Media MatasL Course

  Introduction: Reviews and features Read the following reviews and features on  Deutschland 83 : The Guardian - Your next box set: Deutschland 83 The Guardian - Deutschland 83 Pity the Germans don't like it 1) Find one positive aspect and one criticism of  Deutschland 83  in the reviews. created an irresistible export: a funky exercise in pop nostalgia underpinned by actual events.  It’s a perfect moment in a near-perfect series 2) Why does the second Guardian article suggest the Germans didn't like the show? By focusing the story around Martin Rauch, a young East German border guard going undercover in the west, it doesn’t just make the viewer empathise with a Stasi agent on a human level – in the way The Lives of Others did – it makes us engage with the socialist regime’s worldview, in which a military exercise in West Germany poses a potentially existential threat. 3) Find three 'below the line' comments from either of the Guardian articles. What did th...

Task 1: Mail Online review of Capital 1) Re-read the  Mail Online review of  Capital . Why does it suggest that  Capital  features a left-wing ideology? Capital was as stuffed full with fashionable causes as Jeremy Corbyn’s function diary. 2) Choose  three  quotes from the review that are particularly critical of  Capital  and paste them into your blogpost. Do you agree with the criticisms? Why? 'With a fizzle like a firework on a wet night, Capital (BBC1) dribbled to a soggy ending.' 'the crime was handed from one cardboard character to the next. That’s not a whodunnit, it’s a cop-out.' 'Everything British came in for a dose of loathing' I think that some of the criticism is fair and that Capital did feel like it did not come to a satisfying conclusion as you might think it would from the stress and fears of the characters in the first episode and are wrapped up in a way that feels like it was done for the sake of just getting the series done and...

1) What positive points does the review pick out about  Capital ?  What criticisms are made - either of the TV drama or the original novel? It’s more complicated – and more interesting – than just wonderful and terrible  It’s all so instantly recognisable  t’s not just a brilliant allegorical portrait of London  Is it that kind of Capital, too: not just principal city and wealth, but also punishable by death?   Cast is brilliant  Released in 2012, John Lanchester’s novel of the same name offered a hilarious and incisive look at the boom-and-bust economics of 2007 and 2008 as the backdrop for its characters. It received significant praise from critics, and its themes remain disappointingly relevant almost a decade later  We may technically be moving out of the recession now, but the bonkers housing market and increasing rate of gentrification across London means that Capital’s ideas still stand  Here’s a series that truly  gets it . ...