My Cultural Life - To Rate or To Overrate

What's Up?

A bit of education you won't be interested in. Venezuela isn't the enemy it has been portrayed in the media for many years. Venezuela has been a country run by left wing governments for many years. This left wing government did not seize power in some coup, they were elected, continually, in fair and ratified elections. The problem for Venezuela is that it is extremely oil rich. It is one of the richest countries on the planet. 

The USA and the rest of the western civilisations don't like this. They like their oil rich countries to be run by right wing, authoritarian regimes that they have some control over. The scenes of thousands of people leaving Venezuela in recent years - heading for the Colombian or Brazilian borders - were not the poor and disaffected, they were the country's right wing; the already rich and people who were intent on stripping Venezuela of a government that put the people first. Keeping Venezuela in the news became difficult; we got many largely made up stories over the last decade, but when you have a country that uses its oil to improve the lives of many, the last thing you want to do is have news stories about how nice it is to live in a country that isn't run by corrupt right wing arseholes.

Venezuela has been a constant thorn in the side of the USA, as you can currently see at the moment, as the US targets anything coming out of the country and claims it is drug related. Venezuela doesn't have a drug problem and even if Colombian drug lords were using it as a port to ship their wares from - which they are not - it is no excuse for military action on levels never seen before when there was an actual war on drugs. Trump and the USA will do anything they can to get rid of the left wing government and put someone more 'accommodating' in power. That would mean the end of free health care, free schools and university, an end to house improvements, subsidized travel costs and lower crime rates.

The Nobel peace prize winner María Corina Machado is a right wing politician. She has been working in the interests of Venezuela's rich and right wing supporters; she has some following in her own country, but most of her fans are ex-pat Venezuelans who want to return to their country but not while the 'commies' are in control. The world doesn't really like left wing governments, it specially doesn't like them when they have something the USA wants. This is why Cuba is left alone, despite the tensions between it and the USA. Cuba doesn't have any oil or rare earth minerals and its cigars can be obtained through the right channels. 

The Maduro government will be overthrown and like other countries that have been 'rescued by democracy' - such as Iraq, Syria, Libya - Venezuela will no longer be talked about in the press and that's when the press should be focusing on it the most...

That 70s Movie

I cannot believe that I have gone 25 years without seeing this film. I cannot believe that I was never tempted by it, given the subject matter. Yet, here I am, sitting here reviewing a movie at 63 that I should have reviewed at 48, when I was still too old... Almost Famous is a fantastic thing, especially the Director's Cut, which added an extra 25 minutes to the running time. Even at two and a half hours it could have been twice as long and still it would have been excellent. This is Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical story about how he made it as a rock journalist, in the early 1970s, despite only being 15 years of age.

Patrick Fugit plays William Miller, who through good writing gets himself a gig accompanying an 'almost famous' rock band on the final leg of their US tour. Billy Crudup and Jason Lee play the band's two frontmen, the singer and the guitarist; while Kate Hudson plays one of their groupies, the adorable 'Penny Lane.' Frances McDormand plays William's crazy, new-old age non-hippy, mother and Zooey Deschanel his deeply angry sister, but everybody in this film is a star. It is a truly bitter-sweet story which examines the seedy side of a touring band trying to make it big. It's a road movie but also a coming of age fable and it has a great soundtrack. 9/10

Two ShIts

The first film was great, how can we improve on it? I know, let's make it longer; much longer. Make it a little quest thing; have lots more special effects and a bunch of annoying adults. It Chapter Two was all of that and more. Nearly three hours when it could have been an hour and a half. It just went on and on. It had none of the first films suspense or jeopardy; none of the humour or the pathos. It was just one long drawn out special effect. I thought the scenes with the Losers as kids were good because they were obviously filmed when the original movie was made, but some of the scenes were wrong - either they were things that didn't happen or no one bothered to check the continuity of the first feature. Yes, there are scenes that appear to set up the TV series (which, apparently had already been mooted when the first chapter came out), but I still don't expect that from a feature film, really; despite having nearly three hours to play with. All in all, it felt like an episode of Little Britain edited to look like a horror film... 5/10

Fear Is The Key

Oh just shoot me now... Andy Muschietti isn't quite a one-trick pony, but he's almost there. His original It was a really good movie, I personally enjoyed The Flash, despite many people hating it, but everything else has been... poor. It - Welcome to Derry is a perfect example of why he should consider moving into insurance sales or maybe yogurt pot production. The penultimate episode of this increasingly (or is that decreasingly) shite TV show looked at the disaster at the black servicemen's club and was one of the slowest small buildings to ever be consumed by a raging fire, ever. We're talking about a building the size of two garages, but it managed to take almost half the episode to burn it down, allowing most of the key characters to escape. 

The carnage has fed Pennywise enough, so he's off to sleep for another 27 years. While It heads for It's bed, Dick Halloran finally has a vision that's useful and the real reason for all of this bullshit is finally revealed and boy... is it a flimsy, poorly executed, plotting disaster, with a switchback 'surprise' that, to be fair, was unexpected, but really didn't do anything but make me roll my eyes and wish the fucking nonsense was finally over. It will be next week. If there's a season two I'm not sure I'm going anywhere near it.

Rough Einstein

It's been nearly 30 years since I last watched Good Will Hunting, so it was a little like the first time. The story of a boy genius who is also the most annoying belligerent shit ever to exist. Matt Damon - looking very young - is the eponymous Will Hunting, facing prison but able to solve mathematical problems that would stump Einstein. He is given the chance of redemption by Stellen Skarsgård, but must attempt to remain in therapy sessions once a week with Shaun Maguire - played by Robin Williams - despite finding them insufferable and way too personal. Throw Minnie Driver into the mix as his on/off clever girlfriend and - an even younger looking - Ben Affleck as his best friend Chuckie and you have a really solid film that actually feels a little dated, all apart from Williams, who was having a real superstar period when this came out. It's always going to be a solid 8/10. 

Never Again

Usually, if I watch the first episode of something and I think it's shite I rarely continue watching it. I might, sometimes, watch two, maybe three parts before condemning it to the scrap heap of shit programmes. With Down Cemetery Road, I pretty much nailed it after the first episode. I said it was a load of bollocks then but because the wife wanted to carry on, we did. I should have stopped. We both should have stopped, because by the end of the final part, even the wife was slagging it off. It was excrement of the stinkiest kind. A 1970s sitcom about government fuckery, the torture of innocent soldiers and the subsequent operation to have as many people disappeared as possible. It was without a sense of suspense. It had no jeopardy. It was badly acted. I doubt it will get a second season, but if it does, I will download the first part, burn it onto a DVD and then take a big shit on the top of said DVD before posting it to Emma Thompson.

