Ogre Done- SHREK FOREVER AFTER Review

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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You'll be surprised how easy it is to pretend Shrek the Third didn't happen while watching the new one. That works in the favour of Shrek Forever After. Without much of the invention that made the first one a hit, this latest trip to Far Far Away finds Shrek in the throes of a mid-life crisis. No, really. Enter Rumpelstiltskin, an odious little dickhead who has a grudge against Shrek, with a promise to make everything better, It's A Wonderful Life-style. As per usual, the world isn't so good when our hero was never born, and Shrek has 24 hours to put things right.

If it needs saying for animation fans, then no, this isn't anywhere near as good as Dreamworks' critical darling of 2010, How To Train Your Dragon. Nor is it as good as Shrek or even the slight step-down of the first sequel. Being a series for kids, its target audience probably love all of these films, but it still falls to nuts like me to review this kind of thing.

At four films, we're now in the territory where the film's resorting to Rumpelstiltskin and the Pied Piper as new characters. With Humpty Dumpty and the Golden Goose slated for the upcoming Puss in Boots spin-off, there's definitely a whiff of shoving whatever they can think of into this one and saving the good stuff for the film that actually shows promise. With 3D attached too, it definitely feels like Dreamworks is capitalising on their brand rather than telling a new story.

As I've already said, the film is best enjoyed if you forget Shrek the Third happened, because Shrek Forever After is thankfully a better film and one that might just as easily have followed Shrek 2, and made the series a round trilogy. While Rumpelstiltskin is a bit of a stretch, he makes a pretty effective villain. His nasally tones, provided by Dreamworks animator Walt Dohrn, set him firmly as a pretty desperate character rather than as the uber-cool Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog or the mentally damaged villain in the upcoming Toy Story 3. Disney has gotten better at this stuff than they were around the time Shrek came out.

Our jolly green hero on the other hand is as irascible as ever, and takes centre stage in the plot development for a change. But Shrek has never been the funniest character in his own films, and the appearances of Donkey, Puss in Boots et al makes the film feel sketchy in a way that the first two in the series didn't. Not to mention that this is essentially a spoof of It's A Wonderful Life, the one plot arc that many TV series have resorted to when they simply run out of steam.

The BBFC report makes an interesting point on this as well. The film has been rated U despite having mild fight scenes. The report expands upon this to say that the fight scenes involve "knife threat", but because this violence is "directed at Shrek, it conveys little sense of real danger and fits within the 'U' allowance". Doesn't that sum up the series at this point? Audiences have actually stopped caring about the ogre. The character who made a splash back in 2001 has become symbolic of the very thing that Dreamworks began by taking the piss out of. This series is now a commercial machine, devoid of much emotional investment, resorting to cliché and the same old deus ex machina as earlier instalments.

In listing any grievances with this sequel, I'm inevitably going to sound like I want you all out of my swamp. Don't get me wrong- I imagine kids and die-hard fans of all the films will love this one too, but my not entirely grumpy point is that I can't imagine it holding much cross-generational appeal. Remember how great the first Shrek was because it appealed to everyone, kids and adults alike? When the funniest new gag comes courtesy of a fat little boy with a catchphrase, something's gone awry with the script.

It's not saying much to buzz that Shrek Forever After is better than the last outing, as I'm still not particularly sorry to see this series conclude. This one is a diverting film that's not nearly as crass as some of Dreamworks' other output, but after seeing How To Train Your Dragon this year, you could really hope for better. The best joke the series has to offer after the first film is getting its own spin-off film at the end of next year anyway, so to finally close the book on Shrek isn't particularly premature.

Shrek Forever After is showing in cinemas nationwide in 2D and 3D from July 1st.
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If you've seen Shrek Forever After, why not share your comments on the films and/or my reviews below? If you're waiting for a more satisfying animated sequel, keep waiting for Toy Story 3. You're going to love it.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Zero Room #5- What's The Crack?

Matt Smith's first series drew to a close on Saturday night on BBC One, and the last thirteen weeks have been a hell of a ride. This penultimate Series 5 post reviews the romantic comedy episode The Lodger and the epic, balls-to-the-wall final two-fer, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang (to be referred to henceforth by the former name to save time)

Reviews will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, toddle over to the iPlayer, or watch BBC Three at some point in the next century's worth of repeats.

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The Lodger opens on an unexpected incident with the TARDIS, which strands the Doctor on contemporary Earth. He's forced to move into a house on Aickman Road, sharing with a laddish flatmate called Craig. Craig pines after his best friend Sophie, likes playing football, and is suitably charmed by the new lodger because he's weird and can cook well. Just as the Doctor is oblivious to how he's usurping the things that are important to him, Craig is oblivious to whatever is living on the top floor of his house. People go up, but never come down...

The episode 11 slot has been put to various uses since the series returned. It's the slot that gave us fluffy episodes like Boomtown and Fear Her, but was later used for ominous stage-setting episodes like Utopia and Turn Left. What's special about The Lodger is that Gareth Roberts' script seems to somehow traverse both, while still spending more time in the former camp than the latter. It's adapted from a pretty good comic strip that Roberts wrote for Doctor Who Magazine back in 2006, in which the Tenth Doctor lodged with his companion's put-upon boyfriend Mickey for a week or so. The screen translation is even better- Matt Smith's Doctor basically is a fish-out-of-water, most of all in this scenario.

Where David Tennant's portrayal had a reasonably easy grace, Smith plays the oddball well enough to pull this plot off fantastically. He eclipses James Corden's Craig in the acting stakes, and that would usually be a good thing. I really don't like James Corden, see. Here, he's close to being endearing, which makes me realise I simply don't like his overexposure in the media. He's an actor, not a stand-up comic, so I suspect his ubiquity elsewhere makes him seem more annoying than he really is. It is great to finally see the radiant Daisy Haggard in the show as Sophie too.

Karen Gillan takes the backseat for this one, and it's curious to see that we get a "companion-lite" episode in this series while the "Doctor-lite" counterpart is conspicuous by its absence. Maybe Matt Smith really does have the energy to keep bounding around for nine months without an episode to sit back and put his feet up, but it'll be interesting to see where Steven Moffat goes if he does a Doctor-lite episode next year, with a 14-episode filming run to do instead of this year's 13. Moffat previously gave us Blink, so we know how good he can write this show even without the Doctor, but you'll never hear me outright ask for an episode with less Matt Smith.

The obligatory menace of the story sits well with the more comedic elements too, although I think Roberts possibly over-egged the menace upstairs with the number of people we see wander in off the street. What's interesting is that we never get an explanation for just who built the second-storey TARDIS on top of Craig's house. It's a fine twist, and pays off as a conclusion to this particular episode, but it's in this character's retained mystery that you have to wonder if it's going to be important later.

