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It's very cool to suddenly see BMW advertising the heck out of their new series of short films touting their cars, especially this first one by John (cough::Hack director::cough) Woo. I love the films, but mostly it's exciting because I get to see Clive Owen's face everywhere I look -- on TV, in ads, on internet portals, everwhere. And this is all good.
In case you've never watched the BMW films, or otherwise have missed the wonder that is Clive, he's a British actor who's had smaller roles in some films that have played here, but is mostly famous as The Driver in the BMW movies and for a series that aired on PBS's Mystery! called Second Sight. (The films you might have seen him in were The Bourne Identity, where he played the assassin Matt Damon killed out in the field, and Gosford Park, were Clive was the mysterious servant.)
If you're lucky enough to live near a video store that rents the Masterpiece Theatre or Mystery series, it's totally worth a rental (or keeping your eye peeled for it to show up at some obscure time on your local station, the second series especially because that doesn't appear to be out for real on pro video). Clive playes DCI Ross Tanner, a hotshot detective who's on the fast track to success. He's a loving if often crappy divorced dad, and he's definitely a lad -- when he takes home tarty barmaids they have sex on the stairs because by golly, he's just so sexy they can't wait to get into the flat. He also has a classic Triumph sports car, and lots of leather coats, and Rollerblades around, so we know he's cool.
The cool thing about the show is that they don't rely just on the mystery (and it's pretty good, full of nice red herrings -- it's the surly nanny! No, it's incest! Maybe it's the twin brother!), like most of the programs they show. In this, Tanner's losing his eyesight to a rare virus, and he's angry and scared and bitter and freaked, and in the process of trying to come to grips with it, he allows himself to be helped by a very ambitious detective who wants him to help her clean up her record after a previous disaster. In doing so, he starts to find ways to use what's happening to him that help him solve the crime.
Clive's just note perfect through it all (and every time James Marsters starts to lose his accent on Buffy, I want to say, watch Clive on Second Sight! He's got your perfect Spike working class accent!), with his gorgeous, predatory, intense greeny-blue eyes, his dark, angry scowl or incandescent smile, his cocky swagger that gets turned into a tentative, fearful, careful walk. If I can ever find a song for this show, I want to vid to it, because it's got some cool visuals and Clive just does such a great job of suffering. And if you can't get your hands on the series, definitely check him out in the BMW films. In this new one, we get to see him in a long-sleeve grey tee at the end, quite a reward if you ask me. My favorite of all of them, where he really got a chance to show his acting chops, The Follow, is still listed there but is unavailable (damn you, Forrest Whittaker!), which is really sad; it was made by Wong-Kar Wai, and was excellent and made Clive pretty damn heroic and oh so dreeeaamy.
The season premier of 24! Spoilery to the max!
Wow! Really big wow! I wasn't so sure they could pull it off. I mean, I know these guys, the producers. They were involved in my other favorite show that came out at the same time as Buffy, called La Femme Nikita. While most of the time they gave us pretty good tv, there were times I really wondered about them. They had a tendency to let their more outlandish ideas lose focus for the show, and they often -- as they did last year mid-season on 24 -- let everything drift because they clearly had no idea where they wanted to go, so they filled things in, often badly. And they would often have the characters behaving in ridiculously out of character ways, but then they'd get it back and grab you again.
So after some dangerous misfires last year and despite Dennis Hopper's egregious accent, they pulled the story back towards the end and delivered a bangup finale, and now they've started with an even bigger bang. Of course, I love seeing Dennis Haysbert on screen again, prrroowwrrr (and how cool is it that both Eric Close and Dennis are back on tv at the same time! Whee! It's not Now and Again, I know, but at least I can see them both even if they're not Theo and Michael. If only the president could have a goatee, sigh), but what I really liked was that Jack Bauer still does NOT mess around.
This was one thing Surnow, Cochrane, and Loceff were good at on LFN -- they did not fuck with people. If someone said "I'll cut your finger off if you don't tell me the bomb's location", they cut the finger off. If someone in custody refused to crack under torture or mouthed off, they'd stab them in the leg or shoot them point blank. And last night, Jack just... shot the guy. He knew what had to be done (and I loved the line "I need a hacksaw" right after that) and he just did it, no questions asked. This is the producers' great strength, and it echoes nicely with Jack's shooting of unarmed enemies last year. You clearly do not fuck with Jack Bauer.
It was a genre show guest-star wing-ding too. There was the fake doctor from Now and Again, the fat-sucking guy from X-Files, Enisgn Ro from Trek (yay!), and on and on and on. So many familiar faces. Though someone has to tell President Dennis that he can't listen to whatshisname -- "Mr. President, you must get rid of him, he sucks fat from unsuspecting women and kills them!"