The Accidental Diplomat

The Doctor Who spin-off series has arrived and The War Between the Land and the Sea was mildly entertaining. This is probably because it doesn't have the Doctor in it, but he was referenced at least once in the first part and I expect he will be mentioned again (he was, twice in part two). Russell Tovey plays a low level UNIT grunt, charged with sorting out transport for people far more important than himself, who mistakenly gets called to an incident involving a dead Sea Devil, killed by fishermen when it got trapped in a net. He's along to watch the professionals prevent an all-out war with our big fishy cousins until our big fishy cousins decide he needs to be the diplomat to discuss a peace treaty between humans and homo aqua [some idiot's name for them, not mine].

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays the head of the Sea Devil delegate - she looks like a hybrid human, while her companions look more fishy, some even codlike. I'm not sure where this is going to go; presumably humans will do something very stupid and start a war that only someone ill-equipped can stop. The first part definitely eels, sorry feels, like a Doctor Who thing, but equally it also feels less Doctor Who-ey. If that makes any sense...

Hey, I've watched enough shite to firmly declare that my jury is out on this one.

A Journey

We watched the first part of some Channel 4 programme where Sandi Toksvig travels from Marseille to the Italian border, along the French Riviera, by train. I like the Dane, but this was hard work and felt slightly pointless. I might be reaching celebrity travelogue burn out. I'm not sure I will watch any more...

A Jaysun Stayfum Movie

It's been a while since we last watched a Jaysun Stayfum film, so we remedied that by watching the generally meh Homefront, where the English action hero with a dodgy line in general acting plays a former DEA cop who retires after a drug bust goes a little bit ... actually, I'm not really sure why he retired, all I know is he was sporting a terrific mullet. Fast forward two years and he's moved to somewhere else in Louisiana with his 10-year-old daughter, we never knew about, a year after the wife we never knew he had died of something we never find out about. 

His daughter gets bullied by an arsehole at school so she deals with it by beating the bully up and somehow ends up starting a war between the beat up kid's arsehole mother - Kate Bosworth - and her family. It's standard Jaysun Stayfum fayre; he plays a one-man army with a gentle side who takes out a small platoon of wankers in extremely violent fashion. Head wanker is James Franco as a man who supposedly runs the drug business in the town Jaysun Stayfum has moved to, but spends a lot of time being an absolute twat. Winona Ryder - pre Stranger Things career revival - plays his girlfriend as a cheap ex hooker, while Clancy Brown plays the sheriff whose honesty and integrity seems all over the shop. Frank Grillo is also in it, but he doesn't last that long. 4/10 

The Age of Stupid

I'm sure most people have at some point in their Facebook (or TikTok) lives clicked on a Reel and watched some cute and very short video of a dog, a cat or something 'funny'. Reels are big business now, with dedicated 'studios' making 30+ second films on an industrial scale to gain a response from the growing number of complete and utter morons who inhabit the internet... Many of these reels are now AI generated, which really should make people understand that, at the moment, they have little to fear from AI if they have a working brain. I got fooled into looking at TWO AI generated reels, presumably designed to garner as much response in comments, likes and shares as possible. The first one was 'filmed' in a wildlife cameraman stylee, where there were two sheep, one standing on the bank of a raging river, the other standing static on a log in said 'raging' river. Along comes a male lion, who walks down the steep side of the riverbank and grabs the sheep, flips it onto his back and saves it from drowning before walking away leaving the two free dinners to go about eating grass. I'm not going to say anything about this, I will leave that up to you... 

The second reel features a woman throwing a cat out of her car, into a flooded curb side, where a box with the words 'KITTENS' is situated, full of giant baby cats. The next scene is of a truck driver with the caption, "If it hadn't been for this truck driver, the cats would have died!" Having seen more than enough, I clicked on the comments and was blown away by the number of people who thought the reel was real. Despite comments from sane people pointing out that all the cats were fucking gigantic, or that the 'mother cat' wasn't wet when it walked out of the deep water, or why the person filming it didn't save the cats, or any logical comment that essentially debunked this 40 seconds of exploitative nonsense; people didn't want to know. They didn't care that it was clearly a fake AI generated story; in fact many didn't believe it was fake. None of these cretins seemed to realise the 'story' was told cinematically, from a 3rd person POV.

We are doomed. You realise this, don't you? For every one of you raging about the AI takeover, there are mentally challenged people out there cheering on six fingered truck drivers saving abnormally large kittens from fake floods.

It Never Ends

There's a buzz going around - allegedly - about the psychological horror film It Ends. TikTok has made it a big hit and frankly if this is what the youth of today think is a good movie, I'm giving up this reviewing lark and taking up something else to pass my time. This is about 87 minutes long, but it felt like it really was going to go on forever. Four friends take a (wrong) right turn onto a road that never ends, or at least that's how it seems and behind them are hundreds of people who want their car, maybe - presumably - to try and escape this highway in hell. 

I asked the wife what she thought and he answer was 'It's not a bad idea' and she's not wrong, but it needed something to happen, even if we weren't going to get an explanation as to why it all transpired and not just to these four people. It would have been good if there had been some suspense, some jeopardy, something other than crazy desperate people trying to steal their car. I dunno, some monsters maybe or a pitstop with a vending machine... I wasn't impressed and it's not worth anything more than a 3/10.

A World of Boredom

Carol is bored. With the hivemind of humanity having deserted her, the isolation is driving her crazy and it looks like she might be about to crack. You see, we were told in an earlier episode of Pluribus that the only way she could become like everyone else was through a long and complicated procedure, which she would have to agree to and the boredom of her existence might have driven her to this idea. Little does she know that Paraguay man is trying to get to her and he wants what she wanted - to save humanity; his problem is he's in trouble because he won't rely on the hivemind. So we're set up for a  (series) finale that will involve Manousos Oviedo trying to persuade Carol that her idea of restoring humanity is the best idea, or at least that's what I think is going to happen. 

In truth, this has been a great idea that has grown increasingly more boring as it has gone on. Yes, I get that this is the entire idea - Carol has to go through all the stages of grief and distrust before she is finally won over by the fact that she will have all of her late wife's memories even if she will no longer have free will. But it's needed something else to happen; something more than Manousos learning English and not communicating with the rest of the world. Let's hope the final part of this series offers us something other than the rather pedestrian offering this has, sadly, become...

What's Up Next?

Fallout is back next week, plus some season finales, some films we'll get around to watching and probably some other stuff. 

You know the drill.

My Cultural Life - Stranger Danger

What's Up?

