spud 1 movie review

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Spud Reviews

In a surprisingly strong performance, [John] Cleese puts a sharp spin on his portrayal as mentor to Spud [Troye Sivan], whose rites-of-passage journey avoids the usual cliches.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 30, 2012

A hugely entertaining coming-of-age tale, grounded in realism. Sivan's note-perfect portrayal of the diminutive hero is matched by a razor-sharp Cleese.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 22, 2012

If there was satirical intent, it is leached from the film.

Full Review | Apr 20, 2012

I think largely because of the completely innocent-seeming performance of Troye Sivan, it won me over and I found myself actually quite moved by the end.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 20, 2012

This is a film most will like - especially fans of last year's Submarine.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 20, 2012

You and your kids will have seen it all before but, if you're looking for a less brutal take on the ordeals of adolescence than the one offered by The Hunger Games, this could work.

Teens will find much to like about Spud but older audiences may find it familiar.

A touch more quirky than the average coming-of-age tale, there's a bit of schmaltz here, but this also brims with humour, heart and honesty.

The film struggles to find an even tone, swinging from overstatement and farcical to sentimental and earnest. But it strives to be a faithful adaptation of this popular novel and comes together well in the second half

Full Review | Apr 13, 2012

Full Review | Jun 20, 2011

Where to Watch

John Cleese (The Guv - Mr. Edly) Troye Sivan (John 'Spud' Milton) Jamie Royal (Henry 'Gecko' Barker) Sven Ruygrok (Rambo) Blessing Xaba (Fatty) Tom Burne (Vern 'Rain Main' Blackadder) Josh Goddard (Charlie 'Mad Dog' Hooper) Travis Hornsby (Boggo) Byron Langley (Simon Brown) Jason Cope (Sparerib - Mr. Wilson)

Donovan Marsh

It's South Africa 1990. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela and, more importantly, it's Spud Milton's first year at an elite boys only private boarding school.

Recommendations

Spud movie review - Aussieboyreviews

CAN MOST TEENS RELATE TO THE SUBJECT MATTER OF SPUD?

This likeable coming-of-age film focuses on teenage themes such as bullying, fitting in and friendship. spud is just a satisfactory comedy-drama. most of it is silly and forgettable., movie images.

Movie details

Director: Donovan Marsh Cast: Troye Sivan, John Cleese, Sven Ruygrok, Genna Blair, Tanit Phoenix Writer: Donovan Marsh Release Date (Australia): 19 April 2012 Runtime: 107 minutes/1h 47m Genre: Comedy, Drama Country: South Africa Language: English

CONTENT GUIDE (WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)

The film contains thematic material including adolescence, illness, bullying, death, grief and crude humour.

The film contains a scene depicting a character with a bloody injury.

The film contains use of words such as “s**t”, “crap”, “hell”, “damn”, “piss”, “wanker” and “bastard”.

The film contains brief viewings of magazine images that feature breast nudity.

The film contains frequent and often crude verbal sexual references.

mpaa rating

Aussie boy's thoughts.

Spud tackles teenage subject matter in both comedic and dramatic tone, but it does so in a way that’s incredibly predictable and extremely satisfactory. It’s average in its way by attaching to the overly familiar story of a teenage boy dealing with school stress, friendship, peer pressure, girlfriends and much more stupidity.

This sweet tale is undeniably quite adorable and is reasonably likeable. However, it’s not the greatest kind of likeable. Seriously, it’s simply only because of how the themes are treated. Alike any boys’ boarding school movie, there’s plenty of peer pressure and silly occurrences. They’re often funny, but also devolve too much into the predictable and overly normal state. These stories are also predictably accompanied by a few of “uncool” underdogs, which Spud definitely doesn’t ignore.

The performances? They’re fine. The result is the handful of quirky characters, teachers and students, who are amusing but just seem unlikeable. Spud isn’t unique or a true star or a hidden gem of a boarding school story, but it’s reasonably entertaining, resolving everything in a satisfying way. The actual plot and ideas are usually the main problem.

Thank you for reading this page and for more Aussie Boy reviews, visit Aussieboyreviews.com.

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User reviews

It's South Africa 1990. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela and, more importantly, it's Spud Milton's first year at an elite boys only private boarding school.
It's South Africa, 1990. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela and, more importantly, it's Spud Milton's first year at an elite boys only private boarding school. John Milton is a boy from an ordinary background who wins a scholarship to a private school in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Surrounded by boys with nicknames like Gecko, Rambo, Rain Man and Mad Dog, Spud has his hands full trying to adapt to his new home. Along the way Spud takes his first tentative steps along the path to manhood. (The path it seems could be a rather long road). Spud is an only child. He is cursed with parents from well beyond the lunatic fringe and a senile granny. His dad is a fervent anti-communist who is paranoid that the family domestic worker is running a shebeen from her room at the back of the family home. His mom is a free spirit and a teenager's worst nightmare, whether it's shopping for Spud's underwear in the local supermarket, or sneaking food into her handbag at school functions. Armed with only his wits and his diary, Spud takes us from illegal night swimming to the red-hot furnace of the cricket pitch, from ghostbusting to a catastrophic family vacation. He also invites us into the mind of a boy struggling to come to terms with a strange new world, a boy whose eyes are being opened to love, friendship and complete insanity. — Ross Garland
The film takes place in South Africa around the time of Nelson Mandela's release from jail. It chronicles 14 year old John Milton's (Troye Sivan) first year at Michael house, an elite boarding school for boys. When John arrives for the first time at the school, he gets nicknamed "Spud" by the other boys because he was yet to experience puberty. All eight boys in his dormitory get nicknames. They are also called the "Crazy Eight". Spud finds it difficult to make friends and fit in. He befriends Mr Edly, a teacher nicknamed "The Guv", after he is the only one in the English class to pass an exam. The Guv frequently lends English literature books to Spud and invites him to lunch regularly. But Spud soon realizes that Edly has marital problems, and is an alcoholic. While back at home for the holidays, Spud falls in love with Debbie, the daughter of one of his mother's friends, whom he nicknames "The Mermaid." When Spud returns to the school, he sees a flyer for the school play Oliver Twist. Spud decides to audition so he can fit in. He ends up landing the lead role of Oliver. During practice, Spud meets Amanda, a girl from the nearby school St. Catherine's, and immediately falls for her. But he soon realizes that she has a boyfriend already, and he cannot form a relationship with her without cheating on Debbie, whom he still loves. He seeks the advice of his roommate Gecko, who tells Spud to pretend he loves another girl named Christine, in order make Amanda jealous. Spud and Gecko begin to build a strong friendship and they occasionally visit a rock at the top of the hill near the school. In the fourth term, Gecko is diagnosed with cerebral malaria that he got during his holiday to Mozambique. A few days later he passes away. Spud mourns the death of Gecko and the whole school attends his funeral service in the school's chapel. In the end, Spud performs in the school's play and gets a standing ovation. After the performance, he is dragged away from the post-performance celebration by Amanda, and they go to a nearby field. There, she tells him to kiss her. Spud, however, stops at the last moment and rejects her, deciding to stay true to Debbie. He offers to give Debbie a tour of the school, and kisses her in the middle of the quadrangle, which his dorm-mates witness from their window. After he returns, he is praised by the group, and finally fits in. The movie ends with Spud, on the final day of the year, sitting on the same rock he and Gecko used to frequent overlooking the school, and remarking that "God gives us choices. But sometimes, God gives us no choice. He deals us the cards, and we play them."

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Spud Review

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Spud: A move to mainstream

by Webmaster | Dec 10, 2010 | December | 0 comments

Anton Burggraaf

Spud is a movie to watch for a many reasons. It’s the first time that an English-language feature has had this much local attention, from the media and public alike – including a ready-made phalanx of die-hard fans of the original book. Many are hoping for a success approaching that of Leon Schuster. It’s time, isn’t it? It’s also the first time a local film has had this much money thrown at it, with a budget rumoured even a year ago at over R30-million. And with a universal story, a stuffy colonial setting, cute schoolboy coming-of-age antics and a renowned British star in the cast, perhaps even international success?

