My Cultural Life - Death and Repetition

What's Up?

Spring comes in a few stages. While late winter is white - both in the flowers and sometimes the weather, spring is different. Just before it arrives you get the first yellows with daffodils and celandines, then we get flushes of gorse, followed swiftly by dandelions, buttercups and then it finishes with a flourish when the fields of oil seed rape do their yellow thing - the brightest and visually the best. Fields of yellow like someone has taken a highlighter pen to certain fields. 

There are a few other plants and flowers that show their heads - we've got pink heart-shaped flowers in the garden attached to a ... yellowish plant (the wife told me what they were called and I immediately forgot) and there's the magnificent magnolia. We've had camellias with their reds and pinks only to be replaced by cherry blossom pink. We're only halfway through it, but there's something utterly refreshing about the colours of spring and the fact it's here. There's a bit of optimism around, given the start of the spring we've had, that we might get a half decent summer, but what we deserve and what we get are rarely on the same page. 

The Second Episode of Doctor Who 2025

Oh FFS. Just FFS.

An Imperfect Noise

Once upon a time this would have had its own blog and I would have waxed lyrically about how Talk Talk were and are the greatest band to ever have existed that produced music. That's not to suggest I still don't think this; I'm listening to Laughing Stock as I write this. I have read a number of biographies about musicians and I have usually been majestically underwhelmed by them. The Rush biography - Chemistry - is a truly remarkable piece of spectacular boredom about three men who literally were as exciting as watching a brick wall on a dull day. I remember reading Peter Gabriel's biography, written by someone who didn't have access to Gabriel or any of his previous bandmates. There was a segment in that which talked about how Gabriel used to have to go and use a phone box down the road from where he lived because he didn't have his own land line. You can see why it's such a riveting and compulsive read... A Perfect Silence by Ben Wardle does a perfunctory job of giving us a reasonably comprehensive time line of Mark Hollis from the moment he wanted to break into the music industry until his final solo album in 1998 - bookended with some words which may or may not be accurate about his youth, family and his short-lived old age. This story is brought to life by musicians, engineers, production staff and peripheral people on or around the scene at each album recording. These are the most detailed sections of this book, but they are also the dullest. Yes, we got an insight into who Mark Hollis was - a bit antisocial, misanthropic and arrogant - and what his fellow band members were like, but it's all a bit repetitive and, well, meh... 

My problem starts when you realise who has actually contributed to this biography... There is nothing from Tim Friese-Greene - who apparently had a major falling out with Hollis after Laughing Stock which appeared to get more acrimonious, but Friese-Greene will not talk to anyone about it and all Wardle can do is speculate. Then there's Paul Webb - Talk Talk bassist - and Lee Harris - the drummer - the two closest people to Hollis during their most prolific period. There is nothing from either of them; they offered zero to this book. None of Hollis's family agreed to be involved in it; no interviews or anything concrete about his wife Flick and two children. In fact, the only people involved in this seem to be people who weren't keen on Hollis at some point of another or worked with him and might have had a beer after a session. Simon Brenner's words are of a man who felt he was pushed out of the band, but you only get the bare whiff of bitterness; the former keyboard player is pretty much the main source of information. People intrinsically linked to Talk Talk offered words, but then you realise that James Marsh - an illustrator - and others had no real relationship with the songwriter, they were really employed by the team behind the band at EMI. Previous contributors, such as Phil Ramocon and Robbie Macintosh offer some nuggets about Hollis, but the entire book felt like it had been cobbled together from the internet with as little interesting facts as possible. However, we did learn how later works were 'constructed' rather than played. Hollis (with Friese-Greene) used to literally record fragments of songs and then build them together to form longer sections of music and all of this was done prior to digital recordings. Working with Hollis was never fun and always laborious.

I'm not suggesting that I think Mark Hollis's life should have been more exciting or been written to make it sound more exciting than it was, but this musical genius was probably on the spectrum, was most definitely the kind of guy who grew tired of peoples company like a faucet being switched on and off and literally got to the stage where he was earning enough from his royalties to just call it a day and spend his life with his wife and kids. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I question the need to even try and write a book about Hollis. When you have about 10% fact and 90% memories and extrapolation (there's a lot of presumptions and 'so-and-so said this happened') to expect anything other than a dry, humourless and vague biography is probably a desire for Hollis to have been some rock and roll animal, rather than a man who had little or no patience and didn't suffer fools gladly. This would have made a really good [shorter] feature for a broadsheet or for a music magazine, when people still bought music magazines. One thing is clear about A Perfect Silence, it is a horrendously expensive book with writing in it; it answered some questions but in the end I'm not sure I really wanted to know. I suppose Wardle got a lot of praise for even attempting to write something about a man who was so painstakingly private. 3/10

Let's Go Round Again

As it was my birthday on Saturday, the only thing I got to watch was that fucking god awful episode of Doctor Who, which will be very lucky if I see this series out. So, on Sunday, wanting to watch something I knew I'd enjoy, we decided to watch Captain America: The First Avenger again and I'm sitting here puzzling as to when it fell to 6.9 on IMDB. This is one of the best MCU films ever made and if my memory is correct, one of the most loved by critics and fans, so to discover it had dropped so low on IMDB made me wonder if all the MCU films had taken a battering from all the idiots out there who don't like women or Muslims being cast in superhero films... The origin of Captain America was true to how it happened in Timely Comics in the early 1940s and the special effects were excellent, as were the sets and the supporting cast. This follows weedy Steve Rogers into the lab where he is turned into an actual superhero, with super strength to go with his strong morals. Where Iron Man was the MCU's tech bro and modern amoral billionaire, Rogers was its metronome; the ordinary Joe with a heart of gold given the opportunity he never thought he'd get. It is still one of my favourite MCU films and it was great revisiting it again. 8/10

The Second First Avenger

This was the first time Sam Wilson appears in a MCU film and he's great. The fact he is Captain America now just shows you how far the franchise has fallen since this true high point. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the best MCU films - full stop. There's very little else that can stand up to this relentless and utterly brilliant movie. It is a rollercoaster of a story as Steve gets used to the 21st century and discovers that Hydra has infiltrated SHIELD and an actual new world order is about to take control. This is a story that spirals out of control almost from the first action scene, as Steve starts to wonder what he's doing and why he's doing it and then someone tries to kill Fury and ambushes him and Natasha, he knows he's got a real battle on his hands... This would have been a brilliant film even if Bucky Barnes had not been in it. The story of Rogers' best friend who become a superhuman like Captain America - but bad - is the real stretch in this because everything else works really well, even if it felt really early in the life of the MCU to have such a 'political' schism happen. This gets a 9/10.

And Then Something Happens...

Spoilers, spoilers, everywhere...

I know I gave this away last week, but even I was surprised that Pedro only lasted one more episode. This was by far and away the best episode of The Last of Us since it started; with a two pronged storyline that ends in tragedies. In the town, a surge of infected attack the walls in a concerted effort to break in and infect the uninfected. This was a relentless attack with countless dead and so much damage done to the group that had been largely free of fungal madness. Meanwhile, paramilitary nutter Abby - Kaitlin Dever - wants Joel and we discover that she is the daughter of the doctor he casually shot dead in the season one finale and as you can see from the picture, there's not much left of Joel after she's finished with him. This means Ellie is going to be pursuing the team of assassins because I can't see any other, logical, action, especially if this is going to be a far more action packed series than the first. It was very good to have an episode that actually made us - the viewer - see just how bad this world is and it was exciting.

