mrcnicholls

Oh dear. This show focuses on an annoying, self-absorbed journalist who is trying to discover the truth but what is interesting is Julia Garner's performance. It would be much better if they had ditched the boring 'finding out' bits and just let Anna's story tell itself.

I was really looking forward to this second season but episode 1 feels like a crass copy of the original. Perhaps it will develop in the next episode.

A slightly over-long examination of how Joker became Joker. Phoenix is outstanding and it's very difficult to see how the film could really be seen as a justification of his actions: he's pretty horrible. The whole film is immensely depressing but also very impressive.

I was hoping this was going to be funny and interesting but it's not really either. The characters - both of him, and her, as well as the minor ones - are all rather dull and unlikable, so it's difficult to care about any of them.

The reviews were so bad that I expected to watch about ten minutes and then go to something else. But no. The pace is certainly slow but I enjoyed the exploration of the premise - weakish though it is (exactly how or why the mist does get in here but not in here, etc, is just not worth worrying about - we have to suspend our disbelief and not get all logical about it).

If you just want blood and amusing horror stuff, this will bore you, but it's off-kilter and unnerving from the beginning and that oddness, in the context of some quite thoughtful character development, is fascinating. All the characters are flawed and their weaknesses contribute to the downhill-slide of a whole community which is really quite awesome. There are few (perhaps no) grains of comfort here: nothing and nobody can be relied upon and moral compasses spin wildly out of control throughout.

As a timely discussion of the paper-thinness of society's understanding of what it means to be civilized, this unpolished gem worked well - for me, at any rate.