The warning for spoilers remains in place - please be aware
Bear Grills
The opening few episodes of the new season has the entire team pulling together in the face of growing adversity as the dream of turning The Original Beef into The Bear starts to become a grubby and mouldy nightmare and the money that Carmy's brother left, secreted inside tins of tomatoes, is fast running out. Even with investment from his dodgy, possibly Mafia-linked uncle Jimmy, Carmine and Sydney are going to have to go up to six months without earning anything and as this is the USA and not the UK, there won't be things like JSA or start up benefits for these entrepreneurs.
Once the premises have been sorted - or demolished to be rebuilt - the focus turns to the staff and the first under the spotlight is Sydney - played by the delightful Ayo Edebiri - and her journey from sous chef to being Carmine's #2 and unofficial partner. She's constantly being let down by her boss and his distractions, so she goes on a journey to all the best restaurants still open in Chicago to try and dream up some ideas for their new menu, which so far hasn't been much of a success.
Then it's the turn of Marcus, the pastry chef, who is sent to Denmark to learn about super fine cuisine desserts. He is taught by none other by Will 'Adam Warlock' Poulter who is rather frosty towards his new pupil but soon warms to him because Marcus - Lionel Boyce - is a nice guy, who cares about his terminally ill mother and thinks it's weird that he's staying on a boat in Copenhagen.
You could argue that it's just stylised TV a bit like the flavoured foams chefs tend to favour now instead of a sauce or gravy, but it does so much more than that and no single episode fails to move the story forward even if it feels at times like it's standing still.
Then there's episode six... In the first season the stand out episode was the psychotic 19 minute continuous episode with no breaks, just one single camera following the action. It was astounding. In season two you have the standalone episode - The Berzattos - and it's set five years prior to the events happening elsewhere in season two and it has a solid gold stellar cast, it's an hour long and an Emmy winning ensemble acting experience from start to finish. Jamie Leigh-Curtis, Oliver Platt, Sarah Paulson, Jon Bernthal and Bob Odenkirk are some, not all, guest stars in an absolute Academy Award winning hour of frenetic, frantic Italian-American insanity. You want to know why The Bear is full of mad people, this doesn't tell you why they're mad, it just shows you that maybe they were even nuttier five years earlier. Astonishing television.
The pace changes with episode seven as the spotlight falls on Richie with remarkable results and a guest appearance by Olivia Coleman. I am beginning to seriously think that actors are now queuing up to be a guest star in this show. Penultimate episodes of series tend to either tread water or tie up 'other' sub plots, but The Bear doesn't let up with the entertainment and the stress as time is running out and the restaurant's secrets are finally being revealed, but almost in a gigantic puzzle kind of way. You have to watch it to understand what I mean fully, but we go from A to Z in this series and B to Y is examined with the same intensity as A and Z.
The entire series has a lot of genuinely funny LOL moments (although very few of them are in episode six), usually involving Richie - Ebon Moss-Bachrach - who was literally a fuckwit waiting to happen, but he means well even if he's a bag of anxiety, insecurity and idiocy - the three things he excels at. You started to get the impression his days were numbered at the new restaurant but that was the vibe he was giving out because Carmy has so much faith in his idiot cousin it's almost the least realistic thing about the show.
There's been no news about whether there's going to be a season three and that's a worry, but equally I'd be happy because I was in on The Bear long before everyone else jumped on the bandwagon. Seriously, if you've never seen this before you should treat yourself to it. I think it's one of the greatest television series EVER!
No Way Jose
Do not adjust your screens, I am going to change my mind about something. I no longer dislike Spider-Man: No Way Home, in fact I'd say it might end up being the last good Marvel film, which considering Sony is involved is high praise indeed.
However, while I agree with myself on some of the criticisms, I no longer feel the film is contrived and in many ways it's allegorical message needed to be made, for this incarnation of Spider-Man at least. I do not like the ending; I didn't like it first time round and I doubt I ever will. The MCU Spidey is a different beast to the others, including the many in the Spider-Verse and to remove everything this Peter had - his aunt, his friends, his mentor, his identity and to put him in a position that not even the original comicbook Peter Parker had to suffer (at least until he was older) is a cruel way to tie up this trilogy.
Given what is happening in Hollywood, the delays to projects, Holland's decision to take a break and the struggles of superhero films in general, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this ending up being the last Spider-Man film for a few years, it certainly would work as a finale, even with the epilogue, which while bleak for Parker has glimmers of hope in it.
