Tag: Hulu

Byzantium (2012): Practically Perfect Irish Horror

Gemma Arterton in Byzantium
Were it not for the fact that this film was titled Byzantium, this 2012 movie could have been titled Perfection as this Irish horror tale is a dark “Mary Poppins,” in other words “practically perfect in every way.” This melancholic vampire story leaves the fangs and the long cloaks behind as it follows Eleanor Webb and her mother Clara through a journey of discovery for both the eternally young Ellie and her mother.

Directed by Neil Jordan (Breakfast on Pluto, End of the Affair) and starring Gemma Arterton (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time), Saoirse Ronan (Hanna, Atonement), Sam Riley (Maleficent, The Dark Valley) and Johnny Lee Miller (Dark Shadows, Elementary) and Caleb Landry Jones (Antiviral, Contraband) Byzantium is a dark, slow, melodic tale that moves through time and distance to mesmerize the viewer.

The film starts with Eleanor (Ronan) writing her life story page by page and then crumpling the pages into a ball and throwing them into the wind. An old man has been collecting the pages and he calls to her. Later, she kills him by drinking his blood. At roughly the same time, her mother Clara (Arterton), aka Claire is working as a lap dancer in a seedy club downtown.

After being fired for stealing a customer’s wallet and then assaulting him, she is followed by a man who says he has been looking for her for a long time. She kills him and later comes back with Eleanor to burn the place and his corpse. The two move to another town, a seaside town, where Eleanor says they have been before.

The film moves backward and forward as Eleanor recounts her life, she compulsively writes and rewrites her story throwing the tale away until she gives it to a new friend, Frank (Jones) who is dying of Leukemia. The 200 year-old teenager meets Frank at a hotel dining room where she plays the piano, he “passes the hat” for her “are you busking?” he asks her before she leaves. He later gives her the collected cash and she runs off.

Clara meets a lonely man down by the seaside arcade (she charges him £50 for a “blowy”) and invites herself and Eleanor back to his place, a sort of bed and breakfast that his mother owned before she died. Clara sets the place up as a bordello to help Noel get out of debt. Eleanor’s story about becoming a vampire relates that her mother started out as a whore, set off in that life by Capt. Ruthven (Miller).

As Eleanor and Clara settle in the seaside town, two men are searching for them, Darvell (Riley) and Savella, played by Uri Gavriel (The Kingdom, The Dark Knight Rises) who look like police but are from Clara’s past. These two have searching for the two female vampire for centuries.

The tale of how Eleanor’s mother is created, first as a whore then a vampire, is spellbinding and feels like a twisted Dickensian tale. A chance meeting while gathering cockles turns the young Clara’s life upside down and begins her dark journey after one military officer gives her a pearl and the other takes her virginity.

Byzantium has very nontraditional vampires. Not created by the classic exchange of blood, in this world a demon is searched out on a bleak island, and there are no fangs, instead a long almost tear shaped thumbnail makes the necessary incisions. The vampires can walk in the daylight and are not cold to the touch. Both Eleanor and Clara are the only female vampires in the world and they are hunted not by a version of Van Helsing but by male vampires.

At just over two hours this film should drag but it does not. It is a delight to watch and the cinematography is addictive. Sean Bobbitt (12 Years a Slave, The Place Beyond the Pines) gives the viewer exquisitely framed shots and uses lighting to accentuate every scene beautifully. Arterton holds her own against Ronan, who narrates the film, and if ever there was any doubt that this “Bond girl” could act, this film proves it.

Byzantium is a 5 star beguiling feature that lures the viewer in and seduces them completely. A new favorite and worth all 128 minutes spent watching it, the film is available on Hulu.

Watch this film and prepare to become addicted.

Ray Donovan: The Kalamazoo Season 3 Premiere

Leiv Schreiber as Ray Donovan
Getting an early peek at the season 3 premiere of Ray Donovan, The Kalamazoo on Showtime, courtesy of Hulu with their special offer, is a great reminder of just what an acting powerhouse that Liev Schreiber really is. A man who started his career playing weird and creepy characters who then played the Gregory Peck role in the remake of The Omen and now plays a sort of Mike Hammer-ish fixer for those with money and power in the city of angels. That Schreiber has got some impressive chops goes without saying. The pedigree of regulars on the show are proof of that.

