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Many weeks back I heard this show discussed on a TV segment of my local radio network (ABC Local in Australia, on the Nightlife programme) and that featured an audio clip of a scene from the series concerning the making of a film about zombies with an 'interesting' method of spreading their contagion. Oddly, once I started watching the series, that episode wouldn't drop until many weeks later, so I'm not sure how the radio show got such an advanced, unaired episode. Anyway, the show seemed like it would be fun and I somehow got a free trial of Apple TV for a few months (maybe via spending a certain amount on an Apple gift card or something...$30, say), so I made a point of watching it.

From the first episode, the series has the feel of an old style screwball comedy (not really a genre that I'm familiar with and looking up that term, it only partially matches what I'm thinking of here, things like a highly stylised manner of speaking between characters). Seth Rogen plays Matt Remick, a senior figure in the fictional Hollywood film corporation Continental Studios...who also happens to be a man-child. He is about to become the head of this studio and discover that the reality of his promotion won't meet his expectation of how he imagines it will be. It seems he will be internally conflicted between his love of cinema as an art form and the pressure to make a tonne of money for the corporation.

The main cast really only serve to illuminate different facets of Remick, as in they don't seem fully formed characters with personalities of their own, as happens in such great sitcoms as Seinfeld, Cheers, Yes Minister or Fawlty Towers, to name some of the best. Perhaps that could be construed as a reflection of the 'type' that populate these positions in this industry...or the show's writing isn't as sharp when it comes to characters other than Remick? They are perky and hyper but lack depth. Like Gervais' The Office, this is very much cringe comedy, with Remick being the focus of that. It works. In my notes I did write some quotes from the show which I liked, such as Remick saying "I got into all this 'cause, you know, I love movies but now I have this fear that my job is to ruin them" (episode 1). Episode 2 has one character illuminate a facet of Remick by saying of him "His film boner is at full mast". The language does get stronger in this series, so if such language offends you, it would be best to give this series a miss (there is also one raunchy sex scene in the first series). In the same episode, I got a laugh when Remick says "I'm trying to support women". Of course, the humour here derives from his weird way of demonstrating that.

A feature of this series is that famous industry figures have roles here. Now, some names I was familiar with but would struggle to identify them in a police lineup...I'd have better luck if I had a multiple choice option to pick them...for example, someone like Martin Scorsese. However, there were many industry figures that I was not familiar with, as I haven't lived and breathed films for a while now. Personally, it would have been funny to me if the joke was that the series used actors to play actual industry figures, as I wouldn't have known that in any case...or that the person really existed anyway. In any case, I had no trouble recognising Ron Howard when he appeared. All these famous/'famous' people play versions of themselves, for comedic effect, obviously.

Going on my notes for the series, here are some comments about the episodes that prompted me to write something down:

Episode 1, "The promotion" - very well constructed with a nice payoff. It has Martin Scorsese in it. Remick digs holes for himself and tries digging his way out of them. It would be interesting to know how much the series draws on actual practice in the industry versus drawing on real world events. For instance, a part of this episode reminded me of the news story where people with damaging claims against Donald Trump had their story bought by magazines like the National Enquirer and the US Weekly in order to 'bury' them...the term "catch-and-kill" was used in that case. In other words, the magazines did Trump a favour in order to help him get elected as president.

Episode 2, "The oner" - I've already included a couple of quotes from this one but I did note that a figure of $800,000 was mentioned as the price to use a Rolling Stones song in a film. Is that about right?

Episode 3, "The note" - I was amused when one character says of Ron Howard's film "He should not be burdening audiences with his catharsis. Go to therapy, save us 45 minutes of f_ing runtime". The scene where Howard has an outburst at the poster art for the film meeting...I thought that was a ruse by him to get the film to Patty instead of Continental. In any case, tongue planted firmly in cheek, perhaps, I'd say that the episode should have ended at that scene!

Episode 4, "The missing reel" - Shot in a film noir style. At the time I felt that this was the weakest episode. It became funnier once the mystery had been resolved.

Episode 6, "The paediatric oncologist" - I think that this is the worst episode of the first series. The portrayal of the doctors as that petty didn't strike me as being plausible...they're sitcom doctors...and I wasn't having much fun with them.

