Utopia - Series 2

Yeah... didn't finish it. In the end I made it through two episodes before deciding not to continue.

It's not bad; it's just unpleasant, and not quite good enough to earn its level of unpleasantness. If I was still single, I'd probably have lapped it up, but with my weekends given over to the family and my sensitivity to anything involving violence against children increased even more than it was when I was a teacher, it was just time I could be spending on something I personally found more enjoyable.

Sarah & Duck Redux

Apparently some people consider Sarah & Duck to be 'appalling', on the grounds that it has no educational content (I'm paraphrasing; I was told that the precise complaint was that it doesn't teach children sign language, which is as criteria go is pretty absolutist.)

And I was thinking about this, and I don't even think that it's true. It certainly doesn't teach you sign language. It lacks The Alphablocks strong literacy content, or The Numtums mathematical slant (and, by the by, the newer series of the latter are shockingly bad, with the numeracy bits sandwiched between some uninspired 'story' segments), but there is more to life than literacy, maths and sign language, and as far as role models go, I would rather Arya turned out like Sarah than pretty much anyone else on Cbeebies.

Sarah is thoughtful, considerate, compassionate, intelligent, independent and enquiring. She never mocks the eccentricities of others, is boundlessly patient with Scarf Lady's ramblings, and seeks always to make others happy without becoming some sort of pushover. When faced with a puzzle, she seeks information, using the library and the internet. She unhesitatingly gives up her day to show the Shallots around town, or one of her wellingtons to keep Umbrella's handle dry in the rain, and rather than blaming or avoiding the pump that lets tyres go down, tries to find out what is wrong with him and help.

She's hard working, loves cooking, but always lets the narrator deal with the hot oven. She's active, riding a tandem bike with Duck, and responsible. When her friends are faced with fear or sorrow, she does all she can to cheer them up, and she looks at the world with a pure and rapturous wonder.

So, yeah; Sarah & Duck. It's not just fluff.

Sarah & Duck

Left to right: Sarah, and Duck

Sarah & Duck
Quack
Sarah & Duck
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Sarah & Duck
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<beat>
Sarah & Duck
Quack
- the Sarah & Duck theme song

Falling squarely into the whimsical school of children's entertainment, Sarah & Duck is an animated series telling of the adventures of Sarah and her pet/best pal Duck.

Sarah and Duck live in a quiet, suburban neighbourhood in a house which they apparently share with the Narrator.

Sarah likes sea cows and lemon water, and plays the tuba; Duck likes tractors and bread.

They have many friends, including Scarf Lady and her talking handbag, their opposite numbers Flamingo and John, the four lively shallots who live in the garden, and the Moon.

The episode clip above features a race in knitted hot air balloons. I did want to have the one with what is basically a vampire bicycle pump, but it's not available in the UK. Neither of these is an atypical plot for Sarah & Duck.

Arya seems very taken with Sarah & Duck, and even sings along to the theme tune. I think it's an adorable little show, and I picked up the first DVD the other day.

Utopia - Series 1

It's very yellow, isn't it.

A big hit last year (although I've only caught up with it recently thanks to 4OD making series one available while series 2 is showing, Utopia is a conspiracy thriller which premiered on Channel 4.

The series, which centres on the manuscript for the 'lost' second volume of a fictional graphic novel called Utopia, is notable for its use of stark, brutal violence, including an extremely controversial sequence in which an assassin murders two teachers and (offscreen) half a dozen children in order to frame another child for the killings. It is a far from pleasant series, and as is the nature of such material, the question arises: Is it good enough to earn the use of such shocking content, or is it purely there to shock? In all honesty, I'm not convinced that the level of violence, or the nature of the violence, was entirely necessary. It isn't completely gratuitous, and can't take away from the fact that the story is gripping and compelling, but it sours the experience.

The main narrative is excellent, however, telling the story of a group of enthusiasts who meet through a comics forum centred on Utopia, and are invited to see the manuscript for volume 2. However, the manuscript contains information wanted by an extra-governmental conspiracy called the Network, and the characters are soon on the run from the Network's killers and framed for all manner of appalling crimes.

The central group are IT consultant Ian (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), medical student and would-be conspiracy theory postgraduate Becky (Alexandra Roach), geek survivalist Wilson Wilson (Adeel Akhtar) and obnoxious-yet-artistic eleven year old Grant (Oliver Woollford). Their main lifeline is Jessica Hyde (Fiona O'Shaughnessy), the author of Utopia's sociopathic daughter, and their enemies include Arby (Neil Maskell), a compassionless yet almost childlike killer who is Jessica's equally dark reflection, and Corvadt Biological Sciences, a corporation run by Letts (Stephen Rea) and his assistant (James Fox).

