Review: Film: The Truman Show

Promotional poster.

Big Brother. I'm a Celebrity. Britain's Got Talent, X Factor, Pop Idol, American Idol, Top Chef, Masterchef, The Apprentice, Coach Trip, Dinner Date. All of these are reality shows; television brought up around real people doing supposedly real things with real drama and real characters. This genre arguably began in 2000, with the creation of the Big Brother experiment in which a group of people were put in a house for three months and filmed constantly. However, the genre had been pastiched by several films in the previous years - the most powerful of them being Peter Weir's The Truman Show.
      Set in the sunny shore-town of Seahaven, Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is an average guy living a normal life. Or so he believes. In reality, he has spent his entire life living in the world's largest set, being watched 24/7 by millions of cameras for every country in the world. When his supposedly dead father appears as an extra, he soon begins to suspect that all around him may not be as it seems.
      Two years ago I called The Truman Show my favourite film, and with good reason. The film's design is so clever and its characters so well-written that it really tickles my chestnut. Most of all, the film's grand concept is such a pastiche of the reality that I grew up in -  a world where "reality" is so moulded and shaped by fiction that it becomes itself unreal.

Jim Carrey's best performance is uniquely
human.

       This is easily Carrey's best performance in his long career, maybe surpassed only by the well-made but badly executed I Love You Phillip Morris. The key to this, of course, is a mixture of his talents; he offsets his madcap comedy style with a lot of real emotion and potentcy that perfectly contrasts the constructed nature of the world around him. Although the character is flawed, this is what makes him the only True Man in the complex.
      I can't say any more without spoiling the feel of the film, but the reason that I love The Truman Show is because of its intensely well-contructed concepts, blended with characterisation to die for and a soundtrack worthy of great praise. All I can do is advise you to go out and see it, and perhaps hope that you share my vast sense of wonderment at this cinematic creation.

Thanks.

From The Archive: Audenshaw Reviews (An Introduction)

Back in January, our English class had to write a speech about something that would entertain everyone else. While this wasn't the speech I went with in the end, I thought that you might find it interesting. Some of the information is obviously incorrect, but I think that's fine.
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About two years ago, my parents took me to a one-hundred-year celebration of Gorton’s acceptance into Manchester. I was a little bitter, and I really didn’t enjoy myself. There’s just something about firework displays, I suppose. I’m not really a fan of standing in the cold trying to decide whether to feel worse about the growing tinnitus or the numbness of one’s hands. And I was angry. But it was that night, after I’d been forced into going to this display, that I began a hobby that has lasted me up until and after the present day.

How did I express my anger? I waited. I didn’t shout at my parents, I didn’t write passive-aggressive Facebook statuses. I wrote a review. Not a very good review, mind – the syntax is horrible and there are several spelling mistakes. But that review, what I called, the Gorton 100, led me to do some more writing. Just to see. Just to see whether this writing stuff could go anywhere. So I reviewed the school play. I reviewed the military band, I reviewed the Halle Orchestra. And I loved it. I loved it so much, that I created an online blog to write in. And, since I thought that it’d be about school, why not call it Audenshaw Reviews?

At first I had no idea what to review. Books? They were out of the question – who was I to offer a literary critique? Music? I knew nothing about that. The only thing I could remember was that there was ternary form and binary form and I had forgotten the difference between the two. So Music was out of the question. And then, after about a month – after a review of Lidl and Primark (they didn’t go down well) – I had a brainwave. What do I, of all people, do the most? I watch TV. I knew something about Tv. About Form, and Structure, and Tone, and Characterisation. I didn’t know a lot, but I knew what I liked. I wasn’t the best writer in the world, but I stuck at it. I reviewed the TV that I liked to watch the most  - Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Lost.

This talk was going to be on Lost, but I thought this would be more interesting. Judging by the looks on your faces I was wrong.

You may not have thought that this talk was interesting or even relevant, but this is a hobby close to my heart. It’s been a constant to me – a part of my life over the past two years that I could always depend on. I think that it's healthy, even necessary, to find something in your life that's yours to enjoy, and yours to improve. My name’s Archie, and I’m the author of Audenshaw Reviews.

