MARK DAVISON

Mad Men, Series 3 Episode 12 – The Grown-Ups: A Review

8th April 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

There’s one word that I think sums up this episode of Mad Men, and that word is boxes - a pretty mundane thing to use for an analysis but bear with me. From the many shots of the characters watching the news on television, to the off-screen coffin of President Kennedy, and even Betty and Henry Francis’ boxy looking cars when they met up at the end of the episode,...

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Mad Men, Series 3 Episode 11 – The Gypsy and the Hobo: A Review

1st April 2010 | 5 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

As the end of the season rapidly approaches, Mad Men is upping its game in the dramatic stakes. Despite being a fairly quiet, talky episode this week it felt like really not a minute of it was wasted – whereas most episodes have numerous minor plots going on in the background, this one was really only focused on three storylines, all of which provided some pretty dramatic revelations about the...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 10 – The Color Blue: A Review

25th March 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Welcome to another episode of Paul Kinsey theatre, to borrow a line from Ken Cosgrove. It was the turn of the bigheaded, hypocritical bohemian wannabe to have his own storyline this week, and a very entertaining one it was too. Starting out with a drag featuring re-enactment of his idea for a hairspray advert in Don’s office, Kinsey’s story was one of jealousy, elation, despair and the general pitfalls of...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 9 – Wee Small Hours: A Review

19th March 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

This week the return of Lucky Strike scion Lee Garner Jr had dramatic repercussions for all concerned at Sterling-Cooper, starting with Pete who spent half his time in the episode having a coughing fit after being forced to smoke a cigarette. But what caused most of the kerfuffle was Lee’s drunken pass at Sal while they were looking over the edit of the new Lucky Strike commercial. Sal's subsequent polite...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 8 – Souvenir: A Review

11th March 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

It’s fair to say that we’re into Mad Men’s mid-season lull, the quiet few weeks before everything builds up again to a dramatic climax. Not that there wasn’t much to capture the interest in this episode but, like last week’s one it seemed to be a subdued affair.

Really this was an episode where the women got the chance to shine, or more accurately their hair-dos did. From the shot early...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 7 – Seven Twenty Three: A Review

5th March 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

It was inevitable that this week’s Mad Men wasn’t going to live up to the explosive lawnmower related fun of the last episode, however, it still felt like a rather subdued affair – which is a bit surprising considering the episode’s director Daisy Von Scherler Meyer is best known for light-weight gaudy fluff like largely-forgotten Jimi Mistry-vehicle The Guru. Although the episode did include one major revelation, being that... Peggy...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 6 – Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency: A Review

26th February 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Anton Chekhov once said that if a gun is introduced in the first act of a play, it has to be fired by the end of the second act. I never thought that the rule would be applied to a John Deere mini-tractor, but Mad Men decided to give it a go (although as Roger Sterling later said something like this has at some point had to have happened before...

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Review: A Single Man – A Thing of Beauty

26th February 2010 | 0 comments | 2 people like this

Given something of a boost following Colin Firth’s best actor win at the BAFTAs, A Single Man is fashion designer Tom Ford’s filmmaking debut, an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel (hailed as a key work in the gay liberation movement) that follows Literature Professor George, an English ex-pat living in LA, through a day in his life. Although this is no ordinary day, still feeling the pain of losing...

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Mad Men Series 3, Episode 4 – The Arrangements: A Review

12th February 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

 So, farewell Grandpa Gene, we hardly knew ye. Although it was fairly inevitable that he had to die, as it is the way of all senile old men on television, it came surprisingly soon. I was initially expecting the storyline with him and Sally to develop further – there wasn’t much in the way of repercussions from her stealing from him in the last episode - but on further reflection...

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