Spoils lurks within...
It's goodbye Hello Tomorrow and it's good riddance from me. What started out as an off-kilter and visually stunning television series with real intrigue quickly became a contrived and difficult to follow mishmash of a mess. It's a real shame because Billy Crudup probably deserves a hit TV show based on his performances in this alone.
The story 'concluded' with everything going right - but wrong - and Jack's entire family reunited much to the confusion of his long-time ex-wife - who has been in a coma for the entire series - and most of the rest of the cast on their way to the moon for who knows what kind of fate. This might have worked had it had a story, unfortunately whatever story it had got lost up its own arse very quickly.
I don't understand why it was made. A huge disappointment after such an auspicious start.
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Yellowjackets has finally started to get going, but it's in the past where things are getting interesting just when you thought the past had become just an open book with horrendous acts punctuating it. In series one it was about the present day survivors and the weird adventure they got themselves into; series two seems to have forgotten the reason we're here in favour of meandering around. There's also a wee bit too much comedy creeping into the present, especially with the introduction of Elijah Wood, while the past has taken on a sinister and paranoid feel.
However, this week did feel like it was getting back on track without much happening. Back in 1999, the survivors were mainly in denial about their last meal, while in 2022 the focus has become so splintered that you do start to wonder if the show's creators have a finite story for the now?
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The second and final season of Carnival Row has been a curious mix and I wasn't sure how some of the subplots were going to work out in the final few episodes. I like Orlando Bloom, he's been good as a gruff, unpretty former cop who no longer belongs with either humans or fae (the magical folk); it's a long way removed from Legolas and his time on the Tolkien books adaptations. I'm still not sure about Delavigne; I mean, she's extremely pretty...
With the plots all coming together; we now know what it's been all about - revolution. The world has shown its face and no race of beings in this series is good. All the women, bar Tourmaline, have either been mad, bad, stupid or easily led and the men all wankers. The heroes have had a constant fight against monsters and idiots; but that's the point of a prejudiced based fantasy - this is in many ways what Marvel need to do with X-Men ideas - give it a reason and something to fight against but do it in a way that is believable and not convenient. Carnival Row has suffered from being too short, but equally that might have something to do with the odd pacing of each episode, but it did a good job of showing extreme prejudice.
The conclusion was actually that - a conclusion. Some people might like it, others won't. It was satisfying and also a very well made and enjoyable two season thing. Now it's over it feels like there should have been more - it's considerably more entertaining than some of the shite that gets recommissioned, such as the LotR stuff.
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Alfonso Cuarón's first big English language film led to him getting a Harry Potter film gig and elevated him up amongst the best foreign directors knocking about. That first big film was Children of Men, a story which, considering it was made in 2006, feels like a prophetic snapshot of where the UK has been going recently but without added infertility.
It's a remarkably bleak film, maybe not as bleak as The Road which came out at a similar time and is very much like The Last of Us but without fungal zomboids. Britain in 2027 is a fascist dictatorship [?!] which, oddly, has become the place where every refugee on the planet wants to come to, but the UK has a zero immigration policy and everyone - citizens legal or illegal - live in fear and panic at the desperate, violent and corrupt system. Clive Owen is initially contacted by his ex because he might know someone who can get travel passes to the south coast for something that is a wonder in this age of despair - a pregnant woman.
As it transpires, the passes were the last thing they need, as a swathe of bodies is left in Owen's wake as he tries desperately to protect the heavily pregnant Key and get her to the mythical Human Project. He was reluctant at first, but committed and determined by the end. In fact, in many ways it is extremely similar to The Road with almost identical endings - a mix of sadness with a soupçon of hope.
I'm amazed I've never watched it before. I'm usually a fan of dystopia, but maybe I avoided it because it was largely a British film, with a cameo from Julianne Moore - it can't be called much else as she's dead before you realise she's in it. It's cropping up on iPlayer and BBC3 at the moment; if you've never seen it, it's worth it for the pace and brutality on offer.
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This week's Trailer Time is The Marvels from Marvel due for release in November (after being put back by two months for reshoots etc etc). Brie Larsson and the other two people star in what appears to be a cosmic offering with Nick Fury*, possibly some aliens and probably given the nature of the film, quantum entanglement.
Let me put this out there; all Marvel trailers are designed to make you WANT to see the film, some better than others. For instance, I'm known to be ambivalent - at best - about the Guardians of the Galaxy film yet I think the first trailer for GotGv3 is the best Marvel trailer I can remember ever seeing and will, ultimately be much better than the film. The trailer for The Marvels left me colder than having slept inside an iceberg. Even Kamala Khan's family, Nick Fury and an alien cat's presence has failed to do anything remotely excitable.
