Have You Been Watching...? 2022

 

This blog began life in the summer of 2022, so I would like to thank you all for reading my little essays on what I’ve been watching and hopefully you have discovered some new gems from what I have been blogging about..

For the last entry of the year, I wanted to do a little “review of the year” but I didn’t want to just repost things that have already been blogged about. So here we go with a brief mention of some of the movies and programmes from 2022 that haven’t been covered so far, but did catch my attention for good or bad. Read on to find out!

GHOSTS (US) – I adore the BBC comedy from the Horrible Histories team, but this is the American adaptation of the BBC1 sitcom about ghosts occupying a decaying property that has been inherited by a young woman and her partner. She has a fall and finds she can see and communicate with the ghosts haunting the property. The BBC1 version has run for 4 seasons so far, and the same team are behind the US version. Sometimes, the British sense of humour gets lost in the translation, but credit where it’s due, the US version of Ghosts is a rare example of where it works. Once the viewer gets past the similarities, GHOSTS US takes on its own identity and is all the better for it. Season 1 is currently streaming on BBC Iplayer. Each episode runs for just over 20 minutes (with adverts that’s a full half hour in the states) so they are in easily digestible chunks.

SMILE – not based on the Dr Who episode of the same name, this horror movie has similarities to the indy-horror “It Follows”, in that the horror can be anyone, anywhere. A doctor witnesses a traumatic moment for a patient and begins to see people smiling and death following soonafter. Whereas It Follows is a thrill-ride on a low-budget, Smile begins to lose the plot very quickly resulting in a dull movie, where it could have been tighter and possibly shorter, allowing for a genuinely frightening movie. Sadly, this feels like a missed opportunity. I say this as it was one of the few movies I was really looking forward to this year! Available to rent from major online retailers.

TROLL – Not a remake of the 80s horror flick with a character called Harry Potter (it’s true, look it up). Imagine a Godzilla movie but set in Norway. This is it. A ridiculous plot but with some great special effects and a genuinely fun approach, I thoroughly enjoyed this romp. A large-scale disaster movie, just set somewhere other than the USA. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Running on just the right side of an almost parody of American action movies, this one gets a thumbs up from me. Available to stream on Netflix.

PREY – dropping on Disney+, this took me completely by surprise as a new entry in the “Predator” franchise. With repeated outings for the alien hunters running out of ideas and credibility, this one takes place in Earths past and with a hard-as-nails female protagonist, this movie is a great yet stripped back entry for the franchise and allows us to see what can happen when a civilisation armed only with spears comes up against the intergalactic terrors. Available to stream on Disney+

STAR TREK – STRANGE NEW WORLDS – Yes, I posted a whole entry about one episode of the serials inaugural season, but the pre-Captain Kirk and “Discovery” spin-off is one of the true success stories of 2022. Unshackled from Discovery’s season-spanning epic adventures, this allows for a return to the days of “adventure of the week”. At only 10 episodes long, it goes by very quickly, but it’s a fun return to the days of weekly sci-fi and with a talented cast and great writing, it’s one of the best things on TV this year. Available to stream on Paramount+ and is due for release on DVD/Blu Ray in 2023.

Of course, there have been LOADS more. Highlights include the movies Bros, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Adam Project, Spiderhead and Knives out sequel Glass Onion, and serials like 1899, All Of Us Are Dead, Obi Wan Kenobi, Peacemaker and so on but I won’t write about these here. They may receive their own entries as 2023 goes on. 

As I sign off 2022 with this final entry of the year, I would like to wish you all a very happy new year and hope you'll drop in on this blog again in 2023!

Have you got a suggestion I should review? Let me know in the comments: 

Have You Been Watching...? Wednesday (2022)

 

The Addams Family has been around for ages. Firstly, a comic, then a fondly remembered 1960s sitcom, two amazing 90s feature films (less said about the third, the better) two recent animated features (which I’m not too bothered about) and now this, a spin-off centred around Miss Wednesday Addams.

When I heard of this project, I was wasn’t sure it would worth my time, but then Tim Burton was linked to it and Christina Ricci (who played Wednesday in the 90s movies), Catherine Zeta Jones and Gwendoline Christie all attached to it. This began to sound like something special.

The 8 part limited series, “Wednesday”, is a triumph. The new Addams family cast are wonderful. Catherine Zeta Jones is truly a great luscious and mysterious Morticia, and Luis Guzman is literally perfect as Gomez, not as traditionally handsome in the mould of Raul Julia, but more in keeping with the comics. Their insane lust/love for each other makes for great comedy. Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley brings a sweet vulnerability to the role that was missing from the movies and he’s a very sympathetic character. As great as they are, it’s Jenna Ortega’s show as the new Wednesday. She is magnetic to watch. Dour, but full of humour and she doesn’t blink in her scenes, adding a great otherworldliness to Wednesday. The “internet” was full of criticism for some of the casting choices, but needless to say, don’t believe all you read on the web.

The new series strips the show of the main family, although they appear throughout (one of the family is practically a regular), but moves Wednesday to the Nevermore Academy. This is a special school for special students of which Morticia and Gomez have been previous alumni. This is a home to werewolves, sirens, gorgons and all sorts of creepy and kooky monsters in the form of human teenagers. While I have little interest in teen supernatural dramas, this one has just the right blend of humour and horror to satisfy even the most ardent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans.

