My Cultural Life - ESP and the Fallen Arches

What's Up?

Nothing much. 

At least not as far as watching the telly this week. I write this Wednesday evening and so far this week we have watched The Institute, the first half hour of the most recent Mission Impossible film and a couple of episodes of Legion. This is because we've had family up and we've had other stuff to do. I expect we won't watch anything this evening either, leaving just Thursday and Friday, which is likely to be what we haven't finished watching, so the idea did cross my mind to skip this week and just double up next week, but I dismissed that idea because I don't want any of you to pine. Normal service might resume next week.  

What's Also Up?

All the major - mainstream - political parties are so invested in a failing idea - Capitalism - that none of them now know how to run their country. The default position of them all is "Look at that brown person in a boat." We have a journalism that is also invested in the same shit the governments are, so their default position is "brown people, especially in small boats, are coming to eat your food and steal your jobs," and therefore with xenophobia, hatred and mistrust sown on an almost daily basis by what is essentially a propaganda tool for the meg-rich, it's no surprise that nothing gets fixed and it's all someone else's fault.

Politicians are elected to serve the people, but really they're elected to serve their capitalist overlords and because there are enough ignorant people out there the narrative is never challenged. It's why you never see (or hear) a 'journalist' asking a difficult question. Yet, if anyone else challenges this status quo - intelligently - they are now either branded as insurrectionists or conspiracy theorists. "You believe there's a conspiracy run by rich people? You must be mad. They'd never use their money to do such an insidious thing..." As Elon Musk ponders creating his own political party because bat shit crazy Donald Trump didn't like some of his ideas...

The logical conclusion to all of this is a world war. When the world is rife with tin pot dictators all leading it towards inevitable confrontation, what usually happens is the planet comes out of it seeming fairer and less prejudiced, for a while. It's not like the past; the world has changed an awful lot and while many suspect the Third World War has already begun, I expect this war will be not be like any previously held; it will be spill out far more locally than you would expect and very few countries will escape it. It won't just be about borders, it will also be about division; right versus left; right versus moderate; white versus brown/black; you, for believing that woke shit, versus us, for believing our own truth!

Have you noticed how, over the last few years, we've been drip fed a diet of doom and gloom, of managing to get by, the cost of living crisis, wars, corruption, protests and why it isn't going to get better? That's deliberate. That's social conditioning on a mammoth scale to adjust the way we view the world and how - the people - need to be kept in our place and accept continuous lowering of standards so that the incredibly wealthy remain happy in their swelling opulence. We are not governed by politicians, we're being ruled by a monstrous corporate machine that controls all the corporations with visible presences. Control all the money, you then gain control over power, but these mega corporations don't want to rule the world, that's far too difficult, they just want to control it, to ensure what they need in the now and the future is guaranteed. Presidents didn't go into politics because they are altruists, every $billion campaign is paid for by someone and what do you get for helping someone become the most visibly powerful man in the world? With money and power comes overall control and the only hindrance is people.

One other thing; Palestine Action, according to Yvette Cooper, are a far more insidious organisation than anyone knows, this is why they have been proscribed as a terrorist group. The Far Right organise protests outside of hotels housing asylum seekers; there is violence, the threat of violence and many arrests; no one anywhere is suggesting these people should be labelled terrorists, despite the terror they bring. Palestine Action became a terrorist group within days of the UK government reaching a £2billion deal with Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms company that will be supplying specialist training to the UK military. In politics there are no coincidences.

Mission Incomprehensible 

I suppose the most important thing about Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning is what an absolute load of old shit it is, It has an improbable plot, ridiculous set pieces - none of which are a patch on previous ones - and a pretty ludicrous sequence of events that make it simply a load of twaddle. I know; I get it. This is Mission Impossible, it has to be more fiendish and convoluted than ever before, especially as this is probably (only maybe possibly) the last one; but Jesus H Christ it felt like hard work for two and a half hours plus...

