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Post by nell on Jan 1, 2012 19:18:07 GMT
Sure you can quote then Lassie. Please do, we'd all be interested to read it I'm sure.
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Post by lassie on Jan 1, 2012 23:10:06 GMT
Sunday Times 01.01.2012 Television review 2011 - (by A A Gill)
"From the moment Rufus Sewell sauntered on last winter as the sharp-suited Zen, Michael Dibin's modern-day Roman detective, you could feel the nation's sofas creek as a couple of million lady-buttocks edged forward - Sewell is the small-screen George Clooney.
So how come the BBC did the unthinkable and axed Zen? Especially as quite a lot of you liked it - Sewell got some of the best ratings for a first-time drama".
The paragraph carries on and says "At the other end of the year, and of the spectrum, it was another successful year for Tom Hollander's excellent creation, Rev. In between, this was the year of Lund and Lesser".
I'm not so sure about the George Clooney remark - cheeky! However, it's good Zen and Rufus' talent has not been forgotten. Hope Danny Cohen read it!!
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Post by GreenEyesToo on Jan 1, 2012 23:22:53 GMT
Many thanks for that, Lassie - great comments. I especially liked..... you could feel the nation's sofas creek as a couple of million lady-buttocks edged forward   |
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Post by anglophile on Jan 1, 2012 23:34:47 GMT
You've gotten to the bottom of the whole thing, GE2. It was an incredibly cheeky comment.
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Post by peach on Jan 2, 2012 0:47:31 GMT
the difference between Clooney and Sewell is and you're all probably going to hate me but Sewell has talent. Plain and simple. Saw Clooney's latest...The Descendents well written male lead part but not executed to its full potential. I get no emotion or warmth from Clooney whatsoever, what I do get and have come to expect is the frat guy thing. It's as if he's in on a private joke that we are not privy too. Brad Pitt could have done the same role only better, he's vulnerable and ashamed to show that side of him. I've never gotten that from Clooney. While I think he's damned gorgeous I find him lacking somehow. Maybe it's me.
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Post by anglophile on Jan 2, 2012 0:55:42 GMT
It's you. And me. He is gorgeous, but I feel the same way. I've always thought he would be a little contemptuous of his fans. Hope I'm wrong and he's really a stand-up guy, but he just seems elitist.
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Post by peach on Jan 2, 2012 1:20:55 GMT
He's a huge practical joker (frat guy thing again) he's notorious for his on set jokes, and i keep com ing back to his snarky thing that he does, it's like he's in on this big practical joke and we are the recipients of it. I get that in almost everything h's always done. Fine on the eyes tho.
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Post by kissmekate on Jan 2, 2012 7:19:16 GMT
Thanks, Lassie, loved the ladies' buttocks the difference between Clooney and Sewell is and you're all probably going to hate me but Sewell has talent. (...) While I think he's damned gorgeous I find him lacking somehow. Maybe it's me. It's me, too! ;D While I think Clooney's a good-looking guy, he lacks Rufus's versatility and depth in my opinion. |
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Post by GreenEyesToo on Jan 2, 2012 11:27:48 GMT
the difference between Clooney and Sewell is and you're all probably going to hate me but Sewell has talent. Peach, I can honestly say nobody here is going to hate you for saying Rufus has talent! ;D (Now if this was the Clooney message-board, that might be another matter!  ) |
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Post by GreenEyesToo on Jan 2, 2012 12:40:08 GMT
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Post by kissmekate on Jan 2, 2012 12:41:09 GMT
Much as I like Sherlock: Amen, sister!  |
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Post by kissmekate on Jan 2, 2012 12:55:00 GMT
Nice little mention here: Zen (2011). The cloud of corruption hangs low over Rome in these three TV movies about police detective Aurelio Zen, and even a clean cop has to play the system to get what he wants. Rufus Sewell, who navigated the uncertain streets in the movie Dark City, is right in his element. A top-notch series. |
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Post by walt on Jan 2, 2012 15:24:08 GMT
the difference between Clooney and Sewell is and you're all probably going to hate me but Sewell has talent.. It's me, too! ;D While I think Clooney's a good-looking guy, he lacks Rufus's versatility and depth in my opinion. I agree, Clooney looks to me always a little bit distant, whereas Rufus is completely immersed in his roles! |
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Post by peach on Jan 2, 2012 17:57:01 GMT
Looks as if Zen got worldwide fabulous reviews, here in the States as well, which is why I don't understand why they don't bring it back. The logic escapes me. But then I dont' run a network, perhaps they know something we don't. In the vast wasteland that is TV when something so good comes along and it's cancelled it makes me wonder who's running the show.
