DVD of the Week: Trumbo

Last week we caught a rewatch of the Coen Brothers rather excellent Hail, Caesar, which is probably best described as a quirky take on the Hollywood of the late 1940s and early 1950s, if that era was telling the story itself. It's sharp, and tongue-in-cheek and I suspect there is a lot of gags I don't get at the expense of Hollywood fixtures of the period, although I certainly got a few, not least thanks to the excellent You Must Remember This podcast which covers the period. In a serendipidous moment, the movie we had for this week also covers the same period, that of the Blacklist, and the late "Golden Age", Trumbo. 

DVD of the Week: Bridge of Spies

I didn't write it up, but last week we watched the recent movie of The Man From UNCLE, a film that can be best be summed as "Okay". I mean, it's fine - functional, inoffensive, but like it's two leading men, hopelessly bland and short of the necesary charm or wit to really make it work. There is a moment in where Hugh Grant turns up and effortlessly outshines everone else and I suddenly realised what was missing. Anyhow, enough of that, because this week we watched another movie set around the Cold War, spies, and even the Berlin Wall, but it really couldn't be more different in nearly every way. After missing it at the cinema, I finally got to see Steven Speilberg's Bridge of Spies. 

TV Review: Legends of Tomorrow

I think it's fair to say that expectations were running pretty high for Legends of Tomorrow, a full spin-off of both The Flash and Arrow incorporating supporting characters from both, running around time and space. Both their parent shows spent a good amount of time setting it all up to, introducing both it's primary villian, Vandal Savage, and moving it's existing cast members into the right places to picked up in it's opening episodes by suspiciously bearded Rory Pond Rip Hunter and send off on a grand adventure. Sadly, and maybe inevitably, Legends of Tomorrow stutters throughout it's run, sitting in that slight frustrating zone of always being watchable but always falling short of it's true potential. Spoilers under the cut, naturally. 

DVD of the Week: Pride

It's strange to think of the 1980s as "history". As I commented when I was talking about Deutschland '83, the 1980s is my childhood - the music, the telly, the politics and look, I'm not that bloody old! But it's completely alien to Ewan, for instance, to talk about Nuclear War, or in the case of this weeks movie Pride, the struggle for Gay Rights, or the Miners Strike. The former, I must admit, I was only dimly aware of until I got to university, but with the Durham Coalfield to the North and the Yorkshire Pits to the South, the latter pretty much local news even in the death of the Teeside Steel Industry was the more immediate to my family. But even without that direct awareness, I do suspect it was all slightly less cosy than this film offers. 

TV Review: Deutschland '83

I was 10 years old in 1983. It seems hard to believe these days - especially if you're of a younger generation - but back then we didn't worry so much about global warming or post-capitalism or many of the things that we worry about now, but instead worried about the last flowering of the Cold War, of Nuclear Armaggeddon just around the corner. The inevitability of this conflict seeped into any vision of the future you cared to mention; even ones that weren't blasted landscapes assumed, as a matter of course, that some sort of nuclear exchange would happen, because a future where we decided not to launch the missiles just seemed so outlandish. So it's been a fascinating journey back to that time whilst watching Deutschland '83. 

Book Review: SPQR

After some dailliances with "mere fiction" recently, I seem to be solidly back on a History kick at the moment. This is partly due to some of the books I got for Xmas, which included some cheery looking tomes on the Ardennes Offensive of 1944 and the Stalinist Purges  of 1937, happy reminders of what a great time the 20th Century was. But that is something to look forward to, as whats really kicked off this run is Mary Beards' excellent SPQR, which covers the Roman Empire from what I found to be a novel and interesting perspective. 

Best of 2015: Books and Comics

So to finish off our trilogy of 2015 reviews, we come to the written word. This year I've managed to read 30 books, which I think is a record for recent years, and I'm quietly pleased about it. It's been skewed in some strange ways (more on that for a minute) but its also broadly diverse in others. I've rolled comics into this post as there has been a more "steady as she goes" feel to my comics reading, but even there I think I've done alright. Lets get to it.

DVD of the Week: Belle

Britains Colonial and Imperial History seems to be something that, by and large, our general culture has become keen to forget. It's going back a bit, but when I was a kid the history I was taught was decidedly anti-colonial, keen on the wrongs of the Empire and framing the slaughter of the First World War as it's natural end. My fathers generation, growing up immediately after the Second World War and the End of Empire, was well versed in the battles and heros if Colonial Myth, of it's self-identified civilising mission, and a misty eyed look at a Great Power now fallen from grace. Now, it seems, we hardly talk about the Empire and it's legacy at all, despite the long shadow it casts over Britain even now. And of course that means we're left with even less awareness of the engine that funded it as it got rolling; slavery. 

Holiday History Reading Roundup

One of the nice things about being on holiday is that I usually get chance to catch up on some big reading of big books, the sort of thing I often put off because I don't get that much reading time normally and I fear losing the flow of a longer work. So far this year I've been caught up in history again, filling in some gaps especially around the late 18th and early 19th Century. Whilst not a period I'm ignorant of, it is a period where my knowledge ebbs and flows a little, and the joined up linkage between events is a little sketchy, so getting a couple of good, solid books that ranged about a bit was really what I after. In the end, I got two books - the first on the French Revolution, and the second on the momentous year, 1848. 

TV Review: The Musketeers, Series 2

I don't think I ever got around to writing up my thoughts on the BBC's swashbuckling Sunday night adventure series, The Musketeers, but what I thought was this - gosh, that was a lot of fun. I mean, it took a while to get going, and was anchored as much in fun performances than anything else, and couldn't quite make its mind up as to how serious it wanted to be, but I liked it and was glad it was renewed. Not only was it renewed, but it's also gone on a bit of a wander around the schedules, moving to Fridays and being interrupted for 6 Nations Rugby and Comic Relief. But second series are often a truer indicator of what a show wants to be, so lets check in with it now. 

