Category Archives: Film & Television

My TV Favourites of 2011

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Normally I wouldn’t do these lists but I have collaborated with Lena Lamoray to work on one (the full list, including Lena’s favourites has been posted here).

Favourite New Series

Game of Thrones

Based on a series of medieval-fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin A Song of Fire and Ice, GAME OF THRONES is a story of incest, loyalty, love, betrayal, deceit and power.  And because this is an HBO show, you know there’s also lots of sex and blood.

Seven noble families are fighting for control of a kingdom called Westeros.  Just like the old European royal families where alliances are formed as easily as they are broken, Game of Thrones is full of unexpected twists and turns.  You find yourself falling in love with the brutish Khal Drogo and the cunning Tyrion Lannister and I know I’m not alone in this.

The cast reads like a who’s who of British acting royalty: Sean Bean, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Fairley, just to name a few.  Season 2 is due to air in April so there is still plenty of time for you to get hold of Season 1 and catch up on this brilliant new series.

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Web Series Review: WHOLE DAY DOWN Episode3 “China Syndrome”

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When we last met our failed actors-turned-art gallery operators – Patrick (Patrick Breen) and Willie (Willie Garson), with their cohorts, Hunter (Steve Bloem), Franny (Francesca Fauci) and Patrick’s wife, Nadine (Elisa Donovan) – they were struggling after being struck down by a nasty art critic.

This time, they had much better luck with a “Neo-Ceramist” named Chomp who makes glasses and plates and assorted china ware out of dirt and broken glass he finds around nuclear waste disposal plants (it is important to note he does not go in the site, but around it).  Hence, the name “The China Syndrome”.

Surprisingly, it appears that nuclear china pieces are very popular, possibly thanks to the good feng shui that Hunter brought to the arrangement of the exhibit, and they finally make some money from their exhibition.  But do they need to throw in a Geiger counter and HazMat suit with every purchase?

China Syndrome

However, nothing is ever simple in this world, and we find our band of merry galleristas (or is it galleristi?) in a complex web of love pentagon.  Nadine is pregnant and the father is not her husband! Scandalous!

Nadine: “You find a doctor who will turn this DNA into his DNA!”

Willie: “I can get you his DNA. I can scrape it off of Hunter!”

Whoa!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  So I hope you’re prepared for this avalanche!

The Whole Day Down Love Pentagon

Watch the series at WholeDayDown.tv.  “China Syndrome” will be available on Tuesday 29th November, 2011 at 10.30am PT (US).

Click here to read my review of the Pilot and Ep2 “What Wood Raven Do” .

You can follow series creator/producer/editor, Tai Fauci, on Twitter @WholeDayDown and “like” them on Facebook.  You can also subscribe to the Whole Day Down YouTube Channel.

You can shop at the Whole Day Down store for their Artpocalypse merchandise as well.

The next episode will be released in January 2012 – stay tuned for details.

Web Series Review: WHOLE DAY DOWN “Genesis” & “What Wood Raven Do”

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Showbiz is a fickle business – one minute you’re the toast of the town and appearing on red carpets everywhere, next minute you’re struggling to pay the bills and turning up at auditions with every other failed actor in town.

Thank goodness for new media!  Need work? How about acting in a video game?  There are risks, of course, such as being electrocuted by the motion capture, selling blood for money or getting paid for taking experimental drugs.  But you gotta do what you gotta do to pay the bills, right?

That is, unless you have a rich wife…luckily for us, there is also the web series – “exposing the pathetic American obsession with fame and exhibitionism”.

Willie Garson in spandex

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Movie Review: IN TIME

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Starring: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Matt Bomer, Alex Pettyfer , Vincent Kartheiser, Olivia Wilde, Johnny Galecki

Written, Produced and Directed by: Andrew Niccol

Release: 28 Oct, 2011 (US)

“For a few to be immortal, many must die.”

And therein lies the premise of IN TIME, a film written and directed by Andrew Niccol (who also brought us Gattaca and The Truman Show).

Here’s the setup: it is late 21st Century and the human race is genetically engineered to stop ageing at 25 and are given one more year to live unless they have “replenished” their clocks.  In this world, the currency of exchange is time – you literally trade for more time on this earth.  Everyone is born with a clock (it’s digital, if that helps) on their left forearm and you “transact” on your right.

The Time zones

In this world, time zones are literally geographic areas that determine how long you have to live.  In Dayton (the “ghetto”), the average life expectancy for its occupants is 23 hours compared to that of New Greenwich (where the rich live) of 347 years.  The rich can earn decades at a time, effectively making them immortal, while the poor do whatever it takes to survive from day to day.  To keep the ghetto-dwellers from earning their way out of their time zones, the rich drive up the cost of living, essentially making it impossible for them to move outside their borders. Continue reading →

Ten Things I Learnt From White Collar

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I’ve always been a strong believer in the idea of always learning.  Life gets pretty boring if you don’t learn something new everyday, or at least every week.   As of  time of writing, there have been 34 episodes of my favourite TV show White Collar that have aired so I suppose this post could have been “34+ things I learnt from White Collar” but I figured ten is as good a start as any just to pique your interest.

For those of you reading this who have somehow managed to miss the show, I’d like to invite you to come out from whatever nuclear bunker you had been hiding in for the past two years and check out this fun show.  It’s a show that makes me laugh, cry, swoon, laugh some more, and occasionally makes me think too much as I analyse every word uttered and every move made by the hottest cast (with their clothes on) on television.

So let’s start this list, and where better to start than the show’s pilot episode.

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