* Is this another Marvel faux pas? Is The Marvels set before or after Secret Invasion? Nick Fury appears to play a large role in this film, which means he either walks away from the upcoming Skrull series unharmed or it's set before that. It will be explained, it just jars with me.
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Maybe the reason I felt so ambivalent about The Marvels trailer is because I realised this evening I'm becoming bored with superhero films. Take Shazam: Fury of the Gods as the perfect example; great cast, familiar characters, witty script and absolutely a massive mess in terms of story, plot and development.
It might be a thoroughly enjoyable mess of a movie, that it's also a lamentable pile of poo. There is no real explanation as to who or how or where the villains came from, bad character development and trying to be clever and failing. It has unexplained stuff happening to do with the Shazam mythos/history that is both new and never mentioned before and just how did all those mortals get to the world of the Gods at the end without a superpowered god-like person to help?
So much made little sense - why would the third daughter of Atlas go to Billy's school, given they had no idea that Billy or his foster brothers and sisters were in fact the 'Shazam' family? I mean, I understand the need for this to have happened so that the ending can be the way it is, but talk about contrived and lazy script writing?
Oh and the deus ex machina ending? Oh heavens, that was bad beyond belief. Gal Gadot should know better. The post credits scenes: the first one seemed to be a bit of 'Oh Shazam might have a future in James Gunn's DCU' and the second one might never see the light of day given James Gunn's new DCU.
I liked the film because of the familiarity to the characters; Darla is still the best of the super family but even her contribution got a bit weird and wacky when the unicorns were introduced. The unicorns were fantastic; a brilliant idea and addition; the Skittles joke almost as funny, but after that it just got a bit too daft - not silly or stupid, but daft. Also many of the monsters on offer looked like a production line of homages to Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad and monster movies. There was simply too much in this film and simultaneously not enough in it. A kind of surreal Schrodinger's Film.
I think superhero fatigue is a genuine thing. Avengers: Endgame was such a pinnacle in the genre that almost everything that has happened since has been a massive anti-climax; nothing is as big or as crazy as that film, so no superhero film since, even if it isn't trying to be super cosmic, is even in the same book let alone on the same page. Superhero films and special effects extravaganzas is on a death cycle; I give it five years and by 2030 there'll be a few low budget films floating about but Disney will have sold Marvel and moved on and DC/Warner will still be flogging some dead horse hoping to catch lightning in a bottle [you see what I did there?].
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Ted Lasso entered into even darker territory this week. Although the hyperbole surrounding the club from the media and the lack of continuity and consistency by the writers is annoying (Richmond, who were relegated in season one and were third before the West Ham defeat, are talked about like being out of their depth and not really a proper football team despite being 9th in a league of 20). The people who make this show obviously haven't studied how football works or even looked at the back page of any newspapers or understand British football journalism.
Ted's struggling with panic attacks again while his team just struggles. The star player has retired without warning; the chairman wants children but can't have them and the Wag gets down to some sexy business with her boss in something that has been telegraphed for weeks. It also struggled with the laughs a little this week and Nathan might finally have wooed Jade, albeit unintentionally - which is quite amazing considering what an absolute monstrous sociopathic cock he is.
***
We often watch programmes that others recommend to us, so we were surprised when our sister-in-law in Sheffield suggested we watch Welcome to Wrexham, which is weird considering we watch Ted Lasso and she isn't into football, at all.
This FX series joins Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhanney as they purchase non-league football club Wrexham in an attempt to return them to former glories and more. It's weird watching it after Ted Lasso because where the former is about an American coach out of his depth at a English football club, this is about two Hollywood stars possibly out of their depth buying a Welsh football club. Where Ted knows little about football, Ryan and Rob are doing their utmost to understand 'soccer' and get behind it and Wrexham the town; even down to Rob learning some Welsh.
A couple of episodes in and buying the club in a pandemic, then watching money disappear and players not achieve what was expected of them doesn't augur well for the future - a future we know still involves Wrexham being a non-league side, although that is bound to change with them sitting top of their league needing three wins from five games to re-enter the EFL for the first time in 15 years.
It starts well, but by the fifth instalment you're wondering if this is going to actually be a documentary about Wrexham, the fans of the club and not specifically the famous people buying and running it, because Rob appears for about 15 seconds and Ryan for about five and the lead singer of a pub band talked about his bowel cancer for half the show...
