Pop Culture - Animal Magnetism

There might be some spoilers in this so please be aware...

Dinosaur 65

If all you want from a film is an injured man and a child struggling across a hostile terrain attempting to out run dinosaurs and a massive asteroid then 65 is, without doubt, the film for you. 

However, if you're wondering how Adam Driver can make films that get nominated for Oscars and then star in something as trite and frivolous as Jurassic Park meets ... Actually, I'm not quite sure because Driver's character isn't really like anything else, then join the club. Personally, I struggle with him as an actor, if he has been cast as Reed Richards I worry an awful lot and he reminds me a little of Adrien Brody except Brody is a better actor, has a better agent and does action films much betterer.

65 is a little over 90 minutes and fills a void, like rice crackers but with less substance.

All Sweetness with Teeth

I suppose the best way to describe Sweet Tooth is to call it a surreal modern apocalyptic fantasy with elements of black comedy, a childlike charm and a nastiness lying under the surface that, thankfully, isn't explored to its fullest extent.

I wasn't really sure about it to start and I'm not convinced the wife is a fan, but it is an unusual story with an awful amount of sweetness in a truly horrible and prejudiced world. In many ways the under story here is the most disturbing; it starts out with a pandemic that has catastrophic effects on the world, killing as many as 50%, maybe more, of the people on the planet. At the same time as the disease takes hold, most of mankind's children begin being born as animal hybrids from birds to bulls to pigs and in Gus's case - our main character - a deer.

However, these Disney-like babies are not fawned [ahem] over, they are systematically annihilated and when they're not being killed with extreme prejudice, they're being dissected to find out if a) they caused the devastating pandemic and b) if they hold the cure? Yet, don't think these hybrids are the only ones persecuted; unlike our own recent pandemic, the one in Sweet Tooth causes far more panic. Suburban streets are littered with the burned out shells of homes, as we discover that if anyone shows signs of the disease they are locked in their houses and set fire to... It might all be cute Disney-like characters but the hate, destruction and violence runs deep.

In the middle of this is Nonzo Anozie as Jeppard, a former nasty bastard who used to hunt hybrids and burn the infected; he's also an ex-footballer, built like a shit-house rat and has had a change of heart. He ends up with Gus, or Sweet Tooth as he calls him, even though he tries very hard to lose him and eventually we start to get a kind of modern adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, as Gus and Jep try to find the Reserve, a safe place for hybrids, unaware that even this haven is about to fall to the desperate dregs of mankind. They are joined by Bear - a teenage hybrid-sympathiser, while being pursued by the General, the show's 'comedy' evil bastard. The series really has a surreal feel to it and the weird juxtaposition of cutesy Disneyfied animal kids and violent nasty people jars, but not in a bad way.

While it's clear from about the sixth part that this is a set up for a second series more than a complete tale (tail?) things start happening from that point to at least make season one more than just a road trip - not that I've not enjoyed that. The woman who runs the Preserve - a safe haven for hybrids - is targeted by the aforementioned General and the child this woman has adopted as her own is in fact the sibling of one of Gus's companions Bear. Gus may well be the reason for the entire plague and he is clearly the first of all these hybrid children. I expect season two will give up some clues and offer some answers. We'll start watching that next week.

Noo Yoik Tales

It's been 21 years since Martin Scorcese's multi-award-winning Gangs of New York came out and we finally got around to watching it. It just never appealed and as the years went by it appealed even less.

That said, it's not a bad film - obviously - but so much of it seemed facile, fleeting and unnecessary; it's nearly three hours long and could easily have been less than two and it feels remarkably dated despite probably having aged quite well. It was really just a film about Daniel Day Lewis's Bill the Butcher - the leader of a native gang with aspirations to enter into politics and public control - and the son of his biggest rival - Leonardo Di Caprio - who infiltrates Bill's operation with the intention of eventually killing him and gaining revenge.

The first two hours of this film flew by; it was quite a riveting story, but the last 45 minutes feel wrong; it almost feels like a different film. I don't know if it was cut for TV (it was shown very late at night, so I doubt it) or simply a poor ending, but in the end I didn't feel as though I had watched an early 21st century classic, I felt as though I watched something run out of steam.

Mad Quacks

I'd heard about Shrinking but I didn't think it would appeal, so I put it firmly on the backburner. Then I read a couple of reviews and I thought, okay, we'll give it a try and boy, the first episode was absolutely fantastic (and yet another winner for AppleTV). 

Jason Segel is excellent as the psychiatrist having a total mid-life meltdown, for reasons that we learn later in the first episode in a jaw dropping scene that completely wrong foots you, mainly because it's done so well that you don't think it's going to have that kind of Fucking Hell moment.

Jimmy decides it's time to turn therapy into self-help and starts off by telling one of his patients that she needs to leave her abusive husband and start afresh somewhere else. When she does exactly this and it works you think he might be onto something, but of course it all goes tits up by the end. 

The rest of the series follows a similar theme, with Jimmy trying to shake things up for his patients while also trying to get himself out of the mental mess he'd got himself into over the previous 12 months. I have to say that I haven't laughed as much at a TV series in ages; I think Ted Lasso is funny, but this is way ahead in terms of LOLs. Much of that might be down to the fact that most of the characters are, in their own way, absolutely insane and some of those seeking therapy aren't. Oh and Harrison Ford is a remarkably funny man.

I don't want to give too much away because it's a series worth watching without being spoiled because much of what you'll love about it is the fact it has lots of unresolved issues and you need to find out what those issues are first before you can resolve them in your own head. If I give away the twists it doesn't have the same impact, but I really can't recommend this enough.

Re-Dead by Dawn

Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead is arguably one of the best 'zombie' movies ever made - probably only surpassed by 28 Days Later - which it borrows heavily from. I know that's high praise indeed, especially for a film that had a little too much unnecessary nudity and a surprisingly small amount of OTT gore and violence - although it does push the envelope in ways that no Walking Dead TV show has ever done, despite this film being nearly 20 years old. Could that have had something to do with James Gunn having provided the script?

It takes the idea from the original - evading the zombie apocalypse by holing up in a shopping mall with everything you need - and updates it for the 21st century. It gives the franchise an entirely scary feel because for all the innovative special effects Romero introduced in his 'Dead' films, they were just shuffling, shambling dead people - Snyder's have a serious sense of menace about them and as a result the film is elevated to a much higher level.

What stops it from being a really brilliant film (other than the actually ridiculous and exploitative nudity) was its tendency to try and be funny. It worked a couple of times, but the almost comedic 'interlude' in the film was worth a cringe more than anything.

It's a good film that has dated well. It's not often I'll say that about anything 'zombie'. 

Oh Coq au Vin

Good news! 

James May's back! 

Yes, the most boring and yet funniest of the ancient Top Gear presenters is back with another cooking series for Amazon and this time he's not an amateur in the kitchen any more.

Also back is Nikki his long-suffering kitchen assistant and his interactive production team who are as much a part of the show as James, who is now expertly cooking world food in an often cack-handed looking way. The reason for this is because it's filmed in a suburban kitchen/diner and there are at least 8 people and equipment in there at any one point. I expect it gets very hot in that kitchen.

The best recommendation I can give is a review they were discussing on the first episode; someone left a review of series one which consisted of two words "absolute bollocks" and Five ***** Stars. Except it isn't really bollocks, it's quite amusing, very erudite and May now looks like he's morphing into a Billy Connolly tribute act while channelling his inner Mary Berry.  

Any Old Iron Man

Iron Man: 15 Years Later with Kevin Feige and Jon Favreau is a nice little documentary even though it's produced and made by Marvel and they're bigging up the 15th anniversary of the film that has put them where they are. But it's great fun and it makes you miss Robert Downey Jr. It's on the Tube of You at Marvel's own channel. It's worth 21 minutes of your life.

Hall versus Campbell

I had a Twitter argument with Nicky Campbell that ended with him apologising to me for being 'ratty'. To be fair, I made a good fist of the argument, complaining to Campbell that his 'joke' TV programme - actually a simulcast of his radio show - concentrates far too much on things that aren't news. He, naturally, disagreed but after much interaction, plus interjections from some of his army of followers and a couple of bits of proof from me (links to newspaper articles complaining about it not being TV news and the link to the official BBC complaint about it - more than 500 complaints, he basically backed down after accusing me of being a Daily Express reader.

I still think his radio show belongs on the radio. BBC News has lost another viewer.

Zombie Cheese

This week's Fear happened. I'm actually writing this before I watch it because I expect I won't have much to say.

In reality it was an episode that just had me shouting at the television, 'For fuck's sake just kill them!' How many times in the entire Walking Dead universe history has one of the good guys had a gun pointed at one of the really bad guys and an entire series of pointless bollocks could be solved with just the single pull of a trigger? This week Madison and June have the chance to end Padre once and for all but don't bother and therefore this final season can't finish soon enough.

Beard Theory

The penultimate episode of Ted Lasso was something of a let down compared to last week's. Don't get me wrong, it's one of the best things on TV, but this week it took so many liberties with the actual game of football that it circled me back to the days when I struggled to get past the 'imaginary' version of football that is prevalent in this series.

This week's subplot conclusions involved Jamie, predominantly, but also the conclusion of Nathan's redemption arc and actually meandered around like I thought last week's would until the end when we were left with a cliffhanger that is obviously Ted handing in his notice. We did get a revelation about Coach Beard which like all the other revelations in this series was a mind blower.

