Lately I've Been Watching

My latest mini TV and film reviews, with trailers and 'where to watch'.  

If you have trouble finding where any show/film is available in your country, this is a good site: Justwatch.  Just put the name of the show into the search, and choose your country further down, from the drop-down menu.  It shows where you can stream, buy or rent.  

If you can't find what you're looking for, try putting 'where can I watch (name of show)' into your search engine

If you would like to see more posts, please click here: Lately I've Been Watching.  If you get as far as the bottom, 'Older Posts' will take you to more.

Film: Living (2022)

5 stars plus ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(UK & US Rent/Buy: Amazon, Google, Apple)  

A truly beautiful film - funny, touching, sad, though it never felt designed to tug at the heart strings; it just did.  Adapted from the 1954 Japanese film Ikiru, which was inspired by Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Illiych, it's set in London in 1953 and tells the story of Rodney Williams (Bill Nighy), a senior official at London County Council, who discovers he only has six months to live.  It is at this point that he realises he has not been truly alive for many years, and sets about changing this.  In the wrong hands it could have been horribly schmaltzy, but this most definitely isn't. 

I adored the 1950s feel, the snapshot of an age gone by - and the opening titles sequence, in the style of a film produced in that era.

Watch it. Please!

(btw, my other favourite Bill Nighy performance was as ageing rocker Ray Simms in Still Crazy (1998).  Must have seen it about ten times!)

Series: The Last Of Us - Season 1

5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(US & UK: HBO max; buy Amazon, Apple)

I waited until this was over before watching it all over 2 nights.  If you're a 'perilous post-apocalyptic journey' addict, like me, you'll love it.  Actors all great, story convincing, etc.  I very much liked how much time was taken up with the side stories of how certain situations came to be - they were every bit as good as the main one, and it showed the post-apocalyptic world from different points of view, which is always welcome.  Bit of a weak ending, but I really, really liked it.  And was still sad about Joel's daughter, right up until the end; she was so lovely.

Documentary: Paula

4.5*⭐⭐⭐⭐

(UK: All 4)

Two episode doc about dazzling super-flirt Paula Yates, who had huge charisma, was witty, sharp, amusing, entertaining, immensely likeable and always looked fab.  I liked how this documentary put paid to all the nasty stories about her during the time when she left Bob Geldof for Michael Hutchence, the love of her life - and afterwards, when he died.  RIP Paula.

Dark Comedy Series: Beef 

5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Netflix)

Glenn is back!  Great to see Steven Yeun slaying it in these excellent ten episodes with Ali Wong, equally as first rate.  Starts off with a road rage incident between the two of them and escalates into all manner of domestic horror.  It's extremely funny in places, so well-written (by Lee Sung Jin), the acting is spot on and the send-up of privileged Californians is perfection.  Loved it, highly recommended.  

(Also, TWD lovers, Steven can sing up a storm, play the guitar as a pro, and his acting has matured so much!)

Series: Vikings: Valhalla - Seasons 1 and 2

4.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Netflix)

Takes place a hundred years or so after the story of Ragnar Lothbrok, Rollo, Loki, Bjorn and Ivar the Boneless.  I love it, but my husband thinks it's a lukewarm follow-up to the original with rubbish characters; I think his words were 'Thank God that's over', when it was.  Guess I'll be watching S3 on my own, then.  I do actually know what he means, in a way (in that Travis Fimmel has nothing to worry about) but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.  So there.

Film: Sunshine (2007)

4* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(UK: Disney+.  US & UK: Rent/Buy: Apple, Amazon) 

Dire warning about what happens when you try to play God with the weather.  Fun futuristic sci-fi, entertaining, definitely worth a watch.

Film: Sharper (2023)

4* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(UK & US: stream Apple+)

Enjoyable film about conmen and women.  Kept one on one's toes, working out who was conning whom.  Very much enjoyed it, but a bit of a rubbish ending.  Stars Julianne Moore, John Lithgow, Sebastian Stan.

