A rather Bland blog

The Essentialist of…Documentaries on NETFLIX #essentialist

With online streaming services now offering huge catalogues of online content, deciding what to watch can be a bit of a lottery. So I’ll do it for you – here’s my selection of some of the great TV and film you may have missed.

For this #essentialist I am going to make a few suggestions of great documentaries that are currently available to watch on Netflix.

Chuck Norris vs. Communism (2015)

The Essentalist of...Documentaries on Netflix #essentialist

With online streaming services now offering huge catalogues of online content, deciding what to watch can be a bit of a lottery. So I’ll do it for you – here’s my selection of some of the great TV and film you may have missed.

For this #essentialist I am going to make a few suggestions of great documentaries that are currently available to watch on Netflix.

Chuck Norris vs. Communism (2015)

Will tele-video kill the cinema’s star?

Over the last decade we have witnessed a major shift of talent, focus and finances moving away from the cinema and towards television. This initially gradual change, from around the point HBO launched The Sopranos, has since seen this exodus of actors, writers and money from big-screen movies to television series steadily become a landslide.

There appears to be no end in sight to the influx of…

Will tele-video kill the cinema’s star?

Over the last decade we have witnessed a major shift of talent, focus and finances moving away from the cinema and towards television. This initially gradual change, from around the point HBO launched The Sopranos, has since seen this exodus of actors, writers and money from big-screen movies to television series steadily become a landslide. There appears to be no end in sight to the influx of…

Tim Farron, the opportunist voter sponge for the disgruntled 48%

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader and Centrist anti-Brexit sponge is doing everything he can to suck up votes since Brexit. His political opportunism, playing to the fears of the 48%, is pretty shameless, as he continues to sell his desperate Centrist position to anyone who will listen, such as the establishment shill that is The Huffington Post.

Corbyn and Labour may be pretty unpopular but there…

Tim Farron, the opportunist voter sponge for the disgruntled 48%

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader and Centrist anti-Brexit sponge is doing everything he can to suck up votes since Brexit. His political opportunism, playing to the fears of the 48%, is pretty shameless, as he continues to sell his desperate Centrist position to anyone who will listen, such as the establishment shill that is The Huffington Post.

Corbyn and Labour may be pretty unpopular but there…

Till all are one – How in 1986 Transformers The Movie murdered my friends, and it was brilliant. To my fellow victims; ‘bah weep grannagh wheep ninibong’

The 1986 movie of Transformers: The Movie didn’t just bring my favourite transforming toys to the big screen, it transformed me as well. While the television series had breathed life into all of those characters, the film killed most of them off. And I loved it.

This week saw the thirtieth anniversary of the animated film Transformers: The Movie. Following two seasons of a popular children’s…

Till all are one – How in 1986 Transformers The Movie murdered my friends, and it was brilliant. To my fellow victims; ‘bah weep grannagh wheep ninibong’

The 1986 movie of Transformers: The Movie didn’t just bring my favourite transforming toys to the big screen, it transformed me as well. While the television series had breathed life into all of those characters, the film killed most of them off. And I loved it.

This week saw the thirtieth anniversary of the animated film Transformers: The Movie. Following two seasons of a popular children’s…

The lights change and I scurry across the road, tucking in my scarf where the wind is getting through. It’s chilly for April, and I hunker against the cold as I walk. Looking up, I can see a group of four youths by the bus stop, two boys and two girls. I don’t like the term ‘youths’, it sounds like the words should be dripping from the scowling face of an aged, middle England Daily Mail reader.…

Here’s my Halloween horror filmathon time, which I intend to watch over this despicable season…

Evil Dead 2

For me, the king of all horror-comedy and my personal favourite horror film. It does look a little rough around the edges these days, and the claymation bit especially looks as dated as Ray Harryhausen’s classics (which I also love), but the affect of the film is not. Bruce Campbell plays…

Originally posted on the 19th December 1013.

Peter O’Toole’s portrayal of TE Lawrence in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 is undeniably his most celebrated role and would immortalise him in film history. However, he did not receive an Oscar for his performance. In fact, across his career he would receive an Oscar nomination a further seven occasions, without once winning.

Outside of his…

‘Well, that doesn’t explain… why you’ve come all the way out here… all the way out here to hell.’ ‘l… uh… I have a job out in the town of Machine.’ ‘Machine?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘That’s the end of the line!’ ‘Is it?’ ‘Yes!’

As the train makes its way across the American frontier toward the edge of civilisation, the driver portentously warns Johnny Depp’s character, William Blake what he might expect.

‘You’re…

‘Why d’you talk like that?’

It’s an odd thing to be asked, but it wasn’t the first time, so I replied, shouting a little over the pub’s music.

‘That’s just the way I speak.’

His eyes screw up like I’m being deliberately difficult.

‘Nah, why’d you have to use all those long words? It makes you sound stupid.’

For the record, I actually sounded fairly coherent. I was commenting on a Pavlovian…

With the recent popular political rise of Nigel Farage’s UKIP, there has been a frantic scurrying by politicians of all the political parties to adapt their stance and language. This is an attempt to capture the allegiance of those seemingly disenfranchised sections of society that put an unprecedented number of UKIP representatives into the European Parliament. With a glut of similarly…