Grey's Anatomy (Season 1) (2006)

If the sleeve notes on Grey's Anatomy - The Complete First Series are to be believed, The Daily Telegraph thinks this new hospital drama series is "better than ER ever was".

Errm, sorry to disagree, but NO!

ER was original and often unpredictable. Grey's Anatomy is neither of those things.

What the series DOES have going for it is this: a central core of strong characters, around which the all-too-familiar stories can be told; a gentle sense of humour that will appeal to fans of the superior The Gilmore Girls; and high production values that put most British drama series to shame.

Earlier this week Grey's Anatomy was nominated for an Emmy (or maybe even a couple - I'm too lazy and disinterested to go check!) In a year that didn't see the similarly medically-themed House nominated, this seems an odd lapse of judgement on the part of those responsible for deciding such things.

The series is full of the usual 'pretty' leads. The 'Grey' of the title is Meredith, who's single and slutty, and sleeps with her boss, the over-worked but somehow still buffed-up, Doctor Shepherd, the night before she starts work (before she realises he is her boss). Her fellow interns comprise stock characters guaranteed to be useful for future storylines. There's the hard-working ethnic girl who seems harsh on the surface but is kind-hearted underneath. There's the pretty but stupid jock character who everyone dislikes, but turns out to have come from an abusive home and been misunderstood. There's the stunningly attractive underwear model who we're expected to believe is actually 'trailer trash' forced to do those underwear 'glamour' ads to get money to pay her way through medical school. There's the 'nerd' guy with the heart of gold who hangs out with the women all the time and just wants the lead character to fall in love with him. There's.... well you get the picture! True-to-life this isn't, true-to-previous-cliches it is!

What disappoints most about each episode of this 'Ally McBeal meets ER' soap is that the writing never goes anywhere unexpected. It's as if the whole series was put together by a computer programme. Even the direction, whilst conforming to the functional, if predictable style of most 'prime time' US TV shows, comes across as tired and cliched. Just how many TV series do we need to see where each episode's act is book-ended by helicopter shots of the city at night? Why do shows HAVE to have a common theme for each episode so that eg where one character has a 'break up' with their partner, every other character has a break up of some sort (only to be miraculously reunited at the end) at the same time too? This is 'safe' programming of the worst not-true-to-life-at-all kind.

In the appallingly sparse 'Extras' the writers and producers talk about their big 'shock' reveal half way into the 14-episode 45-minute run, a reveal so 'surprising' I'd seen it coming in the very first episode. The season finale 'cliffhanger' is equally predictable and couldn't have been more clearly sign-posted if the opening credits each week had stated 'Someone has to choose between two people they're equally in love with - and can't'. This has all been done so many times before, and while the same old soap storylines are executed well here - does anybody REALLY need 14 more hours of what they've already seen countless times over? Grey's Anatomy is an easy watch, a way to unwind after a bad day at the office, and relatively enjoyable if you want to disengage the brain for 45 minutes at a time. But it's nothing more, and with a cast this strong, and production values this high, it all feels like a wasted opportunity.

Unlike House, which was massacred in its Region 2 DVD 4:3 'square' format release, Grey's Anatomy is at least presented in its originally transmitted widescreen format, with a clean anamorphic transfer. There's thankfully none of the murky, 'barely better than VHS' NTSC darkness and lack of contrast that other American shows like The West Wing have shown on DVD release. The price is reasonable too, although the packaging is poor - three DVD disks crammed onto a single spindle and of course not so much as an episode index. The menu's are particularly irritating with no more than two or three items ever appearing on a single menu screen so that you spend forever trying to navigate the few deleted scenes or episodes there are. A very short 'Making of' featurette is mainly an excuse to reshow clips from the series with just a few sound bites from the cast and crew, and an advertised 'Anatomy of a Pilot' appears to be just rough cut highlights of the aired episode spliced together without any introduction or commentary. Any modern 'prime time' TV series knows it's going to be eventually released on DVD and the makers should have been able to give us a lot more than they've given us here.

If you're an avid viewer of the likes of ER, Holby City or Casualty and missed this when it aired on cable, this is definitely worth checking out as a rental. For the rest of us, it's more a case of 'Nothing (new) to see here. Move along please'.

