Foyle's War, The Man in the Iron Mask, & Elizabethtown

Foyle's War is an ITV series about a Detective Chief Superintendent who lives in Hastings during WWII. It's quite good, but certainly just a good detective series. Nothing special or groundbreaking. Does certainly remind me that Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery exists. Which is very nice. Good stuff. Quite a lot of good British TV on that. And I am looking forward to more of that. Starting with Bleak House, and the next season of Foyle's War starting sometime next month. It's interesting from the standpoint of a bunch of well-done detective stories set in a very interesting historical time period. Especially the bits with the fascists and communists. When I started an episode in the third season, I forgot just how much the commies were hated before the Nazis invaded. I just like it.

The Man in the Iron Mask is crap. Really, with that cast, just no. Leo, Jeremy Irons, Malkovich, Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, Anne Parillaud, Hugh Laurie, Peter Sarsgaard, and Judith Godreche all look very good, and occasionally act well, but the direction and script were blargh in the extreme. Randall Wallace just gives Duke another embarrassing celebrity. Jesus, it is really full of people who were really, really annoying, and went on to be more so. I'm not entirely excluding myself from that, although I probably was not very annoying to start out with. I wanted something a lot better. Isn't coming from Wallace though. I've met him, and he really didn't impress me. Although I was interested enough to watch the film around five years later. The best thing about that evening was meeting Marc "Riley" Blucas, and the two very tall blonde women with him. Seriously, he was the typical movie star. Speaking of which, I refuse to watch any more of Entourage. I haven't enjoyed it in a long time, if ever, and I don't really like anything about it. And The Tudors also got taken off my DVR. Not as good as Rome, and when the only thing to recommend it is female nudity, that isn't a good sign for your show.

Elizabethtown was over two hours long, and most of it wasn't particularly good, and it was completely ridiculous, and, of course, fits well with the film's theme of a fiasco. Crowe is still worth checking out, but he hasn't made a particularly good film in seven years. What the hell, Crowe? You've written great films and made them before. Is it Tom Cruise? Does he control you? If so, check yes []. There were just so many things that didn't work in the film, and it appears to me to be that it's almost entirely Crowe's fault. And that scrapbook and mix cds, really? That is how someone decides to spend their time? What the hell?