***
A friend of mine, a comics professional, went into complete fanboy mode after the latest episode of Picard. "How are they going to solve this?" He said, I'm hoping in an attempt to simply stimulate discussion because we all know it will be solved. Star Fleet and the Federation are unlikely to become part of the Borg despite how grim it's looking.
Come on, there's one part left, which might be an extra length finale, but equally might just be another 45 minute episode, we all know someone, probably Data, is going to come up with some kind of computer virus to knock out the genetically altered humans (all under 25) who are now all serving the Borg queen. The world of Star Trek isn't going to be left as it is.
However, I have an issue. There was a point during this instalment where someone says, 'We've had no contact with the Borg for ten years." and that got me thinking, was season two of Picard supposedly set a decade before this? Didn't Agnes Jurati merge with the Queen to make a softer, more reasonable Borg who was not hell bent on assimilation? I'm not at all sure what season two has to do with anything really, or most of season one either.
This was a weird episode in that it appeared to have a number of cliff hangers; it could have finished at any point after 18 minutes as situations got grimmer and less salvageable. It's been a thoroughly entertaining final series, but I really do think there are a lot of holes in the plot. It's a shame we won't be seeing anything more of Liam Shaw - the best Star Fleet Captain never to get his own show.
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Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story was a Netflix documentary from a couple of years ago that I stumbled upon recently. Being a huge fan of John Kricfalusi and abandoning The Ren & Stimpy Show after two series because he'd been dumped from it, I thought it would be interesting to see what really happened, because I'd heard that John K was a bit weird, but I honestly didn't expect to be placed in a similar position to the one I was in after the recent Bill Cosby documentaries on BBC2.
It's a compelling piece of work that's on for an hour and three quarters and for the first hour you're kind of lulled into this false sense of security where boy genius Kricfalusi assembles this team of bright talents, pitches a bunch of ideas at Nickelodeon and is on the threshold of animation history at a time when cartoons were mass produced rubbish with more thought about the merchandise than the actual entertainment.
Then you reach season two of TR&SS and you start seeing problems. The Spumco crew had struggled to get season one completed; it ended up coming in over budget and late but had been such a huge success Nickelodeon offered them more money and more time for more episodes; 24 to be precise and that was an almost impossible task immediately. Things started to go wrong when an entire third of first show of the second season was taken up with the introduction of George Liquor (based on Kricfalusi's abusive father) beating up Ren & Stimpy as violently as possible before being beaten to death by Ren. It wasn't funny, it was deeply disturbing and it hadn't been approved.
That first episode was dropped and rescheduled, but before long John K was telling his staff that stories had been approved by Nickelodeon when they hadn't seen anything from him. It came to a head when the producer confronted Kricfalusi about all of the problems and instead of trying to work something out, he went on a paranoid rant and was fired, but was allowed to take characters he created because Nickelodeon simply didn't want them.
This was the early 1990s and while he worked on a number of cartoons for the next ten years, it was as work for hire in most cases. In 2003, he regained control of Ren & Stimpy and produced The Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon for Spike, but it was cancelled after three parts and ripped to shreds by critics after they were subjected to sex, bodily fluids, extreme violence, profanity and very little humour. Then things got very dark...
One of the things John K kept emphasising throughout his interviews on the doc was how it's not the characters that are successful it's the artists who produce them and by the end that sounded more of a plea to love his characters and not judge them on his... indiscretions. Kricfalusi might not be a paedophile, but he's a weird child loving groomer of vulnerable young women, but seemingly not for sexual reasons, especially as he dumped one 'acolyte' when she turned 21 before hooking up with another wannabe animator who was just 16. He seems to thrive on adulation and idolisation from young women and that really made him sound like one utterly fucked up individual.
The irony is the first season and most of the second of The Ren & Stimpy Show was some of the most outrageously surreal and bizarre stuff to ever feature on TV, everything that didn't have his name attached was a pale imitation and Bob Camp, who took over running the show, was also a competent artist and highly praised by the guy he replaced, but he didn't have that thing that John K had, and he's probably extremely thankful. The thing is those first two seasons are cracking TV and while I'll probably never watch them all again, I do think it was the work of a lot of geniuses.
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Next time might not be next week at all given the look of our schedule for the next few weeks. However, it probably will be, so you can expect the finale of Picard, the latest Yellowjackets, obviously Ted Lasso and probably another swathe of Welcome to Wrexham, which is only about 23 minutes an episode. More old film reviews and there will inevitably be something popping up on the Tube of You that'll I'll want to harp on about.
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