Judging by the film’s opening weekend box office results, we may see something delivered on those promises. Spud grossed R2.9-million between Friday and Sunday evening, 3 to 5 December, which is nothing short of remarkable. Heather Vorster of Nu Metro publicity says it’s an enormous success for a local film, simply because it’s the highest grossing opening weekend for a South African film outside of only four Schuster titles. The film was released countrywide with 83 prints. In comparison, Schuster’s most recent film Schuks Tshabalala’s Survival Guide to South Africa (2010), opened with 110 prints and earned R3.5-million on the opening weekend.

But why should we be so concerned about the money?

Because, quite simply, a sustainable mainstream industry needs feet through the cinema door as much as it needs vision and talented people to make its films. International product is historically much easier to sell and only niche local films have made it big. Local releases through the mainstream distributors have limited success at the box office unless you are Schuster, and more recently, Danie Bester – whose Afrikaans-language films are steadily growing a popular base. If home-grown genres, or brands (like Spud ), can be successfully exploited and can gain an audience, we may see a much more robust industry produce more local work – work that is self-funding instead of investor sponsored, work that ups the quotient of quality product and work that has international legs.

That Spud is a movie playing in the big league is not happenstance; the film has been some years in the making. Ross Garland, producer, and John van de Ruit, author of the book on which the film is based, are long-time friends. They began a discussion when the first Spud book started making the bestseller lists, and when sales began to prompt talk of a sequel, but it was when the book started doing well internationally that their talk got serious.

Watch speeches from the Spud premiere in at Montecasino Fourways, Johannesburg, on 3 December 2010:

For Garland – who has a track record with Rogue Star Films of relatively diverse projects – Spud also presented an opportunity to leverage a rock-solid brand. His previous films, barring perhaps the superlative U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (2005), have not had the same ready-made appeal for notoriously unadventurous local film audiences. For Garland it is the dire absence of market-ready projects that made the idea of Spud so attractive to him. “We don’t have a lot of original screenplays hanging around. Spud was an opportunity to take the book fan base into the movies.”

Garland is thrilled at the first weekend’s box office triumph. “I was nervy coming into this weekend,” he said. “It is uncharted territory. If we had pulled R2-million it would have been a good shot as a start – and this is a third higher than Nu Metro expected.” While chuffed, he remains cautious and is loath to predict where things may go. “We’ll let it run for another weekend or two, to see if the pattern holds.” Vorster is equally cautious: “It’s hard to tell where this will go. December always throws the formulas out, because people have disposable income.”

But it’s pretty clear that if the pattern does hold, then Garland and company are in for a very happy (and productive) new year.

That Spud is part of an impressive upswing in local content generation is not in doubt. We have seen the emergence of self-funded indy films, brand films, and medium-size producers exploiting niche markets. It’s all in all an exciting time to be riding the wave.

Garland agrees that there has been a vast improvement in delivering quality film to the market. “If you look back, there’s been a significant jump from five to seven years ago. I think Danie [Bester] has done amazing stuff and it feels like its paying off now, but I think it’s been building incrementally since 2006. His stuff is very different to the Willie Esterhuizen brand Poena Is Koning (2007) and it’s the product of film school. It gives so much more confidence to the industry that this is happening now.”

But Spud is really in another league, if only because of its budget. Garland remains tight-lipped about exactly how much the movie cost, but dismisses rumours that it was as much as R40-million. “It’s a big, big budget for a South African film, that’s true. It’s a good budget.”

There some thought behind the budget: with the possibility of Spud doing well in the US teen market, Garland and fellow producer Brad Logan decided to seriously consider more weighty numbers. “I think everybody agrees how impressive District 9 (2009) was and it cost US$30-million. The filmmakers clearly said to themselves: this is what we can make. No one suggested making it for less. If they had made District 9 for US$3-million it wouldn’t have been the same film. So I thought, if you are ever going to take a punt at a local film and this is the one then this is how we can make it.

“I’ve made smaller films for much, much less. I’m a big fan of low-budget films. We are doing one at the moment.” Here Garland is referring to 31 Million Reasons , currently in production. So in the case of Spud it’s really about owning up to the possibilities, and being frank about production needs – and about economies of scale.

But will the film do well overseas?

“Over 90% of stuff here does not travel so you can never go into it with too much expectation,” says Garland. “But we have the sales agent for Tsotsi (2005) working with us in the US so that will help. I’ve been through this before with U-Carmen eKhayelitsha . We’ll be at the European film market in February next year.”

For his filmmaking compatriots, Garland has nothing but praise. He did not know director Donovan Marsh who cold-called him to say he was the right man for the job. Garland had taken note of Marsh’s Dollars and White Pipes (2005). “When he called me I gave him a hard time. But then I watched Dollars again and it was good writing. I was debating a few options but I took a punt with Donovan.” On the scripting, Garland says it was “very much a stumble-through”.

Because the Spud books are written in diary format, they contain no ready-made dialogue that a scriptwriter can tweak for a fast-track first draft. And with this undeveloped source material, the filmmakers were also not sure about ditching the narration altogether – in one incarnation they did, only to go back to the voice-over narration. In the end they felt the narration had to stay to honour the spirit of the book.

How profitable the film will be and if it will travel will be revealed in January. Only then is anyone likely to make a sober decision about whether this is a valuable filmmaking model and whether the next Spud book is destined to for the bug screen. “And before everyone turns 21!” Garland quips.

But how has the film itself been received? Reviews have been varied, from lukewarm to over-enthusiastic. Shaun de Waal of the Mail and Guardian found it “a slight comedy, larded with cute sentiment” and “reasonably well made”. Barry Ronge wrote in the Sunday Times that it was a “wonderful film: hilarious, serious and, above all, hopeful … a great movie, beautifully filmed and acted”.

Whatever your view, ardent fans of the book will no doubt delight in seeing their favourite characters spring to life, and they will surely go in numbers. With this many advocates, many more converts will doubtless join. That may very well be at the heart of the matter and may prove the astuteness of Garland and company.

On the film-versus-book debate, the last word must go to the Spud author, John van der Ruit, who blogs on the Penguin website. He laments at the frequency with which he is asked about to compare the movie with the book:

“A nasty catch-22 for any author as one is cordially invited either to slag off your own work, or the movie based on that work, with little hope of evading the question in anything less than an afternoon’s worth of explanation. This repeated question naturally inspired some pondering about the point; why is it that people are almost instinctively wired to compare a film to its source material? How can the experience of reading something for days/weeks be equated with that of viewing something else for 100 minutes? It is the equivalent of asking, “Which is more enjoyable, five days in Bali or two hours in Paris?”

Hmm. Two hours in Paris?

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SPL!NG Movie Review: Spud (2010)

01 dec 2010 by spling in movie reviews , movies, related posts.

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John Van De Ruit’s character, John Spud Milton has become the South African equivalent of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole . Both characters are at that age when puberty is starting to kick in, physical changes are bound to create some form of clumsy embarrassment and life is only really beginning… These are the formative years and yet we somehow get a burst of nostalgia by suffering their crisis of identity, their painful pubescent years and seem to “get” where they’re coming from… no wonder their experiences are so enchanting, memorable and uplifting.

John Van De Ruit’s Spud series has captivated the South African reading segment much like Adrian Mole did in the ’90s for kids and even for some adults. While one functions like a memoir and the other a diary, it’s the day-to-day growing pains that make the journey so unique yet somehow they manage to tap into the vulnerablility of humanity and eventually the proverbial triumph over adversity. Of course, they’re a great read… who doesn’t want the little guy to succeed and who hasn’t felt like the a Spud in one situation or another.

So Spud has entrenched itself as a firm favourite for ex-boarders, fascinated school boys living a very similar life to John Milton and curious outsiders. The book has made the leap from the pages of Van De Ruit’s bestseller to the celluloid and for the most part, it’s been a complete success. Spud is faithful to the book, giving an account of 1990s South Africa with the release of Nelson Mandela and John “Spud” Milton’s first year at an elite private boarding school for boys in Durban North.

The casting of the film’s principal co-stars, young Troye Sivan and John Cleese raised the bar to an international standard. Cleese’s involvement will draw significant international interest after some years since his last live-action performance, while Sivan takes his first lead in a title role. Sivan ( X-Men Origins: Wolverine ) is the star and projects intelligence, humility, likability and a brimming talent reminiscent of Freddie Highmore . Both actors share a similar on screen presence and have an enchanting quality about their innocence.