At its heart, The Lodger is a romantic comedy, and a fine one at that. It's actually one of the unexpected pleasures of the series, proving to be warm, funny and the episode that would have sat best in the Davies era. Luckily, it comes with the great comic timing of Matt Smith instead, who gets some great one-liners ("Can I put you on hold? I need to eat a biscuit"), while continuing to develop his incarnation before the big finale.
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After eleven weeks, everything converges as the two-part finale begins with The Pandorica Opens. By way of Liz 10's royal art collection and Churchill's bunker, River Song retrieves one of Vincent Van Gogh's final paintings, for which the episode is named. It depicts the explosion of the Doctor's TARDIS, an event that would be massive enough to crack the skin of the universe itself. In 102AD, the Doctor will find out exactly what the Pandorica is, and Amy Pond's fractured life will finally begin to make sense.

The high watermark of the new series for me was The Parting of the Ways, as far as finales went. I enjoyed Doomsday, Last of the Time Lords and Journey's End too, but they often fell short of their superior openings. The Pandorica Opens bucks the trend in a big way- where Russell T Davies' thirteenth episodes in each series came to give the impression that he'd written himself into a corner each year, Steven Moffat appears to have planned this all along.

With director Toby Haynes on board, the story is certainly the best two-parter since 2007's Human Nature and The Family of Blood, while still being a fundamentally different beast. The stakes have never been more massive, and the universe having been ended at the end of part one trump even RTD's increasingly hyperbolic threats without becoming ridiculous. RTD largely avoided silliness too, but there was still a question of whether or not the Moff would pull it off.

Haynes helps a lot by lending the story the most cinematic direction the series has ever had, moreso than this series' The Time of Angels. His influences are very much worn on his sleeve, encompassing both George Lucas odysseys, Star Wars (see those scene transitions?) and Indiana Jones (everything below Stonehenge) alike. It's his first time on the show, but I actually find it hard to imagine any of the more seasoned directors shooting the monster mash here as well as he does.

To bring in Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans and whatever other monster prosthetics were lying around at the studio may well have been an economic move, but it pays off wonderfully. For one thing, the Cybermen haven't been as effective as this in a long long time. And the scale just doesn't get any bigger than the moment when the Doctor is shoved into the Pandorica, as his enemies hope to prevent him from inadvertently destroying the universe. This massive alliance of monsters is almost apologetic for the comparative lack of monsters in the second part, which focuses much more on character and on the resolution of the series arc.

In the way of other two-parters penned by the Moff, it's definitely a story of two very distinctive halves, and the latter is much more cerebral than you'd expect. We've seen wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff before, but it somehow still seems fresh here. At the same time, there's some beautiful character development for Rory, who's been resurrected as a plastic duplicate by the Nestenes. Arthur Darvill is one of the unsung talents working on this series, and it'll be fun to see where the millennia of experience he has on the Doctor takes him next series. Then again, it's always been easy to overlook him with Matt Smith at the helm.

And what a great Doctor he's turned out to be. He has the full gamut of emotion in this story, and the only time it ever seems tired is when the Doctor believes he's going to die, which we already saw David Tennant do on New Year's Day. Smith still combusts with energy every time he's on-screen, and he plays well against everyone who shares it with him, from Caitlin Blackwood, who makes a welcome return as young Amy, to Karen Gillan, whose Elder Pond comes to the fore as her arc is partially resolved.

Even River Song is more palatable this time around. Even though she utterly divested this story of jeopardy by glibly recalling the Pandorica at the end of her last appearance, the character plays a more interesting role without shedding any of her secrets just yet. That's promised for next year, along with what actually caused the TARDIS to explode and nearly bring about the end of the universe. It should be a lot more disappointing than it actually is, that these threads are left hanging. Trouble is, this story is just too wonderful.

Emotional, exciting and ultimately very satisfying indeed, The Pandorica Opens is the most fulfilling series finale since Christopher Eccleston's swansong back in 2005. Both episodes are fantastic in distinctive ways, with the constant of the central performances holding up through to the tantalising Christmas teaser. The story does its job as both a shameless bit of fan-service and as a quality bit of family drama. And best of all, it has a happy ending, which we had never seen in the new series, up until Rory became Mr. Pond, anyway. The upbeat conclusion makes you long for Christmas and the next series more than ever before.

Bravo Mr. Moffat.
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I'll be back soon with a quick overview of this series of Doctor Who. Until then, why not share your comments below?

Doctor Who will return to BBC One and BBC HD on Christmas Day.

A Rocker and a Hard Place

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

Rock and roll is usually portrayed as difficult for the artists just so we can see past the revenue and the fame and the lifestyle of obscene lucre and actually empathise with such characters. Sometimes, they pull it off, as in Apatow-produced spin-off Get Him To The Greek and made-for-TV mini movie Lennon Naked.

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Lennon Naked covers a turning point in John Lennon's life, when his close friend and band manager Brian Epstein died suddenly. Feeling isolated by the excesses of his family lifestyle, living in an absurdly opulent property in the countryside, Lennon began a massive upheaval as he got in touch with his estranged father and grew closer to Yoko Ono. His childhood trauma looms large throughout this film, and it takes time for Lennon to accept it.

"The following drama is based on real events, although some scenes are the invention of the writer." So begins Lennon Naked, and writer Robert Jones has immediately distanced us from our central character. The ambiguity of such a declamatory title-card just makes the audience doubt the veracity of what's being told throughout. Which scenes? Why were they invented?

Neither does it help enormously that this covers much of the same ground as last year's rather well-made profile piece, Nowhere Boy. The disparity with the earlier film only makes it more confusing- did Lennon recall the trauma of That Day In Blackpool when he was in his teens or after the Beatles disbanded? You can see why this part of Lennon's life appeals to dramatists, but putting it into every adaptation feels like each writer is trying to capitalise on what's most interesting about him to them, rather than finding new perspectives.

It's particularly disappointing to see from Jones, who co-wrote Party Animals, the fresh and excellent drama series about political researchers and lobbyists. Nevertheless, the slack is largely created by director Edmund Coulthard, who mixes in news footage of the real John Lennon with the fictionalised version here. Whatever you think of Christopher Eccleston's performance here, he's no dead ringer for Lennon, and while Coulthard was wise to avoid vocal synchronicity by having the actors do their own versions of the music, the reliance on stock footage is jarring.

Eccleston does play the tortured musician and occasional balloon liberator well, with some nice creative aging and de-aging showing Lennon from 1964 to 1971. You know just by his presence that it's an interesting role- Eccleston doesn't seem to be in nearly as many things as some of his peers, but you know his modus operandi is to work hard on roles that appeal strongly to him. Well, maybe not in the case of Gone in 60 Seconds, but his presence is still a mark of quality.

