The Blacklist - James Spader is Awesome! - #FanFridays 9

Rob and I are mainlining the boxset of season 1 of The Blacklist at the moment and it's turning out to be awesome, so I thought I would use it as this week's Fan Friday.

The Blacklist - James Spader is Awesome!

I have been a James Spader fan for a very, very long time. I first saw him in a made for TV movie called Starcrossed (more about that later), that my sister Sophie and I bought as a previously viewed video tape from our local Blockbuster while we were at school. This was in the 80s and I have been a huge fan ever since. I prefer him as the hero, but he plays a great baddie as well.

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However, even with this fact, I had held off watching The Blacklist. The adverts for it hadn't grabbed me and I didn't need another show to watch, so I didn't bother. What the previews told me was this was another Silence of the Lambs, only not so bloody or serial killer-ish because it's prime time TV. I wasn't really interested in that, but, as it turns out, The Blacklist is far more complex than that.

You do have the dynamic of the seemingly unstoppable, genius level criminal and the younger, just starting out, female FBI agent, but the connection between the two is not the same as with Starling and Lector.

Raymond Reddington (Spader) is not a bloodthirsty criminal, he is a mastermind who has built an empire on facilitating enterprises and gaining information for governments and criminals alike. Anyone who can pay him. While doing this he has come across those he feels deserve to be punished for their crimes, people on his Blacklist, some of which the FBI have never heard of. Turning himself in he offers to help the FBI bring these people to justice, but he will only work through agent Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone).

What I find that I really love about The Blacklist is that in this show, it is not the heroes I trust implicitly to end up doing things right, to sort out the problems, it's Reddington, who is, in fact, a bad guy, kind of. He is the centre of trust to move everything forward, to get it right. In fact over the first four episodes (as far as Rob and I have reached so far) is seems the FBI are far more likely the screw things up than sort them out.

James Spader is superb as Reddington. He is confident, self possessed and very, very clever and I never doubt him for a minute, which I love. One of the reasons I had to stop watching Scorpion (a TV show about a team of geniuses saving the day) is that I could never trust the characters not to screw up, in fact the opposite was true and it was annoying. I love Reddington, because he is so much in control. He also has the most incredibly sexy voice ;).

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Megan Boone is also very good as Elizabeth Keen. She's thrown into a situation she doesn't understand and yet she forges on. She's afraid, she's vulnerable, but she still finds her path. The fact that her personal story is so completely part of the plot is also brilliant. Watching the pilot I was worried that it was heading in a certain direction, but it turned out it was so much more interesting that I first thought. I still have no idea what is really going on and I love it.

This is spies and action and mystery all rolled up into a really well written package. I recommend it.

So I mentioned I am a James Spader fan and I want to share with you a couple of my favourites from his back catalogue that are less well known than some of his more famous roles:

Starcrossed

Joey (James Spader), a mechanic, meets Mary (Belinda Bauer) when she is running from two men. He helps her, only to discover she is an alien and the two men she was running from are also aliens sent to kill her or drag her back to her home planet.

This film hits all my buttons and I have loved it for a long time. It's a bit corny, some of the lines are terrible, but it has a wonderful feel about it and I love Spader in it. I only have a VHS rip from the original tape Soph and I bought these days - it has yet to be released on DVD.

Jack's Back

John Wesford (James Spader), a young doctor, apparently commits suicide in remorse for recreating nearly all of Jack the Ripper's murders one hundred years later. However, his identical twin brother saw him die in a nightmare and he knows John didn't kill himself. Under suspicion himself Rick tries to find out the truth with the help of John's friend Chris Moscari (Cynthia Gibb).

This was another gift from the bargain bin at Blockbuster, but has, thank fully, been released on DVD since and I have added it to my collection. I love it because it has twins and that slightly paranormal edge with the twin connection, even though the main plot is very much a murder mystery thriller. Spader is also inordinately sexy in this.

So there you have it, my review of The Blacklist and a couple of James Spader classics to keep anyone who loves 80s movies happy. I hope you enjoyed my post.

Have a great weekend.

Review: Starcrossed (1985)

Title: Starcrossed (1985)
Genre: Sci-Fi
Cast:
James Spader ... Joey Callaghan
Belinda Bauer ... Mary
Peter Kowanko ... Stewy
Clark Johnson ... Ralph

Summary: Joey bumps into a strange woman on the street one night as she is being chased by two goons. He offers her a ride, which turns out to be the start of something that will change his life. At first he thinks Mary is a defector from the Soviet Union, but Mary is from a lot further away than that; she's from a different planet.

This is yet another made for TV movie from the 80s which isn't available on DVD, but I wish it was, because I love it to bits. It's one of those films that pushes all my buttons.

Given how well James Spader is known I would have thought his back catalogue would be worth investing in, but, as yet, no one has brought this to DVD. This is one of those movies for which I wrote fanfic before I knew about the internet or anyone else doing the same thing. I have a little reporters notebook full of the sequel to this movie :).

Having just rewatched the film and dug out the fanfic I now realise I spent the whole thing calling Ralph, Huey, which is actually the name of one of Joey's pet fish, but never mind :).

Now, back to the film. It's not a complicated plot. Mary's an alien with alien powers (telepathy and telekinesis) and she's on the run from nasty aliens who have taken over her planet. Joey, being the upstanding guy he is, helps her and ends up on the wrong side of the bad aliens and the Feds. There is romance, there is mystical bonding and I just love it all.

I am a big James Spader fan and have been for many, many years. He has played a lot of bad guys in his time, but I first saw him as a good guy and I've always thought he was very easy on the eyes. Turns out his intense stare is because he has incredibly bad eye sight and can't wear contacts.

He is great as Joey. Basically he's an all American guy willing to help the girl on the run in the name of freedom, or possibly because he fancies her, or both. He's not complicated and drops his whole back story in one conversation, but the way Spader plays him just makes him so likeable. He's the hero through and through and the way he reacts to Mary's revelations is perfect.

Then we have Belinda Bauer as Mary. She's vulnerable, but strong and does rather bewildered alien very well. There is subtlety to the way she plays the character and depth that make Mary a very sympathetic role that draws the viewer into the film.

I'm not going to lie, some of the dialogue in the film is ... how shall I put this ... terrible, and some of the delivery from the side characters is worse, but I don't care. There is a charm to this movie that no amount of bad acting from the bit parts is going to take away. As I mentioned this film hits my buttons. I suspect if you don't have the same buttons you might not like it as much as I do :).

This is a film that gives you exactly what you expect. The plot has only one layer. The good guys have to eventually win. Joey and Mary are bound to fall in love. However it delivers all of what it has to the best of its ability and I am never not going to be able to sit down and watch it over and over again. I spent years trying to find this on tape after I first saw it on TV; that's how much I enjoyed it.

If you are a fan of James Spader or Belinda Bauer then I am pretty sure you'll enjoy this if you ever get the chance to see it.