Reviewing Movies

Very little that goes on in Harlan County is above board but at the end of Season Two virtually all the major crime bosses were killed off almost as if the producers didn’t expect the series to be renewed and were giving their fans resolution. But it’s back and a whole new set of villains have stepped up to replace the ones who departed. The Blonde Curly-haired Lieutenant from Band of Brothers shows up as a dapper no-nonsense blue-eyed crime boss with a pop-out gun up his sleeve. Raylan is still recovering from his wounds but his cowboy hat and itchy trigger finger are very much in evidence. His childhood buddy Crowder still spouts religion while scheming in and out of prison. This is the South where even the most deadly threats are couched in genteel terms and until the lead starts flying most conversations are conducted in sociable language.

The second Star Trek Opus staring Chris Pine serves to expand on James Tiberius Kirk’s rep as a rule breaking cowboy who makes it up as he goes along and his alter ego Spock a logical by-the-book straight arrow. The recycled character Khan bares no resemblance to the Wrath of Khan villain though it broadens the field for the player of Sherlock Homes. The final scenes somehow seem truncated as if the producers decided they’d run out of time and leave the viewer wandering, “just how did we get here?” I don’t like the new Warp take-off streamers. Otherwise the movie blows up real good.

Season Three presents us with more of the same. The Town of Lunenburg continues to be a major character in the series and the brothers who co-publish the local paper still steal every scene in which they appear though their part in the goings on in town becomes more and more ambiguous and sinister. The byplay between Nathan and Duke continues to amuse and as the season begins it becomes apparent that the shot fired off camera at the end of season 2 as the two were struggling with one another was a tease. New twists include seeing Nathan shot to death and resurrected and he and Duke teleported back to 1955. We get to hear the same music featured in October Sky. Somehow the plots seem to become more contrived this year. The mystery of who Audrey is and how she came to be in Haven continues to develope and we are left wandering how long she will remain, will she disappear as mysteriously as she came, and will she reappear. I cared more about the outcome in the first two seasons but it would be a rare show that killed off one of its three main characters.

The thing that caught my eye here was the fact that the series stars Noah Wyle. After spending 15 years on the series ER one had to figure the next major TV Series he chose to attach his name and reputation to would be good. I waited for the price to come down before buying. That this is a another post apocalyptic tale of alien invasion, think V, was not an immediate turnon but the strength of this series is not in the battle sequences between man and alien but in the relationships between people.

Wyle’s Tom has three sons. The rather mature looking 16-year-old Hal played by stunningly handsome 25-year-old Drew Roy. His nine-year-old Matt whom Tom is attempting to allow to retain his childhood, people grow up too fast in refugee camps. And twelve or so Ben who is enslaved by alien technology. Tom we learn repeatedly was an American History Professor before his world fell apart and his wife was killed. He is second in command to a cell of 100 soldiers and 200 civilians commanded by the rather militaristic Will Paton who looks after his soldiers and considers the civilians a liability. Throw in a female doctor as Tom’s potential love interest and a surgeon who abandoned Tom’s wife to her death and you have the principal characters. I was surprised to see Wyle resort to fisticuffs, he looks more at home cuddling his young son and hugging the teen. The scene which shows Hal cradling his brother Matt in his sleep is poignant.

The upright walking 8-legged aliens must have been a challenge to the robotics department. What do you do with eight legs? Their warrior robots clomp around on two hooves that leave tracks not unlike the T-Rex’s in Jurassic Park. And then there are the flying ships that shoot off massive plasma bombs.

If you don’t mind the Sc-Fi aspects of the series this is an excellent show.

Set in Manchester it showed on BBC 4 in England. The first surprise is that it lasted only a two seasons. Having watched the version shot in Toronto, Canada that lasted 6 full seasons I was a bit disappointed having missed the part about it being only three disks.

The series covers a lot of the same territory as it’s American mirror but the action is much telescoped lacking a great deal of the exposition given in the subsequent edition. The Lesbians have the baby Stuart fathered in the first half hour. Vince is his faithful side-kick who works in a grocery store and lives with a Mother who affirms his lifestyle choices and has a male boarder/friend. Charlie Hunnam plays teenage Nathan Stuart’s young stalker who is still in highschool or 6th Form and has a faithful female friend. Charlie is just growing into the stunningly handsome hunk he will become in later years.

Vince has a female employee who has an eye for him. He is not ‘out’ at work. Stuart drives a company car, a Jeep which is vandalized by young homophobes. The nature of Stuart’s executive position is not immediately apparent. It rapidly becomes apparent that the American version picked up a lot of the same themes but enjoyed the luxury of giving them much greater development. All the characters we see live the same promiscuous gay lifestyle shown in the American Version. They engage in heavy petting and man on man action complete with foreplay. The British Midlands lingo takes some getting used to.

I watched this because I wanted to see the series that inspired the American Edition. This is no show for homophobes or rednecks but if you can get by the explicit sex in the end ‘Folk’ is about 29-year-olds coping with settling down, making commitments, and getting on with their lives.