My mate Kelvin agreed with my theory last week except he doesn't think Ted will die, Ted will just move back to Kansas to be with his family, while Nathan and Roy will lead Richmond into Europe as Premier League... runner's up. This show has never done sugar coated fairy tale endings and I expect Richmond won't win the league but will win some friends.

Oh and that ending; that last six or seven minutes, it featured four examples of something Ted has never, ever, done in this series and it was a truly WOW moment in a show that does WOW moments so well. Ted came into his own at last, it just took his mom to bring it out of him. This will be missed.

And Next Time...

The conclusions of Yellowjackets and Ted Lasso. Possibly Sweet Tooth season two, a few films, some James May again and the fourth part of the final series of the show I now refer to as Please Stop, which will have more shuffling dead things and laughable story lines. We might make a start on the final season of Barry and might be tempted to give FUBAR a try. Who can say now we have so much choice.

[It's the New & Improved] Pop Culture - Titanic Wank

Verderber Warnung Verderber Warnung Verderber Warnung 

A New Viewing Experience

What can I say about my new TV that isn't me wondering why the fuck we didn't get one sooner? We now not only have lots of the free streaming services as well as Freeview Play, which adds a few more channels; our TV channels updated themselves and we got 77 channels and over 50 radio stations for about 12 hours and then it all went back to normal! It has to be a mixture of human error and the fact we have such a dodgy signal here, even if it's plugged into the internet. 

I'd ask someone locally if they can have a look at it, maybe someone who understands the jargon or how a modern 4K Ultra HD TV works. Unfortunately, most people up this way think BBC4 is witchcraft, so I'm going to struggle until one of my TV literate friends visits next year.

Oh and I've opted for a new look to the column as well...

The Eloivision Pong Contest

Saturday, May 13 2023 is Eurovision Song Contest Day and for us it's an opportunity for a caustic soda enema or possibly a razor-wire colonoscopy. I often wonder why it's called Eurovision and what that actually means (especially as Australia are in the competition). It is camp nonsense and none of you who enjoy it have any idea about the true meaning of Eurovision.

So as a result we watched the 2002 remake of The Time Machine with Guy Pierce and Samantha Mumba, who can't act, but wore nice chainmail. It's one of those films where you have to wonder what motivated the person to remake it, because the original with Rod Taylor is far far better. The Morlocks might have been a little more menacing and creepy and the Eloi less Adonis-like and pretty, but the original had some variety whereas this didn't.

When that finished and the wife went to bed I decided to tune into Eurovision and see what all the fuss is about. Congratulations to Latveria and Grand Fenwick on their tie; both songs could have made a dolphin's ears bleed from 500 yards.

Prize Money

Don't you wish that just once the person who wins a lot of money on one of these TV gameshows when asked what they're going to spend it on says, "Cocaine and prostitutes, Bradley." or "It's going to pay for my 86-year-old mother's breast enlargement, Ben." Or maybe even, "Mind your own fucking business you worthless cunt, Xander!" Although, to be fair, that's a wee bit antisocial.

When asked what they're going to do with the winnings, people never say, "Paying the bills, buying some luxury food, like butter or jam and upgrading my disabled child's wheelchair." That would probably make really harsh TV instead of a fun teatime gameshow. 

Knocked One Out?

It's funny because I've been saying to the wife for over 15 years that she should watch Knocked Up, the Judd Apatow film from 2007 with Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl as a completely mismatched couple having a baby. The thing is it wasn't as LOL funny as I remember and therefore all the hype kind of washed over her.

It's a veritable who's who of famous people before they were more famous and the cast includes Paul Rudd, Alan Tudyk, Kristen Wiig, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, Bill Hader and veteran Harold Ramis in a film that is okay, but it's not this hilarious anti-baby film I recall it to be. It also seems a little bit too much like wishful thinking rather than the kind of thing that might actually happen. 

If nothing else it's giving us a chance to plough through all these old films on the Flash Drive of Doom now that we've decided that we'll watch them all... eventually. 

Skip to the Lou

So we've checked everything out on the TV and we're 95% satisfied with it when the wife pressed the button marked Netflix and I said, "That won't work, we need a pin or to buy a subscription."

Except we didn't. I think we're possibly piggybacking off my brother's membership (who I got the TV from) but we decided as we had it we should check it out so we watched Lou with Allison Janney and some other people. It's your typical 'no one suspects the meek old woman to be something akin to Rambo until she's pulling your eyes out through your arse' kind of film and it's got a neat little twist in it that doesn't really surprise but is quite subversive.

I expect when I put the TV on tomorrow we won't be able to get Netflix either. 

We did.

Evil Bread Rises?

As has been often mentioned in these columns in the past, I'm not a fan of Sam Raimi and while the Evil Dead films have a devoted following, the truth is all three films were a load of old shite. The first one was full of inventiveness and energy but felt like it had been made by a frustrated 18-year-old Incel and subsequent remakes/extensions were just hammy and a bit cod.

The reboot, Evil Dead Rise, is also inventive but it's just a more serious attempt at an Evil Dead film and the black humour has been replaced by a streak of nastiness that feels more malevolent than it has ever before. The problem is it doesn't work; none of the characters are good enough for you to give a shit about and however violent and gory it gets it all seems a bit too pantomime. All a wee bit contrived - from the secret evil vault under the car park to the crushing machine. All neatly situated to allow the film to get from A to Z and back to A again.

The thing about Evil Dead films is they don't really have a logical narrative; it's essentially a barrage to the senses from as many angles as possible as whatever the evil dead is jumps from host to blood-splattered host. One Evil Dead film was enough and that was only as a curiosity (like David Lynch's Eraserhead) anything more than that is over-egging the pudding.  

Making a Populist Point

There's something that has gotten my goat a little and the problem is talking about it is going to make me sound prejudiced. Have you noticed that there are a number of TV shows that focus on the LGBTQ+ community - who represent about 3.5% of the population. Or the number of TV shows, adverts and current affairs shows that feature - for diversity reasons - a black person, despite them only representing 4% of the entire population. Asians - Indian, Chinese and Eastern origins - represent almost 10% of our population but we see fewer of them than we do those of African or West Indian origins. Why is that?

How about vegetarians? We outnumber vegans ten to one, but you switch Saturday Kitchen Live or James Martin on and if the guest isn't some fish eating 'vegetarian', they're a vegan; no one on either show has ever said they don't eat meat but do eat diary (the press like to call us lacto-vegetarians, because, you know, labels...). It's like whoever is in charge of television diversity doesn't understand the figures. "Der... Vegans are trendy, let's have vegans on! Vegetarians? They're old hippies that eat cheese and lentils, fuck'em." I wouldn't mind, but we're more fucking ethical than 70% of all vegans, FFS.

Don't get me started on snooker. I have nothing against the game, I used to play it, but this year's final was watched by less than a million people; snooker simply isn't the spectator sport it was in the 80s and 90s; people watching has dwindled over the years, probably through overexposure. This year, BBC2's schedule was once again dominated by snooker and all the matches that overran the designated time subsequently either cancelled or postponed what was to follow.  

I just want some proportionality in my scheduling and filmmaking. I do not agree that everything has to have a member of the cast who ticks the minority box or is somehow shoehorned into a production regardless of how certain minorities have been treated throughout the last 100 years and how unlikely it would have been for them to be there. The way we're going by 2070 we'll have rewritten history so that the three people on Apollo 11 will have been a woman, a black man and a gay single parent of undetermined gender ...

Equally, it might be quite possible that I'm growing so pissed off with the visual entertainment industry that I'd complain about an orgasm if the TV gave me one...

My Ted Talk

I have this latest theory about Ted Lasso and it's not a happy one. This most bizarre of TV comedies has produced so much of worth since it first appeared; everything from the resurgence of Juno Temple to the discovery of Hannah Waddingham and the rise of Brett Goldstein; it's gone from a 30 minute sitcom to a 50 minute dramedy and I fully understand why it's essential viewing and so many people recommended it to me.

I was listening to an interview with Jason Sudeikis at the weekend and the guy asking the questions said, "What are the chances of a fourth series or maybe even a film?" to which the man behind the moustache said, "We wrapped up filming last November and we're not doing anything else, but y'all understand why when you see the final show..."

Uh-oh...

Phil's theory of Ted: They're going to kill him off. Richmond are going to pip West Ham to the title and Ted is going to have a heart attack and die. Nathan will become the new manager with Roy Kent as his assistant and Beard will take Ted's ashes back to the Mid-West. It will all be very sad and tragic but tinged with hilarity. It will be why there can be no Ted Lasso follow up...

Anyhow, that's still two weeks away, we have the penultimate two episodes to get through before we find out; so what happened this week? 

With three episodes to go there is always this feeling that series' that are concluding will tread a lot of water, maybe clear up loose ends or unimportant subplots, but generally the episodes that lead up to the finale are often anticlimactic. This episode of Ted Lasso can only really be described as possibly the best episode of the entire series. It was a wonderful bit of television that started off exactly as I've described above, like it was just going to sort a few things out and then WOW - it went to places I didn't expect (I don't think anyone did) and in the end it was simply beautiful TV. 

It's possibly the best thing on TV at the moment and credit to Apple TV - everything I've seen from them has been A+ so far, obviously started by the dazzlingly brilliant For All Mankind and continuing apace. 

Multi-Killer, No Filler

On a whim, I opted for a film called To Catch a Killer with Ben Mendelsohn and Shailene Woodley about a mass killing in Baltimore that is hastily followed by another mass killing. Mendelsohn plays an FBI investigator who recruits a young police officer - Woodley - because he likes the way she thinks, especially in the aftermath of the first massacre. This young officer, like her wizened new boss, thinks there will be more killings.

