This week, we’re looking at how to keep going when sometimes, it’s the last thing you want to do. How, then, can you keep yourself going? Well, as we regularly say, this article doesn’t have a magic wand or special elixir within it. Instead, we’ve just got a few ideas and tips that may hopefully help. Firstly, try getting the basics of a routine in place. There’s a caveat to this, that we’ll come to in a bit....
A perfectly innocent and heart-warming cartoon on the internet triggered me today. It depicted a young girl reminiscing about playing video games with her older brother, and how they eventually got their old gaming systems out of storage to play again. By the time I’d swiped through all the panels, my phone screen had become blurry with my tears. I had to put it down and take a few moments to breathe....
Ghosted Episode 1 It’s impossible to talk about Fox’s new series Ghosted without talking about the X-Files. Using the tried and true formula of the skeptic paired with the true believer, the cliche TV duo that X-Files popularized, Ghosted dabbles in sci-fi and the paranormal with a comedic twist. In this comic reimagining, Mulder is a bookish, neurotic type more in the mold of Dr. Egon Spengler named Max, played by Parks and Recreation’s Adam Scott....
Gotham Season 3, Episode 12 Gothamis back and it continues to stumble through the middle of its season. There were a few things to like here — “Ghosts” saw the return of some popular faces in Paul Reubens (Penguin’s dad) and Cameron Monaghan (Jerome) — but, for the most part, the midseason premiere was a predictable slog through plot mechanics we’ve seen on this show. Someone tries to kill Gordon, but he manages to escape certain death....
“Episode Five,” while ultimately yet another disaster, at least offers a little heart monitor blip of hope. If there is any chance for Gracepoint, it is in reforming its uninteresting, unrealistic characters. “Episode Five” doesn’t accomplish this in one fell swoop (no one episode could) but it at least gives a damn. *Bearded David Tennant has a weird frog face. There, I said it. Come at me, Whovians. Immediately following the police’s press conference regarding a boat filled with evidenced being lit on fire, Renee and Owen approach Carver and Miller with some intel on Reinhold....
4.7 The Grimm Who Stole Christmas While last year we had the Wesen version of Bad Santa in Krampus, The Grimm Who Stole Christmas is this year’s nod to the festive season. The mystery centred on three little goblins who wreaked havoc on the festivities. However, they turn out not to be Wesen but pubescent boys – awful smell and all – which are afflicted by a rare genetic, seasonal disorder that makes them go as bonkers as if they’ve consumed an family-sized tin of Quality Street....
4.9 Wesenrein In the last episode back in December, we were treated to no fewer than three cliffhangers. If you’ll remember, Wu landed in jail after freaking out following yet another encounter with Wesen that he couldn’t explain; Monroe had been attacked by the Wesen hate group, Wesenrein, and Juliette was shocked (but who can tell?) when she looked in the mirror and saw a Hexenbiest gurning back at her....
The consequences of Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier leaving Hannibal are staggering. Hannibal only had one person that had an inkling of his true nature and now that his confidant has abandoned him there is no moral anchor. Could this mean an even deeper monstrous descent for Hannibal, and does the conversation that Bedelia and Jack Crawford share last week lead to the knife fight that kicked off the season? Sadly, Bedelia does not play a role in this episode....
Simply put, Hatchet is an awful lot of fun. Rarely does any movie, yet alone a horror movie, have me grinning from ear to ear from start to finish, only to be interrupted with occasional bouts of uproarious laughter. To love Hatchet is not to praise it as a highbrow, post-modern piece of art, but (as the publicity so rightly states) to support a return to old school values in slasher movies....
My son, who is a teenager, recently watched Ghostbusters for the first time, and commented on how some of the special effects aren’t exactly perfect. He asked me to explain how some things were done, and being a dutiful geek father I explained some of the subtle and not unsubstantial technical challenges that were met by this picture in the pre-digital era. But this discussion set me thinking about modern effects, how good they are, but also what they might have robbed us of....
Hell on Wheels Season 5 Episode 9 “Return To The Garden” could’ve been titled “Return To Where It All Began” for Cullen, Durant, and Eva. The garden is both figurative and literal. Rails and seeds are placed and need tending to progress along a desired path. Untilled soil and cultivated land attract good and bad people with personal motives. As seedlings pushed through the earth, vermin and insects stake their claim....
