Colin Parton's Blog

The Lincoln Lawyer - Ted Humphrey & David E. Kelley Season One

I was immediately hooked on this show. The characters are great, and the lead is likable and interesting.

It is an interesting start to a series with our lead, Mickey Haller, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Widows & Murder on the Orient Express), being handed the keys to a law firm after the owner is murdered.

This setup allows for a meta-plot: the big murder trial with Trevor. As well as many smaller cases scattered throughout.

The smaller cases allow us to meet the rest of the cast as well as inform the wider plot. It is a great backdrop for a series to work around.

Having his ex-wives as key characters in the series is great, as through them we see different aspects of his personality that we wouldn’t otherwise see.

The main plot line plays with an interesting concept: you hate the accused, but they have set it up to make it look like he is innocent. There is a further big bad beyond that, the head judge of the courts pulling the strings, which is really scary.

The way all the cases weave and intertwine in the story is what makes this series superb. The characters are fun to watch in action. It’s an easy and fun watch.

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The Fortune of War - Patrick O'Brian

The opening chapter skips over the rest of the voyage to Australia and all events there. We open with Aubrey receiving his new commission, and we are quickly onboard a well-run mail ship back to England.

This novel also felt a bit like a lull in the series, sort of like we are waiting for something to happen.

Quite outside of all of the characters’ control, a fire starts on the mail ship, and it quickly sinks. This is super sad as Stephen loses all of his collections from Desolation Island and from Australia.

The cause of the fire is hinted at as being from smoking below decks by Stephen’s assistant. The use of a power outside their control is poor writing.

The battle against the constitution takes this inability for the characters to be masters of their own fate to another level altogether. Aubrey can see disaster coming under the captain they are rescued by.

He says nothing because the strategy is based on everything he agrees with, and it isn’t his place to question this captain.

Because of this, they are annihilated, taken prisoner and brought back to Boston. This is where the story takes place. Stephen must use all of his wiles to free Aubrey and also get Diana out of the States.

The master manipulation is superb, but even he is almost killed twice. He confounds the French intelligence services. He plays the US intelligence services that think they are playing him. 

In the end, Aubrey has to sail them out to the English blockade in a fishing boat. So everyone is involved in their escape.

We see a side of Stephen we have rarely glimpsed before. Once their lives are under threat, he coldly murders the heads of the French intelligence.

We end on a cliffhanger as the boat they were rescued by is the last in the blockade and is waiting for the Chesapeake to come out and meet her.

Stephen is about to marry Diana so that she can become an English citizen again. This feels sad as Stephen doesn’t love her anymore, but then he sees her spirit again as she starts shooting the rats in the hold, and he is keen again. This is a great bit of writing.

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Super Mario Kart - Tadashi Sugiyama Hideki Konno

This is the first instalment of the now household title. 

Some things have remained constant since the beginning, and others have come and gone. My first experience with the Mario Kart series was Mario Kart 64.

That game was much more forgiving and playable than this. Without a joystick, racing games are very difficult.

The thing that was new to me that was not part of Mario Kart 64 was the need to collect coins. You lost coins when you ran into things or were hit by other racers.

The little cloud guys that rescued you when you went off the map or into lava also took coins from you. If you didn’t have any coins, any collision, even hitting a wall, would spin you out.

In all the Mario Karts I’ve played, there is certainly a point where the computer players will start to work together to stop you from winning the grand prix. I’ve never seen it deployed as viciously as I have seen it used here.

The 50cc cups were all beatable with some practice. It was more down to your skill and knowledge of the tracks. Towards the end of these cups and definitely by the start of the 100cc cups, the computer players are in concert to stop you winning.

It got to the point of ridiculousness where one of them would purposely ram you off the track into lava, going in with you, just to slow you down.

I found the cups towards the end of the 100cc completely unplayable because of how brutal the computer players would be. After race one, they had chosen their winner, and every other racer had one job: take you out.

I think that this would be more fun with other people playing, as this may balance out the computer’s rage against the human players. Without this, it was unplayable in the later GPs.