It's a tough film with a lot of actual detective work rather than action and drama, but it's what makes it such a good film. There are some things that let it down, such as Woodley's character clearly being on the spectrum with many issues and one wonders if she'd really get a job as a cop with that kind of mental health history; plus there's the internal politics of the FBI which is probably very realistic but gives you the impression that solving crime in the USA is just a big pissing contest.

The final act is also a strange one; just as you're thinking the trio of investigators would make a good TV series or sequel one of them falls victim to the sharp shooter and much of what follows is an exploration into possibly why someone would want to kill so many people so indiscriminately and therefore the denouement is almost an anti-climax.

It is a thoroughly captivating movie though and one I'd recommend for a weekend when the weather is grim and you fancy something equally depressing. Oddly enough there's a few references in this to Jaws which I found amusing given how I used that film as an allegory for something else recently.

Old Encounters of the Umpteenth Time

Over on the Tube of You - which I now have on my bloody television - I stumbled across a 22 year-old documentary about The Making of Close Encounters of the Third Time and it was exactly what it said on the tin.

I have been a devotee of this film since 1977. It is one of my Top Five films of all time. I have seen it about 15 times and have three, possibly four, different versions, the soundtrack on vinyl, the comicbook adaptation by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson and the disco single also issued in 1977. I'm a huge fan.

This fascinating doc told me things I never knew and if nothing else actually cements my love for the movie even more when you consider how they made this awesome film without a computer in sight. The doc's over 100 minutes long and I'm thinking it was probably made for the 25th anniversary DVD edition. Carey Guffey who plays Barry Guiler, the 4 year old kid, in the film was pushing 30 when this doc was made and is now 51... Time, eh? 

Anyhow, in many ways the Barry Guiler - or 'One Shot Carey' - story is the best part of this 100 minute documentary because the ways they coaxed that performance out of him was brilliant. Then there was how they created all of those incredible - for 1977 - special effects in an age before green screens, CGI and big budgets - Columbia Pictures had pretty much bet the family jewels on this film, if it had been a failure the company would have gone under. Even if you're not a fan of the film you seek it out, because it's captivating TV!

MarvelVision

Just a quick bit of news about the MCU on Disney+: The Echo six-part series - the spin-off from last year's Hawkeye - will be released on November 29 and all six episodes will be available from that date. It is also believed that the Ironheart series will debut on January 17, 2024 and all six episodes will also drop on Disney+ but also other streaming platforms aimed at younger audiences. 

However, for Agatha Harkness the news was not so good; if this appears at all - despite being five months into shooting - it's not likely to appear until the autumn of next year, if at all. Apparently there are a number of rewrites needed and that's not happening at the moment. 

One other bit of 'gossip' - at this juncture in time Avengers: Secret Wars is going to actually be Avengers: Multiverse Wars as EVERY Marvel superhero from all the different threads, producers, everything from Punisher to Man-Thing to the X-Men will appear in the film, which will be directed by Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton. Sounds like a cacophony of bollocks that's likely to be four hours plus.  

A Pointless Observation

Do many of the people who want to go on Pointless understand what the quiz show is about or is it simply they want to be on TV at any cost? It's probably because Pointless is their favourite quiz show, especially as The Chase is like University Challenge to some people, and everyone gets a pointless once in a while, very much in the same fashion as that multitude of chimpanzees theory. 

The reason I ask this is why do contestants say things like: "I'll play safe." That is either a fundamental misunderstanding of the object of the game or they're so fucking stupid they only know the obvious answer (and quite often we see that's just the case with stupid people who aren't ashamed of their stupidity - but, you know, Alexander Armstrong, he's almost royalty).

The one that really gets my goat is when someone says, "Oh geography is not my subject." When a show bases itself around a core number of subjects - in Pointless's case that will be the ten subjects filed under General Knowledge - and the most commonly used one is geography, what the fuck are you even doing on this show? No wonder Richard Osman wanted out; it must have been a bit like the bloke at the log-in terminal in an abattoir counting the carcasses.

Animal Dystopia

We finally got around to starting to watch Sweet Tooth. I think the thing that's put us off has always been the animal children and how it looks like a Disney film put through a drug addict's brain, the thing is the first two episodes are actually building an interesting world and it's looking as good as the hype.

I'll review season one when we've finished it, probably by this point next week. It is unique in that it's the oddest pitched post-apocalyptic series I've ever seen - a modern fantasy that is surreal and slightly off-kilter - what's not to like?

Yellowjackets in Red

The penultimate episode of Yellowjackets has at last moved the modern plot forward enough for us to start to wonder how Melanie Lynskey's Shauna is going to get away with murder? However in the past it continues to get more barbaric and insane. You start to realise why none of them in the present want to talk about the past - there's little to be proud of.

There are some clues to things or at least why some things happened, but the weirdness and Lost-appeal of the Wilderness is beginning to grate and next week's finale might have just come at a good time. The writers need to get a direction or the third season is going to meander around like this one and what started as a promising series might descend into cod bollocks.

Fear the Wanking Dread

What I find most annoying about FTWD is if I start to fall asleep during an episode, the wife prods me, as if to say, 'I might have wanted to watch this but by God you're going to watch it with me!'

Anyhow, stuff might have happened, some people walked about, others shuffled. No one cares.

Actually, relenting grimness seems to be the overriding thing now as the cast, who have resisted every single dodgy bunch of psychopaths have now fallen in with arguably the worst bunch of all and they do the bidding of Padre with barely a quibble. I fucking hate this non-sensical shit-storm of a show.

In the Next Thrilling instalment:

Having free streaming services is making the Flash Drive of Doom obsolete, but there's still stuff out there that needs finding. Anyhow, the finale of Yellowjackets will hopefully give me something to write about and Ted penultimate episode will give nothing away. There might be a full review of Sweet Tooth and we have some more Memory Lane movies to indulge ourselves with - including the remakes of Dawn of the Dead and The Crazies - yes it's a Romero-Remake-Fest. I'm also going to con the wife into watching 65 this weekend, under the auspices that it might be a good film ... heh... heh heh... heh heh heh. 

The Flogging a Dead Horse Principal

THERE IS A BIG SPOILER IN THIS!!!

You see, even I think I obsess about this far too much... 

At least three people I know have thrown down the gauntlet that I won't be able not to like the final Guardians of the Galaxy film; even one of my closest friends and someone as cynical as I am about the entire MCU admitted to it being a great film which he cried like a baby at.

I feel like this is a futile challenge despite there being this underlying vivisection subplot and the law of averages says I should at least like one of the three films; but you see for some strange reason the fact that no one dies has disappointed me so much I'm going to go into watching this film with a determined I'm-not-going-to-like-this attitude - the same attitude I had when going into the most recent Dr Strange film and that got panned (by me). So I am biased by my own preconceptions, but, hey, they're mine; I own them, so tough. That's not going to affect most other people, it's just my own little peculiarity.

The thing is as much as I'm growing to hate the MCU, I'm currently hopelessly obsessed with it; it's become something of a 'hobby' that fills the void left by things I stopped doing at the end of October, last year. I spent too much time on line doing frivolous things and then I was always complaining about never having any time to do anything else - writing specifically. Plus, Marvel and the MCU is a subject I have many years experience of and it is still reeling from one crisis to another. So when news arrived that audience reaction to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 was 96% positive but box office returns were 'steady, nothing to get excited about,' it got me thinking again. Thinking about this entire MCU/Superhero film thing and coming at it from a, hopefully, different angle.

I've also been on the Tube of You again, watching stuff I wouldn't normally see on TV but doesn't require access to the hub of porn. Someone had somehow collected every single blooper from every Marvel film from 2008 into one long It'll Be All Marvel on the Night thing and do you know what made me smile? What made me laugh? What made me yearn for simple Marvel films? Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson, that's what. We miss them but I think the MCU misses them more.

Look at that original Avengers line-up; think of it a little like the Beatles. Two of them are now dead, one of them might as well be and the rest are getting old or don't have the same impact. 

Hawkeye is deaf and relegated to a reasonably good but poorly received TV series, oh and the actor  - Jeremy Renner - almost died running himself over with a snowplough last winter, so he's out of the picture for an indefinite period of time. Thor has become a parody and what gravitas he once had has been lost in the name of comedy (and now Chris Hemsworth has taken an indefinite break from filmmaking because of a history of family illness), which leaves the Hulk, which Marvel can't even use in a Hulk film for another two years because of protracted film and television copyright laws with Universal Pictures. These three aren't going to save the franchise.

It seems that with Sam Wilson (Captain Falcon), Yelena Belova (White Widow) and Riri Williams (Ironheart Power Ranger), Marvel hope they have their icons' replacements and, on paper, they do but this isn't really what fans want. I know that 'fans' are not the people who make these films lots of money, but by the films' very existence and the illusion of an ongoing story or stories to be invested in the MCU creates new fans, the same way soap operas and ongoing TV series gain new fans. It is repeat business that the entertainment industry depends on, after all.

I've talked about Ironheart in another blog, but this Power Rangers-styled Iron Man replacement is being targeted at a younger audience while simultaneously will be part of the the Young Avengers. Riri and her Ironheart were both introduced in the unbelievably dull Wank Ada Forever and were due to get their own series later this year but that's been thrown into doubt by Disney's decision to limit Marvel content on their channel to just two TV series a year. One of the main problems Marvel has is Ironheart is neither Tony Stark nor Robert Downey Jr.