Episode 8, "The Golden Globes" - I started cringing when Zöe Kravitz' character (herself) approached Remick when he was behind the scenes, trying to get credit for her film. However, they managed to turn things around quickly and it became an amusing scene (I have a low cringe tolerance or something). This moment isn't unlike Gervais' sitcom/mockumentary The office.

Episodes 9 and 10 - I couldn't get past how the supposedly stoned characters didn't really strike me as being stoned...that might just be a good thing...was I expecting them to go all 'method' for their roles?

Anyway, this is my first experience, really, of "streaming" TV, from memory. One thing which REALLY annoyed me was how the closing credits were shrunk and moved to a corner to make way for a promotion for something else on Apple TV. I'd repeatedly fight the screen to leave the closing credits on full screen so that I could read them! The start of each episode also starts with a promotion for another programme on Apple TV, which you can skip, it seems, thankfully.

Paying to watch TV isn't really my thing so no doubt I'll cancel my subscription just before my free trial expires. Can't say that I'm desperate to continue further series of The studio. Hopefully it's not one of those traditional TV network type of shows where they just keep it going and going...and going and going...until it just dies a belated death...like the US Office? Gervais' had the better concept of how long to keep a series going.

For my score for this first series, I was thinking of giving it 75+%, which would mean giving it 8/10 stars here. Think I'll drop the + in my score, which means, since I don't round up, a score of 7/10 stars here. I was entertained by this series and if you closely follow the Hollywood scene you will no doubt get a lot more from this series, as you see real people that you follow play strange versions of themselves.

I saw this film on my EPG the other week and immediately decided to record it. It was broadcast on 27/04/2025 at 11:25pm on ABC TV. It's the story of Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous/iconic bushranger (a robber who commits crimes beyond populated areas). It should be noted that Australia was not yet a nation when he lived. Ned Kelly has been depicted many times in various forms of art and literature to this day.

Perhaps this was the film's premier on any form of TV?. I viewed and reviewed most of it the next day. The remains of the film are bookended by NFSA notes at the start and its signage at the end. From the start of the former to the end of the latter, the running time of the broadcast is 31:50 minutes. The film proper would have a running time of 30 minutes from start of intertitles to the end of the last.

I'll provide a selection of the notes on the broadcast which introduce the film below:

"This print is from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

Introduction

The 1906 film The Story of the Kelly Gang is believed to have been one hour in length. Only fragments are known to survive.: 296m or 971 feet which totals almost fifteen minutes of screen time when projected at 18 frames per second.

This study version aims at reconstructing the film's narrative based upon the best evidence provided by the original footage and intertitles. Combined with additional titles and other associated material, postcards, the poster, the original program booklet, a more complete sense of the structure of the original production is created...The original titles are shown as they are in the film. Reconstituted titles are based on text from the original program booklet (Melbourne, 1906) and appear in normal text.

Additional narrative titles have been created where no intertitles exist. They appear in italics to clearly distinguish them."

A longish sequence of intertitles in italics begins proceedings before the film proper begins. Of the substantial live action sequences, there are four by my count:

1) Police at the Kelly homestead (1:16 minutes @)

2) The Kelly gang at the Wombat Ranges, the police at a camp nearby too (2:48@)

3) The Kelly gang at Younghusband's station (8:24@)

4) Sequence at the Glenrowan Hotel, interior and exterior (7:23@)

@ = from start of live action to end of live action but including intertitles with no live action. That's a total of 19 minutes and 47 seconds of 'actual' film, not counting intertitles preceding the initial live action footage. Live action footage from these 4 sequences totals 1:06 (2 segments), 1:30 (4), 7:06 (10), 5:04 (13). So, the running time of all substantial live actions sequences is 14:48.

Now to the film itself. Assuming (perhaps wrongly) that the bookends of the live action sequences correspond to their place in the full version of the film (the final live action sequence seems likely to have ended the full film), it seems that the story starts in the middle of things: a policeman has an arrest warrant for Dan Kelly, Ned's brother, at the Kelly homestead. Unless you are familiar with the story of the Kelly gang, you are left none the wiser as to what Dan is wanted for by the police. I certainly was.