The film is all about his personal dynamics- largely with his father, and how that reflects on his treatment of his own son Julian. If there's a drawback to this, it's that he dominates the screen to the extent of excluding supporting players like former Torchwood regular Naoko Mori as Yoko Ono and Adrian Bower as Pete Shotton. Mori is near unrecognisable as the accredited Beatles-ruiner, aided by the script's objectivity in showing how it was Lennon's decision that he was finished with his band.

The one duff performance I'd pick out is Andrew Scott's as Paul McCartney. OK, so the band is largely ancillary to Lennon's story anyway, but he's distractingly off, in some way. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I was never convinced in the way I was by Eccleston. Beatles fans should also be prepared to once again see Ringo given short shrift. Come on, someone ask him what's happened in his life! There has to be something of interest there.

Lennon Naked adds to the growing pile of worthy Beatles biopics with a strong central performance by Eccleston, but in the end I just didn't think it was as good as last year's Nowhere Boy. With only a little more distance in the souce material and a little less mistrust in the film from the very beginning, this could have been something a little more memorable. It's not indispensable for Beatles fans, but it's worth a watch.

Lennon Naked was broadcast on BBC Four on June 23rd 2010. It's available to UK viewers here on BBC iPlayer until July 5th 2010.

Decades on from the Beatles, we find British rocker Aldous Snow in Get Him To The Greek, having fallen upon hard times since his original appearance in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. This spin-off film sees his journey to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles for a tenth-anniversary concert, at the behest of a greedy record producer and his put-upon intern Aaron. Aaron has orders to drag Aldous to the theatre on time by fair play or foul, and so begins a trail of depravity and relapse. Really funny depravity and relapse.

That Russell Brand, eh? I remember seeing him on one of those Channel 4 turn-of-the-year panel shows saying that if he reads a script where someone is very strait-laced with short hair and no foibles, he doesn't think he'd like to play that character. Whatever his shortcomings as an actor in general, he plays himself when he's in films. And dyou know what? That works in Get Him To The Greek.

The film immediately recovers from being the spin-off that no one was really clamouring for by endearing us to what made Snow a decent gag character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and throwing in some brilliant one-liners and sight gags throughout. Other than that, there's almost complete discontinuity with the earlier film, bar a welcome cameo by Kristen Bell. Still, as story goes, you should really be too troubled- while a narrative does exist, the laughs distract you enough.

This breed of Apatow comedy is always over-written. Much more material than is needed is written and shot, hence a lot of the shots from the trailers not turning up in the final films. With Apatow at the helm, a lot of the material makes it into the final cut, resulting in slightly bloated works like Funny People. When someone like Nick Stoller is steering, you get a leaner and funnier film from the broad range of material available, just like this. Then again, it could have easily lost 10 of its 108 minutes by dispensing with a ménage à trois segue that takes all momentum out of the film right before we reach the very end.

If there's a surprise here aside from just how consistently funny it is, it's Sean Combs as Aaron's boss Sergio. That's Sean "P Diddy" Combs. He gets a laugh with pretty much everything he says or does, but although I liked him in this, I never want to see him in a film again. I'd much prefer to see him do well in this film alone than try to bottle lightning twice, like they are with that bloody Les Grossman spin-off. It's also confusing that Jonah Hill is the straight man, as well as my realisation that as Hill has become more prolific, we've seen less of Tobey Maguire, and the two look alike. Maybe that's why they're rebooting Spider-Man now...

With an appreciable lump addition to the Infant Sorrow back-catalogue started by Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the soundtrack complements the laughs well in Get Him To The Greek. It's raunchy as all hell and unlike the laboured efforts of She's Out Of My League to add things like "moodle" to the frat boy lexicon, this is memorable enough that everyone will know what "furry wall" is all about a long while after seeing this. Mostly down to some of the Ear Worms on the soundtrack. Despite obviously having shot more than they needed, it's not as scatter-shot as you might expect, and the result is an often-hilarious return to form for the Apatow production stables.

Get Him To The Greek is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Get Him To The Greek or Lennon Naked, why not share your comments on the films and/or my reviews below? If you would watch Spider-Man 4- Fat Spider-Man with Jonah Hill, write to Sony and Marc Webb advising them not to take it back to high-school.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Summertime is here again...

You can tell it's summer because this is Rotten Tomatoes' UK box office top ten widget thing. There's one Fresh rated film in there and it's flipping Streetdance 3D.

In all fairness, at least two of those are pretty good- Brooklyn's Finest and Prince of Persia, and Wild Target certainly doesn't deserve the 0% Fresh rating it's currently got from 5 official reviews.

As for the rest- this is the length and breadth of what's in cinemas at the moment. And this is why my general indifference to the  World Cup blossoms into rage, especially when the England team's current in-fighting with their manager resembles nothing so much as Mike Bassett- England Manager, an excellent comedy about the tournament that spun off into a considerable less excellent TV series.

The World Cup leads into counter-programming, and that's why the top two are pap that the otherwise more reasonable of the two sexes was somehow brainwashed into seeing.

A sorry state of affairs, particularly when we should really have Toy Story 3 in cinemas like the Americans do. Tut.

Wide of the Mark

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

I'm back from Edinburgh and will be putting together my Toy Story 3 video diary and the like later in the week- if you really can't wait, my review went up on Den of Geek this morning. For today though, we have the two other films I saw over the weekend, Wild Target and MacGruber, in exchange for the EIFF picks I missed, The People vs. George Lucas and Jackboots on Whitehall.
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If The Blues Brothers or Wayne's World are the gold standard in full-length films dredged from popular sketches on Saturday Night Live, then MacGruber isn't really in the same league. Coming from a parody of a show most people will only know of because Marge's sisters like it on The Simpsons, the titular MacGruber looks more like a Michael Bay cos-player than Richard Dean Anderson's resourceful secret agent.

The one joke in the sketches is expanded to parody many 80s action movie cliches as MacGruber chases down Dieter van Cunth, a dastardly businessman who killed his betrothed and has now stolen a nuclear missile.

In broadening out the scope to accommodate the latent homo-eroticism, the over-the-top villains and overwrought romantic scenes of 80s action movies, it's hard to forget that we've been here before, when it was called Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux. And more recently, we've seen a tongue-in-cheek magnification of those tropes to the nth degree in the Crank films. MacGruber is neither as funny as Hot Shots! nor as fun as Crank.