John Cleese registers a passionate performance as “the Guv”, really embracing the character as if related somehow. He demonstrates his experience and knack for comedy, while wringing out the drama from his tragic character – every alcoholic tear drop. Cleese is the backbone and dramatic credibility to Spud , but allows Troye Sivan the space to shine. His English teacher character will draw parallels with Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society … with direct references to Oliver . Cleese adds some fighting spirit and fatherly warmth to Spud with a special focus on their friendship.

Other noteworthy performances are delivered by the somewhat restrained Aaron McIlroy as Spud’s madcap father, Jason Cope as the Crazy 8’s housemaster nicknamed “Sparerib” and Jamie Royal as young “Gecko”. The ensemble is padded with other South African actors like Jeremy Crutchley , Julie Summers and Graham Weir , who don’t really have enough screen time in Spud . While up-and-coming starlet Tanit Phoneix headlines the eye candy division as the bodacious Eve with support from Genna Blair as “Mermaid”, Charlbi Dean Kriek as femme fatale Amanda and Alex McGregor as Christine.

The shenanigans have been treated in a comedy style with a serious afterthought. While night swimming and howling from windows make for a Peter Pan version of boarding school, aspects of initiation and earning respect the hard way also filter through. Shoe polish scrubs and toilet dunking on your birthday doesn’t exactly make the best advert for mothers thinking about sending their kids to boarding schools. The inclusion demonstrates the strife staying true to the story, which seems to occur at most boarding schools in one form or another. The Lord of the Flies group mentality kicks in and there’s a strange rite of passage to becoming one of the boys, one of the men.

Speaking from experience, the good times are obviously most memorable, which is probably why someone would even choose to recount their boarding school experience as a comedy in Spud’s case. The not-so-good times do however build character, mental resilience, independence and stamina – things that are more difficult to earn at home. Boarding school makes lifelong friends… brothers even.

Donovan Marsh directs Spud with an admiration for films like Dead Poet’s Society , however there’s a more theatrical component to Spud with the overlay of Charles Dickens’s Oliver , making it a play-within-a-film much like Dead Poet’s Society with a focus on the teacher-student relationship. While Spud goes for comedy over drama, it’s the situational comedy that makes this school boy adventure funny more than any witty dialogue. John Cleese knocks a few classic lines out of the park, but the tone is high-spirited fun more than traditional comedy.

The laughs are intermittent and are slowly replaced by some rather touching moments, which get quite serious. Spud is hugely entertaining and delivers on value time and time again with top-notch lead performances and a solid team effort from the supporting cast. The film almost warrants some reverse engineering to turn the film into a play. The theatrical quality of the film demands it and it could easily mirror the success story of a film like The History Boys . Just like it’s title character, Spud the movie, could rise to the challenge once all its naysayers are silenced and an adoring South African public will be waiting with open arms to welcome the film and future sequels home for the holidays.

The bottom line: Entertaining.

Release Date: 3 Dec, 2010 Watch the ‘Spud’ Trailer Book Tickets at Ster-Kinekor Book Tickets at Nu Metro Catch more movie reviews at SPL!NG

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Spud is set in South Africa in 1990, in the period just after Nelson Mandela is released from prison. John Milton (Troye Sivan) is a 13-year-old schoolboy with parents who are a teenage boy’s worst nightmare. His father is a paranoid fervent anti-communist, and his mother embarrasses him all the time without even trying. After winning a scholarship, John escapes his parents and starts his first year at an elite private boarding school.

John desperately wants to fit in with the other boys, who have nicknames such as Rambo, Rain Man, Mad Dog, Fatty and Boggo. Unfortunately John is sexually underdeveloped. When the other boys notice his lack of sexual maturity, they ostracise him and give him the nickname ‘Spud’, a reference to his underdeveloped genitals.

John perseveres despite this and makes friends with an accident-prone misfit called Henry Barker (Jamie Royal), nicknamed Gecko. John also becomes friends with the school’s English teacher, Mr Edly (John Cleese), nicknamed ‘the Gov’, who becomes a sort of mentor. Slowly gaining acceptance, John becomes a lead player in the school’s production of Oliver Twist . He also finds himself romantically involved with two girls, Debbie (Genna Blair) and Amanda (Charbi Dean Kriek), which adds to an already complex year.

School bullying; alcohol abuse; serious illness and death

This movie has some violence. For example:

A young boy falls over, and another boy shouts, ‘Pile on’. About a dozen boys jump on top of the fallen boy. When the boys get up the fallen boy is lying on the ground and seems to be unconscious.
Some boys pick up a young boy, Gecko, and carry him to the toilets. They upend him so that his head is in the toilet bowl. They flush the toilet, which leaves Gecko coughing and spluttering.
Some boys pick up Spud and carry him to the toilets where they pin him down, pull down his pants and smear shoe polish over his genitals. The scene doesn’t actually show them putting on the shoe polish.
Some boys pour flammable liquid onto another student and then set it on fire. Other students tip a bucket of water on the flaming student, which puts out the fire. The boy doesn’t seem to be hurt.
A boy rushes another boy and pins him against a wall. He puts his forearm across the boy’s neck.
During a pillow fight, there is the sound of glass being broken. A shard of glass sticks out of the side of Gecko’s forehead, and blood runs down the side of his forehead.
A teacher tells the boys that he will be giving each of them ‘six of the best’. The boys line up to be caned. Spud bends over a table waiting to be caned. The teacher raises the cane, there is the sound of it striking, and Spud screws up his face in agony.

Sexual references

This movie has sexual references and innuendoes throughout. For example:

A school boy is described as a ‘full-on sex maniac’ who buys pornographic magazines.
A school boy says, ‘Spud couldn’t wank if he had tweezers and a magnifying glass’.
A school teacher describes lesbians in a crude way.
A teacher says, ‘As porous as a whore’s dress’.
When girls from a private all-girls school are invited to Spud’s school for a dance, the boys place bets on how far each boy will get with one of the girls. They bet $5 on squeezing a girl’s breast, and $10 on touching her ‘holy of holiests’. At one point a boy waves a girl’s bra above his head.
Spud’s senile grandmother is talking about Spud’s girlfriend, Debbie. She uses crude language to talk about his relationship with Debbie. She describes Debbie’s breasts as a ‘good pair of knockers’.
Teachers use crude language to talk about girls and women.
The school’s house videos are replaced by lesbian pornography.
In relation to Debbie, Spud says, ‘She touched me with her breasts and my willie went all weird’.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

This movie shows some use of substances. For example:

The school’s English teacher, Mr Edly, is an alcoholic, who drinks large amounts of wine and spirits. In several scenes he is visibly drunk. Spud asks him, ‘Why do you drink? The more you drink the sadder you get’.
On one occasion, Mr Edly pours Spud a glass of wine and tells Spud to drink it because it will loosen him up. Spud slowly drinks the wine.
Spud’s father helps his maid sell illegal alcohol.
There is a dream image of Debbie with a cigarette in her mouth.

Nudity and sexual activity

This movie has some nudity and low-level sexual activity. For example:

In several scenes a woman with large breasts wears low-cut tops.
Spud holds hands with Debbie in a couple of scenes. One scene shows Spud and Debbie passionately kissing each other.
In one scene a school girl passionately kisses Spud on the mouth and then licks his face with her tongue. The same girl kisses several other boys.
Spud sees a student straightening his clothes as he walks out of a school change room. The boy tells Spud to keep his mouth shut. Eve, a teacher’s wife, walks out of the same room, also straightening her clothes. Everyone in the school – except Eve’s husband – finds out they’re having an affair.
There is a dream-like image of two teenage girls about to kiss each other. The kiss isn’t shown. There is a dream image of Debbie eight months pregnant.

Product placement

None of concern

Coarse language

Spud contains coarse language and name-calling.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Spud is a coming-of-age comedy that is likely to entertain older adolescents and adults. There are scenes that might disturb younger viewers, and you might be concerned about the violence, particularly the bullying, sexual references and coarse language.

The main message from this movie is that our greatest gift in life is freedom of choice.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include the following:

Friendship: Spud shows the value of friendship when he makes friends with Gecko. He gives Gecko emotional and moral support, especially when Gecko gets sick and goes into hospital.
Perseverance and courage: Spud never gives up in his attempts to fit in at school. He shows courage when he goes outside his comfort zone and auditions for the school musical.