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Virtua Tennis - Katsumoto Tatsukawa

Virtual Tennis with the stars of the time. I’m surprised that this is actually playable and plays like tennis.

The game is just too hard. You have to play well all the time to win.

Which makes sense, I guess, but tennis games are long, and you need to be able to make errors and be able to come back from them. 

The arcade mode was beatable, but the main game mode ‘world tour’ was impossible. While you do have the ability to shorten the game to single sets, this in no way helps with the next problem.

The gameplay’s repetitiveness is unbearable. This might be an issue with the computer.

I imagine that with some variety of shots, head-to-head might be fun. Playing today was pretty funny to see the characters from tennis past in action again.

I would not recommend wasting your time with this one.

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Top Gun - Tony Scott

The film follows recruits of the Top Gun program as they earn their wings. The major premise of the film is the idea that instinct is just as important as following the rules.

We follow Maverick, played by Tom Cruise (The Last Samurai & Minority Report), who represents instinct. Top Gun is the top fighter training school in the U.S.

Maverick wasn’t even supposed to be going, but the best pilot in his assignment pulls out, leaving him and his wingman, Goose, to take the spot.

On the other side of the unity-of-opposites is Iceman, Val Kilmer (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang & Heat). His call sign is because he always follows the playbook and is cool and calm about it.

Unsurprisingly, his hot-headed nature is not just for flying. Maverick hits on our female lead without any hesitation. 

She is up for the challenge, and the ensuing conversation is hilarious as she shoots him down. It becomes even funnier the next day when we learn that she is the civilian oversight for their training group.

This doesn’t stop Maverick, and he continues to pursue her. They end up having a great relationship.

While Maverick is a Hot-Head and focuses much more on instinct than on the rules, he is a brilliant pilot. Just amazing in the cockpit.

His relationship with his wingman is fantastic as well. Goose and Maverick can talk seriously about their feelings, and there is great mutual respect.

Then the fateful crash happens. We all knew it was coming; it was just a question of when. Iceman and Maverick are on a training mission together.

Iceman is in the lead, covered by Maverick and they both have the enemy plane in their sights. Iceman just can’t get a lock. 

There has been a good lead-up to this, and we know Maverick is going to stay with IceMan. Maverick is frustrated because he clearly would get a lock on if Iceman were not in the way.

Iceman does get out of the way to allow Maverick the shot, but as he does, Maverick and Goose’s plan gets caught in the jet stream, and they crash. Goose dies.

He is beaten up about this and is looking at quitting the program, even though he is absolved of any responsibility.

His past saves him here. He has been torn up about his dad, also a fighter pilot who died in combat, but Maverick has never heard any details about his death.

It turns out that his dad gave his life so that heaps of other pilots could get out of a terrible situation.

The government could never say anything because they were not supposed to be where they were. With the doubt about his father and his own role in Goose’s death gone, he returns to graduate, and he is immediately deployed.

Iceman and Maverick are in the same flight crew, and Iceman is in a bad way. Maverick does some of the best flying we have seen and saves the day.

The reason I like this film so much is that it is nothing like it is portrayed to be: Hot-headed fighter pilots being idiots. This film is nuanced and uses its cast superbly. We see what friendship can be with Goose and Maverick.

We see healthy rivalry between Maverick and Iceman, two pilots at the top of their game. After the awful misogynistic beginning of the relationship between Maverick and Charlie, Kelly McGillis (Witness & The Accused), we see a thoughtful and tender side of Maverick.

Maverick’s doubt in himself and his dad is well done as well.

Then there is the flying, there is a lot of flying. And it is spectacular. Scott really captures what it is like to be in a fighter jet.

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The Cove - Louie Psihoyos

This film is more about its making than the event it is documenting. This in itself is very interesting.

The narrative that they construct about the making of the film isn’t great.

There is no huge crisis moment. They try to make this the moment that the request to film on location is denied. We know it is going to be denied, so this is not a big moment at all.

The film crew, led by Louie, is attempting to document the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan. We are introduced to the state of play by Richard Barry (Absence of Malice and Flipper).