The UK Far Right is one of the whingiest and most demanding minority demographics on social media just now. At the moment, they're very scared of or offended by road signs, certain fluids, vegan scones, and the ethnicity of their 'favourite' cartoon character. 

They say so. Regularly on certain Facebook pages and comments sections of publications. 

They get sweaty and phobic when small families use parks and beaches (or their own homes and gardens), and they faint/swoon/weep uncontrollably when confronted by harmless eccentric costumery, a flag of different colours, or an innocent face mask. They admit these things. Every day, like a badge of honour. What you moan about is for sissies, this is hardcore. 

They're anxious of and simultaneously offended by young people, kind people, vulnerable people, teachers, trans gender people, experts, doctors, travellers, and sun lotion. They tell us on a daily basis about all the none things that are a problem, but they never seem to moan about things that are worth moaning about. 

The problem is, they hate the poor. They hate the different. They hate logic and science. They hate non-whites. Just ask them, they quite open about it now. They claim it's the new normal. Racism is more socially acceptable than caring for people or being 'woke'. 

If you actually stop and think about what the UK Far Right dislikes, they moan a lot more than anyone else and none of the things they moan passionately about is the problem.

Will Buys A Vauxhall Vecna

I dunno. Maybe there's something wrong with me? My old nemesis The Guardian gave season five, part one of Stranger Things a four-star rating and said by the end of this section, we'd be standing on our chairs cheering. Really? Look, if you're going to watch this you've probably watched it already, therefore I have to ask how Will's inner gayness makes him Eleven mk2? How does that even work?

I'm not convinced the Duffer Brothers knew what they were going to do with this when they started it. The chances are that the very first series of Stranger Things might have had the opportunity to extend itself tagged on after the majority of it was in the can, or maybe Netflix thought they were onto a good thing and told the inexperienced filmmaking brothers to go for it. The thing is, I sat through this segment of the final season wondering what the fuck was going on. Kids living inside Henry's memories; giant walls made of putrefying flesh; trying to tie up pointless subplots from earlier seasons; the US army as bad guys I can get my head around, but all the misdirection and confusion, the melodramatic confrontations, the jarring supporting characters - it's just not very good. 

Just what is Wynona Ryder doing in this? She's been as ineffectual as the proverbial chocolate teapot. What has happened to Maya Hawke's Robin? She's suddenly become ebullient and excitable, two things she has never been before. And what about the acting abilities of the (former) kids? Oh and while we're on that subject, Priah Fergusan, who plays Lucas's 11-year-old loudmouthed sister is 19 fucking years old and she looks it. I literally could write a long list of things that are wrong with this overhyped disgrace of a series.

It hasn't been good since season two and even those first two seasons relied far too much on Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, with a smattering of John Carpenter and Joe Dante thrown in for good measure. There is nothing original in this and despite everything that has gone on so far, Vecna is even more powerful than he was, his backstory is still as shit as it was and it totally lost me inside a couple of minutes of the first episode of season five's first segment of episodes... I mean, it's even a long and drawn out way of trying to explain where exactly in the order of things you are. I'll be standing on my chair cheering on January 1st when I never have to think about this bloated abomination ever again...

Court Case Nut Case

Despite finding it a good, if dated, feature film, I don't really know why Primal Fear was called that, because it isn't really about fear and there was very little that's primal about it - as it wasn't the first or original. This Richard Gere movie is about a lawyer who craves to be centre of attention, so when a young man is literally caught red handed after the heinous murder of a Chicago Archbishop, it's the perfect job for him. What looks like a cut and dried case soon becomes one with twists, turns and a stink of corruption. Laura Linney plays Gere's ex who is given the case of prosecuting Edward Norton's meek and mild Aaron and what starts off as an easy case soon becomes a battle for her job. This is yet another Gregory Hoblit film, someone who, after cutting his teeth on shows like Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, became a high profile director in the late 90s and early 00s. It does feel of its time, but if you don't know the film (or the story its based on) then you will not see the end coming. 7/10

Derry Things

Of course, the irony hasn't escaped me. It was one of the direct inspirations for Stranger Things and now It - Welcome to Derry is being maligned by its similarity to the first season of Stranger Things (or something like that). Maybe it's because both shows have so much promise and continually fail to deliver? This week's sixth part (that means there are two to go) was a massive case of fuck all. Young love and drums. Look at my manky eye. A little more 'look how racist we can be.'

I have to rewatch the two It films because I want to understand how adults and Pennywise interact. If memory serves me, adults forget about the clown and the tragedies very quickly; they just become 'one of those Derry things' - That's how it worked in the book, I'm pretty sure of. I'm wondering if we're really going to have two more series set further back in the past and if we do are they going to be unrelated to the flashbacks in this season? But I'm also wondering how this big air force operation was never mentioned by anyone in the films? Let's not mention the glowing obsidian-like stone with magical anti-Pennywise properties either...

I'm more than aware that since the second episode, I have struggled to find anything good to say about this series, but this latest instalment is an insult to our collective intelligence. It's a 'we haven't really got a story to last eight parts so here's a proper filler episode before we get into the penultimate and final parts'. You know Pennywise has that trademark red balloon? I think this one has a leak in it and it's now really flabby.

Troll Too?

One of the surprise films of 2022 was Troll, a Norwegian Kaiju film with a tragic ending. Despite its now low rating on IMDB it was an entertaining and enjoyable monster romp with excellent special effects. Troll 2 also boast quite brilliant effects, it also isn't a bad film, despite its IMDB score. I think many of the Americans who review things on that website don't understand 'foreign' movies. Yes, this is a bit corny - but we're talking about trolls, FFS, 100 foot tall organically natural beings that turn into stone at the sight of sunlight and dislike Christians - I mean, they could almost be vampires.

This time around, a troll the Norway government has had on ice for 100 years wakes up and decides to take its revenge on man. Welcome back Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora Tidemann, the palaeontologist from the first film, who is also a bit of a troll whisperer. She knows of the existence of another troll, who she calls 'Beautiful' and thinks she can get troll B to convince troll A to stop destroying things and eating people. The script telegraphs itself around an awful lot, so there are no surprises and there weren't enough scenes with trolls in them or enough action - for a film with the biggest ever budget in Norway they could have spread it around a bit more. It's 90+ minutes of silly fun with lots of film references, but it also feels like a generic Kaiju movie, if such a thing exists. 6/10 

Island Dreams

Almost all of the penultimate episode of Down Cemetery Road was set on the fictitious Scottish island where ex-soldiers went to be experimented on. People died, there was an element of a cliffhanger ending and the show's main villain continued to be villainous, while back in Whitehall, the civil servant who put the entire story into motion has realised the dopey Defence Secretary, the one he's dismissed out of hand in his British sitcom manner, has the make of him. This is utter shit and if there ever was a second season I'd rather saw my own penis off with someone else's hacksaw and then feed it to my eyes... 

