Thor The Dark World: Journey into the Nine Realms

One of the best things about Thor was its ability to poke fun at the superhero genre whilst simultaneously delivering a spectacular superhero movie. Thor has always been a tricky superhero because he's already a God, not just some schlub who got bitten by a radioactive spider or injected with super serum and decided to save the world. Fortunately, the people in charge of the Thor franchise know how to mine the laughs when this Norse God finds himself surrounded by bewildered humans and needs to save the day yet again.

In Thor: The Dark World, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) hasn't been back to Earth since the events of The Avengers. His father, Odin, has commissioned him to vanquish evil throughout the Nine Realms while his trickster brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been imprisoned in Asgard for causing all that trouble in New York. Once peace descends on the Realms, Odin thinks it's high time Thor took over the Kingdom. But our hero is pining for him human lady love, astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and can't take much interest in the Asgardian revels. When he discovers that Jane might be in trouble, he grabs his hammer, flies down to Earth, and sets off on another inter-dimensional adventure. 

The plot involves numerous pseudoscientific details and mythological backstories that I won't cover here. Suffice to say, Jane has accidentally come into contact with a weapon that could obliterate all the Realms and Thor has to unwillingly team up with Loki to defeat both the weapon and the Dark Elves who seek to wield it. As a result, Jane gets to travel to Asgard and meet her boyfriend's parents, leaving her scientist colleagues behind. These colleagues consist of the reliably hilarious intern, Darcy (Kat Dennings) who has hired a new intern for herself, and Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard), Jane's mentor who continues to in trouble with the authorities for his rather unorthodox behavior. Like the original Thor movie, these weirdos provide much of the comic relief  on Earth when the movie gets too heavy with Asgardian drama and action. 

As with any superhero movie, there are high stakes, dark moments, and deaths. Action sequences abound as Thor travels into multiple realms and battles all manner of bizarre creatures. But Chris Hemsworth brings both brains and considerable brawn to the show and makes Thor a relatable and engaging hero to root for. Tom Hiddleston's Loki is still just as devious, sarcastic, and charming as ever and Natalie Portman's Jane gets to use her substantial intellect to play more than just a hapless heroine. And anytime the movie looks in danger of taking itself too seriously, the writers have injected some witty banter or a one-liner to continue the light and breezy tone of this franchise. There are also some incredible cameos from well-known actors (both from inside and outside the Marvel universe) who are guaranteed to make the audience cheer and chuckle. 

Thor: The Dark World features a well-rounded cast, a solid script, and the perfect balance of heroics and hilarity. The special effects are still dazzling, and director Alan Taylor has worked hard to make Asgard feel a bit more "lived-in" and realistic this time around. We might be inundated with superhero movies these days, but as long as the people in charge of Thor continue to place as much emphasis on comedy as on action, I will happily follow his adventures for many years to come. 

An Adventure in Space and Time: The History of Doctor Who

As a longtime admirer of Doctor Who, I was certainly caught up in the excitement surrounding the show's 50th anniversary celebrations. "The Day of the Doctor," a brand new episode written by Steven Moffat and starring Matt Smith, David Tennant, and John Hurt, was a wonderful celebration of the kind of storytelling that makes Who great. However, every Whovian should also check out An Adventure in Space and Time, a TV movie written by Mark Gatiss (who has penned many marvelous Doctor Who episodes, as well as co-creating Sherlock) that tells the story of how Doctor Who was created and brought to TV screens in 1963.

The movie follows the behind-the-scenes action when the BBC's Head of Drama, Sydney Newman (Brian Cox), decided that the 1963 Saturday schedule needed to cash in on the sci-fi craze and feature a program that could entertain, frighten, and educate children. He appointed Verity Lambert (Jessica Raine) as the show's producer, making her the first female producer at the BBC, and Waris Hussein (Sacha Dhawan) as the show's director, making him the BBC's first Indian director. Lambert and Hussein both had something to prove and they immediately set out to prove it. They brought on William Hartnell (David Bradley) to play the Doctor, and after a few hiccups, they managed to create a show that people are still watching 50 years later.

