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peteyarbrough
Reviews
Peep Show (2003)
The most internal dialog in a TV comedy since Herman's Head!
...and The Wonder Years doesn't even come close!
The running commentary of the voices in these guys heads makes this series more dynamic and less banal than The Office, to which some comparison has been made due to the office job of the uptight, self-tormenting guy, Mark. His roommate is a layabout free spirit wannabe musician named Jez. Their relationship is not quite as stereotyped as an Oscar & Felix, but they are both still somewhat misfit outsiders hanging together.
This show has a lot of energy and edginess -like a slightly less gutter-psychotic, more upscale Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! in a sort of Sex Pistols vs Oasis/Blur way. The character are also more sympathetic than those of the Office or Black Books for instance -due to a great deal to the way our Boys minute by minute hopes and fears are articulated.
There is nearly always chaos, torment, madness or complete boredom around each corner -like the non sequiter appearances and conversation of Jez's putative bandmate and the local kids who harass Mark at inopportune times and call him a 'peedo' -a pedophile.
There have been some great TV shows about silly people doing silly things -like AliG, Goodness Gracious Me!, The Amazing Boosh, Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Reginald Perrin and the Trailer Park Boys, and I think that Peep Show will end up right up there among them as a fondly remembered comedy classic.
Just as American TV has had a bit of a comedy revival of late with Arrested Development (RIP) and My Name is Earl, the same could be said of Britcoms thanks to clever shows like Peep Show with its unique POV and its sympathetic and (semi)realistic characters.
The Dogs of War (1980)
It's great when a plan comes together -w/a Vengeance!
Great structure and characters.
I liked Dogs of War 20 years ago when I knew nothing about film and I liked it even more after seeing it again tonight.
There are many parallels to the modern era in terms of the mercenary and commercial aspects of War of course. I understand the book got more into the shadowy games played by the 'commercial interests' who just wanted to write a check to gain license to plunder an entire country's natural wealth. Syriana? Iraq? Anybody?
Walken's Commando boss character seems weird and out of sync in the civilian world, but the hour-long slow-burn between his initial rough treatment during his reconnaissance and the climactic main scenes makes for a great story arc and Walken's best role ever.
He never asks himself: 'Should he do the job even if it means that Evil will triumph?' He wants to survive, and he wants to get paid. At most, he does feel a personal responsibility for the members of his team.
Action film fans have complained about the unsophisticated battle scenes, but this is really more of a dramatic 'caper' film with only a few violent scenes.
The unrealistic Hollywood firefight ending should be forgiven due to limitations of the times, but those who are used to modern combat 'shooting' scripts and realistic storyboards and the accompanying visual and sound effects may be disappointed.
Those who love a good story and characters will not be. Walken Rocks!
Doctor Who: Love & Monsters (2006)
most original POV of nearly any Who episode
I lived in england at the cool age of 13 and watched jonathon pertwee cavort with characters who looked like they were glitterock backup singers with mild disbelief...
...But as a young adult in the early 80s I fell in love with the weird insouciance of the Tom Baker era, followed by a mild rooting interest in Peter Davison, further declining until Ecclestone and Tennant revived the franchise for the new millennium...
Back in the 80s the local PBS station KTEH helped fill me in on the doings of the good doctors that preceded Baker and I grew to appreciate Pertwee, and his nemesis The Master... good times...There were also some very well constructed plots/story arcs (the planet pirates, for example) which would take many episodes to resolve But enough of my fanboy credentials
This is an art film episode of Dr Who as told from the the view of the red shirted star trek crewman who will probably perish on the plant's surface.
It is a unique take on the normally unseen collateral damage these great events and adventures have upon the incidental characters. This teleplay looks at the effect on those who are merely aware and interested in the Doctor. It's probably the very first PoMo dr treatment apart from Comic Relief, etc.
This is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with a handycam and it has that same unsettling realism that the more recent Dr Who episodes have had, and such as were found in some of the 'Historical' Pertwee and Baker episodes that were set in Medieval and Cavalier times in which some technologically advanced being attempted to subvert the flow of history for their advantage.
If this is from the guy with his hands on the franchise then I cheer for the revival of one of the most thoughtful TV scifi series of all time.