Modern Culture - Nothing is Ever What it Seems

As few spoilers as possible again this week, in a slightly shorter blog given that I've had two football matches to watch this week which has cut down our allotted TV time (much to the chagrin of the wife - the football not the TV watching)...

Lessons in Brilliance

In my humble opinion, the best program on TV at the moment is the superb Lessons in Chemistry with the physically two-dimensional Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, the female chemist in a man's world. This week is the birth of Mad, her daughter (watch it, all will be explained) and how she copes (or doesn't) with being a mother. It's funny, touching and beautifully acted.

Harriet's husband returns from Korea and their story is simmering away nicely in the background, while we get to see Calvin again - which is great because he really was a fantastic bloke - as Elizabeth becomes an 'editor' for all the local chemists to ensure she still has somewhere to live and can pay the bills. There's also a great scene when she discovers that her old boss has stolen her and Calvin's work - but he doesn't know what he's doing. All the while we keep getting flash forwards - seven years - at who we think is Mad and her school, but there's a twist in the tail of this which is explained at the end of the episode when we discover how Zott goes from chemist to 'domestic goddess'.

As I said, this is fabulous quality TV with a good story and an ability to drag you completely into it. Larson is great, but so are the supporting cast and the story. I'm not familiar with the source material and this has, apparently, been tailored slightly for TV. I look forward to reading the book when I've finished the series. I cannot recommend this enough.

Ren and Bradley

Last week in Loki there was a switch back to a more comedic feel, this week that was replaced with jeopardy and more shocks - quite unexpected shocks (and I know most shocks aren't expected, but this really flipped things in a way that I didn't expect). We discover who zaps Loki from episode one, we discover the secret of Ren Slayer and her recruiting of X5 aka Bradley.

However, this week's episode was far more serious, almost like they're switching back and forth to make the viewer unsure of what's going to happen next and that's a dynamic that has been missing from so many MCU things for many years.

OB - far from being the villain of the show - does some clever handiwork to neutralise Miss Minutes, who really deserves it and then devises, with the help of Victor Timely, a way of sorting out the rapidly unravelling time stream, however one thing that will blow you away is the end of the show, it mot only has a shock in it, which may or may not have consequences in the future/past of the MCU, it has something that will make you go 'blimey, I didn't see that coming' followed by a genuine WTF...' moment. 

Loki oddly enough doesn't have a huge amount of Loki in it this series, but it also doesn't have a lot of Mobius and the latter's general nonchalance makes you wonder if there's something going on there that you haven't seen coming. It's really good television, kudos all round to the people who make it even if it'll mean fuck all in the grand scheme of things (if my theory is correct from the bonus blog I posted the other day).

Blood Sisters

Secrets and lies is the real theme behind Gen V as things happen that may or may not have consequences in the finale. The crew decides to have a confrontation with Shetty and also decide that one of them needs to be with Cate for that confrontation - because none of them really trust her. However, when Andre's dad has a seizure on live TV that goes out of the window and we don't know if what happens with Shetty is real or a fabrication by Cate at the bequest of Shetty, who really does appear to have the telepath in the palm of her hand. The upshot here is Andre wasn't part of it, so he might hold the key to the final episode.

There's a couple of surprise guest stars from the Boys in this as the two series finally get tied together nicely and we discover that Marie Moreau and Victoria Neuman (the head exploder from The Boys) are more alike than you can imagine. There's lots of double crossing and the virus that was being developed has fallen into the hands of someone whose intentions with it are unclear. I expect the finale will have more links to the Boys with more guest stars, especially as we're heading towards a new series of that soon; this has finally acted as a proper companion piece to that, especially as it has dispensed with much of its shock value gimmicks in favour of an actual story. I'm glad we stuck with it.

Imaginary Tales

The wife put her foot down and told me what we were going to watch last Saturday night. Her choice was the best film Quentin Tarantino has ever made, in my never humble opinion. The 2019 imaginary/alternate history Once Upon a Time in Hollywood starring a host of famous actors, but mainly with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio.

DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, a rising TV star of the late 1950s who by the late 1960s is a fading TV star who has made a couple of mediocre films and is now staring has-been in the face. Pitt plays his stunt double, PA and friend, Cliff Booth - a man with a chequered past, but as savvy as they come. The two bumble through 1968 Hollywood, while Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate have bought the house next door to Rick and when the camera is not focused on Rick or Cliff, we follow Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) around.

It's a long film, full of humour, famous actors impersonating even more famous actors from the late 60s. Damien Lewis is rather brilliant as Steve McQueen and there's a Hollywood party scene that was probably Tarantino being self-indulgent but made you wish you were in that 'scene' or even old enough to be. Considering this was made in 2018 and released a year later, LA has so many places that haven't changed, so making a film set 55 years ago feels more like a time machine has been used rather than just clever camera work and a few special effects.

I complained, almost bitterly, about QT's war film spelled wrongly because it was an alternative history film and I really didn't enjoy it - feeling it played too much on exploitation and not enough on actually making a logical film, however, this is just so damned funny I kind of want to see what happens to all of the characters given Sharon Tate didn't die and Charles Manson's acolytes were stopped before they even started. 

FFS Again

Several weeks ago I said under no circumstances was I going to watch anything The Walking Dead related ever again. However, the final God knows how many episodes of Fear have started and the wife, feeling all nostalgic for the rotting dead suggested we watch it despite having decided now that Morgan's story has concluded that we'd give up on it. After tonight's thing that masqueraded as a TV programme, I said "Never again. I don't want to watch any more of this shit." And the wife agreed.

KYAL

I never read Si Spencer's Bodies in comic form, mainly because I don't read comics any longer, so it's all new to me, so having four police officers in four times investigate four identical 'murders' in four different times is an intriguing premise and I worked it out very quickly that we're in the time travel arena, again. 

In 1890 Detective Hillinghead; in 1941 Detective Whiteman; in 2023 Sgt Hassan and in 2053 DC Maplewood have all been investigating what looks very much like the same murder. All of them have been compromised and are expected to do things - especially Hassan - and something is going to happen that will change the UK forever and it's all linked to Stephen Graham, who, it seems, is a time travelling saviour of everything in the UK as well as a proper evil bastard. It would appear that without him the UK won't become the utopia it appears to be in 2053, but at what cost to the past?

This series weaves a labyrinthine path through the lives of the detectives and everyone and everything connected to them and it all appears to be linked to a 15-year-old boy in 2023 called Elias Mannix, who holds the key to the future and unwittingly the past. It's a puzzling series and you really have no idea where it's going or how it's going to work out, but the key for all the police officers is breaking the time loop that Mannix - of the future - is creating thereby preventing what he has planned from ever being able to be stopped.

It gets a bit, to borrow a Dr Who expression, timey-wimey towards the end, especially after episode six when you start to wonder how they're going to get two more parts out of it, but in the end it has a conclusion that is both satisfying, confusing and unusual. However, I had proper gripes: first was the final scene which made little or no sense (and I wonder if it happened in the comic because I don't think Si would have resorted to such a cheap and corny trick) apart from giving something to someone who barely existed in 2023. Secondly, who and how did they manage to create an atomic bomb in the basement of a bank? And lastly, if you sit down and try to get your head around the story after the conclusion you realise that however excellently well-made a little thriller it was - that ticked all my paradox loving boxes - it actually made absolutely no sense at all - the entire story simply shouldn't have happened and technically couldn't have happened and the adaptation left so many loose ends and plot holes that all the enjoyment of watching it evaporated into the ether. 