The Perfect Noise

I can see a theme developing this week... After finishing the biography of Mark Hollis and Talk Talk earlier this week and already spoken of it, I decided it was time for me to break out the band and give the catalogue a listen, because I don't think I have for at least five years. I play the odd track, I revisit favourites when I put a playlist together, but listening to the albums as albums? The second album on my list was The Colour of Spring, the 1986 release and the band's third album. I was hooked by the band before this came out and it took me several plays to understand what a timeless and original album it was and still is. I've always regarded this as my second favourite Talk Talk album (It's My Life as always been the #1) but in many ways it is the ultimate album, the pinnacle of what the core of the original band achieved before Hollis went all Scott Walker. The book [I just finished reading] tells how - probably - EMI were really happy with the album, but sales didn't reflect this. 

What the book doesn't seem to convey is that it's an extraordinary album of textures it is. Yes, it has hints of what's to come, but it retained that band cohesion, which in fact was the last time they played live when touring this album. Looking back on how I used to view the band and how I do now, knowing what I took from the book, I think the last two Talk Talk albums were really a man trying to escape the successes he had. They are quite sublimely works of genius, but there's no joy in them. They are without a doubt the band who created post rock, but they'd already done that with The Colour of Spring and in a small way It's My Life. It's not pop music, even their 'pop' songs aren't pop. Maybe when they started, but from the second album on they were doing different things and if you got on the band's wagon then you knew all this. If you get the chance, go and listen to this groundbreaking album, alone in a room with good acoustics, or watch it on You Tube, but do it, you will be rewarded. 

Luck O' the Irish

Another perfect way to have two helpings of the same thing this week would have been to follow up watching Patriot Games with its sequel Clear and Present Danger - probably the two Harrison Ford films I've never seen. After watching Patriot Games, I can safely say the sequel is unlikely to ever be watched... This is a movie - from 1992 - that not only has dated but feels a little... racist. A film about a rogue breakaway faction of the IRA led by a bunch of actors who aren't Irish playing Irishmen. I mean, was there a shortage of Irish actors available to play people from the Emerald Isle or was it just lazy casting asking the likes of David Threlfall and Sean Bean to just imitate the Irish accent? I really lost the plot with this early on, struggling to understand why Bean's nutty terrorist is more interested in killing Ford's Jack Ryan and his family than performing his mission. The sound was awful, the acting worse. It felt like all the scenes that didn't have Ford in them were made for about 75p. It had something to do with assassinating a member of the royal family to make a statement but the CIA get in the way. It's a really meh film. 4/10

Avengers Civilities

Do you know what stops Captain America: Civil War from being probably the best MCU film ever made? Spider-Man and that really pointless superhero battle at Leipzig airport. In fact had they trimmed this two and a half hour film down by about 20 minutes they could have had their cake and eaten it. Yes, there needed to be some extra superheroes in this, but it didn't need to become an unofficial Avengers movie, nor did it need to introduce two new superheroes to the MCU. I get why it was done, but there's a quite brilliant film here being mired by the need to expand a universe. We didn't need Hawkeye, or Ant-Man, or Spider-Man, or even half the others; Steve, Sam, Natasha, Tony Stark and maybe the Black Panther were important to the story, the rest not so much.

Strip away the frills and the special effects and what you have is a tale of revenge executed by someone from outside but designed to have maximum effect inside a group of friends and allies. Daniel Bruhl's Zemo might not be the guy from the comics, but he possesses skills that allowed him to drive a wedge between Earth's Mightiest Heroes. This film also introduces the Sokovia Accords - regulations by which 'superheroes' must act within or break the law - something that Steve Rogers cannot agree to and as he is Captain America then he must be right. Fighting him is Tony Stark, who instead of being driven by common sense is driven by emotion - a thing which Zemo exploits to the full when he finally gets his men all together in one ex-Soviet bunker. The great thing about this film is the number of times the viewer gets wrong footed. It's a real shame that the most recent Captain America reboot just wasn't in the same league as the original trilogy. I like Sam Wilson, but he's best as Cap's slightly wonky moral compass and sidekick. When the MCU gets its reboot, I hope they bring a Steve Rogers back, even if the actor is no Chris Evans. 8/10

Death Takes A Holiday

A little over 25 years ago, we sat down and watched Meet Joe Black, a film about Death, taxes and billionaires. I suppose back in 1998, a movie about an incredibly rich and entitled head of a communications business was quite a unique perspective, but obviously in the intervening time we've had things like Succession, Billions and The White Lotus to allow us to get our fill of mega rich entitlement. The thing about Meet Joe Black is how lovely Anthony Hopkins is for a man with so much power. He knows he's going to die yet he's accommodating, he's convivial and he welcomes Death - in the guise of Brad Pitt - into his home and life despite it looking a bit... odd. Add to the mix Claire Forlani as one of his two daughters - the special one, who is a doctor with a heart of gold stuck with an arsehole boyfriend - and Marcia Gay Hardin - the needy one, who craves for the same attention her younger sibling gets without trying. This is a relatively normal family despite them having more riches than Croesus - so that's totally wrong from the outset. 

What no one expected was that the body Death chose randomly to inhabit was a young man who had made such a fantastic impression on Forlani earlier in the same day, or that Death would fall in love with her and create a difficult situation. Wrapped up in this is also Forlani's now ex - Jake Weber - who is a Machiavellian huckster who is only out for himself and plans to force Hopkins into selling his company. This is almost three hours long, yet it rattles along at a surprisingly fast pace. It is riddled with flaws - such as Death has taken 'trillions' of souls, but he has absolutely no comprehension what humans are like, acting like a new born during his first hours as a human felt tonally wrong - like it was added to give the movie some humour. The way Hopkins allows Pitt into the most secretive parts of his business feels contrived (although we know why) and while Weber's character might be an arsehole he actually asks all the right and pertinent questions - as one would when a seemingly simple man is suddenly the right hand man of the boss. 

It's largely a load of sentimental twaddle wrapped up in a doomed love story and surrounded by characters who really should be contemptuous and hated. I'm surprised it was such a box office hit all things considered and knowing that Americans struggle with endings that are not straight up happy. The ending went from fantasy realism to just plain fantasy in the space of two minutes. I dunno, this isn't a bad film, it just left me a little cold. However, it was good seeing it again as I remembered almost nothing - apart from the car accident. However, it's only really worth a 5.5/10 and that's half a mark for Thomas Newman's brilliant score.

All Is Revealed 

I think one of the main problems with Dope Thief is how it became so complicated without actually relaying this to the viewer. It pretty much wandered along for six episodes before the penny started to drop. There was no real hint that Ray and Manny were being set up and the person who set them up was never a suspect, while the person who was often at the other end of menacing phone calls was someone we didn't even meet until half way through this finale. I find it a little lazy when you have seven and a half parts and then drop a bombshell in that you wouldn't have guessed because you wouldn't have any idea because no one has ever mentioned this ever. That's not to say that it didn't all fall into place, even if we took the long way round for that to happen. Ironically it was Mina - the injured DEA agent - who helps Ray out of his mess mainly because she had been saying for ages that Ray was just a pawn in a bigger game. It was an entertaining series if a little too long. I think I said a few weeks back that this would have made a good compact film had it been made that way. Would I recommend it? Probably, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as it thought it was going to be.

Mired in Riches

Here's a weird one. I was pretty much for pulling the plug on this but the wife seems to have become something of a fan; maybe it's that 2025 Desperate Housewives vibe (or at least the first two seasons of that old classic). The thing is Your Friends and Neighbors [sic] is a lot more than just amiable John Hamm robbing his neighbours to pay for his lavish lifestyle. It's also about his ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and her descent into what looks like a midlife breakdown; it's also about Coop's business manager, the disintegrating marriages that are popping up all around and what is happening at the Hedge Fund where Coop was unceremoniously thrown out of because of an indiscretion that no one knew about. There's also Coop's new partner, a Dominican cleaner who catches him in the process of stealing his ex-wife's boyfriend's varsity football ring. If I want to be honest about it, this is a mildly entertaining TV show, there's not been much that makes me think it's anything more than that, but I'll stick with it while the wife enjoys it. 