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Post by GreenEyesToo on Jan 3, 2012 20:07:45 GMT
A nice New Zealand review: Zen and the art of well-groomed policing
One of these days, television's trick of tarting up the ceaseless flow of crime-fighter heroes with ever more desperate novelty quirks - alcoholism, autism, psychology degrees, rudeness, Scandinavian-ness and so on will stop working.
But meanwhile, the latest "novelty" item, Zen, UKTV, Sunday 8.30pm, is a quite genuinely quirky and entertaining addition to the repertoire.
One of the reasons is that TV didn't add the novelty factor, but the best-selling author, the late Michael Dibden, came up with it, long before exotically located detective stories were fashionable. Aurelio Zen is a Venetian policeman, working in Rome, and that's not even his novelty. It's that he's determinedly honest won't even accept a free espresso from his local bar. He also lives with his mama, wears sensationally good suits and is ridiculously sexy. But even so, it's his by-the-book approach that remains the freshest aspect of this character.
Viewers familiar with the Dibden books will be familiar with the peculiarities of the Italian justice system, of which the presence of the Mafia is just the beginning. Zen's rigorous honesty is viewed as verging on the anti-social, and certainly as showing off, in a police firmament where political considerations sometimes demand conclusions of convenience rather than a strictly evidence-based approach. Italy's pervasive inter-regional prejudice is a handy alibi for such behaviour. "He's Venetian," bemused colleagues shrug to one another with an air of resignation.
Where we join Zen played by Rufus Sewell, whose chiselled bone structure and mischievous gaze make him ideal for the role is in one such quandary. A rich playboy type who, in a drug-induced fugue copped to a nasty murder, has now retracted his confession.
With their fingers firmly crossed behind their backs and their eyes winking furiously, the powers-that-be have asked Zen to reinvestigate. Plainly they wish him to vindicate the original police work, but, equally plainly, he wants to be tiresome and find out the truth.
What he doesn't realise is that a dying Mafioso assassin is stalking everyone responsible for putting him inside for a murder he didn't commit Zen among them. The moral contrariness of killing several people to avenge the fact that he did not kill someone else doesn't bear close examination but that's vendetta for you. You certainly don't regard the ledger as balanced if you have also killed several other people and not got caught for it. That's different.
Also stalking Zen is Tania, an ostentatiously sultry new secretary at the Questura, who has tired of her husband and is understandably drawn to the enigmatic detective. The show is punctuated with their steamy cat-and-mouse encounters, in which she is most definitely the feline.
There is a further novelty here: Zen falls into muddy underground tunnels, swims through flooded caves, scrambles through bushes, climbs up things, jumps off other things, gets thumped and hares around on a teeny Italian motor scooter, yet manages to stay supernaturally well-groomed. That's Italian suits for you.
The overall tone of Zen is playful, without straying into knockabout comedy. The plot, which in this first episode included a locked-room murder mystery and a wild child living in the woods, is absolutely ridiculous like a low-tech James Bond yarn, only one in which all concerned take themselves less seriously. It's such a relief to find a modern crime show which places more weight on espresso and the correct shirt-cuff length than on DNA and blood-splatter patterns.
Despite the crowded nature of the TV crime-fighter firmament, this show easily floats to the top end, and is an especial beacon of fun in the typically drossy silly-season fare. UKTV is showing the other two episodes for the next two Sundays, and word from Britain is that while the BBC sadly isn't making any more, another channel may pick up the franchise. Fingers crossed.
www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/television/6210940/Zen-and-the-art-of-well-groomed-policingSorry, couldn't resist highlighting my favourite bits!  I think Rufus would be delighted with the description of the tone of the show being "playful", don't you? |
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I think Rufus would be delighted with the description of the tone of the show being "playful", don't you?