DVD of the Week: 12 Years a Slave

As I've mentioned before, I've become dimly aware, over the last couple of weeks, that we've had 12 Years a Slave sat under the TV in the "to watch" pile for over a month now. It's not been a concious choice, but it did start to feel like we've been putting it off, its reputation pitching it as a worthy but hard-going film meaning that we'd started to feel like we needed a bit of a run up to it. Which is daft, of course, because serious, weighty films shouldn't be a duty, they're a conversation between the film-maker and the audience, and even with a terrible subject matter like slavery that should still be engaging and fulfilling. So this weekend we decided, come what may, that it would make the top of the watch list, and so we settled down with it as soon as the kids were safely dispatched to their rooms. 

DVD of the Week: The Wind Rises

Studio Ghibli's international acclaim is probably the most enduring legacy of the 1990s anime boom, not least due to the distribution deal it secured with Disney, which brought it to the wider american market. Sure, it's never going to do the business of the latest Pixar movie, but it's varied and wonderful house style is familiar to audiences who may never have even heard of other anime staples such as Akira or Ghost in the Shell. But in an age where traditional animation styles seem to be dying out, I do worry for the future of the studio, especially with the retirement of Hayao Miyazaki. In the meantime however, I'm still sufficiently behind to be still catching up on recent output, so was pleased to see The Wind Rises on Film4 this weekend.

Games Review: Wolfenstein: The New Order

There was a bit of a buzz phrase that went around the gaming review world about the time that Bioshock Infinite came out; Ludonarrative Dissonance. Its about as pretentious a concept as it sounds; the idea that gameplay and story can jar badly in a game, pushing you out of enjoyment of either the moment-to-moment gameplay or whatever epic tale that gameplay is trying to tell. It's actually a pretty common thing - think Lara Croft getting teary over killing someone and then proceeding to kill about two dozen more - and its pretty rare that games successfully mesh the two, especially in the big, AAA action section of the market. But I've rarely had a problem with it, because its part of the gaming landscape, and I always appreciate the effort, story wise. In fact, the first such game I can think of where I've really had this problem is Wolfenstein: The New Order.

First Impressions: The Man in the High Castle

As much as I am believer in the oft-quoted idea that we live in a "television golden age", it's also a strange, shifting one for which the future isn't really clear. This is especially in true in the UK, with it's super-fragmented landscape when it comes to getting access to the source of this Golden Age, the US. Sure, Sky have a lock on HBO, and generally treat their other imports pretty well, but if a show you love has the misfortune to be picked up by one of the other networks you're taking a risk getting committed. At the very least you need to be prepared to follow it all over the schedule. And then, of course, are the shows we never get at all. However, one of the bright spots in all this is that the likes of Netflix and Amazon, desperate to stay ahead in the streaming game, are now commissioning their own shows, and releasing them internationally. Amazon are even playing the "crowd-sourcing" game, releasing a series of pilots for critical review before deciding which ones to take forward. 

Book Review Roundup: History!

I realised with some pleasure recently that I've hit my target of reading 20 books this year, which may not seem that many to some of you, but feels like an achievement to fit around everything else. It's been an eclectic year and mixed in is a bunch of factual books I've not mentioned here, yet. I'm not quite sure why - many reviews I read of history books tend to double as critiques of the history, as much as the book itself, especially for periods that feel contemporarily relevant, something you'll see a lot this year with all the World War One stuff. Personally I feel that if you're interested in a period you should read around from multiple sources anyway. So with that in mind, here is a round-up, along with a quick summary of why you should read them! 

Rambling: Dublin!

No DVDs or much TV this weekend, as we took a rare opportunity to leave the kids behind (with grandparents, I hasten to add) and jet off for a weekend away. Its not something we get to do very often; the odd convention in the last few years but that's always been UK based, and pretty much every trip abroad we've done in a long time has involved friends or family. Which is cool, but a weekend for "just us" has been long overdue. After some debate, and the "too hot, too cold" game in terms of destinations, we settled on Dublin, which had the benefit of being relatively close and English-speaking, and neither of us had been before, so was a good start for what we hope will be the first of many weekends away. 

DVD(s) of the Week: Lincoln and Inside Llwelyn Davis

Unusually, this week, we got a double-header in on movie Saturday, something we've not done for a while, as we usually wait for our youngest to head to bed. This week, a combination of the heat and a very energetic party left him spark out early, so we took the opportunity to have a bit of a catch-up. And an odd double-bill it turned out to be - Steven Speilberg's historical drama Lincoln followed by the Coen Brothers tale of the early 1960s folk scene, Inside Llwelyn Davis. I'd love to be able to draw a neat, unexpected parallel between the two films, but really I can't, so regardless, lets just plough on with the reviews.

Book Review: One Summer: America 1927

I'm not sure I can think of a writer who fits the term "Jack of All Trades" better than Bill Bryson. Starting out as a travel writer, over the last few years he's turned out books on a much wider range of subjects, all in the same conversation and subtly complex style. I've tended to find a pleasure in the simple act of reading Bryson, never mind the content itself, which is a rarer gift than you'd think, and the fact that many of his works favour breadth rather than depth shouldn't be held as a criticism so long as that breadth is done well. So long as it still says something. So with his new book, he is attempting to paint a portrait of a whole country, over one summer. And that's a lot of breadth.