You could also talk about the attitude to girls and women shown by both the boys and their teachers.

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Spud streaming: where to watch online?

You can buy "Spud" on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube as download or rent it on Apple TV, Amazon Video, Google Play Movies, YouTube online.

It's South Africa 1990. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela and, more importantly, it's Spud Milton's first year at an elite boys only private boarding school. John Milton is a boy from an ordinary background who wins a scholarship to a private school in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Surrounded by boys with nicknames like Gecko, Rambo, Rain Man and Mad Dog, Spud has his hands full trying to adapt to his new home. Along the way Spud takes his first tentative steps along the path to manhood. (The path it seems could be a rather long road). Spud is an only child. He is cursed with parents from well beyond the lunatic fringe and a senile granny. His dad is a fervent anti-communist who is paranoid that the family domestic worker is running a shebeen from her room at the back of the family home. His mom is a free spirit and a teenager's worst nightmare, whether it's shopping for Spud's underwear in the local supermarket

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Review Spud by John van de Ruit

My dream is to find another book like Spud.

I could never.

It’s incredibly funny, the characters are well-developed, it’s not cliché at all, and you simply can’t stop reading. It was so relatable to me, his family is well constructed, and the school’s adventures are simply delicious. It’s a Young Adult Comedy, not fantasy, which is generally what I read, however, this is nevertheless incredible.

This is what the cover says:

And this is the front:

I find this cover so cute. It’s simple yet captivating. I was immediately bought by it.

Amazon’s description is not the best:

“JOHN SPUD MILTON takes his first hilarious steps toward manhood in this delicious, laugh-out-loud boarding school romp, full of midnight swims, raging hormones, and catastrophic holidays that will leave the entire family in hysterics and thirsty for more!”

However, you do have to give this book a chance if you love comedy, especially if you’re addicted to boarding schools like me.

Review Spud, General Opinion:

From the first page onwards, I couldn’t stop laughing. I felt how nervous Spud, or still, John, was when he left for his new boarding school in South Africa. Then, we walk through the first days remembering our own school days. The embarrassment, the peer pressure, all the fun. It was all there, in a very relatable way. Everybody gets nicknames. I think it will be even more relatable if you are a boy. As a girl, I can only find it funny and imagine how different it is. But, if you’re boy, you might have gone through the same… the showers after sports, the first teenager parties.

I loved it all. There was only one detailed that I didn’t like, but now, let’s focus:

Main Character

John Milton, or Spud, as he is known in the school.

He is a typical 13-years-old boy WITHOUT the need of the author to say “he was a regular, normal teenage boy until…”

I HATE when authors do this. This just makes the character look bland and stupid EVEN BEFORE you start reading the book. Thanks, God, this is only an example. This definitely doesn’t happen here.

Spud is kind of shy, but he also blends in very well in the crowd of boys. He is put together with seven other crazy kids and, together, they are known as the Crazy Eight. They start exploring the school and testing boundaries. Spud is not the leader, nor he is the bullied kid. He is normal! Like us all! He is not the most popular kid but he is neither that ridiculously weak kid.

This is very hard to achieve in school books. The main character always seems to fall into one of the two extremes. The super popular jock or the stupid bullied nerd without friends.

Spud is well-constructed, he is 100% real, and he is so funny. His comments are to die for. The scenes will make you laugh-out-loud. And in the movie, he’s played by Troye Sivan. What’s not to love?

Other Characters

The other characters are almost better than Spud. All Crazy Eight has their own defined personalities, but without falling into a ridiculous stereotype. They are friends but Spud is not that much of a popular kid. He is friends with everyone, but he has one very good friend. I was like this in school too, so I really identify with him.

The teachers are also funny, crazy, and great.

The bullies had an existence of their own, they don’t just exist to bother the main character. THIS IS ALSO SO RARE IN SCHOOL BOOKS! I HATE when the bully is only there to bother the character. In here it’s not the case.

Mad Dog is my favorite character. He is so funny and well-developed for a secondary character.

Romance Interest

You guys know my opinion on romance.

I found it kind of forced and not necessary.

He is in love with his neighbor but he goes to a boarding school. Therefore, he only sees her when he is on vacations or by the phone. Thank God. This could have ruined the book. Her nickname is Mermaid and I think it looks really the way that he dreams about her all day when he is at school. The way he is insecure because all the other boys seem more experienced than he is. I also felt like this. However, when Mermaid does appear, she is poorly developed. She appears to exist only to be the romance interest. She has no real personality and it is really bad. However, the book is in first person point of view, so it goes as far as Spud’s comprehension can go.

It’s realistic but I do wish that it didn’t exist in the book. All parts with Mermaid are boring in my opinion.

The Adventures

There are plenty of adventures in this book as far as a school goes. They break the rules, they get in real trouble thanks to that, and it very, very funny. You want to see they breaking the rules and it makes you want to be there with them (until the punishment, which I wouldn’t like). It also enhances the characters relations besides showing how the school world works.

I liked it all. It’s a diary, so it covers a lot of his life, in a lot of different aspects. I didn’t like very much the rugby part since I don’t understand rugby. I also didn’t like the theatre very much, but this is mainly for Spud’s since he wants to be an actor after school. However, the rest is all great.

No spoiler, however, I do think that it happened an extremely unnecessary thing in the end.

It left me saying: WHYYYYYY???

This wasn’t supposed to be in a book like this.

I won’t say what happened. You’ll have to read it.

For the rest, the school year is over, he is on vacations, and you are saying: COME ON, WHERE IS BOOK 2?

I bought book 2 right away while I started 1 all over again.

I mean it, I’ve read it like 10 times.

Review Spud, Final Opinion

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read.

I WIIIISH I could know other boarding school books like this… funny, light-hearted, well-developed characters, including teachers and bullies.

Since I couldn’t find any, I wrote my own book that is about a boarding school (but fantasy, which I love above everything else).

Besides the fact in the end and the romantic interest, the rest is perfect.

You won’t regret it, I mean it.

Oh, did I mention that this book turned into a movie with TROYE SIVAN?

The movie is not exactly like the book, but it’s good. The third one is the best, though.

Gosh, I love this so much.

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Those who have ventured into the darker corners of addiction know that one of its few consolations, once the fun has worn off, is the camaraderie with fellow practitioners. Substance abuse sets the user apart from the daily lives of ordinary people. No matter how well the addict may seem to be functioning, there is always the secret agenda, the knowledge that the drug of choice is more important than the mundane business at hand, such as friends, family, jobs, play and sex.

Because no one can really understand that urgency as well as another addict, there is a shared humor, desperation and understanding among users. There is even a relief: Lies and evasions are unnecessary among friends who share the same needs. “Trainspotting” knows that truth in its very bones. The movie has been attacked as pro-drug and defended as anti-drug, but actually it is simply pragmatic. It knows that addiction leads to an unmanageable, exhausting, intensely uncomfortable daily routine, and it knows that only two things make it bearable: a supply of the drug of choice, and the understanding of fellow addicts.

Former alcoholics and drug abusers often report that they don't miss the substances nearly as much as the conditions under which they were used--the camaraderie of the true drinkers' bar, for example, where the standing joke is that the straight world just doesn't get it, doesn't understand that the disease is life and the treatment is another drink. The reason there is a fierce joy in “Trainspotting,” despite the appalling things that happen in it, is that it's basically about friends in need.

The movie, based on a popular novel by Irvine Welsh , is about a crowd of heroin addicts who run together in Edinburgh. The story is narrated by Renton ( Ewan McGregor ), who will, and does, dive into “the filthiest toilet in Scotland” in search of mislaid drugs. He introduces us to his friends, including Spud ( Ewen Bremner ), who confronts a job interview panel with a selection of their worst nightmares; Sick Boy ( Jonny Lee Miller ), whose theories about Sean Connery do not seem to flow from ever having seen his movies sober; Tommy ( Kevin McKidd ), who returns to drugs one time too many, and Begbie ( Robert Carlyle ), who brags about not using drugs but is a psychotic who throws beer mugs at bar patrons. What a lad, that Begbie.

