tv
Reggae Britannia/ Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae, BBC FourMonday, 14 February 2011
BBC Four's Britannia series keeps it simple - it tells the story in a straight line, illustrates it with as much archive material as the budget will allow, and interviews as many key protagonists as it can find. If the subject is strong enough, you'll get a good film out of it. Read more... |
The 2011 Baftas, BBC One: The Twitter ReviewSunday, 13 February 2011
@Wossy seems to have been cast as second baddie in #PiratesduCaribbean 4 This intro is entirely about namechecking the films so they can cut away to the US stars who've jetted in from #Tinseltown Lame string of Little Fockers jokes. These clips montages always make films look like the complete Shakespeare. Then you go and see them... Read more... |
Mad Dogs, Sky 1Friday, 11 February 2011
Yes, the Sky 1 drama department is trying to elbow some room on the national sofa and their policy with Mad Dogs is to cast it to the very hilt. Thus John Simm, Philip Glenister, Max Beesley and Marc Warren, playing four old lags who’ve sort of lost touch over the years, board a plane for Spain, summoned for a nostalgic bunfight by another compadre. Read more... |
Panorama: Forgotten Heroes, BBC OneThursday, 10 February 2011
A film apparently in support of British servicemen on BBC One? The Daily Mail will never believe this. Whatever, this was a bleak, unsparing investigation of the way veterans of our nation's various pointless and endless wars are dumped back into civilian life with scant regard for their mental health or physical wellbeing. Read more... |
Faulks on Fiction, BBC Two/ Birth of the British Novel, BBC FourTuesday, 08 February 2011
London’s literary world must be as small as it was in the 18th century. Or at least that’s the impression you get when you watch book programmes on the BBC, for it’s the same old characters that keep cropping up. Read more... |
Afghan Cricket Club: Out of the Ashes, BBC FourMonday, 07 February 2011
At first sight, “Afghanistan cricket team” might be labled along with “The kosher guide to cooking pork” or “How to keep your promises, by N Clegg”. But in 2008, Taj Malik, an Afghan player passionate about the game, decided to try to take his national team into the world’s elite level and this film (part of the Storyville strand), by three young film-makers, Tim Albone, Leslie Knott and Lucy Martens, followed their efforts over two years. Read more... |
Hawaii Five-O, Sky1/ The Promise, Channel 4Monday, 07 February 2011
They've remade everything else, so what took them so long to get around to Hawaii Five-0? Maybe the exotic Hawaiian locations of JJ Abrams's Lost helped to trigger flashbacks of Steve McGarrett & co, which would explain why Abrams's henchmen Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are co-producers of the new Five-0. Read more... |
Ronald Reagan: American Idol, BBC FourSunday, 06 February 2011
Aptly for a programme whose title invokes a show which is all style, no substance, the subject of Ronald Reagan: American Idol is image. What was Reagan really like? How much of his career as a Hollywood star did he carry into office? And why have certain images of Reagan endured? The first question, alas, is the one neither the film nor his biographers nor his family and friends have come close to answering. Read more... |
Marchlands, ITV1Friday, 04 February 2011
A young girl runs in slow motion through the woods, the cameraman in hot pursuit: this is only the opening seconds of ITV1’s new drama series, and already I was wondering to what degree this new five-parter was going to test my cliché tolerance level. But fortunately Marchlands pulled itself together and settled down to spend most of its first hour just letting us get to know the three families who had lived in the Marchlands house over the four previous decades. Read more... |
The Big C, More4Thursday, 03 February 2011
Probably the only person who would try and tackle cancer in a "humorous" way in Britain would be Frankie Boyle, and God knows he's not funny. No doubt we'd be treated to jokes about how unattractive women without hair are, or something equally enlightening. Read more... |
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