Battlestar Galactica (Season 2) (2006)

Excellent, as opposed to just plain good, films or TV series, are rather like the London 87 bus: you get nothing for a great long stretch of time and then all of a sudden a bunch show up all at once.

This week has seen the superb '9 out of 10' Crash and Odd Man Out released, but if I were only allowed a single 'must have' on DVD it would have to be this - the full second series (twenty 45-60 minute episodes), of Battlestar Galactica. And selling at a bargain price too!

I must admit I came to the series late. A remake of some third-rate 70's TV version of Star Wars didn't initially appeal, what with all those images of Lorne Greene and THAT hair from the original series. But buzz and continual critical acclaim (and a co-worker who forced the initial mini-series on me) forced me to investigate, and it became very clear, very quickly that this was a series with 'quality' stamped all over it. If you know and like The West Wing, Nip/Tuck, Lost, The Sopranos or any other of those Emmy award-winning drama series - well here's another one to add to the list.

For me there are strong reminders of Farscape in the series - a uniformly excellent cast, exceptional writing talent, an edgy shooting style, and a refusal to bow to the demands of syndication by actually have an ongoing series that assumes you've been following all along instead of never having anything change week-in, week-out. Of course this 'ongoing' story arc can prove problematic, as the cancellation of Farscape proved, but fingers crossed, not yet! Alas, the show also shares the invented 'four letter word beginning with f' that Farscape introduced to appear more adult - here it's 'frack' instead of 'frell' - but I guess a series has to have some irritations to survive. And it's not just a Farscape knockoff - unlike Doctor Who which had the temerity to steal not only the whole of the Farscape ship interior for the 'new' TARDIS interior, but even stole the show's logo too - there is genuine originality here too. If you haven't caught the show then you're missing out on one of the best drama shows being made today. Notice I say 'drama' and not 'sci fi', because the truth is that Battlestar Galactica simply uses the medium of sci-fi to tell its stories, rather than becoming enslaved to the genre the way so many ongoing sci fi series of the past have done with the law of ever-decreasing returns becoming very obvious very quickly.

Amazingly the series has ramped up more episodes each season, without quality suffering. Season 2, the longest season yet, maintains the quality throughout, and when even the weakest 'filler' episodes can outshine the best of recent Star Trek series like Voyager and Enterprise you know the show's got a lot going for it. Season 1 played it for shocks a lot of the time - the old 'you think you know what's coming next but we're going to totally mess with you' trick - and yet managed to stay fresh. Season 2 is more of the same, and yet one never feels one is being given a gimmick, or being stalled in answering the main questions the way one is with shows like Lost which start with a strong series, and then totally lose the plot in the second and third years. Battlestar Galactica's second year (its third if you count the mini-series - which we should) is, if anything, even better than its predecessors.

What I really like about the show is the way it is happy to introduce sensational new characters - as this season does midway through, with the introduction of a female captain of a new battleship, the Pegasus - only to have them written out immediately their immediate purpose to the plot is served. Weaker shows would have such strong characters appearing week-in, week-out until they become former shadows of themselves. And what other series would take risks the way Battlestar Galactica does with its story lines? Can you imagine any other show suddenly jumping forward a year in time half way through its season finale? Touch wood, the risks all seem to pay off, and long may they continue to do so.

The special effects on the show, given its limited budget, are nothing short of astounding, and the tone throughout is gritty, dirty and realistic. When the robotic cylons show up they look amazing - there's no cheap 'it doesn't quite come off' CGI work here, the way there is with each and every episode of Doctor Who. There is a lack of humour, which some have criticised the series for, but if the alternative is endless 'farting aliens', 'chav' and 'ipod' jokes at the expense of suspense and belief, then I'm all for the 'joylessness' of it all. The series' real strength is the way it provides political and social comment on current events, through its portrayal of an alternative society. There's comment on 9/11, Bush's Miami elections and the US/Iraq situation sprinkled liberally and intelligently through this second season. The downside is that this, unlike Trek and Who, is not a show for kids - it's far too adult for that.