Steve's Bad Day Out
This film sort of starts well, but it suffers from bad plotting, woefully poor pacing and a lack of any credible reason to exist other than Wanda's gone mad and discovered she's now stronger than Thanos, which alone should have anyone with a hint of knowledge about the MCU wondering about the direction we're going here. I mean it's not that long since the un-snap and some of the shit Wanda's got involved in would have been a good weapon against Thanos or any other world beating villain or threat; so when Strange was calculating all those things back in Infinity War how come he didn't see this coming?
I still have a number of problems with this film from its lack of story, the acid-trip dodgy CGI and zero excitement and the feeling of jeopardy is never there. Plus, it tries to be a horror film but when you're a PG-13 rated superhero movie there's only so much you can do until you start getting into censors' areas, so any real attempt at horror is more Lemony Snicket than Evil Dead. Like I said, no jeopardy, no risk, you know the hero is going to save the day and you don't care what it's going to cost him.
There's also the fact that despite not being in half the film, Strange is far better in No Way Home than he is in his own film, which I think in the end felt like a bunch of half-arsed ideas not properly executed and they should never have put Sam Raimi anywhere near it; he's a half trick pony at best. I feel for the guy who lost the directing gig and was made an executive producer instead - that's damning him on two levels. In the end this second Doctor Strange outing is a cold, emotionless and a pragmatic and unpleasant juggernaut.
Secret Invasions
Well, this is still not moving along at any pace at all and is full of things that at the moment make little or no sense in the grand scheme of things. Fury has a not very nice meeting with James Rhodes - War Machine - which wasn't what Nick hoped for and pretty much made Rhodey out to be an arsehole (but he hasn't got Tony Stark to keep him grounded any longer). It seems the US government aren't interested in Fury's Secret Invasion. In fact, Fury has meetings throughout this episode and all of them aren't what he wants.
Gravik - the Skrull general with the British PM, head of the UN and various other important people under his control is behaving more like a psychopath than a freedom fighter and there doesn't seem to be much reason for the Skrulls taking over the earth, especially considering they were given a home here, but you have to move the story on. Olivia Coleman again steals the show with a cold calculated performance as someone who might be a good guy but equally might be a loose cannon; we don't really know who she works for or what kind of agenda she has, but I expect Fury will turn to her for help in the third part.
It's all very adult, full of spies and intrigue, but I'm just not feeling the love for it. It's like smoke and mirrors at times; you're not sure anything is actually moving forward, but that might be because very few Marvel TV series so far have delivered anything but endings that lead into some other thing - so not really endings at all. There's also far more happening that we don't understand than the stuff we do and while I expect it will all be revealed, I just hope we're not led up some garden path only to be faced by a new labyrinth to work out.
Max is Positively Livid
Actually it was almost two hours of road rage and car chases, stunts and accidents designed to impress and wince at. In fact, the special effects were extremely good, elevating this from being just a trashy Mad Max film into something akin to a film with a story, albeit a thin one, stretched over a swelling bloated carcass of a once dead franchise.
Tom Hardy is Max now, but the focus is on Charlize Theron's Furiosa, she who drives the truck with the leader's breeders on board and she's decided to make a break for it with mutant Peter Stringfellow's denizens on her tail. Max gets roped in - almost literally - to help and gradually an uneasy alliance is formed.
It's an absolute load of horse wank and a lot of enjoyable if overlong fun. Except fun isn't the right word for it.
Searching for Nightmares
The series is still full of wonderful scenery and divine cuisine, but Stan's had a pizza and some pasta, it's now all about balls, brains and the bits that no one else wants to eat. I expect there'll be a bull's penis involved before he finishes his odyssey. It's still wonderful TV and they need to find Tucci a new country and its cuisine to explore or possibly how Italian cuisine has affected the rest of the world.
And oddly enough, episode four of the second series is based in that famous Italian city of ... London. Stanley meets up with some more familiar faces to sample the delights of the Italians who have made London their home - almost 250,000 of them have made the move to the capital; it seems the Italians like the UK and hopefully vice versa - let's just hope that Brexit hasn't stifled that relationship.
The rest of the series is the same mix of wonderful local foods and what can we gross Stanley out with this week; it's comfort TV, like that fishing programme or those fireplace apps you can set up on your TV. I know I really want to go to Italy now.