There are a couple of other narratively confusing elements to the film:

Firstly, why did Dan and Steve shoot at each other inside the Glenrowan Hotel? I had the impression that "Steve" hadn't been introduced to the audience and I couldn't remember who he was. Skimming back to the start of the film, I did see that Steve was mentioned in the sequence set in the Wombat Ranges, where he was named as part of the Kelly gang. Looking online on a website concerning the Kelly gang, it isn't certain what happened as far as Dan and Steve went (I skimmed the text), so the filmmaker look like they've taken liberties in what they've depicted as occurring. The actual live action depiction of the intertitles of what happened ("Steve and Dan shoot each other") is utterly bizarre, as in there is no rhyme or reason for this. Ideally the full film would have made this event explicable by what has occurred before this moment, via the use of intertitles.

Secondly, Ned Kelly's legendary armour just miraculously appears in the story. Perhaps the story of that armour and Ned's use of it would have been common knowledge at the time the film was made but to the casual viewer, it just seems to materialise from out of nowhere. Again, ideally, the full film would have dealt with this in a way which makes more sense.

A nice touch to the film was the use of a red tint for the scene where the Glenrowan Hotel is alight. Presumably that was in the original film. I wondered whether the tint was to disguise that there was no visible flame on the building but looking closer, I could see flames at one point. That would be a novel yet natural cinematic trick for using tint.

Perhaps the film is having a bet each way as to how it is portraying the Kelly gang. One intertitle has the gang stating that "We do not rob ladies or children". At the Younghusband's station, the gang members are also seen to doff their hats to the ladies there! Perhaps the film leans on the side of being sympathetic to the gang, for instance, the first sequence with the policeman at the Kelly homestead. One intertitle reads "Disguised in their borrowed clothes" but we know that the gang has stolen the clothes from their hostages.

Maybe I should have mentioned this earlier but there is no sound at all to this silent film...perhaps this film predated the use of music to accompany the images? Another thing is that the action in the film sequences plays at normal speed. I've seen early 20th century films in clips and it always looks like the reel is being played too fast, say double speed or something of the sort. It's nice to see the action take place at a normal speed. The NFSA intertitle mentions the film being projected at 18 frames per second...I wonder what the rate was for this contemporary broadcast in order to make it appear normal speed...and whether the original frame rate also played the action at a normal speed.

One very big issue to note is that some sections of the film are so deteriorated that they are unwatchable and the image quality can change in the space of one scene. From my point of view, I wonder whether AI could be used now to fix that damage without entirely manufacturing the scene from inference or whatever it is that AI can do. A further step would be to create from scratch missing scenes which could correspond to intertitles which the NFSA mentions in their note.

Some random notes:

* Two Aboriginals are in the film, appearing as trackers. They didn't look happy to be there. I wonder if there is a story behind that.

* There are some tiny fragments of live action which I haven't counted in my list before. Maybe it's on this website that a reviewer or reviewers have pointed out that there are scenes in the film we now have which were actually outtakes or some such of the original and not included. Perhaps the scene of a woman riding sidesaddle is an example of that. It looked like she had a smile on her face (on a still, at least), so perhaps that footage was never intended for the original release. It was impressive to see her mount jump a small fence with her on it. Whether the women who associated with bushrangers rode sidesaddle is one which intrigues me. Perhaps they didn't?

* £8,000 reward for the gang's capture poster...that's 1870s money...what would that be in today's money? The Brave search engine AI suggests that it would be A$1,270,396.80, via UK inflation data as Australia didn't have its own CPI until 1922. I input the poster amount for the year 1879, which I'm not sure is right but it's close enough, I'd say.

* The hawker's van had this signage on it: "Hawker on sale drapery, clothing, cutlery, boots, shoes, books, tobacoo, cigars & pipes &c" (that last 'word' is my best guess for the writing, as in it's short for "etc."). The hawker did a good job of reversing his horse!

* An extremely odd bit of acting is done by the man playing the policeman in the Wombat Ranges sequence...right before we move to the Younghusband's station. He was melodramatically fruity, one might say. What was he aiming for? Of course, later films would have highly kinetic and larger than life gesturing, as this one does. Still, passing strange mannerisms by him.

* One man cops a knee up the bum, which looked real...and painful!

* Moustaches and hats are the order of the day for the men.

