Tag: Russell Tovey

I believe I told my wife that I wanted to watch Mindhorn on Netflix for a review. Her response was something similar to “What the fuck is Mindhorn?”

And of course I gave her the netflix description of it, and she said “That sounds fucking stupid.” Yes, yes it does. And that is of course why I watched it.

Also the title is powerful. Mindhorn. Mind. Horn. Mindh. Orn.

MINDHORN.

I am now in your brain, learning your secrets.

Mindhorn is a British television show about Detective Mindhorn, played by actor Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt). He has some telepathic powers, and he solves crime. It is the hottest TV show around. It is on the cover of magazines, everyone talks about it, and it is getting a spin-off led by one of its minor characters played by Peter Eastman (Steve Coogan).

And now? It is 25 years later, Thorncroft is living in poverty, doing commercials, no one caring about Mindhorn anymore. It lasted three seasons and was cancelled and Thorncroft was a dick, so he left all his friends behind to try for something better. And shit, the spinoff lasted over 10 seasons and is what everyone cares about now.

But things will change. Because on the Isle of Man, where the series was filmed, a MURDER has occurred. By a “lunatic” Paul Melly (Russell Tovey), who will only speak to Detective Mindhorn. He thinks that Mindhorn is real and will only deal with the character. So Thorncroft is brought in, to act and help deal with the boy. But Thorncroft needs money and fame, so he will make this last as long as it needs to be to get people saying his name again.

Also starring Richard McCabe, David Schofield, Simon Farnaby, Kenneth Branagh, Jessica Barden, Andrea Riseborough, Essie Davis, and Nicholas Farrell.

If this movie was in 3D, this would be an intense, frightening scene. Because of the shots, not the weed wacker.

Mindhorn takes an interesting premise, makes it British, adds some comedy, and still doesn’t fully deliver an amazing movie.

It had amusing moments, it had interesting characters (a lot of the side characters were brimming with personality), but I feel it was also plagued with pacing issues and not being strong on the humor. It is adequately bizarre (not extremely bizarre), even a bit zany, just not incredibly humorous. That is one of my biggest issues.

As for pacing issues, at times it feels clunky. It is easy for mystery-esque movies to lead you all over the place with only tiny details mattering by the end, but this one isn’t even a real mystery. The police believe they know who the killer is right away, and when things inevitably change, we have a new obvious killer, and the majority of the film is just trying to get the proof. So not really a mystery, despite set up like one.

It makes the film just so hard to define. That isn’t a negative, given some of my favorite movies this year have hard to define genres. But when it comes out like a mystery and is instead just a slightly eccentric comedy, you just find yourself wanting a lot more in the film.

Now, I am not trying to be sexist here. But let’s think about The Lady In The Van. Is it creepy? Maybe a bit. I imagine a cat lady, even though if you live in a van, you probably don’t want cats in there as well. That’d be poopy.

But if this was titled The Man In The Van, most likely it would be some sort of scary horror film. Lady is intriguing. What is she doing in the van? Man is sketchy. What is he doing in the van? He should stop it immediately regardless!

I guess I should be thankful this is about a lady. Early year horror films are janky, but dramas early in the year might not be.

Overall, this babble is brought to you by: Genders. Men are scary, yo.

How British in this movie you may be asking? Well…

Miss Shepherd (Maggie Smith) is just a really old lady, and she needs help. Sure, she lives in a van, but she is self employed selling pencils and notes on the street. Not a beggar, no sir. People wouldn’t take too kindly to that. This is 1970’s England, and it is perfect! She parks her van in a nice suburb area. Where the people are relatively well off and in that range where they will help her out and let her use the water closet, to make themselves feel like they are doing good in the world. And Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) just moved in.

Alan is a writer of plays and, of course, mildly successful. He has finally moved away from his Mam (Gwen Taylor), who might need to be put in a home herself soon. He is our narrator as well, and he describes that he has two halves. The one who writes, and the one who lives. Sure enough, he befriends this lady in the van, who has lived an apparently long and complicated life. He already writes a lot about old ladies, thanks to inspiration from his Mam, and he has to figure out if he wants to write about Miss Shepherd as well, or just experience her like a normal person would.

Miss Shepherd is also very secretive about parts of her life. She hates it when anyone plays music and will rant wildly if it occurs. She is being blackmailed by a cop (Jim Broadbent) for maybe killing a person. Yeah, that is important.

