256. Web-series Reviews – 98

More web-series reviews…

 

The Good Wife – Ran from 2009 to 2016.  A total of 7 seasons of 156 episodes:-)

One of the reviews from IMDB...

"The Good Wife" is a fantastic show that I haven't been able to stop watching since I started - which was just this year! So yes, I've been binge-watching, and loving every second of it. I started with Netflix, then went to amazon.com, and finally finished season 5 with my own recordings of the last 9 episodes.

The story concerns Alicia Florrick (Juliana Margulies), the wife of the former state's attorney (Chris Noth), who went to prison for abusing his office, but not until a scandal about him sleeping with prostitutes emerged. It's up to Alicia now to provide for her two children, Zach and Grace. After 13 years, she goes back to work as an attorney at a firm, Lockhart & Gardner. Gardner is her ex-boyfriend (Josh Charles), who still carries a torch. His partner, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) is an elegant woman and a strong attorney. In order to work the long hours an associate must, Alicia has to call on the services of her disapproving mother-in-law, Jackie (Mary Beth Peil) to be there for her kids.

This would be the stuff of decent drama, but this show does not stay static. Husband Peter gets out of prison and runs for governor; he and Alicia must work out what their relationship is going to be; Alicia and Will have to sort out their feelings for one another. And much more happens - just when you think the show is headed one way, it takes a 90 degree turn. No one was prepared for the season 5 surprise, and kudos to the producers for pulling that on an unsuspecting audience at a time when "leaks" on the Internet are a minute by minute event.

What makes "The Good Wife" a cut above other dramas is that though it's set in Chicago, it's filmed in New York and takes heavy advantage of some of the best stage actors around, all of whom have created fleshed out, fascinating characters: Alan Cumming as Eli Gold, Nathan Lane as the accountant who came to audit and stayed, Dallas Roberts as Alicia's gay brother, Stockard Channing as Alicia's freewheeling mother, Carrie Preston as the eccentric but brilliant attorney Elsbeth Tascioni. And the familiar faces: Matt Czuchry from the Gilmore Girls, Margulies, Baranski, Noth, Jeffrey Tambor, Gary Cole, and many others. In season 5, the delicious British actor Matthew Goode joined the cast as Finn Polmar.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the most interesting character of all: the exotic, seductive, soft-spoken Kalinda, played to perfection by Archie Punjabi, an amazing, breakout talent.

In the end, it's Margulies, whom I loved on ER, carrying this show. She plays an intelligent, hard-working, deeply conflicted woman who loves her husband but at the same time is angry with him; a woman who tries to juggle her responsibilities as an attorney, a mother, and politician's wife -- and finds it increasingly more difficult due to circumstances around her. It's a wonderful characterization. She's a woman we care about, as we care about many of the show's characters. And the ones we don't care about, we have other feelings. It's that kind of show.

I look so forward to the next season.

My Take – An engrossing watch!

 

Kaiyum Kalavum – Tamil series came out in 2022. 

One of the reviews from Quint...

After watching the web series Kaiyum Kalavum, backed by ace director Karthik Subbaraj, I came to this conclusion - the show is a mishmash of unusual, absurd ideas.

Kaiyum Kalavum is full of characters who live dual lives. Some of their names have quirky references to actor and ex-Chief minister Puratchi Thalaivar MGR.

One of the lead characters, who is nameless and given the moniker 'Police' before the pre-climax episode, is played by Roju. He is a destroyer of desires because of a constant itch in his hands. He crosses paths with a pickpocket named Anbu (Sanchana Natarajan), who is bad luck's favourite child. They have a strange connection that dates back centuries, to the reign of a Tanjore king called Trilok Maharaj. Are the itchy hands of the thief and the unlucky life of the dipper a curse from the past? How does it impact them in the present? What happens next?

It was refreshing to see actor Jeeva, who identifies as a transgender person, play an important role in the series. The show does not use a transgender person for tokenism or crass humour. She is treated like any other primary character, and that is what representation looks like.

Even if you don’t believe in curses, destiny, superstitions, or fantasy, just watch the series as a piece of fiction.

Unlike Vijay Sethupathi’s Kadaisi Vivasayi, which just touched upon magic realism, Kaiyum Kalavum is more like Pa Ranjith-backed Kuthiraivaal, except that this series has more mainstream elements included in its narrative style.

The cinematography is on point in the way it has captured the ordinariness in a quirky set-up, in the most aesthetic yet realistic way possible.

Actors Roju, Sanchana and Jeeva are flawless, along with notable cameos by Ramya Nambeesan, comedian Sendhil, Madonna Sebastian, Karu Pazhaniappan and Vivek Prasanna.

