Reviews

Nowhere in the credits is it mentioned, but this series seem to be a remake of a 2021 spanish series called the head, which was created by jorge dorado and was streamed over hbo asia. The only difference that i can discern is that the head transpires in antarctica while night country takes place in the arctic. The named creator of this version, issa lopez, a mexican writer and producer, does not cite the head as an influence, but the parallels are eerie, including the opening sequence where a delivery person finds the research station apparently deserted. The head was a thought provoking series and kept me engrossed. Perhaps night country will do the same.

First, do not access this television series thinking that it has something/anything to do with the 007 franchise. You will be sorely disappointed. I sat through an advance preview of the first two episodes of this "reality" series expecting a television-sized Bond to engage in the espionage for which he is famous. Again, no.

Nine pairs of "everyday" blokes hunt for clues that, if answered correctly, in the end will reward them with one million English pounds. The conceit here, and the element that requires substantial viewer suspension of disbelief, is that each duo is supposed to be in the wilderness (or on a mountain top; or along the canals of Venice) isolated from assistance (other than the disembodied voice of Brian Cox), even though each couple is accompanied by, at a minimum, a cameraman, a sound engineer and a segment director.

Each couple is required to maintain the illusion that they are alone, even though alternating camera angles make it obvious that "scenes" had to be paused while the camera changed perspective. There is a grating understanding that the audience (you and me) are being manipulated and condescended to - "play along. Pretend its real". No, thank you.

One of the central themes of the three seasons of Crimson Rivers is the prevalence of religious mania, at both the fringes and within the mainstream, that so often manifests itself in horrific, ritualized violence. Both Niemans and Delaunay, rational members of the law enforcement mechanism in the European Union, are confronted with corners of society still dwelling in the Middle Ages. Even the episodes that do not touch upon religion directly,possess elements of ritual and secrecy , cloaked in social privilege, that place them outside what would be described as conventional behavior. Crimson Rivers is the closest I have seen any series come to emulating the magnificent American series, Millennium.

If you watched the brilliant Fox television series, Fringe, this Israeli program will seem quite familiar. Many of the same issues are addressed and the explanations are as intriguing as those presented in the original American series. Interestingly, both series are also narrated from the perspective of a law enforcement officer: Olivia Dunham in Fringe; Chava Popper in The Grave. The major difference between the two stories, however, is significant. Fringe was provided the opportunity to tell its story over five seasons and one hundred episodes. The Grave was shut down after only eight episodes. But they are an intriguing eight episodes. The Grave is a worthy successor to Fringe.

When I first watched Season One of this series I was reluctant to write a review because I believed those ten ten episodes were simply a prelude to a more expansive study of the social and civil collapse of the United States.

I am glad that I waited. What we have here is a near-future examination of a society in free-fall, the fictional city of Kingstown standing in for a nation that has been corrupted by its own racism, inequality and avarice. Diane Wiest as Miriam McClusky is both the matriarch of the McClusky family and the voice used to delineate the roots of America's moral devaluation, Slavery and the Native American genocide. It is telling that as the series begins she is teaching the book, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.

We know that we are witnessing the future because the death penalty in Michigan was abolished in 1963. At one point we are witness to the gruesome execution of a drive-by shooter, and we see the horror of state ritualized murder. At the conclusion of the killing, a member of the victim's family shakes his head while questioning: "Why didn't you warn me?

There is no respite from the desolation. There is no redemption. There is, however the understanding that when the bell does eventually toll, it tolls for thee.

In 1966 Embassy Pictures released one of the great bombs of all time, The Oscar, starring Stephen Boyd. This film, Spinning Gold, does to the music industry what The Oscar did to the motion picture business. Written, produced and directed by it seems every living member (and one dead presence) of the Bogart clan, it flies in the face of the basic motion picture mantra, "show, don't tell". The film is narrated by the subject himself, Neil Bogart, who has been dead for almost forty-one years. It is a hagiographic gloss on the career of the Bogart patriarch, full of superficial accounts of the fall and rise and fall and rise again of the intrepid creator of Casablanca Records, while even tacking on the cliche of Bogart's purchasing a home and automobile for his long-suffering parents.

Jason Isaac, utilizing some form of an American/New York accent, is wasted in this film, as are the women who flock around the Bogart character to little effect. For a 140 minute film (that's right!), including a tacked on tribute within the tribute, the supporting players are never developed beyond the hanger-on stereotype we have seen in countless films pretending to be biographical accounts of historical figures.

The Bogart family, I am sure, will make an annual ritual of screening this film on Neil Bogart's birthday, reliving the "glory days" of Casablanca Records. For the rest of us, this vanity project will disappear quickly into the great maw of of streaming television's insatiable need for "product".

Long before Edward Snowden revealed the existence of PRISM, the NSA's mass data collection operation, this episode of the Dead Zone postulated a similar program of total government surveillance. In 2004 total surveillance was in its infancy and was looked upon as an intolerable intrusion into personal privacy. Today, most people have accepted surveillance cameras everywhere and have come to believe that such a surveillance state is natural and necessary. This episode of the Dead Zone was a voice of dissent and it is remarkable to see how much privacy people have been willing to surrender for the nebulous guarantee of security. Watch this with a jaundiced eye.

The irresponsible political rant by LHAVEN (which is being passed off as a review) uses this fairly prescient episode as an attack against the Biden Administration and an affirmation of Trump's criminal mishandling of the coronavirus. LHAVEN treats this episode as reality; that because chloroquinine is the miracle cure in Plague that it would also have been the miracle cure for Covid-19. There is not a shred of evidence that the quack remedies trumpeted by Trump would have had any positive effect on Covid-19. It is amazing that LHAVEN's review was even approved for publication. Fiction and its attendant exaggerations and distortions should never be mistaken for reality.

The film, as an extension of the television program, demands that one be intimately familiar with the main and subordinate characters as presented in the PBS/Masterpiece series. There is absolutely no character development, on the assumption that anyone with a desire to submit herself to this trifle will be intimately familiar with the narrative and will be predisposed to laugh when prompted and shed a tear when appropriate.

The literal film within a film concerns itself with the momentous cinematic transition from silent film to sound. One can be forgiven if this portion of "A New Era" reminds one of the central plotline of "Singin' In The Rain", since the two stories are virtually interchangeable. Julian Fellowes probably should have added a script credit to Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

The advertising campaign touts this film as "escapist fun". Escapiist it may be. Fun is in the eye of the beholder. For Downton fans only.