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Back: Episode #2.6 (2021)
You're havin' a laugh n'tcha?
'pH7' - Laura Kuenssberg - 'neutral'? Do me a favour, you're havin' a laugh n'tcha? I hope so, because if the writer(s) really meant it, then I'd give this show a 2 rather than 8 star rating.
I have seen all of both seasons and I conclude that this is a terrific little adult comedy-drama. Set amongst a certain socio-economic strata of Southern Englishness, it wrestles with both universal and specifically middle-class angst-ridden issues. The seriousness is regularly undercut by sometimes genuinely laugh-out-loud dialogue. The best lines go to Geoff - a regular at the pub. Very good casting.
Apart from the - to put it mildly - questionable assertion that Laura K is 'neutral' (please be joking) I have only one complaint about this episode - some of the principle characters' arc denouement seemed a bit hurried. Apart from that, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this season from week to week and I'm looking forward to see what the wonderful Alice Lowe's Joanna gets up to next time this show hits our screens.
Boyz in the Wood (2019)
Steer clear of this embarrassingly poor movie
I'm starting to write this review two thirds of the way through watching this film and I have cringed all the way so far. It's only because I'm so angry at having been misled by the ratings into giving it a go that I'm determined to watch the rest of it - I will give a fair appraisal having seen it in its entirety.
Ok, finished. I may have given this film a 2/10 star rating and that's being generous - there is quite a decent fun piece of music playing during the end credits but even that was spoiled by the inane content of the rapping over it. However, I feel it's my civic duty to lower my score to 1/10 just to counter the lies that constitute the publicity around this pile of excrement.
Don't believe the hyped-up high scores here and and elsewhere - this is an embarrassingly poor movie. I won't go into the myriad reasons it's as bad as it is because that would mean wasting more of my time and mental energy on something so lame that I just want to forget it as soon as possible. Truly awful - avoid.
Joy Division (2007)
Not quite a 10 out of 10 because..
This film about Joy Division is the best yet. For an understanding of the story of the band, I found it better than the Ian and Deborah Curtis-centered drama-biopic 'Control'. It will probably end up being the definitive docu-biopic of Joy Division - not least because it's not just about the band, but about their place within the late 70's English Zeitgeist and the 'psycho-geography' of Manchester. On the DVD, the extras with the interviews are particularly good - being a JD fan from the first time I heard 'Transmission' on the John Peel show as a 15 year-old back in '79, I was pleasantly surprised by them. The movie in and of itself gets an 8 from me but it's the extended interviews on the DVD release that upped the score to 9.
I would have given this movie/DVD 10 out of 10 if it weren't for the use of a curtailed version of 'Atmosphere' to close the story. The missing lines at the end of the sublime Hannett-produced 12" release of 'Atmosphere' go something like -
'People like you find it easy - Aching to see - Walking on air - Hunting by the rivers, through the streets, every corner - Abandoned too soon - Set down with due care - Don't walk away - In silence - Don't walk away'.
- and the song is all-the-better for them, I reckon. And this film would've been that bit better if they hadn't been left out.