DIY Laughs

Last year there was this mildly amusing TV show on Discovery called James May and the Dull Men's Club, this was essentially about James May doing stuff that the actual Dull Men's Club would get behind. It co-starred this acquaintance of May's called Seb Riley, who was really fucking creepy, posh and is probably the reason why it has been replaced with James May's Shed Load of Ideas, which has essentially the same show and team minus creepy Seb.

It was very funny in places and considerably more entertaining than its previous incarnation. We did learn something though, James is almost certainly a 'Jim' to his friends, as one of the producer's referred to him as Jim during a skit about turning a shopping trolley into a hybrid bike/trolley thing. There's no Seb, so this is ace, viewers...

Not ShIT

I persuaded the wife to watch It, despite both of us having the feeling we'd not enjoy it. It's been eight years since we saw it and much water has gone under the bridge and much of it felt like a new film. Andy Muschietti takes a few, well deserved, liberties with Stephen King's original story (that's enough mention of that) and breezes over parts of the book that just were either wrong or weren't needed to tell this tale. It does feel like a disturbing film at times; it plays on kids' fears which makes it quite creepy and it does actually lay some groundwork for the TV series, albeit unintentionally (I suspect). Oddly enough, it would have worked as a standalone film had it flopped; a bit of judicious editing at the end and it would have been final. I found I enjoyed it considerably more than I expected. It isn't a bad film at all. 7/10

Extinction Agenda

Meanwhile, in Pluribus: Carol discovers something quite horrendous and decides to travel to Las Vegas to speak with one of the other 'normal' humans about it and discovers a few things that upset her slightly. She might be the most miserable person left on the planet but she's had reasons for this, many of which she hasn't really bothered to share, and now she's beginning to suffer. The revelatory reason for the horrendous discovery and the fact the other normal humans have all been discussing things Carol has been investigating doesn't help, neither does a personalised message explaining the situation and delivered by John Cena.

Meanwhile in Paraguay, the only other human more suspicious of what's going on, other than Carol, finally realises that Carol might be just like him, so he decides to travel from Paraguay to Albuquerque. This might be the subplot we've been waiting for, because however brilliant this series has been it really is starting to feel like it hasn't actually got a reason for existing. Carol discovers that even the infected have to start realising that a cure is the only way to save a rapidly deteriorating situation, but will they realise it?

Beatling About

As we approach the end of The Beatles Anthology, we're also fast approaching the last two albums and the beginning of the end for possibly the greatest band that ever existed. It does feel as though the death of Brian Epstein was the catalyst for the things which led to the band splitting up, but they also produced some of their most innovative stuff, almost as if to prove a point. It didn't matter though because the UK press - especially - had decided the Fab Four had been Fab for too long and suddenly everything they did went under a microscope and very little was praised. It's also a period where the then three remaining Beatles had differing memories of what was happening.

What Weather's Up Next?

More discussions in the media about the wet weather. This week has seen the media fixated with: slagging Labour off, the World Cup, ignoring Gaza now despite continued Israeli violence, the Eurovision song contest and the wet weather. It shows you how the TV world has changed that neither Strictly or I'm A Celebrity have been featured on the news when they would normally dictate it, especially over the last 14 years or so.

Here's the thing - In March 2012, I was working at a school, we'd had one of the driest winters ever and March was exceptionally mild in Northampton. It was memorable because the extreme day/night cold broke one of our bathroom windows. We had weeks of cold but dry throughout the winter from November of 2011 and then the high pressure shifted in the March allowing a warmer airflow, but we still had longer nights than days and the nights were cold and still.

I was on my way home for lunch when I heard on the radio that a drought order was being enforced from the 25th or something. I said to myself at the time, 'here comes the rain.' 2012, apart from the first week of the Olympics and a few weeks in September was fucking awful. Will we ever forget the Queen standing on a boat in the Thames with her ancient husband getting soaked in 8 degrees in the middle of June? 2012 was shit. I had potatoes go rotten in the ground. The point is the moment the D word is mentioned, the weather gods, rub their hands together, laugh and turn on the wet stuff. 

As a rather nice summer came to an abrupt end in September, we were being told how bad it was as far as water levels were and how bad it's going to get and it's done nothing but dump rain on us, steadily, since then. Like some repetitive joke from the moment the D word was uttered on the BBC. Do you know what? Come April, May, June or July, we'll have had a period of dry, sunny and warm/hot weather that makes our landscape look like it's in the middle of a long hot D word. Because that is what happens with weather. It's not new, it's just a little more extreme.

What's Up Next?

Stuff. Dunno what. A couple of things pencilled in. If there's new stuff coming out, I don't know about it, but that might be because I never really watch 'the right kind of TV'. 

Some conclusions - huzzah - and some closing in on their own ones. As always, you get most of what I see.

My Cultural Life - Even Strangerer Things

Game of Things

It's finally arrived; the TV event of 2025 - the first part of the final season of Stranger Things... Let me explain a few [heh] things before we get into this... I thought season one was excellent TV and season two was possibly even better. However season three was all over the place and season four was a massive let down. I think we all expected something more than we actually got. I'm not a huge fan of this show; it's good, but not that good. It's a bit derivative; it borrows heavily from other things and the characters are all over the place at times.

Right. Because of this month's pub quiz, we only watched the first three episodes of the four-part season five preamble. We're saving the 90 minute pseudo-finale for Saturday night, but our Thursday night was Stranger Things night and boy was I underwhelmed. If season four was an uneven mess with a real copout ending, this decided to continue the story about 18 months after the last one ended and didn't bother to explain how or why everything that is happening happened. Some of the crew are now running a radio station inside an army quarantined town that allows the residents of Hawkins to carry on as normal, while not allowing them to leave. There are so many possibly holes in the premise that I didn't even want to think about the plot, which actually seems to be non-existent. I mean, the army now has a base inside the Upside Down and this base has helicopters, RVs and all kinds of shit; in fact if it wasn't for the demigorgons you'd think the USA now controlled this demon realm.

There's this general feeling that the anti-Vecna gang can do whatever they want and the army are only interested in Eleven, who seems to be able to evade detection despite Hawkins being cordoned off from the rest of Indiana. Have they bothered to visit Hopper? Popped into the Byers household or visited the Wheeler's? The army is desperate to get Eleven back in their control but they've obviously not read the scripts of the first four seasons and looked in all the obvious places. Look, I want to like this, but it's just not that brilliant. Vecna also looks a bit like DC's Swamp Thing. It's entertaining and if you can get past the fact that the actor playing Nancy Wheeler is now 30 and her boyfriend is 33 playing a 19 year old or that the D&D gang are all in their early 20s playing 15 year old kids or that they had to recast some characters because they couldn't just set the thing five years later, then maybe you can suspend disbelief enough to think this is fantastic. I can't.