Petrol Station of Doom

Night of the Hunted got a really good review in the Guardian, or at least it was a good review by that particular piece of shit rag's usual standards. This was, after all, the newspaper that allows some of its reviewers to not even bother watching things before they give them bad (or inaccurate) reviews. The problem is, I learned a long time ago that relying on a Guardian review is a bit like relying on recommendations from my mate Chris; 50% of them are going to be a load of shite... (sorry Chris)

This is a film that when I acquired it - on Sunday - had a 7.6 rating on IMDB, which considering The Exorcist: Believers the 'official' direct sequel to the original film had been released the same day and had a rating of 5.1, despite having Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair in it, looked like a good bet. By the time we watched it on Wednesday night that 7.6 had dropped to 5.4, but regardless of this we persevered with it, based pretty much on The Guardian's review - I should really listen to my own advice... This was a bad idea, even if the film probably doesn't deserve a 5.4, but given it possibly reflects what a lot of gun-happy American fuckwits who without doubt lurk on IMDB to damn anything they see as woke I can understand why it plummeted like a stone.

A woman is having an affair with a work colleague and they're on their way back from a work convention (or they might just have booked a room for some extra-marital shagging, you never know for sure) stop at a service station in the middle of nowhere and become terrorised by a lone sniper, who has already killed the checkout girl - Amelia - and soon despatches Alice's boyfriend and wounds her. She's pinned down in the station when the walkie-talkie on the counter starts talking to her and what follows is an ongoing conversation between Alice - played by Camille Rowe [no me neither] -  and the shooter, while he picks off anyone stopping there for fuel, apart from a Native American whose credit card is rejected at the self-service pump.

The shooter is essentially a right wing wanker trying to justify his killing spree, or is he, because despite knowing Alice's name (she told him it over the walkie-talkie), he also seems to know an awful lot about her, which he might be getting off the internet or he might be something else entirely. Does her husband know she's shagging around? Is it a disgruntled former employee or is it Henry who used to work at the gas station - you actually never find out. In fact given the nature of the film and the bleak and slightly ludicrous ending you don't really discover much at all. Given the low budget horror flick Splinter was set at a gas station with seemingly no escape, that film made this film seem like a bad idea poorly executed (if you'll pardon the pun). It wasn't bad, but equally it wasn't anywhere near as good as the Guardian thought it was.

Now, you'd think that was it, but I haven't finished with the Guardian. You know how I've been thoroughly enjoying the Brie Larson TV show Lessons in Chemistry? Well, I almost didn't watch it based on The Guardian's review, but high praise elsewhere meant we gave it a go and were glad to. However, the now extremely centre right, gaslighting rag's review of it said that Brie Larson's Elizabeth teaches her dog 6.30 to talk and then went a step further and said the dog talked too much. Also in this review, whoever reviewed it said Apple TV had only released two episodes to review. 6.30 can't talk, Elizabeth hasn't taught him to talk (yet) and while the dog narrates episode #3, it's just really a book end and is more symbolic than actual. I don't believe the reviewer actually saw the first two episodes, I think whoever did it based their review on the Wikipedia entry for the book, not the TV series, which had some emphasis on Elizabeth Zott's teaching her dog to talk. Trust me here; avoid that fucking newspaper like the plague; avoid its lousy reviews and avoid its pro-Zionist bullshit. It might be a good investigative newspaper, but it also is a superficial piece of shit with a webpage that allows far too much clickbait and Islamophobic bullshit. It's not a big and clever daily, it's a load of off wank.

Injury Time

As Welcome to Wrexham reaches the final straight of season two, one wonders if the programme's producers realised that the Welsh club's last season in the National League was so unbelievable, they could have literally just covered the battle with Notts County and it would have made excellent TV. Instead of focusing on the utterly wild season of football, it's almost come in as a secondary thing to the stories of the people, the town and the history. Not that this is a bad thing, but the football does seem to have taken a back seat.

This week's two parts looked first at the mining disaster from 1934 and had less than 40 seconds of football club. It was poignant and needed to be told, to be remembered, probably more so for the way employers - pre unions - were a monumental bunch of cunts. While the second of this week's double bill centred on Wrexham Ladies and their battle to become a team in the Ladies Welsh Premier League. It was two parts that emphasised that Wrexham FC is more than just some desperate men hoping to get back into the proper leagues. 