My Take – An ok series. Although ending points to a second season and the story is not finished in this season.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities – Came out in 2022.  Bizarre nightmares unfold in eight tales of terror in a visually stunning, spine-tingling horror collection curated by Guillermo del Toro.  It is described as a curation of eight unprecedented and genre-defining sinister narratives meant to challenge traditional notions of horror, ranging from the macabre to magical, gothic to grotesque or classically creepy. Two of the eight tales are original works by del Toro.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

My rank: The Murmuring (somber drama) The Autopsy/Graveyard Rats (gruesome and uncomfortable tension) Pickman's Model/Dreams in Witch house (Creepy and haunting) The Outside (slightly disturbing) Lot 36 (unsatisfactory cliche) The Viewing (dull yellow filter)

Lot 36 Ep1 - Story premise is cliche, I was fine with it but it needed more time because it felt lacking. It's like ending a 2 hour movie in the middle as it was getting interesting.

Graveyard Rats Ep2 - Best in terms of the tense horror. I couldn't even eat my noodles as I was short of gagging with some of the scenes. I hate rats and tight spaces so this episode was just hitting my senses right. Silently screaming it to be over. David Hewlett was brilliant in this.

The Autopsy Ep3 - Body gore horror. Made me gag same as ep 2. I quite like the initial mystery and how it ended up. Slow start but the payoff after the build up is good. F. Murray Abraham delivered his character well.

The Outside Ep4 - Societal commentary horror. Not at all scary or disturbing. It just reminds me of Black Mirror vibe and would honestly not be surprised if I ever saw this in Black Mirror.

Pickman's Model Ep5 - Ben Barnes and Crispin Glover. Chef's kiss. Anyway it's like when your mind envisions everything that come to mind into something horrific.. this episode is that, you begin to question yourself what even is real.

Dreams in Witch House Ep6 - I thought Rupert was great here. I love the set. Had good creepy vibes. It somehow felt like a dark magic fantasy idk why lol.

The Viewing Ep7 - I have no words for this except HUH???. Weakest episode. Like a very bad trip.

The Murmuring Ep8 - A somber end to this anthology and my favorite. It's not thrilling or scary even with the horror elements it just felt like a heartwarming drama. It's a journey of a couple trying to get over a wall that's tearing them quietly apart. The short story is told and closed perfectly. Paired with brilliant acting of Essie and Andrew.

All episodes had good coloring and lighting as they fit the vibe (except for ep7... idk what's happening with that yellow filter) and I can see the details fine which is always a plus for me. The cinematography, cgi, practical effects were good overall as well. Music is minimal and not overbearing which is great as some horror rely too much on those basic horror sound effects to jump scare you which can get quite stale.

My Take – An ok watch

 

The Edge of Darkness – Came out in 1985.  When his daughter Emma is murdered, cop Craven discovers that she was in a GAIA group of activists occupied with exposing Northmoor nuclear waste storage facility for illegal activities.

One of the reviews from IMDB...

UK TV Drama has never again scaled the heights set by Edge of Darkness and Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective" in the mid-1980s. Those two series have narratives, dialogue, style and acting that few filmmakers can match.

Troy Kennedy Martin came up with a complex, magnificent script, that balanced the bleak with the entertaining. All of the major characters come across as believable, and often enigmatic.

The plot evolves ingeniously from being a local murder case to a universal ecological parable throughout the 6 episodes. It defies categorisation, combining lyricism with tense action sequences. The "Northmoor" episode is as tense an hour of TV as there's ever been. Joe Don Baker gives a virtuoso performance as the truly larger-than-life maverick CIA agent, Darius Jedburgh whose motives are ambiguous to say the least. Charles Kay and Ian McNeice are wonderfully entertaining as Pendelton and Harcourt. Even Tim McInnerny's character with just a few minutes screen time is superbly written and played. It is, however, Bob Peck who should receive the most acclaim for what is to my mind one of the most complex, emotional and well-judged performances ever as Yorkshire policeman, Ronnie Craven. Craven gets caught up in a sinister and fascinating chain of events involving the death of his environmentalist daughter, played very well by Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. Bob Peck's early death was saddening- he deserved another role of this magnitude. Other factors that add to the genius of EoD are the atmospheric Eric Clapton/Michael Kamen score, the gritty direction, photography and the sheer attention to detail in every department.

It's truly a shame that few people today working on TV drama are willing at least to try to experiment and create television as artistic and exciting as "Edge of Darkness." It should go without saying that anyone who's not seen it should buy the video- you won't regret it.

My Take – An ok watch. 

Cheers till next time😊!!