Downton Abbey - Series 1

This past weekend, we've been watching Season 1 of Downton Abbey, which is kind of new to us. It's actually quite an interesting series, running from the sinking of the Titanic in episode 1 to the outbreak of World War I in episode 7, and interleaving social and political issues - one of the daughters of the house campaigns for women's suffrage and the chauffeur is an Irish republican; the loss of the heir apparent on the Titanic leaves the future of estate and title in question and in the hands of an unknown Manchester solicitor; the approach of war increasingly colours everything the last three episodes - with domestic storylines - the ambitious lady's maid O'Brien and her cohort Thomas, the gay footman, scheme to ruin the new valet, Bates; the cook is going blind; the three daughters of the family need to be married off; the Dowager Countess spars constantly with the mother of the new heir - to create compelling characters and narratives.

I've not much more to say, as I haven't the time to go into the details of the thing, although I will say that, as with any TV catch-up, do not look at the Wiki page for it, as it will spoil you up good.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Spoiler Free Bit

I really enjoyed this. It's not perfect, but for an introductory episode it shows great potential. The leads are likeable and sufficiently complex to catch my interest, the support is likeable. Clark Gregg's Agent Phil Coulson is of course the centrepiece and for my money dispels any fears as to whether he can headline a show. The weakest links are Agents Ward and May, the abrasive operator and the Black Widow with the serial numbers filed off, neither of whom is given a great deal to do besides being abrasive.

The opening episode introduces the characters, and sets up the arc plots while still having a self-contained story, which is what you hope for. It's no Buffy the Vampire Slayer but, at its pilot episode, neither was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Specifics follow in the spoilerific section.

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The Spoilerific Bit Where I Ramble Rather

At the centre of everything here is the supposedly deceased Phil Coulson. His return is quickly explained as the result of a deception by Nick Fury, but soon after it is hinted that there is far more to it than a near death experience and a nine month convalescence in Tahiti. I would not be surprised if the repeated phrase 'it's a magical place' turned out to be meaningful, nor if there was a link to Extremis, given its appearance here. I like his placement as the people person; the one who, after all of his encounters with the superhuman, most views them as equals. The love of the past shown in his reverence for Captain America is retained, embodied here in his classic S.H.I.E.L.D. car, Lola, and his affection for the aircraft-based mobile command over the Helicarrier.

Agent Ward (Brett Dalton) is done a bit of a disservice. Introduced as a highly capable agent, he is placed in Coulson's mobile command, quite specifically an oddball outifit, against his wishes, and then from about halfway through the episode gets sidelined as Chloe Bennett's Skye comes in and replaces him as the PoV new bug. Thereafter, he is mostly there to be a counterpoint to Coulson's gentle approach. similarly, Agent May (Ming-Na Wen) gets to stand around while the techs chatter, then kick some guy a few times; hopefully we'll get more from both of them later.

Those techs are the adorkable, Atlantically displaced pairing of Fitz and Simmons, (Ian De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge), who provide hard and soft (respectively) technical wizardry and nerdy banter with a slight Britannic slant. If this was a pilot, rather than an opening episode, I would expect to see them gone by the series start, and I would miss them. Again, I hope that they get more focus in some episodes.

Skye is a cliche waiting to implode, but hints of vulnerability beneath the confident exterior (an uncertainty when she recalls that she has previously wiped an identity, presumably her own; the admission that she once dressed up to cosplay outside Stark Towers) give the character some depth which I hope to see play out.

J. August Richards, guest starring as plot of the week and arc introduction, gets to do his tortured man of principle act again; it's still pretty good.

In terms of continuity to the main Marvel movieverse, there was plenty, from Centipede's mix of superpower causes - supersoldier serum, gamma radiation, Extremis and alien metal; and I may be missing the obvious, but I'm assuming the last is a forward link of some sort - to Lola's flight tech, which owes more than a nod or two to Howard Stark's World's Fair exhibit.

On Riddick

I want to talk about Riddick; not the new movie, Riddick, or not only, but the character, and more to the point the characters around him.

Pitch Black was an indie SF movie, in which Richard B Riddick (Vin Diesel) first appeared, but despite its later re-branding as The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black, he wasn't the main character. That was Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell), a young commercial pilot who struggles to keep the survivors of a crash alive against the elements and the attention of psychopath Riddick, in order to atone for her own weakness in a moment of crisis.

Carolyn Fry was something rare in science fiction, in movies of any kind; a genuinely strong female character. She was deeply flawed, uncertain yet determined; she fought to the bitter end and, in giving her own life, managed to make a genuine impact on Riddick, who was implied to be changed forever by his encounter with this incredible, extraordinary ordinary woman.

