Tuesday 6 April 2010

State Of Play

I don't know about you but personally while I was at Uni I completely lost touch with most of the civilised world, I thought I was on top of things but apparently looking at the headlines and pictures on Guardian unlimited isn't enough, so many things passed me by, The Thick of It and Eric Cantona leaving Man U spring to mind but there is much else including State of Play the BBC series. I'm sure it was said at the time but it has to be one of the best British dramas ever; The story line deftly played out over 6 episodes is phenomenal, the directing by David Yates of Harry Potter 5/6/7/8 is perfect, and the acting is unsurprisingly superb. You can buy all 6 episodes for £4.99 with free postage from HMV.com imagine that.

(For some reason I bought the US remake film as well, will probably never watched it, seems quite pointless)

3 comments:

robert said...

Had this in the DVD collection never watched until this weekend. Two sittings - glued to the screen. Brilliant. Even Jon Simms -who i usually hate- was amazing. Some of the cinematography was suprisingly nice too. The bit where Stephen Collins is looking out of the window in the early morning with the sun coming through (ep.3 perhaps?) was really powerful. Only thing i found a bit strange - and this could be because i've just watched season five of the wire and have been spoilt - was that after showing you a link between the politicians and paper owners (when they get told to pull the story/radio licences etc) no one seems that bothered to explores or expose this.

TOMthinks said...

i cant remember exactly but wasnt it only the editor and simms that knew it was because of the licenses? and simms didnt know till later and then he kicked off a bit. supposed everyone would lose there job if they exposed it.

it is a brilliant show, journalists arent that good in real life are they? might be able to get to the bottom of all sorts if they were...Iraq invasion springs to mind!

robert said...

Yeah i know, kind of feel bad for them. Don't think the internet has helped much - it would seem that it is always about speed (get the story out) rather than depth (lets construct a big picture). Doesn't leave allow time for investigation.....

Watched this documentary the other day -http://www.channel4.com/programmes/starsuckers/4od#3052695 - it was quite good, if a little drawn out and scientifically questionable. Still, the bit on journalism really hits the spot.

Also on documentary - the one on journalism on the wire season five disk was pretty good too.