I wanted it to be funnier than this, that's why I saw it in Edinburgh over the weekend, knowing it wouldn't be playing in cinemas near me. Instead, it's just a little too matter-of-fact to find really enjoyable. Writer-director Jorma Taccone and star Will Forte don't seem to realise that MacGruber is actually so after the fact that we need something more. The 80s are too far gone to be funny to the teenage target audience and not far gone enough to be immediately funny to anyone else, as with the 60s and 70s in the Austin Powers films.

The cast actually does a pretty solid job and they're more than capable of raising chuckles with what scant wit there actually is on show. It's a puerile and immature film, but credit where it's due to Ryan Phillipe for being fairly funny as the straight man and rookie to MacGruber's raving idiocy, and to Kristen Wiig who really ought to be more broadly known by now than she actually is.

Val Kilmer seems a little stilted as Cunth, but that's possibly him being uncomfortable playing a character who's essentially a dirtier version of a Richard Curtis joke (read his name aloud).

People were laughing sporadically in the screening of Macgruber that I caught, but it's only really hilarious if you find Top Gun hilarious. Oh wait. If you find Point Break hilarious. Oh wait. Look, it's as funny as both those films, but the charm with those was that they weren't meant to be funny. A spoof as broad as this one requires a different kind of viewing approach, and it's just not consistently funny enough.

Not that you were planning to anyway, but if you don't live somewhere that's showing this, don't go to Edinburgh to see it either.

Macgruber is now playing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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On this side of the pond, we have Wild Target, a farce about hitmen that features an all-star cast. Emily Blunt plays Rose, an unscrupulous young woman who scams the wrong man when she sells a forged Rembrandt painting for £1 million. Her mark is understandably annoyed, and hires hitman Victor Maynard to kill her. Meticulous but isolated, Victor warms to Rose and instead becomes her protector against the goons that are sent after her in his absence.

It should be said, I love the cast of this thing, because it's a caveat to all that follows. Emily Blunt, Bill Nighy, Rupert Grint, Gregor Fisher and Martin Freeman are all actors I could watch all day, so it's great to see them altogether here. Grint, Fisher and Freeman each display their respective talents for comedy- three generations of comic talent working together, with Grint probably stealing the show. Most of the comedy with Nighy's Victor is that he's a skilled hitman who acts the same way as Nighy always acts- reserved and slightly awkward but with a razor wit- and that much at least is pretty funny.

The trouble is, the rest of the film just isn't that funny. Jonathan Lynn directed the likes of The Whole Nine Yards, The Fighting Temptations and Sgt. Bilko, so that should give you an idea of the calibre working behind the camera. He seems to have moved precisely nowhere since his last British farce, Nuns on the Run, because that's what Wild Target is most reminiscent of.

One Lucinda Coxon wrote the script, and watching the final film, the problem seems apparent. She knows what she wants the film to be, and where she wants it to end, but doesn't seem entirely possessed by the idea of getting there sensibly. Too many throwaway plot and character developments are broached in the second act and then forgotten about, and the desired ending just comes off as absurd. And not in the way it's intended.

Thus Emily Blunt really struggles with a character who's pretty unlikeable. The thing is, it's Emily Blunt- there's not an awful lot she can do to make me outright dislike her in a film, especially with some of the better scenes for her character here. For the most part though, Rose's motivations and actions are nonsensical, and the farce comedy isn't broad enough.

The final result of Wild Target evokes those crappy one-off two-hour comedy dramas ITV used to do, albeit with a much more talented and well-known cast. Where once you'd get James Dreyfuss playing wacky twins, now you have Bill Nighy as a hitman and Rupert Grint as his apprentice. Ironically, this cast is so good, and I enjoy watching them so much, that this actually gets a pass from me. I'm not going to champion it as something to support while in cinemas, but it's worth catching on DVD or on telly somewhere down the line.

Wild Target is now playing in cinemas natiowide.
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If you've seen MacGruber and/or Wild Target, why not comment on the films or on my reviews below? And if you think my reviews of only halfway-decent comedies are hard to read, imagine how hard they are to write.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Sustainable Agriculture and the Restaurant Business

Groton is a small, almost rural town located in northern Massachusetts' Nashoba Valley area, near the New Hampshire border. The town was founded way back in 1655 (yes, it is that old) and has a population of just over 10,000 people. Small- and medium-sized farms and orchards dot the countryside in Groton and surrounding towns, growing many different varieties of vegetable and fruits. Every summer, a popular farmer's market is convened on one of those farms, gathering farm families from the area to sell their bountiful harvest.

Also located in Groton is an up and coming steakhouse, Gibbet Hill Grill, located on a beautiful 80-acre farm land. What sets this restaurant apart from the rest is that it is also a working farm, growing almost 50 types of vegetable for use in the restaurant. Imagine the chef walking a couple of hundred yards out the restaurant door and personally picking whatever vegetable that's ready for harvest for use on the menu. Now that is fresh!

A few days ago, a local newspaper, Lowell Sun, published an enlightening article on this unique restaurant. It is a good read. Link to here for the article.

Old and Noir

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

It's a sign of the times when a romantic comedy set in the present day actually looks old compared to a noir thriller based on a pulp novel from the 1950s. Alas, that's the case with Michael Winterbottom's intense and uncomfortable new film, The Killer Inside Me and the latest from romcom arch-bastard Robert Luketic, snappily and misleadingly titled Killers. Hell, both involve killing, so it's all good right? Right?

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So Killers reunites Katherine Heigl with her director on The Ugly Truth, Robert Luketic. The collaboration we were all dying to see this year. She plays Jen, who meets a contract killer named Spencer while holidaying in France with her parents. He doesn't choose to share his past vocation with her once they put down some roots and "hilarity ensues" when his former bosses put out a $20 million hit on him.

There was a time when films provided a real escape from ordinary life for viewers who couldn't afford to actually travel the world, seeing beautiful places and beautiful people. As you'll have noticed, times have changed. Standards of beauty have adjusted and the ability to holiday in France is well within many people's means. Another minor change is that while the premise of this film wasn't great back when James Cameron did it in True Lies, it's even worse now.

The majority of this is just going to be me wailing on Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher, because while they're not the beginning and end of the problems with Killers, they're certainly largely at fault. Maybe less so than the casting department, because the fact is that these two have absolutely no chemistry. Sure, we're meant to idolise each of them, but if you use that logic to say they make a good couple, we're in the same territory as the genetically suitable gag from The Invention of Lying.

Some of that idolatry is just weird though. At one point Jen refers to Spencer as a paragon of "god-like perfection". Really? The Punk'd guy?! OK, there's a certain level of over-statement in some romantic comedies that I can let slide, but Kutcher isn't likeable in this at all. He's not as bad as he was in Valentine's Day, but then nobody in that huge cast has ever been as bad as they were in that film. He's unequal to the task of being an interesting or convincing action hero here.

