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Tuesday, 13 May 2014

Fall TV lineup: renewals and cancellations

CBS announced it will renew "The Mentalist" for next season.
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CBS announced it will renew "The Mentalist" for next season.

Some of the most watched series on US TV, including "NCIS," "Game of Thrones," "The Walking Dead," "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Big Bang Theory," have already secured their place in the 2014-2015 TV lineup. Between freshman series and old standbys, here is a recap of which shows have been picked up for another run and which are bidding farewell to viewers.
Renewed for the 2014-2015 season
ABC 
Grey's Anatomy, Season 11
Castle, Season 7
Modern Family, Season 6
The Middle, Season 6
Scandal, Season 4
Revenge, Season 4
Once Upon a Time, Season 4
Revenge, Season 4
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Season 2
The Goldbergs, Season 2
CBS
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Season 15
NCIS, Season 12
Two and a Half Men, Season 12
Criminal Minds, Season 10
The Big Bang Theory, Seasons 8, 9 & 10
NCIS: Los Angeles, Season 6
The Good Wife, Season 6
Hawaii 5-0, Season 5
Blue Bloods, Season 5
Mike & Molly, Season 5
Person of Interest, Season 4
2 Broke Girls, Season 4
Elementary, Season 3
Mom, Season 2
The Millers, Season 2
The Mentalist, Season 7
CW 
Supernatural, Season 10
Vampire Diaries, Season 6
Hart of Dixie, Season 4
Arrow, Season 3
Beauty & the Beast, Season 3
The Originals, Season 2
Reign, Season 2
The 100, Season 2
FOX 
The Simpsons, Season 26
Family Guy, Season 13
Glee, Season 6
Bob's Burgers, Season 5
New Girl, Season 4
The Following, Season 3
The Mindy Project, Season 3
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 2
Sleepy Hollow, Season 2
NBC 
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Season 16
Bones, Season 10
Parks & Recreation, Season 7
Grimm, Season 4
Chicago Fire, Season 3
The Blacklist, Season 2
Chicago PD, Season 2
Cable networks and Netflix
South Park, Season 18
Nurse Jackie, Season 7
The Walking Dead, Season 5
Game of Thrones, Seasons 5 & 6
Boardwalk Empire, Season 5
Rizzoli & Isles, Season 5
Shameless, Season 5
American Horror Story, Season 4
Homeland, Season 4
Girls, Season 4
Veep, Season 4
Franklin & Bash, Season 4
Hell on Wheels, Season 4
Episodes, Season 4
Web Therapy, Season 4
House of Lies, Season 4
House of Cards, Season 3
Perception, Season 3
Banshee, Season 3
Vikings, Season 3
Bates Motel, Season 3
The Americans, Season 3
Masters of Sex, Season 2
Ray Donovan, Season 2
Getting On, Season 2
From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, Season 2
Looking, Season 2
Helix, Season 2
Silicon Valley, Season 2
Scheduled to end after this season
How I Met Your Mother, Season 9
Californication, Season 7
True Blood, Season 7
Nikita, Season 4
Canceled
ABC
Lucky 7, cancelled after one season
Trophy Wife, one season
Back in the Game, one season
Mixology, one season
Super Fun Night, one season
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, one season
The Neighbors, two seasons
CBS
We are Men, one season
Hostages, one season
CW
The Carrie Diaries, two seasons
The Tomorrow People, one season
Star-Crossed, one season
FOX
Almost Human, one season
Enlisted, one season
Dads, one season
Surviving Jack, one season
Murder Police, one season
Raising Hope, four seasons
NBC
Ironside, one season
Sean Saves the World, one season
Welcome to the Family, one season
The Michael J.Fox Show, one season
Posted on 05:59
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Friday, 2 May 2014

Critics Consensus: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Weaves a Tangled Web

This week at the movies, we've got only one wide release: the hotly-anticipated The Amazing Spider-Man 2, starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Jamie Foxx. What do the critics have to say?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

55%
Superhero sequels are rarely exercises in restraint, so it comes as little surprise that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 attempts to be bigger and bolder than its predecessor. Critics say the result is something of a mixed bag -- while the cast is outstanding and the special effects are top-notch, the latest installment of the Spidey saga suffers from an unfocused narrative and an overabundance of characters. This time out, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has a lot on his mind: his relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone)is fraught with complications, and he becomes increasingly haunted when new information about the deaths of his parents comes to light. As if that wasn't enough, our hero must protect the city from the likes of Electro (Jamie Foxx) and the Rhino (Paul Giamatti). The pundits say that Garfield and Stone share a genuine onscreen chemistry, and the big action set-pieces are visually striking, but the bloated runtime and jarring tonal shifts keep The Amazing Spider-Man 2from scaling the heights established by previous Spider-Man flicks. (Check out our video interview with the stars; 24 Frames for a gallery of the best and worst superpowers; and this week's Total Recall, in which we count down Stone's best-reviewed movies.)
Posted on 09:03
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A Cat in Paris