Oh, Yeah. What's Up?

It's always puzzled me how On The Spot Fixed Penalty Notices work. I mean, some bod with a lanyard that says they're an employee or representative of a local council comes up and informs you that because you tipped the dregs of your coffee down a drain you are contravening some obscure act and they are issuing you with a fine. How does that work? Are people that stupid they just give these wankers their names and addresses?

If someone approached me for failing to pick up dog shit (I always do), or dropping a cigarette butt (I don't smoke) and informed me that I am being fined, the first thing I'd say is, "How you going to do that then?" Unless you're wearing a big name badge with your address and telephone number, you don't actually have to give them any of your details. What are they going to do? Demand you give it to them? Complain to you that you're not being reasonable? Threaten to call the police? Given what our police currently spend their time doing, you're probably not old enough or wearing the right T-shirt...

You just walk away. Tell them they have no right to harass you; no law on their side to enforce any obscure by-laws; and there's no obligation on your part to give them any information about yourself. If they follow you, tell them that if they don't leave you alone you will punch them on the nose - a threat of protecting yourself from harassment from some nutter isn't a crime. Threaten them with your dog (or someone else's). Start videoing them and asking them awkward and difficult questions; or better still start making allegations about them while telling them you are live streaming the encounter across social media. "Why did I see you trying to persuade that 11-year-old girl into the back of your van?" That should get rid of them very quickly.

You might think I'm being an arsehole, but remember this, almost every 'enforcement officer' are not employed by your local council but by a private company who can receive between 50 and 100% of the fines they issue. Councils use these companies as a deterrent rather than a revenue stream. Yes, if you're an actual offender who flaunts the law, abuses your rights and causes grief to other members of the public, then you're in the wrong and should be confronted; but you're more likely to be a problem to them if you fall into that category. About 75% of council by-laws are more obscure than an honest person in the Tory party and these companies don't target angry, big or threatening people, they target the weak, the meek and the mild. It's time people stood up to idiotic bureaucracy and the arseholes employed to enforce it.

American Dystopia

Jesus Christ, that was not a clever way to spend a Sunday night. I sat down to what I thought was a political thriller, but it turned out to be a dystopian science fiction film that could be fact inside the next three years. Anniversary is one of the most frightening movies I have seen in many years, it is also extremely good. However, it really isn't for the faint hearted, nor for people fearful that Donald Trump is the start of some fascist takeover of the USA. This film will scare the shit out of you and then squeeze your bowels to get the last drop of poo out of your system and then go on a mission to find some more...

It begins with the 25th wedding anniversary of a restauranteur and his college professor wife. It is a family affair, a big party, where their three daughters and son come along to celebrate the big day. The son, played chillingly by Dylan O'Brien (who seems incapable of making a bad film), has his new girlfriend in tow, someone Mom - Diane Lane - seems to know. A largely incident free party passes by until Mom realises her son's girlfriend - Phoebe Dynevor - is actually a free radical supporter of fascism who she taught eight years earlier at her university and is on the verge of having her treatise on anti-democracy and dictatorship published by a corporation that wants to take over the USA, by force if necessary.

The story plays out over a five year period, coming back every year for further developments and to see how far the USA has spiralled into an age of extreme fascism, where enemies of the state are summarily executed or put in prison for a minimum of 40 years - with no parole. This is a grim and dark feature that feels all the more horrendous because you can imagine it actually happening, over the next few years, initiated by Trump and a Republican Party that has been taking politics lessons from the Nazis. This film should be shown in every school in the USA and everywhere else. 9/10

Spies Like Us

We finally got around to watching The Night Manager. I think we avoided it because it was written by John Le Carre and his spy thrillers are usually less thrilling than wordy. This, however, is an altogether different beast. Starring Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Coleman and Hugh Laurie, it originally came out nine years ago but with a long awaited second series about to drop, what better time than to catch up with the ex-army man with a conscience.

Hiddleston plays the titular Night Manager of a Cairo hotel, he's escaping his military past, preferring a lonely nocturnal existence. When the girlfriend of a rich local thug is killed he vows to get revenge and when MI5 come calling he has no hesitation but to help them by going covert to infiltrate the life of psycho arms dealer Dickie Roper - Laurie. What follows is a twisting and turning tale of how he first gets his foot in the door and eventually becomes a trusted friend of Roper, as he discovers secrets that lead all the way back to Cairo...

Kids on Drugs

I have to admit, I'm beginning to struggle with this. It's okay, but there are so many inconsistencies in the story; so many contrivances to drive the story alone and so many liberties taken with a lot of things just to tell a story that isn't going to conclude with the end of this series (and isn't likely to have a conclusion, given it's telling a tale in reverse). It isn't just that though, I sat through tonight's fifth episode of It: Welcome to Derry and despite the late arrival of Bill Skarsgård's Pennywise, it just feels like loads of style over any substance. Couple this with various The Shining references now, it's like Andy Muschietti is having a massive Stephen King erection and is using this TV show to have a pointless wank... 

I Saw You Standing Alone

Ethan Hawke is superb as Lorenz Hart, one half of the famed musical theatre combo Rodgers & Hart. Blue Moon is an adaptation of the letters written between Hart and Elizabeth Weiland, over a three year period during the Second World War. Hart was pretty much in the closet and was described by a friend as 'a homosexual man who was infatuated with women.' This film, which could easily have been a play, is based around the opening night of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! Hart walks out of the show after the opening number and retires to the bar where the rest of the musical's main people would be arriving for the after show party. Hart, who was also an alcoholic with mental health issues sets the scene by chatting with Eddie the bar man, a young wannabe musician playing the piano and writer E.B. White. It is clear he is an erudite wit, but also a man struggling with more than just his sexuality in a time of war. He is trying to stay on the wagon, but the impending success of his former partner's new show and the fact that Elizabeth sees him as 'just a friend' weighs heavy on him. This is a Richard Linklater movie, it is full of excellent dialogue, well crafted scenery and Hawke plays the diminutive Hart like he was born to play him. Yet, despite all the superlatives, it starts to grate after a while and if it had been on any longer it might have outstayed its welcome. 6/10

Strange Milk

After almost killing Zosia last week, Carol has been ostracised by the hivemind of humanity. They literally exit Albuquerque en masse, leaving her alone with the coyotes. This both annoys, yet pleases the angriest woman on the planet because it leaves her more time to try and come up with a plan to restore earth to the horrible state it was before the alien viral invasion. Because no one lives anywhere near her, everything she needs is now delivered by drone, as the hivemind has decided that it is too dangerous to remain anywhere near her; this also proves to be interesting clues for Carol. Then she discovers the milk cartons that are not full of milk. They are a concoction of water and some crystalline chemical that she believes might be keeping the 'infected' attached to the hivemind, so she starts making videos to be sent to the other 12 humans to see if they are interested or want to help. I have a theory about where Pluribus is going and given it's by Vince 'Breaking Bad' Gilligan, where I think it's going is somewhere very dark and bordering on unbelievably bad. This was the first hint of a viable subplot and I expect next week's episode will move it forward much further.