It doesn't help that he's no James Bond, but he utterly sinks when paired with Katherine Heigl as his er... lovely wife. After her star-making turn in Knocked Up, Heigl downright chomped on the hand that fed by calling it an immature and sexist film and she's had a succession of roles in romantic comedies like these. Casting someone this outspoken opposite an actor as weak as Kutcher leads to her apparently clueless character telling the experienced professional killer what to do. If this is Heigl's idea of a strong female role, it's impossible to see what her beef was with Judd Apatow's writing.

They're not entirely to blame- be assured that the script is routinely awful too. Luketic's direction is systematic and trite, and there's a poor attempt to compensate for the lack of a decent action star in the lead. This involves casting third-tier comedy actors as the sleeper agents sent after Spencer. While I admit that the one smirk this alleged comedy raised out of me was at the behest of that intense Vegas cop from The Hangover, he's no manner of hitman. See also, the woman who does the voice of Lois Griffin in Family Guy.

To be frank, Killers is a far cry from the worst film you could see this year and it's certainly not as bad as last year's Luketic monstrosity The Ugly Truth, but at the same time I can't understand why anyone would like this. It's not funny, it's not interesting and the leads make for the weakest double act since Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry in Die Another Day. And at least you'd believe they could kill things- you can barely even believe Heigl and Kutcher would be friends.

Killers is playing in cinemas nationwide from June 18th
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The Killer Inside Me follows Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford on a destructive if subtle rampage through his sleepy hometown, Central City. Psychotic and mentally unbalanced by his troubled past, Lou embarks upon violent relationships with stubborn prostitute Joyce and childhood sweetheart Amy, while his colleagues race after him trying to attribute his atrocious crimes.

Director Michael Winterbottom has copped a lot of flak for the violence in this stylish noir-thriller, and to some extent, such a response is justified. I don't know whether or not he set out to offend people, but he's certainly unapologetic for the film's unflinching violence towards women.

He quite rightly says that those scenes are supposed to be repugnant, chiming with a long-held view of mine that the casual approach of killing hundreds or thousands of innocent bystanders in big dumb 12A-rated action films is more damaging than the harsh approach of films like this.

With controversy swirling around it regardless of what you or I think, it only remains to say whether or not it's a good film. On balance, yes it is. It has a compulsively watchable central performance from Casey Affleck as Lou, which makes those violent scenes all the more difficult to look away from. The man has a magnetic screen presence as a psychologically damaged, and therefore unreliable narrator and protagonist.

In any other film, you'd wince at the casting of Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba, two actresses who haven't exactly been setting the world alight with their great performances, line delivery or career choices. Here, they're both more than bearable, and even watchable. Hudson in particular is a highlight as Amy, the brow-beating girlfriend whose early hostility to Lou is possibly what stirs his resentment of women.

It's an intensely unlikeable film that's masterfully put together. As we delve into Lou's past and psychosis, our eyes are drawn to the lavish period detail, our ears to the utter dissonance of the soundtrack with what's going on in the story. I think it's in this that I was most reminded of two other films- American Psycho and No Country for Old Men. Given how the book existed long before either, you have to wonder if they drew from the protagonist and narrative of the novel, or if Winterbottom just recognised a familiar and proven way of telling a similar story.

The major quibble to raise with the film, aside from its uncompromising portrayal of violence, is with its pace. The film fills out almost 110 minutes with a languorous pace- a welcome break from the Boom Bang Wallop pace of other serial killer flicks. The friend I saw this film with declared it to be a pile of shit afterwards, because he was bored by it. I personally got entangled in its depravity and found it to be an intensely uncomfortable experience.

With source material that Stanley Kubrick once called "the most chilling and believable" that he had ever read, and an talent like Winterbottom at the helm, The Killer Inside Me is a genuinely disturbing thriller. The thrills may be scant on account of the pace, but those offended should realise that you're meant to be disturbed by the central character's actions. Being intrigued by this is no less valid than being amused by Killers. Present me one person who likes each film, and I'll tell you who I think is more unbalanced.

The Killer Inside Me is playing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Killer Inside Me and/or Killers, why not comment on the films or on my reviews below? If you heard Katherine Heigl saying Killers was "a great movie" at the premiere, be sure to get in contact with Trading Standards about false advertising, as I have.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

Far be it from me to say that our two films for today are predictable. The first, Death at a Funeral, centres around a man trying to maintain order at his father's funeral while his entire family pack into one house for this solemn occasion. The second, Brooklyn's Finest, centres upon a cop with just one week until retirement.


Read my reviews after the jump!

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Death at a Funeral is an American remake of the 2007 British dramedy of the same name. It still follows the same basic plot, but the names have been changed to protect this one from suckiness. The main character is now Aaron, a would-be novelist who has to deal with the hectic goings on in the lives of his extended family as they pile into his father's home.

His brother is a successful writer who's too selfish to pay for his half of the funeral, his wife's hoping to conceive their first child on the same day and most worryingly, a diminutive gay man threatens to sully the proceedings by revealing the deceased's extra-marital activities.

Don't worry, there's good form for hilarious remakes here- Neil LaBute directed the infamous remake of The Wicker Man. Sadly, Death at a Funeral just isn't as funny as that film. In exchange for Nicolas Cage though, he has mustered a plethora of comedic talent, including Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, James Marsden, Danny Glover, Keith David and Luke Wilson. Oh, and he got Martin Lawrence in too.

Let me introduce you to another little bit of shorthand I have going when I see his films, I call it the Martin Lawrence Singularity. The theory goes like this- Martin Lawrence isn't funny. QED. As a consequence, he is a comedic vacuum from which no laughs can escape, meaning every time he's on-screen, be it with Rock or Marsden or Morgan, everything is a lot less funny just for his being there. He taxes comedy, and so Death at a Funeral could never grade any higher than a 3/5.

Fortunately, my little prejudices there fit the film quite well anyway. It's funny, but never riotously so. In some respects, that should be a success, as the 2007 original was a darkly comic and restrained affair. Instead, LaBute has chosen to replay that script in broader strokes, and the material just isn't equal to the tonal shift.

When it is funny, it's pretty specifically down to James Marsden, who makes the best of a madcap hallucinogenic sub-plot, and Danny Glover. This is the first Glover film I've seen since the prolific "Dial Hard" Orange cinema advert was in circulation, and I'm glad that he made me forget how annoyed I was by that with his turn as the crotchety Uncle Russell. He's given a fair bit to work with alongside Tracy Morgan, who's much more likable here than in Cop Out.

