Now, normally, I don’t really watch much television. But every so often, something comes on which is really good and I really enjoy. Frequently, these seem to be HBO programs - you have to give it to the americans, they really know how to make good TV. In fact, they make British TV seem rather feeble. Like, for instance, The Sopranos. I LOVE The Sopranos and will be gutted when they finish the (supposedly) final series. It is one of the best things that has ever been on TV - Tony’s dream sequences alone are truly amazing and so lifelike. Anyway, I am getting off the point a bit here. My mate, Rob, put me onto this HBO release (joint with the BBC, natch) called ROME. Now, I had never heard of it and didn’t hold out much hope for it but thought I would download it anyway. Er, I mean, watch a rerun of it on one of the cable channels. I was hooked form the first episode!
Now, I know it isn’t perfect - it follows a lot of the true history quite closely but when it gets to the detail completely bastardises it. However, I can forgive it for this as it isn’t some dusty old historical documentry. And, a worse criticism, they don’t show the huge battle scenes, which is a shame. Having said that, when you see the vast scale fo the sets and the attention to detail and combine it with the fact that it allegedly cost $100 million so far(!) I can understand why they weren’t keen to spend another $40 million on the battles. Anyway, don’t let that put you off! It has gripping story lines, political intrigue and double-crossing and plenty of sex, swearing and extreme violence in it. It makes me chuckle as you watch the Roman thugs talking about getting a ‘taste’ of one illicit business or another - you just know that Tony Sopranos genes are floating around in there somewhere.
The word on the street is that series 2 is going to be the last, which I am gutted about. So get it and enjoy it while you can!
My rating - 8.5/10
Imagine, if you can, a dirty plate that has been sitting in a students sink, unwashed, for 5 weeks. Then, imagine scraping up the piles of sick left on the pavements of a saturday night in Brighton town centre. Tenderly place this mish-mash of rancid kebab vomit and curdled baileys/alcopop onto said damp, mouldering plate. Now, for the crowning glory - remember seeing that birds egg which fell out of its nest onto the back lawn? You know, the one that broke open to reveal a faintly fishy-smelling white, watery, hairless baby bird with big, watery blue eyes and featherless arms, slick with slimy albumen, that weakly beat as the blind eyes looked up to you and it tried to twitter but could only emit a vaguely disturbing ‘craaaaawwwwwk….’? Well, pop that on top of the pile of sick and then you have it. Just about the most revolting thing I can come up with on a wednesday morning.
“We are the angry mob, We read the papers everyday day; We like who like, we hate who we hate but we’re also easily swayed” So say the Kaiser Chiefs in their new album ‘Yours Truly, angry mob’. This has to be one of the most anticipated second albums since… well, perhaps since ‘What’s the story, morning glory?’ such is the depth of their appeal to the masses. How I used to chuckle to see drunken teenage Brighton chavs singing “It’s not very pretty I tell thee…” as they stagger up West Street on a saturday night. I am sure that Ricky and the boys would see the irony in the fact that the target of their ire enjoy their tunes as much as the next man (or woman). Employment, as a debut album, had a handful of truly brilliant tracks on it ( I predict a riot, oh my God etc etc), intermixed with some filler (Born to be a dancer, team mate). I could see that they could pen a good tune but had to wonder to myself as they re-re-released ‘Oh my God’ again; ‘Hmn. I hope these boys have got a few more good albums in them and that the filler on Employment does not indicate the fact that they have run out of ideas’. Well, having played the new album about 15 times now I can honestly say it is really really… all right. It’s not bad. It’s okay. The stand out tracks are… um, well, ‘Ruby’ I suppose. ‘Angry Mob ‘ too possibly. Don’t get me wrong - I like the album, it’s perfectly innofensive and I can happily play it whilst I drive along the M25 tapping a finger absently on the steering wheel. But it didn’t give me an immediate shock-up-the-arse like Employment did (filler not included) or, say, ‘Capture/Release’ by the Rakes; and it isn’t growing on me like some huge, unstopppable brobdingnagian hulk like, say, ‘Mezzanine’ by Massive Attack. Perhaps this is because it doesn’t have quite so much of the arm-pumping, chanting and bouncing around style to it that employmemnt had. I have to say at times it even sounds a bit like a college band who won ‘Battle of the bands’ (Boxing Champ).