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We're all going on a Summer Holiday!

Now that my exams are over, I'm taking some time off. For a while that meant that the only posts that you'd be getting in this next two weeks would be the beginning of Ashes To Ashes Series Two.

Luckily, I've managed to organise a few things, and so while I'm gone there will be a few more reviews than usual. And I'm not going to tell you what they are. (It would spoil the surprise!). I leave tomorrow and I return on the 29th July, and between now and then there will be almost daily reviews on weekdays. Enjoy!

Thanks.

Review: GHTTB: Ashes To Ashes 1.8

Alex's Dad returns from America, just in time for his death.

Ashes To Ashes - Series One, Episode Eight

Alex's initial storyline in the first series of Ashes To Ashes mirror's Sam's first series - having to deal with unexpected truths surrounding childhood traumas. While Sam's father left, Alex's committed Murder-Suicide using an explosion that she was lucky to escape. The finale of the first series tackles this issue with the usual heavy-handedness that Ashes often shows, and that's a bit of a shame, especially as the series was plagued from the beginning by incredibly repetitious flashbacks to the event.
      The day of judgement has come. In her efforts to prevent her parents' deaths, Alex visited Arthur Layton, the man who shot her in 2008 and whom she arrested in 1.1. She gets no info from him, and so pretends to have been given info by an informant upon their deaths. Meanwhile, a Police Chief called Lord Scarman (Geoffrey Palmer, wonderful man) is planning to visit the station. Alex goes to visit her father, having just returned from America, in court. She tells him to leave London, but he ignores her. Alex then gets the idea to destroy the car they died in, finding the car belonging to her "Uncle Angus". Angus is part of a gay-pride parade, and so Alex drives a pink tank over it.
     As Scarman inspects the station, Alex tries to seal the deal on her parents' survival. Ray brings her new info; the Prices have had contact with Layton. She visits him again, and he shows awareness but refuses to give any answers. At the station, members of the gay pride parade are being put in the emptied cells along with Chris. At wit's end, Alex tries planting drugs on the Prices, and has them put in the cells as well - in front of Lord Scarman, who is distinctly unimpressed. In fact, he asks to be put in a cell to experience prisoners' treatment. Alex's mother speaks with her and discusses how she wants to take time off from work to spend time with the young Alex.

Scarman inspects the station.

      Alex has dinner with Gene, as her "Last Supper". After Gene gives Scarman a talking down, Alex soon discovers that her entire plan has collapsed; the Prices have been let out and Evan has released Layton from jail on Tim Price's authority. Alex travels to the scene and watches in horror as her parents are killed - she realises soon after that it was her father who orchestrated the whole thing, having discovered his wife's affair and unable to live with himself. Her father, in the end, was The Clown that had haunted her. Gene saved her life as a child, not Evan.
      Like Mars, episodes that follow the series' arc in the Bonanza tend not to be very strong plot-wise. In my opinion, the only time that it really payed off was in the next series, which was a serious game-changer. Episode 1.8 replaced that with a hefty deal of emotion, but at times it did feel like the episode was struggling to find places to go. The whole gay-pride parade was a welcome bit of comic relief, but it didn't feel right when one considers the seriousness with which Alex is going about her task.
     Unlike its predecessor, each series of Ashes has a definite villain, and of the three Tim Price/The Clown is by far the best. Leaving Tim's first clear appearance until now was a very clever move, as the character is very unnerving even when not as The Clown. While evocative of The Test Card Girl from Mars' first series, The Clown establishes the series' unique identity while continuing to tie it to the Bowie roots. Layton, who makes his final appearance, is also a really fun villain due to his semi-awareness of Alex's true identity.

Tim Price is the Clown.

       The finale to Ashes To Ashes' first series has its issues, but overall it was better than the series' average. The tie-up for Alex's origin story is wonderfully done and it is, for me, rather moving. Series One of Ashes To Ashes had a lot of problems regarding scripts and dialogue, but in its second half it developed its own style and became just as entertaining as its predecessor.

