2007)

Content warning: real world transphobia

The much put-upon IT department of Reynholm Industries are back for another series of misadventures involving thwarted relationships, corporate takeovers, lecherous bosses, malfunctioning inventions and German cannibals.  

Pretty much everything I said about the first season of The IT Crowd continues to hold true here.  The cast are still great, and it remains frequently amusing in its absurd hijinks, but writer Graham Linehan does have a tendency to take the cheap and easy route on his jokes.  Homosexuality is not intrinsically hilarious, despite what Mr Lineham seems to believe.

Which brings me to the reason that this season gets a 'Not Recommended' from me.  You see, in writing this review I looked up Mr Lineham on wikipedia and learned that 'being gay is funny' is far from the most harmful belief he espouses.  He is a notorious exponent of anti-transgender bigotry, to the extent that he actually got banned from Twitter.  The apparent catalyst for his crusade of hate?  A season 3 episode of this show being criticised for including transphobic elements.

I know some people will say 'you can enjoy someone's work without endorsing their views'.  My answer to that is that there are a huge number of TV shows out there that aren't run by people running a public hate campaign against transgendered people.  I suggest you go watch one of those instead of this one.  That's what I will be doing from here on.