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Gerry Smith
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #20: 02.07.11 at 13:43 »
Quote

Well, to each his own! Truly amazed to see such a resounding endorsement of this vacuous chanteuse!
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Out playing the saxes
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #21: 08.07.11 at 17:02 »
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In what is the centrepiece of this week’s column, Clive gets to the heart of what’s really happening to the BBC when it broadcasts, as it did on News at Ten, an obituary for the actress Margaret Tyzack which used an image of the actress Siân Phillips.  
 
Quote:

.........The story of the Beeb now is that there are too many higher management layers concerned with nothing except the size of their salaries and they not only don’t set a tone of judgment and scruple, they don’t seem to know how
..............
 

 
Kevin Cryan
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #22: 15.07.11 at 17:00 »
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In the what I consider to be the best passages of this week’s column, Clive gives readers good reasons for watching 5USA’s Justified (“Justified would be a riveting creation even if it starred Steven Seagal, because it is just so brilliantly plotted and written”), explains why the the Yanks have confounded our expectations not mucking up the remake of the Danish thriller The Killing (Channel 4), and argues Alan Yentob’s "beautifully illustrated encounter on Imagine (BBC Two) with the Chinese genius Ai Weiwei” was the “documentary of the week, the year and possibly of Alan Yentob’s whole career”.
 
Kevin Cryan
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #23: 23.07.11 at 15:34 »
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This week's column wis written by The Telegraph's cultural critic Michael Deacon, deputising for Clive who, the paper tells us, "is away".
 
Kevin Cryan
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #24: 29.07.11 at 16:19 »
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The Telegraph’s TV and Radio features editor Michael Deacon has written column again this week.
 
Kevin Cryan
 
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #25: 06.08.11 at 10:55 »
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The Sunday Telegraph's TV John Preston has written today's column.
 
As I sit here on the island of Malta, I cannot help thinking that Clive might have got more out of watching Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words (Monday, BBC Four) than Preston does.
 
Quote:
By now it was clear that Great Thinkers (of which GTITOW is part)  had fallen into that familiar telly trap of biting off far more than it could chew. While it’s true that television has never been a great chewing medium, a little light jaw movement, however cursory, does at least make viewers feel as if they’re not completely wasting their time.

 
Is it presumptious of me to suggest that Clive might have had a bash at suggesting at what it is programme makers must do to make people "as if they’re not completely wasting their time."
 
Kevin Cryan
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #26: 12.08.11 at 12:38 »
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This week he's back in print with reviews of Elgar at the Proms (BBC Four), the Swedish detective drama Wallander(also BBC Four) and Waldemar Januszczak's The Impressionists(BBC Two).
 
Kevin Cryan
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #27: 20.08.11 at 09:31 »
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This week Clive contemplates , among other things, actors “who look most human when performing impossible feats”.
 
Kevin Cryan
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Rob Spence
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #28: 20.08.11 at 11:16 »
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on 20.08.11 at 09:31, Kevin Cryan wrote:
This week Clive contemplates , among other things, actors “who look most human when performing impossible feats”.
 
Kevin Cryan

 
...and a potential Midnight Voice in the comments...
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #29: 22.08.11 at 16:25 »
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For some obscure reason all I get is a vast expanse of virgin white paper
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #30: 22.08.11 at 17:04 »
Quote

That is odd. Try this:
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8711685/Clive-James-on...-Matt-Damon-The-Impressionists-and-the-Hour.html
 
Kevin
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #31: 26.08.11 at 09:14 »
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This week, Clive watched The Man Who Crossed Hitler(BBC2) and found much to admire in Ed Stoppard's performance as Hans Littenk, the baptized Jewish lawyer who, in 1931, brought Hitler into court in an effort to expose him as being less a man of peace than he was then pretending to be .  
 
He also concludes that Luca Zingaretti, who stars in Inspector Montalbano(BBC4), is a fine "example of the most employable category of thespian law-men, the natural baldie".  
 
Kevin Cryan
 
For Bogus
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8722723/Clive-James-on...-The-Man-Who-Crossed-Hitler-and-Inspector-Montalbano.html
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Bogus Trumper
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #32: 28.08.11 at 20:52 »
Quote

Ta
 
Cheesy
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #33: 02.09.11 at 18:49 »
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In this week’s column, Clive notes that if you scrambled the plots of the film  Defence of the Realm and the TV series State of Play you would get Page Eight (BBC Two), and wonders whether or not we have seen the last of Bill Nighy as Page Eight’s hero Johnny Worricker.
 