Guess how long this old lady stays on the street/ in his driveway? Guess! Over a decade, that is the only hint I will give.

We have a lot of neighbors who are in the story, played by Frances de la Tour, Roger Allam, and Deborah Findlay. There were also quite a bit of cameos. People who I thought were way too famous to be in this movie for one line or one small scene and never seen again. They include Dominic Cooper, Sam Spruell, James Corden, and Russell Tovey.

And this is the lady sneaking out from behind her van.

It turns out all the people who had small cameos in this movie were there for a reason. And no, it wasn’t because James Corden is a douchebag who only gets 1 line in British films and doesn’t deserve a Late Night talk show program. The director, Nicholas Hytner, also directed The History Boys about 9 years ago. It was his last film and all of these random famous people cameos came from that film. The more you know!

Also, this movie is technically a 2015 film, despite getting released in America so late. So it was up for all the fancy awards and it was nominated for…one golden globe! It was also nominated for some British awards, as expected, given it has Maggie Smith in it, who is basically the British Meryl Streep. They love nominating these ladies.

Speaking of Smith, she was fantastic in this role. I have never seen her so old or decrepit. I was getting worried about Smith herself, given how pale and old she looked. Thankfully I remembered that make up departments in a movie were a thing and she doesn’t actually look like she is one step away from death. But damn do they pull it off in this movie. She is funny and naggy and cantankerous. Everything you’d hope for in a movie old lady, but not in someone you actually know.

The rest of the movie leaves something to be desired. Jennings plays an incredibly closeted British man well, but as a narrator and co-lead he is never really exciting enough. He is basically playing the audience half the time, just watching things happen around him, due to his timidness (or Britishness, really). The split personality thing was confusing for the most part, never really enjoyed how they had that play out. It was made weirder at the ending when they tried to explain it a bit more in the conclusion, too. The many other characters give an occasional smile, but don’t do a lot outside of show up once in awhile to be nosy.

Overall, you can probably watch this for Smith as she gives a wonderful eccentric performance. But this is not something you would want to watch ever again.

Sometimes the UK scares me. But usually that is just when it comes to TV shows. It isn’t a normal like or hate relationship, it is more a like or “I don’t understand what the hell is going on, so I am just going to doodle while it happens until it is done, then never watch it again, because I am confused and I don’t understand what the hell is going on, so I am just going to doodle while it happens until it is done.”

It is really a 50/50 type of situation. Thus my initial fear of watching The Pirates! Band Of Misfits.

“Bitches don’t know about my swaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. And I mean swag in its real definition. I have a pile of gold in the hull.”

Set somewhere in the 1800s, Great Britain has taken over much of the world. But Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) doesn’t control the West Indies! Fucking Pirates are there!

This includes The Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) the piratiest pirate that ever pirated. So much that he is going to inter Pirate of the Year, and win it for once! The only problem is, I lied. There are much better pirates out there. Including Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven). Heck, The Pirate Captain hasn’t even gained any loot this last year. Just some ham. What is a pirate without loot?

So he starts a raidin’ and a plunderin’ but nothing seems to work. None of the rich boats are coming out to his area. When he goes for just one last boat, he is disappointed to find out that it is just Charles Darwin (David Tennant). According to him and his man-ape servant, the Pirate Captain’s parrot is actually a Do-do bird, long thought to have been extinct!

But apparently with these science shenanigans, there is a potential for real money. But they have to go to London first, a scary anti-pirate place. Hmm, I am sure it wont be a big issue, and no one will have to put their morals in check. Lets not forget his trusty crew, including The Pirate with a Scarf (Martin Freeman), The Pirate with Gout (Brendan Gleeson), The Pirate Who Likes Sunsets and Kittens (Ben Whitehead), The Albino Pirate (Russell Tovey) and The Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate (Ashley Jensen).

Going back to my earlier fears, I have never seen a Wallace and Gromit movie. Wallace just looks way too British. So the only reason I went this way was because of scurvy jokes, boy did it deliver.

The writing for Pirates was beyond clever, full of jokes and other smaller pop culture references. Heck, it even had a soundtrack full of real modern songs, including most of Flight of the Conchords “I’m Not Crying“. Damn, son.

I also didn’t completely hate the form of stop motion like I thought I would, another definite plus. Not sure if this is going to win best Animated Picture, but it certainly was a damn good one for 2012. I mean, Ham Night. Ham Night guys.