Comedy Psychopath

I think the wife is realising just how shit Down Cemetery Road actually is, but we're heavily invested in it and there's only three episodes to go... This week the psycho hitman realises Emma Thompson is trailing him, but she manages to evade him on a night train to Scotland. Ruth Wilson and her squaddie mate are sleeping rough, in Scotland, but he bails on her, leaving her stuck in the middle of nowhere. Then it gets a bit problematic, even more than it has been so far. Earlier on in the series, many of the scenes shot that were supposed to be in Oxford were actually filmed not far from Teddington on the outskirts of London and now the scenes in Scotland were filmed in Cornwall. I mean, if you're going to have a quaint Scottish fishing village in the middle of nowhere try not to have Cornish street names or houses that look about as Scottish as a Jersey cow. There's three more fucking episodes of this shite to go? How is that going to work? Is there going to be one episode that's an interlude where it's all acted out in interpretive dance? Utter  shitting bollocks.

Fab Four

Peter Jackson has taken the 1995 series The Beatles Anthology and remastered it, added new footage and digitised the sound. It looks like it could have been made last week, apart from the fact that the two remaining living Beatles - Paul and Ringo - are now 83 and 85 respectively, but in their 50s when it was originally released. We watched part one and it was fab; I expect the two other parts we have to watch, before the rest is released will be equally excellent. I'm a big fan of the band and I don't understand anyone who can't see how important they were (but I can't understand why some people think Nigel Farage is a decent bloke; it must be because many people are just cunts). 

What's Up Next

The first finale of Stranger Things will dominate Saturday night. Then it will be whatever else that's on next week mixed with whatever films float our boats...

I don't know if it's me but it feels like fewer and fewer things are really impressing me at the moment. I mean, when something is good it's been brilliant, but everything else just seems a bit meh, at best. Maybe I watch too much TV?

We were told that season five of For All Mankind would land this month, but it's been delayed until, by the looks of things, May 2026; that means I can't really think of much to look forward to between now and the end of the year. Maybe there will be something, but I'm not pinning my hopes or holding my breath.

Expect the usual mix next week.

My Cultural Life - Waving & Drowning

What's Up?

You'd think, after 18 months of doing sweet FA (apart from upset people), the Labour government would just rip up its senseless programme notes and start being a Labour government again. The problem is there are very few actual Labour Party MPs left; they're all either Starmer or Reeves clones or closet Tories who thought joining Labour would give them a chance to be MPs again now that the Tory Party is in its last days before complete extinction.

If Labour was to do Labour things it might not stop the rot, but what have they got to lose? They are currently handing control of the country to a racist who works for billionaires; a man who can do literally anything he likes and then deny it and receives no scrutiny at all. One thing I'm absolutely positive about is that a year into Reform's first government there will be more people than ever crying 'I didn't vote for this.' Reform might only get one crack at power, but you can bet your life that it will change so much in those five years that whoever becomes the party in power in 2034 will have a thankless task with no hope of reversing policies designed to fuck us over.

This is why Labour needs to do some radical things. They have to stop pandering to the far right media because the far right media doesn't give a shit about how far right they seem to be, they're never going to support Labour. Why does no one in the Labour Party realise this? Are we really governed by a bunch of people with almost less awareness than the last Tory administration? So, if Labour does some radical things - taxing the rich, super taxing the super rich, borrowing money to pay for infrastructure, which will create jobs, which will create spending, which will create more tax revenues... They can worry about immigration only if people refuse to see how their lives are improving.

You see this is the crux of the matter. Idiots can't see the real problem* despite it sitting in front of them, they want to think it's down to foreigners, to black and brown people, to the disabled, the unemployed and especially to asylum seekers (which they don't trust) and the right wing press isn't offering an alternative narrative. * Incidentally, the biggest reason for everyone being unhappy is actually the cost of living and the fact that shareholders are holding the rest of the country to ransom. However, the right wing press won't suggest this because if the people started to realise that they're paying more because of profiteering businesses who want to pay their shareholders more and more every year that would create problems they can't solve.

Labour is doomed. They are about to go the same way as the Tories. By 2030 the political landscape of this country will see the Labour and Conservatives only achieving 20% of the total vote; the other 80% will be thrown at Reform, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cyrmu, the SNP, the Green Party and even independents who will win seats by campaigning on local issues. It might be that the only way to stop Reform from destroying what's left of the country will be by having a rainbow coalition, one where the Labour Party, ironically, holds the balance of power. However, they can stop this. They can be more like the party people voted for and then spend a lot of money educating people that foreigners aren't the reason lives are shit. 

I'd like to see Labour MPs standing up for themselves and their party by challenging the right wing biased media. Saying things like, "Laura, tell me, why are you so focused on a mistake made by the chancellor or the wrongful release of a few prisoners? I don't seem to recall you scrutinising the Tories who tried to defraud the tax office, or who gave billions away to their mates during Covid, or those that partied while the rest of the country was in lockdown or even the 800+ prisoners wrongly released in just the last year of their government. It's like you have an agenda; do you have an agenda, Laura?" I'd fucking cheer at the TV if an MP actually challenged these so called 'journalists'.

Juno Temple's Nipple

One of the surprise box office hits of the summer was Roofman, a film that tells the true story of Jeffrey Manchester, a criminal with a good heart, but a criminal all the same. Channing Tatum plays the eponymous Roofman, a man who breaks into places through the roof and robs them, but is very nice to victims. Manchester is a ex-serviceman with an almost genius mind, but he couldn't hold a job down so he turned to crime and eventually got himself caught. He then escaped from prison and started a new life as John Zorn, met a woman, fell in love and lived a normal life, while living in a vacant space inside a Toys R Us store, where his girlfriend Leigh (Kirsten Dunst) worked.

