J.J. Abrams’ second installment in his rebooted Star Trek series begins with a perfectly-formed action set piece which, despite its breakneck pace, finds enough time to pose key questions about “the prime directive”. Long-time fans will doubtless be elated about the inclusion of this particular piece of Trek-lore, after Abram’s first film – 2009’s Star […]
Simon Hynd is a director on the rise. This Edinburgh-based graduate of Napier University, and winner of a Scottish BAFTA (for Short Film in 2004) for Tumshie McFadgen’s Bid For Ultimate Bliss, is now a veteran television and commercials director, with one feature to his name: Senseless, a horror film adapted from the book of […]
It doesn’t seem like exaggeration to suggest that we’re currently living in a golden age of TV drama. Shows like The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Treme, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and, more recently, The Following and The Newsroom have demonstrated that complex plots, thrilling action, stunning production design and A-list acting talent are no […]
One of the highlights of the 2012 festive viewing marathon was the BBC’s presentation of the feature-length drama (co-produced with HBO), The Girl, a tv movie about the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock (as played by Toby Jones, in subtle prosthetics and not so subtle bodysuit) and his latest muse, Swedish-American model-turned-actress, Tippi Hedren (as played […]
When CBS announced its plan to produce a modern-day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, the casting of Lucy Liu as a female Watson and the shift to a New York setting weren’t (despite the deluge of online negativity) particularly big problems for me. As details about the upcoming series emerged, the question uppermost in my mind […]
With their episodic, crisis-of-the-week approach to storytelling, you’d think that comic books would have found their natural visual media outlet in television, rather than in the numerous film adaptations which continue to net big bucks for major publishers like Marvel and DC. The wealth of elaborate backstory and character development in most long-running comics can […]