These friends sleep where they can--in bars, in squats, in the beds of girls they meet at dance clubs. They have assorted girlfriends, and there is even a baby in the movie, but they are not settled in any way, and no place is home. Near the beginning of the film, Renton decides to clean up, and nails himself into a room with soup, ice cream, milk of magnesia, Valium, water, a TV set, and buckets for urine, feces, and vomit. Soon the nails have been ripped from the door jambs, but eventually Renton does detox (“I don't feel the sickness yet but it's in the mail, that's for sure”), and he even goes straight for a while, taking a job in London as a rental agent.

But his friends find him, a promising drug deal comes along, and in one of the most disturbing images in the movie, Renton throws away his hard-earned sobriety by testing the drug, and declaring it... wonderful. No doubt about it, drugs do make him feel good. It's just that they make him feel bad all the rest of the time. “What do drugs make you feel like?” George Carlin asked. “They make you feel like more drugs.” The characters in “Trainspotting” are violent (they attack a tourist on the street) and carelessly amoral (no one, no matter how desperate, should regard a baby the way they seem to). The legends they rehearse about each other are all based on screwing up, causing pain, and taking outrageous steps to find or avoid drugs. One day they try to take a walk in the countryside, but such an ordinary action is far beyond their ability to perform.

Strange, the cult following “Trainspotting” has generated in the UK, as a book, a play and a movie. It uses a colorful vocabulary, it contains a lot of energy, it elevates its miserable heroes to the status of icons (in their own eyes, that is), and it does evoke the Edinburgh drug landscape with a conviction that seems born of close observation. But what else does it do? Does it lead anywhere? Say anything? Not really. That's the whole point. Drug use is not linear but circular. You never get anywhere unless you keep returning to the starting point. But you make fierce friends along the way. Too bad if they die.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Trainspotting (1996)

Rated R For Graphic Heroin Use and Resulting Depravity, Strong Language, Sex, Nudity and Some Violence

Ewan McGregor as Renton

Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy

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Based on the novel by.

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Spud : Book summary and reviews of Spud by John van de Ruit

Summary | Reviews | More Information | More Books

by John van de Ruit

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Published Oct 2007 352 pages Genre: Literary Fiction Publication Information

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About this book

Book summary.

It’s 1990. Apartheid is crumbling. Nelson Mandela has just been released from prison. And Spud Milton—thirteen-year-old, prepubescent choirboy extraordinaire—is about to start his first year at an elite boys-only boarding school in South Africa. Cursed with embarrassingly dysfunctional parents, a senile granny named Wombat, and a wild obsession for Julia Roberts, Spud has his hands full trying to adapt to his new home. Armed with only his wits and his diary, Spud takes readers of all ages on a rowdy boarding school romp full of illegal midnight swims, raging hormones, and catastrophic holidays that will leave the entire family in total hysterics and thirsty for more.

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"In many ways Spud appears to be a literary cousin of Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson, whose diaries also detail, in colorful slang, life with whacked-out relatives, obsession with emergent sexuality and school-related capers." - Publishers Weekly, ages 12+

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Spud was published in South Africa in 2005 and became the fastest-selling novel by a South African in South African history, spending two years at the top of the bestseller list. A sequel to Spud , Spud: The Madness Continues is already available in South Africa and is planned for release in the USA in 2008.

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‘Unfrosted’ Review: Jerry Seinfeld Directs and Stars in a Biopic of the Pop-Tart. It’s Based on a True Story, but It’s Knowingly Nuts

It's in the genre of movies like "Flamin' Hot" and "The Founder," only this one is an absurd surrealist fruitcake cartoon.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

‘Unfrosted’ Review: Jerry Seinfeld Directs and Stars in a Biopic of the Pop-Tart. It’s Based on a True Story, but It’s Knowingly Nuts 14 hours ago
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UNFROSTED - (L to R) Jerry Seinfeld (Director) as Bob Cabana, Adrian Martinez as Tom Carvel, Jack McBrayer as Steve Schwinn, Thomas Lennon as Harold Von Braunhut, Bobby Moynihan as Chef Boyardee and James Marsden as Jack LaLanne in Unfrosted. Cr. John P. Johnson / Netflix © 2024.

Popular on Variety

As a kid growing up in the late ’60s and ’70s, I confess that I never understood Pop-Tarts. My family would buy them, and every so often I would put one in the toaster, wanting it to be a tasty treat. Such is the power of advertising that I always thought it was my fault that I found Pop-Tarts to be…just okay. Twinkies, by contrast, were junky but succulent. And even good old dry cereal, when you were in the mood for it, was pretty great — the delicate crunch of Rice Krispies, the sweet-milk-bath rapture of Sugar Frosted Flakes. To me, though, Pop-Tarts never lived up to their billing. They were bland when untoasted (though a lot of folks ate them that way). Once you toasted them, the hot fruit filling had a soothing tasty tang, but the rectangular pastry was still cardboard pie crust. It wasn’t awful, but it’s not like biting into it gave you a rush of joy. Prefab and a little dull, the Pop-Tart was a “product of the future” that seemed stuck in the past, like astronaut food.

I suspect the answer is that Seinfeld knows the Pop-Tart was a rather bland leftover-’50s concoction, but that he has a primal attachment to it anyway. And maybe it doesn’t even matter, because “Unfrosted,” once you get onto its wavelength, passes 93 minutes in a pleasurably light and nutty way. On some level, Jerry was clearly drawn to the quaint capitalist energy of the film’s essential (true) story: that in the early ’60s, the two reigning cereal companies in America, Kellogg’s and Post, were both based in Battle Creek, Michigan, a town of 50,000, yet they were fighting like rival European fiefdoms of the 14th century.

The movie is told from the point-of-view of Kellogg’s. Seinfeld plays Bob Cabana, the company’s head of development (loosely based on William Post), and Jim Gaffigan is Edsel Kellogg III, the head of the company, who’s still just a blowhard of an empty suit because all his success is inherited. Their rival company, Post, another family dynasty run by a descendent (Marjorie Post, played by Amy Schumer ), are the also-ran losers. They’re Pepsi to Kellogg’s’ Coke, Burger King to their McDonald’s, Avis to their Hertz. At the Bowl and Cereal Awards, a Battle Creek event that’s like the Oscars of boxed breakfast food, Kellogg’s sweeps all the categories (like Easiest to Open Wax Bag). They’re on top. But Post is about to change the game, with a pastry product ripped off from Kellogg’s’ own research.

If “Unfrosted” actually were a movie like “Blackberry,” it might have had a terrific resonance. But Seinfeld stages it like a dramatized series of stand-up-comedy stunts. We first learn how insanely anachronistic the movie is going to be when Bob stumbles on two children who are climbing into Post dumpsters to taste discarded cans of fruit filling. “It’s garbage!” says Bob. “Is it?” says Cathy (Eleanor Sweeney). “Or is it some hot fruit lightning the Man doesn’t want you to have?” What 10-year-old girl in 1963 would use the phrase “the Man”? But that’s the film’s comic aesthetic. “Unfrosted” is a period piece, but it’s as Dada as a Mad satire crossed with a second-half-of-the-show “Saturday Night Live” sketch.

The movie, in its totally kitsch way, frames itself as a thriller, with the competition to create the Pop-Tart likened to the race to the moon shot or the Manhattan Project. Bob takes a meeting with a South American sugar lord named El Sucre (Felix Solis), and the union of milkmen is presented as a Mob faction (presided over by Peter Dinklage) who will kidnap and threaten, since the Pop-Tart, if successful, would end their business: the daily pouring of milk onto America’s cereal. Bob, Stan and Edsel take a meeting in the Oval Office with JFK, played by Bill Burr as the testiest JFK imaginable. He agrees to intervene with the milk union, even as he readies himself for a meeting with the Doublemint Twins. There are jokes about naming a cereal Jackie O’s (even though Jackie is years from being Jackie O). And Jon Hamm pops up as his character from “Mad Men,” pitching a name for the Kellogg’s pastry product — Jelle Jolie — that’s out of the film noir of Don Draper’s dreams.

“Unfrosted” is brimming with Atomic Age ephemera. Like Sea-Monkeys. Bazooka bubblegum. X-Ray specs. G.I. Joe. The Slinky. Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Wax lips. Silly Putty. The references, though, aren’t limited to kids’ stuff. Walter Cronkite (Kyle Dunnigan) is shown, off camera, to be a babbling alcoholic loon. We see cereal-world versions of the Zapruder film and even the January 6 insurrection, with Hugh Grant , as the haughty British thespian who’s the voice of Tony the Tiger, leading a strike of the Kellogg’s mascots.