Yelena is a good character on her own and is probably the best of the replacements, but depends how and where she's used. Sam is never going to escape the fact he's a black man playing the symbol of USA and it doesn't matter how good he is the USA is a racist country so he's never going to be as popular as Steve Rogers. Kate Bishop is probably going to be as anodyne as Clint Barton was in the films and we've even got a young Hulk (although we won't know what he does until next summer at the earliest). The thing is none of these characters - these replacement Avengers - are remotely big enough to star in their own major motion picture and without wishing to sound horrible, neither is Ms Marvel, Moon Knight, Agatha Harkness, Echo or She-Hulk. Nothing Marvel has introduced since 2018 has done enough to restore faith in the franchise.

I don't really know where the Marvel Comics Universe is now. They might not have a Steve Rogers, a Tony Stark or a Natasha Romanoff any longer and it might look more like the MCU, but unless things have changed that drastically in comics the originals tend to come back - usually for the worst. 

One of the reasons I have such a fondness for the DC Comics crossover/maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths is because the Flash I had grown up with - Barry Allen - not only dies in it (actually dies not just pretends) but he does it in such a futile way, it is all about his heroics which mean nothing in the end. When I stopped reading comics Barry Allen was still dead and there was some order in the comic book universes. A few years later they managed to bring Barry Allen back. His replacement, Wally West, remained a Flash but, you know, he was always just a tribute act.

One thing that needs to be clarified about this specific bit of news about TV scheduling is that all existing projects will be used - somewhere - and won't be held over for an indefinite period, they simply haven't been scheduled. However, Disney has told Marvel that from 2024 they must only produce two major TV series per calendar year. As one industry professional said to me, "When you start setting limits for things to come you're telling the people producing these things that they won't be around when the last episodes are shown." However, the same industry pro told me, "This is a wake-up call and it will be positive. The guys in charge now know they need to focus. They need to be tight and tell the stories people want to see. They can't afford to carry on doing this experimental stuff. They need to get back to basics and tell good stories. If they do that Marvel has another 15 years at the top."

Except they don't. None of the newer characters have had anything like the same impact on the film world or the fans lives. Even with the greatest stories imaginable, the players left on the field aren't a patch on the ones who've bowed out.

Of course the problem with real life is that Downey, Evans and Johansson are all getting older, the longer you leave it the more likely they're not going to be able to pull it off without a lot of cgi and body doubles and just how long do they do it for? Robert Downey Jr is 58; will he still be able to play Iron Man in 12 years? Chris Evans might be able to get away with it for a few more years and with some extensive underwiring so could Scarlett, but have we ever considered they might not want to? 

If they could lure them back it would be with the obvious time constraints, the stories and direction would need to be good and there's no guarantee of these things succeeding; more likely is bringing all of them back for one or two films in which the conclusion is 'Phase 6' where everything starts again. If I was Kevin Feige at the moment, I'd reschedule the Fantastic Four film for after the final Avengers/Kang film and have them do what they did once before - start the universe. Have the heroes win but everything starts again pre-superheroes in a new world with lots of the multiverse running through it. Start the MCU again to the point of calling it Phase 6 - New Beginnings. Then cast your new Avengers young enough to stick around for 20 years or more. This is what they're trying to do but this won't work because none of them are the A-list quality of Evans, Downey and Johansson.

I think there's a belief within the MCU that the films will act the same way as the comics once did and many people will blindly follow the piper on whatever journey he takes them on, but that's not the case. Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3 has been given excellent reviews, the critics like it, the fans are saying it's the best film since Endgame (no artistic high bar there then?) and yet it's opening weekend take was good but not as expected adding fuel to the 'superhero fatigue' theory now circulating openly all over social media and in entertainment publications. 

The writers' strike in Hollywood has allowed Marvel to officially delay the production of Blade, which, it was revealed, hadn't even begun shooting despite being scheduled for release in 15 months - most Marvel films are in the can for months, in many cases almost a year prior to release. Depending on how long the strike lasts, we might see a lot of things that are scheduled get put back even further; this will not have a galvanising effect, far from it. It's likely to make it more difficult for the franchise to re-establish itself. Just look at the post-Covid situation and how the entire movie industry was in limbo for almost two years. 

Then there's the situation with Jonathan Majors; he appeared in court again, via Zoom, on May 8 and the case was adjourned until the end of the month when revised pleas will be made and charges will be reassessed. However, in this world where Volksgerichtshof (the people's court) is king because of social media, there will always be the assumption that there's no smoke without fire and while Majors arguably has the rest of 2023 to exonerate himself - although he's scheduled to play a [ahem] major part in Loki - the feeling inside the film industry news and gossip machine is that he's now a busted flush, especially as Disney is concerned. 

It does seem that the writers' strike has struck at a good time as far as Marvel/Disney is concerned, but delays will have their own problems and now the odds being heavily stacked against Marvel/Disney isn't an over exaggeration.

Yahoo - not the best source of news I would imagine - is running a story this week saying that, "However, [while] no decision on the actor’s [Jonathan Majors] future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been made. Sources familiar with the situation reveal that Marvel 'has already started preparations' on recasting the role of Kang the Conqueror should they need to." 

TV takes centre stage on June 21 with the release of the six-part Secret Invasion and given it has a cast that would grace a decent feature film expectations are very high and yet very little is actually known about the series - it's about an invasion/infiltration of bad Skrulls who have taken over key positions within the world's governments and it's down to Nick Fury, with help from Talos, Jim Rhodes, Maria Hill and a couple of others to prevent the world from being taken over by evil aliens. It certainly looks as though it ticks a lot of boxes and on the back of critical success for the third Guardians picture, it will certainly buoy expectations in lieu of the fact that Marvels is due in November.

However, before that comes Loki and apparently the actual release date was going to be late summer but because there now might need to be reshoots, depending on the outcome of Majors' court case, it is now likely to be October. Early rumours suggest the series is about Loki and Mobius travelling the multiverse trying to track down rogue Kangs. If that's the case then I expect it'll take more than a few reshoots if Majors departs the MCU unceremoniously. And remember Majors is no James Gunn, he's a black New Yorker so memories are going to last a lot longer, even if he's innocent.

Delays, cancellations, changes in schedules (Marvels' was announced before the strike), people being fired, uninspiring films and announcements, everything points towards the MCU struggling the further down the line we go and that doesn't even factor in changes to viewing habits, an aging audience not being replaced and the novelty factor having worn off. When there's at least six superhero films a year and your company is producing ⅔ of them you need to make them a spectacle not just another instalment in a weekly soap opera. I expect the hope was to generate as much interest in the film and TV as the comics had, but obviously with a huge audience and while you can keep comics fans loyal with the odd duff issue film goers are a much more discerning mob.

There is a feeling that the MCU is going to try and return to some of the basics that made it so successful in an attempt to milk as much as they can from the fading light being cast on superhero films. Forbes reports on the difference between critics and fan responses to these films, suggesting Marvel is more concerned with fan reaction and box office returns than critical acclaim and that way is fraught with problems because takings are still down on where they would have liked them to be and this is an example of the Law of Diminishing Returns.

***

A couple of rumours I picked up but worth noting.

Adam Driver has reportedly accepted the role as Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four film - it is the first bit of casting and has somewhat spoiled the desire some fans had for John Krasinski to return to the role he had in the Dr Strange film. 

Paul Bettany suggested last week that he was to return to the role of the voice of Jarvis for the Armour Wars film. If this is true, then we might also learn what happened to Tony Stark's workshops and toys. This also seems to discount the idea that RDJ might make a return in the film as a hologram.

Modern Culture - Resistance is Hostile

Spoilers spoilers yeah yeah yeah

If ever a movie revolutionised the 'zombie' film it was Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and its radical take on the idea; the concept of infected humans behaving as a hive-like destructive entity, moving at a fast pace and intent on only one thing, infecting others - the way viruses work in general - was more than groundbreaking; it allowed us to actually see the real scary side of 'zombies'.

While the infected aren't zombies, they are treated with just as much extreme prejudice as possible because these creatures aren't lumbering dead wandering around in search of flesh; these are crazy 100mph psychopaths, who will injure themselves in the pursuit of something else to infect. This was The Last of Us before that was even an idea for a computer game.

Cillian Murphy is literally brought into this new world naked, hooked up in a hospital to keep him alive; but for him it's a quick education or he'll find his new life cut short before he realises it. What follows is a relatively familiar post-apocalyptic trope; the road movie in search of salvation as Murphy, and three other survivors decide to travel north to try and hook up with the army. They do this with relative ease, although the tunnel scene - while nowhere near as harrowing as it felt 21 years ago - is still claustrophobic and scary.

One they've been 'rescued' the entire feel of the film changes from escaping the bogeymen to escaping the saviours as the rogue soldiers decide that the two females travelling with Murphy are now theirs and the film spirals out of control. It finishes on a positive note and also suggests that the UK is the only seriously affected place as Murphy watches a jet plane fly over ravaged Britain...

In over 20 years since this reimagining of the genre we've had a lot of post-apocalyptic zombie-fests and many of them have been excellent, harrowing and you've needed a strong stomach, but 28 Days Later was the reason for all of that. It wasn't really George Romero who brought the scary zombie to the screen, it was Danny Boyle - a wee Scotsman with an A-list back catalogue of films.