Film: Fall (2022)

3.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Netflix)

Becky and Hunter are Extreme Climbing hobbyists.  Becky is traumatised by an event of a year ago, and has not left terra firma since it happened; she is a total wreck, drinking too much, etc.  Hunter, meanwhile, has monetised her sport by becoming 'Danger D' (or something) on You Tube, and doing her climbs in low cut tops.  Hunter persuades Becky to face her fears and do another climb with her - this time, up a disused TV signal tower.  3000 ft.  Of course, lots of terrifying stuff happens, none of which I will list here because spoilers.

This film is not for the faint of heart - sometimes I was actually forced to look away, and I love scary shit!  A definite 10/10 for suspense, special effects, etc.  So why only 3.5*?

Here's why:

1. Neither actress looked as if they spent their time doing anything more physical than clubbing, and certainly didn't have the sort of muscle that would have built up if constantly doing this sort of thing.
2. If Becky had been out of practice and on the piss for a year, why would she or Hunter think it might be a good idea for her to 'conquer her fears' with a dangerous, unresearched climb?  Especially as she clearly wasn't emotionally ready for such a feat.  Which leads me to... 
3. Surely the people who do this sport do a risk assessment first?  Yeah, I know that doesn't make for an edge-of-your-seat film, but .... something?
4. The consumption of something I won't name (spoilers) by one of the girls near the end apparently turned her into Superwoman.  I think it would have been more likely to make her severely ill.
5. The end was really, really weak.  Worthy only of a 1980s B movie.  No twist, no surprises (though there was an excellent twist in the last quarter of the film - totally unexpected!), felt like scenes were cut.

ON THE OTHER HAND!!!  Becky's lovely lovely father is played by lovely lovely Jeffrey Dean Morgan, so what else can I say but 'go watch it now'??!!

Cartoon Series: South Park - Season 26 eps 1 - 6 

4* ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

(Paramount +)

I thought the first episode was weak, but the second one was the enjoyable piss-take about the Markles; since then, Season 26 has continued to be good.  Not brilliant like some other seasons, but good.  With a show that's gone on as long as this one, there are bound to be highs and lows.  

Documentary: Jared from Subway: Catching a Monster

4* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Discovery+, YouTube)

Living in England as I do, I had never heard of Jared from Subway (an obese, reclusive young man who lost stones on his Subway sandwiches diet, and became a national hero) until I saw the South Park episode about him, made before his paedophilia was exposed.  This 4 part documentary features the woman who first discovered the truth about him, and also the two girls who suffered as a result of their mother meeting Russell Taylor, Jared Fogle's great friend and the director of the 'Jared Foundation'.  

It was intricate in its detail, but I felt it was spun out for too long; could have easily told the story in 3 or even 2 episodes.  There was a bit too much foreshadowing that gave the wrong impression of what was to come.  Prepare to be grossed out.

Film: Boston Strangler (2023)

4*⭐⭐⭐⭐

(US: Hulu.  UK: Disney+)

Story of the (clue's in the name) in the late 1950s.  Stars Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon.  Good, I'd recommend, though not particularly memorable.  Interesting seeing, at the end, what happened to the real life journalists played by Knightley and Coon.

Series: Mayor of Kingstown - Seasons 1 and 2

4.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(US & UK: Paramount +.  Buy Apple, Amazon)

"Mayor of Kingstown follows the powerful McLusky family, power brokers in Kingstown, Michigan, where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry. Tackling themes of systemic racism, corruption, and inequality, the series provides a stark look at their attempt to bring order and justice to a town that has neither."

Liked this a LOT.  Co-created by Taylor Sheridan, who does lots of other good stuff like Yellowstone and Tulsa King.  