Scotland's Bores of the Year

The barely entertaining Scotland's Home of the Year is back and the first part was the West which was rather loosely decided upon as being a house in Ayrshire (correct), somewhere near Loch Lomond (basically north west of the Central Belt) and Giffnock (in south Glasgow). I got the impression last year that the areas of Scotland were going to be more... fluid than previous years and this seems to follow that pattern. I don't know why they simply just have 18 houses and ditch the regions.

I'm sorry, but this is a format that has grown hairs on and gone bald very quickly. Anna Campbell-Jones, one of the show's original presenters is still there and she's the most annoying thing about it, although she now has the slag-heap-like Banjo Beale and that thunderously dull Danny Campbell (who surely can't be related to Anna?) to fight her for being the most annoying things in this nice home show. I mean, I couldn't even find a useable picture for this show on Google. It's not even property porn because the presenters act like a cold shower. I've long since grown bored with this when the interesting presenters were shoved out in favour of the anodyne wankers currently spouting bullshit about peoples' houses in a chummy, we're-all-mates way.

What's Up Next?

As we edge further towards summer the choices are going to become fewer and further between. This week's blog, while quite long, has felt like a chore at times - not writing it but watching some of the TV to write about. If it's any consolation, I have noticed that newspapers and websites have grown very threadbare with their TV and movie reviews. I said to the wife that we seem to be watching a lot of old things because there's a paucity of the new.  It will be interesting to see what next week brings...

 

Music Culture - Tombs o' the Faeries by Beluga Lagoon

Tombs o' the Faeries by Beluga Lagoon

When I moved to Scotland I never imagined I would get [back] into folk music. That said, when I first discovered Beluga Lagoon, they weren't exactly common folk music. I would have described them as contemporary Scottish folk rock music with a hint of something far removed from 'folk' music. I first encountered the band's music in 2018 and while my relationship with the band's music was very much to pick and choose the songs from, by then, a pretty varied back catalogue. They had albums out, but the one I was drawn to The Small Boat and the Big Sea, had a dark side; it was tinged with melancholy and tracks like Neverland and On The Shore hinted at a small band with big intentions. By 2020 I had learned that Beluga Lagoon was the project of wildlife photographer Andrew O'Donnell from just north of the Central Belt - a multi-talented man who could, it seems, turn his hand to many things. 2020 saw the release of The Lagganberry Man, a strange mix of joyous songs and dark, brooding intentions. It became a favourite during lockdown and beyond; I was hooked by O'Donnell's gruff voice and twisty lyrics; the fact that while this was essentially a folk band there was elements of so many other music genres hiding in the background of every song. Whether it was the jangly folk pop of Rainbows or the haunting prog-like Homo Sapien Lullaby, Beluga Lagoon seemed to have hit the right notes at the right time...

In 2023 the band released what has become my favourite album - The Kilfraggan Forest Choir - pretty much a concept album featuring choirs and a whole host of contemporary styles mixed with old fashioned music making. The album was pure genius and I never grow tired of listening to it. However, as the band went from obscure to emerging there seemed to be a bit of a change in their music. First there was a Christmas release for Ronnie the Reindeer - a dark festive tale with an almost trad folk song tagged on the end. Then in 2024 they released The Slug's Bunnet, another concept album, this time about a fictional pub and its customers. I still struggle with this album. It is jam-packed with proper Scottish folk music; happy tunes and diddly diddly moments. The band obviously had a great time making it, I didn't listening to it.

So, what was I supposed to make of The Tombs O' The Faeries? A new album and the third in just over two years, I get the impression Beluga Lagoon are catching the wave. When I started following this band they had fewer than 2,000 followers on social media; now that figure on Instagram alone is well into the tens of thousands and today (April 26th) they play a short set before Scotland's Women's Six Nations Rugby match and are headlining some middling festivals in 2025. However, where The Slug's Bunnet was not my cup of tea, Tombs is infused with that darkness that attracted me to the band in the first place. It's probably yet another concept album, but I don't let that affect anything. It's an album that feels so much more like the band I originally started to follow. The distant feeling of melancholy has returned to the music and vocals and while there are a couple of 'dancing' songs on this album, it is mainly a very atmospheric and emotional selection of songs.

I have had it on constant rotation since the album's preview was released a week ago. There are a couple of tracks which feel like they could become classic Beluga Lagoon songs, but... has their growing acclaim taken the edge off of O'Donnell's music? For a folk band, there has always been something soulful about them; however, that seems to have gone. It was possibly burned out with Kilfraggan because that album touches so many parts their other albums didn't get close to; yet despite being very impressed with The Tombs O' The Faeries, it hasn't grabbed me by the balls like some of their earlier works. That said, it's still on target to be my favourite album of 2025. 7.5/10

Track list: 

1. Bòcan
2. Raineach
3. Ghillie
4. The Hawk
5. Mirren o’ Murlaganmore
6. Gooserider
7. Ruairidh’s Revenge
8. The Crossing 
9. Mòrar
10. Tomb

My Cultural Life - 63

What's Up?

Gammons, eh? Always wanting some idyllic past where every day was the summer of 1976 and everything was less than 5p to buy. It goes wider than that - Nostalgia Gammons tend to forget all about the shit things from the 1970s, or the fact that if we were back in the 1970s there would be so many things we didn't have which we have now - shingles, four channels of TV, paedophiles having the choice of whoever they want while the establishment turn a blind eye, footballers in shorts that would be a crime against decency 50 years later; there many more horrible things they've managed to forget in their desire for the world to be a simpler, happier place...

However, there is one thing I miss about a pre-digital, pre-mobile phone world - relative safety from opportunistic scammers, actually scammers makes it sound like they're some opportunistic wanker, when these people are just slightly lower than scum. This morning (Good Friday; I'm writing this section later than most of the rest of this blog), I heard about two scams that would never have happened had we never heard the word App. The first was a 'banking app' that works as a proper thing that pretends to pay money to people, goes through all the motions that a real banking app would but doesn't really pay any money into your bank account; it just says it has happened, all on an authentic screen. I mean, how often did external banking fraud happen before mobile devices and the digital age? How difficult was it to even get a penny out of someone's accounts without having to go through at least one human being with the resources at hand to tell you whether something is genuine or not? We are encouraged to switch to online banking almost daily, yet it doesn't matter how secure you're told it is - it simply isn't. End of. 

The other 'digital' scam was on Rip Off Britain and featured a man pretending to be a lawyer trying to scam £12,000 from two vulnerable pensioners. Everything about his approach and subsequent Skype call would have seemed totally legit to any older people who find the internet daunting or even frightening. If a bell hadn't run inside the head of the wife of these targeted people they could have been cleared out and the gurning man, in his 50s, who was smoothly explaining to them why they were responsible for a debt on an old time share they once owned, really was the kind of person who you wished the worst kind of karma on. The thing is, this wouldn't have happened without the internet, without Face Time apps. This would not have happened in a pre-internet/phone apps time. If it was possible to disconnect from the internet, I'd seriously consider it, but modern life has made that almost impossible to do. As a resource it has immeasurable wealth, but as a way for individuals to connect it is the beginning of the end of yet another thing in links towards the next extinction event.

On a lighter note... [An aside: 'On a lighter note' was the name of the very first column I ever wrote for a comics fanzine in 1977.] Actually, there's a relevance there. That was the start of the journey which has led me to where I am today and today - if you are reading this on the 19th - is my 63rd birthday. I hope to spend the evening in the newly opened pub, with friends (some in spirit) and some actual quality beverages. Then the day the next blog drops I'm bringing back my pub quiz to the place where it all started (I did do a couple for my mate in Northampton and got the bug for it). In April 2018, I was doing the Craft's second pub quiz. On the same date seven years later I will be doing my first at the Wigtown Ploughman, it will be my 30th in that building.