An Adventure in Space and Time is a loving ode to Doctor Who and also features certain cameos that will delight and thrill fans. Each actor has put in a noteworthy performance, but the star of the piece is David Bradley, who perfectly captures William Hartnell's initial confusion and later devotion to the character of the Doctor and everything the show represented to its legions of fans. It is a moving portrayal that made me want to start watching classic Doctor Who episodes and see what the First Doctor was really like. Mark Gatiss' script focuses on the most interesting people and moments in the show's creation and he elegantly condenses four years of television history into ninety minutes of pure entertainment.

Despite my love for Who, I was woefully ignorant of its history and conception at the BBC. Thanks to An Adventure in Space and Time, I have more reasons to admire how groundbreaking this show was, not just in terms of content, but in terms of the people involved in its creation. 50 years later, it is still going strong, and the celebrations of the show's past have only stoked the excitement about its future. 

The Wrong Mans: An Explosion of Comedy

If you're sick of looking for ways to watch BBC shows in the United States, you'll be delighted to hear that BBC Two's The Wrong Mans was co-produced with Hulu. Therefore, US viewers have ready access to this gem of a show that was created by Gavin & Stacey alums, James Corden and Mathew Baynton.

The Wrong Mans starts off with a very Hitchcockian premise (ergo the show's title). Sam Pinkett (Baynton) works for the Berkshire City Council and is a very ordinary (i.e. boring) chap. One morning, on his way to work, he witnesses a car crash. After the driver has been taken to the hospital and the police leave, Sam hears a phone ring and discovers a mobile at the side of the road. Assuming it's the driver's phone, he answers it, only to receive a threatening message from a man who says, "If you aren't here by five o'clock, we'll kill your wife."

Naturally, Sam is terrified and has no idea what to do. He heads to work, goes into the restroom, and listens to the threatening voicemails that have accumulated on the phone. When he gets out of his cubicle, he discovers that Phil Bourne (James Corden), the office "mail distribution assistant," overheard all the messages and is desperate to know what's going on. After Sam tells him the whole story, Phil convinces him that they need to be the heroes and do whatever it takes to save this woman's life.

What follows is a brilliant series of six episodes, each of which raises the stakes higher and thrusts the naive protagonists into a bewildering array of conspiracies that go all the way into the upper echelons of the British government. The show is remarkably funny but it also features impeccable production values, action sequences, and stunts that ensure you spend as much time on the edge of your seat as you do laughing. People are violently killed, Sam and Phil are constantly on the run from shadowy assailants, and the plot is an intricately-scripted, nail-biting thrill ride.

Baynton and Corden complement each other perfectly as two unlikely men who are trying to save lives, attack gangsters, and avoid getting shot. Every episode ends with a fantastic cliffhanger that will make you instantly click on to the next episode. Therefore, it is brilliant to watch The Wrong Mans on Hulu Plus, since you can binge watch the series in three hours flat. Let's hope the BBC and Hulu keep up this partnership for many years to come. 

Prisoners: An Excruciatingly Great Thriller

During the first half of Prisoners, I considered stopping the movie about five times and just reading the Wikipedia synopsis to find out how it ended. The first half contains all the basic plot points from the trailer and makes you think the movie is just a morality play that won't achieve any resolution. Thankfully, I persevered and discovered that the second half kicks into overdrive with a thrilling race against time, several plot twists, and a powerful conclusion. You'll be nauseous with dread as you watch, but will heave a sigh of relief at the end. Well, mostly.

The plot concerns the abduction of two young girls in Pennsylvania during Thanksgiving. The movie focuses on how their parents react to this event, as well as the police investigation conducted by Detective David Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal). One of the main suspects is Alex Jones (Paul Dano), who was parked in an RV in the neighborhood and saw the girls earlier in the day. The police track him down and question him, but he has the IQ of a ten-year old and is released back into his aunt's custody due to insufficient evidence. However, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), the father of one of the abducted girls, is convinced Jones knows where the girls are, and proceeds to abduct and torture him for information.

