My Cultural Life - Multiple Personality Disorder

What's Up?

So, the press have finally nailed Angela Raynor. They've been after her for five years and they've finally succeeded. Yeah, I know it wasn't really the press wot did it, but they played their part. 

You must all remember all the scandals and corruption that followed the Tories throughout the 14 years of their rule? The cash for questions scandal; the money to mates during Covid for faulty PPE; the parties at Number 10 while the rest of the country had to watch their loved ones die on Zoom; the tax avoidance; the illegal activities and everything else they did and didn't resign or face the scrutiny Raynor has faced.

One wonders if it had anything to do with her being a woman, or a single mother, or a bit left wing, or possibly even the direct way she spoke to opposition MPs? She has always been the kind of loose cannon the Houses of Parliament needed, which, I suspect, is why there has been a Jeremy Corbyn-like destruction of her.

Can you remember the last time the impartial BBC had a news special about some disgraced Tory MP? No you can't, because even when former chancellor Sajid Javid tried to defraud the tax man of £8million there was barely a suggestion from the BBC's political editor the man should be punished. Raynor made a mistake; she should have sort better advice, so she paid £40,000 less tax than she should have and has paid the price. All I can think is in the eyes of the press, other media outlets and the thousands of rabid fuckers out there that £40K is much worse than £8million...

Anyhow, enough of that; grab yourself a cuppa and a few biscuits, it's going to be a choc-a-bloc instalment this week...

An Orgy of Comedy Violence

The phenomenal success of Bob Odenkirk's 2021 film Nobody was always going to spawn a sequel and Nobody 2 is bigger, brasher and altogether more violent while having a cigarette paper thin plot and a succession of stereotypical bad guys all lining up to have the shit kicked out of them or shot by unlikely action hero Hutch (Odenkirk) and his back-up team of adopted brother and pensioner father. This time he's on vacation with his wife and two kids and naturally runs into a huge drug running operation, corrupt cops and the same stuff he couldn't walk away from in the first film. Honestly, this is a really stupid movie and it's enormous fun with almost balletic choreography violence that really doesn't take itself too seriously. It's 90 minutes of blood soaked fun. 8/10

Unfathomable

Gints Zilbalodis made one of the best films I've seen this century with last year's Flow and I finally managed to persuade the wife to watch his first movie Away and I think we're both still a little puzzled about what it was trying to convey. Like last year's animated classic, this is full of animals, all out of context, but it also has a boy, a motorbike and a strange shimmering black giant that appears to eat anything living that it sees. The story starts with the boy hanging from a tree where his parachute has been caught; the giant approaches, attempts to eat him, but the boy escapes by releasing his parachute straps, before running through some Stargate like objects into an area dominated by a beautiful oasis, while the menacing giant remains on the other side of the gate, seemingly unable to follow...

Here the boy finds fruit trees, a pool to drink from and swim in, he also finds a backpack with useful items in, a motorbike and a skeleton. He also finds a young hatchling bird who seems to bond with the boy. He works out that the bike moves faster than the giant, so he eventually - with bird in tow - races past the giant on a journey that will eventually take him to a civilisation marked on the little map which was in the backpack. What follows is a journey into the possibly acid-fuelled imagination of Zilbalodis - with his trademark cats and assortment of odd animals - a giant tortoise, elephants and assorted birds. It was the Latvian's first film and it shows; there's a lack of fluidity about it and when it got weird, it got very weird; I'm not about to even try and explain what it was about, but there was a feeling of jeopardy, especially whenever the strange menacing giant (possibly an allegory for death) was on screen. 6/10

The Thursday Bollocks Club

Jesus H Christ. How can such a bunch of talented actors make such an appallingly bad film? I mean, seriously. This was so much like an episode of Acorn Antiques it even had Celia Imrie in it. Richard Osman actually made money from the book(s) and this film? He fucking robbed Netflix and any idiot who bought his novels; this was abominable and felt like a bad 1970s film that might have starred Robin Asquith or Jim Dale. Absolutely fucking awful and what were Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, David Tennant, Pierce Brosnan, Naomie Ackie and Tom Ellis thinking (as they probably all pocketed shit loads of money for starring in this vomit)? It was just a load of unlikely bollocks in a setting that only exists in the mind of a middle class wanker. The Thursday Murder Club my arse. 1/10

Mergers

A black comedy masquerading as a body horror film - that's essentially what Together is. A film about a couple drifting apart but getting closer all the time. Dave Franco and Alison Brie (real life partners) play the couple who move to the countryside - she's got a job in a rural community as a school teacher - and he's a failed musician who doesn't really have much choice but to join her. As their relationship starts to fall apart, they try to make it work by doing things 'together' and that leads to a hike in the woods and the discovery of something very strange at the bottom of a hole. What follows is the antithesis of a break up, as the two disparate lovers discover that they shouldn't have drunk the water from the weird looking well...