For almost six months, Jeffrey/John lived a 'normal' life, but a dishonest one while still on the run. He joined a church, did family things and eventually fell in love, so when he decided he needed to escape or be caught, he planned one last heist and that's all I'm saying. It's a really good film, considerably better than I expected, which is why it was a big success in cinemas, in a summer that yielded few massive hits. So, why the heading? What about Juno Temple's nipple? Well, the British actress plays the girlfriend of Manchester's buddy Steve, who is helping the convict do a flit to Venezuela and there's one scene where her nipple pops out of the top of her dress. I couldn't really understand why it was even in the film; yes, there was a scene with Channing Tatum's arse as he ran naked through Toys R Us, but Juno's nipple felt almost exploitative. It didn't need to be there and while it didn't ruin an entertaining movie, it really could have been avoided. That's how prudish I've become in my old age. 7/10

Eye Eye

After last week's first 'treading water' episode, this week It - Welcome to Derry moved the story along by going back into the distant past to explain what lives under Derry. In many ways, it was an important part to the story, but equally it also felt like more filler. Is this a show about proving the black cinema owner (would that even be a thing in 1962?) isn't a child killer? Or is it about the US Army trying to find whatever lives under Derry so it can be used as a weapon against the country's enemies? Even if it is the latter, no one is sure what they're looking for or if it's even a viable idea. One thing is sure, some people know about the 27 year cycle of horrors including some adults. Something else that bothers me about this show - I mentioned the prejudice porn a couple of weeks ago - is the playing fast and loose with the degrees of tolerance and racism in 1962. One week every single black character is acting like it's Jim Crow time and this week Hanlon's wife is talking to racist policemen like it's 2025 and she thinks they'll take notice of her. Tonally, this is all over the place.

That's not to detract from the general okayness. This isn't a bad series, it's just written by a man - Andy Muschietti - who wasn't born until 1972, his formative years will have been the 1980s, so it feels anachronistic at times because the cultural difference was vast. This, however, is a small gripe (but one that grates at times), because if I had a big gripe it's how over four episodes we're not really much further on than we were in the opening minutes of episode one. I'm not sure any of the three interwoven subplots are good enough to hold this together, plus Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) still hasn't appeared and I'm not sure that's a good thing. I think this isn't proving to be as excellent as the opening two parts suggested it was going to be; there doesn't seem to be a real direction and this week a creepy fishing trip and some crazy eye hallucinations felt like the horror is gradually being ramped down.

Gone Fishing

And so another series of Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing draws to a close. We watched the final two episodes this week and it might surprise the casual viewer or people who don't watch but are aware of this programme that they seem to catch fewer fish every year (and it's always expertly edited so you never see a hook - or the damage it does - when a fish is landed). The emphasis this series has been on Ted's age (and his absence from the final episode), the accommodation that Bob sources and scenery - it really is screensaver TV with a hint of gentle comedy. There's going to be a Christmas Special and I expect there will be a ninth series, but as our two hosts will be a couple of years shy of 70 next year I wouldn't be surprised if they call it a day, especially when the old dog is too weak to be dragged around the country.

Deliberately Contrary

Apologies if I bang on about something I consistently bang on about, but The Guardian's reviews are so obviously 'paid for content' now that it's as clear as a nose on a face. Just recently they have raved incessantly about the new David Duchovny series Malice, giving it four stars, while IMDB has it at 5.6 - which for a TV series that's less than a week old is pretty shit. Then there's the BBC thriller The Ridge which it claimed was a 'superb thriller' and 'sure to keep you watching until the end...' That's currently at 5.3 on IMDB. 

So when it was raving about the 2024 movie Bone Lake and gave it a four star rating I was immediately drawn to IMDB to see what 'real' people thought of it. It's been out a year has several thousand reviews and currently is 5.7, which I suppose is just below average, but also a rating to be avoided. It also claimed Playdate was a lot of fun with its three star review and if you tuned in last week you'll know exactly how well that pile of shite performed both with me and IMDB. The Guardian seems to be drawn to crap films that are rated in the 5s, which suggests to me that either their reviewers are just idiots or there's this deal where crap films' producers pay the Guardian to give extremely positive reviews that fly in the face of actual real peoples' opinions. The paper has, so far, in the last couple of months got one review right, the extremely entertaining All Her Fault, which was as good as the paper claimed it to be, but there's also the review of Pluribus, which it also raved about, but was clear from almost the opening paragraph that the reviewer hadn't actually watched the opening two episodes or if they had they didn't take any fucking notice of them...

The thing is me moaning about The Guardian is a little like me recommending Apple TV+ shows to you. Most of you either a) Don't read the Guardian or b) don't subscribe to Apple TV+, so it's just me doing the equivalent of shouting into the abyss. I want that once excellent newspaper to have more comments sections available, especially for its reviews, but they patently avoid doing that, which just further confirms my belief that most of the paper's reviews are paid for content. The other reason for me believing this are the number of crap reviews it gives for big studio pictures, because these big studio pictures don't wave a wad of cash at Katherine Viner's reviews editor and beg them to be kind. It was once a proud and worthy newspaper, it's now run by a bunch of neo-liberal cunts!

Organised Criminals

Another thing we've 'taped' off of Film4 in the last year was James Gandolfini's final movie The Drop, a tale about a Brooklyn bar that is used by Chechen organised crime as a money laundering joint. The star of The Sopranos plays second fiddle to Tom Hardy's Bob, his cousin who works for him. Bob has a heart of gold and only seems to look out for people and dogs. When their bar is robbed by some local thugs, their 'bosses' give them a limited amount of time to recover the stolen money and make good, meanwhile the local PD is sniffing around under the guise of hunting the robbers, but they're really trying to find out what they can about a cold case murder investigation. Noomi Rapace also stars in this as Bob's potential love interest and what seems like a sweet love story wrapped around an organised crime story actually has a slightly sinister feel about it and a last 15 minutes you probably wouldn't have seen coming. It's likely to show again on Film4 and is worth a solid 6.5/10.

Why I Love/Hate the USA

In a week that felt like it was fast becoming one of those weeks where everything is slightly worse than you expected, along comes something superb; something that almost brought a tear to my eye; something that perfectly illustrates my belief that the USA is the worst country in the world with some of the nicest people trapped living there. That something was Code 3. What a fantastic movie. No, really, it's phenomenal. It stars the excellent Rainn Wilson as Randy, a paramedic who is on his last day doing a job he's spent 18½ years doing, but he needs to get out.

This film follows the 24 hours of his final shift and frankly it's an hour and 40 minutes of sheer brilliance. You will laugh, you will want to cry, you will be astounded at how frank and real it is; how visceral it allows itself to be, yet you will still feel like you have watched something important, that will make no difference at all. I cannot recommend this enough; you will see few films better than this in 2025. This gets a rare and warranted 10/10.

