Colin Parton's Blog, page 7

RuPaul’s Drag Race

RuPaul's Drag Race - RuPaul Season One This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  8/10

Going into this, I didn’t know much about the show. All I knew was the vibe – it was about drag queens. Yes, I know I must be living under a rock.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the drag scene. Just didn’t interest me. So because of all of this, I wasn’t expecting much.

It was much more interesting than I expected.

The challenges were exciting to watch and were varried. Rather than just dress up in a different outfit.

There is one episode where the challenge is to read the news and then do an interview. It is brilliant. Fantastic tv!

The end of every episode ends with the bottom two contestants competing in a lipstick battle.

This is just hilarious some of the stuff that happens during these battles. What I think is great about these battles and the rest of the show is how RuPaul runs it.

She doesn’t take it too seriously. She takes it just seriously enough. This tone is so important because I think the show would be farcical if taken too seriously.

I agree with the winner. She was just next level compared to the rest of the contestants. As the judges kept saying from very early on she could take up RuPaul’s mantle immediately.

Now that I have experienced what drag race is they will have to do something different next season to keep me interested.

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The Rook

The Rook - Al Blyth & Sam Holcroft This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  9/10

This series has such an interesting take on the superhero trope. It looks at the possibility of the superhero becoming a servant or slave to the state or highest bidder.

We are introduced into this world in a very interesting way. An insider: Myfanwy has lost her memory. We learn (or re-learn) with her. It’s neat and well-executed.

Early on we see hints that Myfanwy may be extremely powerful, but that power may be being kept on a leash.

I find this whole idea very strange because it is made very clear, early on, that they control her – so why also keep her powers under wraps? Feels a bit silly.

As soon as we start to get our heads around the idea of a secret wing of superheroes in the British intelligence services the whole underworld is thrown wide open. There is a black market for superheroes. This is such a brilliant idea as well. An illegal market will surface if such power can be controlled and its existence is hidden.

We see very little use of powers but what we do see is amazing. This less is more approach is refreshing and makes a lot of sense in a world where superheroes’ existence is hidden.

The way the memory loss plot is handled is great. She leaves two paths of letters and video files for herself. But we get to see more of them then she does on her chosen path. This is a fantastic story telling technique.

The strokes were too broad for me in this season. We didn’t get into too much detail about this new world. It did look very interesting. Sad to see that they set up for a second season that never happened.

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Mystery Road

Mystery Road - Rachel Perkins - Season 1 This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  10/10

This is a great story. We are woven into the lives of this outback town where two young men have gone missing.

Everyone is involved in some way. From the owner of the homestead where the men worked and the local aboriginal land council to local drug runners.

The fact that all the people in town are related to the plot in some way makes for a great story that allows you to keep guessing about what has happened. The intertwined plot has lots happening, some of which is related to the disappearances, some of which isn’t.

What an incredible performance by Aaron Pedersen as Jay – the lead detective. He is understated, letting things play out and slowly steering scenes where he wants them to go.

With brilliant writing and great acting – what’s not to love? Get into this must-see Aussie Cop drama!

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Gone Baby Gone

Gone Baby Gone - Ben Affleck This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  5/10

The way the story unfolds in this film is bizarre, causing the pacing to feel completely off. The story follows the disappearance of a little girl and the police and private investigators’ search for her. But this is resolved very early on when she appears to have died and is declared dead. Months pass and other cases are explored.

Then towards the end, she comes back into focus and the whole story returns to the disappearance. It is so jarring for us that it is hard to return to the story we felt was finished.

The whole basis of the narrative is that neglected children are better off kidnapped and placed with people who are better placed to care for them.

This is such a ridiculous premise. We are supposed to be able to be on both sides of this argument to see the actions that the characters take on both sides as reasonable and justified. I mean come on.

As soon as this argument is made the whole movie falls apart. We are meant to believe that numerous police officers feel this way as well as the leads splitting with one on one side and one on the other. It makes the leads cause noble and the rest look like idiots.

The opening is well done with the introduction of the lead and his role as a private detective being shown and not told.

The mum is completely unbelievable when she won’t tell the cops the truth about the night of the disappearance. This is an attempt to set up how scared she is about the repercussions of her telling the truth. But you need to remember this is all balanced against the life of her child – there is nothing that should tip those scales.

The plot pieces are tight and well-written. Everything comes back together nicely and everything we see is important.

The reveal of the lies outside the hospital to the lead figuring it all out is just way too complicated. We shouldn’t need to have it explained to us in graphic detail about what exactly happened to the girl.