Where to begin. Every year in Taiji, dolphins are herded into a series of coves to be sold as performing dolphins. 

The majority are not chosen. They are herded into a well-protected cove, out of sight of everyone. It is here that they are killed.

The film looks at the background of all of this. Barry was responsible for capturing the dolphins that were used in Flipper. We are presented with information, at length, about how bad captivity is for these social animals.

Barry is so remorseful about helping kick off the industry. He tells us some very harrowing stories. 

For example, one of the Flipper dolphins swam into his arms and chose to stop breathing. This was a key moment in Barry’s activism, and he immediately tried to free other dolphins from marine parks.

The sale of dolphins for parks is where the real money is. The rest of the dolphins are killed, and their meat is sold. But dolphin meat is really bad because it has high mercury levels.

Japan knows all of this. It has been through all of this before with another town that used to participate in the trade as well.

There were widespread birth defects. So why would they allow this to happen again?

The movie posits that Japan may actually be very worried about food security.

This is where another part of the film comes in. The International Whaling Commission (IWC).

We get to see some truly farcical scenes as Japan makes its argument for scientific research by killing whales. This doesn’t really hold water for me, as the dolphins are poisonous, and they know.

The IWC does show some crazy stuff that Japan is prepared to do to be able to keep on whaling. Like bribing other governments to vote for it to continue.

The tail end of the film is the most interesting. They have a ‘putting the crew together’ section.

We have maps of the hidden cove and where they plan to station the hidden cameras.

We get to see a dry run to test the underwater equipment. The night vision stuff is excellent and exciting. They don’t let us know if they are successful or not until we see the full footage.

The film is good overall. We get some great background into a hidden industry that we should know is pretty bad now.

The bits that I find hard to understand are why? What does Japan get out of the hunt apart from the performing dolphins being sold?

They did get some interesting vox-pops from Japanese people in other cities about the topic in general, which was interesting but hardly representative. Just sad really.

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The Girl With The White Flag - Tomiko Higa

This book tells the story of the invasion of Okinawa by the U.S. from the perspective of a young girl. This is the first non-fiction book I’ve read in a while.

The book itself was written long after the events took place by the girl in the photograph. She is drawn to tell the tale when the picture becomes famous.

One thing that I found truly amazing about this was that it really did feel like a child’s account of the war. 

This is impressive given that it was written by an adult and so long after the events occurred.

There is very little time spent on the overall picture of the war itself. Just broad strokes so we have some idea where she is in relation to the fighting.

This decision to leave the big picture out is perfect. We get to see only what is directly affecting our protagonist. 

It also gives the story a very surreal feeling as she wanders around the battlefield.

There is a huge emphasis on animals throughout her ordeal. All of the animals are important to the narrative and also help to explain how she just didn’t go crazy.

At the end of the book, shortly before she surrenders to the Americans, there is a very strange section.

She finds an old couple in a cave. The man has had his arms and legs amputated, and the woman is blind. She spends significant time in the cave with them.

Even now, I don’t know if they were real. They must have been.

Overall, the story was really well told, and you will find it hard to come across another war story from this perspective.

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The Enchanted Island - Ian Serraillier

This is a collection of Shakespeare’s plays, retold. In general, I hate the idea of abridged or simplified stories for younger audiences.

If the reader is too young to read it, then they should read something else. There are plenty of great stories for any age group.

This retelling is particularly heinous because so much of what makes Shakespeare great is the language used to tell the tales. Don’t get me wrong, the stories are powerful, but the language is key to their telling.

Puck from A Midsummer-Night’s Dream is one of my favourite characters. You can hear the mischief he gets up to, and it is so much more mischievous because of the language used.

“I am that merry wanderer of the night./ I jest to Oberon, and make him smile/ When I a fat bean-fed horse beguile,/ Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;” (A Midsummer-Night’s Dream 2.1. 43-47).

The lines themselves tell a story that’s humorous. But the choice of language takes it much further than that. “Merry wanderer of the night” and “Filly foal” are so evocative that they go beyond the literal meaning of the words. 