***

However, despite the flaws that 28 Days Later might have it is an absolute masterpiece of filmmaking compared to 28 Weeks Later, which is an absolute howler of a movie with few redeeming features. If I'd have been involved in this I'd have disowned it or told friends it was someone with the same name. Danny Boyle was only executive producer on this (meaning he didn't want to be involved but wasn't prepared to remove his name from the 'franchise').

It shouldn't be so bad (and in fairness the wife didn't think it was that awful), but from the unlikely premise that 28 weeks after the end of the UK as we know it, people would be moved back into parts of London is only enhanced by some strange pace, plotting and cast choices. I think the director was trying to make a film unlike the previous one and instead kind of 'remakes' the first film's unseen first 28 days with added napalm.

Everything from the kids deliberately defying the curfew instructions on the first night to the rather silly conclusion that sees Robert Carlyle's infected father manage to outwit the US army so he can have a final confrontation with his children, who are probably immune anyhow.

I didn't want to watch this again because I vaguely remembered it being a load of shite; the only good thing to come from this is we won't watch it again.

***

The Night Agent is a box-set we've started. It's a plan to watch one episode a night over the next couple of weeks, with a few skip nights, if we decide it's worth persevering with.

It's about an FBI agent who despite saving a train full of civilians seems to be both under a lot of scrutiny and consigned to a dead-end job despite being a hero (although some think was actually responsible for the train). His 'job' is to analyse reports while watching over a phone that never rings, until one night it does and his rather sedate life changes completely overnight as he learns that he can trust no one.

The first episode set the scene very nicely and it definitely felt worth sticking with. However, by the end of episode two I'd changed my mind completely. It felt, to me, like it had been scripted by a 16-year-old as more and more preposterous things happened and instead of being revelatory, the reveals felt like a desperate measure to keep people interested. It had a lot of bad acting, unbelievable characters and loads of words that seemed to be generated by a melodramatic AI.

***

I was slightly unimpressed by the 2023 version of Minority Report. 

I didn't watch the Coronation. I'm not a republican nor am I a royalist. My ambivalence knows no bounds. However, regardless of the part time gammons out there who believed that having the Stasi in charge of our police during this royal money spaffage was a good thing, it sends an awful message out to the rest of the world - the UK is now a bit like China; they don't allow you to think about dissenting now.

That was the overriding issue for me; not the pomp, not the pageantry, but the fact that our police were scouring the streets for people who looked like they might be anti-monarchy and they were either removed from the streets, threatened or simply arrested on suspicion and held until 11.30pm when they were released without charge. As someone who believes in the LAW this was totally wrong and should not have happened. It seems we only now have freedom of speech when it's allowable by our fascist overlords.

Oh and let's not forget the memorable event as the Met Police shot to dogs on leads because they might have posed a threat. These cunts should be stripped naked and made to walk the streets having shit thrown at them until they're driven into the sea and drown. 

***

It's been less than four years since we watched Men in Black International and yet we remembered so little about it we could have been watching it for the first time.

I remember the derision aimed at this film and the feeling it was simply jumping on a bandwagon with a bad idea and I can understand why; there is very little to like about this movie and the bits that are good are outnumbered by the bits that are rubbish. For starters NONE of the characters are likeable and Chris Hemsworth's Agent H is basically arrogant Thor with less hair and muscles and really is an arse and I kind of get why he was pitched that way, to give the MIBs some variety, but this was pitched at the wrong frequency.

In many ways it's like the reboot of Ghostbusters but where that was a far superior film to the original, MiBI is like a cling-on or dangleberry on an arse, waiting to fall.

***

Anyone who has followed my blogs for the last few years will know that I am transfixed by superhero films. I have suffered for my art by watching just about every superhero film made over the last 30 years and many of them have been shit. 

In the grand scheme of DC films, there has been little to get excited about and much to complain about, but I am still trying to work out what the rest of the world has against Green Lantern because there are much worse films than this. 

It really isn't a bad film; it has some bad bits in it, but in general it's a tight little film with not too much baggage, a reasonable backstory and decent special effects; why has it only got a 5.5 rating? We've watched films in the high 6s that have been a lot worse. I didn't even think Ryan Reynolds was that bad; he was actually considerably less Ryan Reynolds than he usually is and his wife, Blake Lively, is quite a decent actress. I just don't get the hostility towards this film... Is it the crazy things that a Lantern creates with his ring? The fact that creations mimic real life, so if you want a shield you make a shield out of green light and it will resemble the shield in your thoughts rather than just create a barrier? Is it because there's an element of, I dunno, comic books about it?

Even Mark Strong plays a hero (for this film only). Maybe the more enlightened among you can help me understand why no one likes this film, because I can think of at least five MCU films that are much worse than this?

*** 

I realised what the funny thing about Ted Lasso is. It's Roy Kent. The rest of it is mainly soap opera, but Brett Goldstein - who essentially writes the majority of his own lines in the show - is the stand out funny guy and I think he's going to make an awful Hercules...

The focus on this week's episode was Roy's need for a direction in his life and what happens when one of your team mates turns out to be gay. It's handled in a quaintly naïve USA way that belies everything about the USA being anything but a cynical violent bigoted place. 

While I'm sure many professional footballers are fans of this show, it really takes so many liberties, not just in football but also in British geography, especially by making West Ham AFC Richmond's local rivals. For starters Richmond is in Surrey and West Ham are in East London (for the sake of history); they couldn't be further apart in terms of 'derbies'.

Anyhow, Roy Kent is very funny when the words in his mouth haven't been written by the staff writers.

***

Okay, I'm slightly baffled again; or maybe it's other people who are baffled and I'm just here to show them the errors of their ways? If I couldn't understand why Green Lantern has such a low rating on IMDB, then I have even less of an idea as to why Paint has an even lower rating.

I wouldn't say it was a brilliant film, far from it, but it is gentle, funny and extremely surreal in places and I don't think people who watched it actually understood what they were watching with its Wes Anderson vibes and extremely odd pacing. I think it was trying to capture a moment in US broadcasting - probably in the late 1980s - when Public Service Broadcasting thought of itself as very important but wasn't in the slightest.

This is also a kind of unofficial homage to Bob Ross, the painter who captivated audiences for years with his homespun, easy going and gentle paced commentaries as he painted pictures out of nothing, well Owen Wilson's Carl Nargle is 'Bob Ross' except here he's a man with an uncanny following and is very much a sex god (I don't think you're supposed to even understand why let alone question it).

In this film Carl has everything until one day he starts seeing it begin to be taken away from him and from that point on his life spirals out of control at a sedate and leisurely pace. I thought it was a wonderful film that has to be taken the way it was delivered, like the film is actually an extension of Carl's totally chilled self. I'd recommend it to fans of Wes Anderson if nothing else.

***

We fancied watching a classic movie; one we know we've seen (a number of times) and one that is head and shoulders above most other films. So we watched The Exorcist again and despite when it was made, it is an incredibly brilliant film that is only spoiled by the fact Blatty didn't make it an hour longer so he could explore all of the subplots in the book that had to be overlooked (actually it's spoiled by the head turning scene which I've always felt was unnecessary).

Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Lee J Cobb, Kitty Winn, Max Von Sydow and Linda Blair were all fantastic in making a ludicrous idea into a believable 'real world' event where bemusement, bewilderment and eventually horror are the overriding emotions and the idea that someone might be possessed by a demon is the stuff for nutters, religious freaks and people with specific mental illnesses. Yet it takes a somewhat silly idea - for the 21st century - and treats it with immense seriousness and sensitivity while providing some shocks that have never truly been equalled. It is a rare thing, a totally serious film about a slightly silly thing that achieved so much it made every single subsequent film about the subject look either like a pale imitation or a rip off. Even taking away the religious and medical aspects of this film, it's an absolutely disturbing and riveting two hours. 

***

I'm struggling with Yellowjackets at the moment; I know I've hinted at this since the start of season two but we're over halfway through now and I'm really torn. The 2022 women are becoming tedious; the entire set-up in the present veers towards comedy a bit too much and while Shauna is great, I'm thinking the other 'adults' are all a bit of a waste of space; all a bit too ... convenient.

Actually Adult Shauna is just as whiny, needy and annoying as all her mates, but I like Melanie Lynskey. Adolescent Shauna is a fucking psychopath and she's not the only one. If the present is becoming tedious, then the past is an absolute horror show. I think that's the problem I'm having with this show now; the present has just a bit too much levity while the past is relentlessly grim, nasty and horrendous - an unending nightmare of hunger, cold, paranoia and insanity.

Here's the thing - whenever the focus is in the 21st century, I want it to switch back to the 1990s, but whenever it's in the past I'm desperate for it to not be there either, but for all different reasons. I suppose harrowing TV is a good thing, but is it when it's mixed with something a little too flippant and humorous? I'm not so sure.

***

Somebody shoot me. Now. 

The wife says, "Well, we've watched all this so far, we might as well watch the last season..."

And so it began...

The final season of Fear the Walking Dead has arrived and I downloaded it on the wife's say so, I would have been happy ignoring it the way I'm going to ignore the 438 spin-offs planned over the next few months, but, you know...

What the fuck has happened to this franchise? The walking dead has lurched from creepy and genuinely disturbing post-apocalyptic drama to this fucking ridiculous nonsense with shark-jumping almost as regular as Happy Days. Jesus wept, you'd think whoever authorises this kind of shit would have some quality threshold.

Season eight kicks off with Morgan and Madison in Padre's HQ trying to negotiate the return of Mo, who Madison had stolen for them and now is trying to help Morgan get his daughter back. A fight ensues and it appears that Morgan and Mo get away - cut to the credits. When the action resumes Madison is locked in a cell, we learn quickly that this is after the events of the prologue and it has been seven years since Morgan's escape.

