I've been trying to keep the spoilers to a minimum - if you hadn't noticed - less so if a film is over ten years old, but in general I'm trying to not spoil it for anyone who reads this. That said, there's always going to be something I write that someone will complain about [avoid Loki or Gen V reviews] and this week there's in excess of 15 reviews and a preview overview...
D'Ya Ken?
Sometimes the unexpected happens and you find yourself having something of an existential crisis; except not me, because I've always been a bit of a feminist. That said, the entire premise of Barbie is about that exact thing - something unexpected happening followed by an existential crisis.
Margot Robbie, who I find a little annoying at times, was fantastic and Ryan Gosling as Ken was vacuous and pathetic and that was also fantastic. This was absolutely chock full of famous actors, many of who were British - there was even a cameo from Rob Bryden as Sugar Daddy Ken, oh and Helen Mirren does an excellent job as the narrator. There was a serious message here wrapped up in a bright pink and really rather silly movie and that is essentially women are taken for granted and it's a man's world. I left this film glad that I'd watched it and admonishing myself a little because I really shouldn't have thought that a Greta Gerwig film wasn't going to be something different and unexpected. See it, have your preconceptions blown apart; oh and it very much isn't for kids and I'm gobsmacked Mattel allowed it to be made.
My Psychic Wife
The problem is I can't tell you why my wife is psychic otherwise it will completely ruin the end of what was another exceptional episode (the second) of Lessons in Chemistry, but I will give you a clue. Halfway through she suggested the episode would end with something happening that I literally couldn't see and the episode ended with exactly what she suggested happening. It was uncanny and I'm still wondering if she'd read a synopsis of it without telling me.
Brie Larson is great in this and because I know nothing of the source material every part is like a new day and a new lesson. This week her love affair with Calvin, which seemed doomed at the end of the first part is back on, but at least we now know why she's so uptight about being in a room alone with a solitary man - she was a victim of rape at her college and this has left her emotionally scarred. This particular bit of nastiness from her past was hinted at in the first part but we get confirmation and another valuable lesson in just how being a woman in 1951 was about as emancipated as being black.
As I keep banging on, this is an Apple TV production and if you aren't subscribed to it or prepared to illegally download their products (they are richer than you'll ever be) then drop Netflix for it, you won't be disappointed. Oh and Elizabeth gets a dog called 6.30.
Because of the quirks of watching this, we watched episode three before I put this column to bed and I'm not going to elucidate on anything specific without giving away key elements of last week's. I will say that we learn more about 6.30 and he essentially narrates this episode, which is a stark examination of a human emotion; plus Elizabeth discovers she's pregnant; becomes friends with Harriet and gets fired. In many ways this was a much slower paced episode, but it's still very much a highlight of the week - in what has been a pretty good week of viewing given how recent weeks have been. One observation about Brie Larson - she might be Captain Marvel, but she's so fucking skinny she's almost two dimensional.
Trailer Trash
I Didn't Feel at Ease with this Film Today
We like a bit of Melanie Lynskey - oo-er missus - we try to watch her whenever we can. However, I'm not a huge fan of Elijah Wood; I find him tedious and uninspiring, prone to playing annoying characters because I find him a relatively weak actor. His addition to the cast of Yellowjackets happened at the same time an incredibly good TV series jumped the shark.
What follows is like a Cohen Brothers film without the Cohen Brothers involvement, as this odd detective duo first find Ruth's stolen laptop in a rather bizarre confrontation involving ninja weapons and then stumble across the actual burglar when trying to track down Ruth's stolen silver, after she is warned off by the police who really still couldn't give a shit. The thing is that's kind of the point of the entire film, Ruth's growing dissatisfaction with the world and the people in it and while pursuing her stolen stuff she gets even more examples of how shitty her world view has become.
Like I said, this is a strange film with a lot of comedy violence; people being shot, fingers broken, Wood getting stabbed multiple times and nasty head injuries. The dialogue is odd and you get the impression that neither Lynskey or Wood's characters are supposed to be particularly clever, but then again none of the people in this film come out of it with a hi IQ level given some of the shit that goes on. I'm not convinced I liked it; there were some moments, but they were few and far between and there was too much... meh going on; like this was a good idea for an hour long story but needed severe padding to get it up to 90 minutes. Lynskey is good though and I find her far more attractive than some of the glamour actors of a similar age - mid-40s - even if that sounds a wee bit sexist in 2023.
As Finale's Go...
That was a bit of a let down... The final episode of season five of Brassic summed up the entire series - started well, could've been a lot better. Yet again it ended on a sort of cliffhanger as the comedy villains all circled for Vinnie and his gang again. There was a definite invitation for Michele Keegan's Erin to leave the show and a fleeting cameo from Damien Molony as his story ended. I know there's going to be another series, I hope it will be the last...