That is the first half of the movie in a nutshell. It sets the scene, builds gradually, and then turns to a rather sickening series of torture scenes where Dover unleashes all his rage and desperation on the man who could help him find his daughter before it's too late. Hugh Jackman has never been more terrifying on screen and that was the point at which I wanted to turn the movie off. He deserves kudos for the raw emotion he displays on screen, but he certainly does not make this an easy movie to watch. 

However, if you get past Keller Dover's horrifying quest for justice, the movie swivels to Detective Loki's investigation, and that's when things get interesting. New suspects comes forward, clues and red herrings are discovered and suddenly, all the disparate elements come together with startling clarity. It's a perfect mystery story: all the clues are there if you know where to look. Writer Aaron Guzikowski has done a marvelous job of weaving all the elements together, and director Denis Villeneuve delivers a movie that is both anxiety-provoking and satisfying. You'll be on the edge of your seat throughout the second half and you won't know what to expect next.

Prisoners requires your patience, but it's worth it. Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Paul Dano deliver riveting performances that make you question their characters' motivations until the very end. Denis Villeneuve has created a visceral, disturbing thriller that affects you both physically and psychologically. It is a powerful and complicated movie-watching experience - I heartily recommend it. 

Company: Does Bobby Need a Wife?

Last week PBS Great Performances aired the 2011 production of Stephen Sondheim's 1970 musical, Company. This production took place for four nights only at Lincoln Center, featuring an all-star cast of performers from musical theater, movies, and TV. Each actor looks like they're having the time of their life on stage and they deliver one hell of a performance considering that they rehearsed everything remotely and only came together on the day of the first performance. It's an extraordinary feat for an extraordinary musical.

Company centers on Bobby (Neil Patrick Harris), a 35-year old bachelor who doesn't seem to have any single friends. The play begins as five couples descend on Bobby's apartment to throw him a surprise birthday party. They are all extremely fond of him but keep pestering him to find a wife in order to find true happiness. The rest of the play features vignettes of the five couples as they demonstrate that they might not be as happy as Bobby assumes, as well as featuring a look at Bobby's various girlfriends.

I won't delve into the particular problems plaguing each couple because you need to watch these stories unfold and enjoy both the comedy and pathos of these strange relationships. Neil Patrick Harris has a wonderfully expressive face and his reactions to his friends' bizarre antics are often as funny as the antics themselves. There are various memorable performances, including a tongue-twistingly rapid-fire rendition of the patter song, "Getting Married Today" by the always hilarious Katie Finneran and Patti LuPone's soaring delivery of "The Ladies Who Lunch." Two TV performers who will surprise you with their musical chops are Mad Men's Christina Hendricks, who plays April, a rather dumb flight attendant who likes to tell marvelously pointless stories, and Stephen Colbert, who fulfills his longtime theater ambitions with plenty of singing, dancing, and a very involved karate fight with Martha Plimpton.

The draw of this production of Company was undoubtedly the cast, but once you get over seeing so many stars collected on one stage, you are captivated by the story of Bobby and his friends, all of whom are experts at doling out relationship advice but not so great at following it. Company is one of Sondheim's most beloved musicals, and the range and breadth of its melodies will keep you engaged during the entire performance. You can watch this production on Amazon or buy the DVD, so celebrate Sondheim Week and treat yourself to a musical that never gets old. 

Ambassadors: Diplomatic Disasters

Due to my adoration for Peep Show, the Channel 4 comedy starring the comedy duo of David Mitchell and Robert Webb, I was excited to hear they were doing a BBC Two comedy-drama series entitled Ambassadors. The series is a mere three episodes long (I don't know if there are plans for more) but it contains three hours of very British hilarity.

