Monday, March 23, 2015

The Fall

Agent Scully plays Stella Gibson, a tough, cool high-ranking detective with a penchant for one-night stands, who has been placed in charge of a case review (and later task force) investigating what turns into a serial killer. Fifty Shades of Grey guy is Paul Spector - the serial killer. This is a Netflix original series produced in cooperation with the BBC and takes place in Belfast. The entire show is very dark, often disturbing, understated, and very compelling. Spector is charismatic, able to charm women into doing whatever he wants. His 15-year old babysitter practically throws herself at him, is real close to figuring out he's the killer and he is able to draw her onto his side by NOT seducing her. His wife lies for him. Etc. Meanwhile, Gibson is inquisitive, probing, dedicated but realistic. The show obviously revolves almost entirely around the search for Spector but there are other stories going on as well. This is good stuff - really creepy, well-acted, and dark. There's only a handful of episodes on Netflix (11 total covering the only two seasons made so far) but they're really good. Check it out - 8/10.

Red Army

Red Army tells the story of Soviet hockey greatness through the eyes of retired superstar Slava Fetisov. Fetisov had a remarkable career playing for Red Army before eventually being allowed to travel to North America to play in the NHL. He's now Minister of Sport for Russia. The movie features a number of great interviews from Soviet players and officials, including a former KGB guy. Fetisov generally comes off well here except at the very beginning where he's pretty rudely ignoring the director and flips him off. Overall, the movie tells its story well but... there's really now around the fact that much of the impact of Red Army has been blunted by ESPN's release of their 30 For 30: Of Miracles and Men, which covered a lot of the same ground, a few weeks ago. In fact, ESPN's piece is arguably the better movie, covering more ground (it goes back to the start of Soviet hockey, while Red Army starts in the late 70s) and in more detail. The two movies complement each other well and it's worth seeing both BUT, if you're going to see just one, see the ESPN film. Red Army also, for whatever reason, decided to make a confusing mess of the little montage they did of the Miracle on Ice. Clips are shown super-zoomed in, out of order and generally just in a very confusing fashion. Makes no sense. Gripes aside, this was very good anyway. 8/10.