This is an interesting film which rolls along at a reasonable pace and gets stranger the longer its on. There's not much else I can say about it that wouldn't spoil it for you, but it plays down the horror, despite some really gruesome scenes, in favour of a disastrously funny yet tragic love story. It's a movie that ends up worth watching, even if some of the special effects look a bit like a 1980s David Cronenberg film - something like a post modern indie version of Videodrome. 6/10

Cringefest

I can't believe how many times I wanted to hide behind the sofa watching Friendship. It is one of the most awkward and dislikeable movies I have ever watched. It was actually a really decent film but... boy, do I never want to see it again. It stars Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd and Kate Mara and tells the story of a socially sociopathic man, his failing marriage and relationship with his son and the friendship he makes with his new neighbour, which he then quickly destroys. Robinson plays Craig Waterman, an app developer who has no friends, a wife who has recently recovered from cancer and a son who pretty much despises him. He meets Austin Carmichael, a cool new neighbour, who also happens to be a TV weatherman and initially they hit it off big time, but Craig has never been a friends kind of guy and quickly his awkwardness and inability to read the room not only destroys his new friendship but has far reaching consequences for his life. This is a really difficult watch, mainly because you will be switching from incredulity to embarrassment almost continually - when you're not watching it from behind your fingers. The movie, in itself, is relatively flawless; it is well made, the narrative is good but... boy... it's a tough watch and you just want it to finish, from about the ten minute mark. 5/10 

1. The Eagly Has Landed

The second episode of Peacemaker doesn't really move the story forward but does move it sideways enough to be relatively satisfying. Like Alien Earth, I'm finding this slightly more difficult to like than I expected. I mean, season one for all its flaws, was refreshing and exuberant television; this feels like it's missing key ingredients, but I don't know what they are. This second part is really about four things; Economus's job and his new 'handler'; an attack on Chris's house by ARGUS while he's partying with his friends on a rooftop and the disposal of the alternate Chris Smith's body, with the aid of Vigilante. It's also about Chris's slow decent into a breakdown and the decision he's obviously going to make given his dead variant's fantastic life. This just feels like it's missing something...

Split Personalities

I stumbled across a James Mangold film, one of his earliest, starring John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Rebecca De Mornay, Gary Busey and a bunch of other names and faces you will have seen in any number of films during the noughties. Identity is a dual narrative tale, where the second story isn't as prominent as the first until about the 75 minute mark, when pretty much all is revealed. It's a stormy night in the wilds of Nevada and a bunch of people are all finding themselves caught in the middle of nowhere with only a rundown motel as shelter. Among these people are a washed up actress, a former cop turned limo driver, an actual cop, his prisoner, possibly a Las Vegas call girl and a family. Ten people in all, who gradually get bumped off, one by one...

The second narrative is about the last minute appeal to the Nevada state governor for a convicted mass murderer to be reprieved from his death sentence due to medical evidence that he has a multiple personality disorder. What have the two got in common? Why are the two stories linked? Who are the heroes and who is the villain? This is a tight - 85 minutes - and compact thriller (called a slasher film on IMDB, which it clearly isn't), with a neat twist that doesn't play out to its fullest potential. It wasn't bad and it's easily worth a 6/10, as it's let down by the ending.

For He Is Many

Legion... What a remarkable series. Yes, it floundered a bit at times; there was probably a bit too much weird for weird's sake and a few too many unprompted musical numbers, but in general, I don't think there has ever been a television series like it and FX should have been applauded for green lighting it in the first place and then giving it three seasons. I have watched a shit load of TV and films in my 63½ years, but I don't think I've ever witnessed anything as creepy as the Time Eaters; the consequential other threat in the final season. Like nasty evil little Blue Meanies (from Yellow Submarine), these were without a doubt the most disturbing and scary things I have seen in a very long time, if not ever before. This ended up living up to its name, because, frankly, after the first two seasons, if you didn't know the comicbook character, you might have wondered why it was called Legion. Dan Stevens really was the best person to play David Haller, but as an American - not really. One wonders with a character whose father is clearly English, why he simply wasn't portrayed as an Englishman. It would have added to the distinct alienation theme that series creator Noah Hawley was trying to convey.

