Recommended Television Programmes

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  • jayne lee wilson
    Banned
    • Jul 2011
    • 10711

    Rejoice in The Lord...! He's back, BACK, BACK!

    https://www.sky.com/watch/the-new-pope

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    • vinteuil
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 12767

      Originally posted by Pianoman View Post
      Maybe Gatiss is spreading himself a bit thin though, with all these commissions. I say this having watched 'Martin's Close', his latest MR James adaptation, which was terrifying in its NON-scariness. In fact, it paled beside the classics from the 70s - or maybe it's because all the best James stories had already been done back then?
      .

      ... yes, Martin's Close was disappointingly thin - so much so that we re-watched the 2010 Whistle and I'll Come to You (terrific John Hurt) just to remind ourselves how good an MR James adaptation can be.

      But Dracula is proving to be a thing of wonder, even if episode 3 loses it a bit. Dolly Wells as Sr Agatha a real find - I hope we see a lot more of her in the future.


      .

      Comment

      • LMcD
        Full Member
        • Sep 2017
        • 8396

        Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
        .

        ... yes, Martin's Close was disappointingly thin - so much so that we re-watched the 2010 Whistle and I'll Come to You (terrific John Hurt) just to remind ourselves how good an MR James adaptation can be.

        But Dracula is proving to be a thing of wonder, even if episode 3 loses it a bit. Dolly Wells as Sr Agatha a real find - I hope we see a lot more of her in the future.


        .
        I haven't seen that version, but even if he's only half as good as the wonderful Michael Hordern was in the genuinely scary adaptation broadcast the early 1960's it must assuredly be worth investigating.

        Comment

        • vinteuil
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 12767

          Originally posted by LMcD View Post
          I haven't seen that version, but even if it's only half as good as the wonderful Michael Hordern version from the early 1960's it must assuredly be worth investigating.
          ... here it is :

          Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.




          .

          Comment

          • LMcD
            Full Member
            • Sep 2017
            • 8396

            Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
            ... here it is :

            Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.




            .
            Thank you! I found a link for the Michael Hordern version (1969, as it turns out) but, like most of my links , it comes up as 'Video Unavailable'. However, you can watch it by googling 'Whistle And I'll Come to You 1968'.
            UPDATE!
            I'm afraid I was disappointed in this unnecessary and unsatisfactory remake. Michael Hordern's quirky lonely academic was much more intriguing. Jonathan Miller clearly felt no need to tamper with the original story.
            Last edited by LMcD; 04-01-20, 19:52.

            Comment

            • Nick Armstrong
              Host
              • Nov 2010
              • 26516

              Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
              Yes - tremendous fun. (Moffatt has definitely got a "thing" about cremation, though - the "corpse in agony as it burns" idea was used in Dark Water/Death in Heaven as well!)

              And I also greatly enjoyed the Gatiss documentary that Bryn mentioned and alywin referred to - very glad to be reminded of the 1977 Louis Jourdan adaptation, too.
              Agreed about Dracula parts 1 & 2, but as so often with the Gatiss/Moffatt oeuvre, they couldn’t sustain it and part 3 was pretty lamentable. It was the same with Sherlock over a longer span (thanks to more fecund/extensive original material from Conan Doyle, I think). Ultimately disappointing.

              Utterly disappointing is how I’d describe Martin’s Close - a complete absence of atmospheric cinematography (astonishing for someone like Gatiss who claims to be a connoisseur of the genre) - and a shockingly bad (or badly-directed) performance by the bloke playing the Judge

              We followed it up with a look again at Lost Hearts, rebroadcast last year: deeply creepy although playfully lurid. https://youtu.be/bm_mnNFapPU (It’s just over half an hour - for some reason it’s repeated during the second half of that link) Not an ounce of that in the new one...
              Last edited by Nick Armstrong; 04-01-20, 20:27.
              "...the isle is full of noises,
              Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
              Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
              Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

              Comment

              • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                Gone fishin'
                • Sep 2011
                • 30163

                Originally posted by Caliban View Post
                Agreed about Dracula parts 1 & 2, but as so often with the Gatiss/Moffatt oeuvre, they couldn’t sustain it and part 3 was pretty lamentable.
                Oh - I had my doubts for the first five minutes of Episode 3, when I thought they'd just gone bonkers, but then it picked up really well, I thought. The adaptation of the Lucy Westenra character was inventive and very well done - especially the "Blooful Lady" child role reversal, and the sound of the undead tapping on their coffins for eternity: crikey! And, of course, Renfield - originally the insane slave of Dracula, here something much worse ... a sycophantic solicitor! And an interesting interpretation of what Dracula fears and why.

