Reviews

Having read the synopsis, I was looking forward to this story, thinking it might present some complex characters and also allow Lewis's sidekick to come out of his shell.

Sadly, that was not to be and I found myself fast-forwarding through many scenes. Jerky, aggressive camera work, violence, blasphemy - it all felt over-the-top, cheesy and unnecessary. As if the director was just picking up a bit of cred in preparation for a stint on CSI Miami or some such.

The shock & awe approach did eat into the time and space that was needed for the characters to show some depth and development. With all the crazy antics exploding all around them, they remained understandably two-dimensional.

Also, England in 2008 seems like an odd setting for love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name to be a matter of life and death, surely.

Other than that, the ladies still can't keep their hands off Lewis. Which is becoming less and less believable with every episode. Never mind that throughout the run of Inspector Morse, he was the simpleton, created to make Morse look extra clever, much like Hastings once was to Poirot, and always whining about having missed his tea. But c'mon, the guy looks like he's had three heart attacks in the past two weeks!

Meanwhile, Lewis's vitriolic boss, whom we have come to love to hate, is suddenly all nurturing and doesn't mind rolling up her sleeves to help. All in all, I just hope this episode wasn't a harbinger of things to come, i.e., some focus group-based retooling and second-guessing of what up till now has been an exquisite series.

The atmosphere is quite menacing, a cross between Lynch movies and The X-Files. Morse has clearly been set up, and the way things defy rational explanation im going from bad to worse becomes quite creepy and unsettling in a skilfully visceral way. Ultimately, however, the episode creators bite off more than they can chew: Characters from a distant past; old mentors; old scores getting settled; a villain who represents Morse's nemesis; IT hackers; the impossibility of love... It's too much and it turns the story into a cake. I know quite a bit about Mozart and the Magic Flute and all that. But if you asked me WHY this particular investigation has masonic symbolism swirling all around, in truth I would struggle to give a coherent reply.

In today's age of politicized and weaponized everything, this series is both a breath of fresh air and a throwback to a simpler time. The two leads are sophisticated yet personable and relatable, and not in an aggressive, "gonna run the world" sort of way. The plots involve upper-middle-class folks where dark passions lurk and still waters run deep. The dialog and the characters' psychology are witty, well written, and believable. And unlike most crime shows, the way the mystery unfolds is quite easy to follow, partly thanks to the episodes' compact format and length. This is a lighthearted whodunit that isn't out to confuse and outsmart you.

For a classic story that involves mystery, witchcraft, and serial murder, and is portrayed with some A-list TV acting talent, the outcome is regrettably flat. It likes to tell, rather than show, and relies on flasbacks and back stories to a tiring effect. Miss Marple, who should be embodying the tension and conundrums of the unfolding investigation and stringing the story together, is mostly standing around and blabbering, and even that she does much too diffidently. I turned it off about 15 minutes before the end; I just didn't care anymore and couldn't take yet another round of convoluted explanations.

A reasonably entertaining story suffers several setbacks straight from the get-go. Among them, in all the previous Tommy and Tuppence stories I had watched, the two were the epitome of Art Deco cool. Joie de vivre personified. To see them now as a greying, exhausted couple who can barely recall their sleuthing days immediately deflates the episode, knocks the wind out of the viewer and bodes ill for what's to come. Similarly, June Whitfield the comedy legend is unrecognizable. Although normally I'm not a fan of one-trick-pony acts, in this case I was wishing she had reprised her dotty character from AbFab. The list goes on: The scenes where Tuppence and Marple are disguising their true intentions while visiting a village pub just screamed for some wicked humour, comedy-of-error style, which never materialized. Overall, a production where even formidable acting talent chooses to play it safe, thus rendering the outcome quite forgettable.

...and their grandmother (literally, in the next episode) -- what are they adding to the story, might I ask? What is their connection to Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda?... I've been watching the show quite closely. But in all honesty, at this point I have no idea who they are or what their deal is -- beyond giving us a walking cliché of impossibly wealthy, successful, glamorous etc. People. Yawn. The end result is bizarre. It's like watching two separate shows somehow spliced over one another. If the idea was to celebrate diversity and all that, this is a very awkward and superficial way to do that. Ultimately, it serves no one.

The film is not without its flaws, I agree. But as someone who lost the person closest to him, suddenly and unexpectedly, at the age of 40+, I cannot describe how much I relate to the tragedy and heartache that are portrayed in this story. On top of that, I happen to have lived in Hong Kong many years ago, and afterwards visited several times with my loved one; at times even staying in oceanside places much like those near Dr Han's hospital.