Academy award winner Jon Voight, as Ray’s father, Brit actor Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes, The World’s End) as Terry Donovan, Steven Bauer as Avi to name but three. The show also boasts impressive guest stars like the iconic Ian McShane (Death Race, Case 39, Deadwood), Fairuza Balk (The Craft, Almost Famous) and Katie Holmes in this season opening episode alone. In The Kalamazoo, former season regular Elliot Gould, another Hollywood icon, who played Ezra Goodman, has rather loudly shuffled off his mortal coil while yelling for Ray.

The show has Donovan remembering Goodman, as well as being booted out of the funeral by Deb, and doing what he does best. Ray “Fixes” things for various clients in Los Angeles, at the start of the show he steps in to aid Flip Brightman, played by the excellent Bronson Pinchot, a TV weatherman who keeps “stiffing” the local porn shop’s “glory hole.” The offender gets his penis trapped in the device and Donovan has to pay to get him out.

A very rich Andrew Finney (McShane) hires Ray to get his kidnapped son back and to not pay the $5 million ransom if possible. It appears that his son arranged the abduction himself. Ray’s father Mickey buys a barbecue grill (The Kalamazoo) for the apartment complex and tries to talk Gary, a cowboy hat wearing pimp on moving his business out of the area.

Mickey puts on a party for the people living in the apartments while trying to look out for Ginger, a prostitute with a young daughter who wants to be an actor. Gary beats up on the mother and insults Ray’s father, not understanding just how dangerous the man really is. By the end of the show, the pimp pays for his stupid cruelty with his life.

Ray gets back Finney’s son and saves the man from paying the ransom. A priest, who stopped by Ezra’s room at the start of the show, collects some files and looks to be a man who will be reappearing in season 3.

Watching the season premiere, it is easy to see why the first two seasons of Ray Donovan was nominated for and won awards. The show is gritty and somber. The characters feel real; damaged and seedy and not a little frightening. Ray is a hard man who feels as though he would not be out of place in Raymond Chandler’s LA.

The writing of the show is such that one can step in at the start of season three and not feel lost. Regardless of whether one knew who Ezra was, or just why Ray is estranged from his wife, enough information could be gleaned from the script to follow the events in the episode easily.

Ray Donovan is a Showtime production and is available via Hulu as an upgrade. This is a cracking show with a hard edge and one that drama lovers will appreciate.

Hannibal: Cancelled by NBC aka Noxious Banal Cretins

Still of Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal
Let there be no doubt; NBC are a lot of noxious banal cretins who would not recognize class and quality if both of them came up and cut off their noses; sliced thinly and served on a silver platter with a fine Spanish red and a side of sautéed baby potatoes or however Hannibal himself might be tempted to serve up the powers that be who cancelled the show in its third season. This psychological horror series with its complex storylines and bucket loads of gore is easily the best scripted show on television and seemingly had something for everyone.

Certain episodes had scenes so horrific that what the eye did not see the imagination filled in handily and viewers must have known that these white knuckle images would come back to haunt their dreams. This violence and bloodshed, which to be honest was nowhere near as bad as it could have been, should have appealed to the younger demographic that television networks are so eager to please.

The complexity of the plot threads and the interaction between Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen), Dr. Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson), Jack Crawford (Lawrence Fishburne) and a slew of other fascinating characters were the draw for those more sophisticated than the usual market target.

Show creator Bryan Forbes is not too upset and revealed that he has enjoyed the ride. Other’s are implying that the series may have gotten the NBC axe but that Hannibal could live on in another “platform.” Shows like Longmire, which was cancelled causing fan outrage as the ratings were actually solid, have been picked up by Netflix who will continue the series. More recently Constantine; another NBC show with a solid fanbase which was cancelled, has been actively pursuing a Netflix or Hulu deal and fans are “petitioning up”  to help  make this happen.

Like Constantine, Hannibal has had a difficult time building up a large following. Fans of both shows were dedicated and as mentioned by Slate.com, the latter series has always had an active and prolific Twitter fanbase.

Season three of Hannibal has had an introspective dreamy aspect that may have helped along its demise. Scenes are darker than ever and the amount of time spent focussing on mealtimes, with swelling operatic scores accentuating the sheer opulence of the cannibalistic feast, is almost overwhelming.