[Ahem] Doctor Poo

There was one great scene in the new series of Doctor Who. That was when new assistant Belinda Chandra basically calls the Doctor out for a number of really uncool things, such as stealing her DNA and thinking she's just going to roll over and become his sidekick without question... And, frankly, who wouldn't? It took just under ten minutes for Old Leaky Eyes to have his first cry as a woman he'd singled out to be a future companion is fried - almost Dalek style - by marauding robots on a planet that has got turned inside out by a rift in time, meaning that things that happened only happened because other things happened which would not have happened - it's paradox city baby and, of course, Russell T Davies doesn't give a hoot about the mechanics of time travel if he's making a TV show about a time traveller. 

The problem is the entire reason for the episode, the huge number of deaths and various other things was down to the fact if Belinda had not been abducted by robot aliens, she wouldn't have told them to search out the person who gave her the thing that makes this entire episode possible which results in her being abducted by alien robots. So many people die in the wake of this Doctor who doesn't even give his surname away so is hiding something immediately. Such a waste of [fictional] lives just so that the Doctor could team up with his nurse or so he can do whatever he wants. I don't know if the moral and ethical part of this episode will ever be fully examined, but at least someone is questioning just what the Doctor is doing and the cost of it for innocent bystanders. 

I don't want to come across as all 'woke' but essentially Doctor Who is about an emotionally unstable alien with a personality disorder who is borderline psychopathic with a smattering of narcissist - I'm surprised it's popular, while somewhat unsurprised at the same time. He shouldn't be the good guy. Oddly enough I think that is exactly why Anita Dobson is back as 'the neighbour' - this time to the new 'assistant' - smart money is she's going to be Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, and is pissed off that he left her stranded on earth so many years ago.

Yes, but was it any good though? No. Not really. 

Oh Mickey, You're So Erm...

"That was strange. It was a bit like a Terry Gilliam film," said the wife at the end of Mickey 17. I couldn't disagree although part of me thinks if Gilliam had made it there would have been a sense of giving a shit about the characters. I found myself sitting through the film waiting for a flash of inspiration, of empathy, something to make me go 'woo' but I found it all a bit too overly satirical without any humour. Robert Pattinson plays Mickey Barnes, better known as Mickey 1, 2, 3 up to 15, 16 and the ubiquitous 17; he's also 18 who is a little weird and not like his previous incarnations - which might be because when he was recreated his predecessor wasn't dead. You see Mickey is an expendable, which means he dies regularly on the 4½ year mission to Niflheim only to be brought back to continue doing all the jobs that cause death.

This is all played to a backdrop of what society might be like in 30 years time, with a Trump-like would-be messiah - Mark Ruffalo, his obnoxious wife - Toni Collette - and a spaceship full of thoroughly dislikeable and facile characters, including Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie and Thomas Turgoose. Once they arrive on the new planet they are 'greeted' by the indigenous species and what follows is a play on just what wankers the human race are. The special effects were okay, but nowhere near what you'd expect from a film of this one's supposed quality; much of it just felt a little like going through the motions and ultimately I just felt like it offers much more than it delivers. Therefore I struggle to give it anything other than a 6/10.

Ubiquitous

What do you mean you don't know who Pedro Pascal is? Apart from reviewing a show he's in later this evening, he's in almost everything, unless you haven't noticed. He appears so often, in so many TV shows and films that you could wonder if he's actually two people, or that he drinks the juice of freshly crushed undescended testicles twice a day to give him the energy to be in everything all at once. I have no problem with Pedro Pascal, he seems like a nice chap, but Pedro Pascal, whatever role he's playing, is Pedro Pascal. Never clean shaven, his own hairstyle and sporting that rugged but with a heart of candyfloss in a if-I'd-been-born-40-years-ago-I-would-have-been-a-big-Hollywood-heartthrob kind of way. He's in The Last of Us, the Fantastic Four, some other thing, some movie that's being described as a comedy western - which sounds like it needs to be avoided - and I expect as well as the other Marvel films he's signed up to do after the FF he'll be able to squeeze a couple more projects in and some cameos at weekends. I wish I understood why. 

Fart Eyes

Monday night proved to be an eventful one in many ways. We began it by watching Heart Eyes, a film that dropped on some streaming platform on Valentine's Day - a slasher romance? A violent love story? I don't really know because we managed 20 minutes before turning it off. It started off badly and seemed to get worse; the weird thing was I really thought the opening ten minutes was some kind of melodramatic pastiche of old slasher films and we were going to settle into something a little more post-modern, but after the opening it just seemed to go downhill, with ludicrous deaths, parody news reports and loud millennials just asking to be murdered in the most horrid ways possible. It was a load of shite, or at least what we saw of it was.

The Am-Dram Lycanthrope

It's been 40 years since we went to the cinema to see an adaptation of Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, rebranded as Silver Bullet. If ever a film was hammy, overwrought and as camp as Christmas it's this one. Tonally, this is almost objectionable and then there's this kind of Jaws feel to it with the town not trusting the sheriff and taking the law into their own hands. The body count seems to get ramped up just about every ten minutes and the special effects must have been pretty special at the time it was made. Corey Haim plays Marty, a kid who is paralysed - from what appears to be a mysterious illness rather than an accident - who has his own motorised wheelchair. Megan Follows plays Jane, his sister, who despite resenting her crippled brother loves him really. Then there's Gary Busey as uncle Red, who at first doesn't believe the kids when they spin a werewolf story at him but then helps out with the problem. Everett Gill plays the local reverend with a hairy dilemma and a young Terry O'Quinn plays the sheriff. It hasn't dated well and even if it hadn't I'd still struggle to give it anything higher than a 5/10.

Fungal Zombie Alert

So … the most talked about TV series about a post apocalyptic world over run by fungal zombies is back with good old Pedro Pascal and I begin another seven week cycle where I try and work out why the computer game was so popular given how fucking boring the TV show is because, apparently, the TV show is referencing the game quite a bit. Nothing fucking happens; what does happen is shrouded in mystery and when we do see some of mushroom zombies there's still zero jeopardy. My problem with this is it seems like an expensive version of The Walking Dead with more exotic zombies, but, most importantly, not as many of them. The characters are superficial, we're into the second season and Bella Ramsey's Ellie is five years older and still as fucking annoying as she was in the whole of season one. I'm sorry, but Ramsey isn't an attractive actor and she's not very good at the actual acting bit. She's got this massive dick shaped chip on her shoulder and something of a God-complex. Pascal's Joel seems to have done something in the interim five years that has pissed Ellie off, but presumably because this show needs its personal interactions to have been developed more than in the game, whatever it is he has done is going to be strung out over however many episodes Joel remains in, because **SPOILER** in the game he dies in the sequel or so I've been told by just about every person who has played the game and is now enjoying the TV series and dropping spoilers around like they're a teenage boy who has won the key for unlimited playing with a lady's sex parts. 

I feel we're going to watch all seven episodes of season two, but I can't imagine our general opinion of this is going to change. it's just a bit boring and hasn't got likeable characters or a story or any real reason to stick with it. What am I missing? Is it simply because people who play computer games are happy an adaptation feels like it's been treated seriously? Because this show so far has been lots of shit with the occasional sweetcorn nugget popping out...