To cut a long story short, Madison is discovered in her cell by Mo, who it seems escaped Padre but came back, so Madison, who agreed to help Morgan at the end of season seven decides that everything she had done for the previous five years was pointless and intends to escape Padre with Mo again and find Morgan. Except here comes the twist, Morgan gave the child back to Padre in exchange for becoming one of their child finders. Morgan and Grace are now 'child stealers' working for Padre, none of the others whereabouts is known and the good guys are now the bad guys.

And I just wanted it to end. They've tried so many different things in this series and got it right between seasons four and five, but it's gone so far off the rails now that it's just a fucking joke. This is now set something like 15 years after the apocalypse and I really don't give a flying fuck about any of them any more. I'm done with it. It's over for me.

I'll try and keep next week's review of this down to fewer than ten words...

***

Next time: will I continue to lose the will to live? Is my current TV funk down to overkill or is everything just shit now? I sometimes wonder if writing about this stuff - as in regularly and as an actual weekly thing - is perhaps making it more difficult for me to be objective and then I realise that this week I have re-watched The Exorcist and found it as brilliant as it always has been; Paint was much more enjoyable than others thought it was; Ted Lasso continues to confound me and I still like Green Lantern, so I think I'm still batting a decent average. 

An aside - Film & TV is going to get a makeover of sorts because this evening I took possession of a new Toshiba 43" UHD television and it is going to elevate my viewing an awful lot; I just don't appear to be able to get my separate surround sound unit to work with it. That said, I now have iPlayer, All4, ITVX, My5, Freeview Play and some PPV options should I ever decide to spend money on my viewing hobby.

Coronation Musings

I suppose, seeing as I've virtually retired, long weekends have no real impact on me, but living where we live I've noticed for the last six years that bank holidays are a thing other places in the UK have; when you live in a rural part of the UK every day is a business day, apart from three or four.

There have been a lot of coronation events taking place all over the country, while things such as the transport network, hospitals and many other public and private sector workers have had to work instead of enjoying the time off, or even the crowning of a new monarch. I think people need to realise, especially when people like NHS workers are on strike that yet another sacrifice these people make is having to work while the rest of us get pissed for King and country.

Street parties and community events, which were so popular and common until the mid 1960s and made a triumphant return in 1977, depend on communities and the majority of people being united about something. I saw people on social media yesterday bemoaning the fact they're not doing something in their neighbourhood because of the people who are 'anti-British'. I don't know what they thought these anti-British people would have done if the moaners had gone and organised a community event and just not invited the Republicans, but most of the people on social media moaning about people who didn't support the King were probably watching the Coronation in their underpants with their phones or tablets at the ready so they can comment - in the derogatory - about something that makes them think everybody else will think they're the bee's knees and the godfather of wit.

I do worry that my ambivalence and lapses towards showing both sides of the story in the King versus Country or whatever the argument is might be detrimental to how some people on social media see me, but I'm neither one nor the other. As one of those few people in the world who neither dislikes or particularly likes Marmite, I feel the same way about most of the Royals. Marmite has its place in whatever place it inhabits in my world; I find it useful for somethings and I would touch it for others. That's how I see the Royals.

I do sound like a republican sometimes. I mean, I think it's disgusting that the tax payer had to foot the £125m+ bill to watch a man in his 70s and worth an estimated £1billion have a priceless artefact placed on his head when he could have contributed at least £100m and done his public standing the power of good. The good PR from paying for all or most of his own coronation would have silenced republicans for years, instead in a time of a real cost of living crisis, with food prices spiralling out of control we blew £125m on something we may have to repeat inside the next 20 years. The country's 2,584 food banks were open the day of the coronation.

I suppose the thing I struggle with the most is why did this event have to be the weekend after the local elections? Surely it would have been better either the previous weekend and add an extra day to the long weekend, or even move it to the end of the month and do the same? Possibly got really nice weather? It was down to the our government when this took place and they planned it to act as a dead cat for their own horror movie running concurrently with the coronation. The Royal family aren't in my eyes a group of people who should be used for political gain or obfuscation; they and it should be as far removed from politics as possible if the people they're going to depend on the support of in 30 years time haven't given up on the Windsors by the time William gets a crack at wearing the crown. 

Incidentally, there was an independent study carried out to see if the Royal family brought money into this country through tourism and promotion of the country on foreign visits. The money they 'make' is what their properties (and intellectual properties) earn from tourism, the actual family's contribution to incoming foreign trade has been negligible since the 1970s as communications and the global trading family started to happen. However, that said, the last thing I want in this country is an elected president because that way leads to utter madness, because this is Britain (I can't call it the United Kingdom any more because it will never be united again) we'll end up with a President Boris Johnson or have a modern equivalent of a President Jimmy Savile or even a President Katie Hopkins or Fiona Bruce - you can't help the people and who they might choose. The problem with presidents is they're not you or who you'd really want and most of them are politicians, i.e. mercenary cunts only in it for themselves. 

Presidents should be chosen at random. In a deep cellar in Whitehall a group of civil servants would sit around a table, waiting by the door is Hopkins; it's his job to do the deed when he reaches the destination chosen. The men round the table go through a series of things until they come to the conclusion that the president of Britain will come from Cambridgeshire. They then decide which town or city he or she should come from and they eventually decide on Wisbech. They turn to Hopkins and  one of them says the following; "The next president is or will be in Wisbech tomorrow from midday. You are to position yourself by the southern most town line, where the sign post is telling you to please drive carefully, and from there you will walk into the town counting each person who passes you or you pass until you reach person number 345, whoever that is will be the next President of the UK. The cameras will be following you, imagine this is a bit like that Challenge Anneka programme from the 80s. Go out there and do your country proud, Hopkins!"

The following day at a little after 12.40pm, six-year old Harley Quinn Edwards from the First Lady Juniors becomes our glorious leader. She will be joined in the Presidential Palace (Buck House) by her mother and her five siblings (by different fathers). They will be joined at the Palace by Harley's mum's drug dealer Darren and his personal hairdresser and part time 'fashion' model Binky. And obviously the Daily Mail won't have a bad word to say. No sir. Not one. 

You see, the future is fraught with scary thoughts, so we're probably better off sticking with who we have but maybe scale it back so anyone but direct family (Chas, William & his family) has to end up working in the States being former Royals and probably dining off it extremely well even if they do have to be in close proximity with the plebs for longer than they like (and Andrew can be offered to North Korea). 

None of this solves the fact that long weekends are okay if you work, but what if you don't? It's like having two Sundays and now with added fuck all on the telly if you don't fancy watching pageantry. The football season is coming to an end and while it can't come sooner the chasm it leaves for the next 12 weeks isn't filled by good weather, especially not on a Saturday afternoon in July when it's supposed to be lovely but an unforeseen monsoon has strayed into your region...

The wife's out back painting the refurbished shed; I've just about recovered fully from my six months of health hell, but I'm still incredibly out of shape. The man who despite having COPD could still walk two or three miles a day now struggles with two or three hundred yards. However, this is improving on an almost daily basis, I suppose getting back to the fitness levels I had now I'm firmly entrenched in my 60s is going to take longer than it once would have. The thing is she at least has found things to occupy her time. I could help her with the painting, but I'd only do it wrong. Tomorrow she intends to get out in the garden, so you can bet your life that it will rain.

You see I'm still quite confused as to why we needed another May bank holiday; that'll make it three this year, I'm betting if you'd have offered the average worker an extra bank holiday in October they'd bite your hand off. Three in May is just overkill; I know there's this belief that we may end up working four-day weeks in the future - to save energy, you won't work any less, you'll just cram more hours into less time - but if that happens you'd think the people who provide stuff to do would provide better stuff to do or have things on TV that we might want to watch. I think one of the 4 Stations has wall to wall Come Dine With Me on all day every day for the entire long weekend. That should be a capital offence, an act of treason - the cunts who did this should be beheaded.

Anyhow, from what I saw of Chuck & Cammy's big day, he looked a bit miserable, she looked like she couldn't quite believe she about to become a queen and every man over the age of 40 was looking at Penny Mordaunt and imagining their manfat dripping from her robust mammaries. Some anti-monarchists got arrested for buying coffee and were then released when it was all over, throwing open the question of whether the UK is now a police state, which is, of course, stupid. If this was a police state they'd shut me dow

Pop Culture: Missing Pieces

DANGER! Spoilers Will Robinson! WARNING! WARNING!

It's funny how some things simply fall under the radar. ten years ago, a Huge Ackman and Jake Gyllenhaal film called Prisoners came out to little fanfare, yet a decade later still has extremely high ratings on film sites. It was something worth investigating...

Huge plays Keller Dover, a bit of a religious redneck whose daughter is abducted, along with her friend, so he takes the law into his own hands when the police (namely Jake playing Det. Loki) seem to be dragging their feet. It's a relentlessly dour film, set in a depressed and very wet Pennsylvania and focusing on child kidnapping and murder; it's not a film for levity or light-hearted banter; it's a nasty full on examination of the grief that comes with such a traumatic event.

It's also a [ahem] maze of twists and turns that had both the wife and I at odds as to what we thought the outcome might be and who the culprit was - we were both wrong. It's one of those films where you wonder why TV has never shown it; I don't remember this ever being on terrestrial TV. Then you realise what the subject material is - child abduction; beating suspect paedophiles to within an inch of their lives and the sense of horror and suspicion caused by it - and understanding becomes easier.