Thanks.

Overview: Doctor Who Classic: Season 22

Six and Peri got better. Eventually.

Doctor Who - Season 22 (1985)
Written 26/4/12

Season 22 is derided by so many fans that I almost feel sorry for it. Even I, a Sixie fan, felt a little intimidated by the sheer hatred with which both The Twin Dilemma and Timelash are treated. For me, this examination of Season 22 has been a real opener about both how good Who can be across its run, but also how much I'm prepared to forgive and forget when it comes to fandom.
     So what does it do so well? Tone is certainly something that Season 22 excells at with relish, and these six stories are incredibly laden with thick atmospheres filled with dark humour as well as a thick satirical streak. This season challenges what Who can do, trying to turn it into a fully-focussed social tool. Vengeance on Varos warns against video-nasties, The Two Doctors preaches about Vegetarianism. This is a season that wants to be a lot more than it manages, and I have to at least acknowledge that effort.
     If there is a major fault in all this, it's the very fact that despite being so great at atmosphere, the stories end up being a bit fluffy. The 45-minute format was in its teething stages, and the writers' inability to give stories the same pacing as before left the series with many saggy areas. The Two Doctors is one of the most egregious examples, its three episodes being so fluffy that with swift editing one could condense them down to a single hour of television and not loose anything particularly important. However, the stories are still enjoyable, and for me that's really what's important.
    So, as a change from the usual Overview style, I'm gonna do some best and worsts.

Molloy's Davros has his best performance.

Best Story
This is difficult, but really it has to be the incredibly thick and atmospheric Revelation of the Daleks. Molloy's smooth take on Davros, combined with Saward's standard multi-thread yarn means that this is 90 minutes of pure Doctor Who darkness, taking the grotesque nature of everyday life and exposing it for all to bear, along with some gallows humour and searing satire. That said, a close contender is Vengeance on Varos, whose dark commentary on our obsession with Television in all aspects of life makes it the one thing in the season that really stands out above the rest. Both of the these stories are definitely worth your time, even if you dislike Six.

The Cybermen get a bit carried away.

Worst Story
There aren't really any stories in this season that I hate, but if I had to pick a worst story, then it would be Attack of the Cybermen. It breaks my heart to say so considering how much I love it, but Attack suffers the most heavily from its lack of direction and after spending the first half building up, it wanders off into nonsense quite quickly. The ending is totally anti-climactic and even the worst recesses of Androzani weren't so depressingly bleak. Marks are also lost from The Two Doctors for that bit of fluff with Oscar Botcheby.

The Rani is just awesome.

Best Villains
In a season filled with Daleks and Cybermen, this is another difficult choice. At the end of the day,  I have to say that The Mark of the Rani gets it by an inch. The Rani is an intrigueing character and she really makes her story stand out from the norm. She's not a cackling villain bent on world domination; she's simply a scientist with very little moral conscience, and that strikes a chord against the rest of the villains (the Master especially) in the rest of the Saward Era.

Why are you here?

Worst Villains
Campy Cybermen aside, the worst monsters of this series had to be the Sontarans from The Two Doctors. Robert Holmes, the original creator of the Sontarans, arrived to give them a decent send-off, but they're here for sheer uselessness. They help the Androgums take over the space-station, ponce about a bit and are then killed by Chessene rather ungracefully. They're not here because of their execution, like in The Invasion of Time - rather, they just didn't need to be anywhere near. Special mention goes to Timelash for the rather unfortunate Morlox creatures, but the story's central villain The Borad is actually quite good. 

Best Guest Star
Points again go to The Mark of the Rani for the wonderful Kate O'Mara, who brings a lot of life to the role. Better, however, is the Governor from Vengeance On Varos, played by Martin Jarvis. His performance is one of the story's highlights - the official who is slowly realising the corrupt nature of the system he's in and has to try and decide between preserving the old ways and making real change. The Governor is a character who we have to slowly warm to, even when we see that his own system tortures him for sport, and Jarvis' performance is spot-on. Mentions go to Timelash's Paul Darrow and Revelation of the Daleks' Clive Swift and Alexei Sayle. And Patrick Troughton, of course.