The DVD is excellent value, but suffers from comparison with its Region 1 counterpart (which was split into two half seasons). The States get the originally 'truncated to fit the schedules' episode of the mid-season finale and an extended 'what we wanted to show' version too. We get just the extended version. That's not too disappointing, but the 'bonus disk of extras' is. The 'bonus disk' only features deleted scenes from the first half of the season, with nothing from the second ten episodes. The same is true of the commentaries - we get most of those that were made available on the US 'first half of season 2' release, but nothing from the second half (which is released in the States in a week or two). These are available separately for download over the internet, but there is plenty of room here to have included them on the disks, and invariably the hard core fans are ignoring the inferior Region 2 release, and going for the Region 1 release instead.

If you haven't caught up with this show, which isn't shown on terrestrial TV in Britain, then you owe it to yourself to catch it on DVD, but start with the mini-series, which is still available. If you start with this season, or even the first one, you may be confused as you're effectively starting the main story part-way in.

Too many well-written shows get sacrificed on the high altar of 'insufficient advertising revenue and viewing figures in the States'. Touch wood, Battlestar Galactica has not yet succumbed to that fate, although it is still a cult show, particularly in Europe where it's only available on cable and DVD. Do yourself a favour and check the series out - there's a reason why so many fans have found themselves staying up all night transfixed for 'just one more episode before I go to bed'. If you check the series out from the beginning, you won't be disappointed - that's a promise!

Crash (2004)

Given its 'surprise' oscar win for 'Best Film' at the Academy Awards earlier this year, it's perhaps to be expected that Pathe should decide to 'double-dip' with this new '2 disk Ultimate Director's Edition' DVD release, such a short time after the original DVD was released. The good news for those who bought the original DVD is that there's little new been added to justify the 'Ultimate' tag and hence no reason to spend more money on something already purchased. And for those who didn't get the original DVD release of this excellent film there's now a choice: the original can still be purchased for about £6 less than this new 'ultimate' edition, representing excellent value for money.

The basic plot of Crash has been well publicised by now. Nine separate stories challenging our perceptions of racial prejudice are cleverly woven together to make for a 'story' that leads the viewer down one blind alley after another, to the point that even when you're sat ready and waiting for the next twist and think you have things figured out, the co-writer/director Paul Haggis will take you in a different direction from the one you're expecting. This is the sort of 'food for the brain' that has provided, and will continue to provide, long water-cooler discussions all around the world. It's a film designed to stimulate debate and have you thinking about its message for days after you've seen it. That can only be a good thing!

The stellar cast, which includes Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle (also functioning as producer), Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Thandie Newton and Ryan Phillippe are not the main attraction here - it's the writing and Los Angeles itself that are the real stars of the movie. It's not hard to see why the clever marketing campaign undertaken by its makers, who sent the DVD to all the American Academy voters who would otherwise have not seen it, helped the film 'steal' the 'Best Film' award from the more critically favoured, and arguably more controversial, Brokeback Mountain.

It's interesting to see that the critical ratings (as evidenced by rottentomatoes.com) seem to be lower than those from the general public (as evidenced by imdb.com), and this discrepancy is probably best explained by the fact that this doesn't really feel like a 'film' as such. It feels more like a superior TV drama mini-series that's been edited down into a 'made for TV film', a fact confirmed by the revelation on the extra's that it only became a film when HBO deemed it too controversial to be made as a regular series!

The film seems to have as many detractors as admirers, with many dismissing it as too gimmicky by half. Certainly the film feels a little too clever for its own good at times - the lines delivered and the contrived circumstances that bring some of the stories together are just a little TOO perfect to reflect real life. For this viewer, there are times when the film feels a little smug and self-satisfied, an impression not contradicted by the director's commentary and extra's that accompany this release. But none of that should distract from the important message about prejudice that this film so intelligently conveys, or the portrayal of its main character Los Angeles, that has seldom been better portrayed on film.

The DVD itself doesn't live up to the 'ultimate' hype. The Directors Introduction is the same 10-second 'Hi. I hope you like the film' snippet featured on the original 'vanilla' release. The 'Director's Cut' of the film itself allegedly adds an extra four minutes to the original 103 minute running time, but you'd have to be a real anorak who's overly familiar with the original theatrical release to notice the additions (I didn't!) The commentary, repeated from the original release and featuring the writer/director and Don Cheadle, was made before the oscar win and is too self-congratulatory and reverential to hold much real interest. There are some new short marketing-oriented featurettes, but they constitute little real meat and don't add any real insight to the film, comprising for the most part endless gushing from assorted cast and crew members.