                (Incidentally, the cries of the Undead begging to be killed is another Moffatt Who-trope: he first used it in World Enough and Time, when Bill Potts encounters the prototype Cybermen, stuck forever in an eternity of unrelenting pain.)
                [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                Comment

                • Pianoman
                  Full Member
                  • Jan 2013
                  • 529

                  Originally posted by Caliban View Post


                  We followed it up with a look again at Lost Hearts, rebroadcast last year: deeply creepy although playfully lurid. https://youtu.be/bm_mnNFapPU (It’s just over half an hour - for some reason it’s repeated during the second half of that link) Not an ounce of that in the new one...
                  Now that's how to do an MR James adaptation - Lost Hearts has always been my favourite, scared the ....out of me years ago and still stands up well, as does 'A Warning to the Curious', with hardly any 'special' effects and that haunting solo flute ...

                  Comment

                  • Pianoman
                    Full Member
                    • Jan 2013
                    • 529

                    Originally posted by Braunschlag View Post
                    For Babylon Berlin fans I believe the next season starts on January 24th on Sky/NOW, can’t wait for that although it won’t be the same without the crooked copper (assuming he didn’t survive the train incineration).
                    The flags are out here !!

                    Comment

                    • Jonathan
                      Full Member
                      • Mar 2007
                      • 944

                      Thoroughly enjoyed the first part of Dracula, there were some very funny lines in it. Will watch parts 2 and 3 over the next few days.

                      Really looking forward to "Good Omens" on BBC, it's been on Amazon for months but we don't have that. It starts on the 15th January.
                      Best regards,
                      Jonathan

                      Comment

                      • Nick Armstrong
                        Host
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 26516

                        Originally posted by Pianoman View Post
                        Now that's how to do an MR James adaptation - Lost Hearts has always been my favourite, scared the ....out of me years ago and still stands up well, as does 'A Warning to the Curious', with hardly any 'special' effects and that haunting solo flute ...


                        ... and the haunting tune of the Italian boy’s hurdy-gurdy in Lost Hearts ... still going round in my head nearly 2 weeks later...
                        "...the isle is full of noises,
                        Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                        Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                        Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

                        Comment

                        • Nick Armstrong
                          Host
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 26516

                          Originally posted by Jonathan View Post
                          Thoroughly enjoyed the first part of Dracula, there were some very funny lines in it.
                          True. I have a feeling that “I’m undead, I’m not unreasonable” is going to remain a regular one here...
                          "...the isle is full of noises,
                          Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                          Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                          Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

                          Comment

                          • underthecountertenor
                            Full Member
                            • Apr 2011
                            • 1584

                            Did anyone notice that, at the beginning of Episode 1 of Dracula, the hymn tune that was being sung offstage (presumably in the Hungarian convent chapel) was Michael (the tune for All My Hope on God is Founded)?

                            Both anachronistic and geographically unlikely. Knowing Gatiss (in particular) and Moffat, I find it hard to believe that it was carelessness, but I am struggling to think of an explanation other than that the tune is by Howells, and that the convent was later beset by wolves.

                            Comment

                            • jayne lee wilson
                              Banned
                              • Jul 2011
                              • 10711

                              The Trial of Christine Keeler is for me the best series on BBC for ages, in casting, acting, directing, several classes above World on Fire, Dark Materials... familiar tale but very well done here. Sophie Cookson is a true, gorgeous screen magnet as Christine (and the clothes are to die for - was there ever a more stylish decade?)....Norton pitches it just right as Stephen ( though "little baby" is somewhat overused...)....
                              Remember the girls getting dressed in Scandal, to the Shadows' Apache? This time it was less overtly sexy, to The Crystals.... da-doo ron-ron....still a kind of affectionate homage, I thought.

                              It can only get better as the story darkens and deepens... (should be on the green button! waiting a week is awful!).

                              As for Dracula, brilliantly executed first episode, yes, on every level, but perhaps more of a (very) clever parody than a truly gripping tale? My longterm favourite was always Herzog's Nosferatu, with the extraordinary Klaus Kinski, but in recent years I just can't watch anything about "the undead" - just creeps me out. Too close to the literal, mortal bone.
                              So my judgement of this latest version was confined to ep 1.....switched off during the crates-in-the-crypt scene and deleted the rest...(ever had a fly in your eye...?)...

                              Comment

                              • underthecountertenor
                                Full Member
                                • Apr 2011
                                • 1584

                                Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
                                though "little baby" is somewhat overused...)
                                'Somewhat'? It's driving me up the wall. But maybe that's the point. I am assuming that there will eventually appear some dramatic reason for the overuse (possibly in the form of Keeler/Cookson finally cracking and screaming at Ward/Norton about it). He says it awfully (and I mean awfully) well, I have to admit.

                                I agree that it is a great series so far, cast to perfection.

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