All in all, the sense of loss, nostalgia, times gone by that are captured here resonate with me more strongly than just about any other film. I come back to it every couple years and have a good cry.

At first, I struggled with the accents and generally expected very little from a show that seemed grimy for the sake of being grimy. "Social issues; the long-deindustrialized North; dislocation... ...we get it, ITV", I thought to myself.

After a few episodes, though, Vera had me mesmerized. If you are 50+ and living alone, the central character captures the heartbreak like no one else on TV. Part wisdom, part resignation, part tremendous maturity and hence humanity.

Not many actors can be shown silently eating soup at a fellow officer's house and yet project almost with an inaudible scream the anguish they are feeling. Like the greatest of film and TV stars, Vera "does nothing" to devastating effect. It will have you crying one minute and laughing the next.

In the little details, this show can be pure genius: The middle-aged detective's poorly suppressed exasperation with bureaucracy, relatives, neighbors and the world in general. The higher-ups' sheer stiffness and iciness. The gone-too-soon loved ones who turn out not to have been loved at all.

Underneath this mastery, though, and all the more jarring as a result, is the show's proto-woke-ness. Splitting the sexes in particular is a major theme: 80% of the male characters are not only single-mindedly dedicated to controlling and brutalizing the opposite sex, they take great and vocal pride in their misogyny.

I certainly don't wish to trivialize, in any way, shape or form, violence against women. And by the same token, I find it hard to enjoy TV programs that scream 'Agenda' - especially when it is the same Agenda, episode after episode. What a shame that a TV creation that sidesteps every cliché with such skill goes on to bury the viewer in a most clichéd treatment of social issues.

I love a good British mystery, especially of the pre-2000 variety. Hence I was excited when YouTube suggested I watch a few episodes of Ruth Rendell.

But boy, what a disappointment. What could be a reasonably entertaining (and even then, hardly more than that) 30-minute story gets shamelessly dragged out into four (4) episodes of 50 minutes each. Someone's getting married? Great; let's show the church; the guests arriving; the brides sashaying down the isle; the ceremony; the 'Just Married'; the couple driving off on their honeymoon. Etc. Etc. Never mind that it serves no purpose in the story whatsoever.

I can see how a lonely old person in the 1980s, with a total of two programs on their black-and-white telly, might give it a go. But for today's viewer, this show is the definition of boring.

I'm a Gen X-er in his early 50s. I don't use social media and I don't take selfies. Hence I never thought I would be defending and praising this show. But it turned out to be well-acted, nicely paced, funny, and visually pleasing. Quite a few other series I have watched over the years made the age-old "American in Paris" story cringeworthy and almost unbearable to watch (Sex and The City immediately comes to mind).

Yes, one could pick on clichés and stereotypes and less-than-believable plot lines. But hey, it's light-hearted comedy. Not to mention fantasy, produced at a time when travel has become nearly off limits for many of us. Lastly, I don't recall critics pillorying 'Ugly Betty' as simplistic and less than believable. If a straight-out-a-Queens-community-college girl can take the world of Manhattan high fashion by storm - well, so can a young American who has found herself in Paris, surely.

...and I completely understand the other reviewers' fatigue with preachy politics creeping into every medium and every genre. That said, watching the first episode today, I found myself oddly drawn into the story. Being familiar with the characters is a head start, as is having a soft spot for SJP's voice. I also sensed some hidden depths and layers throughout - some disturbing, some ironic, others practically sendup-y. (To be fair, there were dark undertones in the original SATC as well - e.g., the Mr. Big persona always struck me as a menacing, handler-type character rather than a lover in any sense of the word.)

Granted, the comedy is gone - the same way a sense of fun has been conspicuous by its absence in our real lives in the 2020s. (I did have a chuckle at things like Steve appearing a head shorter than in the past. I am 50+ myself, and I suppose I am lucky to be neither white-haired nor 60% deaf.) In that respect, the show mirrors our Zeitgeist exceedingly well. Whatever humor lurks about is subtle and subversive, and comes from the straight-up surreal nature of many of the situations the show depicts. Take the podcast scene... The personalities and the content aside, in what universe would the hosts decide, "hey, wouldn't this 55-year-old Park Avenue lady with her 90s sensibility be a great regular?"...