The film also featured a tough - if ultimately doomed - prospector, played by Claudia Black, an imam whose faith - which remained strong, despite the deaths of his family - was a counterpoint to Riddick's nihilism, and Jack, a young girl in disguise as a boy, who idolised the killer, all of them strong, interesting characters quite distinct from the run of the mill.

But then he got big; he forgot the little people, as it were, and so did director David Twohy. The Chronicles of Riddick took Pitch Black's antihero and cast him into a a grandiose space opera as an interplanetary Conan the Barbarian, battling the planet-ravaging Necromongers (straight up, yeah; Necromongers) to reclaim his heritage as the last of the Furians and the champion prophecied by kung-fu elemental Judi Dench. In the course of this fight, the imam from Pitch Black is gunned down by Necromonger stormtroopers and Jack, now Kira, a sultry wannabe Riddick, also buys the farm.

Kung-fu elemental Judi Dench is pretty much the pick of the characters replacing them, although Lady Vaarko (Thandie Newton), although largely a one-note Lady Macbeth character, has some chops to her. The whole Necromonger thing is a bit silly, however, and the whole thing doesn't stand up as well with Riddick in the midst of epic conflict.

Which brings us to Riddick, a back to basics film which basically does Pitch Black with a bigger budget and fewer likable characters. In particular, Riddick's big emotional relationship this time is with a CGI dog, and the female characters in play... Oh, dear me.

The first one is a female prisoner, implied to have been repeatedly raped, and then murdered after about five lines of dialogue as a means of proving that the really bad guys are worse than any of the other psychopaths in the film. She is never even given a name, but dies within five feet of Riddick as if she is supposed to have an emotional impact equivalent to that of Carolyn Fry.

The second is Dahl (Katee Sackhoff), who is tough. And that's about it. She gets to punch the rapist guy a few times to prove it, and shoot Riddick with tranquilisers. At worst, she's a lesbian who turns straight for Riddick; at best, she's an asexual loon who is turned on by extreme psychopathy. I tend towards the latter interpretation, but it's still not very good.

And it makes me wonder... How did this happen? How did the same core team make Pitch Black, a film with some of the best female characters in movie SF, and Riddick, an outright offence to feminism?

About Time

So, cards on the table; I am a sap for Richard Curtis's particular brand of minimal social commentary, middle-class romantic comedies, even while I do recognise their failings. About Time is also a very soft SF film about time travel; like The Butterfly Effect without the butterfly effect.

As ever, this will not be a spoiler free review.

Tim (Domhnall Gleeson as Hugh Grant as Richard Curtis) is a charmingly awkward youth who lives in a Cornish idyll with his eccentric father (Bill Nighy), stubbornly practical mother (Lindsay Duncan), mental-but-gentle sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson) and sweetly dim uncle (Richard Corderay). In his 21st year, his father tells him that the men in his family can travel within their own lifetime to revisit any point in their past and change their own actions.

Moving on, he gets his heart broken and learns that sometimes there is no right moment, just the wrong girl, and moves to London to practise law. Here he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), the woman of his dreams, but loses her when a well-meaning piece of time travel helps out a friend, but leads to him erasing their meeting. We then follow his attempts to find her, their budding relationship, and very occasionally see Tim use his powers to improve his life.

This is a Richard Curtis movie, so overall it is light, fluffy and very sweet, with occasional darker moments which are all about humanity, rather than society. It has a fair amount in common with Four Weddings and a Funeral, but uses time travel instead of social format for its repetitions and has Rachel McAdams instead of Andie McDowell, which may qualify as the most pleasing replacement of one American actress with a celtic patronymic surname for another in the history of cinema. It is also, on occasions, deeply affecting, as when Tim is forced to choose between the future and the past, or his sister's happiness and the very existence of his first child.

And, as noted, it does have some problems - I would love to see someone produce a companion piece with a family in which the women can travel into the future, and once more London is depicted as very, very white - but as I often find with Richard Curtis movies, I find it hard to care that much. It also avoids some obvious traps: Tim never uses time travel to cheat Mary, their connection is immediate in the first instance; he also, given an opportunity, does not cheat on her and then 'undo' it, which I was worried might happen at one point. The film also never uses the conceit to allow Tim to wallow in revenge fantasies or do anything mean-spirited which only he will then recall.

About Time: It's not going to set the world on fire, but it's a lovely little film which it really is hard to dislike.

And now I'm pondering writing that story about women who can travel into the future.