At best, we are giving readers an average watered-down version of the original. At worst, we are taking from them what makes the stories brilliant in the first place.

If you’re not up to Shakespeare or he is just not your thing, that’s fine. Read something else.

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Frost/Nixon - Ron Howard

When drafting this piece, I found it very hard to get started. There is nothing that really jumps out about this film.

It’s not great. It’s not bad. I thought the most interesting feature of this film was some of the period-specific things.

The first of these is the aeroplane that Frost takes to the US. There is a walk-up bar up a spiral staircase.

There is a canapé bar in the middle of the rows. Clearly first class, but this is next level.

The other is all of the sets. The décor and buildings are all so fantastic that I was left looking at all of this rather than what was going on in the film.

Overall, the narrative is good, but it is just a bit same-same.

The opening sets up Nixon’s resignation after Watergate, so we have some idea about where this interview takes place chronologically.

The setup of all the actors as talking heads, like a documentary, is a neat touch.

The whole backstory of how Frost got the interview is really what the film is about. He is a bit of a nobody. His last show in the UK was cancelled, and he moved to Australia.

Nixon’s staff think that Frost is their best option as he is a nobody and is offering more money. We also get to see that Nixon is keen to tell his story, set the record straight.

The money to pay for the whole thing is where the story of the film comes from. The crisis is when none of the US networks will carry it, mainly due to do with the fact that Frost is paying for the interview.

This leaves Frost running around trying to fund the film through advertising rather than focusing on preparation.

The rest of his research team doesn’t realise that Frost funds the entire project, and so these actions make them concerned about how badly this is going to go, as their careers are on the line.

Then the filming begins, and it is a disaster. Nixon runs roughshod over Frost. The research team are furious with how it is handled.

Then the phone call happens. Nixon drunkenly dials Frost one night before the final day of shooting. He comes across as very vulnerable and bitter.

Frost realises that he has to nail him on Watergate, so he spends the rest of the time preparing step-by-step to take him apart.

He does it. He gets Nixon to admit and apologise for his actions. More than that, he uses TV perfectly to capture the emotion as it happens.

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Swingers - Doug Liman

This average film follows Mike, Jon Favreau (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Solo: A Star Wars Story), as he tries to get over a breakup. The entire problem with the film is that we do not see the start of the story. We need to see the breakup. 

Without seeing the breakup, this is an ordinary world for Mike. We are just watching his day-to-day. For this to be the meat of the story, we need to see what life was like before and why he is striving to find another Michelle.

The only other option is that deciding to go for a new girlfriend rather than pining over the old one has to be a huge moment and distinct from everything that came before.

This moment never happens. All his friends are trying to get him to move on when he is not ready to.

This leads to the most awkward of moments over and over again. These are supposed to be funny, but the joke is at the expense of Mike.

So if we laugh at the jokes, then we are against him. If we don’t, the comedy isn’t funny. 

So the film just doesn’t work on the comedic level either. From the awkward scotch order when they arrive in Vegas with $300 and only $100 to bet. 

Betting the $100 immediately because they sit at a table that has a $100 minimum. This isn’t a mistake by the characters.

They are just idiots because they don’t want to look bad.

Mike keeps judging all the women that they meet. They all show him up by being smarter than he thought or whatever it was he was judging them on. He just ends up looking like a jerk.

The jokes are cringeworthy. Not my cup of tea, but if you are into that, this may be the film for you.

There is a recurring joke where five of the friends are going out to parties, and they are all driving bumper to bumper to get there. I don’t get it.

The first girl Mike likes, he leaves heaps of messages one after the other, and then at the seventh message, he breaks up with her. She picks up and says, “Never call again”.

The only upside was the film’s climax, where Mike has Michelle on the phone and receives a call from Lorraine, his new love interest.

This scene is really well done and forces Mike to choose. All in all, there a a lot of not-so-funny scenes as we follow Mike mopping around and just being a bit of a dick until he is forced to choose between the old girlfriend and the new. Skip would be my recommendation.

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