Elementary

I was beyond chuffed that the second series (I'm English, I can't say season) of Elementary had started.  It doesn't appear to be shown on the BBC, obviously because they have their own Sherlock, but this is a dreadful shame.  One good thing about US series is that they aren't precious, making only three at a time lovingly-crafted episodes.  With Elementary you go super-sized and get 24 shows per season.  Yes, all right, I said it.

We seem to be spoiled for Sherlocks at the moment.   Robert Downey Jr, Benedict Cucumberpatch, and now Jonny Lee-Miller.  I dunno about you, but I just thought J L-M was one of Angelina Jolie's starter husbands, before she got to the dumb gristly main that is Brad Pitt.  To be fair I'd never actually seen him in anything.  As Sherlock Holmes, he seems to be chanelling Derren Brown a fair bit: a sort of super-confident awkwardness.  He seems to have far too many limbs at times as if he exists purely in his head and doesn't quite know what the rest of the body is for.

Lucy Liu plays Watson.  Sounds absurd?  To a purist perhaps, but she is brilliant.  Cool and intelligent but at the same time a bit vulnerable, and with some excellent clothes.  She has a back story that is not belaboured, but that adds to her motivation.  Thankfully, there is no sexing between Lucy and Jonny, nor any hint that there will be.  Hopefully the writers can remember "Moonlighting" and how that went down the toilet the minute Bruce Willis diddled Cybil Shepherd.

I like about Elementary that although it is set in New York, there is no attempt to tone down the Englishness of the lead character.  He speaks rapid, slightly slurred English as if the words won't get out quickly enough, and is given to the odd interjection of "Bollocks". 

I like also that they are usually a step ahead of me in working out crimes.  I'm the stumbling NY police officers barking up several wrong trees.  Usually I can work out who did stuff in the first few minutes (which really spoiled Twin Peaks for me).  It's nice to be surprised.  There are some excellent guests too:  Vinny Jones as, surprisingly, a brutal henchman; Rhys Ifans playing almost ding-dong sexy as Mycroft Holmes; and probably some other people I can't remember.

In the US it's on CBS and in the UK, for some reason, it's stuffed away on Sky Living.  A huge waste for a show that should be on mainstream telly.  It's not as if it's in competition with the Cumberbatch Sherlock as that's hardly ever bloody on.  So seek it out on the internets and watch it.  That and "Dancing with the Stars" make my week.

The World's End

I so liked the first two of the Cornetto Trilogy that I wanted to be loved up with this one.  There is something about Nick Frost that makes you want to put him in your pocket.  It would have to be a fairly big pocket, mind.

This could have been a great ensemble piece.  It was like the IKEA flatpack of bloody good films, and yet a vital screw was missing.  I'll try not to spoil the plot but it undergoes a "Dusk Till Dawn" transfiguration half way through and goes from being an ex-buddy movie to...something blue and messy.

Simon Pegg is the anti-Nick Angel, playing a bloke suspended in his teens but with the slight air of a forty-year-old Arthur Fonzarelli, still thinking he can click his fingers and chicks will screw him in the loos.  If I'd actually watched the film "Diner" I would think this is a sort of homage - a group of schoolfriends meet up twenty years down the line for a pub crawl.  Most of them are now outwardly respectable, pointing up the difference between them and the retarded Pegg character.

Where The World's End goes horribly wrong, is that it pisses on the audience.  Knowing that there is some brand loyalty, it decides to take the piss a bit.  I'm saying piss too much, aren't I?

I loved "Shaun of the Dead".  For zombie-froth, it actually stands up to several viewings.  I loved "Hot Fuzz".  Simon Pegg was almost (steady on) sexy in that.  The cast was riddled with people off the telly, and it was just smashing.  By the way, I am convinced that V for Vendetta's Guy Fawkes mask is actually based on Timothy Dalton in that film. 

You can suspend your disbelief a bit, but there comes a point where it just seems silly.  It feels a bit like contempt for the viewer.  Just throw us a cornetto and we'll be happy.     

 

The World's End (2013)
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Written by: Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg
Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, and lots of people I can't remember.







 

By Way Of Introduction

This is my equivalent of a new set of Rowney colour pencils to start the academic year.  And new socks that are still white and don't need knicker elastic garters.  To run alongside The Western Front: A One Woman Invasion, this will be a mildly piquant digest of stuff what I watch.  Like Charlie Brooker but without the Blue Peter wife.

So if you like digested shite, this is for you.  Please be forewarned:  I do not know who Tarkovsky is; I have never knowingly watched an Ingmar Bergman film, and I liked "Knocked Up".  On the plus side, I would not recognise a Kardashian in a police line up.