Unbelievably Awful
I know I never touch albums/CDs in this blog. Music tends to have its own place, but I wasn't going to waste a blog entry on this particular album just in case people thought I might like it. I've used the analogy of watching some TV to buying Genesis albums after 1979; that hope that the next one [album or series] would be as good as albums prior to 1979 and always being disappointed...
This last week or so, I have decided that I have so many CDs that I really need to play them again because if I don't the wife is going to have an awful lot of shit to throw away when I finally kark it. I mean, she'll have all that shit to dump anyhow, but at least I could die knowing that I'd listened to them all and thrown away all the things I'm probably never going to listen to again. I had a stack of about 100 or so CDs that were likely to be binned, but I gave them a listen to mainly to see if they could get a reprieve and quite a few did. In fact, a number of them I couldn't understand why I'd even put them on the crap stack [what a great term that is - Crap Stack].
The last one in the crap stack was Calling All Stations by 'Genesis' and today (17th October, 2023) I finally put it on. I made it to about a minute into the third track before I removed it from the CD player and hurled it into space, so it would burn up on re-entry, never to bother me ever again [I actually just threw it in the bin and then emptied said bin into the larger bin that will be collected later]. It was unbelievably awful. I've heard cats being castrated with spoons that sounded better. I've snored better tunes in my sleep and if there's anyone reading this who thinks this is an album of music - please, pour acid into your ears now. That is all.
Let's Get Visible
There's an awful lot wrong with the logic in the 2020 version of The Invisible Man. Things happen that you know almost immediately wouldn't happen even if such a thing as an Invisible man existed, but the pacing and tension in this film is so intense you tend to forget the inconsistencies (well I did, but the wife was quick to spot them).
However, things start taking a grisly and violent turn as first her sister and then others fall foul of the psychopathic invisible man. There are some twists but in general it does a better job as a revenge thriller than it does as a horror film - although the horrors of being under the control of a violent narcissist far outweigh any fictional monster.
One point I've made before elsewhere: what is the point of being invisible? I know people say things like, 'Yes, but, you'd be invisible, that would be great, you could do all sorts of things!' To which I say, "Yes, but think about it, you'd be invisible. That means no one would see you. You would have to be extra aware of your surroundings because people in cars, buses or trucks wouldn't see you. People wouldn't see you; it would be incredibly dangerous for the invisible person and if you got killed, no one would see you so you'd just lie there decomposing and stinking up the place."
Back to the '80s
We decided to watch some more Melanie Lynskey and we'd heard good things about Candy, so we started watching this five-part mini-series and I will say one thing about the Americans - they have so many places that are stuck in time in that country that making a show that looks like it was actually made in 1980 is almost easy for them - almost any era from the 1920s to present day seems to have somewhere that can double up.
This is the true story of a brutal murder that blows a tight knit community apart; except is it a murder? What we do know about this is it happened and there was a definitive outcome - a look on Wikipedia would spoil the ending for you almost immediately. There have also been four adaptations of this already, it's such a compelling and interesting piece of history, this one made in 2022 has taken a few liberties with the story, but hopefully not at the cost of the actual known truth. It's got great acting, looks fantastic and for nostalgia reasons alone is a must see, even if it feels a wee bit odd at times.
Back to the '80s, Part Two
I used to play basketball when I was a teenager. I made the county squad a few times, but I was a regular for my school and sport club teams. I was reasonably good at it, because of my height I was a Guard and sometimes played Pivot when the main kid was off the pitch or sick. I used to understand the game and while it wasn't a particularly popular sport in the UK after school finished, it was important to many kids who didn't play football, cricket or rugby.
Anyhow. the film was much more interesting than either of us thought it was going to be. Matt Damon plays a kind of A&R man working for Nike who is charged with the responsibility of finding a rising basketball star that Nike could sponsor and get behind; he's supported by Jason Bateman (as head of marketing) and Ben Affleck as the Nike CEO, plus an assortment of other company men. When Damon's Sonny decides that the company needs to go for Michael Jordan, despite the player's complete refusal to even entertain Nike, it becomes the story of how Nike's Air Jordan was created and how the pitch to try and change the superstar's mind came to be. It's a factual biopic essentially, with a class A cast which probably lifts it above your average biopic. It's funny and poignant and much of the film revolves around everybody's attempts to woo Jordan's mother Deloris - played by the brilliant Viola Davis - the person who wore the trousers in that family. It's worth watching.
More Wrexham
One wonders if Rob and Ryan knew that taking on the Welsh football club they would be mining some TV gold? The latest two episodes of Welcome to Wrexham dropped and the focus was on the team's push for the title and the to-and-fro of their battle with Notts County for automatic promotion. Yet it was also about some of the people in the series - such as the Irish player Anthony Forde who took an indefinite leave of absence in light of his wife's brain tumour diagnosis; and the fan, who has been featured a lot and his battle against alcoholism and coping with his wife leaving him. The series has loads of reality TV perfection in it that's not down to the Hollywood stars involvement.