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Bound

Bound - Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski This is part of my unedited thoughts series  6/10

This is such a strange story. First, we feel that the relationship between the two leads is going to be what the story is about. Nope. This is just the setup of the ordinary world for these two women. Yep, they like each other and they are both lesbians.

Once this important ordinary world fact is established the story can begin. The plot is that these two women plan to steal millions from the mob.

Joe Pantoliano plays Violet’s domineering boyfriend and the ladies’ connection to the mob. He is just the right level of unhinged. 

The race from the crisis through to the ending is smart and intelligent. The script is tight and well-written. This film falls down due to its pacing.

The film is very slow in setting up the ordinary world for the characters. This was because of the huge amount of time spent establishing Violet and Corky as lesbians. While this was an important character trait we were left feeling – yes we get it.

It felt that this was supposed to be the big draw for the film. Two lesbians on screen. There are some raunchy sex scenes as well. The problem is that they didn’t tell the story of their budding relationship. It just happened in the background without the time needed for us to see it happen.

This is because the film is not about their relationship. It’s about the plan to steal the money and once we get onto this it’s good but it isn’t as deep as it could have been because so much time was spent establishing Violet and Corky as lovers.

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Luther

Luther - Neil Cross This is part of my unedited thoughts series  10/10 Season 1

I have so much praise for the creation of this great character that Idris Elba brings to life. He is a cop who wants to stop the bad guys. He doesn’t want to arrest them. He wants them stopped. And they are some really bad guys.

We are slowly let into this motivation by seeing how he acts. It is later explained by his wife – Life is the most important thing.

If life is the most important thing – murder is the worst act imaginable. Just catching a murderer isn’t enough. The murders must be stopped.

He is a brilliant detective. Not only is he brilliant but we get to go along with the ride almost as if we are the brilliant ones. The way the writers achieve this is great. They cast a compitent, but new detective with him. This allowes Luther to explain things to the detective, and us, and we see things as Luther does.

The setup of the first villain as truly psychotic, but brilliant, works extremely well for the arc. Luther figures out the crime but in a way that they can never charge her. She is impressed with Luther. She thinks they become friends and she recurs throughout the first season in unexpected ways.

Running parallel to the policing is the relationship story with Luther’s wife. The progression of this arc is huge in the first season and could easily have been milked for longer. Bold steps are taken to leave Luther on the run from the police, accused of her murder. A bold step to take in the first season of a show.

What I find amazing about this show is that if there were any missteps by the writers or the actors we could easily end up hating Luther. But we don’t. While we probably wouldn’t do the things he does we can understand why he does them. And to be completely honest I would be happy to know if there was a policeman out there prepared to go to the lengths he does to stop the bad guys.

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Still Alice

Still Alice - Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  5/10

This film looks at the impact of early-onset Alzheimer’s on Alice and her family. The decision to integrate both the impact on Alice and the way the disease is passed onto her children is bold but ultimately flawed.

Alice is diagnosed with a type of Alzheimer’s that can be passed on to her children. This is an interesting and original idea. The problem is that for this to be properly integrated we need to know more about the children than we do.

Because the children are only given a cursory once over we don’t get to see how this really affects them and that would have been amazing to see.

I understand that the key reason for including this was to have a huge amount of guilt for the hero Alice. And we see this and it is powerful. But without being able to see the actual impact from the character affected it is two-dimensional.

Alice’s husband, John, comes across as heartless and self-serving. To start off with his reaction to the diagnosis is disbelief and refusal – which all makes sense. The problem is that he doesn’t move from this state to support Alice who is clearly moved beyond this.

In the end, John ends up leaving Alice in the care of one of their daughter’s saying: “You are a better man than me.” This is tried to be spun as financially important but this doesn’t hold true with their lavish lifestyle. Once again if we had been able to see more of John from John’s perspective this whole mini-arc could have been great.

The way that Alzheimer’s is revealed to us and Alice through everyday normal interactions is really well done. The point where she forgets where she is when she is out running is very powerful. We watch Alice decline to the point that she has to give up teaching. It’s heartbreaking to watch and the performance is spectacular.

 

Julianne Moore’s performance was stellar and she deserved the nomination if not the Oscar itself. I haven’t seen all the other films where the lead actress was nominated in 2015 but my pick would have been Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl. Also a much better film.

A really big flaw with having a character with Alzhiemer’s is that they loose agency throughout the story. This is a big problem for a normal narrative arc as the hero needs to drive the action and well before the end of the film Alice isn’t making any decisions at all.