This concludes our Marvel TV series (not including animated efforts); we have now seen every live action Marvel related thing available (apart from two episodes of Iron Fart) and this ranks in the top three. I said this before, but if Marvel are really doing an X-Men film in 2028 then they need to look at this for inspiration and the sense that mutants are a very different species from homo sapiens. If you ever get the chance, you should watch this, but I warn you, it's a fabulously confusing and enigmatic show and you won't get it all. It does have an absolutely banging soundtrack throughout the three series, especially some of the cover versions.

Album of the Week?

Okay, this is an album that is 46 years old, by a band who have been derided for many years for being... well, for being Pink Floyd. Yet, after watching Legion and its use of the track Mother, I decided to listen to the album - as an album, rather than selective tracks - for the first time this century. The strange thing is I often play Floyd albums, yet I always swerve past The Wall and I don't really know why. Perhaps it's because it felt overblown and far too 'massive'. It is a double rock opera album after all and Floyd have become anything but cool in the 21st century. I know a lot of people who love their music and very few of them have any time for Floyd after Syd Barrett, so I tend to get involved in arguments about their worth rather than sit down and listen to one of my favourite bands of all time.

Here's the thing. The Wall came out in November/December 1979; the UK music scene was dominated by post-punk and New Wave music and Pink Floyd were 'just a bunch of old hippies.' Yet listening to this album again made me realise that it is probably more relevant in 2025 than it was in 1980. It's themes of abandonment, violence, isolation mixed with a descent into fascism, discrimination and racial prejudice feels like it could be about any teenager/early twenties person in the UK today. It also doesn't feel like an album that was recorded at a time when Margaret Thatcher was PM and the world was once again worried about nuclear war and the rise of unfriendly nations. It feels fresh and vibrant, with lyrics that have transcended the ages. You can find the whole package on the Tube of You and if you're not familiar with the album (apart from Another Brick in the Wall pt2) then give it a listen, especially the words. Roger Walters might be thought of as a bit of a twat, especially by many Pink Floyd fans, but he nailed it with this.

Dull-vergent

The Hunger Games has got a lot to answer for. Once that established itself we had The Maze Runner, Ender's Game and then Divergent, a film about people with ADHD... Well, not quite but it might as well should have been. This is based on Veronica Roth's YA novel, which I suspect was about as interesting as the adaptation and starred Shailene Woodley and Theo James as people who have divergence or something like that. There was a surge in YA novels being adapted during the 2010s and you have to ask yourself why... 

Set in a future Chicago about how mankind is split into five factions, each with a specific role to play to ensure man never has wars again, what it really does is show us that left to its own devices mankind will try and find a way to eradicate some other members of mankind, usually through the differences we have. You could argue that this should have been a good film as it deals with modern themes, but it was just so fucking dull. There was a lack of jeopardy, some of the acting stunk and Kate Winslet dialled her role in as the leader of the people trying to rule Chicago by getting rid of the nice people. The action scenes were really quite meh and when it was all over I'd almost completely forgotten about it by the time I scratched my arse, which was more satisfying. 3/10

In Space, No One is Left

For a change of pace, we return to the Maginot - the ship that crash landed in the opening episode. You remember, it was more like a sailing ship bumping into a harbour than a missile coming in at 1000mph. However, yet again, some of the stuff that critics were complaining about is totally debunked by this episode as we learn about the final days of the ship carrying lots of alien species - all of them deadly - back to Weyland-Yutani so they could do whatever they were going to do with them. Babou Ceesay is excellent again as Morrow, who quickly realises that a) he's fighting a losing battle and b) this isn't an accident that the crew are in this predicament. This was an alien heavy episode without much of the actual alien in it - who has a fine set of teeth - and focuses on the other aliens who are just as deadly but in far more imaginative ways. It played out like the Alien - the original film - but with more bloodshed and a far less happy ending. It was an excellent episode compared to the rather silly shenanigans happening on fantasy island led by the annoying Boy Kavalier - who, of course, has more to do with this story than just coincidence.

I'm Confused

Okay. I think I'm a relatively intelligent bloke, but after watching Adaptation. I have to wonder if perhaps I'm not as clever as I thought I was. Or maybe the era of existentialist absurdity in the form of surreal off-kilter narrative was big in the 1990s and 2000s but has since fallen out of favour? The point is, Charlie Kaufman has done very little since this film, although Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did come after this and both were reasonably well received and have high ratings on IMDB, but so does Adaptation. I just didn't get it. I theorised that perhaps when asked to write a screenplay of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, Kaufman decided that it wasn't good enough to adapt so decided to write something about himself as the main character and simply discard Orlean's original book for something that perhaps he would have written had he had a fictional twin brother who wrote crime thrillers.