Series: Your Honor - Seasons 1 and 2

4.5*⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Amazon, Showtime, Paramount+, Now)

Judge Michael Desiato (Bryan Cranston, hurrah!) has his life crumble in an instant when son Adam kills the son of local gangster Jimmy Baxter (Michael Stuhlbarg, hurrah!) in a road accident, and flees the scene.  This leads to all manner of disaster, ruining the lives of so many.  

I watched the first season when it came out and thought it was excellent; watched it again before seeing S2, and felt that in the second series the story was a little dragged out, and the impact lost.  However, it's still jolly good.  Definitely recommend

Film: Most Dangerous Game (2020)

4.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Amazon)

This was thrilling, edge of your seat stuff, all the way through.  Chap with terminal health and money problems (Liam Hemsworth) is offered the chance to be the prey in a human hunt.  The hunts are arranged by a shadowy group, as recreation for jaded billionaire psychopaths.

The financial pay-off for Hemsworth's character is great.  Even if he gets killed, his pregnant wife will still earn handsomely.  If he survives 24 hours of being pursued throughout Detroit, he gets to enjoy his winnings, too.

Also watched the 2023 series of the same name, same principle, same smooth Miles (excellently played by Christopher Waltz) offering another young man with severe money problems the chance to make them all go away.  Boxer Victor's game is set in New York.  Each episode is short, often less than 10 minutes.  Works just as well as the film, hope there will be more!

Series: Da Vinci's Demons - Season 1

4 * ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(US: Amazon, Starz.  UK: Disney+)

Ridiculous fiction loosely based (and I mean loosely) on the life of Leonardo da Vinci.  Lots of action, much about the political state of Italy at the time, lots of really good-looking people performing amazing feats.  Works best if you see it for what it is - not so much a historical drama as a Renaissance Romp.  Most entertaining.

Lately I've Been Watching

 The latest in my series of mini TV and film reviews, with trailers and 'where to watch'.  If you have trouble finding where any show/film is available in your country, this is a good site: Justwatch.  Just put the name of the show into the search, and choose your country further down, from the drop-down menu.  It shows where you can stream, buy or rent.  Or you can put 'where can I watch ***' into whichever search engine you use, or go to the programme's own site, if it has one.

If you would like to see more posts, please click here: Lately I've Been Watching.  If you get as far as the bottom, 'Older Posts' will take you to more.

Miniseries: John Adams

5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(UK: Sky, Now.  US: HBO Max, HBO, Directv)

Made in 2008, the story of the second President of the US.  Paul Giamatti (Chuck Rhoades in Billions) is as terrific as one would expect.  Laura Linney (Ozark) plays his wife.  It's a fine televisual achievement, so well-written, acted, directed, with intricate historical detail, and made me understand more about why the Americans make such a big deal of patriotism - also how far removed Congress was from the ordinary soldiers, when I watched Turn: Washington's Spies (see further down).

I particularly liked the last episode, about the time after Adams' presidency, his family and the last years of his life.  Best of all, the portrayal of how he and his great friend and sometime adversary Thomas Jefferson (POTUS #3) (played masterfully by Stephen Dillane - Stannis Baratheon in Game of Thrones) died within hours of each other, on July 4th, 50 years after the Declaration of Independence.  If that was a detail in a work of fiction, the editor would score a line through it for being too unfeasible and corny!  

Highly recommended.

Series: Squid Game - Season 1

4.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Netflix)

Much hyped and discussed Korean series about a few hundred people who, stricken with hellish financial problems, agree to participate in a game that ends in death for all but the winner, who gains a life-changing amount of moey.  The setting up of the storylines was, I thought, a bit slow at first, but as time went on I realised this was necessary to make one care what happened to the characters.  The games were thrilling.  I loved it.  I watched the dubbed rather than the subtitled version.