Trailer Trash

I quite like Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova. I don't understand why there should be any backlash with the actor, she's done okay in what I've seen and more importantly isn't a carbon copy of her predecessor. That really should be how it is with any replacement. The problem with Black Widow is the fans want Natasha, the same way they want Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. That's a shame that people don't want originality in their superheroes while demanding that superhero movies are not just carbon copies of the last bunch. Of course, the other reason is once there were 20 odd Marvel films and that was a really manageable amount for any newcomer to the franchise. Now, we have so much bland mediocrity - very much like Marvel Comics had in the 1970s, which is abstractly where we stand in general MCU history. If I looked at a list of films since Endgame and all the new characters who have been introduced, Yelena's been around the longest, she actually has far more backstory than even new characters who had their own films, and she is different with a puzzling personality - which is what the latest 90 second teaser trailer for Thunderbolts* appears to be delving into. 

The more I see snippets of this film the more incongruous half of it is to the other. I don't expect this movie is going to be much more than 135 minutes and there is going to be a requirement for newcomers to at least know who this assembled group of 'heroes' is and then there's Bob or The Sentry, who was a hero created around the turn of the century by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee. As an addition to the Marvel Universe, when I finally got around to reading some of The Sentry/Void comics, I had generally ambivalent reactions. I really am not a fan of retconning something so huge as The Sentry's place in Marvel became and something in the back of my mind recalls the period when Marvel acquired Marvel/Miracleman and I think it was Joe Quesada's wish to find a way of integrating the character into Marvel's long and labyrinthine history. Then that idea went out of the window and then there was The Sentry, who, frankly, I have never understood why he's so powerful compared to a number of Marvel comics characters already knocking around?

Then it dawned on me. We're not getting a standalone film here at all, you're getting the prologue to the Fantastic Four: First Steps and Avengers: Doomsday. The more I see Thunderbolts* sitting there in the MCU, the more I wonder if this is just a set-up movie; a reason for the other films to exist. This film is the end of Phase Five of the MCU and so far it's been a crock of shit (but so was Phase Four - these phases have not had a clear narrative since the climax of Phase Three). I was interested to hear that a couple of recent MCU (flops) films' teaser trailers often feature action from the first 20 minutes of the film and it got me thinking if everything we've seen from Thunderbolts* is inside the opening half of the film and we're going to have no idea what is going to happen but it's going to set about events that will be important and will probably not have a proper ending. This movie will have a cliffhanger ending, you mark my words. 

The big trailer of the week was The Fantastic Four: First Steps and this time it was spoiler heavy, context setting and strangely uninspiring. Everything I've seen so far has looked promising, but what we saw in this felt like it might struggle. You could argue that when Marvel sold off all of it's popular characters to other film companies they sold their soul, but oddly enough what they had left, to launch the MCU with, were the most plausible for what they ended up doing. No convoluted backstory involving mutants and no headaches trying to make mutant powers actually work on the big screen; no Spider-Man and no Fantastic Four, which also solved some problems - The FF's backstory is probably the second most convoluted after the mutants and as far as film making is concerned, visually it has problems. The Human Torch would be good on film, but the Invisible girl/woman would create... issues. Mr Fantastic has a good comedic ability but he was undoubtedly the least powerful of the quartet and the Thing is a strong guy made of rocks. It also hasn't been hugely successful in previous incarnations. The gemstones of the Marvel Universe helped the MCU become a feasible world (if you can park the gods nonsense) by not being in it. That time is ending. 

The two minute 40 second trailer literally fills in the blanks inside the opening 30 seconds - who, why what and where, the when is most definitely in a past. This isn't the MCU. Snippets involving the Silver Surfer and the reason why 'she' is there and then a montage of who our heroes are and what they can do and ends with a promise and what really felt like an homage to old Godzilla films. It was... okay. I've watched it three times and I'll call it - I think it's going to bomb. It's in direct competition with Superman and I don't think that will be as huge as people hope either. I think we're going to see whether there's an immediate future for superhero films playing out in front of us this summer.

The Return of Jay-Son Stay-Fum

A staggering work of complete ineptitude. A vehicle with no story and all logic removed to show us what a dude Jayson Stayfum is. I sat through nearly two hours of A Working Man and I think all of the actual plot ended up on the cutting room floor, along with the bits that made sense. Please believe me when I say the previous sentences are me being charitable. This was a movie of limitless inability; of incompetent filmmaking; it is a masterpiece of dung... Stayfum works in construction, for a nice guy - Michael Pena - but he has a history that no one talks about. So when Pena's lovely daughter is kidnapped for a reason we get little or no reason for, he asks Stayfum to help and is turned down. The following morning Stayfum changes his mind - no reason given, he slept on it and decided he was going to help. Picking up on loose ends that had no real bearing on the kidnapping, this plays out like a cross between a Jayson Stayfum film and a Liam Neeson in the Taken trilogy, but without any finesse or cohesion. The weird thing is it wasn't even very violent, it was just set piece after set piece where Jayson killed lots of people and had little damage done to himself. I think the film was shot in Europe masquerading as New York and it makes The Beekeeper, Stayfum's action movie from last year look like an Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg film. 3/10.

The Heat Is On

How does one blind man stop the oncoming storm? By getting some help. This was a season finale, but it felt like a set up. In fact, the entire first season of Daredevil: Born Again has felt like a scene setter; a preamble to the proper game of chess. This starts with the aftermath of Matt taking a bullet for Fisk, but the mayor isn't grateful, he wants Murdock to die in his hospital bed. However, as Buck goes to do his boss's wish Matt is one step ahead. As Fisk tightens his grip on New York, Matt and Karen uncover the reason behind Foggy's assassination and then get some help from a likely source. However, the overall feel of this entire episode is that Fisk's iron fist is very much in charge of NY now and even the good guys are bowing to his wishes. This was a violent finale with a glimmer of hope at the end, but more importantly it has been without a doubt the most accomplished of all the MCU TV shows - but, being cynical, that isn't a very high bar. The shame is we have a year to wait before season two.

Criminal Mid-Life Crisis

Is this another new TV show that examines the unhappy lives of the super wealthy? After a fashion. Is it full of dislikeable rich wankers? Assuredly. Is it likely to be a success? I expect Jon Hamm will be its saving grace, but whether he can carry the entire thing on his own - a series that doesn't really seem to have a direction at the moment - is the million dollar question. Your Friends and Neighbors [sic] is about recently divorced Andrew 'Coop' Cooper, a man who was once high up in an important hedge fund company but got butt fucked by his friend and boss (Corbin Bernsen) via a technicality involving a colleague called Liv Cross. It finished off a year where Coop lost his wife to his best friend, is drifting away from his children and is trying to help his bipolar sister remain in society. His life has turned to shit and only casual sex with one of his neighbours seems to be his only bright side.

There's also a subplot about whether his ex-wife, played by Amanda Peet, is really happy in her life with her ex-NBA ripped partner. His daughter is suffering from a crisis of confidence because everyone is expecting her to excel at everything and his youngest just wants to be left alone to get stoned. However, all these familial subplots are nothing compared to the realisation Coop makes at his friends and neighbours cost. He lives in a place where the people are so rich they could mislay a $250,000 watch and never know it's gone missing. So Coop decides he needs to supplement his life by ripping off his neighbours of whatever he can. My problem with it is while charming, it's first world rich person troubles and Coop isn't really any better than anyone else, except he's now on the verge of becoming broke and needs to make money in ways he's not usually making it. There are some hurdles in the way and my guess is he will become mired in the underworld he's hoping is going to pay for his lifestyle. I'm not sure there's enough actual story here to keep it going for a series and it's been announced that it has been renewed for a second season - which sort of removes some of jeopardy from the idea. My biggest problem with it is pacing - three episodes in and nothing really appears to have happened.

