A Week in Netflix - W/C 25th May

Film

Heathers

A late 80's comedy starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater; a film for which I wasn't aware of until listening to a couple of my favourite podcasts where this film was being brought up of a 'classic' of its era, so obviously when I came across it on Netflix it was added to my 'Watch List'. And earlier this week I sat down to see what all the fuss was about, unfortunately even going into the film being aware that this wasn't your typical 80's high school teen, coming of age comedy in the vein of the films of John Hughes; the film itself still felt rather jarring and confused as to what it was actually trying to achieve - I get the feeling that the director was attempting to take that John Hughes template and incorporate a dark comedic angle that was awkwardly funny, yet disturbing. But in my opinion Heathers just doesn't manage to gel these two angles together effectively, it has some funny moments and quotable lines - that I won't argue, but viewed as an entire entity the film just fell rather flat; surprisingly Winona Ryder is rather charming in the lead role and a character I did end up caring for, but Christian Slater even back then was still pretty horribly forceful that just doesn't come off well on screen and his appearance here does kind of cheapen the feel of the entire film. Sad to say that this isn't going into my vault of classic American comedies from the 80's, instead this will be shelved on the bizarre yet interesting category that swings and misses the ball. Its a miss but a near miss.

4/10

Anime

Psycho-Pass (Episodes 13-18)

Happy to report that it seems that in the main body of this series storyline that the show has found some really rhythm building up towards the season finale. Intrigue levels have been ramped up in the last few episodes though it's clear to see that the show is going to have a feeling of containing multiple endings; now that's not something that is clean cut in the sense of either good or bad, I won't know or be able to judge until I've seen the whole storyline play out at this point; but I've certainly grown more attached to the main characters of the show an feel that the world building within this anime is really pushing forward; it's been compelling stuff and going into the last few episodes - my question is "can the show stick the ending?" The jury is still out, but even at this point, I'm confident enough to recommend this show to fans of Anime - though maybe not to those looking to take their first steps into the world of Japanese animation.

TV

Daredevil (Episodes 3-6)

After watching the first two episodes I said that this show wasn't shy on holding back on the violence; and boy has it continued down that approach to handling the violence within the realms on organised crime of Hell's Kitchen and our masked vigilante as he tries to uncover the 'Man' behind the curtain, who seems to be singlehandedly ripping the soul out of his city. It's dark and gripping and handled in a very adult manner that doesn't treat us like idiots or fall into the lighthearted feeling of the majority of Marvel's other media lines to hit both the big and small screens. All in all, I have to say that I'm loving this show, it's more adult and has more substance than the likes of Arrow, The Flash and Gotham; and while I do love all of those shows, Daredevil just feels like it's a cut above them and setting the new standard for which future Comic Book orientated shows should really be aiming for. There's been one moment of weakest, that unfortunately creeps into Matt Murdock's love interest within the show, but its over in a flash and back to being - dark, gritty and compelling. Outside of Game of Thrones, this is arguably the show that I most look forward to catching up with and if that's not high praise or a strong recommendation for this show, then I don't know what is.