Tag Archives: Doug Whelan

What you may need to know:

1. There’s just too much to get into at this stage. It’s season 8, with a dizzying amount of loose ends, subplots and mysteries to be sorted out. At this stage you’re either in or out.

2. The shortened season will consist of six episodes rather than the usual ten, with each hyped as a “mini-movie”

3. It has gotten its share of criticism over the years, due to excessive and often gratuitous violence and scenes of rape.

4. Some say Game of Thrones took a dip once the writers overook George R.R. Martin’s source material, but there’s no question it will go down as one of the all-time great TV series and pop-culture touchstones.

5. This is hardly goodbye. HBO has already confirmed it will go back to the well for a new “prequel” series, set in one of the multitude of historical eras outlined in the mythology.

6. Glorious fart acting from Lena Headey at 1.06.

Doug’s verdict: Winter really is coming this time

Release: April 14/15, Sky Atlantic

What you may need to know.

1. After The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Roma (and others), another A-list director going straight to Netflix is further evidence of the vicious circle cinema is stuck in.

2. Studios just aren’t willing to spend the kind of money these guys want, and can easily get from Netflix, with its deep pockets and near-zero interference.

3. The Irishman’s production budget is $200m+ according to Wikipedia; no studio would pony up that kind of money for a septuagenarian crime drama, not in a million years.

4. What happens instead is those A-list dramas are going straight to the small screen (albeit with a limited US release) leaving audiences with the perception that multiplexes are filled only with superhero movies – which the studios ARE willing to splash out on because their serialised and homogenised nature draws audiences back again and again.

5. They are the only sure things, currently.

Doug’s verdict: n/a

Release date: Autumn 2019

Earlier: Favourtiism

What You may need to know

1. Over the past 20 years, the “golden age of TV” combined with the DVD revolution led to a shift in how series were written. We’ve gorged on long-term character development, microscopic attention to detail and ostensible “ten-hour movies”.

2. More recently though, maybe due to shortening attention spans, streaming services or a simple push-back from writers who don’t want to put out War & Peace every time they do something, anthology series are currently where it’s at. Also, audiences at this point don’t want to feel like they’re making a six-year commitment every time something new comes along.

3. That has led to the rise of single-season stories like True Detective, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Fargo and so on. Then there are single-episode series like Black Mirror, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, the upcoming Love Death + Robots, one called Room 104 and more.

4. The common theme for the latter group is they all tend to have a science fiction or supernatural angle. With that in mind it was probably a no-brainer for CBS to bring The Twilight Zone back to life. It first ran from 1959–64, then again 1985-1989, briefly in 2002, and now in 2019.

5. At the same time CBS were coming to this decision (it has been in development since 2012), Jordan Peele was over there reinventing himself from sketch comedy actor into Oscar-winning writer and director of Get Out (2017) which – as The Twilight Zone often did – blended horror and social commentary in a way that resonated with audiences in a very big way.

6. As well as executive producing, Peele will “host” the series as Rod Serling originally did, narrating the episodes and teeing up the stories.

7. Lots of familiar faces in there, including Tracy Jordan, John Cho, Kumail Nanjiani and also Adam Scott, who will play the lead in a remake of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, one of the original’s best-known episodes and an early role for William Shatner.

8. The first look came in the form of a coveted “Superbowl trailer” a few weeks back, in which Peele pointedly asks “when truth is not even truth, what dimension are you in?” – surely a wry reference to the GUBU world in which we’re already living.

9. Meanwhile, Jordan Peele’s follow up to Get Out will arrive in cinemas next month. Us looks to have a similar theme to its predecessor, whereby an African-American family is hunted by their own murderous doppelgangers. Peele has said Us is more of a full-on horror movie; “spill-your-soda scary” as opposed to the “existentially terrifying”. Get Out.

10. The Twilight Zone will run on CBS All Access in the states, so hopefully it will appear on Netflix in this part of the world before long.

Doug’s verdict: Get in.

Release: April 1

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What you may need to know.

1. Is there a more reliable British director out there than Danny Boyle? Looking at the past 25 years he has tried his hand at quite a broad range of genres that includes horror, science fiction and children’s alongside black comedy, drama and crime and has slam-dunked it pretty much every time.

2. That includes the recent phenomena of “two-decades-overdue sequel”, in which he confounded expectations by making Trainspotting 2 one of the best films of 2017.

3. Following T2 he was an inspired choice for the untitled Bond 25 (2020), but departed some months later due to dreaded “creative differences” with Bond gatekeepers Eon Productions. It seems he wanted to cast an unknown actor as the villain while producers Barbara Brocoli and Michael G. Wilson were keen on an A-lister.

4. Given his pedigree as a director, you could also say he wanted it to be good and they didn’t, but hey.

5. ANYWAY, never mind all that, because he’s back in feel-food family comedy mode with Yesterday, which has been “penned” by another English stalwart, Richard Curtis. You’ll probably have mixed feelings about Curtis’ back catalogue, but there’s no doubt about it that it’s a sparkling partnership on paper.

6. The plot is right there in the trailer so enjoy that. The real-world-fantasy element isn’t a million miles from Curtis’ last big screen outing, the excellent romantic comedy About Time (2013), with added Beatles songs.