* The cinematographer seems to want to include all the actors in the same shot, which does make the scene look implausible.

* Italicised intertitles were ambiguous in the hostage situation.

N. B. I haven't scored this film as most of it is lost to history, unfortunately.

Wikipedia entry for this film has a URL which ends: TheStoryoftheKelly_Gang

"In 2007, The Story of the Kelly Gang was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register for being the world's first full-length narrative feature film".

This is the third in a so-called 'trilogy', a framing which I expressed doubts about in my review for the second in the sequence, "For a few dollars more". So, from my perspective it's a matter of complete indifference as to how many in this 'trilogy' you see and in what order you watch them. That being said, if you watch all three films you will observe the tropes that are common to this 'trilogy'. In this one the plot concerns three men on the make who end up chasing a fortune in gold during the American Civil War (American history is not my forte, so looking at Wikipedia for the span of this war, I'd guess that it takes place towards the tail end of it, in the mid 1860s). The three men on the make are referred to in the film's title. Skim reading Wikipedia's entry for this film, there is an interesting thing to note about the title: "In the theatrical trailer, Angel Eyes is referred to as The Ugly and Tuco, The Bad. This is due to a translation error; the original Italian title translates to "The Good (one), the Ugly (one), the Bad (one)"". That quote misses 'the good one', which, in this case, is Clint Eastwood's character of 'Blondie'. I'm using scare quotes for his name because it's a nickname and also a trope of this trilogy, in that he always plays a character whose name we aren't sure of, whether we think we know it or not. Lee Van Cleef plays 'the ugly one' and Eli Wallach plays 'the bad one'.

"The good, the bad and the ugly" returns to the opening title style of the first film, "A fistful of dollars", initially, at least. Here you'll get Ennio Morricone's famous composition which is, musically, at least, his most accomplished, as in you'd want to get the soundtrack for this film because it is so good as a piece of music (it's an earworm!). His score for the previous film worked better as a soundtrack for a film, as in it heightened tension or what have you. When Eastwood's character is revealed (or at least the back of his head, while he is smoking), that famous score plays. That seemed to tie it to him but it would later repeat for the character of Tuco. I'm not sure what we are meant to glean from the fact that the phrase "Directed by Sergio Leone" is in three different fonts! The opening titles have a letterbox aspect which is dropped for the rest of the film, as was the case with the earlier films.

Back to the tropes of this film, there is the visual style of Eastwood. It looked as though his stylistic trope of wearing a poncho would not occur in this film but it did towards the end. As I noted for Eastwood's character in the previous film, I would say the same thing about Lee Van Cleef's character for this one: he's not the same person in both films. Once again you eventually get something resembling a visual trope for him, after thinking it wouldn't occur: his pipe smoking. Lastly, going on the two previous films, you would expect there to be a main villain of the piece. Maybe I thought it was (or might be) Gian Maria Volonté but he is 'replaced' by Eli Wallach. Wikipedia does mention that Volonté was considered for the role but Leone wanted to cast someone who could add a different dimension to the character. Having him in all three films would have made for interesting processing of what this kind of casting means for the trilogy. In any case, perhaps it's a nice symmetry with Eastwood being the constant and Volonté and Van Cleef being either side of the trilogy for two films.

Some of the dialogue in this film did catch my attention, as it did in the first film. Both of these films would make good material for a high school subject like history or media studies or what have you. Amongst the meaty dialogue in this film are lines like: (an official reading the charges against a condemned man) "raping a virgin of the white race; statutory rape of a minor of the black race"; a business man speaks of the Confederates: "as soon as these cowards hear a blue shirt is around, they run. These rebels have no will to fight. They'll soon be finished. We get rid of these bastards, then we begin making money on those Yankees. They carry gold, not paper dollars and they're going to defeat the South"; a Confederate sergeant says: "the only thing we care about is saving our own hides".