Worst Guest Star
Never has a significant historical figure resembled Adric as much as in Timelash, where young HG Wells was given such treatment. It wasn't really David Chandler's fault; the character just seemed to be a tad irritating - always disobeying the Doctor's clear orders and nearly getting him killed. From Revelation of the Daleks, Jenny Tomasin's Tasambeker is often quite whiny despite how much I feel for the character. She's the story's only downpoint, really.

Season 22 is one of my favourite seasons so far in my examination of Classic Who, regardless of how much that may astonish some other fans. It's a brilliant, brilliant collection of stories that showcase Colin Baker's Doctor and has a metric tonne of excellent performances, musical scores and atmospheres. I love it, and if you give it a chance, then I think you might too.

Thanks.

Review: Resurrection of the Daleks (Revisited)

See here for my previous, much more general, look at this story.

The Doctor is judge, jury and executioner upon his old enemy.

Doctor Who - Season 21, Story Four - Resurrection of the Daleks (Revisited)
Written 5/5/12
"I can't stand the confusion in my mind!"

It's not easy to describe Resurrection as anything other than a mess. Saward's multi-storyline technique saw its first outing here, and the result is not pretty in any sense of the word. The story is completely and utterly schizophrenic, and is almost unbearable in the way it jerks from plot to plot with gay abandon. This, however, does not ruin the story completely, and there's still some entertainment to be had from decent acting, expansive design and a true return-to-form from Davros and The Daleks. Plus, it's Tegan's last story. Rejoice!
     Following directly on from Frontios, the TARDIS is dragged by a Dalek time-tunnel to the midst of 1984, where a prison ship carrying a deep-freeze Davros is attacked by the Dalek Forces, desperate to find a cure to the deadly virus created by their enemy, the Movellans. The Doctor is dragged into the fray when the Dalek machinations start affecting 1984 London, and he becomes part of their many schemes. As Davros plots his revenge under the Daleks' watchful eyes, the machines plot to create duplicates of high-ranking political figures - especially The Doctor. In the end, Tegan is sick of Season 21's death and destruction, and so opts to stay behind in 1984.
     This story sees the first appearance of Saward favourite Commander Lytton, played by Maurice Colburne. He doesn't get as much characterisation here as he does later on in Attack of the Cybermen, but he's certainly one of the story's standout characters. This is also the first appearance of my favourite none-Wisher Davros, Terry Molloy, whose fine balance of the original with his own take on the role lends this incarnation a much more manipulative and yet slightly insane quality - justified, in this case, by having been frozen in stasis, fully conscious, for 90 years. Finally, Rodney Bewes is rather interesting as the character of Stien, whose mind is as confused as the plot is.

Lytton makes his first appearance.

     Saward's previous story was Earthshock, and you can tell in the way the story is styled. This is best seen in the first episode, which is quite similar to that of that prior story in terms of the way it builds and actually manages to sustain suspense very well. The slow collapse of power as the group invades the ship makes the first 25 minutes fast-paced and exciting, and it feels contently self-contained. It's after this point, where we get to nonsense about duplicates and invading Galifrey, that the rot starts to set in.
     If anything else can be said, it's that Saward doesn't waste the opportunity to use the Daleks well. While Davros does stand out, the Daleks are given a lot more screen time and don't do silly things like strapping bombs to themselves. Although we've seen a loose dalek before, this story provides one of the key examples of how dangerous the Dalek Mutant can be outside the shell. Saward was having fun with his first Dalek story and to be frank, who can blame him?
     Resurrection of the Daleks starts out well, and always has good intentions in mind. It's a damn-site better than the previous Dalek story, but its plot becomes very confused and very-much stuffed with unnecessary fluff. When the story finally decides upon a plot, though, it's very well executed and the characters stretch what really is a bit of a mess into something entertaining.

