JULY 2019 - FILMS + TV (+ THEATRE) (HOME VIEWING - MOSTLY)

A decent month's small screen viewing and a family outing to watch a black comedy drama play around the corner at our local library theatre.

Wild Bill (2019) (ITV Drama series)

The last couple of episodes from this one were watched and enjoyed. I'm hoping Rob Lowe comes back for a second series as I've enjoyed his portrayal of an American cop running a rural police force. Plenty of action, plenty of different types of cases........ family feuds, witness protection, money laundering, a corrupt cop and conflict with the man who put him in his position.

From IMDB....

US police chief Bill Hixon lands in Lincolnshire with his 14 year-old daughter Kelsey, hoping to flee their recent painful past. New community forces Bill to question everything about himself.

Creators: Dudi Appleton, Jim Keeble, David Griffiths
Stars: Rob Lowe, Bronwyn James, Anthony Flanagan

4 Latas (2019) - Film - Netflix

A French subtitled film watched in Slovakia on Netflix. Subtitles always demand I pay attention when watching as I'm totally fluent in absolute no languages other than English - even that's debatable. Jean Reno is a familiar face - Leon and Ronin. I quite liked it - a road trip across the desert for a sad re-union with a dying friend.

From Google....

Hoping to reunite with a dying friend in Mali, two longtime pals cross the Spanish Sahara with their friend's estranged daughter. Along the way, they recall trips the three made together in the 1980s, crossing Africa in cars they would later sell.

Dinner - Moira Buffini - Local Theatre

Five go theatre.... the stars aligned and my wife, myself and all 3 children were free to congregate and spend a quality evening at our local theatre. A play featuring.... death, crime, food, arguments, a creepy butler, an unexpected guest, infidelity, jealousy, anger, secrets and confrontation.
Enjoyable and very funny in places. A great night out.

From Wikipedia...

Dinner is a 2002 play by the British dramatist Moira Buffini. It premiered at the Royal National Theatre, London on 18 October 2002.

Paige Janssen invites some friends over to dinner to mark the publication of a book, Beyond Belief, written by her husband, Lars. A succession of unusual courses, interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected guest, lead to some surprising revelations and, eventually, to death.

London Kills (2019) - BBC Drama 

A five-part drama which aired over consecutive nights, though I watched on catch-up. Five different cases of murder to be solved, but an over-riding story arc concerning the recent disappearance of the lead DI's wife. I liked the cast - Hugo Speer and Sharon Small in particular.

I enjoyed watching the dynamics of the small team of detectives involved in the show.... mistrust, suspicion, secrets, tensions, naivety-borderline-stupidity, and a loose sense of camaraderie. With the questions the ending posed, I guess there'll be a second series. If so, count me in.

From Google...

Following the detectives of an elite murder investigation squad in London; the team is lead by the experienced Detective Inspector David Bradford, whose wife has been missing for the past three months: a case he has been unable to solve.

Waco (2018) - TV Drama

Binge-watched the six episodes of this one with my wife.

Sad, disturbing, horrible and outrageous. There's two sides to every story and this series portrays the Branch Davidians in a more sympathetic light than my recollections of mainstream media during the siege and the immediate aftermath. It does make you suspicious of authority when you see how the FBI worked to bring this thing to a head and the subsequent reported findings of the investigations. I think the days of accepting at face value what Governments tell you are long gone. Maybe I'm just a sad, pinko liberal, seeing conspiracy and control around every corner.

A previous FBI stand-off at Ruby Ridge is referenced here. Another tragic event that I don't think I was previously aware of.

Michael Shannon stars as FBI negotiator, Gary Noesner. He's the only authority figure with a clear head and the patience to end the siege peacefully. An opportunity denied him with tragic consequences. Taylor Kitsch stars as hypnotic religious leader David Koresh.

Powerful, gripping and anger-inducing. Highly recommended.


From Wikipedia...

Waco is an American television miniseries, developed by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, that premiered on January 24, 2018, on Paramount Network. The six-episode series documents the 1993 standoff between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas and it stars Michael Shannon, Taylor Kitsch, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Sparks, Rory Culkin, Shea Whigham, Melissa Benoist, John Leguizamo, Julia Garner, and Glenn Fleshler.

The Handmaid's Tale - Season 3 (2019) - TV Drama

Five maybe six episodes watched from the current series of 13. I think at the minute, nine have aired, so we aren't ridiculously behind. Gripping and tense would be an understatement. God I hate the Waterfords. Recommended viewing, but start with the first series otherwise it's wasted.


From Google.....

Based on the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, this series is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States. Gilead is ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state, and is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate. In a desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world, the few remaining fertile women are forced into sexual servitude. One of these women, Offred, is determined to survive the terrifying world she lives in, and find the daughter that was taken from her.

I Am (2019) - TV Drama - Channel 4

One from three watched so far - I Am Nicola - with Vicky McClure (This is England and Line of Duty.)  Nicola is in a relationship with a controlling boyfriend. Scary, tense, troubling, a kind of watch behind the sofa, through your fingers kind of drama - especially when the arguments start. Very powerful and very thought-provoking. A lot of the time you're shouting at the screen - "GET OUT! GET OUT!" Domestic abuse is horrifying.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the other two episodes bring to the table.


From Radio Times ....

Channel 4’s ambitious new anthology series “I Am…” stars Oscar nominee Samantha Morton, Humans’ Gemma Chan and Line of Duty‘s Vicky McClure in three standalone “female-led” stories.

Created by Bafta winner Dominic Savage (The Escape), each hour-long film follows a different women as they experience “moments that are emotionally raw, thought-provoking and utterly personal”.

Shot over the summer and autumn of 2018, each of the three episodes is co-authored and developed by its female lead, a collaborative process that Samantha Morton compared to “singing a duet” during a Q&A at the BFI & Radio Times Festival.