Both Ackman and Gyllenhaal are excellent and I reckon we don't realise just how good an actor Gyllenhaal is and his chameleon-like ability to slot into different characters, probably because he doesn't necessarily look like an actor capable of being so versatile.

***

One of the highest rated TV series of all time made its way to our smallish screen. Watched over two nights, Chernobyl really was considerably more than I would have imagined and while I'm sure it has been sensationalised, politicised and doctored to suit western audiences, it's still a harrowing, bleak and quite scary (but not for the radiation) account that has elements in it that should be talked about when politicians (or any one for that matter) tell you that nuclear energy is safe, because it doesn't matter how safe something is, sod's law dictates that even if it can't go wrong it will.

Yes, this is 1986 and the crumbling Soviet Union is more riddled with distrust than anything else, but the underlying initial message this gives out is how ill-informed and ignorant most Russians were of actual things such as the dangers of radiation. They lived in fear and never asked questions, mainly because that might have ended up with them in a gulag in Siberia, so when a nuclear incident happens the only people who really understand what is going on are the nuclear physicists and they were as 'important' a street cleaners in this world - this was a country and culture that might have liked the modern west's fake news and 'alternative facts' especially during Trump's time; a time when party leaders knew more about things than the experts they consulted. 

In many ways it's like a monumental adaptation of Jaws with the KGB and Soviet government playing the Mayor of Amity while Jared Harris is playing Chief Brody, Emily Watson is Hooper and Stellan Skarsgård is Quint with special guest star Chernobyl as Bruce the shark. In fact the more I think about it the more similarities I see.

However, whereas the opening three episodes were very much a rollercoaster, the last two parts take on an almost surreal gentle quality at times. Episode four focused as much on a group of pet exterminators as it did on solving the reactor meltdown problem, while the fifth and final part was almost boring as we went through the Soviet post mortem of the catastrophe and principle players faced the dying wrath of the CCCP. One of the things that helped this series not become something just relentlessly grim and miserable was the black humour that crops up every so often; it might have seemed inappropriate but it was needed.

I totally get why it's such a highly rated series and why some liberties were taken in the making of this historical adaptation; but it felt like it ended almost with an anti-climax rather than a conclusion. Real life, eh?

***

What a curious programme Ted Lasso is. This week we saw much more of Ted as he fretted and worried over his ex-wife's trip to France with her boyfriend. Keeley and Jack's relationship took the expected turn for the worse when Keeley's past caught up with her and the nice guy inside Nathan is still trying to win the battle with the nasty guy he thinks he needs to be.

I don't think I counted more than one laugh this week. It was about relationships and coping with events beyond your control; every episode has a kind of morality tale shoehorned in and the only thing that mirrors real life in this show are the things that are mirrored in real life - personal feelings and relationships. Ted Lasso is a strange entity; it can be very funny but it's completely wrong; it can have implausible things happen and it defies logic - which as regular readers know is one of the things I look for in a good show; logic not defying it. 

I can't get over how disappointed I am in myself for not disliking Ted when all the people I stopped trusting the opinions of told me I'd love it. Bastards.

***

The wife has been reluctant to watch the remainder of the old films in the Old Films directory and we're both a little put off about delving into one of the umpteen TV series we've obtained over the last few years. This coming weekend is obviously going to be a perfect way to watch new things and experience something we've not experienced before...

The problem is we're so busy because spring's finally made an appearance, but that didn't stop us from watching Room, the film that rocketed Brie Larsson into the film world. Room is a disturbing film about a woman and her five year old child who live in a small room, but are really kept as prisoners in the room by a controlling rapist. In fact, she's been kept prisoner for seven years and her child is the product of her rapist.

In many ways the thing that brings the imprisonment crashing down is an unlikely scenario but once upon a time we would have considered the entire idea of this film unlikely and yet it's happened - in real life - a number of times. It's a bleak journey with an underlying streak of coldness with the only thing able to thaw it being 5-year-old Jack played by Jacob Tremblay. It's not a jolly film and I'm not sure I'd recommend it despite it being a well made and competent movie.

***

It's a slow week. I suppose the Hollywood writers strike will have a knock-on effect over the coming months much like it did on the two previous occasions its happened. Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick somewhere, one of the reasons for this strike is concern over AI written scripts.

I think there are a few AI written football web pages out there given the bizarre language and phrases used in some of the things I read. I'd always thought it was an article that had been translated from English into another language and then translated back into English, but it might have simply been written by a stupid AI machine.

***

Trailer Time - fortunately for everyone it seems there's at least four A list trailers a month, meaning there's very few weeks when there isn't one or I ignore it because it's a Fast and Furious film, of which I have never seen one of the 27 films. 

This week it's Dune 2 and boy does it look epic; especially given that there's nothing of the expected big finale in the preview, at all. What Villeneuve has done is take a book that is almost impossible to film - has pretty much failed in its only attempt to date - and created a believable landscape. It might be wise to watch the first film again in the months before the next one arrives as this version of Dune has included more of the things that David Lynch had to leave out of his adaptation, because of time constraints. 

***

Yellowjackets arrived back after its skip week and it was harrowing stuff. As the modern-day survivors all seem to be heading towards reuniting, while back in the past Shauna's baby arrives and things take a really dark ... hang on a minute, this show is about as dark as things get, how can it get darker? 

Modern Shauna seems dogged down by the unfortunate murder she's committed by making a reasonable fist of trying to lead the police down the wrong path, her problem is the cop who thinks she's involved has a real bug up his arse and is convinced that Shauna is as guilty as you can imagine - which, of course, she is. He just can't prove it.

In the past, the shadow of a Lost-like plot still looms, especially with some of the survivors talking about the wilderness as if its an actual being. The real issue though is despite handling a plane crash, an amputation and the death and subsequent dining on a team mate; a 17 year-old girl giving birth really throws the rest of the girls into a panic and adds a new wrinkle to Misty's truly narcissistic nasty streak. 

***

Oh fuck. I did something really stupid. I did something I stated I wouldn't do, in this blog, probably inside the last four months. I hate having to admit to this, especially as it was a really entertaining film, but we watched the latest Nick Cage film and it was a riot...

Renfield isn't really a Nick Cage film; he's in it and important to the plot, but that's because he plays Dracula to Nicholas Hoult's Renfield. The film is really about narcissists and control freaks, but it's jam-packed with blood and gore to a comedic level reminiscent of Monty Python taking the piss out of Sam Pekinpah films.

The thing is it's quite a dreadful film except it isn't. The best thing in it is Awkwafina (who essentially plays herself in everything she does) as the only cop on the New Orleans PD who isn't corrupt and that sentence alone doesn't really belong here, but that's the thing about this film; it's just wrong on so many levels it's brilliant. The NOPD is in the pocket of a local crime lord whose son has somehow stumbled into Dracula's lair and struck up a deal with him.

Renfield wants out of his abusive relationship with the Prince of Darkness and does some heroically violent things that brings him to the attention of Awkwafina. It essentially turns into a Bruce Willis/Sly Stallone/Arnie film of the 1990s with Renfield and cop friend versus everyone else in an almost non-stop bloodbath of comedy, ludicrous set-ups and bad acting. It's a cracking film and well worth wasting 90 minutes for.

***

There's a Coronation going on - as I type this - I'm sticking with my ambivalence and doing something less boring/interesting instead...

Next time: Before anything else, next week we're getting a new TV. A 43" Toshiba with add-ons so I expect viewing things might have just got a little more... cinematic. 

Ted Lasso heads towards its season (possibly the show's) finale; Yellowjackets is now in the final few episodes before its finale, so I'm expecting some more movement on the plot given we've had six episodes and we don't appear to have moved that far forward. I have a few interesting curios that might get an airing - The Night Agent is a espionage/spy thriller which we might give a chance to, plus some films. 

MCU/DCEU Update - The Fall of the Superhero Film

I've just got out of my time machine. I went forward a week in time to see what people think of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 and I didn't have to defy the laws of physics to say it was underwhelming and won't save the Marvel Cinematic Universe from its fate.

In reality, you have to feel a little sorry for James Gunn, his contribution to the MCU has been 'good' and he deserves the respect he's earned for directing fun hero films. He seems to have a feel for the genre, as evidenced by the excellent Peacemaker series last year and giving him the entire DC Extended Universe to play with seems a little like a no-brainer, especially if he can give it some cohesive future. Except, I think it's now a forlorn appointment, one made from desperation rather than planned.

The superhero film is dying. It's not dead yet and it still might resurrect itself, but I'm doubtful, because I can't see anything new, anything different being done. The latest two releases are a perfect example of how the genre is suffering. Shazam: Fury of the Gods essentially bombed at the box office and is currently about $100m shy of its initial costs; it's already streaming and there won't be a third Shazam film. It was good enough, but the big fight scenes were just, you know, yawn... It's like fireworks but without the smell.

Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania is the lowest ranked Marvel movie since the films started, it hasn't lost money, but the $75m profit it's showing is not as much money as the post-pandemic Black Widow and Kang was greeted with howls of derision - audiences actually laughed at him and his sidekick MODOK. The big fight scenes in this were ... kind of lost in a sea of CGI and left viewers somewhat bemused by how little happened in two hours.

Kang is also not a Thanos level villain even if you factor in the possibility that Jonathan Majors might be up for sexual assault on May 8. The fans were not impressed and the rumours spreading around that John Boyega will replace Majors wasn't met with much enthusiasm. The franchise has hit the buffers on a creative level and it seems whatever direction they go it's not what the fans wanted.

