Archives for TV
Horrible Histories the Movie – Rotten Romans [Review]
The pre-preview Q&A before Horrible Histories the Movie (photo: James Kemp) I went to see Horrible Histories the Movie with my children Lucy and Alexander on Sunday morning at the BFI riverside. They had a preview screening of Horrible Histories the Movie as a combo of their monthly kids shows and also as part of the London Comedy Film Festival (LoCo). Ahead of the screening we had a short Q&A with Caroline Norris (producer & writer), Sarah Hadland and Sebastian Croft (Atti). Horrible Histories the Movie The subtitle to Horrible Histories the Movie is Rotten Romans because the core story is the interaction between Orla (a young celt, played by Amelia Jones) and Atti (a young Roman, played by Sebastian Croft). This story is set in the backdrop of Boudica's revolt against the Romans, see the synopsis below for non-spoilered…
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman [Review]
Michael Sheen and David Tennant as the stars of Good Omens (image: Amazon) I recently watched the Amazon Prime show Good Omens and then went back and re-read my ancient paperback copy from about 1991. I've missed Terry Pratchett, but I've been fortunate enough to see Neil Gaiman a couple of times recently, and I've got some of his books signed. Although Neil would probably be the first to remark than perhaps the unsigned ones are Good Omens on TV As a long time fan of a book, I've read Good Omens several times, I always worry about film and TV adaptions. However I had no worries about this one as Neil Gaiman was directly involved as a producer. I had a lot of confidence because it isn't his first opera. American Gods has been spectacularly faithful to the book,…
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World [Review]
Alexander with Cressida Cowell at the BFI (photo: James Kemp) I went with my family to see an advance preview of How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World at the BFI last Saturday. It was a good movie and the kids loved it, they also loved the Q&A afterwards with Cressida Cowell, Brad Lewis (the producer) and Dean DeBlois (the director of the whole trilogy). The Hidden World The Hidden World is the last in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. The Q & A was pretty clear on that. The next movie night well be related to The Wizards of Once, which Alexander asked Cressida Cowell about during the Q&A. In The Hidden World the gang are searching for the legendary home of the dragons. It's set a couple of years after the previous movie and everyone…
The Secret life of the secret life of reality TV
Steerable camera watching the house (photo: James Kemp) We've had a film crew parked in our street for a week to shoot a reality TV show for Channel 4. Before you get excited, I'm not in it. My neighbours are though, and that means we've had a lot of people waving cameras about. Secret Life of Teenagers A couple of weeks ago our next door neighbour came round to tell us about the reality TV show his partner had signed them up for. The show is being made by the same people that produced The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds. The intention this time was to do something similar with teenagers. The folk next door have three teenagers, so obviously a good start for the production firm. The idea was that the parents would go away for the weekend…
Game of Thrones revisited [Review – NO SPOILERS]
Cover of Game of Thrones Season 1 DVD (Photo: HBO) Long term readers might remember that Game of Thrones is one of only two one star reviews that I've posted. Generally I avoid negative reviews because I don't think they help much, especially when all I've got to say is that it wasn't really my sort of thing. Game of Thrones in video As I said in my original review of A Song of Ice and Fire, there's a lot to like in the story, but there's also a deplorable level of unnecessary misogyny. This didn't sit right for me as when you base a fantasy world on history you can change it. What made me give Game of Thrones another chance was two fold. First there was a chance that the translation from book to screen had changed it…