The acting is cartoon lite: casually broad sketch-comedy mugging, which is why Jerry (who is great at playing himself, but not really an actor) fits right in. Most of the jokes are LOL rather than guffaw-worthy. But I confess that I chuckled at the sheer insanity of how the movie deals with the naming of the Pop-Tart. The genius name that Bob and his team have come up with is…the Trat-Pop. It will take Walter Cronkite puttering around with Silly Putty to set that right. “Unfrosted,” in its way, is a quintessential comedian’s movie. It thumbs its nose at everything without necessarily believing in anything. Yet it has an agreeable crunch.

Reviewed online, May 1, 2024. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 93 MIN.

Production: A Netflix release of a Columbus 81, Skyview Entertainment, Good One production. Producers: Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Beau Bauman. Executive producers: Andy Robin, Barry Marder, Cherylanne Martin.
Crew: Director: Jerry Seinfeld. Screenplay: Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Feresten, Andy Robin, Barry Marder. Camera: William Pope. Editor: Evan Henke. Music: Christophe Beck.
With: Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Max Greenfield, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Peter Dinklage, Christian Slater, Bill Burr, Dany Levy, James Marsden, Mikey Day, Cedric the Entetertainer, Fred Armisen, Jon Hamm.

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‘Unfrosted’: Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tart Comedy Is One Long Boomer Nostalgia Trip

By David Fear

Perhaps, like Jerry Seinfeld , you too have spent hours wondering: What’s the deal with Pop Tarts?! Is it a breakfast item or just undercover dessert? How do they get all that delicious fruity goo inside the tiny squares? Is there a goo gun? Who came up with the idea of putting “docker holes” on the top to keep the toaster steam out? Was it Bob from Engineering? And why the frosting, people? Was there not enough sugar already in there already? I wanna know!

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What’s also apparent is that Unfrosted is designed from the get-go to be a boomer’s nostalgic wet dream. The very first shot involves a close-up of a vintage G.I. Joe doll, a rubber ball, a Woody Woodpecker comic, baseball cards, Bazooka gum, a Slinkee, a Whoopee Cushion and a pocket knife — it’s only one Davy Crockett’s cap away from being a Smithsonian-level exhibit of early ’60s boys’ playground survival kits. The movie’s already priming you for a “Hey, remember these?” showcase, which is one promise it will definitely make good on. You immediately sense that you’re walking down Seinfeld’s personal memory lane, touring a sort of pop-culture wax museum with a manic pulse. Get used to that feeling.

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Did reading that roll call of old-school product mascots and entrepreneurs crack you up on its own? Then you may, in fact, have a ball watching what Unfrosted is cooking up here. He and his cowriters Spike Feresten, Andy Robin and Barry Marder keep throwing all types of funny-bone attack modes at you, from the typical “didja ever notice?” observational humor that’s been Seinfeld’s shtick-in-trade to Zucker-brothers’ ridiculousness. (No one’s sure how Post had discovered Cabana’s secret project, as they dismiss a janitor with a conspicuously large camera on his vacuum cleaner.) Two famous TV actors drop by to parody two very recognizable TV characters. There are conceptually highbrow crusts, i.e. a shadowy organization of milk men working for the Dairy Industrial Complex, that exist only to house lowbrow filling, i.e. a gauntlet of cow farts. How about an elaborate, extended Jan. 6th insurrection joke, which, y’know — hilarious. When all else fails, drop some weak-tea irony (“Vietnam, that seems like a good idea!”).

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Shardlake review – murderous monks ignite this magnificent CJ Sansom story

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‘I know what it’s like to be stared at’: Shardlake star Arthur Hughes on playing CJ Sansom’s disabled Tudor sleuth

R eally, we should wait until winter has come again. To be watching the dark Tudor adventures of Shardlake in bright warming sunlight under blue skies seems entirely wrong – and even more so with the news that CJ Sansom , the author of the series of novels from which the new series is adapted has just died. The books were made to be read with the curtains closed against the elements and by a roaring fire, and this faithful TV recreation feels no different.

Shardlake is a man made solitary and aware of suffering by his physical disability (he is despised as a “crookback” by society and was prevented from entering the priesthood because he “was not made in God’s image”). He works as a lawyer in the service of Henry VIII via Thomas Cromwell (initially – he survives longer than many of his employers, and indeed sovereigns), just as the dissolution of the monasteries gets under way. Shardlake on screen does not let fans of Sansom down. The show was filmed mainly in Hungary, Austria and Romania and the aesthetics are mean, moody and entirely magnificent. The backdrop, and especially the grandeur of the enormous monastery – an amalgam of the medieval Kreuzenstein Castle outside Vienna and the gothic Hunedoara Castle in Transylvania – where most of the monk-murder-mystery action takes place imparts a sense not just of the scale of Henry’s plans for the country’s religious houses, and religion itself, but the absolute audacity of such an undertaking.

And what of the action? Matthew Shardlake (Arthur Hughes) is withdrawn from his ordinary lawyerly duties and dispatched by Cromwell (Sean Bean, delivering all the goods in the short screen time allocated) to investigate the murder by decapitation of one of his commissioners, who had been sent to the St Donatus monastery in the decaying port town of Scarnsea to begin the process of stripping and selling it for parts. The monks claim he must have been killed by “an invader”. But, as they all look deeply suspicious and every single one has a motive for killing the man sent to disband them, this we do not believe.

Shardlake is accompanied, forcibly, by Cromwell’s henchman Jack Barak (Anthony Boyle, in the kind of sidekick role I suspect we shall not see him in much longer, since the success of his recent roles in Manhunt and Masters of the Air). Barak’s focus is on the undoing of the monastery and the passing of its wealth to the king, while Shardlake has his mind set on the identity of the murderer and justice for the dead man. They butt heads accordingly as the investigation unfolds.

The suspects include, but are not limited to: the abbot himself (Babou Ceesay), who squats like a fat spider at the centre of a web of spiritual and financial corruption; Brother Edwig (David Pearse), the monks’ bursar, though we are assured he was away on business the night of the murder; Brother Mortimus (Brian Vernel), a former soldier with an obvious temper and, possibly, more secrets to hide than most; Brother Jerome (Paul Kaye), a disturbed Carthusian monk to whom the Benedictines are giving temporary succour, and who believes Anne Boleyn was murdered by lies – so clearly no fan of the king or his commissioners; and finally, the as-yet-unidentified hooded figure, who hangs around the church roof and upon whom Shardlake has not yet been able to lay hands.

One person who does seem to have some useful information is the much-abused novice Simon Whelplay (Joe Barber), a “simpleton” (according to his brutal brothers in Christ) who sees and hears more than he should. I don’t think it counts as a spoiler to say that he is soon rendered incapable – by person or persons unknown – of passing on what he knows, so clearly marked for death is he from the moment we see him quivering in fear by a dropped flagon of wine.

The plot unfolds with brisk efficiency, with enough exposition – lightly worn – to keep those who are new to Tudor politics up to speed without ruining it for those who already know their reformists from their recusants, and enough unexpected (to those who do not know the books) twists to keep interest thoroughly piqued throughout. Shardlake is prone to delivering dramatic monologues, when alone in his bedroom, usually as he divests himself of the painful brace he wears to help him manage life with scoliosis. But this is to quibble with an otherwise hugely well-executed and enjoyable (I forgot to mention Peter Firth having a whale of a time as the villainous Duke of Norfolk!) addition to the Tudor drama canon.

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‘Guilt’ Review: When the Lights Go Out in Edinburgh

The final season of Scotland’s most notable TV drama, on PBS’s “Masterpiece,” is a suitably twisty and sardonic send-off for the battling McCall brothers.

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Two men in an industrial-looking warehouse setting, one with short gray hair and the other with dark hair pulled into a man bun, appear with worried expressions.

By Mike Hale

Contains spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 of “Guilt.”

“Guilt,” a pioneering series in Scottish television — it was the first drama commissioned by the newly formed BBC Scotland channel in 2019 — has built an audience well beyond its borders. A melancholy tale of family dysfunction presented as a complicated crime thriller, it combines British regionalism with peak TV-style poker-faced comedy in a way that has made it a critical darling around the world.