Thor: Thud & Blunder, [Minus] Black Panther: Wank Ada Forever, Dr Strange and the Multitude of Blandness, Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of My Burning Ring were all critical flops; none of them lost money, in fact, they made huge amounts of money, but in this case it was the critical response that's key; the fans thought they were okay, but in a lot of cases slightly let down and in some cases slightly confused. Even the weirdness of Dr Strange couldn't avoid the big finale - every superhero film has a specific story arc ending with a big fight scene.

Marvel's Phase Four was really just a case of throwing a lot of shit at the wall and see what sticks; at least that's how it's viewed among the small amount of people with far-reaching audiences. The negativity is like osmosis though, it seeps into the psyche of average punters, like doubt and they think, 'Nah, I'll see something else' or nothing at all. 

In the grand scheme of things, superhero films are still viable, except that will change very quickly if audiences continue to stay away. GotGv3 needs to be a huge success and it needs to achieve something, it has to leave a legacy that reinvigorates audiences and I simply can't see that happening. If Endgame was effectively a jumping off point for many, could the final part of Gunn's intergalactic trilogy be the next one? Will it lose more than it gains? 

There have been massive changes to the forthcoming Marvels film; reshoots, changes to the script and continuity issues have meant it's been put back to an unusual November release; even despite noises coming from inside Disney that the film might simply not be good enough. Brie Larsson hasn't stated publicly she won't return to the role of Captain Marvel, but she probably won't, with Monica Rambeau likely to replace her, as she did in the comics in the 1980s. 

Then there's 2024's releases; Captain America: New World Order is going to be a Hulk movie in every way apart from the Hulk won't be in it; they're saving him for the 2nd part of New World Order, the Thunderbolts movie. The other two films - if both happen - will be Blade and Deadpool 3. Mahershala Ali's reboot of the Wesley Snipes vehicle has also been plagued with problems in production and more existentially, how it will fit into this new look MCU. There are noises in Disney that the film should not be part of the MCU franchise.

Rumour has it that Deadpool 3 is going to be a kind of road movie, except he's going to be travelling through major events that have already happened in the MCU. Imagine Zelig but done for PG-13 laughs? It could be fun, it's likely to be horrendous with the audience screaming for some bad language and indiscriminate violence. 

Over at DC, changes have been made to the upcoming Flash film that will reset the entire DCEU timeline; effectively starting it from the beginning again, in terms of what James Gunn has planned for it. The Flash looked like it was going to be a fun film; possibly slightly different from other superhero films given the Flash's lack of actual physical strength, etc. However, new trailers suggest so much more now going on in what might actually make the film worse than it might have been; but this is something we're likely never to know. It is about time travel and altering the past to the detriment of the future and has a number of Batmans in it, a Supergirl, three Flashes and possibly other DC heroes. It's going to be a messy fight fest at worst.

Then there's Blue Beetle, effectively a reboot despite us never meeting Ted Kord's Blue Beetle and while it wasn't officially part of the new DCEU, edits have shoehorned it in and the second Aquaman film The Lost Kingdom will be the first official part of Gunn's Gods & Monsters ongoing story.

This is re-appropriation to save Warner's some money, but it's not really going to save the genre is it? Blue Beetle? Another Aquaman film? No one is going to be very interested in this until the Superman reboot happens, then all eyes will be on them again. If that isn't a blockbuster...

Can you say with any real conviction that you think any of the coming movies are going to change the course for the genre movie? Even Marvel's proposed Fantastic Four, double dose of The Avengers and possibly another Spider-Man film are so far away there might not be much left to save. Superhero fatigue really exists and giant cosmic battles have been done extremely well already, whatever the big finales and fight scenes there are in these upcoming films, they're always going to be pale imitations or reruns of past glories. Plus, they don't have Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov or Tony Stark any more and really that's like rebooting Star Trek without Kirk, Spock and Bones. 

Naturally, TV is the place for things to go to but Disney+ like all streaming services, is struggling with the cost of living crisis in its major subscriber countries and there is so much competition now that they really have to up the ante with their MCU content and the forthcoming Secret Invasion looks like it might be a TV event in the vein of the second and third Captain America films, while Loki returns at a time when he's probably needed. Other projects have either been delayed indefinitely or shelved; Disney wants Marvel to decrease content but make it more of an event. What happens to some projects is still up in the air as Disney is unlikely to authorise certain projects as they stand.

All eyes will be on San Diego in August, which seems a long way away at the moment but in film and TV worlds it's just round the corner and Marvel needs to turn a few heads. DC needs to win people back and neither are going to do that with their current schedules, so expect changes to be made, given some stars might not be available. Confidence is high in Kevin Feige's office that the Guardians film and Secret Invasion will reinvigorate the franchise. The problem with Guardians is it's the end of a cycle and the problem with Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury series is it's a TV series. 

Maybe what is needed in superhero films is what made them good originally - by going back to the source material and updating that for the 21st century. That was done with the best of the 60s and early 1970s material and directors' have also dipped their toes into more modern classics, such as Dark Knight or Watchmen, so maybe what is needed is something radical, something like Miracleman...

Marvel almost did it with Dr Strange and the Multitude of Blandness by turning Wanda into a proper bad ass villain who wiped out some of an earth's strongest heroes with ease, but there was an easy ending and it was good for the heroes. What Marvel needed to do is take a leaf out of The Empire Strikes Back and have the heroes lose. Really turn the franchise on its head - have Wanda as a Miracleman character - who just lays waste superheroes like they're going out of fashion. They introduced the Multiverse, your new heroes can be drawn from all over that to defeat her.

If that's too drastic, have a hero that doesn't play by the books - not the Punisher or Batman - but someone with superman like powers who decides that the world isn't a fair place and decides to become judge, jury and executioner. Make the world of superheroes darker and scarier, make it unpredictable.

I've recently been reading the Ann Nocenti/John Romita Jr run on Daredevil's comic between 1988 and 1992 and the thing about the first year of that partnership is that in almost every issue Daredevil had his arse handed to him on a plate; he was out of his league and becoming the punch drunk fighter his dad was. It was brilliantly depressing stuff and it culminates with a story called 'A Beer with the Devil' where DD and Mephisto sit in a bar and chew the fat - it was remarkable for a superhero comic book of the time. I'd watch a TV adaptation of that, but would the masses? Maybe? 

I've just read Planet Hulk and World War Hulk and what fabulous films they would have made had they had the right characters in place and the right Hulk. There's a hero called The Sentry introduced by Marvel around 2000 who would work in the world of film and TV because of his unique backstory, he's a principal character in the Hulk's life, but also in the lives of all the heroes until he was erased from history. I'm not a film script writer but I see far more potential in that than where they appear to be going. 

Yet, everyone who has read comics over the last 50 years will be able to tell Marvel and DC where they are going wrong and what comics would make brilliant adaptations, and we'd all be right and also wrong. For the average punter Marvel, DC and anyone else doing this kind of nonsense simply produce popcorn films and no one is interested in the politics, corporate shuffling, hirings and firings behind them. If they stop happening very few people will lose sleep over it and some new Sci-Fi and fantasy franchise will fill the void, but probably in a smaller way, because the age of the cinema is also coming to a close - but that's a different story. 

This might be the way Marvel is planning on going; with the changes in viewing habits especially amongst the under 25s, they might look to release more stuff to streaming and websites; this is a model they're looking into with Ironheart, with a look and feel reminiscent to the Power Rangers and potentially targeting a similar, but younger audience, to Ms Marvel. There is also a Young Avengers project in the pipelines, which definitely isn't targeting older - established - audiences. They are trying to introduce us to newer versions of existing heroes, but this is where things fall apart, because there is a lack of belief within Marvel/Disney that the films will ever regain their former glories even with new younger heroes. This is why they are desperate to find new ways to make money from a franchise that eats money for breakfast.  

So what now? As punters we sit and wait. There are still big audiences out there as proven by Avatar: The Wan in Wanker, so there is an opportunity, but that requires thinking outside of the box and as there are so many 'outside of the box' superheroes floating around TV and fringe cinema, you can see where the problems lie. Does the DCEU go the way of The Boys and embrace hyper-reality and realism in their films; would Marvel even consider doing something 'different'? 

The superhero film is at a crossroads. It's been through the teething years of the 1990s, the first experimental forays into CGI and bigger ideas in the 2000s, it hit its stride in the 2010s and reached a peak in 2018, because for all of its flaws Avengers: Endgame is probably not going to be bettered in terms of a finale, so it has been downhill all the way since then. You loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy and when The Hobbit was announced, as a three-film deal, you were so excited, desperate for the brilliance to be revisited and what happened? If you lead with your most ambitious idea everything else pales into insignificance. The new extended Tolkien universe reminds me of DC, not good enough and far too late to be of consequence.

If I had to put prophet's hat on I'd say superhero films as a concept could be dead by 2030 - remember westerns? We've had about 20 (if that) notable westerns since the late 1960s when they went out of fashion and several of those have been remakes. There will still be superhero films, but they won't be events, some will surprise the critics and most will be made with streaming in mind - production values will drop, but the CGI might improve because of less pressure on it and the changes I foresee happening in the entertainment world over the next ten years will be the most consequential; conventional TV and film will be for a diminishing audience because as people who grew up on that die there's no one to replace them, or at least not enough. There will still be films and TV, it's just like we've seen money go into computer games, we'll see investment in whatever 'kids' find trendy or however they decide to watch their entertainment.