7. Someone in Beatles PLC has a knack for getting the name out there for a new audience every few years, lest anybody forget. Just last week it was announced that Peter Jackson will direct a new documentary based on hundreds of hours of footage of them (and Yoko…) in the studio recording Let It Be.

8. Speaking of Yoko, if you’re wondering what she’s been up to, get a load of this.

9. Sorry.

10. Why does James Corden have to be in EVERYTHING?

Doug’s Verdict: Here comes the fun

Release: June 28 tbc

To bouldly go…

Doug writes:

Readers may care to have a goo at this new mobile game Star Trek Fleet Command, which has just launched worldwide and is made right here in Dublin by Digit Game Studios.

It’s a nifty resource management/strategy/MMORPG set in the Star Trek universe (specifically, JJ Abrams’ latter-day iteration).

Build up your starbase, get better ships, crew them up and head out into the galaxy to complete missions, play out the storyline or just get in scraps with other players.

I Have been playing since the ‘soft launch’ a few weeks ago and it really is one of the richest, most engaging mobile games I’ve come across.

It’s free to play with in-app purchases; microtransactions aren’t forced on you though – unless you want to speed up your progress.

Anyway, it’s tons of fun, highly recommend it. This not an ad.

Star Trek Fleet Command

What you may need to know

1. That live-action remake of DUMBO (1941) you didn’t ask for is almost here.

2. Alongside the Mary Poppins sequel, The Lion King remake, the Aladdin remake, the Lady and the Tramp remake and the Mulan remake, what we have here is proof that innovation and modernism is the name of the game at Disney right now.

3. Director Tim Burton has arranged a decent cast, to be fair. Colin Farrell plays a “one-armed war veteran and former circus star” hired to care for a baby elephant who, his children discover, can fly.

4. Burton alumni Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton play a kindly circus owner and ruthless entrepreneur (hmm) respectively. If there isn’t an overt reference to Batman Returns (1992) in there somewhere, I’ll be very upset. Eva Green, meanwhile, is also a Burton regular.

5. Johnny Depp was in talks to play the elephant, but the deal fell through when he kept insisting on more prosthetics, despite it being a motion capture gig.

6. Burton’s gothic aesthetic felt tired a long time ago. Other than the earlier stuff where he made his name, he’s been much better in the colourful art-deco storybook stylings that are on show here. The likes of Big Fish (2003) and, er, Big Eyes (2014) have been far more memorable than anything else he’s done since the 90s.

7. It’s worth noting that another Burton mega-regular, Danny Elfman, is on soundtrack duty

8. Lack of originality aside, this does look quite lovely. Despite Dumbo being a beloved children’s movie everyone watched 30 years ago, adapting Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl’s novel (also 1941) is probably a safe distance from “stop ruining my childhood” territory, so I’m fairly on board with this.

Doug’s verdict: I’m all ears

Release: March 29, 2019 (because there’ll probably be nothing else to talk about that day)

What you may need to know

1. Is there a better sporting metaphor than boxing? For years we’ve all been enthralled with the story of Katie Taylor, Bray wunderkind who – as this new documentary plainly states – is the greatest female boxer of all time, but who has faced her fair share of personal struggles along the way.

2. Produced by Ross Whitaker and Aideen O’Sullivan (When Ali Came To Ireland), ‘Katie’ comes highly recommended, having won the award for Best Irish Feature Documentary award at the Galway Film Fleadh earlier this year.

3. It tracks Taylor’s life and career, from tricking her way into the ring at a young age, rising through the amateur ranks to win every title possible, including Olympic gold in 2012.

4. That all came crashing down in Rio 2016, at which point Taylor turned professional and had to start all over again.

5. The story is still ongoing, with Taylor set to defend her two world titles in Boston this very weekend. It’s a crucial time for the fighter, and for the sport itself as it faces increasing competition from the MMA world.

6. Add to that the personal drama surrounding Taylor’s deteriorating relationship with her father and one-time trainer Pete Taylor, and this documentary looks to have it all in the drama department.

Doug’s verdict: Let’s skip straight to the statue on Bray seafront already

Release: October 26

What you may need to know

1. When Kevin Spacey was #cancelled last year; it’s a shame they didn’t cancel House of Cards along with him.

2. The most recent season was some of the worst TV I’ve ever seen. If all the dialogue had been replaced with the sound of flushing toilets, nobody might have noticed.

2. Here goes with the fifth and final season, in which Mrs Underwood (Robin Wright, always the best thing about the show anyway) has been promoted to the lead role and the big job.

3. Perhaps worth a watch to see how they kill off Foghorn Leghorn Frank Underwood, but don’t expect much after that.

Doug’s verdict: Flushing White House toilets

Available: November 2

What you may need to know

1. Clint Eastwood hasn’t been in front of the camera since Gran Torino (2008).

2. At 88 years old, you’d have thought he was done with acting, but he’s back at it again with crime drama The Mule.

3. He’s arguably been off the boil as a director since Gran Torino too, but this looks pretty special.

4. It looks like something of a spiritual sequel to his 1993 drama A Perfect World, which starred Kevin Costner and himself. Similar visuals, setting and themes.

5. Anyway, the guy is just unstoppable.

Doug’s verdict: Shut up and take my drug money.

Release date: December 14.