I simply don't know what I watched apart from that there's nearly two hours of my life I'm never getting back because of this self-indulgent twaddle. Nicholas Cage was okay as the real Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald. Meryl Streep was remarkably sexy and revealing for a woman of 53 (at the time) playing Orlean - the staff writer at The New Yorker - and Chris Cooper looked as though he really did have his front teeth missing. The problem I had was this film was a load of shite. Unenjoyable bollocks dressed up as existential angst and magical realism. If you haven't seen it, don't bother. If you have and you enjoyed it, I really don't give a fuck. 2/10

23 Bollocks

Fuck me. I still get angry/pissed off when I watch something that stinks the house up. I should learn by now that it goes with the territory. I watch TV and films, I write a column/blog about it, therefore I probably watch more things than I would ordinarily subject myself to. The law of averages says there are going to be shit films and at the moment I'm watching a lot of shit. The Number 23 was the latest. It's a Joel Schumacher movie - which should have served as a warning. It starred Jim Carrey, which should have been another warning and, oddly enough, it dealt with an abstractly similar theme to Adaptation. Or maybe it was just the fact that there was a story inside a story that reminded me of the shite I watched last night when the shite I watched tonight was just as shite... 

This is a film that is so contrived; so coincidental; so ridiculous that I struggle to believe someone gave this the green light. Carrey plays a animal welfare officer who through a series of contrivances becomes obsessed with the number 23 and then starts to read a book that seems to be all about him, even though the lead character is nothing like him. Except it is and that's the whole point. Once you start to realise what is going on you start to realise what a lot of shite you have been watching. I think I can count on one hand, quite easily, the number of films with Jim Carrey in that I've thought were okay. It's obviously not 23, but it might be 2 or 3. That might be an exaggeration. This deserves no more than a 2/10.

 Some Things Never Stay Dead

So, Showtime somehow managed to breath new life into Dexter Morgan and we now have yet another series about the serial killer with a code of ethics. Dexter Resurrection is the latest offering and Michael C Hall is back after not dying - at the end of the last comeback series - at the hands of his own son. This time after over ten weeks in ICU, Dexter is finally on the mend after nearly dying (he was saved by the cold weather, apparently) and his girlfriend cop leaving town after not shopping him. In fact, at the end of Dexter: New Blood there wasn't much left that didn't prove Dexter was a serial killer and probably the Bay Harbour Butcher, but somehow he's managed to get away with it, even if Angel Batista seems to have his number. To get us where we start this series is about as contrived as you can possible get.

Meanwhile his son, Harrison, is in New York being a cool dude and getting involved in his own shit. Yes, it was a good start, despite the stretches in belief you had to suspend and it's always been an entertaining show even if it's getting a bit... samey. I won't do another review of this until it's been watched; mainly because I don't feel like giving you a running commentary for something that has been on for the last ten weeks. I expect whatever happens there will always be room for another Dexter series.

2) The Alternate Universe Story

Imagine a world where Chris Smith aka Peacemaker is revered by the public; is classed as a proper superhero and icon of the world. That's the alternate dimension Chris finds himself in and he loves it. Harcourt fancies him; Rick Flagg jnr (the fantastic Joel Kinnaman) is still alive and ARGUS treats him with due respect. His (now alive) brother loves him and he thwarts a terrorist attack without his stupid battle suit and is oblivious to the fact that ARGUS in his dimension is about to launch a full scale attack on his home with the intention of killing Eagly and bringing Chris down - all for having a dimensional port hole in his living room. This episode is about two worlds that are polar opposites of each other. Meanwhile some other plot stuff takes place and Vigilante proves just how weird he really is. This, at least, moved the plot forward, but the episode was 34 minutes of new material and that felt like we were robbed.

What's Up Next?

I'll tell you what I'd like to do; I'd like to switch the news off and live life in a bubble of uninformed ignorance. I'm sure I'd be happier than I am now. That's not to say I'm not happy, but TV is full of doom and gloom; everything from Morning Live which seems to focus on how scammers are screwing us for our money, to the news, which, as I said above, is so skewered it's not even bothering to claim it's impartial. Almost any current affairs programme paints this picture of a dysfunctional world on the brink of hell. The threat of war is everywhere; prices are going up; immigrants are being demonised, racism is spreading like a summer wild fire and the anger people have is being directed in all the wrong directions... TV seems almost like a triviality, or at best something to escape the nightmare that the world is becoming.

So what can I expect? Fewer movies for starters. The FDoD and TV Hard Drive are either full of what I think of as 'Emergency Films' - things to watch when everything else is exhausted; or films that are on for nearly three hours or longer. The wife has never seen The Godfather Trilogy, but that's 10½ hours of film to watch and trying to cram that in to an evening, especially when we actually limit ourselves to three hours of TV max per night, is off-putting to say the least.

I might just go down the pub instead...