Set in the fictional Central Asian country of Tazbekistan, Ambassadors follows a group of people at the British Embassy who are trying to go about their jobs without causing a series of diplomatic incidents. Needless to say, they don't quite succeed in that endeavor. David Mitchell plays Keith Davis, the newly-arrived British Ambassador, who is trying to learn the ropes and not worry about the fact that no one knows what happened to his stressed-out predecessor. His wife, Jennifer (Keeley Hawes), is a doctor who works at the local hospital while simultaneously running the household and wrangling the Tazbek housekeeper to provide British food on demand for various Embassy occasions. Robert Webb play Neil Tilly, the Deputy Head of Mission, who serves as the Ambassador's adviser and seems to be the only man who knows what's going on in the country and in the Embassy.

Over the course of three episodes, the hapless Ambassador has to convince the dictatorial Tazbek President to hand over oil rights and secure an arms deal whilst simultaneously distancing himself from the regime's brutal human rights record. All in a day's work for a Western diplomat. Davis is a decent man, but he knows that he can't always take the moral high ground when there are practical business matters at play. His Deputy, on the other hand, is all for giving asylum to political prisoners and constantly needling the Ambassador to do the right thing at the risk of starting a diplomatic kerfuffle. Incidentally, he is dating a Tazbek bartender, which inevitably leads to further complications.

Ambassadors has dramatic moments but it is also a very astute satire that frequently builds up to explosively hilarious scenes. The characters are trying their best, but they cannot help being flummoxed by the daily chaos of living in Tazbekistan. The relentless demands of the higher-ups at the Foreign Office constantly undermine their every attempt at diplomacy, leading to outrageous outcomes. Fortunately, despite their confusion, they are still a competent group of people and find a way to muddle through. Ambassadors is a fine and funny showcase of how, even in the most preposterous situations, the English find a way to keep calm and carry on. 

Hello Ladies: A Lonely Englishman Awkwardly Looks for Love

Stephen Merchant is the lesser-known genius behind the hugely successful British series, The Office. Together with Ricky Gervais, he helped change the TV comedy landscape with shows like Extras and Life's Too Short. Now, Merchant has struck out on his own, starring in an HBO show adapted from his stand-up show, Hello Ladies.

Merchant plays Stuart Pritchard, a single British web designer who lives in Los Angeles and longs to date a model. Unfortunately, he's 6 foot 7 and socially awkward, traits that do not work in his favor when he's out in clubs trying to pick up the "ladies." His best friends are Wade (Nate Torrence), a lovable man whose world is crashing around him because his wife wants a divorce, and Kives (Kevin Weisman), a wheelchair-bound, filthy-minded ladies' man who never seems to strike out. Christine Woods plays Jessica Vanderhoff, an actress who rents Stuart's guesthouse, and the series spends equal time on her struggles to get acting roles now that she's too old to play ingenues and has yet to find her big break. She and Stuart use each others contacts - she to get a job, he to get a girlfriend - but these attempts always fail spectacularly and they wind up where they started, lonely and unemployed.

Hello Ladies is filled with cringe-inducing comedy that often elicits more groans than laughs. Stuart is a sweet guy but his sights are always set on unattainable and uninterested women who either ignore him completely or take advantage of his niceness. The show has almost wrapped up its first season and Stuart is no closer to finding a girlfriend, although Jessica appears to be making some career strides. However, I'm hopeful that the season will end on a positive note, because I cannot help but root for the kind and gawky Englishman.

Hello Ladies isn't the best comedy of the fall but it certainly has its moments. Apart from Stuart and Jessica, none of the characters feel fully fleshed out, and the show certainly needs to find some new storylines rather than focusing on Stuart's Sisyphean task of getting a date. But if you're a fan of Stephen Merchant's comic sensibility and enjoy a comedy with relatable characters in painfully awkward situations, Hello Ladies is an excellent addition to your Sunday night line-up. 

Mad About the Boy: Bridget Jones Is Back!

Regular readers will remember that I love Bridget Jones. So I was thrilled to bits to hear that Helen Fielding had written a brand new Bridget Jones novel, thirteen long years after The Edge of Reason. Of course, that joy was dampened when it was revealed that Bridget was now a widow with two small children. Mark Darcy is dead? How on earth could this book be any good?!