If you haven't seen Crash yet, you have no excuse with this DVD (or its cheaper earlier version) being so readily available. Whilst there's some debate over whether the film really deserved the Award for 'Best Film', there's no doubt it's one of the best films released over the last year or so and worth 107 minutes of anybody's time. Highly recommended.

Odd Man Out (1947)

One of the reviewers over at The Internet Movie Database describes Odd Man Out, released to stores in a digitally restored 'special edition' tomorrow, as 'one of the most beautifully directed and photographed films I've ever seen'. I'd add 'scripted' and 'acted' to that list, and it's disappointing that Jurgen Muller's Best Movies of the 40s (which, until now, I've been using as my guide to old movies I should make an effort to see) doesn't include it in its best of 1947. Odd Man Out is an absolute gem of a film that stands up well today, and is definitely a highlight of not just the year it was released, but that whole 'film noir' decade as a whole.

On the surface the plot wouldn't seem to have a lot going for it: James Mason plays the idealistic leader of an 'illegal group' in Ireland, who in the opening scenes gets involved in a robbery where he accidentally kills a man and is himself shot. The film charters his journey as friends, enemies and the police try and close in on the seriously wounded man. While this might appear to be a film about Mason's character, Johnny, it's really an excuse to show us the lives and behaviours of all the different characters he encounters, shown through their reactions to his plight. It's full of wonderful comedic characters and performances, with a raft of mainly unknown Irish actors in cameo roles. As a Doctor Who fan of the William Hartnell era it was a real treat to catch the actor's engaging performance as a much younger man here, where his infamous 'hand manipluations' to ensure the viewer's eye is drawn to his face in close-ups when playing the Doctor are just as much in evidence in a bar scene. This is a scene where an older, slightly mad vagrant who's already been built up in the story was in danger of stealing the scene, and Hartnell was clearly having none of it!

The script cleverly defuses the IRA (who are never named) politics by showing Johnny as someone who, although the leader of his cell, is in serious doubt about the way his organisation is going. Before the crime is committed he is accused of having gone soft, and expresses disapproval that an accomplice is carrying a gun, advising him to make sure he doesn't use it. Later on the lead British policeman trying to hunt him down is shown as a man of equal integrity, honour and sympathy towards his fellow man: those hoping for propaganda for this cause or that cause are likely to be disappointed. Odd Man Out is not a film about Northern Ireland politics, but a film about the wonderfully diverse people of Ireland - and it works beautifully as such, moving from one fantastic cameo character scene to the next, each perfectly pitched and perfectly placed to tell a little story in its own right, while heightening the overall suspense and tension.

The lighting and 'film noir' cinematography are beautiful, and shown to their best advantage in this digitally restored print which is never less than stunning. The dialogue never seems stilted or dated, and one finds oneself wishing a tiny proportion of today's Hollywood's output were as intelligently written and directed as this.

The extra's are equally fascinating, if for all the wrong reasons. Readers of my Lord of the Rings weblogs will have sensed my incredulity at the behaviour of fans and 'amateur' journalists and film-makers when following the progress of the cast and crew of that movie franchise at various events - it's a cattle market of inanity, naivety and stupidity and for the cast and crew clearly not the glamorous exercise most would like to believe. But the scenes I personally witnessed are as nothing compared to the complete incompetence revealed in the 1972 interview with James Mason featured as an extra on this DVD. The interview is presented as 'unedited rushes', and what a fascinating story they have to tell. Every time Mason starts to give an interesting, brutally honest insight into his perceptions of Hollywood, or tries to discuss details of his experiences with Preston Sturgess he will be interrupted and stopped by a seemingly totally incompetent lighting/sound man, only to then have the interviewer move onto a completely different question as if the anecdote that had been about to be delivered couldn't possibly be of any interest. As such the rushes serve as a fascinating, if incredibly frustrating, insight into just how incompetent even the 'professional' programme makers can be. The snatched glimpses of Mason's face as these debacles ensue, alternating between bemused incredulity and simmering fury, are a joy to behold and lesser men would have got up and walked out (I know I would!). Allegedly filmed for a TV programme called 'All our Yesterdays', one suspects that if a programme of that title ever got screened it will have featured nothing from Mason, despite the intriguing insights he was apparently ready and willing to give!