It just follows the original pretty much step by step, the only clear difference story-wise being in a tacked on "d'awww" dénouement to the story of two certain characters. Peter Dinklage reprises his role as the gay lover of the deceased, and is fine, but much the same as before and it was a twist that wasn't telegraphed the first time they did this film. The only other additions are a few jokes about ethnicity, something that's apparently very important in a film with this cast for some reason that no one really knows or finds funny.

Death at a Funeral is obviously a popular remake of the less-watched original, but that's not necessarily to say that it's a better film. Fair play to anyone who enjoys it- there are laughs to be had, but not nearly enough to match the shift in pitch and performance LaBute wanted to install. There are some fine comedy performances on show if nothing else, and I say with confidence that I'd have liked it more if it weren't prolonging the stereotype that Martin Lawrence is funny.

Death at a Funeral is currently showing in cinemas nationwide.
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Brooklyn's Finest is the latest from Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, who returns to the police procedural sub-genre after a period of dipping his toes with mixed genre fare like King Arthur, Tears of the Sun and Shooter. Three seemingly unconnected cops are on a collision course on their respective beats in crime-riddled Brooklyn.

Undercover cop Tango is dying to get out of the character he's been playing for years as he tangles with his conflicted loyalties. Narcotics cop Sal is so poorly paid that he'll do anything to secure a new home for his pregnant wife and multitudes of children. And of course, wizened beat cop Eddie has just one week to retirement.

Let me get something straight from the outset- there is very little in Brooklyn's Finest that you haven't seen done elsewhere. Is it as good as The Departed? Or Fuqua's own Training Day? Of course not, but where Fuqua has succeeded is in doing all those things you've seen before better than most police procedurals, buoyed by some fine performances and a thorough and frenetic pace.

The pace is particularly worth mentioning because this film is 132 minutes long. I very much doubt there'll be another film that rattles along as nicely as this. The acting is also top notch, and Richard Gere is better than he has been in years as Eddie. It's not a matter of liking chick flicks or not- I genuinely can't remember a time Gere really did something different like this. It's not all that challenging- you've seen Bruce Willis do something fairly similar in Sin City and you're largely waiting to see if the Ret Irony trope is borne out, but he's the most watchable of the principal characters.

Ethan Hawke isn't much to write home about here- he's too volatile to take entirely seriously. His sporadic freak-outs don't make the script seem spontaneous as much as melodramatic and over the top. Don Cheadle just feels very much in the background throughout, and what's more interesting than both his and Hawke's performances are their actual characters.

The central conceit of Brooklyn's Finest is that it's shit being a cop in Brooklyn. A sound thesis unless you like being a cop in Brooklyn, but as far as the script plunges Sal and Tango into their respective desperation, there's a moral compass that makes them both very strong characters. At key moments, they have the opportunity to end all their troubles by doing something against their scruples, but they withdraw because each believe they're better than this.

At the same time, it's not a film about right and wrong. As Vincent D'Onofrio puts it in his brief appearance, it's about being "righter" and "wronger" than the antagonists. This isn't good vs. evil because that's not how real people operate. The corrupt are punished, and so are the self-righteous. At the blood-soaked conclusion, it ulitmately winds up as a film that is without faith, framing Brooklyn as a godless place, and one where it's bloody awful to be a cop.

It's not a great film, but you can safely go and see Brooklyn's Finest and expect your money's worth in return. It's a film that's deceptively deep, and it has more than enough to hold your attention. It trots through the cop movie clichés, but that's not all it does. Not as emotionally engaging as its director or screenwriter think it is, but certainly worth a watch.

Brooklyn's Finest is currently showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Death at a Funeral or Brooklyn's Finest, why not share your comments either on the films or on my reviews? If you're worried about how the Martin Lawrence Singularity may affect you, just make sure you're never in the same room as him when you tell that one really funny joke you know.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

General Update 13/06/2010

Not that I think a lot of you are very intensely interested in my comings and goings, but seeing as how I've kind of given the blog a massive upheaval, gonna give a general update.

Read more after the jump!


The blog looks different! Hooray! I'm not the type to preserve screencaps of all the different design iterations of my blog, but I think this one helps my ramblings a lot. It looks more professional, I think, which helps a lot when I shout myself hoarse at all of you. That top banner will be revised too- it's just a placeholder for now and looks a little pixelated at present.

I've also gone back and stopped numbering the Mad Prophet posts. The big old (currently fuzzy) banner at the top tells you where you are, and the numbering was really only a way for me to keep track. Instead you'll get the tenuously linked puns only at the top of each post, so enjoy that.

Upcoming reviews include Brooklyn's Finest, Death at a Funeral, The Killer Inside Me, Killers and of course Toy Story 3, which I'll be seeing next Saturday at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Expect most of those other reviews in the next week or so, and the Toy Story 3 review will come with video diary and the like.

As I warned before, I'm going to bombard you with coverage of that film, given the expense I'm putting into it. Non-spoiler video review to go up next week, spoiler video review to go up a week after release, the works.

While I fully intend to continue updating this blog through the summer and beyond, I'll also be very busy with other stuff.

For starters, I'm being creative for a change! It's not something I look forward to greatly as I may yet fall afoul of every criticism I've ever laid at Michael Bay's door- I don't know what kind of filmmaker or screenwriter or author I am just yet. You've heard that authors are their own worst critics? Imagine how bad it is for me!

One thing that's definitely forthcoming is my first produced screenplay, and it's got a Dalek in it. I'm one of three winners in the Writer's Block North East Puppet Parody competition, the objective of which was to script a parody in the vein of the Potter Puppet Pals series, to be turned into a short film with puppets.

I'm very excited about seeing the final result, tentatively titled Doctor Who and the Inky Doom and I'm looking forward to developing the script with the very talented and creative people who work in that place. I'll probably post a YouTube link on here once the film's been completed and posted online.

Elsewhere, they're putting me on air! Broadcasting! The first of my inevitable broadcast breakdowns will appear sometime over the summer on Community Voice FM, a station just around the corner from where I go to university. I think they have the option to listen online, so I'll be plugging the show, in which a rotating line-up of film buffs (including me), discuss non-mainstream films. Indie films, B-movies, world cinema and the like.

More than that, I'm embarking on a very different and slightly exciting set of video reviews over the summer. The motley crew I've gathered is going to film eight episodes through the summer, with a view to premiering the series (potentially "Season One") in the autumn. Once again, I'll be linking here as well as on the community section of That Guy With The Glasses.

With the current jobs market, such plans generally require me to support myself in other ways, so I'm trying to monetise the place a little bit. I'm trying to keep this to a minimum as I'm very tentatively having a go at Amazon Associates. I don't know what the money's like in this thing anyway. If the odd ad appears here and there in a post, please don't get upset- I'll stop if I ever think it's intrusive.