Hide and Seek

Dipping back into the TV hard drive for our midweek entertainment, we watched Ready or Not, which was on Film4 about four months ago (so it's due another small screen showing soon enough). This has a high 6s score on IMDB so I felt it was worth watching, but I couldn't quite make up my mind if it was a [ahem] dark comedy or a tonally wrong suspense thriller [actually, it's clear it's a comedy but there are many moments where the comedy is hiding or makes itself very small, so not to be seen]. Samara Weaving plays a young bride who has returned to her future husband's country pile to tie the knot and go through some silly games as a family inauguration thing. The 'game' is a little like Russian Roulette - there are many choice of games, but the one you don't want to get is the one Weaving picks. This is 'hide and seek' but with a difference; the rest of the family have to find her and when they do they have to kill her, to protect the family from some nefarious Satan-like spirit. It's not even an original idea, but the cast, who for the most part ham it up, have a good time and because this is the first hide and seek game for over 30 years there's an element of rustiness and incompetence (from both the hider and her seekers). It was all right. Nothing to write home about. Probably worth a 6/10, just.

When the Laughter Stops

It's been quite a while since the fake DEA bust gone wrong. Both Ray and Manny are in custody - Ray in hospital and Manny in prison and the latter is expecting to die every night. The DA is trying to get him to cut a deal by suggesting that Ray is going to turn on him and oddly enough Ray is being told similar things. Only DEA Special agent Mina seems to have worked out what is going on as she continuously tries to persuade her uncaring colleagues that the 'dope thieves' are not some kind of cartel on their own until she realises that they're deliberately being talked up as something big to lure the real problems out of the woodwork - Ray and Manny are expendable decoys. The Dope Thief started as a comedy with some serious overtones, as it has crept along to a conclusion it has got deadly serious and it's all coming home to Ray and Manny's houses. The shocking events of this penultimate episode suggest there might be a way out for Ray, but the window of opportunity is closing fast.

What's Up Next?

Stuff. Stuff is up next. You know how this works. It'll be stuff. 

My Cultural Life - Barrel Scrapings

What's Up?

For the first time on a Saturday for what feels like forever, we went to the pub. In fact, we walked to the pub, had a few pints and a laugh, waxed lyrically about how we'd missed this so much and got home and fell asleep in front of the monitor because I'd drunk more than I intended. It was fantastic.

Rock 'n' Roll

In many ways I could dedicate an entire blog to the history I have with one of the greatest rock bands ever to have existed. The people I knew, the fact that my entire Led Zeppelin record collection was a gift from Jimmy Page and the links I've had with the band, via personal assistants, associates of staff and in one particular case, a man who thought he was going to get fired from his roadie gig and ended up being the guy who bought Robert Plant his weed during his solo tours in the 1980s. The thing is none of that was important when looking at the touching and, at times, utterly remarkable Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary, about the earliest years of the band and their first two, groundbreaking, albums. This was essentially three old men reminiscing about the 1960s, when they all managed to find each other and become a phenomena. Probably the most heart-warming part of this two hour film was when Jimmy, Robert and John Paul Jones were listening to John Bonham's interview from the late 1970s. The drummer died 45 years ago now, but you can see his friends still hold him in high esteem and show their love for him touchingly.

This is a tough watch at times; unlike other music docs this allowed the music to have centre stage a lot of the time, so we saw rare footage of old classics from start to finish; if you're not a Zeppelin fan then you're not going to enjoy this as much as I did and even I thought two versions of both Communication Breakdown and Dazed and Confused were maybe overegging the pudding a little. You get the distinct impression that both Page and Jones are very erudite and well-educated men, while 'Percy' still sees himself as some nomadic, lower class wannabe who was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. I expect it was only really the opening two albums that could be focused on this way because the band became mired in scandals, drugs and excess as the 1970s matured. It was a fascinating film to watch as a fan of the band, but even then I can only really give it a 7/10.

Flight Risk

All the warning signs were there. The fact it was a Sky production and there was about a dozen different production companies involved. If that wasn't enough then the appearance of Katie Sackhoff should have - the last decent film she made was in the 00s and that required a gratuitous bare breast shot. This was fucking atrocious. A toilet bowl of donkey piss masquerading as a proper movie. Josh Hartnett seemed to be having a good time. The American actor played an ex-special ops agent tasked with retrieving a valuable asset on a continental flight and ensuring they stay alive given that the person he's trailing is the most wanted individual on the planet. I'm not sure if it was a badly made comedy, if it was supposed to sound like it has been scripted by an advertising copywriter or if it was serious(ly bad). There is lots of violence. The violence is almost comical and ridiculously far fetched. This is really awful. Do not be tempted especially as it has set itself up as the first part of more. It's excruciating and deeply offensive to functioning brains. Don't go there. 2/10

Southern Demonology

Kevin Bacon is having a bit of a renaissance and he's dealing with it very well. This new show, about a bounty hunter who comes back from the dead, is quick and relatively painful with a neat, overplayed premise and with a slightly skewed look. Hub Halloran is no saint, but when he dies tracking down a tricky bounty, the devil opts to give him another chance - become The Bondsman for hell or simply go back to hell. Hub takes the chance, while seeing it as an ideal opportunity to finally out his ex-wife's new beau as the organised crime lord he is. Beth Grant plays Kitty, Hub's mother, who, in a change to other supernatural shows, is in on her son's situation and is quite happy to come along and help. Jennifer Nettles plays Maryanne, Hub's ex-wife who is a C&W singer and therein lies the show's biggest problem - the soundtrack and the fact that once upon a time Hub and Maryanne were an upcoming C&W duo. If you can see past the music, the show has some interesting and entertaining moments and it's only eight 30 minute episodes, however, I was not the only person we know who struggled to stay awake during episodes, so we're not going to be sticking with this.

The Spy Who Loved Himself

This us going to be a strange review because I fell asleep during a lot of this movie - it was that good... It probably was very entertaining, but it just failed to grab my attention. I suppose what it was trying to achieve, making Michael Fassbender the new George Smiley, worked in spades. There's a bit of Harry Palmer here - the spy made famous by Michael Caine in the 1960s - as well as a bit of Alec Guinness thrown in for good measure. The idea is simple, Fassbender's George Woodhouse has a spy in his team of spies and one of them might be his wife - Cate Blanchett. He sets about an elaborate plan to wheedle out the bad guy by asking them all a set of questions, all interconnected, that will eventually reveal the spy. The problem was it was wordy, dull and couldn't grip my attention. I'm not even going to rank it because I remember far too little of it. The film was called Black Bag and was directed by Steven Soderbergh, the guy who directed Presence last week, so he's been busy.

Tactics

As Wilson Fisk uses his acquired 'knowledge' to get New York's money people on his side, he also makes his play to win his wife back. Meanwhile, Matt's obsession with his adversary is becoming, well, an obsession and people are noticing it. This was yet another episode setting things up for an inevitable confrontation, but I doubt it's going to be between Kingpin and Daredevil, more likely the former will use Bullseye's escape from prison as a way of disposing of two problems in one go, but doesn't plan for Poindexter's beliefs and Matt's act of stupid bravery. Next week's finale is going to do nothing but leave us on a cliffhanger craving the second half of this generally excellent series. It's just felt like it's been treading too much water to get where we are, which is so shrouded in fog, can we even be sure we're where we need to be? 

Gee 20?

There is so much that is wrong with G20 the new film starring Viola Davis as a controversial President of the USA. This is Die Hard with politicians. Prez Danielle Sutton is on her own against a bunch of crypto terrorists who have easily kidnapped 18 of the G20 and are getting them to read things into a camera to allow them to be manipulated by AI saying anything. It's far fetched nonsense, but not as far fetched as Davis as a hard ass ex-Marine with a devoted husband and two tech savvy children. There are more plot devices introduced in the opening ten minutes you could have made a checklist for them all (or even shaken a stick at). It's a silly idea, executed in a relatively competent way that makes little or no sense and proves the makers of the film had zero idea how this would have played out in the real world. I honestly thought it was going to be a comedy after the opening ten minutes, but it was actually quite a harsh film with Antony Starr playing a baddy who could easily have been Homelander without the super powers. Viola Davis isn't in the right shape to pass off a role like this and obviously had a body double for any scene where she isn't static. This was lower than bang average. 4/10

Obsession?