It is, perhaps, the introspection as well as the complex and almost musical dialogue of the characters which has also been off putting to the younger demographic. With lines containing several layers of meaning and the increasingly complicated interwoven threads of plot and characters, this “look at Hannibal’s beginning” could be bogging the average viewer down.

This is nothing new, each of the first two seasons made the audience think. Certainly fans were wont to discuss the meanings of the symbology and the mythos in the show after each episode. Twitter has been, as mentioned above, the social platform of choice for most fans to talk implications and underlying themes.

With the news that NBC has turned its back on a show that is highly praised by critics but has a disappointing viewer rating, fans will have to wait to see if a new home can be found for the series and its incredible cast. Until then, the rest of season three can be enjoyed in spite of the noxiously banal cretins at NBC.

Life in the Real Desert: The Wind Down

Town sign outside of Burger King

Somewhat amazingly, the big wind down has already begun in Quartzsite, Arizona and Life in the Real Desert is about to change once again. Riding down the main drag in town the first noticeable thing is the lack of big tents and vendors who have been present since at least the start of 2015. Apparently this mass evacuation will continue until the end of March and the sleepy burg will go back to being semi deserted once more.

I stopped here last year in February/March and was told that I’d missed the rush. Having been here for the busy time, I am quite anxious to see just what the quiet times will bring. Of course there will be less snowbirds for a start. There are not that many who opt to live here year round. Those that do, immediately lose their feathered status.

Summer temperatures soar, as they did in Vegas, but at night they do drop dramatically. The folks who opt to stay are used to this drastic see-saw effect of hot and cold. Of course in the Nevada gambling town of Vegas there are enough buildings, pavement and people the sun going down does not equal a huge drop in heat.

Last March, in Las Vegas, I was sleeping with windows open and a sheet on the bed. Coming to Quartzsite, I was offered heavy blankets. I turned them down, explaining that I could take it.

Wrong.

When the sun set here, I immediately froze. There was no gradual decrease of temperature, one moment it was hot and then, BAM, cold. By the time morning came, I was wearing every item of clothing that I owned and had desperately wrapped the dogs’ blankets around my shivering body.

I will, in fact, welcome the increase in heat and pray that the nighttime hours in summer do not drop to what feels like sub-zero figures. While I’ve gotten used to the increased Fahrenheit readings, I’ve learned that less clothes, more fluid and a change in operating hours equates to more comfortable living conditions. Cold, however, is a different aspect completely.

Although the reaction is amazingly similar, more (rather than less) clothes, more fluid (of the hot sort) and a change in operating hours, the end result is nowhere near as satisfactory. I do not like the cold, my body despises it and my operational capacity is cut down accordingly. It is hard to type when you cannot feel your fingers.

Granted, extreme heat also results in less productivity. But, regardless of what the climate is, I would still rather battle heat.

While the town is winding down and the snowbirds are slowly following the vendors lead and heading out, I have learned that a new bike with new gears is easier to ride than a cheap second-hand one. My initial bike was a Chinese knock-off of a BMX and it damn near killed me.

My new bike, a 700c Schwinn, is a dream and apart from the fact that I have to keep centering the front tyre is a lot easier to ride. I am now in the process of getting either saddle bags or a box for the back to facilitate grocery runs.

I will, hopefully, have sorted out some sort of television and Internet within the next month. Both quite important as my writing income for the new site has rather disappointingly worked out to considerably less than I was hoping.

Things will even themselves out eventually. Getting used to the different setting, sorting out living conditions and becoming a recognizable figure around the local area is helping to at least make me feel a little less disoriented. Some setbacks are very temporary. Having to cancel Hulu and Netflix has hurt, but I can rejoin as soon practicable and will do so.

The reality is that I’ve missed so many episodes of shows I wrote reviews and recaps for that I am hopelessly behind and will not catch up, even with serious binge watching. Hopefully TV will be restored in time for summer replacement programs.

Until things are back to “normal” my immediate goal is to write two articles a day for my personal blog and the same again for the new website. On top of that, I have plans to write a certain amount each day on my own books.

The move from Vegas, while necessary, has been almost catastrophic in terms of output. Other factors, which I will not go into here, have also upset the balance of work and “off time.” While I struggle to maintain a certain status quo, I will continue to write and keep practicing what I have learned and continue polishing my output.

6 March 2015

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