The best compliment I can pay Hemlock Grove in its second season is that I think I’d be willing to watch a vampire-only cut of this show too. This is a compliment because my previous favorite version of the show would have been 30 minutes of dead air, then one minute of Shelley embarrassedly smiling, followed by 20 more minutes of dead air. The Roman Godfrey in “Gone Sis” represents the smoothest and most interesting version of Roman we’ve gotten yet....
1.5 The Lion’s Den Five episodes deep, viewers are now familiar with the cast and acclimatised to the state of events in the Heroes universe and so moving along at near-breakneck speed (compared to previous seasons anyway) is no bad thing. One thing Heroes Reborn has had massive success with is forcing its audience to sympathise with characters initially introduced as antagonists. You’d have to have the emotional capacity of a Dalek to not be moved by Zachary Levi’s performance this week as he revisits his previous life as a father and family man, thus beginning his quest for redemption....
As it turns out, Charlie is Yul Perkins, a bank robbery getaway driver turned witness for the prosecution who is in the witness protection program. Yul has enemies, specifically Alex Dimitri (Bradley Cooper), his former best friend and now bitter enemy. There’s also Annie’s old boyfriend, Gil (Michael Rosenbaum), who is bound and determined to follow the two to LA. Also in tow is Randy (Tom Arnold), Charlie’s federal marshal and designated protector....
4.1 Zanzibar In series one’s The Understudy, Inside No. 9 gave us an updated take on Macbeth. Here, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton put their own twist on Shakespearean comedy with an episode set entirely in a hotel corridor and written entirely in iambic pentameter, the clever sods. Regular brilliance clearly wasn’t presenting these two enough of a challenge. It’s a challenge they pull off with relish. The writing’s smart and self-aware (“Like this iambic foot, I’m stressed, you’re not”) while the gags are a bawdy delight....
Have you been pleased with the critical reaction to P2? How did you overcome the problems of shooting a film in such a generic and confined space? That was an incredible challenge. I think people make the mistake of thinking how simple it is to have one location, and it’s the opposite. It becomes quite tedious having to come up with creative shots every day in the same space. So it was a challenge, a real exercise in the basic technique of film-making for everyone....
With the addition of cult movie icon Udo Kier to the cast and several strong early trailers, anticipation was high that the finished film just might deliver on its gloriously bonkers premise. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really happen and – despite its strong high concept – Iron Sky never seems entirely sure of what type of film it’s trying to be. Questioned and tortured by the ambitious Nazi Klaus Adler (Gotz Otto), Washington is turned over to the suitably mad scientist, Doktor Richter (Tilo Pruckner) where he is ‘aryanized’ in a bizarre albino-style experiment and his cell-phone confiscated for use in the Nazi’s re-invasion project....
Swamped with pressure from school, high school student, Craig (Keir Gilchrist) contemplates suicide, but instead of going through with it, he manages to talk himself into getting some help. He’s admitted to an adult psychiatric ward where he’ll spend five days taking part in counselling sessions and group activities before he’s allowed to go home. At first it’s hard to get round the initial story, a teenager who believes he’s so depressed he’s on the verge of suicide, yet he manages to bring himself to A&E to get himself help....
5.2 Good Intentions On that note, does anyone truly understand Boyd half so well as Mara appears to? Mara asks to see Boyd’s tattoos and rather than be repulsed by his Swastika she instead recants a story about how she knew men who killed Nazis and men who were Nazis. She then proceeds to tell Boyd that in Russian prisons, tattoos tell a man’s life story and begins to inspect him, coming to some pretty accurate conclusions....
5.6 Kill The Messenger In a brilliant piece of camera work Raylan enters a saloon to meet with Art after he shared a very important revelation with him last week and Raylan passes through this very door but not before we see Raylan struggle for a moment with the idea of entering. He then proceeds to walk out of the rain, which in itself is usually symbolic in fiction, and Raylan proceeds to enter through this doorway which is positioned directly in the purview of the viewer....