Ho's Da Man

The wife finally decided it was time to watch the most recent series of the ever-dependable and quite brilliant Slow Horses and guess what? It is quite brilliant and always dependable. This series initially focuses on Roddy Ho, the wanker who monitors all the surveillance and is the IT wizard at Slough House, he is also a massive (mentally ill) cockwomble. He falls victim to a honeytrap that sets off a series of events beginning with a mass shooting in a suburb of London, a plot to destabilise the capital and the deaths of 22 penguins. Is this all to do with the upcoming mayoral election or is there something more sinister afoot and what have the Libyans got to do with it all? I know I bang on about Apple TV+ but this alone is worth the subscription price (or the 'risk' of downloading their shows illegally). This is one of the most enjoyable TV shows of the 21st century and Gary Oldman is just so good as the amazingly grubby Jackson Lamb.

Up Shit Hole Street

In many ways, Down Cemetery Road seems to be turning into an almost watchable show. I did manage to work out what it was that bugged me about it and that was the fact that all the characters in it are from a 1970s sitcom performing in a 2020s espionage and action thriller. There was less poor humour in this fifth part and more clues to ... well, not so much what is going on, because we know that, more about different parties staying ahead of other parties that mean them harm. It's the antithesis of Slow Horses, despite being written by the same man; whereas that is full of genuine humour from its slightly OTT characters, this feels like a try out for something that never got (or should never have been) made.

Tick, Tick, BOOM!

The worst thing about the finale of The Morning Show is that if there's going to be a fifth season it won't be for another two years. There have been times during this series where I've wondered just where it's going, but that's par for the course. There has been a paucity of certain characters and a feeling that everyone has moved on, but it's always felt like it was going somewhere and it did with a finale that was always going to happen, it just depended on who was going to light the blue touch paper and whether they were going to retire or go up with it. In this case, we won't find out until that fifth season even if this series completes its story.

There shall come a reckoning and this show always delivers that, if it's Mitch driving off a cliff or if Bradley is going to get out of Belarus alive, there are always shock departures and consequences because of that. There was more than one bad guy this time around and whether all of them will be around in the future just makes the anticipation for series five all the greater. This is one of the best TV shows being made - long may it run.

Miserable Old Bastard

The wife binge watches The Chase, usually during periods when she isn't working. What she does is record episodes from the TV and when she's off work - like she is until February - she will do some of her craft work with the quiz show on in the background. She's a huge quiz show fan and now she doesn't go to the pub quiz as a player it's taken on extra value for her. It keeps her mind sharp.

I find the show tedious and heavily weighted in favour of the Chasers, most of which I think either the wife or I could beat in a general knowledge competition. I find Bradley Walsh to be somewhat disingenuous as a host who makes it look as though he's on the quiz contestants' side, but he's really just ensuring that the ratio of times the Chasers are beaten is kept to a minimum. I would not be welcome on this show, for a number of reasons, but the biggest is no doubt the contestants and my general disdain for many of them. Yes, sometimes there are people on this show who have fantastic general knowledge skills and have analytical minds to be able to work out some of the ridiculously difficult questions that are often thrown up - which doesn't help my general cynicism for the show - however, there are some thick-as-horse-shit people on this and I would probably insult them and abuse them if they did anything but allow themselves to be eliminated...

Why do people who have trouble finding their arses with a map and a compass want to go on TV just to be humiliated? It's not even 15 minutes of fame because the only people who are going to remember them are themselves. It's also probably the most difficult quiz show outside of University Challenge and Only Connect, which further puzzles me why idiots would want to go on it. They get fuck all in the cash builder, then take the low offer - usually intelligence insulting - and if they get through the first stage, are then useful for fuck all in the final chase where invariably they hit the button and say 'pass' before any of the clever people on their team get a chance to answer. What incentive is there for any half decent player to go for any large sum of money when they might end up sharing it with someone who doesn't know how to piss into a bowl?

Where's Portillo When Needed?

How can something so stunning be turned into such a boring TV documentary? New Zealand By Train was actually made a couple of years ago, by a New Zealand production company and it was as dry and uninspiring as you could possibly imagine. So when Channel 4 got hold of it the first thing they did was get Julie Walters to narrate it. The problem was they kept the original script and Walters could have been pissed as a fart and reading it naked with a massive dildo keeping her company and it still would have been dull. The scenery, especially in the south Island segment, is to die for, but the two 45 minute parts were just massive snoozefests. It was like they had all of these fantastic places to promote but they opted to make it sound like watching paint dry, maybe to put people off of going there.

I actually watched it to see if Dunedin featured - a place where an old friend of mine lives - unfortunately the railway track doesn't go that far south, ending in Christchurch and then going west over the Southern Alps. They still managed to shoehorn some of southernmost part of the country in, probably because other than fabulous scenery there isn't much to see in the south. That said, from the fleeting examples we had of the North island, there doesn't appear to be much of that worth seeing either. Honestly, if this was a promo video to get people fired up about visiting New Zealand they would have been better off filming some sheep having sex.

Meanwhile, Elsewhere

The guy in the picture is the man in Paraguay, the one the hivemind of humanity knows very little about. The opening 15 minutes of episode four of Pluribus featured him and what happened in the period around when Carol phoned him. He appears to be much more suspicious than Carol, who incidentally has been storyboarding a plan of action while finding out things she didn't really want to know. There were hints of an ongoing story emerging, because while the premise is great, it needs to have a forward moving story. While it is arguably the least engaging episode so far, you now know a lot more about the hivemind and it doesn't stop it from still feeling a wee bit sinister.

A Crime Caper

I've never seen Catch Me If You Can, the Steven Spielberg film about the teenage fraudster who became a lawyer, a doctor, and an airline pilot as he tricked his way to embezzling over $5million. Leonardo DiCaprio is Frank Abignole Jr, a man who posed as all manner of respected positions and exploited the banking system while staying one step ahead of the FBI agent on his trail, played by Tom Hanks. It's a pleasant enough feature and a regular favourite on the telly, but it's the story of a man who is very good at committing fraud largely down to people being too trusting and the easy number of ways you can defraud the US government. 6/10

What's Up Next?

Television is going to be taken up with the first part of the final season of Stranger Things. Between now and the end of the world, we will have the final 283 parts to enjoy until the day before the apocalypse the final FINAL finale will be shown to the 17 people remaining who have a TV set...

Other regular TV will be viewed and I will be dancing around IMDB to give myself an idea what to not watch or what I'm going to have to search carefully for to ensure there are subtitles attached.

I'm going to the pub for the first time in three weeks tonight; it's only the second time in six weeks (and the last time was to present a pub quiz while I felt like shit), so there's no Saturday night classic or any other denomination of film or TV to watch.

As usual...