Quote:

 
Fairly soon, I imagine, David Hare, under the pressure of this latest success, will have to contemplate the return of his suavely knackered hero. Who better to lead MI5 than the man who best knows its ins and outs?...... Arise, Sir Johnny Worricker.
 
 

 
Kevin Cryan
 
For Bogus
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8737557/Clive-James-on-Page-Eight.html
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Bogus Trumper
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #34: 02.09.11 at 21:12 »
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The problem is, living in the U S of A, I don't follow 90% of what he is saying.  But whatever he is saying, he says it beautifully
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #35: 09.09.11 at 10:07 »
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Clive's main contribution this week deals with his viewing of part one of Appropriate Adult, ITV1's two-part drama about the serial killer Fred West. He does his readers areal service of  addressing the central question that must have occurred to them while watching.  
 
Quote:
we have to ask ourselves whether invading the memories of those whose lives were wrecked by the cheerful madman’s career can ever be worth it……

 
His conclusion:
 
Quote:
… If you believe that memories have to be invaded, or else the alternative will be a blanket of stupor covering a whole population as every sensitive issue is put under wraps, then here, in Neil McKay’s excellent Appropriate Adult (ITV1), was the way to invade them.

 
It was the conclusion I arrived at, but I cannot say that it's the conclusion I'm comfortable with.
 
Anyway, before Clve gets around to dealing with Appropriate Adult , he's revisited The Hour (BBC Two), and concluded that " everyone involved in the production had a tin ear", and seen repeats of Spiral (BBC Four), "back on the air with all the same atrocities that you have already seen once but somehow can’t help watching again" and The Killing (BBC Four), a programme he watches for very similar reason that he watches Spiral.  
 
Quote:
In the case of either serial, the way the camera behaves is a crucial study. Shooting and editing add up to a language in itself.

 
Kevin Cryan
 
For Bogus
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8750481/Clive-James-on...-Dominic-West-in-Appropriate-Adult.html
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #36: 16.09.11 at 10:49 »
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For this week's column, Clive reviews ITV1's "perfectly brainless" game show Red or Black? , points up the lessons to be learned from the return of Strictly Come Dancing (BBC One), and has a few interesting remarks to make about the conclusion of Appropriate Adult, ITV1's drama about the serial killer Fred West.  
 
Kevin Cryan
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #37: 23.09.11 at 21:00 »
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This week Clive explains why Jonathan Ross has lived up to expectations by being unembarrased by his move from BBC to ITV1, and argues that Downton Abbey(ITV1), now in its second series and set during WW1, has not lived up to expectations, especially the expectations of those of the viewer with a sense of history.  
 
To wind up this week's piece, he offers at least one good reason for preferring the 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still(Film 4) the more recent version starring Keanu Reeves,  
 
Yes, Clive, I too thought that Patricia Neal had what it took in oodles I can openly admit that my repeated viewings of Martin Ritt’s Hud are not always because I think it’s a good movie. It's certainly a good movie, but it's also a good movie in which the Neal gets the opportunity shine.
 
Kevin Cryan  
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #38: 30.09.11 at 11:55 »
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This week, Clive, having spent a lot time in hospital where" a constant stream of television images was part of the life support"  asks  how does a  film "get quite as bad as Donovan’s Reef  (FILM4), expressses great admiration for the "strangely wonderful" Anna and the King (Film4) - "I never saw a movie that was more beautiful from frame to frame in my life"-  and reports that "of made-for-television things that I saw the whole of, Billy Connolly’s Route 66 (ITV1) was by miles the best"
 

Billy Connolly aboard his 'powerfully motorised tricycle' on his ITV1 travelogue series, Billy Connolly's Route 66. Photo: ITV/Mark Atkinson

 
Quote:
 

A two-part “journey” number in the standard format by which the narrator follows a trail laid out for him by an advance research party, this was rich proof that old formats never die, they just wait patiently for exponents worthy of them. Billy is worthy. It’s not just that I love him, although anybody who has ever spent half an hour with him does. It’s that I admire the wealth of knowledge and appreciative taste he puts into his reactions, as if he were trying to communicate the exuberance of the whole of life along with the muted buzz of a single researched factoid, which might be something as dumb as a giant rocking chair…………….
 

 
Kevin Cryan
 
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Re: Clive James, television critic
« Reply #39: 30.09.11 at 16:56 »
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If you didn't catch last night's Billy Connolly's Route 66, check it out on BBC i-Player.
The scenes filmed at the rodeo of the 5-year olds riding sheep are absolutely hilarious.
Only in America........
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