The latter two are something of an anomaly in the series, being pretty stereotypical villains in smart suits plush offices, while little else follows any such conventional patterning. Jessica Hyde would be the hero of a more conventional series, but O'Shaughnessy's dead-eyed performance turns her into an anti-villain, a cold-blooded survivalist devoid of emotion or attachment, and Maskell's turn as Arby has a weird dissonance between his brutal actions and his soft, placid expression. The actual 'heroes' are typically ineffectual and indecisive, and frequently wrong. Moreover, only one of them is actually entirely what he appears to be.

Utopia series 1 is a starkly brilliant piece of storytelling, which works to remove the glamour which has come to adhere to killers in fiction, but in the end is marred by the violence which is in part its purpose. I will be giving series 2 a shot, but I'm not convinced I'll make it through.

Guardians of the Galaxy

What a bunch of a-holes.

The Guardians of a Galaxy at first glance looks like a bit of a wild card play for Marvel. They're hardly a big name draw, being a little obscure among even most of the nerd community. On the other hand, who ever expected an Iron Man movie to do the sort of business it did? When has a Captain America movie ever done better than tank?

It's still a bit of a gamble, of course. The Guardians have little brand recognition, and they're a completely different kettle of fish to the Avengers. Superheroes may be the flavour of the month, but this is frankly space opera, and space opera is not a traditional big-seller (the big guns of Star Wars and Star Trek aside).

So, what have Marvel produced?

They've produced a fun, pacy sci-fi adventure, rich with humour and not too stingy on the feels either. While the main characters - boyishly charming space-pirate Peter 'Star Lord' Quill, renegade assassin Gamora, escaped experimental subject Rocket, vengeful warrior Drax the Destroyer, and Groot - may not hug, or for the most part share stories, but there are plenty of touching moments, from the reveal of Rocket's scars, to Quill's mix tape (the most robust ferro-magnetic cassette tape ever), and pretty much every 'I am Groot' in the film. Action and humour are meat and drink to the current run of MCU films, of course, and this manages to mesh the two well, and even gets the balance on Quill so that he is flippant, but never glib.

I went into the film knowing, of the five leads, only Rocket, and that from his earliest incarnation as the lovable ranger charged with protecting the Loonies of Halfworld. For all that and the fact that the film blows straight in at full pace, I didn't feel uninformed, or lost at any point. The introductions and establishment of the characters (mostly in the form of a fight) was done seamlessly. The 70s/80s mix tape soundtrack was also used brilliantly.

It's not a perfect film, but it is certainly a very good one.

Bad Movie Round-up

I've added a fair few entries to the Bad Movie Marathon lately, so if you like bad movies you can check that out. As ever, BMM reviews are pretty spoilery.

New additions include Prometheus, a SyFy creature feature called Dragon Wasps, Jack the Giant Slayer and the new Hercules movie, which is actually pretty good but has so many traits of bad movies that I felt it should go up. I also added Dracula: Prince of Darkness, which is actually one of the better Dracula films, but we seemed to be shockingly light on vampire movies.

My fellow reviewers have also been busy. Sally has given us a review of 300, and James has added Nazi Zombie Death Tales.

Finally, I've created a Prometheus drinking game, for those who can't take the pain.

John Dies at the End

I read the novel John Dies at the End just over a year ago. It's the weird, semi-stream of consciousness story of two slackers who accidentally contribute to the salvation of the universe as we know it, or are incurably insane, or both. The movie John Dies at the End is based on that novel and directed by Don Coscarelli, the creator of Phantasm, Bubba Ho Tep and The Beastmaster (the original one, not the one with time travel in).

In the nature of the beast, the process of adapting the book has meant that a little tightening up was needed, and when I say a little, I mean like the Wicked Queen tightened Snow White's corset*. The result misses a great deal of the anarchic nature of the original and pulls the rambling plot into a fairly coherent form which... feels like a bit of a shame to me. I get it, I just liked the original.

On its own terms, however, the film is a blast. The effects are discount - seriously though, a family killed by giant spiders are played by the costume lady and her family; that's where the budget is coming from - but the film eschews CGI and cheap practical effects are so much better than cheap CG that it just isn't funny, and the film still works with them. Chase Williamson (Dave) is a little wooden, but that can honestly be put down to the fact that Dave is pretty stoned throughout most of the film, especially given the quality of the rest of the cast. Paul Giamatti is the big name, but Rob Mayes carries the ludicrous glee of John, and Clancy Brown as Marconi is wonderfully weird (he was the fucking Kurgan; what the fuck?)

There are some slightly bizarre changes (the fact that the dog is called Bark Lee, not Molly, weirds me out, although apparently that's just because that's the dog actor's name and I guess it's easier to get it to respond to Bark Lee), but overall the film's story is pretty tight for something distilled from such craziness, without losing the craziness altogether.

It's also pretty funny, so yay!

* For those who don't know that version, before going the poisoned apple route, the Queen disguised herself to sell Snow White new corset laces and tightened them until Snow White choked.