Modern Culture: Pithy

A warning of spoilers ahead

Did you know that I did Modern Culture before? I'd forgotten all about my semi-regular blog called The TV Dump. While waiting around to watch something to put into this column I saw that on February 27, 2012 - over 11 years ago now - I wrote reviews about: Being Human (which I might rewatch soon), Fringe, Skins, the second - boring - season of The Walking Dead and Top Gear, just to round things off there was a comment from Kelvin. Some things don't change, but I certainly ache more now...

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Goodbye The Nevers and thanks for all the confusion. 

I don't think Joss Whedon told anyone what his plans were so when HBO decided to finish making his series they had to make something up and they did and I haven't got a fucking Scooby. We watched the final two parts and all I can say is, 'nope, not a clue and I don't want to know.' It was a bit like hallucinating you're in a badly imagined X-Men steampunk nightmare.

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The very first film I ever watched on my PC and one of the first I downloaded on broadband was 1408 based on the Stephen King short story. It stars John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson and 15 years later we watched it again.

It's not a bad ghost story; why they chose to rewrite the end is a puzzle. They actually made the ending less scary than the book. It didn't feel as good second time around.

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Episode seven of The Last of Us was a return to boredom as we spent 50 minutes looking at Ellie's last day before she was bitten as she and her best friend had fun in an abandoned shopping mall. It did little to move the story on, acted as an allegory for what she needed to do with Joel and his stab wound and expressed a suggestion that Ellie might be gay. 

I count that as two filler episodes now to go with the four dull episodes and the one dull episode that was interesting. 

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The fourth part of Hello Tomorrow didn't go anywhere and we wandered back into 'are they really selling houses on the moon' territory. The point of this series is to make the viewer think this is all a sham, but is it? Every time you think that Jack and his team are selling something that doesn't exist things happen to suggest they do exist.

There's also this vibe that while this looks like America, sounds like America and even has a national anthem that is American - is it really America as we know it [obviously not] or is it something else entirely. This fourth episode saw Jack 'pretending' to be Joey's father in a weird case of life imitating life and Brightside heading for some serious trouble because of Alison Pill's desire for revenge.

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The Secret Origin of DC Comics came out 13 years ago and a few of the people I actually know/knew  in it are now sadly no longer with us. It was also nice seeing some faces I haven't seen for years and listening to some raving loons who I haven't seen for what feels like longer. I did some freelance work for DC in the 1990s, some of the best friends I had in comics worked there. It was always #2 on my comics list of favourites and the few times it snuck into 1st place was usually because of the quality of Marvel rather than the outstanding contribution to comic book artistry. 

The weird thing about this doc was I learned something about Batman and Bob Kane that I feel I probably should have known inside the opening ten minutes but from that point on I pretty much knew everything else or wasn't that interested. 

The problem is DC might have been the first but they're really always going to be number two; even when things get interesting in the comics you know that the next thrilling instalment of shite is waiting in the wings and this documentary - celebrating 75 years - felt a bit half-hearted even and despite having Ryan Reynolds relatively calmly narrate it was always a case, with one exception - the first time - most of the eras of greatness followed problems at Marvel where staff jumped from one to the other and this felt a little like Marvel was an elephant in the room and wouldn't even be mentioned when it might have come across as more documentary, less hagiography had they examined DC's over all impact on comics throughout the world; what DC has done globally for language and education. When I worked with the homeless back in the 2000s, my good friend Bob Wayne sent us a box of comics every month to give to the kids and for over two years the YMCA Northampton was flooded with DC Comics to the point where the managers asked me to ask DC to stop. I know it's not exciting, but sometimes by trying to make yourself look fantastic you miss an opportunity to show people just how fantastic you are and not just creatively.

The doc was boring.

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We finally got around to watching The Banshees of Inisherin and I'd be lying if I didn't say it's a strange film. It appears to be set around the time of the division of the North from the rest and it's about an island community on the far west side of Ireland, specifically two men who it would appear have been best of pals for their entire lives but suddenly one of them doesn't want to talk to the other and that's it. It's about the consequences of stupid decisions, rash behaviour and is a very nice film with a bitter core. I can see why it's been hugely popular.

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Sex on Screen part of the Storyville thread should be compulsory viewing for young males and it would be ideal as well. Full of fleeting titillation most teenage boys I knew when I was one would have been all over this like a teenager with a wank mag. The clincher would be to make all the young males actually watch the programme and listen to the words and understand that their perspective of the world in which women inhabit is all wrong.

There's a section in the middle of this excellent documentary that says, in a more prosaic way, that women are so objectified by media that young men now believe that women are here solely to entertain them, like a kind of breathing, eating and shitting PlayStation. Sadly, the second half of the doc meandered around slightly as it shifted the emphasis and it ends on a very optimistic note, which I think is overstating it at the moment, I personally believe that women, in general, are still a long way away from where they deserve to be and the aged patriarchy is doing whatever it can to keep women where they want them. However, long may women continue to dominate the entertainment media

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Fleishman is in Trouble is apparently something completely different from what you think it is. I hope that's the case because at the moment it just seems like an annoying programme about reasonably well off people in the USA. The entire episode is an introduction to all the characters and then Fleishman's wife disappears and you don't know what you're watching. Has she fulfilled some prophecy that everyone was half expecting or has something else happened. The tone would suggest the former that leads me to think this might get a bit sinister.

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Having Covid somewhat put the mockers on watching anything for a couple of days, so we arrived at episode three of Picard a couple of days late - much to the wife's disdain (she's never been an ST fan and her initial interest in this series waned after about three episodes into the first season). 

The fact we're still in this weird nebula three episodes in suggests that this series is probably going to be quite tight and complete. Worf has developed a sense of humour and Michael Dorn looks in many ways to be as old as Picard, but he was a welcome and funny addition to the cast. When Geordie and Lore (Data's dead) are going to appear is anyone's guess, but my guess is inside the next two parts.

This was a huge improvement on last week's but you just get the feeling that had they managed some consistency throughout the three series we'd be talking about a Star Trek classic series rather than a decision taken far too late in the lives of all the characters. I mean, we might as well get a Kirk cameo...

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35 years is a long time and it was 35 years ago we watched The Untouchables and we haven't watched it since. It's the mark of a truly great film when you remember so much about it from the Battleship: Potemkin homage to the Al Capone and his baseball bat scene.

The first thing you really notice about it is how for at least 95% of the picture how contemporary it feels. The next thing is how much of the scene sets were probably used in Batman but with darker lighting. Oh and what a cracking film it is considering all that was achieved was 11 years for tax evasion. Obviously there was some artistic licence but in general this was the legendary Brian De Palma at his best and even youthful Kevin Costner and Andy Garcia shine in it; but it's Sean Connery's film and if he didn't win an Oscar he should have.

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Next time: Post-Covid TV continues and I try to persuade the wife to watch some of the 'shite' left of the Flash Drive of Doom...