Well, I kinda discovered Adventure Time after hearing quite a lot about it for years in the last month and I've been ploughing easily through the seasons since then for about four weeks. And today I got to near the start of season five. Yeah, it's that Star Trek episode done again, but in cartoon form. In ten minutes. And it's pretty much a perfect distillation and right now I don't reckon I'm much good for anything else this evening and it was my fiftieth birthday last week and I think I'll have an early night now. It's definitely a cartoon and it's almost certainly meant for children but it just has that light about it that there isn't enough darkness in the universe to extinguish so, grab your friends and go to very distant lands, together!
Reviews
4 Reviews
The Subterraneans
(1960)
Stagey melodramatic tosh
16 April 2006
Hooray I thought, another San Francisco movie that TnT shows from time to time and I can't think of a better place to set a beat generation based production than here. The good news is that there is plenty of location shots set around the North Beach/Telegraph Hill exteriors but bad that most of the interiors are the usual Paramount style back lots that just oozes, well, not authenticity anyway. the acting style is labored and theatrical almost like pantomime and if you think of a less plausible West Side Story with the singing removed you would be pretty close to what can be seen here. The acting particularly from the female lead is over the top whiny and mostly unsympathetic making this a movie to watch but with the sound turned down.
Threads
(1984 TV Movie)
Learn what the underlying mood of the eighties was
7 April 2006
There is an entire subgenre of cheapish TV movies/plays from the UK mostly produced in the eighties about post bomb scenarios, tending towards a looming psychic presence so black they suck the light out of the room. This made a good double bill with The War Game as was shown last year would make a perfect start to the weekend. This is one of them and pretty good too, it's by Barry Hines so as you can imagine it contains LOADS of laughs and has a happy ending. Try Miracle Mile if you want a US version, that one is pretty black too - it leaves a sensation not unlike being hammered into the mud on a cold January evening with an hours worth of monochrome Tetris blocks.
The Division
(2001–2004)
Inimical to life.
25 January 2005
I watched quite a few of these because looking at San Francisco is no huge challenge to my sensibilities. Unfortunately after almost no time at all you realise that the windows are blinds drawn or strongly backlit the outdoor scenes are shot at a low angle to obscure any horizon details and indoor locations abound, in fact the sum total of SF location in these seems to be cable car bells and words painted on restaurant windows. The show itself has some of the most PC plots I have ever seen - the white guy Always did it, cheer as the peppy black cop shots the villain three times in the chest. The captain looks like a particularly cheerless transgender experiment. Basically a dreary feel-bored family hour that looks much less attractive than Nash Bridges (hence very little merit that I have spotted so far).
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