For those who are already missing the numbering approach, I should point out that this is the 100th post on this blog. And it's the closest to an actual blog we've ever got, because it's about MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AND PLANS. Ahem.

If you're still with me after 100 posts, nothing on the Internet will ever hurt you again.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, try to guess which of my myriad summer plans will fall through...

Countdown Conundrum

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

Women are good. Hang on... women are usually good. And as Hollywood thinks the World Cup means the rest of the world just stops, and duly aren't releasing many of their big action features in June, the month ahead in cinema looks to be very lady-friendly with the likes of Killers and Letters to Juliet coming in the next few weeks. To kick it off though, we have two films that prominently feature women that also seem to be targeted at men, 4.3.2.1 and She's Out Of My League. As we shall see, one of these things is not like the other.
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4.3.2.1 marks a sensible progression by Noel Clarke, a director who has the serenity to accept that Hollywood blockbusters will always be more widely shown while at the same time driving for British cinema to be a bit more ambitious. And so here we have a film centring around four women over three days in two different cities, with one big crime affecting all of them. The story is told in vignettes that interconnect over the weekend the film covers, as our heroines respectively deal with parents getting divorced, a resentful adoptive brother, an audition for a prestigious musical education and most pressingly, a diamond heist gone wrong...

Ambition, as I've said, is good, and it certainly pays off in 4.3.2.1, and it looks more stylish and well constructed than many other British films of the last year or so. The price it pays is around a million studio logos at the beginning to appease all of its financiers, just so you're appreciating the effort this kind of film takes in the UK from frame one. The trouble is that it's a little disjointed. When we first meet our protagonists, played by Ophelia Lovibond, Tamsin Egerton, Shanika Warren-Markland and Emma Roberts, they're close friends with big plans for the weekend. As they diverge, the waters are muddied somewhat.

The vignette format makes a two hour film feel a lot longer than it really is. That's not a bad thing if it's consistently good, but the countdown to the ending is so overt that by the time we get to the third segment, you'll looking at your watch and wondering how many more stylised flashbacks to the beginning we'll get. It's this that prevents a good film from being great, in my estimation, and I still enjoyed 4.3.2.1 a lot.

What's good about the film is very good. There's a strong sense of humour running throughout and there's some fine acting too. All four of the leads are fantastic, with Lovibond and Warren-Markland in particular showing off what they can do in their first major roles. Likewise, Roberts and Egerton are very likable. As each of the four parts of the story centres on one of them, it'd be easy to overlook the rest of the cast, but they were excellent too. Any film that casts Nick Briggs, voice of the Daleks, as the face of a supermarket chain has to be good in my book. Clarke himself has a role that appears at first to massage his ego, but is nicely and quickly subverted in the course of the plot's escalation.

Gender politics is an interesting topic in this film, really. If the women are put down, they always go down swinging and they're all very capable of getting even, but you wonder if they had to dispense with their clothes in the process. Clarke wrote the script after someone told him he didn't write women well, and he mostly proves them wrong, but he's at cross-purposes when still trying to avoid alienating the audiences who made him successful, i.e. young men. This is most apparent in a lesbian sex scene midway through, with dynamic camera angles on the naked women, set to blaring house music. Compare this to a relatively chaste hetero scene earlier, which is more important to a character's story than the latter scene and unfolds fairly routinely.

4.3.2.1 may be Clarke's most vigorous film to date, and it just barely overshoots the desired effect. The narrative is somewhat entangled in its structure and the gender politics don't quite balance out. To compensate for empowered women, the men are all of the type you see in adverts- incompetent pillocks. Nevertheless, it's a film about four women who are capable, independent and sexualised without being objectified, well-acted by all concerned. Insert joke about not going to see Sex and the City 2 here. This is the more stylish and entertaining alternative, and it's worth supporting in cinemas if you want to see more ambitious British films.
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I exited the cinema after seeing She's Out Of My League with an immediate need to review it. Not because I have anything hugely important to say about how good or bad it is, but simply for posterity. If I don't review it now, I'll have forgotten all about it by tomorrow. It's about Kirk, an airport security guard who has a chance encounter with Molly, an enterprising events planner and all-around "hot chick". On account of an antiquated system, self-esteem issues abound as the two start dating. We're asked to follow little more than why a "10" would date a "5".

And therein lies the problem. This is a film that is entirely superficial and vacuous. All of the conflict comes from the idea that everyone has a ranking out of 10 in terms of attractiveness. Hottest of the hot would be a 10 and The Elephant Man would be a 1, I guess. What absolute bollocks, especially as a topic for a romcom. I say this not only because I'm probably about a 4 myself, which by this film's logic places me in the rafters wearing half a face mask and lusting after a piano player, but because it sucks any potential romance right out of the film. This is a romantic comedy without the romance!

More than that, because Alice Eve's buxom Molly is "a hard 10", it requires every other character to act like a complete moron around her. If they're not slack-jawed from awe at her cleavage or smile or whatever pixel-perfect bit of anatomy is showcased at any given point, they're being ridiculously misogynistic and sexually harassing her in some way or another. The consequence of all this is that when the film reaches its woobie stages and has morals like "If somebody loves you, then you're a 10 too", it completely dismisses everything that comes before and after.


Jay Baruchel is more or less overshadowed by the superficial goings-on, but he's a much better actor than most of the others who feature here. He can't excavate any memorable moments from the script though, instead reduced to bantering inanely with his three buddies. You know, that dynamic of four friends that hasn't been done a million times since The Hangover alone, never mind The 40-Year-Old Virgin or even Sex and the City. The comedy falls flat more than it soars. At best it manages to hover limply every now and then, mostly courtesy of supporting roles by Krysten Ritter and TJ Miller.

What depressed me most about it was not the systematic approach to romance that prevails for most of the running time- and boy, does that running time feel a lot longer than it's supposed to be- was the credits. It was specifically the writing credit, for Sean Anders and John Morris. They wrote last year's Sex Drive, which had a piss-poor pun for a title but was much better and much funnier than you'd think. The very worst you could say about it is that it's a guilty pleasure, and I can remember that better than a film I saw today. More recently, Anders and Morris penned Hot Tub Time Machine, which I didn't realise until reading around this one. And now here they steal no less than two bawdy setpieces from the first American Pie films and utterly forget to write any jokes that raise anything louder than a small titter.