Thanks.

NEXT MONDAY: I Overview Season 22.

Review: GHTTB: Ashes To Ashes 1.7

Gil Hollis did lots for charity - too much.

Ashes To Ashes - Series One, Episode Seven

In the 80s, TV had a much bigger role in people's lives, both for charitable aims and uncharitable ones. If I'm honest, 1.7 feels like a breather despite its serious ending, and that's very much in the court of this week's guest star, Matthew McFadyen, who happened to be Keeley Hawes' husband. Ultimately, 1.7 is a tragic tale of how selflessness can morph into bitterness.
     Well-known charity mascot Gil Hollis (Matthew McFadyen) claims to have had his charity money robbed by two thugs, and this is reported on a TV Appeal in a funny reconstruction. While watching this on TV, Alex gets a hallucination where The Clown, now a symbol of Death, tells her that one of her team is going to die. The next morning, and Gene asks Alex out for a meal. Alex thinks she can advance the investigation by taking Hollis back to the crime-scene and releasing locked memories. Hollis isn't productive, and at the scene he is mocked by some yobs. Getting nowhere, Alex chats further with Gil, and later suggests to Gene that they do a personal appeal. It goes ahead, and of course Gene cocks it up, and is quite bitter.
     Having an epiphany, he realises that the yobs must be witnesses and takes them all in. Discovering that their story differs, Hollis is brought back in. Gene believes that Hollis is telling a tale, and Alex is convinced otherwise. His story makes no sense; he claimed to have had a wee near the scene and yet the ground is undisturbed. When he attempted to pick out the robber in a line-up, he chooses Shaz. Gene goes way OTT, and locks up Hollis. Alex goes to her godfather Evan, a lawyer. Following his advice, Hunt is reported to the Powers That Be - Hollis is released, and Gene is put on leave. For this betrayal, the entire team stonefaces her. She turns to Evan for comfort, and remembers that it was he who saved her from the explosion that killed her parents.

Investigations aren't productive.

     Gene pops back in and points out a new piece of evidence, which is then passed onto Alex. She traces the gun back to a chemical toilet at the crime scene. Accepting that Gene was right, they go to Luigis and explain Gil's entire plan to him - Gil drove to the scene, shot himself in the arm and then replaced the incriminating Garfield plushtoy on his window. Gil arrives at Luigis and begins to fire upon them. He explains to Alex and Gene that he became bitter about his charity work that seperated him from his family. Hollis escapes, but Shaz runs after him. After a tumble, Shaz is accidentally stabbed. Shaz sees Death, but she lives to fight another day.
     Hollis is quite funny, really. Once one knows the truth, his entire persona throughout the episode is completely and utterly paper-thin. But through it, you can see the motivations for his crime - the loneliness, the anger. His thick Brummie accent transforms from being a quirky aspect of the character into a deranged slur that represents Gil's descent from the light. You could tell that both McFadyen and Hawes had real fun, espcecially in their solo scenes where Gil's memories of his family stir Alex's issues. 
     The final scene, in which Shaz dies and is revived by Alex, is still incredibly powerful for me because it's another example of what the series can do at its best. It came at the end of a plot that felt rather bloated and stuffy. Had this been the typical differential from the start, with Gene refusing to believe anything that Hollis said, and it probably would have made a more focussed drama. However, Gil Hollis is an excellently written character and his tragic story makes the episode.

The Clown is a symbol of Death - as we'll see in blinding detail next week.

     Episode 1.7 was another great from the series before the big finale, and it featured some more powerful moments. These past two episodes really have been highs for Ashes To Ashes, and Episode 1.7 had the nerve to back that up. It was a little stuffy in the middle, but where it mattered it delivered, and spectacularly.

Thanks.

NEXT TIME: The Finalé.

Review: Doctor Who Classic: Revelation of the Daleks (Revisited)

Colin and Nicola don't get much to do, but their
characterisations are better.