On Ben Affleck as Batman

So, Ben Affleck is to play the new Batman in Man of Steel II, in which he will presumably confront the titular not-Superman with a Batmagnet of some description.

Or not.

So, is Affleck the man for this job?

On the plus side, he's an Oscar-winning actor, although the Oscar was actually for directing. He has also won or been nominated for more than his share of acting Razzies, but again to look at the flip side, they were all for terrible movies, and therefore not entirely his fault.

He's been good in some stuff, although I've never been blown away by him, and the memory of Daredevil haunts me. He was perhaps, as has been noted, the bomb in Phantoms.

So, is he a good Batman? Maybe. I think he could do it, but I've never seen him in anything that would make me certain. In particular, in a Batman vs Superman film, he needs to pull off some serious ambiguity, which actually plays more to Afflecks dramatic strengths than the weaknesses he displayed as a straightforward action hero in Daredevil.

I guess we shall see.

The Lion in Winter

Prince John: "He's got a knife!"
Queen Eleanor: "Of course he has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183 and we're barbarians.

Based on James Goldman's play (and, with Goldman writing the screenplay, preserving pretty much all of the dialogue), The Lion in Winter is a domestic comedy-romance transformed into grand tragedy by the fact that the family in question are the Plantagenets; Henry II (Peter O'Toole), his scorned wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), his rebellious children, Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle) and John (Nigel Terry), his mistress Alais (Jane Merrow) and her brother, King Philip of France (Timothy Dalton). The play was not successful prior to the release of the film, but unusually it did very well afterwards, due in no small part to the strength of the script.

The cast, as you can see, is spectacular, and the production design is lavish, but it is Goldman's dialogue that sparkles, in particular in the many confrontations between the two leads. O'Toole as the mercurial Henry goes from playful to curmudgeonly to snarlingly overbearing with barely a pause and never the slightest warning, while Hepburn plays Eleanor with a sharp and brittle strength. The rest of the cast are no less worthy of note, many of them in very early film roles preceding long and distinguished careers. Hopkins' Richard is a picture of chivalric nobility, and in his moments of defeat has a truly affecting look of wounded pride. Castle's Geoffrey is overtly the weakest performance, so much so that its strength only shows when one realises that Geoffrey is supposed to be the forgettable - and forgotten - one. Terry, later to play Excalibur's Arthur, is here a weasely presence, appearing very much as a lesser analogue to Dalton's beautiful, reptilian Philip. Merrow is sort of the straight man of the piece, never really knocking heads with anyone, but plays Alais and her devotion to Henry with conviction.

The action of the film is limited to one castle and a few days over Christmas in 1183, with eldest son Henry, the Young King, recently dead and the older Henry yet to name another heir. Plot and counter plot fly back and forth, secrets are revealed and past cruelties raked over as Henry pushes John, Eleanor pushes Richard and Geoffrey pushes himself.

Tightly directed and superbly played, the film is a corker, well worth viewing, if it's new to you, or re-viewing if it isn't.

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters

You know what; I've found while writing this blog that I like European movie posters more than the English ones.

Anyway, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief was a big disappointment to me as a movie, coming to it as I did from the perspective of a fan of the books. I was, however, optimistic of the possibilities of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, as the trailers suggested a more faithful adaptation, bringing in many of the overarching elements that I felt were missed from the first film. I was therefore keen to see it and more-or-less persuaded Hannah and Andrew (and thus Arya) to come along.

I therefore feel bad that I didn't like it more than I did.

Now, don't get me wrong, as a movie I enjoyed it more than the first, and although I can't say for certain whether that is because I had lower expectations, I think it was, in itself, a better movie.

There were fewer things that really frustrated me in this one; mostly it was little niggles. The absence of Clarisse from the first movie made her sudden appearance as Percy's long-time rival slightly jarring, and the use of a nameless and not-at-all-as-tall-as-the-sky hekatonkheires in a minor cameo sadly suggests the removal of Briares from the plot moving forward. I was also saddened to see the cursed blade misidentified, the relationship between Luke and Annabeth basically excised and the non-appearance of Backbiter.

Overall, my biggest disappointment was that Silena Beauregard and Ethan Nakamura were chucked into a one-scene appearance. This means that Ethan's plot-critical role looks to have been struck, along with Silena's key relationships, especially with Clarisse, which seems to be a recurring theme with any narratively significant relationship that doesn't involve Percy.

On the other hand, Clarisse was good, and I loved her zombie crew and styling nautical coat. Moreover, Percy himself is nicely controlled, where it would be easy to play him far too arrogant and cocky. Overall, in fact, the cast is solid, and the effects are very pretty, especially the Hippocampus.