Turns out, even dead Darcy can't prevent this novel from having genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. Bridget is just as lovable and scatter-brained as ever, but now with two young children who are along for the ride. No longer a thirtysomething singleton, she is struggling to come to terms with Mark Darcy's death and is egged on by her friends to re-enter the dating pool, a prospect that is particularly horrifying as a single mother in the throes of *gasp* middle age. However, our heroine's foray into the brave new world of Twitter leads her to a virtual and eventually in-person romance with a much younger man named Roxby. Is the toy boy a Mark Darcy or Daniel Cleaver? Read the book to find out.

Mad About the Boy, like every Bridget Jones novel before it, feels like a pop cultural touchstone. Fielding makes many keen observations about life in the digital age and Bridget is constantly struggling to stop checking her texts and tweets long enough to ensure she hasn't set the kids' dinner on fire. There are several references to 2012 movies, fashions, and trends, and this book could serve as a historical artifact for future generations. But there's also plenty of nostalgia, with the return of old friends and enemies, non-stop calorie-counting, drunken texting, and New Year's resolutions.

I can't pretend that Mad About the Boy is a laugh riot. It is punctuated by incredibly sad moments and Bridget is constantly on the verge of teetering into a depressive spiral because she misses Mark, thinks she's a bad mother, feels guilty about moving on, etc. But Helen Fielding is a master at interweaving heartbreak and hilarity, and Bridget Jones can't help laughing through her tears. The novel also feels very cinematic at times, with certain scenes that feel like they stepped right out of the screenplays of the previous two movies. It's quite a roller-coaster ride and though you might guess the inevitable ending, you'll absolutely love how you get there. It's a very Austenian tale, hearkening back to the series' Pride & Prejudice roots, and it will leave you with a warm, happy glow.

If you love Bridget and want to know what happens to her, read this book. If you wish Jane Austen wrote novels about dating in the 21st century, read this book. And if you love witty writing, well-developed characters, heartbreak, romance, and happiness, read this book.

Frankenstein: Who's the Real Monster?

Nothing beats the experience of live theater. But the Royal National Theatre is quickly proving that the next best thing is watching broadcasts of their most acclaimed productions in movie theaters across the globe. That is how I got to watch the incredible 2011 production of Frankenstein, Nick Dear's adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch.

One of the unique features of this production was that Cumberbatch and Miller alternated playing Victor Frankenstein and his Creature for every performance. I saw the version with Cumberbatch as Frankenstein and Miller as the Creature. You don't have to watch for long to understand why they were jointly awarded the Olivier Award for Best Actor. Miller's performance as the Creature is mesmerizing. The opening ten minutes feature him slithering and stumbling across the stage, learning how to use his re-animated limbs. And the first half of the play focuses entirely on his foray into the real world after he is abandoned by Frankenstein, who is repulsed by his creation.

The Creature spends a year with a blind old man who teaches him how to speak and read great works of literature. However, the Creature's horrific appearance makes it impossible for him to assimilate into society, leading him to murderous acts. He finally finds his maker in Geneva and begs him to make him a bride to end his loneliness. Their exchange makes it apparent that while the world might think the Creature is a monster, Frankenstein is deeply inhuman himself and driven by egomania. Cumberbatch imbues the scientist with a single-minded drive to establish himself as a scientific genius among "the little people" who know nothing about electricity, galvanics, and the assorted horrors that have brought his Creature to life. Engaged to be married, Frankenstein brusquely postpones his wedding and leaves his family to go build a Creature who will be far superior to this awful creation.

This production of Frankenstein is simply astonishing. The sets are elaborate, the music is electrifying, the acting is superb. Despite the dark and ominous material, there are hilarious moments, particularly when the Creature uses logic and reason to argue with the humans rather than brute strength. Of course, there is plenty of violence and tragedy, and in the end you have to decide for yourself whether Frankenstein or his Creature is the true monster.

Due to the popularity of this production, National Theatre Live is broadcasting it worldwide in cinemas during November. Look up showtimes in your area and watch this play immediately. It's an unmissable opportunity.