In my reviews I've noted the sense of humour of Eastwood's characters. In the first film it is playful. In the second it is guarded (maybe I should have used that word there!). Here it is cruel (in an early scene). This is just another demonstration to me that Eastwood is not playing the same character in all three films. Of all the three films, Eastwood's character is the most unpleasant here, which makes his designation as "the good" (in a postmodern fashion by Leone, using on-screen text) as seemingly ironic. When he calls Tuco a "greasy rat", it makes me wonder if there is an ethnic dimension to the choice of villains in all three films. That might be a meta observation of the trilogy by me though. Some of the humour isn't intended as cruel though. For instance, there is a funny scene where 'Blondie' and Tuco wonder what side of the civil war an approaching cavalry is on. Another scene with Tuco, in a prison camp, brought to mind a scene in the film Pretty Woman, which was played for laughs. 'Blondie' is definitely a dodgy character and his scheme at the start of the film is novel (to me) although I do wonder about continuity errors as far as his partner in crime goes. Their seemingly first meeting doesn't really square with what happens later. How Blondie is seen to become partners in crime with this person also illustrates how odious his character is.

Another major aspect of this film is its depiction of war. It made me question whether it was being used a prop. Is what the film saying about war merely glib? War isn't glorified here in any case. Perhaps it's not odd that I found some scenes of war being taken to a town had echoes in what is currently happening around the world. The makeup used to depict war injuries strikes me as having a realistic look to it. In a more oblique manner, I did note the use of targets in a shooting range looking like Native Americans. It's such a throwaway moment but it struck me, as did similar moments in the first film, concerning Native Americans.

Of the three films in this 'trilogy', this is the one that I'm scoring the lowest. All of the films had their moments which strained credulity or buggered belief. It's just that for this one, it really went beyond pushing the envelope for me. Even though Eastwood's character's entrance into the final showdown of the first film was unbelievable, I still found it satisfying for its mythic quality. This unbelievability just increases from film to film in an unsatisfying way. One example of that is the depiction of the captain at Branson Bridge. His behaviour just didn't seem grounded in reality. I'm not including the fact that he looks swarthy, as do most of the soldiers on the Confederate side, for some reason. It was filmed in Europe, especially Spain, so I won't hold that against them. Generally speaking, I just didn't find the main characters believable in how they related to one another, given their history. As a side note, this film had a non-linear feel to it but I suppose that the ugly one's search for Carson is a thread.

Of the 'trilogy', I'd say that the first is the one that I'd most likely revisit again sometime. The second one, maybe, after a long absence. The third film is much longer but it's not for that reason that it doesn't feel to me like something that I'd be interested in revisiting, although it does have its moments. My thoughts on what I should score this range from 75% (no + sign meaning I give it 7 out of 10 stars on a site where you can't give half stars) to maybe 67.5% if I'm feeling unaccommodating. 72.5% or 72.5+% isn't unreasonable but maybe I'll just stick to what this site gives me, 7 out 10 stars?

Random notes:

* I viewed the "Extended English language version" which had a "2003 restoration and remastering". Recorded on 11/10/2024. SBS World Movies, 9:55pm. Running time of 2:51:15 without the six lots of ads during the film (measured from the start of the MGM lion's roar to to the end, being after the trademark still of the lion, which, for the first time, didn't have a lion's roar), which brings the running time up to 3:11:51. I must say that I appreciated the fact that SBS didn't play ads during the lead up to the ending (the last ad ended 2:26:04 on the unedited film). Audio Described and Closed Captions. It was rated M for adult themes and violence. I viewed this film over two days, from 23/11/2024 and made these notes. I started writing this review on 07/12/2024 up to here and a bit more. Another first for this trilogy is the inclusion of end credits.

* The option for Closed Captions was appreciated by me but I still found an online site with the script to refer to at times. SBS' captions (I presume it was theirs) were good. For instance, whilst the online site didn't include Spanish utterances, SBS' did and I got a strong language translation when I typed it into a translation app on my PC. Sometimes the online script had words which the CC didn't. Sometimes the online script had the right word and the CC didn't.

* Once again, I hear what sort of sounds like words in Morricone's score, in this case "Go, go, go, echo". He has actually composed music which features lyrics for this film: "The story of a soldier" and those lyrics were written by Tommie Connor.

* Not sure if Tuco's sign of the cross is correct...which might be the point, perhaps.

* Interesting casting for the first character we come across called "Shorty". I wonder what his story was. Wikipedia doesn't answer that question but interestingly I see that he is yet another actor who has appeared elsewhere in this trilogy...and you'd think that I would have definitely remembered seeing him before!