Off to a nice start, hopefully they won't lose track too quickly. I think they will at some point, and then get it back, because that's their pattern, but if we can survive Dennis Hopper's accent, well... we can survive anything.
In case you've never watched the BMW films, or otherwise have missed the wonder that is Clive, he's a British actor who's had smaller roles in some films that have played here, but is mostly famous as The Driver in the BMW movies and for a series that aired on PBS's Mystery! called Second Sight. (The films you might have seen him in were The Bourne Identity, where he played the assassin Matt Damon killed out in the field, and Gosford Park, were Clive was the mysterious servant.)
If you're lucky enough to live near a video store that rents the Masterpiece Theatre or Mystery series, it's totally worth a rental (or keeping your eye peeled for it to show up at some obscure time on your local station, the second series especially because that doesn't appear to be out for real on pro video). Clive playes DCI Ross Tanner, a hotshot detective who's on the fast track to success. He's a loving if often crappy divorced dad, and he's definitely a lad -- when he takes home tarty barmaids they have sex on the stairs because by golly, he's just so sexy they can't wait to get into the flat. He also has a classic Triumph sports car, and lots of leather coats, and Rollerblades around, so we know he's cool.
The cool thing about the show is that they don't rely just on the mystery (and it's pretty good, full of nice red herrings -- it's the surly nanny! No, it's incest! Maybe it's the twin brother!), like most of the programs they show. In this, Tanner's losing his eyesight to a rare virus, and he's angry and scared and bitter and freaked, and in the process of trying to come to grips with it, he allows himself to be helped by a very ambitious detective who wants him to help her clean up her record after a previous disaster. In doing so, he starts to find ways to use what's happening to him that help him solve the crime.
Clive's just note perfect through it all (and every time James Marsters starts to lose his accent on Buffy, I want to say, watch Clive on Second Sight! He's got your perfect Spike working class accent!), with his gorgeous, predatory, intense greeny-blue eyes, his dark, angry scowl or incandescent smile, his cocky swagger that gets turned into a tentative, fearful, careful walk. If I can ever find a song for this show, I want to vid to it, because it's got some cool visuals and Clive just does such a great job of suffering. And if you can't get your hands on the series, definitely check him out in the BMW films. In this new one, we get to see him in a long-sleeve grey tee at the end, quite a reward if you ask me. My favorite of all of them, where he really got a chance to show his acting chops, The Follow, is still listed there but is unavailable (damn you, Forrest Whittaker!), which is really sad; it was made by Wong-Kar Wai, and was excellent and made Clive pretty damn heroic and oh so dreeeaamy.
The season premier of 24! Spoilery to the max!
Wow! Really big wow! I wasn't so sure they could pull it off. I mean, I know these guys, the producers. They were involved in my other favorite show that came out at the same time as Buffy, called La Femme Nikita. While most of the time they gave us pretty good tv, there were times I really wondered about them. They had a tendency to let their more outlandish ideas lose focus for the show, and they often -- as they did last year mid-season on 24 -- let everything drift because they clearly had no idea where they wanted to go, so they filled things in, often badly. And they would often have the characters behaving in ridiculously out of character ways, but then they'd get it back and grab you again.
So after some dangerous misfires last year and despite Dennis Hopper's egregious accent, they pulled the story back towards the end and delivered a bangup finale, and now they've started with an even bigger bang. Of course, I love seeing Dennis Haysbert on screen again, prrroowwrrr (and how cool is it that both Eric Close and Dennis are back on tv at the same time! Whee! It's not Now and Again, I know, but at least I can see them both even if they're not Theo and Michael. If only the president could have a goatee, sigh), but what I really liked was that Jack Bauer still does NOT mess around.
This was one thing Surnow, Cochrane, and Loceff were good at on LFN -- they did not fuck with people. If someone said "I'll cut your finger off if you don't tell me the bomb's location", they cut the finger off. If someone in custody refused to crack under torture or mouthed off, they'd stab them in the leg or shoot them point blank. And last night, Jack just... shot the guy. He knew what had to be done (and I loved the line "I need a hacksaw" right after that) and he just did it, no questions asked. This is the producers' great strength, and it echoes nicely with Jack's shooting of unarmed enemies last year. You clearly do not fuck with Jack Bauer.
It was a genre show guest-star wing-ding too. There was the fake doctor from Now and Again, the fat-sucking guy from X-Files, Enisgn Ro from Trek (yay!), and on and on and on. So many familiar faces. Though someone has to tell President Dennis that he can't listen to whatshisname -- "Mr. President, you must get rid of him, he sucks fat from unsuspecting women and kills them!"
Off to a nice start, hopefully they won't lose track too quickly. I think they will at some point, and then get it back, because that's their pattern, but if we can survive Dennis Hopper's accent, well... we can survive anything.