The only other extra on the DVD itself is an hour long TV documentary from 1972 where James Mason revisits his home town of Huddersfield. It's a fun piece, if of no direct relevance to the film itself, and demonstrates just how much Michael Kitchen (best known away from his constant TV narration duties, as the detective Foyle in the series Foyle's War) has 'borrowed' from Mason - the two are audible dead-ringers for each other. Essentialy this is a documentary about the old vs the new. An anecdote about the 'scandal' of workers being paid to play cards really struck home, having had a very similar conversation with one of those card players/car workers at Ford Motor Company just a few months ago. Some things never really change!

The 'Special Edition' packaging for the DVD is rounded off with an excellent essay giving solid background information about the film, its director and cast, and is illustrated with movie stills in 20-page booklet form. It just shows how much most of the 'Piracy is killing us' film companies are ripping us off with giving not so much as a chapter index leaflet, when a DVD like this can retail online for a price of just £10.89. At that price this DVD is a complete steal. Highly recommended!

The Black Swan (1942)

Thanks to Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom,
pirates are fashionable in the movies again, but to see real class in the pirate genre you need to go back to 1942's oscar-nominated The Black Swan, released on DVD for the first time this Monday.

Tyrone Power plays the rumbunctuous, hot-tempered, over-drinking pirate James Waring, who suddenly finds himself having to act respectably when his fellow pirate , Henry Morgan, is given a pardon from the king. Morgan is made governer of Jamaica and tasked with ridding the Caribbean of buccaneers and Waring suddenly finds himself having to live in an altogether different society. Margaret Denby (Maureen O'Hara is the stunningly beautiful love interest, although she spends most of the film repulsed by Waring and his uncouth behaviour. When Waring and Denby first meet she is knocked out cold by the pirate, who regards her as one of his spoils, and if you're looking for political correctness, at least in the first half hour, then this film is not for you!

It's staggering to see what was achievable on film more than 60 years ago, and the film has dated only in its rather pedestrian story (which, it must be said, seems to be a lot longer than the 81 minute running time would suggest) and the over-use of back-projections. Most of the film was shot in the studio, with the battle scenes involving a lot of model work, and unfortunately the transfer here is so crisp this probably shows more than it would have done to the original cinema-going audiences.

That being said, The Black Swan opens with an action set-piece battle that wouldn't look out of place in one of today's movies. Even more impressive is a closing sword fight sequence between Tyrone Powers' character and the big baddie of the piece, played by George Sanders. This sword fight sequence shows just how feeble so many of today's modern reproductions of such scenes are: contrast it with any sword fight from Pirates of the Caribbean and marvel at how much better and dangerous looking the one staged back in the early 1940's was!

Maureen O' Hara originally received some criticism for 'just looking pretty, which is OK because that's all she needs to do', which strikes me as somewhat unfair. Yes, she is stunningly beautiful - and this amazing restoration of the original saturated Technicolor shows that to full effect - but she's also more than able to stand her ground in the scenes where she appears with her co-star, Tyrone Powers, who has surely never been in better form than he is here. Spending most of the movie stripped naked to the waist, and with boyish looks and charm, it's not hard to see why women flocked to the cinema to see him in this movie.

I should point out that my ratings above are based on current entertainment value, and unfairly compare the film with modern contemporaries. Back in 1942, when the film was originally released, I'm sure it would have received an 8 or even a 9 rating, and the Academy Award it won for Best Cinematorgraphy was undoubtedly well deserved.

Ordinarily the DVD would receive a high rating just for the transfer, which is superb, but the lack of any extra's at all when clearly some were available (the Region 1 release earlier this year had a commentary track) mark it down - there comes a point where the continual ripping off of Region 2 purchasers when it comes to missing out extra's is inexcusable.

That being said, if you're a fan of movie history, and want your own copy of this classic it will be very hard to resist, and in its defence the price is more than reasonable for the DVD debut of an oscar-winning film.