Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Dunkirk (2017) (SPOILERS) For the most part, Dunkirk is every bit as relentless and gripping as you’ve heard. I wouldn’t say it ranks up there with Christopher Nolan’s trio of classics thus far ( Memento , The Prestige , Inception ), or agree that it’s quite as unparalleled as the critical plaudits attest, but it’s definitely more pronounced in its achievements than his last couple of patchy pictures. But it’s as much what it tells us about his tendencies that makes Dunkirk interesting in his filmography, aside from accessing his facility for conveying harrowing incident. This is his first piece based on a real incident, and one of linear simplicity on the face of it, but Nolan can’t resist adorning it and turning it, in part, into an intellectual exercise. At its best, Dunkirk succeeds without reliance on such devices – intriguing as they are -   and when shorn of stars who distract from complete immersion in the narrative, be it Sir Ken as the every-Brit-actor-sta

The Leftovers Season 3 (SPOILERS) I didn’t watch the final season of The Leftovers in Damon Lindelof’s preferred weekly format. Rather, I took it in over three nights (blame Sky for not knowing what to do with it), and if I’m completely honest, it wasn’t until the finale that I thought it reached the heights of Season Two. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t still (probably) the best series currently on TV (or was, at any rate), just that by the time of its third run it had evolved into something familiar, rather than disconcerting. As such, HBO was probably right to call time, as a fourth innings (Lindelof projected it might have had enough juice to go that far, left to its own devices) could have seen a shift towards mild contempt. The big takeaway is that Lindelof has successfully rehabilitated his reputation after the litany of brickbats coming his way following the Lost finale ( 3.8 : The Book of Nora is the anti- Lost finale) and the unfair maligning he received foll

Twin Peaks 3.11: There’s fire where you are going. (SPOILERS) A damn good episode. Perhaps the lesser part of it is the still great FBI plotline, but that’s only because – despite having the most overtly weird elements – it is more linear and less inimitable than the other claims to fame: Bobby and the shooting incident, and Dougie-Dale’s encounter with the Mitchum Brothers. Yes, it’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally come around to silver fox Bobby. Or should that be Becky’s pops. What impressed me most about this sequence was the way it develops – escalated would be the wrong word. You think the scene is about one thing but then it becomes about something else, and then it becomes about something else entirely. During the build-up to this we’ve had the ominous, Blue Velvet -esque scene in which a boy playing ball sights Miriam crawling bloodied from the woods. Followed by Shelly riding the bonnet of her car until Becky throws her off.  There’s something ver