Spector movie odd, rather like subject matter
Anyone who turns to Phil Spector expecting a tell-all biography about the infamous music producer, or a tellall account of one of Hollywood’s highest-profile murders in recent memory, is bound to be disappointed.
Phil Spector plays instead like an eccentric, expanded episode of Law & Order, with the emphasis on over-the-top courtroom exchanges and behind-the-scenes machinations and manoeuvrings of a case tried as much in the court of public opinion as a court of law.
The result is a strangely odd, disorienting experience. It’s hard to know what to make of the finished film.
It’s neither documentary nor particularly satisfying drama.
Instead, it falls somewhere in between — fictionalized reality, inspired by real-life events but not necessarily based on them.
Phil Spector certainly comes with a rich pedigree. Al Pacino chews the scenery with typically Pacino-esque relish as the 73-year-old record producer and songwriter on trial for the murder of occasional actress and former fashion model Lana Clarkson.
Pacino prowls the screen like a force of nature, buried under a fright wig and obscured behind tinted glasses as he rails away at the injustice of it all, in pithy you-canonly-say-that-on-pay-TV language.
Oddly, though, Phil Spector is not as much about Spector as it is his lawyer, Linda Kenney-Baden, a former federal prosecutor-turned-private trial-attorney, played in the film by Helen Mirren.
And it’s Mirren who steals the show. (Sunday, 9 p.m., HBO Canada)
The family drama Adventures of Merlin calls it a day with a two-hour series finale that’s somewhat less than epic, but will nonetheless satisfy fans of a medieval fantasy that lasted five full seasons before Saturday’s final chapter was writ.
From its inception, Merlin bore about as much resemblance to the Arthurian legends of yore as Clash of the Titans did to Greek mythology and Homer’s Iliad.
The character Merlin was conceived as a feckless teenager, as played by the charisma-free Colin Morgan.
Merlin was originally commissioned by the BBC as fillin drama for young adults, presumably for those nights when Doctor Who wasn’t around to pull ’em in with its trippy tales of time travel and pure wit.
Merlin’s finale — no spoilers here — features a quest, a showdown between mortal enemies, a glimpse of the fabled Isle of Avalon and much grunting and groaning from Saxon armies.
There are morals to be drawn and soulful speeches about the true meaning of magic, and when to use it.
The acting has improved over the five years Merlin has been slayin’ dragons’ hearts and looking after the young, petulant Arthur, and it’s not giving too much away to say that the evil dastardly Morgana does not have everything go her way after everything is said and done by story’s end.
Merlin is one of those tales where no one bats an eye at lines like, “The hills are crawling with Saxons!” and, “I’m a sorcerer, I have magic; I use it for you, Arthur, only for you,” and swords have their own names. (Saturday, 8 p.m., Space)