The main problem is the 'Entity' isn't a very good villain. It's faceless and the minuscule amount of 'face time' we have with it is pointless and a little like an 80s pop video - probably by Frankie Goes to Hollywood - therefore, an actual villain is needed and the actions of Esai Morales are bewildering at best and simply ridiculous at other times - he's not a patch on other MI villains. There is a sequence towards the end where Morales needs some device held by Ethan Cunt, but he spends most of the scene trying to crash Ethan's plane or kill him with extreme force - it made no sense. The movie is full of British actors playing Americans, which I'm beginning to see as a mark of cheapness or cutting corners - you want New York, here's Glasgow and a cadre of British thesps all doing growly - but shit - Yankee accents.

There are illogical things in this that felt wrong or out of place; almost every serious jeopardy situation ended up having an easy way out and I don't know how many times Ethan died only to be resurrected by a shot of Hayley Atwell's ample cleavage. Cruise looks jowly; they killed off one of his team, he recruited new members with a flamboyance that was almost improbable and frankly I really expected better; much better. The film before this was much better and felt like a Mission Impossible movie; this was a leathery, slightly smelling of wee, dull action adventure with lots of bollocks to pad it out. 5/10

Kid Alien

In an episode where a lot happened, it felt like very little was achieved; but this could just be me nit-picking. Lots of things that bugged critics were dealt with in this part, especially the risking of billions and billions of dollars of R&D on the whim of Wendy. This was probably the thing that bugged many but now you shall be bugged by it no more. We saw a little more of Morrow, the Weyland-Yutani cyborg, who is now on a personal mission to recover all the aliens that have fallen into the hands of Prodigy. We saw Wendy dismember an alien, which was unexpected. We also saw the 'Lost Boys' dealing with the fact they're all kids in superhuman bodies a little more and oddly enough it doesn't grate like it did; it is, in fact, quite sweet and amusing.

The story it seems is simple; Prodigy have all Weyland-Yutani's aliens and are going to research the shit out of them, using only synthetics to do the job. They are conveniently on an island miles from any mainland, which suggests at some point the aliens will all escape but be unable to get off the island, so it will become a kind of glorified cat and mouse game with the non-humans as the only salvation (therefore possibly just another Jurassic Park film...). Other than that it's about rivalry - between the major corporations and the Lost Boys - and how all the pieces will magically fit together. This is a Noah Hawley show, so if it doesn't make a lot of sense at the moment it will fit together eventually even if it never feels like it will.

Low Budget No Frills

I read a review of the first episode of The Institute which said that the entire first episode's FX budget was used on a single special effect involving a glass of water. I think they were wrong; I think the entire series budget was used on that one special effect. The reason is simple, there hasn't really been another special effect in it since that manipulating a spilled glass of water scene. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Oh yeah, this week Luke moved some paper clips with his mind... In fact, this show has proved without a doubt that it was made for about $1.50 plus change. The changes to the book have been far reaching; Stephen King's book pitted a genius kid against the US government; the Institute was a fortress and while none of the staff trusted each other, there were loads of them and half the book's charm was how Luke Ellis - the boy genius - manages to outsmart them all; get halfway across the country and convince the law enforcement people of Dennison, Texas that he was being chased by bad people working for the government. It's actually one of King's better books and I remember thinking it would make a good film or TV show. I was so wrong. This has cut so many corners it's almost round.

Instead of this well oiled machine that Ellis manages to tie in knots, the Institute is run by half a dozen frazzled evil people and a few grunts; it seems to work outside of the government and Luke Ellis has barely had to use his vast intellect. His superior brain has been redundant for most of the series and now we're into the endgame Joe Freeman must be looking at the fucking car crash of an adaptation and thinking he's been wasted and the writers haven't got a clue. So much has been changed about this it could almost have been a different story; every short cut possible has been taken; every perfect corner and straight line of the story has been turned into a crooked line or completely shattered corner. It is almost laughable. The acting, even the proper actor in it - Mary Louise-Parker - has been reduced to a piss poor script that bears little or no resemblance to the book. 