Is the world obsessed with The White Lotus or is it just the Guardian blowing a trumpet for something that is a fringe hit at best? It's difficult to tell now, with streaming networks not releasing any details of viewings and the best chance we have of knowing if something has been a success is whether it gets renewed for another season. However, The Guardian's obsession with the series is as prolific as their adoration for Mad Men in the noughties; almost every day we've had articles in the paper ranging from: Is it as popular as it was? Who are the top 30 characters to appear in the show? Does it tell us something about our obsession with rich people and their lifestyles? These and many more, while when they do allow comments, these are often polluted with negative ones about the paper's fascination/obsession with the show or simply how it isn't very good - which are often met by other people telling these people they don't belong there and shouldn't be commenting on something they don't understand/don't like/is obviously far above the mental pay grade, etc, ad nauseum. The White Lotus was nothing to write home about; the entire three series have been populated with unpleasant rich people not enjoying their wealth or forgetting the benefits that being rich often affords. I just don't understand why it is adored by the paper, which does obsess over other things - Game of Thrones, Doctor Who and ignoring spoiler warnings with major movies - but not quite in such a fawning way. Maybe it's because, despite its roots, that the Guardian really is just a middle class neoliberal rag run by unhappy rich cunts?

Scam Alert

I don't understand why we, as a race, need to be told about scams so often as we do. Not only are there dedicated scam programmes, there's also Morning Live with it's scam of the day/week/month and the need to paint this picture that being scammed is a normal thing and not mainly contained to middle class wankers who see profit and get fleeced. Because that is what we have with most scams; some middle class person who has lost £10k because they were stupid enough to believe something they're being told. How ignorant/stupid must a person be to not have taken any notice to warnings that big companies and corporations will never ask you for money, especially not your bank details, under no circumstances at all. It won't happen. If 'a bank' is telling you you have to give them your account details to sort it out then you're being robbed and you're too stupid to know.

If something is in your spam folder, is too good to be true or requires you to spend money to accumulate lots of money, you're on the receiving end of people who know that humans are fucking stupid. Morning Live is scaremonger TV; BBC freelancers getting paid to scare the bejesus out of us by making us think that people with common sense are always being robbed. In many ways it's as bad as the scammers, despite purporting to be doing an important job.

Six Degrees of Incompetence

The sixth part of Dope Thief was really all about Ving Rhames as Ray's father and how if it hadn't have been for him this story would have petered out and had an unspectacular ending. At the end of episode five, Ray - Brian Tyree Henry - had taken a bullet by one of the drug dealers outliers, because he still has a massive bounty on his head. So therefore this part of the story is all about being holed up in Theresa's house - Kate Mulgrew, who has taken some strange jobs since being in Star Trek - with Ray on the verge of death. Bart Driscoll - Rhames - is out of prison but he's got a wire in his ankle bracelet but the real DEA seem to be as stupid as the two idiots pretending to be them at the start of the series, only Mina - Marin Ireland - seems to have an idea what's happening but no one wants to take her seriously because she had been having an affair with her partner unawares he was the dirtiest of cops. This is an episode that is full on in your face from the opening scenes; it's intense, funny, violent and in the end quite touching and a little sad. I get it that this show has had to meander around a while, but maybe if it had focused on the 'law' side of the story a little when it seemed to be floundering then maybe this would have been a 9 rated show.

What's Up Next?

"Are we going to watch that?" and "Do we have to watch that?" are two of the sentences to emerge from the wife's dainty gob, this week, about the new series of Doctor Who which will spoil Saturday nights for the next eight weeks. The answer to the questions is, despite not wanting to, I feel compelled to tune in and see whether or not it has improved. You will be the first to know.

This week also sees the finale, or in reality, the mid season finale of Daredevil Born Again will arrive midweek, the penultimate part of Dope Thief and the return of another TV show the Guardian swoons over - The Last of Us, which was okay if really painstakingly slow. Having seen the second Maze Runner film recently, which is how this video game adaptation should have resembled, I'm hoping that this second season ramps up not just the action but gives us a reason to stick with it, because it was just okay, in my never humble opinion...

I'm sure there will be something else to help me pad out these slightly thin blogs at the moment. But whatever I see is what you get.

My Cultural Life - Ghosts and the Machine

In a week that has had little variety, this week's blog is on the light side - a combination of mainly binge watching one show all week and the sun shining. I was about to come upstairs, sit at the PC with a 'coffee' and edit and publish this, but I ended up sitting outside in the suntrap that is my patio. It's warm because we have a small Fohn effect thanks to the Galloway hills, the birds are singing, hooting and cawing, the skies are crystal clear, the air is clean, you can't hear a car and in the distance is the sound of pipes, playing something traditional and reinforcing the fact that it's Scotland and sometimes it really can't be beaten.

Here's what I've been watching and thinking about this last week...

What's Up? 

Has anyone else noticed that politicians who represent Far Right parties - Trump, Farage, Le Pen and others like that psycho in Italy, Meloni - seem to be exempt from public scrutiny or being beatified after being found guilty of things they're obviously guilty of. It's one of the crazy things about Far Right authoritarianism; it literally is a "Do As We Say, Not As We Do" rhetoric.

Marine Le Pen is obviously as guilty as sin of embezzling European parliament funds, but her sentence is far too severe (5 year ban from politics) according to anyone standing to the right of Keir Starmer. There are literally wankers out there demanding the death penalty to an asylum seeker who farts in public, but yer fave politician can literally commit murder and become even more popular. Farage is a despicable piece of human trash yet his popularity increases every time he says something you'd imagine a 1970s grandfather saying. Trump is a convicted felon, but his supporters are more concerned with some black or Hispanic person getting something they wouldn't get or pandering to the white supremacists. Le Pen is a fucking Nazi - the irony being she's a Nazi in France... When 'normal' people look at the state of the world, no wonder they're scared; no wonder they're becoming insular and acting like ordinary Germans did in the early 1930s. We might not agree with everything that is going on but the looney minority are slowly becoming the majority and we don't want to be seen as 'the enemy' when the jackboots return to trample humanity into the ground in the name of populism.

The Devil is in the Details

There might be some spoilers in this review... 

I think we all got played a little in the most recent Daredevil: Born Again. The reason is because the thing that has been lurking in the background for most of the series so far turned out to be something of a red herring and one that was concluded almost before we started to find out. However, while Matt Murdock dealt with a life and death situation under the noses of the Vigilante Force, the real power play was taking place inside the mayor's office and in a quiet little Italian restaurant. There is a clear suggestion that Wilson Fisk has begun to realise that his much adored wife doesn't view him with the same affection, which begs the question why is Michael Gandolfini's Daniel Blake still prominently situated inside Wilson's team of confidents, because he knows the boy is a Vanessa plant. There's also Arty Frousan, who plays Fisk's right hand, Buck Cashman, who is clearly not the political 'fixer' we thought he might be...

I have one nagging thing though. The IMDB Daredevil: Born Again page has a list of the stars of the show from Charlie Cox down to actors with fewer episodes. Jon (The Punisher) Bernthal, Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page) and Wilson (Bullseye) Bethel are all listed as appearing in 11 episodes each, which means all three characters should be appearing in all the remaining parts, as they've  so far all made solitary appearances (Woll has been in two parts). The aforementioned Gandolfini and Frousan are both listed to appear in only six parts and both have been in six parts, so far. Elden (Foggy) Henson was going to be in as many episodes as Woll, but is now down for just two, which means we're in for a flashback at some point (unless that's already happened). It's a minor quibble, but suggests to me that Disney hasn't given IMDB an actual cast list. 