Pop Patrol
Jesus wept, musical episodes are just so Buffy. Old news, nothing new and really fucking annoying when all you want is for a fucking TV series to get to the end without wanking it up any further. Yes, I'm talking about Doom Patrol, which has just about worn my patience so thin it's like a 200 year old virgin's hymen...
Again it's Michele Gomez who rescues this from being a truly awful episode but even she struggles as we suffer nearly 50 minutes of inexecrable dog shit. This is episode nine, there's four left and I suppose I've got to stick with it until the bitter end. This was DC's one single thing that lifted it above all the other wank it produces but now should be flushed down a very dirty toilet.
Ginger's Snapped
On what can only be called a whim, we opted to watch something called Wolf Like Me with Isla Fisher and Josh Gad - someone who is famous for being the voice of Olaf in some Disney film about ice or snow or something. It is - the TV series not the film with Olaf in it - one of the best little shows we've seen for a long time. Its six parts weigh in at about 2½ hours in total and could easily have been a feature film. It's about a neurotic single dad and his depressed daughter and the werewolf dad falls in love with. It is a quite glorious comedy/fantasy/drama and I cannot recommend it enough.
Then they get hit by a car and their world changes almost instantly. Neither are hurt, but the woman who caused the accident - Mary - has a profound effect on Emma. What follows is a slow and sometimes awkward period where Gary and Mary do their best to avoid each other but fail spectacularly; the main problem is they're both attracted to each other but Mary keeps doing strange things and Gary isn't in a good place so he doesn't really know how to deal with it. Then Gary follows her home because she inadvertently picked up his car keys and he quickly discovers that Mary really isn't what she seems to be; she's a werewolf.
That's the first half of the series, the second half is all about Mary and Gary falling in love and dealing with the fact she has to lock herself in her basement for three days every month and eat live goats and chickens, while he deals with the aftermath. Then she discovers she's pregnant and they decide it's time to tell Emma about Mary's situation, so they go off on a camping trip - conveniently a few days before a super moon - and naturally the car breaks down, leaving them all in a real pickle. It is then, for the first time in the six episodes that you see Mary as the wolf...
This is a wonderfully funny love story with a quirky 'problem' getting in the way of true love. Josh Gad is excellent as neurotic Gary, Isla Fisher is sexy and funny as Mary (it's quite weird that she was 45 when she made this) and Ariel Donoghue is fantastic as Emma and we now have season two to binge on, but not until we get a few other things out of the way first. If you get the chance, you really need to watch this despite it being Australian - don't let that put you off.
Gen Memories
Gen V continues to become more interesting and intriguing even if I'm getting too old for this teenage kind of shit. It's a strange series at the best of times but this week it got very weird and didn't give us an explanation for something that probably needed addressing even with a throwaway line.
Cate's ability is essentially killing her and she's been forced to use it for years by Dean Shetty as we learn that The Woods is far more nastier than we imagined and that the Dean might not be working for Vought at all. The series is fairly going at a pace now after what were a very slow opening three episodes given how much has happened in the last three parts. With just a couple left before it either ends or leaves us on a cliffhanger for season two, it has won us over, even if we struggle a little bit with some of inconsistencies.
For example - what happened to the other guy who gets dragged into Cate's memories - he's despatched by the memory of Luke - Cate's now dead boyfriend - and no mention of him was made when they returned to the real world. The other thing is more general: I've made it quite clear in the past that I struggle with nudity in TV shows now, especially if it's unnecessary, but if two people are going to spend the night shagging (and this applies to other shows) how come, despite being in bed, they seem to keep most of their underwear on or in post coital scenes how come they have all their underwear on? Do they shag and then get partially dressed before lying in each other's arm in a warm glow smelling of sweaty popcorn?
A Timely Intervention
Loki reverted back to type in many ways this week. The tragic events of last week seemed to get swept under the carpet as Loki and Mobius go back to the 1890s and a burgeoning Chicago. They're in pursuit of the Ren Slayer and Miss Minutes but instead they stumble upon a much bigger prize...
Time Cops
The opening part of Bodies was intriguing if a little contrived - four naked bodies with a bullet wound to the left eye in four different times - 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053 - and all in exactly the same place, in the same pose and all the victims sport a tattoo of three vertical lines dissected by a perpendicular one and these are all on the wrists of the victims.
This is the genius of the imagination of my friend Si Spencer who died in 2021, so all I can hope for is Netflix paid his wife Colleen enough money for the adaptation rights. All eight parts dropped at the same time, but we have quite a few shows we're watching at a slower pace so I suspect we'll still be watching this come next week's blog, but it was a solid start even if I felt there was something missing from it - which might be found in subsequent episodes.
Next Time...
More of the above; some films and anything else that comes along in the next seven days.
No comments:
Post a Comment