13 Foot Virgos
So... That was weird and we only watched two episodes and, if I want to be honest, we're not likely to watch any more - there's far too much good stuff out there to be waylaid by a proper curate's egg of a TV show. This is the story of a 13 feet tall 19 year old man who has been hidden from the world all of his life but finally comes out of his big closet into a world that you really weren't expecting.
The thing about I'm a Virgo is that Cootie, the main protagonist, is a naïve and slightly old school romantic who has developed all of his social skills through limited exposure to the TV because his adopted parents don't know what else to do with a 13 foot tall teenager. I say they're his adopted parents, but his father might be his biological father but his 'mother' is the sister of his actual mother, who may well have died giving birth to Cootie because he was as big as a polar bear when he was born.
There's a real life superhero in the series, called The Hero he's a decidedly dodgy looking guy who is obviously very very insane, but that's not all - there's all kinds of weird shit going on with no explanation so presumably it's just 'normal' for this reality. I simply couldn't make my mind up if I liked it or if I was just watching it because of all the hype I've read about it. I'm not convinced the acting is all that and the supporting cast are not the most likeable people. This is something I might return to, but as I said there's too much to watch already.
Also Discarded...
The summer is strange time for TV and film. Traditionally in the UK the summer months meant endless repeats, sport and things to encourage you outside even if that wasn't their initial aim. Looking through the current releases people who read this might wonder why I'm not looking at The Witcher - we watched half the first series and gave up because it was decidedly boring; or Star Trek: Brave New Worlds which we watched the pilot and as I fell asleep during it for almost half the show, we opted to give up on Star Trek (although we might watch Disco Very when it returns for it's final FINAL season). Obviously any regular reader of this will understand why I haven't mentioned Please Stop: Dead Shitties, in case you don't, I stopped because they won't.
'Afternoon' TV?
To finish the week off, I opted to watch Wildflower, based solely on the one trailer I saw, which made me chuckle. It's about the life of teenager Bambi (or 'Bea' to her friends and other family) who has had a more 'challenging' childhood than most people and while the premise and the approach was fantastic, in the end the film was let down by being not that interesting and possibly because of the way it used the disabled as a comedic way of telling a story rather than focusing on their story, which might have been more interesting. This film is all about Bea and maybe it shouldn't have been.
The film starts with Bea in a coma looking back on her young life and how she got where she is and that meant a lot of time spent on her folks - Derek, who suffered a life-changing brain injury when he was a teen and Sharon, a young woman born with learning disabilities - what cruel Americans call 'retarded' - and how against the odds and against the wishes of their two rather eccentric families, meet, fall in love and have a baby - a perfectly normal child they christen Bambi (after Sharon's favourite film). This is what the film should have been about; this is where the opportunity to make an entertaining film about what it must be like for two adults, both with pre-teen brains, to not only survive but thrive and have a family in one of the cruellest and undemocratic countries in the world - the USA.
There are some genuinely touching moments in the film and some funny ones, such as when Bea is trying to explain to her father that she can't learn to drive because she's only 10; but these moments are few and far between and the focus turns to Bea as she ploughs through school while simultaneously has become her parents principal carer. The problem is there's no real focus on Bea's 'job' just time spent with her trying to avoid being a normal teenager or being one and veering to the edge of reasonable. I get it she's this 17 year old girl faced with having a real life in front of her and the real struggle she has because of her parents and her story needed to be told, maybe not in such an inconsistent and slightly derogatory way (and I know this is based on a true event, but maybe that true event wasn't that interesting?).
In the end it simply felt like a quite good idea that didn't transpose to the screen as well as you might expect. Dash Mihok and Samantha Hyde are excellent as Bea's 'disabled' parents and Kiernan Shipka is really good as Bea - I was thinking she reminded me of Elliot Page when he was called Ellen. The fantastic Jean Smart plays the maternal grandmother and brings a smidgeon of star quality to a film that had I stumbled across it, during December, on Channel 5 in the afternoon, I would have quickly moved on to try and find something more interesting.
Next time...
The hope that Secret Invasion starts to actually get interesting or even good, because so far it's been going nowhere slowly and without any purpose. It appears I'm not the only person to think this, which makes me both happy and sad.
As for the rest of the week, we'll see what comes along, what we fancy off of the Flash Drive of Doom - we're at that stage where we watch films because it's one of our turns to choose now rather than because we're looking forward to it. Sometimes it ends up being a good thing, but as readers of this will attest, often it's two hours of my life that would have been better spent wanking or writing a will...
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