Maybe that is the way to enjoy And Just Like That: By relishing the bittersweet absurdity of what society has become. A place where the not so long ago hip & happenin' Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte have evolved into something of a shadow of their recent selves; throwbacks to a nearly forgotten era; shiny tokens in the new social order that has been constructed around them.

In sum, this is a different animal than SATC - to a point where it makes little sense comparing the two. I can almost see how losing MORE of the SATC quartet, and relinquishing any descriptions as 'comedy' or any other '-edy' might have augmented the project.

S1E1 is perfection, with all the right ingredients in place: The wake of Bertie's drunken shenanigans; Jeeves to the rescue; the lovely Art Deco bachelor pad; the inane goings-on at the gentlemen's club; Aunt Agatha the "nephew-crusher", the trip to a stately home in the countryside and its marriage-minded, somewhat androgynous female residents, etc. Etc.

From there on, the quality goes down a little. Some of the supporting cast in particular can be quite a letdown. It's as if they walked on for what they thought was a bit of improvising, to be televised one late Sunday evening and never watched again. (Did the lavish exteriors and interiors not tip them off as to the true scale of the production, I wonder?)

If I were to rate the main protagonists' acting skills, it would be something like this:

Bertie: 10. Let's face it, he carries the show, and seems to up his game just when the rest of the cast can't seem to be bothered anymore.

Aunt Agatha / Honoria / Lady Glossop / Tuppy / everyone at the gentlemen's club: 9. Outrageous yet so very believable. They capture the very essence of what the show and its post-WWI English Zeitgeist are about.

Jeeves: 8. A one-trick pony; that's how he is written and delivered.

All the New York characters: 6. They drive vintage cars and wear vintage hats; and that's that. No one brings anything remotely startling to the table.

Anatole, Spode, the replacement Madeline, the replacement Gussy: 1. Just No. Terribly unfunny caricatures that fall utterly flat. Yelling and screaming, over the top, in every scene, is not comedy. Speaking like a two-year-old is not comedy. Speaking with an exaggerated lisp is very poor comedy.

All in all, a pleasant show with some unfortunate and highly visible weakest links.

Back in 1999, I was 28 and much too happy with the world to go see a Brad Pitt movie. So I watched it now when I'm 50 and alone. And I was pleased with the experience: As any good film should, it leaves you shaken and stirred. It awakens inside you the same rage that the hero of the story couldn't suppress anymore.

Although not an action fan, I didn't find the violence gratuitous or sickening, the nudity excessive, or the special effects gimmicky. The twist at the end is both brilliant and extremely valid; and the final scene prescient and timeless on multiple levels: Slice it any way you like, it is we - the conformists, the office crowd, the middle classes - who are afraid of our own power, and never fail to construct a prison for ourselves.

I deducted a star because the final cut should have been edited more vigorously (there's at least 10 - 15 minutes' worth of dead weight in there). And also because the naturally stunning and usually memorable Helena Bonham-Carter is so hung up on looking ugly and sounding American in this vehicle, her otherwise prominent character adds nearly zero depth, nuance or development to the story. Given her role as the narrator's mirror-cum-doppelgänger, she simply fizzles out.

This entire series is Christie for a millennial audience: Brash, up-tempo, get-to-the-point. (And sex is just sex; isn't everyone doing it?) Miss Marple herself comes across as a frowning busybody.

I can see how a new generation may have wanted to give these stories an "update." A bit of brisk pace and wicked comedy here, a bit of extra passion and feminism there. Sadly, the result is a dull, predictable case study in Ugly is The New Beautiful. All the quiet, caring, understated Englishness that was oozing from the 20th-century adaptations has been wiped out. Today's young audience has no use for it. One gets a strong impression that more than anything else, these stories were just a vehicle for a new breed of directors to get noticed and then to follow the money to big jobs like CSI Miami.

In truth, I can no more view, let alone enjoy, these post-2000 films than a lifelong carnivore can relish a vegan, non-dairy, non-allergenic dish.

Having just turned 50, I totally sympathize with how exasperating and unrecognizable the world becomes. I also admit that the tidbits from this show I saw on the internet looked clever and entertaining. But now that I've watched it on DVD (there... I'm a dinosaur), my impression is nowhere near as flattering as the impression I had of other BBC sitcoms from the 1990s, like AbFab and Keeping Up Appearances. To start with, the main character often comes across as effeminate rather than irate. The wife initially provided a pleasant counterbalance - but only for one season, before someone decided to chop off her hair and make her irritable as well. Mixing comedy with fist-in-your-face "social issues" may have been edgy 30 years ago; today it's a yawn. And animals that are routinely locked in a freezer, burned alive or buried alive - well, I doubt that that was ever funny. All in all, a letdown.