A Ghost's Eye View

I've seen some unusual films over the last few weeks alone and yet something else comes along and adds itself to that list. Presence isn't the best ghost story you will ever see; it isn't scary, it doesn't terrorise a household, it has no blood, guts or gore, in fact for the opening 20 minutes you're wondering what the tragedy is the family are being quiet about. You also wonder which of the adults is in trouble and how this will affect the rest of the film. I'm not going to give much away because this is a movie worth watching, if only for the unique perspective it is delivered with. You see this is a feature where you see everything that is important through the eyes of the ghost - the presence - in the house. So everything is slightly detached, much of the dialogue is incidental, although you know, as I said, that there has been a tragedy involving Chloe, the teenage girl in it. Plus you also get the impression that the mother, Lucy Lui, has done something criminal because her husband Chris Sullivan - who is excellent in this - is trying to extricate himself from his marriage because of something his wife has done - which you never find out - because you just see the bits the ghost wants you to see.

You could argue that the entire movie is just a bit facile; a bit too lightweight and ephemeral, but isn't that what a ghost is? It takes 20 minutes for the first poltergeist event, which is subtle but direct. It soon becomes clear that whatever the presence is it is looking after Chloe and has a problem with her boyfriend, who has his own related story. I actually found it to be a fascinating and interesting film; I'm sure it could have been done differently and I'm sure that it's relatively low score on IMDB is because it's a bit too cerebral for your average American idiot hoping for a horror film with some T&A. For me it was a clever approach with a few nice touches and a shocking payoff. It's worth a 7/10.

Out of Control

One of the strange things about Dope Thief - especially when it started - was how they were going to string the story out over eight parts? We're halfway through it and while the makers are doing a great job of pacing this, I'm often wondering if they're doing it to get a second season out of this. The main reason for me asking the previous question is because while the real DEA and other law enforcement agencies are involved, there's a lot of criminal activity going on they seem oblivious to and they seem to be one step behind a bunch of thuggish bikers - who may or may not be the criminal masterminds behind the entire dope network along the Eastern seaboard. Brian Tyree Henry is still excellent in this series, as is Wagner Moura, but it seems to rely on their acting and on screen buddy relationship rather than the story. It looked like we were going to get some back story at the start of this episode, but it just didn't happen. Don't get me wrong, this is a quality series with some great acting and a very clever premise, it just seems to be meandering around like every episode is the penultimate one in a limited series - the threat of something terrible happening but it never gets there. However, this week a bunch of neo-Nazis that Son sent to Ray to eliminate his threat get more than they bargained for.

Episode five at least moved the story on and we discovered why the DEA are reluctant to simply go and arrest Ray and his buddy. The thing is Ray is slowly deciphering the set up he and Manny brought down, more by luck than judgement, despite being stupid enough to go into the impersonating DEA officers in the first place. There's a slightly preposterous subplot involving the lawyer who has just got Ray's father out of jail, but as I said above they had to spin a relatively thin story across eight parts. I just wish they would spend more time on explaining the elaborate set up that this drug route entails and how we got to where we are. That said, it's an entertaining little series without ever threatening to become a classic.

Expectations Lowered

Eighteen months ago, when I did my top ten TV shows of 2023, The Change was one of the best. It was quirky, weird and while some of the characters felt a little cliched or unbelievable, it was extremely entertaining - hence being one of the best of 2023. So when news of its return came there was a frisson of expectation. However, that very quickly dissipated with the season two opener, which was literally a few seconds over 22 minutes and was just very silly; preposterously silly to be more accurate. The arrival of Linda's husband Steve (Omid Djalili) at the end of season one revealed nothing, but at the start of this he announces who he is and this causes a schism amongst the Forest of Dean's eel community - Linda (Bridget Christie) had lied to them about her 'status' there now must be a trial at the café/radio station and while Linda showed the right amount of WTAF, it - the trial - managed to destroy an entire first season's good work with something just a bit stupid, pointless and comedy Wicker Man. I hope the rest of the series improves because I felt really let down by the complete withdrawal from reality. 

Spaces of Amazement

The 13th season of George Clarke's Amazing Spaces started on Channel 4 last week and the more things change the more other things stay the same. Although this has some minor tweaks to a format that has seen Clarke well for well over a decade. This time round there's no crazy project for George and Will Hardie to produce (I mean, the observatory they built in 2022 for £40k has recently had to be sold to meet George's most recent divorce bill), instead they're looking at a selection of 'Amazing Spaces' they, presumably, didn't care much for when they were originally being built. George is in Portugal looking at their architecture and in the opening episode of this 13th (last?) series, there's a wanker who wants to convert a massive two-part lorry into a house and professional kitchen - nowt wrong with the idea, but the guy doing it just felt like a right prick. Meanwhile somewhere else, a very vibrant and strange couple built a mobile home out of a 1.2l Vauxhall Agila - one of the smallest cars ever made; this came complete with a dog trailer. This show's a tried and tested formula that seems to cram so much into 45 minutes now that more than half of the featured 'builds' are the beginning and then fast forward to the end, with fleeting glimpses of the process. It's still Clarke's best show, but it feels a little stale now, like it needs to take a break.

It's Not Impressive

We gave It's What's Inside almost an hour. It was different if a little abrasive. Very millennial and there was a proper modern horror feel about the cast, the camerawork and the idea - being able to transfer/swap your consciousness into other bodies. The problem was we didn't get to know or understand any of the characters enough to either care about them or understand or identify them when they were in other bodies. In fact it was a tough film to follow almost from the beginning and because we left halfway through I have no real way of telling you anything positive or meaningful about it. I just found it tough going, so did the wife and we've wasted far too much time finishing things we should never have started. I expect there was a horror element or something psychological. It didn't grip my shit so we flushed it away...

Punishing

We've finished the second (and last) season of Netflix's The Punisher and I've changed my mind about it somewhat. Yes, it's a great action/crime show with near super heroics from our titular psychopath, but there are many problems with it outside of Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle. Yes, he does growl rather than speak his lines, but Bernthal is the best thing in this show - he is the star - even if his character takes bullets like I take sugar in my hot beverages; gets stabbed more times than is humanly possible and has lost more blood than a transfusion centre. The problem isn't really with him, more to do with the regular supporting cast members and the rather laissez faire stylings of Homeland Security, the NYPD and any other agencies who specialise in law enforcement. Amber Rose Revah - agent Madani - is just a bad actor and so is Ben Barnes, who plays Billy 'Jigsaw' Russo; oddly enough, both are British, which I hope isn't the reason for their general crapness.

The second season ties up the Billy Russo hangover while dealing with another problem, John Bishop - not the Liverpudlian comedian - a psychotic killer, with a past, working for a family with a vested interest in keeping a family's business secret. The problem with the entire series is it is just so overwrought and serious; it needed some humour; it needed some humanity; which we almost saw in the opening episode but then it reverted to type. Don't get me wrong, compared to most current MCU stuff it's a quality show, but compared to Daredevil Born Again it's a poor and malnourished distant relative.

What's Up Next?

The first thing you notice about this week's blog is that's it. It's already finished and you were just settling in. We have had a relatively busy week, but we did watch 11 episodes of the second Punisher series, but that was down to there not being much on TV (that warranted even a cursory mention) and the fact I've been disappointed with the film releases so far this year. We're over a quarter of the way through 2025 and it has not been a classic year by any stretch of the imagination and next week doesn't look to be offering anything else to get excited about.

There's the penultimate Daredevil Born Again and the sixth part (of eight) of Dope Thief and not a lot else. We've got a few films to put on - which sounds like I'm brimming with optimism about them - and as we hurtle towards Easter probably very little else. TV and film watching feels like it's becoming a tough job and  keeping this blog full of interesting things is becoming even tougher...

As usual, what I see is what you'll get.