Series: Vikings: Valhalla - Season 1

4.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Netflix)

At first I thought this was going to be little more than a Happy Shopper version of the original Vikings, but it turned out to be great, and just as good, give or take the absence of Travis Fimmel and Katheryn Winnick.  Loved it, and am fascinated by how the world has moved on in the 100 years since Ragnar.  Made me feel nostalgic for the first season of Vikings all over again, and sad about how the peoples' culture was destroyed.  I was interested to see that the settling of Greenland had come to be by then, too.  If you remember, at the end of the last season of the original, a party had gone there but the only one who stayed was a chap who went off his head.

It's great, and I very much look forward to seeing more.  Also, plenty of eye candy. 😉

Series: The Walking Dead - Season 11b

(AMC+, Disney)

Episode 10: New Haunts - full review HERE    5*⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Episode 11: Rogue Element - full review HERE   4* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Episode 12: The Lucky Ones - full review HERE   5* plus ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Episode 13: Warlords - full review HERE   5* plus  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

4-part miniseries: Our House

3* ⭐⭐⭐

(itv.com)

The first thing I said to my husband after we'd finished watching this was, 'Next time my test reader points out plot holes or not adequately researched aspects of one my books, I'll be tempted to say just two words: 'Our House.'  

Some of the gems:

• A whole pack of sleeping tablets crushed into a small glass of wine, dissolving to leave no taste or sediment.
• A 999 emergency call giving information about a hit and run accident that left a child dead - the call was cut off half way through but was not immediately traced and followed up by the police.
• Solicitors able to effect a house sale for two million in cash, within a matter of about 3 weeks, from deciding to sell to the new owners moving in. 
• Not one of the neighbours in this close, everyone-looks-out-for-each-other neighbourhood notices the estranged husband emptying the three storey house in the middle of the night.
• Man with dodgy unpaid fine background opens Swiss bank account at the click of a key, it appears (I've just looked it up, and it's a fairly complicated process).
• The writer(s) didn't appear to realise that all phones can be traced for location and all text messages uncovered.

Seemed like a great plot idea - woman comes home to find that all her belongings are missing from her home, that it's been sold while she's been away, and the new owners are moving in.  Martin Compston (Line of Duty) was good, as was to be expected, but the woman who played his wife was horribly wooden and po-faced.  Rupert Penry-Jones did a reasonable job of playing the suave baddie.  It was quite entertaining with lots of enjoyable plot developments, but was just too far-fetched.

Then there's the dialogue ... when one character was caught having sex with someone they shouldn't, we made the this isn't what it looks like joke.  Imagine our shouts of laughter when this really was the next line of dialogue.  Along with the regulation just breathe, uttered whenever someone was suffering an understandably severe reaction to horrendous life-changing trauma, I felt there was much room for improvement.  The fact that there was no HEA, however, earned it an extra half star.

Series: Money Heist - Season 5B

4.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(Netflix)

I wasn't as mad about the first part of Season 5 as I had been the first 4 seasons, but this second half is much better.  It's also the end of the story, it appears - since Tokyo died at the end of the last half, it seemed at first to be logical that these five episodes would be a wrapping up, but there's a lot of exciting stuff happening, still - the last 3 episodes are particularly good.  Yes, it ends but there is scope for more...

Miniseries: The Tourist

4* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(US: HBO Max.  UK: BBC iPlayer, Sky, Virgin)

Jamie Dornan as an Irishman in the Australian outback, who leaves a rundown old gas station, gets in his car to carry on with his journey, only to be chased down by a huge truck, 'Duel' style.  After a crash, he loses his memory - which means that the reason for him being in Aus and exactly why he was being chased by the truck are a mystery to the viewer, too.  Slowly, slowly, his story is pieced together, though he doesn't know who is genuinely trying to help, and who had something to do with the situation in which he found himself.  

I very much liked the setting; the cinematography is most atmospheric.  It's a good story but one of the main characters I found so irritating that I could hardly bear to watch her.  I liked it.  Wouldn't rave about it, but it's good.