This film is balls. Trevor Eve, the elder Eve, is well-renowned on British television for taking the lion's share of close-up shots and he appears here with his daughter playing her dad in the film as well. It looks like Alice Eve has inherited his thirst for the limelight, because She's Out Of My League is cinematic onanism for her. More disappointingly than anything else, it is a romantic comedy without romance and without any real laughs. I can feel myself forgetting it even as I type. It's not awful, but it's not sweet, original or likable either, and from the writers of a film I previously enjoyed, it's especially unforgivable.
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If you've seen 4.3.2.1 or She's Out Of My League and want to share your thoughts on the film or on my reviews, please comment below. If you want to rest assured that I'll stop mentioning Sex and the City as a frame of reference from here on out, have no fear- we're done with that.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Zero Room #4- Silurians and Sunflowers

Back to back, the fifth series of Doctor Who has given us its most reflective story and its most progressive. This post covers the Silurian two-parter The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood (to be referred to henceforth by the latter name to save time) and poignant "celebrity historical" Vincent and the Doctor.

Reviews will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, toddle over to the iPlayer, or watch BBC Three at some point in the next century's worth of repeats.
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Aiming for Rio, the TARDIS rocks up in a tiny Welsh mining village in the near future at the beginning of Cold Blood. There, an enterprising team of scientists have dug further down into the Earth than anyone has before, but the Earth seems to be fighting back. From beneath the surface, the Silurian race emerges, disturbed by the drilling and annoyed that humanity has evolved all over their former home. The Doctor knows the homo reptilia of old and attempts to broker a peace between the two races.

So that's a leisurely-paced multi-episode story about a drilling project and the Silurians? Classic fans will around about now have noticed that this story's straight out of Jon Pertwee's first season, and it's certainly the best reflection of the classic series since the show returned in 2005. As to the Silurians themselves (whose origins and history I documented over on Den of Geek), they were pretty comprehensively redesigned. The use of prosthetics allowed for expression and some great acting from Neve McIntosh and Stephen Moore, but ultimately, most Silurian stories pan out the same.

What's always been interesting about the Silurians is that they're not really monsters, and that was nicely internalised to their race by Chris Chibnall's scripts, when we see the Silurian military at odds with its high command and its scientists. Arguably a lot more monstrous was doting mother Ambrose, played with equal measures of weakness and malice by Nia Roberts. The dichotomy between humanity and the Silurians remains interesting even when the ultimate outcome of a stalemate is predictable.


Ambrose aside, Chibnall is eager to write humanity at its best as a counterpoint to all the parochialism between races. To that end, we get Meera Syal on top form as Nasreen Chaudry, who now stands firmly amongst the ranks of Companions Who Never Were. Her excursion to the Silurian city with the Doctor is well acted and Nasreen is a very likable character whose return shouldn't be totally out of the question for Moffat and the crew at BBC Wales. Elsewhere of course, we have Arthur Darvill's Rory sacrificing his life at the end of the episode.

The trouble is, what should be Rory's finest hour is undercut by its relation to the series arc. Is the big twist that Rory is erased from history? Or that his death came from one of those pesky cracks in time? The bit of TARDIS signage the Doctor retrieved from said crack also served to distract from what should have been a much more emotional twist. It was upsetting, yes, but you can't shake the feeling that it was done so quickly that it can't possibly be permanent. I suppose we'll find out in a few weeks' time when the series finale rolls around.

All in all, Cold Blood makes for a sumptuously designed two-parter that gets better as it goes along. So on average, it's fine, and is restrained by the lack of anything particularly fresh for the Silurians to do. A cosmetic makeover does not translate into strong character development. Still, it's the best use of the characters since their inception back in 1970, so that's good to watch. The cast are as capable as ever, but you can't help but wonder if this might have been a much better single episode rather than the leisurely paced two-parter it ended up as.


The events of the previous episode have only vestigial consequences in Vincent and the Doctor. The fairly staid title belies a strong story about Vincent Van Gogh in the final year of his life. When the Doctor and Amy go to an art exhibition and spot a monster in the window of "The Church at Auvers", they have to go back in time and ask the artist about it. They find a man utterly depressed by his lack of success and by his status as a pariah in the community. More importantly, he's distressed by visions of a savage beast that only he can see.

Richard Curtis wrote this episode. You might let that colour your expectations, but I very much went into this one expecting either a really fun romp or a bit of a misfire, in correlation with his Blackadder scripts or his romantic comedies respectively. I'm pleased to say that this is neither, and Curtis has instead created a story that is almost unique in the show's history. It maturely addresses depression and mental illness without ever forsaking the adventure element of the series format. While previous "celebrity historicals" have been of a more romp-y disposition- see this series' Victory of the Daleks, for instance- Curtis is altogether more probing.

The excellent writing is informed by a tour-de-force turn by Tony Curran as Van Gogh. He gives a perfect portrait of an utterly desperate and isolated man, whose life has only gotten worse with the arrival of the Krafayis, a great big parrot-polar bear hybrid who's largely invisible. Even with the necessity for those elements in a show like this, Curran is powerful and emotional. There are few things on television in recent memory more affecting than the out-of-the-leftfield breakdown Van Gogh has at one stage. It's brilliantly compounded by Matt Smith gadding about as Vincent sobs into his pillow, wracked with an intangible misery.


Smith and Karen Gillan rise to the occasion magnificently as well, with Amy Pond suffering from grief over Rory even though she can no longer remember why. Her chemistry with Curran is part of what makes the episode so compelling. Well, that and the cameo appearances by national treasure Bill Nighy. Nighy facilitates the episode's most moving scene as he describes Van Gogh's legacy with the overwhelmed artist himself within earshot. It's a shame that director Jonny Campbell doesn't trust us to be touched by this scene alone, laying "Chances" by Athlete all over it in a soundtrack choice that verges on being cloying and mawkish.

There are other problems with the episode. Like Amy's Choice, an episode this isn't quite as good as, it's better as a piece of drama than as an episode of Doctor Who. But while the Dream Lord and the pensioners could keep kids engaged, I have to wonder if the younger audience were confused and upset by the goings-on. Here we had the Krafayis, which was nicely designed but not particularly well-rendered, as special effects go. It wasn't embarrassingly bad, but it was more effective as an invisible monster than in the moments where we actually see it.

Vincent and the Doctor is something unexpected and fresh for the celebrity historical type that saw so much use through the Russell T. Davies era. We're still expected to take as read that Van Gogh is a genius as with Shakespeare and Agatha Christie before him, but Curtis actually goes to considerable lengths to show us why. In many ways that makes it the best since The Girl in the Fireplace. It's not the kind of episode you want to see every week, but you never want this standard of writing to go away. With luck, Richard Curtis will return to the series in the future, but if another episode never materialises, there's still a lot to admire in this.
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I'll be back in three weeks' time with reviews of the final stories of the current series. Until then, why not share your comments below?

The next episode of Doctor Who, The Lodger, airs on BBC One and BBC HD on Saturday 12th June at 6.45pm.