See here for my inital look at this story.


Doctor Who - Season 22, Story Six - Revelation of the Daleks
Written between 22nd and 24th April 2012

And so we bookend Season 22 with a story from Eric Saward, delivering what will come to be known as his best script for the series. Revelation is gothic and dark, positively dripping in black humour and an air of the grotesqe. The direction by Graeme Harper changes what may have been a depressing script into one of the most captivating stories of Six's era. It isn't a story that gives The Doctor and Peri a lot to do, but the story is so packed full of other interesting characters that you don't really care.
     One of the things you immediately notice is Graeme Harper's direction. The man who brought us the phenomenal Caves of Androzani knows exactly what to do and unlike the white-washed sets of the rest of the era, every scene is atmospheric and moody, from the freezing cold exterior to the deep, dank bunker at the heart of Tranquil Repose. Adding to this immensely is the music, which despite being a heavy techno slur is instantly iconic and sets each scene well. Pre-Murray Gold, this is by far one of the best scored stories in Who history.

Glass Daleks! It's every nerd's
dream!

     The story has its fair share of interesting and well-acted characters and subplots, which all compliment the subject's themes. The slightly creepy Jobel (Clive Swift, Keeping Up Appearances) is the dark horse here, as well as his desperate female aide Tasambeker and his underling Tarkis, who remain healthily skeptical of their "Great Healer" Davros. Davros himself is here in his Terry Molloy incarnation, which after Michael Wisher's original is by far my favourite, if only for the fact that he spent so much time studying and perfecting the role. Revelation shows the Molloy Davros at his very, very best - manipulative, scheming and constantly aware of the million plans that his enemies use against him. Also of note are Eleanor Bron's Kara, Davros's rebellious business partner, her assistant Vogel (Hugh Walters, in his campest role yet), the badass bounty hunter Orcini (William Gaunt) and the weird and wonderful DJ (Alexei Sayle) who sarcastically comments upon the fates of those in suspended animation below him. Altogether, Saward spins about five different strands at once, and for once, it all works.
      The Doctor and Peri, despite being a small part of those five storylines and only arriving on-set in the second half, are much more amicable towards one another than in previous stories in the season, and Colin is the most pleasant he's ever been. The character development angle that they were going for at the end of Season 21 actually bloody worked, and it's such a shame to know that instead of the original Season 23, we got the shambles that was the Trial. One bit that really got me was a strange sequence where the two are required to get over a wall, and the two talk about something vaguely euphemistic before it's revealed that Peri has broken the Doctor's pocket watch. It's strange, and yet it really displayed a good sense of chemistry between the characters that would continue and be a lot more obvious in the next two stories.
      But the thing that everyone remembers the most about Revelation? The grotesque style that the serial embodies is both instantly memorable and immediately close-to-home. For the first time we see Davros slowly transforming a human into a Dalek, and the scene where grave-robber Natasha has to euphemise her half-transformed father is chilling and gruesome in a close-to-the-nerve way. Much mention is made of corpses and their various states of decomposition; one grave-robber worries that their corpse will collapse into a puddle, while Jobel makes mention of the President's wife "beginning to froth." There's something in almost every scene that acts upon our fear of body-horror, but not enough to de-sensitise us to it in the way that maybe Attack of the Cybermen or The Two Doctors does. At the end of the day, the tone really works well in making the final Revelation - that Davros has been turning the corpses in Tranquil Repose into high-protein food - that bit closer to home.

Yes, this image is from the original review. What of it.

     Revelation is an instant classic and is one of the only stories that the era's haters can get behind. As someone who adores Colin's era, I think that Revelation is the cherry of the top of a brilliant season and deserves more credit as one of the most humourously dark stories in all of Who. The first time I reviewed Revelation I looked at it as a Dalek story, and now I look at it as a story in its own right I can see just how exquisitely well-written it is.

Thanks.


NEXT WEEK:I round off Season 22 with an overview.
THIS FRIDAY: I review my last Saward story when I revisit Resurrection of the Daleks.