I’ve still to finish S1 
I just finished S1 but was ultimately disappointed. Both with the overall plot and with the fact that they couldn’t find a way to show Christina Hendricks being more relaxed.
I prefer S2 overall so far. I’m just over half way through then it’s on to True Detective S3.
I’m enjoying TD series 3. More of the pacing & feel of the original series.
Much more like the first season - even has plenty of that mumbled Southern drawl as well. 
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snowdonia on bbc 4 was well worth watching , to see those rock climbers going up sheer faces and seeing the work of the farming community is fascination
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…Schumann waves / Your Cryptochromes / Essential viewing
That’ll be interesting. I grew up on a farm in Snowdonia, so I should find a lot to relate to!
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Mary Queen of Scots at the local multiplex on Monday and Don’t Look Now (in memory of Nicolas Roeg) at the film club this evening. Both went down well.
VB
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IO - That was shite
Sex Education - Mildly shite because Americanised.
2018 Triffids - Truly shite oxygen thievery.
He’s Out There - Borderline shite even for this genre.
Suits S8 - Heigl and therefore good.
Deathwish - Namesake level of shite
Marauders - Entertaining shoot 'em up.
How It Ends - As badly it starts is the answer.
Close - Poor
Polar - Decent enough
Mindhunter S1 - 2nd time, S2 on its way.
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Any good? I’ve read reports of people walking out after an hour.
Curate’s egg. All of the main players can act. The cinematography is good. It held my attention from start to finish. I came out feeling I’d had my eleven quid’s worth.
There have been protests about the treatment of ‘history’. In fact quite a lot of those are (apparently) unjustified. There were black people in Tudor England. Darnley and Rizzio were found in bed together. Mary fell out of love (actually infatuation) with Darnley very quickly indeed. She really did believe that her claim to the English crown was at least as strong as Elizabeth’s, if not stronger. She learnt to speak as a child in Scotland, so although she went to France just before her 6th birthday she was bilingual and very possibly did speak ‘English’ with a Scots accent, not a French one. The meeting between Mary and Elizabeth didn’t happen but it very nearly did. To portray it isn’t a daft idea.
My biggest problem with the film was that they tried to treat a very complex story in just two hours. They limited themselves to the period between Mary’s return to Scotland and her flight to England (less than 7 years) but still there wasn’t the screen time to provide enough context or detail. So why the characters behaved as they did could be hard to fathom. This can make the story look superficial, and the characters incomprehensible, and that can make it hard to feel much for them. They felt ‘thinner’, especially Elizabeth, than I know them to be.
I’m still pleased I saw it though.
VB
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I saw Vice earlier in the week. It’s not had huge amounts of publicity here, as it’s a biopic about Dick Cheney, George W’s Vice.
I don’t normally like these kinds of thing, as they always put a very biased angle on the individual. This was no exception. However, it got away with it totally, as it was genuinely funny at times.
My favourite bit I’ll have to paraphrase, but it went like this:
Meeting room in the Whitehouse. Some very senior people there.
(Voiceover) “An exceptional thing about Cheney was his ability to say anything, even the most outlandish idea, and come across as reasonable and professional”
Cheney (entirely deadpan): “Well I think that we should get some penis wigs. Then we should go out onto the Whitehouse lawn and do a show. It would be like a puppet show, only more… fun.”
Everyone looks very thoughtful
Some older, serious guy: “Well, I do love a good puppet show.”
Genuinely funny at times, which lightened the really scary bits.
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Saw it Saturday, thought it was excellent, if about 30 mins too long. Walked out thinking ‘checks and balances my arse’.
all too frequent. There could be a case made for limiting all films to 2 hours max 
Any films over 2 hours need to be split up with an intermission 
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Our local arts centre likes us out by 10:15. We give working people a chance to get a bite to eat before the screening starts, so curtain’s up at 8:00. That means we can’t show films that are significantly longer than 2 hours. So, despite endless requests, we’ll never screen 2001, Lawrence of Arabia, The Seven Samurai and a fair few other classics.
VB
It was tongue in cheek but there have been films made in the last decade that could & should have been edited more effectively. It’s almost as if the directors have too much control and indulge themselves too much without having properly learned the skill of editing or of allowing others to intervene.
I blame it on digital filming techniques which mean that they don’t have to worry about the cost of tape 