Series: Turn: Washington's Spies - Seasons 1-4

5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(UK: Amazon, Apple, Google - buy only.  US: AMC+, Directv, Fubo)

Love this series so much - I wasn't sure during the first season, but since then it's got better and better.  Set during the American War of Independence, it's about the spies who infiltrated the opposing side, mostly the real life 'Culper Spy Ring' -  Washington's spies pretending to be Loyalists.  The main character is Abraham Woodhull (Jamie Bell) a Long Island farmer and son of a magistrate.

My favourites are Major Edmund Hewlett (Burn Gorman), who is far more decent than most of the other Loyalists, and I loved Samuel Roukin's marvellous portrayal of Captain John Simcoe as a ruthless sociopath (though I've since read up on him and he doesn't appear to have been so!).  I also liked JJ Feild as Major John Andre (not least of all because he's gorgeous), and Idara Victor as Abigail, a maid working for Andre and then the loathsome Benedict Arnold, who did her best to help Abraham's people - and the beautiful Peggy Shippen, played by Ksenia Solo.

Also featured: Angus MacFayden as revolting Loyalist mercenary Robert Rogers, John Carroll Lynch (Eastman in TWD) as the rather dandy owner of a small newspaper and a Loyalist tavern, and Aldis Hodge (City on a Hill, and Michonne's Mike in TWD!) as Abigail's man and Loyalist ranger.

The plot is based on real incidents and real people but with much fictional embellishment.  Aside from the great acting, I very much liked how it was kept 'real' - aside from the well-to-do, most people really did look filthy, and as though they suffered great hardship.  I have three episodes more to watch, and wish there was another season!

Film: Ted K

4.5* ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

(US: Rent on Apple, Amazon, Google)

Sharlto Copley stars as Ted Kaczynski, better known as domestic terrorist the Unabomber who lived in a cabin in the woods near Lincoln, Montana, and grew increasingly angry about the destruction of his environment and the effects of technology and industry on the world.  He channels his rage into a series of mail bombs, some of which cause fatalities.  Copley was outstanding, and the film was so artfully produced; I imagine there will be many who watch this and feel some sympathy for his emotional state if not his actions.

I notice that Wikipedia describes it as a 'historical crime drama'.  Kaczynski was arrested in 1996.  Does the genre 'historical' now refer to anything that took place before the 21st century, one wonders?!  

Film: Last Night In Soho

4* ⭐⭐⭐⭐

(UK: Virgin, or rent on Apple, Amazon, Google.  US: Rent only, on Apple, Amazon, Google etc)

Quiet, small-town Cornish girl Eloise Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) is obsessed with the 1960s, and just a little bit psychic.  When she goes to London to study fashion design, she finds that she doesn't fit in with her fellow students.  Choosing to move to a bedsit in an old house, she becomes enmeshed in the problematic life of Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy - The Queen's Gambit), an ambitious flirtatious young woman looking to become a singing star - in the 1960s.  Yes, Eloise does time travel, too!  Also stars Diana Rigg (who sadly died before the film came out), Terence Stamp and Matt Smith.

I loved all the sixties clothes and the general atmosphere, but Eloise is shocked to find out that the Soho of the time was somewhat darker than her fantasy.  I'd describe it as an entertaining time travel romp, with bloody murders and a few scary bits.  I enjoyed it, but it's not particularly memorable.

(btw, if you've watched it, I was convinced that the girl who played the horrible Jocasta was the daughter or some other relative of Keeley Hawes, because her face and facial mannerisms are so similar, but she's not).  

Film: No Exit

3.5* ⭐⭐⭐

(US: Hulu.  UK: Disney+)

Havana Rose Liu stars as a junkie who absconds from rehab and holes up in a visitors' centre in impassable mountains during a bad storm.  Four other people are already there - but which of them has dastardly intent?

It's good, as far as fairly solid thrillers go.  Nothing outstanding, but worth a watch.