Having watched Episode 1, directed by the legend that is Tim Burton and scored by Danny Elfman, I felt I had tired of Wednesday’s behaviour. I wanted more of the residents of Nevermore Academy, led by the delicious Gwendoline Christie as the head teacher Larissa Weem, an old rival of Morticia’s. I wanted to learn more about the town of Jericho and how they live side by side with this world of mythical creatures. However, as the story progresses, my appetite was well and truly fed.

The crux of the series is that having been dispatched to Nevermore, Wednesday finds herself caught up in a mystery and a number of deaths. The mystery isn’t the deaths themselves, its clear early on how they die, it’s the who and why that forms Wednesday’s investigation. Along the way we meet her fellow classmates including the impossible to dislike, permanently chipper Enid, a werewolf who hasn’t reached wolf-out stage yet.  Enid is played by Emma Myers who on the face of it should be an irritating character due to her constant perkiness, but really is a sweet and kind girl. Hunter Doohan  plays Wednesday’s “will they wont they” love interest Tyler, Joy Sunday plays Bianca, a siren who is keen to knock Wednesday down a peg or two and ex-Wednesday herself, Christina Ricci plays Marilyn Thornhill, one of the school staff, almost unrecognisable from her Addams Family days (I didn’t even realise who she played until episode 2).

Our mystery is evenly paced, and intricately plotted which, if the series ran for a longer run that 8 episodes, could have been a problem.  However, in this bite-size series, it just fits tidily, although the last episode does rattle along at an incredible pace.

As the Wednesday series is still incredibly current, this report will stay spoiler free. Is it worth almost 8 hours of your time to watch? Yes. You may be pleased to know in advance it IS a self-contained story. I don’t think that’s a spoiler, none of the pre-publicity suggested it was an on-going series. This new series has created such a great new world for the Addams’ that any further instalments need not even have to be centred around Wednesday at all. Die-Hard fans will enjoy all the subtle (and not to subtle) easter eggs littered throughout.

Year: 2022

Episode count: 8

Availability: Currently streaming on Netflix.

Have You Been Watching...? Out Of The Unknown: The Machine Stops

 

Out of the Unknown was a BBC sci-fi anthology series broadcast between 1965-1971, comprising 4 series. The first two in black and white and the last two in colour. As seems to be the case with numerous BBC gems, the series is mostly missing from the archives, but thanks to the BFI, we have a DVD set featuring all the surviving episodes, and a few reconstructions of others from remnants of footage, telesnaps and even scripts.

Fortunately, one of those episodes that survived the mass junking is The Machine Stops, adapted from the short story by EM Forster (better known perhaps, for Maurice, A room With a view, Howard’s End and A Passage to India) . I have selected this episode, which was from the second series, for inclusion on “Have you been watching…?” due to it’s pertinence to today’s society, even though the original story was first published in 1909.

The story apparently predicts numerous things we take for granted today, the internet being one, social media being another. In this story, and indeed episode, people live alone in pods, communicating via screen. They all live underground due to the inability to live on the surface. Everything is controlled and provided “The Machine”, a human made construct very similar to today’s World Wide Web. People’s only activity is learning from The Machine.  New ideas are few, indeed people take others ideas and pass them off as their own (sound familiar?). Travel is permitted, but no one likes to travel. Walking even seems to be a chore and their multi-useful chair moves around the pod for them.

The story concentrates on the relationship between Vashti and her son Kuno, who live on opposite sides of the world. The relationship is cold, and more functional than loving. Vashti appears to have children just to ensure the species continues, rather than to love and inspire.

However, Kuno is different. He is bored of their current existence and seeks more, even venturing outside. As time progresses, he comes to the knowledge that The Machine is breaking down, civilisation as they know it will come to an end.

The Out of the Unknown adaptation stars Yvonne Mitchell (Crucible of Horror/The Corpse, the Trials of Oscar Wilde) as Yashti, and Michael Gothard (For Your Eyes Only, Lifeforce and The Three Musketeers) as Kuno, and was directed by Philip Savile (Life & Loves of a She-Devil). It’s an absolute gem to watch. Given the clear budget restraints of 60s BBC, what they have managed to achieve with this one-off story is nothing short of phenomenal. It’s a work of art. The set designs are clever and multi-functional, if occasionally suffering from wobbly-set syndrome, and the outside location work wonderfully conveys Kuno’s reactions to this new world he has found. It’s movie quality stuff, coupled with 60s psychedelia. The script, with such few cast, is long and talky, but never boring and certainly worth paying attention to.

The episode was submitted to the fifth “Festival Internazionale del Film di Fantascienza”, the fifth International science-fiction film festival in Trieste in July, where it won first prize.

If you can look beyond the budget restraints, you will find here a film that will enthrall you and show you the perils of “online life” as predicted over 100 years ago.

Year – 1966

Series count – 4

Episode count – 20 surviving (including reconstructions) out of 49

Availability – DVD (7 disc boxset – deleted in February 2022)