Created and written by Neil Forsyth, “Guilt” has arrived in dense, lively four-episode bursts; the third and final season has its American premiere on PBS’s “Masterpiece” beginning Sunday. Each installment has been organized around a psycho-philosophical theme: first guilt, then revenge in Season 2, and now, as Forsyth described it in a BBC interview, redemption.

But the pleasure of the show does not come from diagraming its moral lessons (unless that’s your thing), or from unwinding Forsyth’s sometimes maddeningly convoluted plots, which entangle sons and daughters of Edinburgh’s rough-and-tumble Leith district with the city’s gangsters, cops and politicians.

What makes “Guilt” worthwhile is Forsyth’s knack for creating characters who work their way into our affections, less by their actions than by their unconscious, soul-deep responses to life in the grim confines of Leith and the promise of something better in Edinburgh’s more comfortable precincts.

At the center of the web are Max and Jake McCall (Mark Bonnar and the marvelous Jamie Sives), brothers with very little use for each other who become bound in a seemingly endless cycle of lies, danger and recrimination. It begins in the opening minutes of Season 1 when Jake, with Max in the car’s passenger seat, accidentally runs into an old man, killing him. Jake, a gentle soul with an encyclopedic knowledge of pop music (he could have wandered in from a Nick Hornby novel), wants to call the police; Max, a rapacious lawyer with a near-sociopathic lack of empathy, says no.

This is the original sin for which the brothers are still paying. Covering up their hit-and-run homicide embroils them with the Lynches, a married pair of quietly vicious gangsters whom Max and Jake are both on the run from, and scheming to take down, across the show’s three seasons. While the brothers work together for survival, they are also at each other’s throats, taking turns ruefully betraying each other, leading to imprisonment, exile and worse.

Sives brings a natural soulfulness to Jake while also making his cold double crosses of his brother believable; Bonnar is just as capable given the inverse challenge, conveying Max’s venality, vanity and desperation for success (pegged to being abandoned as a child) while also making credible his rare flashes of sympathy.

But even more crucial to the show’s effect are the amusingly vivid characters who surround the brothers: Kenny (Emun Elliott), the formerly alcoholic, surprisingly capable investigator who serves as the show’s wobbly moral center; Stevie (Henry Pettigrew), the hilariously jumpy corrupt cop; Teddy (Greg McHugh), who fully communicates his ability to dispense extreme violence while rarely actually dispensing it; Sheila (Ellie Haddington), the deadpan black widow; and Maggie Lynch, the show’s motherly, ruthless big bad, with Phyllis Logan of “Downton Abbey” playing wonderfully against type.

(Even incidental characters have distinctive moments. In the new season, Anita Vettesse, as the girlfriend of a man who gets thrown from a great height, gets to deliver this memorable couplet: “There’s nobody better at keeping their head down than me. It’s probably my biggest talent, if I’m honest with you.”)

The first season of “Guilt” was a self-contained triumph. It offered a cleverly satirical structure — as Jake and Max’s cover-up rippled out, one character after another found his lot improved, or his aspirations stoked, in confounding ways — and a satisfying ending that sent Jake out of the country and Max, accepting that he had been sold out by his brother, off to prison.

The second season, in which Max was released and pursued his improbable campaign of revenge against the Lynches, was over-plotted and overwritten, full of action-halting speeches about life and Leith. And it suffered from the absence of Jake for more than half the season — Max’s fervor was not nearly as moving or entertaining without his brother there to react to it.

The brothers are together from the start of Season 3, which puts them at the lowest, most perilous point they have reached so far. And it is largely a return to form, a suitable send-off for the battling McCalls. Kenny, Teddy, Stevie and Sheila all return, and join Max, Jake, an honest cop (Isaura Barbé-Brown) and Kenny’s no-nonsense niece (Amelia Isaac Jones), in a coalition of the somewhat willing, to take on Maggie Lynch one last time. Forsyth has fully assimilated the lessons of the Coen brothers and the history of the caper film, and with an ending that lets in more sentiment than the show has previously allowed, he gives Jake and Max slivers of their Scottish dreams.

Mike Hale is a television critic for The Times. He also writes about online video, film and media. More about Mike Hale

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'The Fall Guy' an escapist treat rich with spectacular action, romantic banter

When you’ve got jaw-dropping stunts and the playful chemistry of ryan gosling and emily blunt, who cares whether the plot holds up.

A nearby explosion doesn’t stop a passionate moment between filmmaker Judy (Emily Blunt) and stuntman Colt (Ryan Gosling) in “The Fall Guy.”

Universal Pictures

How’s this for a Hollywood Full Circle story for you:

David Leitch was Brad Pitt’s stunt double on “Fight Club” and a number of other projects. Brad Pitt played a stunt double in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” David Leitch eventually became a top-tier action filmmaker, directing “Atomic Blonde,” “Deadpool 2” — and “Bullet Train,” starring Brad Pitt.

Now comes Leitch’s rousing and action-packed and funny and even heartwarming “The Fall Guy,” with Ryan Gosling playing a stuntman who often doubles for Hollywood’s biggest star — just as David Leitch once doubled for Brad Pitt. Ta-da! (Sidebar: This is the THIRD time Gosling has played some kind of stunt performer, after “Drive” and “The Place Beyond the Pines.”)

Loosely inspired by the Lee Majors-starring TV show from the 1980s and given a rocket-booster jolt of stardom from the pairing of Gosling and Emily Blunt, “The Fall Guy” is pure popcorn entertainment — an absolutely ludicrous yet consistently entertaining, old-fashioned action/romance combo platter that plays like a feature-length pitch to the Academy to add a best stunts category (as it should).

If you’re looking for anything more than an escapist adventure featuring two of our brightest stars exchanging banter in between kissing scenes, set against the backdrop of some jaw-dropping practical effects stunts (mostly performed, of course, by doubles who are filling in for Gosling), you’ve wandered into the wrong theater. The screenplay often falls back on lazy clichés (karaoke sequence, anyone?) and the final act takes place in a universe that has no connection to anything resembling reality, but the action sequences and the playful chemistry between Gosling and Blunt save the day.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays the arrogant movie star who lies about doing his own stunts.

“The Fall Guy” opens with Gosling’s Colt Seavers on the set of an action film starring the global superstar Tom Ryder (a self-deprecating Aaron Taylor-Johnson), an arrogant egomaniac who is constantly bragging about doing his own stunts. (Spoiler alert: He’s lying.) Colt doesn’t care about Ryder’s dismissive attitude toward him; he’s too busy gushing about the love affair he’s having with Emily Blunt’s Jody Moreno, a camera operator on the film. Why, it’s the stuff of movies!

Fast forward 18 months. After a near-fatal accident on that set, Colt is a broken man in more ways than one. He’s retired from stunt work, he has a job as a valet, and he has fallen off the grid. When the powerful producer Gail Meyer (a hilarious Hannah Waddingham) rings Colt and offers him a job on a big-budget sci-fi epic shooting in Australia starring none other than Tom Ryder, he has no interest in returning to the game — until Gail informs him that Jody is directing the film in her feature debut. Down Under here we come!

Once Colt arrives on the location set for “Metalstorm,” which looks like a cross between “Dune” and “Mad Max,” he learns Jody is still furious with him for ghosting her. She takes it out on him by ordering repeated takes of a particularly painful stunt, all the while airing her grievances over a bullhorn. Winston Duke scores some laughs as a stunt coordinator who often quotes dialogue from action blockbusters, while Stephanie Hsu is terrific as Tom Ryder’s long-suffering personal assistant.

When Tom goes missing for reasons that defy logic, it’s an excuse for Colt to put his stunt man skills to work as he investigates, finds himself mixed up in all sorts of dangerous hijinks and is eventually framed for murder. If you spend even a nanosecond examining the particulars of the case and the developments that ensue, the whole structure falls apart — so it’s best to just sit back and marvel at the amazing stunt work

“The Fall Guy” is filled with self-referential, “meta” moments, whether it’s a scene where Colt enters a booth where his face can be scanned for use in perpetuity, or a sequence in which Jody and Colt are on the phone, discussing the possibility of Jody employing a split-screen technique in “Metalstorm,” and the conversation itself is rendered in … split-screen. Even the plot of “Metalstorm” is one big metaphor for the relationship between Colt and Jody. None of it this is particularly subtle, but it’s good fun, and it continues all the way through the closing credits, where we get to see the real-life stunt performers who did nomination-worthy work on the film.