A Cat in Paris
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 A totally charming and fun escapade into the antics of a cat burglar, A Cat In Paris' target audience – kids in and around five to six – may be put off by the subtitles. Other than that, it's a visual feast that might teach the young 'uns that not all animation has to be pop-culture led 3D extravaganzas. They're really not going to watch it, are they?
Seven-year-old Zoe hasn't uttered a word since her police detective father was killed by crime boss Victor Costa (Benguigui); her mother, Jeanne (Jean), also on the police force, struggles to juggle work and raising her daughter. Zoe's cat Dino does the best to cheer her up but also moonlights as company to skilled burglar Nico (Salomone). When Nico steals a statuette Costa is obsessed with, it sets all three groups on a collision course...
With a distinct style that brings to mind Cubism, A Cat In Paris looks beautiful and Nico's prances from rooftop to balcony to window are as graceful as anything you'll see. Directors Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol mimic the simplistic visuals by keeping the plot as elementary as possible for the age group they are aiming at. Saying that, it oddly gives serious weight to Jeanne's sadness and frustration over the death of her husband, as a snarling vision of Costa regularly manifests as a monstrous octopus that overpowers her.
Jean Benguigui's bad guy is fun: he and his bumbling underlings get up to goofiness that wouldn't be out of place in a Home Alone movie, with Benguigui as their Joe Pesci-type leader. There are plenty of rooftop chases and close shaves atop Notre Dame Cathedral to keep the finale as exciting as anything Hollywood can produce.
Even at seventy minutes, though, A Cat In Paris feels stretched and just manages to fill the running time. Cleverly the directors call time before repetition and boredom set in.
Posted on 09:00
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A Bittersweet Life


Underworld enforcer Sun-woo's (Lee) unquestionable loyalty is rewarded by his mob boss when he's asked to keep an eye on his girlfriend Hee-soo (Shin) - whom the boss suspects of playing around. Sun-woo follows Hee-soo all over town and subsequently falls in love with her, but when she is caught in the act of cheating on the boss, Sun-woo does the unthinkable and grants her an act of mercy. The boss, who expects his word to be carried out to the letter, sends some hoods around to Sun-woo to extract an apology through torture. Sun-woo escapes and begins the long road to revenge, taking out everyone as he goes.
Written and directed by Kim Ji-Woon, A Bittersweet Life takes the slickness of Michael Mann's Heat, the violence of Tarantino's Kill Bill and the tar-black humour of the Coen Brothers - not to mention a kitchen sink or two - and mixes them all up into one enjoyable experience. A smart, violent and sickly funny film, Kim smacks the audience with OTT shoot-outs and torture scenes but, before anyone gets upset, he switches to comedy (the Mexican stand-off between Sun-woo and the gun dealer being the standout) and back again. Lee, as Sun-woo, does a great job in a role that screams to be hammed up, but Lee downplays his character in a cool, consistent suavity. Halfway through the film, Kim asks the audience, are you with this film or not? Go with it; it'll be all the more enjoyable if you do.
Posted on 08:58
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A Better Life


  • Genre: Drama
  • Details: US / 98mins (TBC).
  • Release Date: 29th July 2011
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Single father Carlos Galindo (Bichir, The Runway) is an illegal immigrant living in LA with his son, Luis (Julián). The teenaged Luis is getting into trouble in school and is veering towards gang life, but Carlos, who works seven days a week as a landscape gardener to the rich, doesn't have the time to keep a close eye on his son. Encouraged by his boss to buy his truck and start his own business ("if you buy the truck, you buy the American Dream"), Carlos gathers together what money he can and employs Santiago (Linares) to help. However, on the first day of his new job, Santiago steals Carlos' truck and makes off, leaving Carlos to scour the streets of LA.
Despite the recycled story, A Better Life encourages the viewer to ignore the head, which holds film history and cynicism, and watch from the heart, which controls the tear ducts, which will come in handy before the end. Most of the emotional weight is down to Demián Bichir, who was delightful in Ian Power's The Runway, and he pulls the film together with his sterling performance. . It helps when he's playing such a nice character: he offers his son the only bed in the house, he pays a man money for his phone that was stolen and hunts Santiago without hate. Whether Bichir was had a tough life or not is unknown, but, despite hope in those tired eyes, there is a world-weariness to his Carlos
When he isn't on screen, when Weitz explores the life of Luis and his friends, A Better Life's foibles are more obvious. The performances in these scenes are amateurish at best and dialogue is on-the-nose (the gang members talk about gang life in a school documentary way). Maybe the entire movie is like this but Bichir would make anything work on this form.
Posted on 08:57
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A Belfast Story


belfaststory
85%Want to see it
 
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Sometimes press kits arrive in the post, quirky little toys that somehow tie in with the movie - most of the time it's tat, forgettable, throwaway stuff. Independently produced post-Troubles thriller A Belfast Story announced itself with a press kit that one won't forget in hurry - a wooden box sporting a balaclava, nail bomb paraphilia, and other terrorist bric-a-brac. Director Nathan Todd has apologised for the rather tasteless kit, but job done: everyone knew about A Belfast Story. Unfortunately, the film itself isn't as noteworthy.
Colm Meaney plays a Belfast detective whose political slant once edged towards loyalist, so he's in no hurry to locate the killers of the gruesome murder of a former IRA bomber. With the peace process still on shaky ground, the police want the murder to be kept under wraps but when more and more bodies crop up, all ex IRA men, panic reaches the halls of Stormont where the First Minister (O'Neill) hopes his own violent past won't resurface along with the rekindled hate.
A Belfast Story
It's a great idea for a story, tapping into the impotent hate some must feel at watching their loved ones killers walk free, forever untouchable. The animated credit sequence that takes us from Celtic myth to car bombings is impressive stuff, if rather long, and Paddy Rocks, playing an ex-Loyalist sneaking about the city to dispense his old school justice on the killers before the police find them, radiates icy menace.
But it's slim pickings. Nathan Todd is fine pointing the camera, and the film has a consistent pace, but the woeful dialogue lets the side down. Meaney has poetic, Chandler-esque lines which would be fine as a narration but sound silly coming out of the character's mouth - especially when he's sitting on his couch at home with no one else in the room. The Stormont scenes - where smart people versed in political chicanery, bluntly tell each other things they already know - are laughable; the back-and-forth between Tommy O'Neill and Maggie Cronin is especially bad. No subtlety, no finesse.
A Belfast Story seems to be for those unversed in the Troubles and the current situation - anyone with a modicum of knowledge will find it a bit obvious.
Posted on 08:55
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