With just two parts left, I expect one of those to be focusing on the titanic Wrexham v Notts County match, at the Racecourse, where Ben Foster pulled off a 95th minute penalty save to almost guarantee Wrexham win promotion, while the finale will be the championship winning last two games of the season and a chance to see just how much Ryan and Rob have grown to love this historic football club.

Snore Patrol

Zzzzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Four of the five actual members of the Doom Patrol are dying of old age. Vic decides he'd rather be Cyborg than a normal man. Rouge again tries to atone for her past and fails. The Butt monsters are back, now as Werebutts. A giant nasty looking skin tag on Immortus's neck is the answer to everything. This stupid load of crap gets stupider every week and I wish that wasn't the case but bad special effects, a lousy script, poor plotting, dodgy acting and lots of angst and shouting does not make a good thing. This is a superhero series that's never really been about superheroing, more about circumstances and deus ex machina moments. It'll be over soon and I don't know if I have the patience or the will to watch the final episodes.

Over the space of five years we occasionally see Crazy Jane do things that constitute superheroics, however Larry just moans about his existence and his space thing parasite creature tends to do anything bordering on heroic. Rita wilts into a bucket of sludge every so often but hasn't really done anything other than be self-absorbed and slightly annoying. Cliff, for all his robotic stuff, has spent more time being addicted to porn and working on his car, oh and moaning about being a shit dad, than he's ever hit anyone or used his ... I dunno, does he even have any abilities apart from being a pretty crap robot? Vic 'Cyborg' Stone has been the only character who is a superhero and it says a lot about the DC television universe that one of the Justice League is reduced to being a whiny wanker. You have to look past the dressing and see that if you've watched this from the start you've been watching all smoke and mirrors dressed up to shock and surprise, of which it does neither. This is a bit of a tragedy because season one at least was weird and true to the Doom Patrol comic, everything since has been shitty pants.

Seven Minutes and Eleven Seconds

This was the amount of time we gave Van Wilder before switching it off and declaring it to be a load of shite. In that time we were subjected to at least ten crude and unfunny 'jokes' and that really is all we needed to switch off and watch something less worse.

Compact and Bijou

The 2007 Halloween film Trick r Treat was short - weighing in at about 80 minutes - and was a portmanteau film, tying four unrelated stories together with a loose link and if I want to be honest about it, director Michael Dougherty did a pretty good job with it considering it was his first full-length motion picture and to date he's only done three - the others being Krampus (which also wasn't a bad film) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (which was an absolute monster-fest spoiled by a dreadful plot involving Vera Farmiga and Millie Bobby Brown). 

Trick r Treat is actually a neat little fun film, very nasty but also full of comedy. It has some awful special effects, especially the werewolf section, but it also has some really excellent ones. Everything from the sadistic serial killing headmaster to the conclusion it seemed to revive a tradition for releasing Halloween-themed films in October.

It's got a bunch of famous people in it, from Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker, Brian Cox, Leslie Bibb, Tahmoh Penikett and Britt McKillip, who we last saw in the excellent TV series Dead Like Me. If you want a slightly spooky, fun comedic horror film for Halloween you can't go much wrong with this; there are four stories - the sadistic serial killer who is also headmaster of the local school, the bunch of girls out for some Halloween fun, the slightly street smart trick or treaters with a prank of their own and the old man in his house, who lives next door to the headmaster. It's bookended with a short story about the dangers of blowing out Jack-O-Lantern candles before October 31st has finished.

Next Time...

The finale of Gen V, the penultimate episode of Loki, the next Lessons in Chemistry, possibly the last two parts of the Wrexham show, another bore fest with the wanky DC superheroes, absolutely no Walking Dead at all, maybe a couple of films - although the wife really is getting fed up with watching films at the moment; she's not said so out loud but I've known her for long enough to know when she's getting overloaded with stuff - she wants to watch a few things on iPlayer, plus we have stuff on the catch-up box we need to watch, so it's really a case of pot luck and whatever she decides.