They did start to set up something that looked like it was going to get around this problem in an exciting way. Alice began recording videos and leaving notes for herself. These were instructions for suicide once she couldn’t answer a set of questions. The problem here was twofold. The first was that it was only used in this one instance.

It would have been nice to see Alice try to hold onto some sort of control in other areas through these sorts of methods. The second was that Alice only didn’t follow through with the plan because she was interrupted while trying to follow the instructions in the video that she finds by mistake.

The sequence is really great but it could have been more powerful if Alice had been the one to finally decide on which way to go. Unsure how this fits with the diagnosis but it would have made a great scene.

The only child that we really get to see in any detail is Lydia. This is because the story uses this character as an adversary to Alice early on. The character then morphs into a test and then an ally.

The way this transition occurs is great as Lydia sees the impact of the disease on her mum. She is also left defending her mum’s rights against her family. She is interested in understanding where Alice is at as the disease progresses which also gives us greater insight.

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Stateless

Stateless - Emma Freeman & Jocelyn Moorhouse This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  5/10

This is an intelligently written show that takes us on a journey through the lives of the main characters.

We get to see first hand the complexity surrounding the impact of Australia’s immigration detention policies. At every turn it is heartbreaking.

The problem with this show is it is a horrible situation that everyone is in – even the good guys. This means that even the up beats in the story just bring us back to normal. It is just so super depressing and not really telling me anything new or in an interesting way.

I gave it three episodes and after that I couldn’t take it anymore. Not because it was bad but just too horrible to watch. This was not for me.

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Total Control

Total Control - Rachel Perkins & Wayne Blair This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  8/10 Season 1

Alex Irving, Deborah Mailman (The Secret Life of Us, Bran Nue Dae), has one goal at the start of this series and that is toget a good deal for the native title holders in her hometown. The US wants to build an airbase and the Australian government is set to support them – no matter the cost.

Alex is royally screwed over by her new ‘allies’ who have dropped her into the senate. With this first cause lost she champions the death in custody of an Aboriginal girl for the remainder of the season.

Party politics and skulduggery are rife throughout the show and can be eye opening or stomach churning depending on how close you watch this sort of things in your day-to-day. 

All of the political stuff present in this season is pretty on point with little explanation. I think this is a great approach. People in the know can be rewarded by seeing something done correctly. A viewer who doesn’t understand the nuance isn’t left out either.

This is especially true in the final episode when the vote on supply is happening in the senate. It is well built up to be something very important but you don’t need to know exactly what happens if the government looses this vote. This placys out beautifully as the news reaches the lower house and a vote of no-confidence is called.

Deborah & Rachel are brilliant throughout. Deborah’s support staff are a really interesting cross section of society. All the supporting staff have an air of political smarminess which is impressive. 

Season 2

Everything is higher stakes than in season one. All the plot lines have interesting intersections with each other.

The main plot lines for all the characters is the election that has been caused by the votes at the end of season one.

The major parties are overshadowed by a number of independents and members who are threatening to leave the parties. Lots of dirty tricks from all sides.

Alex’s main storyline is to do with online harrasement and threats to her and her son. Their relationship is the focus of a lot of this part of the story.

I really disliked how the parliamentary rules are disregarded in this season when they were used so well in the first season. Specifically I’m referring to the locking of the doors for the vote. There are ways that they could have used the normal procedures and rules without Alex needing to force her way into the chamber – which would not have been allowed.

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Into The Wilderness

Into The Wilderness - Sara Donati Unedited Thoughts - This is part of my unedited thoughts series.  1/10

The period that this was set in made me very excited, as did the setting. I am a big fan of early frontier life. Then the appearance of ‘Hawkeye’ intrigued me. I did a quick google to find out if it was who I thought it was.

Yep, this was one of my favourite characters ever, Hawkeye from Last of the Mohican’s fame – brought to life by none other than Daniel Day Lewis. I love that film but haven’t read the original stories. I was interested to learn that Donati had pretty much created a fan fiction here set much later in Hawkeye’s life – and 100 years after the original was published.

The main characters looked like they were going to be Hawkeye’s son and the newly arrived, daughter of the local judge. It quickly became clear that this was going to be a story about: women’s rights; slavery; and racial inequality. All of this was likely to be wrapped up in a romance. Not really my cup of tea. While I think all of this topics are important and need and should be  be discussed I read to escape and, as I said not generally a huge fan of romance.

I only ever give a book three chapters to hook me in. This one didn’t so its off to the donation bin.

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