In this penultimate part, instead of fighting a huge battle in the streets of Dennison with an army of government wetworks ops; we have a standoff in someone's living room - literally. There doesn't appear to be the storming of the Institute - to free the rest of the kids - which made the book so unexpectedly full of surprises and Tim - Ben Barnes - is not going to be the up front hero he was and neither is his police girlfriend, who to be fair, probably doesn't know how to do the acting thing well enough to be anything other than an extra given lines. Hannah Galway sounds like she's reading from an autocue ALL THE TIME, with added. husky. voice... Didn't the people making this series realise it, or was it a case of she was all they could afford? It ends next week and that's a relief because there was so much wrong with this penultimate part that I'd go into detail but I've already written far too much. I will say that when Tim finds Luke - Joe Freeman - in the woods, last week, and saves him from the first threat, it is the height of summer and yet this week it's the middle of autumn and the lush trees from the woods are now skeletal and menacing. It's literally like they stopped filming for a few months - perhaps to get enough money to finish it off - just for that added change of light. It really is a very dreadful adaptation, I can't wait for it to finish. 

The Maker of Peace

Season one of Peacemaker was an outlandish, over-the-top, feast of stupidity and brilliance. It wobbled at times, but was one of the better superhero TV shows of the last five years. James Gunn turned the dislikeable supporting character from Suicide Squad into a human being, albeit a right wing, violently psychotic one with a pet eagle and a love of poodle rock. The team he was hooked up with were misfits of the top order and it fitted into the DCU in a similar way to how Deadpool sat in the X-Men Universe; its specifics were less important than the story it was telling. That was 2022 and while James Gunn probably knew he was about to reshape the DCU into his own image, this still was firmly in the DCEU of Momoa's Aquaman and probably Cavill's Man of Steel. How was this going to transcend the changes that have happened and would it be plausible?

Well... I'm not really sure based on the first episode of season two what or where this is going. It's clearly set in the same universe and yet we have Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl to set it in the same place as the Superman film I reviewed last week. The thing is where season one was a cacophony of lunacy and violence, this appears to be different in a few ways. I won't go into any great detail because that involves spoilers, but there is an extended orgy scene about two thirds of the way through which felt absolutely unnecessary. The team that stopped the alien invasion are now outcasts; Peacemaker can't get work, but nor can almost all of the rest of the team, just Economus remains in employment and he's spying on his friend Chris Smith aka Peacemaker. 

It's an opening episode that deals with heroes on a scrap heap, but it quickly finds a new path to venture down and this is Chris's interdimensional pocket universe where he keeps his weapons and technology. it appears it is similar to the one Lex Luthor created in Superman and not only is the government interested, Chris has discovered a reality where his brother is alive and his dad loves him and this is far more attractive than the one he's currently in... I struggled with this, to be honest, it wants to be the same as the 2022 series, yet it felt as though a lot had changed, including the desire to be vulgar and shocking for no real reason. Yes, I've become a prude in my old age and the extended orgy scene felt wrong, misplaced and as I said earlier unnecessary - it felt like a case of 'I'm James Gunn and if I want lots of full on, in-yer-face, nudity in my TV show I will have it.' It didn't add to the story and really didn't need to be there. It spoiled it for me and lowered the tone to a level it didn't need to go. 

Mindfuck

And so we concluded the second season of Legion and where we eventually got what season one was doing, we lost the plot early on in season two and it never seemed to return. This was/is truly cerebral television and I'm not really sure if it was all a set up for season three or they finally realised that David 'Legion' Haller in the comics was unbelievably dangerous and morally ambiguous schizophrenic; someone who did what he wanted to do on a whim and if that meant helping bad guys (beat the X-Men) then fine. I have to say that there was little in the first ten episodes that led me to think that the finale would turn everything on its head and leave the viewer seriously wondering what was happening. The about turn by his friends may have been alluded to, but if it was I missed it. Like season one, I expected it all to fit together and I'd understand what happened, but if it does I missed the memo. It is still mind-blowing TV and I'm amazed we didn't stick with it first time around.

What's Up Next?

More aliens, more superheroes, more telekinetic kids in peril, and probably something else that will arrive that I will have forgotten about or will surprise me. The problem I have is that 25% of the things I've been looking forward to have felt like a huge let down and I can't make up my mind if I'm just growing jaded at TV and film in general. I shouldn't be because there have been some real highlights over the last few months, but I spent almost four nights away from the TV this week and felt I could have spent more...