TV and Movie Crime Log: Cards, Monkeys, Boy, Focus and Follows
The good news: Frank Underwood and that piece-of-work wife of his are back. The bad news: you may do a Madonna as you attempt to physically lift yourself off the sofa when you’re done bingeing on the entire third season of House of Cards, which has dropped onto Netflix today.
The original BBC series based on the Michael Dobbs novel, as scripted by Andrew Davies, lasted for three series, so it’ll be interesting—with Frank now President—to see whether the remake follows the same, loose trilogy structure. Will this be the last season we’ll seeing Frank hanging out the window of the Oval Room smoking his nightly cigarette, or will he continue to slip out the White House in a trenchcoat to push people under tube trains?
I would imagine there’s plenty of life in the old dog yet. All the episodes of House of Cards are available on Netflix at the usual subscription rates. The constant buffering comes free.
Binge away, my slovenly chums.
Of course that will mean you’ll probably miss the premiere of 12 Monkeys. I know what you’re thinking. A television adaptation of a stone-cold Terry Gilliam cult movie classic, inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 short photo-montage movie La Jetée?
How could they, Fella? How could they do such a thing?!!!
I feel your pain, I share your heartbreak and yet –- be strong, be brave, and lay off the caffeine.
Give it a chance. True, it’s on SyFy – home of Sharknado and Extant – but let’s just all remain calm. Give it the benefit of the doubt.
You could always turn over if it’s not to your taste and watch—I don’t know, Lewis is probably on one of ITV’s portfolio of digital channels. Chances are, it’s probably on all of them. You could watch that. Or write a stern letter. Television execs love receiving letters.
The plot is more or less the same, with time traveller James Cole travelling from 2043 to prevent the release of a deadly virus by an organization known as the Army of the Twelve Minkeys. Sorry—Monkeys.
That, of course, is the plot of 12 Monkeys, not Lewis.
Or you could always go out. Get your coat on and check out the local Odeon. Ever wondered what the hell kind of word is Odeon? Well, it’s an acronym of sorts. It stands for Oscar Deutch Entertains Our Nation. Actually, Odeons were Greek amphitheatres back in the day, until Oscar’s clever marketing people got their hands on the word.
Anyhow.
You could always go to the pictures. You could go and see Focus. That looks good. It stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie as con-persons who specialise in sleight of hand techniques. Focus is getting a saturation release, which means you’ll probably have to see it whether you like it or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxCRgtdAuBo
Or there’s The Boy Next Door. It stars Jennifer Lopez as a woman with big hair who moves into a new house with her unhappy family. There’s this hot guy next door, he’s probably always fixing stuff with his top off, and –- you know how these things happen –- one thing leads to another and… so on. Turns out the guy is a complete mentalist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgbBwovOOoc
Or there’s It Follows. It’s a teen horror movie, but it’s actually got some pretty good reviews. It’s about this girl and she’s, like, being followed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX38jXwnRAM
Okay, that’s it, I’m all out of stuff. Go and enjoy the sunshine, or whatever the weather is like in your little corner of the world.
*taps watch*
We’ll meet back here again at the usual time.