If only the Academy had a category in which they could be nominated.

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COMMENTS

Spud (2010)
User Reviews. Pleasant, if predictable. Excellent performances. "Spud" is a pleasant coming of age comedy with stellar performances by Sivan and Royal. John Cleese delivers what is possibly his career best performance in a dramatic role. Other performances are generally solid, particularly Cope and Kriek. The plot is familiar and often ...
Spud (2010)
Spud: Directed by Donovan Marsh. With John Cleese, Troye Sivan, Jamie Royal, Sven Ruygrok. It's South Africa 1990. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela and, more importantly, it's Spud Milton's first year at an elite boys only private boarding school.
Spud
Spud. Rent Spud on Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV. Spud goes to private school for the first time, and advice from a teacher helps him adjust to the posh lifestyle.
Spud (film)
Spud is a 2010 South African comedy-drama film written and directed by Donovan Marsh, based on the novel of the same name by John van de Ruit.The film stars Troye Sivan as the title character, alongside John Cleese, Jason Cope and Tanit Phoenix.It was released in South Africa on 3 December 2010.
Spud
A hugely entertaining coming-of-age tale, grounded in realism. Sivan's note-perfect portrayal of the diminutive hero is matched by a razor-sharp Cleese. Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 22 ...
Spud (2010)
Synopsis. It's South Africa 1990. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela and, more importantly, it's Spud Milton's first year at an elite boys only private boarding ...
Spud (2010) Movie Review
Spud tackles teenage subject matter in both comedic and dramatic tone, but it does so in a way that's incredibly predictable and extremely satisfactory. It's average in its way by attaching to the overly familiar story of a teenage boy dealing with school stress, friendship, peer pressure, girlfriends and much more stupidity.
Spud (2010)
The film takes place in South Africa around the time of Nelson Mandela's release from jail. It chronicles 14 year old John Milton's (Troye Sivan) first year at Michael house, an elite boarding school for boys. When John arrives for the first time at the school, he gets nicknamed "Spud" by the other boys because he was yet to experience puberty.
Spud Review
As a movie, Donovan's adaptation is risk-free and consciously episodic and unapologetically sentimental. The film's storylines converge around Spud playing the lead in the school's musical ...
Spud (2010) Trailer
"Spud", the groundbreaking bestselling novel by John Van Du Ruit, is now a feature film. South Africa's record-breaking novel is a coming-of-age comedy follo...
Spud: A move to mainstream
Spud is a movie to watch for a many reasons. It's the first time that an English-language feature has had this much local attention, from the media and public alike - including a ready-made phalanx of die-hard fans of the original book. Many are hoping for a success approaching that of Leon Schuster. ... Reviews have been varied, from ...
SPL!NG Movie Review: Spud (2010)
Just like it's title character, Spud the movie, could rise to the challenge once all its naysayers are silenced and an adoring South African public will be waiting with open arms to welcome the film and future sequels home for the holidays. The bottom line: Entertaining. Release Date: 3 Dec, 2010. Watch the 'Spud' Trailer.
Spud
Spud is set in South Africa in 1990, in the period just after Nelson Mandela is released from prison. John Milton (Troye Sivan) is a 13-year-old schoolboy with parents who are a teenage boy's worst nightmare. His father is a paranoid fervent anti-communist, and his mother embarrasses him all the time without even trying.
Spud streaming: where to watch movie online?
Spud is an only child. He is cursed with parents from well beyond the lunatic fringe and a senile granny. His dad is a fervent anti-communist who is paranoid that the family domestic worker is running a shebeen from her room at the back of the family home. His mom is a free spirit and a teenager's worst nightmare, whether it's shopping for Spud ...
r/movies on Reddit: Review: Spud
Review: Spud - film about boarding school shenanigans and growing up in 1990s South Africa. digitalhippos.com Open. Share Add a Comment. Be the first to comment ... The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a ...
Spud (Spud, #1) by John van de Ruit
Thirteen-year old, South African John "Spud" Milton receives a scholarship to attend a prestigious boarding school in 1990 and is excited to escape from his crazy home life. Instead, he becomes part of the Crazy Eight in an equally bizarre, but teenage world dominated by sex, farting, harmful pranks, testosterone.
Review Spud by John van de Ruit
Review Spud, Final Opinion. This is one of the best books I've ever read. I WIIIISH I could know other boarding school books like this… funny, light-hearted, well-developed characters, including teachers and bullies. ... The movie is not exactly like the book, but it's good. The third one is the best, though. Gosh, I love this so much. 0 ...
Watch Spud (2010) Full Movie Online
Where to watch Spud (2010) starring Troye Sivan, John Cleese, Sven Ruygrok and directed by Donovan Marsh.
Spud
Cursed with parents from well beyond the lunatic fringe and a dormitory full of strange new classmates, Spud has his hands full trying to adapt to his new world - a world where his eyes are opened to love, friendship and complete insanity. Comedy 2014 1 hr 42 min. 80%. NR. Starring John Cleese, Troye Sivan, Aaron Mcilroy.
Trainspotting movie review & film summary (1996)
The movie has been attacked as pro-drug and defended as anti-drug, but actually it is simply pragmatic. It knows that addiction leads to an unmanageable, exhausting, intensely uncomfortable daily routine, and it knows that only two things make it bearable: a supply of the drug of choice, and the understanding of fellow addicts. Advertisement.
Summary and reviews of Spud by John van de Ruit
Media Reviews. "In many ways Spud appears to be a literary cousin of Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson, whose diaries also detail, in colorful slang, life with whacked-out relatives, obsession with emergent sexuality and school-related capers." - Publishers Weekly, ages 12+. This information about Spud was first featured in "The BookBrowse ...
Jerry Seinfeld's 'Unfrosted' Reviews: "One of Decade's Worst Movies"
The Daily Beast called the film "as bad as you'd expect." "Superior to Seinfeld's prior cinematic offering, 2007's animated Bee Movie, it's content to be childishly silly rather than ...
'Unfrosted' Review: Jerry Seinfeld Directs a Biopic of the Pop-Tart
"Unfrosted," the first movie directed by Jerry Seinfeld (who also stars in it), is an agreeably flaked-out piece of surrealist vaudeville. It's a comedy about the creation of the Pop-Tart ...
'Unfrosted' Review: Jerry Seinfeld's Pop-Tart Comedy Is One Big Sugar Crash
What's also apparent is that Unfrosted is designed from the get-go to be a boomer's nostalgic wet dream. The very first shot involves a close-up of a vintage G.I. Joe doll, a rubber ball, a ...
Ryan Jay Reviews the New Anne Hathaway Movie and More!
Ryan Jay joins us today to review some new movies as well as show some interview clips from a new musical comedy! 1. The Fall Guy / Universal Pictures - See It (movie)
Jerry Seinfeld's 'Unfrosted' is one of the decade's worst movies
The framing device for "Unfrosted" has Seinfeld's Bob Cabana seated next to a runaway kid in a diner and telling him "the real story" of the birth of the Pop-Tart, "in the early '60s ...
The Fall Guy Review: Technical Prowess Meets Meathead Charm
Beyond them, though, there isn't much else to mention. Taylor-Johnson is a one-joke character, as is Seavers' stunt coordinator Dan (Winston Duke), who's simply a big ol' movie-quoting dork.
Shardlake review
Wed 1 May 2024 00.00 EDT Last modified on Thu 2 May 2024 11.26 EDT. Share. ... Get the best TV reviews, news and exclusive features in your inbox every Monday. Enter your email address .
'Guilt' Review: When the Lights Go Out in Edinburgh
Contains spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2 of "Guilt." "Guilt," a pioneering series in Scottish television — it was the first drama commissioned by the newly formed BBC Scotland channel in ...
'The Fall Guy' review: An escapist treat rich with action, romance
'The Fall Guy' an escapist treat rich with spectacular action, romantic banter When you've got jaw-dropping stunts and the playful chemistry of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, who cares whether ...