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...