When this film first came out, I was 19 and dismissed it as "oh no, the French are at it again, trying to out-Hollywood Hollywood through depictions of mindless violence..."

Now that I'm 50, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed re-watching it. Given that most of the story is set in Paris, the director made the wise choice of letting the mayhem play out in beautiful, glamorous settings, rather than the smoky grit of Brooklyn the viewer is accustomed to with this genre. The acting is naturalistic where it needs to be and understated where that's the more effective tone to take. Other reviewers have praised the score, and I agree with them.

The story line and the relationships it portrays are, the 50-year-old me believes, not at all as far-fetched as some might think. The theme of mental trauma and resulting multiple personalities - as Nikita morphs into Joséphine and Joséphine alternates as Marie - is strong yet it doesn't become self-serving. It gives in to deeper themes of what it is to be human at the time of the new millennium, and of loving the unlovable and in fact unknowable.

I confess that during the final scenes at the embassy (where people seemed to speak Polish?), I got momentarily lost - but this may have had to do with watching the movie late at night and home alone, more than anything else.

All in all, a timeless, stylish and oddly uplifting film experience. Recommended.

There are BBC comedies from the Nineties one can watch a thousand times and not get tired (AbFab, Keeping Up Appearances). This is not one of them. The cast is reasonably talented and some of the dialog did give me a chuckle or two. But as soon as I'm done with the DVD box set, I'm giving it away. Perhaps the premise of "self-made millionaire's domestics have it in for his posh wife" was meant to be a post-Thatcher take on Upstairs, Downstairs. But it just isn't engaging enough. Worse, as viewers we not only never quite suspend our disbelief - we can practically see the scriptwriting team racking their brains, trying to create drama out of the most trivial of situations. Whatever has been done or said in the plot, everyone is constantly up in arms - discussing the implications till the cows come home. And by "everyone" I mean everyone - grandma, daughter who's back from boarding school, daughter's classmate's mother and several folksy characters who end their sentences with "...innit?". I could understand if these were seasons 23 and 24 of an endless soap. But they're not.

At first I was sceptical of the premise: The "women of a certain age" genre is rarely handled well on TV. US shows in particular love to hypnotize viewers into believing that 50-somethings have all the fun. Trust me, we don't. Life gets progressively bleaker and lonelier at this age for many of us. So hats off to R&T's creators, who were NOT in denial about any of this and in fact handled the topic with sensitivity, realism and good humour. The writing and dialogue are excellent, as is the acting. (My only criticism is that in some episodes, Felicity Kendal's face seems freshly botoxed which does affect her speech.) The result is not exactly nail-biting murder mystery. But it feels like a pleasant afternoon stroll with a couple of good friends.

I bought the whole series on DVD. But this closing instalment left me unimpressed. There are so many characters, some of them American, even Miss Marple struggles to keep track of who's who, who's whose ex-husband's son etc. None of them are particularly likeable or attractive, or interesting enough to make you care about them. A lot of speechifying goes on about "the youth are our future", nature vs. nurture, battling bureaucy... Yawn; and hardly the stuff Agatha Christie mysteries are made of. The direction looks inexperienced. The actors are either trying to get it over with or too keen to steal the show. Worst of all, Miss Marple becomes just an extra in this mess.

The show has aged well. Only I no longer focus on the vintage 90s quirkiness. Rather, it feels like every one of us has a Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer inside. A Jerry who's cerebral and urbane, hence perpetually suppressing his irritation with other people's arbitrariness and incompetence. An Elaine whose sense of awe and romance gets chipped away every day by the big city's school of hard knocks. A George whose parents never gave him a chance and if he could get up on a rooftop and scream he would. And a Kramer who's perceptive and intuitive - very much his own person, in fact - in a society that has no use for either quality. So there we have it: A tale of surviving in the modern world without cutting one's wrists.

This show came out with the kind of "Highest-Rated Evah!!" global fanfare I had never seen before and have never seen since. So I gave it a shot. And I felt middle-aged, for the first time in my life. Nothing here works for me. It's the comedy equivalent of such millennial inventions as naked lightbulbs hanging off strings on the ceiling, or painting an empty frame onto the wall in lieu of actually hanging a picture: It's new, different and utterly pointless.